January Board of Education Meeting

001Good evening, sir. >> I call to order the board of education meeting for Prospect Heights School District 23 for January 8th, 2026 at 7:02 p.m. >> Can I get a roll call, please? Mrs. Morrisy >> here. >> Mrs. Bwinsky >> here. Mr. Gordonis >> here. >> Dr. Long. Mrs. Mlan >> present. >> Mr. Nordmark >> present. >> Mrs. Peters >> present. >> At each regular and special open meeting, members of the public Oh, wait. We need a pledge of allegiance. >> I missed that. >> We pledge. >> Can we all rise? 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 know I actually watched congratulate him on a job well done

002from my desk. All right. At each regular and special open meeting, members of the public and district employees make comments on or ask questions of the board of education. If you would like to address the board, please complete the pink form and give it to Mrs. O'Donnell, our reporting secretary. I was jumping to this because there were so many people that wanted to talk to us. I wanted to make sure to give them an opportunity. >> No one. >> Yeah. Yeah. and we have our timer ready to go. >> All right, we are on to communications. >> Thank you. Uh the first item are our key performance indicators. Uh there's a direct link on our website and I'll be including this um PDF also in our uh school scene tomorrow. We annually report out on

003our um strategic plan goals. Uh typically here in this January February wind window of time, we have to wait till after the October school report cards are uh calculated. We have to wait till after we complete the uh AFR. we have to wait until we get our five essentials data because most of those data points are uh the ones that where we pull this information from. So uh board may recall as we've gone through different iterations of our school improvement plan, we've tried to identify some of these quick uh data points that are just kind of giving us a a look at how things are progressing. Um, we roughly color code them. Green meaning we're we're feeling good about that. Yellow meaning there are things that we're working on and red being areas of concern

004for us. Uh, we do this as a leadership team and in partnership with the district improvement team. So, the representatives from all the grade levels, the teachers, uh, other support staff so that it's a collaborative kind of reflection really on on what we're doing. And so as uh we highlight in here, you know, being um as we talked about with uh John Bruch when from ECRA when he was here looking at our scores, we want to look at um you know, percentiles because sometimes those percentages um can be a little misleading, but you know, we see ourselves um squarely in that top uh cortile across the state uh up to the 92nd percentile. in science. We've making really good progress. We're up to 73rd percentile in eighth graders passing algebra. And um our access exit

005rate at 15.3 is the highest we've had in in quite a while, which is really uh again I know we've had a conversation about our ML services and the EL target. Um so those are really um exciting for us to see. The one that we're continue to be focused on chronic absenteeism for the district. 35% of our students miss 10 or more percent of a particular school year. Um that is a significantly higher number for us over time. There was areawide, statewide, nationwide. Uh there's was a significant uptick since CO. Um, we hypothesize that that's related to the fact that more folks are working from home. And so it's easier to keep kids home than it used to be when both parents had to work and there wasn't anywhere for the, you know, the kids

006to go. Even if they just kind of ah, my throat's a little scratchy. You'd say, "Sorry, you got to go to school." Um, now that somebody's staying home, perhaps we see more likely, okay, you can stay home. And so, you know, that's a fine line for us because obviously when kids really are sick, we want to eliminate the petri dish of germs that happens in the school setting, trying to keep our our environment healthy, but at the same time, um, when kids are able to be here, we want them here. and and that's a significant um uh data point that we track. I think the other component that is reflected here um and you see these data points uh vary across different communities. Um for us we saw some increase in absenteeism due to ICE

007activities. There were some families that were concerned about sending their kids to school. And the other thing that happens in uh our community and certainly other uh upper middle class communities, a lot of vacation time. Uh great opportunity for families to um visit Poland for a month, go to India, travel with a work vacation for a week. And we certainly understand the importance of those and the benefit on a social emotional uh level of those experiences. However, all of that time absent from school um is tracked and something that we're really trying to hope uh again trying to communicate that as much as possible we want to schedule those for our vacation windows um and and reinforce that kids need to be on campus. Um, >> hey Don. Um, to that, um, I know for

008me when I look at truency rates, right, because they're so-called truency at this level essentially, >> truency, chronic absenteeism, same interchangeable. >> Yeah. So, when I'm looking at those like on a high school level, um, and the high schools in 214, specifically the high schools that my family would get into, you know, you look at maternity levels and that doesn't sit well at all, >> right? Um, and so diff sometimes try reasons for a high school kid versus a second grader maybe are going to be different because maybe a high school child is staying home to try and maybe they're working or they don't have the support that they need. Not that the second grader doesn't have the support they need, but they're not working. So practitioner are different. What do we and I know

009that the high schools are sort of working on that. Um so what is our thought and strategy to try to reduce that number and improve >> class attendance because that's a huge thing. >> Yeah. So the first part of that really is raising awareness and so over the last few years we've increased our direct contact to families of students who are approaching that threshold. our uh psychologist Joel Grafman at MacArthur tracks and monitors our data each quarter. And so as a leadership team, we get um you know students sort of who are on the bubble, who are at risk, who are approaching and then those that are already in concern. And so then we're making personal contact to those families saying, "Hey, just so you know, our data shows that you've already been out six

010times this year and it's only November." Um, and you know, if they're medical reasons, we get it. We understand. We appreciate you keeping kids home with the flu. Um, but a raising that awareness, I think, um, is our first strategy. as part of that then educating parents about why what happens when kids miss and the the impact not only of that day that they missed but then the catchup that they have to play of and so I didn't get that lesson and that impacts me down the line as well so particularly for extended optional absences vacations and the like um and then you know I think also as much as we can put uh our calendar out there and make sure that folks know these are the days that are scheduled to be in session

011or off session um so that folks can plan and I think especially in the last few years again we've we've tried to be thoughtful and a bit creative about how we schedule some 4-day weekends so that we don't have the random days off here or there to help facilitate those weekend getaways or those hockey uh tournaments. tournaments or soccer tournaments or whatever it is. Um, but to the extent that we can create a schedule that melds well with famil family's lives, that's always a goal for us too. >> I mean, do we do we map it out? Thank you. um do we map it out like x% of the truency days were on this day and then you look at it maybe compared to the calendar like do we have a strategy like that to

012say is there a frequency is there >> right is there I mean are we are we are we taking that kind of an approach to find out is there a pattern >> I wouldn't say that that are we not there yet >> not by day but we do by pattern in terms of what percentage of these were due to safety risk concerns from families as we reach out to families. What percentage of these are vacations? What percentage of these are >> legit sick? And again, we know there's anybody that got hit with the flu this season >> five days. >> It's it was a it was a big hit this year. >> So >> those we know, but so in that sense, yes, we look for those patterns and try to identify because you have

013to respond differently to each one. >> Sure. you know, um, so I that's I wouldn't say the days of the week per se, but we are looking at sort of the categories or the reasons for those unexcused absences. >> Thanks. >> Yep. >> You know, just the one thing that I see that 214 does that could, you know, and again, I think that this would be something, you know, if we don't see, you know, improvement based we're doing is that 214 is proactive in communicating with families no matter where they're at, right? And I think they kind of have the kids grouped in tears, >> right? Based on percentage of attendance. And so I have one daughter that makes it every day and one daughter who >> cannot get out of bed and uh and

014and is sick a lot. But so but they kind of they proactively I think it's every month that they send an email for each student automated. >> Yeah. For the entire community to say you're at 96% attendance, right? based on you know and then they have some stats at the bottom to say you know students who are you know that we're really shooting for students to be here over 95% of the time right because based on that our data shows that they have a much higher grade >> higher GPA higher rate of graduation right to to show all that and so it's >> and and then right and you're in this tier right please keep up the good work or the other you know >> my other daughter is you're in this tier you know

015there's still time to turn things around but But it's so but there's like kind of so it's so you're so you're repeatedly hitting the families, right? So that it's >> so that you're not contacting them when there's a problem, but it's this proactive thing to say, hey, attendance is really important, right? >> Um and and and I don't maybe that's something to consider if we don't see it turn around. >> I think to your point too, like you said, is that getting the message out there to parents that elect to take some longer, right, like make their winter break an extra day or two on either end or their Thanksgiving break or their spring break. Like those days do add up and matter, right? Like if you're going to be consistently doing that because then

016when you get hit with the fiveday flu and you've chosen to take four >> other days, >> fun days then that really, you know, >> Yeah. days when you really need them. Yeah. do that. >> Uh so yes, that's one of our uh current and active uh improvement goals on the teaching and learning and innovation. I just want to point out I mean our scores uh on five essentials. It's really anything above 50 um that is viewed as a positive score. It's not a percentage. It's not a rating, but it's a it's a score zero to 100. Um and the responses here we look at are mostly uh anecdotal like uh from that five essentials survey. And um the high rates consistently high rates of our teachers feeling engaged, that they collaborate well, that they

017trust one another. the focus that we've had on collect uh collaborative planning and the teamwork uh comes comes through loud and clear in our data compared to um other areas. So uh we point that one out. In terms of parent and community partnership, we actually are shifting u our two of our three indicators here. the parent involvement in schools and teacher parent trust are new ratings for us this year. There was an article earlier this year that we studied as a district improvement team that actually did um a correlation of all of the five essentials elements and there's a bunch of them and said which of these should you really be monitoring? which ones really are impactful and connect to correlate highly to high performing districts. And the two that they focused in here that

018we hadn't been using are parent involvement in schools ratings and parent teacher trust. And again, both of those uh we were really we were really pleased with. Um, so I just kind of highlight those on the financial um, uh, facilities and financial management. Um, we're updating uh, a couple of these yet now off of the AFR, but again uh, when we think about school uh, in this sense when we talk about the finances of the district, this is one of the ways that we are monitoring that. Um our current EVF adequacy percentage has dropped to 90% which will move us into tier 2 for the first time. We have historically been a tier three school in that evidence-based funding uh model. Now that you know hold the applause that doesn't really equate into any real

019different money because tier one still receives 99% of the funding. Tier two will receive 0.9 of the funding and then tiers three and four split the final 0.1. So um it may provide a little bit more uh to us in the way of of state supported funds but what that is is a measure of against the um sort of standardized expected level of adequacy. How much should school districts be funding? How much of that should be coming from local? How much of that should be uh going towards student? Um our current adequacy is only at 90%, meaning we're underfunding our schools 10% from what where the state says uh our schools should be funded. And so that number has been as high as 96% and I think one time was as low as 80 87%

020if I remember correctly. But uh again, we monitor that as a measure of our um how well we're doing. And then the last two categories, we just uh share updates on our district characteristics. Again, we just updated 51 languages spoken in the district. Um average class size at 21.5. Um we monitor enrollment uh over time. And then the last slide are our district accolades. The things that we've been involved with, we highlight here our longtime partnership with uh agencies like link together and 214 as well as our national banner uh school special Olympics standing and gold rating for ECE. Um, the nice thing about viewing this online rather than as a PDF is that you can click on any of those information and it'll open up a historical box so you can see the the

021trend data there. So, we share this annually just as a snapshot. Our next district improvement team is um kind of doing exactly uh Tracy what you asked throughout is now that we've compiled all this data and we've seen it the so what? So, what do we do with this data? What are the tweaks or modifications to our plans? What are some new things that we want to implement or try? What are the things that we think uh we're successful in? And and where maybe are there gaps? So, that happens at our next district improvement team to inform the upcoming strategic plan goals and kind of priorities for the district. >> Any questions or thoughts on that? >> What are those values? looking I think it's the third to last page when the finances like the

022spend first right and and I think just going back to you know >> based on the conversations you're going to be having here the the next few months and uh you know and be asking the community for more um you know for additional operational funds >> just that number right we talked about this last year with >> kind of that number now there that's like 11,000 what was in here but the number that was in the Illinois report card right I get That's a completely different Oh, this is pulled from the Illinois report card. I was not the number >> because I think the Illinois report card also includes federal funding. When we report that on the um sitebased report, it does break it down federal and state funding. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. The

023federal funded, but the number that's in the same report card is more like 18. >> It was 18 or 19. >> And it does include both of those values, though. >> And so, but I'm just And I get it. They're going to be they're not going to be the same number, but just be operational. >> We're looking here at operational as opposed to all funding. >> Right. Right. But just I know that you would get asked I don't know when you get asked to fill that out. It's probably sometime in the next quarter. Right. >> Typically towards the end of the fiscal >> Yeah. But just making sure that Right. Because I we talked about this last summer where the numbers just seemed artificially high compared to other districts. Right. And just make >> and

024we had talked about potentially running that through finance. >> We've Yeah. And I've worked with both River Trails and District 25 just to make sure that we're reporting an applesto apples comparison. And as we've done in the past, we use the forecast 5 tool. Um, so that for us there isn't a whole lot of discretion there. Um, so I think it has a lot to do with our actual enrollment and how those dollars are being spread out. But yes, >> and in the interactive you see our comparison to the state and we're below the state >> over time as well, but it doesn't break it down by uh by local comparison. >> Yeah. Yes. So that number would show up as below the state, but I think that when you look at on the report

025card site that we're far above the state >> based on that trend. So yeah, I don't I don't know if there's anything necessarily to do, right? because I understand that they're two different numbers, but just I think that making sure that we have a good number that we're reporting because I think comparing to other districts, right, might be is could be a potentially useful data point. >> Sure. in the next year or so based on the plans in this. >> Speaking of funding, the next communication item is just an update uh from the uh on our Cook County Tax >> tax coalition. uh the school districts across uh Cook County, south, north, and west um have come together uh to advocate as a collective group. Uh there are 50ome districts just in Cook County. It's

026about 15% of all the districts in the entire state. Um and to date uh we have received about 60% of the tax >> revenues due due to us >> in September. >> Uh our frustrations as a collective are twofold. Certainly the financial impact is significant and detrimental to districts across the county. whether you had to uh issue tax borrowing to pay payroll and tax anticipation warrants or not. Uh there's lost interest earnings. There's uh delay of uh purchasing and other things that you would hope to do or plan to do with with revenue. But the second piece uh and the part that continues to be really frustrating is the complete lack of communication coming out of um uh the county to directly to any of the taxing bodies. Um you know, we learned of the

027plan to release the funds uh from the Chicago Tribune article, not from what you would think would be, hey, your tax revenue is on its way. we're implementing XYZ. So this particular coalition um is uh started here in North Cook but has again expanded to all districts. We have prepared um some data. We've collected data from all of the school districts in Cook County to uh estimate a conservative dollar amount of funds lost to taxing bodies, meaning money that should have come to the districts uh without a penny increase in taxes from our residents. This is just money that we lost in terms of revenue or we lost because we had to uh borrow money or because we lost because we had to liquidate holdings across the entire county comes in at $121.8 million since

028September. 62 million of that is Chicago CPS. So, it's another $60 million roughly for the remaining uh taxing bodies. Uh for us, that dollar amount was >> about $155,000 in lost interest alone. >> So, $155,000 of revenue that we count on that we don't have to borrow or ask anybody for. This is our money already invested in the district earning its own interest. Uh just not materializing. And so, uh, the advocacy group, this coalition continues to work with, uh, the county to get clarity of their process, clarity around communication. Um, we have had groups speaking, writing letters. Uh, I will bring to our board a conversation next month about a resolution that some of the local um districts have been passing calling on Cook County to um perform their required uh duty on time. Um

029there is conversation through this group about how do we prevent this from happening in the future? What are the ways that we can hold not only the software company um that is uh largely responsible for the technical glitches but also the county offices themselves who have known about these technical glitches now for four years and that have not yet been able to put a mechanism in place to adequately uh process the tax bills and then uh collect that money and then distribute it appropriately and in a timely way. Uh we do hope >> start. >> Yeah. We have not yet um heard >> officially when that final 40% or so of revenue is due into the district. But unofficially, we think it should be within the next >> couple weeks is what they're saying that

030they would be making their distributions from the new integrated tax system. >> Fingers crossed. And then the second wave of taxes were changed by um >> changed by the legis >> legislation last fall to push it a month from uh March 1st to April 1st. So that was not an that is not a helpful delay, but it wasn't unexpected. So whether they'll be able to meet that April 1st, it'll it's actually the bills need to be processed and sent out by March 1st in order for the payments to be due by April 1st. So if they can meet that timeline, then we would anticipate April 1st being the next window of time that would open for us to start receiving that revenue. So locally through our treasury, Amy continues to stay in close contact with

031them as a group as we've talked about um potential strategies for avoiding um not being able to meet payroll and those types of things throughout this. Uh we've avoided needing to do anything drastic. So that has been positive. But um the fact that this is now our third third cycle of having to get creative because the tax money that homeowners have already paid and put in the bank is sitting there and can't get to the park districts and the library districts and the fire departments and everybody that is um owed those funds or expecting those funds. Uh again is is still unacceptable to us. So, we are advocating um locally with uh Commissioner Britain. Uh he has been a very positive uh supporter for us in this. We've connected with other local uh legislators, although

032the county is not under state jurisdiction, so there's limits there, but um there is an invite at each of the Cook County Board meetings. We are uh as a coalition we'll have a presence. We have uh speakers from each of the three regions who will just share sort of those impact statements. This is how much this is what this is what this means for us in our district. Uh we've had to issue bonds. We've had to issue uh tax anticipation warrants. We've had to sell off uh holdings. um and then what that means in terms of impact to kids and impact to taxpayers. Um and so at each of those meetings, we'd love to have a coalition of county residents, elected officials such as yourselves uh there to uh kind of support that messaging. So

033if you're interested and available on a Thursday uh next Thursday, >> I have the information. >> Thank you. Becky has the information and you can let her know. We can put you in touch with them. Um, we're not presenting this this month. Um, >> other districts, a couple of other districts from our area will be representing North Cook, but >> so I if you guys want more information about it, it's next Thursday. So, just reach out and I can share the info. when when you put together that number, right, that 120 million. I mean, is communicating to that? I mean, is there an ask of the county to say you were earning interest that should have been ours, we should be getting an additional payment from you for the delay? Are is that coalition making

034that ask? Yes, but uh and the the county statutoily does have to pay us any interest earnings that they earned while they held those funds. The challenge is that those funds were not being held by the county until >> December, >> right? Till after the bills because the bills didn't get sent out until months late and then the collection and the due date. So, >> okay. So it's because they were so far behind in the actual billing. >> Yes. That that >> they're not holding the interest. >> That's problem one, right? >> The the people who were collecting escrow, >> right? They >> and making interest on our escrow payments before they had to send it to the county. That's where that interest money is lost. They're not the county. They're not Tyler Technologies >>

035banks. These are the banks. But yes, as part of our request and potential litigation for making districts whole, um we're monitoring that data very carefully because that is the ask of we lost $150,000 for doing we didn't do anything. We did everything was expected and we we lost out on this. And um what what does what does the plan look like to reimburse districts for that if any? Our ask certainly is to be made whole. >> Yeah. And thanks for those updates. You know, the money is is obviously the biggest piece, but just like the stress and the pain in the ass of it is more is, you know, I'm excuse me is more like how many hours did you have to spend on this? Like I probably had just we talked about this at

036four different finance meetings, right? I I volunteered for this, but when I'm dealing with the county, I charge $1,000 an hour, right, for for having to have all these discussions about it, right? There's just there's just so much time that we have to spend >> trying to plan for contingencies. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Don's point is that their lack of communication like >> I found out about it through >> a Daily Herald article that was forwarded to me that I forwarded to you guys. Like >> there's no like they weren't being proactive even and they're like, "Hey, we figured this out. Here's your money." Right? Like it was all through like, "Oh, did you see this? Oh, did you see?" Like there was no like real communication that >> they would

037have a problem with if it was the cards were reversed. And politics aside, it's about trust with the community, >> you know, and there's certainly a clear distrust of governmental entities and what are you doing with my money? And we're, you know, we want to be respectful of every penny that we ask for. And so then to lose money, >> right, >> that has been allocated and has been paid by the taxpayers that's just going nowhere and not going to the schools and libraries and park districts that it's supposed to go to is really frustrating in a time where everybody is pinching everything. >> Well, yeah. I mean, thank you for that update and for being part of that. And I just you know I the public doesn't have as much visibility in this but

038you you spend so much time like contingency planning with you know you know with the treasury to make sure that we would be okay if that doesn't happen you know and again >> time >> yeah this I mean we may not right >> but but it's more I guess it's just more just the lack of communication and just the amount of distraction it is you know to to the entire district too to have to be dealing with it to making sure that you're prepared in case the money doesn't come. >> You said the word litigation. Is there a law firm involved? >> Yes. >> None. None that have been formally secured, but we have been in consultation with a number of the financial uh provi advising groups have been supportive and have helped crunch numbers

039and get data. and a number of the uh law firms have been supportive and helpful in guiding uh you know >> do you know if there's litigation uh of the county to the software company >> I am not officially aware of any litigation but there's been >> lots of news >> there has been a lot of conversation a lot of fingerpointing at this agency or at the >> at the the company the vendor Um, but the vendor has also countered with concerns about the quality of the data and the format of that data from the from the county. So, everybody's pointing fingers and at the end of the day, >> we need some folks to step up and make this >> right, get it fixed. >> So, yeah, we'll keep you apprised as as we

040go. I just got another one pager. So, I'll forward that on to you guys tomorrow morning. >> Next up is committee. Thank you, >> Don. Committee's reports. Um, buildings and sites did not meet. Is there anything to share? >> Yeah, >> I sent up. >> Do you want to share something? Uh uh we kind of got a summary of the um work that was done over break. All the filters were swapped out in the whole district. Um >> it's okay. Um >> I don't say do you have more? >> I got it up. >> Yeah, I got it here. Uh there was painting done and um the Vim food donations um were delivered to Willie Township Food Pantry for the holiday um donations. Um we reported uh last month that we were looking at new

041um cleaning products and that training took place uh during the institute days. So that should be in place going forward. uh the in the windows and sighting project in Mac uh was measured out for the window and door sizing. See, uh DeFranco Plumbing was on site at Ike to um televise the piping um kind of anticipation of which uh add-ons, not add-ons, alternates that we may um we may decide on just to kind of be ready for that. the Mac gym floor will um there was a drawing provided for the markings on floor with the new >> mascot uh on the flooring and then um we will be participating in um a program that um provides sensors for um water for leaking um through and we'll do that throughout the district all the buildings buildings

042>> um and when will that be? We anticipate getting those early February February to roll that out. >> Tell me finance did not make either. There was a holiday in there that everybody was busy with. So >> any updates or anything we need to >> I feel like most that we're going to talk about the insurance and um student fees in there and uh of um some authority to awesome. >> So yeah, >> all right. We have the NCO >> uh NCO did not have a meeting in January. Um so their negotiations will be starting soon um officially. Uh today was the kickoff meeting of the operational board for the new um structure for NSSO and >> which who went? >> Yeah, >> you went. >> Cool. >> How'd it go? >> It was good.

043It was good. Uh Mike Connelly will serve as our president uh from district 21. Jody Megle will serve as vice chair from district 26. And I am the secretary uh on that board. Uh and so yeah, we had our first re >> recorder. >> We had our reorganization. We had the recorder for our closed session. We >> get to review that minutes, I'm sure. Right. That'll flow. That's later tonight, too. Yeah. So we did have and say the same kind of process and then we all changed seats and yeah >> fine fine welcome to that side of the table. >> Yeah. Right. >> And then I I got an email this week. I'll forward it to all of you. NSO is having their winter wonderland >> u which is on the 31st at um sunrise.

044So, I'll send that out to you. And it's it's a good I mean, it's far. That's kind of, you know, a tough thing, but it's a good way to get a good sense of sunrise. I know that we had a meeting, one of our meetings there, and you kind of get, you know, the lay of the land, but you're not really seeing it in operation. So, um, if you get a chance, you can go out there on the 31st and I'll send that out later. >> All right. Um, up next is the consent agenda. And if we could pull A and B off separately from Marilyn and I both take. Okay. So, could I get a motion for A and B? the regular the approval of the regular meeting minutes of December 18th and the

045executive session minutes of December 18th. >> Moved by Brian. >> Second by Tracy. Can I get a roll call, please? >> Yes. >> Any discussion on call? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Butwinsky? >> Yes. >> Mr. Gdanis? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mlan? >> Abstain. >> Mrs. Morsy. >> Yes. >> Mr. Nordmark. Yes, >> Mrs. Peters. >> Motion carries 402. >> Well done. >> Progress. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, next up on the consent agenda is the personnel report and press policy 120. Um, can I get a motion to approve those two items? >> Move. Move >> by Tracy. >> Second by Bren. Any discussion? All right. Can I get a roll call, please? >> Mrs. Bowwinsky, >> yes. >> Mr. Gordon, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mlan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Morsy, >> yes. >> Mr.

046Nordmar, >> yes. >> Mrs. Peters, >> yes. >> Motion carries 61. Next up, we have the financial report, which was Brian this month, right? >> Yeah. Um, It it it was I I was it was a financial report. >> Um yeah. Yeah. I mean I you know I talked with Amy about a couple minor things about it. Right. But I would motion to approve to uh to to accept to approve the financial report as presented. >> Motion by Ryan. Are there any second? A second. Second by Marilyn. Any discussion? Some Can I get a roll call, please? >> Mrs. Morsy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Bwinsky, >> yes. >> Mr. Gordonis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mlan, >> yes. >> Mr. Nordmark, >> yes. >> Mrs. Peters, >> yes. >> Motion carries 6. >> We're into the

047superintendent report. Our first thing is a presentation. >> Tighten up your seat belt. >> I am so excited. >> We've been working on this for a year and a half to be honest. Um because sustainable financing is not just the thing we're first starting to think about now. It has been a topic uh of our focus and and the goal for us for a long time. um articulating that plan and um kind of finding a way for it to live uh and be accessible and transparent um is is what we've crafted in terms of these presentations. Um there is probably more information in these first this one and the next two phases that we've already been drafting um than is really uh consumable at any one time. So thank you for letting us kind of

048break it up um so that we can uh take a look at um our our current standings and and our plan for the future. Christian, if you go to the next slide, please. Uh, again, this ties in with uh specifically this year, we have a goal for developing and articulating this plan, but we have a number of uh financial goals uh in our strategic plan that fall under that. So, we just kind of point that out. If you go to the next slide, please. We talk about the three phases um or three parts to this this presentation. Uh tonight we'll be talking about some just some basic understanding of terminology and uh the foundations of finance. We'll take a look at our historical expenditure and revenue uh items as well as uh a look at

049our fund balance history and some of the influences that have impacted that over time. Uh next month in the second section we will really be talking about current budget assumptions um what we have identified in the way of needs for um our full day kindergarten and then what does our new baseline look like? What does our new you know this is what district 23 provides? Uh and then what does that what does that cost and what does that look like over over some time? Um because then that will lead us into the third part where we look at different scenarios moving forward to say what will it take for us simply to maintain what we have. Um if we don't maintain that what are the potential reductions or or cuts to program services? um that

050that may be necessary. And then where do we think um potential uh dollar amounts are for uh budgets that would allow us to maintain what we have. Um expand to uh new and and future needs uh both in terms of uh capital projects as well as programming. and then uh a quick look at some of the potential funding strategies for that. So um lots of it overlapping but um we want to start kind of with this foundation. So um finance 101. Oh, I should also say the other point in this again is that this can live uh and will live in our on our website. It'll be shared with the community for transparency. So, while a lot of this information may not be new to uh our board, um we want to make sure that

051it also is reflective for um for the larger community uh to to have an understanding of why this topic is important and why we're talking about it now. >> Yeah. So, obviously the opportunity for tonight is to provide an understanding. Um, again, much of this is kind of a review of um just basic school district finance, but really to give the community and like Don said, to have the document kind of live on our website to give our um our families and our taxpayers a sense of exactly where our dollars are coming from, how we allocate our our uh funds on an annual basis to support students and our programming, and then review our fund balances, both historical and then moving forward. um in alignment with the board uh with board policy. So, as as

052you guys know, our school districts operate largely on public funds. For us, roughly 85% of our revenue comes from our local taxpaying community. For us, um our annual budgets are required to be balanced. We want them um to be transparent to our families and to our taxpaying community. And you guys know we bring it uh bring that budget to you every year in September um for review and approval. We need to follow Illinois school code. That's kind of the overarching um uh rule that we have to follow for expenditure and revenue management. Um just a copy of our uh annual budget. We know that the budget we start um planning for the budget in January. Tonight will approve the resolution um to authorize me to start working on the fiscal 27 budget. But I don't

053do that in a silo. I work really collaboratively with the um the buildings and the budget administrators um through that cost per pupil allocation. The discretionary funds are um really managed at the building level. Um but it's based on largely student enrollment um staffing. Donna is going to bring forward tonight the um recommendation for staffing and then the programs and services and to get those dollar amounts. We work really Chris uh really closely with Chris and Craig and the directors um as we have a reach a kind of an understanding on their needs um kind of move programming forward and then basically um kind of tie that out to what we can afford. Um we bring those to you in March um through our um budgetary assumptions and guidelines document um after we obviously get

054u financial uh committee approval on that. But then more importantly, it really requires ongoing monitoring throughout the year. We bring the variances to finance so they have a sense of any swings so that it isn't a surprise come, you know, July or August that we had to go over or we were under spending something or revenues didn't come in. So that all of those different touch points um for us um feel like we really achieve a nice level of transparency and it's kind of an ongoing communication again that no surprises is really important especially when we run the budget as as tightly as we do. So as we kind of get into kind of the nitty-gritty of the budget um and of our funding not all um school funds are the same are the same

055for us. We've got general funds which fund our daily operations. We also have revenue funds that are um attributed specifically to grant dollars or may be restricted based on um program or if they need to be allocated to a specific program. For example, we've got funds that are tied to food service, right? So, they need to go back into that program whether that's through um nutritional enhancements or curriculum. Sorry, not curriculum um equipment um that we would need to have to provide in the cafeterias. We also have uh capital facilities funds that we've talked about for the past couple of um meetings really um kind of treating those very independently from our fund balances, especially when those dollars are attributed to specific projects. Aside from that, we have general capital project capital funds um that

056can be used for repair, maintenance, or equipment replacements as needed. >> Okay, as we jump into this, we just want to give again a 30,000 foot snapshot of of where we're at. Um again, for our sake and the transparency sake. >> Yeah. So our revenue comes from largely three different sources. We have spoken just briefly about that local revenue which comes in. It's not only property taxes. Those other local revenues also include our registration fees. They include um club participation. It includes our EDP fees. It includes tech fees. So any of those dollars that are generally um allocated or um generated uh within our um school participants, those are some of those local revenues that are included there as well. State funding um includes uh the monthly allocation that we get um based on our

057evidence-based funding formula from the state and it also includes other state revenues and those might include uh our categorical reimbursements um or other state grants for example on an annual basis we get the school maintenance project grant award as well. So those are just some general state dollars that would come in there. And then federal funding is largely uh attributed to dollars that are received through grants. Um and again specifically tied to um very uh directed programs and services. some of the things that include that can affect our funding on an annual basis that we really have to spend some time reviewing when we get into the budget and we're kind of projecting where the revenue is going to come in. Um obviously student enrollment will drive some of those dollars, but we also take

058a look to see what funding formula changes um we kind of have to work around an annual basis. So, like Don said, we've um had a couple of years where our EBF tier um is has been uh three, which we know for us that equates to about $30,000 uh in additional revenue, but now going into um the coming year will be uh down at a level two. So, we're anxious to see exactly what additional funding that may bring in. Um but we do see some legislative decisions unfunded mandates that come our way that we always have to kind of reconcile um in the budgeting process. And then one time versus ongoing funding and that really ties more towards um grants or targeted population funds that may come in. Um so we kind of take those

059into account as we're um budgeting our revenues. And as you'll see when we get into the historical, we have a couple of uh outliers, some spikes in revenue that we can obviously remember our ers and COVID um influx of some new dollars. So, uh those would be examples of one-time influxes of funding rather than ongoing. Um just an overview for example fiscal 24 this is where we saw the bulk of our funding coming from those um three sources. So property taxes and other like local revenue um you can see make up roughly in this instance 84% of our um revenues. general state aid, which here general state aid, they mean it's EBF dollars, and then those other state sources, and then federal revenue. And obviously, we continue to really very closely monitor federal revenue, not

060only what it will bring in this year, but as we kick that out and project that in the next couple years, we need to be really aware of any potential shifts that we see there. As we look at um the next uh couple of slides, um we just want to just show that the operational fund revenues is what we chose to depict here. It's consistent with the funds that tie back to our fund balance policy and also consistent with um the ISBY operational funds. So we include the ED, operations and maintenance, transportation, and working cash. those the four funds that when we say operational funds whether it's expenditures or revenues that's what we're referring to here >> yes these are a couple of the new slides that I uh emailed you about today uh as

061as we graph. Yep, you're right. Sorry. You got it. All good. The other thing we did here is a line graph that shows the percentage of that overall component to revenue or expenditure. So what percentage of our budget is comprised of this particular fund? And here we're looking at trend lines and patterns to say you we may have some ups or downs. Uh in this case this is obviously relatively flat. So that's where we're looking at even though the dollar amounts are increasing the percentage of those funds has remained flat. So that's kind of just a quick guide to what we're going to point out. We're going to primarily focus on the trend lines um as we as we look at that um kind of in again that zoom back zoomed out kind of way.

062So local revenues as we talked about you know this has been a very stable uh item for us. The community is very consistent. There is not a lot of new growth. There's not a lot of room for new growth. Um and historically district 23 has been powered by local local community tax dollars. So over the years yes the dollar amount uh collected is increased but the percentage of uh the total budget that is represented by that local is flat. So, um, that's, as we know from us from a budgeting and planning standpoint, that's that's the challenge. Uh, the dollars may go up, but, uh, their impact stays relatively flat. So, as we look at that just local property and again those other local revenues, we see um kind of a flat a flat look over

063time consistently right in that upper 80s about >> Yeah. Just some of the things that I just wanted um you guys to keep in mind. We are a tax cap district which means when you see um CPI 7% 6 and a half% um we are limited by PEL. So the most that we would get in that tax year is 5%. We get 5% uh or uh CPI whichever is um less. So that's what we get annually extended to us from the county. >> Why is that 2024 number such a big increase? >> Yeah. So a couple of things um Brian that happened in 2024 uh we saw actually across all funds we saw um significantly higher rate of interest returns which was super helpful. It was also um we increased EDP fees and there the

064working cash funds were transferred from capital projects which resulted in a significantly higher amount of interest being returned in the working cash fund. Um but largely that's all tied to um increased uh interest. We also saw a higher than budgeted rate reimbursement that year. Um uh and minimally we saw an increase in um EDP fees and um that was happened to also be the last year of wild staying um $30,000. So a couple of different things that added up there. state revenue uh again for us consistent consistently in that 10%ish range. Um our revenues have been historically pretty predictable. We know again where we're where we're getting our uh funding from and it's been relatively flat as a trend line. One um just a couple things to point out here where you see um pretty

065significant swing in 2018. That happened to be the very first year the EBF dollars came in. It was a shift from the uh the general state aid. Um for us that resulted in $730,000 in additional income that year. Um you also notice a little bit of a dip in 2022. That was a reduction largely in the MCAT reimbursement um due to a reduction in the services both in transportation and in food service um for us it was over $200,000 strictly um in that transportation reimbursement. So just a couple of things there. >> You're digging through the archives there. >> Are you kidding? I KNEW I KNEW. DID I ASK? I'm like someone's going to ask. They're going to want to know about the swings. But yeah, just to give you guys a sense because you

066know what it was these years too, a couple here were before I started. So it's really helpful to get a little bit more of a historical perspective. >> Like what happened in 2018? >> Yeah. >> The other component to keep in mind >> my mind was 4.5 like there's no way there's ever increase, right? as we um as we talk later about the impact of MCATs or mandated categoricals not being funded at the level that they're statutoily supposed to be funded at. Um and we see that shortfall that again is impacts this amount. This is dollars that we should be receiving from the state that we don't because they don't fully fund those. And the other component here uh but more so on the federal dollars there are fluctuations because some of the grant dollars

067that we receive at the state and federal level are tied to student population. And so enrollment number of students who receive either special education services or uh multilingual services that are funded through grants can can be part of the fluctuation in a year to year. But generally speaking, sort of looking out, we know it's our local. We count on the state for a little bit and we count on the feds for a little bit less. If you go to the next slide, >> and here we have CO >> outside of CO. >> Yeah. Right. I mean, >> right. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. >> No, no, no. You got it. >> So, here just a couple things um to point out. In fiscal 21, that huge spike that reaped the district uh $1.4 4 million in

068reimbursements for summer food service reimbursement. Obviously, we paid for that, but the reimbursement came in at twice the amount on the reimbursement um that we're currently getting now through national school uh lunch program. Um you guys recall we were distributing those meal bags. It it was significant um that that the school community kind of came together to provide that service. So, we did reap the benefit of that increased reimbursement there. We also received about a $75,000 reimbursement from FEMA that year for the COVID supplies purchased in uh 2020 and we got our first uh reimbursement from the CARES Act uh in 2021 as well. Those dollars were largely spent in 2020. Um in fiscal 22, we see the car's act reimbursement coming in from prior year purchases and then uh SR2 funding. Um we also

069um did not um both uh this is kind of we'll see it in a later slide but while we had budgeted and increased um meal reimbursement um in fiscal 22 at that point we saw the reduction um by the federal government cutting that back down to more normalized levels and so um that coupled with SR3 funding that didn't come in until the following year um we had budgeted those revenues to come in within the fiscal and they didn't end up coming in until the subsequent year. So, >> and the board will recall we believed them when they told us this was a one-time >> payment and not something. And so, while we did see spikes in those re that revenue, we did not build programs that were not sustainable over time. So, we used much

070of those funds for direct student services that were short-term uh for uh tutoring and after uh school supports and then we used some of them for >> subs in the short term. We used a good amount of the money for capital improvements to our outdoor learning spaces and to uh respond again to the cleaning protocols and so forth. >> So the fiscal cliff that came, you can see it right there, you know, for for districts that were hoping that that money was going to continue to flow. Um that's the cliff when they dropped when that money stopped coming in. And so again, I I give uh us all a lot of credit for being thoughtful and aware that we're not going to build something that is not sustainable with those funds. But that's clearly that

071>> we kind of knew that was coming, right? That 2024 would be more of a realignment back to the prior um prior to co um expenditures. We kind of had to reorm um some of those. And additionally, we did not see the number of, you know, we stopped um the kind of the free-for-all, the free meals for all type of thing as well. So, we saw a reduction in the amount of um student consumption on the meals. Now, the kids had to pay for everything and that was really some messaging that needed us to hit home a little bit too because that was an expectation that had to shift to there. tried to I I really liked this graph and when you look at it on your computer it's much better than than as it

072it turns out because the numbers are really small but here again it shows the relative you know relationships between each of the three revenue sources and our local the bottom 85%ish over time you see some of the fluctuations in state and federal federal. Um, but the message for us, as you all well know, is we're locally funded. We don't see big swings in any of that. Some districts see swings as more property development happens or industry comes or goes. for us. Local, local, local, very consistent. >> As we move into the expenditures, um you will see in the uh next couple of slides, obviously, um our the bulk of our dollars go towards our people, right? Whether it's our staff or our students, it is all going largely to uh instructional and student supports um

073administration um that school and district leadership and then obviously uh our operational costs whether that's utilities or maintenance costs of our facilities. Go ahead. Um again uh consistent with what we showed on the revenue side um we group our expenditures into six different objects. Obviously this is consistent with um our uh accounting procedures and and ISBY salaries and employee benefits um are objects one and two and that for us makes up about 70% of our total expenditures. From there, we go into um our purchase services uh and then supplies, materials, capital outlay, which is equipment of a larger dollar value. And I'll talk a little bit about that more uh a little bit later on. And then other objects and other under other objects, we have things like tuition reimbursements, dues and fees that our

074staff might pay to uh professional organizations, but we also include tuition there to NSSO or other um private facilities that we may send kids to uh for additional services. Um and that also includes professional development um for our staff. again the same uh operational fund expenditures over time. We see um the salaries and the benefits. We'll talk a little bit more as we go object by object, but we see gradual increases. However, largely um the percentage of expenditure in each of those objects remains fairly consistent. So here in our operational fund salaries being uh obviously one of the largest uh percentages of our overall budget um and yes over time uh our investment into that fund has increased but as the trend line shows we're actually spending less overall as a percentage of our budget

075on salaries uh over time and you'll see that because the uh increases in other areas make less funds available in the funding for salary side. Um as we as you'll see as some of the other trend lines are are uh moving northward. Um, one important thing to just keep in mind, and this this you wouldn't know this, um, it's just kind of a reflection. When we look at what our uh, salary increases were between 2017 and um, 20 uh, 2023, they all hovered around between 325 and 375. So to see what that percentage change was um is a really important um thing to see that we had be we were keeping that below that. Um obviously then once we got into um 2023 we were at 5 and a half and then four and a

076half and then um now we're consistent with CPI which has been great. So um >> and over that time of course the board will recall we've brought additional staff back inhouse. We expanded uh custodial services inhouse. We moved a number of our related service providers from a purchase service back inhouse. And we've seen programmatic uh increases in terms of overall number of staff, no number of FTE, but still living uh at or under our uh cap so to speak for uh percent of that as an operational fund. Next, we'll look at benefits. Here's one of those ones that's trending upward. Not a surprise. >> No, not a surprise. And we um continue to take a look and especially through the insurance committee for opportunities um working with PHEA to kind of re in some of

077those um opportunities for cost savings. Um we it had been fairly steady, fairly stable, and now we just kind of are seeing um pretty significant increases now year-over-year um with double-digit increases obviously happening in um 24 um and we'll likely be seeing those in the coming year as well. purchase services. Another area that is a significant increase over time in terms of trend line. >> You want to highlight any of the other things that are specific to purchase services? >> Nothing really under purchase services. I mean obviously we've seen um there are some mandated services that we have to provide as we get um different students coming in. We do that and as much as we can we try and staff um inhouse because we have seen the contracted services are significantly more expensive when

078we have to house. >> So we've seen actual reductions in staff there but costs and percentage continuing to increase as well. So we're contracting less but it's costing more and taking up more of the overall budget. Similarly, here we look at supplies. Our supply line items uh don't make up as significant a dollar amount. Um and you see again a couple of the spikes that are related to purchases during COVID uh for the classroom supplies and materials. You'll recall we moved to a onetoone uh iPad during during COVID. So that's contributing to some of the spike in expenditures there tied to those spikes in revenues as well. But overall our percentage uh of the overall budget, the materials, the curricular materials, the technology materials and supplies, even if we're buying the same amount, they're like

079everything else seems to be going up and up and up in cost as well. So it takes up a larger and larger percentage of the the overall budget which is why we've had two years now of reductions in per pupil allocation and uh budgetary reductions for us as uh budget coordinators. Is that what you call us? >> Um I don't know what >> budget experts do so many things. Um just a couple things here to Sorry, what did you say? >> Administrator. >> Yeah. >> Um but here just a couple of things to point out in fiscal 20. Um we talked about the revenue coming in in um fiscal 21 from the um CARES grant, but that was because the supplies were purchased in 2020. And while we while many of our line items for

080classroom consumables went unused, we did find ourselves um really kind of upping our purchases for facility needs, right? We were purchasing the masks and we were purchasing the um additional uh disinfection materials that we had. Um so all of those things purchased largely in um 2020, reimbursed in uh 21. We also had the last set of bills that was paid to Arlington Heights District 25 for food service prior to transitioning to organic life which largely kind of got us through um the co uh meals as well. In fiscal 22, we see SSRE three funding um purchases for the curriculum buy, which we moved um that one purchase forward, that was about $300,000. And then we also had the one:1 iPad purchase was an additional $60,000 and that came in fiscal 22 as well. And we'll

081you'll see this same pattern reflected when we look at fund balance impacts that back and forth between purchasing first and that impact negatively the budget reimbursement coming in and that positively impacting the the bottom line. So those ups and downs through co um are again reflected here and you'll see them again a little bit later. same pattern for capital. >> Yeah. So, just a couple things um that you might notice some pretty significant swings here in fiscal 19. Again, this was before I came, so I was happy to kind of reflect back on exactly um what happened here. We um you might recall that we had the MAG restroom renovations. We had roof drains and masonry work, pretty significant roof drain um work and that masonry that was done um in fiscal 20. Um we

082had some uh I'm sorry and we also had some prepayment for roofing work that was completed in fiscal 20. Um in fiscal 23 that is when we paid for the outdoor learning spaces with our ESSER funds. Um we also coordinated the first phase of the whiteboard replacement work that was done um all the way uh through um Eisenhower that year. And then um one of the items that was purchased was we purchased um the gator which was a $27,000 piece of equipment. >> Here again you see really low dollar amounts overall and as an overall percentage of the budget. We we do our do our best to maintain but this is reinforces the reason why we can't just build you know with uh the existing funds. We don't we don't have room in our budget

083for major capital projects um at all really. And other Yeah. Again, just keeping in mind some of these larger dollar amounts are specifically tied to um tuition costs um for some private placements um and that NSSO tuition which we've seen kind of increasing um specifically uh in more recent years as well. So again in a stacked model um harder to perhaps visualize but you see the it all has to fit within that 100% where those funds get distributed to. Salary and benefits still make up the largest percentage of that, but they're taking up a smaller and smaller percentage of the overall budget as purchase services, supplies, materials, and tuition payments and the like uh take up more and more uh of that need for the for the other. So all of NSSO is under other,

084but then the other school like is is like like when we have to send a kid to like Cove. >> Yeah, >> that's that's all under other. That's not under purchase service. >> No, it's under other for tuition. >> Okay. So So but then so so that that's tuition only, but then like is all transport and like additional? >> That's uh transportation would be a 300. So that's contracted services as is professional development services that we would we would send our staff to at NSSO would be an object three. >> Okay. >> So this was a brainchild uh as we've been talking about uh fund balances and Amy's going to make fun of me for my visual. Uh, >> I just want you to own who brainchilded the visual. >> But we talked about sort

085of this >> oh gosh >> weathering the storm and trying to keep the boat afloat um over the ups and downs over time and that's what kind of generated the >> generated the graphic for me. So we'll go to the next slide for just a second. >> The boat didn't show more in the years. >> This is a new right. No, we didn't have it upside down. >> Guy bailing it on. No, we added this is another slide that we added since uh the initial because we wanted again to explain a little bit more about what fund balance is. >> Yeah. So when we talk about what is what do we consider fund balance, right? So very generally it's available funds after your annual revenues minus expenditures on June 30th. That also um includes money

086that you would have in the bank carried over year to year. Um and typically it's used for emergencies or unanticipated costs to manage cash flow. Uh and then uh if it's specifically reserve dollars for identified capital projects for us again um our fund balance uh consistent with ISBY we look at funds uh at the ed operations and maintenance transportation and working cash to calculate our fund balance at the end of the year. And our fund balance per our revised fund balance policy does not include capital bond bond proceeds >> bond proceeds >> reserved for capital projects. Right? >> But over time they had been included. So you'll see where there were some changes in when we were including those as part of fund balance and then when we weren't. So those fund balances are not

087reflected in current revenue because it's not funds that are available for undesated things. They have to be used for capital projects. They have to be used for uh projects that we've identified and approved. >> Why these matter? >> Oh, sorry. >> Can do it. Well, for us, it obviously um benefits the district when it comes to um a sense of financial stability, right? It protects us against um minor swings because of enrollment declines, any delays in funding that we may see >> like and then any unanticipated expenditures that come up and and certainly we see those um more um specifically when it comes to unanticipated facility needs. So which which we have and we've been able to get through those with no problems really. But it does help us maintain our programs and staffing and

088obviously it's best financial practices, right? We want to we want to keep our fund balances as stable as we can. The board is aware of our fund balance policy that we updated 420 where our target is to be uh equal to or greater than 33% in those funds and as we've been doing the last two cycles uh identifying a plan for addressing when we've fallen below 30% which we're currently under. uh and then the corresponding budgetary guidelines that we have put into place. So here we're again we're looking at a multi-year overview. Uh we're looking at kind of having an understanding of the influences both positive or negative that cause some of those variances. And we again keep in mind that this is a snapshot and June 30th um of each year. And we know

089that fund balances fluctuate as we receive revenue and they go down as we expend revenue. Um so even and we'll talk about this just in this current situation um that we have been as low as single digits um >> in the last >> December >> few weeks prior to receiving that money. We're very close to zero and now we're because we received a bulk payment we're our fund balances are higher. So, we use that June 30th status as the indicator uh even though it fluctuates throughout the year. >> And June 30th for us is typically a low point because we haven't yet received um that August uh September installment. So, we're kind of whittling away at what we have in the bank until those funds come in. >> What? Huh? >> I said you could

090have had a better boat. >> Oh, >> I'm going to need a bigger boat. Yeah. Yeah. >> So again, the dotted um sorry >> should be in the >> little emoji uh yeah little character 33% fund balance uh is our target. And so you'll see over time u and we went back and looked we will use this same kind of projection model as we build our future planning when we look at some of the different scenarios of what to maintain. If we only maintain if we see an increase of X or Y, we'll be able to kind of chart that in a similar way. Although we may remove the boat, >> I like to expand upon >> good sail depending on where >> which Yeah, that's what that's what Bren was saying. Sometimes we're bailing

091the out of the boat. But um and again without trying to get into too much of the weeds, we show on the next slides some of those major uh influences up and down. So Christian, if you would please. Thank you. So in FY20, we saw a decrease in revenue. We began uh the Eisenhower retrofit work prior to receiving that settlement. So we were expending some of those funds there. As a talked about a little bit ago, we were doing some roofing repairs. Um and we had some unanticipated sped costs um in contracted services and placement. Positively. >> Yeah, positively. We saw some additional uh SR1 revenues coming in. We realized that increased reimbursement for meals through the summer food service program and we had lighter than anticipated contracted services due to CO, right? So specifically

092with food service and transportation. >> Next year we have we would have esser money in FY20. We spent it in 20. So what they were doing was they would give us the notification of this is what you're going to get. It was paid out on a reimbursement basis. So we had to go ahead and spend it in 20. Right. You see a little started March of 20. >> No co uh 20. Right. >> We I don't think we got that money. >> We were getting we didn't we got it in 21. >> I don't think the program existed in 20. >> No, we we had phase one. We did. Cares came right away. >> Esser's one, not >> which was cares. Yeah. Right. >> And then the first three months there >> I don't I

093don't remember that part. >> Pretty quick. >> Yeah. >> And that was the initial the initial push of masks, uh the guards, face guards, the plexiglass, the >> disinfection, the hand sanitizers, all of those things that we were prepping for >> coming back in the fall. And then >> but okay I would have thought that that all would have been in the fiscal year 21 money >> because like >> the reimbursement for it >> it the reimbursement for it is >> right >> that's why can you go back one slide so yeah that FY20 spend is part of what was pushing that down in FY21 that's why we saw increase if you go because the reimbursement came through. Nope. Forward. There you go. That's part of what um uh supported and pushing us back up.

094Uh as AIM talked about though, the things that were hurting us there, that was again uh historically our first round of Cook County property taxes being delayed. we had our um proceeds uh that we were holding on to to weather us through that storm in our working cash at the time. Um so that's again part of the uh impact that we saw and then we were doing Ross Sullivan phase one retrofit work prior to settlement. Um so that could have been higher had we not done some of that work. And again, as you mentioned, we saw reduced MCATs uh that year as well. >> Again, higher level of meal distributions and federal reimbursements there. That was the SR1 um funds that were received. We saw a reduction in the contracted services due to the one

095to one implementation and remote learning. Uh we had a working cash bond issuance at that point. Um, we received notice of the SR2 and three funding allocations to the district and again lighter transportation cost. At that point, we're at a a 4.5% uh renewal. Following year, here you go. Again, we had unanticipated property tax refunds and property tax delays. Uh we had the negative impact of the federal real meal reimbursement >> reduction. Yeah. >> Uh we continued uh Ross Sullivan retrofit work. We did that roofing work um at at MAC and Sullivan and we were completing mostly completing the outdoor learning spaces uh and the other ers projects two and three again prior to completion and that was also our year with a 7% uh CPI and so uh salary impacts tied to CPI were

096a little bit higher >> property tax revenues to be capped um based on PTEL as Well, um kind of in the positive right, we did receive the HVAC settlement uh was received and was able to partially reimburse um that retrofit work that had been done prior to that. Um and that does in uh reflect the inclusion of the bond proceeds and the working cash. >> Here's the theme of Cook County property tax delays continuing there. We also saw our modification, our transition to modified approval. Uh we completed the MacArthur retrofit uh HVAC retrofit work and saw the second year of a above average CPI at 6.5%. >> Yeah. On the positive though, we did see the SR 2 and three project reimbursements coming through and that also reflected bond proceeds for the window and siding

097work at Ross Sullivan and Groski. So then we don't have many upward >> not many positives >> positive here but again we see property tax delays we completed our transition from uh to modified acral which as we'll recall uh required some uh charging back uh of 1.4 million. We shifted uh the bond proceeds from working cash out of our um operational funds and into capital. Um we did have that some plumbing repairs at Sullivan, a little bit of at MAC and we began um investment into the design work for Eisenhower. Uh, and then we also saw a pretty significant increase in transportation. >> Brandon, was this reminding me of the the the glorious work in those bathroom sewer lines with the underwear underwear, >> right? >> Multiple pairs of >> hundreds of thousands of dollars

098underwear stuck in the pipes. >> What was like $90,000? It was significant >> for underwear, >> right? Someone had a bad day. He just got involved with this at school. >> Clearly in the boys. >> It was the boys. I believe it was the boys. >> Yeah, there you go. >> It's always the boys. >> And then in our last fiscal year, uh again, we see property tax delays. Uh we had some unanticipated property tax refunds that hit us uh harder than we had uh expected. certainly higher than we've done had to do in previous years and we needed again some contracted services uh due to lack of ability to hire some folks and that always is more expensive for us when we have to go through an agency rather than being able to find

099our own folks. I will say largely perhaps tied to the um higher than maybe anticipated um reassessment um but we saw our property tax refunds where we typically in the ED fund will budget about $125,000 in refunds. We were well over $425,000 that got sucked back by the county and refunded out. So that was certainly unanticipated and we'll recoup some of that through um through that legislation that that um you know will will come back to us but um we won't see all of that come back for quite some some time but it'll trickle in. >> It'll trickle it trickles in over um subsequent years but um on the positive we worked with the board collaboratively to um develop that fund balance policy moving forward. Um we have implemented and we continue to utilize the

100zerobased budgeting system. Um we realized some staffing reductions because of the um work uh that the team in the business office did with our um with our auditors. We uh kind of year throughout the year we saw a decent reduction in the amount of acrruals that we had to tie back to the prior year. And then um the receivables while it is not included in the cash balance um it is included in the uh net position of the district which increased I want to say it was about $2 million um the uh receivables that included the uh DCO grant funds um that were um at the courtesy of our legislators working on our behalf. So we certainly appreciate that. >> So some key takeaways if you go to the next slide. Uh again, keeping in

101mind fund balance es and flows throughout the year. Uh we want to just again for the record so that our community understands how close we came due to the lack of funding. We were at 2% thereabouts single digits >> December. Um, we received again 60% or so of our funding that's due to us, which popped us up then now in January to be up in the upper 20% >> um will hopefully get that other revenue in and push us up high 20s, 30 um that'll hopefully carry us through uh this delay. we're seeing it as a delay for the spring um without needing to do anything differently. But again, we'll keep our eyes on that. I do give credit to, you know, AIM for leading and for all of our budget administrators, the building principles,

102everybody who >> uh has has looked at budgeting through that lens of zerobased budgeting. We've made some significant cuts, the 10% reduction in discretionary cuts, um 5% across departmental budgets. Um and then again the purposeful budgeting revenue at a at a 96% so that we can build that uh sustainable capital project fund up over time. Uh we, as you'll see again in our staffing plan, we're currently tying uh our staffing increases as a flat. Uh not not looking to add staff last year or or this year. Um we're looking to keep those reductions as far away from classroom instruction as possible. Um, and so again, you've seen us renegotiate contracts with our printing company and with our uh, Emperor and some of the other uh, Craig with curriculum budgets. every every little bit that we

103can negotiate to pay less for some of the things uh we've been doing and and uh the reality as those prices continue to go up and our limited ability to negotiate on some of those things is what we'll have to be addressing as we move forward. But I think that our goal here is to really uh put out a multi-year strategy that allows us to plan for the future, have a a clearer picture of what um what we want to prioritize and how we can reach some of those goals in the long term. So, uh, in the second presentation, the next slide, please, uh, we will, uh, review sort of again where we're at currently with our current budgets. We'll talk a about sort of that new baseline, where are we at now, if this

104is the new normal. Um, and that will include our first uh flush at operational costs for full day kindergarten and potential dollar impact, staffing impacts. Uh, we will have Chris and Craig have been working with Luke and the team at PIPE to uh start articulating that. So, we're at a point now where Luke's going to start running a schedule and making sure that the theoretical staffing plan can actually be implemented in reality. So running uh into some of those realities in in part two, questions, conversations, reflections, thoughts, anything else that we can clarify or anything else you wanted to see. I mean, thank you for putting this together. I know that was a ton of work. So, but it's it's good to see that baseline. Don, the one thing that I and maybe this is

105coming in the future months, but you had one of the things that we've talked about a lot is kind of is the categoricals and our need to that that we need to deliver them, but the reimbursement we're getting from the state is kind of is is on a trend is on a trend line down, right? And I think that that's >> is is that something that we might dig into more in a future presentation because I think that's important for the community to see, right? You know, >> to say like, hey, we have to continue to deliver transportation, but our reimbursement here is has steadily decreased the more and more that the community is being forced to pay for, right? That I don't think it really comes through or it's visible to the community otherwise.

106>> Yeah. The way we're sort of envisioning that is as we build the budget, we you and the mouse in your pocket and then me bothering you. Um, >> we're making an assumption, right? So we make an assumption. costs. We've been seeing it be a little bit higher than that. So, as we build assumption models moving forward, some of those key variables, those inflection points, we have to change that baseline. So, and that's true on the revenue side where we say, let's count on 96%. If that's our new collection rate dollars to be used for local revenue, then that changes our assumption and state. You'll see us also we're going to go pretty um uh conservatively. Uh so it'll be very aggressive cuts on the federal side because the federal percentage we have to build

107it as if we're going to get bare bones and be pleasantly surprised if if we get um anything close to what we've been receiving. So that's when we talk about sort of resetting that baseline. It's that whole picture of what does our reality look like now? what are the assumptions that we're using to build the budget and therefore then build out the projection models so that we can know what is that gap between what we want to be providing and what we have money to provide what does that cost us over time >> I think Brian you we've talked about how important it is to kind of articulate what that gap is right so what what do we need to provide what's the revenue and then showing how do you how do you close that

108gap right what does that look like and so I think we're looking forward sharing a little bit of that in the third presentation when we talk through some of those projection models. >> No, that's great because like like this was really really great, right? But I think that when you're when you're trying to make the case to the community, right, that we need additional funding, saying purchase services is maybe less effective than showing right, you know, here's the here's the here's how much we're losing cost. we have to deliver transportation to the community. Here's how here's how much our reimbursement is dropping, right? Or >> identifying what those purchase services, >> right? Or we need power for our schools, right? Here's our and our utility bills are now $25,000 a month, right? And and and

109we we are and so it's it's I think that just >> and again, maybe this could be future. It doesn't even necessarily have to be part of this, right? But but getting to more concrete things I think that are translate more to what the community understands again insurance right the loss of of federal funding right because we see big cuts coming from the department of education right like >> that that those those to me right just feel more concrete and things that the community relate to better than kind of just the categories that you have to use for your funding right right and for your budgeting which I understand >> I think just outline the like to Brian's point just like outline what those what that is what is purchase versus what does that mean?

110>> Right. >> You know, many may not know that or understand that. So, spell it out. >> Yeah. Because even though that tier 2 shift to tier 2 may mean increased funding, I'm thinking it's going to mean closer to 45,000 instead of 30,000. >> So, is it more? Yes. >> Is it significantly more? Not when you're cutting not when you're cutting mandated categoricals by 200,000. Right. And our net position from the state is going down over every year over time. >> Got it. >> Thank you again. >> Two more to come. >> Yeah, I'm really excited for the next two as we continue to >> see where the vote is. >> Yep. and that kind of feedback, please let us know because when we're building the presentations, we've already got two all on its way

111and three is drafted. So, >> you said these will be linked. >> Yeah. And then we'll share this >> hopefully the community >> series >> take advantage of >> hopefully. >> Yeah. And we talked a lot about, you know, there's so much information in all of these and really splitting them into the three so that you don't gloss over, right? like we could have kept going for part two and part three tonight, but you know, we don't want to lose people either and have the information in the forefront. So, >> thank you guys again for putting that together. So, our next um item is the uh staffing plan. >> No, it's budget resolution. >> I'm sorry. You're right. I apologize. I apologize, >> Madam President. I was in my secretary role. AGAIN. >> I TRIED

112TO SKIP THE PLEDGE AND YOU TRIED TO SKIP the snagging plan. So, >> I was thinking we're going to roll through, we've got some we've got some action, right? I was like, so then let's develop the budget. >> All right. So, anyway, we are now on the annual staffing plan. Um there's a board member attached. Um, we are presenting this for approval with a no change net result sections based on enrollment projections will shift, but the net result is a projected positive of $150,000. So, um, do we have a motion for the staffing plan? >> A motion. >> Motion by Tracy. Do I have a second? >> Second by Bren. any discussion about the staffing plan? >> You know, I'm I'm glad that we're that it's staying static. I just my primary question is that

113then the year after this right that we're going to have to have Sounds great. Any questions about this information? All right. Next up is our assessment schedule. >> Craig has shared a couple of different versions of this, but annually we're required to uh post um our assessments, local and uh required and the local ones. And so the schedule uh that we use and is on our website um we presented in the packet to meet that criteria. >> We're about to jump into assessment season. >> Yeah, we are. >> Our access testing starts in January and February and then we'll see our AR and Illinois state assess science assessment and our DM I'll I'll come in the next few months in the spring. >> Amazing. Any questions? >> All right. Any old business? New business? We

114have the semianual review of executive session minutes. Anybody? Anybody? >> Oh, I'll move to appoint Carol to review executive session. I'll second that. Moved by Mary Lyn, second by Becky. >> Any discussion? >> No. Okay, let's let's vote. >> Mrs. Morsy, >> sure. >> Mrs. Bowwinsky. >> Yes. >> Oh, sure. >> Mr. Gordonis. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mlan? >> Yes. >> Mr. Nordmar? >> Carol's good side. I might end up staying here. Sure, I'll say yes. >> Mrs. Peters, >> yes. >> Motion carries 6 for Carol to >> listen to the All right, we have an executive session um for the purpose of personnel and there will be no action after executive session. So, do I have a motion to adjourn to executive session? >> Motion. Motion by Tracy. Do I have a second? >>

115Second by Brian. Can I get a little >> Mrs. Morsy? >> Y. >> Mrs. Bowwinsky? >> Yes. >> Mr. Gradanis? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mlan? >> Yes. >> Mr. Nordmark? >> C. >> Mrs. Peters. >> Yes. Motion carries 6 at 9:04