Who will be the new Kingsville Independent School District Director of Personnel Services? That question remains unanswered because no one was hired at the special meeting of KISD board held last night. It had been anticipated that someone would be hired from several applicants who applied for the position.

After almost one hour in closed session, Larry E. Garza, KISD board president announced in open session that no action would be taken and was tabled for further review and discussion.

KISD has advertised for this position after the present personnel director Valdemar Leal submitted his letter of resignation in late September. Leal has served in this position since 2004 and prior to this time, had been the KISD personnel director for several years. His last day of employment with KISD will be Dec. 18. Leal has been a KISD employee in numerous positions over 30 years.

Following the open session, a workshop was conducted reviewing the goals of the district, superintendent, and school boards. Castro credited the input received from the District Advisory Committee and other stake holders. He also praised some of the KISD administrators who assisted gathering information for the district goal plan.

KISD superintendent Emilio Castro focused on district goal improvements that include student performance, customer service, fiscal management, and improved accountability.

The superintendent performance goal to improve performance and achievement include plans to address the math and science areas that are of the greatest academic need, a plan of intervention to help students with the greatest academic need. The plan also includes improving teacher and principal quality.

The fiscal management is an ongoing concern. Since Castro superintendent this summer, one of the main challenges he inherited has been the current KISD financial situation. KISD has a $30.8 million budget with 80 percent of money going to employees’ salaries. The budget concern is the fact that KISD has a fund balance of $4.3 million that is too low for a school district. The money in the fund balance can be compared to a savings account and must be sufficient to operate a school district for three months or more, according to Texas Education guidelines.

In late August KISD had 651 employees and of those 270 were teachers. KISD is saving money through attrition and consolidating job positions.

At the workshop, Castro stated the superintendent performance goal to strengthen fiscal management would be to ensure a plan to develop cost saving measures that include staffing ratios and formula usage. The fiscal management focuses on a plan that recommends short and long-term facilities, capital improvement, and technology needs and time-lines.

Other issues discussed at the workshop included student privacy, FERPA, staff training, cost effective measures on legal expenses, evaluation participation, future primary and , secondary school alignment, and numerous other objectives.

All seven KISD board members, Larry E. Garza, Corando C. Garza, Jilma Vidaurri, Annabelle Garza, Juan Garza, Romeo C. Reyes, Joe R. Trevino were present. There were five people in the audience.