Our responsibility as a board is to balance three things with this contract. fiscal stewardship, market competitiveness, and long-term district stability.

The proposed adjustment represents a significant percentage increase over the prior contractility. It is important to acknowledge that openly. At the same time, our B benchmarking analysis shows that our district has been meaningfully below comparable lake conference districts in both base salary and total compensation structure.

The real question is whether this proposal corrects a market gap in a responsible way and whether it positions our district for leadership stability moving forward. We have confirmed with our finance director that this contract is fiscally sustainable within our long-term budget projections.

It's important to note that the governance committee has been negotiating this contract over the past six weeks and the contract before you represents the due diligence of the board, district staff, and a jointly bargained compromise of terms.

Given Dr. Bitman's 15 years of experience as a superintendent and in looking at a review of superintendent salaries in the Lake Conference and around the state, the governance committee determined that our current contract is comparably less than what other districts are offering and not competitive.

based on the additional 15 years of superintendent experience that Dr. Bitman has compared with his predecessor and the knowledge that we are 49% on average 49% below comparable lake conference districts when looking at total package. The governance committee is recommending a 40% total package increase. Dr. Bitman's new base salary for all three years will be $364,000.

This increase is a reflection of two things. The experience that Dr. Bitman brings to this role coupled with the fact that bringing the total compensation p package to meet market level.

Um, I don't have any questions. Um, I I probably echo a lot of what Dan said is, um, thank I know this is a lot of work. Um, I've done it a couple of times. So, thank you to the governance committee. Thank you to everyone that was involved in it. Um, I appreciate the I think you guys have done a really great job of balancing um what um you mentioned, Chair Gaitler. Um I think it's hard to balance both the fiscal needs of the district and the fiscal needs of the superintendent. Um and I think you guys have done a really good job considering both of those.

Um, I would love in the future or just for consideration's sake. I don't personally love voting on the things this important in a special meeting out of cadence with our normal board meeting when it's so close.

I am thrilled with Dan Pitman's job so far as a superintendent and I think um he'll be a great superintendent. I think he has done a great job so far.

Um, but taking the personality out of it for a second and just talking about numbers on a page, I know um for members of the community it's going to be some sticker shock looking at it. It always is that.

I wanted to thank our governance committee for um, making that a more transparent conversation and it'll be a more difficult conversation I think too at some point. Um, those things are going to happen at some point. Every couple years TV news or or what have you does a um, story just listing all the different contracts. They're all publicly available. Um, and I just hope at that point people are able to remember this conversation to realize that it is not necessarily apples to apples to just take that number because so many other things are in, you know, so-called performance bonuses and and things like that.

Um, I just wanted to re reiterate some of what you'd already said, Chair Gabler, with um the depth and breadth of Dr. Dr. Bitman's experience >> um not only as a superintendent but also at the state level and experience >> um in some not only as a superintendent but also big districts and key roles and um echo what director man was saying with um >> you know as an interim um I've been happy with his performance and I think it's a great opportunity as a sort of a long runway of a interview almost.

we want to make sure that nothing additional gets added to the contract so that moving forward we wouldn't be setting any precedents that we couldn't be financially responsible for and we were very mindful of that um over these past six weeks and I feel like we accomplished that with this contract and in putting the base salary where it is um keeping that value transparent and forward we were very mindful of the comments from the work session

we are all public servants um being paid by the public tax dollar. The amount of transparency and obligation under that and our fiduciary responsibility to manage every penny um effectively is not lost on me.

But nonetheless um I'm glad that we were able to to have a process that was as transparent as we could make it. And as we come here tonight, uh, be able to to demonstrate that, uh, those goals and those needs as were articulated by our colleagues on the work session a couple weeks ago that I feel that we did a good enough process to adhere to those people who were not able to be in the room and see every detail and have every uh, conversation with Dr. Bitman about the negotiation that we were able to try to be connected to what we're eat because it's not just about the three people on the governance committee's desire to do something. It still has to be representative of all seven.

Um I just wanted to compliment Chair Gabler on that as well. So, I'm glad that we're we're here. Um I think it's a good contract. I think it's a good set for our future. Um I hope that it's a fair value to Dr. B. It's a fair value to be done in public schools and hopefully we look forward to approving and moving on.

Um within the contract there was also room for it says you know contracting other activities. I know it's really common. um you know we have a cont we have a candidate who's previously um done >> oh we have a count we have a candidate who's previously done executive search consulting and I think as a board it would really help us to have maybe some level setting there have a conversation to see kind of maybe what that looks like um for our expectations and um our superintendent's expectations as far as um what those opportunities in the educational sector kind of away from Adana public schools what they look like what they maybe we don't want them to look like or what we would like that to look like