AnalysisCompleteFriday, August 21, 2026

Minnetonka Public Schools — Transcript

4 Topics in This Document

Financial Support for National Student Trips

Perpetual Endowment Trust Fund Policy Review

Building Bond Construction Progress Update

OPEB Trust Fund Update

Full analysis
No formal board action. Administrative decision to implement $200 per student stipend if no significant board opposition.
No formal board action. Policies presented for review; formal approval anticipated in September.
No formal board action. This was an informational update.
No formal board action. This was an informational update.

Absent anything significant tonight, we would implement the $200 per student for the current school year.

Superintendent Law [00:00:19]
Discussion on Financial Support for National Student Trips

I guess, my worry is always that there is going to be a student who is unable to attend for financial reasons. And so I find myself kind of wondering, for a lot of students, that 200, it's great, but maybe not necessary. And so I'm just wondering, is there any precedent for doing a need-based type of application?

Megan [00:09:47]
Discussion on Financial Support for National Student Trips

I like that idea, though, because even in elementary school field trips, when you pay the field trip fee, there's also an option to add an extra student or whatever. So I think there's some creative thinking around diverting funds to those in need would just be something to consider.

Mr. Schulz [00:10:48]
Discussion on Financial Support for National Student Trips

If at some point in time, as we develop additional resources in this fund, it would behoove us to try to be able to get our perpetual endowment trust fund to be moved into eligibility to be invested in the same type of investments that our OPEB trust fund is able to be done.

Mr. Bourgeois [00:19:10]
Review of Policies on the Perpetual Endowment Trust Fund

So the current allowed investments through statute are only in things like bonds where there's no loss of principal, correct? It's like the corpus could never go down below the original start amount.

Megan [00:23:45]
Review of Policies on the Perpetual Endowment Trust Fund

You'd have to have an $8 million fund earn 3% to make $250,000, or a $6 million fund earn 4%. It also forces the fund to grow for enough time until it's substantial before folks can start to tap into it.

Sarah [00:26:48]
Review of Policies on the Perpetual Endowment Trust Fund

if you take the combination of bid one and bid two, we are about a million dollars under our allocation of the bonds that were allocated for construction for that project, which is a good thing.

Mr. Bruesewitt [00:36:20]
Update on Building Bond Construction Progress

The city of Chanhassen still wants to do the roundabout after it's done. But maybe if this works really well, we might be able to lobby to go, 'Hey, could we just leave it?' Or even if we paid for the stoplights, it'd be cheaper than actually paying for part of the roundabout- Right ... to put them in and have it be there permanently.

Mr. Bruesewitt [00:43:08]
Update on Building Bond Construction Progress

The builders' cost index went up 13.5% from June of '25 when you say, 'Yeah, let's go run the referendum,' until June of '26. But we're going to work hard to deliver what was promised and stay within our 85 million.

Mr. Bruesewitt [01:05:44]
Update on Building Bond Construction Progress

We chose to do that one. So most of the districts, I think there might be one or two others who are like that, but most of the districts that actually took advantage of this chose the irrevocable. So they'll be locked into using it for post-employment benefits, and that's it.

Mr. Bourgeois [01:13:39]
Update on OPEB Trust Fund

Not really a question, but I want to say thank you for all the work that you've done on OPEB and when the decision was made, when there were other districts that took advantage of the revocable trust versus irrevocable, that- Yeah. I- ... that was very thoughtful of you.

Karen [01:21:49]
Update on OPEB Trust Fund

I'm curious, the Educators Group Insurance Plan, this proposal that's kicking around the legislature right now. Mm-hmm. If that were to go through, does that have any implications on OPEB and any of our liabilities?

Dan [01:23:44]
Update on OPEB Trust Fund