We are gathered on the land of the Dakota and Ojiway peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota and Ojiway community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations.

St. Louis Park Public Schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon exclusions and erasers of many indigenous peoples, including those on whose land the school district is located.

This acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and a district's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our schools.

Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppos? Passes 6.

Well, thank you chair Cox and good evening board members. It's been a while since we've met um for our regular business meeting and I just wanted to give you an update as to where we where we are so far in the school year.

So um we had a great start to the school year. Um I want to thank all of my cabinet members, all of my principles, all of our teacher leaders because this year we kind of kicked it off a little differently.

So I appreciate all of those teacher leaders that worked over the summer to develop their work sessions and presented to their colleagues because I when I I came to St. Louis Park I always said the answers in the room. So how are we creating space for those answers to be shared?

So um we have an opportunity to partner with our city to um survey our election sites. So elections will be held at three of our school sites and also at LIOX.

One of the things that we wanted to make sure is that our voters had an opportunity to exercise their right to vote, but also while while keeping our students safe.

So we have um pathways for our voters to enter the building without going through the building. And we just ask for compassion with our citizens that they understand the sensitivity that we in that we are currently in right now when it comes to the safety of our students and staff.

This year um we are being very intentional about creating space to listen to families and community members about their experiences here in St. Louis Park. And we're going to be very intentional about creating space for our affinity groups.

So I wear my orange in um recognition of the day of truth and reconciliation.

Thank you, Superintendent Hines. Also wanted to recognize that this uh one of the reasons that we moved this board meeting is because of Roshana that we celebrated too. And so want to acknowledge that for our community that celebrated that holiday as well.

Yes. I'm sorry. I think I sent the correction in your weekly leadership but I didn't or in your community changed to the 21st.

Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Passes 6. Thank you.

Good evening, Chair Cox, Superintendent Dr. Hines, and board members. Um, I'm here tonight with our annual preliminary levy. I'll walk you through the process. It's the same every year, but I learn something new every year, and I'm sure you do as well.

Because it is September 30th, it is the last day we can certify the levy. So, I'm just going to hand this piece of paper down to director Mancini because it has to be signed and as soon as we're done, I'm going to go up and send it to Hannib County because it's due today.

So um the purpose of our presentation tonight is to review the pay 2026 preliminary levy in preparation for the action to certify this preliminary levy at maximum.

And the word maximum really just means it gives districts and the Department of Education maximum flexibility to continue to work together to make sure that we're um correcting all of the formulas and data that goes into the levy.

So this levy tonight sets revenue, that big hunk of revenue for taxes um for next fiscal year. So this is here we are back again at the top of the budget timeline.

So this is here tonight is our first official action. Last night our finance advisory committee met. Um, and we have about 16 new community members. We had a board member there. Thank you very much Taylor or and um we had several students who are joining us and some staff members.

So this levy is 44,530 543082. It's a small increase. I don't know why I didn't put commas in there. About 1.21% over last year. That's good news for our taxpayer. Our our dollar levy is not going up very much. We don't have much control over that as a school board. Um, but we do have to set the levy.

So you can see that the majority of the levy goes into the general fund. The next biggest chunk goes into debt service and then there's a small community service levy.

So this is an overview of the three funds. You can see that the general fund levy is going down just slightly. I'll talk to you a little bit about the details of that. Same for community service fund going down overall just slightly for next year. The debt service fund is going up. I'll talk to you about that.

Now, keep in mind that as we think about a taxpayers perspective, this is good news because our our the formulas have not generated increasing dollars for the school district. As we set a budget, it's not such good news because the tax levy portion of the general fund is not going up for next year.

So we are levying these amounts and then we discuss them at the final levy in December once truth and taxation statements have gone out.

The operating referendum. That's the big kahuna that we talk about is a 10-year levy. It was last set in a few years ago. >> 2022. Okay. And so it's got a few more years to run.

The capital projects referendum is also voter approved. That is our um technology levy. So um what I want you to notice about the technology levy is it's barely going up. And that's going to be a story you'll hear.

Reemployment insurance is one of those. It's a line item that we are reimbursed for the expenses for reemployment.

The other thing you're going to notice in levies is if there's a mistake in the formula, it gets corrected and we go back and if our enrollment numbers are off, we go back and correct the numbers. So the levy is selfcorrecting just like state aid.

The need for us to levy for OPED is declining. About 5 years ago, we started um taking advantage of the of the opportunity to levy for the cost of other post-employment man benefits for staff members who retire with medical or dental benefits in retirement.

TIFF is a tax increment financing district where tax capacities are set aside in a community. And so it's established at the current valuation and as a piece of property is it's a way to get folks to develop in your community, investors to develop in a community.

Abatements is another big one. This year we haven't had to talk about abatements for a long time. Tax abatements are when um property owners and in this case when it has this big of an impact it's generally going to be commercial industrial property.

So what that means is a couple of So this is like a two years ago catchup. It's an it's a it's one of those types of things. So taxes were abated which means when we closed our books on tax revenue for that year we lost a bunch of money >> as a district.

The good news and the bad news and that's what you're going to see a lot of times. It giveth and taketh away. And these formulas sometimes adjust over a period of years.