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yeah wow I remember wow so all the way through college and I got a degree in it and now I don't use that good job I'm not entrepreneurial [Laughter] so thank you Alex thank you very much and Keith Sonia who joined us around the same time yeah yeah uh yeah it's been a privilege to be on the board I uh my background is mostly in politics public Outreach public affairs I'm a senior leader at a public affairs consulting firm now cleanser State agencies universities Etc and so Paul and John I met initially and they let me know that one of Rob's uh you know sort of big initiatives coming in uh to the executive director role was to think about how Beth cam reached the community and then Liz has uh since joined and it's been great kind of picking her brain and uh lending my time when when available and I look forward to sort of a continued partnership to make sure that we continue to grow the membership and to the point where we're maybe in the hallway or something at the next one overflow room um but a privilege to get to know all of you uh in the coming years and and look forward to working with you thank you I wanted to introduce and welcome welcome both uh Alex and Keith to you at this meeting then the next order of business is really to vote on um two new members well one is not a new member the first the first is to uh to that the the board has uh has two uh candidates for membership to the board of directors one is a gentleman who's been on the board for uh several years now and it's Mark Jameson so this would be renewing marks uh tenure as a member of the board of directors Mark has a background in special education he's a special education educator professional and has held a myriad of positions in that particular field and has also produced programming here at bevcam and is passionate about having bringing about Community awareness for people who have disabilities developmental disabilities Etc so um Mark if you want to stand just say a few words about you thanks John that can sums it up so I became a member of this organization maybe seven years ago when I created a show called amazingly autistic I was a career specialist with a non-profit organization called bridgewell and I realized the abilities that my my clients with autism had in the employment Workforce Now I'm currently a media production teacher at North Shore Academy which is a mile up the road and okay yeah um and so now I'm an instructor I'm a media production teacher at North Shore Academy uh which is a mile up the road and with my partnership with bevcam um they've they've given us some equipment that used to be uh used in the old in town hall when they revamped it we got their equipment we use it now in our classroom which is very helpful with a low budget and with school politics we don't really have much of a budget so with their support we've been able to grow our program and now we give our students the ability to express their selves freely and just with this organizations it's been a great honor and I look forward to connecting with more people in the community I just want to put this out there one of my students has an incredible ability for audio engineering and designing and so if any of you producers that are here need support with um adding audio to your um to your program um I'm just I'm sure that we could collaborate if you don't have the obviously bevcam has the resources as well um with the staff but if you want to get students involved as well I'd be happy for them to give you my information again my name is Mark Jameson and we could work together to help some of my students with disabilities get real life experience so that's what I want to bring to this table thank you [Applause] uh the other candidates that board is is recommending who would be new to the board uh is uh John tamilio who is John is a the senior pastor of the Camden Canton Congregational Church he is also a Adjunct professor at Salem State Endicott College and uh Gordon College as well and John also has experience with bethcam as pre-pandemic probably 2019 and earlier uh had a show called a frame frame of reference and they may have that title there may be frames of reference but any event we're recommending John he has a um uh his background again is is different than men than those of us who are are on the board and I think we think would bring a diversity of opinion and experience to the board that would be helpful as um you know Rob and his staff continue to develop the uh the the mission of bevcam going forward into the future so we're recommending for uh a vote this evening uh adding both um Mark Jameson and uh Dr John tamilio to the board of directors and we can do that with a show of hands right Paul so can we do that now if ever I'd like to put them both on the the Slate of candidates if you will do I can remove myself we woke up for yourself all right um so if we can just have a show of hands for adding Mark Jameson and Dr John tamilio to the board do we have any nice any discussion all right thank you very much thank you thanks John very nice job okay um next up uh the current board members who haven't uh said anything yet there's a few of you here if you if you could uh stand up and reintroduce yourself and maybe say a few comments or not I'll start with uh Judy Miller on the spot yeah you're a veteran thank you Judy Miller I've been on the board as long as Paul that long okay I am the clerk not by much um yeah I go way back and I am um I work for the schools I've been the director of technology for 23 years it's technology digital learning and have been liaison between school and bevcam which Sean Fitzpatrick has taken over that spot so I'm I think I'm just the clerk now I don't know no um very important part very important it's great to be on the board it's always we've had some especially the last couple years yeah it was done a lot of work so um thanks great to be here [Applause] hi everyone I'm Andy Friedman I think I've been on the board eight years seven or eight years I'm a producer as well I have one of the unmentioned shows called local music now really awesome check it out punk rock show um well it's not unmentionable no no um I I love being on the board um it's just really interesting job we have had some uh very interesting couple of years and um I think that it's really good that we have I'm a producer and also on the board and we have some also people who've been producers and people who want to be producers it's kind of good to be in here doing it seeing how everything goes and then also being on the board and I'm so happy to have Rob here too so thank you I don't see anybody else Tony Sean yeah I'm sorry yeah yeah hey there I'm Sean Fitzpatrick I teach media here at the high school uh it's pleasure to be here this is my second year on the board and I would just like to Echo some of the comments that we heard before about what an exciting year this has been with all the changes and it's been a great honor to be part of the uh the process of developing the future of of bevcam I've heard so many great ideas this year it's really exceeded my expectations so I'm just happy to have been here and uh thanks so much for allowing me to to be part of it [Applause] Tony uh Tony's been on the board I think a month more or less than I am he's another veteran fan okay so uh anyway she's seen a lot just like we all have yeah the other thing I forgot to mention well I mentioned it I guess last year but the um we work subgroups more now and the the search committee was really a lot of fun because it was a lot of work but it was Judy and Andy and John and myself and uh you know it was 21 candidates and it got down to one and uh it all worked out really well so and I think we we instituted a thing that they're going to use now in there we those little video oh yeah yeah we did some stuff yeah they said huh and they were media professionals but they were like you can't do that we're like well we're gonna do it and then they're like that was great and then Rob's video was oh the bad Rose video that was a fun time was it the ice cream no no I think now we move on to um I'll let I'll let Rob take over again as far as short presentations here key staff members um so yeah um um I already kind of said my teeth so I just want to have an opportunity to sort of introduce you to the staff uh we'll start with uh Liz who was hired uh beginning of April to be a new physician which we call in community engagement manager and I think Liz's joke was that you know uh she I hired her to become everybody in Beverly's friend and so she's working hard at doing that Liz she's very friendly Chris it's Gonna Get Loud hello hello and tell I'm an extrovert and he's he's not lying even a little bit I literally sent him a DM on LinkedIn that said I'm gonna be friends with everyone in Beverly I could do it for you um and that's pretty much what my job has been not only am I in charge of our social media so if you've seen us on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube that's me thanks um and but I've also been uh getting involved with a lot of really incredible groups that are local uh such as uh women on a mission to earn commission that's one of our Women Business groups and the Beverly Chamber of Commerce and the North Shore Chamber of Commerce and Beverly main streets and um as well as a whole bunch of other not-for-profits around the town and other businesses we will continue to cultivate those relationships and just be able to make sure that when somebody says oh yeah I do stuff down at Bev Camp nobody says who's Bev cam and yeah so if I don't know you already please introduce yourself to me I want to be your friend if I do know you nice again thank you very much [Applause] we have Michelle is going to explain what a content manager does manages content of course hello my name is Michelle Lopez um I just joined bevcam in May so I've been here just a couple months um just a little background it came from Winthrop Community Access television I was there for five years so that was really my introduction to Community Access I learned a lot from very happy to be here with Bev cam I'm learning a ton just in these few months um so I'm content manager so I like to schedule all the shows um I like to get shows from local of course and anything that's imported so if anything seems interesting I will just download that and put it on the station so people can see it um Rob and I have been working and trying to clear out our server room so a lot of people don't get to see the back end of our studio so the server room is where the brain lives of the station um so we've been cleaning that out I'm trying to get it more functional I guess more tidied up but the main thing that we're really excited about is bevcam is getting an HD channel finally after all of these years yes I'm good um so that's going to be happening within the next month hopefully um so we could be playing shows in HD whether that be government meetings school meetings um shows or just anything we want to play it's going to be a just a Melting Pot of different things for HD so yeah that's one of the newest things that will be happening so I'm very excited and uh thank you for having me [Applause] it has been fun we're teaching Michelle the back of the server and just kind of pulling things so what does this thing do and what did it figure it out I don't know what do you think it does I don't know let's pull let's unplug it and see if anything goes wrong what's that one time where we couldn't figure out why I was going there and yeah we were looking at the wrong monitor yeah uh and last but not least if the man who comes from the booth uh our production manager uh who uh has uh Bennett bevkin before and we've got him back from Endicott so Chris [Music] [Applause] hello hello uh I'm back because I think Kim always says when people see me again um I'm Chris Harvey I'm the production manager I returned to Bev Kim in May I initially worked at bevcam from 2015 to 18 I believe it was and then I departed went over to Endicott College uh right down the road and worked in audio visual services so not that much of a departure from what I did here previously and what I do now but it was a lot more of uh just managing upkeep of spaces and functionality for classes and events and everything media uh AV related all over campus and after five years of doing that and just uh taking kind of a firestorm as a three-person team and I was kind of like you know I miss being creative and and uh I miss local access and the opportunity opened up here and I was more than happy to come back um what I do here is uh what I've been doing in there pretty much um I manage production so anything that comes into the studio anything that's outside the studio sports related um um meetings right now is more of Kim's kind of bailiwick as well right uh and uh so but it's a lot of scheduling and um just meeting with people that want to do shows uh new producers we have coming in people that are returning that have a new idea um so it's kind of a mishmash of all that so somewhere between just managing day-to-day production planning for future production doing in studio post field anything that has the word production or similar to that I'm involved in and have been very excited to work with a lot of new people and a lot of people I've seen before um and just very looking much looking forward to where this is all going with our new direction and you know the new possibilities we've talked about with maybe some pop-ups and and things outside of our nice space here um and just kind of continue to grow the organization and see where we can where we can go what we can do go back oh right there's one more thing it's a thing yeah so I need to invite them back up and Rob you need to stand right there we had a presentation turns out thank you for my goodness you didn't think we did did you no no of course not how would you know it was a secret the whole time with the whispering get up here I don't know my partner okay stand here [Laughter] as you've been with Beth camp for just over a year now yes all of us here are new we would like to say welcome to Bev Camp from us the staff Kim Chu he's here in spirit it's a newspaper yeah I don't mind we got you the Salem News I'm gonna open this yeah look there's coupons for liquor you know like you know make sure you get everything so there you go let's see all right well thank you guys thank you very nice Where the Heart Is Right absolutely okay so members who would like to say something going back to your earlier comments about finances there was some talk over the years that the industry Comcast Cable in general is making concerted efforts to disassociate themselves from funding Community Access where does that discussion lie these days are they eventually getting to a point where well there's a percentage of their income is not being directed to befcam and other similar them and other Comcast and the big cable groups like that they're they definitely don't want things like bevcam around uh it's legislated so we have to be around they have much more lobbying power than we do so they they fight it every day uh but we got a Max contract out of them and that's five percent plus uh you know we only get five percent of TB revenues based on the subscribers in Beverly and what they pay um there's a move afoot now which Liz you might want to say a word or two about the that media you went to and the five the trying to get a share of um uh streaming also from the mass access advocacy either one of you you mentioned the board meeting that's what I figured yeah yeah so um we don't have a ton of details to share because it's all still kind of happening but there is a bill within the State House a State House and Senate of Massachusetts that is looking at um charging the same sort of franchise fee on streaming services uh so that would help modernize the law there's also a national push uh going in a completely different direction um and I don't remember the language on that one uh but it's not going uh oh it's not going towards streaming services it's going towards internet providers and a franchise fee on internet providers so there are a couple of different branches that are trying to modernize these laws and they've been active the push towards these directions have been active for quite a long time legislation on a state or a federal level is really hard to get through we've got an expert on that um on our board as well um so bethcam has definitely been you know supporting other Community Access centers in you know finding out what the best uh direction to go in and we'll keep you guys updated as we get information good excellent when there's something really important that comes along Liz can put it in the little newsletter which I assume you guys are getting and keep you informed that way too um back to your point though Alex I think the Comcast agreement we have now has eight years left it's been a fast almost two years now and uh the um well it took a long time to get it signed but it was backdated that's true that's what happens um because they didn't want to give us everything we got but we prevailed um and um but that's why it's really nice to have some funds to create product and programming and New Media type initiatives that don't depend that that can be monetized themselves after a while and don't depend on Comcast being they're basically a bank okay and they're a bank that doesn't like its customers so they just you know they have to accept us um so um on the other hand their revenues to us have been holding up a lot better than and certainly I thought five years ago when we started talking about these things but we were so tight on the budget anyway that until we negotiated a new contract there wasn't much we could do about it so we just kept talking about plans and new things we could do and all that but there was nothing to implement no no resources available to implement and so now we have that and we have a lot of good ideas and as you can see clearly Rob has a very creative staff and hard working and you know I think uh even if we have bumps from Comcast and stuff I think if we continue going with this kind of energy and enthusiasm and might make 80 percent of our decisions correct as far as new new initiatives uh we'll do just fine so uh that's where we're at other questions or comments from any members another one from you okay you win you mentioned the HD channel I'm guessing that over the past five years the equipment has all been you know becoming HD capable so that's all in place now in bevcam's building yeah there's going to be an HD channel will it share the pem programming will some programs well all of the programs whether they're sports or educational or I think it's public that that's um so the HD channel um actually this coming week this Thursday Comcast is coming in to upgrade our encoder which will play the HD channel I don't know when we're gonna be announcing the HD channel when it's ready to go but we're getting the back end ready and yes the HD channel will be sharing um all of like it will be an all-around channel so we really want to prioritize the sports and give something up to get the HD this is in addition we hope not yeah enjoy it um yeah so um yeah we're gonna be playing so if we have a government meeting on that night we want to prioritize that and put that on HD um same thing with sports um if there's a big game on we'll play that one in HD right so anything like that so it will kind of be shared a shared programming maybe I'm the only one that doesn't know the significance of HD but we do elaborate on that a little yeah sure so right now we have three standard channels um that's what you're normally watching um with HD it will be in better terms it'll just be more crisp looking so you'll be able to see more details of the the programming um if there's lettering on the screen you'll be able to see that more clear so it'll just be way more clear on your TV all around compared to our standard definition which we're playing right now it might be a little fuzzy to you right now if you're seeing that with HD it'll be a lot more clear and just so you know I don't know if people know what HP does stand for high definition high definition right there's more information in the screen and most of the programming you get from the standard media is already in high definition so they're kind of finally getting it right yep and I don't know if you watch any of the government meetings or school committee meetings but oftentimes people have slides yes you can hear them fine and you can see the slide you just can't read it right so this one this will be a big difference yeah yeah exactly yeah anything else I have a question sir yes we're building on the gentleman's been saying back there's so we all know about the term you know wire cutters or basically people that are not basically subscribing to cable anymore and going with internet um so I wondered how the staff is thinking about the YouTube channels which are already cable free I guess and how that proliferation of internet and social media and the use of those kinds of tools are going to be part of the vision As you move forward because I think it is inevitable that as the cable companies and what you're describing are are basically trying to figure out a way to stay alive and get a piece of that Revenue that the YouTube channels and that kind of streaming services are going to become much more important and more important to devcam as a source of just I have a couple comments then I'll certainly entertaining your comments one is that uh when I said monetize that's kind of what we're thinking if we can develop more of Our Own content we do plenty of it now but if we can develop more content that is only streamed it's not on the TV for example and that bevcam owns or has a relationship with producers where the producers get a cut okay a traditional model then uh I think that's something that could prove to be very uh very good for everybody um and right now I think the only thing we stream is stuff we also put on the TV you could correct me if I'm wrong um for you to streaming yeah so we um stream any of the games that are on we will broadcast that to the channel but they're on up there on the channel also yeah as well as YouTube yeah as well as the government meetings I don't think there's any content that we put on YouTube it doesn't go on the channels maybe that's what I'm trying to say no okay because yeah I think if you look at the contract with Comcast there could be some gray areas there that we'd have to manage in order to be able to legally do that okay whereas we can do anything we want if it's not stuff we're already putting up on the channel also so that's when you're in your content hunting and all that kind of stuff and looking for producers to do good stuff um Liz does all sorts of Statistics which we don't have time to go through tonight but we can share some of this with you and maybe one of the newsletters on um because we can gather data on the streaming stuff and on YouTube and all that we can on the TV we're Flying Blind there so uh that tells us through surveys and stuff uh some of it's anecdotal but what what people like and if we could develop something like that and maybe just put it out streaming for a particular demographic group that we're trying to attract anyway like younger people and all that compared to our demographic profile now which looks like a lot of us uh then uh you know it could be an interesting thing to experiment with and see what happens yeah one another way to think about it would be the possibility I don't know whether you have it already to have a bevcam app that literally is the connection to streaming because I think well you have these cutting you know while you basically have uh TV and YouTube it's still a problem with trying to actually connect to either one of them and if you don't have the cable at all then you can't connect it but you still have internet and everybody does so wherever you go these days everybody's got an app if there's a bevcam app I know that and if I had the four buttons that I like on your your presentation you're already starting to sort of show the categories of government the things you do yeah and I want to hear Sports Bing does come up and now I'm tied into YouTube and I'm watching sports so I'm sitting riding my lawnmower and you know because I don't have cable anymore no that's that's a really interesting idea uh an apps are not that difficult to build these days I remember when they were first coming out they were crazy expensive and took forever and now now there's platforms out there that they can turn around and happen today yeah yeah some new stuff yeah you guys should think about that that's interesting yeah thanks um anything else well if there's any food left it hasn't been sitting that long so help yourself and uh thank you all for coming uh talk up bevcam you know tell them to be a friend of Liz's and um and uh be safe driving home tonight in the rain okay take care thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]
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we don't really start generating any fund balance additional fund balance until your debt service payment drops off in 2028 so I know there's a question of you know what's the what's that required no Levy need to be set at to really continually make Debt Service payments equal to what is due each year and that's a little bit above that 11.25 mils so that 11.488 is actually a really good example of so what what is that number is the 11.488 represent the minimum to meet our obligations correct yeah yeah so that would be so and you can view that when you look at it that fund balance over time in that scenario with the 11.488 it stays pretty it drops a little bit that stays pretty close to your assistance and then obviously when you drop the on debt services to match and we ran that scenario as well so if I wanted to just use the entire fund balance and not worry about prepaying early that's that I think it's the fifth page on here status quoil it shows eight Mills would be required and that would draw on your existing fund balance so you're really you're generating a lot less revenues than your required payment and your drawing on your existing fund balance in that fund basically where you're depleting it and then once your milk once your total debt service drops off in 2028 you can drop it from eight mils to five and is that our existing fund balance the bottom group set of numbers uh yes looks like yeah and based on the decision we make that match the number of the Mills above that is indicating what will be the change to our fund balance for for next year yep at the end of 23 24 years but if we went to the eight it would complete all of that uh for next fiscal year it would drop into one point around 1.8 million no I'm talking about over the series of the bond obligation yeah it would over time and the same number of Mills of course we can't project to evaluations or anything would be but what what does that look like as far as a bond project at that time as far as what what would that same Mill projection with what we know just using today's valuations as an example what would that provide yeah so great question so if you look at your packet the next page after that eight mil to five mil drop is the first example if you kept it at 14.488 mils it generates about 23 million dollars now correct yeah but I'm talking in 2028 uh so if we took the mill that we're at and yes with that concept of waiting until event yeah what what kind of dollar amount would that potentially we don't have I don't we don't have those scenarios we're in um that timing of when that is needed will um we're just focusing on in this scenario on a 2024 on Election but yeah we're happy to run this and give me an idea if you if you win 2028 you know what is your additional capacity Mark there's a question I have um do you I know that we have the authority to decrease the bottom interest in Mills can we at any point in time vote to increase that or because because it's kind of a special thing you have to be at your your bought an interest Mills have to generate enough funds to make your legal audience okay so my fear would be and that's kind of it's kind of an out outside the probability or possibility but if assessed valuations dropped okay we're pretty low you know for whatever catastrophic reason that happened and all of a sudden now our bond interest is not because again that's why it's all confusing because we can't say we want this much money we have to say we have to translate that into the Mills and the reason why we have access money is because evaluations have gone up that bills would say the same as there's more money if we drop that and then valuations go down again super likely to but if can we then say well actually we need to go back up or is that something because you know you said that with an election you you can do that because you have to generate enough Mills to make your legal obligation there are some districts that will increase their Mills um so they can be aggressive and pay down early and they can do that um there's a scenario that was going through my mind and I I've lost it here so if it comes back to me and it comes out of the blue I promise it's related to that I was just gonna re I'm making sure I understood what you said that last part you can you raise in the future just to meet the obligation earlier you yes that is one of the strategies when we reached out to one of our attorneys uh that we said we reached out to four it would have been our bond attorneys what's the what's the name of Gilmore Bell we always had a Gilmore and bell and they said they said that there's one strategy that's even out there some districts will raise their bonding interest so they can get aggressive and pay down debt uh early so in theory if we reduced then next year the board could choose to bring it right back to where it was in order to reduce that earlier uh that is the strategy yes and going to your point about dropping assessed valuation and concern that's why you guys are in such a great position from a fun ballot standpoint having that flexibility in case that does happen so that it doesn't necessarily mean to require a little Levy increase that next year maybe you can draw on that fund balance absorb some of that loss in your assessed valuation um and so that that kind of goes towards just the overall financing plan and the importance of having you know a fun a fund balance to be able to absorb any of those type of changes and I think right now it's something that that's that's been discussed at the the legislative level that I've heard is something that is more of a cap at the amount that a dis that a county could raise increase in assessment I've heard is that there's talk of four percent um so if they were to come to a four percent cap in terms of your evaluation of your home you want to make sure that what we are generating and right now we have the capacity to to withstain sustain it if we reduce too far that could potentially be a problem but again no one has a crystal ball so we're not the only School District that we can work with yeah um comparatively with others that might be in a similar situation as this what how do you advise I mean like do you guys have a any recommendations based on the situation um no so good question um our role really is to focus more on just providing the different scenarios that you're looking at um so maybe it's good maybe take a step back kind of how we see things if you're looking at potential projects having an idea of what those amounts are um we just really want to provide future cash flows what is your attack on interestability fund look compared on those different projects and really let you guys evaluate after seeing all the data you know what's the best course of action to move forward I will say that a lot of you guys are in a pretty good position when it comes from what we see compared to other districts of you have bonds falling off soon um you have the cash balance the other benefit of the cash balance is if you're looking at a new project you can pay principal off sooner which lowers your overall interest costs on a new bond issue maybe draw down a little bit on that fund balance if it really comes to a decision at this point is if they're if you have an idea of a new project moving forward there's you know several different options to look at if there is no future project that you're looking at that really changes your financial plan and where you're looking at selling the Millennium before because then you're focusing on how do we get into where we lessen our overall interest costs pay it off early lower or overall bond in interest whereas if you're focused more on okay we have this we need this want that the district wants to do how do we have a financial plan set to where it results in the lowest overall interest cost for the district um that's kind of where we come in and you know really our role I would just say is um providing those options letting you see what those options look like and then throughout the bond election process will help with that provide um Bond proceeds so there's a subsequent election is successful will help with securing the final interest rate for that as well as his reinvestment of future construction dollars where interest rates are right now um their significant earnings and potential earnings available on investment projects and then in the meantime um kind of just like what we're doing now help with budgeting um looking at different Mill Levy options from a cash flow analysis so it's kind of an ongoing discussion on the financial plan of the district and considering all your options I mean you're kind of in a spot where you're like okay we do have a project that we want to continue to try to push forward to the board with we're in a pretty good spot to have a solid financial plan to do that at fairly low overall interest cost I'd say the biggest thing that we tell districts right now is construction inflation and having to wait to do that project in the future the cost of doing that project even though we're at interest rates that are higher than where we were two years ago over the past 35 or 40 years still lower about I would say interest rates have been higher about 70 to 75 percent of time than where they are today over that period so because of that because you had short-term investment earnings um really your biggest cost becomes waiting to do that project and the cost of that project potentially going up 15 20 you know over a couple of years so um yeah there's a lot of factors in this and it just takes a lot of different discussions and I think that's why we're here is more of to let you guys bounce ideas off of what seems like the right plan and us just provide that information to you know this on a piece of paper somewhere but do we have uh the current interest rates of our existing bonds somewhere or maybe I actually do yeah I brought that with me so go ahead so then we can repackage to refine refined collated or something at some point comes back to and that's a good point that's a question we get on this process is like should we wait until interest rates if they project them to drop back to where they were two years ago should we wait to finance then and lock interest rates in there and it's like luckily with a new Bond issuance it comes with anywhere from typically a seven year to ten year entertainment ability so after seven or ten years you can refinance to your question about existing one so your 2012 on issue current outstanding rates on that it is the highest Palestinian rate so it's a little bit different than a mortgage each each year each material is going to have a different interest rate is 2.15 oh you're 2015 bonds which was a refinancing um has the event that you can have have the ability to refinance that in 2025 so that was a 10-year call date on that issue the highest interest rate right now and that is four percent the 2016 Bonds mature next year the highest interest rate on that is a two percent 2020 bonds mature of 2027 the highest interest rate on that is one points actually every interest rate on that is 1.7 so really the next opportunity I would say with current rates right now you're not going to be refinancing the savings with any of those but 2015 is probably the series 2015 bonds with four percent rate potentially your next option but like it might creeped out of that level where we find those bonds uh so that is not including any refinancing that is only including uh structured the new debt service to basically amortize less principal in the early years so does the does this uh illustration up here um take into consideration when you've already made our large and interest payment for this year your figures there Nate did you does that include the pavement we made on September 1st because they're having part of it okay the initial which is already taken out of that yeah so the cash for the collection will be after 23 24.
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he's altering so um so um you approved the second phase of the high school edition the first phase started a couple weeks ago with earthwork beginning we worked with Kane County to do a two-phase permitting process with the Roe in Kane County so the first phase was earthwork and concrete in the underground to get the ball rolling so we could try to get everything going before the snow flies so that's that's moving along well hopefully be done somewhere that first second week of October with that phase and then hopefully we can roll right into that next phase and start building that building some of the Interior stuff we wrapped up Sarah Farrington worked on getting the library Cabinetry installed and finishing up that project so we got that installed and that worked out really well for some additional storage for them and there she finished that up last week we're still working with our vendor um to get the countertops for the teacher's work room hopefully have that in the next week or two that's been a vendor challenge that we've been working through so everybody's been very cooperative and understanding of that as we work through that process um and then district office here as you see when you walk in doesn't look like anything's been done but we've been working on lighting and electrical stuff and wrapping that stuff up working on getting our painter in to finish up the ceramic and get some exterior painting done and then get the flooring in and hopefully with any luck wrap that up in the next few weeks also any questions the administrator and teacher salary report that's required annually so yeah annually for October 1st we School District who report the administrator teacher salary and benefits to the State Board of Education we use the Eis report which is the employment information system report to fulfill it the report includes salaries paid health insurance benefits retirement enhancements today's vacation days so tonight we're presenting this a little bit closer to the website and it's included in your birthday um business will review the imrf compensation package this is similar thing but it's imrf employees annually we have to post this within six days after we approve the budget so essentially approve the budget tonight then this has our website within six days so this report includes all the employees that have a total compensation package over seventy five thousand dollars it also includes the same salaries and benefits and insurance vacation day sick days and the report is included in your project excellent now Steve Nelson from Larson and Darby group will present on the plans for a new high school building here we go mine might be a few months longer because I've got some slides to show you so bear with me a little bit we'll get her opened up here all right so since I've had the opportunity to be in front of the board we have a couple new faces welcome uh it was hard for me to sit there and not vote Yes or no once again 17 years of that um we have had a number of committee meetings since I've last been in front of the board as well as some facility visits uh to look at what's being done out there in some of the leading schools in Northern Illinois and quite frankly the region the community's been great good group of people very energized been very helpful we when I first was last in front of the board we had an initial concept plan that was used to at least establish that initial budget for the referendum and we had then gone in and taken a fresh look came up with three different options and had that a working session with the committee where we work make everybody got to spend about 30 minutes with each concept concept that we had tear it apart like what they didn't like knowing all that up then we came back did some more work on that and came back with two completely different options from those three basically hybrids of all the different comments and I I feel confident in sailing we probably picked up at least 90 percent of the comments that were made between those first three concepts to the next two I will be showing you those two now the committee has seen them already they have also had a working session on those and we're currently in the process of making some adjustments to the plan that they felt confidently moving forward I'll reveal that at the end for your consideration but it's all been a very good working session um very engaged people very positive comments uh Forward Thinking in most cases uh Mr Nola Falk have been a part of that I'm sure they would Echo those same thoughts so we did do two facility visits so far two different days we might consider third depending on where we want to go and see but the first visit was McHenry West and DeKalb High School McHenry was put on a very nice CTE based Edition just in the last two years it was an award winner as well we got to see that most of the tour was focused on that but we did see other spaces within the building both athletic PE Gathering space student common area science classrooms and their careertech area and then we also went to DeKalb High School tour that whole facility it's a little bit older facility they're probably on 12 or 14 years roughly give or take and and pulled some comments from that and then just last week we had the opportunity to visit Three facilities we started at Maine East High School they have a number of high schools in the main Township District but we are in Maine East based on what I told them that we wanted to see that's a 1929 building originally that they've done some significant transformative changes to and some additions and they're running about 1800 students in that particular high school it's a little less athletically based than like Maine South is they're a little more theatrically based there they had some very nice highlighted CTE programs and feel free Esther and jump in with any comments there uh they're a very good hosts we went through their servery we basically covered the whole high school they had some unique art room setups as well uh some of the original classrooms are still in the older part of the building and felt you know new fresh paint and everything but they had a very nice Library one of the things that I would say was probably common to all three facilities that we visited for the libraries were definitely significant smaller amount of physical books a slightly smaller space and a very very very open plan with lots of group rooms in fact the one at Main East doesn't even have a perimeter wall it's just part of an open space above the stairway not a large Corridor uh with group drives all the way around the perimeter and we saw both students and staff sitting in in varying types of seating in between their classes either studying or or researching or reading a book or whatever it might be so very good very good visit there we then went to New Trier High School so nutrient is a very landlocked High School I believe that building is actually originally a 1919 building but they've also done massive changes and additions to that they admittedly still have some of the original classrooms that are 600 square feet uh that they that are still on their list to you know renovate and adjust but the vast majority of the space has been redone they have a four-story uh kind of open Commons area with stairs at each end some of those pictures were in some of the inspirational slides that I showed the committee and the staff earlier in August they have a beautiful black box theater they have a servery area that they put through what are they about 30 well there are 3 600 students and that campus the building we were in was actually sophomores Juniors and seniors their other campus uh where 60 where uh Breakfast Club was filmed that's just a freshman campus so um they are very tight and greatly unlocked at the other end their athletic facilities they have a field house that's buried half in the ground that is just track based on a little bit of volleyball they have main gyms above that they have a two-story climbing a wall they have multiple servers as well the students can go anywhere in the building once they have their food to eat anywhere you want to go the thing that I found was interesting also with almost three of the buildings that we saw on that tour is they had a secure entrance button at the traditional secure entrance you would think of they all had staff sitting there in a scanning area you got buzzed in through it through an airlock but then you were open to the school there was a security officer to scan your ID or check your ID but it wasn't in an office many of their main offices were on totally different floors because of the age of the buildings and where things were located that's not how we're setting this one up just so you know but that was interesting that that's how they've handled those security issues they certainly have a high level of budget availability in Winnetka and it's a nice facility but there were certainly less emphasis on CTE programs there they were kind of highlighted right in the main Corridor but they were very traditional in what they were offering um and then our last stop was Stevenson High School where is Maine located I'm assuming so it's like Park Ridge area okay and I'm sure I'm assuming is whenever Stevenson's in Lincolnshire serves a much larger area because Stevenson has 4 600 students and they're a million square foot of building um they had a lot of very nice things and they have uh more money than God quite frankly but there are a lot of good themes on what they're doing how they're doing it that can be applied to your facility and done in a more uh financially judicious way they have very large budget there to work with they put on some very nice additions they have green balls everywhere they have four serveries throughout the building one of which is open until 8 30 PM they have three coffee shops they have four learning stairs they're a full four-story building I think there's four elevators in that building it stretches out over a very long area they have and I'll show you some kind of stuff here in a second they also have theaters that do not have does not have a balcony has a main floor and it's kind of a scalloped back and there are two 30-foot cylinders in the back which is kind of strange when we were first when I first walked in I'm like this seems odd that you know those seats come dip and go back and forth as I looked at the floor there's a three-quarter inch gap between that concrete wall and the floor that's because those 30 foot diameter cylinders that have 150 seats in them are in lecture Halls facing the other direction the majority of the time but when they want they push a button and they rotate all the way around and face the theater so they have 300 more seats in the theater don't even ask me what their costs I would have no idea I know no one else that has but there's a way to achieve the same kind of thing and I'll talk a little bit about that so I think the the tours are beneficial to see what not only the trends the house like education has been delivered this type of spaces it's being delivered in type of seating how much they integrate at the educational process not just in the classroom and the whole building can be a learning tool the whole all the spaces can be learning spaces if you design them to be that way which is our goal for this this high school so um moving on uh we've reviewed a number of the options I'm going to go through the two options that were last presented to the committee we had plans to start with and then there are some 3D images and then a very quick video this was option b uh option b you'll see has a large curved front that is a four-story classroom section and I can I learned how to do this recently too let me get my laser pointer out so you can see that red dot this is a three this is the first floor but this section is a four-story section this section right in the center here would be the area that has an opening uh on all floors at this point to the left this is office main office area entry is right in here obviously you can see where the theater and the support spaces are over here man competition gym locker rooms to one side PE lockers that way athletic locker rooms this way and then the large Field House very much like the footprint that you have right now this is the like lunch area meeting multi-purpose Gathering space this would be the front of the building out here and if I move to the second uh second floor I'll cross the whole thing theater uh Field House gyms are obviously multi-story spaces now you see how the classrooms are set up in that curve this is open to below you have the library your library space up here your art space over here with these spaces being banned in coral and those are two story spaces and over the top of the lockers below is Fitness and weights to modular system storage access the wrestling room is up on this level and support space for that and then we put the other third and fourth floor of educational Wing third and fourth at the top matches as you go up bathrooms are stacked we are not looking at Corridor lockers we are not looking at lockers for every student because the vast majority don't get used so we have Locker banks on each floor level in the buildings which the they could be more use it as you need to type of a thing or people that want to reserve them the front office has got all the normal front office functions and this is true of both schemes but it also has some social emotional support nurses station down on the first floor we've done the same thing you'll see here on the third floor a suite of spaces that are can be Career Tech as well as another nurse spot and another social emotional support spot so anywhere a student is they can go up or down a floor and get some support on whatever they might need where they don't have to go all the way down to the first place every time they need uh medication they're are in need of some assistance that was something that came from everybody that I brought up and then we had social workers and counselors and people there just the way that everybody's crowd right now just off the main office which the first original one that we looked at kind of just a bunch of offices all right off the main office which gets very ingested especially our current space understandably so but just splitting that kind of it's almost like teams right like you could have different people you could have freshman sophomore and wonder however it is that admin chose to to break that up it was huge though to spread that out too and then that doesn't feel quite as um open when kids are coming in right by the main office there's a little bit more privacy and um I think uh just you know a different way to approach it which is everybody was on board with from Support Services right I think the other interesting thing we found out so our committee which is made up of teachers Administration um board members one of the questions was about the Mark was do we keep lockers do not keep lockers where do you think the usage is uh our staff they don't use their lackers they used to take their backpacks to the classroom and that's kind of where they're at they carry their stuff with them that's kind of our kid today well you saw the other three larger buildings Maine New Trier and Stevenson we asked about do you did you guys when you put your distance on did you add new lockers they said no when they had surveying to their students they they guessed somewhere between I think we got a range somewhere between 30 percent to about 40 percent of students would use those depending on which building we talked to so it's about a third of our students that they would anticipate would even use the lockers that you would have so having that bank is probably more fiscally responsible it provides us more opportunity to put other things into space that are more usable for our students so I think that's one of a hearing from our art staff but B just kind of following up with the other larger districts it's not the same kind of elements correct just that was interesting yeah so just I'll run through some quick exterior images these are very early preliminaries model hasn't been built yet because we'll be building it in 3D as we do the drawings but these are really surface supplied just to give you an intent and there's still a lot to be worked out over the next several months but it gives you an idea of how it might sit what the front is so here you have that four-story wing all of your other support pieces are behind it from is from from an approach or entry standpoint a couple of different if you're driving right up the main drive that's what which way you would see from the other side on the right kind of a masonry base limited plenty of glass but not a big glass box because that's really not in the budget we need to be conscious of how much glass slots use the areas that we're targeting you'll see here one of the things in this scheme is there's an open area underneath that part of the building that could be built out in the future if need be but what would start as an open area or covered outdoor Terrace area approaching it a little bit closer then there's a quick video that I can click on that gives you just a little run by so foreign this is the option that the the vast majority of the committee felt most strong about and and they would like to see Pursuit you as important to come to consensus with that we'll talk about that at the very end so again the main core of the building is uh you get that laser printer on here yeah yeah the main core of the building is this spine right here that's a four-story classroom Tower again you'll see the circulation is pretty simple here so you've got that open spine with these smaller uh trapezoid areas are there open sections to below there's fire stairs you know egress stairs throughout the building but in a main open stair here which is one we saw at uh actually a number of we saw them at Stevenson and even the one at Maine Township this is the other Corridor that runs left to right in this case that's really the majority of circulation short of the two smaller hallways that go between the athletic side here very easy supervision wise very easy to navigate in way find where you're at instead of having you know a maze of things like your current high school or micro High School um it's it's somewhat divided by this side on the left where we have again open uh lunch area Gathering space functions as a lot before the theater itself you have the large theater on the left here main floor stage here open to the outside one of the comments was can we have a theater that opens exteriorly and perform to an outside audience both both teams don't allow that but from highlighting that here directly across once you're abandoned Coral rooms and their support spaces for those as well as bathrooms so again you can close off the wing here and just have this area open for theater Productions or anything like that directly across here is your kitchen and servery area and again from our last go around and from our visits we're making some tweaks to this but that could also function as concessions during uh a theater performance uh or any performance to the right you then have all your CTE focused on the first floor here and along this Corridor one of the comments we had was wanting to highlight that making that accessible not sticking at the back of the building again based on what CTS are going to provide we'll ship these around us because we use it maybe exterior access which ones can be an interior of the whole building there's only I think five educational spaces that don't have Windows every other educational space has a window worked very hard to try and Achieve that in this section between here you have gang restrooms elevator and stair for the core and then these are this is open area here so those boxes are like Gathering spaces for students that we saw in a lot of places where they can casually sit they might have a white board they might be in glass they might be a it can be a lot of different things they can also sit there and eat their lunch it allows you to flow and feel open as opposed to a box a box a box a box lined up um so that flows right into this open lobby area space you can circulate all the way around that core uh over here we have the Mid Valley room we have the main competition gym with seating on all four sides even though these two sides will be only seven eight nine rows the other ones are going to be like 24 to 26 ropes we'll have a stadium-like feel this is the athletic entrance uh athletic support athletic training office concessions storage athletic locker rooms and bathrooms and such behind here are the PE ones as you grow you can see we easily add the additional P lockers as needed and the field house over here to the right these are athletic spaces and these are P instruction spaces so these are all teaching stations I'm married to a feed teacher so these all count as PE stations for mandated B in state of Illinois front office of course is right up front here main entrance and Terrace and entrance into the theater all right and so just to clarify based on the comment we made about the third floor Support Services there'd be some credit located by our main yeah so there's there's actually two entrances so you'll see you'll come in the main entrance and you have to go into the little you know secure entrance into the office and be checked in before you can go anywhere else in the building but this entrance is split right here where that red is so a student that may not wants the other want other people seeing he or her getting some assistance can come in this way to both the office and then Social Work office more on this side so they can have a little bit of privacy separated out maybe even a meditation space things like that would be located in that kind of an area because things on the floor along this classroom spine let me just highlight you know looking at all the kind of Casual Furniture right like a lot of stuff all this throughout the goal would just be there's lots of places correct so this let me start here this this in in either scheme but uh this is a myriad of types of seating so these are some long tables of eight some tables of four some tables of six some rounds of eight some high tops some a few of them are fixed like outside perimeter areas the vast majority could be taken down so depending on what you use in that space for lunch instructional space meeting space overflow space for a presentation or if you wanted to bring in chairs and set up a mini black box theater type concept and do a small performance you could do that and then there's a storage room right over here designed to house all that stuff when you're not using it so it's not just pushed against the walls and what is messy has a place to go throughout here like the the this taper area on all floor levels there's meant to be casual seating one of the things we saw integrated into the to the edges of the open open Lobby space at New Trier for example so instead of having expensive glass railings everywhere they had they had them in a couple spots a little bit here a little bit there but then they have seating area is that were built into that which you know comfortable seating a little bit of Glass on the top they can still see you can still see everything going on with the functional and the other thing that they also integrated is is intentional on where they put trash and recycling throughout the building it's not just randomlying a couple spots in that in the kitchen or in the circuit area they have it all throughout the building because they're students and those buildings go anywhere they want to eat so they need anywhere to throw it okay when they're done so that's true in every spaces some of those are fixed they might be an open Cube or they might be a couple of glass boxes we've indicated a couple of those on each end as well that would open and hang over that Lobby space so you can see them going up and down then answer your question so second floor uh obviously the Large Gym spaces and such are two stories again we have wrestling it's the same components weight room and fitness over here open to the lobby below so they can get borrowed light into that space they would still have glass on this wall they would just start waist high and go up so they get natural light from that large lobby but when someone's down you'll probably be looking up no one's self-conscious and you're looking up at you while you're on an elliptical or whatever you only see the space and maybe the top of their head so they can see how they can gain natural light but people won't be staring up at them over here same concept here's the library open there's some group rooms here we're already adjusting to maximize more group rooms and minimize Stacks a little bit that's open to this main Corridor and balcony area outside the theater and open to below which is that lunch multi-purpose area there's we're still working on laying out all C2 that that will actually be a little bit smaller but the upper balcony of the theater over here we have art spaces we're looking at modifying this whole square right now to make it function a little bit more like what we saw at Maine Township which had a nice open feel to their Art Space very flexible um and very collaborative so those boxes within that envelope might shift around a little bit but they'll all be there wrestling over here we have a testing center was another thing that was very common what you see right here on the corner is that blocker bank which is similar on each floor there's a group of lockers it's open usually supervisable at the point of intersection not at far ends so wherever you're transpiring by the main transpiring stair and by the elevator all right in that area and then classroom Wing down each side and they are set up as Department areas like English just groups and areas social studies is grouped to Mary and math is grouped in area science has the fourth floor because they have larger lab spaces they also have Fume hoods and exhaust needs so why put them on the second floor and chase them all the way up the walls put them on the top floor they go right up the road much less expensive so that is second floor in general third floor now we don't have a cross quarter because now we're higher than the rest of the building so we have a little bit of space that we gained back again there's your locker Bank going up we started to lay out a few classroom Arrangements just to show how they would lay out there is that third floor Career Tech and social emotional Suite again first and third floor so you can go up or down and always have the opportunity for some assistance um moving your way up into the top floor is science which includes right now Greenhouse area out here with some green roof left out here some green roof left over here those areas that you could expand as you need more science labs both of the buildings are designed to be expandable so when you add classrooms on the curved one you can add on either end and underneath in this one it's intended that it in the back here you would pick up at a minimum four classrooms on each floor 16 total classrooms if there was any in for more you could actually go in both directions and have a cross-court or if you ever got to the point where you really needed that many more that's the plan here again are some of the snapshot images again don't get caught up in the colors we're just trying to trying to give you an idea what it might look like and I wasn't Illini so you got orange and blue there's what you'd look like from the parking lot this is the main entrance in the theater entrance live stage for the theaters on the left field house to the right if you're approaching straight on there's the principle being interviewed by CNN on the left for something good yeah I'm approaching the entry a little bit this can be an outside Terrace it's right off the lunch area can students would have the opportunity to maybe sit outside during good weather times in the fall and spring there's focused really on theatrical entrance to the left the main entrance to the right with the secure entry and then an identified athletic entrance and then in the video it's not the optional LED all flashing yes yep competition gym is that box field house is the other box so even there's something I think was appealing about this especially is in multiple entrances for multiple functions correct adding a sectional final basketball game yep wow with a theater production meetings with you know all that stuff with separate spaces and outdoor stuff right so I mean I think that we're going to read the direction and they're very clean and simple circulation plan too so with that we're looking for what we're looking for is is consensus from the board on which option you want to move forward with we're at the point where we need to transition and wrap up schematic design and move into what we call Design development which is another layer of detail that's when we start looking at actual Building Systems actual building structure how what's going to start going into each of the classrooms we're not doing the working drawings yet over here all those decision making processes and we really want to do that for one design it's not too so we're looking for consensus I think both Mr General and Mr fall can speak for the committee I think it was pretty much I think it was something I think the teachers for those administrators and others that are here I think the teachers for at the meeting as well please chime in what was most striking to me and if you look at the the first picture of each that you put up this academic Parts while front and center which was kind of one of the driving forces as that was being described to us it's great schools first look at this round thing to me it looks like it could be a hospital to me it looks like it could be an office building um but also the classrooms are separated then you have the field house behind it so you have this disjointed feeling the what is most appealing to me about the the cross thing you know he talks about the band and Mr strike had the most strong opinions by the way of everybody fully advocated for our arts department in every which way possible so we fully appreciate that um but you know it's like being open to four floors you can have the band playing on football Friday and you could hear that through the whole building based on the four floors being up and down the teachers are Central to everything no pun intended maybe pun intended I don't know um and so that was much more part of the the architecture of the whole building and the physical locations of all that versus it almost looks like the classroom section there's like a separate piece that was just like popped onto the front of the building um almost like a mix and match kind of thing so I that was what the teachers and Esther correct me if I'm wrong that was what the teachers were very strong about that it was also just a part of everything very different from my perspective the central core of the honestly it is a cross and not in multiple big sections put on top of each other we call it an airplane there you go yes what's the secret of my designer Mark what did you think I I thought I thought this design worked out and I think the reason why we chose it was to have the separation but yeah you know the way the way we're laid out when we saw it on the drawings it just floated foreign so just it looked a lot more pleasing you know from the street and I think as you move towards even when you mentioned the lunch time we get bigger I think we're gonna have to allow flexibility right to move around the building which we just don't have the spaces right now in our current building so we have the intentionality behind the first floor spine and other floors if we're being quiet respectful outside of classes that have teaching going on then there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to trust our kids to do that with exceptions when necessary we get that whatever number of kids in there but I think that design also from a supervision standpoint with both of those quarters right off the cafeteria versus otherwise you have a whole separation for that fourth four-story thing which you wouldn't have is you'd have to have more supervisory people in those hallways very different than standing in the middle of the spine and really having 360 degree view and just supporting that and also the educational standpoint the teachers seeing if this was a fail working people because they could collaborate effectively with this so listening to the teachers and there's teachers face designated on each one so they have places to collaborate outside of their classes and also I think we'd highly talked specifically to it wasn't like this is the English Department workspace it was just going to be common workspace to further facilitate kind of Engagement collaboration collaboration across across our subject teaching and all that stuff so one thing I would like to just go back real quickly because I said I would do this in the first floor plan there we are so right now this is a little fit you have a balcony that sits over you know about half of this it's going to be about a third so I talked about those rotating classrooms and we heard this from numerous administrators in those other buildings now we love our theater but we only use the next number of times and it's a big space it's great to have but it's it sits empty a lot of time Stevenson didn't have that problem because they can at least use those two classrooms and then the bigger theater still can be working on its production so the thought process was this you'll see and then that's one of the changes we're working on this right now you come in and you just go you know at Ada ramp I work your way all the way down to the bottom the thought process would be where that balcony comes in and it'll be at about the third point right here that will come in and have seats and then right under where that balcony ends we'll have a main intermediate aisle which is also a little better for circulation in general and then go back the rest of the way down get the energy aisle between the bottom of the balcony and the on the floor you're not going to be 40 feet like you are going to be in the main theater it'll probably be 14-ish feet give or take 12 to 14.
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the amounts of the increases are determined by the state there is a Max growth quotient so for 2024 it's four percent so we will take the levy which is the cash that we get in from our property taxes what we were certified for for 2023 did you grow that four percent and that determines how much money we can get for 2024. um our projected circuit breaker just a reminder of circuit breaker is the money of property tax that we asked for and we're allowed to ask for but we will not get because some particular um homeowners business owners landowners things like that if they um are asked to pay more than what the state mandate is by the amount or by the type of land and everything that they own so that gets into a whole can of worms we won't have to open up today but one thing to note is our circuit breaker amount is very low we are very very fortunate we only have about 5400 our debt service fund so we tonight we talked about um getting uh I want another Debt Service to kind of replace things that have fallen off so Debt Service this is our release payments and our general obligation bonds we're adding on the general obligation Bond everything that is raised to go money into that Debt Service fund is needs driven I'll get into that in a little bit but it only looks at what are we supposed to be paying back out to the bank when we take our loan just like if you have a car payment you gotta pay your car payment all the time on debts we pay twice a year and it's based on the amount that we have to pay back the financial institution for the amounts that we have borrowed and we also have a very specific amount that we're allowed to have as our little Reserve it's very very small but it's okay there's been a lot of talk about assessed value because AV is all over the entire State have really increased I just want to put a little snapshot together for everybody going back from 2017 to 2023 you kind of see the differences there um a little chart looks like it wasn't that bad and all of a sudden babies just really started to grow so that kind of gives you an idea of the values of all of the properties everything that is that pays property tax within the entire County this is brown cutting school specific those are our AVS um we did have our 2024 came in I believe that Jason we had this number in his presentation as well 1472.
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they have a motion second motion by Mr Smith second by Mr bassner question or discussion Mr Ramirez this is a teacher driven initiative correct correct so thank you uh I'm sorry I did not catch your name but thank you for taking that initiative to do this and how many more adults are needed they still do that Evelyn wood thing where you can learn a language in like three four days or something because I don't know any Germans thank you wow wow well based on the agenda and the cost it looks pretty affordable based on that time that time over there with everything included so thank you for all your work involved any other questions all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed motion carries 4-0 uh 4.07 approved to accept and receive the secure and safe School Grant Mr G and Fermi thank you Mr President board member since 2019 Crown Point School Corporation has applied for and received the secure school safety Grant we did that once again this year and have been awarded 99 000 4.74 cents which one would be used for salary and benefits for school resource officer at 75 829.12 and then two to purchase 13 A.D automated external defibrillators at twenty three thousand one hundred seventy five dollars and sixty two cents the administration's recommendation that we approve and accept the and receive the grant funding through the Indiana Department of Homeland Securities secured and school safety Grant you've heard the recommendation of the administration illustration for approval to accept and receive grant funding from the Indiana Department of Homeland Securities sssg FY 23 for the amount of ninety nine thousand four dollars and seventy four cents may have a motion motion motion by Mr Vassar second by Mr Smith question or discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed motion carry 4-0 4.08 a memo of understanding between Crown Point School Corporation and family concerned counseling Mr Gene from in your board packets you have a memorandum understanding between Crown Point School Corporation and family concerns counseling this mou is exactly like we have with crown counseling and pillars of wellness and what it does is it allows us to create a partnership with a counseling agent so that when we run into situations where all of our social work and school counselors have run into a really intense situation where there's additional counseling maybe outside of the school and what the family is needed a tier one or tier 3 intervention if you will then we have this mou in place it also allows that counseling agency to then be in the school we have are adding a third counseling partnership because we want to cover our final two schools that did not have this partnership in place and that would be Eisenhower Elementary in Lake Lake Street Elementary and so the right Administration recommends approval for the mou between uh Chrome Crown Point Community Schools and family concern counseling any questions you have you for the recommendation of administration for approval of the memorandum of understanding between Crown Point Community School Corporation and family concern counseling they have a motion motion by Miss Basin second by Mr Smith question or discussion Mr Jean Ferman this is for our staff would recommend this exactly um our counselors are The Gatekeepers between when that recommendation will happen so it's generally through our trained school counselors our social workers where that recommendation comes thank you Comma just first uh great job uh where is this facility located they're actually in Valparaiso operation thanks any other questions all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed motion carries 4-0 thank you 4.09 policy revision policy zero one six seven point three public comment at board meetings Mr Kiwa board members I bring to you uh today a second time this policy for revision as you know in our initial conversations last month um we've changed out some vocabulary for State Statute to change participation to comment but you thankfully had a good discussion at the last board meeting which led to this this final language so I just want to thank you for for help clarifying all that for us and I bring to you uh policy zero one six seven point three um to you today to complete the second reading and gain final approval on this updated policy you've heard the recommendation of the administration for approval of today's second reading and approval of the updated policy zero one six seven point three may have a motion motion by Mr Smith second by Miss Basin question or discussion and and just to alleviate some of those concerns I read after last month's meeting on social media the participants name and topic will be announced by the presiding officer whether it be the president vice president secretary as indicated on the agenda so I just want to make sure some people were saying we're making this more difficult to speak at meetings nope it's completely the opposite you get your right to speak at the meeting but at the same time so that we can have an idea of what you're speaking about regarding the open topic were were made aware of that prior to allowing you to speak so it's not like we're going to tell say no but it also helps us kind of indicate on where you're coming from with whatever topic that maybe you'd like to discuss any other statements anybody like to enter comments with that all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye those opposed motion carries four zero thank you and for all your work behind the scenes on that thank you Artie all right Sue uh item five on the agendas tonight is superintendent discussion groups uh Mr Vassar did you want to start with anything you might have well representing the liaison liaison to the Cedar Lake Redevelopment commission there is some pushback in the proposed subdivisions going down where the uh South Shore Golf Course used to be and the one that is south of um Faith Church going down to 200 and no excuse me 141st there are some resident pushback scheduled for this week so more to come thank you Mr Vassar anything from City Mr Smith okay and nothing obviously from Winfield as well I will just uh reiterate on some of your comments we did get a letter myself Dr Terrell from Cedar Lake about a meeting on the 17th of October from the Redevelopment commission right for that meeting that number I yes sent you so we're at least in correspondence to make sure we're being notified of what's taking place is there anything I need to do we're okay as of now if there is something else we'll definitely keep you including that discussion okay thank you Mr Vassar a 5.02 director of Grants and assessments Mr Hartman thank you uh the state of Indiana has released a 50 up to 50 000 grant for a robotic body for robotics uh teams throughout the state uh I think the legislation that uh supports this has found or realizes that the amount of money that is needed for this type of competition is pretty extensive so we are applying I've had a couple of meetings with uh today with our robotics coaches very passionate people about looking forward to really create this Grant and be able to support them because as they go out and they need the equipment and they need the parts and they need the the those kinds of supports is very important that we are able to provide we could increase the number of students participating we are limited in the number of students that can participate because we of the amount of money it takes to have the parts and the kits for a team to to be able to use which was really something was enlightening to me and I think as a department we will be working towards how can we increase that plus participating thank you Mr Hartman 5.03 director of Elementary education Mr Shekinah thank you Mr President and board members I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank the people in our curriculum and instructional specialist roles who work extremely hard to support our elementary teachers and Learners essentially the people in these roles problem solve and clear obstacles so teachers are really able to focus on their students and the curriculum our Ela and math specialists at the elementary level are Amy McAllister and Joe bisic and they are out and about daily in our buildings to provide instructional coaching modeling and a lot of support to analyze data both to individual teachers and groups of teachers our Blended instructional design Specialists are Susan Valentine and Annie Vasser and they work really hard to support teachers with technology enhanced instruction supporting the construction of courses within our Buzz learning management system and another big area they support our teachers is checking in and providing ongoing support for our new teachers as well also our media specialist Jana Carney provides really important leadership coaching and support to our media staff members in all our buildings and she works really hard to coordinate our district-wide library needs uh on another note I want to recognize and congratulate our fifth graders who participated in the district-wide cross-country meet last week this is a really cool event that our middle school cross-country coaches organize and put on each year at Lemon Lake for our fifth graders thank you thank you commissioner Mr gilby on me uh item 5.04 director of secondary education Mrs Ramirez Mr President and board members I would like to highlight the College and Career Fair that was held at cphs on September 6th Lynn alkire the associate principal at cphs organized this is our 12th College and Career Fair held at the high school and it was open to cphs students we also and their families we also had students and parents from Lowell Kankakee Valley Hanover Lake Central Calumet and Maryville attend and what they were attending was the opportunity to kind of network with 82 colleges unions and agencies that came on site had informational um pamphlets and were able to sign up to get email communication about things that they may be interested for their post-secondary opportunities our whole administrative team at the high school was there as well as all of our guidance counselors really showing the support we have for our students throughout high school but also then in preparing them for their After High School post-secondary decisions Peter fasteris one of the counselors at the high school also brings in invest Ed and they do FAFSA presentations which is helping families understand how to apply for free federal student aid and I'd also like to thank Michelle crawl and our food services because she did an incredible job of hosting the hospitality rooms for her 82 vendors which really welcomed them to Crown Point and made it a very positive experience likewise as Mr jokina very eloquently stated the Specialists that we have in our curriculum in instruction Department are instrumental to the support of our teachers our staff and of our students in turn I'd like to acknowledge Jake Adams and Carol lambersi they work as our secondary Ela and math Specialists Jeremy Walker who works as our Blended instruction design specialist and Anna retzlaff who works as our English language learner District specialist without these Specialists the alignment the support that our teachers receive the timeliness of kind of problem-solving strong communication as well as the ability to support our focus on educator growth teaching and learning to then of course positively transfer that to our students would be much more challenging so we are very appreciative of them specifically with our new teachers who have most recently come on board all of these staff that we've just talked about meet with our new teachers to make sure that they are best able to meet the needs of students best use the technology are familiar with the curriculum and resources that are supported by Crown Point Community School Corporation so thank you for your support of the Specialists to support teaching and learning thank you Mrs Ramirez 5.05 director exceptional education Mrs pasquez good Angel members of the board stuff few updates from our world we have just about completed processing 78 move-in students so 78 students that came to Crown Point schools with IEPs by law those have to be processed within 10 school days of the student moving into the school district so kudos to my coordinators my diagnostic staff teachers of record and the admin teams who sat in those conferences and helped get the students the services they need last Wednesday we hosted The Arc of Indiana for our families and we had 11 families come out to learn about trust able accounts special needs trusts these are just different kinds of financial Arrangements families have to consider if they have a child with special needs as they age out of school we are hosting our first parent advisory group meeting in a few weeks Mr gianfermi is going to join our group and we're going to have our Behavior Specialists share some tips for parents on kind of how to help students with homework at home and just supporting behavior supports that we give in the in the classroom supporting those at home as well um I also want to thank Dave Coulson Marty Freeman and Scott Kessler one of our job coach bus drivers who helped recently with what could have been a kind of a scary situation with one of our adult students and they kind of stayed on it and helped resolve a situation so that everyone could have some peace of mind and know that an adult student was safe and sound so I thank them thank you Mrs pascus 5.06 assistant superintendent Mr G infermi thank you this one I recognize the work that the fiscal Administration and the the teachers and staff have been doing with the CTE program at the high school we're up to 24 CTE dual credit classes and we have 17 complete CTE Pathways for graduation and that number probably was not even in double figures a few years back so Mrs alkire driving that as an administrator and again all the teachers hard work in that I mean we're offering Pathways in Kentucky construction trades Finance marketing those are a couple that we added next year we'll be adding health care and education so there's a lot of work behind that to align that to the next level of programs of study that is happening right now so just a great job by the administration and the staff out there and we appreciate them offering those opportunities to our students thank you Mr Gene for me uh Mrs pasque is just one question I forgot to ask even though I wrote it down the 78 is that K through 12 or is that preschool two that's preschool through 22 years old oh okay thank you uh 5.07 Chief human resource officer Mr Kiwa yesterday what I call external stakeholders or folks to support our processes here in ways that you may not know otherwise but first a Crossroads Chamber of Commerce who we do work very closely with they help greatly with our new teacher luncheon they asked about the teacher appreciation day but right now currently they're working on our outstanding educator awards that they do annually so I think those nominations were just sent in and we will learn who our outstanding educators are coming up here in the next next few weeks we'll be able to announce that uh coming up but we just love partnering with them and they just do so much for our schools they need to be mentioned tonight in addition to Miracle rotary who also sponsors something called clothing our children where we get clothing vouchers for our students K to 12.
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well what I'm asking is are we going to be adding to that before we owe another one no so that should be as of like June 30th the fiscal year 23 24 B and I payment um the cash Reserves at the end of fiscal year 2023-24 will be as of July 1st of 2024. the Final Five series of members takes into consideration that the payment was made and that's the leftover correct so then we will get the funding from this cycle that we're getting ready to vote on or that we're getting ready to take added to that for the next funding would be due correct it should include the addition of that yes because you will receive the tax collections in descent in December and by May of next year so you'll have it before until this July 1st 2024 yeah okay other questions session foreign um so so you know the 13.48 and Below all we have approximately the same penalty for our current existing debt there in 2028.
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then we can do is we can take that back area and divide that into three sections with acoustical panelized walls that have marker board tax surface instructional things on them and eighty percent of the time when you're not doing big theater production or running the theater Productions those can be lecture spaces meeting spaces co-teaching spaces each one of them will have to see how it lays out each one of them we would hope to have maybe 120 seats in each minimum so you have at least three full classes in in a shared lecture space which would be used much more often than just the theater and when you need the theater the walls will pull back and that's hit and we're not and they'll be easier to operate because we're only talking about you know not even as tall as this for those walls so we there I've been in ones where they had large walls and those are hard to maneuver and can get off track easier and acoustically yeah we can get a good STC radio and keep in mind while they're in each of those spaces um you're not doing your theater production so you're not not necessarily having a band and things like that the other thing you might want to consider which we need to talk about as we go through design development at Stevenson they do not have an orchestra day which is a hey I have to provide Ada access to that Orchestra pit which means a lift or it has to be close enough to the elevator and we don't have that right now um they their Orchestra sets up in a different space and they pipe the music in this technology is available to do it now where it wasn't 15 or 20 years ago wasn't quality it wasn't High Enough he said we've been doing that for years so something to think about we're accounted for enough for Mr kid right now because that was the request but you could say well I think a fair amount of dollars that could be applied somewhere else if we can make that work through the audio system how close quite frankly it could be almost anywhere you could literally I would just suggest they'd be in the band or right across the hall okay you know that's smart yeah you can actually probably get a few more seats or at least scrunch that up save a little square footage as well yeah so that's something else to consider again things we can accomplish that someone else is doing um that's part of why we do the facilities wouldn't have known that they do that had we not done that yeah much more use out of that space and quite frankly even if you don't use it initially when you're in the transition of adding those extra classrooms some days for instructional space in the inter room so you don't have to build a 20 classic edition that's where you build another building right so it gives you some flexibility are you looking for just I'm thinking anything I guess the question from the four of you who were not a part of this um any Poll for the four of you that would make you say ooh the other one that maybe wasn't or strong opinions either way about anything that you saw in option b which is what you go first okay if you want to look at it is there a way to split the screen specifically and to be fair I think if Mark and I have heard the teachers if I thought one thing and the teachers were like oh why do you think that's a silly perspective we're in the classroom yeah but it was administrators support staff uh you know Support Services people teachers I mean Athletics music everybody I think is close to unanimous is without officially taking a written vote as it could have been I think so if you consider the current high school and kind of the legs that it has to supervise versus something like this you can see the utility of this to be much more productive especially being out with shutdowns specific areas you were shut down the academic points and stuff and still functioning elements for athletics and finance and the parking would be designed enough elements only people yeah I think one of the cool things though is took what we're currently doing at the high school and over related to what these foreheads were so they could you know we can't do this today but we could do it tomorrow with the new design and I thought that was pretty profound and these two designs were like so strikingly different from what the initial like we're spitballing here this is I mean he's like which is exactly what it did and then we were able to come in and give you two very viable options and see which one held up and and we we weren't sure one was going to hold up you might have said hey I like this about this one I listen about that one and we would have had a hybrid but it seemed like everybody gravitated to this one I think that one just it really had the heartbeat being able to shut things down but being able to have that area that's fully collaborate fully future forward Banking and having to be a hub for a living to operate around is what everyone calls me to really love about it do you think in operations and maintenance we're on board with the two right yeah saying anything else from you I know you were at the meetings um administrators teachers this was definitely the the option of what's most favorable the consensus okay that's what you guys want this one I think I mean I think as Esther and I talked about this I think after last meeting too I mean I think you know in in some way it's our it's our job to uh to take it's our job to take some of the consensus from this committee that worked very very hard with a lot of extra hours for our staff especially I'll move out on the first day of school or second day of school I mean you know we we we we're working hard and I think that that consensus I think should probably be the information that we need as a board to support to support me we have to work there so absolutely right yeah it seems there's still a lot to tweak and play around with the general gist of it is going to hold true so excellent different design yeah it's weird things like yeah I know I was looking I was like what in the world but once you once you get the three the volumes it starts to feel a little different because it kind of flows like this across was Stevenson and the other ones like airplanes too helicopters so it's interesting but Stevenson was an atom so like they started with a really old building yeah in Prairie View and then when they got annexed into Lincolnshire that's when it explode explosions if you take those two leading schools new trigger is a very tight site so they've had to really work on going up and renovating what they have because they don't have a line that's why their field house is so half buried in the ground with no windows because they just have nowhere to go with it right so they been forced to do that in that envelope and it feels a little more cohesive than Stevenson Stevenson is so spread out so interesting the way they approach it because they have like a 10 million dollar maintenance budget every year so they can add almost every other year they're adding something where nutria kind of didn't do anything for a long time and then has over the last eight or ten years made all the changes in a tighter envelope it's just interesting to see how the buildings turned out with two different approaches for doing it because Stevenson had a lot of farmland [Music] student services flexible seating big open Commons and that's kind of the piece I think of all three of those schools we went to talk about they have beautiful schools they had budgets huge Renovations but they aren't able to to place things exactly where they want them because they're constricted by the space of the hand yeah [Applause] benefit S no I think it's important to have that Hub um it just feels like a lot of waste and space you know what I mean because it's like these two points and we get all this here and all that here it just seems like is that is the square footage is the same okay so even though it looks it's just the square footage is very very similar yeah I think you expand out or either way because it's an airplane how schools handle natural light coming into the building really changed the feel of what you were in as you walked around which changes your mood you know the back then you know you're not in this concrete box and you're not in space whereas I can tell you that like I'm very excited about the fact that this this core right here especially the amount of light can come straight down through kind of a a bigger area and then you've got light coming from the windows outside for those glasses but also as you walk in between classes of emotions that could be occurring that just natural Ambience is so much different than an article old school construction probably most of us were in villains like that at some point and it felt very different so I would say lighting is a big thing in both designs that is many classrooms with the opportunity for Windows or Playhouse the most contractors stay a few venues spend right yeah just to give you some width in the center of the Hub it's Square you asked about expansion so let's talk a little bit about that just so you know um this is obviously an area that you could expand off of you could make bandroots larger you can create space there if you need more receiving or more kitchen and needed to slide back but we're designing the kitchen for a core or three thousand so you should be good you could also if you wanted to you could expand this cafeteria space out I don't think you'll need to we're we're set up for at least 750 just in that space not counting in the Overflow in the bill adjust in that space But you could push the those entries out a little bit if you needed to obviously we can do a a four classroom Edition tapers back to a point or you could do a bigger one off the back of the building if you really actually needed more classrooms these are these these back walls are all expandable as well as this we've already talked about meeting debt and if you ever needed additional PE or support space you could expand in this direction as well I wouldn't come off the front of the buildings correct way to change that but going backwards and the intent on whatever site that you're on is that in the front we have maybe drop off and or visitor limited visitor parking the majority of the parking will be on the side in the back spanning between that and athletic fields so that they can double up and you're not putting parking lots everywhere trying to maximize and be efficient with the usage of the parking lots so there is expandability yes in both games but definitely investment so it's a football stadium depends on the site yeah in what we said right now we're anticipating it's to the to the top or they would be in that direction but depending on the site we might have to turn it one way it might be a little left or a little right but that's the intention span that distance with parking we'll share information regarding the park District's interest in purchasing nine acres of property adjacent to Burlington Park so some of the things as we continue to look at construction and use of the land that we have in maintaining our use probably large enough to prep an elementary school at some time and Is it feasible that we'd have an elementary here in talking to him you really need about 13 acres minimum uh Northern Kentucky Elementary School this is only 12.
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um I just did kind of a five-year growth five-year grows 42.83 holy cow um but like I said they were in all over the place yeah and the school board really doesn't have any say so on leaving assessment nothing but that is the county assessor yes so the county assessor um they have uh they have assessors that work with them there is State formulas there's prescribed ways that they can look at the property what all is on it how much is there are there improvements there's so many things so all of that is determined 100 by the county we have nothing to do with it but we wait till that magic never comes out and when we use that in our declaration and also that's only on 49 of their land 49 there you go okay so our budget amounts these are the amounts that we are asking the state to spend okay so our education fund we've got 13.6 million um Debt Service fund the amount in The Debt Service fund is increased right now because we have anticipated debt so what they had the presentation on tonight what we're going to do is we're going to put our anticipated payment high and wait till it comes unofficial before the end of the year and then I'll allow the state to bring this down to what we're actually going to be paying out so that is why that number is a little bit inflated right now operations funds 7.18 rainy day we're going to go ahead and what we've traditionally done is around a million just to keep it to where if we need to use the rainy day fund if we have an emergency we have the money already appropriated because remember we cannot spend our money unless the state tells us we can spend our money which is through Appropriations that's exactly what this budget process is so our total budget about 27.4 okay you may remember that transitioning from 2018 to 2019 the legislation came up with this new way of how to do all of our funds in other words what buckets do we put things into so on the top you see General capital projects transportation and bus replacement those used to be individual funds that we had then all of a sudden legislation changed and they said we're going to take all these we're going to kind of move them around and you're going to get two of them you're going to get education and operations so I have a little demonstration because things were not completely just one or the other so if you watch this the first thing that moves part of our general fund there are some things that went over to operations so um the things that went over to operations if you were not aware your um everybody basically if you're not a teacher you can't get paid out of Education so your principles your administrators things like that those come out of operations and then we had a lot of them to the left and other items that went into education so if you see there's part of the split right there the next thing our capital projects there's a little bit that went to education and the rest of it went over to operations kind of a way to think about it for capital projects things that went to education are things that are affecting the kids um like their technology or things that they need to use um so if it's classroom and kid related with education all the other go into operations on Transportation all the operations all that went over there and then our last our bus replacement which is what we're buying buses that went over to operations as well so you can see the state kind of did a little switch of ruined some of these things so because of this because things didn't go clear from one to the other the stage recommends that each School District transfer no more than 15 percent of the state money that we get into education fund from education to operations and the reason is because some of those expenditures got flipped over so because of that we can go no more than 15 percent per year per year of the actual state revenue that we get into education we can transfer more than 50 from education into operations to help cover those costs now we historically have not done that we can't afford to do that and one big thing is with that Reverend move on my business when I have been sat down and done the hard hard number friendship but I I just don't see how this is going to be able to be done so this is one thing that we really are being very watchful on um there's also some new shifts that were not shown in that if people have paid attention there were things in the news about the legislation where it says the state is going to pay for all the textbooks parents don't have to pay the experts anymore well here's the thing is the state gives us some of the money but not all of it so now we have to figure out where are we going to pay for the rest of the rest it needs done so that's where we're going to have to kind of be creative and figure out what's going to come from where um we're still in the reporting process still the calculation process we are nowhere near knowing and what that impact is going to be but that's another thing to take into consideration okay so Debt Service remember I said that the amount that we're allowed to Levy in other words ask for money is dependent on what we have to pay these are the dollar amounts that we are going to be paying out of our debt service fund for 2024.
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I'm I'll be attending a lunch and you're coming up next month uh to to receive our vouchers and we give those out to our needy families and and that is just tremendously appreciated we've been working with the miracle rotary now for well over a decade on this on this project so thanks for and finally we received I want to say an excess of 30 to 40 backpacks with supplies provided by our local Lions Club uh and our folks there are just just super the ladies from the Lions Club but really enjoy helping us out and that handoff is always just just fun they're a very colorful bunch and we love having them here and I've given personally some to some of our folks that that are unfortunately are homeless that that we were helping support so I was able to give give them some backpacks right in my office so just thanks to the Lions Club here locally for supporting our students and school community thank you very much thank you Mr Kiwa uh 5.08 Chief Financial Officer Mr Reese thank you Mr Angel members of the board I'd like to take an opportunity to recognize our technology staff I think if you went back through to a person and asked them to look back on 2020 and what they have in store over the next five years I don't know if they'd all stick around or even be part of that but we continue to throw uh major obstacle after major obstacle at them and they continue to step up to the challenge and put in an enormous amount of time to get us ready including a new student information system the construction you think is just the construction's going on they actually come in after the construction is done and get all the technology set up in the room to make sure that everything works it is an enormous task that they've undertaken and we're getting ready to throw some more at them and they do still have some construction projects to go but I want to I want to thank them here before you for for what they've done these last four or five years has truly been exceptional they don't they don't get a lot of credit they get a lot of the blame when things go wrong and they do everything in their power to make it better for everybody else in the corporation whether it be students staff parents to try to get us up and running so I just want to thank them publicly thank you Mr Reese 5.09 director of communication Mrs Allen is community tour night at Taft our student ambassadors at the actual lead tours around the building so folks have not had the chance to see that building yet it's a great opportunity to come out for a visit thank you Mrs Allen I do owe Mrs Allen somewhat of an apology she welcomed me and had me greet the 17 to 20 new members of our ambassadors club and I was supposed to speak for two to five minutes while most of you that know me that's almost impossible so I extended my time and I'm gracious that you didn't reprimand me or anything thank you Michelle I'm sorry but once again that's great that we have that program now available to our patrons here in the community and I'll look like a wonderful group moving forward so I know they got to listen to Mr Reese for that first day for most of the day so I'm hoping they understand School Finance as much as we do now so with that 5.10 superintendent of schools Dr Terrell thank you uh this evening you want to change it up just a little bit have um a statement that I want to go through and it's actually several pages long but want to provide both you as a board and our community a cyber security event timeline dating back and beginning in November of last year so I'm going to go through this point by point and just kind of give everyone an update we feel like we are now at a position um where we're able to share this timeline and the information that is involved with it we are providing an update so our community has accurate information the mailing process was the final step in dealing with this situation and that was completed last month we have the opportunity to provide and recap now the things that are finished understanding that there are things that will continue to go on in the months coming November 21st of 2022 we discovered that our Network had been compromised later forensic analysis showed someone first accessed our system on November 17th our technology team found encrypted files on our servers the morning of the 21st and immediately took all of our systems offline at that time we retained a third party cyber security specialist a company called tracepoint they confirmed that this was a ransomware event and the threat actors gained access to some of our servers and workstations the forensic analysis confirmed that the situation happened because a staff member gave up their login credentials including password as part of an email phishing attempt with the help of tracepoint we informed the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and also the Indiana Department of Ed as required all necessary paperwork was filed we also involved our insurance company in this process each team the district Trace point and our insurance company also included their legal teams in all discussions Crown Point reached out to the threat actor through Trace point and the initial Ransom demand was 2.6 million dollars this was significantly and successfully negotiated down to five hundred thousand these payments were made with the assistance of a third party broker and we went through all of the real relevant sanction checks through uh the third party specialist prior to making this payment as a reminder we chose to cancel one day of school because we sent our staff home over Thanksgiving break which was November 23rd through the 24th without their computers and we gave them a day to prepare before students returned we did not cancel school because we couldn't teach students without technology we chose to provide our staff with a day to prepare new lessons on November 30th we chose to provide families with a list of steps they could take to protect their information online we did not know yet if the personal information was compromised but as our message indicated we can we were concerned that it was a possibility this was not a required notification but we felt it was important the negotiation process was lengthy and it took weeks to negotiate and send payment which was finalized shortly before Christmas break during the time our technology team began inspecting every Windows device in the district which was nearly 2 000 computers we chose to take a slow careful approach to Bringing systems back online so we could monitor them and add additional security in January we began the process of determining whether personal information had been accessed in the breach a few things to remember because we paid the ransom our student and staff information was turned to us rather than sold online however the information was technically accessed so we followed the law and notified all affected individuals that their information was accessed no credit cards or payment methods were stored in our system therefore no credit card numbers were accessed during the event our final our financial systems were not accessed during the in our current student information system was not accessed either most of the documents that were affected were either word or Excel documents and this event did not affect any of our student Chromebooks The Ransom payment is a portion of the cost that was incurred during this incident with the technology upgrades payments to Specialists legal teams and the installation of new software is the total cost for this event is approximately one million dollars we expect the majority if not all of these expenses excluding The Ransom payment to be reimbursed through insurance we are fortunate that we had a strong that strong financial management over many years meant that we could incur these costs this did not impact money for instruction student services or salaries why did it take so long to provide these details step one included negotiations and transferring payments and then the files step two was investigating what data was actually accessed so we could correctly notify individuals step number two took months approximately January to May the data team examined and finally another company that handles the Sorting of all of the notification process which takes would then took an additional couple of months since this event our district has taken a number of steps to improve cyber security explaining some of these steps would be like giving away the key so I won't be sharing that information with you a few things to note our staff now are required training regarding phishing and cyber security this includes our technology team running internal phishing attempts to test the staff we have installed new software and systems we have new cloud backup Solutions and a hardened more secure firewall staff and students are now required to use stronger passwords that are changed more frequently we know this event had an impact on our school community and we are proud of how our staff handled the changes and the challenges in the classroom our Administration and board acted with the best interest of our students and the district in every decision we made throughout this process and we appreciate as Matt mentioned already our technology team for the long hours they worked over several months and let me pause and make a point of that I don't think anybody truly understands the amount of time that they spent this happened over Thanksgiving break and I had to twist Brian's arm to make his people go home for Thanksgiving dinner so that they could continue working and and we just appreciate all the efforts that they made so with that being said that's the update of where we are right now just want to provide that information for you and also for our community as as we try to move forward with this event knowing that it's not finished but we're getting close to where we are in that's we'll be in that position also wanted to mention this evening this morning we were able to host the mayor's Monday discussions Monday with the mayor I believe is the official title of it and had I don't know probably 20 or 30 individuals here with the mayor and his team it was a great opportunity for the to show our partnership with the mayor and his uh Team there as we continue to work through it in our community exciting next month's board meeting will be in our new Administration Center and we are all desperately looking forward to that where not only will our boardroom not be either Arctic or an inferno but also will permit all of our resources to be Under One Roof and be able to be much more efficient in how we operate thank you Dr Terrell um item six other business of the board other before oh go ahead I've got something um so we had a group uh in the community kind of come about organically to address and discuss issues regarding diversity in our Corporation so I wanted to give you guys a heads up that that's going on and I've been participating in those meetings so I'll keep you updated as more information comes about with that thank you I was just going to bring up before anybody else goes uh we have a couple things moving forward our Indiana School Board Association conference is this coming Monday and Tuesday where three of us for sure will be in attendance and there's still one holding out possibly going to be able to make it for part of it so that's always a chance for us to increase our knowledge in certain areas to help us become better board members so with two new board members being on it it's uh it's a great opportunity to learn and also to co-mingle with other school corporations and their board members to kind of learn what maybe they're dealing with that maybe we're not seeing in our area so and also on November 8th even though next month the Convention as well uh that is our the isba's fall conference or I'm sorry uh fall regional meeting to where we learn get legislative updates and I can tell you my 20 years of service I miss those very infrequently because it's held at Tebow's so it's an opportunity to get a nice meal and learn a little bit more to help me make some decisions or learn information that might be valuable to the crown points Community School Corporation so that that again is on November 8th in case you can make that just let Diana know any other board business new board business other board business no okay with that we'll move on to board statements of appreciation recognition uh 7.01 Mr Bass or anything this evening I'd like to say thanks to uh our kitchen staffs um cafeteria staffs throughout our Corporation um that's a lot of lunches that they serve every day and there's a lot of dishes to clean a lot of trays to clean every day when I was a principal I made it a point at least once a month to serve lunches and then run the dish dishwashing machine I learned to appreciate those people a lot so thank you to Pam and their staff who do all that thank you Mr Vassar Miss Basin anything this evening um so I had the opportunity to attend the football game two weekends ago our last home game that was a really great atmosphere for those of you who haven't been able to attend um our team is doing extremely well undefeated at this point correct so um if you haven't had a chance to attend that and um also I I see that Deanna's not here but always a thanks to Skillman for their continued work Timothy ball almost has a completed playground so I have some very excited elementary school kids who are really amped up to get on that like almost completed facility so um a continued thanks to Dion for getting all that done thank you uh Mr Smith one of the things I've noticed is the relationship between the students and our resource officers and you know there's always a play area where middle school kids go on crazy but um the resource officers are right down there with their Within These Kids I mean just one after there are 10 kids surrounding resource officers and I mean I'm just seeing a resource officer just smile all of them and they're just chatting but the relationship and bonds that they have created with the students and the time they take whether it be lunch or just walking through the buildings and talking to the students it's it's uh it's noticeable and it makes a big difference so I just want to thank them for taking the time to build those relationships because I have no doubt that when it comes to the security and safety of our kids they're going to react and respond and you can't put a price for a value on that equally I had an opportunity to see I had to drop my son off at the high school the freshman and had the opportunity to see the flow of the traffic and the officers out there and how they're directing traffic and I mean these individuals stand in the middle of lanes and with student high school and drivers driving by them it's it's dangerous and it shouldn't be overlooked and they do a great job and I just want to commend them for having the heart and a guts to stay there to do that you know so well done to all those groups and thank you Mr Smith um first my recognition is to Mr Gill and Diane are and Diana green these meetings aren't um they just don't make themselves happen obviously Dr Terrell Creech the agenda with his cabinet and uh other administrators and presents that to us and we come up here and make sure we uh approve and not you know not always agree on things but make sure that we're doing what we're doing as elected officials but the behind the scenes credit goes to those two especially not only moved online so those of you that watch at home and listen at home can do so due to the fact that Mr Gill puts this available and Diana does pretty much all the legwork behind the scenes make sure we don't miss the meetings or at least let her know that we might be able to attend or not attend so thank you to both of you for that aspect um just to reiterate on Miss basin's comment about the football team because we have a bunch of programs doing wonderful this fall but this Friday could be a site unseen as Crown Point is now ranked fifth in the state and class 6A and Valparaiso is number two in 5A so it's literally a clash of two area programs that are considered obviously recognizing the state as top five programs in both their classes so Friday's event should be one to behold I can tell you it'll probably be packed to the knowing that Valparaiso travels well and our support is overwhelming at this point should be a wonderful event for those of you that were unaware that that game is taking place this Friday um that's all I have with that oh Mr Vassar oh okay just want to make sure with that uh I will look for a motion to adjourn motion motion by Mr Vassar second by Miss Basin all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed motion carries 4-0 thank you
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um so it puts us on a pretty good track accomplished but um and but that's I don't think it limits that's too much all of all the decisions of determining what the Mills would be now would just give some direction then for the subcommittee to start having conversations around an a known number right that makes sense yeah neutral or whether the project has to included right well I mean you could those of us are going to be on the board the new members too just hey we're going to raise we bought an interest back up to where it was you know even if you did it for the short term you know make this a year to your decision to you know right yeah go ahead assistant convocation dude like do we have to like sit for that 2.5 million dollars for about interest payments annually do we have to take it that much annually in tax collection since we already have a bank of okay so making sure that I am clear in my head to Phil's point he just made that regardless of what I mean if we were to make a change any one of those numbers from where we are sitting if next year's board wanted to go and a different direction to get to this 2027 year paid offer or you know they they could go back up to that number provide the rest there as long as it's going to fund existing debt or a new project new if it's if it is I want to make sure I say this right so I'm lighter here you can you can raise the Mills so as long as you're meeting your obligation or addressing current debt if it is something new that's where it has to go to an election does that make sense if I mean could you then theoretically drop on an interest to zero this year since you'll have enough in there to make a payment for next year and then the next year bump it back up to 14.
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so it's really not even a feasible sight for us for an elementary school at some point so when we were talking with the village of Burlington and the Burlington Park District was present during the conversation we were talking about mowing and keeping up the land and some of those things for our you know the two events that they have here in Burlington we had addressed them we said you know was there any interest at all that you'd be maybe interested in purchasing you know land or anything like that in Arlington Park this room is definitely system in purchasing some of the land they're actually interested in nine acres of the property which would give them for a CD where about the football program is and the back side here just off of our property there's also an entryway that comes home to the room where they usually park it has to put in some gravel parking about a year or two ago we denied that they're still looking some other parking and grass and we have a lot I know I had a cheerleading coach ask me if they could you know possibly Park back there because they have young girls and kids in Wisconsin absolutely so they park there and they walk their kids go football for cheerleading so giving them the opportunity to purchase the nine acres I just wanted to bring it forward to see if there was interest in continuing to move forward with looking at them purchasing that trying to get some fuss on what the fair market value is for the nine acres that we have we would keep opportunity it's about 12 acres so we would give two to three acres that would provide us this property plus adding ads and parking and I'm talking to Dan Polly we talk about what we could use some additional parking here we're definitely the board meetings with some of the PD that we do here parking is definitely a challenge for us a lot of times we're parking down the main Corridor of the subdivision just across the street so it would allow us to build a parking space so we still have enough property to manage here still keep the district office about two or three acres it's less for our maintenance crew to try to keep up all of the mowing that they're doing so trying to kind of lessen the load for them as well for property that really isn't usable for us it's just some green space especially if Burlington Park District is interested in making that be more usable for the City of Burlington as well as many of our athletes across our district yes auction in a second is required to adjourn from Open Session and go into closed session yes vote Yes happy yes both yes pencil yes Nolan yes
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first or release payments we have two lease we have two leases currently the double is 2.197 million Bond payments these are the ones that we already have those 439 000. unreaversed textbook there's a zero we used to be able to ask for a small amount of money to cover some of the expenses that we had to cover ourselves for textbooks so if we had families that we're all charged their textbook of course fees things like that and they were not able to pay them for one reason or another if those families um if they couldn't then we had to find a way the state would allow schools to fund some of it through their Debt Service for next year we are no longer allowed to do that so that's more than we have to look and see how are we going to fund this how are we going to cover those expenditures because my goodness obviously we're going to get those things for those kids because they so that will no longer be in there our new general obligation button uh we are guesstimating Baker Tilly is guesstimating around 3 million for payments for next year I think you saw Jay's chart high paying the next year and then going down if we pay it in convinced payments we won't pay as much interest so the reason we are allowed to have a little bit higher next year is because we had debt that retired that fell off so we're replacing what we already had [Music] total debt service payment around 5.65 by the way these are the amounts that are advertising will adopt once the uh the Geo Bond closes before the end of the year we will close on it we will have official numbers I will send all of that to the state to dlgf they go through and they adjust all those numbers down to what the real numbers are but when we advertise and adopt we have to advertise and adopt up and above because if we don't if I only put in their 2 million then we're supposed to pay 3 million next year that extra million well honestly on debt service they will fund it but if it was something else a lead would increase you're not allowed to increase after you advertise you cannot increase anymore especially after you adopt you can't increase anymore so that's a big thing to remember our Levy these are dollar amounts so if you look at education fund zero Levy remember education fund the money there comes from the state Debt Service fund we are guesstimating guesstimating High we'll wait till we get the real numbers in and the state will break 5.75 million what the state does to determine how much Levy you know their property tax money that needs to go to take care of that they look at the payments that we're paying in 2024 and then they look at the first half of 2025 and we only get 15 it's like our low percentage per cushion just to have a little bit of cash balance so it's very limited very small like I said those are brought back down once the state receives real numbers from us when they go through before they certify our budget they bring everything back down to real estate operations fund uh we're going to advertise and adopt a little bit above that four percent and allow the state again to bring this back down and that way we capture everything it's a rainy day we can never Levy for radiating anything that goes into rainy day has to be left over from our existing funds that we can put into there so we never ever for a total of 11.5 now this gives us a screenshot of what our advertised and adopted Levy the race have been and then what actuals so we advertise and adopt high and we let the state bring this back down if you look back through this sometimes it is very significant like back in 2016 they advertised 1.2295 and were brought down to put five six nine seven so sometimes there were huge differences um last year 7802 advertise and our current rate this is what has gone into calculations for the people in this County favorite property taxes this is what our current rate is right now are advertised for 2024 is 0.7243 broken down this is how it is um 3631 for operations 36-12 for that sir and like I said um those will be brought down according to what are maximum allowable are but this just kind of gives you an idea um it's historic this is the way that every government unit does it they always advertise in the Box above and let the state bring you down to your maximum amount you have any comments or questions about any of the loot break just the regular budgeting something else okay listen on that all right so we have two plans we have a capital uh Improvement plan and we have a bus replacement plan that we are required to do for the state so our Capital Improvement plan basically you're looking at things that will affect your Building Technology and Safety Equipment like our Capital items okay so what we're going to do is we're going to advertise availability for all buildings that way we're covered um but majority of the project during this time happens pretty much what is going to be occurring with our General Obligations Bond so you guys have already pretty much made those terminations as to what really does need to happen during County year 2024.
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Theory you could but I don't think that's a strategy 300 I just begin just trying to kind of see it from all different sizes you could as long as you have enough money in there let's say we have an oil billionaire that all available resources so including any taxes you Levy or your existing come on balance yeah and if I am looking at this paperwork right eight is really what's required to carry us through maturity on all of our existing dead but we would completely delete every Reserve that we would have so we would end up with exactly right yep and that's not paying off early that's just paying off correct right I mean at two percent it doesn't make sense does raising the Mills happen only once a year like is there a protocol for that that we because we ever addressed is when the setting of the budget and if you also could republish if you need uh there are times where a district is they need to republish to be able to spend more but I don't necessarily know that that has to do with raising the Mills during the course of the school year has more to do with the fact that your enrollment brought in more more than paid yeah so that I mean the county handles all that and they'll handle it the city right right so it's all at one time this is the one time yeah so if we did decide okay we're going to drop and then maybe discuss raising after the new board then you can only do that basically one time a year right the republishing of the budget later on has more to do with um you guessed low in terms of your enrollment numbers and you wind up with more so it becomes a discussion of philosophical approaches right um it becomes you know it's important to understand how far could you take it that is a debt servicing model compared to and if I say the wrong word correct me compared to an investment strategy really um and is there Middle Ground to be found because um if we were hypothetically if we were to go all the way to eight point whatever to just deal with what's already there and I know there are some who would say yeah do that but in what world because of any new project you have to then go to election you can't just raise it here so um if a new project was going to require let's say 15.
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but um I'm going to go ahead and advertise the costs of 12 and above 6 million this doesn't affect any money that we get in this doesn't affect anything so but these are things that we have to show that we have needs do we have leads here at broadside schools yes we do so this is part of that requirement our bus replacement on September 9th you already approved for two buses to be purchased this year uh what we're looking at with this is 2024. and uh for this year you approve the estimated total was about 224 225 000.
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going and asking the public for seven um what will be a hard thing to ever ever get a project done um do you have that uh graph showing overall Mill Levy history Megan because I think that's part of I think we're all trying to find some some middle yeah oh good you have it there I don't know if they have it though so so it's existing existing funding actually yeah so this thing's Fund in there that's not going towards that service can certainly go to a new project if a bond gets passed you can't just take that and start spending on other stuff you have to have a bond to get past right yeah so essentially you don't have that that money gets taxed under that Bond at 14.488 that stays in that bond in interest you can use it for that or you can use it against the future um projects correct and I'm not identifying what's right or what's wrong I'm just stating here here are the facts of overall Mill Levy history and once you give Mills you know it's really hard to get them back which is why districts oftentimes don't release them that's why every District around us is passing bonds and we didn't so I don't think you know I think it's important to keep that in mind um I like definitely coming off me personally I definitely like coming off of the 14.488 because you know I don't know that I'm comfortable with the bare minimum either because I do think that handcuffs um because the bottom line is we're going to have to build things the district is going to need investment into our infrastructure and part of our job is like it or not to protect that too um but I also know we're looking to provide some relief in a time that um the realities of inflation the realities of all the things that have been mentioned that we have spent a lot of time in Earnest listening to I think there's a real desire here to try to find something that is as responsible as possible to both ends that's what I'm hearing from the tenor of the discussion here which can continue Tony you haven't said anything yeah so Mr Dodge if you and you mentioned the 12.488 level might be palatable is that did I hear that correct that was the number that Nate and I through discussion that if there's a desire to come down from 14.8 488 that would be the number that we would recommend okay right and they'll speak that's two males right yes right right that's what it means today well because I agree with Kelly the the need for future projects and bonding those out is not going to go away right so for those of you who are who are staying on the board I'm a bit concerned about protecting you all because we saw what happens when you have a bond issue of promote and you have to ask for additional Mills it is it is a it is a tough sell yeah and in the foots of that Tony in my eyes anyways like there's honesty in saying this project is going to cost seven Mills or whatever it is and just like that's what you're asking for right and and so I know it's not a common tactic the approach for taking here to say to reduce ability here but it's um or at least they're brought an interest this way but but it doesn't matter Clarity anymore transparency with Ryan like this is this Project's gonna cost 20 minutes that translates over into six Mills which is what they're going to experience right right because the entire Project's going to be well you're going to add more projects you're gonna have more needs yeah so I I know this was in our packets um last week was it on the slide that um okay and uh have you seen this uh so it because I think I don't think you guys designed this I think it was designed by avoid Builders but we we'd asked about potential future nobody has a crystal ball but they just added inflation factors and uh four percent through eight percent since that's what we've been experiencing on kind of similar to what the country's been experiencing and I guess I just think that's an important visual for the board to take into consideration construction costs offsetting or saving three million Now versus costing more twice that later that's part of it too um yeah I mean yeah I think that's a great point and you know it's what we've seen with districts that's what I'm talking to districts that have failed products bail bond elections and come back two or three times but the cost of those same projects are five years later but you know it's it's just a reality of what you're dealing with and they'll I think you made a good point just look at short-term investment earnings right now and what you're able to generate and investment earnings on short-term interest rates short-term Investments so um I don't know that having that fund balance that you do have just provides so much flexibility when it comes to either a new project or really your what your options are moving forward um and being able to reduce the overall interest cost because like I said we can focus on interest rates and where they're at and potential fund balance but the reality is the biggest cost that we're seeing is construction inflation to your point and I'm really I'm really worried about that and a way that I mean hey the easiest thing for me to do I go off in January slash and dash and but I also um feel a loyalty to be responsive to the needs that we are all feeling and getting squeezed on but also protecting um the future boards opportunity to leverage these opportunities because we are going to have to build things the students are going to need things they need things now um that's not going to go anywhere and I don't want to handcuff people so that's why I'm personally looking for kind of some Middle Ground well I think that's what Mr Donald yeah so one more question I'm sorry oh you're fine on this uh on this graph here future impact is that assuming a permanent change correct because that's that's this is a permanent change of these numbers versus a one-year change if if the board next year I mean if they did move forward with the project and they changed this back to the 14.88 yeah then that's going to change these numbers dramatically correct yeah so that essentially assumes which is good news I think for the future board it is that going back to what you would have to ask voters at that time is summary is showing what at that time depending on the time that's assuming you move forward immediately yeah correct yeah oh versus three years from now well no or in the fall versus the spring yeah so in the fall yeah cycle you wouldn't be making this decision right so the the 12.48 if we choose one second no yeah 52.661 yeah versus the initial overall of 54.661 because it's exactly a two accessible so we grew last year original budget meeting last September right yeah let's do my eye check 54.909 can zoom eight yeah 54.992.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
I'm going to go ahead and build in the future need of 400 just up and above to show that yes we still need to be purchasing buses we need to do some things this is kind of a spreadsheet of the buses that we have and when they according to State recommendations could be replaced so as you see in 23 we have quite a few up here but the thing is is crew do an amazing job with keeping our buses beginning with safe he is very responsible of making sure and you know how to distribution to replace the buses on different routes according to how long is it what kind of Roads what's the need you know and keeping track of how many kids are on all these different routes so even though we have this because my state recommendation we're not going to have to do all of this chapter but this just kind of gives you an idea of what we have and not every single one of these are full size plus um then it's the stage of full size what are those [Music] okay any questions or comments about the capital Improvement or the less replacement all right um just in summary we will have our next two meetings um the first meeting in October we will have our public hearing on the actual budget so we will be able to have a problem with that meeting and then on our second day in October on the 16th we will adopt and after that I will finalize everything within the quarter portal and submit everything to the state and it shouldn't be long after that um that we end up closing on our General Obligations on whether we have all those final figures for our lovely dlgf rep to go through and to work on our figures and come back with some card numbers typically we will have them right before the end of the year or certified budget so the deadline is December 31st with brown editing a smaller County it's a little bit easier because we don't have that cross-county units where like it's partially in brown partially ones are going to do things like that so A lot of times we get push towards the top of the stack and we can get no winner numbers quick which I like that um we will have our tax rate should hold steady obviously they should actually increase and with that will actually even out well with AV increasing the tax rate decreases the amount of money that a taxpayers is going to pay isn't going to be that much different one thing to think of is so that makes a big difference um we do have collective bargaining with the teachers coming up in the fall so it's kind of an unknown moving piece because when we have increases in salary we have to just do projections and so we build it in the budget as a projected amount we will have those uh meetings in the fall that will be determined for the 23-24 school year um anybody has any questions thank you very much any questions well thank you you do a great job of making that understandable for those of us who don't do numbers as our sir primary job so thank you and I think for the public as well so all right and next is number five this is a discussion item on our community engagement survey and I think John thank you for staying up there I don't know if you can zoom in to maybe make that text a little bit bigger audience I don't have copies yeah so um I appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk through this survey that the board has charged me with um getting some feedback and reaching out to the community in the form of a survey to be since we failed a referendum last November so there's been a lot of talk and I hear a lot of people I even had someone asked me about the being on the ballot for this November um and that is not true it's important to remember that we are just in the information seeking period um to see really what the Community Values and what they would like to see for Brown County schools with a potential referendum on a future ballot so the this is the first page that I think it's also important to know that a paper copy of this survey will go in every mailbox in the county on this paper copy is also a QR code so people in the community will have the opportunity to either scan the QR code and take the survey digitally like that um if there's another person in the household they can also scan that QR code um and take it so you can have more than one person in each household take the survey but if there is somebody that would feel more comfortable doing the survey in paper form there will be a self-addressed envelope that comes with it and they can send it in another thing to note that um none of the data comes back to me or the board or anybody here within Brown County Schools this is a third party vendor that is putting this together and handling all of the data they will also be the ones analyzing the data and then I believe it is somewhere in December that they will make a formal presentation of the data to the school board and if the board decides to put something um to pass a resolution to put a referendum on a future ballot for May uh that timeline has to happen around January so the board will have ample time to be able to digest the data to make a final decision of what would potentially be on the main ballot so those are the logistics um we have a sensitive timeline um a belief that if if at all the timeline stays true to form um the goal is for this survey to be out sometime between the last week of October um and before Thanksgiving break so that would be the time period to collect the data or that people would fill out the survey um yeah the second page really is just collecting we want to know the demographics um we want to know if people filling out this survey as a primary residence within the county um which township that they live in are they an employee do they have children attending the school district and then a couple engagement questions of how would you like to receive District information or communication and there's options for them to choose and then on a scale of zero to ten How likely would you be would you recommend the district to a friend or family member again those are just two engagement questions we did put some information in here about some Financial background um we have a graph in here that that shows we're around Pali schools tax rate is the entire School tax rate so ours is that you could just learn from Don and Jay that ours is uh 0.5787 you can see these are schools that are around us and then you can see where the speed average is and Brown County is actually the eighth lowest School tax rate in the state um so this is just really good information that I don't think people know or understand or realize you know I get a call I get questions about well is it fair to really compare the school tax rate for Brown County next to um Columbus or Monroe because they're two giant school districts well it is different they're not small rural school districts but at the end of the day the tax rate still means the same for them as it does for us we get less of a tax rate which means we receive less funding we have less kids we've received less funding um we lose kids right we're losing kids to these school districts we're losing our teachers to these school districts their school tax rate is is almost double so um this is one of those comparisons that it doesn't matter if it's a large school district versus a small rule we pay a very low School tax rate oh yeah and they just passed their references yes in Columbus it's in the information seeking stage for a capital referendum to be able to do um some facility things so they will if if they go after it pass it they will also have two and I want to go back to Carol's point I think I think earlier when we look at that tax rate of 0.57 um that's not on every acre of land in Brown County because what you're referring to is that much of our land in Brown County estate and national forests were owned by the State national government and I don't know the exact number but 51 yeah about 51 is not taxed so not only do we have but we're only getting taxes at a very low rate on 50 percent of our and that's one of the reasons that we I think we struggle more than other school districts that don't have you know they're getting taxes on more Acres so that that's how I I think about it as well so you know I guess we because of the outcome of the referendum last November um we're listening to the community at the end of the day is there still a huge impact to Brown County schools and not having this current referendum um so we're trying to teach feedback or receive input from the community on what is it that they understand don't understand what would they fund what do they value so the first part of this of this funding plan is to explain uh renewing the current referendum the current referendum is at eight pennies for every 100 of assessed value if we were to be able to renew just those eight pennies it would stay status quo remember seven pennies is able to pay for wages and benefits for all employees um one penny is to fund the career Resource Center in adult education so this is a simple question of would you support renewing the current referendum to be able to maintain our program services and compensation it highlighted in yellow approval does not increase the tax rate over the current level it is what we have right now um that second paragraph just reiterates that one penny of that eight pennies is dedicated to the career resource center and adult education we also want to know that next box at the top there would do you support renewing that one penny for the adult education again approving that does not increase the school tax rate it is just renewing what we currently have so I guess the part I was sort of part at the bottom is just probably just a printing in common straps so the bottom of the one page goes with yes at the top of the next one I wasn't catching that until just now okay um and so that's renewing the current and then we have the additional funding and we've put this in here because um we want to know if the community would support adding any pennies to those eight pennies to be able to be competitive with Columbus and with Bloomington or Monroe County um in being able to pay our teachers and our staff higher wages so if we could expand the staff Compensation Plan by putting us on par with our nearby districts would you support expanding by two pennies for every 100 so that would be a total of 10 pennies based on last year's median home value that is an additional 1.63 a month um I have gotten some feedback that okay so the H is minimum it's status flow it keeps us exactly where we're at right now for the time being the two pennies gives us additional Monies to be able to try to be competitive with Bloomington in Columbus um which may suffice for a couple years I'm not sure if it would suffice inflation and growth over an entire eight years is there an opportunity here for an additional box or an open-ended box that says what what would you support above and beyond the 10 cents to keep us competitive well I mean I I think that's an important point for people to understand me say this is the eight cents would keep us the same but our expenses continue to grow and we are going to have to continue to increase just with the cost of living for all of our s so I don't I don't know that I'm understand that we talk about it in terms of the tax rate keeping at the current level but it really is not going to meet our needs for the next day I know we've not we're not worth nothing but I guess you know I want to I guess I want to say that but keeping in the current level really does not meet our needs over eight years um and then again it's my suggestion that we add another box here that says either open-ended how much would you support or make another suggestion that you'd be interested in five cents or ten cents or don't we don't have a number in our heads about how much we're looking for we're I'm just saying I think there are people in our community who would support them two cents and I don't want to cover and I also want to make sure that two cents um will that will be making it 80 cents to 10 cents will that really sustain itself over the next 10 years or next eight years those are concerns I haven't and I've shared those with Emily but I was going to share those with you guys have any comments [Music] at that point let's just see are there any names about that part of the survey okay is important to also know that there is an opportunity for the community to come back and say definitely not support any of it um and if that's the case then I believe that we need feedback on the cost cutting options and okay so if we don't support an operating referendum to help us um sorry where do you propose that Brown County Schools makes these cuts so um there are several that are listed um there's a few examples um underneath each one um yeah it it's not it's not a great page but at the end of the day I mean the board really does have a decision to make if the feedback comes from Hope then we've got to take some action so at least we will have some input or some data on where we might choose to do that and which one that is for survey I wondered real quick before we opened it up um again to review just a tentative timeline I would like to be able to bring um finalized survey uh to the board on October 2nd um and then if we are good to go on October 2nd and send off to the printers again um October 30th we hope that surveys land physically in the mailboxes um and then the deadline would be the 17th of November so right before Thanksgiving that gives uh School perceptions who is the vendor um time to be able to compile the data and then make a presentation a formal presentation to the board and discover December and then January and February the board will make a decision to get things like to move forward in May of 2024. so now do you have a question oh it looks like uh we didn't ask like four four cents we only have two sets because if one says extra ones is Google CRC extroverses or early childhood looks like that we did we decided we made the decision to take Early Childhood off of the survey and then off of a future um potential referendum at this time we just believe that this program is sustainable um as our whole moment and decided not to ask for that on the revenue all right so so really we have a proposed spending plan of two things and then the two things that we have currently right now and one is to be able to provide wages and benefits competitive with our neighbors or all staff and then to be able to provide support to this career resource center and develop it that's right according to get one cents uh so basically uh users only asking uh for the the competitiveness instead of not just that of course we just that's what only so eight cents or tens of steps we're going to ask I think I'm going to go back to the vendor based on the feedback and ask them to add an additional box that's either open-ended or puts out uh maybe it's 12 cents maybe it's 15 cents or whatever they would recommend wording in the survey to see if people would be or they would support going above 10 cents so this sort of you think the public will can be expressed okay you know what Abby happy to support more than this yeah that's kind of the purpose of the survey so you don't want to know where do they support continuing maintaining status quo maybe giving us just a little bit more or more yeah yeah to be competitive and then if they don't support any of that where do they propose you know I think it's important for them anymore I think that's right if you will support us no our children suffer this way I mean not not not in a threatening way but yeah I think that's a good idea but it's pretty black and white yeah black and white yeah at the ends 1.2 million dollars yeah I mean I just learned from writing on the newspaper uh letter to enter but I think that I think we need to have a little sticker you know without referendum she's gonna be that one point I think you should be more publicly honestly and I mean one of the really few Brown County people from videos and whenever I go to meeting we lose 1.2 million a year but we need really more how to make a stick or something this is kind of I I think it's hard with school financing numbers these are numbers we don't deal with in our daily lives yeah and so I don't a 1.2 million 27 million you know it's hard for us to like even conceptualize that and I think that's why School Finance is so hard for us to explain I always say if I can sit down with every single voter and explain this I think we passed a referendum and I would love to do that but I can't so how do we get this in simple language so that these people can understand it and that's sort of what the survey is is it is both a question do you support the referendum at all for a small amount for more and then secondly you know if you don't support it what what you think we ought to do and that's what we really want to know another thing we can approach is that we need this amount of this amount of money because I'm ready to pay teacher and all these things that's how we need to come up we have to that's what this much I will need that's what we need from you I mean that could be Improvement just number this is what we need minimum or good pay that's funny I need a minimum yeah minimum that's right I can get by with 10 cents foreign [Music] and I don't I don't think they feel like if they give the money but that money that their kids are going to benefit from us ing specific it's the same things I think just along with uh what do you think I work for governor and I think government agencies have a bad reputation for being inefficient and I think when people go somewhere and they see where their money's going and then they have a very poor experience it's really hard for them to feel like there's a good one insurance now I understand I understand the reflection on kids and I don't think the people in this community uh I think they would give everything to the kids to do what's right for them if they felt like okay I think there's I I know a lot of people in this Corporation a lot of people in this County I live here um there is a lack of confidence the the money will be spent in the way so how do you think you should be spending a difference as as a sample taxpayer okay yeah well I think the main thing is that we have this a long conversation I'm going to shorten you a little bit so she wasn't on the timer that's okay well a different part of the medium but but um I just if you go anywhere in your daily life and spend money on something and you leave there feeling like you didn't give them Facebook you don't want to go back and there's that I have my wife and I are permanently looking for a better school corporation Center 10 conversations with staff members in this school corporation about it and about zero answers about why we should save it why this is the best place for our kids far less because they don't have a good answer far less because they don't care just don't feel it's why we're losing a lot of staff and the good staff members we have are looking for someplace else well and one of the reasons they are is because we can't pay the same wages as our neighbors and that is what this rep so that's the that's the Chicken and the Egg well right do you want to stay here because we have the staff and teachers who are making salaries that are competitive and want to be here but if we can't compete with those other folks um you know it is a morale issue as well and I think that's probably what you're hearing I think you I've heard many many staff members who are very happy to be here and are very um feel very good and are very interested in the kids and we'll give you a different answer right so I I understand that's your experience but I don't know that that is a universal experience and part of the goal of this is to solve those problems so denying the referendum only exacerbates those problems it doesn't today um I think that that is something that uh we need to kind of a separate conversation and um to make that part improve yeah definitely I mean is is a communication is always prop communication but it doesn't mean that is providing so uh so I think it's great I really appreciate the comment because it's all probably communication is not only your problem everybody's problem thank you Claire I appreciate that it doesn't stop there and we could argue about which came first right we could have that argument okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna I think we all go very good I appreciate both of your perspectives why this that's why we're doing surgery have those conversations and people who want to engage with us on those issues you know we're here to listen um we have emails and phone numbers and you know we are happy public and you know Emily has an open door so please if folks you know want to talk about those things to share and if somebody says Hey I want to see your budget I think you're being an efficient we're an open book and we do believe that we are I mean believe me we're doing the best we can with the amount of money we have and so I any inefficiencies that were ever there are not there today because we had to cut cut since about 2016.
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that's 49. but at the what we oh what we actually approved was 54.909 was what we voted to approve last year prior to okay the the mill reduction that was adjusted to 49.568 because of the suit yeah this is this proposal 12.48 or whatever it was okay yeah that that would be a no reduction from actually from any time it says the book so last year amazing adjustments are alleged to remain wow to remain in the same level and they'll go to change that this year we actually introduced it slightly off of that yeah going back and now we're considering reducing it to makes sense I as well other discussion or questions or thoughts yeah I mean I think we've had we've heard you know lots and lots about you know what we need to be worried about more about needs not wants drives me nuts because like the things that we need are things that we need and if you're not in the school every day or going to school activities like a lot of those needs seem like they would just be wants but they're really needs you know I mean like the other night well Thursday night at the high school yep you know there's like three people were getting pissed because there's no parking anywhere there's a there's a team football dinner a soccer game volleyball games um Musical musical yeah I mean there's I mean it's like there's you know people zooming through the parking lot super fast trying to get to a spa you know almost hitting people and it's it's not a blonde nobody really wants a new parking lot I mean you need I mean those are things that I mean that that we really do need and so it we need more parking downtown the wrong board what else board members I guess I'll maybe share mine is summarizing thoughts and that is it's a balance it's a balancing mindset that I'm trying to have with myself self-talk because it was a personal decision I want the needs and to position ourselves for that but I also feel like we need to be um considerate of some of the voices that we've heard from and they're part of our community that we represent so I'm I'm willing to compromise personally to Mr gaija's recommendation Susan where are you at I I am if Mr Dodge and Mr Oller have have said that they can continue to make things work at the Lower Mills I'm willing to go that way and if that's if that's doable for the district Tony I'm going to agreement I was I was ready to come in here and argue for the 14 but um but I am persuaded none of us want to pay taxes we all want some tax relief and I get that right what I'm concerned about is that there are going to be needs in the future and I know from prior experience trying to do Bond and trying to get people to pay more money for that is a tough sell so it's making that more difficult if we decide to take this action that I that I am hearing patrons who want some tax relief this program the fact is is that there's never a good time to raise taxes ever right during during tight times like now people don't want to pay their taxes during flush times they want their their money back from us right and so taxes are just you know one of those tough issues that regardless of what we do there's going to be um there's it is this Balancing Act Right um do we do we provide tax relief which I understand is uh something that people want I want it in my household too but I also want good schools in Baldwin City and I want the parking lot to be bigger so that we have multiple events people come out closest to park and so I feel like we are I feel like we're taking a reasonable action here not dropping it to the floor I'm dropping taxes to a bare minimum but but shaving them back a little bit but boy I feel for future boards because getting that back is going to be tough Chris I think speech board's gonna have to work whatever the new Bond looks like I think it's it feels certain that we're going to put that projection out there for the next two three years because again we have something uh have to be dressed at that point and that feature board if we think it's action directory this is kind of work details I have to get that get that articulated and clarify the why of why this these These are have to be addressed at the time but um I think it's a fight that the board's gonna take on the future so some of you guys get to avoid that but we'll keep Canada yeah that's right I'm gonna earmarked the date of this meeting two years at some point in time I am as I've said the other night I'm I'm conflicted for all the reasons I already mentioned I don't want to be repetitive I I think it's the right thing to do um I think this is the right course of action I continue to be troubled though I completely understand it I continue to be troubled that essentially at the most local level where your tax dollar has the most impact that's where we're being asked to offset people's property taxes rather than so we're trimming two Mills here there was a lovely Gentile lady sitting on the front row the other night that I remember saying you know you guys aren't helping me you never have and there there it is every year I know that millspeak is different but millspeak is the lever that districts have and where your tax dollar makes the most difference as far as educating our kids um I'm going to be honest it troubles me I feel like we're chasing a symptom here rather than pursuing a cure if we did not have to pay that's essentially equivalent roughly to three meals for the difference between special education well there's our two Mills right there and then some but it is what it is and I agree with Andy Parks who said this very eloquently the other night and could not be here tonight I I hope that the advocacy that's taking place continues beyond the most local level uh because this is the level where it actually impacts our kids the most so though I am conflicted I also appreciate the spirit of compromise and that's what I've always appreciated about this board so thank you with that it seems as though I don't want to in discussion prematurely unless anyone has anything else they would like to add what would be appropriate at this time would be to go ahead and have a motion and resolution and we have that yeah do the lob resolution and then that way when we have the full motion we would then have the reference of the Lov ing the prior vote exceeding the revenue neutral rate and also the needs assessment that was completed as statutorily required in August all of those components would need to be reflected in the final motion unless somebody has a different understanding so in my mind the lob resolution would need to come first does anyone see that differently from the L B resolution it's supplier because we are exceeding the state average of 31.6 and a level of 31.72 percent all right so we need to read that yeah let's let's have that read as part of the motion foreign I move that USD 348 Board of Education shall be authorized to make a local option percentage in an amount of 31.72 percent for FY 2324 as required in the resolution the certification information is referenced underneath on this date District 348 in Douglas County Kansas on the 18th day of September the 20th 2023.
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it's also about thank you very much right any other questions or comments nope we will I have a meeting [Music] um tomorrow Wednesday for school perception so I'll give that feedback to them and then we're going to the board I'm really excited about this I think this is exactly what we need we always say we don't do polls in Brown County so how do we know what people feel and it's often anecdotal and so this is an opportunity through a vendor to do an anonymous well-researched study so I'm I'm really excited to see how that goes and whatever conversation so thank you all right um so show both there we're just going to move on to number six um approval of the public session minutes from September 5th 2023.
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excuse me September 18th September 2023 got ahead of myself thank you for the correction it's been moved and insect moved and seconded seconded sorry to approve the lob rate at 31.72 percent as stated in the resolution that has been read aloud all those in favor please say aye and raise your right hand I motion carries six zero and now we would go on to adopting the budget in its entirety I'm sorry when your motion would note the uh reduction to 12 point or eight eight mils in the body of Interest as well as identifying that the budget was developed along with the needs assessment that the board approved in August we also need to reference that that all that this budget is based upon the lob resolution we just passed that we voted 7-0 to exceed the revenue neutral rate on 914. also based on the needs assessment that was passed unanimously in August of 23.
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is there a motion to approve D any discussion let's do a roll call hey yes Carol yes Vicki yes Stephanie yes Steph Yes all right number seven is our action needed items which is none number eight is our consent agenda items for personnel um starting with separations and appointments that starts with Brown County Middle School sixth grade girls basketball coach Dave Bartlett uh who's separating effective September 14 2023 and goes on to page three through uh no transfers and Fox Festival uh sponsor for the high school alley thank you sorry I I'm misspelling someone's mispronouncing someone's name um all right is there a motion to approve the consent agent items for a second awesome any discussion all right let's do a roll call okay yes Carol yes Vicky in Stephanie and stuff yes all right um yeah we've got a lot of updates tonight so I will keep it brief and short um Friday is our second Ambassador meeting it will be held at uh promptly 8 30 in The Goldberg room this session is titled the business of educating kids so don Ray will get to come and do a presentation on public school Finance 101 uh Dennis will be here to talk about transportation across the county and our district Don Heimer will be here to talk about Food Service uh Jim Jackson will be here to talk about our facilities across the district um we're gonna do a little bit of myth busting um and I'm just always look forward to to this day of the month truly one of my favorites and this particular session is always a favorite of our ambassadors because I just think they learn so much um so I'm looking forward to the Ambassador meeting also we hope to have sent to the printers on Wednesday our next Eagle Eye which is our quarterly magazine so it is our back to school feature although it is almost the end of September uh it is it something to write about we needed something to write about we have a feature of all of our new staff members uh so that's really cool to be in there there's an article about sixth grade academy we've got um we're highlighting our teacher and staff members of the Year from last year um yeah it's just filled with a lot of great stuff so excited to get that pushed out um and then finally tonight we emailed our our Ted Ed uh team lead team meeting today and I I know the last time that we had talked um with this initiative to bring TED talks and tedx to Brown County Schools um if you know remember each one of our facilities has been approved to be attendance school um so those clubs will officially kick off in the next couple of weeks right when we get back from fall break but uh we had applied to be able to host or hold our own tedx event at the end of the school year and um initially the application got turned down and they told us they just stopped licensing school districts as a whole it would have to be like a high school only or or a completely different route and I will tell you the power of finding the yes um people at Ted Ed have heard that our up night they held separate meetings with tedx and um then I got asked to be a part of a tedx meeting and they told us they made an exception from Brown County Schools so it's a big deal it's the only K-12 um public education District in the state of Indiana that's going to be able to offer this to our kids and our community members on a platform like tedx so um although it's a big undertaking um that team is so excited to get started and we should look forward to that about mid-may that's all I got all right um last um is our claims use their motion to approve the claims yeah any discussion Amy yes Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes yes right and last thing on the agenda is the board update is there anything anyone wants to share I'll get you tires on that one thing it's not good the things they have plans we are uh going to there's a there's a Statewide School Board Association meeting next Monday and Tuesday so as many of us who can get away from our regular daily lives um and that is always a really uh um I find it really regenerative to meet with others for more people and talk to people about what's happening so we're excited to go do that so so we're gonna head up to Indy to do that uh anything else all right is there a motion to adjourn second
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above