BCSC School Board and Brownsburg Town Council Joint Work Session: Feb 24, 2025

001So, Deb and I are just going to welcome everybody. We are super excited to have this opportunity. We had met back in the fall and said that we think that this would be a great opportunity to just get everybody together. So, we're just glad you guys are here. Thank you for hosting us. That was very gracious and we didn't have to put a meeting together. I'd like to say, too, I think it's good for us to get back together and level set for both our groups. Okay, well then let's jump into Introductions, I think it might be fun for people to know your name How you've been in Brownsburg and then if you're an elected position or if you're in a role within the district within your With the town or the schools how long

002you've been in this district or in the town? So and you want to start and we'll just whip around Great, we moved here five years a little over five years ago. I am the town manager appointed by the town council Cindy Holman. I've been here about 28 years and I've spent one year on the town council. I'm Matt Simpson. I'm on the six years. My name is Travis DeShane. I'm the current town council president of Brownsburg. I've been the president for my sixth year, seventh year on the council. Before that, I was on boards commissions for the town and I've been involved with the town for about 13 or 15 years. Jessica Heffernan, school board president. I've been on school board now for going on 10 years. I've lived in Bromberg since 2004. I've had

003triplet boys for two years in high school. Matt Friesian. I've been in Bromberg my whole life, the last few years here and there. And been on the school board since 2016, I believe. I'm Katie Nixon. I have been in Brownsburg for about 13 years, and this is, I just finished my second year on the board. Mike Wells. I've been in Brownsburg for 18 years now, and starting my second term on the board. I'm Gordon Hayward. I've been in Brownsburg for 50 years and I'm the newbie on the school board. Just started in January. Great. I'm Kat Jessup. I'm the superintendent of schools. This is my first year in this role, but this is my 31st year in Brownsburg schools and I have lived in Brownsburg for 30 years. So I see you put Brownsburg residents

004and then I did I did And so Shane Hacker been in Brownsburg now is my 14th year sixth in this role of some some fashion But we live in playing fields not too far away when my wife is a teacher there at Plainfield High School three girls but Served many roles here including sister principal principal CFO analysis and superintendent My name is Kim Lippe, and I live in Carmel. I've been in education for 27 years, and then I'm entering my second year here in Brownsburg. I'm Jody Gordon. I'm the director of HR, and I've been with the school corporation 20 years now, and I've lived in Brownsburg now 28 years. I'm Vicki Murphy. I'm the director of communications. I've been at Brownsburg schools for 13 years in this role, and I had two daughters come

005through Brownsburg school. All right, well we are ready to get started. Let's go. Travis, are you presenting? I can just hand you the clicker there. All right, so really for us in the town, one of the things we've had to focus on the last few years has been a change in our tax base. Most of you are well aware, you've been here for a long time. Brownsburg was a bedroom community. But when the tax caps came, we had to change how we do business here in the town. since 1% tax caps on residential, that throws a wrench into how you do business. So we've made a sharp right turn, 180 degree turn in the last five or six years to focus on 3% residential growth, or sorry, 3% commercial growth. And we've, I think the

006last two years in a row, been the fastest growing community in the state of Indiana when it comes to commercial growth. So that's working. This year also, as a town, was the first year we've had eight. surplus in our budget we weren't we were in the well into the black this year versus some previous years where it's just floating on the edge so some of the things that we're doing are working and so what we've done with that too we've also been very strategic on what types of housing develops we try to bring into the community whereas in years past any planned development pd r3 would pretty much go through very easily with council of the past or i think a little more we challenged a little more we were focusing more on r2 development

007which is a larger lot size larger home it's not a not a starter home by any stretch of imagination that's one thing i was starting to cap was that our Our number that we have to hit as a community to essentially work even on tax fees is at least $325,000. If it was worth less than that, it's a drain on our community and our tax resources. So when we're approving new developments, that's why we see all those developments typically $400,000 or plus because we have to make sure that we are prepared for anything that comes forward in any new infrastructure. That's kind of the town of Brownsburg updates on a high level Deb you have anything you want to add to that additionally? No, I think all right Matt. No good. Thank you So any

008questions from from the group about what our what our vision is and what we're trying to do for the for the town You've probably seen the majority that growth has been on Ronald Reagan and that's what that road has been built for is to continue that or to to hold that growth. Meyer's coming. They're going to be right off 56th and Ronald Reagan. The county right now is building that next section of Ronald Reagan, which we also expect to be flourished with new opportunities in the near future. One of the biggest pieces of property there, we were able to annex into our community before that project was done. So any new developments will be coming through us. We're excited about that. So to balance the R2, R3, the 320,000 to break even, is there any

009thought about doing a much higher end development to offset some of the... Matt, would you like to take that? To create some starter goals for entry-level education? Yeah, yes, because that's something I... Want for our community is is more executive style housing And my thought process behind that it's not necessarily how much more that's going to bring in to our community value dollars for those homes But it's bringing in those individuals are going to be movers and shakers for our community Who can help the schools help the town and drive economic growth here? We had a project two weeks ago on our On our agenda that Was essentially an r1 development it unfortunately was not passed by a vote of two to three I Think was a good project. I hope they come back with

010another r2 slash r1 type of project because that is the type of housing we're looking for in this town I was really disappointed our council for not moving that one forward Sorry, no, no, and I'll say the reason why that one for me why I turned it down is because of unfortunately Brownsburg Because it was a bedroom community it lacks so much of the infrastructure we need so we look so much of the traffic is going through Just a couple main streets of ours. So you have like the Northfield and a green street and it going over like 74 So right now anyone that drives that you know, you're gonna sit in a light for five plus minutes on during rush hour So all the homes from that addition would also be going directly to

011that we're currently working right now within dot to try to get a revised plan on how to improve the infrastructure in that area as well as get a new interchange that would be slightly down from that where this traffic would eventually be going to. So I mean, Travis is right. If this was in a different location, it would have had no problem passing at all. It's just right until we can get some of that stuff approved from NDOT, I think we're a couple years out. But hopefully, we're going to make it. We're about five to ten years out from those projects. Let's not. Let's not sure of that. Which I think that project will come back. I imagine it will probably come back. back and get approved before those projects are built and just the

012nature of how things go um hopefully we have a change of heart yeah but that's what i want to so i'm right there with you Are there any questions anyone has at what we're trying to do or what you would like to see in the community? Don't say Chick-fil-A. Damn it, just don't. I just said it to Shane. I feel like I'd be remiss if I don't ask about Chick-fil-A. All right, so Meijer's coming, right? What usually follows Meijer? We see it all over the place. So my fingers are crossed that Chick-fil-A's coming. And likely another Starbucks. If y'all didn't go there so much they wouldn't keep building We are up to four Yeah, what about the idea of industrial is that ever been thrown out there well industrial is the same thing And when

013we look at industrial, we don't want heavy industrial in our community. We want light industrial. So the type of manufacturing here is you don't see big smokestacks and that kind of thing. So if you all take a look on, if you go down Main Street, keep heading west before you get to Morganfield Drive, there's a big building on the right there called LAP. And you guys would know that they're a manufacturing facility as well. They manufacture wires, and they ship that out worldwide. That's a German company. And it was a German company. Family owned for many, many years. We were very fortunate. So from a town perspective, if you had the opportunity to wave a magic wand, what would you like to see here for Brownsburg families? Right now? If I could wave a magic

014wand. I mean, it's not fun or exciting, but I think the first thing I would do is fix all the pipes and all the lead pipes that are in our community, fix all the infrastructure. I know it's a health risk. We're working on it now. It's one of the projects we're going to make sure you're removing those lead pipes. But that's not a common project. It's not fun. It's not exciting. But those are things that have to be done. I mean, for me, I think there's still not enough stuff for families to do. So I mean, I know we have a few things with a press play or something like that. So that one. And then we have the new one that's coming in. The slide one that's coming in. But I would like to

015see more things for families. I know we have the splash pad that's for younger kids. More more oriented type. They'll be in March April April April April we'll be having Aquatic Center Center and an amphitheater That will come for us on the first meeting in April My guess is how that will move forward. It's a potential potentially a phased project. We do three phases be rec center, water park, amphitheater with some version of that or we get to a referendum and we just say if you guys really want this we've been talking about for 50 years, vote on it. So that's probably the route we're gonna go. If you guys really want this, vote for it and we can build it. So rec center meaning YMCA? It wouldn't be YMCA. It would be one that

016would be ran by us. Similar to playing so similar planet exactly. Yes. Yeah, I moved here 50 years ago in third grade. We never talking about Community pool in our buckle. Yeah, so that's where we're kind of this point where we've been kicking this game down there forever We've never given the community there a chance to decide if they want to do it or not every Council is voted on voted it down. So that's my guess where it's gonna go. I'm about 90% sure that's around You brought up the traffic situation and I know we have at least in dot looking at roundabouts at Northville Drive in 267. Yes. Can you give us a little more of the status of what's going on there? So that we worked with a, luckily we had an in-kind,

017so we got an engineering study done for that intersection to say hey what would be the best, would it be an overpass, would it be a roundabout? My thought was it would probably be a roundabout. My thoughts were right when we did the study. The wood taking the business is there, so I think a lot of people's worried that it's going to take business from that location and won't do that, but it will take some of their parking lots. Luckily parking lots are banks and they don't usually utilize all those spaces. So it'll fit there. The problem now is just Get it end up say yes, we totally agree with you and we'll help you fund it by paying 80% of the budget But that's kind of what we're at now. Wouldn't you have to

018put roundabouts at all the other intersections as well to base? I try to learn more Wendy's is all the way to 700 would pretty much have to be Yeah, and then maybe the one in front of Walmart, too Yeah, so there's it opens up the floodgates if you can build one in order to make it work. You have to buy more snow But the way it's set up now, it's not going to be good for the long term. And then if we were to put an overpass there, then you are talking about taking a significant number of businesses from Main Street. They're going to Main Street, Green Street. Well, I guess my concern with that is not whether or not that will work. I mean, Carmel has kind of proved that the roundabouts are very

019successful, but the concern is... You're talking about three, four, five years worth of construction, and our town just doesn't have any other thoroughfares. I guess that, well, for me, I guess the question is do we do nothing? Or do we do something to fix it? Well, I wonder if we shouldn't put other thoroughfares, like 700 over 74, other ways to get around town. So when we had a meeting with NDOT. beginning of this well it was late last year I guess it was we had also talked about that and I I push saying we need we're gonna have an interchange further down that we need to have that one first so that way the traffic has another way of going and that they were not in favor of that yeah which it doesn't make sense

020to me logically if you open up that other interchange and all that traffic go down there and then work its way back but that's not how they did it is that we're near high on in about three hour right now So that gives us a trend for our own situation. Do you have any updates on the Ronald Reagan extension? That's a county project. Everything I know, I'm just on track. They're not behind on anything. So in terms of development in that area, that's advanced. What's your guys' ideas on that? That will likely be more commercial than light industrial, so you'll probably see a lot more in the future. You'll see probably a lot more warehouses that way. And it'll be mixed. You'll have industrial, and then behind it you'll have... Yeah, I think Meyer will

021be kind of the stopping point for commercial development or shopping, retail, commercial, versus farther north into... the east will be more commercial warehouses that type of thing. That's my guess. We'll see what happens, but that's my vision. That's what I see. Ms. Homan, I'm going to throw you my magic wand question because you didn't get an opportunity to respond. Well, I'm a lot like Matt where I think we need more amenities, especially if we're going after executive housing. We have to give them something, a reason to want to live here, and I don't think we have enough amenities right now other than trails and parks. So I'd like to see more like this community center. pool and that kind of thing that it'll it'll drop people from all over the town and i think you

022know think people get insulated so if you meet people i mean it's a place to meet people too you know not just a place to recreate or bring the kids or things like that so i'm looking forward to something like that going in and having mainstreamed that's right i think we'd all agree with you That was a given. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I did. So how do we make development decisions? First, we have a strategic plan. This is essentially a guiding document. And the comprehensive land strategy plan are two documents I've been to provide based on the state. And they're not things to say we have to do certain things, but this is what we see or we envision for our plan. It's kind of the groundwork that we follow at a high level, but

023not to the deep, if that makes sense. And then UDL that is unified development board. So anything that builds in our community they have to certain criteria certain standards Whether it be lot size or commercial or for residential development That is all in the UDL that was updated. I think we just finished last year was it 23? It was last year? Okay. We have an active transportation plan. This was updated two years ago and what that does is it focuses on, like you were saying, traffic and what are our arteries in town and how do we make traffic better. So we've got some ideas for how to build some new roads. It's just right now it's kind of, it's tough. So for example, on Main Street, I'd like to see a road, I'd like to

024see Portaday connect all the way through to... Northfield Drive. Oh that would be awesome. It would be. And I don't think there's a lot of challenge to do there except Rockstar is a little challenge. It's right where we need to go. I know the owner. We can move him somewhere else. Ron, can you just take a different location? He can make pizzas anywhere. But I think that would open up. that side of town even more. Oh absolutely. You've got a light already there. You've got a retention pond. You're looking at more of an entire circle to be able to get easily through that area. So that is something I think is a benefit. Can I make another suggestion? Of course. Grant Street. I'd like to see, and then Kirk LeBlanc wouldn't like this either. Go

025right through with Dudley. Grant Street and his building should go through, and I know a lot of people on Grant Street are probably going to hate me when I hear this, but unfortunately, we've got to have thoroughfares besides green. That was something we talked about when we were in the RUC. Six seven years ago about yeah where the parks building is now if it was gone you could do a larger central roundabout there and then there's a zigzag where it was an alley but it's technically called grand street as well right yeah yeah you could expand that over but that just a one-way section yeah you would have to you have to develop that as well but it'd be cheaper than buying out the once place and turning back to chick-fil-a Like I want a

026chicken place. I offered them the parks building, the land. I was like, it's a fit. Like you can have it all. Like it's yours. Just build it. They're like, no, we don't want it. Try. Try. They'd probably rather be near the interstate, I'm guessing. Absolutely. All right. So coverage, future land map. So this is what I was mentioning before. So we look at all the areas in town, and we designate them as future growth. So if you take a look at the purple up north, that's going to be our commercial growth. And so we take a look at this. I think it's every five years we have to redo this. And then we take a look again at the area of our town, what things have changed, and then plug in what places we see

027growth. and here are some of our previous provisions so 2012 2019 to 2021 you can see it's changed drastically especially on the north side of town um so coverage with we'll point to these and sure you guys do the same thing but we have got i think all of our council members serve on numerous boards throughout the county as well as numerous boards for our own town so we try to keep a Someone that one of us is always in some words to be able to keep an eye on all of our departments if that makes sense. I do anything to add to this. So this is our development over the last ten years. And you see in 2019 from there, it's kind of when we made that decision to let's focus on 3% growth.

028Had some massive growth coming out of COVID. I think a lot of people did. And then a little bit of pushback in 22. I think everyone felt a pushback with the economy. And then we're trying to feel that kind of go up again. But the last five years have been. And one of the things to remember here is when these residential permits were pulled, some of these additions have been there for three, four, five years. It's just as they're coming along, that's when they're getting pulled. So it's not that we're approving these homes at this point. That's what's being actually built that year. Yeah, I think our open inventory right now is less than 300 homes. So we're essentially at the point now that we're built out. Like, there's really no new products going onto

029the market. So we have 300 homes that are open, but those are already built. So there's really nothing active at the moment. Now, that's not the same county. I know there's a project that we were just talking about before, that's a large influx of potential students. Turn it over to Kat at this point. I was going off script. I forgot we had this. I was just asking for questions at the beginning. And Deb's like, over slide. So if you received the mailer that we did, this should look familiar to you about who we are. So we're to the point now where we have over 10,000 students, which is pretty significant in the time that I've been here. The languages we speak, 87% of, we have 87 different languages that are spoken in our homes. We're

030at 36% of our students are free and reduced lunch. And I think the thing that's important for me to share about that is what qualifies a student for a free and reduced lunch is the same in Brownsburg as it is in Indianapolis, as it is in Northwest Indiana, in Evansville, wherever. It's not different based on where you live. It is what the standard is. When we redistricted for the opening of Crossroads, our goal with redistricting is obviously to have students in the school, but also to balance our socioeconomic levels at all of our buildings. One of the number one indicators of student success is poverty levels. And so we were able to do that, and our goal was to really be plus or minus three from 30% because that was where we were. And when

031we started the school year and we were looking at our numbers, our numbers were off. And it's because from the start of the school year prior to the next school year, our free and reduced rate had jumped 6%. So what we think, one of the main reasons that is, we have a lot of families who are doubled up. And so when you think about the number of children, the number of people who are living in a home, it is not what you would think of as just a typical parents and kids. It might be. two or three generations. It might be brothers and sisters who are grown adults with their own families that are living in the same home. And so that is part of the reason for that socioeconomic status having that higher percentage.

032Student demographic, you can see where we are there. We have over 1,200 benefit-eligible staff members. I think that that's, I mean, I'm pretty sure we're the biggest employer in the town. And so that's... Something that is important to us is we're thinking about staff members that we have, wanting to keep them, kind of going with the whole amenities and places to live. That's important to us as well. And then we're at a 99.6% graduation rate. There are changes in the graduation, but we're not worried about that. We're going to be just fine. We were worried last spring when it first came out, but then there were revisions, and we're in a pretty good space now. I have it. I can click myself. So when we look at Brownsburg High School graduating classes, if you go

033back to 94, we had a graduating class of 247. Why are these numbers important? Why did we use these? 1994 is when I came to Brownsburg, so that's how big we were when I started. 2008 is when I became a principal, so 461 in a graduating class. And then 2011 is when I became assistant superintendent. So those were, if you notice, we kind of didn't do a whole lot between 2008 and 2011. This past year, we had... 759 graduates. So we've had some pretty big growth since then. Yeah. And Shane's going to get into that a little bit more of what we expect to have happen because we had some kind of surprises this year. And our whole point today and in doing this is just understanding where you guys are, for you to understand

034where we are, and just how we can work together. So I like your measured growth and slow and steady, and that works really well for us. Unless it's commercial. Unless it's commercial, you bring it on. We're all for that. Absolutely. My question is on the 76.9 that attended a four-year or two-year degree. Do you guys track graduation rates for that as well? Do you want to talk about that? Yes. So, yeah, we don't necessarily. It's really hard to track students after they leave us. That's what I was wondering, yeah. So, yeah, that's really the entry data. To get the exit data, it's not super accurate, but that's the entry data. I was just curious to hear graduation somewhere between like 33 to 40 percent on average. I was wondering if that would change for school

035system or not. That would be a neat way to track that. It's one of the things that is interesting. Because we offer so many dual credit and AP courses for students, the number of our kids who go to college who can finish in three years. So which is a money savings for families if the kids actually choose to be done in three years. Some like that fourth year, but it is an option. We also have kids who go straight into a master's because they can do that with a four-year program. Sure. So I'm going to kind of tell a story here. I've got a lot of slides. There's some heavy stuff. I said we've really packed about three different work sessions into this for your pleasure. So stop me at any time when it comes

036to if you've got questions or just concern. But I want to kind of start out with just some celebrations, especially as we think about, obviously, we've grown quite a bit. You can see here by, I think that you're the reason, Ken. It really took off in 2011. So a lot of growth here. So but some celebrations here just from from a construction standpoint growth is It can be a lot of fun at times too when we have to take you know our amenities or the opportunities that we're providing to our students and our community you know with this being both that especially with the swim club not only just you know the teams the high school but This pool is utilized what seems like about 18 hours a day and so because I think as

037soon as we close it up It's 5 a.m. The swimmer or swim team is back at it knocking on the door to get in there. So This opened up in fall 2024 really the same footprint of the original pool that was, or not, I guess this is the second version of the pool, but when this was built I think in 2001-ish. And so 2003, somewhere in that range. And we've expanded it to 10 lanes instead of eight. And what that allows us to do, that's why this picture here is we can swim this direction and this direction. So we can just increase the number of suits that we have, opens up doors for the swim club, which in turn opens up windows for our team and just overall community. I think we went, had I

038think three diving boards as well. So just a really nice space. It was exciting for our kids. They were driving to Pike and Ben Davis over the last eight or for 18 months prior to this to get to a pool. So you can just think about the level of commitment that takes for student athletes to get up that early to make it to, you know, the northwest side. And so the fact that we were able to bring this back before swim season certainly was something to celebrate. And hopefully you'll find a little cooler in there as we worked on the HVAC system as well. So very excited about that. Other things we're excited about is it's difficult to drive down Odell and not see the new field house going up as well as classrooms that

039surround that on the north side as well as a locker room and different things. So on the left there is the rendering of what it's supposed to look like when it's all said and done. On the right is not necessarily as of this week but maybe as of last week where we stand. And so about 16 goals, we'll have four basketball courts, eight lane, 200-meter track. it will be fully able to sustain an indoor track meet. So one of the things that's different now than what it was, let's say, 10 or 15 years ago, because we are the largest school in the state that does not currently have a field house. And so that was one of the things that we wanted to do. But indoor track really has kind of become a thing, and

040we want to be able to host that. One of the things that goes through our planning process is how do we continue to find ways to get kids and families to stay at Brownsburg or bring and attract. other groups and towns in brownsburg because then they're spending money and our restaurants are staying in our hotels um and i'm kim just we were talking about this or she was talking about this i believe over the last week you want to share quickly from here conversation you had. Yeah, I had a great conversation last week with the CEO of USA Track and Field, Max Siegel, and his COO, and we just engaged in a conversation because as he was a keynote speaker and just sharing a little bit about his story, but the wheels just started spinning

041for me and just opportunities for a potential. partnership and how it would benefit Brownsburg and the community and our kids. So it was just very exciting. And so we are going to continue those conversations. Absolutely. We'll see kind of a fly through of this space in a bit. But again, those are the kind of situations that we'll continue to find. You'll see a picture a little bit later of the tennis courts. We've been contacted by a Midwest tennis group that is looking to bring a tennis... tournament here I believe next next fall and our next fall spring came over exactly when we're getting all the details lined up but they're looking for some place that have 20 to 25 courts and so again that'll be over an entire weekend and everyone will be coming to

042to Brownsburg in order to participate that so you know as you said if you build it they will come we need the chick-fil-a by then but so that'll make people happy but again very very excited this will be the the largest classroom that we have on campus as well because all the PE kiddos will be in there. We'll have the weight, the strength training and stuff. We'll be able to use these areas as well. Very excited about the space. We also have the senior academies. Think back in 2008-9, senior academy opened. We really built it for about 600. And if we think back to Dr. Jessup's slide here when we were at 463-ish or whatever in 2011, we thought we'd have some time. Well, there's not a class size in the high school now under

043800. So we are far undersized. And so we are really going from about 27 classrooms to just about 50 in this particular space. What you'll see here, again, renderings on the left kind of... Realistic where we're at in construction on the right. We need to get rid of the snow. But again, this is kind of the senior academy cafeteria. New entry point. This will probably be the most utilized entrance, I think, that we'll have in the building. Obviously, main one remains the main entry where the front office is. But this will be athletic entry, senior academy entry. Again, a lot of the extracurricular, whether you're going to pool, field house, varsity gym, pretty much all be through this entry here. You can see how far along we are in the process. What you will find

044when this is all said and done is a very consistent feel and theme throughout the entire building, from main building to senior academy, similar amenities with cafeteria and food and such for the seniors versus the main building. I know that was an issue when we opened up the main building cafeteria, which is beautiful. The senior academy will also mirror that, as well as just some opportunities for kids. Again, just very, very excited for what we're able to do for the kids here. Quickly here, this is just a fly-through from the architects. You can kind of see what this all looks like. I'll try to narrate. So obviously the main entry, athletics on the left, Senior Academy to the right. This is kind of the drive lane on the west side of the building there of

045Senior Academy off of Odell on the Field House. This is inside the field house. Again, this is a seat about 1,000, all seatings on the second floor. That way we're not pulling bleachers out to interrupt any of the track available space. We've got the pole vault. We'll have long jump pits. We've got high jump, again, the basketball courts, the sprint lanes, all, again, for us to be able to host the events that are required for our kiddos as well as to attract conference and potentially another state or college even type events. A lot of storage underneath there for PE as well as the field house, so very excited for that. You saw this picture earlier, the rendering, the senior academy cafeteria, common space. To the left is the field house. So you think about the

046open air that we'll kind of have. You've got an event going on in the field house. You have this nice big space here for event hosting, ways to get upstairs, come around here to that main entry point. Senior academy offices and classrooms on the left. Again, the athletic offices will now be on the right from kind of as you... from this angle here. Nice secure entry point as well to ensure that we still have a locked door. Heading up to the second floor, this will be where patrons will come up the second floor and actually enter the field house. Again, all seating is on the second story. What's nice here is we'll keep players, officials away from parents and such, because I know there can be issues at times, harder to believe. But that way

047we have a nice space here. This is Senior Academy, again, kind of the second floor looking down to the first. You'll see some nice open lighting, lots of natural lighting and LED lighting. Again, similar design features that you'll find in the main building. We'll have the nice big science lab and such here that you'll find in the main building. Again, opportunities for senior academy. Senior academy went from three floors, really, to two. The third floor we utilized as all HVAC. They call it the mechanical penthouse. It's a fancy term. But all classrooms are on the first and second floor. The other thing is this will be the nice hallway, really, if you think about where we're walking. Now, this used to be outside. And so we would go into the route right here would be

048the doors we'd get into the gym. There's a concession stand. So, again, all new hallway here. This is that same hallway on the second floor. Think about just looking into the second floor of the senior academy here. And I believe it keeps going down this. Yep, heading south. Actually, there's a cardio room here that leads then into the field house. Again, this will be the second floor that you can kind of, this part's already done up through here, all new glass here in the varsity gym. So, and then that will eventually connect to the second floor of the main building. So this is what it's all said and done. It should be what it looks like or very, very similar to that. And this should all be ready, right? Everything that you saw there for

049the start of this coming school year, 25-26. And so very very exciting for opportunities again for our kids in that regard questions on any of that Yeah Yeah Yes Yes, yes the the bleachers in the in the varsity gym is that showing about yes so In order for us to be able to do the varsity gym We have to have the field house built because we got a spot for the PE kiddos to go So once this is built this year, we'll have the girls and boys basketball seasons and fall 25 through spring 26 so around spring break in 26, we will close the varsity gym and go in and do all bleachers and new floor. Interesting enough that we've had too many sands and repaints of that gym floor that we're on the last

050leg, and so we can't sand it and repaint it anymore. You've got to replace it all. So it'll be a full renovation inside the gym. That'll be closed from about spring, like I said, 2026, but should be ready for girls basketball season. In the fall of 26, the only team that might be misplaced at that particular time would be volleyball. So the volleyball in fall of 26 will be play in that beautiful field house and so i promise you the second second home for them will be a just fine and again for the fact that we'll have a thousand seating capacity in that field house should make we can host any any match there so what we're hoping for is similar to this year when we really wanted to start on the stadium expansion It

051was very late because we had a state championship football team and we couldn't get started until they were finished. We would like the same thing to happen next year with basketball. If they're very late, we won't be able to get started until they win. So no pressure on basketball, but that's our goal. Absolutely. Other things you – It's a little off since everyone's basketball, right, Gordon? Yeah. A couple days. Other thing you'll see as you drive down Odell is you'll see some work here on the north end This will also be done summer 2025. So have a expanded stadium for well, we won't say for the 6a championship That's not really the reason that we built we are running out of close to out of space for a home game But we are certainly out

052of space if you come to graduation And so graduation is just one of those things that we want to keep on campus I know a lot of schools our size or larger have taken those to external venues downtown or you know like what's it called now i still want to call it verizon ruoff uh or deer creek yeah so um but we want to keep that here we these these these kiddos grew up in brownsburg and we want to have them walk across the stage here so that's one of the reasons you'll see with the expansion we're getting all new bleachers here we're re-utilizing the two out of the three sets of bleachers at soccer to increase that capacity adding some bleachers on the home side the the press box to get a little bit

053of a facelift that way the brick matches we're not tearing it down but just essentially refacing it new scoreboard this will be a band storage area as well storage for this multi-purpose field as you think about you know over here i didn't show this necessarily but over here used to be the practice football fields we've now turned into parking lots. So we do need an additional field for football to practice as well as lacrosse is an emerging sport with IHSAA. We know that that will be coming down the path. So we wanted to have a nice home turf field for lacrosse. We'll have bleachers, about 1500 seating capacity here where we can host games as well as a band will be on this. So a highly used field. Again, this is freshman and visitor locker

054rooms. That's already built. This is almost built. Drive lane here, new entry and gate for the football stadium. This should all be done, again, for the start of the season. So a lot of this will be done to start a graduation. We still may have some work to do here between graduation and start of football, but the bleachers themselves, they've promised us to be ready in time for graduation to have the additional capacity. So it should be a very nice space. Where's concessions? Good question. So concessions, if we go back one, we do have concessions on this side of the building for our visitors, and concessions will be right down here in this area for our home fans. So we will have a concession stand. I think it's those two windows right there. It's a

055pretty big space. We also have a spirit shop, and then the locker room is located right here for football. We've got storage on the end. And this is what we'll call the Bulldog Balcony, as well as something referred to as the Roark Room. We're kind of like more of a hospitality area for some corporate sponsorships and such to watch the games. So it should be a nice game experience that we can provide for our community. We would really like to get rid of the concessions underneath here if possible, just because it becomes such a hangout space underneath the bleachers, kind of keep it clear, to put it politely, a hangout space. So we'd really like to try to get as many folks to using this concessions as possible. This is kind of the site plan.

056Again, you can see this is the new construction of the senior academy expansion. This is the original senior academy here. New entry. Again, all new field house as well. There's classrooms. The cafeteria is right here. There will be a loading dock here. Athletics. This will be the serving lines and then classrooms and such all around here. stadium expansion as well as that multi-purpose stadium it doesn't look like you drive by I still I'm gonna have a hard time believing it so they lay it down that there's room for a hundred yard field here between Odell and and this building they they promised me there is and so but that's that's kind of what this will look like again at the start of the school year for next year Tennis courts relocation again when we extended

057the senior academy we had to find a spot for the tennis facility So this is what that will look like it should also be done for this fall. We'll have 21 courts here again. We'll also have the Courts that are West as adjacent if we do host that tournament nice I think about 170 spots here for parking as well as we've got six what we'll call varsity courts You've got the other 15 bank courts more JV or practice. We will have some youth lines painted on this for our for youth camps and such while pickleball courts probably still at West as more of the the public courts for open use which probably more of our varsity area will keep locked up like on all of our spots But again a nice new facility here for

058our kids that is already attracting attention for tournaments from outside It's just, again, other renderings of what that would look like. Gate here, outbuilding for team storage, concessions and things. Again, this is a spot we think that will allow us to host state tournament-type games as well as conference. This is silly, but right now we're redoing the press box. But if you were a soccer person and were ever in that old press box, we're thankful you're still alive because that thing was a little wobbly. Everyone was looking for the permits when it was built. There aren't any. I can promise you that. And so I think just some weekend guys got together, put a shed on stilts. So we got that thing torn down. It didn't take much. We are building this. We're adding light.

059And just, again, having it. Having a space that kind of matches here, that was not dangerous. Futuristically, at the start of summer 26, we think that the east of Odell will look something like this. So across the street from the high school, added parking. Right now the track goes east-west. We need to flip to go north-south in order for it to officially count for records and such with another outbuilding. And then the goal is to move softball over here. The softball right now is right next to Whitelick. the goal down there is if we ever have to expand transportation that that would come a little bit towards white lick which means we have to move white licks playground so white looks playground we need to go on our current softball fields and that's that's the

060long range plan so i promise you we're not just making decisions because we think oh let's do that there is a long range plan comprehensive plan strategic plan the fancy terms you guys have But that is certainly in place here and what we would like to see and what we envision on east of Odell. Right now, initial stages, we haven't taken this out to bid or anything, but this project is approved for funding and such under the current tax rates and things that we have in place. So again, timelines there of everything. You see a lot happening here for the summer up through July 25. The interior refurbishment, including the varsity gym, they're more in 26 and east of Odell, start 26 and 27. And right now, those would kind of be the major projects

061that we see taking place on our campus, especially as we think projects related to growth specifically. i'll get into demographics but but i think that this will come be uh accommodate us for for quite some time so before i jump into the kind of demographics any other questions on some of the projects and things we have um i have one question sure what is the project right across the street from the west which one is that tennis tennis okay tennis yep absolutely good tennis was done in two phases so the 15 courts were built first yeah Now we're on phase two, those six varsity courts as well as the building. And parking. And parking. So I included the enrollment growth here because I think that that is ultimately the reason why I was able to

062share all the things that we just shared. We really waited. We knew that, you know, I told you earlier, we are the largest school without a field house. But that wasn't a priority for us because we knew we were going so fast. Things like, quite honestly, the original 2017 renovation of Brownsburg High School, building of Lincoln, building of Crossroads. We had to do something with transportation, certainly not enough room. So once we took care of those things, which we feel like really impact instruction and... and the growth, we had to turn our focus to some of the things you just are seeing there. But as we continue to see this trend line of growth, which is pretty substantial, we think about 11, 12, 7,500 students until 10,251. But from fall of 23, 24 to this

063fall, you can see a growth of only about 50 or so students. I think it's officially 48 once we all got it said and done. So that's the smallest increase not only on this list, but by a large margin. Even the COVID year, if we think 19, 20, 21, while we didn't grow what we had been growing in previous years, it was still almost, you know, what is about 80 or so students, 75 students. And so what's going on? And a lot of the demographic information that we were using to plan. had us continuing to growing at the rate that we had been growing on, that 200 to 300 students a year. And so one of the reasons that we thought, what's going on here? We might need to take a closer look. And so

064that's really why one of the key indicators for this this past fall, we did an updated demographic study. Now, most recently, we had one come back to us in 2022. And you think that's not been that long ago. Yeah, but the world has changed quite a bit. I think we're still but before then, we weren't for sure what the COVID impact might be. Also, we've got a lot of changes in the housing market and assess evaluation and tech. There's lots of changes that have taken place. not just in our community but across the state. And so it was important that we needed to know, is this a one-year anomaly that we just didn't quite grow as much, or is this something that is going to extend beyond the one year? So as we talked about

065number of graduates 24, one of the things that's the reason for that number that we only grew, you know, 48, 50 students, is we graduate 744 and then we replace that with only 636 kindergarten students. So when we think about that math, when we send kids out the door and bring in a new group, already we are at 108 student deficit to start the year. So for us to think that, well, we're not growing as much, well, we still grew about 150, 160 new families. That's substantial growth in most school corporations. But what's going on with this kindergarten class? So I don't want anybody to walk out of here and say this is some negative information because it isn't. As I've presented on this, people still want to move to Brownsburg. The schools are great.

066The community is great. It's a nice place to raise a family. What's the impact, if this is going to be consistent, what's the impact of that long-range plan with our facilities? And so, again, excluding 2021, we'll call it the COVID year. It's the first year that growth hadn't been at least 250 students in 2016-17. And we were right on that trend line from previous demographic studies. So reached out to Jerry McKibben. He is really Susan Brodvig, who had done our previous two, had since retired. McKibben had done several demographic studies with schools around the area, which is why we selected him. We knew he would be familiar. When he begins to look at the study of this information, obviously lots of things go into his, that he considers. One of that is the rate and

067magnitude of households or empty nesting, the age structure of the population, number of households turning over, and rate of existing home sales, new construction, change in households. So all those, what we call demographic... factors. Those are the things that I feel like he's the most confident as he gives us information. He's the most confident looking at these factors. These are the most predictable. And so we'll talk about the non-demographic factors in a bit. But here in Brownsburg, you can see this is specific to us. While this is from the 2020 census, it is the most recent information that we have. And so this is the entire community as a whole. You can see the, obviously, a lot of school-aged kids here. That's what the population kind of chart shows between males and females. And then

068what we'll see is a little decline. And that just means that, you know, we've got students who are graduating and moving off, whether that be to start a job somewhere, join the military, move off to school, move to Broad River, because that's the fun thing to do when you're 22, 23. But that we see that decline there in enrollment a little bit, but then we do see that increase come back at around 30. So that tells us that Brownsburg remains, again, a place to raise a family. People are wanting to move back here. And then really what happens in this area is what we see plays a big factor sometimes in what happens with a school corporation. Because as the age of the population increases, are people hanging around? Are they downsizing? Are they moving

069away? Are they moving to Florida? Because that turnover really can help drive in what new families we see here, especially for school-age kiddos. This is interesting. I find it interesting. I'm also a math nerd. But what you'll find here, this is the birth rate trends in the U.S. and in Indiana. The U.S. is the blue, the red is Indiana. While a little less than the birth rates in the U.S., very similar trend. And what I find is the most fascinating of this, this peak here, both U.S. and in Indiana, this is the class of 2024 birth rate. This little decline here, we'll call that kind of the COVID babies, that is our incoming kindergarten class. And so there is some, it's not just, again, it's not a Brownsburg thing either when we think about, is

070this kindergarten class, why isn't it as big? Well, if we don't have as many kids being born, then that means there's fewer kids to enroll in kindergarten. Pretty simple math there. That's one of the one of the reasons that I that I like sharing this slide because again it just makes more sense This is an Indiana thing not just a Brownsburg thing. Yeah Right here it's around around 1980 and so the way that was explained to us is when really Indiana became less of a industry state Where we you know places like Muncie Kokomo? Richmond began that you know the economic think Manufacturing. Manufacturing really began to change in those areas and that's when in Indiana began to change. Absolutely. So non-demographic factors, these are things that maybe individual school corporations can control. It'd be

071difficult to project what this might have. Again, legislation even plays a part in this. If anybody saw the information from Friday, the IHSAA and one-time transfer rule, right, that could play a part of this. So district-to-district transfer students, transfer to charter, so students that live here but have school choice. You know, that does impact the population of a district. And so these are things that we try to include but, again, remain a little bit unpredictable based on local decisions. So to kind of bottom line us here as far as the forecast, and there's a lot of stuff here, but let's just focus on the red for sake of time. Right now, Dr. McKibbin said our total district enrollment is forecasted to increase by 482 students over the next five years, and then only about another

07258 for the following five. So when we think about over the next 10 years, right now we are projected to grow, oh, maybe let's call it 600 or so students or less. Substantially different than what we were growing prior to. So when we think about 250 to 300 in a year. Right now we're projected to only be about 600 over the next 10 years. And so, quite honestly, I was very thankful to have this information because when we think about elementary number nine, think about additional renovations and additions perhaps to other buildings, that's why this information is important because I think we can handle it. In fact, I know we can. So, yeah, go ahead. So if that full addition does go out with 800 homes, I mean, obviously that's... It will. And so factor

073that in? Yes. So one thing that is factored into this information is just the rate of new homes that are being constructed. So while it's hard to predict if there are... You know, over the last 10 years, when looking at historical numbers, if there were an average of 200 new permits issued and all of a sudden we jumped to 500, that could impact this. But if trends remain somewhat consistent, then that's what this should be based on, if that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. And so and here's the information I find fascinating and this this has a lot to do with birth rates I think as we found I think it has also a lot to do with you talk about price points of homes, right? I know if the new home was 300

074some thousand I would not been able to afford that as a New dad new family and so perhaps the housing market of which you know We talked about rates people aren't moving out as much and so if I'm if I'm older Been in my home for a long time and I'm looking to maybe downsize If I downsize, I might be having the exact same payment I currently have. And so maybe I'm sticking around in this for a little longer based on rates. And so what you'll see here is actually those kindergarten lower numbers remain fairly low. And while we do see a little increase in there, certainly not as the increase in numbers that we have anticipated. But here's the point that I've been trying to share. is it's not really the overall number of

075growth to think, again going back to are people wanting to move here? The answer is absolutely yes. It's just that initial kindergarten class that's small. And the way to prove that is if we start here with kindergarten classroom, work our way down, we can see that the projections show of 664 of kindergarten classroom this year, that jumps to 706, 728, 747, 765, 780, jumping down here to middle school, 812, 820, 828, to high school, 865. Now we're approaching the 900 mark. So what that is telling us is that Brownsburg schools still remain a hot place for folks to want to come move to, right, and to raise a family in. But also, when we think about a $400,000 home, that might be house two or three for me in my life, and that might be

076when my students are more of middle school, high school age. And so I think that's the main reason that we are seeing the increase in numbers here at the secondary level, but kind of a little bit of a flat line at the elementary. And we think about over the next 10 years, over those eight different buildings that we have, 4,700 to 4,800, only a growth of about 100 elementary kids. That's substantially lower than what we have had in the previous 10. Quite honestly, elementary kind of drove our enrollment overall, and secondary was the slower, if we go back about from the first initial 2015 projection. So we've certainly flipped here. Middle school, again, growing at just a little over 100, but the high school, 3,300 to 36. Again, I think that could be a little

077bit low based on kind of where we're seeing those high school numbers at 900. You know, what I'm really fortunate, I think, is we built this new high school to hold about 4,000. So we could have gone upwards to five based on space and classrooms. We did not go to that level because we wanted to make sure that we didn't build too much too soon. So, again, high school right now, if we get to 3,700, we are going to be just fine in capacity, but not where we're going to have a bunch of open rooms. And also, if we grow just by another 100 right now, I don't see, over the next 10 years, the need for elementary number nine. And the reason why that makes us happy, and I'll talk about it a bit,

078is not only do we not have to worry about how to afford building a new school, but also how to staff it. And so to staff a new elementary school will be, at that time, probably about $2.7 million in just staffing costs minimum. And so that becomes the most difficult thing to try to do for us. Have you checked with neighboring communities? having the same thing happen yes so dr mckibben did avon very very similar results um the only the anomaly still right now around the donut is is westfield for whatever reason they grew about 400 students this year and uh and so we're still not quite sure maybe the difference i mean just i think it's the pure numbers of homes and things that are that are being built there Think they pulled some

079some kiddos maybe from from Hamilton Southeastern and Hamilton Southeastern next year's look actually looking at open borders to try to attract another 800 I think students as what Kim told me and so, you know that again could impact some of our some of our numbers but For the most part, a lot of schools, especially like us, are seeing the slowdown at the kindergarten, kind of early level. I'm not saying they're all growing at the middle and high school. I think that still remains somewhat unique to us. But Avon, who was growing pretty quickly as well, I think we're actually still projected to grow a little more than what they are. Good question. people actually when they move here bring more kids to brownsburg for instance than on average other school corporations remember that statistic Say

080that one more time. Okay. So for an average family that comes in here and moves in, they bring in 2.3 kids versus like Westville is only like .7. I don't. The number that comes to mind when you ask is just number of students per new construction home. But ours is higher on average is what I'm trying to get at. Yes, I believe it is. I don't know everyone else's number, but I know ours is a little over 1.1 of a home that's been. Recently built in the new last 10 years about 0.7 probably consistently across the district the other thing that we've seen is some of the neighborhoods that we've built that are Oakwood rosewood redwood, whatever that neighborhood is, you know, do you know what I'm talking about? We have more kids that come

081out of that than what that builder typically sees So they're doubles. And it's the apartments. Yes. But if you look at what they're seeing in other communities, what they see in other communities coming out kid-wise from those is not what we see. We see more. Yeah. We actually came back for another project two years ago, and we denied it just based on that. It's just a bad project. Kat, do you think that's because... It's one of the only lower cost housing options in town. It's an affordable, and you need two bedrooms. If you have an affordable two bedroom, then it's an option for families. Can you talk a second about when kids get into kindergarten versus get them in middle school? So I will tell you academically when we have students who have been elsewhere

082and there are certainly students who come in who are where they need to be academically but if students come to us and they are not where they need to be academically it takes us three years to get them to to the level that they they need to be and so the earlier we can get them the better. but it does take us a minute to get kids where they need to be. I'm not buying for the 9th elementary school. Yeah, we are not in favor of 9th. But yeah, we would definitely, if we can get them, the earlier we can get students, the better. Just we think what we offer with regard to education for our students is great, so we, of course, want students to be here. So again, takeaways there. And I'm going

083to kind of shift. So if you think about the story I'm telling, obviously enrollment and growth plays a huge part in the pictures that you saw earlier and everything that's taken place over here over the last several years as far as construction. And I just want to remind folks, you know, that tax rate commitment that we've made with the community is that the school rate, if we can continue to deal with the increase in enrollment and do the things we need to do with facilities while continuing to drop the school tax rate, and that's something we've been able to accomplish. We're proud of that. I know at one point in time we checked back in probably about 2022-ish, 23, we were the only corporation, as I did some digging, that had a 10-year consecutive drop

084in a rate. And you might say, there's not a lot of drop there, Shane. And yes, I understand that. However, to continue to deal with the amount of growth that we were having at 250 or so students a year is expensive. It's buses. It's buildings. It's HVAC. I mean, there's lots of things going on there that are highly expensive. And so the commitment is no referendum, but continue to work within the tax rate that you have. That's one of the reasons that you see that controlled, slow drop in the tax rate is so that we can ensure that we can continue up that growth. There's times, and I'll be honest, when you look at that, or the assessed value, like could it drop a little bit more? And the answer is yes, but knowing what

085we have coming down the line, right? And so it's what we don't want is a seesaw effect here. And so it really is a controlled growth when it comes to making sure that we can deal with the enrollment, knowing, again, what's coming down the line. And that plays a part now if we know some of the major stuff is done, right? We're only going to grow 600 students. We think that the major buildings that we have are going to continue to serve us for the next 10 years. Now we can begin to take a look at this. I have no idea what will happen in the legislative session this particular year. However, I'll get to our goal kind of moving forward, and hopefully we can partner with that. But to understand, this has not been

086easy to do. This is not to say, just lower the tax rate while dealing with growth and all the things. I promise you it's not easy. And there's very few, I think, schools our size that have been able to keep up with growth while looking at staff raises, while staying competitive in salaries in general and such. as well as not have a referendum and lower the tax rate, those things combined, you would find very, very few schools that have been able to accomplish it. But I do need to kind of tell a story to understand kind of... why that's going to continue to get more and more difficult. And so a little school finance here. I show this slide every single year. You'll see, obviously, education fund, ops fund, debt service, and a rainy day.

087These funds are major funds for school finance, and they are titled based on the expenditures in which they are designated to. So anything to educate a child, we have to make that expenses out of the education fund. The operations of a district, obviously, is the operations fund. Debt services make our bond or debt payments. And rainy day fund is our savings that hopefully we don't have to dip into very often. But there is no steady stream of income to the rainy day fund. That is simply money that might be unappropriated money that we can shift over. So the one thing I'll spend time here because while these funds are they change in 2019 and they're really about the expenses They did the state did not adjust the the revenue sources that are associated with these

088So what used to be the general fund which would have pretty much most of all your staff and such and different things Now it's split right education fund has and ops both have people, but the people that support the education of the district are paid from here. The people that support the operation of the district are paid from here. And so there is something called a transfer that the state has put in place that allows us to take money that we knew was kind of the old general fund coming in to support students that we have to shift over into the operations fund. And that's important, and I'll get to that in a second. And so a couple things that are probably familiar to you as well, just in municipal financing, obviously circuit breaker tax

089cut impact, you can see that for Brownsburg schools, as far as uncollected property taxes due to those caps. And 23 for us, that was $6.5 million, and unfortunately that number continues to grow, and that's our projected for 25. One thing I'll talk about and it's really directly related to this tax cap impact for us is the ability to use what's called a protected tax waiver And so that was state relief for districts that were kind of called disproportionately affected by tax caps right now tax caps Really only hit the operations fund because debt is protected. We did have a waiver I'll talk about that did have no longer have it I will talk about that as well and again I talked about that transfer we can allow to go up to 15% from of Education

090Fund revenue into the operations funds. We do have some flexibility So what does that mean? So in the Education Fund Again, some of the things that have been that you'll find here. This is the dollar amount what we get per student So why is enrollment so important? Because that really determines the amount of dollars that we have in place to educate the child. And so that money goes for all educational expenses and revenue that we have to do that. So what you'll see here is the dollar amount increase provided by the state for Brownsburg each year. Now you might say, does that number doesn't necessarily equal what I see in the headlines. No, that's really specific to us. So that number is really a lot of things collectively that go into a dollar amount that

091we might receive, but that's the increase that we have from the state. Requirement that we have to spend at least 62% of state aid on teacher compensation. So keep that in mind. And recently we lost revenue due to the removal of the textbook slash curriculum material fees. So there's some... what I'd call some constraints that while we are at 71% of our state aid on teacher compensation, so we're very, very thankful and proud to say that our money is going right back into the classroom, that is a number that continues to get harder and harder to hit sometimes because when this number gets much lower and we're continuing to grow, if we had to add staff and such, it becomes a little bit more difficult to continue to mark as many dollars in that area.

092Now, these were good years here for us, right? 6.1%, 6.8%. We had some really good years. And what you'll find is that staff compensation and raises were certainly, they match that. They're very aligned with those increases. Very, very thankful to be able to do that. The operations fund, again, utilized for all operational expenditures. The revenue in the operations fund comes from property taxes. And then the property taxes waiver, and there's an asterisk there because I'm no longer able to use that. This was pre-2024. And then that transfer. So we talked about the transfer. In 2019, the first year we had this option, this was the first year of those funds, we transferred about $7 million from the education fund, again from here to here, to help offset those expenses. That was about 11.4%. What we

093try to do, though, is keep transfer dollars to a minimum in order to help keep funds available for teacher growth, right, as a growing enrollment district, and to keep competitive salaries. Obviously, it goes into educational programming and such as well. So we began to try to lower the amount that we were transferring. You can see that percentage decreased dramatically over the years. And so one of the reasons that we want to, you know, obviously keep money in the education fund, but now what that does is put some stress on the operations fund. There's a lot of schools, in fact, most schools, who are transferring at that 15% revenue mark to help keep money and revenue into that operations fund. That's just not something that we were doing here in Brownsburg. And so how are we

094able to keep things going? Well, to help offset the low transfer from the Ed Fund to the Ops, we began adding in district costs to larger construction projects. So when we think about the bus purchases, we began to load that into our bond proceeds. Instead of paying out of the operations fund, we used bond proceeds to do that. The caveat there is you have to pay enough principal in your debt payments over the first five years to cover the cost of those buses because you can't keep paying on something for longer than you're going to have. We also moved capital improvements such as technology equipment, roof repair, paving, HVAC, all those types of things from our operations fund or education fund into bond proceeds. It also includes some things like, you know, we talk about

095technology equipment. That includes things you're seeing in here, but also laptops, desktop computers for students and such. How do we load those things into projects to avoid having to make expenditures out of the operations fund? Because, going back, If we wanted to keep this number high, keep money in the education fund for staff compensation and such, and keep this transfer low, then we needed to find somewhere else to make those purchases from, if that makes sense. We were also able to implement the protected taxes waiver. So what that allowed us to do is more evenly distribute tax cap loss amongst the debt service fund and the operations fund. So again, instead of this entire $6.8 million hit in the ops fund, we were able to evenly distribute that. So those are some financial strategies we've

096been kind of initiating or been working with over the last several years. This is why... I went through all that information. Legislative challenges have now impacted us. And this is things that have already happened. This is not things that are going to happen. We try not to spend too much time in the what-ifs. But House Bill 1454 removed our ability to utilize the protected taxes waiver. So what that means from 24 and beyond... We anything any impact of the property tax caps hit the operations fund only we are no longer allowed to kind of evenly distribute that across debt and ops and So they gave us a lot of time to make that adjustment. So this was signed law May 4th 2023 and when in fact July 1st 2023 Thank you for that. Now the

097caveat here is quite honestly if you took on new debt after July 1 of 23 you would no longer be able to implement the protected taxes waiver. Now what was going on in 23? Look behind you there that construction project was already under contract. We had already signed contracts to pay contractors You know to get this entire construction project up and going there's no way that we could not take on the debt to pay for that So really we were left without a choice So what does that mean and numbers so let's stay with me here before legislation So before legislation what we're able to do is what this called circuit breaker loss and ops So we were able to offset so instead of the full amount hit in operations fund We were able to

098minimize that and that's what you see here the the max levy The circuit breaker hit in our net levy you can see 12.4 This is the amount of revenue that was coming into our operations fund 12 413 13 4 projected in 24 and you can see what those projections look like based on growth with the growth quotient. Unfortunately, now that entire, all right, and we went from a loss, a net loss of 3.4 to now the entire tax cap loss from our max levy, and this is the net. revenue we'll receive in operations. So for 24, for us that was a loss of 3.4 million dollars in revenue. And I will say revenue because this was money we were able to transfer out of debt service into the operations fund. And so we are no

099longer able to do that. And so you can see over the course of the next several years, that is about a $24 million hit in money that we would have been able to transfer out of debt into our operations fund because we have such a high tax cap impact. And so that's a substantial hit for us. The other thing, so you can say back, all right, so that takes away one of the strategies that we're able to utilize for our operations fund, right? All right, we should be fine. We'll just keep loading more things into our projects. I'm glad you asked. House Bill 1120 removed our ability to approve projects if we're going to use debt to pay for those without a referendum. And that is because our debt rate is over 80 cents. And

100so why is our debt rate over 80 cents? It's because we've had to keep so much new construction going. It's not like we want that debt rate to be that high, but that's the way that we've been able to utilize it. Assess value goes up, we continue to add more debt to build those buildings, so our debt rate has stayed above 80 cents. That was signed into law again May 4, 23, effective date July 1. We did get a new project approval in before that deadline to ensure that we could continue on with what you see over there. But this was extended by Legislative Session 24, and then they took a look at this in the Senate. They had a tax committee that they were taking a look at it, and it is up for

101debate here if they're going to continue to extend it in this legislative session. And so what does that mean? Again, going back, is that if I'm unable to load bus purchases and capital improvements and approve additional projects without a referendum, That means that if I have from this point forward right now if I wanted to do a roof like East Middle School roof will be about seven million dollars If we didn't have the approved project approved funds to do that. I'd have to take that to a referendum right now Legislatively, I'm unable to approve to go through a preliminary termination hearing a second one wait 30 days Because our debt rate is over 80 cents. So that again and not only is a hit to projects But it's also a hit to the operations fund

102because the technology replacements, the bus purchases, the capital improvements that we've been loading into those projects, we're unable to approve those right now as well without a referendum. Now, please do not walk out of here, I'll say it on camera, and we're not saying we're going to need a referendum. What I'm saying is that number from the demographic study makes me happy because if we had to build elementary number nine, again, it doesn't matter what our tax rate or what we wanted to do with tax rate. we would be unable to do that without asking the community for referendum. That's just how legislative the statute works. And so again, kind of showing here what the county tax rates are. You can see, and what I wanted to focus on this debt service rate here, you

103think, okay, over 80 cents, what does that mean? Well, that's because we have been growing quite a bit. This is our combined tax rate. That's the number you'll see us show here. But debt service really is the one that's guiding that particular legislative issue. And so that impacts Avon, impacts us, impacts Danville. It doesn't impact Mill Creek, but I'm not sure when the last time Mill Creek had to build a building. You know, Plainfield, it's an anomaly based on their tax base, and so we can't really talk about them. And Northwest Hendricks is kind of an interesting one. Right now, they are under the 80 cents. And why are they under the 80 cents? It's because they had an entire project planned that they hadn't started yet. And when this legislation came out, they decided

104to pull that project back completely because if they lost the protected taxes waiver, they would ultimately go into negative deficit financing. They would go into negative cash balance. And so that protected tax waiver for them was so important that they said, we can't do this project because if we can't use the protected taxes waiver, then we just don't have the funds to keep our district running. And so that's a little bit more information here. Obviously, Avon has the referendum. It's an operating referendum, so it helps in this area. But this still, for them and Avon right now, is only anything construction-wise. That's why, again, they're building the two biggest districts here in the county, why you see that debt service rate a little bit higher. So now, knowing the information from the demographic study, Quite

105honestly, if we're not building buildings, we need to take a look at that tax rate to see if we can get that thing down below 80 cents. And so that's one of the things that we do on an annual basis is that we meet with, we call our fall finance meeting with our financial team, which is the bond underwriters for us, Baker Tilly, the financial advisors, Ice Miller is our bond counsel, and policy analytics essentially helps us with assessed value projections, tax base, and what that looks like and how we continue to look at our tax rate and the impact from circuit breaker and such. And so these are kind of the main guiding questions when we met, and you can see how do we get our debt rate under 80 cents so we can

106approve future projects without a referendum. What I will tell you is that we will be in trouble in the operations fund if we are unable to, well, we can't afford buses in the operations fund. There's not enough money. I can tell you that right now. We can't afford all the HVAC. We can't afford a $7 million roof. Those things just aren't possible when our net revenue in that is $9 million overall from property taxes. It's just not something schools can do. So we've got to find a way to get under this $0.80. And when we look at our assessed valuation projections, again, this is back in the fall, so this has nothing to do with what might take place in legislative session. There's substantial growth. This is where we had 25. This is projected AV

107in, really it's millions, but it's, but this. It's really like dying. It's trillions for whatever it is billions. Whatever it is when you actually get the number It's a lot big numbers so we can see there's substantial growth We grew by 14 half percent assessed value for paid period 25 and the tax base is projected to increase by about four and a half percent annually Over the next ten years now we can still have a little bit of wave back and forth But that's overall for the next ten years where we see it. So again based on current legislation and how things work today We know that with continued growth and assessed valuation that we can get our tax rate to drop. And that's really, this is not to dive into these scenarios, but that's

108the work of the tax, of the finance team. As you can see, how do we, at what point in time could we potentially get under 80 cents? but also ensure that we can't forego our commitment. We've got to continue to drop the tax rate year over year. We're still finishing up the project, so we do have additional debt to take out. But taking all that into consideration, we think that by 2028 that we can get our debt service rate under. using the current assessed value projections, under 80 cents to where that not only would help our taxpayers, it would allow us the ability to go improve a project, but also what we'll find is that the net levy based on circuit breaker would also drop quite a bit if that overall tax rate is dropping.

109And that's a long story to get to this point, but that's one of the things that as a town and a school corporation, we need to work together. Because if we are looking at dropping our tax rate, let's call it five cents next year. I'm just throwing that number out there. And you all happen to increase the town rate five cents, then that ultimately means that nobody wins. But if we drop ours, and even if you kept yours the same, then that circuit breaker loss, we'd have... A little bit, we'd see some relief there, and that would be additional net revenue in our operations funds. So that's one of the things we're really going to try to do over the next several years is look at that debt rate, knowing that we don't have to

110build elementary number nine and have those big-time projects, that this will be a big-time focus for us. And again, this could all change based on legislation coming down the pipeline, and we will find a way to adjust to that. But this is the information we have and want to make sure that we work together through that. And I know that was a lot of heavy stuff. It was a lot of information. But important, I think, for us to share that with you because, again, this tells our story, but also kind of where we want to go futuristically. I'm going to take a drink. Yeah. So that's three work sessions worth that they've heard now, all in one for you all. But it's important, right? And I think also it's important to understand how closely we're

111watching this and what we're tracking because we really want to be good stewards of the community and of the financial resources. We know that, you know, as... Brownsburg in general has a little bit of what we call higher rate, and we understand that. That's how we've been able to continue to keep up with the growth under the tax rate commitment to you. And so we don't want to have to come to you and ask for a referendum, and that's why it's important that we kind of come through here and not to really, I guess you all ask for a referendum, or in the community. But that's why it's important that we monitor it and really have a plan in place. I think that's great. I mean, it gives us a good idea of what you

112guys are looking at, too, and kind of for us. What things we should consider when we're looking at? You know, it's I think it's a fine balance between what you guys need what we need to so you know I've heard the affordable housing a few times here tonight. I understand that I hear that from some of our constituents as well. It's just Still bad, but I will say what you shared tonight about needing to break even with with the community Yeah, that's nothing I've heard before yeah But that's a really good thing for us to know and so that's to me why why this meeting is so important because there are things that We say well, it'd be nice to have affordable housing now. We know that perspective That's probably gonna change the way we

113look at things. Yeah, and so I This is why we need to come together so we have an understanding of what you guys are looking at what you're considering And so you can see the same for us I mean I think would be a good to at least do this by annually if not quarterly for us to get together I think my it would be a good one How do you guys feel about that, or your team? It won't be this heavy every time. I'm going to read your slides next. I actually pared some down, so you're welcome. I'm not a detail guy, so if anyone's ever taken a disc assessment, the C, I don't have any of that. It's not me. I'm high level. Let's get to it and let's get it done. maybe

114we think about getting back together i don't know what's going to happen i think it's a good idea because we're all kind of waiting yeah we're all impacted on it absolutely maybe we do like a summer session with this group um if maybe we could do it with time um time to after you've opened your field house so you do a tour of that as well i mean i'd love to see it yeah and we'd love for you to see it i think when deb and i spoke last week as we were kind of finalizing the agenda We both agreed that for us to get into the what-ifs was just not going to be productive. Things have already changed so much since the session opened for us to spend any time with that. And that's

115why we wanted to focus in on we don't know what's coming, but this is what we've already seen and what we're already experiencing and how we move forward from there. I think in general, there are going to be a lot of changes this year. Wrap our arms around all the change from school from government changes on our end. I think 2026 will be Like getting our bearings and getting back to normal. Yeah, absolutely All right, so Is that it for the night? Should we schedule it? Okay, this is it. This is how do how do we keep working together? So that's what we're talking about. I think can we get a meeting on the board for either July or August, something like that. Could Dr. Joseph and I kind of go back and forth and

116see how we can get that scheduled? I would say we would always shoot for August. July is a little busy for us. Which one would be better for you guys? August is much better. July, we are not doing that. I think so. So I know our team meets every quarter to talk about construction, projects, just to coordinate on everything. And that's something that just started in the last, what, couple of years? Yeah, I think so, the last couple of years. And again, just to ensure that there's no surprises coming down when it, you know, any sort of. if we need a variance on a fence since that's considered a front yard uh if you want to know so there's things like that jenna's great to work with sean uh usually tends those as well as

117aaron um you know and st cahoots also with transportation with road closures you know obviously sometimes you guys know that in advance sometimes you don't based on on road closures and such with construction but it's all it's it's gotten better i can tell you that what i appreciate is the communication from from There's less frustration on Nick's end, and our drivers in that communication is wide open, and that's really what it's about. Are they on the construction email list that we send out to Main Street owners? It might be just beneficial for them to be on that list. That's a good idea. Nick might be, but it's a good thing. He'd be the one. Vicki would be good, too, because for her, if she needs to communicate anything out, it's always good for her to

118be on the email. We've started a weekly. construction update, kind of like what closings are going to happen this week, where you can go, where you can't go. That we send out to the business owners on Main Street since they were having some challenges. It makes sense for you guys to have that as well because of your buses. And we do put that out on social media, but sometimes they don't see it. So if you get a direct email, you'll get it faster. That would be wonderful. What's the planned completion date for that? It's supposed to be next month. Well, the first thing that was realized. So it's going to be a multi-stage project. So we're also going to get the road facelifted. So it's going to get a median, hoping to move the power

119lines off the road, either bury them or move them back. So get a nice facelift to hopefully drive economic development. It's a project Matt and I have been working on for eight or nine years. We're happy to see it. something happening, you know. It's been a tough project and upset a lot of people, but it needed to be done. That's really good. Thank you. It's great to see us coming together like this and I think this relationship is so important and looking forward to being, you know, continuing to be more collaborative. So thank you very much for joining in. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, everyone have a good night. If you have an idea, we can get some. Absolutely. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Stephanie.