001It's uh Todd just said we got a little better deal on our vision insurance. We get a little more prompt robust >> a little more robust coverage and it's it's not bad vision insurance. Just get a little more coverage. I think it's a little higher premium. How much premium go up? >> Um for like individuals like 70 cents per month, maybe 90. >> And what was the benefit of that? What was it? What was it? We had a discussion. I just >> extra $30 for glasses, contacts, and deductible went down and another for people who don't need bright like regular glasses. They can get light glasses for blue for like screens. >> Blue blue tint. >> Blue tint for just non prescription glasses. >> That's a no-brainer for 70 cents. >> Well, yeah. No. >>
002It is now, but it wasn't just seconds. But yeah. >> Yeah. When I look up, just wait for everybody to get on. >> Yeah. Call the meeting for order. We'll stand for a pledge of allegiance and moment of silence. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam President, good morning. How are you doing this morning? >> Good morning. How are you, Mr. Ketchup? >> Doing fantastically. We will begin and I'll read this for you at this time. We'll begin with our official notice. Uh we post this meeting that Batesville Community School Corporation and the Batesville Education Association, commonly known as BEA, will conduct a public hearing uh on today's date
003at noon in the Batesville High School Bulldog Room. Statutoily, we have to have a public meeting for anyone to discuss uh the collective bargaining agreement, the teacher contract before we can actually enter formal bargaining. So, we are meeting that requirement today with this meeting. Uh, at this time I'll turn over to you and if anybody in the crowd has any questions about the collective bar process, you can speak on it. >> Mrs. Madam President, I'll look for an adjournment for this initial meeting. >> That will allow us to roll right into our regular schoolboard meeting. Uh, happy to be here today. Uh we begin every meeting with our vision, our northstar, our why. And together with our community, BCSC is committed to providing an engaging and relevant learning environment based on strong foundation of academic
004knowledge, transferable skills, and of course, realworld experiences. Baseball Bulldogs embody confidence, empathy, and resiliency to ensure 21st century success. So again, love to start that meeting with that mission statement. With that, we'll roll right to the agenda. Madame President, the first item for your consideration is a consideration of minutes. So, I'll seek a motion to approve those as presented. >> Does anyone have any questions from last month's minutes? >> No. >> I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the prior meeting. >> Thank you, Jeremy. Do I have a second? >> I will make that second. >> Thank you, Larry. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. We'll continue down the agenda and the next item for your consideration are the payroll
005journals and the red shirt claims. You do have an additional six pages of claims in front of you from Mr. Na'vi. Uh he shared this morning and obviously he'll have he's happy to answer any question you're going to have that a majority of those claims come from Anthem Insurance. Is that an accurate statement, Mr. Na'vi? >> Yes. >> There were no other large claims that might we bring to the board's attention, Mr. Na'vi, that they should be aware of as they peruse through there? I can make >> So I'll give you a moment to look through those claims and seek a motion to present those to approve those as presented. >> I have a question for Mr. Hunter. >> Mr. >> We're still paying uh guns and guts wallet for the 2024. >> No, they
006have been paid for everything from the 2024. They um they were paid this month for renovations of the the student success center that >> Okay. Okay. and and actually a large portion of the funding for that is through DCF, although it runs through Mr. Na'vi's uh books. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? >> Can I seek a motion to approve the payroll journal journals? >> I will make that motion. >> Thank you, Larry. Do I have a second? >> I will second. >> Thank you, D. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed, say. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. We'll continue down our agenda. The next item for your consideration is the list of personnel. There were no changes in your board packet. So, I'll
007seek a motion to approve that list of personnel as presented. Happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Does anyone have any questions? I assume we established a lot of grade level needs. Is that something new? >> So there are two there are two answers. The ECA college schedule. There are stipens that teachers are pray paid to be curriculum leaders and so on so forth. Those and ironically the principles of the room those I believe are tagged teacher appreciation grant Mr. Merkel which is a different process. Those are dollars that we're a direct pass through. state of Indiana distributes those dollars based on your enrollment approximately $30 per student. So that's where that money those those employees have identified as the leads >> and it also looks like we had a lot of turnover
008in special ed. >> We we we in the envir in today's environment we have a lot of moving parts in our special education department. We have some resignations with our special education dates. That's an accurate statement, Mr. Merkel. But you may have filled those positions. >> We either have filled them or in the process of filling those positions as we speak. >> Those positions will be filled. >> Stephanie, I'll make a motion to approve the personnel report as file. >> Thank you, Jeremy. Do I have a second? >> I'll second that. >> Thank you, Larry. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. The next item for consideration is the travel request. You'll see three employees from Batesville School Corporation traveled to the
009actually the Wilson Education Center. It's located in Charletown, Indiana. Uh they attended a trauma-informed behavior management uh conference. So with that, I'll seek a motion to approve that travel as presented. >> Does anyone have any questions? Um, Paul, just for I did ask my wife about these last night because I know these are folks that are in her area. >> Sure. >> She I asked her about, you know, where did Bethany or whoever go, where they went, what would go on. I think she said that they actually ended up canceling this trip. >> So, we'll we'll approve a trip that's been cancelled, Mr. >> But no, thank you for that information. Yeah, the again the the 30-day window for board meetings, we get these gaps, these lags, right? >> So, it happens occasionally. >> I
010I will make a motion to approve. >> I will second it. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. All those post, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. >> That rolls onto our agenda. The next portion of our agenda is the financial report. Without further ado, I'll turn it over to Mr. Tim Hunter and he'll update this board on our financial standing. Um the financial report was in the board packet and um up on the screen for the month of August. We were coming off of the summer um June and July when we don't have a lot of nine-month employees on the payroll. So we typically build up a little bit of cash balance. Um so we started the month of August in the education fund with almost $2.2 million which
011is a high water mark. um our normal uh basic grant payment from the state a little over $1.5 million. We had expenditures of close to $1.8 million. We actually had a three pay month to to start off the school year. Um so so more than usual. Um so that balance changed um dropped by $227,000 and change to end up at 1,960,198 that still represents 11% of the full year appropriation. So a after a three pay month and I know um Jeremy who's been on the board for quite a while there were times that we would dip to five or six% um operating balance um after a after a three pay month to try to build back from. So um in good shape there. Debt service fund and operations they had um small amounts of um
012miscellaneous revenue. Debt service doesn't have any expenditures. we won't pay anything out of there again until um until December. Um so that balance climbed by a little less than $20,000 to over $1.4 million. The operations fund still has quite a bit of um it it has three payrolls as well. So um a bigger month um of expenses um dropping the balance by almost $400,000, but still over $4 million in the operations fund balance. And then we had no activity in the rainy day fund. Um the total balance across all four of those funds 7,430,919. And that compares to a year ago we were right at $7 million. So almost um a little over $400,000 um increase over a year ago. >> Mr. Hunter, are the numbers reversed on the operation? because it shows receipts of
013113,000 >> there. Yeah, there were receipts of 113,000 and expenses of a little over a half a million. So, >> but so we should have gained some money. >> We gained 100,000 and spent 500,000. So, we the net effect of that was that we spent about 400,000. >> I was thinking 1 million. >> Okay, >> my bad. >> Oh, no problem. Thank you for the question. Just a point of privilege for this board and we are rated by a credit company S&P. Uh part of the process is that we are supposed to report to this board every month our cash balances and total. So again, it's it may seem mundane, but it's important for us to make sure this board has an awareness of where we're at financially. Any additional questions for Mr. Hunter at
014this time? Happy to answer. Hearing none, we'll continue on. and we'll actually begin the next portion of our meeting and this is the budget hearing. Again, you'll hear the budget for the first time in September. Our next board meeting, October 8th, is when you'll formally approve the budget. That gives you as board members some time to kind of reflect on and ask additional questions. So, again, I'll turn this over to Mr. Tim Hunter. >> Okay. Um, so each year in September, we hold a budget hearing and then you formally approve it in in October and then pending approval of the Department of Local Government Finance, then they um come back and we'll have it hopefully in time um to start the the calendar year um with the new budget. Our um budget advertisement was included
015in the board packet materials. Um that has also been advertised on the Indiana Gateway um system and on the school website. Um we advertise budgets for the those same four funds that we just reviewed um that we review every month, education, operations, debt service, and rainy day fund. Um so we'll go through each um of those funds separately over the next several slides. Talk about the sources of revenue and some of the major categories of expenditures. Um and then we'll follow that up with um our overall plan for the budget for 2026 and then trends with tax rates and assessed values and student enrollment. things that drive both the revenues and the expenditures um for Batesville Community School Corporation. >> And I'll just quickly reiterate what Mr. Hunter said is that a municipality, we have
016the legal authority to levy taxes, property taxes. In order for a school to do that, there has to be a formalized process for you to approve the budget. Even when this board approves the budget, the budget's still reviewed by a local DA the DLGF. They'll eventually approve our budget. We'll get to is it 1782 notice, Mr. Hunter? >> Yes. in December, which actually formalizes those are the levies that we're legally allowed to levy, the taxes we're allowed to levy following year. So again, this is important information as Mr. Hunter goes through what we fund our school with and how we fund our school with. Mr. Timo, this is kind of your first run at this. This is action-packed. Put your seatelt on. Mr. Hunter does a great job here. >> Feel free to stop for
017any any question you might have along the way. >> All right. >> Um, starting off with the education fund. That is the the biggest fund expenditure-wise. Approximately 60% of the money we spend each year is going to flow through the education fund. The the major expenditures there are for salary and benefit cost for all of our academic areas. So all of our teachers, aids, building level um administrators, um other support services, health services, um it um and and recently curricular materials was added into that that used to be a separate fund that got rolled into the education fund. Um the primary revenue from that is the state basic grant. So in the education fund each month when we talk about the revenue it's mostly that payment from the state. So we get it monthly um
018and it's and it's based on enrollment. Um so there's no property tax levy for the education fund for this uh 2526 year. We expect to receive about $7,200 per student that we have enrolled. Um, this is an increase of about $260 from last year and a a big chunk of that increase is due to the curricular materials be coming as part of the basic grant instead of coming separately later. So it it seems like we got have a lot more money coming in but but some of that we were getting in a different fashion previously. >> So pull some threads there. So obviously ADM drives our our ability to collect money for the education fund. Our enrollment has been pretty stable or 1% growth, but the dollar amount per student has increased and that's always
019considered new money. So whenever I refer to new money, those are new dollars or more dollars than we collected the previous year from our enrollment. So the good news is the foundation amount is increasing. It's kind of tricky because the textbook rental is baked into that which is a whole another conversation probably not at this time. But the good news for us is if we have the same number of students, which we do, there's $260 more per student now that we're collecting the state of Indiana. What is the current enrollment or what we're doing on the >> 2172 October 1st is the official count date, Mr. Merkel, but right now we're sitting on 2172. >> Um Tim, what years past? So the curriculum's baked into that 260. How does that reflect just from knowledge? Like
020>> what was the amount last year? Was it the per student? Was itundred? It was supposed to be 160. It never is because there's a true up that's usually 150 to $153 per student. >> And then what was our state basic grant amount per student? Like was it like is it is the kind of where I'm going is is our our curriculum dollars equal to generally expected amount per student annually on your >> Yeah. last year the um actually I think I printed up the >> and this is for me more or less state legisle. >> So so what has happened there there was a separate fund for textbook rental that could only be spent on textbook rental as it should. >> What has happened they pulled that back and they've now baked in that
021textbook rental fund into the ADM into the uh state tuition support. Okay. So, while that looks like a true up of $260 additional dollars, we have to still account for the textbook rental or curricular materials cost within that $260. >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. So, last year for the 2425 um year, and I'll I'll share this at the um at the end, I'll pass this around, but we received about $6,933 per student last year. and and this year we're expected to receive 71.93. >> So it does change our conversations on curricular materials and our admin meetings and principles and all those all those things because we have to acknowledge that now as part of the tuition support question that's kind of >> Mr. Hor I'm going to transition operations but any other questions for Mr.
022on the oper on the education. >> The the only other thing I'll mention is that um within our proposed budget for 2026, we have accounted for um increases to salary based on that we had our um that we started the hearing and we're going to be entering collective bargaining with teachers and have a new contract. So we have plans for that. I have one question. On page one of your budget summary on the education fund, you're projecting 18,300. >> Yes. >> And if we take the money that we're getting per student, are we going to be short? >> Well, there's a lot of additional dollars that is the foundation amount. There are CTE dollars. There are completered there are there are dollars to incentivize students to earn Indiana college for there are title dollars federal
023dollars all those dollars accumulate into the general education part >> but you're right if you did a did a simple calculation of 2197 or 2172* 7193 that does not equal $18 million there are additional sources of revenue in addition to state tuition support. Okay. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. All right. If we go to um the operations fund, the operations fund hasn't been around that long and it's um sort of a fund of funds that they folded into one um that the state wanted to push all of the overhead cost um into into one area when they were trying to track dollars in the classroom. Um so the major the major expenditures from u the operations fund include all of the central office staffing expenses. So district level administration. It includes all of the
024um maintenance and custodial staffing and supplies at the at the buildings. All of the utilities costs um any capital improvements ac across the district. Um and then all of the operating costs for the transportation department. So, uh bus drivers pay, fuel, all those sorts of things. Um also replacement of school buses. Um and then any other equipment that and furniture that might be used um throughout the district um including technology equipment purchases. Um this is funded primarily through property taxes. um which actually the the maximum levy for 2026 you can see up there is almost $5.1 million. So that's the most that we can that we can raise. Um and that is a 4% increase from the 2025 our current year. Um in addition to that property tax levy, we can also transfer a portion
025of the state basic grant. um when they when they created the education and operations fund, they pushed like all of the district level um staffing over into operations. And so some of the some of the costs that they pushed aside, they allowed you to transfer money to still cover those. Um we we have kept this transfer amount the same since um 2023. we transfer $70,000 per month which is less than 5% of of our state basic grant amount. Um so that is trying to keep as many um dollars available as possible in the education fund. Um in order to levy a property tax for operations, we also must adopt a capital projects plan and a bus replacement plan. So some of those advertisements were related to establishment of those plans which will also be adopted
026next month. >> Quick history lesson. Prior to having only two funds, the education operations fund, there used to be five funds, capital projects, bus replacement. What happened when they condensed the two, there were still some carryover funds that stayed in the education or stayed in the operations. That's why some schools still transfer education dollars to the operations to help fund some of those costs. It's always been our philosophy. We want to pay our teachers as much as we can. So, we try to protect the education fund. That's why we transfer as little money as possible from the education fund to the operations fund. 15%'s kind of the threshold. If you're doing more than 15%, that's it's not illegal by any stretch, but it's basically kind of frowned upon by the DOE and legislators. I I
027would dare to say that 5% or actually less than 5% closer to 4.6% would be a low water mark for any school in this area. Again, that's because our priority is to fund our teachers, our staff, and to not transfer education dollars to the operations. Stim still related to the capital projects plan. Um this shows our statement of values for 2025 um that we establish when we go out for um property casualty insurance. Um so mainly from a high level view um that you can see the square footage of the buildings um that we operate and maintain and the values and especially in total we have over half a million square feet of facilities that are maintained and and facilities and value of equipment within those at almost $150,000. That's for 2025. So it will
028be in excess of 150,000 or 150 million I'm sorry um in 2026. Um so just some key information there. >> So again just trying to connect the the amount of money and resources it takes to maintain over 500,000 square feet. There's there's a cost to do that and again Tim and his team have done a very nice job. Baseville takes a lot of pride in being very lean making what we have last a long time and that's the reason why. Tim, >> um, also included in the, um, advertisements, as part of the capital projects plan, we must identify equipment purchases that we plan that are in excess of $10,000 in the coming years. Um, we have just one plan um, expense of more than $10,000 for 2026, and that would be replacement of one of
029our maintenance pickup trucks. Um, we also must include um any projects that we have planned that are in excess of $10,000. And there are um several that were included in the capital projects plan um across all the buildings that um related to mechanical improvements, roof replacements, paving, sidewalk improvements, multiple interior upgrades, playground improvements, a range of things um over the next several years that have been identified. >> We'll continue on >> with with operations. The same thing here um for transportation kind of from a high level view um we pay for all of the the expenses out of the operations fund for our bus fleet operations and drivers. We operate 29 routes. We drive over a,000 miles a day getting students back and forth to school. Roughly 70% of our students are on a bus
030roster. That doesn't mean they ride every day, but um but around 70% ride at least occasionally. And then in addition to that, we um transport St. Louis school students as well. Um we have still a few contracted routes. Um we are currently in year three of a 4-year contract um with those that will expire at the end of the 2627 school year. Again, I want to extend my appreciation for this board allowing us to pay for all extracurricular activities, all sporting events, all field trips. Those cost of drivers and fuel and buses are covered by the corporation. No out-of- pocket expenses for our students or families. So again, that that goes unnoticed sometimes that we don't get places without buses and fuel and drivers. And again, the operations dollars that we generate through levies help
031us. They do pay for those so that we can get to those places. So thank you. >> As another part of the operations uh budget or for bus replacement um and we had to advertise this plan and we will have to adopt it separately. Um it's used only to purchase um school buses and activity buses. There's no contribution toward our contracted routes. Um and in order to to use these funds, we must uh maintain that plan with this DLGF. Um our 2026 plan includes replacement of two conventional um buses, 72 passenger with a budget cost of $360,000. You can lease buses with in bus replacement plan. Also, we've never leased any buses. We've always purchased. So, all of our buses are owned by the corporation. Um, we we also have to if we plan on
032adding to our fleet, we have to let the DLGF know. And, uh, Mr. Man, especially because of since COVID, we've had delays. We're still waiting on buses that were supposed to be delivered last year >> that haven't been delivered yet. And so we have added an additional activity bus rather than we typically trade it in to bump up our fleet size because we have more replacements that we may not get for a few years. Um so mainly to to make up for the the extended lead times and getting new um purchases. We are increasing our activity bus fleet by one. >> The cost of buses has exponentially inflated over inflation. a $45$50,000 activity bus is now $90,000 and you you can't touch this new school bus for just under $200,000. So again, those are stressors
033that we have finite, right? We have $5.1 million we collect when our transportation costs increase. We have to find other ways to kind of cover those costs. So again, those are John that's what Tim's responsible for doing to make sure that we maximize those finite dollars on projects. >> Question signal, Tim, on when they'll be caught up on that. Guess it's it's crazy to think that we're still talking five years after CO of things being backlogged or whatever. >> We I I think that um Mr. Man has delivery dates. I think um maybe in January he's supposed to receive buses like he has a production okay >> date in mind but yeah it's been it has been a slow process. other factors such as such as tariffs. Tariffs impact metal components and and so that
034that that's passed on to the consumer. The company's not going to lose money on those tariffs. So again, we we are we are experiencing high costs for transportation right now as well as utilities. Electricity is is very expensive for us right now. >> But we don't currently have any buses that are like at the maximum need to be switched out like rotated out. >> No. And we do maintain several spares, multiple spares of of each type um to so that all of our fleet and and everything gets um you know the the inspections annual inspections and when they get to be a certain age they have to get mid-year inspections as well. >> It's a great question. The reality is safety is a priority, right? There's finite dollars, but at the same time, we can't
035put unsafe vehicles on the road. >> I mean, that would be like, okay, then you do you look at temporary policing above us at that point, like if we're at that alternative where you would have to do something. >> I think at that point all options would be on the table. >> Yeah, >> that's that's hard to read, Mr. Hunter, but if you just want to talk about that. >> Yeah, this um is just included. So, you can see we actually have a fleet of 30 buses when you count um the special needs um transport buses plus the activity buses. and all of the spares. So we um so there are 30 buses and if you go across it shows over the next five years there there are several years that we're scheduled to replace
036two per year and you can see in the out years there um 2029 and 2030 um we will be looking at replacing even more three three buses per year. the school bus. Um the state expects that a bus should last at least 12 years. Um if you want to replace a bus um in less time than that, you need to provide justification for that. Um and some of our buses we have we're fortunate to have a good in-house um maintenance operation for our fleet. Um but we we did in a couple of um our contract bus cycles in um rebidding them. We've had some um contractors that stepped away that we were forced to buy new buses that we had, you know, didn't really have in the cards. Um, and so there was one time
037that we we bought used buses because we had to buy like four buses and that were kind of unplanned for do an additional appropriation and amend our plan and advertise all that. Um, so so most so we used to be right at that 12 year mark and we're still kind of right we try to stay as tight to that as we can um but with a a little bit of wiggle room. And just for this board's knowledge, every year the NESA police, we have to go through bus inspections and any any any anything that they check, we have to fix. So again, safety's priority for us. >> What do we do with the buses that are signed around? Do we sell those? >> We typically trade them in. Yeah, we can credit. It's it's easier
038to trade them in than to for us to try to sell them um on on our own. So, with our contracted drivers that we have now, are they have they given any indication that maybe they don't want to redo a contract at the end of next year? Like, are we going to have to anticipate then to buy more buses or >> I don't think we've had any. >> We still have one more year after this. Um, but I and u Mr. Man as the transportation director stays in pretty close contact. like he knew we were going to lose a few contractors the last cycle when we when we redid that he had mostly it was um some contractors that were going to retire you know from it not you know otherwise they would have still
039been interested but um so so we will have a a better handle on any changes coming >> again just nuggets of knowledge when we we have fuel bids we allow we sell that fuel to our contractors at the rate that we receive so there's no problem for us but again we try to do everything we can to keep those costs down for our contractors. >> Tim, debt service. >> All right, moving on to the debt service fund. And this is um really the the big slide for for debt service. This has a listing of all of our outstanding uh bond obligations, including several that this board has been a part of um the last few years, all the work that we've done um in in trying to manage our tax rate and trying to get
040caught up on deferred maintenance and improve some of our facilities out here. Um so all of that is accounted for there and it shows um in the columns going across. So the when the bond was issued and kind of the primary um location that we did improvements to and then it shows the second half 2025. So that's all of those existing um bonds we the payments that we'll have due in December are there. Um, and then all of the payments for full year of 2026, but then also the first half of 2027 and the second half of 2027, all of those go into the calculation that the the DGF will um consider in setting our tax rate and setting how much money we need to raise. They'll look at our June 30th um balance, what
041revenue we expect to receive in the second half of the year, how much we're going to pay out, then everything that we'll pay out in 2026, and then we're allowed to keep an operating balance in the debt service fund of either 15% or recent uh recently issued bonds. And I think we have one bond that's still allowed to carry a 50% operating balance. But so all of that goes into into play there. Um and if you look down here, the that bottom line proposed 2025 lease rental um that we we've gone through uh hearings and Mr. Wilson has been at our past few meetings with the the process of selling the bonds um that we anticipate will be um sold later this month with a closing in early October. Um so we should find out
042the um the rates those will be competitively sold on the market. Um $6.6 million, but that um $400,000 in in bond um repayment in 2026 was the estimate. sort of based on the the parameters that were the kind of the upper limits of we I think we set 5% as the upper limit for what interest rate we would pay and um so when those bonds actually sell we will get an amortization schedule and and that $400,000 is likely going to be more like $300,000. Um and that that's what our budget will actually end up being set to. This is the the advertised budget for debt service. And and if there are no questions, the rainy day fund the the rainy day fund at Batesville was originally established um to pay for pension and severance obligations.
043Back when it was established, um when teachers retired, their contract often included bridge payments um that they would receive money for several years. And if there were if there was a year that there were several retirements, it could create um a liability on the corporation and and by establishing a rainy day fund um it could kind of smooth that out. But that that that has been negotiated out of our contract. Um everything is front-loaded as far as with 401A contributions and their teacher retirement. Um, so that need is we haven't really utilized the rainy day fund that much. It's still set up. We still advertise it. Um, most recently the board um changed the need for it. There was a board resolution after that COVID year to um provide stipens to staff. Um, that was
044the most recent activity um until this year. We spend a little bit of money on it for severance expenses. Um, and that's why we are looking at um $8,978 is the balance remaining in that fund. We we are advertising that amount. We don't anticipate transferring more money into that fund. Um, so if we choose to spend that, we can. Um, I think Mr. Ketchum talks a lot about pulling the levers and trying to help out. Um, and I know we between the education fund and the operations fund, you know, there have been times where this board has chosen to not transfer money to to the operations fund from education because we wanted to help that out more. There are some things with even with our bond issue with those dollars and and the description of
045the project that gives us some flexibility that will help out our operations fund. So we we um have a little bit of flexibility without relying on the rainy day fund and we don't and the funds that could feed into it. We we don't necessarily um feel the need to transfer those balances over. >> Rain date fund is a little bit of an archaic fund. Again, when there were five funds, you could transfer a portion from bus replacement, capital projects, transportation into the rain fund. Then with a board resolution, you could use those dollars for other things than the funds they were designated for. Uh we are simply a cash in cash out organization, right? We we take our cash in, we push it out payroll. So there's really not a lot of extra cash for
046us to siphon off to put in the rainy day fund, but at one time it did have it served a purpose as basically a bond pension to pay off some debt. We might owe people when they retire. Uh if you were going to ask Mr. Ketchum, what will we use rainy day fund for in the future? maybe to collect some dollars to pay the IvyTech tuition that we pay for all the Batesville High School students. That would be a valuable place through a board resolution to put some additional cash, but this time we don't have a lot of cash to put in the regular day fund. So, it is stuck on 8978 this time. Tim, anything else you want to talk about rain fun? >> This slide just shows appropriations history. Um so to give
047you a little bit of um trend data um along with the bottom line there for 2026 our um advertised budgets for each of those funds. So the education fund a budget of $18.3 million up from 17 thou 17,750,000 the operations fund 7,750,000 up from 7,620 debt service at 4,668,769. Once again that one will definitely change when the bonds are actually sold. and then rainy day fund of 8978. Um the those increases it's roughly 3% increase to the education fund and in line with our revenue increase in in the state basic grant. The operations fund is actually a little bit less. It's a little bit less than 2% increase to the to the budgeted amount for operations. Um debt service is about a 7% increase. Um but when it when the all the dust settles, it
048will probably be more like about a a five or six percent um increase to that budget. And overall, it's um about a three to three and a half percent um at the end of the day. This this is um will be probably the first time that we eclipse $30 million combined budget of those funds. So we are um fortunate. We've continued to grow enrollment wise and we continue to grow Batesville with um with our assessed value. Um so our revenue that that we have to spend has grown as well. >> Again, the word appropriations a legal term. We have the authority to spend that amount of money. We can't spend more of that without an additional appropriation meeting. Uh Mr. Murphy, you've asked this question before. When we do sell bonds, we actually do spend
049more than our $30 million. That's why we have Mr. Doug Wilson here to talk about the additional appropriations so that we have the authority to spend more than our budget is approved for. So again, appropriation simply means that's the legal authority. That's the top dollar we can spend within that calendar year. >> So Tim, I know we previously talked about some of the Senate Bill one impacts. Next year is not the first year that we reconcile or hit those impacts. the year after that because property tax trail is that accurate when we're going to start seeing less of an increase from year to year. >> Yeah, I think um I've heard Mr. Ketchum explain it that yeah, like it's not that we won't necessarily see cuts as much as we'll be limited in our growth
050in future years. Um, and that is one of the um one of our thoughts with with issuing the bonds that we're going to and with improvements that can help um drive our operations um to stay lean um and invest there and have a little bit of flexibility as we go forward. >> So the Indiana Constitution had 1% property tax cap. So you can only pay up to 1%. But what happens each year, Mr. Jar, as you know, is as the assessed valuation of your home grows, that 1% is a moving target. So, we don't hit a lot of property tax caps, 16,000 16, how much do we lose to property tax caps per year? >> Around 60,000, which is real 2025, >> which is real money, but in the scope of a 5 million, it's
051not it's not a lot of money. So, as home values continue to increase, probably not as people won't hit their property tax caps, for lack of a better term. So, I use this, there'll be there'll be a decrease in the increase. So the amount of money that could be captured actually will be decreased because of the Senate bill. >> But and I ask that to some extent I know the city got some insight that already gates is starting to look at that he's anticipating or more detail is that more of those properties tax. >> Yeah. going forward there will be more properties that that get tax cap credits for sure. >> And I would say it publicly I think the intent is good elderly veterans I I think there should be some parameters to to
052kind of cap those property tax caps for people. I think the attempt at the general summit this year needs some some work and hopefully the short session they'll go back and fix some things. This slide just shows our tax rate history and you can see in and even if we went back further um we would be still in that same range that we've been we've had an advertise rate of around a$110 to a$120 and we've been at right around 90 cents as kind of our max um for a tax rate and um we we made sure to stay under that consistently. >> We know what 2026 will be. >> We expect to be right at that 90 cent mark. >> Okay. >> Hopefully maybe just a little bit under that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And
053this is one of the one of the big um reasons for that. Um, you know, the with with all of our revenues, the the amount that we're going to raise is going to be dependent on how much the the tax rate is multiplied by how much value of property that it's spread out across. And um as you can see, we we found this out last month. The the state um had all this uh data finalized, but for 2026 tax year, we have $994 million in uh net assessed value, up from $926 million, which you can see from 24 to 25, we had a big increase, about 10% increase. And now we have about a seven and a half percent increase from 25 to 26. So even though our our property tax the levy for the
054operations fund was capped at a 4% growth with with adding seven and a half% of property value um our rate will go down for the operations fund. Um so even if our with adding debt service it will go up a little bit but the net effect should be we expect to be level or possibly even slightly declining. So almost a billion dollars of net AB. So you can see there have been several years here recently where we've had significant um growth in in AB >> and this is the net AV for the district correct >> for the for the school district. So, so I know we have a a significant number of kids are out of district that attend Batesville. Is there an operations cost capture on those kids that set up the state there?
055There is not this time. There is now some some mechanism for charter schools to capture operating expenses for students in district. The the concept, Mr. Timire, is the money falls a student. So those we have about 15% of our student population comes from nine other districts. Those dollars go into the education fund, >> right? And again, you can transfer up to 15% of your education fund to operations. So indirectly, there is some additional revenue from education, i.e. students out of district that can help us offset some operation costs. >> Is there just generally just a yes or no? Is there options or opportunities to capture operations dollars for that 15% of kids who are transferring in or is that something we cannot do as a corporation? We cannot do only defined municipalities and their borders,
056school district boundaries can then levy those taxes this time. >> You know, those dollars stay in whatever district they would have attended. Right. >> Absolutely. So some indifferent student transfers to Batesville that $7,100 follows a student. Right. >> Whatever property tax that family pays stays in that district. >> Correct. I I guess where my question is, and I certainly don't necessarily think this is my opinion as far as something should be, but there's fees or opportunities for an operations catch up because obviously our facilities are used by those students. We're glad they're here as we start going forward with these operational expenses that we're having to add rooms or stay in facilities because we're welcoming these students there's an opportunity there. I have no idea. >> That's a good question. We can follow up offline.
057You know, again, I wanted to backtrack to to take your role with some gravity. You are you are a board of a $30 million organization and you hold me accountable for how we spend that money and your transparency and and you represent the community on how that $30 million is is spent. So again, I I don't take your responsibility rules lightly. Go to talk about ADM real quick. Tim, >> yeah, that that slide shows um recent enrollment history and there's a lot of noise in there. Um, I think it it it appears more um erratic than it actually is because of the way the the scale is set there. It's actually about 40 or 50 student um from from the lowest to the to the highest. But we we had um like we increased the
058full day of kindergarten which gave us a boost in ADM and then we at one point we added readiness kindergarten that gave us an even bigger boost and then that was sort of taken away and then we had COVID that kind of had a decrease um initially. You can see the past few years and we've been pretty consistent. Um actually whenever I checked um on this it was 2175. Um I think we're being paid for like about our our estimated um enrollment that our basic grant payments um are based on is around 2180. Um we we have we're in the 2170s right now. That's still still moving around a little bit before the the count day. Um but that you know that is a a key driver of revenues you know basically the entire education
059fund is paid for um by a state basic grant. So that is um it's very important um for us and and a lot of name districts are seeing enrollment um trends the other way. You know, even though enrollment looks consistent, I there's a there is a trend that we had more students in the lower grades kind of came to a pyramid. For this reason, for this year though, we have more students who've joined us in the high school and we have smaller class sizes in elementary school. If you're going to read the superintendent playbook, you typically want the largest class sizes in your elementarymentaries because of attrition. It's not a bad thing. It's just something I I'm aware of. Our enrollment is pretty much stable, but the complexity or the makeup of our enrollment is
060changing a little bit and I think that's a credit to Batesville High School. I think more people want to bring their children to Batesville High School for all the right reasons. >> So with this, it's a lot of information. I appreciate your patience. Is there any questions that Tim and I can answer for you? >> Can uh Tim share that with the board here? >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Hearing no questions, Madam President. We'll transition to blue already and we have two of our administrators in the crowd with today and I've asked them to attend. Uh statutoily in 2011, state of Indiana said that we have to have a teacher evaluation model referred to commonly as a rise model, rise rubric. Every teacher had to be evaluated x amount of times there.
061Every teacher had to be rated on a scale from one to four either effective, highly effective. And that was an arduous lift for our administrators. A large amount of their time was in the classroom to evaluate, which not a bad thing. The legislators have then come to the conclusion that there was just not the return on investment they hoped for, and that went away July 1st of 2025. So we we no longer have to rate our educators on a one to four scale. We have to evaluate them. So what a lot of schools have done of the state status quo uh in the Batesville way we said let's let's take this opportunity to put implement something that's meaningful for our teachers and for our administrators. I went through a process. It was an online training
062session through Harvard about executive coaching uh utilizing the grow model and I think some of you with Batesville casket history know what the grow model is and we've kind of switched our teacher evaluation to ask teachers how do you want to grow identify some goals. Uh I will bring to you the evaluation model to be approved. Full disclosure, we are still working through this evaluation model with our teachers, with our principles, but we have a working framework and I just wanted you as a as a board to understand kind of how it's working. So, Mr. Stone King, Mrs. Cassie are here today and and Brad, I'll let you lead off. Talk a little bit about the goal setting process with teachers right now. How do we approach that? >> Sure. Yeah. So, I'll try to
063give you an overview and then Dana brought even some goal examples and just kind of show you what that process looks like. So, first I think it's really important to understand I feel like we've gone from compliance to more collaboration with our teachers, right? And at the end of the day, they're boots on the ground and they are most important resource other than our students that they're teaching because that is what our goal is is education. So, I can't do anything but compliment um all of our teaching staff and and we've just been blessed uh by the individuals that are working with our kids in our buildings. And so we we tried to really break down what the teacher evaluation process looks like and we we call it now a teacher growth plan or a
064teacher growth process. Uh and to kick that off, all the teachers are submitting what we would consider their first draft of a professional goal. They submitted that to each building principal, so all four of us in early September. Uh and then we're going to be in the process of setting up beginning of the year teacher meetings to review and hopefully finalize those goals. Really important. Uh and again if we go back to the the RISE model, the teacher evaluation process that started kicked off in 2012, they had something called SLOs's student learning objectives and they were all based on state standardized testing. And so you would say 22 out of 25 kids pass I learn for example. We're trying to go beyond that. We want something that's a little more meaningful for themselves as a
065professional. So we've really tried to coach them. You know it can be more qualitative data driven doesn't have to be so quantitative and three out of five did this or 20 out of 25 did this. We're trying to build in some of our attributes through bulldog ready. We're building in our master plan and we just want this to be an ongoing challenging goal but something that they can work on. And the first question is right when I'm talking about this one, what if we don't meet our goal? You know, that doesn't mean you're not proficient, right? We all have goals that we may set for ourselves that are maybe a little too difficult, right? and we just need to make changes and keep pressing forward with our kids or with whatever we do professionally to
066meet that goal. And and so I think that's probably the biggest change with our teacher evaluation system. We're still going into classrooms. We're still going to observe the instructional practices that our teachers are doing each day, but adding the goal, I think, allows us to have a collaborative process that works to do what's best for kids. And and so the goal is very meaningful. Also, first time we've done this, uh we're going to have the opportunity to allow our teachers to self-reflect. Um so we're we're going to have twofold. That's going to be twofold. So we're we're going to have that opportunity when we go in and do an observation. Our teachers will have the opportunity to go in reflect on how that observation went from their lens. Then they will provide us with that
067reflection. Then we will provide our observation and our notes to them. Uh and and it really hasn't been that process. We would go in a classroom to be honest with you. uh we felt like scribes or or you know someone just trying to take as many notes as we can say every single thing that the teacher saying and I'm I come out of there and I'm like what even happened you know I got to go back and read this um to provide them with feedback and so now I feel like we can take a step back from uh trying to list out everything they say and the kids say observe it uh give some pointers uh listen to how they feel typically they're probably going to be a little more critical on themselves than we
068will be of them u but really excited excited about that self-reflection. Also, we'll have consistent communication, collaboration about their goal throughout the school year. Um, so I think we've enlisted it that we will at least have one midyear check-in. Uh, they will also have the second opportunity to provide a reflection about that goal. We'll have a conversation, see where they're at, see what we need to course correct, uh, see if we can meet that goal by April, May, depending on what it is. And if and if we don't, maybe that carries into 26 27 next year. Um so really summarizing it all into that couple minutes feel is is where it's at. And and we're really excited about it. I I really feel like our teachers are excited about it. It's something different. They don't
069have to turn in as much to us. Um it's just a collaborative ongoing growth process um for both parties and we're we're really excited. And so want to let Dana maybe elaborate a little bit more on the goal specifically and then >> maybe share some examples. >> So I think I this is I've taught in several districts through my time and I tell you what I cannot wait for you guys to see this product. We worked a lot over the summer and last year and Dr. Huber kind of took all of our crazy scribblings together and put this resource book together for our teachers that come to Batesville from here on out to be able to hand them this and say, "Here's how you're going to be evaluated in in our district is second to
070none. This is an amazing resource." And as our teachers look through this draft, all their questions were answered and it was very comprehensive. So, I think we're on the right path and we're doing the right thing um for our teachers. And like Brad said, it's not this gotcha thing anymore. It's something they're excited about. So, as Mr. Ketchum and as Brad talked about, our our old system was very one-sizefits-all. It was every classroom you went in and did the same thing. The expectations had to look the same. And I think as you're learning more about our district, we don't have one-sizefits-all classrooms. It we just don't. And that's a great thing. So that goal piece is going to be so important because teachers are building their goal on what their classroom looks like and what
071they want to get better at. It's not something we've decided to do because a lot of times the things that we say they may have a totally different idea and something that's much better for their students than we could ever than we could have because we don't see them every day. So, I brought three in particular, and I I think these go to show um just how how much time and effort they put into building these goals. These are from these are our a lot of our general education teachers did things like differentiation and they really want to get to the root of um building math small groups and really working with kids on a on a small group basis every day. But our our gym teacher, Chase Mirs, his is connected to Bulldog Ready.
072He is building the attributes of drive, resilience, and empathy. Um, and each student is going to track their improvement for each attribute through PE class. Um, so everybody's creating their own individual goals and then he's conferencing with them throughout the year. I mean, those are not things that you would typically see in a gym class. and in drive, resilience, and empathy that goes far beyond teaching a kid how to shoot basket in basketball. We're talking about the things that are going to take them into the future. So, I thought that was a really good one. Um Olivia Branch, our art teacher, decided to she's taken a class, a 90-hour class online, wants to try a new kind of ink project with her kids. But the fact that she's getting um some we're recognizing the fact
073that she's taking a class on her own time to do something for our kids is something we've never been able to recognize before and we're going to say, "Okay, that's an awesome goal for this year and it's going to directly affect the kids in your classroom." Um, and the other one I brought was Megan Kerman, who's our music teacher. Those are hard groups to assess. And her goal was, I want to have a formal performance assessment for every grade by the end of the year. And what that performance looks like will be different for every grade. But the fact that she's focusing on a true assessment is something again that we just haven't had in the music classroom at the elementary level. It's just not been expected. And now moving forward, we're going to. So
074those are just some pieces. I can't wait to have as we are just starting our conferences. I can't wait to have those conversations with the teachers and then follow up after observations. It's just looking so different and just that atmosphere in our in our building is already changed because they're not worried about those conversations. It's it's a growth. It's truly worthwhile. >> Questions? >> No, thank you, Miss Cassing. And I want to I want to express my gratitude as community. We talked about community connected. I I am a trained educator. I'm not a CEO. And I've learned through a lot of our business partners, how do you run a business, but our people, our businesses people and and I'll give I'll name them. Gary Munchel was instrumental in telling us how to use the grow
075model, how to leverage a feedback loop, and how to go away from compliance and gotcha to how do you really want to grow as a professional so that students succeed. So this teacher evaluation system that there's an opportunity for our teachers to own the process of getting better professionally so that our students can can win. So I'm excited about it. I will say this more work than we probably it's been a lot of work and I give our administrators a lot of credit. It's taken a long time to get here and and year two is going to look different than year one, right? There's still going to be some improvements that we can make. But what do bold leaders do, bold schools? They take chances for kids and that's what we're doing right now. the
076initial data that I'm receiving back from principles and teachers is it's been a great shift and I think at the end of the day it aligns with our Bulldog ready mission to make sure that kids are are ready for what's next. So what questions can I answer for you? I I will bring this to you formally soon to approve it. Uh but again I just wanted you to know where we're at in the process. Okay. Thank you. We'll continue on. Next item on our agenda agenda is patron comments. Um at this time if anyone would like to make comments u feel free to take the floor. Comments are to be kept to school related activities and no school employee or student should be made specifically. >> We'll go right to our action items. Our only
077action item is approval policy 6810 suspension and expulsion. And Mr. Tima, your your recommendation suggestion is the only change that this board will serve as the final expulsion examiner review for any appeals to the superintendent's decision. Uh so that that was a change in that deal policy 6810. So I'll seek a motion to approve that as as approved or presented and answer any questions you have. >> Make that motion. >> I'll second. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed same sign motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. Just an awareness, obviously a large portion of our employees are are in the classified employee handle. So just for this board's awareness, we are working behind the scenes to evolve that evaluation model as well. It's it's archaic. It's old. It's actually from
078Margaret Mary Health. It's on a scale of 172 and it just doesn't work for us. So just so this board's aware, we're trying to do replicate that same thing for our classified staff. superintendent report. I won't read it to you, but we've got a lot of events like we always do. Staff PD next Monday, no students. We're focused on teaming. I'm excited to report to you what teaming is. Think about there's a legal term called an individualized education plan, IEP, legal document. We are truly rolling up our sleeves and trying to create a learning plan for every student in a teaming concept where groups of teachers are responsible for smaller groups of students so that no student slips through the crack. What's happened through compliance is there are students with high needs and there are
079students with not a lot of needs and there's a middle of the pack and a lot of times the middle of the pack students they don't cause any trouble they get they get C's and B's they really don't get challenged and our goal is to say why why is Tim Hunter only getting a B in biology and have that conversation with parent and let's talk as a group of teachers Stephanie what's working well in your classroom that I can use for Tim so we're really trying to put and processes in place through Bulldog Ready or Master Plan to to walk the walk to make sure that we do give students the opportunity to be successful, whatever that looks like. So that PD day is next Monday. Uh Apple Fest pageant next Sunday of this the
08028th. Uh October 6, we have some concerts. October 6th, the week of is fire prevention week. Our school board meetings, an important one, is October 8th. We will approve the budget. I'll seek a motion to approve the budget. uh mid semester mid semester break fall break October 13th. And with that, Madam President, I'll turn over to you and the board for any comments. >> Does anybody have any comments? >> I would just add to the reminder that tonight is the the booster raffle and dinner for anybody who's planning to attend. Obviously, they're they're critical in supporting our athletic programs financially. Anything else? >> I sent something to you, Mr. Ketchum, about what the state of Oklahoma is doing about students and the use of phones. I don't know what the state of Indiana is going
081to do, but I thought that was very interesting. >> So, Mr. Merkel's referring to the state of Oklahoma is has banned all cell phones in schools. You're not allowed to have them in schools. So that that's that's a that's bigger than my pay grade. We'll let the governor of Indiana make that decision. >> But they do have some exceptions for medical and issues. >> There are some carvats. You are correct. >> Anything else? >> Thank you.