Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning and welcome to the Fiscal Accountability and Government Relations Committee for Wednesday, April 15th, 2026. I'm going to now call to order the meeting. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice Chair Monica Colucci. 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. Please remain silent for a moment of silence. Before we get started, and I state the names of those members of this committee, I think our board chair wanted to share that a member had shared that they

Thank you so much. So as I stated, our committee membership is me, Roberto Alonso as the chair, Mr. Danny Espino as vice chair, Ms. Lisa Santos as member, Mr. Joseph Geller as member, Dr. Dorothy Benjos-Mendigo as an alternate member, and Ms. Mary Blanco as an alternate member. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes of the Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 Fiscal and Accountability and Government Relations Committee meeting. Are there any questions from the board members on this? All right, so I'll second. All in favor? Aye. This might be a record-breaking meeting. We're now moved to our next order of business, which is our D items. Can I get a motion to move to the floor?

All right, our first one is D71, Mr. Lewis.

Thank you so much, and I see now we have Board Member Espino here too. Board Member Espino, I know this was one of your items. You worked very hard on this, so if you wanted to comment on it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I just want to thank the administration for the effort. I know it's multi-party, multi-faceted, corralling governments to do something in coordination is not easy, especially when you have to align interests, we'll say. But I think everyone's interest is the same. Fortunately, on this one, we made it a little bit easier, which is ultimately the safety of our kids. Hopefully, we're still on time to adjudicate as many of the outstanding violations as possible. Was that discussed already, or...? Okay, well, I mean, just, I know that that was an outstanding issue, but I t

Thank you, Board Member Spino, and thank you. Okay, I'll come right back to it, just to... I wanna thank you for your leadership on this because as you've always stated, this is about the safety and the protection of our students. And as I've shared in previous board meetings, I sat in a bus while cars were driving by and the stop sign was out. And that is extremely concerning. And being a member of the TPO that the board chair has put me on there, one of the things we talk about is about pedestrian safety, right? And our students being able to walk safely to and from school. So I really appre

Thank you so much. I think our board chair had further comments that you wanted to share.

Thank you. Any further question comments? Yes, Dr. Gallin, you're recognized.

Thank you, Dr. Allen. You make a great point. It's one that I had brought up earlier on communication and how we're going to communicate it out, and not just the restart of the program as a whole, but even just the follow-through now on these current citations that are sitting out there. How is the company going to notify all these individuals that they're going to have an option now to go to court or to DUA, and how are we going to make sure that all the ones that have expired maybe have also been notified of the expiration. So a communication plan I think would be beneficial for the board to

Okay, the next order of business is to move our E items to the floor. Move it. All in favor? Our first one is E1. Mr. Steiger, this is your item.

Any questions or comments? Okay, we'll now move to E86 through E90. And that is for you, Mr. Goodman.

Any questions or comments? Yes, you're recognized, Board Chair Rojas.

Thank you. Is that, does that conclude our hearing, Adam? Are there any questions on E86 through E90, other than Board Chair Rojas' comments?

Any further questions or comments? I did have a question, Mr. Steyer, and you might not have the details now, but maybe you can share it with us after. Since Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and the state started providing this funding, how much funding have they provided the district in total?

Yeah, because to your point, I have heard in the past, you know, and even from our own staff, you know, we've put a tremendous amount of safety features throughout our schools from fencing to new gate doors. I know I've seen all of my schools and even schools that I've identified my own vulnerabilities when I walk around. Staff has always had that funding available to them to be able to secure it. And I think most of my schools have already kind of gotten to that point. We can always enhance and improve, which is part of why I was asking during my briefing to you, Mr. Bueno, on where these dol

Thank you remember Alonzo and apologize I walked in in the middle of your comments, so I don't know if i'm going to be a little off, but. I think it's a great idea what you're saying and making sure that we communicate to Tallahassee where the needs are. One of the things that that i've been. advocating for, and I know we've been piloting is. the alert system, right? And it's like you said, we can put up as many fences as we want and we can do a lot of things, but sadly, if somebody truly wants to get on the campus, what can we do to improve the response time as well, right? And so I think hav

All right, thank you so much. Okay, with no further questions, I now move to get a recommendation to move the E items to the board meeting. Mr.

To our council, do we need to vote with that? Because we're not really voting. We're just moving them to the board meeting, right? Or should we separate it?

Okay. Now we move the remainder of E items other than E89. All in favor? All right. Our next order of business is to move the G items to the floor. Can I get a motion? All in favor? All right. Our first item is G1. Mr. Harvey, this is yours.

Thank you. Any further questions or comments? All right, G2.

Any questions or comments? I'll just echo your sentiments, Board Member Rojas, and thanking our legal department for all the great work that you guys do There's a lot of changes going on in this district. I was talking to the superintendent. We're constantly having to re-look at a lot of our policies, and you guys have done an incredible job in assisting us through that process, so thank you so much. Our next one is G3.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say, like, I think obviously this is really good. It came from an item, and we voted on it. to reinvest the savings that we materialize from these cost-effective measures for inefficiency. My question in the briefing with Mr. Madrigal, and I thank him for that, is in a situation like this year, where every dollar that we save could help in balancing and getting to a better place. Is it possible to have some language that would allow some flexibility where it's not, doesn't have to be reinvested, but if considered, or maybe it has to come to board for discus

The way I think about it is we should definitely reinvest it, right? We're saving it because we're being cost efficient, and let's try to improve our efficiency so that we can continue to save more money. And I wouldn't want it to be that every year we find a reason, but in an extreme situation, like I think the one we find ourselves in this year, I think I'm open to whatever wording is consensus for the board, whether it comes back to us or something, but just allow some flexibility if that indeed could help us again in an unusual circumstance, such as the one we find ourselves in this year.

Yep. No, I agree, and great point, Board Member Blanco. You know, giving that flexibility, I think it's important, and the word must takes that away. So if we can reward that to obviously reinvest it in where we feel deemed necessary at that moment, I think would be important. Because we know that once we put policy in place, then it makes it a lot harder to make those changes and for staff to be able to use it appropriately. So thank you.

And I know as part of this initial reading, it came from a board item that's from another board member, and I know she feels very strongly about this, and I wish she was here so we could talk about it, because I do see the value in what we're doing, right, with the G item. Again, it's that word must, right, to allow that flexibility. I'm open... like I said, however the board would like to see fit, but just that word must if there's a way to fix it to allow us some flexibility.

Mr. Harvey, do you need us to vote on that then or you're okay with working with maybe the board member and adjusting that for the board meeting? Yes, I can do that. Okay, thank you. Okay, with no further comments, all the G items have now been discussed. We'll now take a motion to recommend the G items to our board meeting. All in favor?

All right, our next order of business is contract extensions. Ms. Mumford, I believe she shared those. Are there any questions or comments for her on any of these contract extensions? No. None? All right, thank you. Next is legislative update. I know we're still pending budgets out of Tallahassee. Mr. Ulivari, any updates that you'd like to share with the board?

Do we have any questions or comments from the board? Ms. Ross?

I think the superintendent wanted to comment as well.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions? All right, great. So we've now gone over all our updates. We'll now move to any new business from any of our board members. Do we have any new business from any board members? Okay, we had a... Okay, go ahead. You're recognized.

Thank you so much. Sorry, I had a slight medical emergency, but all good now, so happy to be here. And Board Member Alonso, I believe the staff follow-up to the road. Perfect. Thank you so much. And I did hear the discussion Board Member Blanco on my way in about G5, so I appreciated those comments. I just wanted to say that I think we should definitely have some flexibility built in, but stay true to the intent. So I'm happy to work with Mr. Harvey to make sure we have some good language there. Thank you so much.

Thank you. No, we definitely asked Mr. Harvey, and I'm sure you heard, to work together with you as the maker of the item to make sure that it was appropriately awarded. All right, so now we move to staff follow-up, and our first staff follow-up is for the December 17th agenda item H8 on road. I believe that the staff has shared that report with us, and now we'll open up to any questions unless staff wanted to give a brief discussion on it beforehand.

Just before we switch over to presenters, I wanted to open up to the board. And first of all, thank you for that great presentation, for all the data you gave us, and ask if there was any questions on the current slides before you shift to the next presenter from the board members.

I certainly have questions on these slides, but since I reviewed the other slides too, I think I would like to wait for all of it to be done. You want to wait to the end?

Thank you. I just have a question or something if I could point out through the chair. The slide that talks about how we're competing with other entities, and it's comparing what we pay our bus drivers with the Miami-Dade County Transit, public schools, that slide. I'm just thinking one of the things that isn't captured there, I believe, and so I'd Correct me, please, if I'm wrong. In comparing to the Miami-Dade County Transit, some of the things I've been hearing about the bus drivers is the number of hours that they are able to work with us is much more limited than what they can work with o

Any other further questions or comments? I wanted to just comment on a couple things. I wanted to congratulate you on the advertising. I have seen the buses and been parked next to some of them at a traffic light and seen the advertising looking for mechanics. My question was going to be, though, we're also looking for students to come to our schools. What type of opportunities, and maybe the superintendent can speak to it, being that he's already advocated for the ability to market on buses, do we have an opportunity to market our schools or even our district website on these buses to be able

Okay, thank you. And then my second to last question was around when we're talking about the operational cost analysis and the current two mile. We know that a lot of families, most of the time when they're having that issue of under the two miles, right, they're going to private buses and paying for their children to be transported. Do we as a district have the opportunity to do a transportation service that families would pay for to be able to be transporting and using our buses?

Thank you. I think Mr. Steiger was commenting from a financial aspect.

but we also want to attract students to come to our schools, so there's a cost benefit to that as well, where we have buses that might be driving through a block that is half empty, and if we can now pick up a few students on the way there. Just throwing it out there for something for us to explore, and I just wanted to kind of lay it out there, see if it was first of all legally possible for us to use our buses that way, and for something to, think through in our enterprise team on can we use this as an opportunity. My last question, speaking of our fleet, I'm happy to see that we have so man

Thank you so much. That concludes my questions. I think that Board Chair Rojas had a question now. You're recognized.

No, definitely. And to that point, what year did the first yellow bus come out when they identified that buses need to be yellow? We can't even remember, just saying. Sometimes we need to revisit things, right? So, Mr. Superintendent.

Thank you. All right, with no further questions, we'll now move to your second part of your presentation. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that presentation and for the effort that's been put on by your organization as well as our staff. I'll now open it up to board members for any questions or comments, and I think I see that Board Member Santos had some comments. We'll go with you first.

Thank you so much, and thank you to the team who I know has been working really, really hard because I proffered the item I have been checking in regularly and have had a chance to understand some of this data from your walkthrough. So I appreciate that time spent a lot. It's clear and it was clear from the item we presented that we have come a long way and we've got a really long way to go and there are real opportunities presented here in the recommendations. There was an analysis requested in the item to analyze mile radius reduction, let's say from two miles to 1.5 to one. That was one ana

10 to 12, correct. Okay. And so I'm losing my place in the slides, but I know it's over 80%. So clearly we have to do something about that. I know in the last few years, we've basically replaced 10% of our fleet with outside grants, which has been really helpful. It was all the federal dollars that were available at some point, some Florida Volkswagen settlement funds that we were able to utilize for that. That's still only 10% of our fleet. So there's a real question about how do we... And do we still need a fleet this large, right, as we... create efficiencies and is it accurate to say that

Okay, thank you. Through the chair. what are the options left in front of us other than this source of revenue, which, granted, in an ideal world, should eventually go down to very low or zero. I know that's, in Miami especially, gonna take some time. But what, so what are the options before us to be able to accomplish that more competitive pay? Because, I mean, the difference is stark when you put it side by side to our neighbors and our county, the pay difference is high. What is our next step possible there?

Thank you. That's not an answer on a possible next step, but I know it's a priority. It's just a hard year to give concrete next steps. I just, having walked multiple depots now, it became very clear to me that on the mechanic side, especially, we're hitting, I think, an untenable sort of retention number. And on the driver's side, even after some efficiencies, routing, reconfiguration, there's probably a necessity at some point to actually change that reality. Thank you for that. I have a lot more questions here, but maybe I'll just go toward the end where you walked us through, the bus plann

Thank you. Through the chair, is that because we got GPS Plus? Is that how these systems communicate?

Through the chair, that's what you mentioned we currently do manually. Yes. And now, is dispatch part of GPS Plus? Are we actively implementing dispatch right now?

Of course, through the chair. How long is that timeline? When is the expected completion?

Thank you. So through the chair, when will it be live and fully rolled out?

So through the chair, Mr. Cohn, when do you expect this to be rolled out?

Thank you. I've set a reminder on my calendar for August to go on a ride along and watch it in action. So that's very exciting. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Maybe let me close with you mentioned the importance of ridership verification, both for reporting and for the user experience and for... I mean, everything. My predecessor, Dr. Feldman, who was elected in 2008, talked about that during his whole term. And we still chat about it. As you know, that's going to soon be almost 10 years ago. So what is maybe different this time? How are we implementing ridership verification? What's the timeline for that?

Thank you, through the chair. Is that simply adopting like a module within the existing tablets that are gonna be on the bus where students tap in with their school IDs through the chair?

Through the chair, universal IDs, something I have been very adamant that we should get and integrate with our library system, with our ridership, with public transit as well, et cetera. So just to be clear, what's the range of the cost of the student verification?

Okay. a little less than a dollar per student that's writing today. Okay, thank you. I will continue to follow this very closely. Thank you colleagues for going on this very detailed ride, no pun intended. And I see this as a fundamental, like foundational block of our ability to educate our county. we have to be able to get students there. And today, in the reality of being a full-choice district, it becomes even more important because it's no longer that you can access your neighborhood school, you wanna access your school of choice, and we wanna make that accessible to every student. So I a

Thank you so much and thank you for bringing this item up. I personally rode on a bus and saw everything that happens inside of our bus depots and the amount of work that goes on and the dedication that our bus drivers have. It's incredible the work that they do and We're not an easy town to drive in, and they're out there driving through traffic with a bus full of kids, making sure that they all get safe through the school. And we're also making sure that these buses are up and running. One final question that I had, and it kind of goes around the enterprise mindset, right? Mechanics, I'm see

So you have about 30% vacancy on it? Through the chair, yes, sir. Okay. Have we looked at possible subbing this service out and looking at fleet management companies that could maybe come in and support some of these maintenance issues, whether it be... general oil changes, brake services, and so on, when we have a shortage of mechanics to kind of help us out to get through this? Is that something we do? Through the chair, we have not explored that, but it's something that we certainly can. Okay. All right, thank you. Any further questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Geller, you're recognized. Thank

Chair. Is there any ability or opportunity for us to try to connect those open mechanics positions with any of our vocational or technical programs? Or can we open that up maybe to students that are trying to study in that field? And if we don't have a specific field of study for that position, can we create one? Because I know we've got a lot of eager young people out there that are trying to learn some kind of a useful trade to support themselves, to support the families that they're going to have. And if we have the need, is there some way we could look to use in-house or promote or create

Follow up, Mr. Chair? Thank you. Assuming that we haven't yet had graduates that can fill those positions, I mean, if have, that would be good to know, too. But assuming we've not, do we have a timeline for graduating? And by the way, I was talking about student students, but the adult ed piece is also really, that's a great idea. But do we have a timeline for when we can look to have people graduating? Because I assume it's time sensitive for us to get these mechanic positions filled. Do we know when we'll have candidates who've completed the program?

Okay. Well, thank you. I think that concludes all of our questions now. We also had a staff follow-up from February 11th on agenda item H11, which I believe was distributed to our board members. Does anybody have any questions on that? Yes. Mr.

Chair, I just want to say thank you. The items incorporated into that district-wide affiliate agreement is exactly the start that we had hoped to see with an organization that essentially can bridge the gap between bringing our children to the boardrooms and to the companies and to the internships. So the more we get them in places, the better. So thank you to everybody involved.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for that board item and thank you to staff for working on that. This now exhausts today's agenda. If there's no further discussion, I move to adjourn today's meeting. All in favor? Aye. All right. Thank you. Our next.