001Hi everyone. Good evening. Um, this is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and it's not considered a public community meeting. There is time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda and upon request to the superintendent the district shall make reasonable accommodation for a person with disabilities to be able to participate in this meeting. Mr. here. Mr. Arnold here here um we have minutes included our packet from the April 14th meeting. I'll move that the board of education approve the attached meeting minutes from April 14th 25 as presented. Second motion in a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the minute as presented say I. I. Any opposed? Um board policy provides that the superintendent of schools shall
002prepare an agenda for all board meetings as directed by the president of the board of education. Um the agenda as printed and posted is currently then I'll move the board of education approve the agenda as presented. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Um any discussion? All those in favor of approving the agenda as presented say I. I. Any opposed? Um we do not have any school presentation. So we will start with our opportunity for public participation. Is there anyone here who would like to address the board? Moving on to our administrative and board updates. We will start superintendent. All right. Um, first thing is we Craig has gotten it all installed. The Korean walkway sign is up today at the cold water between the two solar panel walkways by the corner of
003the playground. So the bus between 7:45 and 8:15 or between about 2:30 and about 3:30. Other than that, feel free to stop in and see. Um, so quick items on the bond. So, we have the uh bond election is next Monday. Heard lots of positives overall. People are excited. There's a lot of talk whenever anybody goes to another school. I've been getting texts, oh, we need this. Oh, we need this. Boy, this looks way better. Some of the things I've heard that just to clarify, so the process isn't that we and you know this. We didn't just sit down and make a number. It was a year-long process, a full facilities analysis that brought in the architects and the engineers and went through every square foot of our building, all 1 million plus, and then
004put together the full analysis, worked with our staff on instructional plans, and then we asked for community volunteers. So, we had about 50 people volunteers. We ended up with consistent 31 that were volunteering. Some of you are actually on it. and went through an entire process went over hundreds of pages of spreadsheets with anybody wanted tours went into tunnels went through boiler rooms etc and put together originally the plan was like 300 million which was too much so we worked within we worked with bond council on what we could actually do within the current military and not extending it too far so the analysis we did were what was the immediate need what needed to be done within one to five years between five and 10 and then 10 and beyond. And what we did
005is we cut it off at about eight years knowing the rotation of the work. It would take about 10 years to do the 8year plan. So the magic number came in in the 220 to 250 range. So once it was all put together, they brought a proposal to you. It's 230 something. We added in senior center and made sure to do renovations at uh Mil Creek to accommodate the sixth graders going over and a couple other spaces. So that's how we got 241.8. The work is planned. We have about$180 to $200 million worth of work that just needs to be done in terms of replacing windows, roofs, carpeting. The high school is going to be 30 years old at the point this bond is up. This proposal and plan is it needs new carpet. It's
006a 330,000t building. So carpeting alone, I think we have $1 million worth of roofs. Not all the roofs. We stagger the roofs so we don't have to replace them all the time. But $11 million worth of roofs considering what today's dollars are in cost and what a reasonable inflationary rate would be because the workbook continues through 2033. So the plan went to and you approved back in December send in an application to the department of treasury who reviews our taxable values. They give us estimates. So our historic fiveyear average taxable values have averaged a 5.18% increase. They're capped by the heavy but that's what they have fiveyear averages and their 20-year average is 3.59. We're only allowed to use pretty much a 3% increase for our calculations. Even during the recession it only dropped about
007a percent. So there was one year drop 3.5 but then on average it was 1 to 2% in that drop. We stagger the bond sales of four series. This is what is really different about how we can structure bonds because we have an agreement to stay in the school own revolving fund versus many other districts. So we can sell series anybody can sell series but what we're able to do is stabilize our milling. So the way it works is we can time each series. So our plan right now is in 2025 we'll sell 60 million. 2027 another 60 to 70 90 million and I always forget that 2027 2031 factors. Um the 20 29 is like 60 or 90 million and then in 2031 is the remainder for the remaining project. So we're only paying
008on what the work we're doing and what we can do is time the market. So we even when we did the last series of the last bond when we sold that two years ago she wasn't even here two years ago we timed the market. We knew when we would get the best rates. So we timed the market. We go out on the sales. We put technology is a three to five year bond. Furniture is a shorter shorter bond. Buses are a seven-year bond. facilities themselves are 30. So we stagger them up. We do these sales and that allows us to work the market so we can maintain that military. And what happens is we school. It was capped off years ago. If you leave, you can't get back in unless there's room within it. And
009there's currently nobody's gotten back in in years. You have to be at least seven mills to be in or whatever your agreed upon amount is. But once you get in, you can't go and renegotiate your amount. So you're supposed to be at 8 and a half mills. It almost works out like a line of credit so that it's going through the domino. So May 6 fund passes. We can then start work because we can take a loan from the revolving fund while we work on selling bonds at really almost no interest and it allows us then when we sell the bonds then we work into January, February, we start tax pay the bonds. It allows us to kind of flip those dollars back and forth like a business's line of credit. but it's super low
010interest which is a huge advantage. If the bond does not pass on May 6, the millage rate will still be 8 and a half mills up through at least 2027. So, and we still have 180 to $200 million worth of work. Historically, the last time a bond didn't pass, the board and the and the district went back to the community and the word was it didn't pass because there was too much money. And then we went back with an even bigger one at Passover. So that's our history. So that's the way it's gone because we still need to do the work. And I had someone who who asked me questions about this is the funniest thing. Why don't we just tear down most of Creekide? It's a beautiful old building, but it's old. I'm like,
011actually, we're not tearing down all of it as part of the plan, but a lot of it. And they're like, oh, that's great. So it is trying to get the information out. It's we're in the last week trying to make sure you get information. If you've heard any questions, you want to talk about anything, this is a good opportunity. It's your last chance to meet them. That was my overview of lots of stuff details. I know you've heard a lot of it, but sometimes you got to hear a couple things. The school funding is, as you've seen, is nobody in their right language. But this is what we have. This is what we have to do. We have one of 12 states in the country without a state option for capital food. Local communities need
012to keep up their buildings. And we on our FAQ we put what the local villages are for communities around here. Many districts have synds. Ours is nice and steady at 8 and a half. We have districts like Chelsea a little lower, but it was a little higher. When they sell the bonds, it goes up. they start to pay it down, it goes down. So they're down at like six six millsish. They're like 7.5 right now. So 6.5 years. But then what happens is as they go up and now we can avoid that. So thank you. Does anyone have any other questions that you thought clarify here? Because we are in the last week here. I just want to use this opportunity that if people have things that they want to make sure Chris has a
013chance to comment on. I do have a I have I've seen this posted just um people have brought up question of the um they're calling it the athletic facility or the multi-use facility and how that I think some people think that just talk about that the benefit to students and the district and the bond is a combination. So, we also have a theater to build, a smaller theater, three or 400 seat theater, which is about the same cost as the indoor athletics. Um, it's not that far off when we start calculating what it takes to figure out how to put that into a middle school with parking and accessibility. The indoor athletic space could end up in the end being a little more depending on what site conditions we have to do, parking lots that.
014But we've an we analyzed during the process how often our gyms are used. And what we've seen is the high school gym for example use an average of 40 hours a week year round outside of what we do with it for school. So the indoor athletic space was to help accommodate the fact that we have I think 1,400 athletes that play in our middle school through high school sport. We have 3,000 registrations for K6 to play some activity in our schools in the gyms around the field in the rec department in the community. What we're seeing is we need more indoor space. So the high school gyms 30,000 square feet roughly. So it's just picture a bigger gym, but it could be a couple gyms. It could be an indoor space. It the committee they'll
015have to figure out what it is and what functions. All we did was budget a a placeholder in terms of dollars and we'll let a committee design what it does. But if you look around the state even in the area Lincoln has bright Seline and Chelsea are in the process of working on Jennison just open there's the west side of state every district private schools all have the reality is the winter weather we can't get outside of Michigan. So if we want to be able to make sure we provide the opportunities for our kids in our community, we need some space for us. We cram them into gyms, the Creek Side Gym and the WY gym, we use so much we have to reset. We can't see the floors down anymore. We got to replace
016the new floors. So we use every space and we're the rec department for all 84 square mile districts in two counties and we cut through eight townships. There's no city that has city or municipality that actually has a recreation park. We serve that purpose for the community which puts load on our space and we're always getting requests for additional space all the time and we are sh we're constantly moving it around like chess pieces and anybody that's had kids go through here or ran a sport they clear to go yeah we need more indoor space I build it detached from the high school and open it up in the winter for community members we figure out a lot of communities have like a box system and there's a walking track or something inside where they
017can pop in. It's not in the school. It's se separate. So, it's accessible in the winter for community and we run community. There's no reason we couldn't. Sure. Just have to divide it. But first, we need voters to vote to pass it so we can build. So then along those lines, another question I think is an interesting question is the um maintenance the cost to operate additional facilities and is that going to significantly impact most likely we'll have to move some staff or we treat it. It depends how it's designed design with a lobby space etc. staff over at this time June March June and we don't need an extension of what we're operating right I guess like the whole thing like the 240 million of all of the changes is there going to be
018a significant increase in maintenance cost it should reduce some it actually should reduce general fun cost because it's more expensive to fix things after they break for example we had a wash out at the high school parking lot one The sewer mains has washed out the parking lots emergency repair. How much is that this week? I we last time it was 15,000 and that was out here at base and that was 10 years ago. So I can't imagine but it seems it's better to fix it before it breaks. Yeah. Than to do the and we can add efficiency. So whenever we replace our HVAC system or our window, we save significant because it's just more efficient carpet. When you replace the carpet, you don't have to do the same repairs. You don't maintain. Um, the
019only thing I want to say is I just want to draw the community's attention to our website for the bond yet again. And I want to remind people that the frequently asked questions are continually updated and new ones were posted over the weekend. And I want to thank the district staff for continuing to field the questions and get the answers up on the website so that everyone. All right, our student representatives are heavy into spring sports, so we will move on to They like to practice in the winter. They do. They do. At least it's a nice day for them. Um, so we're going to move on to consent items. I'll move that the board of education approve consent items. Second. Okay, we have a motion and approval. Any discussion? All those in favor of
020approving the consent items, say I. I. Any opposed? We have some retires and retirees. And thank you very much. Okay, on to our um on to our action items. First up, we have a new WY principal. Our packet includes a recommendation to hire Janette Pieran as WY principal effective July 1st, 2025. I'll move with the board of education offer Janette Pieran a probationary administrative contract. second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? We're just so happy to have the apply. We went through a long process. Barb ran the process with uh I forgot the number of staff members in the packet. Big number of staff community members. Uh Jenna had go through the gauntlet model. We have interview with three different committees, three different sets of questions. Um it's probably been when you
021count it's been three formal interviews but five actual interviews to get through the process. Um all of her references were passionately and she has a vested interest to make sure that she does a great job because she has peace in the building. So that's a good way to connect. Um we're just happy. Wonderful. Thank you for coming and introducing yourself to us and for bringing your family. Yeah, we're really excited to get to know you. family becomes part of you guys. You have a impressive resume. Lucky to have and I'm sorry we'll miss you. All right, because this is an action item, let's do a roll call. Mr. Oliver, yes. I congratulations. Okay, now on to the boring things. Um, our evening's packet contains two policies. 3305 sale or lease of district property and 4220
022use or disposal of district property. These were approved for first reading March 14, 2025 and are presented this evening for second reading and final approval. The board of education approve policies 3305 and 4220 for second reading and final second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Pretty straightforward. We did have time to discuss them under so I riser I thank you. Um the WY walk-in freezer and cooler. Our packet includes a purchase recommendation and bid tabulation to replace the LY kitchen walk-in freezer cooler from food and nutrition director Jennifer Madison. Funds for this purchase will come from the nonprofit food service account as approved by the excess fund balance plan. Board of Education award contract for free Adrian mechanical services over $84,32 and include a contingency price of 25,000 price 109,3. We have
023a motion and a second discussion. So we have as part of food nutrition service we are not allowing balance over a certain um as the state has shifted to paying for meals for all students that has changed our model. We have to keep our model set on the fact that we generally get very state reimbursement. So what it's done throughout the pandemic and then to now we built up fund balance and entering an agreement with the state to be able to make sure we spend that on the right and we are the food nutrition department or service takes care of their own equipment. So the widely walking freezer needs to be replaced. The reason for the large contingency is because there's a wall that may or may not be or partially. So, we need to
024have enough. There's there's a site condition. It depends on what's behind that wall because it's an old building. So, when we tear part of that wall, we're not sure what else will have to be done. So, there's a small amount. Make sure that we have buffer. There shouldn't be that much. But I was curious that nobody did the first time this went out. It's Yeah, they like what's is a difficult thing to No, the market right now um for contractors is they want bigger jobs. big job, which is why passing a bond allows you to get contractors. You get good pricing because they get long-term job. We're battling University of Michigan and they're constantly battling with the same and other districts that are doing bonds. So, a company like Adrian Mechanical that does a lot
025of the work over the years schools and big businesses, it's one freezer and it's their market. they're going to make like 10 grand out of it. So they it's a lot of work to be able to put the bid together, especially when you're being paid out of specialy funds that are tied to everything we spend for schools is always tied to other so they know they got to meet a certain requirements and sometimes they're like it's not worth putting the bid. That makes sense. There's a slight Mike just pointed out there's a slight inconsistency between the numbers 302 versus 304. So I don't know which approve the total price of 109304 just pick one 302 Any questions? [Music] I thank you. Um, next up is the retirement non-spending resolution. On April 15, 2025, a settlement
026was reached on an 8-year-old legal case regarding school employees and the Office of Retirement Services calculations. The settlement included a process for local boards to affirm that payments given to employees who retire were not intended to create a spike in their retirement calculations. The attached resolution was crafted by our attorneys to provide the necessary documentation for retirees. I'll move that board of education. I'll second. We have a motion and a second discussion. So there has been a long series of cases gone through the Michigan Supreme Court back. Um what happens they in the rulings they said anybody that is in a collective bargain agreement whatever their increases were final. It's whoever is not in a collective bargain agreement. They say you have to have salary schedule and you can't get a spike. So the last
027year spiked for your final average. So they just came out with this. They they have two groups. They have a group that retired before 2021 20. They have a group P that retired is that either retired between that 2020 2021 date and June 30th. But the way it's written there might be people in the future. They're not Um, but we've had people retire. For example, we had an indep individual contract employee that retired recently that was in a very unique job that's hard to fill and hard to keep. And the increases they have at 8%. Well, 8% of 50,000 is not a lot. So sometimes when we got through the pandemic, some of the cost to keep people in specialy roles became more expensive. For example, a diesel. It's not easy to find this. So,
028but when they end up doing increases, it may have gone over the 8%, but it was never meant for spending. So, the resolution helps out people that have already told us they're retiring or already planned so they don't get hit on us, which was never meant to be. roll. I als Thank you. Um, next up is our discussion item and we have our quarterly financial narratives. Um, periodic more than quarterly. um owner of this evening's packet includes detailed financial summaries for the uh quarter ending March 31st, 2025. These were prepared by department directors, building principles, and business office staff. They are presented for discussion this evening. This is part of transparency with the community. We we're one of the only districts that do this and you can see by these are wonderful. Yeah. And it
029makes sense. You're not looking at that spreadsheet. What do they do? I mean, it's actually here's what we did. Here's what's going on school, how much money we spent. This is what we plan to do. They're pretty neat. I appreciate looking at the allocated budget they spent to date and things and it seems everybody's target and I I I really appreciate I know a lot of work a lot. So, it's very nice to see that you like, okay, now I understand what's happening. Thanks. Finance team. Yeah, I really like having the dollar amounts there. Percentages really helpful. And we include everything we spent dollars. We just keep updating page. No, it's a it's a really clear document. I really appreciate all of the I don't know. It's like the little details too that I think
030make it very meaningful about what's happening in buildings in different areas and it it does help people see how so any questions for the people this is every month and every at least everywhere this comes They did look at the budget spreadsheet. We we talked several times on like, you know, weaning ourselves off money and things like that. As long as we continue to refine how we're doing that. Yeah. Okay. All right. It is now time for our second opportunity for public participation. Is there anyone here who would like to address and moving on to board comments? If the student rocks say that eighth graders are in BC, my son who's in seventh grade was enjoying the abundance of quiet in that building. I'm sure your daughter was saying the same. Um yeah, obviously spring
031birds are well league is going on people all the time. All the time. Well, if anybody wants to question our whole director department drive by. Oh jeez. Even on Sundays at 4 4:30 p.m. So um it's great to see it and it's great the weather is nice today. what they would have seen me process here. You know, you look at all of the new programs that have to hopefully other kids do prohibitive process that's not working. Yeah. No, the same ide all these clubs that we want. We use our space. Or use the spaces. We use the spaces. I um attended the high school production of Mavia this weekend and um but it was amazing. So I uh I I just it's hard to understand how much work is put in. It's only been two
032and a half months I think they've been working on this production and the quality of the show, the the excitement of the kids. Um just and the inclusiveness of the club is is really impressive. I just want to do a huge shout out to that. Um the millillage is important to me. Um, I I um I see a lot of u of of opportunities in all of the areas that that are on the boards and everybody should come and check these boards out um in terms of how they will impact the arts, um sports, each of the campuses, each of the buildings. Um, and I'm just really impressed by the amount of work that the bond stere and how much um, you know, impact it it has. This 8 and a half% revolving loan fund
033is a really interesting um, twist that is I don't think easy to understand, but it's really important for the community to understand that we need to maintain this this steady um, millillage in order to continue to be able to participate in the long run. otherwise our borrowing costs go up and it's just a huge ripple for the district. So, um I appreciate that we are not asking for an increase in the in the tax um and it hasn't been proposed that we did not authorize an increase but we are authoriz we did authorize the renewal and that again it needs to be remembered that none of the plans are are we still as Chris has said many times um there will be a process that we'll go through and they'll look at the the and
034people can join this committee um you know to to review what will be sent. And so I I just um uh really appreciate the that it's on the balance this time. I know it's been a lot of work. I appreciate all of your time the district has put in for holding the um the community listening sessions and if anybody has questions. Um it's never too late to ask. So, thank you for basically set up way better than I would have. But I do appreciate the voluntary year that balances the needs and the things with the other districts and cuts out a lot lot and I I do think it's very important to stay in school on the 8 and a half% that keep it at that it's critical otherwise even if we drop down just
035a tick as I understand it all the other costs go up and so we're actually getting far less money yeah and then you're going to have this up and down wave and I people don't understand that I've tried not sure I get it exactly right Chris but You know, I'm excited about cautiously successful our kids, schools, facilities take care of the next number of years. Um I will also give a final um congratulations to the Dexter Drama Club and all of the um actors and the cast and the crew and musicians. Um, the board of ed received a very complimentary email from a reviewer. Um, I'm actually not sure what publication um, but a wonderful review will be coming out about this um, uh, production and in my time on the board, we have never
036received a special email from a reviewer to say how well done production was. So, I thought that was very notable and everyone should be really, really proud of themselves. Yeah, the kids had so much Great show. What do you say? The best high school. The casting was perfect. Yeah. Yeah. The best high school music. All right. Um, can I draw your attention to the last page? Um, just want to give a shout out to the Dexter Dots. Uh, they last week competed in Houston at the world uh competition and they had a great showing. Um they competed with um 3,100 out of 3,100 teams they finished probably 80th in the world by my calculations. Um we uh yeah we uh we qualified uh 11th in our division and we got picked by Alliance number six
037and we lost in the fourth round of playoffs. So they had a great showing and we had a contingency of about 56 parents and kids to Houston. So it was a great great turnout and a great experience for for students. Definitely a great uh there was presenters from NASA and Space Force and Boeing. So the kids got to see a lot of industry vendors there as well. They saw Dreadnot. We actually competed against another Dreadnot team. There's another dreadnot team in Michigan in Pigeon, Michigan. There's the Laker Dread. Wow. Not the DreadCot. I think they're the Laker Lakers, right? Lakers. Yeah, there's only one on the red.