Yes. You have uh Dwire and Lunberg left. Okay. Let's look at Dwire, please. So, I like Karen Dwire because she stepped in in a time of need. It was a critical need. I won't go into it. If you want to, you can Google her name um in Oxbridge. and she stepped in and she didn't badmouth anyone and she just kind of came in and she's doing her best to do both jobs and so I think that counts for something. I know the way it looks on paper if you don't look up and like what happened it looks because at first I looked at it and then I started trying to Google people. Yeah. I mean she did exactly what Carol did three years ago. So actually that's kind of I I I struggled with her. I I that is my concern is that this is not a lot of times people will do an interim superintendent to kind of get their feet wet to become a superintendent.
Uh, and the entire team practiced hard, improved, and performed well, uh, improving over the course of the year. And two of our wrestlers stood apart. They qualified for the middle school state wrestling championship. And that in and of themsel in and of itself would uh have me bring them here before you tonight to qualify for the championship and go and and perform there is a huge honor. Not only did they go though, but they performed beyond expectations. So I want to highlight first of all Hugo E who in his weight class placed fourth in the state. Congratulations Hugo. [Applause] And then I'd like to highlight the performance of Rean Murphy who um I was talking to her about her her her performance and she uh filled me. I don't know if you guys could tell uh I'm not a wrestler. I'm not a particularly impressive athlete.
I don't know. I I'd have to see if that's a if it's confirmed it's only for existing. Um the only thing I'll note is like I said this was year one and we plan on adapting things and if it's you know kind of sitting there and it's like this is a identified issue of you know it would be better spent in this way we can we can look at making those changes. Um but yeah I don't I I will look to see if I you know from from all I know it has been existing just because we have such a massive need there but I don't know if that's a hard and fast it has to be existing uh buildings for it. Well, if you can make a mental note of that or or I see it's it's in uh uh M or Chair Hart's notes, but um these are these are workforce housing actually.
But what's happened um on some other issues that states have gotten together to sue the federal government and let a court decide. Basically what the court has to decide is is a promise made by the federal government valid a year later when they change their mind. I mean to me that seems pretty simple but uh we don't know how a court will rule and we don't know if that could be a year from now or five years from now. I think we have to plan as if we're never seeing that money, which is sad, but yes, we'll set up a legislative committee meeting. Commissioner Brun. Thank you, Mr. President. I I'm looking at this article from the Asbury Park Press. They're they're saying that the education secretary would consider extensions on an individual project basis. This was a week ago. So, Governor Murphy made a statement last week.
Um and as Mr. 8 said, you know, the uh seven $7 million is a real good start. We have a lot of equipment. We have a lot of infrastructure that um you know can be replaced right now, but 7 million is is is really just the start. So to uh thank you guys. So to um answer your question a little bit, one of the the biggest challenges that this district faces and this is something that uh we've talked with our facilities and finance committee is there's we have depleted our reserves over the course of S S2. Um we've made withdrawals and not been able to make deposits back in. Um and so now we have a million and a half in capital and about $500,000 in maintenance. for a district of our size, that is frighteningly uh a small amount. And if we were to go to referendum on the earliest timeline, um due to like if you think about the planning that goes involved, the strategic planning, the community involvement, and then narrowing down what a project list is, figuring out what question we're going to put on a ballot, when we're going to hold that election, are we going to be in a general election?
So she'll alert us on um a client and if we need to like get involved and if there's more education that needs to be there then we would definitely get with administration and grab flyers or you know some type of stuff that we can do to communicate. Okay. Thank you, President Media. Uh members of the board and and staff, um there is an um that that level of support where I see that we can also provide some guidance is how to maximize the benefits. Um and and the the first layer is which one is your best packet, but the next one is once you have the packet, how you can maximize those benefits. um which it it's a catch 22 because u by by doing so we want to make sure that our our employees are taken care of but also that's going to increase our our claims which then in the long run which also is going to cost us more.
Um but that's good because then that means that when they audit you, you it's reputable. Uh not about our FY24 audit. I just want to bring to your attention every 5 years we have to go out for RFP for audit firm. I've issued that RFP. Um the audit firms will be submitting them to us. Um and then they're due on uh April 28th and then we'll pick a audit firm um on the 28th. Um that cost for our audit is actually reimbursed by the state. Oh, here's my PowerPoint. Um so it's not also it's not um all uh a lot of purchases in school finance are just based on cost, but the audit is an exception. It's not based on cost. It's based on auditing reputation. It's based on a bunch of uh different things. Um so I don't initi I don't know but I probably we've been with Heinfeld Meech for a very long time and that's part of the criteria.
But we've decided that there's a good chance that somehow the state will fund at least for one year Prop 123. So we won't see that $2.2 million loss for 26. Just wanted to make sure that all of you are aware that that is a real risk. Yes. And they've had 10 years 10 years to figure it out, but they haven't figured it out yet. So, we're going to start with our total cost increase of 2.37 million as part of this budget balancing uh process. So, teacher FTE increases for gifted and English language learners. So, I think it was our last presentation or our last work study where we had um we had our it was a board meeting. It was a board meeting. Yes. Where we had the gifted coordinator present to you indicating our plans uh moving forward into 2026. And so um this this recommendation is a direct result of that.
Uh not to say that we'll, you know, use this. This is here for us. It's it's for us to have knowing that we can do this project and the middle school project. Well, Dr. Gar know that I'm very intentional with my money. I like to save money. So, uh, you guys can trust that regardless beyond these two projects, you know, I'm not going to be down this money because I know that we have to make it last long. So, yes, but just give us a buffer uh without the doors and the windows in here as Mr. Wallace pointed out last month. You know, this just addresses the three projects that have been approved in a time frame with Thank you. Totally in agreement. Perfect segways to this wonderful change. Yeah. Yeah. No, looking forward to that. We're going to keep Nelson on there. He's a legend.
I need a break. Yeah, that was I'm See, I'm getting emotionally involved here. Absolutely. I I was a great job by the Cyber Tigers right there. Yeah, it was. It really was. That was like a goal line stand in football. There you go. Well, that was Lifeweaver. Yes. You know, if I don't if everybody can see them. Um, but that hair a lot of people said my I look like Lifew Weaver with this hair. You wore shirts like that too, I assume. Right. Yes, exactly. Lifewever. In fact, I don't want to talk about it. That model is after my persona. Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. All right. Yeah, that can't have under contract, but yeah. Okay. They had to pay you for those rights to Yeah, that's why I got to be careful about NIL some name likeness. Yeah, exactly right. Name and likeness.
She was an assistant superintendent. So was Carol. Um when you haven't really been a superintendent you have to obviously get you know you have you have to get experience which if we were in a better situation central office if everything was all straightened out I would feel better about I just my concern is not just what's good for our district. It's also what's good for that person. And I don't know. I think my concern would be does she have enough experience to untangle the mess that's being untangled right now? Um figuring out last year's budget and everything like that. Like it's not just being a superintendent. I did like her. I But that was my concern. It doesn't it doesn't her resume doesn't scream expertise and budget. I know we have Aaron with us now which is huge. But um I think it's really important that we have someone that's strong in budget because we've seen from last year to this year, you know, the difference in leadership is makes all the difference in the world.
Uh so I had to learn from her about uh the wrestling world and something she told me is that there's uh fewer female wrestlers than male wrestlers. So as such sometimes at the competitions they actually collapse the weight classes and so Rean had to perform up. So you normally get put with people uh you know about similar size and stature and Rean had to go into a tougher class because of the size of the competition to make the tournament. So fighting up a class, wrestling up a class, uh she scored second. She was second in the state tournament. Congratulations [Applause] And I'd like to end with two academic and uh um leadership awards. And so first are Eleanor and Lucas here. Eleanor and is Lucas Senator here? All right, Eleanor, you get this glory, but I'll tell you about both of these students. So, Eleanor uh both and Lucas Dener are the recipients of our CABE student leader award.
Um some of the units are going to be um targeted for people earning under $35,000 a year. So, they are almost in the affordable range. And these kinds of rebates would be really helpful. I mean, we're we're essentially building these at a loss only by being able to take care advantage of other incentives. So, you know, there may be um some criteria that you can set up um for this is a community land trust. It could be for any community land trust. It might be other criteria that you in incorporate into that. Um that's one thing that I wanted to mention or get clarification on at some point. And the other thing that I wanted to mention very early in your comments, uh you talked about um capacity issues, DTE capacity issues. That was another issue that the Wolfpack took up directly with DTE. Um and we got statements um from DTE that we then um clarified with them whether or not we could share those with the city and they have stated that there are um there should be no case in the city of Ann Arbor where um they do not have sufficient capacity for all electric buildings.
Has there any been any public press release since last week? Has he reached out to the Department of Education or anything yet? The issue is here is that even in our audited financial statements, there are also statements within it that say yes, there are certainties that occur within any given fiscal year. So these these projects have already been encumbered, which means we already committed to them. So it's around it's going to be approximately 7 mil. We don't even know if the four million is reimbursed. It can be reimbursible yet. But that a press release was made last week has a second one ever been issued since that initial one that basically essentially Governor Murphy said um Washington is failing the next generation. Mr. Mr. Bronzac, the only thing we've received officially from Trenton besides seeing that press release was we received an email from the county office as did other superintendent in other counties that I'm aware of simply of those districts simply asking how does this affect you?
Are we going to have a special election for it? Who's that cost the district bears or does the township bear it? Um, and then what what we specifically developed that question for and the exact amount. We're probably on an 18-month timeline and there's no guarantee that that question passes. We know that we've had to continually increase taxes year after year after year through S2 and take every allowable exception to us. There's no, we don't know what the public appetite would be for a referendum. Um, so even if it were to pass in 18 months, that's my timeline, but based on guidance from our bond council, you'd probably not start your projects for another 6 to 12 months. So, you're probably closer to two to two and a half years before we've actually begun construction with a bond referendum proceeds. Um, and again, I will caveat that's if it passes, but we are at a state, gentlemen, would you agree that we're at a state of critical need now?
Um but it it's definitely where I see some areas in which we can improve. It's um phase one, let's get you into the best benefit based on what you seeking in your family. And the next step is how do you maximize it, especially new teachers, new employees, so they know how to navigate um the process of healthcare. Thank you. And then my my last comment I guess would be specific. I guess an open-ended maybe hope or question to to the administration or those on whether or not we can explore some sort of partnership with the donation to NHC. I know that they're their own entity to so to speak on trying to find a way to navigate not only helping to offset the cost on the school district but how to partner with them in some way. I mean, I only mention that because I think that there's we we keep to ourselves a little bit and I don't that's not a thing.
So um just continuity with your audit auditing firm. So we can we can select that same firm again. Is that correct? Yeah. As long as they score on the rubric but yeah um let's see I think I probably talked through all this. Uh oh so I didn't talk through this part. We have essentially three audits. So we have a financial audit where they're just auditing our books and whatever. a single audit that's on all our federal programs. So that's all of our title one, our idea basic um our impact aid, our ESSER, all of that. And then we have a USFR um audit. That's our 180 questions. Um and we just have to it's either yes or no. Uh great news, our audit was unmodified. Um so it doesn't mean we're perfect. It just means that we're pretty good. Uh and then this year uh they specifically um audited Title One and ESSER.
In addition, we shared our positive um academic results uh where we still maintained our um a district status. So much of that assessment and accountability work um is dependent upon the success of our English language learners. So that was the source of this recommendation to you all tonight. So about a $1.1 million increase associated with those FTEES. And then the pay increase recommendation. So 2% raise for all employees. Classroom site fund portion. You can see that classroom site fund is taking a large percentage of that pay increase. The enterprise portion. So that's our community education program as well as um as well as nutrition services. They're responsible for taking on their own pay increases. And then the M portion. It's not just M though. It's all of our title funds. It's all of our grant funds. We just kind of group them in together. So, I'm probably overstating the $2 million a little bit because there are some other funds that will take off some of those cost increases, but primarily maintenance operations will take the brunt of it.
Get rid of the guy with a fuzzy face. Uh, now you keep me as the the old the oldest person. You know why he said that? Cuz he's going to the tax bill next. Wow. Hey, what is Dr. Coglin doing there? She's not a board member. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. We're going to have plumbing. So, as Jason's getting ready for this, I just want to give you some why we're doing a presentation on tax bill. Um part of our transparency to the community is to make sure that we are sharing with them uh our families and members of the community how to understand your tax bill. So much is being questioned about tax dollars, how we're using the money and so forth. And so we wanted to take some time to present uh how to understand the tax bill. And then embedded in this, you'll see today we have a video that we will be able to share with the various villages if they would like to push it out to their constituents to understand the tax bill.
Yeah. Or or hil hair and likeness. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just shaking my head on that one. All right. All right. So, as you can see, you can see. So, now again, we're doing the exact same thing. Now, we got to push the truck. Okay. As mentioned a little bit earlier, our our uh see Eli is on the hamster character. Uhhuh. So, you can see him called Wrecking Ball. Wrecking Wrecking Ball. So, um a song by Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus. Thank you very much. I again I don't know we don't have time for this, but I used to date Miley Cyrus, but I don't want to talk about it. It's very emotional breakup. Yeah. I don't want to talk about it right now. Maybe later. Yep. Well, I'd rather right now I'd rather escort the payload. Yes, we need we need to get that payload moving.