001Uh, the board was previously into closed session to discuss the personnel items that are pursuant to the state statutes that were set forth in the meeting agenda. Um I'd like to call this meeting back to open in open session and I'd ask everybody that's able to please stand with me and say pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you very much and we don't have the usuals as this is a special meeting tonight and so we will get right to our action items for this evening, which is a loan application request in the sum of refinancing $5 million. Dr. Durfler, could you please
002present? Sure. The item that you have in front of you that's I guess the blackish grayish font at the top and then a green halfway down notes what the four short-term notes are for and then there's a portion about the Board of Commissioners of Public [snorts] Lands beneath that. So, that's what I'm reading from. The first of those four notes is an Old National Bank revolving line of credit of $3 million that was entered into on April 23rd of and that was at an interest rate of 6.75%. The second of those notes is not a revolving line of credit but what's referred to as a tax revenue anticipation note or a TRAN for simple. That and the first of those two from Pillar Bank was entered into on October 21st of 2025 in the sum
003of $1 million at 5.5% interest. The third is a TRAN again, tax revenue anticipation note, Pillar Bank. That was October 31st of 2025 for $500,000 at 5.95%. And lastly, at Wisconsin Credit Union a revolving line of credit from November 17th of 2025 in the sum of 500,000 at an interest rate of 4.97%. Those four items added together is a grand sum total of $5 million and if you follow with me down to the green section, the green line the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, the BCPL, which is more commonly known as the Wisconsin State Trust um is what I'm noting here under that green line. The item you're considering tonight is to consolidate your financial obligations into one note and that note is for $5 million, the sum of the four items above, paid
004off at an interest rate of 6.5% over a term length of 20 years with the ability to defease that debt, meaning you can pay in advance pay ahead of schedule if you so choose. That debt service is paid off each March or however long it takes you to pay off that debt. It's a a debt service just like your debt service that you pay in the month of March and the month of October for your um referendum and for your Apple River Complex. So, it's just a a debt service line that's in the budget service fee. The BCPL, it's a strange acronym. Uh, for $5 million is paid off through the budget, meaning it's through fund 38, meaning it is not a new tax, it is not a referendum. It is an operational loan which
005you use to consolidate financial obligations to pay off over a period of time, whatever sum you choose. You need to choose a sum that matches your debt. $5 million is your debt, $5 million is the choice. Again, not a new tax and not a referendum. So, I'll take any questions that folks may have. Or comments if you wish to make obviously. Um, I think first I would like to entertain a motion to enter into this loan application so that I can read the resolution and then open up for discussion. I'll make that motion. >> I'll make that motion. Second. Do you accept that probably moved and seconded to consider entering into the application from the um BCPL, BC LP. PL PL >> PL Told you it's a strange acronym. >> [snorts] >> Uh, I would
006like to read that resolution in full as part of the motion and then we'll take a vote on if you'd like to consider that. The resolution is a general obligation borrowing resolution, school district refunding loan. Whereas pursuant to the provisions of Wisconsin statute section 24.61 subsection 3, 24.66 subsection 4 and 67.05 subsection 15, school districts may borrow money from the state trust funds for the purpose of refunding outstanding obligations for terms of up to 20 years without prior electorate approval. And whereas the Amery School District has an outstanding obligation it desires to refund by using a state trust fund loan and whereas pursuant to the provisions of chapter 24 of the Wisconsin statutes, the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, BCPL, is authorized to make loans from the state trust funds to school districts for
007such purposes. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Amery School District Wisconsin is hereby authorized to borrow from the trust funds of the state of Wisconsin the sum of $5 million for the purpose of refinancing outstanding revenue obligations and for no other reason. Such loan shall be payable within 20 years from the 15th day of March preceding the date the loan is dispersed. The loan will be repaid in annual installments with the interest rate of 6.50% per year from the date of disbursement of the loan to the 15th day of March the following year and thereafter annually as provided by law. Be it further resolved that the Amery School District shall levy upon all taxable property within the district a direct and irrep and irrepealable annual tax sufficient for paying the principal and interest on
008this loan when due. Be it further resolved, we acknowledge that should the Amery School District default on this loan, BCPL is required under state statute section 24.7 to intercept any state payments that may be author otherwise due with the Amery School District. Be it further resolved that if BCPL agrees to make such loan, that the president and the clerk of the Amery School District are authorized and empowered in the name of the district to execute and deliver certificates of indebtedness to BCPL in such such form as required by BCPL for the sum of money that may be loaned to the Amery School District pursuant to this resolution. The president and clerk are authorized and directed to perform all actions reasonably necessary to fully carry out the provisions of chapter 24 of the Wisconsin statute and
009these resolutions. Be it further resolved that these recitals and their resolutions and these resolutions and the votes by which they were adopted shall be recorded and that the clerk of the Amery School District shall forward this certified record along with the application for the loan to BCPL. And with that, I will open it for discussion. What >> [clears throat] >> How did we get here that we're doing this because this is different than what we normally would do. How did we get to needing a long-term borrow over the short-term borrow we just did? Well >> The consolidation, yeah. Okay. >> Over the course of the last 10-ish years, the school district at each of its budget hearing annual meeting dates typically held in September has done a revolving line of credit [clears throat] short-term borrow.
010Used to be as little as a million and most recently it's been up towards $3 million. Now this the state of affairs in the way that the Wisconsin state of Wisconsin is financing public schools is making it very difficult because the revenues don't match the expenditures. There are two areas of gap. That first area of gap is the time between November 1st or October 1st in essence and January 1st when you get your equalized aid payment in October and you your first round of tax settlement from municipalities the first two weeks of January. The other gap is typically between the months of April and July on into early August when you get your third because you get one in February as well, third round of property tax settlements from the municipalities. So, those big gaps
011in time you literally get no revenue whatsoever but your expenditures never change. You still have payroll, you still have WRS, you still have IRS, you still got to pay EE, you still got to put gas in the buses, you still got to light your buildings, etc. etc. etc. So, that match makes it very difficult when you have zero revenue coming in other than what you have for fees for certain things or tuition due from club house. And [clears throat] those types of smaller revenue streams, and you have big revenue streams like a four or five hundred thousand dollar ticket for just a single payroll. And that's just the salary. So, that's [clears throat] how you end up getting here. You can't keep up and eventually you can't keep up to the point where you have
012to continue to borrow more and more and more. What my conversations with Baird Financial have been are this, show me where people are having solvency in their budget. And what Baird Financial shared with me is I don't know that I could name on one hand districts that have healthy fund balances or not going to referendum and are not short-term borrowing. It just doesn't exist anymore. And it really is making it quite complicated for districts of all shapes and sizes, not just rural communities like our own. It's happening all over the place. So, people are either going to referendum which I have no interest in doing, or they're having to short-term borrow. I have my The last recourse is to go to a referendum in my mind. This can be done. Um and it satisfies the
013short term term notes that presently exist, spreads that debt all over time which allows you to then mitigate your budget in a much more reasonable, palatable, and realistic way. You can't short-term borrow on top of short-term borrowing to pay for short-term borrowing. That's what districts are in and having to do. And I I There's a There's a small piece in this um resolution that I read and it It says, "Be it further resolved that the Amery School District shall levy upon all taxable property within the district a direct and irrepealable annual tax sufficient for paying the principal and interest on this loan when due." But that does not mean that we are putting an additional tax on property taxes like a referendum. This is just strictly consolidating the money that we've already borrowed and refinancing
014it. I spoke with Richard Schneider. He is the I don't know what his title is, but he's the top dog at BCPL. And I asked him that question. I said, "This reads like a new tax to me." And he said, "I get that question every single time one of these happens. It's not a new tax. Here's what it means. School districts' revenues come from two places, property taxes and equalized aid. And what that means is those two things you get to make up your budget. So, you are inherently levying a tax which creates your revenues to have a budget. That's saying you're paying for this through the budget which was raised from property taxes. It doesn't mean it's a referendum and it doesn't mean it's a new tax cuz it does not mean that." And
015he couldn't have been more clear. And I think we've been talking the last um several board meetings about making sure that we are in that budget, that we're not over levying again for that 26-27 school year to keep raising this and saying, "Well, you're paying for it through the budget, but you're raising your budget." All of those things because I could see how that would be construed that way, but that this is literally just the same kind of money that we would have been paying on our short-term borrowing, but it's cash flowing us better. It It It makes it much more realistic and much more manageable to spread it out over time. People debt consolidate all the time. Districts are now having to debt consolidate all the time. And if you talk 26-27 budget, the
016total number of dollars in expenditure in a budget such as Amery's is approximately 22-23 million dollars. The total number of dollars via reductions in staff and reduction in things, the way I've characterized it to folks is in order to If you have less revenue, you have to have less expenditure. Less expenditure means less people and less things. Well, the less people part of this by the end of April, we'll have 30 less people and we'll have two and a half million dollars less payroll and benefits. By the end of May, we'll have about three to three and a half million less dollars in our budget with the things that are added to it cuz the things don't have one category like a person does. So, you'll hear personnel later in the meeting today. You'll hear
017more personnel. You probably heard personnel last meeting. Uh you'll continue to hear that all the way up to the end of this school year. And the reason you'll stop hearing it is cuz it has to be done cuz we had to issue contracts and letters of appointment. You got to know what you're giving them to at that point. So, there's over 30 people and there's two and a half million dollars that's removed from the budget to help mitigate what's going to occur here into the school year 26-27. That's pretty impactful cuz that's almost 20% of the budget. And it's almost 20% of our staff. And I And I think what you said is key that we just have fewer students to need all of those people, but wanting to maintain still that high quality education
018that we've had. We don't want to interrupt services for kids when students in trying to keep them at the forefront here of what we're doing, but also managing the expenses. And so, I think we've been able to do that with the personnel actions that we've been working through. The efforts of the administrative team, the district team, and the district office staff we have had dozens, and that's not an exaggeration, dozens of meetings to do this smartly, to preserve the best of educators, the best of education. And the way we've broken this down ultimately, folks that are that have a license that's a license with stipulations, that means from the state of Wisconsin you could only be here if you have XYZ, or [snorts] to be a licensed teacher in a classroom you have to do
019these things. And then there's the other category of licensure which are folks that have a provisional license and the folks that have a lifetime license. So, the first folks that were entertained in that category were the licenses stipulations, and then certainly seniority played into this. The example I gave in a couple of meetings, if you have a person two people that are similarly situated, one's been here for four years and one's been here for 27, that's a pretty tough argument to say, "Sorry, Mr. or Ms. 27-year person, we're going to stick with the person that's been here for four." That's the tough sell. So, we've had to [clears throat] be really smart, but what we've also done is we've created the creatively moved people around to fill spots that if not for the challenges of
020this budget, we probably wouldn't have even considered doing. But we have tightened our belt in a really big way through this process. And I think in the end it's going to be a good thing cuz remember the two and a half million dollars in the 26-27 budget year, the three to three and a half million dollar total, that's every year. That's not just next year. And the cumulative effect of that over the course of five, six, seven years, that's 10 to 15 million dollars. That's a lot of money. And I I think we have to. I You know, I We've had these conversations obviously over the last couple of years and um you know, I think we really even though in theory we could say, "Well, we have declining enrollment and so you should need
021less people." And I think there was, you know, probably some unwillingness in in wanting to preserve the educators that you had here making their lives easier, um not wanting to go up to class sizes of um 20 or so plus more kids, um but now you're at the point of where small class sizes aren't helping either and you just can't keep asking the taxpayers to keep funding more positions with less need um just because we want smaller class sizes. And so, I think um you know, I will I will own a lot of that that um yeah, we probably could have started this the reduction sooner. And um we probably could have managed this a little bit a little bit closer uh before we got got here. And um I'll completely own that as a
022board member who's the most senior out of all of you. And um I think this is a a good learning opportunity that we're going to move forward and and really listen to our taxpayers and and not not keep asking, but but really strengthen the budget. And I think that's good business. I think that's every business that has to do that. We've made tough choices on our farm. We have to do the same thing and we're doing the same thing here. Um so. Sean, these are significant budget cuts. We realize that they're necessary, but are you confident and can you assure us that, you know, we're going to maintain the quality of education in Amery? I'm I'm not just confident, I'm very confident. We have done everything we can artfully in the schedule through this staffing
023picture to preserve the very best of education. I have seen with my own eyes in all four of these buildings, not just by years in working at the high school or my time spent at the elementary school, these people are miracle workers and nothing's changed about that. And our kids and our families in our community are in a very good shape because of the absolutely fantastic people that work here. I am very confident that that's going to occur. People, this has been a large bump in the road. People have been very skittish and nervous here over the course of the last four to six weeks, justifiably so, but we have moved past the certified staff piece of this. I think a breath of fresh air was had over spring break, and I think we're going
024to hit the ground running and sprint the last two months into the finish. And people are going to keep doing the miracles that they've been doing for decades here. I have no doubts about that whatsoever. I know people are amazing. I know reading through this, one of the things that I popped out to me right away was taking what has been considered short-term debt, and then we talk about 20 years of debt. And I would like for us to to not go out a full 20 years. So, do you anticipate a time frame that we could potentially have this $5 million paid? >> I think it's unrealistic to sit here today and say it's going to be X years, but I I would like it to be significantly less than 20, as well. The debt
025service payment is literally dropped in the budget for March 15th of 2027 already. That's the actual date it happens, unless of course it's a Saturday or a Sunday, I imagine, where there's no banking happening. Um my my question was that very question to Baird Financial, and they said you could literally schedule a defeasance, meaning pay ahead, right into your budget, and you can have that as a direct payment, just like you would have as a debt service, and you could do it any month of any year that you wanted to do it, and pay that off sooner, cuz that's my every aim, as well. And there is no penalty for paying this back early? >> There is not. Um and you're So, you're only paying interest on the time that we actually have this loan
026out there. Um I think I've done some math on this, and it um the amount that we're borrowing is $5 million at 6 and 1/2% interest over 20 years. Um that gives us 3.9 million dollars of interest over 20 years, if that was the case. Uh quick math tells me that that's 1. uh $199,549 worth of interest per year. If we could um tie that down in a significant less amount of time, clearly, that would be in our best interest in running right along with some of the interest that was accruing in the short-term borrowing, so. One of the many benefits of shaving $2.5 million out of your budget, it gives you the opportunity to consider that strongly. Because if you don't shave that out of your budget, you can't make that a consideration. You're
027literally playing catch-up with that as part of the equation. You could very much pay ahead, and we will. This interest rate on this $5 million loan is fixed at 6 and 1/2%, is that correct? >> Yes. You know, that may be a very good interest rate down the road. >> It's a lower interest rate than we have right now at Old National. >> Right. And fixed is accurate. That was not a negotiated product. That is literally what you're told. How long has this trust fund existed? >> That I don't know right offhand, but I don't know exact number of years, but I I remember what Richard Schneider, the guy on the phone, said to me today, and he made some off-the-cuff remark, "It hasn't happened Such and such hasn't happened since 1871." So, I think
028what he was saying to me is this has existed since 1871, which would make it really old. Mhm. Yeah. Can you talk to the um just the state aid and the issues that we're seeing there, which doesn't help the situation at all? Well, you There's There's two pools of money which fill the coffers for your revenue streams. You see your property tax payment, and in addition to that, you have any of your equalize aid, which included in that is your per pupil aid, which means for every kid you get X. That's really the two sums of money that get you your bucket full. Now, there's a revenue limit. A revenue limit states that you can't raise any more than X, X meaning the revenue limit. If you leave your revenue limit as is, you can
029manipulate those two sums of money, but it can't go higher than the revenue limit. But if you raise your revenue limit, which has happened often in the state of Wisconsin, but you don't change anything about how you're going to fund schools. So, if it was here, and the max was here, if you raise your revenue limit and leave this here, this gap becomes bigger, and that gap that becomes bigger is your property taxes. That's the only way you can get up to your revenue limit if we don't change how much you get aided. We have not been aided in a fully funded kind of way in the state of Wisconsin in a long time. Remember the date that that occurred that we would created the funding formula for a school school district of for the
030schools in the state of Wisconsin is 34 years old. And it is passed us by cost of living $4 million total in the budget behind in aid. That is a huge sum of money, and the only way that that has occurred is when you don't change the formula, and when you don't change the aid to schools for 34 years. This is the 17th consecutive year, 18th, now that we're in 2026, there hasn't been a cost of living adjustment for public schools. 18 years in a row. In any business, would be really unsustainable. And it's become unsustainable for schools in the state of Wisconsin, which is why 72 school districts on April 7th are going to referendum, and probably 72 more in September, and probably 72 more in April of 2027. [clears throat] That's the only
031way to mitigate this. This district >> That's not us. That's the legislature. That is the legislature that needs to control that differently. You can't do anything about that. That's an elected official issue. That's not your choice. You don't set the revenue limit, you don't set equalize aid, you don't determine property tax. That all comes from formulas that are beyond you. The The reality is, if you keep doing the same thing for that period of time, you're going to have a really challenging budget. And school districts across Wisconsin are having really challenging budgets. There's going to be a ripple effect throughout the colleges in the state, and it's going to hit the lawmakers at election time. They're going to have to address this issue. Uh they've ignored it for 30 What did you say? 4 years.
032Uh can't continue to do that. When schools start closing and districts consolidating and so on and so forth, uh they're going to have to step up to the plate and and look at something different. The quickest fix that most districts are choosing right here in this CC11 across the state is go to referendum. That's the immediate first thing on the nation. I have not been a conversation about referendum since 2022, other than the talk about 2022. I've not had a single conversation with a single of you. I've never been party to a conversation. I have zero interest in a referendum for two reasons. One is I don't think it's fair to the taxpayers with how much things cost right now. And further, I don't think we have to. We can do this. We don't need
033a referendum to do this. And this resolution is a step in that direction of being able to do this. >> Yeah, I'm not interested in any kind of referendum, either. Shar, how much did you say that interest was on this new The um interest on the new short-term on the new consolidation loan for the $5 million? Yes. Yes, Stephanie, I'll recognize your question. 6.5%. So, is that considered new debt or old debt? You don't have to answer that, but if it's new debt, you have to go to referendum and go to vote to pass this. No, you don't. This This is not referendum. No, this is done through the budget. What I'm saying is is you're It's not new debt. Okay. >> Yep, it's just re- it's just refinancing an existing debt that we've already
034borrowed. But the interest in it The interest itself is what I'm addressing. Is that considered new debt, or is that considered old debt? Okay. I can I'll I'll make sure that it's >> Because if it's considered new debt, I think we have to go to referendum or a vote From what I From what I I'm not Hey, we don't have to I'm just posing the question. >> it. From what I understand about this um particular this particular line is that um there is a dollar amount that can be borrowed at this particular interest rate, and then um without consideration, if there was borrowing more, there would be a petition period from the public, and the public could gather signatures and petition against that, if that was so choose. But we are beyond we are under
035that threshold. I've had three conversations with three different outfits, and they have confirmed that to be accurate. The first conversation with Richard Schneider, not once, not twice, but three times have I asked that question from BCPL. He has said, "No, you do not need to go to petition. No, you do not need to go to referendum." Baird Financial has said the same thing, and Thomas Grigsby Law Firm has said the same thing. I've asked the question of all three. I've been in calls and in meetings with all three, in some cases simultaneously, and they have all said the same thing. Okay. Yes, I don't I don't I definitely don't have no interest in doing anything that would be out of order or unlawful here, and I I certainly don't want to lead anybody down that
036path. And um from what I understand how this works is that's that's where we're at, so. Where I think Stephanie's question was relative to interest being new debt, and interest is an operating expense, it's not uh debt. Either short-term or long-term. It's an annual operating expense. That's the way it was treated with the $5 million that we currently have, and it's the same way that it'll be treated with the $5 million if this loan is approved. Yeah, Larry makes a really good point. Um Larry's been on several not obviously publicly elected boards, but uh co-op boards co-ops are bound by similar laws um in how we treat that and it's not uncommon for co-ops to also re-consolidate and move short-term debt to long-term debt. So, it's it's this is a very common practice. It's not
037obviously something that the school district has done and obviously this is something new that the district is doing and that there's taxpayers involved and not co-op members, but because co-ops are owned by members, they're still governed by some of the state statutes and laws, so Yeah, I think Larry, you bring a good amount of expertise with you with the with serving your time on the co-op board, so I appreciate that. Just a little bit of time. I appreciate that. Is there any further discussion on the topic of considering the application through the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands? Now, I want to remind that our reminder members our board members that this is an application for the loan. We are just applying for the loan. This is not a guaranteed we have to decide it'll
038be up to somebody else to decide if we actually get the money, but this is to enter into the application process. Sean, what's the probability of if we approve to move forward with this application that it will be approved? Well, the timeline moving forward is this you make a request for the application, you get the application, you get the resolution. That's been done already. There's the resolution. You adopt a resolution if you so choose and then you send the resolution, the meeting minutes, and your application, and a map of the district property lines. You send that back to BCPL. At that point they bring it to their committee, which occurs the first and third Tuesdays of each month. So, the dates I don't have committed to memory, but we I have been told April 21st
039is the date that we were put on the agenda for approval or denial. And based on the conversations that I've had with Richard Snyder down there, um it sounds highly probable based on what he has shared with me. It's just a matter of going through the process. And I asked is anything holding up the process and he said, "Not following the steps and not turning in the paperwork." Well, we're doing that right here right now. How exactly will this clear up our debt? We're exchanging one debt for another. Can you explain to the community like or so this is clearing up the two short-term borrowing loans? Or what is this being applied to? Yep, so we already went through that in the meeting. I'm just clarifying. Yep, we already went through that in the meeting
040and it's the $5 million in I'll say it again. This is to clear up the revolving line of credit that for $3 million for the tax revenue anticipation note for $1 million, the tax revenue anticipation note for $500,000 and the revolving line of credit for $500,000 that totals $5 million. So, what this is absolutely What puts us in a position like what happens if we need to take out a short-term borrowing loan if because we don't make budget again? You would do the exact same. You would go enter into the short-term borrowing loan process just like normal, but we're not there right now and I'm not going to discuss that until we get to that point cuz there's no use of speculating that's point of budget right now. Um and if you have other questions,
041then I just I would want you to reach out to Dr. Derfler if you have more questions on that, but this is for the this time is for the board to consider and obviously I'm more than happy just to clarify comments that were made here and what we presented here, but I'm not going to speculate on on further budget. I don't I don't think that would be the appropriate time to do that here. I don't have information in front of me. Does the board have any further discussion? Okay. >> [clears throat] >> And with that done, we will take a vote on the application process of the resolution that I already read and I'm not going to read again. We'll do that by a roll call vote. So, Larry Whitecheck. I. Gwen Dato. I. Sharlonna.
042I. Steve Ostrow. I. April Ziemer. I. The resolution passes and we would ask Dr. Derfler to go ahead and move move forward with that borrowing. Okay, and then off to personnel action. Okay, we have new employment contracts for Teresa Haynes as a long-term sub in 4K, Shane Salisbury special ed para, resignation from custodian Ryan Folstead, a termination of Olivia Hanson in custodial, resignations for Wendy Merrick as intermediate middle school arts teacher, Samantha Matzik elementary school Montessori teacher, Jordan Morfit high school math teacher, retirement of Sherry Lee intermediate and middle school keyboarding business ed teacher, non-renewal non-renewals, sorry, Rachel Baker eighth grade English teacher, Travis Bowman Meister second grade teacher, Lawrence Daulton physical education teacher, Madison Haynes school counselor, Olivia Patterson fifth grade teacher, and Riley Walls phi ed teacher at the high school. Make a
043motion we accept the personnel changes as presented. Second. It's been properly moved and seconded to accept the personnel changes as presented previously discussed in closed session. All of those in favor of approving personnel action, please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passes. Personnel action is approved as presented. And that completes our agenda for this evening and I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Larry. Gwen, it's been properly moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned.