0017 o'clock. Are we ready? Good evening. Since 6 pm, the board of education has been in close session to discuss uh minutes uh discussion of minutes lawfully close under the open meetings act whether for purposes of school board approval of the minutes or semianual review of the minutes as mandated by the act. The appointment appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees or legal counsel, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or legal counsel to determine its validity. Litigation when an action against, affecting, or on behalf of the school board has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal, or when the school board finds an action is probable or imminent, in which case the basis for the findings shall be recorded and entered into the minutes
002of the closed meeting and student disciplinary cases. I will entertain a motion to come out of close session. >> So moved. >> Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Please call the role. McMillan >> I >> Gerky >> I >> Blastic >> I >> Kelly Black >> I >> Winsky >> I >> Kush >> I >> Cosminsky >> I. >> The motion passes. We are in open session. Good evening and welcome to the Monday, November 17th, 2025 board of education meeting for Neighborville 203. Our mission is to educate sorry empower students to develop a learner mindset, demonstrate adaptability, communicate effectively, think critically and become global citizens. Please call the role. Mrs. Bettton, >> board members present this evening, Charles Kush, Christine Gerky, Melissa Kelly Black, Joe Kosminsky, Amanda McMillan, Holly Blastic, and Mark Winski.
003Student ambassadors present, Will Suatos, and Sam Carlton. >> Awesome. All right. Uh, please join, uh, the board of education and, uh, Principal Furby, as well as the Knights from Kingsley Elementary School in the pledge of allegiance. Looks like the whole Kingsley student population came. >> These are some of our special Kingsley Knights that represent a lot of our home and school volunteers that are very involved here at King or at Kingsley. So, thanks for being here, Kingsley Knights. Yeah, absolutely. Here we go. >> Hi, my name's Duke. >> I'm Russell. Dominic, Henry, Jacob, Jack, Juliana, Sloan, Peg, May, Sawyer, Connor. I aliance 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. >> Actually, I think Perfect.
004>> Okay, Mrs. Patton's going to take a picture here for the district and then uh any parents uh friends, fans, paparazzi who wish to take a picture, you can come up closer once she gets one here for the district, please feel free to come up a little bit closer. >> Hold up. Stay right there. Okay. And I understand this group will be outside for autographs as soon as they finish here, right? Awesome. Thanks for being here tonight. Appreciate it. Great work. Great job. Thank you parents and friends for bringing them. It's always nice to start a board meeting with the students. >> All right. Item 4.0 recognition. Item 4.01. Good news. >> All right. We have a lot of good news. So on Tuesday, November 11th, we honored Veterans Day across the district. Many of
005the veterans in attendance at assemblies or ceremonies are parents, grandparents, staff, and alumni. Thank you to all service members for their dedication, sacrifice, and commitment to our country. The ribbon cutting ceremony for the new turf fields at Neighborville North was recently held on November 5th. These fields will be util utilized for physical education, classes, student activities, and athletics. Uh, I didn't see her. I thought I saw her earlier. District 203's very own director of buildings and grounds, Melanie Brown, was recently featured in an article from Blueprint magazine. The article highlights specific projects Melanie has headed and the work she's done to bring projects from conception to completion. Couldn't be prouder of Melanie for this feature in recognition of the hard work she does toward making spaces our students can thrive in. Uh, Neighborville North's varsity
006boys probably taking a little I don't mean to take take your thunder away here, but I got to say it. Okay. Neighborville North's varsity boys soccer team are state champions. Huskies uh reigned supreme in a tough game against Saints Law St. Lawrence High School, and the board will honor the Huskys at the December 15th board of education meeting. Go Huskies. [Applause] The uh Tech and Learning Midwest Regional Leadership Summit was held on November 7th. This year theme was reset and reimagine, planning for tomorrow's education. This summit brings together area district administrators and service agencies to take a deep dive into what it means to teach in the age of AI. Congratulations to Dr. Normas who won the innovative instructional technology coordinator award at the event. Nice job, Nor. Neighborville North hosted their second annual career
007takeover on November 6. Am I taking your whole report? Okay, I just realized I got a central thing coming up right after this. We're good. We're good. Uh on November 6th, over 120 professionals from a wide range of career fields came out to share their stories, experiences, and advice and breakout sessions with all grade levels. Following these sessions, a career fair was held in the fieldhouse for all juniors and any interested seniors. What a wonderful experience and opportunity this was for Huskies. Now, Neapville Central's athletic director, Jeff Placket, won the Division 3 regional new athletic director of the year award from the Illinois Athletic Directors Association. Jeff has been recognized for his demonstration of outstanding leadership, professionalism, and dedication to student athletes, coaches, and school communities across Illinois. All division award winners will be recognized
008and presented with a plaque at the IADA state conference awards dinner on Sunday, March 15th, 2026. And pure, congratulations. Madison Junior High School alum Emanuel Regumba spoke to seventh and eighth graders about his experience in business and as a professional athlete. To quote Manny, "We talked resilience, we talked goals, we talked about what it looks like to protect your dreams, even when you're young and the world hasn't quite noticed you yet. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise with the current Warhawks." That's our good news. >> All right, item uh 4.02, 2 student ambassador reports. Uh this is your first time with us, right? So why don't you both determine who's going to go first and then introduce yourselves a little bit and then give us your reports. >> Hello. Good evening everybody. I'm Sam
009Carlton. I'm a senior at April North. I'm a captain of our combined North and Central hockey team. I'm a captain of our lacrosse team at North. I'm an ambassador for the student government and editor for the yearbook, a leader of our student section called the dog pound, and I'm also a student ambassador for new transfer students. Uh so like Mr. just said already the Huskies boys soccer team are undefeated state champions. They beat St. Lawrence 3-2 in penalties. Uh the dog pound showed up great. The students were able to pack the stands even though it was an hour away in freezing cold temperatures. It was a great performance for uh by the students themselves. Uh this is the third time ever in Illinois in Illinois to go undefeated and win a state championship. So really
010proud of the boys there. Uh this is the face fifth state championship in program history and all American honors were awarded to Josh Peterson and Sam Hess of our team as well. And this season, Coach Conrad won his 400th game of his career. Uh, at the end of October, North Beat Central in the Cross Town game, which is also pretty a pretty good highlight of my high school career here. Um, and more recently, North hosted our fall play trap over Halloween weekend, which is a big success. I heard a lot of people enjoyed it. Um, our National Honor Society students were inducted on the 5th of November. Our girls cross country team placed 15th as a team at state and three individual boys qualified for the state finals themselves. Our Husky girls swim team had
011a great showing at the state um with our 200yard medalleyly relay team placing 14th in Illinois and two individual swimmers placing 12th and 13th in Illinois in the 100 yard breathstroke. Uh six swimmers were given all state honors as well. And like he said about the uh career takeover day, it was a big success. I think everyone agrees that they would love to see more of this and it really gave them a good insight into what they want to be in the future. It really helped me out for sure with the engineering aspects of things. With the Veterans Day assemblies, we honored our veteran teachers. We had a guest speaker, Miss Boyer, from the Neapville VFW. Our veterans club also made a $500 donation to Neighborville Response for Veterans. Our new turf fields opened up
012and all the students, especially me and all my lacrosse teammates, are really excited to use it for the spring season and their PE classes as well. Um our combined North and Central hockey team have a big game this Thursday against Nqua in the Carolon Cup. So basically our Neighborville little mini tournament we have and if we win we'll go on and play uh either Aiggo or Wanzi in the championship uh next Tuesday. Uh our winter sports have begun and our first games are tonight. I think girls basketball get officially is underway. And lastly, our annual Coco and Cram is being hosted on December 10th after school allowing all students at North to take part in some fun pre-final studying and tutoring as well. Sorry. Hi. All right. Um, I'm Will Swatoss. Um, I do a
013little bit about myself. Um, I do math team. I'm on like theater. I do a lot of theater productions. I'm an orchestra. We recently just had our concert. I do national honor society, music honor society. You know, I love music. And then finally, I'm in senior class council. So, those are just kind of the things about myself. But, uh, moving on to things that have happened at Central over the last month. There are a lot of sports stuff. So, basically, we had our winter season beginning for all of our athletes and uh many of our IHSA competitive clubs like debate and speech and chess have started their seasons as well. So, that's just been going on. But there's also girls tennis, boys cross country, and girls swim. They're all qualified for state and the fall
014season with girls swim and dive. So, you know, that's all been going on, too. Um, moving off of sports stuff, we had our win fall mainstage play. I was in that. It was really fun. I like doing that. It's actually my first time ever doing uh mainstage play, so that was a fun experience. Um we also keeping in the auditorium, we had our Veterans Day assembly on Tuesday. It's featured a keynote speaker by retired staff, Sergeant uh Shiloh Harris. Um November 1st was the college application deadline. So, um now we're all just waiting for us to us for decisions. Uh we had our course selection stuff. Uh it'll begin in December, but there was course awareness week and all that stuff happened already. Um we actually uh speaking on National Honor Society, we have our
015induction tomorrow. Um I don't know why it's so late, but yeah. And then um we had choir and band. They had their fall concerts. Same with orchestra. And we are um getting ready for our winter concert which is on December 12th. Uh can't wait for that. And there's only four weeks till the end of the semester. Uh, which is kind of crazy because I did not expect it to go by this fast. So, yeah, it's everything central. Not a month. >> Well, thank you both for sharing your report. Um, so, uh, since this is your first time, we'll run you through this, you're more than welcome to stay, but recognizing that you guys have tons of activities going on, you want to dip out, you can feel free to do so. But, um, again, more
016than welcome to stay. But uh Will and Sam, thank you both for your reports. Always great to hear all the wonderful things that are happening at our high schools. So thank all right we have reached the uh point in our agenda for public comment. Item 5.0 sorry I 5.01 um the board of education welcomes comments from the public at its meetings. Citizens who wish to address the board of education should identify themselves by name. Comments by individual shall be limited to three minutes. If the individual is representing multiple individuals or a group, they shall be allowed to speak for five minutes. The board respectfully requests that speakers refrain from commenting about specific individuals. Um um let's see. Do I have anyone slips of paper? Would anybody in the audience like to address the address the
017board of education? Okay, seeing none, this will conclude our public comment period. All right, let's see. We have now reached the business portion of our meeting. As a reminder to the community, the board understands and has affirmed through our board agreements uh the following that it is each individual's members responsibility to prepare for each meeting. Additionally, we understand that it is our individual responsibility to effectively communicate our concerns either to the superintendent or board president prior to any meeting in a timely manner. Board members have also agreed that avoiding no surprises is paramount in displaying respect for all district administration and the community. In the spirit of no surprises and in accordance with IASB best practices, the board has tasked itself to send questions in advance of each meeting to the superintendent. This practice allows
018the superintendent to provide the best possible answer for the community. Additionally, it allows for maximum efficiency during the community's meeting. Those same submitted questions may also be asked in open session along with new ones that may arise during discussions. If you ask a question, please state if you sent that question ahead of time. Uh, Mr. Bridges, did you receive questions from the board of education in advance of tonight's meeting? Yes, I did. All seven board members send questions. >> Thank you very much. Okay, with that we have item 6.06, monthly reports. Item 6.01, treasury report. Oh, actually, oh, Melissa question. >> I have some of the report. >> So, item 6.03. >> Yes. Can >> Can if it's okay, can we go in order? >> Exactly. >> Okay. So, 6.01 1 Treasury report. >> Yeah,
019Melissa, just to remind me, so they are labeled differently than on our papers. So the uh Treasury report, is it the fund balance summary? That's what I thought. Microphone. >> Um, uh, in the >> You say they're labeled differently than how are they >> agenda? It doesn't. The paperwork will say fund balance summary, but um, on the actual agenda it says uh, treasury report. >> I see. It's always been that way. >> Yeah. No, it just it makes it confusing going between that. that was just asking for clarification. Um, so, okay, I I just want to confirm because it's going to kind of we're talking a lot about finances tonight and I just wanted to look at it under where we have capital operating projects. Um, we are over in that area. Is that correct
020than what was budgeted? >> We're looking at this year's Treasury report for the FY26 year. >> Yes. >> And you're referring to the FY25. I believe you're referring to the FY25 results from the audit. >> No. Well, I I'll say that later, but I'm talking about what we've budgeted for this year. How much did we budget this year for capital projects back in June? for this year. >> Correct. Bear with me. That was not a question that you asked in advance, was it? >> I Yeah, I asked some. That was not one. I did ask though I think the same fund. I think I asked the same question, but a lot of these the questioning over overlapped. So, we can just >> I'm going to pull information up. I just need a little bit of
021time to get that information. >> Yeah. No, I'm sorry about that. I guess where I'm going to go with this is we will later tonight be talking about the audit and I know that we've had um we've been way over budget on capital projects. So, I just wanted to get a feeling of where we are year to date now this year, how we're trending. >> The budget for this year is 22,225,000. >> So, we've exceeded that already. Correct. >> According to the fund, >> uh what what are you referring to? Can you point Let me let me know what you're referring to when you say that >> the year to date when looking at the uh treasury report or the fund balance. How much have we spent this year? >> The expenditures year to date
022in the capital projects fund will be listed in the lower table in the column that's called expenditures. Mhm. >> If you go if you follow the capital projects on the left >> and the expenditure column on on in the middle and you go down, the year-to-ate expenses in that fund are 8,564,000. >> Correct. And how much was our >> but I thought you said that we over spent that budget already. >> No, I'm sorry. I did say that and I wasn't correct. What percentage have we spent then? >> Well, it's 20 I'd have to do the math on that. 8.5 million out of 22 million. Someone has a calculator. We'd have to calc. >> All right. We don't have to do that. I don't want to put you through. You >> asked. I mean, we
023can certainly do that. >> No, no. I I don't want to. I think it's more relevant. I think this issue is I think I just want to address it maybe when we talk about the audit. I guess my question is that we've seen with the audits that the last couple audit >> recommendations >> there is an agenda item for audit. So, >> okay. So, we could just leave this conversation for that and then we can address >> what our spending's at and then what changes we may want to do to make sure we don't overspend or any adjustments. >> Certainly, when we get to the audit part, we can ask questions about the audit. Sure. Okay. >> Um, any other questions from anyone else on item 6.01? >> Okay. Item 6.02, investments. Any questions on
024that? Take a look. Item 6.03, insurance report. Mark. >> Yeah, thank you, Charles. Uh, I asked this question in advance, but I think it's just important for the public to know. Um, there was a comment that um we had to transfer $500,000 uh from the main account into the insurance account. But uh questions that have been sent to the administration prior to the meeting, the response has been that funds have been moved from uh longerterm investments to uh to cash essentially and that that has all been uh basically reimbursed and we're where we need to be at this point in time. >> So I just don't want to leave that hanging out there that we had that comment on the bottom of the page without explaining that it all has been been uh resolved after
025after the uh month end. >> That's correct. And we deliberately put that comment on the bottom to to let the board know that that happened. We had a discussion with the board about uh liquidating some of our long-term investments as claims have been um extraordinarily high the last three or four months in the insurance fund which required us to liquidate some of those investments and the liquidation of those investments took place after this bill needed to be paid and that uh that amount has been uh gone back to Maine once once those investments were sold. So that will be taken off of and rectified in the next month's report which will show in October. >> Great. Thank you. I just wanted to be clear with the public on that. Thanks. >> Okay, Melissa. >> Um
026going along with that that we did have to um we did have to sell some investments to cover that bill. How do we know moving forward that we're going to that this problem won't persist? I I'm not sure anybody would know for certain that that would would hap would not happen moving forward. We again these are actual claims that are incurred by uh our our employees that are covered under our health plan andor their dependent. Those claims are dependent on lots of different things. And some of the high expenses that we've seen over the last few months have been the result of some um high cost claims. Those high cost claims could be a variety of things. Typically, it's cancer, hemophilia, uh a premature infant. Those types of things we've just seen a little bit
027more of this year or this fall than we have in the past. Will that happen in the next six or eight months? I don't think anyone knows the answer to that. So there's no way to guarantee that this will not continue. >> Can we get an actuary report to to understand maybe a >> we our insurance committee along with our consultants look at finances. We presented that to the board of education at the last meeting. The the monthly financials over a long period of time. They look at all of that information on a claims basis long along with working with Blue Cross Blue Shield about claim trends uh moving forward and we we do look at all that but the reality is that we don't control individual monthly costs and the last few months have
028just been really an anomaly since I've been here over the last seven years of high claims in this short period of time. As a matter of fact, historically, we've far uh outperformed like the industry trends across the nation and just been very very >> Yeah. When you're looking at a when you're looking at a a a yearly amount, I mean, th those claims may come back in line uh throughout the year. Um but again, it's it's hard to say. And we'll we will have to uh the insurance committee will continue to look at this. I believe we have a a meeting tomorrow. Um, and then we'll make recommendations to the school board. The board typically gets recommendations once a year that those come in in August uh for changes to be made either to the
029plan or premiums that go into effect uh the following January. So the we brought uh insurance adjustments uh for premium increases and PL and plan adjustments to the board this last August and those will take will those will go into effect in January first. >> Um I know that some districts they have an insurance policy an additional insurance policy that kicks in if something like this happens if there's unusually high spending. Do we have a policy like that? >> We do. We have aggregate we have individual stop-loss insurance and the one of the issues is with that is that we have to the claims come in we have to pay them and when they exceed that threshold we get reimbursement so we're waiting we just actually got some reimbursements I believe those came in today
030am I right yeah we just got some today so that will help the insurance fund also um and we're waiting for some more of those but some of this is a cash flow timing of paying for the claims and waiting for the reimburse ment for the individual stop-loss insurance. >> Okay. Yeah, I was not aware of that and I did find out other about that type of insurance and just wondered if we carried it. So, that's refreshing to know that there's going to be funds coming back in because of that. Um my other question was um we h we have our own clinic now since we've started the new clinic. I haven't heard anything about the cost, its performance. Is that costing us more money? Um, do we have any information or data or figures
031on the effect of having our own >> That is something is a report if the board desires that we can provide it at a future meeting. I think actually it's already been requested and I think it's actually already on a future board planning agenda. So be happy to provide that report to the board. >> An update on the um >> direct primary care facility. Yeah. And is that something we could when we talk about the health insurance fund that we can include that data moving forward so we get a whole picture of >> I don't know if that's the right place to include that Mike your thoughts. >> Yeah though the cost for that clinic uh again the board approved the agreement with Marathon Health um about a year ago and that there is a
032cost for that. It's a monthly cost we pay. It's a fixed cost and one of the advantages of the clinic is to have our the more of our employees go to the clinic, it takes those costs out of healthcare in general and isolates that to the fixed cost that we have on a monthly basis with our with our own clinic. We certainly those costs are included in this overall financial report, but the data on the usage is something that's looked at by the insurance committee. Um, and as the superintendent said, we we can give some similar report to the board at some point in the future. >> No, that would be greatly appreciated so we can see how it's functioning because I know we're all excited to see some savings, some healthier employees. So, that
033would be nice. Thank you. >> Other questions from other board members? Okay, seeing none. Um, that was item 6.03. So, item 6.04, budget report. Any questions? Okay. Uh, all right. Item seven, action by consent. Item 7.01, bills and claims. Christine, >> so Holly and I um review bills and claims together uh this month with Tracy and um as always, business office is super helpful walking us through it and um answered all of our questions before we had our meeting. Um, so with that we can u we can um >> Oh yeah. >> I just want to confirm it. It's probably So we do we go ahead with this and then if we need to pull some from the consent agenda, do we do that after? So >> or should we do that now? >> You
034should because Christine's going to make the motion so you can communicate which ones you want her to pull. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, um it might be easier to um say that we leave on the consent agenda 7.20 and 7. >> Wait, can just please it be mcclar just identify the ones you want pulled. >> Uh bills and claims the board meeting minutes close minutes neighborville development contribution. Okay. So, with that, um, one second. I will make a motion to, uh, I move approval of warrant number 107205 through 1072496 and warrant number 9 0 0136 totaling 29,133,444.32 for the period of October 21st, 2025 to November 17th, 2025. >> Second >> and item >> Oh, we pulled 7.01 separately. So, okay. So, a motion and a second have been heard. um discussion >> for
035bills and claims. >> Yes. 7.01. >> I just wanted to add because I didn't earlier that this was my second time to participate in bills and claims and it was my first time doing the zoom option and doing it with Tracy and again even seeing it every time in board docs that participation all the documentation being able to go through and understand how that is done every month. I really appreciated all of the information. The color coding of some of the information was beautiful and really helpful to me. Um, and the way I think so, um, just wanted to say thank you for meeting with us and all that information. It was really informative. >> Melissa, question. >> I'm going to reiterate and this might even be a good question if the auditor is going
036to be here tonight and I know that when questions were sent um I each time um have concerns. We look at the audit today. We do not use the process that does the fund, the balance, the object, which is the standard and required um budgeting format so that we know exactly where the money came from, who spent it currently the bills and claims just so the audience understands. um that they will get who the payment was made to and the amount which and then we rotate through as board members to do that. Now my concern that there's some high risk in doing this. Number one, the same board member does not do it. They may do it twice or three times a year and that means there's not somebody tracking trends. Another concern I have
037is having one board member review. you know, it could be 30 to50 million dollars in charges, which getting this less than a week before um is not sufficient amount of time and is to me the our fiduciary duty is making sure where the money is spent. This information doesn't tell us how it was spent. Um and it doesn't allow for part of why we also oversee it is you know we don't want errors and there's a fiduciary duty to make sure the money is spent wisely but I don't see how that duty can be met if we have board members once two or three times a year just looking at this amount. We don't even know who the vendor is. We don't even keep track of like so if you were to say review it
038each time, you would probably get a feel of who these charges are going through. But right now, board members just randomly pick out ones that maybe they feel are suspicious. I I have concerns that this is this is um an appropriate way to oversee the money because otherwise we look at the audit, we see some overspending. We're going to come and we're going to talk about the tax levy. We're going to be asking possibly our community to spend more money and if we don't know how the money is spent now, we can't make good financial decision. >> Melissa, can I ask you to narrow your comments just to the bills and claims if you want to talk? >> That is no it is relevant to that because without knowing >> you brought up budget though
039so you you brought up the you said you were going to talk about the so yes and we will have that comment at the next section. So well if you could just limit your comments to the particular agenda item. >> Okay. So my suggestion that I would make would be that for bills and claims that my fellow board members consider maybe we should have a finance a board finance bills and claims committee that looks over it so that way we can track trends. We can keep track of and have compiled like contracts and information so I don't have to just randomly look at names or company names and try to guess what they do. Um that would be maybe a more thorough way to go over that. Again, one of the you know this goes
040to internal what mechanisms do we have in place for internal audits to make sure money is spent wisely. >> Okay. So I s I know Amanda I just make sure that I address a comment that was made about um accounts not being used and meeting the requirements as required by the Illinois uh state board of education. All those processes are used all the appropriate numbers and accounting uh and routing and all of those are used uh as required by the law. Our process has been reviewed by legal counsel and and be been found to be compliant. I think the reflection of our bookkeeping shows up in the audit that we have tonight which is a celebration. I just want to make sure that we see that. So then reports that are posted are reports that
041are posted. It doesn't quite list everything out the way it is. We've had a process in place where board members do rotate through for a bills and claims and to be able to provide the review where upon request all of that information is available. So, I'm just going to share that with the with in response to a comment that was made. I'm not going to argue about the process because Mike and his team are following the process that has been in place at the request of the board for as long as Mike's been here as long as I've been here. This is 15 years. So, um if ultimately the board as a whole directs uh me to work with CFO to do it differently, then we will look into that. But for the meantime, that's
042the process being felt. >> Okay. uh Amanda and then Christine. >> Um I just want to confirm too. So I'm just going to kind of point out some of the things I heard and then just kind of like my perception of it doing it multiple times. So the first thing I heard was that um we as board members uh take turns and look at it a couple times a year, but in actuality it's the full list of everything is available to all us every month. Right? So even though a couple like might do the dive deeper, the full bills and claims are something that we can all look at, right? Um every single time and it's open to the public. Second of all, you're saying that they don't have the uh respective codes that are
043required. um the um main sheet um that has I because I think there's probably at least a couple thousand transactions every month across all of our 3500 employees or so. Um that's why we do kind of like us auditing, right? So we're many auditors every uh time. That's what we're taking turns on. And when you audit, you know, 10% of the different things, just looking at, oh, these are multiple transactions or why are we having this uh vendor or anything over this amount is what I want to look at or anything below this I want to look at. Um, we can pull and and um Michelle Swoop has never once said no to any of them. And so that's what you have that separate meeting for that she always schedules at least a week or
044so before. And then that's where you see the paperwork filed for what it was for, the reason for the business, all the receipts, making sure taking out anything that's a non-allowable expense, every single code that um ties back to the budget, including um what kind of account this was for, um what it uh you know, what the material was used for, all those things are all there. and she's a person that sits in an office and looks at these all the times and she can tell me every single thing that they're for and who bought them and what it was for because she knows everybody has been doing this a long time. So that's what you know someone that's done this now since I'm in my fifth year at least 10 times. um why I
045trust what we have. And it also helps save um time being able to sit in with Michelle and do that because I trust my other board members to step up and do their own auditing from their own lens. And so everything's there if you dive deep and follow the process. And so that's my perspective of kind of like the rebuttal in in regards to that. I don't want the community to think that this is our our we're not really looking into the fiduciary part. It's if anything we're getting further in the weeds than we probably should, but I I like that they give us that option. So that's my experience perspective. >> Christine, >> so when I I just pulled up the spreadsheet that um Tracy provided when we when I submitted the um items
046I had questions about. And as is always the case, it shows me what the vendor is, which I highlighted and said, "Tell me more." The actual amount that was spent there, which is again available in board docs for any of us to see. It tells us the department and then the information about it. So when when I do bills and claims and I pull this stuff, yes, I get a direct answer about a specific item or however many I submitted. I think I have like 15 here. But then what ends up happening in the conversation is a little bit of history about that or a little bit of but we're working on trying to consolidate that. And I had pulled for example um on here there's uh five Comcasts and they were all these tiny
047amounts. I was like why is Comcast sending us stuff for $10, $32, you know, just like I would just think of one big Comcast bill. But Tracy explained that there's a there you guys have been trying the business office has been trying to get some of this consolidated. So instead of all these little charges, we would just have one nice big charge and whatnot. So it's in the conversations too that deeper dive that we learn a little bit of the history of some of these charges. We learn how maybe we get we might have some purchasing power or whatever the case may be. But we have through this is where we do get that more specific information. They'll even say on the receipt this was for 10 students that went to some you know uh
048they had a field trip of some sort and this provided x y and z for 15 students and two staff me whatever the case may be. So we do get it's not just a name and this um dollar amount that's just out there. The explanation is given to us during bills and claims and we are many auditors. That's that's what we do. And the the rotating of bills and claims. It's through that that I've learned a whole lot. And I would like to think I'm better at it than I probably am, but I have my own history now of I remember what that vendor does now. And oh, you know what? We are in the throws of um showqu choir season and it looks like both uh you know at Neighborville North they're making all
049these purchases but I remember that vendor that's where they're getting some of their costumeuming from. So I don't necessarily have to ask that anymore. I can focus on something different because I've rotated several times and I know also that my fellow board members are something's going to jump out at one that's not going to jump out at me and through that whole through you know it's kind of all of us pitching in we we do get a full picture out of it. So that's my two cents on um the value of bills and claims. Melissa, >> there were a couple comments that that both of you made that I thought were relevant. I I think the one that sticks out that was most recent is Christine said that through her own experience of being on
050the board for so long, you've served several terms, so a long time. You've developed and you've kind of gotten to know the vendors, you know, maybe the scheduling of when show choir is going on. Now I would my concern with that is that you are able to do that because of over time but my concern is that each person on here has not been that long that it shouldn't have to take us learning over years and years and years to know some of this when the they already this has to be submitted like this to the state. These reports are already generated in these codes. These are the codes that we are required by law to learn about budgeting in this format because we again I'm not disagreeing the current process is that board members
051pull things that they individually feel look unusual. The problem with this is I'm not sure that's a reliable financial accounting practice that it's a higher risk practice because instead of just giving us the codes and we know first of all we don't have to pull anything then go back all the information that you really were excited about that was your deep deeper dive would already be in front of all of us and these reports could simply be posted with the bills and claims. We could have one other report under there and that way all board members could have a more thorough understanding. They would not have to go back to an individual and say, "Hey, this looks unusual." They would know. I'm talking about ways to reduce. Just because something's been do done a long
052time doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Now I mentioned again one of the things again that's going to come up is in the questions sent ahead by board members people were asking about internal audits. We're not audit experts but that's all the more reason we need those clear codes so we know how to ask better questions and to follow through. Because say when you say we all get to be auditors. Well, that means that if I'm at home, I'm not meeting I only meet I would only as a board member meet three or four times. Am I going to start calling in and asking the office, oh, this looks weird to me? No, that's not our practice and it wouldn't be efficient. So, again, I'm looking for a practice. And so right
053now just to be clear if we don't pull these to get that specific information and we are by law I brought in the law says that we are tasked as board members to make sure that our you know budgeting is in this format if we ever see these reports technically we don't know it's really in that format. And you talk about trust. Well, one of the things this is business. This is the the finances of, you know, all the families we represent. I don't want trust. I don't want my accountant to do trust. I want the figures and I want acceptable budgeting practices like we're assigned to do. And this would help. And I'm not only just talking about the bills and claims process. The reason it's so important to us to have it budgeted
054like this and for us to see is so say we get our budget and we're running over on something or when we make budgeting decisions, we have to decide how are we allocating the taxpayers money. If I don't know how it's actually being spent, I really am not going to make those the best decisions. >> So, and I could put this to bed. Another thing is we could put this to bed by simply I would like an outside opinion by an accountant say an auditor of our internal what our internal you know what do we do internally to make sure like we do an external we do the audit we're going to discuss today but if somebody tells me no Melissa I'm an expert this is lowrisk I have looked at how you do this
055that's a different story than we've done it forever or somebody says legal says it I need to know that and I can present that to the people and I will be more than happy to participate. >> So, oh, go ahead, Mark. >> Thank you, Charles. Yeah, just just a couple of things. Um, as I'm I'm listening to um what my fellow board members are are saying, uh, one, I I think Mike, um, our our general ledger and our budgets have the account codes and that's how we make our entries and that's how we budget and and and we follow the state's uh, GL process. U, so we we do that. Um, I think when we pull the uh the details on the bills and claims, we we see how this has been this transaction or
056this invoice rather u has been coded. Um, and we know also what the approval process is for for that uh of that particular item. And sometimes you can have an invoice that goes to several accounts, right? It it could it could go across different schools. It can go across different things. So, so there isn't necessarily one account code that matches with a specific invoice. That that's not necessary. Um, and also this is just one part of the overall process that we go through. Uh, we we touched on earlier um the uh treasury report uh the budget report. Uh that's another uh element to how we review whether or not we're spending over or under budget in different areas. Um when we go back to bills and claims, we uh and we talk with Michelle and
057uh get the details. We find out well that's a capital item and that was approved by the board in this and this way and then we've gone through the process. So the way I look at it is um yeah we're we're not auditors for sure but we are providing oversight as a board uh to the financial transactions that are going on within the district and we have different ways of doing that. Bills and claims is just one piece of it. Uh it's one way we look at this. Uh but I think we have to take all the pieces that we look at every month. uh and then we have the inter the audit reports etc that come in. Uh I think we have to take all of that together and as a board say are
058we uh are we getting the information we need to be able to have the proper oversight over the financial transactions in the district. Uh and I think that's really the question and not just look at a particular item and say is that in and of itself going to give us all the information we need because I don't I I think that's not true. We do have to look at all the pieces of it. Hold on, Joe. >> I agree with the experiences of many of my uh colleagues here. Um and uh I think it would be useful to uh get to the audit to discuss these things. So I'd like to uh move to call the question. >> We have to second there. A second. Okay. >> Uh there's been a call to question. It
059has been moved and seconded. Uh please call the roll. >> Just just so folks understand um a board member has called a question. The motion second to vote on the item has already been registered. This what we're what we're voting on now is whether or not to actually call a question. So a majority of the board members will be will the board will be pulled to determine if we want to move on and just immediately then jump to a vote since there has been some level of discussion already. That correct my understanding? So uh yeah motion and second have been heard for the call to question. So please call the role. >> Winsky >> I. >> McMillan >> I. >> Blastic >> I. >> Ksminsky >> I. >> Gerky >> I. >> Kush. >> I.
060>> Kelly Black. >> Nay. The motion passes. Um, so now please call the role for the motion and second have been heard to approve uh item 7.01, bills and claims. >> Kazminski >> I. >> Kelly Black >> nay. >> McMillan >> I. >> Winsky >> I. >> Gerky >> I. >> Blastic I. >> Kush. >> I. The motion passes. Um, item seven. Oh, sorry. You're doing the motions. So >> yeah, we can take 702 and 706 together. Correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. So I will move approval of item 7.02, the adoption of the personnel report and 7.06, student discipline, is discussed in close session. >> Second. >> Motion and second have been heard. Please call the RO. >> McMillan. >> I. >> Kazminsky. >> Hi. >> Blastic. >> Hi. >> Kush. >> Hi.
061>> Gerie. >> Hi. >> Kelly Black. >> Hi. Winski. >> I The motion passes. Um, >> item 7.03. >> I move to approve item 7.03, the board meeting minutes from 10:20, 10:23, and 11:3. >> Second. >> Motion and second have been heard. Any discussion? >> Seeing none, please call the RO. Mrs. Patton. >> Kush. >> I. Kelly Black >> abstain. >> Blastic >> I. >> Winsky >> I. >> Kazminsky. >> I. >> McMillan >> I. >> Gerky. >> I. >> The motion passes. >> I move to approve item 7.04 the closed minutes from 1020, 1023, and 113. >> Second. >> Motion and a second have been heard. Any discussion? Melissa. Um, I would just like to reiterate um that the closed door minutes as they are are not complete enough for people to refer back
062to and understand. Say a board member misses a meeting for them to be able to go back and know what was said and what was discussed. Um, the other issue I bring up each time is that documents that are presented to board members are frequently not put in board docs. So again, the reason to have the minutes is to be able to refer back and have an account of what happened for current board members, future board members. It's a transparency and accountability piece. Um uh along with that I the other issue is our agenda doesn't even so as a board member most of the time since documents aren't attached when I go to a board meeting we have a no surprises act I'm actually frequently surprised because all I know we're meeting in closed door
063about um is those general topics that are given. I have no further information. and I have no further documents or information so I can be a prepared participant. So I would like to see the closed door minutes be more thorough and have all documents attached. >> Any other discussion? >> Okay, please call the ros. >> Kush. I >> McMillan. I blastic. I >> Winsky. Hi. >> Kelly Black. Nay. >> Kazminsky. Hi. >> Gerky. I. >> The motion passes. >> I move approval for item 7.05, the Neapville development contribution. >> Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Any discussion? >> Melissa, >> I was surprised to find this on the consent agenda. Uh did I miss where we discussed making this contribution as a board? >> Uh except for the fact that we do it
064every single year around this time. It's >> since 199 since 1995. >> It's been an ongoing thing. It's an it's part of our annual it's an annual thing that we do every year. So >> again, we have new board members. I would think and I would like to see >> you've been on for two years. So it has happened twice in your tenure. >> Yes. And as you can tell, I try to make comments and I keep making them. It doesn't make a difference. But I would like to bring up that I according to my understanding of the roles of the board member, the fact that this was committed without having board approval first. Um I'm seeing that trend. It's not just in this item that the board will take actions and then come for
065a vote when we already what we've received is that this basically a bill saying okay $10,000. I would like us if we're going to spend money that we follow the rules that the board vote to yes we'd like to make this contribution before we actually make the contribution action. >> Yeah. the the this action is we are voting on whether or not we're going to spend the money. So therefore, no, please, you're not recognized. Let me finish speaking, please. Can I? Thank you. Um this motion is if if the majority of the board does not vote for that, but we will we are not spending the money. We we are not spending the money. So what you said is absolutely not true. We are voting on it right now. If the motion passes, then the
066money is spent. It's a recommendation from the administration. It is loaded into this or our review. We then vote on it. If the answer to that is if we vote on that and it passes then it passes and we will spend the money. If it does not pass we will not spend the money. That is how that works. >> Okay. Charles, what is the attached document for this item? Do you know what that is? >> It's an invoice. >> Yeah. An invoice from the organization >> development corporation. Yes. >> So it's a bill invoice already. >> Got it. So what I'm saying is >> So would we turn around? But what I'm saying is what what I'm so you can look at me as if you don't believe what I'm saying, but it is absolutely
067true. If if a majority do not vote to for to for this to be approved, we will not be spending the money. This is what this is for and this is customary and the group understands that when they send us an invoice that it has it's subject to approval. Period. Maybe this is better to clarify my position is I would also think that it would be in very bad form to not make a contribution publicly to vote it down is not the way to go about it when they've already sent us an invoice. I think maybe the better way to go about this would be to have that discussion upfront before we have to turn around and tell the committee. And it's not so much about the contribution. It's following the procedural. It's saying that
068we don't say we've just done this every year that we have that vote and we say, "Hey, it would have been nice. I noticed in the question some board members that were new didn't know what the committee even did, what they this was even for." So, I'm recommending that in this situation moving forward that for new board members, for people in the community that we before we get the invoice and made the commitment, you don't get an invoice unless you've made a commitment. >> Again, you keep saying that and it is not true. >> Is that not >> No, it is not. That is not how this that's not how this works. The the organization understands that it is subject to approval by the board. If it is not approved by the board, it is
069not paid. They understand that and that's the way it is. So you can keep saying that oh it's already approved. It's already been agreed to. It has not. It is subject to approval by the board which is what we are about to do when we vote. If we vote yes then it will be paid. If we vote no it will not be paid. So you can look at me as if you don't believe what I'm saying but what I'm saying is absolutely true. Superintendent Bridges. Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> Thank you. Okay. >> I just want to say I have never heard of anyone receiving an invoice from an organization when they haven't made a commitment yet. So we can agree to disagree. I'm saying I think the best practice is before
070we commit to the money to an organization. >> We have not committed to the money. I I keep you keep saying that we No, you keep saying that we before we commit to agree. It doesn't mean I'm because you don't agree. >> You're saying we commit. It's just factually not true. >> Can I finish what I'm saying and not have you interrupt? I don't think we each have to wait our turn. Charles, >> you are you are you are continuing this conversation. I think that we need to we've motion a motion and a second have been heard. >> Why are you so >> Why is this board so determined to not let me speak? >> No, Melissa, >> I'm not finished. >> Melissa, we've had this discussion. We keep going back and forth on the
071same point. You have a you have expressed your point of view. Your point of view is that we should do things differently. Understood. Noted. We are now going to vote as to whether or not we're going to approve the dollar. >> You'd let me speak my own voice and you not tell me what I think. I didn't tell you what you think. You stated I just repeated what you stated to the to to everyone >> as you heard it. Okay. But Charles, I think somebody call >> if you'd listen is what I'm saying. And I would appreciate if you let me finish my thoughts. >> And if you and I disagree with what invoice is, just because you think it's differently doesn't automatically make you right. So let's have some perspective in that. There's I'm
072not absolutely right. You're not absolutely right. >> We're >> the way this works with the particular organization we're talking about and the understanding that they have, they would know, >> right? Superintendent Bridges understands it and therefore that is where that's where we're at. That's the agreement that we have with the organization that until it is approved by the board, it is not committed. >> Well, my understanding as board members that before we commit the money and my opinion, we're voting on it before we commit the money. That's what happens. Please call the role. Mrs. Pen. >> Kelly Black. >> Abstain. >> Kush. >> I. >> Blastic. >> Nay. >> McMillan. >> I. >> Kazminsky. >> I. >> Wolinsky. >> I. >> Gerie. >> I. >> The motion passes. Okay. Item eight, written communications. Item 8.01,
073written communications. Sorry. Item 8.02, Board of Education reports. Uh, do any board members have There we go. Amanda, please. >> All right. Well, I had some really lovely uh school visits with my uh adopted schools. I got a chance to go to Kingsley. Um, it was nice to go home. My kids uh graduated Kingsley a few years ago at this point and met with uh principal Furby and luckily we got to see do the pledge today. It was um she's doing really uh the whole team's doing really great things there. It was really fun uh to be on the other side of drop off and uh Principal Furby knew every single kid's name. All 400 kids in that school that came uh out of the uh buses and the cars to get into the school
074which is really awesome. just really de demonstrates the the personal nature and belonging really fostered there. Really appreciate that. Um then later um the next week I got to go to Meadow Glenn's and meet with uh Principal Amaro um and get to see the really amazing unique components of Meadow Glenn's and the real diversity there from PI plus to working with some of our um most uh our our students that really need that one-on-one um medical attention and care and everything in between. um got to see the school and meet with the some of the amazing team members there um and seeing uh actually um in hands-on some of the teams working collaboratively to talk about how they're going to integrate a new curricula the the new um reading curricula uh there it was really
075great to see that collaboration work. So, um, two great visits, um, two newer teacher, uh, principles doing really great things and, um, I really appreciate it. I have, um, scheduled visits with Scott and Kennedy coming up, too. So, looking forward to those. >> Awesome. Other Mark, >> thank you, Charles. Uh yeah, I visited Elmwood for their Veterans Day ceremony and that was uh uh really a very moving experience uh seeing all the uh veterans um that have uh served this country previously as well as just the excitement the students had uh seeing their their parents and their grandparents who have served in the military. um and uh uh just their participation in the ceremony whether that was uh speaking to uh particular uh services or uh helping to sing uh the service songs. So that
076was uh very very nice. Uh also at Elmwood I went to their home and school and one thing that they did differently is for their soore program uh which stands for safety, ownership uh acceptance and respect. Uh what they did this time was uh they had each of the uh teachers uh in each of the classes recommend a student and that student was actually presented with the award that evening at home in school and probably uh almost every single family made it there. Uh so uh it was really great seeing the kids uh who represent uh the uh the Elmwood School and the district so well and their families there. Um, I also visited uh uh Neapville Central High School and just the things the parents are doing to uh make sure the experience that
077the students have uh particularly with the holidays coming up uh to make sure that it's inclusive for everybody uh which is very very important particularly when we know there's a lot of families out there that are struggling. Uh it's great to see that they have that top of mind and they're working to make sure uh that all the students uh get what they want for the holidays. Thanks. Awesome. Holly >> with Christine. I was able to attend the diversity um committee and it was a virtual one and I just really appreciated how that was accessible for so many participants and we were uh Dr. Leaks facilitated a great conversation for all of us and some of the upcoming events that she brought to our attention. one is a lead program for high school students from
078both schools on December 2nd um with bringing in great speakers and a wonderful opportunity for our high school students. So just a wonderful experience in that committing to a lot of great events coming up >> others Melissa. >> Hello I had the honor of attending the Illinois Council for Exceptional Children conference and it was here at the Chicago Marriott Neighborville. Um, the ICE advocates and champions for the rights, needs, and potential of every exceptional learner. This organization stands as a beacon of excellence, collaboration, and innovation in the field of special education. I attended the conference to learn more about serving the needs of special education students, at risk students, and children with disabilities. Um I am going to go over some of the the programs and who participated because um I was able to tell
079some people to get over and attend to the conference because it is something that it is geared towards uh educational professionals but they also have seminars and resources and uh organizations available to help uh parents learn more and about um attending to, you know, about special education and their rights and services available for their children. And they also had some students that were able to go and learn a little more. So, some of the the information if you go in, not only are there sessions, you they have actually organizations lined up that can provide you with resources. So, um, one was the Illinois SLD project, which offers training and resources to meet the educational needs of all students with specific learning disabilities. It also aims to increase reading and math scores and decrease achievement gaps
080by expanding upon the development of previous training materials to address specifically designed instruction for students with special learning disabilities, including but not limiting to dyslexia. So, they gave presentations. They also had a table set up so parents could find out about resources um to to help their parents and they also find out about how their kids can be helped in the classroom. The learning disabilities association of Illinois um provided information about the IEP process, the rights of families and resources to navigate the special education process. Easter Seals provided information about the implementation of evidence-based um strategies for children with disabilities. the I was able to one of my I did several um sessions with the Illinois MTSS network um that gave indepth uh information about how the system works and strategies to use to make
081the system effective and they answered questions um about utilizing the MTSS system. Um and these sessions were again they had sessions geared towards profess educational professionals, parents and students and there was a variety of activities. This just touches on it but again um this is an opportunity for the educational prof professionals in our community and our parents. I frequently hear from families that would like to have more knowledge about the resources and their rights and just to build a community. So that's why I felt this is such a great opportunity we have right on our doorstep. Um my favorite session was held by the experts from National Lewis University during which I learned about using AI tools that support diverse learners in special education. They presented practical strategies, accessibility tools, and personalized learning supports that
082educational professionals, parents, and students can use to improve learning outcomes for all students. And what I liked about these sessions particularly was they gave you the resources. They vetted the resources. They actually taught you how to get the most out of AI as we're learning. A lot of it goes into the prompts or how you use it. And there were a situation where it was kind of scary. There was one program that you can adjust a book to be read aloud. So this way you could take a book. Say you have a child that's in the eighth grade. They want to read a book that's appropriate for a eighth grade student, their interest level, but maybe they don't their reading skills are not up to that. But they could actually have it adjusted. Um it
083can it takes a sample of your voice and adjusts it and then reads the book in your voice, which is pretty scary about what AI can do. Um, and it costs I think it was like $75 a day that included breakfast, lunch, and the sessions and the availability to get the resources. So, I would highly recommend that. Um the next I also attended um the 2025 high school school high school girls stemposium and that was put on by tech equity for all and it was held at Benedicting College. And as a former science teacher and a person who really loves science and knowing that we don't have as many girls going into STEM and even when they go into STEM when they get in those careers there's challenges. So I thought this was a very
084informational um uh seminar. So the students went through. What I liked is they had building robbacks. They had artificial intelligence. Um chemistry of bath bombs. Um I took that one which was fun. But one of the things I liked about this specifically is sometimes when we say STEM, maybe you make a bath bomb but you don't really maybe learn a lot. For example, in this session, they had a student um that was a doctorate student at Stamford and she talked about her process of how do you sign up when you go to college to do lab work? What's lab work like? So, again, it was a nice combination of fun activities that are engaging um but also with real practical information and tools. Um, and it was amazing. They had so much stuff left over.
085This is a free This is for our students, your family, our kids. The the girls can go to this. It's totally free. They have such good supporters that not only did they get their meals included, the classes, they had tables full of stuff for the kids to all take home. Um, I also thought it was interesting to see how the students really worked together to support each other. They came from all over the Chicagoland area and um a lot of them maybe came just by themselves. So these girls really it was a very inclusive welcoming environment and really I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. So I suggest next year um maybe you try to take your uh daughters to that. Thank you. >> Okay. Any other board members? Okay. Item 8.03, president's
086report. Uh, a couple of things for me. Um, one had the opportunity to visit Mapleville North High School. Um, so a couple of these things have been mentioned, but the one thing I wanted to talk about was, uh, Ebony Baker from the counseling team uh, gave a a presentation to the home and school group about um, preparing students for exams. and they have they had this little tip sheet that they gave out, five tips to help your students with exams um that they put together um with different tips in terms of daily habits, how to get students organized and ready. Um one of the key things I thought was good was the idea of making sure that ask for help. There's any number of resources available that oftentimes go underutilized under or underutilized completely. Um
087and uh you know there's really with all the resources available uh you know helping students get ready for for exams uh you know if anything they need any support they need is there is available. So they were they did a nice job of putting that together and then highlighting that to the home and school team. They also talked about peer tutoring. Uh and then one of my favorite events the cocoa and cram. Um it's a definitely a a school favorite um in terms of really getting everyone together in the learning commons and the students get to get as much cocoa as they would like and then there are tutors there and then there uh um educators there, teachers there who will will help with different subject matters etc. So everybody comes through and gets help
088on things. Um so it's a great it's a great event there. So, um, thanks to, uh, um, the home and school co-presidents, Jafaria and JT, uh, for allowing me to be part of that and, um, yeah, and for and for all the home and school organizations for all the support that they provide, um, as the extra arms and legs within our schools to help, um, our students, uh, succeed. The other thing I'll talk about is the, uh, workforce innovation council meeting that happened uh, this past week. Um and uh Jackie Claremont and team run that. Um it's a great opportunity uh for us to talk about a couple things. We did actually talk about the use of AI in schools and Matt Langus gave a presentation in his new role um around um the use
089of AI and the different tools that we are working with uh in the schools. And so it's it was great to see not only the tools that are being utilized but the safeguards that are being put in place to make sure that the that the user is responsible. And then lastly um coming up we have our ISB conference. So just as a public service announcement for the community the board of education will be uh participating in the joint annual conference uh on uh this upcoming weekend. It's uh starts on Friday goes all the way through Sunday. um love that time of year where we actually get to go to a lot of different sessions and uh learn about uh all the different things that um some of our uh neighboring districts and other districts around
090the state are doing and get an opportunity to get educated together. There's always some really great guest speakers that I look forward to hearing from as well every year. Okay, and that's it for me. Um item 8.04, superintendent staff school report. >> Okay. Uh first very briefly uh just November 15th was Illinois board member appreciation day. So, in recognition of our board members uh volunteerism uh and time on the board uh in appreciation for all they do, we each received a copy of a book that you requested actually the art of school boarding by Jim Bup. And so, as we line up our uh gave you homework, right? So, as we line up uh time of the next self evaluation, then we'll have that book assigned. Right. All right. Moving on. Then, uh uh we'll
091have the audit report. And so, um that is our next item. Let me get there first. Sorry, I had it. Um, okay. So, each year we engage an independent accounting firm to perform an audit of the district's financial records in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and the standards al to the financial audits uh contained in governmental auditing standards. The copy of the uh audit is provided for you. I'll turn it over to Mike to make formal introductions on who's here. >> Sure. Before I introduce our guest, um I just want to um talk about the items that were included in the packet. You do have a hard copy that you should all have of the audit and the management letter, both of which are attachments in the board packet. Also included is a summary
092in the memo of the results of this, you know, lengthy book uh and a um in two different formats. One in the memo and one is in one called AFR summary. Um and and I also want to point out that we have two members of our uh business office here today. Tracy U and Andrea uh our director of finance and our um accounting and investment coordinator who I would have to the the results of this book are really uh their hard work over the last five months um in in in making our guest life and his members of his team as easy as possible because they they do a lot of heavy lifting to get our records in the order that they are are in. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to
093Mr. Mayor Baron, who's a partner at Lorbeck and Aean, our auditing firm, to talk to the board about the the results of the audit. >> Mike, thanks for having me. Um, happy to be here tonight to present the audit uh in advance of the 12:15 deadline. Always great to be here in November to be able to present these results to you. So I'm going to have a high level uh presentation for you to hit the highlights of the audit. Um, I'll finish up the presentation and then open it up to questions after that. So, I'd like to be able to finish through everything, get through both the audit report and the management letter and just a general summary of the audit to then uh open it up to questions after that. So, um, as far
094as the audit process goes, as Mike said, it's a it's a long fivemonth process that we get started. We get started with an entrance conference. We begin at the entrance conference where we do a sit down to talk through with the team what were the significant events that happened during the year. What were the significant changes? All of those types of big items that we would need to be planning in advance for the audit so we can make sure we have an a plan in place with the with the right team. Uh asking the right questions to be ready to go for the audit when we come back out for fieldwork. We also go through the requested materials at that time to ask for these are the items we're going to be looking for and
095then lay out the schedule because without a schedule everything evolves into chaos, right? we need a schedule to be able to be here uh on time. Um after that we come back for preliminary fieldwork. Um at preliminary fieldwork we're intensive look at the internal controls and we do walkthroughs of the internal control cycles at that time. That would be your main cycles. Cash receipts, cash dispersements, payroll, student activities, uh financial reporting, credit cards, uh are some of the main ones that we're looking at during that time where we're reviewing to make sure we have an adequate internal control framework in place to help to prevent fraud. We do walkthroughs, we do selections and do uh uh uh have selections and then do walkthroughs for each of those areas um to make sure we do have
096that adequate internal control framework in place. After that we come back to do field work. At field work we have received the trial balance and the supporting documentation from the team. We go through we review that documentation back to source documents to make sure that the numbers that were provided are adequately stated. So they are materially correct or in other words they are what they say they are. So from there uh we then pass it on to a report writing team. We write this report uh to make sure it's in compliance all government accounting standards um with a review from from the team work back and forth to for it to be accepted and then we go final. So it's a long process of working together and I also want to reiterate with Mike the
097hard work that Tracy Andrea and the whole team do in order to help to make this uh possible to be here to tonight. So um as far as the results go and the the main documents Mike said there's two that we're going talking about the audit report and the management letter. Um, as far as the audit report goes, we provided an unmodified opinion again this year with our audit. Um, it basically is saying two main things when we're we're giving you the unmodified opinion. It's the highest opinion that we provide as as auditors. So, as the external audits are the highest we provide, um, that means that the audit report is in compliance government accounting standards and the numbers within this audit report are materially correct or like I said, in other words, they are
098what they say they are. Um, as far as the audit report itself, um, at the end of the year, uh, we ended up at 93 million of operating fund balances. Um, when we're comparing that back to the operating expenses, we're at 37%. Um, so in line with the fund balance policy that was accepted by the board and at 37% we're in a healthy fund balance at the end of the year. In addition, there's an additional 40 million of future to be ready for capital projects um out into the future within the capital project fund. Um and at the end of the year, we ended up uh making some more debt payments this year. So, we're down to only $3 million of total outstanding debt at the district, which is a pretty remarkable number uh for
099the size of the district and is a union school district only have three million of outstanding debt. Um, that's all for the man for the audit report. Going on to the management letter. As far as the management letter goes, this is additional comments we're providing to you as the board that doesn't fit within the audit report that we want to communicate to you. Um, as far that goes, I typically break this up into three main types of comments we provide to you. uh best practices um internal control issues that we found during the walkthrough and informational type items. Um as far as from our internal control walkthroughs and that we did not find internal control findings during the year. So another big positive check mark in the book for this year's audit. Um no internal
100control findings. We did have an adequate internal control framework in place uh as noted during the audit. Um the one main item where is more of anformational item to be able to communicate to you was that the funds were over budget um in the capital project fund and the transportation fund. The main reason for this is the timing of the projects. When you have the summer months that kick off right before or right after the school year ends and you have a 6:30 year end, you have amount of work that can happen in in June. it's the best time to be doing capital projects and there was a overload of projects during that time that extra work was able to be done by the contractors to have it done in advance of June 30th. So
101rather than waiting till after July 1, work happened in advance of that time which is what the reason for that which is also you can see the large uh accounts payable balance at the end of the year because those work had happened prior to 6:30 and then it got paid after 6:30 um with those which is you can note that within the audit report. Um as far as the rest of it goes there's no other comments other than outstanding accounting pronouncements that we will be helping the team implement. uh we don't need to go into those because those are too boring for you to uh really care about and it's uh up to us to work together to be able to do such a thing to get those implemented. So um the only other thing
102I wanted to communicate to you as the board um is uh we also submit the uh Isby AFR to Isby. So there's an extra audit like a financial report that goes off to ISBY. That's a standard report that we take the uh information from the audit report, put it into Isby's document and ship it off to them. They have a financial profile score that comes out of that. Uh the district had an uh the highest uh profile score that you can have is a 4.0 rating. So another 4.0 as the highest uh score that you can get from the ISBY financial profile score. Uh there's four ratios that come up come from that. have the fund balance to revenue ratio, expense to revenue ratio, days on cash, uh days of cash on hand, and percentage
103short-term borrowing rate, and the percentage of the long-term debt margin are the five ratios that ISBY really tracks during this. And it all came to a 4.0 rating. Um, and that is the end of my report. Be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, uh, Mark. >> Thank you, Charles. And, uh, I just want to thank you and your team and Mike, you and your team for all the work that goes into getting the annual report done. I I I certainly know the effort that goes into that. Um, two questions. Uh, one one, uh, I had asked in advance. So, you had, uh, touched on the, uh, funds over budget. >> Yep. Um, is is there anything that you are recommending we change in the process or is it more of an observation of what
104had happened? >> It's more of an observation from what had happened. The key to that is you have a capital project plan that's in place. So, as a board that's been reviewed from the beginning, you know what your capital project plan is that's set up. You then go out and you go for bid for vendors and you're making sure that those vendors are staying in line within the budget that was approved in advance. So, the timing of when those things happen uh is sometimes predicated on uh good weather and when are your contractors available. And as a district, you only have a few months of time when students aren't in the building. So, you have to capitalize upon those days as best as you possibly can. So, when you have a a large capital project
105plan going on, uh maybe you were expecting it to maybe start in the following fiscal year, but you're able to do it in advance. Uh this happens. It's a pretty normal practice. You know, the one thing that could end up being able to be done is a change, but it's something that hasn't really been done at the district is uh amending the budget. It happens kind of late in the game at this point, which is a kind of a reason why the district hasn't done it before, but that is something that some places do where it then eliminates the funds over budget management letter. Um, but it still would end up going through the same process of reviewing it, going through what it is, so you guys know what it what it was that the
106expenses were were spent on. But overall you're you're comfortable with the process that we have and because this happens so close to the end of the fiscal year u it's difficult to you know amend the budget uh but you are comfortable with our process leading up to uh what the results are in the financial statements. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thanks >> Melissa. So along with that uh one of my concerns has been and so I want to just is it's not just how much we budget and when the projects are um it's also we have a practice of we as a board when there's a cap a capital project we'll get a global estimate and the board will approve that and that pretty much we don't ever have any breakdown unless when certain bids come
107up but we don't have a real breakdown of those projects. So, typically I know when when contractors or anyone you give a bid, you want to give it over bid, right? Because you don't want somebody to be caught. We don't want to approve a project. They usually put buffers on. But we never find out like how what were the actual costs at the end of it. Well, Mark brought up the idea of, you know, we went from last year being 15% over in capital projects to 87% over. So besides the fact that the budgets are done at a certain time, aren't there mechanisms maybe the board can be doing to be looking at the costs of those projects? >> Can can I address that? because that there's an insinuation that we're spending more money than
108the board has authorized for a project. >> No, no, I'm not implying that at all. >> Well, you you did say that the the budget was 87% over and that's an insinuation that we spent money that the board was not aware of and that is absolutely not the case. So, when the board approves bids on the project, those bids are the cost of the project at the at the at the maximum. Um, we there were a number of questions from the board of education this morning on this particular item that uh we we uh wrote up an answer for in the in the um in the board questions. And I think we should if if the superintendent allows me I think I should read this so that the community and the board has a full
109understanding of what this note is regarding uh in the management letter. Can I just my particular question just before you go answering it? Can I >> Melissa? Let let He was in the middle of speaking. He hadn't stopped. Let him finish. >> Okay. Thank you. >> During our recent audit, the auditors issued a management letter that contained a single comment related to funds over budget. Specifically, they noted the transportation fund reflected expenditures over the adopted budget by 393,800 in f in fiscal year 25. The capital projects fund reflected expenditures over adopted budget by1,230,894 in fiscal year 24 and $8,739,629 in fiscal year 25. I want to provide the board with clarity regarding why these overages appear and why they do not represent overspending or fiscal mismanagement. The district adheres to a July 1st to June
11030th fiscal year. Many of our operational and capital activities do not align neatly within those 12 months. New buses were ordered and budgeted for within the board of appro education approved budget in fiscal year 24. However, due to production issues outside of the district's control, three of the ordered buses were not delivered in invoiced until September of 2024, falling within the FY25 fiscal year. Because school districts are required to record expenses when goods are received, the actual expenditure posted in fiscal year 25 rather than fiscal year 24. The total cost did not change. The timing of the delivery shifted the expenses into the next fiscal year, creating the appearance of an overbudget condition in fiscal year 25, even though the board approved dollars for this purchase remained unchanged. Capital projects rarely match the start and
111end dates of a fiscal year. Most construction and renovation work occurs during the summer months, which inherently cross fiscal years. The board approves both the total project amount in each awarded bid. The district budgets estimated annual expenditures based on when work is expected to occur. Contractors submit invoices based on progress and completion stages and these invoices may fall earlier or later than anticipated. This means certain invoices may be cha charged entirely into one fiscal year even when the budget assumed they would be split across two fiscal years. The auditor's comment reflects these timing differences, not any increase in the cost of the projects. All projects remained within the board approved project budgets. It is important to note that the district did not spend more than what the board approved. Total spending on buses and capital
112projects remain fully within the board approved amounts. The variance is strictly related to when expenditures were recorded, not what was spent. These timing issues are common in school districts and are frequently noted in audits that involve multi-year projects. We will continue to refine our budgeting estimates to align projected expenditures with expected invoice timing. However, given the nature of construction cycles, supply chain variables, and invoice schedules, some timing variances across fiscal years are both typical and unavoidable. >> Can I finish my question? >> Hold on, Holly. >> And so, this is more of a qu a comment than a question, but I wanted to say thank you for that explanation and your explanation, especially on the capital projects. I know when we've talked about projects um our team has been nimble in planning what we can
113do and what we can fit in um and weather and working things within multiple projects at one time. So that explanation was really helpful in a way that I didn't necessarily see by um in the report and I just want to say as they mentioned this is five months of work Tracy and Andrea and Mike and the whole team and that I think I heard a 4.0 know the highest possible recommendation at least three times and your comments and I'm just really proud of the work you're doing and really appreciate it all. Um that we give the highest level in every category here possible and this great result is definitely your hard work for months and months and months and providing that information you just did and putting it into context for those of us
114who aren't auditors or financial people. Um I really really appreciated that explanation. So thank you Melissa, >> going back to what I was saying, I I want to clarify. I'm not saying you spent over the budget, and I do appreciate what your explanation. What I was saying before is when the board approves the capital project, the process has been that the administration comes to us with a global estimate because there is no plan when they come to us. There's no contracts. We basically have like a concept. And what we've been told in the past is this is because they don't want to commit to, you know, going down getting estimates. You wouldn't get estimates. But what I'm saying is it's a global uh estimate so we know even if we want to do the project.
115What I've had issue with and my concern in talking about accountability for the spending is to my knowledge you are exactly right Mr. Francis that we have not exceeded those budgets but that doesn't mean that the money is being spent necessarily. The board does not find out what the actual costs are. I've asked for contracts which we don't get. I've asked for timelines, time frames that would help if we had that information. You brought up an important part. If you gave the board member that information about the costs and the timeline more specifically and had the plans and we had this information, it would help us to understand. But again, so because we're in budget for what we've estimated doesn't mean necessarily that the money was spent as not to say it was not spent
116unwisely, but that we're not always making informed decisions. It would be nice to know say perhaps we have more involvement if we are going over on capital projects. It would be nice just to be able to get the final costs and to know what it actually cost us >> so that we make it the approved contracts are right. That's what I thought. Okay. >> Yeah. So, two things. One, there's approved contracts and two we're drifting off of the audit topic. The audit is whether or not the accounting principles and the accounting practices and the things that we're doing and the reports that we put together are, you know, being scrutinized and then also whether or not that. So that's the topic that we're >> Okay. So maybe I should slim it down. So are you
117saying that what's being done as board members, we can say that there's no overspending in capital projects >> as board members or as the district as a whole? like you have the board members are approving the list of bills, you have that being able to do, you can ask any questions along the way as far as capital projects go. >> Um, I also wanted to note from previous conversation that was happening that >> the extra step that does happen with board members coming in to do the walkthrough with of the list of bills and to do that process that is actually a step beyond what almost I don't think I have another client that does that extra step. They basically provide the list of bills out to the board and questions can get brought in.
118There's not really a formal process and I we audit 65 70 school districts of which are many of the largest here in the state and this is a a unique practice is actually a I would say a next step above and beyond what many others do. So I do want to just point that part out as far as the access that the board does have to the finance team a little bit >> risk activity >> is that I'm the that level of being able to get involved and see what the process is of being able to ask questions and the openness that the finance department has is a very uh frontline process. It's a it's a it's a top-notch process. So if there is a contract that's up there that's on the list of bills
119and you want to ask a question that's where the process can be happen where we at on this project where is it at because every contractor you can ask that question every contractor >> in every contractor statement has a total of which was approved at the beginning there is the >> we don't have that we don't get the contract >> I'm saying that's what is on every invoice that is pro that is what the >> we don't get the invoices >> I don't I'm telling you what the process is what a contractor gives what is provided to that to the finance team. It goes through all of the layers of uh uh the purchasing policy that's there, all the internal control policies. Those are all followed along the way in order to get to the
120point of where we are to have it approved and then finally paid. >> So, all those do happen. Uh, and those were all part of the walkthrough process that did occur, >> which is nice to hear you say that, but as board members for part of what our the reason we have to sign off on the bill and claims is that we know where that money is going, what you're asking those questions about specific expenses, we do not get answers to. You'd have to watch Melissa board meeting Melissa, that's that's not true. This gentleman represents the organization that did the audit and basically crawled up and down I financials with a fine tooth comb. Right. >> No, they >> I'm sorry. I asked him a question. Can I Can I have him answer it, please?
121>> Our job is to make sure that there is a internal control framework in place to help to prevent fraud and we reviewed your internal control framework and we viewed that that is in place here at the district. You follow along with your purchasing policy. Do you follow along with the internal control framework that has adequate segregation of duties and approvals along the way to approve budget uh to approve expenses appropriately to accept cash receipts, payroll, etc., etc. to help us to make sure that this audit report is uh in compliance all government accounting standards and it's in materially correct as far as the numbers go. >> I'm talking about transparency and accountability to board members. >> Melissa, first of all, you are not recognized. Just that moment. You can't just jump in >> whenever
122you option. >> That's absolutely not true. Whenever you raise your hand, I call on you. That's that's absolutely. You can watch the video. >> Joe cut me off last time. >> Okay. Other questions from other board members. >> Oh, Christine, you have a comment. >> So, it is just a comment and it's to thank the business office. It was one of the things Holly mentioned in our conversation with Tracy. I did not realize that this was a five, six month process. So considering half the year um there is time dedicated to the auditing um does bring me an even higher level of um confidence in in how the district is being run. Um it makes me feel confident that our policies are being followed. Um, I'm not even I can't even begin to express the
123dedication that we see from our staff and this is just this moment in time that we're talking about the business office. Um, but I do appreciate um the the thorough explan explanation. Um, this might be my eighth year. I'm in my ninth year, but this is the farthest thing from my world of expertise. And so I learn something new each time. And I appreciate when you can explain it to my brain and I can say I think I got that. Um but I again I think um having this independent expert firm do this for us is another way that I see oversight. We look to people who are the experts to help the board understand things and then help us do our job. And this is transparency. We have we have it electronically. We have
124it in a book. The community can access all of this. So, I'm very thankful that you've spent time doing this. I'm thankful for the business office. Mike, you guys are top-notch. Um, and you show that every single time. Um, nothing is hidden from us and we're happy to share all of this with the community and thank you for helping me be better at what my role is here. Joe, >> I'd also just like to uh thank everybody involved in this process. Um it it's really great to see clean audit after clean audit uh year after year. Um and thank you for your explanations of of what's going on. um and the the process that goes into doing uh the audit. Um verifying that our accounting and bookkeeping practices are all um up to date and
125in accordance with ISBY and state standards. Um it's just really uh you know comforting to know as a board member that um you know all of our processes are in line and and we're able to achieve that uh very high uh grade the 4.0 uh you know year in and year out. Thank you. >> Yeah, I'll just as I guess as we any other Okay, I guess as we're about to close this uh this discussion out just I would like to also echo uh my thanks to Mike and and and Tracy and um Andrea um from the fin from the finance team. Uh five months is a long time and a lot of effort and energy goes into that. Uh and then to have um our a representative from the auditing firm coming here and
126talking about how wonderful um uh our our results were from that uh is a testament to the hard work and dedication that you guys put into it. Mike is a testament to your leadership of that group. Um and you know having audits are usually very painful things and to have someone giving us glowing reviews the highest score and actually the highest score that came from ISBY you said right? It's through it's through their calculations, >> right? So when they do their calculations that was submitted, you guys submitted that on our behalf, correct? Okay. >> So um again in independent look at that. Um it's just it's a wonderful thing and we as a community should be very very proud of what you guys have done, what you guys have the work that you guys have
127put into it every single day. So thank you. Thank you for your time today as well and uh >> thank you. >> Thanks for being here. >> Oh yeah. And so we'll move on to item uh >> Thank you. >> 8.06. 06. Thank you so much. >> It's good timing. I got to go over pick up at swim practice right right now. I'm heading straight from here to go pick up. So, timing worked out. >> Perfect. >> It's great to great to see everybody. Have a have a happy Thanksgiving. >> Thank you. >> Okay. This evening, uh, Mr. Francis is going to present to the board of education an overview of our five-year financial forecast. And you have an opportunity to preview that as it's been posted in board docs. Uh Mike's going to walk
128through kind of how uh the five-year forecast is constructed, talk to you about the assumptions both for uh revenue and expenditures that are used. Um, and then uh there's no formal action this evening, but what the administration will be looking for at the as part of the discussion around the 5-year financial forecast is clear guidance from the board of education as we begin preparation for uh creating the budget for fiscal year 2627. Um in board policy we state that we attempt to bring to you um whenever possible a a budget that is balanced. Uh as you can see here uh you see uh imbalance uh for the next five years out where total expenditures are exceeding total revenues projected for the fiscal year 2027 at over $ 122.5 million. So, the guidance we'll be looking
129for this evening really is recognizing that there's a uh structural imbalance within our budget right now. Our expenditures are outpacing our revenues. Uh and guidance from the board of education on uh how quickly to bring this in line. Um if you want the 27 fiscal year 27 budget brought to you balanced uh or if you're looking at a timeline or how much you'd like to see it cut by. And so as you're thinking about that, that'll give us the guidance that we need in preparation uh for the creation of the draft budget that we'll be presenting to you in May and obviously all the implications that go along with that um based on the guidance that we get. Mike. >> All right. Thank you. Um you could skip to the next slide, please. >> Okay.
130Making datadriven decisions is crucial for all organizations. One of the one of the things we look at each year to help drive recommendations and decisions throughout the year is a five-year financial forecast. We use the forecast for a variety of reasons from budget and tax levy planning to running what if scenarios throughout the year. Tonight is the first look at the updated projection since the fiscal year began. There are many elements that make up the forecast. It begins with the current year budget as the main driver and baseline moving forward. Since the budget was adopted last June, the board has approved a few new items that affect this year's expenses. We've also have some additional updated revenue information that we are also adjusting in the current budget as our base. The next slide will go
131over those estimated changes in detail. We also include five years of actual results for historical perspective and to help see trends. Tonight's auto report fund balances have been included in this update. Current and projected CPI, EAV, and new construction drive the largest portion of the district's revenue, while salarying and benefits, as well as staffing levels drive the majority of our projected costs. We have also incorporated any known or projected changes to state, federal, or other known funding. While these are the major drivers in the projections, there are hundreds of items that have an effect on the current and projected financial situation of the school district. When the FY26 budget was presented and adopted, several financial variables were still unknown or in negotiation. As is standard practice, the district made the best possible projections based on
132the information available at that time. Now that these variables are more clear, we need to make targeted amendments to the FY26 budget to accurately reflect the district's financial position. These adjustments fall into two categories, either one-time changes or ongoing adjustments to either revenue or expenditures. Since the FY26 budget was adopted, the board has approved capital projects at Kennedy Junior High School and the Transportation Department. These projects require a one-time transfer from the operating funds to the capital projects fund. As for ongoing adjustments, first two sources of revenue have been finalized at amounts higher than originally projected and budgeted for. State transportation reimbursement and corporate personal property replacement taxes or CPPRT. These increases represent potential ongoing revenue enhancements, not one-time anomalies. As a result, they will improve the district's revenue base in both FY26 and hopefully
133for the future years. However, on the reverse side, since the FY26 budget was adopted, total expenditures are projected to increase by over $3 million due to finalization of employee compensation. When the budget was developed, we estimated salary and benefit increases based on the then current contract terms. Following the settlement of the NUA contract, final costs exceeded the earlier estimates. The salary and benefit to adjustment totals over $3 million. NUAA accounts for approximately 97% of this increase. These are ongoing personnel costs that will be incorporated into the amended FY26 budget, which will be brought to the board at a future meeting later this year. They are incorporated into the financial projections this evening for better accuracy. Starting with the assumptions built into the forecast for revenue, the main driver is the consumer price index which drives
134annual changes in property taxes. The light green bars are the actual CPI figures used for taxation purpose purposes. The most recent actual is 2.9% which is the figure all tax cap districts will be using for their 2025 tax levies. We are using this value in the levy presentation later this evening. The dark green bars are estimates for the projections in the future. The 3.0% rep estimate for the for the 2026 levy year is the year-over-year CPI figure through September of this year. The October CPI number was supposed to be released last week but has been delayed due to due to the government shutdown. Once it is released, we will update the projections accordingly. The final value for calendar year 2025 will be known in mid January at which time these projections will be again updated
135and that figure will also be the main driver of the 2026 tax levy a year from now for taxes paid and distributed in the summer of 27. The other driver of property taxes under the tax cap is the amount of new construction added to the assessed valuation of the district annually. This is not the value the district will receive in additional taxes. For every 1 million of new property, the district receives approximately $45,000 of additional tax revenue. This chart shows light and green and dark green bars showing actual and projected amounts of new construction. 33 million of additional assessed value is the current estimate for this year's levy from preliminary data provided by our township assessor's offices. This number is still an estimate and will not be finalized until March. The remaining projected values have
136been increased from previous projections where recently we were using where we've continued to use $30 million of new growth annually. Some other revenue assumptions to note. With the many Fed Fed changes to interest rates first up and now down over the past three years, we have seen historical highs in investment income over the past two years. Investment income may again eclipse the budget, the current budget amount, but all signs indicate the Fed will continue to cut interest rates resulting in less investment income for the foreseeable future. Another piece of good news is our recent estimate for corporate personal property replacement taxes. This line item has been adjusted to match the most recent estimates from the Illinois Department of Revenue. On the state funding side, we typically receive only about $15,000 additional dollars to our evidence-based
137funding each year. Most other state and federal funding are projected flat throughout the projections. On the expenditure side, staff salaries are the largest area of cost now and moving forward. We are projecting the cost at current contract levels. As the as a typical starting point, there are currently no changes to the number of staff built into the results. Health insurance is our next largest cost, which is projected at 5% growth annually. Most other expenses are CPI or two to three% annually except for known contract amounts. The recently reported annually techn annual technology improvements as well as the annual building and buildings and grounds capital plans are also included in the projections. We have also eliminated the annual abatement of the district's debt in the projections. Overall, the district has very little debt and will be
138debt-free in the next three years. All projections are based on assumptions. While there are hundreds of assumptions in this projection, some have much more weight than others. To put some of these assumptions into perspective, we look at their sensitivity to change. On the revenue side, again, the largest drivers are CPI and new construction. If actual values differ from the projections, they each have varying effects to the results. For every 1% difference of a CPI assumption, revenue would change plus or minus $3.1 million. For every $1 million difference in new construction from the assumptions, revenue fluctuates approximately $45,000. If there are future reductions to the district's evidence state evidence-based funding from the state of Illinois, we would lose 125,000 for every 1% proration. Thankfully, we have not seen any proration of evidence-based funding for many years.
139These three items make up almost 90% of the district's revenue. On the expense side, salaries and benefits make up over 70 76% of all cost. Every 1% change in salary drives an additional $2.3 million in expenses. For health insurance, every 1% change cost $400,000. This projected fund balance graph depicts five years of history, the current budget, and five years of projected fund balance. The green line shows actual and projected fund balance for the years ending 2021 through the projected year 2031. These value the values for FY25 are listed as audit and match the values in tonight's audit report. The FY26 column is labeled estimated amended budget and is based on the changes I presented earlier in the presentation. Below the green line are each of the district's fun uh operating funds with 11 colored bars
140representing that funds portion of the overall total on a year-by-year basis. The two blue lines depict the range of board policy 420 on fund balance which is 10 to 20% of annual expenditures. One item to note this chart does not include the balance in the capital projects fund which has been and will be used for projects at steeple run ranch view connections Kennedy north and transportation. We'll be bringing an amended budget to the board in the next few months for these costs. The two historical steep declines in fund balance for both FY24 and the estimate for FY26 represent transfers to those to fund those capital projects. This final table shows the current fiscal year 26 projected amended budget and the five projected years out through fiscal year 31. On this table, we compare revenue to
141expenditures on an annual basis to see if and when and to what extent we may be spending more dollars than we are receiving. The current year has a budgeted deficit. That deficit is projected to increase substantially over the next five years. While the current fund balance is sufficient to absorb some deficits, we will need to determine future actions that reduce or eliminate the structural budget deficit. The administration is seeking additional input and recommendations from the board of education to move towards the reduction of this deficit. The board of education could direct could direct the administration to bring forward a balanced budget or a plan to balance the budget over the next few years. As always, all results are dependent on the current set of assumptions and will be updated throughout the year as the future
142continues to become clearer. I assume that means that's the end. Okay. Um, questions from the board. Mark, >> thank you, Charles, and and Mike, thank you very much for the presentation. I I just want to go back to what uh Dan uh said at the beginning of the uh uh segment and what you ended on, Mike. Uh so, you need direction from us and I I totally understand that. At the same time, part of what we're uh trying to do is ensure that our our students remain as successful as possible. So just as a you know I we could say well eliminate the $12 million deficit next year. Um we we can certainly say that but what is the impact on the students and you also mentioned that it may be better for us to
143take uh an approach that takes us several years to get back in balance and and that may have less of an impact on student performance. So, can you give us a sense of like what is where do you get to a point where okay if if you say take out $12 million next year that is really going to start impacting core programs and things that the students need to succeed. Can you give us a sense of what that those parameters are? >> That's a great question. Um I mean it's just I I think you know you think about 12 and a half million dollars out of our budget. Um I mean that's going to be felt I if that were the plan. Uh that being said maintaining this structural deficit is not something that we
144can continue. Uh we are fortunate to have a fund balance that can help us for a short period of time. Um but again that fund balance is not intended to continue to be paying ongoing costs. Okay. We also have facility needs that we need to address. You've seen a life health safety report. You've seen the comprehensive facility assessment. Things that need to be done. All right. And so, you know, I I think it's fair to say everything's on the table uh in terms of looking at that um how we get there um in terms of kind of where is it when we think, you know, we can um trim a little bit at a time and and not feel I think everything's going to be felt at some point when we look at the size
145of this. We just have to kind of be honest with that is that um you know there will be things that will be felt and obviously we we don't change our mission we don't change our core purpose we don't change what over our overall goals are so that'll always be a part of it um but I think you know the sense that you know for example you know just just that if we have a problem we're trying to solve to just create a new program or to hire a new group that's absolutely something that we cannot be doing and we've got to be auditing and looking at things that we are to determine what is having an impact on on student achievement. And then so where do we start to to nip away? But the
146what's going to have to happen is we are going to have to address the ongoing costs, the recurring costs. The one-time costs are not what's really helping to create this. Okay. It's the continued ongoing costs that we know will be there and we have to continue to prepare for. I don't know what you would add, correct, or change. And and just to follow on to that, um would would it uh from your perspective is it easier to identify we we cut certain things and do it now or is it better and easier from an operations perspective to look at limiting growth in the future of expenses? What what sort of it from from an operations perspective, what is the the best of those two options? >> Go ahead, Mike. I don't I don't know if
147there's a a best of the options. The any option is going to be painful. I know that in times where I've I've lived through budget reductions and I I I know Mr. Cohen has too. And he shared some experiences in cabinet recently about a previous district that he was in where they took time to not cut all of the deficit. One of the issues with that is that if you look at the projections, the deficit gets larger the following year. So unless there was some thing potentially in the future that was going to bring in more revenue, I I don't see it. I kind of outlined the items that are on the table with property taxes being the largest one and we know what those are for for this year and for next year. Those
148are definites. Well, as long as the board adopts the levy, uh that that's a would be a definite. Um the CPI may change between now and the end of the year and if it does go up that would help this. And as I mentioned in the pro in the presentation also, we did substantially raise the budget for investment income. And if you looked at the results, we were well over budget the last two years. Part part of that is when short-term interest rates would were really at longterm highs, longtime highs. And but you also hear constantly that the Fed is cutting that rate. And so we may eclipse again this year. It might help this year. I I I believe there's a there's a high likelihood that we will uh even do better in investment
149income there. Even our raised budget, I think our budget's almost almost 9 and a half million and it was only 5 something million. But we should not also live on hopeful investment income. Mhm. >> Um, so that might help us through FY26, but every economist will tell you that the Fed is going to continue to cut interest rates and that's going to reduce our that one source of revenue, and it's a sizable one. Outside of taxes, it's the probably the third largest source of revenue we have besides evidence-based funding. We also talked about with the board of education at the April 21st meeting all of the limitations we have on all other sources of revenue >> being a tier four district in the state of Illinois and we get about 12.7 million of an of
150evidence-based funding when the when the state puts in $350 million on an annual basis which they've been doing for evidence-based funding. We as the ninth largest school district in the state of Illinois only receive 15,000 of that $350 million. Some of our neighbors get millions. We get 15,000. That is not a revenue source that's growing. We've been working with our local legislators to point out that they have not been funding or increasing funding for reimbursements for some of the other state categories like reimbursement for transportation, a service that we're mandated to provide, special education services. We have to provide these things. the state has not and and and to be fair, their their direction has been put it into evidence-based funding. Unfortunately, we're just not the recipient of that. We need more funding for these
151mandated categoricals, which again, every district is affected by, but the prorations are getting deeper and deeper. The pot of money is not growing. But for instance, our special our transportation costs go up every year. The funding stays the same. So we have a lot of funding that is flat. And I don't think anybody would disagree that we shouldn't expect any more federal funding. Okay? That's all we have. And unfortunately our expenses especially our our salary expenses and our health insurance are growing faster than inflation which is what our revenues relegated to. So which that is causing the structural imbalance. So, I know I went on a long ranted long- winded uh kind of maybe off topic on on your question, but as the superintendent mentioned, we do have some fund balance to absorb or look
152at this over a a period of time, but that period of time is not that long because right now, if you look at the projections, we would be at the top of the fund balance policy at the end of this fiscal year. Still a very good financial position, but you really really have to watch the slope of that line downward. We can absorb deficits, small deficits. When they get to this level that we're projecting at this point, we the the board needs to give direction as to how to deal with this. And when we say how to deal with it, it's not necessarily cut this, eliminate that, do that. That's what we will create recommendations to the board for. You're going to kind of give us the yep, we need to get there. I want
153to be I want the this coming year's budget to be there. Get it there or okay, come back with a plan for us and tell us how you're going to get it there. Um and so when you kind of going back to part of your question ultimately I I I see it you know um kind of falling into some things of there are reducing new initiatives that bring on new costs or or pausing any new initiative that brings on new costs. Uh seeking operational efficiencies modifications to things that we do that can be run a little bit more efficiently which will save us money. We're also going to have to look at eliminating some things. we we we have been in a a pattern of, you know, adding program, adding people, adding costs that we
154really have to kind of step back and take a look at. Um, and so it's going to be kind of a combination of all of those. Um, and so kind of looking at where where our recommendations to you fall really depends on the conversation you now have on how quickly to get there. >> Amanda Thank you so much for uh this. Um, one of my questions kind of based off of what you were saying I think is if we were to be um proactive in making reductions to balance a budget. Would that expound at all? Because like you're like with the um I'm I'm probably not articulate this right, but like with the expenses, right, there's kind of like this um increase each year like where it looks like it's going from like five to
15512 to, you know, 28. I don't have the numbers right in front of me right here, but actually I can just look at the presentation. Sorry. Um to ultimately 26 million uh deficit in um 2031. Is there any um kind of strategic uh reductions that if we made it earlier it would reduce having to cut further down the line because we're balancing earlier? That does that make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. It those deficits do not uh compound they So if you made whatever reductions as long as they're ongoing savings that would affect all five years. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So it's not in if you if you cut 12 million in year one to balance, you don't have to cut I think it's 14 million in year two because that 12 is also in year
156two. >> Gotcha. Okay, that that helps. Okay, thank you. Um then the other question I had was thinking about um and this is probably Dan what you were talking about and thinking about creative ways of restructuring or saving but with the transportation building which I think we're going to approve later tonight and we had talked about adding on the geothermal and the solar panels things like um to help create reduce our carbon footprint but ideally that would also enhance enhance or reduce our bills, right? It reduce the expenses um because we're not buying into the electrical grid that's like moving um increasing. So, is that incorporated into this 5-year projection at all? >> It is, but it is, but remember, we have lots of facilities. That's a small it's that's 11,000 12,000 uh square feet
157out of mill we have a couple million square feet in the district. It is a small piece of our energy consumption. Every dollar counts uh in savings. Um so that will energy is projected in energy is projected to increase on an annual basis but that small piece will help mitigate that increase slightly into the future. Yes, I I get that because I know it's not like the major part of our budget or anything like that, but I'm just thinking that if we had kind of a projection of like cost savings that might then help us make strategic moves for other part of that, other buildings and stuff throughout the district to help um save costs in that way. Um that's what I'm just kind of thinking about. Is that something even worth looking at or
158is it just so like 1% of our budget so it wouldn't even make a huge difference? >> Well, again, the the only concern I would have is the the investment of capital which we're doing for the if if the board chooses to vote on that tonight. Correct. for transportation the investment of I'm not sure we have the available fund balance to replicate that for every location >> for other for other buildings >> right but but it would be like a one-time purchase versus an >> ongoing one time purchase >> onetime purchase with long-term savings ideally >> okay thank you >> Melissa >> I'm going to piggyback after off uh what you said Amanda a lot of times So I think if I can I'm not sure if this is what you meant Amanda but could
159we ask the administration for ways I think we do want to cut and I I think Mark said it is I think that we're tasked as a board to focus on our students and obviously there are some expenses if we're going to cut I would hope that we would prioritize areas that aren't don't directly impact the students um achievement and growth. Obviously, the dollars spent in certain areas have a greater impact. So, I guess one of the things I would be looking for from the administration is maybe um for them to go through and recommend some cuts um you know of of maybe some ways we could cut back. One thing that just popped in my head that I've been wanting to know is I don't know, one of the reasons I asked for all
160the budget information is I don't know how much we spend on travel. I know that we have really liked for our our staff to go and present and go all over and our superintendent. But I mean, do we look at and pinpoint some areas maybe that that doesn't take away from student maybe the administration could come up with a list of some areas and then if I could just finish Dan. >> Yeah. And then >> can you can you stop that question or do it just >> No, I I really don't like being interrupted. I feel like I always am. So, if you could just give me that courtesy, I' I'd appreciate it. So, if we could get a list of those things that may not um and maybe a variety of them, not just
161up to the 12 million, but that way the board can look at these items and then have that discussion, maybe get public feedback as into, you know, which of those areas do we prioritize and which aren't we prioritizing? And then, you know, it's always good maybe to look at your budget and kind of say, "Hey, let's trim a little of that." And we were making those decisions that informed the whole picture. Then going back to what Amanda was saying that I liked is is maybe in doing that we make some cuts. Maybe we do find a little money and maybe part of our ongoing conversation should also be ways we can in invest to reduce some of those costs because if it over time is going to provide us a great that's a good investment.
162So I guess I would be looking for both of you know a whole category of areas not that we would cut every category but that we would prioritize. But I guess that again just I know that I frustrated people today talking about the budgets but that's one of those things I want to see those numbers. I don't I don't know how much we spend in travel. Don't know how much we spend in legal fees for what areas. I I don't know any of that other than the papers you see where in order to make decisions about about you know cutting I think we do need to see those numbers and kind of start looking at you know where do we want to cut and where are our priorities and then once we set those we
163can also that gives us the administration the one voice to move forward and it gives us as a board it clarifies you know as we make decisions we're not looking at individual ual projects or ind individual votes, we're able to keep our decisions maybe more in line with that bigger picture versus just looking at when we buy it right now, right? Then >> yeah, please. >> Okay. Try to remember all of that. But actually, this is actually, as I'm reflecting on the DuPage IASB dinner with Jim Bett, the author of the book that you just got, this is a an example that was provided in terms of what we think about, what we're looking for right now. Now is not the time for that in terms of do this, do that, what are we spending
164here, what are we spending there. That's what the administration and our team absolutely and that's what I alluded to at the beginning. We will go through all of that and look for efficiencies across the board, not just in one area. obviously know we we want to impact kids as little as possible. Okay. Um what we're looking for tonight is that guidance from the board that says, you know what, Dan, I expect the budget to come to us balanced next year. Okay, that's going to be a lot more work for us. Or I need a plan from you that by fiscal year 2029, three years out, we're going to have a balanced budget. All right? And so there will be the time for us to get down into the the recommendations to the board on what
165this budget looks like and an explanation of how it got there. But for for now, um the guidance that we need in order to do that is how quickly do you want us there? Holly. >> So, I was going to ask to kind of clarify that because this is in communications, not with action, but I think what what I'm hearing we're looking for is do we want a balanced budget this year like you mentioned, do we want to create a plan on how to achieve that over multiple years or are we saying hold off, we're not ready to say anything. Um, so I don't think we're looking for emotion, but I'll just say that my where I'm landing on this and appreciate a lot of the comments, um, and seeing the benefit of even though
166anything is going to be painful, but the benefits over time, I'm looking for more of a balanced budget and I would like to see that this year. That's where I'm weighing in. Um, is that kind of the guidance you'd like from each of us, >> Joe? Yeah, I um kind of tend to agree with uh Holly and and a number of um my other colleagues here who uh are kind of looking for uh you know getting this bal uh budget balanced fairly quickly. Um I think it'd be good to do that exercise. What does a balanced budget look like? Um but what also are the impacts of that balanced budget in one year? um and does it make sense to do it in two years or in three years, right? Um so and until you
167know you start kind of digging in um I don't think we can uh answer that that specific question tonight. Um but I I think um the the comment uh Melissa's comment on on return on investment is also a good thing to consider. you know, are there uh certain things that, you know, can be one ter one-time uh uh cost that could bring uh savings uh throughout and you know, I'd be willing to not have a balanced budget. Um you know, if there's something like that that'll bring those uh you know, uh reductions going forward uh year after year. So I I think having kind of that that balanced uh approach um is the the direction I would prefer. So, I think um in in listening and thinking through this in the moment, um I would
168like to see a balanced budget for next year, but I want to reserve the ability to say that might be too much pain. And so, I I don't want it to seem like I'm asking to do double work for staff, but like what would it look like? And then if I see or if I feel that there's it's a little too painful, then maybe look at doing it over two years or over three years, you know. Um, but I I think I would struggle until I see what it would look like for the next year. I I need I I need that to start to gauge, you know, is it a really rip the band-aid off moment or is it a little gentler? >> Yeah. So, hang on a second. So, um I'll get some
169thoughts here. So, I'm I'm in a little bit of a different spot. Um would love to see a balance budget. I think that's next year. That's great. Just but recognizing the reality of how much effort it takes to turn a ship this big around. Um and I would love to see a flattening of the curve. I will tell you that the the chart you showed with the nice green line that well not nice the green line that was taking a nose dive was very concerning. Um, and so I'd love to see a flattening of that curve uh to the point where if you look at the last chart where we had the projected year and balances, what makes me nervous is when the projected year end balances, meaning whatever reserves we have left over, starts
170to dip um into a point where we don't even have enough to cover a month of expenses. So somewhere between where 2028 and 2029 gets in terms of fund balances, I'd like to see us flatten out and then see balance from there on. So that way we're not continuing to eat up every single reserve we have. That's kind of where my head's at. So and then whatever that looks like. >> Just to clarify, I would like to say I don't feel I can give an answer to whether I want the budget. Um I think what I was trying to say earlier is I need to know what it's going to cost me. I don't There's no magical yes or no having the budget, you know, balanced. It's about what will it cost me because that's
171really what it's about. So, I need to see those numbers up front. I need to see if we're cutting if we're cutting things that don't really hurt us and we can make it then great. And I think my other fellow board members have said that is that we we want informed conscious decisions. And I think just making this decision without having that additional information um doesn't feel like an informed data driven decision. >> Thank you for that. I respect that um comment. But just as a reminder for all of you, this is a process ongoing. This is just kind of setting the direction for us to get started. Okay. >> Mark. >> Yeah. Thank you, Charles. And and to what you just said, Dan, so we don't have to wait until the budget is delivered
172to us to kind of get a view into where these opportunities for cost reductions are. We can let's say when do we usually get the budget? >> First meeting in May. >> Okay. First first week in May. First meeting in May. So between now and then would there be touch points that we would have where we can say uh I think one of the questions people had is well if we say let's do the 12.5 million next year and and uh be balanced that may be cutting things that maybe people have concerns about. So then we can give you that feedback and say, "Okay, we're maybe we're not ready to have $12.5 million, maybe it's $10 million or whatever it is." Um, and then give you that feedback. So when we get the budget in
173May, that's what it reflects is that input. >> We have um some natural processes that we go through every year that we bring to the board for action. Um, and so I'll sit with Mike and and my team and we'll kind of lay out where those are. The important part for us will be talking to you and reminding the board about every decision that comes on what that will mean for the budget. >> Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think being aware of anything we're doing now that could impact us this year and next year is going to be very important. So, I think having that extra level of discussion is is a great idea. >> Yeah. So, I for Yeah, that's a good example. And we have a a request for action. You you provided
174guidance moving forward on the transportation facility. Mike knew what these these numbers look like and we know there's an initial investment, but we believe ultimately, you know, that's something that it is going to help us long term. So, okay, >> Melissa, >> I want to make a motion. Never done this. >> Just just there's no >> explain this. So, okay, let me explain this. I haven't done this. is >> um I think what we're hearing is that we'd like to know what those cost the options are for cost reductions. We want to hear where we can do investments. Would could we vote as a board to have in 90 days time, so that gives us till February after the holidays for the administration to give us a report with their recommendations for areas we can
175cut and areas we can invest in. So we kind of put a you know we say that in 90 days time we'll get that report and then we'll revisit it. >> So I won't speak to the timing part but I will speak to the um we did not have this item as something that we are voting on. So we can't really make a motion on that. However, so it sounds like your desire would be to have something in that time frame. That's a that's a different conversation. It's just privying direction to the administration as to what we'd like to see and kind of by when. But it's not something we would officially vote on because it's not on the agenda as an item we're voting on. >> So, well, yeah, and that that's kind of
176what we're doing. Each person giving perspective. So, provides a perspective, which your perspective is that you'd like to see something within 90 days that gives us some puts and takes. I'm trying to summarize. I'm not usually as good at summarizing as Amanda is, but is that fair? That that's the Okay. Yeah, that's that's good good perspective. So other perspectives on that, Amanda? >> I would like to see options, but definitely closing the gap versus increasing it. I definitely can't keep going the way we are. I'm open to I mean, I'd love to see a balanced budget, but I want to see the options for anything between. And I like your perspective, Charles, about, you know, getting us down to that 20. We want to make sure that we have our rainy day, right? Um, so
177we have some time, but I want to see all the options. Okay, Mark. >> Thank you, Charles. Just a a followup. So, um, Mike, is there any statutory regulations we need to be aware of in terms of where we need to be at by a certain period of time? Uh, do you have any any anything we need to be concerned about in that area? >> There's no statutory requirements. the I would I would make uh one of the one of the notes tonight in the audit report was that we had a 4.0 highest financial rating. >> This forecast would take us out of that. It would take us out of that immediately. Now, we would still have a very good financial rating at least for the next year or two. Um but we would no
178longer be at a 4.0. And one of the reasons is as soon as you have soon as you spend $1 more than you bring in in your operating it's a dollar or $10 million. Once you do that, you spend more than you bring in your operating funds, you get a a lower score in one of the categories that the state board uh reflects uh on on all school districts and we would no longer be a 4.0. um if our our fund balance is sufficient and our days of cash on hand are sufficient for the next couple years in that rating. But those are the types of things that would affect um the other thing that would be affected potentially would be again not in the next year or two or maybe even three years but
179if you run structural deficits for multiple years at these types of levels and then we want need to borrow money for some reason our bond rating could be affected. So that would be another reason that we would need to try to keep our fund balance uh at or in within the within the that's one of the reasons that the board policy was created to give that range is so that we had a high financial rating from the state board of education and we continued to maintain a AAA rating from uh S&P and Moody's in case we needed to borrow because then you're borrowing money at lower rates. So from a financial perspective, I would recommend or suggest to the board those would be my reasons from a finance officer why you would want to make
180cuts and they could be flatten the curve. I mean it can be done over a couple of years but they do get deeper like you you cut a little bit and then you realize we got to do this again. Even if you cut the 12 million in next year, most likely again this is all based on assumptions. It's going to be again the following year much smaller but it's going this is what our future's going to be unless something turns around that I can't see in the future revenue-wise. >> And and you brought up the policy and our policy has a a floor at 10%. So in theory beyond 2028 we'd be in violation of our own policy. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Okay. So it's >> we could change the policy but yeah. >>
181Well um >> I think we would I'm just saying >> and I I I think that my my thinking on this is is that the the sooner we can make these reductions the better because otherwise we'll continue to revisit this year after year after year. um and the problem won't go away necessarily. >> So what what Mark was that's kind of where I was like flattening it and that's why that said somewhere between where we're at 2020 because the end of the day when you get to the red number every year that's not sustainable. You're you're literally out of money, right? Am I am I reading that incorrectly? >> That that's correct. Now remember those numbers reflect deferred property taxes. So those fund balances are without our June are without June taxes which are really
182one of the reasons we change that policy or that accounting uh strategy is because the levy that we collect each year is for the following year. So we shouldn't be looking at those. So the cash that comes in in June is reflected as cash but it's not reflected in fund balance. >> Got it? So, lots of school districts in the state of Illinois are in a much worse cash position than we are. Even at 10%, we're above the majority of school districts. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Right. >> But if you get to that point on a trajectory that's facing that direction, it's inevitable that you have to make changes to change the the course of of it's steering a very large ship, >> right? uh you'd have to make course corrections >> and I
183would imagine that the deeper in that hole you get the fewer options and choices you have about what you'd have to cut in order to make it work. At some point you have to right at some point you have to balance it all out. >> Yeah, we would have to we're not like the federal government that could print unlimited amounts of money, >> right? We have to at some point we have to balance. >> So I guess pigging back on where Mark was, it's kind of like can we get to figure out some of those things sooner rather than later because in the earlier stages of it, we actually have choices. Maybe not a lot, maybe not comfortable choices, but at least there's some choices. Once you get to a certain point, you really run
184out of choices. It's your choices are kind of made for you. So okay, other other thoughts want to dominate conversation. >> Okay. I'm just going to make sure. Um >> Dan, you want to summarize? >> Yeah, I I mean I I think I took some pretty good primary notes. Uh overall, it feels that the the guidance and direction provided by the board is a preference for a balanced budget as soon as possible. Some from this year to some to flattening out the curve over a short period of time, but the importance of getting there. Um, and in terms of the actual pace, uh, it's going to depend on what some of those options are, what it's actually going to cost, but the fact that we still have to get there to ensure that we build
185in time, uh, over the course of the year, incorporating the the the presentation of the draft budget for opportunity for input um, from the board and continued guidance. And along with that, the kind of the list that goes with the so some for instances of what it's going to cost and I don't mean dollars, but I mean like what some of the puts and takes will be. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I think that was it. I I think what you're saying is though that estimate Well, maybe like estimates of how much it will cost because that way we would know. We probably we're not going to pull Yeah. >> All right. Thank you for that. Let's see what do we have next. Ah, all right. Discussion without action. 9.01 2025 tax levy determination. >> Okay.
186So, annually uh the district sets a tax levy which provides us with over 85% of our total revenue. Uh and the annual tax levy is governed by the truth and taxation law, school code, property tax code, property tax extension limits law. Uh and processes that we must follow. Uh, and so Mike has prepared uh information uh for the board of education posted in board docs. Mike, you want to hit a couple highlights? I'm waiting for the presentation to Um, okay. Tonight is the first the board's first look at the proposed tax lever for 2025. For tonight's presentation, I'm going to review the overall property tax process, the laws and requirements regarding the annual tax levy, the variables that are used in the calculation, the recommended levy, the estimated tax rate, and the impact on the
187average homeowner, in the timeline and actions we are to follow. This flowchart depicts the overall pro process of annual property taxes for all taxing bodies in Illinois. The process starts with the assessor who places a taxable value on all properties within their township. Assessment notices are either published or sent to property owners informing them of their assessed value. Owners have an opportunity to appeal their assessed value to the board of review where values may be changed before final values are sent to the county clerks. During that time, taxing bodies also approve their annual levy which is also forwarded to the clerk. With the levy and assessment information, the clerk can calculate tax rates for all taxing bodies that will be included on the tax bill. Tax bills are sent out by the county treasurer. The
188treasurer's office also collects payments and distributes the tax payments back to the taxing bodies. We're going to focus tonight's presentation. Go ahead and click the presentation. Click for the next. There you go. We're going to focus tonight's presentation on our district's portion of the process, the annual tax levy. Property taxes are the largest piece of revenue for most school districts throughout the state of Illinois and even a larger share of revenue for districts in our area. Over 85% of the district's budget comes from local property taxes. The levy we're presenting tonight is a district's district's formal request for taxes that is required in the first step in the process. There are a number of laws and regulations that govern the tax levy process. All taxing agencies must comply with the truth and taxation law which
189requires a public hearing if the levy request is greater than five than a 5% increase over last year's tax extension. Our request tonight is under that percentage. So we are not required to hold a hearing. Districts in tax cap counties also must comply with the property tax extension limitation law. Both Dupage and Will counties and therefore district 203 have been under this law since its inception in 1992 which limits the overall growth in taxes to existing taxpayers in total to the lesser of the calendar year consumer price index or 5%. There are a number of variables that are used to determine the amount of the annual tax levy. The three main variables used in the calculation are listed on this slide. Of the three, only the consumer price index is known at this time. For
190the 2025 levy, all tax cap districts are limited to the CPI from the 2024 calendar year, which was 2.9%. The other two variables, new construction and EAV, are not finalized at this time. So, we must make estimates on those numbers. We work with our local tax assessors who have been helpful in providing estimates for our calculations. Those numbers will not become finalized and released until March. Not knowing what those final unknown variables will be, we typically increase the levy slightly in order to capture any unanticipated increase in new construction. The board has the ability to reduce the levy after adoption, but cannot add to it. Finally, as far as a timeline, all taxing bodies must adopt and file their annual tax levy by the last Tuesday in December, which is December 31st this year. The
191consu consumer price index is a major driver for changes in annual tax revenue. This chart shows a 33-year history of the CPI used in the tax cap legislation. The average over that time is 2.45% as represented by the black line. The tax cap maximum was applied for both 22 and 2023 levies. The calendar year CPI that is used for this year's levy again is 2.9%. The current year CPI continues uh to come down and or be similar to last year and sits at 3% year-over-year through September. The final calendar year 2025 CPI won't be known until January and will be used as the basis for the levy calculation at this time next year. There's an important point to understand about what the tax cap law does and does not do. While the district's overall maximum
192increase from existing taxpayers is limited to this 2.9% CPI, individual property tax bills may differ. different assessment changes and whether an individual property assess assessment change is less than or greater than the average change districtwide can cause a single tax bill to be less than or greater than the average increase. There are three main factors that determine changes to an individual tax bills. First, the tax cap law limits what a taxing body can collect in total. Secondly, the part that is controlled by the taxing bodies is the amount that they certify to be levied. However, this amount is still subject to the overall tax cap. The last piece is the potential difference of changes of assessments of individual properties. Property tax values do not rise uniformly across all parcels. The burden of taxes may shift
193from taxpayers with lower increases to those with higher assessed increases. This slide and the next and the next show a couple of simple examples on how the levy and assessment changes may affect individual tax bills. For these examples, let's start with the graphic on the left that assumes the following. There are just two properties in the district. They each had an assessed value of $100,000. They each paid $5,000 to the district in taxes with a tax rate of 5% for a total collection to the school district of $10,000 in taxes for last year. The graphic on the right demonstrates how the levy and tax caps can change the bill moving forward. This example uses the current CPI cap of 2.9%. Each property is reassessed at the same 10% increase to value of $110,000. Even with
194a 10% assessed value change, annual total taxes can only increase by the 2.9% CPI cap. The tax rate falls as a result. For the next two examples, we'll show how taxes may be affected by differing assessment changes with and without the CPI change. The graphic on the left has no levy increase, but simply a difference in assessment changes. The blue house does not change in value. However, the greenhouse increases by 10%. In this example, the taxing body would receive no additional taxes in total. However, some tax burden is shifted to the greenhouse due to its higher overall higher valuation. The last graphic on the right brings both of those changes together. First, an overall CPI increase of 2.9%. This brings overall taxes up 2.9% to 10,290. Secondly, the greenhouse being reassessed with a 10% increase
195while the blue home assessment again remains flat. These two factors together reduce the blue house blue house tax bill to $4,900 while the greenhouse sees an increase up to 5,390. Different assessment changes equate to a shift in the tax burden per property. The next couple of charts show the history and estimated values of of the still unknown key variables used in the calculation of the levy. First is the total EAV or equalized assessed value. This is the total assessed value of all taxable property in the school district. Over the last five years, the district EAV has grown from 5.2 billion to an estimated amount for 2025 of over 7 billion. This value will be finalized in the spring. The overall EAV has changed by two factors. The first is the existing EAV percent change. This
196change is what we are estimating the average assessment of a property to change by. Townships were required to increase values based on the past three years sales ratio studies as done by the department of revenue. Based on the preliminary information from our township assessors, this year's estimated 8% is similar to last year's increase in assessment values. This will result in a lower tax rate on next year's tax bill. The second overall change to EAV is the amount of new EAV or what we typically call new construction. Early estimate estimates indicate that this amount will be low be the lowest uh will be um actually a little bit higher than the last similar to the last five years. The final value of new construction will not be known until the spring. Since we don't know that
197number, we typically increase the levy slightly to cover potential higher values in this area. Tonight's levy would cover up to approximately $60 million with the new EAV growth. This graph shows the overall tax rate of the district back to 2019. The tax rate had a substantial decrease last year with another anticipated for the upcoming tax bills due to rising assessed property values. This is the spreadsheet we use to determine the levy on an annual basis. There are a lot of numbers on this page, but I'd like to highlight and focus on a few. And if you could just kind of click through this with me. Uh the first is the consumer price index at 2.9, the existing EAV change of eight, new property at $33 million. If those assessment uh if those assumptions come in,
198our tax rate would be 4.4771. Go ahead and click again there. And that would bring in a total of $313.8 million. which is an estimated capped extension. Go ahead and click one more that value right there. That is what we think we're going to receive in taxes. So the next step in the process to determine whether we have to comply with truth in taxation. So click again. The 303.5 million highlighted at the bottom of that lefth hand column is what we received in taxes last year. We compare that click one more time to the levy that we're requesting tonight of $315,130. That's a 3.8% increase. We don't think we're going to get 3.8%. We're going to get about 3.4% which is the 2.9 CPI plus the value for new construction. But because that value is
199below five, we don't have to file or we don't have to comply with the truth and taxation notice. Looking ahead a few months into the early spring is when county clerks calculate tax rates and begin the process of extending taxes, which will notify us of the actual amounts the district will receive. If our adopted levy request in December is higher than the clerk's tax cap calculation, then the levy will be adjusted downward. This is what we anticipate happening if adopted as presented. However, if the request is lower than what we are allowed to receive under the tax cap, we will only receive the levy request. Here is the timeline we are following for the adoption of the levy. Today marks the date for the tenative levy determination. We required by school code that the tenative
200levy be presented to the board at least 20 days prior to its adoption. We will be reviewing the the levy and key assumptions with the citizen finance advisors. in early December. The board will be asked to adopt a final levy on December 15th so that we can file the required documents by the last Tuesday in December. And finally, the board will con will consider adopting a debt service abatement at an upcoming meeting in March. Finally, the recommendation from the from the administration is to support the 2025 tax levy is presented and again like we did last year not abating the debt service levy in March which again is only 98,150 uh dollars which is a very small amount of interest and if I just want to remind the board that we did not abate that
201uh in the last year finally As part of recent uh public act 1020895, we're required uh to disclose our fund balances at both uh our budget and tax levy uh each year. These are our balances through September of 2025. And then public act 10394 requires all school districts to compare cash reserve balances to the last three years of expenses for the education, operation, and maintenance and transportation funds. The expense to cash ratio must be below 2.5 times. Ours currently sits at 877, well below the amount with no action needed at this time. Be happy to take any questions. Questions from the board. Amanda, >> thank you so much for this. Mike, um, going back to the tax levy determination, you mentioned that the cap levy, uh, we'd be asking for is about $315 million, which
202is about a 3.8% tax increase for our taxpayers. Correct. Do you have an idea, and I'm sorry I didn't send this ahead. Um, so if you need to get it to me next time, that's fine. But do you have an idea of how much that would actually be on average for uh each taxpayer in uh the district that be required to pay this? >> Yeah, we we certainly could calculate that. I don't have that the number off the top of my head. And I do want to just clarify one thing that you said. Our levy increase would be 3.8%. But that's not what we've again that is slightly elevated over what we think we're going to get. The levy would be 315 million. We think we're going to get 313.8. >> Okay. >> So what
203we actually will receive is about 3.4 million I mean 3.4% more than what we received last year. And how that is made up of is 2.9% comes from existing people that paid taxes on parcels of property last year, which we have about 30,000 of those parcels. I only know that because we sent 30,000 checks back to the people four years ago. >> I believe you. >> And then the difference would become from the new construction that is added. So that other about a half a percent comes from from new construction that's added to the EAV. >> So even though we're requesting 3.8, 8. That's not what we'll actually receive or what taxpayers would would see at their bill, but we can get a a a number definitely for the adoption of the levy or we
204can send the board an update as to what that increase that 2.9% because that's what would be on existing homeowners, what that average would be, >> right? So the vote tonight is just to be able to move forward with that, but we would have another vote for the actual levy at the time. >> That's right. The board's not voting on anything tonight. Um they you'll be adopt will you be asked to adopt a levy at the December 15th meeting. >> Gotcha. Um yeah, it would be helpful if we had um I I just like to know like directly what would be the impact on our taxpayers. Um as close as you can get. I understand the contingencies with the new development, etc., but I think it's important to kind of like have that that breakdown.
205Thank you. Joe, >> I think another um important uh point that was brought up um is that it's important to capture or to to levy uh potentially more than um you expect and um there's a window to uh decrease that amount. Um and can you remind us when that is? Uh we haven't we have through we typically receive estimated extension reports in March around spring break. Um and there's two pieces in March. We we typically bring a an abatement resolution uh for the bonds which again are only $98,000 this year. And then secondly, anytime between the adoption of the levy and the sign off of the extension, which happens again around spring break, the board could decide to uh abate or lower the amount that will what that the clerk would send to the treasurer
206for the for the tax bills. So, so it's important to uh do kind of an overestimate now and then if we want to correct down later, >> you absolutely can do that. Yes. >> But, but if we we can't go up like once, >> we cannot go up once the December >> le confirm for me the financial projection you just shared with the board accounted for the levy. The financial projection the financial projections that you saw this evening assumed that we would collect the full amount of the tax of taxes under the tax cap to whatever the projected CPIs were. >> So assuming we don't collect all the revenue we can collect that's going to impact those that >> Absolutely. Melissa, >> so I had a question tying this to the previous. Do we want
207to again make sure before the um that spring break um extension where we can change it? Do we want to make sure that we have that conversation about possible cuts prior to that so we maybe gain a better understanding of where we're going financially? So comments on that matter >> I want to try. Okay. So what I hear you saying is that you're asking us board members if we would like to see the projections for what with the conversation before of what we had directed the administration to give us that before we even decide if we want to pass a levy. >> Well, >> is that is that what you asked us? I that's what I heard. >> Okay. No. Okay. So, passing the levy, we would be passing we vote on the levy at
208the next meeting. So, mid December. I mean I I don't know if it's realistic to get those >> chance. >> Okay. I didn't think so. Um but Okay. So what I was saying is Okay. Thank you for asking for clarification. Um is that I don't I think it's too soon for that. But I myself feel like I know that these are financially difficult times for a lot of people. I also know that in Neapville, ironically, our house values have skyrocketed. So, you know, this, you know, I always try to ask for the least. You know, I don't want to put extra burden if we don't have to. And I'm sure you all feel the same way. Um, so what I'm saying is we're going to have to make a vote on the levy, but as
209Joe pointed out, we have an opportunity to we can go down from there. We can't go up. But what we may want to do is have that consideration of what we can cut because I know that I would like the taxpayers to know that I'm looking at that and that if I can lower it, I'm looking into it and I'm going to try to find ways and that we could have that discussion. Does that make sense now? >> Yep. Okay. So you wanna you're concerned about adding taxes to the taxpayer and so you want to only so you want to take into consideration if we didn't pass this levy that like and add this 3.4% to our budget. What else would we need to cut to stay balanced? >> Okay, I guess no. So >>
210I don't know. >> No, that's okay. I tried. >> What I'm trying to say is that I want to pass the lowest tax increase that we can but stay fiscally responsible. So I'm thinking of like my home budget, put it this way, is if what I would try to do is cut out incidentals first or things non- essentials. And if we're already going to have that conversation, I think that to have that conversation before we finalize, before the window closes on being able to lower the tax levy we ask for that we have that conversation so that the taxpayers and and me representing the taxpayer know that we've done our due diligence of cutting what we can before we decide what we're going to tax them at. Does that make sense? Does anyone else need
211>> I I hear what you're saying and I'm looking at Mike just to make sure what I say is not inaccurate. The board has absolutely all the right that it's in March to be able to um reduce that levy. But we've given you a financial projection that shows a projected 12.5 million deficit next year based off of the levy extended to the full extent. Please know that any reduction in revenue is going to result in the need to make bigger cuts, go more. I I I full respect to I'm a taxpayer in the town, too. Um and so I I understand that burden, right? But I think I'm just cautioning you right now. Um that's something you're going to have to keep in mind. Um, and you know, Mike and I will take some time
212between now and the December 15th meeting to kind of lay out a process and timeline um, to keep you informed, but I just that's something to keep in mind is that I I can't imagine Mike and I coming back to you in March recommending that you reduce that uh, levy. But that's just kind of putting my cards out there. >> Yeah, just getting figures. >> Yeah. So, okay. Uh, Holly, >> I was just going to attempt to be kind of your summarizer this time. We'll see. Taking a stab at it some first time. Um, so I think what I hear you saying is recognizing what Dan just explained and that when we were talking about the five-year financials and our concerns about a deficit, you wanted to have some kind of conversations as a board
213before March. So, we're already aware of the pain of what those cuts could be in one year eliminating the $12 million or multiple years. So, you want to be discussing and thinking about that ahead of March. Is that correct? >> Yes. And just to clarify too, I do think that I, you know, I think it's twofold. I'm not saying we would reduce it, but I'm saying I want the informed decision before then. And it sounds like we need to have this conversation anyways. And I do think another side of that is I think it's shows the public, you know, there's goodwill there that that we are looking. We're not just going each year saying we want more, we want more. That we're saying, hey, we realize this and and you know, they know this conversation
214we had today. So, we are doing the work of cutting things and making those decisions. Dan, did you get all that? Okay. Um, any other questions or comments? So, thank you the three of you for that. That was That that worked. Okay. Good. All right. Item 9.02 2027 2028 calendar. And before I jump off the topic, Mr. Francis, thank you for all of that. And there he is, ladies and gentlemen, Patrick Milton. Okay. So, uh, we came to you earlier this year to verify the, um, criteria used to create the calendar. Dr. Nolton, uh, is one of his favorite tasks, leads the committee to take a look at that. Um, and presenting to you, uh, an update on the work of that committee. Go ahead, Dr. Nolton. >> And a reminder, please, just, and I
215know Patrick will say it, this is a draft calendar. This is not next year, not even the year after. It's >> right. So, we're looking at the calendar for 2728. Uh, we followed the process you've prescribed. We involved um all associations with membership invitations. We involved district school level administrators, parents, and guardians. And um just as a quick reminder, the three criteria were start date as late as possible in August, final exams to high school before winter break, and a balance between first semester and second semester uh with a difference of no greater than eight. We've adhered to that with this um with this version that the committee agreed on. So this was the committee that came together looked at possibilities and options. This is one that was landed on. Um I the only thing
216that we may take a look at changing in the future which doesn't really impact um at this moment would be the placement of institute days. We've talked about that a little bit. Jane and I have talked about that. We'll talk about that with our professional learning team. Um but that doesn't change obviously the number of days of attendance and things like that. It just might be shifting when we do an institute day in a way that may make more sense. So um the next steps on this assuming you're good with going ahead would be uh um we're going to share this with the home and school association in an upcoming meeting and then we'll also share this with staff and allow them like we did last year um input through a survey online and then
217we'll come we'll be back here. Maybe there'll be snow on the ground. uh December 15th if everything uh you know take into consideration everybody's uh um suggestions, recommendations, we'll be back on the 15th of December for the finalization. We do this way ahead because people like to plan uh fabulous vacations. There's packages available now for that time of so I'm not joking. There's people that are trying to figure out where they want to go. So it's kind of a courtesy. All right, questions from the board. >> Holly, >> um I sort of asked this one ahead, but I'm kind of reframing it in my mind. Um looking at we winter break is starting. We have like almost a full week before the Christmas holidays for those who celebrate, not everyone. Um how many days are
218high school students in finals? Is there a way to start later because August 12th is so early and take finals into that week but not up to that Friday or do we need that whole week for high school students for finals? >> Um we are we typically unless uh we want to go in a different direction. The positioning of winter break and spring break um is we follow guidance from the DuPage County Regional Office of Education. and they issue a memo every year, usually two years ahead, and they talk about exactly when it is they want DW Page County School Districts to to do break. Um, we've in years past um tried to shift that around a little bit, but we run into conflicts sometimes with athletic activities. >> Um, and so I think the
219intention of DuPage County is that everybody generally that, you know, lives, works, enjoys this part of Illinois is close to on the same calendar. So, we've got people that live and work in different districts. Um, they have the same time frame. So, it's um it's kind of where we are. >> Yeah. I think my feedback on that is I value our summer and our students because we also have almost a full week then before Memorial Day that we get out. It's not one of those years where we have to do that one day after Memorial Day that was the most painful year. Um, I would love to see a shift that way. Um, and then my second question is, um, I'm really excited about potentially different institute days because I know putting in PTO, nobody
220I work with thinks we go to school at all in March. Um, are are we working to shift away from that? What are the possibilities there? >> Um, I don't know that we've had a lot of >> Yeah, March is the one that's a little bit tougher. March uh is third. Is that the county institute day? >> Yeah, it's a countywide institute day. We have looked at changing the uh spring conference dates which are the 9th and the 10th but moving it into February makes it kind of too early. Moving it in April makes it kind of too late. >> Yeah, we tried to make that equidistant for both parent teacher conferences from the beginning of each se semester. So we also have an e-learning day on the 21st. That's what that little lowercase March
22121E is. So >> okay, thank you. That was really helpful. Other questions? Okay, this comes back for action at the next meeting. >> All right, thank you. >> December 15th. Yep. Thank you, Patrick. >> Thank you, Patrick. >> All right, item 10, discussion with action. Item 10.01, summer school 2026 program. >> Okay, so for clarity here, here here's what we, >> you know, I was going to see, could we move up 10.02, the fees ahead of 10.01? 1. Um, kind of I'm thinking in line of what we were just discussing with finances and things. I'd like to um discuss kind of what we're spending before we say what we're going to do program wise. >> I can make a motion to do that. >> You'll have to make a motion to >> I'd like to
222make a motion to begin with 10.02. Second it. >> Motion is second been heard. Please call the role. Miss P. Kush >> I >> McMillan >> I >> Kelly Black >> I >> Blastic >> I >> Kazinsky >> I >> Gerky >> I >> Winsky >> I the motion passes um okay so item 10.02 too. >> So, I'll say the same thing I was I was going to say. We we um after after last board meeting and and um with the five-year financial forecast coming and kind of looking at where we were headed here, uh we decided to kind of split this into um two different actions, so to speak. Um I guess you and so programmatically there seemed to be general consensus support for what we were doing for summer school. Didn't feel like
223there was a lot of resistance to the program itself. Um the conversation where um you know there was some feedback from the board was around the fees. Um and so we held the re we rec definitely heard what the board said about the fees. Uh but wanted to give the board that opportunity now to rethink that position based off of the five-year financial forecast. um and having looked at some other you know things related to our program of of uh recommending that you approve the the fees as presented um and able to uh continue with the full summer school program. So um that's our recommendation and and you know honestly if the board says no this is an investment we want to make that's we're that's fine. Uh again just kind of having some sense
224of where we're going financially we thought it was important to look at our our cost knowing that it's an investment. uh we don't break even. Uh um we spend money on that. Uh looking for an opportunity to increase revenue. Again, a program very important to uh the board, to our community. Not something that we're required to have in place. Kind of a nice to have. So nice to have um because it's not required. So Jane, I don't know if there's anything you want to kind of add to that. The only thing that I would like to point out is just a reminder that we also are increasing the days of instruction this year by two. So that will automatically increase costs um for the programming. >> Uh Melissa and then Holly. >> Um I think
225we had quite an extensive conversation about this. Um, and we went around and had different ideas. Um, I think I I tend to with the fees I go back to I think Holly said it last time, but we kind of changed opinions, so if I'm not quoting you, right, is that we have other we are in the business of educating. So, I think if we're looking at doing cuts, we do live in a community that provides a lot of these nonacademic or programs for kids that are are not in special education or not behind or at risk. So I would tend to ask that we reook at this maybe even the classes and and I think I didn't I was hoping to get information regarding the effectiveness of the classes because that's another thing when
226I vote I want to know that you know if we're going to spend the money on the summer school that our students are growing and I think that's something we need to have a conversation about that we have you know a a direct goal whether it's even belonging, whether it's an academic goal, and that we take some type of pre-measurement and post-measurement. That way, it helps us decide if the programs and the courses we're offering are worth it or they're not. Because one of the things I hear from a lot of parents that kids do qualify for these programs, but they don't utilize them, is that the the number of classes that are offered are somewhat small compared to the diversity of needs. So some of these kids, it's kind of like the classes are
227programmed to capture everyone within that needs these special classes. So the denominator or the the skills are lower. So a lot of our skill kids, they feel that it's not worth their time and there's that regression. So I again I just want to make sure that we are providing programs for those kids that are most at risk. that have IEPs and that that we're focusing on that. The other I do know that we do the high school. Somebody I think mentioned it last time too. The everyone recommends that it's been forever this way. Um that you take uh US history is a great summer course. You can knock it out and it frees you up for the school year. Um but um I think we need to focus I'd like to maybe table this for
228conversation. go back and look at those courses and maybe as a a group decide where are we going to focus with this? Are we going to be more essential and try to do that really well? And then because I did try to with the information given, we had the price points, I did try to go through and collect data from all the different uh colleges, programs, nonprofits, and compare to see what families opportunities they would have. It was somewhat hard to do because I didn't have like I couldn't do a science camp here versus this because we had global numbers, but it did save community members a few dollars to do say a enrich or a non-academic nonacademic maybe more enrichment through our program. But considering the cost of maybe financing this again, I know
229I would just go back and maybe look at our courses and focus more on spending and investing in those students because when we talked earlier, we talked about investing. When we invest in programs and really effective classes for our most at risk in our special education, that's where we go back to those investments that pay dividends that those students then are not as behind. If they make that or they don't regress, that means less services. It means higher achievement. It's a win-win. >> Holly, >> um, so I had similar thinking. I think I was very clear last meeting that this is a 20% increase to families and having their students participate in these programs and I know it's also important to know free and reduced lunch families are able to attend for free. Um but
230I think especially right now at a time where SNAP families are not being fed um and there's still a delay in that and there are many families who qualify or are just on the edge of qualifying um so they wouldn't get the free programs and I'm just absolutely not comfortable passing on that expense. And I was looking at kind of the participation rates and it really seemed like there is especially elementary and junior high those ages where students can't be left alone at home. they need a safe place to be. They need an enrichment. I don't want to create a barrier to those families and recognizing based on the schedule of the school day. They're going to be paying 20% more to attend school um and to attend each session. And then likely if they're
231going to one of our camps, if they're going to champions or the Y, we know we can't control that expense, but I would expect that's probably going to go up as well. And that's a sticker shock they're going to see for summer. So signing up for summer camp, summer learning, then signing up for the camp for that after school, which is the same time the fee to come go to after school in the fall would come up. And so it's a lot of additional money um parents are going to learn about in March that I'm not comfortable um passing on, but in line with our five-year forecast, I don't think we necessarily can absorb it. So that's kind of why I wanted to separate these out. And I think it's a could be a good
232exercise in that deficit planning to on a small scale think about if we're not comfortable passing on the 20% and we can absorb it all because we are in this situation how can we reassess re-evaluate and look at the core classes and providing them to this the community without the 20% what would that look like? Um, so that's why I wanted to separate them out and see where the board was on raising the 20% fees and then going forward to consider the classes accordingly. >> Thank you for saying that. I just I I will say that um this was again prepared in alignment with um a strategic blueprint commitment that we had from the board of education. So respect what you're saying and and it is something that we've already prelim begun in preliminary look
233at for next year or next summer this be that summer of 27 right um so it is something I I mean so I definitely respect what you're saying and think that might be something we have to do um in terms of scaling back programming for this coming year >> we can do anything that the board would direct us to do >> yeah it's gonna yeah If we do, I'd like you to consider the to to like the total programming. So, science camp, music camp, graduation requirements, you know, the double sites, transportation, nutrition. One thing I will let the board know also is about three years ago, we added uh nutrition to um our summer school at no cost to because if we offer it in the summer, and Mike, help me if I'm not communicating
234this right. if we all we cannot offer it just to free and reduced. Everyone has to be free. So we absorb that co cost as well. So that's something that uh was new to us. Um so that's also uh food that we cover for all students. So that's an added cost that we have not rolled into any of our tuition either. >> Amanda, >> I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly. So, I'm looking at the 2026 summer learning proposal, the very last page 22 of 22, which state is a the program estimate budget. Okay. And so there it says the total revenue that we're projecting is 1 well 1,238. Wait, one >> thank you. can't I mean it's after 10 guys. Um but the expenses are over $2 million, right? So does that
235mean that for summer camp the way that this is planned that we're expecting a $1.2 million deficit that the school would that we would absorb? >> So yes, that that's an expenditure that comes from us. Yep. That was a shift a long time ago prior to the board asking us as a part of the strategic plan take a look at summer school. Um it was kind of a rule of break even. >> Okay. And then we saw that the there's a a large number of students who are not participating in summer school um based on program offerings and accessibility from a finance standpoint that the board wanted to make an investment in providing those opportunities um for students to have uh enrichment for students to have extra support for students to have a place to
236go during the day. Um and and again um and so that's what we've done, right? And so >> yeah, no, I I I understand that. Um and I think that was really really important, especially coming out of COVID. Um especially those first two, three years of having extra things to do and to engage in. um as we're starting to, you know, presented with this 5-year forecast, I also agree that we have to start making some difficult decisions to create more of a balanced um approach. And so, I guess I was wondering if we don't uh approve the 20% increase and we maintain the programs the way that they're already proposed and we just absorb that cost, what is the cost now that we're absorbing? Does it make sense? So um so I'm assuming this this
237but this estimate includes that 20% increase. So if we maintain the funding and don't increase now what's the deficit is what I'm asking. >> So how much is a 20% increase worth in revenue? >> Thank you. >> No problem. >> We all need translators. So, what how how much is the 20% increase in tuition worth in revenue? Like, what's that number? >> I can't do that math. Anybody else help me? >> I'm sure Mike looks like he's calculating it right now. >> I don't have the exact number, but it looks to be about $150,000. >> Okay. So, um, okay. So, that basically bumps us up to 1.3 or so. Um, I I just also want to just kind of I I'm kind of um leaning this way. Oh, to Melissa and Holly and just trying
238to think about um we might need to do a re-evaluation of summer our summer school and programming as well to um see if there's any places that we can save to reduce that deficit even though it's at a smaller scale. This is probably a good practice. Um, so I I hear you because I also want to I don't want to take services away, but at the same time um I want to just make sure that we're really providing what is most needed. >> What one thing we could think about um is only offering our um credit recovery. We could offer ESY. If we offer anything, we have to have ESY and then just our remedial classes. So what that would do is um you know we would not have our um science camp, our music
239camps, those are our enrichment, right? Um and then just a lot of our added courses we've added um with the uh strategic blueprint. So that that's something we could do. >> I'd be curious just the comparison You know so and then also like curriculum wise what is that? Okay. So, this is the full offering and this is the reduced, right? You know, what you just talked about, right? >> Yeah. Curriculum wouldn't change. >> Not the curriculum. I'm sorry. The classes, the courses of the office. >> Yeah. We would probably move down to one site at Jun or at elementary. We would have still a site um at high school and we'd have one site at junior high. We would be taking away a lot of our high school courses. So, if we only did credit
240recovery, um it would be the majority of our high school courses would be gone. >> Gerald, >> yeah, a couple of uh a couple of things that I've been thinking about here. Um so, first the um some of the enrichment things, the science camps, the music camps that don't require the transportation. They're um if I remember correctly, you said those break even or maybe have a slight revenue. uh generation >> they do it all goes in one bucket right >> so um that is where we gather revenue um our summer school in general is where we lose >> so uh having those enrichment programs I think is uh still uh valuable and uh you know provides activities for uh you know at a lower uh cost than uh um a number of other places uh
241out in the Um, in terms of the summer school, the the courses and everything, um, you know, I I'm kind of wondering listening to the conversation if if there could be kind of a a tiered structure of fee increases, right? If if the core courses, the credit recovery courses, um, remain flat or at a, you know, a small, uh, nominal increase. Um, and then the um, you know, the the extra courses, the the uh kind of really fun-l lookinging courses that I'd like to go back and take. Um, you know, if they had uh a larger uh, you know, fee increase, you know, um, you just thinking about the the current budget uh, issues, right? uh so that we're not, you know, uh taking on all of that, but uh you know, potentially taking on
242uh some. Um and then uh the the other thing that uh came to mind is uh is there kind of a minimum enrollment number that you uh look at and could that minimum enrollment be increased a little bit to try to get more uh you know capacity uh you know filled in those classrooms? Absolutely. That's that can all be direction of the board. Any and everything you've brought up, we're happy to consider, just need the direction for that. >> Okay. Um Melissa, then Mark, >> I had a question as far as I'm going to go back and ask this. I know we have it with discussion for action. It sounds to me I am reluctant. We're kind of tossing around a lot of new ideas and I think Joe brought up a point like I'd
243like to know what each one costs. and what exactly the courses are. Maybe get some of that more information or maybe get a proposal from the administration about a tiered system. >> So what the action of the board would need to be tonight is to either approve, reject or table, right? And so I mean I feel like that that's kind of where we need to be at. >> Should we table it? >> Well, that's for the board. >> My fellow board members, would you like to table this? I think for two reasons. number one, we can get some more information. Um, because I think we all are torn, I think all of us are about not wanting to cut services, but being conscientious and getting that information and then maybe also looking at those courses,
244table the two, then we can go back, get some more information. Another thing I like about this is it gives us an opportunity. We're talking about making some changes we weren't before. This gives us a time to collect more information from community members too um to see how they feel and you know maybe perspectives we haven't seen. >> So go ahead. >> I I want to affirm something that you said that I think is a very important point for each of the board members here. You're having a hard time with this. You're looking at the five-year financial forecast. You're thinking about the cost raising cost off to our families. And then you're thinking about programs we offer. We can't offer what's in the recommendations on the programming at the price that we're at. There's going
245to have to be reductions on offerings. Okay? Because what I'm hearing is scale it back. Focus on just the the kind of musthaves, so to speak. Keep costs kind of where they're at, right? um or maybe the potential of slide some a little bit but um just want to remind you is that when we come back at a date to be determined yes you'll provide us input again but we can well what about this camper what about that class I mean that's you've got to give us the direction and then let us come to you with a recommendation >> can I add one very important variable is uh Dr. Nolton brought you a calendar to look at two years in advance just just for timeline. Our parents do expect a summer school calendar and offering
246out at a certain time so they can plan their summers. Doesn't for me we can have it whenever. But I just want to remind you that the community very much wants this so they can plan their summer. we already pretty much know our staffing who comes back and the buses and all of those things. So for for us the timeline isn't as um critical as it is to our family members. I just want to I just want to put that out there. >> So hang on Mark you still >> Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you Charles. Ju just a quick question. So um you know you talked about I think Jane um camps are sort of break even but overall the program loses money. Um are are we how clear are we on where the investments
247need to be made? Are those in the core classes or those in the high school classes? because I I don't want us to go through this whole uh process and then find out at the end that what direction we've given you doesn't impact the uh the investment we need to make. >> So where it where it comes out is all of the frame reduced waiverss we do for transportation, nutrition and um courses that really is um we get and ESY is we don't have ESY costs and we don't have EL. So when you have we would not have to offer ESY of course we want to right that is best practice to offer that but since we offer summer school for gened we must by law offer ESY and that's best practice we would anyway
248but that is that is where and and that's the population we we want to come to summer school right >> right so that would mean that even if we gave you the direction to take out certain you know classes, we still would probably wind up with a a million or so of investment. >> It wouldn't be as high. Um, and the one just in pure transparency, right? One of the our your largest costs is transportation. Mike and I have talked about it numerous times, we really would have to increase transportation substantially if we were going to even break even on transportation. So it's not even raising it5 or $10. We lose a lot on transportation. >> Okay. Okay. No, that's very helpful. I mean that really kind of helps I think for me to see
249>> where the opportunities and and and issues are, >> right? And we also have to think about the 20% um hourly rate, right? That's been increased this year for our staff members. So when you think about decreasing and that that's a decrease in lots of you know it's a decrease in um staffing it's a decrease in spacing it's a decrease in you know some of if we only went down to one building at elementary so every variable matters >> right thank you >> so I'll say something and colleague I'll come to you and then let's do you have something else okay so then um so the thing for me um because technically we're talking about item 10.02 right now the fee part because we we made the motion to move that around so we're talking
250fees and so from for me from a fee perspective I just get concerned about um I think Holly brought it up at the very beginning and I'm in the same place where where um there are those folks who I mean we know that regardless of what we charge for this for the folks who qualify for free and reduced lunch it's free for them anyway regardless so that's not but it's it's you know given where we are economically society all that kind of stuff. It just a 20% price increase for those who are were not expecting one most likely um is is a little tough for me. So, Superintendent Bridges mentioned a moment ago uh if we wanted to keep the fees the same and generate the revenue we were generating, we couldn't do the same
251programming because we would still have the deficit. Um, okay. If we took the fees up, obviously that would be what we projected here. But then the other alternative is to eat $150,000 extras extra for this year. Leave things program is the same and then say we're just not going to pass a fee increase all along and then try to say that we'll figure out what we need to do and give people a little bit more lead time. me that means the programs will that there will be a funding increase, not a funding increase, sorry, um tuition increase or what have you and give a little bit more runway time to evaluate the program and everything. So yeah, something like that. So that's my thought is if we're just talking about the fees, I'm not in
252favor of raising the fees. So I I mean I also believe that the team designed a program that we feel is the best program to be designed. So there's that. The question on the table for me is whether we're going to charge folks more for it and create that additional financial burden for the community. So where I land on it, just my perspective is let's just not charge the extra fees this time around. But that's one person's perspective. So I'll then go to Holly and then see I think you said you had something too. So go ahead, Holly. >> So I'm not too far away from Charles. Um, I'll say where my frustration is and I feel like some of the responses I think it was very clear last meeting that we were concerned about
253fees and it's kind of like the the thing to not mention but to me as a board member I wasn't part of this before. It feels like innovative school day. We were concerned about something. We wanted a different option. We were all very interested in that. We now have a short timeline and the exact same proposal is presented. I was hoping to see kind of a menu. Our expenses are up based on teacher staffing. Are there classes we could eliminate still keeping a robust summer school or at least core things and maybe narrow the gap? Do we have to eliminate it? But we could narrow it if we change the class size threshold. What could we do? Um I don't think at the high school level we need to limit it to that degree to
254recoup some of the expense. I mean I'm thinking about I mean gosh the way things are structured in this district for music students. they have no choice but to take summer school if they want to stay in orchestra or choir or band. So, we do need to offer some classes for them in the summer. We've built the schedule that way. But, I would like to see where can we recoup some of these expenses without passing it on to families and creating a barrier where those kids might not attend and may end up sitting at home alone on YouTube all summer. Um, that's kind of the balance I would like to strike. So, that's why I'm kind of frustrated here tonight is I was hoping we'd see a little bit of a menu of, okay, we
255break even on camps, we keep the camps. What if we, you know, if we narrow the classes, we can save $20,000 or $50,000. If we get rid of the junior high enrichment with field trips, um, talking about transportation, one of the new courses is to go on a field trip every week, multiple times a day. I know that course is more expensive, but does that break even with that plan? That was what I was hoping to see tonight. Um, and so that's why I was hoping to vote first on the fees and see this is how much we as a board if we don't want to adopt the fees, let's come back and talk about how far we're going to go. Are we going to eat the whole difference this year despite the discussion on
256the deficit? Do we want to come somewhere in the middle? But I was really hoping to see some recommendations on how we can meet in the middle um and not just the same proposal again. Either 20% to families. That's deeply concerning to most of us. it seems like or you know just eat the whole cost. I was hoping to see some flexibility. So, and I you know I know we don't have a lot of timeline so I respect that there wasn't a lot of time to come back to more um but that's what I'm was hoping to see tonight. >> Dan, you want to have a response? >> Yeah, just thank you for saying that. I I appreciate um that perspective and and if we miss it, we missed it. But what we took away
257was was the fee itself. We heard a lot of p positive comments about the programming and the importance of the programming. Um and so I apologize to the board if that was kind of where your position was. We didn't take that away. We thought it was the program and we thought it was the cost. And so obviously the the conversation is in a different place now, but that's one of our examples as we work together about I'll need to make sure and work with them to make sure that the direction is clear. So, um, hear you. So, >> go ahead. >> I I second what you're saying. And I have to say that's I have that frustration sometimes when we ask. It'd be nice if we had alternatives. A lot of times we just have
258one thing to vote on. And I thought we were clear on that. So, I I second what you said because making a decision tonight, we don't know what each one costs, what's breaking evens. I'm feeling like I'm making the decision blind. And that's also why I plan not to vote. Yes, on the summer school programs because I was also disappointed that we not only was the fees issue. I thought the board very much said we want to know that we're getting our worth out of those classes and we kind of also asked for there to be some conversation or something about how do we know that they're effective especially for those at risk kids and some of those others and making sure that the programs so again I go back to I'd like this tabled
259I'd like to give the administration an opportunity now to go back and maybe address some of these and then we can make a decision ision not blindly but more informed and maybe that's more of a compromise. >> Christine, >> just a question for clarification. If we table this um what is the timeline, the ideal timeline to get it rolled out as far as registration and publicizing it to families and such. We normally do that in January, but again, we will we can do that at what the board would like us to do. >> Okay. >> So, with that, I will entertain a motion. Would you like to make a motion? >> Oh, to put them together. Table So, so to table 10.01 and 10.02. >> I make a motion to table 10. Sorry, I have
260double vision. >> Okay. >> 10.02. So, thanks. Second. >> Motion and second have been heard. Please call the role. Miss Patton. >> Yeah. >> Kusinski. >> I. >> Kush. >> I. >> Winsky. >> I. >> McMillan. >> I. >> Blastic. >> Hi. >> Kelly Black. >> I >> Gerky. >> I. >> The motion passes. We are tableabling that and Superintendent Bridges will put it back on a future agenda. >> Yep. Yep. Awesome. Okay. >> All right. 10.03, 103 transportation facility update. >> Board of Education had previously approved the uh construction of a facility to support our transportation department. Um and our team and working in the design process uh has proposed to the board of education uh level two design that includes uh some sustainability features uh that would not have been uh present in
261the other uh original model. um received uh consensus direction from the board to continue moving forward um with the level two design that was presented. Um document is loaded in board docs. Um again the administration continues to recommend the level two design. Um and again at your direction we continue to move forward with the planning. This would just be formalizing them. questions. Mark Benjo. >> Yeah, I just want to reiterate uh the comments I made at the last meeting. I think this is a very positive thing for the district. Um I looked at the uh numbers um and uh you know, from a financial perspective, it makes a lot of sense. It's going to save us money in the future. And I think as we talked about some of the um uh issues we have
262with um with the forecast, this is something that's going to generate uh positive returns for us with lower energy costs. So I think it makes a lot of sense to make the investment now and then see it pay off over the uh over the uh six-year payback period and then for the 18 years after that uh we'll we'll have $4.3 million. So I think it's a it's a good deal for the district. Joe. >> Yeah. Um, I agree with what Mark said. I'd like to also thank Chuck and Melanie and their team for uh putting uh this proposal together and really uh kind of advancing the uh some carbon action plan initiatives. Um as Mark pointed out, uh this has a good return on investment. Um the financials look good and it really uh provides
263some exciting educational opportunities for the students. Um so this is a win-win win win win everywhere in in my book. I'm very excited about this plan. >> Fantastic. Other comments from the board. >> Melissa, >> I had a couple of comments um about Okay. First of all, When we estimated the projected energy savings on the level two, it says plus 2 million. Am I correct to recall that? I thought we said it was closer to 3 million. What what was that figure? It says two plus. So is it two or is it higher than two? >> Um that's in comparison to the level one design. So the additional upfront cost for the geothermal and the solar is estimated to be approximately $2 million. >> So >> those costs wouldn't be in the level one design.
264>> Okay. So so it is just two. It's an additional is what the plus meant. >> Correct. >> Okay. And then one of the things is do we have um in the projected energy savings is that just I guess in the savings are we talking just energy when we're comparing the two um we have the life of the different components of both systems have we factored factored that in um as far as what maintenance would be required um have we've done the whole comparison of all the costs say that are associated with it. >> Um, not to not to a great level of detail. Um, but that energy savings that's in the memo is specifically the kind of month overmonth costs for electricity, for gas, those types of things. The actual maintenance um, and for
265example replacement and such, those are approximately a net zero between the two. Okay. Because I there's there's cells there other things that have a like a 10year life, right? Of the parts. >> Sure. >> And how that compares with the H VAC or is the on the level one. So >> correct. >> We're not going to have an increase in operating cost. >> We don't anticipate that. Would there be replacements for an array at some point? Yes. Would there also be a replacement for a furnace? Yes. >> Yeah. No, just comparing those. It gives the timeline of like how long your fair, you know, the the life of like a furnace versus the cells and how much it costs to replace a furnace versus the components. Obviously, this is more expensive up front. So, are
266the parts more expensive when they have to be replaced? Um, the other thing I wondered about, I was doing a little research about who will maintain it because one of who maintains our systems now. >> Um, our buildings and grounds department does with local contractors. >> Okay. Because the other thing would be the the new knowledge necessary to run since none of our other facilities have this. But I guess I just wanted the numbers, the more specific data of those comparison of what's the lawn, you know, what are the expo the expenses of having these um and replacing parts, but I guess we don't have that or you think it's the same or have we done the data? >> Yeah, I I I do not have that information with me this evening. That's the first
267time I received that question, but I can get that for the board if the board wishes. I would like to know all that data so I can make an informed decision so I know exactly what it's saving us because we can say you know I just want to know the exact amount I again it goes back to I think one of the things is getting that data up front of knowing all the costs associated but I don't know if my other fellow board members I I personally at this point considering the conversations we're having um I'd like to know what I'm investing and what's the return? >> Other questions or comments? Chuck, my understanding is from what you had when you guys had presented last time was that um the electricity savings or the the
268energy savings you presented were net of everything. That was my understanding. If I have that wrong, then please let me know. So, while we you may not have the numbers in front of you, is that an accurate statement or you're not sure? Um, the memo, the savings on energy is specifically the the the monthly savings on energy, not necessarily maintenance or replacement. Replacement parts, for example, would be mostly strongly correlated to our ability to maintain, right? So, those do go hand in hand. So that's uh I don't have that information up front um for you this evening, but I certainly can get that additional information if the board desires. >> Can we table it just if we table it others? This should be easy once we get the information and take the vote. >> Joe,
269you had your hand up. >> Yeah. Uh just one other uh consideration. So I'm I'm uh perfectly comfortable moving uh forward with this. Um uh but uh one other thing that uh we we haven't uh considered is um the potential for net metering and um you know that's something that's still being worked out by the city. So, um, yeah, I I think, uh, the 4.3 is, you know, kind of the the on the low end of, uh, potential, uh, savings. The net metering could provide, uh, you know, some additional, uh, savings over over time. Um, and you know, solar panels, geothermal systems tend to have uh a fairly long uh, life. uh you know some maintenance and things but um you know I'm I'm comfortable uh moving forward uh with the the current plan um
270especially with the projected savings that it that it would bring uh as a potential buffer >> oh sorry Holly >> sorry and I just that you reminded me of another benefit of this and it um it's going from 90% I reliance on the grid. We'll go down to 30% reliance on the grid. And what that also does, I know this is a small portion of our building space and energy use, but for this building, it's going to insulate us from the increase in rates and energy costs that seem foreseeable, especially with data centers and things being built in the area and what trends have been other places. That insulates that whole percentage of our energy use from being rely on those rates that we can control. And I like that when we're thinking about the
271budget, having something that's in our control to produce that energy and not have to budget in the future for big increases in energy expenses. >> Christine, >> so um I'd like to make a motion to approve item 10.03. Do we need do you need me to say like with the level two design? Is that okay? Okay. I just want to make sure the motion's clear. >> Wait, before we do that, can I just do it that way? >> Let me finish the motion. Um, so I make a motion to approve item 10.03, the transportation facility update with the level two design. >> Second. >> Okay. So, a motion and second have been heard. Further discussion. >> I just want to clarify. I'm going to abstain. Not not that I'm not saying this isn't a worthwhile
272project. It's just more that I I want when I make these decisions to have all the information up front, all the data. >> So, just to do that clarification. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Other discussion? Okay. Motion in a second have been heard. Please call the RO. Mr. P. >> Kush. >> I. >> Kelly Black. >> Abstain. >> Plastic. >> I. >> Winsky. >> I. >> Kazminsky. >> Hi. McMillan >> I. >> Gerky >> I. >> The motion passes. Um, item 11, old business. We have no old business. Item 12, new business. We have no new business. Item 13, upcoming events. Item 13.01, schedule of events. >> Uh, Thanksgiving holidays, November 26th through 28th. It's coming up. >> All right. Okay. Item 14, adjournment. Item 1401. I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. I move
273to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Item has been moved and seconded. Please call the poll. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. >> Blastic. >> I. >> Kazminsky. >> I. >> Gerie. >> I. >> Kelly Black. >> I. >> Kush. >> I. >> McMillan. >> I. >> Winsky. >> I. >> The motion passes. We are adjourned. Thank you everyone. Get home safely.