001[Music] I love that gavvel. I'm telling you, I want to take it home. So, good evening everybody. It's a big crowd tonight. So, that's very exciting. We always love these um opportunities to celebrate uh our students. So, welcome to tonight's meeting. Today is April 7th. Hard to believe. Justin, can you please take attendance? Sure. Joe Abdella here. Greg Cava, Victoria Salon, Stephanie Kolnick, Angela Murulo, Alex Mcnauten here, Justin Angley here, Jen Pod here, Jane Sergeant, Pete Tagley, Mary Weber, Christine Wid. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Karachi honoring the winter 2024 2025 uh first team allstate and first team Berkshire League All-Star athletes and state championship players. Thank you. I'd like to extend uh a thank you to the board of ed for having us here. Like to welcome all of our all state, allstar athletes, our
002state championship athletes, coaches, families for being here. Um, what I would like to do is I would like to uh read a statement that was provided to me by each Allstars coach. And I'd like to have the all-star come up and stand next to me. Now, I had an order I was going to do, but a couple of the people that I was going to do first are not here. So, I'm going to switch that order up a little bit. Um, I am going to start with boys basketball and Reed Warner. Reed, come on up. Reed averaged 26 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 3.3 steals per game this year. He was the most prolific scorer in the Berkshire League and around the region this season. Scored his 10,000th point this year and was a
003tremendous scorer both on the perimeter and at the rim. Reed led the team in rebounding this season and proved to be a good dynamic defender. Reed was a first team Bergley Allstar this season for the second consecutive year, was the co-winner of the Leon Verettto award, which goes to the top senior in the league, and was selected as first team all state this season. Reed showed great development as a leader this year and was absolutely instrumental in Chapag's virtual league regular season championship, virtual league tournament championship, and CIA Division 5 state championship. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to Reed Warner. Next, I would like to call up James Kirsten. James averaged 21.2 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and 2.3 steals per game this season. James was a very reliable scorer both on the perimeter and in
004the interior, and he was a very good defensive rebounder. As a junior this year, James scored his 10,00 point. And for those of you who are not aware, both James and Reed scored their 10,00 point in the exact same game in the exact same half, which is tremendously uncommon and and very cool. For the second consecutive year, James was voted as a first team virtually allstar. And this season, he was also selected as first team all state. James showed significant development as a leader this season and is very well respected by his teammates. He was absolutely essential to Ship's Bergkshire League regular season championship, Berg League Tournament Championship, and CIA Division 5 State Championship, and he continually made huge plays in game after game during our run to the title. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations, James
005Kirsty. Okay, I'm going to skip to swimming right now. I would like to call up Miss Briana Johnson. Briana Johnson made a huge impact on the swim team this year and had a personal best time almost every time she dove into the water to race. She is one of the most coachable athletes out there and it shows. Bri always asks questions about how to improve for dropper times and she genuinely listens to what her coaches have to say. As a freshman on the team, Bri became a Berkshire League all-star and helped the Chap Girls 200 freestyle relay maintain their streak of 10 years in a row as Berkshire League champions. Bri then went on to compete and score at the Class Sampionship meet in the 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations
006to Dana Johnson. Congratulations for I would now like to call up Cadence Campbell. Sophomore Cadence Campbell had an amazing swim season. Cadence had the flu during the middle of the season and somehow came back even stronger after being sick. She continued to drop time in the 100 breaststroke backstroke, sorry. And by doing this, she earned the spot in the backstroke leadoff on the girls a 200 medley relay. Cadence then helped lead that relay at the virtual league championship to its first title in the past nine years, which gained her all-star status. Cadence went on to the state championship meet to lead off the medley relay with backstroke. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to Cadence Campbell. favorite. I like to call up Vicky Barelini. Sophomore Vicky Bargelini is affectionately known by the swim team as the butterfly
007queen, and she continues to impress every time she competes. Last season as a freshman, Vicki broke a 27-year-old Girls 100 Butterfly record, as well as the 30-year-old freshman record. This season at the Girls Splash Classic meet, Vicki broke that record again and became a Splash Classic champion in the 100 butterfly. At the Berkshire League Championship meet, Vicki helped lead the girls 200 medley relay to victory. She also brought the gold back to Shapog for the first time since the early 2000s and claimed first place in the girls 100 butterfly. Vicki then anchored the girls 200 freestyle relay to victory. Went on to compete and score at states in the 200 medley relay, 100 butterfly, 100 backstroke, and 200 freestyle relay. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations Vicky Baron. Okay, I would now like to call up Abigail
008Parin. Junior Abigail Parin improves every season in the freestyle, backstroke, and individual medley events. This year, Abby helped Shap claim victory in the girls 200 medley relay at the Berg League Championship meet by anchoring with the freestyle leg. And this relay won that event by over 6 seconds, which is an absolute eternity in any kind of timed race. She then went on to help lead off the winning relay of the girls 200 freestyle relay at the virtual league championship meet. After that, Abigail then went on to the class S Championship meet to score in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay. Congratulations to Abigail Parent. Congratulations. Now, I'd like to call up Nick Nunz. Junior Nick Nunzig had a diving season to remember. Nick had an undefeated dual meet record this year which culminated with
009Nick moving on to win the Berg League Championship in diving. As impressive as that accomplishment was, Nick's season did not end there. One of Nick's greatest strengths is his desire to continually improve and learn what he is physically capable of doing on the diving pool. And that inquisitive nature and drive led him to great things. At the Class S state diving championships, Nick crushed the competition and became the school's second ever class S diving champion, earning Nick Allstate status. The state open diving championship featured the top 24 divers in the state, combining kids from schools of all different sizes and not just divers from class S. Going into that meet, Nick was seated 11th, but due to a very strong performance, he placed sixth overall, became the first Chipot diver in history to medal at
010the state open championship meet. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to Nick Nun. Nick, congratulations. Now, like to call up the lone senior on the swim team, Miss Sarah Waters. Senior Sarah Waters has the heart and drive that any coach would want. And as the only senior on the swim team this year, she set an excellent example for all of her teammates. She is a great listener not only to her coaches, but also to her teammates. By doing that, she helped the team win the Ted Alex sportsmanship award for the third time in four years. Sarah always comes to practice ready to better herself and her teammates and she has earned the respect of everyone in the Chipog swimming and diving program. Sarah claimed Berkshire Allstar status in the 200 medley relay, 200 freestyle relay, and the
011100 breaststroke. This was Sarah's second year in a row winning the girls 100 breaststroke at the BL championship meet. Sarah then went on to the state championship meet and helped the team score in the 200 medley league and 200 freestyle relays. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to Sarah Waters. Sarah, you're welcome. I am now going to move on to our last four gentlemen. I'm not sure if they're there. Oh, some of them are here. Um, I'm going to call up now Mr. Nate Steinus. should mention Nate was a member was an all-star as a member of the indoor track team. Nate Steinus has been a valuable member of the indoor track team and this year he earned Bergkshire League All-Star honors in the 300 meters setting the Bergkshire League championship meet record at 39.14. For those
012of you who are not aware, this year was the first year the Bergkshire League officially adopted indoor track as a sport. And this year was the inaugural Bergkshire League Championship meet. Where was it? Nathan's time also qualified him for the Class Sate meet. In addition to the winter indoor season, Nate is also expected to perform at this high level during the outdoor track season as he did last year, helping to lead last year's outdoor track team to a Berg league championship. We look forward to seeing what Nate can achieve there. And we would like to congratulate Nate Steinus on a great performance this year in indoor track. Congratulations, Nate. Congratulations. Okay, I've got three people left. I'm not sure if they're here or not. Um, I'm going to stay with indoor track. Nate Krono. Is
013Nate here? Okay, we're going to honor Nate anyways. Nate Koik has been a leader on the indoor track team, earning Bergkshire League All-Star honors in Pole Vault, setting the Bergkshire League championship record at 9 ft 0 in and setting the indoor track and field school record for pole vault at 9'6 in. Nate also qualified for the state class S meet in high jump. The coaching staff is looking forward to seeing him perform during the outdoor track season. So, special congratulations to Nate Koik. going to move on to ice hockey now and Miles Wilson. Miles here. No, Miles. We will honor him. Anyways, Miles was a senior captain and standout goalender for the Chap Hockey team this season. Miles had five games in which he recorded 40 or more saves this season, including an incredible 48
014saves against Wilton and 46 saves against New Milford, both of which are unbelievable performances. As some probably know, and perhaps others do not know, the Shap hockey team competes in the Southern Connecticut and Southwest Conference combined hockey league, which is composed all of schools that are way bigger than Chap. Due to Miles solid performance in goal this season, he earned first team allconerence and second team all state. Miles also earned the James Gooddale award, which is a team award giving for outstanding play throughout the season. So, special congratulations to Miles Wilson. And I think I have one left. I just want to make sure I'm not forgetting anybody. Okay, the last person, and I don't believe he's here, is Drew Ko. Drew, are you here? Okay, Drew. Drew was a uh a standout basketball player
015on our team this year. Drew averaged 14.2 points, five rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 3.7 steals per game this season, which highlighted a tremendous improvement in his development. Drew is eternally optimistic, possesses great energy and enthusiasm in both practices and games. and his positively is absolutely infectious. He's a great motivator. He ran the point guard position tremendously unselfishly and is a true winner. He was by far the best defensive player in the Bergkshire League and beyond. His performance earned him selection as a first team Berg League Allstar. Drew is a tremendous leader who is respected and admired by his teammates and is perhaps the most unsung player in the region. Oh, I got to find my other page. Sorry. Drew does absolutely everything on the court and was essential to our Bergkshire League regular season championship,
016our Bergkshire League tournament championship, and our CIA Division 5 state championship. To top it all off, Drew was selected as the MVP of the state championship game at Mohagen Sun. So, congratulations to Drew Ko. going through and making sure I didn't leave anyone out. Okay, I would now like to switch gears. We would like to recognize our state championship basketball team. The Shap boys basketball team's 2024 25 season was the most successful basketball season in the history of Chap. 1981 was the last time the Shap won the Bergkshire League regular season championship. But on February 11th, 2025, the 44-year drought ended with the Spartans dominating title clinching 7746 victory at Terryville High School. Three nights later against a very tough Thomas team, Chapog engineered a late come from behind victory in front of a pack
017Ted Alex gymnasium crowd on what was field hockey and boys soccer championship banner unveiling night to complete the perfect regular season and go 20 and0 for the first time in Ship basketball history. Chap a victory celebration ensued. We are the champions played on the sound system and the team cut the nets down to mark their incredible achievement. But as anyone that's been around for a little while knows, they were not even close to being done yet. After a lopsided win at home to start the Berg League tournament during the semi-finals and finals, the Spartans thrilled and dazzled the pack gym at Northwest at Northwestern High School with last second come from behind and I'm speaking personally here heart attack inducing victories against Lake View and Nanow to clinch their first Berkshire League tournament title since
0182009. After a well-deserved first round division 5 tournament buy, Spartans were off on their quest to avenge the 1983 state final loss to Terryville and the 2023 state final loss to Windsor Locks. And their goal was one thing, to take home the 2025 championship. An 8965 home victory against Shoreline Conference member Hadam Killingworth got the tournament started in the right direction for the team. In the quarterfinals, a matchup against another shoreline team, East Hampton, proved to be the most competitive game for Shap in the state tournament. Spartans found themselves down seven at halftime, but a 21-7 third quarter righted the ship and earned the team an eightpoint victory and a spot in the semi-finals against a familiar Berg League foe, Thomas, who had provided a very difficult challenge in the two previous regular season matchups.
019After a change of venue to a bigger facility was ne necessary, everyone it seems from region 12, from Thomas and from the entire Bergkshire Lake community poured into the gym at Wilby High School in Waterberry and saw Shafog put forward a completely dominating performance. And after their 7054 victory, the Spartans had punched their ticket to Moheaggan Sun for the second time in three years. This year with an undefeated season at stake and the chance to make history, Chapag was not to be denied. Facing another Shoreline Conference team in the finals, the defending CIA state champions from old line, Chapag made it clear early that nothing was going to stand in their way. At the end of four quarters during which Shapod never took their foot off the gas, the Spartans earned a much closer a
020a victory that sounds much closer than it was 5846 over the Wildcats and history was made. After the encourt celebration and all the press interviews, Shabbog Shap tradition was upheld and on the way home the state champions bus was greeted by emergency personnel in South Ferry and escorted all the way through Roxberry in Washington with lights flashing and sirens blaring signifying to all that the Spartans had brought home the title. On behalf of the many, many community members and fans that witnessed this magical season, I would like to offer congratulations to the team for their incredible achievement as well as a genuine thank you for the wonderful experience that was provided to many, many people throughout this season. Now, without further ado, I'd like to call upon head coach Matt Lefave to say a few
021words about the season. Thanks very much, Matt. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm not that much a young man as I used to be back then. I've been in basketball uh 45 plus years and so I've seen a lot of good, a lot of not so good, a lot of tough roads and whatnot. This particular team uh we knew had something at the beginning of the year. We didn't know quite what, but we knew there was something there. We knew we had a lot of talent. We knew we had some great student athletes and we knew we were competing in a really tough league here in the virtual league. And so we set out to simply with one goal in mind to play real good quality basketball every game out. We didn't set any
022numerical goals because often that just puts too much pressure on the young student athletes. We just wanted to go out and just uh play quality basketball, represent Chip Pog the way we're supposed to and uh let the chips fall where they may. They did it throughout the regular season. This is a collection of fine athletes here. Um we battled through uh a very very tough league to go 20 and0 and and then we got into a very tough uh virtual league tournament as Matt Parach had indicated and somehow battled through that. that was the toughest of all and that brought home the first um virtually tournament championship since Matt Parach coached in 2009. And so that was that was quite an accomplishment. And then we got into the state tournament and as you know we
023were um two years ago we got there very unexpectedly and we didn't prevail and there's always a large chasm between winning and losing that final game. Um, our athletes remembered that we had core athletes who had played very significant roles in that game, James Kirsten, Drew Koenic, um, Reed Warner, and they were hungry to get back and they left nothing uh to chance. They prepared well, they were ready, and they act they really played like the winners that they are. And and I would say this, being in basketball as long as I've been in this game, you never do it without great kids, not only great basketball players, but also great student athletes. You never do it without a great administration, which you certainly have here at Chap, a great principal, Don Shells, Mike Croft,
024uh the best athletic director in the state, Matt Parach. And you never do it without great assistants, Ted Bramer, and uh Alan Stinson, and a great community, just a just an outstandingly unique community here at Chipog. I couldn't be happier and more pleased to have to be here for the last 12 years. Um, it's been a wonderful experience and we look forward to continuing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Um, as always, we always just are so uh blown away and so proud how proud you all make us. Um, and it's not just um on what they do on the courts or in the pool um or in the indoor uh arena, so to speak, but really what they um do off. So, we couldn't be more proud. So, we're going to take
025a few moments to enjoy some refreshments. Uh take a quick break. We'll be back. Thank you. I know if we can all come back to our Mr. Tagley, are you ready to come on over? Okay, thank you. So that was really really exciting actually to see so many amazing students and it's so we're small but mighty and to have the same experience that we had from the fall and now celebrate our winter is just we have amazing just amazing. So and and amazing coaches and amazing um yeah we do so really excited. So thank you so much. Yep. Absolutely. So now we're moving on to public comment on agenda items. Anyone missing? No one online. Great. Okay. So moving on now to the consent agenda for March 24th. Does anybody have anything that they want
026to I know likes to look it over. So, okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of the uh March 24th meeting of the board of education. favor. I eight. Okay, moving on now to the Spark. Am I saying that right? The Spark Wellness um presentation with Mike Craw. Welcome. Mike has told things. Um, so I'm here to speak on behalf of Spark Wellness, which um, you guys might know was, uh, we are formerly known as the Prevention Council of Bridgewater, Roxbury, and Washington. Um we wanted to change our name and mission um just to kind of reflect um how addictions, suicide prevention, all those things are currently being prevented and treated. Um you know I grew up in the 80s 90s and the just say no was the strategy that was
027used and it was pretty ineffective. So, uh, we really, you know, we thought that the prevention council was kind of when you think about prevention council, it kind of you think about those types of strategies. And we really wanted to kind of modernize our group and really um focus on the mental health aspect um of treating, preventing um drug misuse, addiction, and suicide. Um so spark stands for shapog promotes advocacy, resilience and connection through wellness. Um and uh our hope is just we want community members, students um you know to learn how to become advocates for themselves um you know to learn resilience um during hard times to find ways to um work through difficult times other than drugs. I think a lot of times um you know I think now we realize that when
028people use um drugs or alcohol, it's not because they're bad people. Um a lot of times they are um self-medicating. So self-medicating their pain, um anxiety, depression. So um we uh really want to become a community that's resilient and we want to become connected. Um we find that um by connecting with one another um talking with one another um hearing each other's stories um that helps us through right so thanks to Jack chat GPT helped us with coming up with this name um to really shape our our purpose um which I already stated. So you see in the handout just a summary of our mission and our strategies. Um you know again to collaborate um the Western Connecticut Coalition is kind of our we work under under them. Um there are regional behavioral health action
029organization. Um they uh connect us with other prevention councils um in the northwest corner. Um they have trainings. Um they help us get funding for this organization. Um educating, you know, promoting healthy choices, increasing awareness, um providing resources to the community, um and then evaluation. So last fall or last spring, we did the developmental relationship survey. So you know, figuring out what the needs of the community are and then obviously support. So, hosting community events and providing financial support as needed. Um, and Mike's going to talk about our first community event to kind of kick off. So, one of the challenges with an organization like this that has a broad mission is deciding where to put your energy and where to put the limited funds that you have. And of course, it could be lots
030of things. And one of the needs that we saw and see and one of the opportunities that we believe exists in our communities and also more broadly is represented by uh this book here which it's called the anxious generation by Jonathan hate uh height height how the great rewiring of childhood is causing epil mental illness And the the thesis of the book in short, it's a it's a big long book, so I'm distilling it maybe too much, but the thesis in short is that children are under supervised online and overs supervised in the real world and that it's having big impacts on individuals, groups, and schools and our world. And we think that these are important ideas to spread in part because they're powerful and meaningful and in part because our capacity for change in
031small groups and individual families is limited because of the social uh critical mass that's needed to make any kind of change in this area. And so we have this organization Spark Wellness in an effort to um make an impact and launch its new name, a new mission uh has developed this event whereby we hope to spread uh acceptance uh or at least awareness of some of these ideas. And the short story with the event is that our organization bought uh a whole bunch of books and we have distributed them to schools and public libraries. They can be signed out right here in the front office and we are encouraging people to read the book or at least engage with the ideas through a YouTube video or a kind of newspaper article read. And on June
0321st at Hbert Park in Roxbury, we're going to have a simple event, a facilitated conversation. People who are interested in the topic, people who have read all or part of the book are going to come together and hopefully form some common cause, form some common understandings and spread awareness of some of the problems that are plaguing our children and some of the simple solutions that are available to us. And the event is going to be facilitated by a powerful speaker and facilitator, a man named John Simmonselli, who is principal counselor at Greenwoods Counseling in Lichfield. He has met with our organization and planned this event with us. Uh we believe it is uh an efficient use of the limited funds and energy that we well limited funds and the energy that we have. It's I
033don't think it's limited. uh and and that we have uh great potential to do some good and to get a ball and a conversation rolling in this important area with this event. We think it'll benefit the community and we think it is a good way to um kind of relaunch this. I I think that's a brilliant idea and while I did not read the book, I did force my children to listen to a podcast about it on a long car ride. And I guess my question is it seems like the event is mostly geared to adults, which is really important to raise parental awareness and community awareness, but have you given thought to how to engage the kids themselves in this messaging? because I think it was really eyeopening for my kids when they were
034listening to how you know digital media whether it's games or social media really affects their brains and their development and I think that's helpful to plant those seeds even with the kids thought is you know by hitting the parents first they're the ones that kind of typically writing and um you could have a child who does and and John you know in his practice has said there are kids who are like I wish I did not have access to but when it's there it's hard not to do that right so that's kind of where I mean teachers I mean community steps in to set boundaries right so I think that's a lot to ask of a kid until the adults are educated and will learn to to this is the the first step that we've
035chosen and I think there are a lot of next steps that can grow out of it and certainly that's got a lot of I was just going to add so I think I mentioned that I took the whole administrative team to the conference in Bristol with a leadership team perhaps uh puts on it annually and and he was there. He was our keynote speaker. Um it was he was amazing and I know I think Don got a autographed copy of one of his book. Yeah, he got starruck. Um but a lot of what you just asked he spoke about he a lot of disturbing data. I mean when you really he's had years of research in this and again a lot of it is yes you want to involve the students but until the parents
036and teachers and everyone in the adult world um you know has that understanding and a common understanding and a common goal actually that you know this is how we want to raise our students raise our kids um we can't really do much until that occurs So that is the first level. But he was awesome and I it was just so timely when you brought that when Mike brought this up to me. I said you have to come to the board because we just saw him. Um and then there were other workshops also around technology from at advance and they were all again sharing the same message. So um something we we talked about um eventually adding into our strategic plan in some way too because AI was a whole another piece of it. So there's
037there's this sort of dilemma of right the world and where it's going and but but how do you kind of um you know resolve the fact that kids are it's it's rewiring literally their brains and so there's a lot there. It's all it's changed so much just within the past 10 years and it continues to change. We can't keep up. So, we need to have this conversation now. I know. Yeah. Um I am in education myself and um this is of the utmost importance and I want to thank you uh for bringing this to our attention and I am going to share this with uh the educators that I work with and um this is an addiction and we are finding that as the years go on the behaviors are escalating. And the addiction is
038escalating and it's becoming harder and harder. I'm in prek and at such a young age we see the drastic changes and it has to come it has to start at home because we only have kids for a certain amount of hours per day. And so it must start with the parents. It must start at home with the grandparents with with the babysitters or whomever is in charge at home and it's important for them to understand the impact that this all has on the young brain. So um it makes our job as educators very very very difficult and it's getting harder and harder. So um thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and I will go in tomorrow and share this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, so I've I'm a little
039bit all over the place with my little notes that I've jotted down. First, I just wanted to say um I was just speaking with Jane about this. There was a an event that was held here at uh Shupog. It was the farm-totable breakfast and tour for the uh senior centers of three towns. So, we had Bridgewater, Roxberry, and Washington here. Tyler and um Megan Davenport and their team did an amazing job of hosting 35 uh community members um with they were escorted into a room with these beautiful um tables with these gorgeous uh floral arrangements and the jazz ensemble was playing which they were amazing. Um and the food was incredible. the food. They they had um homemade baked goods and bacon and eggs and uh sausage and fruit and coffee and it was really
040just beautiful and amazing to see everybody come together and then they were brought on a tour led by students and Tyler and and the um team and then they got even lucky the timing was perfect because after the tour was over they were putting on the performance of the play. So they had done it for the um elementary school and then they were bringing in the middle school students. So after their tour um Don's idea that was really wonderful is to then bring them in and they got to see the plant which was incredible. So not only did they get an opportunity to see the beautiful um uh facilities um meet the aggra science students and team but then to be able to see the amazing talent that we had on stage. So, it was
041really a beautiful um moment and I just wanted to thank thank Tyler and Megan and everybody for making it so successful and Don of course too who came out to greet everybody. So, it was really wonderful. And then um also moving on there, we're getting into uh the busy season with all of the um events going on, the celebrations, the recognitions, and I just really wanted to take a moment especially to um the board in particular. I know how busy we all are. It's really um hard to manage our lives, but there's so much that goes on that I just think is so important that we take a moment if we can to participate a little bit. Um, I really encourage you all to participate in um, the senior projects. If you're able to look
042at the schedule and even squeeze in an opportunity to see one or two, I highly recommend it. It's an opportunity for all of us to not just be able to see what our students are doing, but to really get to know them one-on-one. I find it to be so um to uh it's an amazing experience because obviously we all know a lot of the kids but when I kind of sneak into one where I don't know student I just feel like it's like a window into meeting somebody else new in our community and just seeing them in their element and I always walk away feeling so proud as a parent but um also just blown away by their um talent and their their um courage because I just think it's really incredible. So, I really
043encourage you to take some time to do that. And I know it's hard, but please try. Um, we'll get the uh schedule of all of the senior uh projects when that comes. Look it through and maybe if there's something, one of the topics that just really speaks to you, just see if you can make it happen. Um, and also too, I encourage you, I say this every year, and I had an opportunity to find this out through um, Don, but I had run into uh, two men who um, uh, are affiliated with the army and they're trying to get more involved in the community. So, we started talking a little bit and I um, they were in my office and I'm in the Legion Hall. So, they had seen the wall where um, Steven Reich's
044um, uh, plaque is. So, we started talking about it and so I I asked Don when the Steven Reich Award um ceremony is and it's on May 22nd. It's at 10:35 I believe. If you have never been, you absolutely must come. It is the moment where I am absolutely the most proudest. Not just because of a student being recognized, but because how the students um realize the um the the heaviness of it and the sincerity of it. They walk into this assembly and they're all just very quiet and respectful. They know they you just know that they get it. And to be able to witness that, there's nothing like it. And it's one of my proudest moments of being able to witness um not even just of our students, but of the staff and the
045family and the community that surrounds it. So, if you can do that May 22nd, 10:30, please try to make that happen. It's here at the school. in the auditorium. It's really remarkable and there's never a dry eye and I walk away every time feeling such pride in so many ways. Um and so I just wanted to share that as so just as we're moving forward between May and June like our lives aren't busy enough. It's it's really makes what we do here at the table just sweeter. Just to be able to be a part of that makes all the difference in the world. And it it really for me sort of feeds the moments when I'm here late or dealing with um lots of stuff. That's those are the moments that feed my soul. So
046I would encourage you to do the same. And I think that's it for me. I've said it enough. Oh um no, I lied. One more thing. Um I also want to just take a moment to thank uh Lori and Nicole. They have been working um really hard trying to get the word out about the budget. They have met with the three towns and their boards of finance. Um and they are um working to meet with the schools as well in the PTO's make I'm making sure that I did this right. I know that you met with Booth and you met with Shap. You still need to meet at the Washington Primary School and Burnham with their PTO's. So, with that being said, I just I know how hard you all work to get the information
047out and I just want um to remind us as a board and as the community that if you have questions and the community in particular about the budget or if you hear things and you scratch your head and you go, is that really true? I always tell everybody go to central office. If you have a if you have a question, you're not sure about something, you go right to the source. You don't read something and believe it. You go to the source. You educate yourself. So, by all means, if you have a question about the budget, you can call Dr. Rodri. You can call and speak to Nicole because I'm sure that they have nothing to do like they don't mind one more phone call. But I would rather somebody go out and get the
048right information than assume that the information that they're reading or being fed is accurate. So that I just want to make sure that is our responsibility to inform ourselves not just read something now and thank you one thing this year it'll be 20 years since uh Steve passed away he was killed and so it probably is going to mean more than this year than ever. Well, everyone, but but this the 20 years is a long time. Thank you. So, the elementary students had the opportunity to also view a shortened version of the of the play Into the Woods last week, and it's just always amazing to watch the faces of the young students who get to uh witness the artistic, you know, um experiences of our older students. And I know the show was uh
049very well attended um and very positive comments on the production and the actors in it. You should be also proud, Justin. I'm saying that. So, bravo. Uh yeah. Yes. Heard that all day today. Thanks. Um, our elementary students uh also had the opportunity to participate in uh additional hands-on science uh learning and that continues with the primary partnership um program and visits to the planetarium. They are loving it. The overall response is just simply amazing. I hope you've heard the same. Um, I have to again thank the high school staff, um, Don, uh, Tyler and Mike, uh, for put and Friezo, uh, and all of the teachers who have, you know, put in their time and effort to work with the younger students and to make science come alive and and aggra science and um,
050it's just been really wonderful. And, um, next year uh, is the arts and music. Um that's the second part if you recall. So uh really wonderful things and and I just wanted to thank the staff for that. Now the final session is coming up and that's a it's a reflection time for the students to really think about and reflect on all the sessions they've had and to have some social time with their peers across the district and their favorite part to swim in the Chapag pool. So they're just going to have a blast. So wanted to mention that. And um I attended jam sessions and concerts at the elementary schools last week and I, you know, of course continue to recognize the quality of our young musicians, but I was really impressed by the level
051of engagement uh by parents and community. It was standing room only in every school I went to. Um, and not that, you know, that that's unusual necess, you know, um, it isn't, but they were so proud and I mean, parents were, you know, standing up in the back and there were, uh, they brought their children and they brought their grandmothers and it was just amazing. Um, and the kids did fabulously, I have to say. So, when we talk about Yes, we have great kids here. We really do. um across the board in in every in every school. Um we have as you know a few remaining board meetings uh left. Our leadership team as I mentioned at tonight's meeting um plans to update you all on the implementation of our strategic plan. Uh there'll be
052two sessions of that. Carrie and the um teaching and learning council will be on the second night on May 19th. on April 28th, I'll bring my admin team um so you get a a really full overview of what we've done this year for year one uh and the specifics behind that, what's really happening. Um and it it really it's becoming hopefully part of the culture uh and will make a difference um hopefully across the district for years to come. Um let's see, what else did I want to mention? Oh, we'll also be celebrating at these final meetings lots more student artists, student writers, um our top five seniors, recipients of our superintendence award. Um in addition, we plan to, as we normally do, honor community volunteers, um teacher of the year, we will also honor
053parah of the year and of course all of our retirees. And of course, Ben is is already working on the final video uh of the school year uh which will be great and that will share with you in June. And our spring publication, I think I mentioned this earlier, uh will be sent out to every household and additional copies to the three towns. We have spotlighted, just so you know, the last uh two publications specifically and thematically uh around the priorities and the strategic plan. This particular publication is innovation and delivering value. Um, everybody is wowed by the cover. Uh, so am I. I'm but I'm wowed by the entire publication. Um, the articles, you know, everybody puts in their time. A staff member, Paris, everyone is invited to write principles. Um, it it's just
054uh I'm I'm really proud of this one. I will I will say and I have to thank again publicly Ben Allen for all that he does for putting this together. Um I just wanted to say that it also speaks to the level of quality um the region of all of our students. Um, and really I think someone flipping through it gets to really understand um, hopefully all that is great about this district and that means all of our stakeholders. Um the publication I think is honestly symbolic uh of the integrity of our programs and the dedication of all of our staff and leaders, the resources we utilize uh and the expertise in house um in order to give our students here a really high class educational experience. So I hope uh you'll you'll see that
055when you read the publication. Um and I just again want to thank everyone for being a part of that. just to add to drag this out a little bit, but I do feel like I need to just say this after um you know starting in the fall and now being here in the winter and just being exposed to all of the students and all of their amazing talent. I was blown away at the talent at that play in the play by all of the students. It was just remarkable and it just goes to show again to be redundant but we have amazing students. So like I said we're small but mighty but we are just um it there's just a proud moment for all of us. So nice job there. Okay done. Can I just
056say one thing about that? I I hope they had as much fun as they look they were h like they were having. That was that was wonderful to see them. They look so joyous and they and have so much fun and that's that's great talent. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Treasures report ballot. Yes, I don't have a lot to report. Um the science lab the state is auditing our science lab project. Um it's a little bit like giving a kid a grade and then asking him do the work. Uh because they're auditing it now, but they've already paid us the money. So, uh uh that that's uh going on. Uh just refresh your memory. They gave us a quarter of a million dollars. Um so, uh hopefully I talked to Nicole today. Hopefully their
057audit comes out about evens. So, they may find a thing here or there one way or the other. Uh the other thing is and Nicole will speak about this at the end of the meeting. Uh the audit for 2023 24 has been completed and u uh I I think it was attached to uh our uh emails about this meeting but uh I think it was 53 pages. I didn't bother to print it out. 84. Okay. It's a light read. It it was it was long. tell. Yeah. Anyway, that's all I've got. Okay. Thank you. Committee reports. Agra Science Committee. Mary, nothing to report. We haven't had a meeting. Okay. Thank you. Curriculum and education. Um, nothing new. Our next meeting is May 5th. Thank you. Uh, at advance, Joe, uh, our latest board of directors
058meeting was April 3rd. Uh during this meeting we we approved the applications for the healthy food certificates and the health food option and food beverage option. Um an updated board uh meeting schedule for 2025 2026 was reapproved after one of the meetings needed to be rescheduled due to um a holiday. The um 2324 audit report was reviewed also showing no significant issues. So that was good news for advance. Um our executive director updated the board with a report that uh some of the current funding has been delayed due to the um the current administration and the shutdown of the um the agencies. um that support has uh disappeared for their Head Start program. So, they're working on some of the issues around that. They also need to still secure funding for the college and career
059accelerator, but that is possibly coming within the next month or so. Our May meeting is an in-person meeting and we will be approving the budget for next year and also confirming the slate of officers for our board of directors. Thank you very much. Finance and operations. Alex, I have nothing to report. Uh we haven't had a finance meeting since the 3rd of March. Um the one thing on uh facilities uh which I noticed coming in today, it looks like we've got the uh doors set up now so that uh you have to get through two sets of doors to get into the building. Great. And uh glad to see that completed. Excellent. Thank you. Uh labor negotiations, Craig is not here. Policy committee Justin Um, nothing new. Our next meeting is April 28th. Thank you.
060And strategic long reach planning, we met uh earlier and as Lori stated, um there's going to be two um meetings uh one for April 28th where uh Lori and her administrative team will talk about the um the implement. Thank you. I was going to say the implementation of the strategic plan and then on May 19th uh Carrie will be there with the um uh teachers hopefully from the subcommittees for the teaching and learning council. So thank you very much for that. And now moving on to new business discussion and potential adoption of the American history grade 8 textbook. So, at our last curriculum meeting, which was two weeks ago, I feel like, um, we had Chris Dennis, who is a social studies teacher, come talk to us um about it's kind of heavy. The new
061textbook that they would like to use for the um next school year. Um, there just a couple of highlights here. Um first they have not had a new book since 2008 so it is long overdue um for getting an update. Um and in the time since 2008 there's been some changes to the standards. So there are new uh social studies standards and C3 standards which stands for college career and civic life standards. So this book is definitely aligned with all of the standards that um kind of govern how we teach and what we teach. And let's see. Oh, they the way they see this book working is that um this will be kept here at school. And there's also a digital component as well, which is how the students will access it from home. And
062there are a couple of cool features um for the digital. There are I think there's there's videos and um an online notebook where you can kind of like take notes and have it saved in one place and not have it look like a messy notebook like this. And that's pretty much it. So, we need a motion to approve the American history grade 8 textbook. I have a second discussion. Does anybody have any questions? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Stain. We have a new textbook. Great. Thank you. Uh, annual fiscal audit. Nicole. Hi. I apologize in advance. This is not too fascinating. Um, does everybody have an electronic copy? Does anybody want a printed copy to follow along in Got a few printed? No. Okay. Um, so I'm going to start on page four. um and
063just uh talk about the fact that we actually prepare pages 4 to 11 that's internally prepared by myself. Um and there's a lot of good information in those seven pages that is a good synopsis of the extreme detail that follows in the next 70 pages. [Music] Um just to at the top of page five if you are following along um and basically in an in the synopsis is we took in more revenue than we expended. So um we ended in a good position. We have talked about before that we'll be returning $736,000 to our towns. That's our ending fund balance. That's in addition to the $680,000 tuition credit that we give them on their invoices, which means the total return against the budget was 1.4 million. Um I know there's been some talk just as
064an aside in the community about how much our budgets increased over years. Um most recently that um you may remember that last week Mr. Ronto spoke um in p during public comment to say that our budget has increased 15% over 5 years, but he didn't take into consideration the fact that we have given back over $4 million to the towns and that offsets that increase. So our budget has actually increased over the last 5 years by 9%, a little over 9%. Um at the same time, inflation and cost of living has increased by over 20%. So just from like a fiscal responsibility standpoint, I think we should sort of think about those numbers and we are being as fiscally responsible as we possibly can. So I think that's just important to point out while we're
065talking about numbers. Um we talked about this a little bit last year. I'll say it again. It still confuses me. So if it confuses you, welcome. They audit us in from two different standpoints. One is um from a they produce governmentwide financial statements. And what those are is more um looking at us as if we're a for-profit business and implementing all of the GAP accounting principles that are standard um accounting principles which really are more for the for profit world. Um and it gets makes those pieces of our financial statements more confusing. Um and then they also um hear myself from staring. Um they also prepare fund financial statements which is what we like to look at. It shows what our operating expenses, what our revenue is. Um so that is more of a picture
066of what you guys would be interested is the fund financial statements. Then they push them both together the to show you the comparisons which gets even more confidence. Um page six of the audit um the management discussion is really the things that we care about, right? It shows how much cash we have on hand, what we prepaid, what our assets are, what our liabilities are. Um and you can see that our position, our overall net position improved by about $400,000 over last year. Last year we improved by about $500,000. So we're on an upward trend um in terms of our net position of our assets over our liabilities. Um, one thing that I'll talk about on page seven just quickly about our capital assets. We did, the reason we improved was because our capital assets
067declined, but so did our liabilities. So the capital asset decline is because we're now depreciating the aggra science building, which is our biggest current asset that we're carrying on the books in terms of fair market value. So with a value of about 32 million as of a year ago, that's going to start depreciating over a 20-year span. So, in order to keep up and have our assets notre decline, we would have to be adding as much new value onto our balance sheet, um, which we didn't last year, which is fine. When you have a big asset that's depreciating at that significant a rate, you may not keep up with it so that your assets will, um, increase every year, but lucky for us, um, our liabilities are decreasing. So, our net position is actually improving.
068Um, to the extent that you're following along on page 13 sort of gives you an overview of what I just said. Um, and you can see that as as it goes through our expenses, our grants, our revenues, and our our capital assets and our net position ends up improving by 388,000, which is about $400,000. And it shows you in what areas that happened. If you do look at page 13, the thing that gets really confusing throughout this entire financial statement, um there's a thing called OPED, other postretirement benefits. Um what that is is it's the teachers retirement board and it's our obligation which the state actuary determines what our obligation is to our retired teachers and our future obligation to our retired teachers. This is they have to list it because of GAP principles, but
069it's one of those things where I'm saying that's something that they would put onto a for-profit company. It doesn't it shouldn't be put onto us when we're kind of thinking about our revenue and expenses because it's not our liability. It's the state of Connecticut's liability. So, it artificially inflates the cost of our employee benefits because it's deemed an employee benefit, whatever the state actuary says that value is. So, if you look through a lot of these financial statements, when you see um employee benefits allocated at over $6 million, we do not spend over $6 million on employee benefits. It's more like $3 million, but that OPED amount of the teachers retirement board is built in. That liability is built into that amount. So, it artificially inflates our inflates our expenses. It's not an actual real
070um cash entry. It's just an accounting entry. the state is fully liable for that part of the time and always has been. Always has been hard stop. Um on page 14 um to the extent you're interested is our fund financials. That's the ones um that we want to look at in terms of if we want to see how much cash we have on hand at the end of the year um and what our overall expenses are. Page 15 reconciles the two um by taking out the TRB adding in our own pension contribution because we have our own we have our own pension for our non-certified staff. Um and then we also carry liabilities for sick days. So to the extent that we have employees who have um sick days that are payable upon retirement, so
071maybe $10 a sick day, $20 a sick day upon retirement, that's a liability that we carry. So they actually look at every person, how many sick days they have, how far they are from retirement, and figure out how much that liability is on our books. Whether or not that ever becomes a liability we have to pay depends on who retires at what time. Um so is anybody following along or do you just want me to summarize this? Um okay so page 16 um talks about what categories we spent our expenses in. So 16 when you get to the bottom of it will tie back to 13 but it's more detailed expenses um in the general fund and it right now we're talking about all of our major funds which are general fund our debt service
072fund our capital reserve fund our elementary non-recurring fund our building project funds we then have non- major funds that we'll get into later but those are our major funds in this on page 16 in this fund discussion our non- major funds are all lumped into one but they're actually made up of a bunch of smaller funds that we manage as a fiduciary Sorry. Page 18, the page people like to look at. This is this is the balance of our um non-certified pension. So, it's funds that we um have on uh our fund manager is Principal Financial, which uh took over Wells Fargo a few years back. Um we currently have $8.7 million in the pension fund. Um we strategically, you may remember at the end of last year, um the board approved to contribute an
073extra $250,000 at the end of the year because um the amount which we were funded was slipping. So we did contribute 538,000 last year. Um we also um increased the value by 900,000 in interest and dividends on our investments. So, um, at the end of the year last year on June 30th, we had increased our, uh, holdings by 1.4 million. That, of course, given what's going on with the market, I haven't looked at today, but it's we're well off that mark now. Um, but what that means is that we brought the pension up from 86% to 93% funded. So, as of June 30th, our pension was over 93% funded. Um, the next several pages of the audit, I'm just going to skip over. It gives you lots of detail into OPED, how they calculate it,
074where it comes from, why why it's on our financial statements, um, and a lot of notes that go with the financial statements that just go in more into depth about how these were prepared. Um, if you're interested in how our pension fund, uh, is invested, you can see the allocations on page 34. And that's specifically, um, you know, how much is invested in equities, how much is in cash, how much is in fixed income. Most We take an approach um we're certainly not conservative, but we're also not um high risk with the investments that we have with the portfolio we have. We look at it every year. It's been doing well. Um don't currently see any need to change it. Um if anybody wants more in depth about exactly which funds were invested in, I
075can get that. Um we can talk about at the finance committee if anybody's interested in that. Um when we get to page 35, it starts to talk again about how the teachers pension um is funded and um where were 93% funded. The PE teachers pension is about 56% funded for the state of Connecticut. So, I suspect that in the coming years we'll see the legislature doing something to bring that um up because it's uh Nicole, can you t tell people that 93% compared to other schools is a phenomenal number to be be that high. Any any pension that's funded 93% is a phenomenally a phenomenal number. Um I think our pension is also small. $9 million isn't a huge fund. Um, so we need to keep it um at a higher level of funding. You
076know, if you have a $300 million pension and it's 70% funded, there's more funding there that that you can So because of the size of it, I think it's important to keep it funded. It was actually 113% funded when I got here. Um, which is awesome, but um, no fault of mine, it it declined. Um, it got down as low as 83 and now we're back up to 94. And I think what we did last year when we made the decision to fund a little bit extra um is a good decision to kind of keep an eye on if there is urine funding that we can transfer into that that's a good place to park that money. Um because what it also has the effect of doing is each year the actuary we hire our
077own actuary and they tell us how much to fund the following year to stay on track. Well, because we funded that, when the actuaries did their work and they told me what number to put in the 2526 budget, that number is lower because our balance was higher because we funded it. So, that also helped to keep our budget lower because now the actual contribution is lower than it would have been if we hadn't been proactive and funded it. So, it's a good thing to keep kind of on our radar as we go. um on page 49 um is where we look at litigation and subsequent events. Um it does note in this that the district is a defendant in various lawsuits. We aren't. So I just wanted to point out if you come to that
078note and look at it, we don't actually have any lawsuits pending. I think that's kind of a canned response that they put in there instead of having to enumerate all the lawsuits we're involved in. But we actually aren't involved in any lawsuits, which is really good. Um, and it does note the subsequent event, which they point out significant events that happened after the June 30th date. And our significant event would be that we paid off the $3.5 million ban. That's a significant financial event even though it didn't happen in this fiscal year. Um, page 50, if you're going to look at any page at all of this audit, page 50 shows our budget, the way our budget changed through the year, what we actually spent, and what our end position is. So that's the page
079that's going to show you our budget. We ended up with a $96,000 budget surplus and we took in $1.4 million in revenue um from tuition. And it'll show you the interest revenue, the investment income that we took in which was $19,000. Um it shows you the aggra science tuition that we took in um 790,000 from the state and 98,000 from sending towns which includes special education reimbursement. Um, and it shows the return to the towns after everything um, goes in and out, which is the $736,000. If you're interested in looking at the state TRB on page 52, it gives you a history of where the TRB has been over the last 10 years. Um, and it bounces around from, uh, the lowest it was was 49 and the highest it was was 61. So, I
080think the state kind of makes sure to keep it at that level. I don't think it'll fall off. Um, although I'm sure it's lower now. Um, they do the same analysis on page 54 of our own pension, what it's been doing the last 10 years, which is interesting to look at history. On page 58 is the detail of our non- major funds. So, our non- major funds are state and federal grants, the school's cafeteria, which has um currently has zero activity because that advances running the program, the scholarship fund, which is money um that our students who apply, our seniors who apply for scholarships around May. That's um it's held in our scholarship fund and that's the checks we cut when those scholarships are awarded. Univers Universal Service Fund is one of our non- major
081funds. It's e-grate money. specifically to fund technology. It's grant funded by the federal government. Um our reach program fund and uh our student activities funds which we have um five student activities. They bundle all five of them together um and report them as one balance. That kind of gets us to the end. So one thing that was new to us this year is when you receive over $750,000 of federal funding, you're subject to a federal audit. when you receive over $350,000 in state funding, they're subject to a state audit. So, we're used to doing our regular audit of our books and then um a state audit of the state funed programs. This year, we received 794,000 in federal funding. So, we were also subject to a federal audit this year, which was the first time
082since I've been here that we've been subject to that. As luck would have it, they changed the threshold to a million dollar starting this year. Um, so we did actually that did result in an we had an extra $10,000 expense to the auditors for the federal audit. Um, which is new. The other thing that um so on the they report to three agencies. They report to board of education or agency one. They report to the state and then they do report out to the federal government. The one thing the audit was unmodified meaning they didn't make any significant changes to any of the finances the way we ran them. Um but they did find what there's there's two um thresholds for um finding um intern on your internal controls. Your internal controls are how you
083manage money internally, the people that you have managing it if they're managing it properly. So there's two thresholds. There's a significant weakness and a significant deficiency. A significant deficiency is less than a material weakness. So material weakness is the worst of the two. Then there's a significant deficiency. They did find a significant deficiency in the management of our student activity funds, specifically the one at SHPOG. Um we had known about it. I had actually discovered it back in July of 23. Um but they did review it and they there is a finding in this audit and unfortunately it carries through to the state audit and the federal audit. So it's been reported to three places. um and what they ask is for management's position on that um deficiency that they discovered. So what we did
084when it was discovered um we put a new manual I prepared a new student activity manual and we um disseminated that to all of the staff in all the buildings with all of the procedures that have to be filed with respect to student activity accounts and we also um took over oversight of the student activity accounts in central office. So when they used to be managed specifically at the building level, um they still have access to their accounts. They still see all their accounts and they process everything, but it comes down to central office for final sign off um by me before any checks or purchases are made and the checks are prepared in my office and then sent back to the schools to be used. Um the auditors uh that was the recommendation from
085the auditors as how to fix that. Um it has resulted in um a lag time for the schools to access their student activity funds, which has been a little bit difficult for them to get used to, which I understand. Um, and we did have to file a corrective action report with the state of Connecticut setting forth that those were the actions we took to correct it. Um, and I do [Music] um because this finding appears and it if you're if you want to read through the finding, it's on pages 62, 69, and 70. So, and the re it's it's the same each time it appears. It's it appears three times because of the three different agencies. Once to the board, once to the state, once to the federal government. Um, we have not heard back
086on a correction of action plan from the state. Um, just to kind of give you an uh an idea of the gravity. Um, the total there was two transactions that were questioned and the total amount of those two transactions was $15,000. So against when we're running a budget of $26 million um in terms of significance in dollar value, it isn't. But um it still is a weakness in our internal controls that we needed to attend and Nicole, how will this affect our bond rating? So, I do have to have a conversation with Moody's who is the agency who issues our bond rating. Um, they do now have a copy of our audit and that's one of the things is our audit gets published by the state of Connecticut. It obviously gets published on our website
087and it gets published um by the Securities and Exchange Commission. So, anybody who's looking at our audit is going to find this. Um, so I expect that um I will answer Moody's questions and and see what they determine um their perspective is. Assure bond rating. So that'll be up to them. Does anybody have any other questions? That was a lot of work. Thank you. Appreciate it. Somehow you have a way of making it all seem understandable in spite of the fact that I have no idea what you're normally talking about. So I because I really a complete language. Yeah. Okay. Totally. And so I have the utmost respect for you for understanding what you're speaking about when you get audited. Um, I'm an ex-banker, so I do know about auditing, but is it common in
088a school district for them to find small things? I mean, granted, from an outsider's perspective, when you have a large budget such as ours, $15,000 really isn't that large. But someone may say, "Oh my goodness, $15,000 is massive." and um but is it common to find small errors like that um in a school district such as ours? So, I think it's common to find errors in an audit, but [Music] um you know, everybody makes mistakes, but I think it's different when um when an auditor has a finding that you have a deficiency in your internal control, that's a much bigger deal. And it doesn't matter what the dollar value is. um what matters is you have deficiency in your internal control because if your internal control is deficient you could have just as easily lost
089a million dollars as 15,000. So um I think for us if we're looking at it like what the gravity of this finding is it happened in a student activity account um which is a fiduciary fund. It's not our general fund. It's not state funding. It's not federal funding. It's not taxpayer funding. um if it's going to happen, that's an account you would would imagine that it would happen in because there's the most hands in it and it has the least restrictions on it. Um so of course the the end result of that is now there's more restrictions and there's more oversight on it. Just a good question. when it comes down to corrective action. And when we come in and we put in new protocols in place so that way we can have more oversight
090over the account. Um do they come back and say, "Okay, now you've corrected your action. This gets like absolved or something." Or you just go back next year and then they go, "Okay, so this was the fine thing last time. We're making sure you've done Do they check in on the corrective action until the next audit or is it kind of like an ongoing basis?" So you're never absolved of it. The finding kind of stays on that year's audit forever. Um, but they will check, they will look to see if your corrective action plan that you implemented got implemented and has been effective. And one of the things that you don't ever want to happen is in the forms that they file where they state the finding, one of the boxes to check is, is
091this a repeat finding? So, you don't ever want to end up with a repeat finding after you've had it once. And that's sort of how they check the corrective action. If if when they file with the state it's a repeat finding, then you can expect to get a file from the state. Do you have another question? No. Go. Please. Was again forgive my stupidity for my ignorance. when this was found. I'm sure it was a moment for you and whatever division this was done in or whatever you you made sure you your new plan of action is to ensure that this will never happen again. Is that correct? Correct. Um, does this bottom line does this hurt us in the eyes of the state? Does it hurt us? Um, no. We're not going to lose
092anything because of it. Um, in that sense, but I mean for me, I've been doing this for a long time. I've never had a finan audit in the 30 years that I've been doing this. So, it's not ideal. Do other people have findings? Sure. Are they much bigger sometimes? Um, I think that, um, what's important for us as a district is that people understand at every level that the rules apply to everybody. Um, and it doesn't matter that, you know, what it's for or what the intentions were or um, what the dollar value is. the rules apply across the board and that there has to be a level of accountability when the rules are broken. Great questions. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. I think we're finished. Um, can I have a motion to adjurnn? Second.
093All in favor? Okay. Thank you.