001Call to order. David, >> this meeting uh at the Taylor School Board is called to order. Turn the time over to Mr. Michon for discussion of school funding. So, we're going to we're going to step through it. We're going to talk about the very basic nature of our school funding and then we're going to go into a little bit of how SEA1 is going to affect us, what we're going to plan to do over the next couple years. That way you get more of an accurate picture of how we're funded and then what we plan to do because all of our decisions now have to be really smart because they're going to affect us for these next couple of years with lots of changes. switch. This thing's really lagging, David. [Music] Okay, so this was
002partly the presentation that I gave to the staff in September. And so the Indiana legislature has made several significant changes to the various ways that public schools are funded. These are all going to affect us here in the next couple years. While the changes will have different consequences for us across the state, every school district will be affected. It's just going to be depending on how much business you have, how much farm, like there's lots of variations in how this will affect schools. So, after we get the basics in, we look at how it's going to affect us. And so, we've been analyzing these changes and hopefully this will give you guys a better picture of how it's going to affect us. So finance-wise, you know, we have our buckets and the one confusing thing
003that I always get is why can't we spend this money on this thing and there are rules and so you have buckets and you cannot spend outside of a bucket. So you can't take your education fund and buy a school bus. So these are the buckets that we work from. education, which pays for our teachers, our classroom stuff, our um building level administrators, operations, pays for our transportation department, our custodial, all of our um schools, every building, uh utilities, those kind of things. Debt service, those are the bonds that we do. And so that fund is kind of in cooperation with operations because they're funded in a similar way. And then rainy day. So if you ever have any excess funds, you can put those into your rainy day account and then you can use
004those for whatever. >> So Steve, two questions. >> Yes. >> On those buckets. Where are the buckets? But who determines where is a brick or what code is it in what you can spend out of each bucket? You know, I know we have certain actual code. >> Well, no, but where is it law or where is that law? >> It is in the Indiana code. >> Mhm. Okay. >> And they she meets with Judy and we go over our budget and she goes over all these line items and they look carefully at what you're spending your money on and if we were to spend outside of a bucket that we would be caught and dinged and it would not be good. >> Right. I know. >> Just like any audit you would have. >> Yeah,
005I knew that. I just didn't know where it was stated what you could or could not spend out of those >> and I don't >> I don't know the Yeah, it's an IC code. >> Okay, we can look that up for you. >> No, that's all right. >> But this is the information that comes from that. >> I have a question. Sure. About the rainy day fund. >> You said that's leftover money. >> Is that leftover out of each bucket? >> Should there be any? Where is that rainy day money? will not come from operations because operations is so underfunded >> with most school corporations that it comes out of education. >> Potentially could come from any bucket. >> Okay. >> Are you going to get into how each of those buckets is funded? >>
006Yes. Right. Perfect. >> There is no rules on rainy day. You guys make the rules on rainy day and what you can spend on. >> Okay. >> That's a local school board decision. So >> the state says allowable things, but you guys could say, "Oh, we want to spend it on this." >> So I'm going to make a statement. Nobody record me on this one. I know it was recorded, but we're >> So we can circumvent >> I'll just use an example. We can circumvent what we spent education fund on by putting that money in rainy day and then paying operations happen technically, right? I mean what you just said. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So just so I understood we do. Pardon? And we do >> schools do. I I learned today that there
007is a school corporation in the state that gets zero dollars for operations. >> They get >> zero dollars come into their operations account. You'll see how we're affected by this and what will happen to our operations as a result of this and so all of their money for their operations comes from education. >> Really? >> Okay. Keep going. What's up, David? >> Does anybody here have an extra pen? There's one right here if you need it. >> So, the education fund is not funded through property taxes. Okay, this is the one that comes from the state and it comes from our ADM, our average daily membership. You always hear us talk about the ADM count. This is the number of kids we have in the school and you get an assigned dollar amount per student.
008That's what comes into the education fund and then that money gets paid for teachers, instructional assistants, clerical, building administrators, salaries and benefits. >> So tangential question, what was our ADM on October 1st? >> 1,06 >> or 10,000 1, >> 106. Yeah. >> And as of today, it's 1,17. It will go up and down a little bit over the course of the year. It trends down slightly. Yeah. >> Just through attrition. >> How does that compare to last year? >> Um last year we were at 11. What was our first number? 1163 >> I think. >> And then we ended at 1140 >> 47. So it went down a little bit as it always does. This year we started out lower largely because the incoming kindergarten class was 30 less than well 40 less than what
009we started with last year. >> Okay. And that's kind of across the state. What we're hearing is that a lot of kindergarten classes are small. So that's what really hits us the hardest. >> Last year's kindergarten class was 110. This year it's like 73. >> 71 now. So, so that is what kind of has Well, if you look at that, that's 40 kids. >> Yeah. >> And you go from 11:43, we're 11:07 now. So, it's right in there. >> When's the next count? >> It's February. >> February 1st. >> February. >> Yeah. Monday. >> If that's two day two snapshots, how's it average? How can they call it an average daily? >> You take the average of those two numbers. >> Oh, we'll show you here. It's an average of two numbers. Not an average
010on Okay. >> You get paid twice a year >> for whatever that count is. >> Well, I knew it was twice a year, but I didn't know they average the two. >> Well, they really don't. I mean, you get your money in the fall for one count, then you get it in the second. As far as the title, average daily membership. >> Yeah. I >> Yeah. And you you have to go back and you have to look at your what you have in your system because sometimes there are kids maybe didn't show up there in the system. You have to have those removed. Um, and then the state has to find them because some kids have just disappeared and they don't turn up at any school, right? They're followed by a student number. So when
011somebody leaves here, that number is supposed to appear in another school. There are times that doesn't happen. >> Well, that's could be outside the state of Indiana, right? >> That happens, too. But people are supposed to call and request records, >> right? >> They don't always do that. And so we don't know. And then, you know, you have to remove them from your system. Where's this from? Is that a state number or or a federal number? I mean >> state it does not it doesn't go over to another state. >> So it doesn't follow that to another state. >> Correct. Okay. >> So we've had to track that down um to make sure that our graduation rate is correct >> so that kids not drop out because someone's going to school wherever they end up.
012And so know Marcy does a lot of that labor for us. Okay. Does everybody understand this part? >> Yes. Okay. Here are the numbers broken down so you can see. So last year for 2020 20 Oh, we have the numbers right here. Yeah. So 2024 2025 it was 11.46 based on what the funding amount was at the time which was $7,982. You get two payments per year. So half of that is the 39.91. So in October we received $4.5 million of 4573 and then in February it looks like we lost 11 kids. That number went down to 4,529,000. So that total for us for the year was a little over $9 million. This year we only have um one number to work with. When we ran this, we had 11 uh 12, which now I
013think on the day that we actually had it was 11:06. So, it's going to be slightly less than this, but the number per student went up. That's the increase that the state talks about that they give you all this extra money. And so, when you take that into account, our year should be about $9,225,000, which is slightly up from last year. Now, it's going to be slightly less than that because our numbers are low than what we protected area. >> And those 9 million figures are strictly student account. >> Correct. >> It also has a little bit to do with like if they're special ed, we get a little bit more funding. If they go to the career center, we get funding for that. So there are some other like specialty categories we get it
014but it's all included in that that figure. >> So what we think about when we we see the increase we know that inflation is about 2.7%. So we're not up to inflation. The other thing that happened is when they got rid of the um curriculum account, that money now is just supposedly included in this ADM count money called the foundation. And so we don't get any money for the books themselves to pay for them. We're not getting any money for those. So that number really is included in that amount there. So the increase isn't as great as it seems. >> Well, I decided to increase at all. No, it's when you take that into account, you just indicated >> it's going back to Max's word. It's a misnomer. It's not an increase. Your state legislators
015will say that we increased funding for education, but they took it away more over here. >> Yeah. They took it away in a different different way. That's right. >> And if you remember, our account was negative about 600,000. So, we had to move that into education, right? So, did you have something? I was just going to say the state calculates your curriculum material reimbursement or the money they give you is $157 per student. That's how much the state says they give you for curricular materials for each >> as part of that 9.2 million. >> It's supposed to be yes into the foundation money which is what they used to calculate the dollar per se. >> See why this is Okay, so there's just a snapshot of our ADM over the course of the last eight
016years. And you can see uh when we got really serious about changing the school, what happened to our ADM? So, but the difference if you look at 22 to now 1,270 kids to that I mean when you divote or multiply that by roughly you know $8,000 a kid that's a big chunk of money that you know we're receiving [Music] >> are other schools in area >> um I talked to one today I think they were I think um not every school is, but a lot across the state are even the gentleman who did our talk today was talking about just in general that there are fewer children to be shared throughout the state. So most schools are seeing a decrease. >> Well, I would think you know kindergarten our decrease in kindergarten is probably not
017just us. >> It is not. >> I think it's almost everybody >> and more demographics you just said. >> I think just the birth rate's down. >> Yeah. >> Across the board. So >> there's been stuff out in the news about Instead of 1.7 kids per household, it's down to like 1.3. >> Well, and this is the second year of co these kindergarters were born, so it wasn't fun to be at home anymore. >> What are you saying? >> I'm just saying the birth rate was good the first year of co >> we had a boom last year. Yeah, we had 110 incoming kindergarters and then this year dropped. So I assume it will level out some. >> Yeah. >> So Steve, they have an estimate of how many people are are homeschooling our kids.
018>> I don't know that there's a good estimate because it's changing almost daily. >> Those homeschools aren't required to report to their numbers like their enrollment. Yeah, one of the big things that we talked about today was the homeschool of course is increasing and a lot of that is when parents sometimes are pushed about the attendance of the child rather they continue talking to the school they child they don't want to go to school >> because they can do it >> and no it's because they're afraid to get trouble because the kids are going to school um so we we know what hoops we have to jump through financially we have to account for every dollar um every mandate in the state does every testing measure. We are held to the fire on all of
019these things and they're sticklers about every detail. Our charter schools, our private schools, our home schools are not held to the same accountability. Yet, they're getting the same tax money. As a taxpayer, people should say, I mean, we should stand up and say, if you're going to give taxpayer money to a private school, I want to know the money's being used. I want to make sure it's not being used for something that's outside of the realm of education. or a homeschooler, are they using a valid homeschool program? Uh, some are do a wonderful job, but there are a lot who are not. I want to know where that money goes. If we have to account for it to the taxpayer, they should, too. >> Has there ever been a study done? I know we don't
020have it for our district, but even in the state, has there been a study done says what percents in charter schools, private homeschooling versus public? >> So, those numbers exist. I do know that um in the day in the age year of school choice over 90% still choose public school >> over 90% still >> so it's still considered as 89% something like that so the majority still do choose public school over the others so and I hope that remains that way we very hard to to do what we do um this is the slide that was explaining the curricular materials account um And yeah, it is it's a big deal when you're not getting any funding for the books and that also includes the devices. So we say curricular materials, but a an iPad or
021a Chromebook is a curricular material and we all know those aren't cheap. And so we're having to pay for those and not getting the right reimbursement for those. So this says they've eliminated that $151 for students. We yeah, we actually got a payment to the school in the amount of $151 times the number our ADM count. We received a check to the school to pay for that. We don't do that anymore. They said they rolled it into that amount. >> So, we should have saw an increase. Should have seen a bigger increase than we did. >> Yeah. >> Operations. So, these are your non-classroom expenses. um our maintenance, our custodial transportation, our utilities, capital projects, technology, uh meat. Um and then on the right hand side is the debt services or our payments for our
022loans, leases, home school funds, those kind of things. >> I'm telling you. >> Yes. Lots of meat operations. >> Okay, hold on. School buses come out of >> operations >> final operations not service. So >> okay >> so we have as a it'll come up later but as a cost saving major we are not um doing a bus replacement plant every year we will purchase every other year. >> Is there a requirement how often we have to replace buses >> once they get to a limit where they're not going to be usable anymore they have to be replaced but nobody says you have to buy a new one every year. You just can't have one on the road. That's >> it has to pass the safety inspector. Is that the only criteria? >> Age as
023well. You don't need >> If it's less than 10 years old, it has to be inspected once a year. If it's over 10 years old, it has to be inspected twice a year. >> Okay. >> Past policy was they were treating we were trading in buses after 10 years, >> right? But we don't have we don't not by the state law. >> Okay. And we're not going to now. >> There are buses in schools on the road that are 20 years old. >> Yeah. And they come here and test them. We just we bring them there and then uh >> they come and do it here. So >> we're going to do that. That's an easy way for us to save money every year. >> Have we done a study to say which is cheaper,
024corporal buses or or contract owners? court >> figures don't lie the liar's finger answer me I'll show it to you >> at this point we would be thrilled to have drivers you know we're at the point where we can't even be picking we have one contract driver now has four bus routes for us when he's done I don't know that we would get another contractor >> we only have one contract driver >> we have he has four but >> one contractor >> Scott has four buses >> oh Otherwise, he was the only one. >> All the rest of the contractors are gone. >> All the rest. We have four buses and then four contract owner. The rest are corporate. >> Yep. >> Okay. He was the last one. >> Yeah. The rest of them retired
025at the end of the year. >> He he bought the two wall routes. >> They combined. >> He took five routes and made four out of them. >> Yeah. We're down four, which is nice. We finally figured out how to do it. We were down four routes and trying to fit kids on four routes that you were previously dealing with, you know, those extras was very difficult. >> So, how does does uh does our transportation department take care of the take care of? I mean, do they assign the routes for the contract drivers and determine how many kids are going to be on each bus? They use they got a computer program all the addresses in >> you push a button and it it comes out and tells you what the route should be and
026then they manually fix them. >> They do that for the contract drivers as well. >> Yes. >> Go ahead. >> Uh their contract says the most amount of miles that they will drive in a day. >> Okay. So, their contract is written. I mean, it's not like they're driving a huge amount of miles, but it's written in the contract. How many miles, how many days, that kind of stuff. >> Okay. >> And he's great about working with this if we need to make adjustments. So, >> yeah, for sure. >> Exciting. >> So, there's a lot here and I'll I'm going to print some of this out or share this with you so you can read this. There are some parts there that are highlighted and we're going to it's the next few slides will explain
027this, but I want you going into it know um when it comes to the revenue generation, there's a bright white there that says districts with lower assessed valuations have less capacity to generate revenue because they reach the circuit breaker cap sooner, even with higher tax rates. This can restrict a district's ability to meet funding needs. This is our world. >> So, let's talk about assessing for a minute. Um, >> I do have slides on that if you want to pull that cuz we're going to explain it and show you the numbers on our district and how it's affecting us. >> Okay. >> Cuz it was it slightly changed. >> So, I'll tell you my question. I won't I don't expect an answer. You can get to it later. But my question is, you know, we
028have a limited number of commercial properties in our district. How are those part how do those impact assessment that's that's the question? >> So you don't have an answer now. >> Yeah. It's really sad that the amount that we have is so low that >> I mean you know you got new hotels going what two or three new hotels right there like Crackle Barrel right they're in our district. >> What do we get out of that? >> Well we don't know just yet because it's hasn't come to us yet. And then the next one's >> okay. But we've got one, two, three, and I have to think three or four already in our district >> that have been there for a while. >> The hotels have a maximum cap of 2%. So whatever their assessed
029value is, they can only pay up to 2%. So we lose a lot of money because we would like to collect more, but the >> the percentage that we can collect on hotel commercial property was 2%. >> So we do collect from those hotels. Home value is 1% farm is three% >> farm is three >> I believe. >> Okay. >> So in areas with lower property values even a maximum levy could fall short of meeting school's needs leading to a funding inequities across districts. That's us some numbers here. >> Go back there for a minute if you don't mind. Sorry. Do tax payments that the county gives to people to bring their business here, does that uh affect Yes. schools? And so the law says um that the when when there's a tiff on a
030property that they can they can actually they can pass it through to us. They it says they may, but they want to put into law that they shall pass money through to schools because right now with it saying may, they don't. So if the county or the government decides that they want to incentivize business to come here and they're going to pay taxes, they'll tiff that one and then we won't get any of that. So that u apartments are going down by Walnut Creek. >> Those are we won't see any revenue generation from those for 10 years. Has any decisions been made about the home the homes going in? >> Not yet, but I assume that'll be >> nothing for 10 >> for 10 years. >> We don't know that for a fact, but I've
031been told that pretty much anything that's coming in that they're trying to draw in >> That's Wait a minute. But if there's tiff, if I buy a home, a new home in that area, I still pay property taxes, right? >> Right. fund >> the redevelopment commission. >> It does doesn't get passed through >> fun for what? >> It's well right now isn't they're sitting on a huge pile of money that they're not using as development. >> It's the city of >> the city of >> it's a redevelopment commission. They're the ones who like are the that's who the builders will go to. the builder say, you know, I'm looking in your area to build, but I need some incentive. You know, sweeten the pot a little bit for me to come build here. >> So,
032so wait a minute. Wait a minute. So, if I go to the redevelopment commission, say sweeten the pot, then when I pay my property taxes cuz I bought a home there, it goes into the redevelopment commission. >> It doesn't come to It doesn't >> But hey, hold on. Aren't we I mean, aren't they incentivized to tip it so they get more money in their pot? You see what I'm saying? >> You should go downtown. I think uh Philadelphia in general it started because they wanted corporations to come. So they wanted big business to come here and give them an incentive to come to Cooko rather than city and >> so it just hurts local districts. >> That's why we're going to pay for trash pickup next year. >> Do you know the housing addition on
033Berkeley or uh Park and Sardon? Are they is that tipped? >> Um I don't know. I can ask. >> I'm sorry. Is that Western? You're right. It's >> I would assume it is >> curious. It's probably >> those apartments next to Webster are going to be everything is going to be >> So they just do this with no regard. >> Well, they have public meetings. >> Oh yeah. They have public meetings on the on the trash B2, but they ignore what everybody >> I 100 I 100% agree. It's the redevelopment commission who it can issue those tips. >> All the apartments and stuff that they're building up by the battery plan, that's all too >> and those are for 10 years. I still say >> and so I would I would say at at year
034nine and a half someone else will go in and say we want to make a change and you too. I think the biggest misconception then in the public and I had some people actually come to me and say this that um well with the tax rates and we're paying more taxes the school should be better off right >> and I explained to him have you ever heard of a tax cap because we have one so and we live in it and last time and I went to the mayor's office ourselves and had a sit down it cost a school a half million dollars that year because they were annexing >> and and didn't understand the tax cap. Now, that guy got fired to one of did the figuring, but they didn't change the rule, >>
035right? >> So, but yeah, I'm still hearing people tell me that. >> I mean, as the property owner, that's great. You're capped at 1%. I get it what the intent is, but the result shouldn't be that we underfund schools, correct? Which is what happened. >> But they do, but they they lower the tax rate, but everybody's assessing enough 20, 30, $40,000. That should offset I would think. But that that report that we got from them says the average home is $179,000. The homes actually you're going for60. >> I've got a slide on that because >> way higher than that. >> There's a difference between market value and assessed value, >> right? >> And assessed value is lower than market value, but the number has gone up. So I refigured all of those. So I have
036those figures. But what we need to see in that, not necessarily the dollar amount, but the trend and what they're doing with the percentages of your supplementals. Um, and they're getting rid of the homestead. And so essentially, they're going to take away about 67% of the value of the home when they can when they decide what the valuation is that they're going to tax on. So we'll we'll get there in just a second. >> Just so you know, it's 630. >> Oh, we're good. We're cooking. Let's >> All right. So here's how they figure it out. >> 5:30. question. >> So, the assessed value times your tax rate divided by 100 is how much you pay in property taxes. So, $100,000 home times a $1 tax rate divided by 100 is $1,000 that you would
037pay annually in taxes. Okay, so that seems fairly straightforward, but then you have to take into account they give tax credits, deductions, there's a circuit breaker. Um, we still have PTRC for a couple more years, which folks don't realize when they get rid of that the tax bills are going up, even though they've talked about this as historic lowering of taxes. So, it's just not it's very difficult to understand. So to help have the public, if you go for a referendum, understand this is a very difficult task because the people that explain it to us get tripped up and they don't even understand every little detail of this. It's really convoluted. So the market value is what the property would sell for in the open market. So Dennis, when you talked about those homes going
038up that high, that is absolutely correct and that is determined by the real estate uh current conditions and the comparable sales. the assessed value is assigned by the local government. Um, and it sadly falls behind. So, it's going on older data and it's done for property tax purposes. So, it's a percentage of the market value. So, it's definitely going to be lower than the actual market value. >> I don't necessarily agree that that's true. Never. Well, >> mine just says for $50,000 more than I can sell it for. >> Well, that's good for you then. Well, I guess not really good if they pay more. That's kind of an odd thing. >> Um, but for us, what that means is the increased deductions and credits. It's decrease in our collections. And then this is what
039it looks like. This is what's going to happen. So, they're saying right now, they go parcel by parcel. this company that we worked with to figure this out for us. Checked every parcel in our township, the Cooko Park. Um, and then there's another one that are people who were there when the annexation happened and are still there and they have their own category. There's like was it nine homes left or something? So, but they they agreed that the valuation right now is 196,700 across our district. So, right now your homestead deduction is 48 uh,000 on that home. Supplemental deduction is 37.5%. So you would pay taxes on 92,938. So as it goes down, as this new bill kicks in, by 2031, you're going to pay six, you're going to pay taxes on a home value
040of 63,534. >> Well, we're assuming the gross assessed value is in the state of Right. >> Right. And there. Yeah. >> So that should go up. But then >> it should go up, but it's everything else goes up too. So you really need to go up even more, but it's still probably never going to reach that net assess value of 92,000 that it doesn't. No. And that's how they're going to lower property taxes for people. Does that make sense? >> Doesn't make sense, but I get it. >> Stephen, have you had conversations with our dear politicians to have come up with this? and they think this is a wonderful thing or do they even know what they're doing? >> Did I say that out loud? >> I You're on record. I guess I think the
041intent was good. I think what happened is they got in the weeds and they created something and they didn't realize what was going to come out of it. I don't think they understood the implications of lowering this. You know, the the comic came out do more with less. Well, I mean, how much can you strap somebody and still do anything? So, I think there are some ramifications that they hadn't considered. And we've been told that in the spring s short session, they're going to look at this and try to correct some things. So, let's go back to your buckets. Property taxes talking about fund the operations and the debt service buckets. >> Correct. Correct. >> The education bucket comes from sales sales taxes and etc. >> Yeah. Over the state. or the state gets their
042money, right? >> Yes. >> Well, ADM, but that money comes from not the property taxes for it comes from sales tax, etc. >> Yeah. However, the state generates money. It's going to be the lottery. >> I suppose your income tax. >> So, I'm going to look at this one. This is a projection. And so our net assessed value this year, we were very happy to report that it went up 9.1%. So that is a good thing for us. That means we're not taking it a huge hit this year. But if you look at next year and you look at what they're saying the net assessed values are, they're all negative until 2031. And that's what that last chart show. So we can expect less money for each of those things our operations. [Music] >> Um
043do you want to do that again? I and I'll print this off if you guys want to have like part. So these are the implications in red. Um current debt service tax rate is.7063 that is 7 is the cut off. Um so we need to uh monitor that because of the declining net assessed value due to SEA1. Um luckily for us we authorized 8 million in projects. We using four up front. We put four behind but you cannot just go out and get geo bonds unless you are below 70 cents. Right now we're just above it. So you likely would have to go to represent to get money to do building projects in the future. So >> beyond the 8. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anything beyond that. That's why for that 8 million right
044now, we're doing all the essentials to make sure that the big things in the school are done and we won't have to consider those probably. The next one will be roof probably. Um assess value changes. implications that we would have to increase tax rate to generate the same levy due to the decrease in net assessed value um unless there's enough organic growth in the tax base or positive trending and assessed values to offset the loss which is very unlikely. Now you would think that the organic growth would be that housing division would help offset that. We'll see how that plays out. >> Increasing the tax rate hit your uh tax caps anyway. >> We can't we can't raise tax like enough taxes doing that to offset what we're going to lose. Right. >> I want
045to ask again just to get it through my head. >> If that new housing addition is tipped, we get nothing for 10 years. >> No, we we will get something but it's going to be payments. It would not be. Yeah. >> What what will >> it won't be the true value. >> Like they'll say, "Oh, we're just going to cap your assessed value at let's say the housing additions true value is $100 million." They'll make in their deal in their tip deal that they only pay taxes on 10 million of it. >> Wow. the um apartment complex that just went in or is going to go in next to Walnut Creek, their tiff is the max they will pay or be assessed on is $1 million for 10 years. So no matter how much the
046assessed value is of that apartment complex, they will only have an assessed value of $1 million. >> And our locals agree to these tips just so they'll build here. >> Yeah. has to encourage, you know, construction or to bring a business. So, we can reach out and find out more details if you guys want more on how might >> because it hasn't affected us before. This is kind of new for us. Um, some districts deal with it a lot more because they have more business. We do not have a lot of business in our district. So if the city gives we'll say that housing commission tiff does the city benefit from that financial >> the redevelopment commission does which is separate from the city. >> What does the redevelopment commission do with their money? >>
047Develop the community >> that project. >> But didn't you say they're setting on a ton of money? Like when you say a ton of money, >> I I don't know. >> We'd have to look it up. I'm sure it's it should be public. >> Yeah, >> better be public. >> But that ton of money is going to go way up because of all these tiff districts. >> You think? Right. >> It's It's not like the city of Cooko, the actual entity to sell. It's the city of Cooko Redevelopment Commission. >> That's who issues tips. >> Cook redevelopment. Wes Reed is the um chair >> president or >> operations manager. >> You never get a straight answer from me. Well, I've talked to Carl and they dance around the issues every time you talk to him.
048>> Like Mike, but they they're all involved is the same. When I talked to Wes about the um the tip that is going in by the for the apartment complex, >> the theory is and I think Bill had said it that you know, yeah, we bring homes to you and hopefully those homes will have students that will go to your district. >> The AVM is where we have to think outside the box. We're not going to get it from the property, but hopefully that brings in new families, new kids, and that will bring in the income on the back on the back end. And that that's good except for like we talked about earlier that ADM money goes into the education fund and none of that helps the operations fund. >> True. >> Which is
049where property taxes >> unless you have enough extra in that bucket to move it to the rainy day fund so we can pull down. >> There you go. >> I've got this figured out. >> Now we do put a percentage in at the end of each month from education operations. We are allowed to do that. Um you're just capped at 15%. >> And you do that every month? Yes, we do that every month. And then we add some at the end of the year from education to rainy day to operations. >> And that has to pass. >> Yeah. 5%. >> Stephen, have they considered all closing the districts back up? I mean, we probably lose 30, 40 kids every year out of our districts. >> Not even consideration anymore. >> That's crazy. That's the toughest
050school choice. Yeah, that is that's wrong. That should say that number. >> Okay, here's some hard-hitting numbers. If what they're seeing is correct and nothing changes at this session this spring, um let's look at the columns on the bottom left. These are dollars. So, I like to look at this is I know it's kind of small. Go ahead and head up there. So, you've got three sections there. Here you've got the gray unfunded credits, circuit breaker loss. The middle, that orange part is our debt service. You will notice that the dollar amounts on that don't change much because that's protected. We have to pay that off. We can't just willy-nilly just drop the numbers on that one. Be nice, but we cannot do that. So, that's going to stay the same. And then the bottom,
051which is that blue, that is what is actually goes into our operations fund each year. So next year or this year we're not going to lose a ton. So we're looking at getting about 774,000. Next year it goes down a little bit more. 27 a little bit more. And then if you look at 2028, this is the year that is crushing schools. We would look to take in about $300,000 for our entire operations. >> What's this unfunded credits? What is that? >> Circuit breaker loss. >> Yeah. Oh, that's circuit breaker loss. Ah, okay. So that really Okay. >> So the cat the top is right here at the top of the orange. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But it's important to see that because look how that grows. >> Yeah. >> As we go. I
052think it it Well, I guess down here in 2028 we have 85% circuit breaker loss. That is a crazy figure. We're already getting as uh Renee says, we're in the circuit breaker game. A lot of schools are not nearly as deep in circular loss as we have. >> Why are we so deep into it versus other districts, >> lower incomes and not a lot of business? >> And part of that's because several of our districts got or several of our neighborhoods got annexed as well, it seems like because now they're paying city tax. >> Correct. >> But that answers your question from before. What's the effect of business on all of this? Business generates tax dollars, but they don't add expense to the school. >> Right. >> So, in that very bottom gray area, you
053could be the banner there, Dennis. Uh 57.8% of our um our homeowners or property taxpayers are hit at circuit breaker. When you go to 28, it's at 84%. Yeah, there you go. >> And when I I mean I don't like to compare ourselves to others, but I do cuz >> that's my game. Um, no one is ever no one's as close to us as 57% circumst. I think Cooko is a little bit around us at 50, but none of the other school districts like the city of Cooko, the town. >> What have you looked at? I mean, Tri Central Eastern can't be any better shape than >> they have a large they have cash balances reserves. >> Well, plus >> Eastern I can speak for Eastern has cash. >> Plus, Eastern doesn't have the city
054tax. It's like a good chunk of our people. >> That's true. Eastern's or city of Greentown's tax rate is much lower than city of >> Cook. So, our people hit the tax cap off quicker than anybody else does at Tri Central or Eastern. I don't know about Western, Northwestern. >> Well, ADM is 500 more in Eastern. >> Yeah. Which is a big difference. Northwestern has a lot of business. >> Yeah. So, that's here's a here's a great picture. You'd like to see this. Um, this is the clip of our operations fund. The business personal property tax. So, in the past, >> um, businesses would have to pay on their equipment. Was it 80,000? >> Uhhuh. >> If it was over 80,000, they would have to pay taxes on their property. Now, they move that number
055to 2 million. So, there's going to be a lot of loss there >> um if they don't have to pay any taxes on anything under $2 million. And then in 2028 is that that uh rebate coupon, whatever they call that, the credit PTRC that everybody gets. That's where um that's the year that we really tank it when they remove that. But that's also going to affect a lot of homeowners when they lose that PTRC. their tax tax bill is going to go up because right now that is reducing their bill that puts more people into a certain break. >> I don't understand it. What is that PTRC? >> It's a is it a actually called a rebate? >> It's a property tax rebate credit. So, it's something that the state gives every county and every
056county decides how they're going to spend that money. Howard County gives it as a credit like a 30% credit on or deduction on your tax bill. Every county is different on what they >> So they just give it to us. We don't even realize it's there. It's just >> it automatically takes it off at the auditor's office and yeah, you don't I mean it's one of those lines on your tax bill when you see it. >> The dotted line is what would have happened in terms of the state of our current um if we hadn't changed SEA1. If the current property taxes stayed the same, they would >> So when the PTRC goes away, our property taxes are going to go up. But the whole idea of this whole mess is to lower property taxes.
057>> That's why I think they'll probably meddle with this and fix it. Um I I don't think they understood the unintended consequences that came from it. >> I don't think they thought this out. Renee, are we are we even looking at the possibility going forward until 28th ciph? [Music] >> Yeah, that wasn't the question. Are we saving now in the rainy day fund? >> We preparing her less. >> We have to. I mean we >> as much as we can but when you say cycling off the foot there you have to have extra to do that and we are really you know what we're doing >> we're just trying to get we're just staying the block right now. >> So we're trying to to maintain and over the next two years these are some of
058the saving strategies that we're looking at to prepare if that sort of cliff would come. And so, um, the first thing we did was move the solar project to that service. That took money out of operations. That was a huge move. Um, and that will show up for us in January. >> Speaking of the solar project, that's something I would like to discuss. >> Okay. This is great because we are working with an energy company to find out. They're going to come in and do a full um they're going to survey and check out our entire um like every building, every utility that we pay, how everything is running. They're going to look at everything and find ways for us to save. And so, one of the things is to make sure that the solar
059field is working properly and we're getting what we need from that. >> Yeah. So, once that's done, we'll set up a meeting and have that gentleman come in. We met Rene and I had a day and he was awesome and he's real. I think it's going to be um >> I think the visuals they showed us were really good. I can share some of those. He shared from a couple other schools and um they found savings for like all of our buildings to make sure we're really learning at the efficiency. >> I think the intent is to have these special sessions on regular basis. So that future >> if he can do for us what they've done for other schools that would be awesome. >> When does he come in? >> Well, first of all,
060we have to have that run. And so we just got the first email back today about what that might look like. We have to determine exactly what we want. Then they have to do all their work. Once that's completed, we'll do that. So I'm guessing it'll be a couple months. It sounds like it's really extensive. They're looking at every single thing in the school. Everything's plugged in. You name it. >> Um we're going to look at every staffing position. Do we if someone leaves, do we replace it? >> Do we remove some positions we have? How can we get leaner? Um, how can we get some work done more cheaply? We're going to review service contracts. U, I would love to be able to maximize grants better. Not having a grant writer really hurts with
061that, but we need to figure out how to do that. We're still waiting on one to find out if they go over PA systems and cameras. If we get that takes that burden off of us, that's if you speak with legislators, you guys can do that as well as I can. Um, we always have to leave the operating referendum on the table. We prefer not to, but you never know. Um, maximize large expense facilities expenditures, and that's what we've done with this one, getting the last two chillers in place. All the HVAC is brand new. We should be really good there. Um, technology, taking that from bond financing just like we did last time with the Chromebooks. we're going to be coming up on the elementary school is a huge purchase and if we can
062make that purchase out of the bond refinance that saves us because we're not getting reimburse maximize bus routes um transportation did that possible routes we might have to add one back of so but we've done a good job so far here's what we will not do we are not going in for any salary reductions benefit benefit reductions for professional development that we have like relied on so much this last year. The elementary has benefited so much from Wash Valley and that partnership we have. They go frequently to get PD. Um and I know they're coming in tomorrow. Um we've got people coming in for project based learning in middle high school tomorrow. So we need to make sure that we're doing those things so that our teachers are equipped with All right, that's the summary
063slide. It's the new reality, guys. So, I will get a copy of this to you and then if you guys have any questions, send them over. We'll get answers for you. And if we need to reach out more about tipping, see how that's going to work for us, see, we'll get those answers. Just got to let me know. Welcome to my world. I know. I know. [Music] >> Sometimes you just tell me cuz it's so difficult. [Music]