001Okay. Obviously, I'm not Chris. Um, he's not being here today. Microphone. I'll try that again. Obviously, I'm not Chris. He couldn't make it today. Uh, we do have a quorum, so we'll be running the meeting. Roll call, please. Uh Kristen Bailey, Nick Atwood here, Steve Buyers here, Jose Jquz here, Christopher Boyce, Mark Sherat here, Pante Binham, and Maria Bella Rodriguez. Stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. I do have a public comment. So public comment members darn it. Members of the public who wish to speak to the board should complete a request card prior to the start of the meeting. This section of the meeting
002uh it will be reserved for comments from the public. All comments should be limited to three minutes. Criticism of individuals not in order. Uh yeah. So Miss Katie Huber. All right. Good evening. Uh we would first like to thank those of you who heard our concerns and responded to our email. Um, I'm Katie Huber. I am an early learning um, teacher at the ELDC and this is a lot of the staff behind me. Uh, we stand here tonight to advocate for our students, family, and staff. We want to make sure that as discussions continue about the future of the ELC that we have a voice at the table. We would like to w we would like to welcome the opportunity to educate you on our history of our program as well as the importance of
003early childhood education and the impact on our youngest and most vulnerable learners. We look forward to working with you to create a center that will best meet our students and families and communities needs. Thank you. Thank you very much for your uh for your comment. All right. Board correspondence. Do we have any board correspondents from the members? Mark, I'll be real brief. Um, I'm not sure if staff can answer this or not, but I know we have a lot of committees with the district. And I don't know if it's listed on the website or not, the names of all the committees the school district has and who the members of those committees are. So, I'm not sure if that is available or not, or if somebody could answer that, that would be great. Just uh
004I know the meetings are going to be kicking in when the school year begins. So I'm just curious as to the membership of the committees, everything from finance committee to all the committees that we have. So do we have an answer to that or not? Jackie, I think we that would be in the realm of the soup, right? Fair or not? Der, let's go. I just can't find it. I'm going to take a stab at it. Okay. So many of those committees annually um new members are identified. So we won't know who the members are until we return for the school year. So once that happens, that information can be readily available. It's not listed on our website, but we do have a I'll call it a chart, a chart that includes all of our
005committees, variety of committees, who leads the committees, the purpose of the committees, and then who members are. But that's definitely something that um we can talk with our superintendent about adding to the website or making readily available in some form or fashion just for transparency purposes. So we have meeting dates so if people can find out. Thank you. Okay. Yep. We'll share that and we'll follow up. That's all I had. Thank you. On to the consent agenda. Any comment? Do we want to pull anything or I do want to pull one thing and that is the um approval of the board minutes. Since I was not present at the last meeting, it would probably be inappropriate for me to vote yes or no on that. But everything else can stay as is. And and I
006then I have a few questions on the other items on the consent agenda, but I don't need to pull anything else. So just the meeting minutes. So we read the recommendation first, right, Jackie? So you'll read it, but take out the minutes and then you'll have to read the minutes one separate. So recommended that the board of education approve the consent agenda items by C. You'll say C in the video by B through M without including C. Um, personnel action items, purchase order requisitions, financial reports, accounts payable for July, payroll for June, elementary restorative dean, employment contract, Marold pediatric speech and language therapy service agreement, stepping stone service agreement, school psychologist, stepping stone group service agreement, speech and language pathologist as attached. I get a motion. I so moved. I think the um the one
007that was supposed to be left off was B. So it should have started at C 5 C through M. Oh, okay. So I stand correct. So it was recommended that the board of education approve the consent agenda 5 C through M. Comment read that whole thing again. Um yeah, before you want to do roll call, go ahead. Yeah, I I I have a few questions regarding the virtual services that we're looking at for Stepping Stone. Um I'm curious to find out regarding the virtual services, um which schools will these four individuals be attached to? And then I'm also curious as to since they're going to a lot of them are going to be working with students, which is we have people that are already in place in person. How would that work with students having
008these individuals work virtually? Good question. So, um, the assignments for our particular speech paths are still to be determined as we still continue to get our service agreements approved and we kind of can kind of look at our whole playing field in terms of staffing. Uh, we're still working on becoming fully staffed for speech path. So, uh, unfortunately they know better than anybody that um, sometimes things fluctuate for assignments. In the past, what we've tried to do is we've tried to identify or kind of look at how many in-person speech paths do we have? Where do we feel like that is kind of our our need the most? So, we might look at certain programs that might we feel might um be best suited for somebody who's in person uh for whatever reason. Um but
009we also kind of look at like developmental age. So, um, older kids theoretically, right, should be able to get from point A to B and follow some directions a little bit easier, whereas some of our younger kids need a lot of assistance, um, in that process. And so, somebody in person who can help facilitate and guide that is needed. So, long way of answering to be determined on our specific buildings, that will be something that once we um kind of finalize our assignments, we'll be uh solidified. We can bring that back. Um, remind me, Mark M, sorry, your second question. I was just asking which schools We have two individuals, two different positions. So, and I looked at the assignments of the other ones that we already have online. So, I was just curious if
010we knew what schools they were going to be assigned to, but you did indicate to be. Yeah. Sorry. So, we we know some pretty solidly, but others we're still trying to work out and, you know, pending the board's approval of these contracts, we're we're a step closer to being able to feel better about those assignments. Um, okay. It's just a new area having virtual. So, yeah. And I I realized trying to get people I read the backup regarding trying to get individuals but and I understand the logic. So I was just curious the execution of this. So yeah, let me add to that then. Um we do also have other support staff. So it could be a pair professional or really any um you know staff member that can help facilitate. So for example, we
011have a speech path who's going to be virtual. We'll have a station set up or an office where that uh where the student comes. There's the virtual setup where they can interact with that speech path. But we have to help facilitate that student getting to that spot providing proper supervision as needed. So what we when we look at our pair professionals, they serve a lot of different needs within a school that is one of those roles that our pair professionals help support. Um at times we've had administrators do it. So it's a little bit of an all hands- on deck. Um unfortunately fortunately for us um this isn't our first year having virtual uh speech paths. Um so year after year we've gotten better at kind of executing the logistics of that. We always want
012to have an inerson uh anybody in person is our goal though. As far as billing goes, I think the m it was like 40 hours. Is there a chance they could be be billing less per week? Yep. And during summer break, we would probably not need their services. Exactly. So, um all of our contracts with the exception of one that's on the consent agenda is for up to 37 and a half hours per week. Um we have had situations before where we haven't build that much in a week due to time off. like if it's a business office or the business is closed for the district, the speech path doesn't work. Um they are really assigned to work 180 days. Um so during the summer, our speech paths aren't under contract with us. The service
013um the ones that we're bringing to the board. Okay. So the district have a chance also to maybe save some money here at the same time. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Thank you. No problem. Kyle, this isn't the first um virtual professional that you guys have used. You've used psych psychologists before, right? And speech paths. Yep. And speech paths. Correct. Yep. So, actually a few of the people that we're going to contract with again hopefully are people that are familiar to us, meaning that they were under contract with us last year. All right. Any other questions or comments? No. Jackie, roll call. Who motioned and who second? Oh, wait. We didn't do that. Yes. Motion to second. Motion second. Nick Atwood, yes. Steve Buyers, yes. Jose, yes. Mark Sherbot, yes. Okay. On to the item B.
014Yeah, D. Um, it is recommended that the board of education approve the cons consent agenda item 5B. B. the board minutes for 7125. So moved. Second. Roll call. Nick Atwood. Yes. Buyers, yes. Quiz. Yes. Mark, abstain. Uh, old business. Okay, before we get to old business, I have to read an email. Um, I lost it, Jackie. I knew that was going to happen. [Music] Oh, got it. You got it. No, I don't. That's what happened. I read Jackie sent me an email concerning this. I read it and now it goes to red and I can't find it. There it is. I got it. I got it. Okay. Um, in the in the board f uh in the January July, excuse me, July 1st board meeting, it was mentioned um that the here that the new
015Mitchell school was adding four kinder classrooms. However, we are only using three kind uh classrooms for kinders. So, the updated resolution is attached. Um so, in in your decision, please consider that we are using three, not four kinder classrooms and it has been corrected, but since we we put it out last two weeks ago that it was four, we need to correct it before we vote. Any questions on that? Quick general question about the resolution here. Um I wasn't at the last meeting. So it was reported and also indicated that by going ahead with this purchase it would not have a net effect either plus or minus in terms of dollars paid. I'm curious what is the advantage other than occupying the building when the school year begins to purchasing it now rather than waiting
016until because our payments that we're making are being applied toward the school. Right now, we pay 225 on 225,000 and what's that? 20 payments and a total of 24 before we would have to commit to purchasing. So, what's the advantage of paying it now rather than paying in cheaper dollars later? Uh so, the the way that the lease purchase agreement was written was so that uh it incentivizes the school district to pay either within that 24 months or early. uh so that's why they allow that credit of the lease payments uh into the purchase price. So we settled with the purchase price but we can always uh credit those lease payments. Uh so the biggest advantage is that our uh students will walk into and start learning into a district-owned property rather than a leased
017uh uh property lease school. And I think that's just more symbolic in a sense, but it's not uh and financially speaking is uh there is no um advantage or disadvantage to it. Do we know the final price because it says it's uh approximately 1.86 million. Will that do we expect that to change at all? Uh no, that was something that was settled that we agreed with NIOU back in September of 2023. However, uh the reason why I didn't actually place how much that final cost will be because we're not including like closing costs, any attorney fees, any other items that we're we would be negotiating after pending resolution. And that money is already in the budget, but it's already set to go. Correct. That is. Yes. Very good. Okay. Thank you. Just want to make
018sure. Okay. Okay. I'm good. Any other questions? Okay. Okay. It is recommended that the board of education approve the resolution exercising the option to purchase 1240 Normal Road, Deal, Illinois as attached. So moved. Second. Roll call. Steve Buyers. Yes. Jose, yes. Mark, yes. Nick Atwood, yes. Item 5A, press plus 119 release. This is information, right? Yes. So, as usual, um start of a new fiscal year, start of a new school year, lot of updates coming our way. So, there is a release of press plus policies um 119. They are attached for your review. Um, so we ask that you take a look at them. Um, if you have any questions, we can entertain those between now and the next board meeting or at the next board meeting. Any questions you have for me now? So,
019these are the recommendations from the IASB, correct? There's no mandate that we accept them, but it's just we would be going against what their recommendation is pretty much. I mean some um some policies districts have us or other districts have their own policies in place but these are ones that typically uh we adopt and we follow accordingly. If there's anything different we would we would highlight that and bring that forward to you. All right to bring this back. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next item is the FY26 budget information. Uh just want to clarify we are not he's giving us the information on what the plan of the budget is. Um this isn't for approval. There'll be more discussions in the next few weeks concerning this but he's going to give us the down
020and dirty. All right. Thank you. Yep. So it is it is budget season uh and it will be for up until September 16th. So right now all we're doing is just giving a little bit of a um budget information update uh before we get the approval of scientific budget for public inspection. So per school code we need about 30day of a public inspection uh after the notice in the local newspaper. So if we approve it on the August 5th, the tenative budget, we will uh this would allow us to open that uh public inspection of uh public coming in asking questions uh to us inspecting the budget. Uh and eventually on the uh September 16 board meeting, there will be a public hearing uh and we will eventually adopt the final 26 budget. At that
021point the budget will be posted on the website sent to the state to a county to the roe and it is going to be considered formalized. Now uh so the budget numbers that we're giving actually might change between August 5th and even September 16 because at that time we will have a little bit more understanding of any new grants coming in. We will have more understanding of our enrollment. we will have more understanding of how many students are actually signing up for our transportation or signing up for some classes. So uh it is uh so eventually these numbers will not change much but uh I will let you know whatever adjustments will be in the next few meetings as well. So um so again we're still working on some final numbers. uh we're working with
022what what tools we have or what information we have as of right now. Understand what budgets are. Budgets are a planning. It is more of a uh a road map that uh doesn't allow over costs, overruns or spending. So it gives some type of timeline, some type of guideline for our departments, our schools that what really is allowed in our budget, how much money we can spend. Uh budget can change, new authorization of money can be approved by the board. So uh understand there might be emergency coming in but uh this is this is what our budget in general would be. So let's start first with the revenues. So where the revenue comes from. So, it wasn't just a few years ago that our uh local pro uh the local property taxes or the local
023fees uh were making up more than uh we're making up less than 50%. Right? So, however, this year due to uh federal funds, which last year was about 10%, now it's down to six, uh we're seeing a lot of changes, right? So we're kind of back to the idea that the local funding local funding is coming in at a major bigger share than what it should be or what we we would like to be. So where do these local funds come mostly from? So if you look on this side about 49% it is property taxes and the the other local revenues are about 3% uh and CPPRT uh is about 1% of our total revenue streams that come to us. So kind of a kind of a smaller amount. Uh the big heavy lifter of
024course is our property taxes. Uh under the state sources we have a few uh we have some grants. We have um uh some transportation reimbursement that comes in and we have the major uh the EVF or the evidence based funding formula uh that used to be called GSA uh anyone remembers from back in the day. uh but that is the state money that comes in and of course with with federal sources the only thing difference here that we will not have the yeser but we will have other uh such as national school lunch title grants Medicaid and so forth. So let's talk a little bit about the revenues. So really from the revenue side, we saw our local property taxes or our assessment values of the homes go higher and a new buildings from meta
025coming in. So that kind of jumped a little bit the tax the collection for us. So we're budgeting for about 15% uh uh more from previous year. uh understand that the levy that was approved in December of 24 all that money that is being collected is not used in FY25. It's used for the budget year 26. So anything that we were collecting in May and June from that levy is actually being recognized in the budget year 26. So that's kind of important how uh the school code kind of works. The money that you recognize and the money you realized should be in the appropriate years. So the levy that was charged is actually belongs to the budget year following not uh on the same year. Corporate personal property taxes. So, uh this is a um
026something that back in 1979 there was a we used to levy this uh for our uh our locals but now what the state kind of collects it and distributes it back to us. So it's still considered a local fund but um it has been considerable for many years especially during uh COVID. So the more corporate earnings come in that that uh that uh property taxes or that they call it the personal replacement tax uh they are collected from the state. What the state told us is this year it has has not been a great earnings for our corporations. So we have prrated that down to about 30%. Another impact on our local funds is our investment rates. Uh we were getting used to it. we were seeing some very nice uh interest rates, 5%, 4.5,
0274.8. Uh well, now we we uh barely can see uh a 4% unless it's within three or four months. So, anything long-term is down to the three uh 3.2 3.5%. So, uh that kind of impacts how much revenue stream we are expecting as well. So, that is part of the local funds. Amir. Yes. I'm not sure if I heard it right or I'm having a difficult time. Yep. Um the CPPRT. Yep. So we're going to we're losing 70% of what we compared to what we had last year or we losing 30% compared to what we had 30%. Yeah. Okay. We're Yeah. So it's prorated at 30%. And before you move on to the next segment then I want to follow up. It says local local property taxes are up by 15%. Do we have usually
028around summertime we get the multipliers from each of the townships within the district and I know the district is composed of many townships and if you live in Decal Township we got hit with a wallop of an increase. Do we have any early estimates on that yet? Uh I do not have that. Uh I normally have to call the the county office to receive that. uh but uh I norm uh we I have not heard any news that there is available. Are there any trends on that because it's been like hovering around it it's been going up the past few years and they usually say it's a threeyear cycle when it goes up high like that. So I'm just curious that's a big concern to taxpayers. So correct. So yeah, so moving uh into the
029next from September to December, I mean it's really tax levby season where all the taxing bodies have to we'll call uh the county the assessment office uh coming up with qu coming up with questions coming up with any type of information to kind of help us uh to figure out what the revenue streams are. So at this time I don't have Okay, thank you. All right, cool. uh when it comes to state funds, most of it is uh is that the the state money that's coming in, it's called a uh evidence-based funding formula. This is a model that uh has a 100% funded uh school district and uh based on 38 criteras and in there maybe I can just jump into it but basically uh in it it gives uh it matches the every school
030district with a formula uh which is researchbased and it checks in where we are uh from that 100% model that adequately funded model that the state has created. So if you look back here back in 2016 2017, we had about 22 million dollar that was coming out of from the state. Well, that changed once this formula hit uh it gave priority to a lot of school districts that were doing a lot more with a lot less. So based on that 100% adequacy level uh we were matched and back in 2018 when the formula came in we were looking at about 58% where we adequately funded and that gives uh kind of triggers the uh the state to provide some additional funding that we would normally not get. Uh and this is called the tier allocation.
031Tier allocation is something that uh think of it as kind of pots of money where uh there is four pots and tier one is a pot that has 90% of extra money coming in to bring up the level of adequacy levels. So if you see here, there's a tier assignment there that says one. Well, we worked tier assignment one for many years. And if you look down at the second line, any allocation that was uh was sprucing up that adequacy level for the school, you can see it uh that was uh ranging from 3.1 million uh to one uh and then eventually slowing down as our adequacy levels kept growing. So between 2018 to 22 we move we moved up from 58% to 67. So once you enter a different tier assignment then it's a
032different level of funding and that's usually comes at a lesser amount. Moving to 23 24 our tier assignment changed to two and that's when we move to a new level of how we are getting funded and how much money we're receiving. And that's where I put the little um arrows that shows uh any decrease in monies that we were receiving. So we jumped from 1.4 million moved from this pot of money to a completely different level of funding of tier 2. Uh at that point we started our property tax relief grants were not uh matching with the formula and our money was uh getting lower and lower. So you can see between 23 and 24 we were getting that 578 then it jumped to 294. We don't know what it's going to be for this
033year until early August. Uh so at this point I am not budgeting for it because it could be uh either very you know insignificant or uh just maybe less than last year. So for property tax relief grant, we have been lucky to receive this money for about four times and back in 20 um when was the first time we received it was back in 21 and that's when they started changing that formula and it really prioritized school districts like ours. So we we've taken advantage of it. The state has put a break on it right now. They're trying to receive that formula is still working or if they need to change it. So crossing our fingers that maybe the new formula will be favorable to us in the following years. Her me real quick in
0342122 did we not apply for that? So 2122 left hand for the property tax relief grant am just not seeing it on there. So um 2122 we made uh yeah so on 2021 they didn't have a 20. Yeah, 2122. Even though we may have applied, we we probably were not eligible at that time. And I believe that's because of COVID where the there was either a flat funding or it wasn't extended for a property tax relief. Uh there was a few years that we were not able to uh capitalize on it. So but uh we have been lucky that for the past three years we had received it and you can see the jump. You can see from 2016 we had about 22 million bringing from the state and to this year we have 57
035million. So that's almost 100% growth or more coming from the state to just jump us and and that has helped us really reach that adequacy level. We're not there yet. Right. Last year we were at 86. We don't know what this uh the 38 elements that they use um it's going to be, but uh we we believe we're still going to be in tier assignment two and probably a little bit higher than 86%. So the formula worked. It brought us to a financial adequacy, but we're still nowhere near that 100%. So 100% would be a uh think of it maybe a St. Charles or a uh a Northshore kind of school districts that are a little bit more affordent. So So with with regard to the evidence-based funding and this may be beyond the scope
036of just our budget, but yeah. Do you know what the source of that money is from the state? Like are they in a situation like us where the whims of the federal government may impact money they receive that they then distribute through that funding or is that all going to be state based? Yeah, it is all state. This is from Springfield. Uh, and there has been a priority back in 2016 when we were uh looking at we would wake up sometimes and the the the Springfield um would would just say we're prorating down the money we give to the students or to the schools. Well, that is no longer help uh uh that is no longer happening because education is taking a much more central role in Springfield. So we saw it even even though
037this year for example the budget was kind of getting shaky there in Springfield. They said that K12 funding is a priority. So we've been lucky so far but there has been instances where we would wake up they tell us we'll get 22 million and then uh Congress thought no sorry not Congress but the as some general assembly would just say all right 10% down for all public uh schools because we need a different priority. So uh but that is not happening anymore in in the past uh eight eight years. So all right cool. So let's go back to state funds. So we kind of talked also about transportation. It's not becoming a priority for the state. They they prorated that down. They said that we're for reimbursement for transportation. uh regular transportation is going to
038be prrated 271% of previous year funding reimbursements and the special ed to 61%. So let's uh that that kind of hurts a school district like ours that are kind of semi-ural and a lot of our students do uh uh do need that transportation. So uh that is something that has it is in our budget uh kind of showing the good news is we have Mitchell so that might be softening uh a little bit that uh that impact however we're still looking in more into that. Okay. Federal funds. So federal funds right now we we know that title two we haven't heard much of title three and we also heard that title four may be impacted. Uh these are uh grants that have been legacy grants for quite a quite a long time serving uh bilingual
039and professional development. Uh we're seeing that not being uh renewed for funding. So uh there is a few other grants that I am not calculating as a revenue stream because we just it is too uh unpredictable. We our budgets are very conservative. they are uh very uh looking and working with very tight numbers. So it's very difficult sometimes to uh when unpredictability hits how to budget for these funds. All right. Um another one that a lot of people don't realize is the Medicaid funds. So we serve Medicaid eligible students and we get reimbursements for that. So every service we provide uh spe particularly the special ed such as psychology services speech bath and so forth those are Medicaid eligible uh services uh that we get reimbursed for it that's about 9006,000 we received last year
040and that will and and we have prated it down because we are hearing that uh Medicaid funds uh from the federal level may be cut uh national school lunch program this is where we get all our free meals. That is a federal program. It's one of our biggest uh for the school outside of transportation. Uh we have heard that the way that um the application for these program uh will change for those school districts that are 40% low income or lower. However, seeing a little bit of unpredict predictability on federal levels, I'm still monitoring that because that is a $3.6 $6 million uh contract the to serve these school meals for all of our students. So, we're also monitoring grants such as IDA because that is one of our biggest grant including title one. Uh
041and we haven't heard any renewal on grants such as Stronger Connections. Any any questions on the federal fund funding? we have an idea just a ballpark of how much we're going to lose in federal funds based on all those areas. Yeah. So, uh I like I mentioned here between the two years we had about 10% of our uh uh revenue were composed coming in from our federal funding and right now it's paired down to 6%. Now, if ever I know the dates seem to change when whoever you talk to as far as news reports, but these cuts, a lot of them are they're talking about these cuts going into effect after the 2026 election. Is this also the case for what we're talking about here that we anticipate these cuts then will affect 27 calendar
042year I should say second half 26 27. So those that have not been budgeted is actually direct impact that is happening right now. Uh but the the ones that we're monitoring particularly the national school lunch medicate sometimes uh it is from 26. So but again we're very conservative and and uh we might uh we might hear different news. So that's why we want to maybe uh think of our revenues of uh a little bit less and then add it later. So that's why I said we're going to come in August 5th. We might hear different news and these numbers might change and by September 16 we'll have a completely different picture at that time as well. Very good. Thank you. All right. So moving into expenditures. Um a lot of times we we we know
043we know sometimes the expenditures we have a little bit more control. It's the revenue streams that we really don't have a lot of control with. Uh and it wasn't as unpredictable back in the few years, but now u expenditures are a little bit more controlled this year. Our biggest of course is always our salaries and benefits. That's taking about 67% of our um funds. Uh and this year we have three new contracts. So uh between the two years uh we have been considerably about 50% higher in expenditures due to just salaries and benefits. So we brought new three new contracts. Uh so that has gone up which means that we have to really look into our purchase, service, supplies, materials and equipment because that's where um uh that's that's something that doesn't affect salaries basically.
044So, and we can have a little bit more control. Our purchase services, the two biggest um contracts we have is transportation and the food service. So, uh that's why you will see kind of a higher number there on the purchase. These categories are from the uh from the ISBY from and u that's why they're kind of labeled this way. So, a lot of people might have questions. Well, what is under other? So, under other is tuition for outplacement. uh it could be uh some debt payments coming out of it. So under other does include many other ESV categories that uh are just lumped into that uh and and I hear sometimes board members want to get a little bit more detail. We just have kind of looked at the categories as uh ESB shares with
045us a little bit to know about how our funds work when it comes to expenditures. We are an acrual basis which means that the sometimes the cash basis or cash that you see uh is not aligned with how the accounting or the approvals work. So our bills that are coming in for the uh for activities that happen in 25 we have to uh pay it under that month and that means that can be extended up to we have to up to 90 days to pay for these uh expenditures. So you might see expenditures for 25 for 2425 still happening up until August 15 and we try to limit that uh for the August 15. So so and that's that's that's part of the approval process. Um [Music] and we talked a little bit about um
046uh fund balances. uh with fund balances, we're really looking at about 50%. But look at what other districts are at. We are looking at uh we we're kind of very uh similar to school districts that have similar size as ours. Real quick, what what is the preferred um fund balance? What is recommended as far as the number goes? It seems like we have a very high fund balance. Sure. So, yeah. And and by school code, we we're expected to have about 20 to 30%. What that means is that we should have about 3 months worth of uh um of uh activity to under our savings to run a school should our taps for revenue streams closed down. And this has happened before, right? So, uh, I remember back in COVID, our local property taxes, we
047were expecting that, for example, to pay for payroll, uh, and the county allowed up to three months to pay your lo your your property taxes. So, that kind of gave us a little bit of, uh, you know, we probably have to dip into our savings, uh, to pay for payroll until the local uh, the local taxes are being collected. Well, good news. a lot in decal even outside the escros uh a lot of those that own the houses did pay it on time and they didn't take advantage of the extension which kind of gave us uh which is very helpful because we were able to meet that payroll needs but should that tap be closed we we would be tapping into directly into our savings and and I've seen it back in 2015 when the
048state closed the state the the budgets uh and now you're seeing it with the federal. So, it does happen. Our local our revenue streams do get closed. So, having a savings account is uh kind of a a a nice cushion to have for these emergencies. So, what would be the best one? Uh and that's why kind of I put the comparatives with other school districts. Uh we're seeing that um we're seeing that we're we're somewhere a little bit maybe on the lower a little bit lower but uh that's where um other schools also we're seeing West Aurora probably a little bit on the higher end. Uh I have seen other school districts not in our county or closer to our counties that up to 100% or more. Uh there is a law that it's called
049the Miller ratio which does not allow schools to have over 2.5 more than their expenses are needed. So those that are 250% the the the taxpayers could uh ask the board to uh to to draw down that fund balance but that's 250%. So we're nowhere near that. Okay. any other budget considerations? So, uh so the what are other big uh big ticket items for us? Remember, we did a brand new school that was about $33.8 million construction. Uh we have financed that through debt. So, that was a 20-year debt of uh that we would be paying about $2.7 million for the next few years. Uh and we all the big other ticket item is the 1.86 million to purchase the building facilities. Our facilities are aged. You've seen a lot of our schools are are
050uh kind of on older side and there requires a lot of maintenance and renovation. So that is always part of facility needs, our staffing needs. Also remember we have a new elementary school. We have incorporated that into our budgets. But uh uh drawing down on our class size uh opening up new classrooms uh and even new considerations for ELC. I mean those are things that we always look as uh as part of our projections. So we we are we are at uh tier two when it comes to state funding. Again what that means is we're just not going to increase uh our budget for the state every year because we're in completely secondary tier of how that funding is uh budgeted for us. So what is another threat for our budgets? That's something that's called
051property tax freeze. That would definitely have a a negative impact on our future revenue. Remember, we have to pay our contracts. A lot of them are 5% 4% or more. So, a property tax freeze means that we would be receiving just the same as last year, but with a cost that is eating up 5% uh with a salary. So that's why a te a property tax freeze would impact negatively our revenue streams. Another uh curveball that we got from the state was a conversation of bringing the TRS obligation to our local funds. So we to pay uh kind of like we do with IMRF where we pay that pension uh to come out of the local funds. So, we have not heard that in a few years, but it always rears its head sometimes in
052the some in the uh in the Springfield uh general assembly. So, that's all for me, but uh is there anything? So, what we'll do will uh will any any adjustments I'll bring it forward on the August 5th should I hear anything new from the state, federal or local funds. Uh and we will bring that for adoption. We will open it to the public. Our budget will be able to be viewed uh here in our district on the website and uh a public hearing will be held September 16. Any questions? I do have a quick question. I know the finance committee has not met yet. Have they had a chance to review any of this? Because I think their thoughts should be, you know, considered with all the information that we're looking at. Some extra eyes.
053Sure. Sure. And so that is an administrative committee unlike let's say a city council where the finance committee is actually has a little bit more say and provides that uh support to the uh to the board. Uh the the FFC here is more of an administrative committee. It will be able to have a chance uh for the September 16 adoption. So it will have a chance to bring their recommendation uh to it but uh it may not be a recommendation to the board but just as a collective. Okay. I do want to thank you for all the detailed information you gave. That was a really good presentation. Um one of the things that you you kind of skipped over that I just wanted to just briefly look at were the historical trends. And just, you
054know, to give people some concept, you know, eight, 10 years ago, we were spending about $80 million a year and now we're spending $156 million a year. And in that same time, property tax levies have gone down about 40% for individual homeowners. So, it's it's really a testament to all the new revenue that's been generated, you know, economically with the local property tax base. So, I think it's nice that we're in a good position even if we're going to be losing federal funds. Like a lot of other districts might be worse off than us because, you know, we're continuing to see this new money coming in and this new revenue that we can offset some of those expenditures. So, I just don't want people to be too worried when we worry about, you know, federal
055funding going away. Like, at least we have some other sources that we can replace that with without having to start looking at cutting things and that type of thing. That's correct. Thank you. consensus bring us back. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh did she leave any comments for it? No. No comments. You want to give us a report? Um before we close, I do want to thank everybody who showed up here, anybody who's online to listen. Um there's a lot of information that comes out on these things. Some of it is tedious like the report we just got, but it's very important stuff that we need to know. Um, nothing happens around here without the money flowing. So, it's good good information. Um, and with that being said, move to adjourn. Second. So, move I. All
056in favor? I I Any against? All right, let's go home.