School officials are further pursuing employee housing development options and will discuss their next steps with trustees at the Nov. 15 board of education meeting.
Two items on the agenda center around this initiative with the first asking for the Morgan Hill Unified School District board’s approval “to continue exploration of employee housing including entering into associated contracts for planning and design.”
“Since California’s education funding does not take into account the economic realities of the region a district is located in, the district is in the inevitable position of fighting to maintain services and paying a living wage to employees, while the expenses around them continue to climb,” the Nov. 15 agenda item details. “Recognizing this, the district sought to make employee housing an important benefit they can provide to employees since the District will never be able to compete with the wages of public sector companies.”
The second item requests board approval to allow the use of $12,350 in one-time discretionary funds to formulate a “proposal from Development Process Consultants to assist with the application to the City of Morgan Hill for the 2017 Residential Development Control System.”
“The district will be seeking approval for allotments for the year 2019 through the RDCS process under the affordable housing section for future district employee housing,” according to the agenda item’s rationale.
Superintendent Steve Betando, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Kirsten Perez and Facilities Director Anessa Espinosa will be part of the district’s presentation on the two items.
District staff must submit a uniform application, submittal plans, project narrative, title report and other items by September 2017 to be considered in the 2017 RDCS Competition.
“If awarded units through the 2017 RDCS Competition process, the earliest that the units could be occupied is July 2019,” according to district staff.
The Nov. 15 school board meeting, held at the 15600 Concord Circle headquarters, will open with closed session at 4:30 p.m. followed by public session around 6 p.m. Members of the public can submit speaker cards prior to the start of either session to address the school board.
Other items to be discussed in public session are:
• Single Plans for Student Achievement (SPSAs) for the 2016-17 school year;
• 2016-17 First Interim budget for the restricted non-general funds;
• Transportation update; and
• Four teacher assignment designations.
