001Everybody, we're going to call to order by roll call for the first part of this evening's meeting, the budget hearing, Wednesday, September 17th, 2025 at 6:04 p.m. here at Frederick School. Roll call. Here, >> here. >> Okay, thank you. Join me for the pledge for this one, please. We need a motion to approve the budget hearing agenda, please. >> Hold on. I'll second. >> Okay. I >> I >> Very good. Thank you. And I will hand it over to Mr. Wildman. >> Before Mr. Wildman starts, I just wanted to ask, we do have another member of our finance committee meeting here who's not a part of the board, but is a part of the finance committee. So, I'm wondering um I'd love for you to be able to make Trent and maybe we are gonna
002introduce him perhaps. So do I have maybe one of my team members who might take a seat in the audience so that we can make a space for Trent. >> That's been [Laughter] it's been a statement he's been trying to use all day for a wide variety of reasons. Okay. Okay, before you start, I will welcome Trent Gordon. to the board table this evening, a valued member of our finance committee. Welcome, Mr. Gordon. Thank you for sharing tonight. That's the right one. Awesome. Uh good evening. This presentation is the fiscal year 2526 final budget for CCSD46. I'll walk through the development timeline, the update since the tenative budget, the final financial position both operating and all funds, major revenue and expenditure drivers, plan projects, next steps and the approval recommendation. Uh the budget advances our
003district mission, empowering learners, creating equity, cultivating community in very practical ways. Empowering learners were funding highquality instruction through our new K8 math resources and professional learning for teachers. Creating equity allocations continue to direct resources to programs that close achievement gaps, support multilingual learners, and ensure every school has the materials and staff support staff required for success. and cultivating community. The plan protects investments in safe, welcoming facilities, extracurricular opport opportunities, and the technology infrastructure that keeps families and staff connected. We continue a participatory zerobased budgeting approach. And by aligning district spending decisions with these three pillars, the budget isn't just a set of numbers. It's a roadmap for delivering on the promise we make to every student and family in CCSD.6. Uh the budget is grounded in our strategic plan and the following board policies. Uh
004policy 41 410 which is fiscal and business management and policy 4 col20 fund balance. Our our target is to maintain an operating fund balance of 25 to 30% to ensure fiscal stability and flexibility. So here's a timeline recap. We have the May 14th we presented the first seems a long time ago now. The preliminary budget was presented on June 4th. We presented the tenative form. We did an a an update GMS on July 16th and uh after that it was on public display uh at the end of August through September uh with reference to the closing of the fiscal year in preparation for audit. Uh the audit will start at the end of September and continue to October. So the reason I I will reference that is why that's important in the next few slides.
005And tonight we have the public hearing. After that we will be filing with the Lake County Regional Office of Education and the Illinois State Board of Education with the deadline by September 30th. So there is an update to the budget that was presented throughout the timeline this evening. We have a projected operating The budget now shows a $1.7 million surplus instead of a $3 million deficit. The shift is not due to new revenues, but to the timing of fund transfers and accounting for money that was already available in the debt service fund. In short, nothing has changed in terms of resources. We've just aligned the transfers to the correct fiscal year and the numbers now reflect our true position. Here is the effect of the timing of those fund transfers. transfers were conservatively treated as
006operating expenditures are now recorded into transfers in fiscal year 25. The operating funds now show, as I'd already stated, a $1.7 million surplus rather than a projected deficit. To put our finances in everyday terms, I think it's helpful to think about how school funds function. The education fund is like the district's checking account. It's where the most where the most daily uh revenues arrive and where our salary, supplies, and instructional costs are paid. The working cash fund serves as the district's savings account. Money is held here for liquidity or emergencies, and we can loan it back and forth to the education fund when cash flow is tight. Beyond our operating funds, we also have the debt service fund, which serves like an escrow or mortgage account. It only job is to hold tax receipts set
007aside to make principal and interest payments on debt and bonds. A key concept alongside these is abatement. Instead of levying taxes directly for debt, the district can use its regular operating revenues to make bond payments that reduces or abates the portion of the property tax levy that would otherwise be earmarked for debts. And that structure allows us to manage cash flow responsibly, meet legal responsibilities, and give taxpayers relief when operating revenues are strong enough to cover debt. So here's a graphical representation, a graphical a snapshot of the fund transfers. So we have a what was approved last year by all the separate resolutions making sure that the debt service fund has the fund balance available to be able to pay um the debt payment that's due in November of 2025. And you can see in
008fiscal year 26, the education fund is repaying that loan from the savings account. And the money is going out to pay our bond holders, which is the final piece of that. So this slide shows how the numbers shifted between the tenative budget and the iterations made in the summer and the final budgets we're presenting tonight. On the left you'll see the July estimate uh the operating deficit of about 3.1 million and the nonoperating funds at 4.8 million. On the right is the final budget. Uh the operating funds now shows a 1.6 million surplus while the nonoperating funds total is a 9.6 million deficit. I hope this makes a clearer picture of where the resources belong between the operating and nonoperating accounts. So we can provide so we can be proud of what we accomplish here
009with what we have. We have excellent schools as you can see from the Illinois report card today. I would be remiss if I didn't talk about our reliance still on EVF state funding. So, here are the increases we've we've seen since 2018, which was based on the final year's general state formula in 2018. As you can see, our base funding has now increased to $20.6 million. So, the next two slides are going to be all funds and then I'm going to show an operating fund. So the all funds as I stated shows a a pretty significant deficit because it includes intentionally the the spending of from debt from capital as well as the payments from debt service with those excluded we can see we have a operating surplus. So here's the high look at it
010in terms of revenues. We can see obviously the large partness from the property tax um which is what we'll talk about later in the finance committee and evidence-based funding which is uh mainly made up of state it's state funding but the majority of that is coming from EPF and some mandated categoricals as well terms of expenditures I I think I talk about this every year our largest expenditures are salaries and benefits which are makes complete sense because we are people business. We're paying for teachers. We're paying for staff. We're paying for everybody else who's who's doing the work here. And the secondly to that after those two, we're paying for purchase services which is also people as well. It's paying for the night night cleaning service through GCF. It's paying for the food service individuals
011who work as well as our transportation individuals as well. So people people business highly intensive in terms of salaries and contractual services. So finally kind of this is a this is a slide which I presented also at tenative as well uh back in June. We are really proud um and Matt's going to talk about it as well in his presentation that we put new chillers in at Frederick and we're really proud that we put as a GMS. Um, and those were really high level high level things that we really wanted to address because they were the ones which were needed to to be pretty much fixed. They were obsolete systems and we're really glad that we fixed those as part of our the final year of that 3D capital plan. We have our new math
012resources at K8. We have the both of them there. And then as we brought to you early in the summer, we had the new air handling unit that needed to be put in a because it had failed and it needed to be replaced because was wasn't heating the building correct wasn't cooling the building correctly. Sorry. Okay. To summarize, uh our operating funds are showing a positive position and the all funds deficit is planned um in in those funds including those obviously finishing the capital projects and the debt payments and the final budget adopted tonight will allow us to file on time to really begin the the work post three. We've just agreed to collective bargaining agreements with our with both our units. We have adopted a an abatement resolution after a limiting rate referendum. All
013those things once once complete should give us a really clear picture of the next five years to be able to make all the decisions that we need to do in the future. So developing those five-year projections for the finance committee in November um to support the levy planning and all the long-term capital discussions that we have. So that summarizes the presentation. Do I have any questions? >> I got a couple of them for you, Chris. Um, did we change auditors this year or that last year? >> Last year we changed. So was the change in where they want to show where the money goes, what funds they go into it at what point in the year was that a change because the auditor wants it that way or where we have been kind of like
014not necessarily doing it wrong but just did it differently because of the other last audit or is it just >> No, it's that's a great question. It was nothing. So we we have just finished our first year with Baker Tilly. We found that we had with Miller Cooper that is unrelated in any way to any of the changes that we're talking about. Uh we requested information from our auditors of how to account for what was a pretty complex way of accounting for money coming into the district, money coming out, and how that would in fact both operating and nonoperating funds this fiscal year. So we had to wait for that to close the fiscal year before we knew our exact fiscal position. That's kind of why it waited. We don't close the books till June,
015July, August. So that was one of the reasons and then once we actually found out the accounting, we updated it. >> Okay. >> So it wasn't to do with any wasn't to do with the the auditors made any mistakes. It was really to do with timing. >> Okay. And is any of that related to the timing of our referendum and the bonds that kind of came in and out and out? >> Uh there was the only thing I could say that I've not referenced at all was that we In addition to this, because it was super complicated and Liz can talk all about it because she's here, we decided to also because we had to legally be compliant with the law as part of that payment. We had to borrow six mill $3 million from
016Lake Zurich and that was due to be paid back in September. We had the cash flow to be able to pay it back early to try and save some interest. So, we did that. So that wasn't included in this. But yes, it it was a complex uh f uh financial situation that we had to deal with in terms of when money was being received and when it was going to be accounted for and in which fiscal year. >> So this should be an anatomy is basically what you're saying. >> I hope. Yes, for sure. Yes. I'm never going through this again. For sure. Just kidding. Um, no. It's it it will be this is a one-time limiting rate increase at the same time as abating and deciding how it was going to be paid from
017operating funds and what was available in the fund balance. Yes, it's it's a one time. >> Okay. And then I just have one question about healthcare insurance. It's coming up. Yeah. >> Right. >> Um, with the reports that are out there that they're looking at 20% increases or more insurance in Illinois. >> Have you factored that into this budget like or are you still using more conservative? >> So, remember this is only a one-year projection, Jim. So, this only had this has our actual rate increase for next year. >> The question which you're asking really is what are we looking at as our fiveyear projections? We've we've typically used 7%. Um we've we've noticed that we're since we've joined EBC we've had around about a 7% increase. If we believe I we can reach out
018to the cooperative itself and find out kind of what if if trend is looking more than that we will we I'll find that out and we can put it in those projections through November. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I have just a probably a simple question but I never know if it's simple or not. So um in the pie chart you showed us that said our funds, our federal funding is 3%. The one before that, >> yes, it's declining. >> Federal aid is 3%. Yep. >> I think it's normally nine. >> That's what I've >> So, it during it it spiked. It it was I'm using it from memory. I think it was around five to six pre-COVID and then it went up significantly during ESSA because we had ESSA funding with around $3 million.
019Took us two or three years to spend it. We're receiving it over several years. It went up to about ninevious now. It's obviously declined based on the loss of ESSA funding which is never coming back. That was one time and now what we're doing right now is kind of looking at a the new normal in terms of what we think we're going to be looking at in terms of what we receive from title, what we receive from idea and what we see from the national school program. So we are definitely looking at any increases there. Um, so we hope that obviously the increases in the property tax levy and any increases in EVF will hopefully spot will obvious hope hopefully make up for that. >> Any other comments questions? >> Mr. Gordon that's coming up
020later. I got a levy presentation where I will show the increase in the levy between 23 and 25. I didn't show 24 because it's weird because you've got money coming in and money coming out. So, I just wanted to show the the increase as well as the tax rate about what everyone's paying about. We haven't seen a great increase because of we timed it really well, but we will see a a much a larger increase. I don't think Federal's coming back though could go up to 60 I would I don't know I mean if if if we if we le we continue to levy the PTO and EVF doesn't grow it that really depends on a lot of factors. If EVF continues to grow and we get more through EVF, we will see those two
021those two largest pieces um probably stay similar. If they both grow at the same rate. Okay, thank you. Are there any public comments signed up for this part of the meeting? Nope. Okay. Then I need a motion to adjourn the budget hearing portion, please. So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. I >> I >> Okay, now I need to call to order via another roll call to bring us back into session for the regular board meeting again this evening, Wednesday, September 17th, 2025, now at 6:25 p.m. here at Frederick School. Still here. >> Here. Here, here, here, here. >> Very good. Thank you. We need a motion to approve the agenda for the regular meeting, please. >> I'll move second. >> I I >> I. >> Okay. Thank you. Any public comments signed up for in
022between the moment I last asked them? I think so. Okay. All right. That moves us right along to board reports. I'll start down here on this end this time. Miss Herson, do you have any board? >> I have no report at this time. >> Okay. >> Mrs. Hume. >> Um I went to the KOSPA um conference last week and it was it was wonderful. Um just uh sat in some sessions about AI uh kind of learning about um the different perspectives of Congress right now in terms of our federal funding, which obviously um we know is um uncertain at this point. Um and I also uh had the opportunity to be trained and then go and speak with um Senator Duckworth and then a member of uh Congressman Schneider's staff. Um we advocating obviously for
023all of our title funding, for full funding of IDA, uh both of which are um elected support. Um And then thank you uh to staff for providing really helpful information um on uh our title funding as well as -ate. Um and so that was what I personally advocated for um was that increase um in the pilot program for funding for cyber security because we know what um a tremendous um challenge that is uh right now for schools to be able to afford proper security. Uh and um one of the things that Senator Duckworth shared is that um I mean obviously we know that funding is challenging right now and so that's kind of uncertain as they were marking up the bill while we were talking with our electeds. Um but um she had emphasized excuse
024me that uh there she is wanting to help support um vocational training um and I don't know how much that would apply to our district. So, I did reach out uh to D127 to share um just kind of initially that that opportunity is there and I'll I'll talk with them more about that. >> Mr. Nash, >> I do not have a board report this evening. >> Mrs. Braden, >> no report. >> I have just a couple things to share. Uh you should have received an email from me a little bit ago for the seedall survey for their search for the next superintendent. It was sent to us earlier this week and then reconfirmed with a correct link. So that is out there and they're asking member boards to participate in that survey. It is also
025going to the other stakeholders in the community, families, staff, teachers, everything like that. So if you see that email and are able to take a few moments to fill that out, they would like to collect, you know, feedback from all the member districts for seedall. And adjacent to that uh there is and you should have all received a lake division email recently as well about the upcoming meeting in October. And on that just a reminder um we there's going to be an amendment to the structure of the Lake County Division where they're increasing the atlarge members from two to four just to get deeper representation on that piece. Um it it is a that committee which I'm serving on meets once a year and decides on the topics for the for the for the events.
026So we want a little expanded a little bit to have a little bit of a deeper reach for some ideas and people who might be interested. So when we attend that dinner, I'm assuming we're attending that dinner. I think so. Um we'll be voting on that there. Um as well as the slate for candidates as well. So that's that's the update that I wanted to share. Mr. No. Um, I wanted to offer my ongoing ongoing condolences to anyone who lost a family member or a loved one in 2001 911 and also to um Charlie Kirk's family and his friends. And I don't know about everyone, but I had to really think about what my response to that was going to be and to both acts of violence. And so in the pause of figuring out
027what my response would be, I also I had to take care of my reaction first because I remembered Amanda Ripley's talk at Triple I. And if you weren't there, she gave a an amazing talk. In fact, Dr. Wickman told me I looked like I was levitating while she was speaking. Um, but one of my biggest takeaways was that when we react to violence with violence, supper, which I think everyone in this room would agree with. And so I had to really think about my response would be and I landed on gratitude. So how did I land on gratitude? Um I thought who around me has responded to violence in a way that I admire and I didn't have to look far the person sitting right next to me because in 2011 I also learned that
028triple I you and that fire department went right to the injury and I wanted to thank you for that. I also wanted to say happy rash to anyone who celebrates that other people. Um I wanted to say happy and someone might have to help me if you know which I believe is an Indian celebration. It's a nine nights festival and I also to highlight second part of my board report a very useful tool that I'll talk about a little bit later. Um, if you're you found it already, then I hope you love it as much as I do. But, um, if you haven't, IASB has a 2025 2026 school calendar on their website. And in it, it has every month and it says things like Rashana was this weekend, this month, um, or is coming
029up in the next month, holidays, celebrations, but it also has the reporting requirements for our staff and that helps me meet one of my my own personal board goals, which is to align my questions with staff currenting requirements. So, I wanted just to bring this up as a tool that you might be interested in. You will have an email in your inbox tomorrow morning with a link to it. So, don't feel like you have to write it all down. Um, but just this tool has been super helpful and I just found it this afternoon. So, that's my >> Thank you, Mr. Okay. Okay. I will turn it over to Dr. Glickman for the superintendent's report. >> Thank you. Well, I intentionally did not provide a robust report tonight because I know we want to focus
030on our finance committee this evening. Excuse me. But I do want to mention um board, I think you're all aware that the Grace Lake Plan Commission Board of Zoning Appeals recommended zoning approval for um the A Safe Place project. Um Safe Place is a local nonprofit organization. It's a support facility designed to assist survivors of domestic abuse and violence um as they work towards long-term stability and the intent is to build a facility that will be within um within school district 46. And so um the the plan commission and the board of zoning appeals recommended the approval but it has not been approved yet by um the uh village board action. So um I am in the process of working to set up a meeting with the village and folks from a safe place and
031potentially district 127. We're inviting them as well just to um receive more information about what having the facility within the proximity of our schools would mean. Um you know we intend to ask what do they see as being um an impact on our school district? What support and resources might the district need to provide? Um, we are also curious to know in other communities where there is uh such a facility, what percentage of families that are at the facility have their students, their children move and enroll into the school district where the facility is versus keeping them transported to their home school. So, all things that we want to know about and be able to plan for. So, we are in process of setting that meeting up. And that's it for the superintendent report. >>
032Dr. Mac, yes, I'm sorry. >> Can I add to my report? I forgot. >> I did I went to the villages meeting about a safe place and heard something that I thought might be relevant to us. >> Um, actually one of our teachers brought up that so the presenter said we would get one student um probably from that safe space. In the original design, I believe they are planning to double it in stages two and three. And then also um the teacher in our district brought up Mckin Vento and our requirements. So specifically around transportation. So I just thought that might be helpful information for us. But it was um was a really robust discussion. I was glad. Thank you and thank you for letting me jump back in. >> Thank you, M. Okay. Uh,
033that moves us to our consent agenda. I need a motion to approve the consent agenda for this evening, which includes the personnel addendum sent to us earlier today. >> So, move. >> I'll second. >> Okay. I >> I >> All right, consent agenda approved. That leads us to the finance committee portion of the meeting, which is our focus conversation for this evening. Uh we have the long range facility plan update that starts off. Thank you for being here tonight. Uh we're here tonight to give an update on the long range facility plan. Uh I think most people are aware of it. It's basically looking at the district's uh long-term needs over roughly a 10-year period. Uh providing some priority and budgeting uh for those items and plan to address them. Uh as far as work
034that we've completed so far to date this summer, uh Mr. Wildman mentioned it earlier, but we finished uh the heating and cooling plants at Prairie View, Frederick, and Grace Lake. We had budgeted roughly 2.5 million for that. As you saw in Chris's report, we were under budget on that, which is great. Um and just a reminder, I think we've talked about this before. Um you'll see us in a little bit, the way that the the plan was set up, it had things prioritized by years. So two years to five, six to 10. Our budgets took the worst case scenario for that. So we included inflation for three to five year windowations for five years. So we came in under budget with what we had planned in there. We've got work coming up for the summer
035of 26 that we're wrapping up design on. Um we'll have a more in-depth presentation for that at your October board meeting that's going to show you all the the exciting stuff we're doing with media center renovations. Also included in that are some long range facility plan line items as well. to a little over a half a million dollars I think was where it landed in grant funding for some exterior improvements. Um as far as prioritization of the plan and how it it's set up, we wanted to align that with some of our bond issuances which Liz will talk about in a little bit. But the first issuance is going to be roughly 17 million which is going to cover uh those one to twoyear priority items. It's about $8 million of that cost. It's going
036to focus on safety and security building envelope some of the known deficiencies we had as well as the media center renovations which are both the roughly $6 million that are going to be in the summer 26 at the four buildings and then the other three buildings which are about $3 million in the summer. Uh and then the second issuance we're looking at about $20 million which will cover then the three to five year priority category and we'll start to then look at some of those higher some of the higher priority line items for the things a little bit more long term as well as the student support spaces as well. We're also going to look at opportunities to find other funding sources like we did with the grant whether that's through health safety and other
037opportunities as well. And those will talk about some potential options for that second issuance about how we can maybe break that into smaller time. So this is the overly blurry uh image of the summary for the uh the update or for the plan. This is just the summary of what is a I don't know 50 page report. Um you can see at the bottom in 2024 when we did our last finance committee update we're sitting at about $60.5 million with a need over the 11 plus years of this report. Um we're sitting right now with some rep prioritization and taking a look at some of that stuff and advancing a little bit further. We're down to about 58 and N. So we've saved about $1.5 million of that so far. A lot of that has
038been the work of Jose and his team now that he's come on board. Uh we taking another look at some of the priorities shifting some things around so we're moving up a little bit sooner which reduces some of that inflation we talked about. We also brought on Premisar from a maintenance contractor standpoint. They took a look another harder look at some of the HBAC stuff. um we ship some priorities with that. So we're looking to to be as efficient as we can with this and trying to minimize that impact as we can and that's a breakdown per building. We also then have it broken down per different grouping of work scope basically which is envelope. So we've got it kind of broken down by that as well. questions comments, questions. Thank you. >> That moves
039us to the next portion, financing and funding updates. Can you hear me now? Thanks. Great. Okay. So, I'm going to start with market update. Big day today. The Fed lowered rates by a quarter point as expected. So, market reacted very well. A lot of it was already built in. The other important things that happened today were the Fed chairman's comments. And based on his comments, we expect two more 25 basis point rate cuts before the end of the year. One in October and one in December about 90% rates come down pretty dramatically going into this meeting and ahead. We've had really records of municipal bonds this year. The graph on top shows the black bars where we are through August. And we've also had strong demand for municipal bonds. So that supply is being absorbed
040by the market. Here's a graph that we look at from time to time looking at thea municipal market data index interest rates for tax exempt bonds. The dark line is where we've been on average for the last 30 years at every point of the curve. So on the um xaxis you see the length of maturity going from one year to 30 and then on the yaxis you see the interest rate. So that dark line is the average and the red line is where we are today. If we looked at this a couple months ago it would look very different. very different where the shortterm rate was very elevated and then it came back down to the 30 year average and then the longterm rate was very elevated. So we've had some real strong moves even
041in the last two weeks in the market to the good for issuers like you. Um this next slide talks about public act was kind of mentioning that just to remind you bonds are now issuable by school districts outside of the debt service extension base. The other news is that referendum bonds are no longer subject to the debt limit and you can build a freestanding building to expand prek services uh without referendum. However, they're not any money come up with the money yourself. Didn't want to get you too excited about that. Okay. So, we have two basic options. Now, if you go back to the referendum, we talked about uh using half of the rate increase about 3 million for paying debt to repair the build. We estimated that would result in about 37 million. Since
042then, Matt has been doing his work with Chris looking at the projects and something that we always like to keep in mind is that when you issue municipal bonds, you have to expect to spend the proceeds in three years. So, as you saw, the next couple years, we're looking at about 17 million spend. Um so that's the amount of the first issue. Um the second issue uh they're talking about 2728 this school year spending about 20 million about 15 million in the near term and then that 5 million would come in you know three or four years after that. So for this option, we're looking at 17 million here in FY26, 15 million debt certificates in FY28, and 5 million in FY31. Debt certificates are paid from the operating funds. There's no separate tax levy
043that's going to increase taxes for the community. Um, but it takes careful budgeting. Just went through your budget presentation. happy to see that surplus. Um, but when we went to the voters and asked for the rate increase, part of the plan was always to use portion of it up to 3 million to pay for capital so the district doesn't get behind and have deferred maintenance and then have even more expensive projects to take care of. So, this plan lays out three issues that were kind of Considering here uh 17 million 25 million 27 and then 5 million in 2030. Now you see the payments that we have structured here are 2.5 million. We're not going all the way up to that $3 million payment. We just thought we'd show you two options to consider here.
044And you know Chris and I have talked a little bit about this. We kind of like this not going all the way up to the 3 million to start simply because it leaves you more flexibility down the road for additional projects. So what we're talking about here is the 17 million issue. We blocked the 27 and the 30 2030 issues, but the board is not committed to those in any way. What we're talking about though is that 17 issue We think about what is the average life of the assets you're financing and HBAC their things that are going to last you at least 20 years. So that's why we've kind of looked at a payment that's a little bit longer for this first issue but is leaves room for the next issue to come in
045in 2027 keeping payments at 2.5 million. You can up to three million at any time with that second issue. But we thought maybe while you're getting this new funding into the district, let's give future boards flexibility to maybe go up a little further as needed if certain things come up. So that was the first option we looked at. The second option is if we pay the bonds the debt certificates off quicker, we can do that and save interest by going all the way up to the million. But what this doesn't allow is if what if some of the projects later on come in more expensive uh than we're looking at 27 and 30 then we're going to be pinched and might have to go higher than that $3 million payment. So whereas this option saves
046you interest about 4 and a half million on the 17 million over time it gives future boards flexibility to adjust the debt payments to the capital plan as it stands in three two to three years from now gives youility to update. So any questions on those two options as we kind of think about going all the way up to the 3 million or kind of keeping it closer to the 2.5. Um, and this doesn't lower your levy or doesn't lower taxes or increase taxes. It just gives you more budget flexibility within your tax levy by keeping the payments for debt lower than that 3 million that we were planning at least for the first couple years. This is a really um probably not super smart question. So I >> no questions are and all questions
047you have other people. >> Does this decision lock future boards in like do we lock in that plan for payment then only for the first issue? Okay. And so for the second issue, you know, if it's uh more expensive or less expensive, you could pay it off sooner or later. This just kind of sets the path for that first issue. >> You can see the payments drop down in fiscal year 29 to allow you 28, sorry, uh to allow you to blend in this 27 issue which starts paying issued in December 27 which is fiscical year 28 and starts paying in fiscal year 29. So it fits nicely with your capital plan. Um so starts you know less than that 3 million level and drops down for the next issue. Any other questions? >> Um,
048yeah, sorry. Um, I know in the past with some of these bonds that we've had, we had the opportunity to reissue them at lower rates, but is that still a possibility with these down the road >> or they kind of just locked? >> Payments are fixed, but the board has the option to call them in and refund them before they mature. Now, it's not like a home mortgage. You can't do this any time because municipal bond investors want to have at least 9year call protection. So, they do become callable, but not for nine years. So, for example, if we were to issue these bonds here in 25, they would become callable in 2034. >> So, if interest rates plummet, which We would had the opportunity to to do >> correct >> then we'd be saving
049a lot of money like we did. >> Yes. >> I think last time we saved about three million interest when we did that >> which is tax just kind of putting that out there for anybody who may still be here. So I want to make sure it still had the opportunity to be able to do that. Correct. I guess maybe along those same lines, I'm thinking about like when we got this approved was a different financial world in terms of interest rates to some extent, but then also in terms of um we have tariffs looming over us. And I'm just wondering how what you're showing kind of compares with what was kind of originally projected back then when the referendum was passed. >> So when the referendum was passed, what we looked at was issuing
05037 million all at once and paying $3 million a year over 20 years. So that was uh at you're right a different interest rate environment. um rates just started to come down, but we do have cushions in these issues too to protect us against future interest rate uh increases. So the 25 issue we've looked at at current rates, today's rates, but the 27 we've got a 50 basis point cushion and the 2030 we have a 75 basis point cushion and we're doing that just because we don't know. You've mentioned Those are certainly inflationary. We could have higher rates down the road. So, we're just trying to be as conservative as possible. >> Um, with your mention of the interest rates possibly being dropped twice more before the end of the year, um, are we under
051a time crunch to get like that first one issue or would we advantageous to hold off until that second one drops. >> So the next two rate decreases are really already baked in because um information is in the market and uh market makers are saying 90% chance of two rate decreases based on chairman Paul's comments today. So we've seen rates come down already. what I've suggested and this really goes to your um your your timing in terms of getting the uh proceeds in and then being ready to go to bid and starting projects this summer. Is that correct, Matt? So, you know, most biders like to see that you have the money before they bid. So, the idea is we the issue. Um, we're reviewing it tonight. We would bring a parameters debt certificate resolution
052to the board at your October 15th meeting. Meet with the rating agencies in October. Get the rating back at the end of October and then sell the bonds November 4th, closing end of November is what I've suggested. Um, you know what what we do have and it's really hard project into the next year because we have a volatile market. We've got international conflicts going on. We have tariff negotiations still going on, threats of more. So, it's just really hard to project what is going to happen in the longer term. But right now, we know we have a favorable uh interest rate environment. We have pressure because of unemployment. And that is what the Fed is reacting to with their rate today. discussion of the next two. So from that point of view, I think our
053timing is good. >> I just had a quick question, just a clarifying question on what you just said. Did you say unemployment the trends are that it's increasing? My understanding was that it was stable. No one was hiring but but people weren't being fired either. So can you clarify that? >> Well, just the chairman's comments today. Uh one of the things that driving, you know, repeat what he said, but there the Fed's job is to keep employment full as full as it can be and keep inflation in check. And what's happening now is the most recent unemployment data, unemployment has gone up. So, we're seeing a lack of job jobs um and lack of hiring. Um so, that has really pushed the Fed to lower rates to try to stimulate the economy and make sure
054we're at full employment. Now, we're at a low unemployment rate from a historical perspective, but it's gone up in the last six months, and there's lots of reasons. I talk about why that happened, but um that's one of the drivers of our rate decrease. comments. >> Thank you. >> Okay, thanks. >> Okay. And the last uh portion under our finance committee is the levy update. Hand that over to you. Okay. Tonight I'll be sharing an update on the 2025 levy planning process and the factors that shape the property tax request. As always, uh we uh work connects back to the district mission, empowering learners, creating equity, community. The levy provides the revenue that we need to sustain programs and meet student needs. strategic goals plan sorry our strategic plan goal calls for clear transparent financial
055practices and that's exactly what this is uh with decisions aligned to district goals and board policy 42 420 it's already mentioned earlier recommends we maintain an operating balance of between 25 and 30%. Okay. So I would like to start by going through some of the key terms on the levy process itself. So PL is the tax cap that limits the tax limits the levy growth from each year to the lesser of 5% or the prior year CPI plus new property and I'll talk a little bit about that in the upcoming slides. The PA limiting rate is not the same as the property tax rate and the Lake County clerk sets the final levy amount for the tax rate extension after apply after applying PTEL restrictions. A quick review of the basics. The tax levy itself
056is what we ask uh from the property tax. We ask for property taxes. The ptail is limit what we can increase. Uh the limiting rate is the maximum rate. Obviously when we pass the limiting rate that was we were asking the voters to do to increase the the late beyond pel extension is the final tax amount calculated by the county and the EAV is the equaliz assess valuation of all assessed property. So I really wanted to I was very excited to show this slide um because it was a question that I just got in the in the in the budget hearing. Um I did exclude the 2023 extension because has a bait and it had the extension in. So what I wanted to do was just show what it is over a twoyear from the
0572023 extension from through 2025. So the 2023 extension is obviously finalized. That was what already been collected and I did a preliminary estimate of what the 2025 levy will look like and the difference between 2023 and 2025 accounting for those abatements is 10 or just over $10 million. So when we talk about what the impact of that referendum was, that's the extent that was levied because of that reduction in the debt service. We allowed for that reduction, the abatement happen at the same time as we encourage the limiting rate increase in the operating funds capturing the whole thing. And I was really happy to show this to you today. And that's the effect of the actual uh by fund. um you can actually see how much it's dropped in the debt service, the green line
058and the increase what we're actually capturing in the education fund. So that's obviously great for us because we're able to use that um for all the things that we need to spend it on. And here is the tax rate. Um the the that's an estimated tax rate. As you can probably guess, if we wouldn't have passed that referendum, that line would have continued to go down. What it did is it kept it artificially higher because it bent it up. At the same time, it didn't increase taxes as we kept talking about. We didn't increase the tax rate. Tax rate decreased, but it it was a slight reduction, which is what we told the community we were going to do. So, that's I just wanted to share that, share that with you tonight. Um, in terms
059of what's actually on the agenda, this is the actual thing that we'll be voting on later. So this is the timeline itself. The prelim preliminary discussion which I'm doing this evening as part of a finance committee. October 15th we'll have the tenative presentation to the board. Numbers will look very similar to what I've just presented to you. We'll publish the notice on October 16th and we'll have the hearing on November 19th with the deadline to file it before the final Tuesday in December. That's the levy update. Any comments or questions from the board? All right. Thank you, Mr. Wildman. Okay. That brings us to a few action items that we have this evening. Our first action item is I need a motion to approve the 2025 2026 budget as it has been presented to us
060with all the extra information this evening. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. >> Okay. I >> I >> Okay, motion approved. Second. I need a motion to approve the levy timeline as presented. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. I >> I I >> I >> Thank you. Motion approved. Uh third, a motion to approve. Need a motion to approve the fiscal year 25 EIS compensation report. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. I >> I >> motion approved. And finally, you need a motion to approve the fiscal year 25 IMRF compensation report. >> I'll move. I'll second. >> Okay. All right. I >> I >> Thank you. Motion approved. Moving on to new business. This is the board policy updates that came out of this evening's discussion earlier. >> I'll turn that over to Dr. >>
061Sorry. Thank you, Jennifer. Um so we uh discussed quite a few policies. There's a long list of policies tonight. You can see that list in front of you, but they are all fiveyear reviews or other policies that had very slight wording changes um based on law mostly. There was one policy and so in all cases it is administration's recommendation to approve these updated policies. There's or just five year reviews. There's one that I do want to point out, um, policy 280, which is entitled board member oath and conduct, and it addresses what happens when a board member violates their oath of office. Awkward to bring up at a board meeting, but nonetheless, um, there is a sentence that can be in a policy in that policy. Our policy does not currently have that sentence in
062it. And as the policy committee discussed it, the consensus was to add it in. I'm going to go ahead and read it for you. It says a board member who fails to abide by the oath of office or the code may be subject to action by the board including but not limited to formal censure and or referral to the regional superintendent for removal from office under board policy 260 which is board member removal from office. So, uh, as we talked about it, that information is indeed in that policy board, uh, policy 260, but the board felt, the policy members felt that it made sense to include it in this policy as well, just to clarify for all board members that this is something that can happen. And I'll go ahead and add we had a
063discussion after that. Um and also wanted to highlight a specific policy um which we did I did in the policy meeting but just want to highlight it again. 130 is the school district philosophy and it's our vision statement from our strategic plan. So it might be something we want to think about how we might use that really intentionally um in alignment with our mission statement and as it's distinct from our mission statement and then again alignment with district and board. So just calling that out something we might want to pay attention to as we're talking with our strategic planning vendors. All right, I think most of us were here for this discussion but I'll just bring us okay but to bring us back we are trying to figure out whether we want to move beyond
064compliance and beyond compliance again is not beyond IASB's best practice recommendations for good governance. still within um that those parameters for what they recommend and Heather was fantastic to make it to and others about. So, thank you for summarizing what you heard. Um generally, we want to pay close attention to staff to make sure that we are not making any decisions outside that consideration as we often do. But we all and we also want to make sure that we are honoring the people who elected us with best practice governance processes paying close attention to the purpose of a policy review cycle. Did I miss anything? Those are the big concerns. So we heard a couple suggestions as we've moved between whether we should include a policy cycle and one of those was to add a
065lens which offered to put on the existing list of policies that we get when we go through policy. Three others are to adopt a calendar that would allow us to look at sections of policies. And I wanted to call your attention to 127's practice as I understand it is that they add I think it's just three or four maybe five policies to each meeting agenda and they just talk about those and as a result they intended for those sections. My understanding is that or my thinking right now is that that could be a conversation that does not require extra staff, especially if we maybe if we aligned or articulated some will not ask our staff to do more than X minutes and kind of encourage us to make sure that we're speaking in one voice
066instead of shooting a bunch of questions throughout the So I think that's where we are and I just added a little bit so I'll pause now. What do we think? What do we think? Is there a way that we can marry the not creating extra staff and also honor the people who elected us governance? I have a question and I'm not sure my microphone is working so I'll speak loudly. Use your teacher voice. >> This goes back. >> So my question goes back to Moren's question earlier about is there a point of contact as an expert? So I'm just thinking through how this will work logistically. So we're in our board meeting. We have our maybe five polic will read the policy and then as a new board member I will not be the expert.
067Is it going to be one of the administrative team who will say yes this is how we're implementing this policy or I can't quite visualize how this is going to work. So could you kind of explain what you're picturing? So what I was picturing is us asking questions through those lenses particularly relevance timeliness and then I would assume that we then would come together and say what do we need to know next and agree on that and once we know what we need to know or want to know and we vetted it through the board then my in my my mind we would say Dr. or superintendent who how much time would it take and you could say it's going to take 15 hours of Amy's time or something and we go back and go
068I'm not sure we want to ask Amy to like spend 15 hours on this let's rethink this how could we adjust our question or maybe chunk it and then go back and say, "What if we ask this question until we get it to a time that we're comfortable asking staff?" The other piece of that is using this calendar. So, for instance, this one says in October 2025, the EIS report is so yes. So, you just right, we just approved it. So, he's already done that work. So, maybe we pick a policy that that's related to section whatever that's in and is aligned with one of our goals. Let's say it's teacher attracting training and retaining teachers. He's already been doing that work. His mind is already there. So then I would imagine it would be
069extra work unless I'm extra work. Well um the work that I mean this is an interesting example. So the work that Dr. Wil has to do for that report is actually very technical work. It is not philosophical work at all. Um correct. Right. And >> yeah for EIS it's uh uploading all your all the salaries and everything into a system. >> Sure. >> And to generate a report and EIMRF is doing data polls as well. So that's that those alone are you know >> many days worth of work >> which you already have to do >> which yes is required under law and then it's also the new policy >> that policy I don't excuse me that work I don't think and Dr. W please correct me if I'm wrong I don't think that that
070is directly related to a policy it's just law that we have to do that >> yeah that's all in code and >> it's in code exactly so may not be a direct correlation between these these things is. And if there's not, then we know that that's not a question we're going to agree to ask. My my point isn't I don't I haven't done this before either, so I can't get into the nitty-gritty or make sure I'm aligning the right dots in terms of what policy and what report, but the point is could we adopt agreement that we would take a look at five policies just to understand them at the first and then look at them through a bunch of lenses that are all in one section and then say together, hey, we have 15
071million questions. What one do we want to ask our administrators? That's ahead of time. We're not expecting them to come with it. We're just going to agree this is what we need to know in order to serve the people we are elected to serve. >> I'm not opposed to the idea. I'm just wondering if start small because I don't I don't want to commit to five because it could be like those are they're all just legal requirements. Boom boom boom and we're done. Or it could be something that's much more of a deeper dive >> and I don't want I want I just kind of want to have like the expectations be appropriate for every meeting. Um, and so if we start smaller and then we would know if we need if this is something
072we need to expand or I just like I guess my concern is that this work is being done by staff in many ways. Um, and also legal requirements. And so I just like committing to something that's smaller. Yeah. Like I just saying committing to something that's like five or more, you know, like that that just seems like it could be redundant to what's already being done by the professionals if that makes sense. >> I hear you saying let's start small so that we don't we can kind of learn as we go and then we can adjust as we go. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> And I guess I mean Mr. W um I guess my thought before even get to the starting small is just that um that uh analysis if you will to help
073determine like for lack of a better word is use for the squeeze right like how you know like what's the delta what's the net out of what we're getting from press and what we're already doing as a part of our so we can really under we don't really have a true picture I guess at least in my mind as to like what the the size and scale of this would look like kind of getting to point around like how big is this right I guess if we had a little bit more due diligence just to help to understand like what's yeah what's the net of this what are we talking about so then also it would inform you know if we do take this approach and we're talking about calendaring it then that also helps
074kind of okay so quarterly we can reasonably expect to review this is how we pl out. I guess I would I'm just trying to understand like quantitatively like what are we what are we looking at you know outside of what the administration press is already doing that for us if that makes sense a great question it's hard to answer if we haven't done it yet right I don't I can't tell you what we don't know but what press is tell tell And what is telling us is that we will get more insight into a working knowledge of how these policies impact our staff, how they impact our kids. So that I mean I'm just spinning back what the article says and also that we will have a we'll have a working understanding of policy and
075that we will be able to evaluate it in line or align with our jobs as board members, which is to monitor progress and communicate it back to I wish I had a better >> No, I guess maybe I'm oversimplifying it because I'm thinking it's probably a data that are already getting so that we would put that extra layer of >> I don't know that answer but I'm just thinking the data would exist right we know we know our univers already covering then what's left I guess because if I understood policy there's already that layer of due diligence that the article is recommending so in my mind the only extra layer of governance around that I'm not sure how else maybe someone else can clarify. I think we're going back to we've asked our staff and
076we our meetings focus on legal compliance primarily and that's that first section of understanding policy. The second section is looking for relevance because it's still there's several questions and so I think it would give us additional data how to quantify that I I feel like the discussion we had though was that a lot of what our district are doing is evaluating for relevance and bringing that perspective to us. Um and they're also eval so I'm looking at the five from the article. So legally compant um feel like we're asking our you know our subject matter experts to as they are looking at those policies that are coming through like is this still relevant and if it's not you know if there's a curriculum instruction policy that would be saying you know this is a little
077this isn't um does it reflect a practice I think that would be similar right where Dr. Wolf might say actually this happens sometimes where Dr. Gman even tonight she was like she there was something she was like you know we don't we don't have board mentor program you know um we're going to include this but we should note that our our practice isn't you know reflected in there so I actually heard that tonight in our you know our review. Um I would also think you know does it give adequate direction to the superintendent that the superintendent has to tell us that as well like it would be something where again director would say I need more >> um and then are we getting the results we expected um you know I think on a policy
078by policy basis you know yes but we also are measuring you know those policies have to come together results. I don't know that breaking down much sense. And I would also be just trying to think of an example of you know Dr. Wolf comes and I'm making this up. I don't even know if it's real, but where he would say look we thought that this direction for teacher recruitment was going to be the way it wasn't the way or has changed about how we are actually, you know, guiding this. And so, do you know what I mean? Like I I'm trying to find the delta. And and I guess when I go through those five, I haven't found it yet. You know what I mean? From the I feel like those five are pretty. I'd
079have to think about the results a little more, but I feel like for us You know, we still are very, yes, it's our governance, but we still very practice that we can I hear what you're saying. So I hear what I hear you saying is and you've gone through each of the criteria, the lenses if you will, and say and I think you're saying we're getting that information already from our staff. I'm adding to that and saying that's a heavy expectation of our staff and it's to me I'm just going to throw this out and and I'm going to preface it with whatever we decide I will absolutely honor. But to me, we have a responsibility to not depend on to do our thinking for us. I think we need to be looking at this
080also as a governing board. I think that's a best practice that's been recommended to us and certainly we don't assume or presume to be experts on the matter. But we do provide a feedback loop which is a democratic principle right and I think that's that's the loop I'm trying to create which is that monitoring progress and communicating it back to our and not require or depend on our staff for that and knowing that we absolutely have phenomenal people who are working in our district and that we've been held very well by them so far. >> Mrs. Miller, as somebody who's going to be doing some of this work has a question. A couple of questions. Um, >> what are you looking for us to do? So, I deal with law >> and I deal with
081Are you looking for me to pull Title N policy and say explain it to the board? >> Are we looking to go in and change some of those policies? >> I'm not quite understanding >> what I'm asking. >> Yeah. So, a lot of my stuff dictated by law. FMLA contracts, all that stuff, school code, human rights acts, you know, what what do you see me providing to you when we go through and review these these policies? >> Thank you for asking that. Honestly, at this juncture, nothing. What I want is for our board to engage with the policies so that we understand them really, really well and so that we Hey, Chris is gonna give an report on this in September. Let's wait on whatever question we have and we'll look at that report. I
082don't know if that report. >> So, we explain Yeah. No, that's that's fine. It's >> So, are we explaining the policy then to you? >> I'm asking for the board members to engage in. I'm not asking anything, >> but I I I Okay, thank you for that clarification, but I what would the board >> be able to discuss about title n sexual harassment? >> Maybe we look at this and we say wow we look at you know our whatever report and we say we don't have problem right now. It might be nothing, but it would help us know the sexual harassment policy inside and out. So that when a community member comes to me and says I heard blah blah blah then I can say well we have a policy about that. I haven't heard
083any reports on that. It allows us to do our governance work and in particular to monitor the results of our school district and communicate it out. sexual harassment maybe is not the policy but let's say it's policy 810 on community engagement and it's you know someone comes and asks a question and then I can say oh I know that policy this this and this and they ask you know I don't know what they would ask but I can then say well actually the superintendent's job is this and the board has agreed to this and this part of the policy we actually as a board adopted and didn't have to it allows me to engage with the governance work. So I want to reiterate that my expectation is not that we have deeper staff work. It's
084that we do work together and we have a governing conversation. That's the question. >> I got a follow question. Um and I think I think I'm analogy. It seems that right now policy policy bridges up to us. It doesn't change the staff interaction policy but it would encourage the board to have a master level understanding of the policy so that we can communicate communicate policy back to the community which is not so a couple clarifications first of all um as I understand it balcony work is policy work that's that's our primary work the governance work But the implementation of policy is staff work. So that's dance floor work. So this conversation happens in stairway when we say hey this is what the policy says and we learn it and then we say how's that which
085is already happening right already happening but then we can then do governance work which is balcony work and go and report back to our community in informal and formal ways of what district progress is being made. So that and I want to clarify too. It's not that it's not being done, but I just think it we might benefit from doing it as a formal process by adding a couple policies for board discussion and then if we have questions that require staff, maybe we have some explicit agreements around that so that we don't add unnecessarily to our staff. They're already they've likely already answered the question. We may not just be thinking of the question at the time that the information came out. Can I can I get a couple clarifying questions and my apologies for
086not being able to attend early. I had some family things to attend to earlier. Um the policies that we want to bring and I'm not sure whether I would be in favor or not of adding them to the board agenda because our board agendas are robust in many situations as well. And I can see some of these conversations stretching on for long periods of time. And I I do want to be respectful of our time and the staff's time while we're sitting at this table. But I'm not decided on that yet. Um, this is not replacing the policy committee. Then we're just asking to then add an additional if if they're discussed in the policy committee, then bring a couple to the full board to discuss further or would the recommendation of the policy committee
087be the the discussion of the policy? I'm trying to understand what we why why would we have a policy committee and then bring policies to the board table to discuss. That's what I'm trying to get my head around. >> Yes. So, >> and I'm all about governance. So, I respect that that is what we're trying to bridge to that because you and I had that conversation many times. I'm just trying to I missed the conversation earlier. So, I'm trying to >> and I might need one of those sheets, too. Possibly. >> Appreciate the question. >> Yeah. Um, so the how we would do it, I think we're leaning towards either only doing some of the questions in policy meetings. So no additional policy, just adding some more intentionality about how we talk about policies. So
088instead of just saying are we legally comp and maybe it's just not depending having like a process that's familiar that we can work through >> like a checklist of going through >> whatever these four questions. >> Okay. Okay. Then another option is to include so for instance recommends section two um they say we recommend to be monitored and reviewed within six months of board elections and the seating of new board members in order to review the board's own processes and commitments about how it does it work >> and so if we took section two I don't know how many they recommend three months and we added policies all from section two for three months then we can get to our boarding value for our new board members to say this is how we do our
089work here that shouldn't correct me if I'm wrong I don't think that should require staff um if you direct us not to put extra time into it we won't and the reason I say that I'm looking at the team and I know that that feeling like we need to inform the board about the policies. What we would probably do is create a bunch of slides that explains the policies to you. So, we would literally need you to say don't do that. It is our responsibility to read the policies and to interpret them. >> That is well that's what I'm suggesting is that we do the work of reading through three or four policies or five or however many x number before we come and say what's our understanding of what this policy is so that
090we get a working understanding of what the policy >> and so that's so that's my follow-up question then too in terms of and it's been mentioned a couple times like mastery level what norm are we going to set for that because that could involve an enormous amount of extra work on our part for things that we don't do on a daily basis within our lives. So like I I I I I have an understanding of our board policy, but I am not Dr. Wal >> or payment. I'm just opened up 450 payment procedures >> and I don't have the bandwidth to dive into that >> type of mastery level work and I don't does recommend that we develop that kind of mastery level. >> So mastery level I think came up here, >> right? >>
091So I think that's a fantastic question. And it's just and maybe it's a norm conversation because like like I'm not sure what the research would be required of us >> to not have staff involved. >> So what if we just did a small pilot? >> What if we just took a look at section two which is board process board us like us >> just us like we've got two you know and it might be super quick. It might I just don't know. We haven't done it before. >> Can I ask though? If that's happening during a board meeting, we have staff here right now who are here for this discussion. So, we are asking more of staff time if we're discussing this at a board meeting >> versus a policy meeting or versus a board
092workshop >> and a board on a policy meeting will probably an hour may not be enough for those kinds of things. I wanted just to go back for a moment to the first um option that you were describing only I'm the one who suggested it. So, I wanted just to clarify a little bit for you, Stephen. Is that if if all of the board members or I I don't know if the whole board is making this decision or if the three policy committee members are making the decision, I'm not sure, but if the direction is let's do something different. Um, and that the idea is, hey, the board wants to delve more deeply into policy than you're currently doing. A to do that would be to take that list of questions or a different list
093of questions for me to put that onto that policy worksheet that I give you every time we have a press update as you review the policies which is one of your responsibilities right you could be reviewing them with that lens we would give you a you know a week prior to the policy committee meeting if you have specific policies that are on this list that you want to discuss us. Please let us know what the questions are and that those can be discussion topics which will be different from what happened today. Today's board me uh policy committee meeting was all fiveyear you know reviews and we didn't discuss them at depth at all except for a few places where I wanted to point something out. So that is the other way but that's again only
094if the board wants to do something different with policy. I wanted to clarify that idea. >> I'm I want to make sure I think we're we started this as a discussion of what the policy committee should do and we prepped it out to what the full board should do. So I also want to just remind us all of that that this original all of this was a policy was policy work not. And so my thought would be the whole board would have to agree on time. >> Um I think a place to start if we're going to do a pilot would be within because otherwise we're not really changing the committee which I thought I thought this discussion was going well that's that's a small way to start. We have three committee three policy we
095had three policy committee meetings last year. So we could pilot it at the policy level with those and um if we wanted to currently the current way we do this policy we want to add a polic agenda we can add to it. So what I don't what I don't want to do is I will probably add a couple months as an onboarding process for new board members. So I'm not sure how to reconcile that again. So I agree like the pilot we have we're merging now board and policy meetings however we do it is there a way to look at some policies in section two >> that would be the most logical spot I mean that would certainly give me a visual >> I would >> and maybe we time it and say we're going
096to spend x number of on this. We're not going to spend an hour and maybe as a board we say to Dr. we're going to do this. So maybe staff I don't know what your solution will be but we are not going to be asking staff questions in that number of minutes. So maybe that alters the arrival. >> I want to chime in on that too. I was thinking if the goal is to just familiarize not just but to familiarize ourselves with as board members with the policy and to just kind of like flash each time so we're over time building up a really robust understanding less about how the district is specifically implementing the policy or putting it into place then I think that would be more like oh let's that seems more of
097otherwise I can just do it as homework but if you're doing it as a I have to admit I I think I've lost track of the question, but I did want to go back and say that I like the suggestion that we would pilot if we're going to do this that we would pilot it in the policy meeting because I feel like that that is the most respectful of people's time where we figure out how we would do this, if we should do this, um, and kind of what the ultimate goal is, uh, and maybe help us to determine which policies actually would be smart, for lack of a better word, uh, for the board to look at as opposed to every single policy. Um, and you know, speaking as one of the newbies, um,
098in terms of, uh, section two, I mean, I feel like you all have done a great job like making us understand, you know, what we need to. Um, and I'm happy to do that part as homework and then kind of, you know, so don't feel the pressure to address that on our behalf. Um, mostly because I think, like I said, I think you all have done a really great job of helping us feel understand the norms and and expectations. Thus far, >> I think we have consensus unless anyone has something different to offer. It seems to me that we're willing to do a small during policy meetings and we don't want to commit to an extra general agenda item at this point. Is that where we're at? And I think I've heard if anyone new
099board members or anyone wants to, you could assign yourself homework if you want to and start taking a look at section two just to review board processes. Is that where we're at with consensus? So just to clarify, do you need the whole policy? >> And this is actually not clearly an agenda item. I point that out. The agenda item is actually discussion of the policies. So I don't you don't have anything to vote on really or to have consensus with. This is kind of a offshoot of the conversation that was happening at the policy committee meeting. But I I'm looking at my friend Sue, who's going to be responsible for writing the minutes. And I want to make sure she knows what to write. Does she right now? So, you're not quite sure what to
100write. I That's what I thought. >> Okay. It's it's going back to the policy committee to run the pilot for this idea >> and then and then that committee will recommend it to the board >> and it is you're going to just add the >> the questions to the policy that come next. >> Right. Right. >> Okay. So, I didn't get that. Okay. So let's review. Okay. So next time we app press um I will add a list of questions that um come from that article. Right. um for the board to be looking at, you know, looking through that lens so that when we and I'm going to ask you a week ahead of time if you have specific topics you want to discuss in relation to these policies that come through these questions, let
101us know a week ahead of time so that we can prepare for that. Yes, ma'am. >> You said the board or the policy. >> You're right. It should be press and it should be the policy committee. Yes, policy committee. I'll ask you the policy committee to do that. And um and then Christie, did I hear you say that you do still intend to add some additional policies to the list or are we just doing that with press? >> So I think I'm hearing that we most of us don't want to do additional. So I'm not >> That's what I'm hearing. Okay. >> Okay. >> Um I did want to add to the minutes. >> No, I'm look I'm looking at Sue, but I'm I've got it. Okay. I just want to add to the minute
102just so there's a record that section two would anyone who wants to do extra um I'll use Hillary's homework if you want to do that. That that is a section that talks as we all know already about specific board processes and procedures. >> Just to put a on that um just in a not so distant past being the newest board member before and Hillary um as I understand it it's every board member's responsibility to understand policy so I don't know that we need to call out like homework for anyone but as part of our office of understanding you know our roles and policies that we are executing well that we are crafting executing and governing on behalf of our of our district. So, um just want to flag that that is part of our our
103whole period being thank you for that reminder. >> Thank you everyone. Everyone who sat through this discussion very much appreciate it. It's good to know exactly what we've agreed that the policy will do. >> Okay, that brings us to uh topics for future agenda items. Dr. Goodman. >> Yeah. Well, um nothing has changed since the last time I shared these with you, but I'll review them again. Um October 15th, we have our Panthers coming, students from DMS sitting at the uh table over there. We've got expanded and we'll have them giving a presentation to us. We'll have policies for you to vote on. Um, uh, W is coming back to do a construction update. So, right, we had W here tonight or we had Matt Ven here tonight from Wold um providing kind of longer
104long range plans for us. But next time um Matt will come back and talk with us specifically about all of the design work we're doing for our um, media centers that we're so excited about. Um, we expect to be able to bring you a construction manager for approval um to help us with that process. Um, and I think that's all I have at the moment for October 15th. November 5th, um, Park Campus Wolves are coming. I don't have other agenda items right now related to that board meeting. Um, November 19th, we'll be back again for a finance meeting. Um, that one will be the audit. Um, And then December 17th, um you'll be approving a new superintendent contract and um then you go home, right? Um by the way, speaking of the um finance committee
105meeting, I didn't I'm not sure you mentioned this Chris tonight or not, but I know um board you'll be happy to know that um Mr. Weldman and Mrs. Armstrong are going to be working on the budget book. Um we took last year off from the budget book because there was such so much going on with the levy and there were so many changes, but um this year we don't really need to to take that pause. So we'll have that for you um as soon as possible. >> Um just looking a little further out um at what point would you recommend that we start looking for a third party to assist us with strategic plan. >> Great question. So, um, probably as we're getting close to the new year, maybe just after the new year, um,
106but I'll do a little research on that, I may come back with a different answer. But one thing that I do want to mention, board, is that the last time we did this, and I'll remind you it was COVID days, um, I interviewed people who would be interested and firms that would be interested uh to do strategic plan and I provided you with this with a recommendation. I don't recommend that that's how we do it this time. Um I would recommend that instead we bring people in for a board meeting to present to you so that you can firsthand see what the process might look like and you can make a selection that way. Um so that's that's what I'm thinking. That makes some sense. Thank you, Dr. Goldman. Uh, any public comments sign up?
107No. Okay. Uh, we do need to go into a close session. So, I need a motion to enter close session. uh in accordance with public act 5 Illinois CS 120/2 paragraph C1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance excuse me or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity. I need a motion. >> I'll second. Okay, we do not anticipate coming out with any additional business. So, we will adjourn directly from the close session. >> I I >> I >> Okay, thank you everybody for being here. Have a good evening.