001Uh, first thing on the agenda, >> no changes, I assume. Do we have any questions? All right. Entertain a motion on the approval of the agenda. So moved. >> Second. Any discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> All opposed. Motion carries. 401 absent. Time. We'll take comments for patience. All right, I think we can move on. Okay, so uh before we do our budget presentation, Mr. Hedland has a little surprise for us tonight. You may or may not know this, but this afternoon, if you want to hit current print for me. Oh, about 11:30. And we go live today. >> We went live today at 11:30 >> and didn't take a month. >> Have a solar array that is in operation. It's been energized. It was very sunny when we went out there, but
002as you can see, it got cloudy. The lights dropped off. But, uh, do you guys have a link to this? Um, I'll get this updated tomorrow on the website. We have it ready. Eric has something ready. And then we'll also start displaying this in the schools. There's not a lot of data here. Obviously, we only have about six hours worth, but um it'll start updating and it'll be fun to watch and um so it is operational. Still calibrating trying to figure out, you know, exactly where we're at. But I was out there when they flipped the switch and there weren't any sparks from smoke coming out. So, we we're counting it as a success. So questions on solar good >> things >> dollars. I'm just curious what's that >> how do you equate that? >>
003I really I really wish this you know how they are. I mean they said that from the very beginning. We don't we don't work in dollars. We don't want to work in KW. So I really wish this would display dollars but it doesn't. It just does the KW. And >> you just have to convert it. There's stuff down there at the bottom that will, you know, how are your powering a year and all that, but dollar amounts. >> We use a wiser app for something similar to this and it's kind of neat because you can it it converts it to average dollars. So, you can see exactly the usage, not savings. But yeah, it's very cool. It's showing if you click on last month, it's show they they did a ran a test or something
004back in July. So that's why those two lines are there. But we were not obviously we're not operational. We weren't energized then. But if you go ahead and click current, right? Yeah. You'll see that that's when it kicked on. If you hover over the line to the Yeah, obviously the peak was 115 today. But if you go back to the left just a little bit, Brent, I think it'll show about the time it went. Yeah, it was about 11:30. We went out there and it started coming on slowly. each section of panels came on. So that's where we're at. So keep an eye on it, but we are we are in operations. >> Should be saving us like $20 an hour. >> Should be like 500 bucks a day. >> We we'll see. >> All
005right. So tonight is the budget presentation. Thanks for coming in on a a second uh night of the month. It's just easier for me, it's easier for Mr. Cheeseman for us to just have a regular meeting, get everything out of the way for that month and then just focus on one night of budget. That gives us another week to get everything ready to uh with school getting started. So, um, tonight the only action that the board is really needing to take is once I get finished here, um, you need to grant us permission to advertise this. We're required to advertise this on Gateway and on our school web page for a period of time, which I'll go over here in a minute, but that's really the only action the board will take this evening. A
006reminder about the budget calendar. You adopted this back in June. Tonight's presentation and permission to advertise tomorrow barring any setbacks the legal publication uh go live on the website and in gateway and then it has to sit for at least 10 calendar days. We have our budget public hearing set for September 9th which is the next regular board meeting and we'll open that up. I'll do a little presentation that night um or repeat some of the things we talked about tonight, but then the public can come in make any comments they want at 5:45. Following that, and again, no action was taken at the public hearing. Um from there, we have to wait 10 days and then you have a chance to adopt your budget for 26. And right now tenatively we're scheduled for September
00723rd at 3:30 to adopt the budget capital funds our capital projects plan school bus placement. We got several slides. We'll go through these but then feel free to stop me if you have questions but then we can probably hit some of the handouts some of the things that were in your email but these are pretty much the basic slides that I go over every year just with updated data and information. Just a reminder about the budget process. A little tricky for schools. It's really an 18month process. We have to have to fill finish out this calendar year. So that we're really kind of thinking about these six months plus the next 12 months. We have an idea on spending obviously for the the the school year, but really don't know exactly what we'll spend school
008year starting next fall. Um, same way with revenue. We have an idea what the revenue is going to look like based upon pupil count, but that obviously can change every six months as the pupil count changes. So, it's really an 18-month process and not just a year. We've kind of already hit this, but in the state of Indiana, uh, municipalities, townships, county government, schools, you have to follow the three three-step process. You have to advertise, have to have public hearing, you have to adopt. And then the key points down there at the bottom, whatever spending is advertised. So really when we say budget, we're really talking about permission the board is granting us as a corporation to spend and also what the state is saying you can spend up to this amount when we say
009a budget. It does not guarantee that you're going to have that money there. um based upon calculations and cash balances and those types of things, DLTF is going to say we think you are safe to spend up to this amount. Obviously, you don't have to, but we cannot spend past that amount without the board taking and advertising an additional appropriation. Okay? So, we're going to advertise, we always do, we advertise high on the budget. Just gives us some flexibility. Obviously, if we increase 100 kids in February, we want to be able to spend that money on staff and whatnot. But if you have not planned ahead in the budget and you got to go through the additional appropriation process. Now, last point on this slide is your tax rate. So, really the board only controls
010tax rate. You don't you cannot control how much um is levied, especially in operations, which we get in a minute. you do have a little bit of control over that tax raise and whatever you advertise starting tomorrow and unless you start process all over you cannot raise that tax rate. So, what we ran into a few years ago, I think all four of you were on the board at that time, but the county messed up the AVs. They had them all screwed up. They had us way, way too high. And I mean, if you had gone through the process and you had already approved that tax rate, you're out of luck. So, in that case, it was a good thing because ABS were too high. But if they've been too low and then they come
011back and say, "You got another 100 million in AV." Well, it's too late. Your tax rate, your tax rate. So, you'll see they're going to be extremely elevated this year. I'll show you what we're going to advertise and then I'll tell you what we project the actual rate to be. Okay. So, budget definitions, you get two different types of of funds and where the revenue comes from. your local tax dollars, primarily your property tax dollars, go to these funds, debt service and operations. School pension fund we had for years, no longer. We we've zeroed that out, right, Mr. Cheeseman? It's gone. Zero. Don't have to worry about that one anymore. So, what's debt service fund? debt services any bonds, any debt you have as a school corporation, common school loans, and basically you have to
012go through the process. And we've been you've been through this enough, but if you get that debt approved, you get that project approved, you can take on as much debt as you want, but you have to obviously you have to pay your debt service. That's your primary responsibility out of the local tax dollars that you get. Then you have your operations fund. The operations fund is supported by local tax dollars and it is a a a set levy. So what that means is you only get so many dollars. You can't say unlike that service where you can go out and take on as many projects as the public and you want um and operations. You can't say, "Man, we want another half million dollars in operations this year because it's just been too tight." Can't
013do that. You have what it's called a a set max levy and you cannot you cannot add to it. You can only subtract from it. And each year there's an equation, usually some type of percentage they'll give us. For the last few years, it's been a 4% increase. So we can basically take what we we can we can take what we got in operations levy last year, take it times 04 and know that that is most likely the maximum we're going to get to add to operations to give an idea. and operations. Our max new levy will be last year's plus about $89,000. So $89,000 is all the new money we're getting operations. It doesn't matter if you add a 100 students, you add 5,000 students. Your max levy in operations is your max levy.
014I I did that several months ago. Student count has nothing to do with your operations. It has to do with your tax base. That's it. All right. Circuit breaker obviously plays a large part in your local tax supported funds. What is a circuit breaker? So assessed valuation is a number placed upon either your home, your property, your um your business. does not necessarily doesn't mean that's what it would sell for if you took it out to market, but it's a number given a figure given for tax purposes. So, if I have a home that has an assessed valuation of $100,000, all right, assessed valuation, I am guaranteed in the state of Indiana not to pay more than 1% of that assessed valuation in all my local tax dollars, not just school. So, for me, and
015I don't live in town, but I I have the road township tax. I can't remember. I should have looked at my tax bill again. I think I don't think I painted the library. Um, for the township folks, there's not too many things on there. If you live in town, quite a few. You obviously have fire, you have police, some of these municipalities really add things on. So, the more entities you have grabbing a tax dollars, you could see you can get to that $1,000 of assessed valuation really fast. $100,000 over a percent. We are fortunate in that we don't have a lot of industry here from this respect and circuit breaker doesn't abs absolutely kill us. But we are projected to lose $262,000 out of these funds out of revenue coming in to these funds
016because of the service rate. Randolph Central will lose over half a million dollars in circuit records just because of their tax structures over there with multiple municipalities pulling in. Okay, the big thing I want you to understand on local taxes we talk about every year is max levy and operations. Okay, because I hear it all the time, why don't you why don't you get more money for operations? You can't. You get what you get and circuit breaker so far hasn't been a bad thing for us. Could start to change as Mr. Cheeseman will tell you little presentation. Any questions? Okay, we're going to totally switch gears. Now you're going to state support funds which is the education fund. Really, you have no control over this. You have control over how how we spend the money
017obviously, but as far as the revenue coming in, we get what we get from the state and it's based primarily on per pupil count, what we call tuition support. There are two count days this year, October 1st, February 2nd. So, we'll get a fall count on October. Doesn't have anything to do with who's here that day. It has to do with who's enrolled. state last year in legislative session set the dollar amount per pupil, $6,967 per student. So, we had to turn in a number this summer of what we thought our enrollment might be. And Jessica and I put in 10:45 because that's what we were last year. So, right now, starting in July, we started getting payments for this school year. We're getting p payments based upon 10 1,045 students, $6,967 per student. Right
018now, we don't have 1045. So on October 1st, if we are at 1027 or 1029 or 1027, whatever it is, at that point, they're going to deduct future payments. we're going to deduct from our future payments to shure up that account number because right now again we're getting 1045 and that usually takes place in November. goes the other way too though. we jump above 1045 then we're going to get additional dollars and that happened last year right >> this 1026 number right I pass up today >> I think it's about 1029 I think I did another one this afternoon so >> and another thing is I know this is always your secret hidden number here and it's like the kids who aren't really enrolled and >> but I have noticed the last three years there's
019a significantly higher higher amount than we've ever had of those. >> Yeah. So, some of those kids are RAZ kids that have to be in our system that go to another school. It's just they're kids in our power school. They aren't necessarily homeschooled kids just for sports. There are a few I think there are two maybe I saw this afternoon that are like that. >> The RAS 32 makes sense. Why kids in there? >> Okay. And again, I hate I hate even putting that on there because it makes it even more confusing, but if I don't, I lose track when I remember what it was and everything. I just >> And that's why I've added this new column down here at the bottom. So, if you don't want to look at anything, just look at
020these down here compared to last years of this year because those are real numbers. Those are kids that we have. Now, new wrinkle in tuition support this year is um that 6967 number includes curriculum materials. So, a few years ago they said you can no longer charge textbook rental or charge for curriculum materials. Okay? And they were they were giving us a lump sum. It usually came in December for the last two years. Now, they've taken that out. I mean, it's up to about $150,000 for Chromebooks and anything we turn in, but it was based upon per pupil count as well. Now, there is no additional payment. It's all part of that part of that number right there. So, that is tricky because it looks like you have this, you know, large amount of money
021in your education fund, but you also have to remember crooked materials is part of that. So, one thing I'll touch on here while we're we're at this point is I mean think if you've been watching your fund report, we're we're in an all-time high in the education fund for our balance. We're really we have made a drastic turn in two years. Be careful though with that balance number because I'm going to tell you what if if our enrollment holds where it's at, which is fine. We're we're in good shape, but what's going to happen to that number is not it like it has the last 24 months, it will not continue to increase. We're going to start seeing that level off. And like I said, in November, if we stay at 1026, you're going to
022see a major deficit just for the month of November because they're going to pull back a lot of funding. They're going to withhold a lot of funding to sh us up and we'll be good. And like I said, our balance is strong. We're we're positioned well for this. It's just we have to be careful. Multiple years of 15 to 20 student drops will require some, you know, changes structurally, staffwise, what we do program wise, those kind of things. The other things that factor in the education fund besides just tuition, sports, category grants, special ed dollars, which special dollars were way up last year, but I can tell you we we've lost some students in that area and Ann's concerned that we may go the other way on special ed dollars. That is determined December. That's
023December one count when that will come in. And then complexity grant is a complicated formula they throw in there for SNAP, right? That's your education fund. So again, local your property taxes primarily service debt service fund, your operations, and really that when we talked about tax rate here in a minute, we're only talking about these two bucks. Tax rate has nothing to do with the education fund. All right? It's pretty well set because you're going to get your dollars based upon your kids, what categories they fall in, or what their economic status is. The state, I mean, is it as easy as or 6967* 1045 divided by 12, we get a monthly payment. >> I wish it was that easy. It's close. It's close. And that will give you a ballpark here. >> Now, you're
024going to get $100 here for academic kid. Sure. You may get $11 a welding kid for now special ed. There's some high dollar, >> but it's it's a monthly payment that gets shred up in November or >> and I shared that. I don't usually share that with you, but it it was a sheet. I I emailed you guys. It's called our it's called a 54 sheet, the DOE 54. And basically, it's just this is our payment sheet. We get every every month. We get a one-time payment from the state. It's usually on the 15th of the month. And it will tell you what the net payment was for that month. And it pretty much has it has all 12 months what what they think you will get. And obviously those change as the ADM numbers.
025>> But if you really want to dive into that, the best thing to look at is this one sheet DOE. It's called the DOE 54 and it was in one of the um attachments I sent you on Friday. But we study that thing. I mean that that that's our Bible. I mean when it comes to the education fund, it really does show you what you're going to get projected to get for the entire year based on the account that you turn in. Okay, we're going to jump to this and then I got a few points to talk about. So from a from a budget standpoint, last year's budget, this year's budget.5 8.1 million um we would like to ask permission tonight for $8.3 million budget. It's up by exactly um exactly 200,000. Um again, we're
026just asking permission to do that. Does not mean we'll spend that. We're not going to spend the 8.1 one this year, but we want we want the flexibility to go that high if we need to. Um debt service, you see not much of a change there. We did add the bus into this budget, three payments starting next year, next year. So, you're not seeing a big change there. Operations, I can tell you this is way higher than we're going to get. So that operations budget is again is your your levy from property tax plus the 15% transfer from education. So this year we have an operations budget of 3.9. We're asking for 4.3. We're not going to spend 39 this year and we're not going to have board three to spend next year. All right.
027Just to give you an idea on on the operations levy, like I said, we're only looking at $89,000 worth of new money. And with the education number going down, I mean, as far as the the number of pupils, that transfer amount probably not going to change much. So, get ready. Don't don't don't panic. This is the one Jessica knows. This is the one I do not want to switch to because we're going to switch tax >> 15%. >> Yes. >> That we transfer every month over. >> Yes. >> It's go back page >> or sorry. Yeah, that >> that one. >> No, one more forward to one more. >> Y >> that's that 15% is in the operations not the education fund. >> Y >> because asking but to spend >> this is what we're
028asking to spend. Yes. Yeah. >> So, am I am I right on that? Correct. Yes. And the other part of that, and this is where it's going to get in the weeds, but the tax anticipation work as well, which is money in, money out. Money, money. They send us money and at the end of the year when we have it from the county, we send it back basically back to the tax and temptation people. But but you still have to budget that because you're spend I mean your spend that's tricky. Okay. So here's your history of assessed valuation. Um again this is just Monroe Green Stony Creek Township. Take take all the farmland, all the homes, all the businesses, assign a value to them for tax purposes. This is what the value is in those
029three townships, which which we call our tax base. So last year was an all-time high, 263 million. It jumped, it has jumped tremendously since 22. I mean, so fast that honestly the tax rate couldn't keep up when we knew that. And in the past, we've always tried to keep a steady tax rate and that was easy to do when you're, you know, you're going from 203 to 206 to 202 to 20. I mean, it's easy to keep a consistent tax rate when you're not having drastic jumps in AV, but this has been a good thing somewhat. We're seeing a huge jump in AV. So when we started building the budget a couple weeks ago, kind of rule of thumb is use 80% because we did not know what the AV was going to be. So
030we used 210 million. So the the advertisement that we're going to show you in a minute is based upon 210 million. Unless there was a mistake, uh Randolph County announced last week through DLGF that our AV is going to be 264. So, we're pretty safe to use 264 for our projections, but from an advertisement p standpoint, what I'm saying is we're going to use 210. 264 is nice. It's good. And that that it did not go down. You don't necessarily want to see it down, but when you compare it and that's one of your handouts, if you want to pull that out, you guys want I got extras. You got one. You have this. Yeah. >> Yeah. Show that you guys. This is important. >> So 264 is our our AV. If you look at
031the county, Randolph Southern's I'm sorry. Yeah. Randolph Southern's AV this year. It's going to be $319 million. >> Did theirs windmills fall off of their >> Absolutely. >> So now their windows are being taxed is why it went up so much. So they went from 252 million to 31. That's incredible jump. Incredible jump. So what they're going to do is they're either going to take on a lot of debt right now or they're just going to let their tax rate drop. I mean, it's you either take on more debt because you can't add, like I said, you can't say, "Well, we want more in operations money," though you get what you get in operations. You either take on more debt or you got your tax, which I would assume just let the tax rate drop.
032>> Thank you for explaining that because I've had I've had to explain that to many people. >> Please just do it that simple. >> People think, why don't you just save money for a solar field? Well, it's not quite >> can't do it. >> You can't do it. >> You cannot save. It does not It does not make sense. That's not the way you necessarily want to do it as a homeowner or as a individual investor, whatever. But that's the way government entities work. You cannot do that. Okay. So, Randolph Central went from 501 to 524. So, they saw an increase. Rand off Eastern went from 244 to 266. Union is yet to be determined because they have two townships. Union Township, which is in Randolph County, which is now going to be 250 million.
033Um, and then they have Stony Creek Township, which is in Henry County, and they have yet to release their AVs. But I I know that it will be, you know, at least 40 probably 50 million there. So they're looking at a total AV I'm going to just guess approximately 300 300 million per union. So as I tried to say a couple months ago, um, and this is nobody's fault. It's just this is just who we are. This is what we are. We are from a tax base standpoint, we have the lowest, smallest tax base of the five county schools. And I don't think people realize that because I get it. I hear it from superintendents all the time when I go to meetings. They always raz me about our tax rate. And I just want
034to say, well, what do you expect? I mean, when we have an AV that's half of yours and we're educating twice as many kids as you, what what do you expect? Yeah. our factory still be hot. Questions on AB and how that works. So again, we we didn't have obviously we don't have any solar here right now. Uh we don't have any wind windmills right now that have come on. Um and I think those are the big driving factors between Central has a few come on. Obviously Southern had a lot. Union is gonna have a tremendous amount in the next several years. Come on. >> Do we know when they >> um wasn't it a 10 year? >> Yeah, it's 10 year. We know that I think Southern was the first area to really start
035getting 10 years. So, we're starting to see that come on their tax. >> And I get that good neighbor paycheck from the one behind my house. And I think it started three years ago, four years ago. So that means they probably have another six 70%. >> So when you and again all we're talking about are those two funds right here. Debt service operations fund because that's it. That's all we're collecting um revenue or levy for from a local standpoint. It's a very simple formula. You take you take your um assessed valuation. You take it times a tax rate and that's going to give you what your levy is. Well, we figure out, all right, this is how much debt we owe in 2026. This is the payments we're going to have to make. So, that's
036a number we know. We know what the operations number is going to be because it's basically going to be whatever you got last year plus 4%. And that pretty well tells you this is what we're going to get as far as levy from the state. dictates your tax rate. There it is. So, based upon that AV we had on there of uh 210, we're asking to advertise a tax rate of $26, debt service at 82, operations at $123. Now, I can tell you what it's going to be, though. Not even going to be close to that. Again, we're covering ourselves in case of an absolute anomaly. I mean, I I don't know what it would be. That debt service rate is twice as much as what it's going to actually be. Our debt service rate
037will likely be 41. Our operations, again, just based upon the fact that we're only going to be able to get $89,000 our operations uh rate will be 87 cents. I'm going to tell you right now I'm projecting our tax rate just I worked on this afternoon with the guy from steeple about $129. I think it'll be within a cent or so of that. Now again, if we if we messed up somewhere and we're off on operations, for example, and we get more, then yeah, that's why we're advertising a higher rate, but it's it's not going to be anywhere near there. Same way with debt. If for some reason, when we triple check this thing, but if for some reason there's something wrong there on our debt worksheet and DLG catches it, then they're going to
038say, you know, you you got to have more you got to levy more in debt service. you're not be able to pay your debts and we need to have the flexibility to do that. We can't go back later and advertise. So again, I used to I have a second column where I showed the projections and I didn't on this one, but I can tell you I'm projecting a dollar 28 cents >> 28 or 29. >> Well, 1.2895 is exactly what we had today. 1.28 2895. Now, what concerns me a little bit is that slips a little bit from where we were. We were up one 3476 last year. What did we advertise the last couple of years? >> Uh$1605. >> So, why the significant difference this year? >> Okay. So we are um when we
039started talking about Senate Bill one and um obviously the impact that Union School Corporation closing could have. You asked me kind of what I needed and one one thing I asked was I wanted to get a real strong budget individual working with us. So I reached out a guy by the name of Brian Harmon. He is the superintendent at Loi. He has been a superintendent for 30 years. He runs his own private um LLC consulting business. He works with about 25 24 school corporations uh just on the side um helping them out on their budgets. He's worked for Randolph Southern for years. I'm sorry, Randolph Central for years. He works with Emily down at Nettle Creek, Emily Schaefer, and u worked for a few schools up north, but primarily down around his area. So, we
040started working with him this well, we started back when I first talked to you. I reached out to him and he he's been sending us emails, but he sat down with us well by Zoom was back in July and we spent about four hours one day and we hammered this thing out and he's got a process to do it and it's it's slick. It's really good. Jessica, you want you can talk. But basically to answer your question before she does he just has a philosophy he's gonna advertise extremely well extremely high >> the 80% number you highlight before I don't remember that being highlighted 80% full makes more sense >> we would typically kind of knock off I I didn't even do it by percentage we might knock off >> 200 million or something I
041mean we would not I'm sorry 20 20 million or something not not anything like an 80% % a facility again you're just protecting yourself. It doesn't just because you advertise that does not mean you can't come back later even if it and and reduce it. >> Okay. You can you can always reduce it. Now once you adopt I'm saying that once you adopt >> what you advertise >> yes advertise basically. >> Well you can reduce >> your adoption meeting. Okay, I don't advise it. But you could I mean if if if a 100 people come in there and say it's too high, I don't want you to do that. You could say we want you to submit to GLGF $1.75 is our max rate. We'll have to go in refigure some things, submit it. Still
042still think it'll be a lot lower than that. But if something were to happen or maybe is wrong, I'm going to come back and say sorry should advertise higher. Jessica, you talked about Dr. Harmon a little bit. I us process and you've done it now for what five years, four years. I'm talking about this year versus how we've done in the past. >> If I didn't bring Do you have that sheet homework sheet? I do. Yes. It's called the Harman sheet. >> The Harman sheet. >> The Arman sheet. >> We do it step by step. We do education, debt service, operations. He even has Rainy Day in there. And it is step by step. It is on this I think you guys have this on this sheet. He has it detailed. This line one will
043be this amount. And we made sure that everything on his sheet matched this sheet here. and to input it, it was such a breeze. And we've learned that things that we did in the past, we weren't doing correctly and we needed to change it. I think that's what some of the increase in made a difference is that we're trying to get to that point and look in the future what the next few years could bring. So, we're just trying to get ahead of the game on that. And that so it's impossible to talk about future budgets without just talking about the subject of union closing. So this year it's just a normal year. Next year at this time totally different process and I needed to be able to and Jessica needed to be able to
044have some guidance at least from somebody that's done a lot of these on what that could look like. Now, it's it's quite unusual what's getting ready to happen. So, Dr. Harmon's been through some consolidations and I don't think he's necessarily been through a school closing what that would look like, but I do think he has some ideas on how how this could work. And we also found out some things today with talking from with Luke Bregman of Steeple what this this process could look like next year at this time as well. So, I don't want to get too focused tonight is we got to get permission to advertise, but just to preview a little bit about next year, what this will look like. I mean, when we build a budget for 27 right now, the
045way the legislation, well, the the law is for Senate Bill one on on July 1st of 2027. Union will no longer be in operation. So, uh, tax levy will be divided between Blue River Valley and Monroe Central. Union Township tax dollars will go to Monroe Central. Obviously, Stony Creek of Her County will go to Blue River. My question and the big unknown right now is what? Not just the tax rate, but what will the maximum operating levy be? Is it just going to be what our operating levy was? Plus, they haven't even determined this yet. Um, but if it's a typical year, they'll just add 4%. Well, if that's the case, then you add all this AB, you can imagine what's going to happen to the tax rate. Are you going to allow the operating
046levy that's currently at Union School Corporation? Are you going to allow that operating levy to transfer over? And again, it's just a number. It's not any dollars. It's just Are you going to allow that operating levy to come to Monro Central and now become part of our operating levy? You take our operating levy plus their operating levy and that's your max. That I don't know. And I don't think anybody knows that yet. My says they do. They don't think that's going to be determined by the Department of Local Government Finance and they need to obviously they need to let us know and that's one of the conversations we had today with the guy from Steeple and he actually fired an email off to somebody he knew in that department just saying hey can you help
047Monro Central out? They they just kind of know this. Obviously, we're not budgeting yet for 27. Start in January and February. We will be once we get this thing wrapped up and we're going to need to know that. So, those those are some things the challenges we've you know faced. So, back to your original question, the whole process this year been a little different. >> That's because of working with Dr. which I think is >> and of his 22 schools that he has 20ome. >> Yeah, you did say this. Do your own. That's >> he >> I went I went on that one, but he is doing he does Evansville. They're the second largest budget in the state. >> So it's not just >> small like Herstown and North Central up to Evansville. The guys
048he's really fascinating. He he is fantastic at what he does. He's really tried to simplify the process. He told us that of the budgets he's done this summer. Um I think he said only two school corporations this point in the year from January to June have spent less in education than we we've and that by is by design. We know where we were two years ago. We had to recruit. We had to get ready for you know the storm. we've weathered that. We don't know what's going to come with some of these tax laws that are changing, but he was impressed by that. He really was. He was like, I can't believe you guys are are doing as well as you are in your education fund. So, it's a good thing. Okay. So, a couple
049other things that didn't necessarily make slide. Wrap this up. It's all long enough. um on that education front and one of the reasons why he said what he did and why I'm not as concerned as I typically would be about enrollment being down 15 or 20 kids. We we prepared last spring. I mean, we did uh we're down two teachers right now. I mean, total when you do the whole math of this one, you know, we actually through retirements, whatnot, moving on, we're down two teaching positions. Obviously, we had some teachers leave that were high on the teacher pay scale low. So we are we are uh we're pretty good shape going into this year even when decline has been bargaining to look at that number because we're to be frank I mean we're not
050careful we might actually spend less on teachers hours this year than we did last year right we don't hit the number right with our association so just something to think about um cash balance is overall just like our bank bank statement. I mean we're we are in a much healthier position than we were two years ago. We're carrying about a million dollars more bank statement. Again, that's all funds just everything lumped together that just tracks for about a million dollars more than we were two years ago, right? which is a good thing. Um, know we we've eliminated those eser positions, those extra positions we added during COVID, you know, that we're we're basically on unfunded liability. We've got we've restructured, so we've got our staff right sized right now. Obviously with solar coming on, hopefully
051that will help operations. Mr. Co's already talked about that. So, What questions you have for me? The the 26 budget is is I mean as as long as that took, it's pretty cut and dry. I mean, it's pretty it's there right in front of you. The 27 budget is going to be very very unique. We as a board obviously there's a lot of work to be done at the board level as far as how that's going to be organized definitely from a school finance perspective we're going to we're the next 12 months going to be very important get our head around it I know it's still way out there it seems like July 1 of but from a budget standpoint we're not that far Mr. Cheeseman, what did I miss? >> So again, if these
052little worksheets you see here, they're called the the form 4Bs. Now, on the very bottom, it'll show you the property tax rate. 82 cents on the front one, that's debt service. Nothing on the next one because that's education. $1.23 on the operations. You add those all up, you get you back to that 206 number that we talked about from an advertising standpoint. This is what if this goes green tomorrow if it's on the website and then gateway this will what taxpayers will have access to. They can look at this. If you do go ahead and allow us permission advertised you can share with I will share it with taxpayers that yes we do this to cover ourselves but we actually project that our tax rate will go down next year versus this year. It's going
053to go down by about five or six cents. Again, that is not rock solid. That's just based upon our projections right now on that AV and we got our operations dollars figured correctly. Haven't heard anything on this for a month or two, but I'm sure it's coming up again with all the tax. Union is currently at 80 cents, 85 cents, something like that. And I would I would assume careful assuming he thinks but based upon the AV and what their AV has done soon that will drop even further. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Because for one well I don't know how they it won't because again operations is is a set levy and by law they've been told they can't take on any additional debt. So if your AV increases and your revenue out or your
054levy is not going to change, then your tax rates going to drop property drops. I would based I mean I don't know what that Henry County AB is going to be, but they gained $30 million in AB just in Union Township in one year. I would think they would have dropped I don't at least I mean again I'm spitballing here. I don't I've looked their budget that carefully. I don't think that we looked actually Luke looked at that today and he said no don't want any debt there. They don't even currently have any debt. That was news to me. They had a lot of money coming in. So again, if you get questions on from your taxpayers, all of us, um I think I think like I said, I think you can say that it's
055not going to be higher than what you're paying right now. Probably a nickel less. And I I think it's time to start. I mean, we we waited here a few months. I I've been telling people that in the three townships that make up Monro Central, I think you could see your taxes drop significantly within in the future. That's a reality what we're looking at. And not not necessarily renown not cut any services. hopefully add some things, hopefully add to our levy and still see these three townships taxes go down. Basically, all you're doing tonight is let us advertise this right here. Any more questions down there? >> All in partic. Well, the projected puts us back even lower what we were before all the the previous debt fell off and we had that drop that
056part too. Do we have any idea what the other county consider because that affects what people pay >> right as much >> and that that's a key point you know I mean have you heard anything >> you could say your taxes are going down but if partner was something I mean they would take on some then they're their overall taxes are the part that you control might go down 5 cents but you know we all have to play together so I I I think I said you got to be careful careful saying your taxes are going to go down. I just from a school standpoint ours tax will not go up but I have not heard anything from the towns say any taking on any new projects taking on significant debt. I don't know of
057any police I feel like there was some talk this summer about that. Was there a meeting was squealing pretty good about needing more money for new officers and pay? >> I know last year I was contacted you before this meeting. >> Yeah. >> Was it last year? >> Yeah. Feel like there's one. >> Now we have not got into and and it's it's late. I don't this is a whole another meeting and really it is the other components of Senate Bill one. Obviously, Senate Bill one affects us because union was included in that for for everybody else and us. It has major impacts on the schools. Don't think we're going to feel as much next year. Definitely year after year after year, you're going to see less and less coming in on operations. What you're
058going to see is, and again, I won't get too far in this. Luke explained it this way. He said, "You're going to really have to focus on your levy amount and make sure that levy amount that you convince your boards and your public like we cannot drop that levy amount. I mean, we have to operate at that amount, but know that because of circuit breakers, because of all the tax credits, um, your tax rates are going to start going up. Rates will going to go up. ABS are going to start dropping. There's going to be all kinds of credits and rates rates are going to look like this history. We're probably going to have to put an asterisk out here starting in 2026 and say new new new new tax structure because it's not it's
059not going to be kept comparing apples to apples just not with the levy amount from union if you don't hear back from the individual with the email can somebody reach out to Prescott and ask for help this is kind of his whole thing and and again I don't know if rep press I mean obviously the legislators can take action on this, but this is really a Department of Local Government Finance. That's it's their ball. I mean, it's their deal. Um, they deal with this stuff all the time. It's just somebody needs to officially communicate that, I think, at some point. And maybe now's not the time. Definitely going into the new calendar. >> Under normal circumstances of a school consolidation would take on that levy. Correct. >> Yes. >> But this what is unique about
060this is there is there's some past practice to fall back upon for school consolidations. As you know, this is not a school consolidation. So, this is kind of I'm sure there's some history there somewhere, but it's just not as common and I think everybody's still kind of in the dark exactly how old will be. So that yeah that I mean I guess the question I would leave you what will our op maximity going forward look like? We know what it's going to look like in 26. What will it start looking like in 27? It's going to determine it's going to determine staffing how many buses we buy. We add additional bus routes all those kind of things. I mean, we can't do that in 26 because we're not getting anything new. I mean, we're not
061getting any new funds. But if we need to start planning for that in 27, then we need to know, all right, what's that going to look like? I mean, R Craig and I just we sat scr Monday morning about this. We just talked about this and you know I love to be able to tell these guys that we're going to add another tech tech coach or tech I mean we need help in that area. Can't do that. Cannot do that right now with all the uncertainty operations. Can't do it. Somebody just said reset passwords the first week of >> that said I mean again I don't want to bury the lead here I'm as optimistic and as excited about the future of Monur Central than I have been in a long time. I really am.
062I think great things for any other questions. >> All right. I will entertain a motion for permission to advertise the 2026 budget as presented. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> All opposed. Motion carries. 401 absent. I believe unless crew over at the table have anything. Just a reminder, next meeting September 9th, we will do school improvement plans that night. Uh we're going to bring in a new teacher evaluation model that night. uh prior to that meeting, we'll have the budget public hearing at 5:45. >> Then you have an ISBA in there somewhere. I got to send those dates back out, but I've got me voted for that. It's in between the 9th and the 23rd. >> Exactly. When >> 15th and 16th >> ISBA is on that Monday, Tuesday,
063I think 15 16th and then we come back for budget adoption on the 23rd. Miss Fly got anything? Mr. Headedland had a good week of school. All >> things instruction. >> That's all I got. Thank you, Mr. Cheeseman, for being here tonight. >> Yeah, this works. >> Come over here. >> Stop streaming. Oh, I don't think I'd break and with