I'd like to call the central school board meeting on February 24th 2025 to order with all board members present except for board member KS please stand Jo Al to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liy and Justice move on to E4 the agenda is there any changes from board members hearing none I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as presented second motion made by I second by proot any other conversations all right all those in favor signify by saying I I all is opposed agenda is approved we'll move on to the consent agenda Mr Shak has anything you would like to highlight here uh yeah there's actually two items that I'd like to highlight specifically um first um I did receive a resignation letter last from forestor so we are going well I don't know deposition here but she did Resa so um I wish my best to soon she's next um secondly and most importantly um at the beginning of February um Jody Kon came in and had a uh she met with me and then she notified the district that she was retired and Jody has been with Central Schools for 30 years and um she's just a phenomenal teacher and teammate and um I I just um for reasons I'm not going to say publicly I just I just have a very um fondness for jod she's she's she's she's been pulling a plow the last five years for sure she's had some personal things going on that um if you know Jody she know and she has just been a trooper and always someone will learn just last last year she went with a map team to a building thinking classrooms training and I mean she redid her whole and I just um surely F MD school so congratulations to K she's impacted and thank you to her yeah any questions or comments from board members hearing none I'll move to approve the consent agenda as presented is there a second I should second by eron okay I didn't know where that came from all right anything any other comments for members all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed present agenda is approved we'll move on to acceptance of gifts we have $2,000 from the C these are all from the central booster club $2,000 for volleyball equipment $3,400 for the Hall of Fame wall and some $750 for three teacher classroom grants thank you for the boosters for those very generous gifts move to approve GI Mo by second by Kelly any other conversations all right all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppos gifts are approved we'll move into the public forum you have me view okay we'll then move on to see informational items we'll start with the student council report you would mind just standing up sharing your name in your grade and um Sam and I'm in 11th I'm April and I'm 11 um so basically we got this month since it was Valentine's Day we decorated a heart and we took the Raider Pride slips from elementary and did like the CC things for high school and middle school um we did help with the dairy Expo for FFA help setting that up um we also did this like duck thing and um we had like Duck like candy and like little like squishy things that we used to like a FIS type for we flowers and we also have a snow going on Duo day and I think Wednesday is dressed with your first letter your name day I don't remember Thursday I think thank you questions from thank you Sam and April we say this every time you were welcome to stay but you would be the first ones that would stay through a meeting but you were welcome to stay if you would like otherwise go enjoy your basketball thank you for being here all right we'll move on student representative report Caitlyn could not be here today but she did send something she's a basketball player so she is doing that so I'm just going to read the email that she sent me she said um I was going to give a little recap on some of the activi going on in school softball and baseball and track are just about to start girls basketball is already in the playoffs and the boys start soon girls play came this evening uh knowledge uh knowledgeable is coming to an end with one regular meet left Esports is doing very well and so speech um I've been hearing some very positive positive things and excitement from all these activities thank you again I'm sorry I couldn't make it so thank you kay good luck tonight yes good luck tonight all right well then we'll just roll right into superintendent reports okay so um a couple of things that yeah so in in the superintendence report I I added all of the uh all of the House and Senate bills that are that are applicable right now so for everyone we are in a you know legislative session right now and this is the most important year for in terms of schools because typically this is when uh budgets are done and um it's just I'm typically in the first year of BM I spend a little bit more time down there just advocating for for a district and and whatnot but this this is not something that you need to go through and read every single house bill or Senate bill but this is just what's on the mind of of some of the folks so um some things that I can that I've been down with the capital twiice and and I would say that there are two things that you could keep your finger on the pulse of um is first I think cell phones and the cell phone and banning cell phones is going to possibly be a real thing I think it has bipartison support and that's so if you recall last session districts were required to make a cell policy U we have made ours and um because I think it's it's very um there's a lot of nuance between each district I I I I think the legislature is looking to to do something so I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened um I think um and I'm I'm going to I'm going to go on a fine line here I'm going to try to stay stay on the straight narrow but I mean if you remember the last time two years ago I was talking to you and you know talking to the board we had um record years for for funding but also for mandates that came along with that funding and um $18 billion was sent spent at the state legislature uh they are projecting the last I heard a $5 billion shortfall and and as you'll see in some of these some of these bills um there there are things that directly impact Central Public Schools the first of which is some compensatory education funding so I want to I'm going to talk about that just briefly um so for for everyone that's sitting in the room um uh comp compensatory education funding is basically funding that the state gives us um to um provide interventionists for students um that um may not be making may not may not get it the first scoop of instruction so so they may need some extra helpings of of math or science or reading or language arts um before they understand it which is fine because not all of us will learn and grow at the same rate well how that funding is divied out is typically by your free or reduced lunch count in the last legislative session um uh they they changed the law that said basically um if you fill up the freece lunch form at school we're not going to use that to count whether you're on for this lunch or not we're going to only count it if you are the term is directly certified meaning um you register with the county and then you are then you qualify for all the different services that the county may may provide um I'm proud to say Central Schools we kind of doubled down on that because we knew that the law and the was changing and so nearly every single one of our applicants is directly certified and because of which we were on track to get about $120,000 more um from year-over-year which would which would be great um the bad side of that is there you know there are 89 districts in the state that are in that bucket well there's like 230 districts that aren't in that bucket and I'm not going to name some of the districts but they're sorry I need tell the camp that we still here um yes we are still here um um some of these districts are losing in some cases millions of dollars because they only took preed launch forms well they have banded together and they're petitioning the governor and and some legislators and so what they what you may see in some of these things is a a hold harmless is what they're calling it well basically what that means is they're going to hold those 230 districts harmless meaning they can get the same amount and and how they're going to do that is to use last year's rules so they're going to count everybody that used the paper for in in in essence like take away $120,000 from us and it's just it's just very frustrating and so um we're down advocating through for if you're going to hold harmless that means Hold Us harmless too yeah you know um so those are those are kind of the the the two of the bigger things that are happening down there in terms of I mean there's other stuff as well but in terms of the things education wise um I I it's it's going to be interesting I mean there's A5 billion um hole that needs to get PL it'll just be interesting prob they do that so um any questions about that so again the things in the in the the the superintendent report you don't need to go and look at these but just for your at home reading um you can you can take a peek at it if you'd like compensatory funding Statewide stays the same same a great way to yes any other questions there a lot of stuff in there there is um some of well so if you look at the bottom some of them say HF and some of them said SF and one's a Senate Bill one's a house bill sometimes they or um uh second thing um this just relates to all of you I know um we talked last board meeting about about board Pace We're Not Gonna you're not going to get a claim form tonight um so Amy has sent you all the spreadsheet where we're going to keep track of everything so our tonight we'll have two meetings one for the interviews one for the regular meeting but is there any questions from a as far as pay and what you need to do um if you don't do it monthly am is going to give you a month notice before she cuts checks in June I think is when uh is when we you'll get one payment in June one payment in December so six months okay um last thing Mr Larson if you can click on the attachment there I want to go through the board Finance report um we are doing the amended budget uh later on in the meeting here um but if you could um scroll down um yeah keep going keep going keep going so oh no go back to the enrollment there there you go um so we're looking uh again the biggest indicator of of Health financially for our district is the moment and so we did start with 944 students um we are down to 9:31 we did have some kids go online things like that we are going to see a little bit of uptick um which is which is fairly typical around the uh around sometimes uh leases end in January some of the leases so we are going to see a little bit of an uptick next month um but we um if you notice I move the yellow line up no you're good I move the yellow line up so our amended budget which again you're going to see later tonight is at 930 students so I adjusted the this graph to indicate um where the uh where the amended budget was at um Rich if you can go to the next uh slide this is our graphs showing our um promise uh Levy promises to uh voters in 2019 so we typically we go through this every single board meeting so um things are on track we um you are going to see some changes on curriculum um on the curriculum piece um we did get some 110 money this year I think it was $34,000 for the react so we've actually over at this point time we've over spent our curriculum budget but once you approve the impended budget that that be a clean up is there um our original budget was 915 which is which I think we ended last year at 911 question okay all right we'll move on to board reports does anybody have any anything um I talk about 288 so we had um a board retreat this past weekend where we did um a strategic planning um kind of just going through the vision and Mission and just kind of um getting through since we've had a lot of change over in the leadership there just kind of where where do we want the board our board the district to go um in kind of talking with some of the board members who have been there for a while nothing like this has been done in at least 10 years um at two a date so it was it was really good um had some some great discussion there was a lot of pre-work that went into it um as far as um having focus groups and they really did a great job of bringing in teachers and um staff and parents and just kind of getting like a very well-rounded um you know feedback from from kind of what we have been doing and and where we want to go um it was some really good discussion a lot about you know just being very cognizant about the districts that are part of 288 and that everything that we do there directly affects those districts and so um yeah we might all decide that this would be really great if we could do this for you know our our special ed programs and stuff but we have to to be cognizant that we're we're affecting other people too it's it's very different than like this District so um there's going to probably be some changes happening um there but I think really for for the good um and we'll we'll kind of see where where that comes out I don't know they the superintendents were kind of involved with some of it as well so do you want me to add so I think um DR Horton the new superintendent there is is looking at how he can be more efficient and I don't want to get the car before the horse or anything but it's just there are um so there's some ratios of special education students that that you need to stay into especially in setting four um which is very low instance special education programs like some for example I know the autism program has to be or k may be 6 to1 so um so some of the facilities um six1 pardon me 612 say six students one teacher yeah see six yeah six six students one teacher two parents and he's getting some he's getting some um um foreign what exch not exchange foreign foreign teaching yeah bring teachers in on visas that um are they're good for three years and then they have the ability to up for another three after that but just because it is you have to basically hold two different like licenses to be a special ed teacher and it very hard to find that we've even looked out of state and still are not able to fill the positions and the goal is well there was two kind of goals I guess one was like no weight list and then kind of the other side of that was how do we get it to be like a weight list in a positive way like I want to go to that school you know to get help or or to utilize them for a subject or something like that so but yeah he's bringing in We Are yes he did well I mean last weekend I think he went and picked up a group I mean I think there's 17 coming in this year and we had 16 last year there's a big group coming this week May maybe that sort there just some but it's and and like the attrition right there I mean last year again there were 16 15 are staying on for this year so so that was that that's a good thing and in and all in all what he's trying to do is instead of having one teacher two parents six kids maybe running like a co- teaching model is two teachers one parent 12 kids but he doesn't even have the rooms to be able to do that and so it's just um I think um it'll be interesting I think there's some changes for yeah yeah for sure and he DR Horton will be coming to a board meeting I don't know which one but he is g to be coming introducing themselves to this board and talking about Sr they offer so any questions for Emma anything else from board members ADV move on to discussion items discussion items do on first reading of policies 506 515 519 and 533 you bet so um just to I I know uh Spencer and Char are new but I just want to remind everyone so typically when look at policies we do a first reading and so after this board meeting I was kind of noticed to the public hey we're looking at these policies after this board meeting our policy committee Spencer Josh and and Shelby um I'll initiate the red you know the MSB red Lin so we'll be able to talk about those and um and then next month or the month after just depending on how long how long the work takes the second reading and would come back as a recommendation for that any questions from more members on that right we'll move into the next one D2 winter weather boot okay can you can you pull up can you make that bigger is it is it can you even make it even bigger I don't know giant there you go up a little more no oh down there you go okay so um can I can I call you okay so uh last Wednesday or last Wednesday we're in the next week yeah last Wednesday I get a call um from Spencer and he's like hey can you talk to me through school cancellations and um how to respond to people that question decision or question the decision making process so I just want to take everyone through um just a little bit like what goes into making the decision of of when we call school when we don't call school when it's a late start so um I think the the number one thing is timing is everything if if large amounts of snow if we're getting like two inches an hour um is happening between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. it it like there's the possibility that school could be delayed in cases because just the amount of snow that's coming down our buses are very safe um but typically like I have rash Schneider on on cell phone it's like uh he does the county of vs it's like we have we have 150 square miles in our school district and 50% of our students live in country and I have to safely transport them as well and so um timing is is one factor um when looking at at when looking at can School uh the the the area superintendents we're all on one big text chat and it usually it usually starts night before hey what are you guys thinking um and I think something that also goes into it we get um we get weather advisor from North OIC something Noah and whatever Noah stands for um and sometimes we'll be in an advisory and sometimes we'll be in a watch uh or excuse me sometimes be in a watch and sometimes we'll move to a warning excuse me whenever we move to like a winter weather warning or a windshield warning especially um that's when you start to see some of the larger schools in the area uh to the east of us really start cancelling and that's and that's where we when um when we look at it so like this last time when we went to a two-hour late and and literally um I'm going to use their school district name wona which we you know we're seven miles away why were we two hours late and and civil East um Keno us and Watertown we all two hours late they were on time um well like I said half of our students live in the country like 80 to 85% of their students live in town so so just the transporting is is just different so I want to I'm gonna for a second but this is this is a a well-known windshield chart this is what Ron uses when determining of whether the send out oh yeah I'm just going to use my fingers and so for those of you standing there or people looking at home um this this light blue area here um basically what that area is is 30 minutes until um you can get frostbite um and then when you start to get in this darker Blue Area that's 10 minutes so one thing I'm looking at is um though I have a lot of confidence in our buses I don't necessarily have a lot of confidence in the other people out on the road um and so one thing I'm looking at is is can I I I can I can guarantee that barring a major like once in a lifetime accident or or event um I can get the buses there within 30 minutes of their regularly scheduled time I'm not confident at 10 minutes so if I have a kid out in the country and it's and you know if you look here like this is where we were that one morning um where we canceled it was 37 to 39 I it was just and and then I I get an hourly forecast too and and by the time two hours is up it's still- 37 like it's just that school's going to be canceled or we're going to be moving to an e-learning type situation um this last one we were we were right on so it was it was negative I think it was negative 17 we were we were kind of right on the border of this of this blue and and dark blue when we did it to our late start but one thing I looked at was um at 10:00 when our kids would be um arriving at school it went from negative uh 36 I think it was down to or up to -23 which -23 is squarely in the 30 minute range and and that's just so I think I think what I would ask the board or or other community members to just kind of keep in mind my number one job is to keep the kids safe like I I just I don't ever want to like oh gosh I wish I would have done that you know I wish I would have kept him home because an accident or something like that happens um and and by the way I want to keep us in session like we have a certain number of days that we have to keep in session I know it's inconvenient to parents um typically when I know something when I like you get the messages you get the calls predicted weather like yep we could be wrong sometimes um but I try to let I'm a dad too try to let people know the night before when possible um and and that can cut both ways right it can be why don't you wait and see well it's it's you're darned if you do and darned if you don't but super one of the favorite things but I just I mean I just so now everyone kind of knows like or at least you all know um like that's some of the that's some of what goes into it and and really when we get to the 10minute um frostbite range it is I can well I'll just say it I can guarantee that we are either or cancel and yeah so I I just I know Spencer specifically got some got some hey tell me about this so I just thought it would be appropriate to talk about it tonight because it just happened so any other question I'd be happy to answer any questions from the W if you if you have them I just have a comment you know I had this conversation at home like okay there were activities that night then and so I had I was playing a little Dev I like why is it okay to send the kids out in a bus M but they're not they're you explaining this helped me understand that they in a bus they're not going to be on the side of the road waiting for a bus yeah that makes sense good because I I I'm glad you asked that so um I typically have taken the standpoint like if we're not in session for school we're not doing activities um I think there's been a pretty large departure from that line of thinking um just because especially when you're talking about cold I mean when you're looking in the evening was down to in the in the 30 minute range or or better um which I think you can you can handle that one thing I did forget to mention is and it's not this isn't like a people are scared type of a situation but you need to learn from the from the things that happen to you so I don't know if you remember in like 2017 2018 um St Paul Public Schools called called school off really late and there were kids sitting on buses until like 9 o'clock at night it was all over the news and I do I I think there was this very strong push to e-learning days at that point Ty weather related e-learning days um least have that option and we do have five of them that um it's not my favorite thing but it is an option right and and I and I'm confident that our principles and our teachers principles have our teachers prepared for for that if it happens um if we weren't prepared like we wouldn't have been prepared when we had that when we had that cancel day in January was the first of the semester we were not prepared so we just canel School rather than try fake it other questions or comments goggle machine there you go all right D3 FY 2026 budget parameters okay um thank you so um one thing that I um just so this is going to come back to the board next month um to to develop some budget parameters and here's where I would like the board to be thinking if possible um like what do you want the fund balance to be so um one thing I'm going to point out behind us here is as you can see this is this is from page can you scroll up a little bit or uh down down to the bottom it doesn't have a page number okay scroll up this is is this is something like page 34 in our audit that just happened in November and uh um as you can see our this is our percentage of fund balance and um this past year our fund balance did drop fairly significantly by 6% we um I don't need to rehash that we we talked about why that was um and we're anticipating about a 12% un unreserved fund balance um again um and can you scroll to the next page a slight Point too but but here's here's some of the back pages of the story all of our board candidates talked about some of the enrollment things that have been happening the last five years um we've had negative enrollment the last five years and then this year we had we had our first uptick we we were one of maybe a dozen school districts that increased in enement this year which is which is really good news um I uh currently our board policy is 7% for a fund balance and um like I just I just I would like like us to eventually have a dialogue and we can have a DI start the dialogue tonight where do we where do we want that fund balance to be at the end of the year because you saying whatever that number is or whatever that percentage is really kind of sets the tone for how I go around building the budget for fiscal year 26 um so I you'll you'll see tonight um when we do the budget revision that our fund balance has gone up a a couple hundred thousand which is good which is which is good news um and typically we would want to be if you rich if you can go back to the the other one typically um where I would feel most comfortable is having is having it in the High Teens low 20s percentage I don't think we can make that jump in one year um but we but we can start um CLA some of that back um because when you have a fund balance that's so that is our that is our savings account and and just this last year um not picking on the school district that shall not be named um um we had one special education student where um we had the parents live in our district they attended elsewhere but it was a very expensive student I mean it was a very involved child that had nursing services and and everything I mean that was um that that was a $200,000 and um having a fund balance uh in the 20% range allows us to roll with some of those punches um a little bit uh easier than having it at 12% for sure so um just that would be my recommendation but I also would like to have some stute is there any state statute that has a minimum um no you cannot you can't go into you can't so once you get a negative fund balance that is where you are in stat operating debt we are not anywhere near that I don't want anyone to take that um but our fund balance has our fund balance policy is 7% I just know um not our new board members but our our honestly for the last five years our board has been talking about do we need to look at our fund fam policy do we need to raise it this this could be a year to to raise it a a percentage or a percentage and a half this this could be a year that we that we could consider and be and I'm sides of my mouth here and there are some unknowns at the legislature you know and it maybe it's I don't know I I don't I'm just this could be a year can you speak a little bit to the downside of having too high of a fund balance then that's taking away if you were to say we were to set say we just went really R and said we wanted 35% of the fund balance or 40% right there is a detriment to student students who's you're saving that money on the backs of the students that are current I would agree with that session so there is there's a sweet spot in there correct agreed I I would agree with that statement 100% I think the the the funds given this year are for the students that's scar you know and so it's like but you also can't for rainy day you need it's a balance of both and and I would say um one of our one of our lay promises from 2019 was to up our fund balance $108,000 every year and last year a budget is a budget and things can happen like against a tuition bill for 200,000 $90,000 of additional snow plowing Services you know it just it you know there are things that happen we have to plower parking lots but you know but we but on the plus side we've had two non snow Winters you know so did I can't remember if the auditor gave a number that he or no or in the past for some reason there's a number so this is what they so what this graph represents here is says all school all schools excluding charter schools are the green so this is the green is what all schools across the state them in SOA have on average so average is 22 point or 21.9 we're at 12.5 for the most comparative for the latest comparator data I think our auditor would say you probably should up your phone balance a little bit either through either through by saying our fund balance is this percentage or whatever you know so and it's something that we could like say this year let's go up a percentage next year let's go up a percentage it it may be this is our fiveyear Target and we're going to do this this year this this year and that way um that way it's done I would if if I was going to make a recommendation I would say incrementally yeah you don't want to just jump way up and then it I think we can set you know a minimum percentage and also a higher Target that we would like to shoot for yeah and be opportunistic about that higher fund balance like if we don't need to make a giant jump there but we look out say five years we want that to 17% and we increase our minimum balance by a percent a year over the next 5 years so uh the reason I showed enrollment I mean we have really good enrollment this year and I'm very proud of that hard work by by our teachers our principles the marketing that we're doing I think that those are all good things and um we had a particularly low senior graduating class last year I think Mr LaRon I still 72 that sound about right 73 maybe it was either 70 it was either 72 or 73 this year we're going to be graduating 85 um and and even even even worse is next year not worse but worse than this example graduating 85 I this year we have 67 kid gers I don't think we're gonna get 67ers I just I just don't think the kids are there um so so we're starting off the bat forus 30 plus pardon yeah so yeah so that's yeah so I think that's just that's just some of the just some of the background and and I I don't mean to call them out but I I mean Mr Larson specifically has done a lot of Outreach at the high school level um where we are capturing more kids from say a clone academy um that we've ever captured ever we may not get them in kindergarten but but the more of them are coming to us and eth gr than they're going anywhere else so um that's all good news and I think that you get that with partnership not by being adversarial or nth excuse Meers but just doing the things like hey come to the come to the basketball game we'll give you a hot dog and we have a presentation about all the great I mean lit people signing in R so it's good deal but again I want this on your radar if there's data that you need um to make a decision um that would be great and again it's a place to start budgeting you know but um if the auditor has like-sized school districts and a recommended fund balance I'd like to see that um it's not it's not in the audit report and then I would lean heavily on to some of your recommendations and then as to why those recommendations would be anything else you want him to gather well if you think of anything just ask GA that for our next meeting thank you any other conversations about budget parameters so um I I would say no because whatever you want as a fund balance drives everything else that that that that sets the tone of of where you know where we divide the rest of the the rest of the P so um that's e operational items E1 discussion and consideration of candidates to fill board vacancy all right Rich can you pull up the um there you go thank you so um I liveed candidates it wasn't at 6:20 it's at 6:40 we're getting to your agenda item um so uh at this time um I think this would be appropriate if there's any other positives that anyone wants to say um about each of the candidates and so I'm just going to recap because not everyone was here we did interviews starting at 4:30 today we interviewed three candidates um we videotaped it I'll be I'll be posting it online um so uh Elroy Barbara and Tony all interviewed we asked the same questions of each candidate after we were done we um we created this list of the positives um that each candidate brought uh Jason Reed who was our fourth menion candidate emailed me this afternoon and he dropped out um and so we didn't interview him so we're not to consider him but I on behalf of the board I want to thank him for ini this here so I think at this time um there should be additional discussion from the board on on the positives from the candidates and what they offer um and when that discussion has exhausted um if somebody um wants to bring forward a candidate you would make a motion um for example I nominate Tim shocken to F for vacancy seat if that receives a second then there's a vote if somebody gets three votes um we're done talking about it but if somebody doesn't get a second or somebody doesn't get three votes then you have to consider a different candidate or there should be other discussion um to do that so I'm turning to a review Generations well I think I just want to say again in this meeting I said it the previous one but I was blown away by the strengths of the applicants and I'm so grateful for the great applicants we had and this will not be an easy decision there's a ton of strengths from everybody and guys did an amazing job answering everything so thank you um I'll open it to um the board if there's other things that we want to add to any of the strings we want to discuss from the app related to the applicants as you're looking I'm sorry I I I should have said this at the beginning I know we had a fiveo scale for each kind of look for us for each one of the questions um one could say it's 54321 if you if you were going toate them but so somebody could say you have a 20 you have 25 total points possible and depending on how you rank them that could assist you with that's reason scale to assist you when got to this point wasn't as subjective and if you want to I don't know I'll take guidance from board members especially if from the interview commit you guys have a preference on you want to rank them or do you want to just put on the nomination or mine are so close there's a point and a half between three of them on my when I calculated my points yeah three points yeah okay I'll pause for a little bit I'll feel uncomfortable is every ready for that shout it out if there's anything okay here we go well you know hearing non all entertain if somebody wants to put somebody forward is there a nomination I'll second that that's why okay discussion on that all right then let's go let's go for a vote then all those in favor of Tony signify by saying I I all those opposed Tony is nominated for a school board member I cannot express how hard this was it was it was very tough I did not I yeah thank you thank you than you thank you thank you so then the next process will be there is a 30-day cooling off period where um the community can explain this me a little bit more but they honestly I don't know this is the first time I've so legally con yeah so um it's basically someone can challenge it I don't know what that I think it that's more procedural than it is I don't like your decision but if that were to happen I would contact msba and say okay I have this this is the process this is what we did we followed their process so um but I would uh uh but there's a there's a 30-day waiting period And so at our next board meeting it's the 24th today our next board meeting is the 31st of March we moveed that back specifically that that way um uh the the Tony now uh could get sat and and then take the old of office on that at that time I I will call Carver County and see if there's paperwork that needs to get done to like certify it but we may they haven't told me this yet well there's not an election so there's not canvasing so it just um but if I do get a if I do get a something from the community I would I would obviously email you all and then contacted but I'm I'm not anticipating um so thank you first time I did it I just genuinely my Tony thank you thank you I know Aly is not here I want to on different levels I know all three of you and I'm just so immensely grateful that we had three members sit up here in front of their community and friends and family and work themselves on I know that's not easy thank you E2 fiscal year 2025 budget revision okay um forone feel I cannot scroll down C move your cursor Rich that's funny okay so if you can go to the second page I just want to highlight um thank you I just want to highlight the just the budget cycle so um again we are in we are in the January through March midyear budget adjustments a projected budget for next fiscal year that's part of the discussion that we just had as for next fiscal year and this tonight we're going to talk about um the budget provision for this fisal year um changes because again to that what we what we thought was going to happen in June of last year is it exactly what happened so far mway through next page please um everyone sees this and I just just want to or everyone has seen this it's in the finance report every single month um but our our um the the biggest healthy financially the the the way to be the most healthy is to have um to have a budget that's above your enrollment and so each year we look at month to month um what our enrollment Trends are are so I've moved the yellow budget line to 30 amms and then the blue line is our trend line for enrollment um I I don't think it's atypical for districts to lose students over the course of the year so that's not something to be alarmed at and I would I would love it if we lost one you know so we'll see we'll see where that where that ends up but um our octo a very important number is the October one count there's a lot of funding that's based on the October one student people count so I want to I want to talk about uh the next the next slide where it says FC revised budget overview so um so if you look at the middle column that was our that is what we had uh stated for our preliminary budget and um and our fiscal year 25 advise budget is on the left so if you go all the way down to the bottom it it shows that we have a $219,000 deficit I don't want anyone to be alarmed about that because I'm going to talk about why that is some of that was planned because we had some restricted fund balances that had or restricted funds that had balances that we are paying down with the construction project this last okay next slide please so um uh so this shows it by um by fund so if you if you look at the revenues and expenditures by fund so you'll see General funds the First Column Food Services the second column Community Ed construction Debt Service our trust and Student Activities um and and I think the biggest look for here is specifically our fund seven construction fund this is um this is the actual Bond the bonds that we took out um we are we are pretty darn close to paying all of we're anticipating we're going to be pull all of those out we are starting to get final bills from um well through Nexus but from contractors and that's that's a good thing I think a lot of this once once the construction project has washed through our entire system it will just make our our whole SC to be honest with you because um because of and and why that is is some of the delays um that we had that we experienced um two two summers ago actually like helped us you know hurt us in one way and helped us in others like we earned additional interest on that money because we weren't spending it um but then it pushes it into another fiscal year because because we had this so um if you if you look at the next uh slide um revised budgeted by uh Revenue fund so this this just kind of shows where most of our where most of our money um goes to I know I know it's hard to see at the bottom but the large the large dark blue is general fund food service is the orange our community service fund is the gray area the construction fund is orange and then Debt Service which is the loans um that we're paying back that is the light blue area next slide please so here's where I want to go into detail around um two things and there's two specific slides and actually rich can you can you bump this up a little bit can you change the bump it up yeah can you make it a little bit B yeah right like that that's good so I want you to start by looking at the first line excuse me um where it says 6302 2004 estimated balance of our unassigned fund balance so our unassigned fund balance at the end of last year was $986,000 94 um after looking at our increases student enrollment and um and you know other factors like I like I just said like we hav't I had one bill for stone removal it's just one thing that I can point to we are anticipating having an unrestricted fund balance unassigned fund balance of non same or same role but all the way to the right where it says estimated balance a year later of 1.2 million so it look you know according to our our our revised budget looks like we're going up $200,000 in unreserved fund balance so the question could be if our fund balance is going up 200,000 why are you showing on the first page that we're going down 29 that story is below here so if you could scroll to the restricted funds so restricted funds what that means is you have to use this money for this purpose and some of the purposes are over on the side there so non uh nonspendable I don't even know what nonspendable is to be honest with you um Student Activities scholarships staff development capital projects Levy operating Capital basic skills extended time gifted and talented long-term facilities M safe schools medical ma ma billing Ma and third party billing all of those are restricted so when we get revenues from the state of Minnesota or through other like for example third party billing um it has to go into that fund and be spent for purposes allowed under that fund so U if you look specifically um halfway down at the capital projects Levy so if you recall we bumped up our capital projects Levy um leading up to the leading up to the construction project as additional free cash to SP to spend on projects so that way we didn't bond for more money so if you look at that one specifically our our 2024 balance was $168,700 well there's $100,000 right there if you go to the next one operating Capital our initial balance was $16,000 our projected balance is 330,000 so you're so those are some areas where we are spending down ltfm are which stands for long-term facilities payments we had a balance of 492,000 r with a balance of 189,000 so all of those all of those balances are construction project related which just tells a different story like I realized the whole thing says it's negative 219,000 but our free cash has got out my $200,000 and mainly that's general fund versus unct expenditures probably St l it that's exactly it Spencer it would tick up a little bit because how we how we calculate that fund balance is by taking that 1.2 million up in the upper right hand corner and you divide that into um total expenditures 14 million 55 so I've done that math already if you were to do that math in our revised budget right now the fund balance would go from 7% to 8.6% so it's this is why I'm partially saying this is an opportunity to raise the fund balance and it really I almost have it baked in at this time and and that's due you're exactly right and that's due to our increase so some of the budgetary cuts that we made last year and the incre is allowing us um to maybe do that at one time well the volatility of the legislature right now is kind of nice to move that direction versus the other I I agree and I am not confident that we will have a passed budget by the legislature by June 30 I I think you had mentioned earlier um that um we may have to be conservative on on that front it is very possible very very possible 5% 10% hold back or retain contracts um so so yep so so that is that is a lot of a lot of this so um we have retainage we have retainers for next we we hold the retainers and we've talked about that um just because of um some of the things that we feel like they haven't um delivered on mainly the the staff who last can we call that now in the staffo of 2023 um is it too far is it far enough away that I think we're getting there we're getting there not too soon um um we have not made a payment to well we've made one payment to next since that time um and and um so we still have a pretty good chunk of their chunk of their money and I will not pay that bill until every other bill is paid it just it just will not happen and I've been very clear with that to them but Nexus holds the retainage for the construction company or excuse me the electrici company or the the the plumbing contract and so when I say so when I say their final bills are coming in their final bills coming in on the punch list there's one more double check and then that final retainage will be paid out that's in our that's in that's in the estimated in that four point um sorry Rich can you scroll back to a previous um up to one more that's in that 4 point um oh maybe not hold on give me a second make sure remember it that is in the they're in under 4.74 4,791 N20 that is so I have worked with them of what their anticipated or what the bids were what their anticipated bills are and and making sure it ties out yes so rich can you go back to that previous slide that we were just on questions this is this is kind of the most important slide okay all right next slide please so just a reminder to everyone where do we get our funds um and why have we've been talking about the legislature so muching well um darn near 78% of our money comes from state aid that's the big green one our our local Levy and I'm not talking about which includes the voter approved Levy but we do a levy every year in December um that accounts that's the corers that's about 20% and then um some other local revenues 300,000 and then federal aid um it's only about Corner that's special Le Aid Title One title two title three and um where do we uh where do we spend our money and I think this is this is we are not abnormal from other school districts um our biggest assets go home every night that's the kids and the teachers um so between orange yellow and green so orange is salaries yellow is benefits and then green is purchase services and purchase services for us um are are essentially Dasher taher um and uh 4.0 y so our busing our food service and our custodial um if we had those if we had those in in house they would be represented in the in the yellow so it's it's it's honestly a little tip for T in terms of we just happen to to purchase those Services instead of Happ in house um next slide please so uh this is well actually before I U we can stop there uh but I'm going to be moving into Community Ed next are there any general and fun one questions before I move into um RIS budg okay so um moving into the revised budget Community um our preliminary budget was um having about $930,000 and in revenue and it and we're projecting a little bit more than that about one uh a little over $1 million which is the increase of about $90,000 that's a littleit big for us um one of the reasons why is over you know again I don't need to keep going back to construction but our uh fill Phil in in kidsco had we we're we're having a lot more usage in kids this year and so some of that some of that flows through here um and we right sized our our our um pre preschool staff this year uh we only have two and a half sections um I'd love it if it was three and a half um but like we we hired enough teachers uh that fit into our ratios because again in prek there's a ratio of 1 to 20 or 1 to 10 so one PA one teacher one to 20 in the or two to 20 in the in the entire um you can't really can't go over that so um we're anticipating um a $40,000 in the black for Community ad which is which is a good which is good typ so how does bpk that gets rolled in next year how does that affect is that going or adms or does that stay in school so I want I so no no you're no this is a great question thank you for asking it so VPK stands for volun voluntary prek and basically what it does is there's a formula that that students are treated like an ADM so actually flows into fund one okay but then would get paid out of fund one to pay for for prek teachers so um to not get too technical um you get reimbursement or you get like adms for how many however many slots that you have up to a six so so right now we are passing all that cost onto our parents through through um you know we have some we have some um we have some scholarships but I think we have six scholarships total um we are we are passing that cost increase onto our parents in in the form of tuition and so what that could look like we have applied for for PPK I am cautiously optimistic that we're going to get some um we qualify for 21 slots and essentially what that would mean is we would get we would get this the funding from the state and let's just say in June or July for people that have signed up for for preschool they're going to get a really cool phone call that says oh you were going to pay $500 a month well now you're going to pay $200 a month because 60% of the cost is going to be given to us in the form of state aid which that would I would love to make those full costs I really would um and so app is that for All Day Option only um you get so technically so okay so let's get no so because it's so 6 is an important number so what that could look like is let's say we have an all day everyday program and parents are paying for all five days through a tuition bill right now so you might for example designate your Monday Wednesday Friday as your bpk day and then parents that's what I'm saying if they're paying $500 you take that so now they're just paying for two days that's how they get a 60% reduction in that bill but then we would classify the three days as the VPK days because you have to along with funding comes just reporting so that's I'm thinking that's how that would work but I want to see how many slots that is and and and I know Sue Has looked at allocating slots over in Cologne allocating slots to some have like there it's not just that easy I'm just trying to like really simplify it push forward yeah there's final decision after the legis session you know so um like what would be really bad because I think I I do think we will I do think we're gonna get some like I know um a really large District maybe 14 miles to our East gave back 288 sles last year they didn't have a need which is just crazy to me I would love to like I think we we've had signs on the back end that things are good but what what would be really mad is to fill that five5 billion hole they cut bpk slots from the state budget like that would have an impact on our yeah that would have a direct impact on our families thank you good questions I do okay okay any other questions around the overall revised budget Things Are looking good I I would from my perspective this is a lot different story than it was last year any questions for more well here none I'll make a motion to approve the 2025 budget revision as presented second motion second by proot any other conversations all right all those in favor signify by saying I I I all opposed budget revision is approved our next board meeting is going to be on March 31st here in the fish poow at 6 o'clock and I'll move I'll look for a motion to a journ if there's anything else from board members I move to a Jour secondy Kelly any other conversations here's your chance all those in favor signifi by saying I I am PA's host we are Jour thank you everybody