Oh, here we are. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Manaka Schoolboard Study Session, August 20th, 2026. First up tonight, we will have citizen input. So, first off, I will read the guidelines for citizen input. Welcome to the Minnitaka School Board study session. In the interest of open communications, the Mitaka School District wishes to provide an opportunity for the public to address the school board. That opportunity is provided at every study session during citizen input. Number one, anyone indicating a desire to speak to any item about educational services except for information that personally identifies or violates the privacy rights of an individual during citizen input will be acknowledged by the board chair. When called upon to speak, please state your name. Connection to the district and topic. All remarks shall be addressed to the Now, sorry. First up, we have discussion on financial support for national trips. Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, uh this is a new topic for the board since I've been on the board or since I've been in the district, excuse me, and this is on how we reimburse students who qualified to participate at the national level. Uh the activities director Schultz tonight is going to give a history of Minnotonka's efforts to support students who have these opportunities, the financial impact, some changes in practice moving forward, and really a landscape of what this looks like around our conference. Mr. Schultz. >> Great. Thanks, Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, board, thanks for having me. Uh, little background with this uh, national trips like we offer programming for our clubs and activities and our goal is to sustain those for all the clubs and activities at the high school. What we've seen over the years as costs have increased and more opportunities have been made, we run into that budget verse opportunity discussion. And that's kind of what I'm here just to briefly outline there. There's not too much here tonight to share with but to get in the background a little bit when I first my first year was 2010 so I can only speak to what happened then u but at that point very little national trip uh experience for students DECA might have been the only one back in those days and the philosophy of the board as well as the superintendent at that time let's fund it all great opportunity let's go get it and that's what happened for those first you know four years of my tenure here as we got into kind of the mid- tenure here 2015 to to just because as the costs and more opportunities started to go, we started choosing, hey, we're going to support either travel costs for the students or where they're going to stay in terms of the student experience. Now, we still cover entry fees. We feel like if someone qualifies for nationals, they should get it paid for. They shouldn't have to pay for the chance to participate. As well as our adviserss or leaders, they should be able to go as well. And we've covered those. So that was kind of the first adjustment we made from full funding back in the days. And then right about 20 to 24 as those numbers grew from 2 to three to the 8 to 10, it just kept increasing and increasing. And we still would cover one or the other. And that led me to last year or 25 26 of saying look we need to start limiting this in terms of the budget that we have. And I we made a policy that we put into practice where if you stayed three nights, you got $300 or less nights. If you were four or more, you got 400 per student to apply to travel and or stay with that. Now, back up a little bit. What does an activities budget look like? We pretty much cover the advisor. That is about what the budgeting process we have. We do have some funds for travel, for buses if they need it. I've built those in over the years. Um, but that's pretty much it. If they have some supplies, we find that over the years in our process and build that in. So, it really gets us to the point of, you know, what are we going to do moving forward as we get into this last year, we had 12 groups reach out for this national thing. And it's great students, great opportunity for them. We want to promote them, but as as you see, it got to be a cost that was much larger that we really didn't have a budget for. So, if you look at those are the trips that went last year. Um, awesome, really cool for the students to go. The star budgets are ones where there are no budget at all for any type of national travel. So I just found different areas to cover that $300 to $400 per student stipen that they would have with that. Um DECA because of the longevity of that has some good funds built in over the years. Uh but robotics debate and quiz bowl it was kind of piecing it together to even get enough though there were some travel monies built in there. Uh and the rest of them just didn't have any travels monies built in for those opportunities. But we continued to apply kind of the practice that I had put in place this last year. And that came to a cost of about $64,000. Again, not not amazingly high, but still pretty high when you look at you have the stipen for the director or the leader. And then you have a little travel money in there. That money goes pretty quick as you look at it. So, a little background. What is our what are our friends in the late conference doing? That's the conference we compete in at both um athletically, activities, and then we compare academics with them. So as you can see when when we asked this question not all the schools replied but of the one didn't but of the six that replied only one other school covers the entry fees. So check we do that none of the other schools cover any type of travel of any type of stay that was involved with that. So we were above the fold on that in doing that and we had really if you see the history had done a really good job of that over the years. Then only 106 would cover their own adviserss otherwise that would have to be fundraised for for them to to go on the travel there. So that's a little snapshot of what other schools are doing with some of the lake issues that we have with ours. So it really looks at I'm looking for direction in terms of what do we do doing forward? We can continue what we're doing what we did last year the $3 400 thing. Um but is there a move to more fundraising that is going to have to occur that is there? We want to look at trying to provide as equally as we can to all the clubs and activities. That's a goal of mine. Um, one of the huge challenges that we've faced is if we get a one or two percent increase to the travel budget and we have the late timing. Okay, you qualify two weeks before nationals. Everybody knows when you try to travel two weeks before an event, what the airline tickets do, what the lodging is at that point. It's it's way up there as opposed to planning out nine months, but you can't plan out nine months if you don't qualify. And some of ours hit that as well. So what we've seen with the increase to 10 to 12 back from the one or two or three we used to have is they just come on spur of the moment within a month we have to be round trip of getting it planned paid for fundraised and return back home. So I'm looking at a way to continue to reduce and and substain that budget for everything that we have with the fiscal responsibility that that you guys have been through as well as we have over the last few years. And so my thought is moving forward or the proposal I have is just to reduce that down next year to a $200 per student can be applied to lodging and or the travel that they want to help them continue that experience. But then knowing that as as a board we do need a long-term solution. If we want to create a fund for national trips, great. Let's create a fund that would pay for it all. But I feel like moving forward that $200 adjustment would cut that 64,000ish down to about 30, which again is more sustainable in the activities budget that I have. So, um, again, great opportunities for students. That's a little bit of the evolution that we've been through in the 17 years I've been, uh, leading the activities programs here. So, wanted to share that with you and, um, take any questions that you have. >> This isn't a formal policy. This has just been a procedure that the district has adopted. It's an update for the board members. uh in case community members ask about it uh there on your next steps could be as simple as understanding this then we'll continue to monitor it. It could be to formally study it make a decision that you want to create a funding stream for it. Although I'll tell you that we are we're doing more funding stream cutting than adding. >> Yes. >> So this is a chance to ask any questions at absent anything uh significant tonight. we would implement the $200 per student for the current school year. >> Thank you, Mr. Schultz. Questions from the board. Karen, >> thank you, Mr. Schultz, for that. Um, appreciate the background and everything. [sighs] Gosh, it's it's really hard to think of our students having amazing opportunities and not having a way to go do those things and participate. I've always believed that students should participate in the top level of whatever their sport, club, or activity is. So, I'm wondering um what can could we can more be done around fundraising? Like say you're in DECA, you don't know that you're going to go to nationals or internationals or whatever, but maybe they're constantly fundraising because at some point they will be going, you know? I mean, does that happen or something? I just I want to see I want to see our kids go and do the top level of whatever it is they qualify for. And I think that's the shift of exactly where I would see it going is if um an athletic team has a winter trip and they go three days to go skiing up at a lodge or something. They fund raise for that knowing that's coming. These activities would have to adopt that same thing. Hey, we know Quiz Bowlull is going to go every year to Atlanta, Georgia. Okay. So, let's do let's do a fundraiser in the summer. Let's get some money saved up for that to do that. And it's just a mind shift. And that's why I've kind of been weaning from full to one to three to 400 to 200 and eventually it might get to just being fundraised to keep it uh sustainable. Do I think they can do that? I do. It just is, hey, here's the plan. Clearly communicate this is what it's going to be going forward. Let your families know what I've found out. As long as things are clearly communicated, the community does respond to that. >> Megan, >> um, thank you. Uh, I have a just kind of similar question, I guess. uh my worry is all 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 you know for a lot of students that 200 I mean it's great but maybe not necessary and so I'm just wondering is there any precedent for doing like a need-based type of application similar to I mean we do that for other like activities in the district um Because what I was thinking about as I read this is, you know, if we didn't give 200 to every student, but we were able to give 800 to certain students who demonstrated need in some way that maybe that would allow a student to go who otherwise wouldn't be able to. So, just something to throw out there. I don't know if there is any precedent for that or if there are like legal ramifications that I'm totally unaware of, but um that's always my concern is that there's somebody out there who qualified, but the cost is prohibitive enough that it will that they'll stay home. And so I'm I was just trying to think of, you know, I mean, for for just speaking for myself personally, like >> the 200 would be helpful, but you know, if you think about that, it's a fraction of a flight or one room. And for a lot of families in our district, you know, they'll still be able to go. Like it's not um going to keep them from going whether or not they get that 200. But there are some that like really that might not be enough. And so I was just trying to think about I don't know what that would look like, but >> I I think there's an option to say check this box if I'd like the school contribution to go to go to a student in need. >> I mean, >> yeah. Yeah. Certainly there's a avenue. That's a great pivot. I I like that idea. Uh what I've I guess what I've seen in the past, I can just speak to that is when there's been a student in need, there's been outside the box thinking to make that happen, whether it's a registration fee, whether it's a trip. I mean, there there's a I have a few cards I can play and lay down to try and help that and directions to push people. And so, we obviously want everybody who can go to go and find a way. And that's not even written anywhere, but that's what that's the practice we've done. So, >> I like that idea though because on the like even in elementary school field trips when you pay the field trip fee, there's also an option to like add an extra student or whatever. So, I think there like some creative thinking around >> diverting funds to those in need would just be something to consider. Sally, >> and kind of in that same vein, what's rattling around my brain is that uh this not isn't even necessarily a socioeconomic thing, but that not every student is in a position to fund raise. So, as if if we can maybe explore how not to make the fundraising student specific and more group like the group fundraises and then and helps everybody out as best they can. Um, you know, my own example, I had a lot of kids and my family got really tired of pitching in, right? And so it became more difficult to do fundraising and most of it ended up coming out of pocket. So just something to noodle on. >> Dan, >> yeah, I my my mind basically went I think sadly I think that's a a great idea as well. My mind went to the same place Megan's did pretty much immediately. So I think just looking at that or how we can expand that or or you know utilize our funds in a different way um to be more sustainable. I think that makes a lot of sense to me especially if if as you're saying like kids don't have a particularly difficult job doing the fundraising piece if it's usually successful. Makes a lot of sense. >> Karen, >> um I just had a followup. I I'm just kind of thinking it through. Um, for sure if a student can't afford it, we want to make sure. But if like say, and I'm just like just processing this. If we're going and everyone else is paying for their own and I'm the ones who's getting the fund, does any is there a way that then people realize who's getting supported and not, you know what I mean? We wouldn't want wouldn't want anything like that to happen. But would it be more successful if the entire team or the entire group was like we're fundraising like what's going to be do you think the most likely way to get people to fund raise and you know to like hey as a group we're we all want to go there and and we're all fundraising and then still have check the box if you can't afford it then whoever can't afford it >> gets extra. >> Yeah. Generally, they're they are group fundraisers in terms of like we're doing a car wash, we're going to do a group sale. Um we're all going to ask for donations. We're the booster club. A lot of them are booster club based. We're going to invoice each family and then and that's where you can if there's put a little extra in for the coverage that they need. And so there's a lot of different ways to do it and we can give them any direction that that they need. But our groups have been pretty resourceful and and that's still a part of while a lot of what these groups are doing right now as well is more of the group mentality. Rarely do they say it on like you need to sell 20 candy bars or you know in trouble or you're in trouble. But >> good some good ideas to think about. Tanya. Yeah, I like the group idea and you kind of answered a little bit of what I was going to ask you, which is how what other kind of fundraising have you thought of or how can we differentiate for clubs? You know, I know softball sells mulch in the spring or football does the activity cards now like so we're our community can have an array of different things maybe they can be a part of. So we're not always like doing the activity cards or whatever. So any other or maybe you can share later on >> with us some other fundraising things that you guys have come across? >> Yeah, the one thing I've known been being in this role for 17 years in the community, they are creative and if you think about it, they're going to do it. And um and that's a really credit to the community. They find those creative ways to do something different, not repeat, to not I need to we buy candy, you know. So um but continue to encourage that. You're right on the right track. It's for sure. Yeah, Megan, >> I would just also add I think our community is really responsive to seeing students out and about in the community like you know when the teams do a car wash or um bag groceries at Cub like people are really generous like for the teams that do it. And so I think, you know, versus like selling stuff, it seems like people get tapped out really quick on sales. But I feel like when people are out, students are out and doing things in the community. People are in our community very supportive. So I think it's totally useful. It's a great team bonding activity as it is, but it's not a replacement for I mean, you're never going to cost you're never going to cover a 100% of the cost. So, it kind of has to be like a yes and situation. >> All right. Thanks. >> Thanks a lot, Ted. >> Yep. >> Good things to think about. Appreciate it. Okay. Next up, review of some policies on the endowment trust. Superintendent law. Madam Chair, this board had a chance to hear several explanations and opportunities to create the first of its kind perpetual endowment fund that will sometime in the future fund operations for the school district off the interest. Tonight, we're going to see a preview of some policies that you'll formally approve in September if things go well on how that fund will be developed, managed, and used. Executive Director of Finance and Operations, Mr. Thank you, Superintendent Law and Madam Chair, members of the board. This is our um this f a first cut in terms of uh how we would work uh in terms of investments, gifts and donations and then the use of the earnings. uh and these are set in policy so that uh they will not be set in stone for the duration as we uh go go through the development of the fund the trust fund and are able to kind of get a little bit of uh experience in the saddle so to speak uh we'll be able to look at things and adjust them if we need to. So, I don't want you to think that this is the beall and endall of these policies, but it's a first cut and and as we get operating, we'll give it a try and we'll see how that works and then we'll adjust as we go and hopefully, you know, improve if we need to. So, our the first policy is investment of of uh the perpetual dominant trust fund corpus. And uh the the main thing about this is it's it's really is a a uh very much mimics our investment policy for regular funds. uh the uh but the investments in the perpetual trust fund um are limited to investments on authorized under Minnesota statutes 118A.04. Those are actually the same funds that our regular cash is allowed to be invested in by by that same statute. So right now we have we are bound to this particular statute. If at some point in time uh 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 uh moved into eligibility to be invested in the same type of investments that our OPED trust fund is able to be done. That that's governed under Minnesota section 356A.06, I believe. And that allows you to have a financial advisor invest in the same range of investments that the state board of investments will invest for the the TRA, P, MSRS funds and um uh you know and and be able to basically generate additional income. And that's what our again our OPED trust fund which we are are um going to be talking about a little bit later uh is is able to be invested in. So, we're able to get an average return there, investing conservatively of about 6.9%. Under uh 118.04, something more in the mid-3s to 4% is probably what we expect. So, it's still still good. It's safe. Um but u uh and that's what we that's what we get on the funds that we have in cash for the district and that we see intern oversee internally for investments every every year actually every month. Um, in terms of gifts and donations, policy 736, the the big item there is that um um we we will obviously get cash. And that's pretty simple. Uh but it we may be able um we're we're saying, hey, we will take stock, we'll take vehicles, we'll take real estate, really any asset. Uh and and this is actually a little bit of a mimic of uh the um when I served on the board of ICA food shelf as a treasure, I did that for 10 years. But we had a policy that said, "Okay, you can donate that, but we need to turn it into a cash investment because we're not in the in the business of of you know, managing or selling selling the vehicles ourselves or maintaining vehicles um or real estate. If somebody said, "Hey, you know, I'm going to donate a a house to you." We're not in the business of maintaining that. you want to turn that into assets that can be invested much more quickly. And so this basically just lays out the uh the parameters of saying if you do do give us a give us stock, vehicles, real estate or other assets, we will look then to immediately turn those into u you know liquid cash that can then be invested and managed. So and then uh finally um I have the sorry I get my fingers to work here. uh just the use of the investment earnings and this is a a first cut of what we've talked about and uh uh so if if if we're earning funds you know we what what are we going to be able to do with the payoff and basically this mentions that uh these would be something where we would want to have additional work on in terms of developing programs of significant but this policy is is worded generically so that if you are saying this is what we're investing in that can be a whole separate discussion and you don't have to change of policy because you as the board are going are the trustees of this fund and um you know but you will be able to have discussions about okay well these this one should be added or this one should be taken off or um but the idea is that these funds would be uh used primarily to sustain programs of significance in the future things that most other district districts might not have more or less outside the core uh because the state of Minnesota in theory should be funding reading writing arithmetic for the most part um uh but funding the unique things that we have to be able to continue to keep people interested in school and continuing to show up. And then the suggestion is at the bottom or item C3C is that um that we would have a distribution of investments take that would take place in any year in which the investment earnings are $250,000 or greater. So um we would the board would actually set the annual percentage of investment earnings to be um distributed um to the general operating fund. So this doesn't actually set that dollar amount. That would be another decision that you would determine to you know on after discussion uh and have that be in essence more of a procedure than the policy. So you set how much gets pulled out, you set what it gets used for and um uh and and that's the way it should be as a trustees of the of the fund. So now we also have this is not specifically to this, but uh we've got the the final version of our of our actual perpetual endowment trust document. Uh it's been uh re uh put reviewed and and modified by uh Katrina West Becker from Dorsy who's the uh the head of their trust department. And uh it's it's uh there was just a few minor wording tweaks after I reviewed it. And so I sent it back to her to send us a clean document to be able to bring forward for your review and approval on September 10th. So we we're we're we're close to having you know the the the structure uh set in set in not set in stone but set in paper at least and or electrons and um you know we are actually working uh behind the scenes um Dr. Getty and her staff have been putting promotional items, materials, web web page information together. We're going to start looking at rolling those out once we get a final document in place for the for the trust. So, um, hopefully we well, we'll see. I I'm pretty sure I can't say this definitively, but from what I know, I I think we we may be the first we probably are the first school district in the state of Minnesota with a perpetual endowment fund. So, we're boldly going where no school district has gone before. >> So, >> thank you, Mr. Poat. Do we have any questions from the board? Megan, >> um, thanks for this. It's really exciting to see it kind of getting into life. Um I had a question um and somebody had asked me that I just wanted to clarify. So the current allowed um investments through statute are only in things like bonds where there's no loss of principle. Correct. Like if the it's like the corpus could never go down below the original start amount. Well, well, we can we can in invest we would be investing like at things like treasuries or AAA rated bonds. >> There is and the thing is you actually when you invest in bonds if you actually hold the bonds to maturity you never lose the corpus but there's this thing that it's an accounting stat um standard that requires you every year to mark them to market. Uh so what happens is is because the assumption is that people aren't going to hold them to to maturity and that you're going to sell them and so what's the market value of a particular bond? So you can have um a you you in theory can have a paper loss as a bond gets gets dropped in terms of market value but again if you hold it to maturity you never have a corpus loss. >> Okay. So you would never have to take a loss. Like it's not like this like investing in a stock where it's going to fluctuate wildly and the principal could plummet and you lose that corpus. Yes. It's going to maintain. >> Yeah. Like if if any of you would have bonds in your 401k or 403b or whatever you might have, uh you would you would you would notice that you have a a value of your bonds, >> you know, x,000, but the market value might be x,000 minus a certain amount. But again, if you hold it to maturity, the closer you get to maturity, the more that market value actually ends up being back to the uh, you know, the face value. >> And so when then when it matures, you get the face value. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were all able to ask answer that if people asked us what would happen to their money if they put it in here. So, >> yes. >> Thank you, Dan. >> Um, couple quick things. When we when we talk about OPED later tonight, it might [clears throat] be nice to look at the risk allocation of the funds in OP where we'd eventually like to invest these sort of funds versus what we're allowed to do now. Just sort of like >> sidebyside ballpark them as best as we can. Um and then as far as 737 use of earnings um future boards will they be contractually procluded from withdrawing more than the earnings every year right they they will be right like well technically no I mean you're setting a policy to do that but the thing is is if you if you commit, you know, if you commit, if you if the promise to your your uh your donors is that you will never touch the corpus, then then you are obligated to not touch the corpus. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, >> okay. >> But there but there could be there could be a year when you don't earn as much but you could draw out a little bit because the corpus was, you know, not it was still above the corpus. >> It was previous earnings that hadn't been dispersed or something. >> Correct. Yeah. No, I I think it it future boards, they might just want to consider how they go about it and if we want to, you know, if if you know touching past earnings in leaner times is something that they want to do or if it's better preserved. >> Still in that same policy, um, in requirement C, which was has the $250,000 or greater in earnings, can you just speak to where that amount comes from? like what what's the rationale behind 250k? >> Uh just the the idea behind that dollar amount is >> uh to be able to have enough to make a significant difference. >> Okay? >> You know if if so let's say you if you earn 250,000 you say hey let's take 50% of it. Well, that'll pay for a teacher approximately. You know, whereas if you earned a h 100,000 and you pull out 50, you know, you can do something with it, but you probably can't save a position or, you know, that's just the thought behind it. So, for better or worse, but there's nothing set in stone about that number. It's not magic. It's just a suggestion. So, um and and that's why it's in here for discussion and consideration. But if you think a different number is better or you just say, "Hey, every year let's just pull some out." That's all good, too. you know. So, yeah. >> And I mean, that seems kind of reasonable, too, because if you do quick math, like um you you'd have to have the like an $8 million fund earn 3% to make $250,000 or like a $6 million fund earn 4%. So, the fund's going to it it it also forces the fund to grow for enough time until it's substantial before folks could start to tap into it. Just to prove that I really read this thoroughly in 7:35 um just before it comes back before the board under uh 3B there's a quotation at the end of that paragraph that is extraneous. >> Oh >> thank you. Um, you had mentioned Katrina, right, will get the final paperwork, whatever, September 10th. Is that when you want to start a committee or how do we decide? In here, it says that we'll have um a three member advisory committee. So, is that about the time when we want to think about that or >> Well, you could do it anytime. Just the thought was it's like, okay, all the documents are in place. So now let's the next step would be let's because we we won't have a lot of funds to to talk about yet. >> Sure. >> But uh the the thing would be to to try then maybe recruit a committee was the thought process behind that but we could start that anytime. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? It's exciting especially that you think we're maybe the only school district around. So that's great. >> Thank you Paul. >> Okay. Next up is I think it's still you >> update on building bond construction progress. Superintendent Law, >> Madam Chair, members of the board, this will feel very fresh to you because we just put shovels in the dirt for a groundbreaking at MME a few hours ago, but we have a commitment. Our community was generous enough to make a substantial contribution towards the future of the district in their facilities. Tonight, we're going to get an update on where we are on that bond related construction with some visual updates and some forecasting and what's going to happen over the next 12 months as soon as the screen. Okay. Yeah. Cast. >> Okay. >> Screen beam. Yep. >> Yeah. And there we go. >> Uh two 2807. >> You got to click in there. >> I'm sorry. Sorry. I got booted out by Ted, so I got to get back in. >> Connect. Okay, >> it should be popping up for you. >> Uhhuh. >> And then now you can start your slideshow from the beginning. >> Yeah, >> of course. Looks like we're ready, Mr. B. >> All righty. There we go. >> You got it. >> We are back in business. Okay. Uh so we've we've had a lot of activity uh this over the last x number of months. It doesn't seem like it because we've been designing designing designing. Um but we uh have have actually got our two middle schools out to bid and in fact we opened bids today at 2:00 on MMW. Uh so we for for the building portion remember we did about bids on the initial facility items that had to get done uh a few months back. And so with our bid today we had a very good very good bid uh process and and good good bids submitted. And if you take the combination of bid one and bid two, we are about a million dollars under our allocation uh of the of the bonds that were allocated for construction for that project, which is a good thing. So hopefully there'll be some money left over, but we got to get out of the ground first because there's always excitement with what you might find underneath our underneath our grass and everything where we're digging uh and doing foundation work. But uh it's a it's a good start. So knock on wood. We'll see how we do. Next week we're going to be doing uh November uh or November August 25th uh the U MME bid. So uh but we're we're off on we're off to a good start on in terms of our bids and um I'm actually running kind of on four hours of sleep because I was just so nervous about this bid. I mean it was because construction inflation's been running at 13 and a half%. So um anyway, so we're we're we're in the right right spot. So this is the prioritization list and the the items in green were the things that were selected and and moved forward including and then cafeteria was just such a big need that kind of materialized particularly after the high school switch from six per six lunches to three. Uh and then and the epic security system which is going to be deployed um uh very smoothly just like a SpaceX rocket uh next week uh at the high school. So, um that's what we have in process, but um as we've worked to make the plans operational, we've also uh looked for other ways to include items on the list in some way if possible. So, there's a couple things that we've done over the last couple last several months that uh or since the bond issue was, you know, put together and run that uh were not uh on the list, but we were able to do some things related to it. And uh so as with the the high school more loft style spaces uh uh principal Ericen was wanting to get his loft back. That's where aviation had moved into. And we did a small a project to basically subdivide the physical health center and moved aviation one uh down to that lower level. It's a great space if you ever get a chance to go look at it. And uh still keep the the physical health center actually probably more more rightly sized now. And uh and so the loft is back in operation for uh for the high school. Do they still want more loft style spaces? Yes. But we were able to basically give them back the ones that they had that they they like so much. Uh and then so we re uh it said relocate the fitness center. Well, we didn't have to relocate the fitness center. We just modified it. We split a 4500 foot fa space into halves and basically uh so we can keep the fitness center there rather than moving it into the basement. uh excelsier. They're looking for larger nurses space and and lobby config reconfiguration. That didn't um uh those didn't make the initial list, but as we're looking at doing Excel shear, we looked at putting the small group spaces, you'll see it later, uh but we looked at putting the small group spaces initially like on the back, but as we started getting into detail on that, it was really going to take out a lot of the playground and they don't have a huge playground there. So we said well let's look at what happens if we just move the office out and then uh convert the office into small group spaces and in and so we started looking at that and it's the same dollar amount would be a a better solution and as part of that we get a larger nur nurses space and so the lobbies reconfigured. So again we're trying to if we can get other things done as as byproducts or as something makes sense we're we're working to do that. Uh and uh those are there's projects in process. This is aviation one. Uh just some pictures there. Oh, sorry. Did there you go. Um so middle schools. So uh we had some unique challenges at at at the Minnotonka Middle School. Um at at West it was this is the the the layout of the of the site from uh used to say bird's eye view, now it's satellite view. But uh we needed to do phase one, relocate and rebuild the physical education main field and track and then so uh site preparation uh is going to be uh well it's going on from June until November. All that stuff will be done but additional site preparation that needed to be done now was relocating student drop off and pickup driveway, storm water retention pond, storm water retention pond for science swing. So they've been driving up behind on the west side and and doing a little bit of digging there. Uh and then we've had to do a lot of relocation of electrical and natural gas lines and prepare of the construction staging site. So these are some pictures and of course we were there a couple weeks ago. Uh pictures in process. So that's the uh the base. It's kind of fun interesting, but we actually have granite underneath our our synthetic turf fields. But uh they have a little bit more bounce with the stuff they put on top. But you can see the driveway kind of being relocated in the upper right. you know, you take a take a straight in um go straight and then then take a turn. Uh because the uh the gymnasium is going to be built and performance area is going to be built right there and this is going to be construction staging. So actually all this will be construction staging. So we relocated the driveway and then that that's just a picture from right on the corner. kind of looks like a fisheye view a little bit. And uh this is just an overall overview of phase phase one actually and phase two, but you can see so we're looking at the the the soccer field 120 yards long by 72 wide. We have the track the retaining walls actually going in uh this week and uh so they're making good progress and um you again you can see how the driveway is relocated to basically have people come straight down and then still go to their normal unloading spot. We've got the two additions that will be going in. And this is a an above ground storm water pond. If for some reason we we ever need uh additional space or want to build something on that site, we could figure out a way to put that underground and increase the capacity and all that. Um but that was something that actually worked in in the budget right now. Uh so uh phase two uh actually the bid was open today as I mentioned. So we're going to mobilize in in uh September and work through December. We're guarant we're guaranteed December, but if we get get good um results and good weather and all that kind of stuff, maybe we'll we may maybe we'll beat that, but we're guaranteeing by the end of December so that you can move in and start utilizing it the second semester of of uh of 2728. Uh internal modifications. This you you've heard these before, but staff restrooms, small group rooms, and media center modifications. We're also going to do uh with all these projects, we're we're uh doing long-term facility maintenance work for economies of scale. And in this case, we're we're kind of getting a twofer because we're the we have older steam piping and water piping. It need to be increased. So, we're going to do that and replace the original piping. Uh same thing with the 1964 headend electrical cabinet. In fact, those we're going to order ourselves here in another few weeks. We're just getting the specification set together and we're going to bring those on uh into well into the district and we're going to store them at the warehouse because we want them we want to make sure they're here because the head end requires shutdown of everything and we're going to do that the week before the 4th of July in the summer. So, we want to have it on site ready to go so we can just knock it out in the on the uh on the week before the 4th of July. So, and then we're going we have some more uh the next phase will be some more LTFM work in June 2028, August 28, summer 2028. So, replacing the original stucco uh do the wood shop HVAC system and there's always roofs roofs and paving everywhere. So, uh there you go. That that's the familiar uh picture. And uh the other thing is just to mention someday maybe if if people say hey we want more gyms or whatever there's actually space for educational space or in theory three more of these things can fit in that space. So it it wasn't it wasn't designed that way. That's just the way it actually laid out by taking the driveway straight. But we looked at and go okay well you know if they ever decide they want a fieldhouse for activities in a future there you go. Uh, it's one of the few places we could probably actually do something like that. >> Just real real quick, since we're on MMW and we drove out there a couple weeks ago for the groundbreaking, I noticed some temporary stop lightss at the intersection there with 41 that weren't yet operational. >> Do we know when those are going to They are now. >> Yeah. >> And how long are they there? They are going to be there for approximately two years and the state installed them for the duration of the highway 5 project because they're soon going to be closing highway 5 to put a widen a causeway and put a bridge across uh Lake Minawashta. And so they're going to be writing all routing all the highway five traffic up highway 41. And so they're they put these temporary lights there. And of course, the ironic thing is is that we've asked twice in the past to have lights put there and they said, "Well, there's not enough volume, right?" So, and then we've done the the the roundabout, right? And so, we put $400,000 to the roundabout, and they wanted to do that last year before the highway uh highway 5 project started, but the city didn't bid it out until March of 2025, and they wanted to be done in June. Well, so, of course, the price was just through the roof. And so they they had to reject all bids. So now we're at this temporary stoplight is in the city of Chanass 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, you know, could we just leave it? I mean, >> or even if we paid for the stop lightss, it'd be cheaper than actually paying for part of the roundabout put to put them in and have they be there permanently. >> But anyway, maybe there's an opportunity, but anyway. So good question. >> No, great. Thank you. So, um, okay. Minnotonka Middle School. So, um, we had to do some work with replacing the main sanitary line, uh, from the building to the Met Council sanitary main, which is about was about 460 ft out into the field. And uh, it that that pipe was made out of clay tile and after 72 years, it was actually after about 69 years, it was starting to fail. when we were repairing and repairing because we knew something was going to happen or we would do this uh you know something like this. So um we pulled it out and replaced it and then we reconfigured the student drop off and pickup circulation at the request of the city and um so we we've uh looking at refiguring or reconfigured the parking lots actually uh just to pick up the new circulation pattern and also pick up some additional spots. So, uh, these are just some photos of the, uh, operation to to put in the new sanitary line. The this particular thing is a is a water pump. And it's hard to tell from that, but there was so much water as they excavated for the pipe, the water would just gush right in. And because the water table's so high, right? So, they couldn't they had to actually bring in more pumps. And that's a that is an 8 inch diameter water pipe, flexible water pipe going out and it goes to it went over to a a manhole receptacle into the into the water man for this the city I I'm sorry uh into the water man that actually goes for the field that goes into the Met Council system. But that thing when it was pumping it was just gushing water. It sounded like a you know like a waterfall just like or like a fire hose. There was so much water coming in it. So that thing is actually hooked up the the thing coming out the front. There was all these pipes all along that were driven down about 10 feet and just sucking all the water out. So but they were able then to have dry ground to be able to work. But the water table it's a little bit hard to see, but you can you can kind of see like a a little bit of you know gradient change. the water tables about three feet below the surface where you start running into damp soil. And um anyway, so and that's what we're going to be dealing with actually when we're digging the um uh the foundation for the gymnasium performance area because we're going to have to put down a hu whole bunch of pilings that go down actually through the water table down to Bedrock. So um so we'll be opening next week and uh keep our fingers crossed. So hope they'll be mobilizing in in September also and doing the same internal modifications. Uh same internal long-term facility maintenance work uh actually at both places. We're also replacing the cafeteria flooring. Uh and then again exterior work in summer 28 um to just kind of really finish gussying up the building. Don't hear that term used very often anymore. Um so this is again the layout. So where we were standing with the tent for today's groundbreaking was right about here. So that's how big that that um that roundabout. It has to be for the buses. It's a dance of the elephants when you have them all in there and they just take up a lot of space. But again, don't forget we'll also have a lot of nice dual striping for additional additional use for after hours and weekends at the high school. Uh we're working uh actually just starting the process to reconfigure the counseling area uh to provide better space and office areas for all forms of counseling. So we have psychiatrists and sociologists and actually met with Jeff on Friday and uh he was taking a headcount. There's there's like 24 people that they want to put in there, which is almost doubles the number of people that are housed there right now. Uh but we are going to be able to do that because we're going to double the space utilized for counseling from about 3,000 ft² to 6,200. Uh we are we we are thinking we might have to phase it. Maybe not. So this was based on prior to meeting with Jeff and talking about relocations and things like that. So this says phase one, phase two, but we might be able to just do it all at once if but it depends how we can relocate them. He might relocate his counselors up to the loft and if that that's the case, we just go June 27, November 2027. But what we are um what we're looking at doing actually is uh just trying to reconfigure some things and open up the uh area along the common so it can get get kind of reflected light coming in from the Clar stories but also kind of reconfiguring and having like a main street going east and west and then we'd be able to put a some big windows in the um on the south end that gets light off of the courtyard across from the cafeteria just to bring more natural light in there and make it just seem a little more brighten and kind of a happy place. It's kind of a a a I mean it it was nice and it's worked well, but it's it's it's a dark space with [clears throat] no no really natural light. And so hopefully that'll make it a better place. And then um the cafeteria and staff restroom. So, we're going to be adding a 3,000 square foot addition to the cafeteria, which is about the size of the if if you're familiar with the cafeteria space, there's some big columns uh that kind of signify an addition that was done in 1998. So, we're going to be putting on another addition of approximately that size. So, uh and we say June 2027 to December 2027, just guesstimating that we'll be able to actually knock that thing out a bit faster because it literally is a just a big open space. So, you know, you you paint the walls, you hang the lights, you know, paint everything up, put the floor in and stuff, and you're ready to go. So, uh we might be able to turn that around a little bit quicker. And then we have the east parking lot addition, uh approximately 110 parking spaces, and uh that would increase approximately 10% in the available parking on the campus. If we if we can get it through the city of Mitanka. Um operative word there is if no u uh we already actually a neighbor has has notified them and maybe they've watched on TV because we've you know but they have asked to have a me have a meeting with us. So um and that's fine. So we because we're starting on the design work and we were going to call them and have a meeting with them anyway quickly. But uh they reached out to us actually just today and said hey I hear you're going to be building a parking lot. and you come over and talk about it. And so we're going to do that. Um so but that would be about a 5 to six month uh process. Although actually because it's not, you know, it's it's it's kind of out of the way. If there's a way that we can start earlier in June and just have we'd have to manage the trucks going in and out of that bus driveway, but if if we can actually start it earlier than June, we would do that. And then if that's the case, maybe we'd luck out and be able to to have it ready for September of 27. So, we'll see. Um, but that's that's like the kind of the guarantee time assuming we get our permits. So, that's where the cafeteria edition is is going approximately. And then this is the space that we're working with. And actually Jeff asked us to include this classroom which was created in the uh 2009 student union project where we added 14 classrooms and connected the two um the the two courtyards uh and m and turned that into the the common student. It was originally called student union, but everybody called the commons. So, it's a commons. And uh yeah, so what we're talking about is these are some uh ventilation shafts that we to upper level. We can't take those out, but uh I I was talking to to Dave and Jeff about capturing some space here with glass, knocking this wall out, capturing some space with glass. And actually, this looks right down out door uh 14. Um and uh so there's actually you can see all the way out from there uh to to light plus the light from the and also to give it more of a presence because this is just kind of like a back kind of like a little back eddy in the in the river of of people. And uh so that would be one area to get into the place and then this would all be storefront and more light. But then as we move people around that gives us the ability to go down to this area here and put a nice some nice big windows in. So we would have light coming in from all over. Uh we're also going to be roofing uh replacing a JV baseball field uh and uh we are going to uh uh accommodate the change for six lunch periods down to three and then uh some more exterior work and and then actually they we're it's time to replace the upper field uh turf field in a summer from now elementary schools. So at Minawasha uh media center edition and I I put phase one on here just because the existing media center can't be changed until really we move into the new media center. So uh we would start construction in June and and hopefully and not hopefully but we should be able to finish by December and then we be along with that we'll replace the last windows that need to be replaced in the building on the north wing. Uh we'll do some pavement mill and overlaying which it's that's they're due. And then we'll also um replace the cafeteria flooring. Uh actually that one doesn't have to be done because I was able to actually get it done a year ahead of time. So I should have took that off, but so that's done already. So if you get actually go see the cafeteria flooring, it actually looks like a wood floor gym, but it's no wax stuff and and uh looks pretty cool. We've done that at several of our elementary schools and we're we're working our way around. And then we'll do the small group and and staff restrooms in phase two because those are all going to go into the existing media center. And so we would do that in June of 2028 just simply because if we move into the new media center midy year, it's a lot of noise and construction and that type of thing. And so we would just do those over the summer because it's it's right in the middle of the of the building. So the built the uh media center is going to go out the back. We have to re relocate the driveway uh to provide for uh um the uh South Lake uh fire district or sorry Excelsure Fire District um trucks if they have to get back there in EM emergency vehicles and uh but we still will be able to maintain the baseball field and that that mainly is is t-ball for younger younger students or younger ball players. So, uh, if anything gets out of there on the fly, um, it's sign that kid up, you know. So, most of the most of those balls are on the ground and if they if they get out of the infield, it's it's it's been quite a quite a hit. Um, so, uh, just kind of a little bit of a this this is actually literally the same size as the Groveland, uh, and almost the same configur almost exact same configuration as the Groveland media center, which is a template as one we actually won an award for. Uh, but we're going to work with the staff to fix it up and, you know, and put their own touches on it and and and work on the inside, but it also fits on the side. And the nice thing about it is there's this massive uh storm water drain that goes out to the pond in the back and and we don't want to move that or change it. And it actually happens to fit, you know, it's like it fits just just right. So, um, and we're going to improve the handicapped access a little bit because, so there'll be a more gentler slope be, uh, because actually that media center is going to be 16 inches lower than the music room. Uh, but it'll be a gentle slope and then a nice vestibule, a nice bigger vestibule for handicap students coming in and out. And then the lower level is where we would look at putting phase two. The uh second uh second part of this is is doing small group rooms and they actually can get a uh the minute wash is actually tight on small group rooms compared to most places. And so we actually got what 1, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them there and still fit in the the staff restrooms. There's staff restrooms spread out all around the place. And there's uh one here, but one of the staff restrooms is actually also the custodial closet. But um there's plumbing right here. So we can go across and and just really economically add those two additional staff restrooms. Plus those are in a good location if you know teachers need to use the restroom and they got to you know go check at the office or you know going go into the the u uh the staff lounge and things like that. So it's a good location. Excelsier elementary here's front office edition convert uh the offices to small current office to small group and restrooms. Uh so we preserve playground space and uh similar timelines uh and most of that could be completed a lot could be completed in the summer. And then also we're working on replacing cabinets. Uh we started replacing cabinets this year but we're going to do about half the cabinets uh in the 1929 building basically the first floor and and a few of the places where we're working on and on the second and third floor. And then we'll be doing the rest on the second and third floor in um in in the 1929 building uh next the summer after because but what that does is it allows us to have the 1929 building open for um uh open for explorers because we want to replace some windows in the 1928 or 1958 building. So we're just trying to coordinate that and and sequence it properly. So, we'd be looking at the addition would be right out the front and um actually we met with principal Smos and she when she saw this she was really enthusiastic. Oops, I'm kind of Yeah. So, there we go. Um so, again, this is the the current office is is is right here. And actually, this is an existing room. That's an existing room. It's the AP office. And this is the reception area. And then the nurse's office is actually much smaller. It's about like this. So, we increase the size of the nurse's office. and uh move the principal out, AP out, uh secure entry with all the appropriate buzz in, buzz out, you know, um can't get through here, got to go come in here so you can get out of the snow, get buzzed in, recognize, get your badge, and get buzzed out. And uh also, we've got some further work on this. We actually have another uh conference room uh for the principal. Principal's conference room right there. Um and principal Smalls is very enthusiastic about that, too. So, um which is always a good thing. And uh so that's what we would do. And then in terms of making this addition, we'd look at make it match the 1929 building. And uh this is just the first cut. So this is what it looks like right now. But when we do this addition, and you know, when we built the 2013 uh cafeteria and and gymnasium edition, we mimicked uh the the the architecture and and the little roundell at the top, just a little nice little touch of the 1929 buildings. And um so this is what it would look like. Although we've got a different version of this where where we're actually making this out of the uh out of the same color uh as the 1929 building and it says Excelsier Elementary in the same font because that's a a a Roman Roman uh font with SIF and we're going to put that on the front too. So but that but we we would tie it in conceptually. We tie it in do the Rondell and stuff and just kind of tie the building together a little bit. So, let's see. Groan Elementary School Music Room small group staff restroom circulation edition. Uh, similar timelines uh similar timelines for the staff restrooms. We have to do an underground storm water pond in the bus corral and that has to happen in the summer. We'll do be doing some LTFM work at the same time. So, the whole front of the building, we'll get new windows and uh there we this is one of the cafeteria floors we haven't replaced yet. So, we'll get we'll get them the uh the basketball ball cordy looking uh stuff that's no wax and and put those in and uh some parking lot work, but uh and because of so much heavy construction and where the addition is, it's really difficult to have the explorers going back and forth out to the playground. So, we would close that and the girl explorers will go to Deep Haven. We've put a ton of work into Deep Haven this summer and so they don't basically we've hit all the LTFM work that they need. they're they're just, you know, ready to go. And uh so they'd be able to take explorers for a year and then Groven Explorers can go back to Groin at [clears throat] summer 28. So um that's where the addition is going. Uh oh, I forgot to add the layout. Okay. Well, sorry about that. Um this is going to be a music room. This is going to be a second hallway because right now it gets very congested in this area and uh because there's one hallway that comes down this way and then the whole north south thing. So with all the lunch and gym and all that stuff there, this is always just a a traffic jam of students. So uh we would basically uh tap into the this there's north south hallway here. Tap into that. Put a hallway along the north edge, but it' be a glass hallway so that these classrooms can still see out. So, it'll still, you know, be like be like looking out the window through the through the hallway, but still it'll it'll work out fine. And then we have a second room here that's approximately a classroom size room, but they were going to put small groups in there. But if at some point in time they ever wanted to convert that into a future use for for students, it could be, but it's going to be a small group room, a collection of small group rooms. Five um three small group rooms in that one. So, that's the uh that's the addition work there. Then we have scenic Heights. So, we're we're kind of coming to the uh end of the end of the presentation here pretty quick. Small group and staff restrooms were the key things they that they needed. Um they've had a lot of you know, all of our schools have had a lot of additions over the years, but uh so they um and with their size, there wasn't the the committee didn't said didn't feel there was a need for additional, you know, larger spaces. But, uh, the second driveway, City of Minnotonka, maybe I should have put I should use that quotation mark here, requested. Um, you know, suggested maybe. How's that? Um, but today we found out that uh because our we we had our staff go meet with the city of Minnitonka. Actually, this morning I couldn't go because I was working on another issue, but um they want us to have a 20 foot wide driveway. So, that'll be interesting to make sure that that fits into the budget. Uh but uh we'll also be replacing a lot of windows on the east which is the front of the building and the south wing uh cafeteria floor. So this building will also be closed because of heavy construction and uh we'll send them over to Clear Springs in and for one summer and Clear Springs is in really good shape. Uh it's had heavy uh LTFM work and uh then a year from now uh explorers would go back to Scenic Heights. But at at that point in time, we just have to replace some windows on the center wing and and really we're going to be done there with a lot of the LTFM for a long time. So, our small group rooms, we'll put them out the back and then actually we're doing a staff restroom here and a staff restroom here. Just it just works well with with where the other staff restrooms are. And then we will be coming around the back with our with our driveway. We're going to have to reconfigure this a little bit, but they want 20 foot wide. So, we might have to move some of the playground big toy stuff, but um 20 foot wide all the way around, be able to unload back here, or they could unload multiple places depending on how they want to do it. But, um you know, it'll be it'll be set up and ready to go. Hopefully, we get the okay on the uh on the driveway project to be able to start constructing that and construct it over the summer of 27. But I think I think we will get the okay on that because they really want us to have that done while they're building their roundabout on or before they build their roundabout on highway or on Excelsure Boulevard and and City Heights Drive. So this is just kind of a layout of how the small group rooms would work. And uh we we've we've doesn't mean there's ever going to be any more rooms, but we've kind of master planned it that if there were other rooms, you'd be able to kind of plug in the middle and create another courtyard off the media off the media center there. if for some reason they needed to do something in the future. Okay. Then Clear Springs Elementary School, we needed for explorers for one summer and uh so we would actually because we're sending explorers over there, we would do do this um project in summer of 2028. And uh the the other thing about is it's really it's not a super complicated project, but where we'd have to stage, we'd be right in the playground. And if you got explorers there, it's just not going to not going to, you know, mix. So, um, we got a little bit of LTFM work. We got like four windows that need to be replaced on the west side of the courtyard. And, um, we've been doing some work on the kitchen floors of all the cafeterias or all the kitchen floors adjacent to the cafeterias. Uh, re redoing the terazzo and then adding space for a second combi oven. So, they're the kind of like the Swiss Army knife of food services. And so we'd be adding staff restrooms in the corner of the This is a change. The initial concept was put everything in the courtyard. But as we looked at it's like that's a lot of expensive uh construction and it really changes the nature of that courtyard. Uh and it it it also because of the the the space the more you be doing back there the more it might encroach on on just the the daily school operation. And so a couple of bathrooms, we think we can knock that out easily during the summer. And then we so we look at putting this four small group rooms. When we built this gym, we added small group rooms here and we left space for future. And um so we're looking at putting small group rooms on on the um add added onto the existing ones on the gym right in that corner. So be very efficient and that that in that location with being able to just work on the build, you know, staging off of the uh off the the culde-sac to the east would be, you know, would be able to knock that out. They probably could finish that over the summer because it's it's not a super big addition. So that's approximately what it would look like. And then Deep Haven uh since it's needed for explorers and also it's one of the more interesting and challenging um sites uh we would look at doing their gymnasium small group and mobilize for that and and start construction in June of 28 and be done by December 28 along with staff restrooms. So, we've got a lot of difficult terrain there. Uh because most of the remaining sites a wetland. Uh we actually have a uh photo of before there was a school there and to the lower level was actually a wetland with a creek going out into Carson's Bay. So, um we're looking at things, but I think it's still Well, there it is. Yeah. Um so, all this this area here is Well, there's a school, but this area is that's the baseball field. So they let him infill a baseball field and make it a baseball field. If they hadn't done that back then, if it was now, they'd say, you know, forget it. So, um, but we have it, so we get to keep it. Uh, just a couple other things. You can see where they filled it in in bite, um, and did a couple of baseball fields. And, um, this is where they started doing the, um, uh, the playground. One of the things I've been thinking about is there's talk about doing a miracle playground because of the of the special ed students there. this doesn't lend itself to to um because it's multiple levels and stuff. And so one one thought that I we're exploring is possibly well because the original the original concept was to do this and try to build a large retaining wall, but this area here is probably not probably all soggy and swampy underneath from those aerial photos. So, one of the things that might work that I want to that I just want to look at because we have time to look at it is turning that gym instead of running it this way, turning it like this and taking this playground and put it all up on one flat level and then you'd have your miracle playground like right there and not behind the gym and uh so it' be much more accessible for the neighborhood and everything too. So, that's just another another version to for us to explore. But yeah, so right now this was the initial concept, you know, during the uh the task force where we were brainstorming on things and just trying to get cost estimates and and you know, so our cost estimates are good and and you know, we have the spaces, but it always it's you know, when you when when you actually start looking at and going, okay, now you're really getting into the details, it's like sometimes you need to adjust kind of like what we've done at Excelsier. So you know, I mentioned the construction environment. It's challenging. The builder's cost index. I was just so overjoyed this this afternoon because the B builder's cost index went up 13.5% from June of 25 when you said, "Yeah, let's go run the referendum until June of 26." So, um, but we're going to work hard to deliver what was promised and stay within our 85 million. Uh, we issued the 2026A bonds. We had a really good appetite for it. So, we picked up 2.41 million in premium. So that's still sitting there and we're investing the funds and so far we've got another 1.85 million locked in. I think that by the time we actually do all these projects and stuff, I think we're going to have some actually some of these term in November uh December and January and a lot of those I'll be able to roll over again and if interest rates stay up, I might be able to get as much as 4% for them. But we should pick up another possibly another $1 million on that before we actually use the cash. Uh so um the uh you know that hopefully construction hopefully our bids next week will come in just as well. I mean I was just totally amazed. But um we're looking at selling, you know, the next [clears throat] bonds. And so it's too early to tell how things will work, but we the big thing, you know, the core mission is is to deliver what was promised. But if we if you know if we get to the end of the line of of these projects um or you know we have a much better idea of okay okay here's what we've got here's we sold our we're going to be selling our bonds next week on the 26 so we're looking to sell those at premium given that 13.5%. I mean you think it's got to show up eventually. So we're we're looking at trying to issue those at premium also because we you know just want to make sure that we can deliver what we promise no matter what even if the economy you know starts going crazy. I mean it just seems like in inflation wants Sorry I don't want to do that yet. Well I have to um uh so we'll see. But um I'm hoping that you know we'll be able to have if if everything works out in a perfect world, we might have a chunk of dollars, you know, in in 2028 where you can go, hey, you know, we have some things extra. What do we want to do with it? So, you know, we'll we'll see if we make that happen. But the the main thing is the main thing which is delivering what was promised and so hopefully inflation doesn't take off and we can do that. Um, but if we inflation does take off, we're trying to just hedge ourselves so that we have the resources to make sure we deliver what we promised. So that's what construct where construction's at. So, um, thank you for putting up with me for that long. >> Well, thank you. And it's always amazes me how you're always thinking around all of these things and saving every literally penny around this massive project. I mean, there's so many projects that are going on at the same time, and I I was just thinking how I went and visited you a couple weeks ago to sign some documents, and you were saying, "Okay, I'm off to go look at all of the projects that are happening." So, it's, you know, you're just so on top of things all of the time. And that's just as a board, we're so grateful for that because, >> you know, you're just on top of all of the money and the projects and everything. So, do we have comments or questions from the board, Dan? >> Right. I'm just curious about the the scenic second driveway and the city's request on that. Like how how wide did we originally plan for that to be and what's the rationale behind the city pushing it to 20 ft? Uh the um I so and I wasn't in that meeting with the city, but our our the landscape architect Ron Spowden was there and he told me they said that their standard for circumference drive or um they're calling fire, it is a fire lane already, but it's about maybe 10 or 12 feet wide. And we thought we might have to have it go out um another three or four feet, but we're probably going to have to have it go out eight feet. And so the ramifications there because of the slope is higher retaining wall, more than double the fill, you know. So, um I think we still have enough money in the bond to do it. I hope um fallback is that's a betterment. So, if there's money left over in the, you know, general obligation bond funds, you that would be able to complete it. But, um that's their standard they said. So, and they typically don't um don't make variances off of things that they have as standard. >> All right, >> Megan. >> I actually have a practical logistical question. So, the firms that bid for the West project, >> like they're not all going to get it. Can they also bid the east project next week? >> Oh, absolutely. Yeah. >> Okay. So, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me that um if all there's five firms that bid and actually the range of bids was from 13.8 million up to uh 14.8. So, it's about about a million dollars, which is actually pretty tight on a project that size, pretty tight range of bids. But, they'll all look at what everybody else did and it's so so much of it's identical. You know, they're all going back and sharpening their pencils. I think we should have a really good bidding environment next week. >> That's great. That's what I was thinking that there, you know, there's going to be four that are still hungry for >> a project. So, that bodess well, I would say, for week. >> We we we deliberately we wanted to do MMW first because it's the smaller of the two, >> you know, and just get everybody even a little bit hungry on the bigger of the two. >> I mean, in theory, I don't. So, I remember when we were first talking about the proposed projects, I asked a question about what the long-term implications to staffing might be for facility staff, for example. >> How about during the construction phase? Do we anticipate that the construction itself or the movement of explorers from one site to another or anything like that could have staffing implications that we should be prepared to see come through in the budget? uh the if we're going to be moving people like say in December of of uh 2027 or you know be uh what we'll do is is we will it's it's kind of an all hands- on deck thing and and we've done this before also when we were building like 30 classrooms one summer and all this is um we just have all of our maintenance staff we'll surge them to a a spot and just get everything moved and then we'll surge them to another spot and and do it that way. Of course, we talked about particularly at the middle schools, the size of the additions, uh we are probably going to need a couple of full-time custodians. Uh one of the things is we we actually have two open positions in our for our util they were utility people, but we can't hire utility people because people like uh every mechanical contractor is paying double what we pay. So, I'm going to be talking to to um uh HR and Dr. law I mean um superintendent law about uh possibly just converting them to a couple of the positions that we need for the future and bringing them on now so we have them in the budget but we can fill them and that'll be part of the equation in terms of of explorers. Um they they're pretty good at staffing up every summer. In fact, they they turn over so many people. Uh so for them they're they're pretty flexible. We've had other years in the past where we had to relocate them from one building to another. And it's the same thing. We just search people to help them move if they have a lot of supplies to do that. Uh and and but they're they're actually amazingly flexible and and can do a pretty good job of, you know, just reconstituting a program from one building to the next. So I don't see that as being a big problem. But it that doesn't mean that there might not be anything that I can't foresee. But um but for the most part, I think I think we'll be okay. And uh and you know, Deep Haven when we add add a gymnasium to Deep Haven, we'll probably need another person at that, you know, and because it it just gyms are so heavily used, especially elementary gyms, uh when there's, you know, because at the high school they're heavily used for varsity and all that other stuff and community use, but the the elementary gyms, community use is just Yeah. heavy rotation. But then the explorer staff that's all are the community ed fund, right? And not general operating. So >> yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> So they're they're they're they're good team players that are part of the part of the district, part of the solution. And so they always pitch in. >> I just have a clarifying question and I know you're not uh quite done with the Deep Haven uh gym and configuration of that part. Will they lose any playground space or it's just going to change space? Uh shape. I mean, >> um we're going to try for them not to lose playground space. >> Great. Thanks. >> Yeah. Um so what so one of the things that we looked at is if we do do the current configuration is it starts squeezing those basketball courts. >> Yeah. But those are something that we might be able because you don't need to build a, you know, like a big thick runway to land an airplane on. Um, you can just, we might be able to build that down at the lower level and replace them that way. >> Sure. >> You know, so we're looking at at trying to maintain what we have. Um, and uh, yeah, I mean, I wish we had more land, but the only place they're making more land is on the island of Hawaii where the volcano. [laughter] So, um, >> okay. Thank you. Thank you again for all of that information. That's awesome. Next up, we have update on OPED trust fund. Superintendent B. >> Madam Chair, members of the board, [clears throat] you're familiar with this, but for the public who's watching and might not be, OPED is other post employee benefits fund. It's something that Minnetonka took advantage of when there was a legislative window to do so. It's not currently available for school districts, but on an annual basis, we like to give an update to the board on how that fund is managing future obligations for retirees and their uh post employee benefits and the opportunities that we may have with any slush fund 25 years from now. Mr. Bourgeoa, >> thank you uh Superintendent Law, Madam Chair. So, and one of the reasons I also want thought it was a good idea to do this right now is because in some respects it gives you a little bit of a lens in what might be with the with the perpetual endowment fund too. So, um you know maybe we get you know double bubble eventually having this plus the endowment fund and it would be a couple of very powerful um assets for the for the for the district. So, and a lot most of you I think you've all seen this actually. So, I'm not going to go through every single thing, but um the 2008 legislature passed this statute that allowed a fund to a district to fund a trust for these other post-employment liabilities that had they had there had been some pretty significant one. Some some entities had hundreds of millions of dollars of post-employment liabilities. um we didn't have that but um they they allowed the trust to be as long as these were capped they allowed a trust to be funded by the issuance of general obligation bonds and you could do an irrevocable or a revocable trust. Thing about revocable it allows flexibility to utilize the funds uh for other uses at the discretion of the trustees which is a school board uh if the funds produce more assets over the liability over time. So, we chose to do that one. Some most of the districts I I think there might be one or two others who are like that, but most of the districts that actually took advantage of this uh chose the irrevocable. So, they'll be locked into using it for post-employment benefits and that's it. Uh so that I just mentioned that so and uh I had the acts use a 3% discount rate because that at the time and kind of like now what is what we could make managing our own funds. But um we also knew though that with a fixed set of participants uh receiving the benefits over time the liability would decrease and it has. So um because of those reasons we knew we had a chance of excess assets occurring over time. So we established with a liability of 17 um oh I still have my xxes in here. Sorry. [laughter] 17,742,555 for 615 participants. And we issued about $22 million worth of bonds to fund it at the time because um at well we we capitalized some interest on the bonds the first couple of years because at that time we were also issuing some more debt related to the expansion of our schools uh with our with 30 classrooms and then another 10. And we're issuing debt for that and that was coming on the property tax levy to impact um impact you know the property tax levy. So we uh capitalized some interest to smooth that smooth that impact out and um so from 2008 to 2026 about 13,000 963 do 13,963,000 has been dispersed to the general fund and actually I've got this on another slide but we basically would be our our our estimated ending fund balance would be down at about $1 million if we didn't have that. So um just as this is one time where the board took advantage of the uh of the revocable trust. Our assets had grown with the runup in the market in in the late 20ou uh late 2010s. Uh it grown to 28 million and the liability had declined to 10 million 10.9 million. So we pulled $7 million out and then it turned out we need another 2.8 million but we pull out 2 or 9.85 85 million total to fund a chunk of the Vantage Momentum building which was the first brand new building in the district uh to be constructed since 1967 and we we also did a $7 million bond. So between these two resources uh we were able to construct the Vantage Momentum building. So uh there's a couple of components. There's an explicit liability which is the cash that actually is paid out. And then there's implicit amounts for retirees who are still on the plan and that implicit amount is an estimate of how much more health insurance uh everybody is paying in uh to basically have the same premiums for everybody because by law we can't charge retirees on our plan more than brand new employees and vice versa. So, there's that implicit liability and that that one is never going away. Oh, I keep hitting Sorry. Oh, I know what I'm doing. I'm hitting my pad. Sorry. Um, so it's hard to read, but uh this you can see how this this is our latest uh projection of our un uh unfund our actual acred liability. The uh about $10.3 million last year. It's going to continue to drop. The total liability is and of that amount the explicit is going to it's made up of two components but the explicit ability is going to continue to decline. So this is the explicit and you can see how it declines down to almost nothing by 203 just steadily declining and that's because of mortality right and then the implicit liability um does decline um but the implicit liability well the difference between the explicit and the and the total is the implicit and so the uh there's about five million still of implicit liability that does decline fine, but it gets down to about 1.6 million in in 204. So, it declines a lot, but this will never go away. There will always be some of that, but most of that $17 million initial liability is going to be gone. So, you'll be you'll still be pulling some money out every year into the general fund for the implicit liability, but it's going to be a much smaller amount. So, this is our history of returns. And um we returned actually I I put an email out with the initial just where did where did the cash end up as of uh June 30th. I put that out early but then they finished closing the books uh at Wells Fargo and there were some other trades in process that needed to settle and those settled. We actually end up with 1,479,000 this year. So you you can see u again they're in they're investing in in uh uh Minnesota statutes 356A.06 which lets them invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, all kinds of different things. Same thing that the state board of investment does. So it's professionally managed and so you can get some pretty good returns. You do have the potential for risk. Uh the interesting thing about this is this is the year where we actually lost the most money ever because we there was a a major drop in the stock market. But we pulled out our 9.85 million here. So that um we actually didn't have that that money didn't lose lose because we took it and put it into a fixed asset uh for advantage momentum. So these are the percentages and you can see the annual average return if you include the first we were really cautious the first year because that was where the great recession hit and everything was just up in the air. So we just you know we didn't quite bury it in a tin can in the backyard but almost and uh so we we we're just really cautious and then uh we started investing and started earning and you know a little few smaller ups and downs and that was the the percentage of the the bad year. Um but you can see the average annual return including start excluding startup is 6.53. So um and then this is just the uh uh the withdrawals for benefit payments. So about 11,782,000 through fiscal 25. I meant I updated through fiscal 26. It's actually more than the other amount that I mentioned. Um and then these are just to show you long-term. Um uh this is how things went. So so far. So you can see how our excess assets climbed and then they dropped after we pulled the 9.8 million out. We still had excess assets and our our liability our our excess assets are lower but our liability is still it got reassessed actually with some new regulations. It had been declining steadily got reassessed bumped up a little bit but it's again continuing to decline. uh and it was reassessed based on the um uh I can't remember what the name of the actuarial organization is like the governmental accounting standards boards but there's one for actual area and they said oh you know you need to look at these liabilities a different way so everybody had to get reassessed a few years back like in early in the early u 20s so um this is what our total liability is uh and how it declines So, just to show you that, I'm not going to go over each number. This is our pro projected future benefit withdrawal. So, between now and FY39. And why FY39? Well, that's when the last bond payment is. So, it's kind of like advertising the bond payment off. And then where are we at with the liability and benefit withdrawals and all that through the the bond payment? Because once the bond payment is gone, that's off in general long-term debt. But it's kind of like matching. When we originally set up the fund, the board was talking about trying to be very judicious with pulling money out for anything else uh until the bond was paid off. And but what they made the uh they made the decision when we had just that massive runup in that one year to pull money out to basically fund the the Vantage Momentum building. And that's the only thing that we've done other than regular benefit withdrawals uh so far. But uh this is my projection of future investment earnings at 3%. Very conservative. That'd be if we were managing it. And uh so the the earnings decline because the fund balance declines if we're only earning 3%. But the future asset balance does also decline, but because the liability uh keeps declining faster, the excess assets actually climb all the way to fiscal 39. And so this just puts all those together. So you can see um the assets actually slightly declining as we're pulling money out to the general fund. The liability though continuing to decline actually faster than the assets decline. So the exits assets actually grow steadily. So that's kind of a worst case scenario. Uh so after but after 17 years here we are uh 17.7 million invested, 22.1 cumulative dividends paid. So 12,326,000 in benefit withdrawals through FY26 and then the 9,850,000 and we had on June 30th 15.6 million in assets remaining over the next 13 years. Um and and I I just want to back up on that 50,642,000 in assets remaining as of June 30th, 2026, but the 9,850,000 is still sitting over there, you know, permanently in that building. So I mean it's really we have more we have more assets in essence still serving the districts than when we initially invested them. Uh then over the next 13 years we'll we would be picking up another 5.6 million in investment earnings at 3% and and withdrawing about 8.1 million. So it's lower withdrawals because that uh liability the the annual uh liability estimate is is dropping and the annual estimate of the withdrawals is dropping. But we'd have $13 million of assets remaining on June 30th of 2020 2039 and the excess assets would be about 7.3 million. So just a couple more slides here. So now what happens if we could if we keep making our 6.5%. Okay. So uh if we keep making our 6.5% you we made 10 point a little over 10 in FY26. So, if we just hit our 6.5, we'd be making those earnings every year. That's based on the fact that we're still pulling out our our scheduled payments to the general fund. Uh, and our future asset balance would continue to climb. So, we'd actually would grow it to uh about 23.5 million 23.6 million in FY39. And um so over the next 13 years, we'd actually make $16 million of investment earnings. If we can keep hitting that 6.5, we'd still pull out that same 8 million of benefit withdrawals. Uh we'd have 23.6 million in assets remaining, but the excess assets would be 17.8. So uh you know, you can see how it how things start going and and so hopefully if things work out, maybe the uh perpetual endowment fund will have the same kind of track. We'll see. So that's just kind of where we're at. And this fund is doing what it's supposed to be doing. Uh it's got a lot of potential in front of it. And so uh just that's the update. Thank you. >> Thank you for that more detailed explanation. Do we have questions from the board Karen then Dan? >> Not really a question, but I want to say thank you for all the work that you've done on OPED and when the decision was made. Um, weren't there weren't other districts that took advantage of the revocable trust versus irrevocable? That's >> Yeah, >> that was very thoughtful of you. >> Well, you know, it just seem to make sense. You know, it's it's um we have, you know, the the temptation with a revocable trust is like, oh, well, you because you literally could sweep out all of it and then just start doing pay as you go, which would be very detrimental to the general fund. But our board has always been very uh financially astute and conservative and you know good money managers and so it was easy to recommend a revocable trust. >> Yeah. Well, thank you Mr. Bao. What seems to be just you know you constantly amaze us with the work that you do and we appreciate it. We really do appreciate it. I think I can speak for the rest of the board when I say that. We really appreciate the >> same. >> Um I'm curious the you know the the educators group insurance plan the the this proposal that's kicking around the legislature right now. >> Um if that were to go through does that have any implications on OPE and any of our liabilities? >> That's a a that's a good question. So if if that happens and we're on that, all of our retirees would go on that also. So that may result in this particular benefit being different. The thing is is we're still going to be paying premiums for, you know, and and retirees have to pay premiums in, but the people who have um who are still on the plan from initial inception uh and are still alive, uh we would continue to be paying them. So, we would still pull money out of our OPED fund. It's just instead of putting money for their premiums in our self- insurance trust fund, we'd be sending it to the state fund. So, um, that that wouldn't change, but the dollar amounts would probably change compared to putting the money into our own self- insurance fund. >> Okay. >> Thank you for all the work that you were on >> on stage all night. So, thank you for doing that for us. [laughter] >> We appreciate it. All right. With that, >> that's it. >> Thank you guys. Thanks everybody. Thanks. Thanks, Cabinet Administration. See?