Board Of Education Meeting 2/10/26

001Good evening and welcome. This is the regular board of education meeting and this is Tuesday, February 10th. Uh roll call, please. >> Mr. Kuya >> here, >> Mrs. Dearie >> here, >> Mrs. Silage >> here, >> Mr. Salazar >> here and Mrs. D >> here. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. This is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business. It is not to be considered a public community meeting. There is a time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda. The mission of the Buckeye local schools is to empower

002students to excel in a highly competitive society. Approval of board meeting minutes. We need to separate this into two. Um the January 3rd meetings and then the January 13th meeting. So let's deal with January 3rd minutes. I seek a motion to approve those. >> Also move. >> A second. I'll second. Any questions or comments? Roll call, please. >> Um, Mr. Salivan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Bart, >> yes. >> Mrs. Cecilich, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mr. Kua, >> yes. >> Mrs. Gman, >> yes. >> Uh, a motion then for the January 13 uh, regular meeting minutes. >> So, move. >> A second. >> I'll second. Questions, comments? Roll call. >> Mr. Kuya. >> Yes. >> Mr. Salazar. >> Yes. >> Mr. Silage. >> Yes. >> Mr. Virgin. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Gungleman. >> I abstain because

003I was absent at that meeting. >> Let's move on to additions or modifications to the consent agenda. Are there any um additions? >> Yes. Uh Mrs. Cman, good evening. Uh we have just a few additions to the agenda this evening. We have two under personnel. We have an additional bus driver that will ask for approval tonight. We also have an additional pair of professional for the intermediate school that we'll ask tonight. Those weren't those two uh employment uh decisions weren't ready when the agenda got sent out uh last week. So I ask for consideration to add that to the agenda this evening. and also the expedited local partnership program from uh the OFCC for our facility plan came through. So we have added the elk agreement to tonight's agenda as well. >> All right, then

004how about a motion to um recommend the approval of the consent agenda with the additions? >> And I um I'd like to have the agreement taken off the agenda only because it came out yesterday and I we have not discussed it. I have not even been able to look at it. I have no idea what it is. So, I'd like to um do that next month's meeting. >> I make a motion to approve the agenda as presented by Jeff. >> Is there a second to say motion? >> I will second that. other than the one from >> uh roll call please. >> Mr. Kuya. >> Yes. >> Mr. Salazar. >> Yes. >> Mrs. >> No. >> Mrs. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Gun? >> Yes. >> Um at this time it is time for public

005participation. Um, is there anyone who has signed up to speak this evening? >> Yes, we have two. >> Thank you. Um, okay. Um, I see that we have one person with two comments. Um, Mrs. Swedingart, >> I I do have two, but I actually would like an opportunity to say three. Um, because it's it's cool. Uh the financial situation that is being forecasted for many school districts throughout Ohio, including Buckeye, is a major reason why the new high school is fiscally irresponsible and needs to be re-evaluated before an agreement is signed with the state of Ohio with the ELF agreement. As a side note, I actually wrote that before you added the ELF agreement to tonight's agenda. So when I say new high school, I now have to change that to say the new combined

006middle school and high school building for grades 7 through 12, which isn't the plan you presented to the community. You said it was a high school only building. I'll continue. It is impossible for me to fathom how we can anticipate saving $8 million in cash, which I see will need to be increased based on the last minute health agreement in a one-year period or any time period considering the unstable future of school funding at the state level. Idea stream January 277th article about Canton City Schools 17.7 million in cuts. The Chronicle Paper, February 4th, article about Yria Schools, $9 million cuts. The Gazette, January 28th, article about Wadsworth School's anticipated deficit of 6.7 million growing to 16 million. The Gazette, January 26, article, Madina City School, cites state funding challenges and student decline to evaluate

007long-term stability. Akan school TV channel 5 September 24th 2025 losing $7.7 million. Celledo schools talking cuts. Tippen schools losing 1.2 million a year. Buckeye even anticipating losses. I don't want to hear all the the stuff about it's the state or vouchers or rising costs or we're wealthy according to the state where it's complicated. I've heard all that and it's our spending. This is an example. Here's a recap of where we are since you decided to self-fund. August 2025, the board said okay to the new project before we had an ELF agreement. Then September 2025, Treasurer Donley stated future loss from state funding and uncertain about actual amounts that will be affected by. Then January 2026, Treasure Donley stated the same thing. Future state funding losses and uncertain about those amounts. The past one and a

008half months, seven other schools publicly announced future losses and making major budget cuts. Today, February 10th, 2026, regarding the 102page ELP agreement that was added last minute to tonight's agenda for approval, I'd like to point out these very important issues. One, it says it's a new 7 through 12 building. You said it was going to be a new high school building only. You also said the current high school will be renovated to house the current middle school grades seven and eight. >> Excuse me, Mrs. Mayor. Your time limit has 10 minutes. >> Okay. My first three minutes. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Would you like to >> I I would absolutely >> continue with your next comment. >> Yes. uh the uh you represented it out to the community and it's not how it says

009in the contract. This contract calls to abate and demolish Buckeye Junior High School and Buckeye Junior High. It says take these two buildings down. There are blanks all over the contract. Important budget prices are completely left out. The project budget states $78 million. The entire project needs to be funded and paid in full before we are eligible for possible reimbursement. The self-fund advertise price to the public has been $65 million. There is no price for the performing arts center which is a locally funded initiative paid entirely by the district. I also see two gyms in the plan and you said there would only be one standard gym. It is time to rethink this plan. It is not too late. Stop the spending before it destroys us. We all know about future potential loss from the

010state based on reports. We all know our emergency levy ends at December or um 2027. We all know our bond request for a new building has failed three times by an average of 65%. Moving forward with this new junior high in high school and performing arts center is going to land Buckeye in a greater financial detriment that we already are expecting on the books. A board member's job is not only to look at the best interest of the students. It's also be to be good stewards to the community in financing and communicating. This means keeping students safe while helping them learn within the means of the school's funding and holding meetings in public according to law. I have to say I believe if you move forward with this ELP agreement, you will be in neglect

011of your fiduciary responsibilities. As board members, I need you to make sure you understand my perspective. I truly believe this is not in the best interest of the community and students. I will be seeking legal counsel regarding financial negligence. That is not a threat at all. It is an invitation to talk to you and so come up with better pro uh problem solving. We know our levy passage history. We know the public's vote on the last three bonds. We know school finance future is uncertain and we are collecting on an emergency levy at this moment. I am seriously begging you to either vote no or to at least table all of this 7 through 12 building and performing arts center spending for another day after more community involvement. I do have five questions I'd like

012answered. I would like to know from our finance committee exactly how they are planning for the anticipated losses in an exact breakout of where 8 million is coming from for this project. My second question is I would like to know how the finance committee plans on future repairs and maintenance for the current high school that is supposed to remain standing. >> Excuse me, Mrs. Sier. Your time has expired. >> Okay. I have three more points. Can I say them? >> You if you put them down in writing and submit them, we'd be glad to consider. >> Absolutely. I'll hand it to you at the end of the session. All right, then let's move on to informationational discussion items. >> Yes, I'm sorry. >> That was a different title. >> Very good. All right. Good evening

013everybody. Thank you, Mrs. Gman, and welcome aboard and welcome everybody who's here. Uh we're going to start off as always with our students of the month. So, thank you. I see a number of students and their families here. Uh we are going to start off with our primary school this evening. So, Miss Rivera, I know you're here. Uh good evening. And is Justin here? Yeah, Justin and his family are here. Excellent. So, come on up. Okay, I'd like to introduce you to JJ Bailey. As you can see, JJ is an extremely popular student in our building and I am delighted to share with you tonight and give you some information all about JJ. I had a chance to talk with him um today. So last month, just for a little background, we focused on the

014portrait of a book competency of perseverance. JJ joined Buckeye Primary School just this year, and nothing says perseverance like being a new student. JJ has fit in beautifully in his first grade classroom. He uh is a very active little boy, and I learned that he loves to play dodgeball outside with his playground bros. He loves PE class and recess. The more movement, the better. When he has an opportunity at indoor recess, he likes to play school with his classmates. He easily makes friends. JJ is very good at math, and is very kind to others. When he's at home, he likes to play Lego 2K Drive on his Xbox, collect his Hot Wheel cars. Am I right? >> What did I miss? >> Oh, yeah. That was his favorite day this year. Um, his favorite car

015is his Buns of Steel, which looks like a hamburger. His favorite movie is Spongebob. >> Yeah. And he can often be heard quoting the movie, oh, Tartar Sauce. >> Oh, Tarter Sauce. >> Tarter Sauce. He loves to eat chicken nuggets, especially if they are dino nuggets with ketchup. And when I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up, he said, "I just want to be a kid." And we think this is a great answer. So, I have a few of his teachers with us today to tell you a little bit more about JJ. As you can see, there's a lot of us here who love him. And there's just so much to tell. We couldn't even just bring one person. >> I know we're almost done, buddy. >> We'll be But what

016I want to say about him is he is an >> I know. I There's so much to say about you. He's an absolute delight to have in the classroom. He's a student who's had to overcome challenges and he's done so with courage, persistence, continuing to try even when tasks are difficult or frustrating. What truly sets him apart is his ability to use humor to stay positive, connect with others, and move forward through really challenging moments. His jokes, his smiles, his lighthearted attitude help him stay engaged in his learning and bring absolute joy to his classroom community. Through resilience, effort, and a great sense of humor, JJ shows perseverance every day. And he's a wonderful role model for his peers. This recognition is not only about overcoming obstacles, but about celebrating resilience, progress, and the strength

017it takes to show up and try your very best every single day. Our JJ reminds us that success looks different for every single person, and that perseverance is indeed something worth celebrating. >> Um, I also uh I'm JJ's first grade teacher, and JJ is truly a ray of sunshine. His smile and laughter light up any room he enters. He brings a smile to our faces and brightens our days. JJ loves with his whole heart, enjoys making others smile, and has compassion for everyone around him. JJ especially loves the number 67. >> 67 >> and he reminds us anytime it may appear in our day. He loves hugs, high fives, and fist bumps. JJ has a beautiful imagination and creative mind. JJ's perseverance is one of his amazing qualities. JJ is a student who has conquered

018obstacles in his life of perseverance and resilience. He works hard in the classroom and has grown in his confidence and knowledge along the way. JJ's classmates encourage him to try his hardest and achieve his goals. We are so proud of the hard work JJ puts in every day. Excellent job, JJ. Well, that's a great start. Nice job, JJ and teachers and parents. Everybody's here for JJ. Awesome. Uh, let's keep going in that same order. Mr. Wilson, good evening. Mike is our ele our intermediate principal. I think you've got Grady here, right? I do. All right. >> All right. I told Grady he had to present for two minutes. So, go ahead. You ready? Not so much. I'm sorry. I got you. All right. So, as M. Rivera said, we were talking about perseverance and perseverance

019at the sixth grade level is all about the middle school transition and it's all about grit. It's a stage where school starts getting more complex. social lives get a bit messy. They definitely get a bit messy and the easy wins from elementary school start to fade and things sometimes get a little bit tougher. So what happens is, you know, students learn how to ask for help and, you know, students start learning how to learn how to recover from a mistake. If they forget something or miss a deadline, they figure out a solution and they figure these things out on their own. And we really really strive to have students figure these out on their own um before they have to just come and rely on us for help. Um and then resolving conflict. We know

020in sixth grade there can be conflict with friend groups um possibly with a teacher or even sometimes they bring in things from home. They just want to discuss them with somebody at school. Um but you know we encourage them to think about what's going on to work through those things. And the most important thing about uh sixth grade is that um power of get um I love this because instead of just I don't get this or I'm frustrated, I'm not going to do this or math is stupid or whatever the subject might be. I love math. So maybe it's not math, but it's I don't understand this yet. Um and they work hard to try to overcome some of those difficulties. Grady got to sit down and talk for a little while today. Has a

021dog named Charlie. His favorite color is red. And he loves spaghetti. And he thinks that he should go out to dinner this weekend at I think it's Lorenzo's down in Ashland. And then maybe some dessert out in Wellington. Uh there's a little like dairy shop out there. Um that's pretty cool. I've driven by it a million times. Neither of us could think of the name of it. So um parents that that one falls on you. Um I asked him who his favorite parent was. He did not fall for that question like most my other other kids as well. He said both parents because they're both awesome. Um and as I said before, he does love math. Uh he loves karate, likes to play soccer um in Boy Scouts and he did the crossover last year.

022We go Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts and he likes to go to church and be involved in youth group. Uh and he hopes that he gets to play um football. Um, that's another one that owns on you. Um, what I thought was really cool is that he would like to own a bakery when he's older. He loves to bake. He says he likes to bake with his brother and he likes to bake with his mom and says that mom's the best baker in the family and she makes the coolest cakes and they are crazy good. So, um, see, and then he likes school because he gets to see his teachers and friends. Um, and I thought that was great. So, we had a little bit of a conversation about continuing in school and maybe even

023the culinary program at the career center or something like that. Um, and he was excited about those options as he moves on to junior high and high school. From his teachers, this is from Mrs. Such Gray is a great addition to our classroom. He's responsible. Nope, this is not I think I'm backwards. Sorry. Uh, he's responsible each day for lunch count and is up to new challenges. when they are difficult. He impressed me at sixth grade camp as he preserved through many new and difficult tasks with a smile on his face. And I look forward to seeing him each morning and love when he tells me about his latest interest or newfound joy in learning. I know he'll continue to grow at the junior high next year. And then from Mrs. D, we're delighted to

024announce that Grady Dean, a dedicated sixth grade student, has been selected as student of the month for Buckeye Intermediate School. Grady is being honored this month for his exceptional perseverance and drive to learn. His teachers have noted his outstanding work ethic and unwavering commitment to overcoming challenges in his studies. Grady consistently demonstrates a commendable attitude towards his education. When faced with a difficult concept or assignment, he never gives up. Instead, he approaches the challenge with curiosity and a determination to succeed, showing all of us what it means truly be a driven learner. His effort sets a wonderful example for his classmates and contributes positively to our entire uh school community. One day, Grady was struggling to sit in his seat. I asked him if he needed to drink to go get a drink or to

025go for a walk. And his comment was, "Mrs. D, I'm just so excited to learn today, I can't sit still." Every day asked what he can do when he is finished with his given task. I've never seen a student um who wants to learn or someone who works so hard every day. and his parents said that in his journey of confusion and misunderstood behaviors, Grady transitioned to understanding, acceptance, and empowerment. Grady has successfully accomplish this through the compassion, kindness, and patience of Buckeye teachers and staff, and continues to show his growth and his constant willingness to want to learn. So, it is my absolute honor to present Grady Deon as our Buckeye Star student. You sure you don't want to? >> All right. Great. Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. ML from our junior high. And I

026believe >> Good evening everybody. Um Mr. Glazer representing the junior high. We have Brendan. It is with great pride that we recognize you for outstanding contributions to our school community. Your hard work, character, and positive energy have not gone unnoticed by our faculty and staff. This year you have truly embodied what it means to be a leader and a friend. Staff members have shared the following reflections on your progress and they're both here with us tonight. Uh, Miss Atkins and Miss House. Um, Miss Atkins shared that Brendan comes to school each day with respectful and kind attitude. He works hard in every class and goes out of his way to check on his friends. Brendan consistently has a smile on his face and done a fantastic job this year. We are all so proud of

027him and his progress he has made so far. Miss House shared that Brendan sets an example of his for his peers. He is a hard worker who will persevere through the most difficult situations. He is respectful to everyone and overflows with kindness. Brennan sets a standard for portrait of a buck. Whether you are demonstrating your skills of playing the piano and violin, expressing your creativity by crafting paper dolls, or simply taking a well-deserved break to relax and watch Spongebob. Brennan, thank you for being a role model. Your perseverance, your challenges, and your genuine kindness toward others make our school a better place. We look forward to seeing all the amazing things you will continue to achieve. Congratulations, Brendan. >> Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. G. >> Thank you. >> Okay. and Miss Stuck, our high school

028principal. Adam, good evening. I believe there's >> All right. Good evening, uh, members of the board of education and all of our guests here tonight. Uh, tonight I have the absolute pleasure of recognizing our student of the month for Buckeye High School, is Claire Milton. Claire time and time again demonstrates each of the eight components of our portrait of the bucket as well as our ongoing pursuit of our high school mantra of raising standards and exceeding expectations and literally everything she does. Claire is currently ranked in the top 10 class of 2026 and is a tremendous example of what it means to be a buck. Claire consistently demonstrates leadership, academic dedication, and a strong commitment to serving others. Claire is involved in leadership opportunities all across our our entire building. Claire is a member of

029Buckeye High School student advisory panel, which in all reality, she can take some of the credit for the creation of that of that group. She also serves as a freshman, works as a math tutor, and as a leader in unified schools. Claire has also represented Buckeye students by participating in Mr. Stam's superintendent roundt meetings and is an active member of the National Honor Society. Most recently, Clare helped represent student voice by participating in the visionary planning process for our uh school facilities. In the classroom, Claire challenges herself with a very rigorous schedule that includes a really long list. I didn't name them all, but to name a few, AP Cal, AP Gov, AP Precal, CCP College composition, along with several several other advanced science and math courses. Claire's approach to academics is with laser focus,

030determination, and a strong work ethic. Claire is also dedicated to helping others. She has volunteered at the Valley City Frog Jump Competition, worked for more than 45 hours supporting youth volleyball camps, and has volunteered for the Dina County Library. Outside of school, Claire balances multiple jobs. I think there are multiple jobs. You put them all down at once, so I'm not sure currently, too. Okay. Um, and where are those right now? >> I'm volleyball coach um at a club and then I'm a host. >> Okay. I was still hoping you were working at Malie's Chocolate the Valentine's Day. Uh, athletically, Claire is a three-year varsity letter winner on the volleyball court has and has competed in club volleyball for for many years, earning multiple academic and athletic honors along the way. Clearly Claire truly re

031represents the best of Buckeye High School and we are super super proud of her. I had the opportunity to sit down with her the other day and ask her some really hard questions that I I don't think are hard, but man, when you ask students to identify a couple of these that really can cause some some head scratching. The first one was her favorite high school memory. Cla said her senior night for volleyball, which is truly a very, very special night for our girls. Her favorite class. She waffled on this one a little bit. She changed it last minute. Uh it was fifth grade with uh Miss Vetric and Miss Palro because of all of the all of her friends in that class and just the wonderful class that that was all the way back

032in fifth grade. Um she'd like to give a shout out to Miss Red for being an incredible teacher and an incredible person and somebody that she knows that she can talk to um about life. And she wants to shout out her mom and dad specifically for all the amazing things that they have done for her over the years. Go ahead and cry if you want. It's fine. And dad for a lot of transportation to and from volleyball. I'm sure you enjoyed when she got her driver's license. As a parent, I I value now that my son can drive and drive himself. So, I'm sure it's fond fond memories. Ladies and gentlemen, our student of the month Congratulations to Claire and and to her her family. And I I would say that she has been a

033amazing part of of my superintendent student committee as well. So, thank you for that. I've enjoyed meeting you from from that perspective. Uh how can you not be excited about the students in our school district when you hear and see the stuff that we just saw? Congratulations to everybody. Okay, so just uh as usual, those of you who come to other board meetings, you know what I'm going to say next. Uh thank you to the Buckeye Education Foundation for sponsoring our students of the month every month. Uh we're always very appreciative of the Ed Foundation. And we're going to take a break now. So for our families that are here, specifically just for the students of the month, we like to get some pictures. So come on up with your families in front of the

034backdrop and all that. We'll come back probably in about 10 minutes for the rest of the meeting. Um, you don't have to stay. We certainly would love if you do, but we understand if you don't. For the rest of us that maybe are here for the rest of the meeting, we're glad you're here tonight. And we'll get started again in about 10 minutes. Okay. Very good. >> Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to call the meeting back to order, please. >> Mr. Stanton, would you continue? >> We will continue. Okay. We've got some we've got some um presentations. The next part of the board or like we did the last couple months, we're going to have you as the presentation sit in the first row so you can see what's being presented and I'll find a

035place. So, we're going to do that. Our first presentation is from Miss Cuy uh the capstone presentation. I know we've got a student here as well. >> This is Julia King. >> Julia, thank you. I should have known that. I apologize. Uh so as soon as we get yours All right, we are here this evening to talk a little bit about a new class for seniors at Buckeye High School. We are calling it Portrait of a Buck. uh the senior SCA capstone class. So students are creating um community projects, community based projects to earn an English credit. The class members, there are only six kids in this class, but as soon as everybody finds out about this class, I think it's going to be much bigger next year. Uh with us tonight, we have Julia

036King. Everybody else was working or ill said that. So next, we base our class and all of our projects around the competencies for the portrait of a broad club and we made a big list of everything that we could do in our community to support those specific values. do a couple bit about this and our >> Yeah. So, we had a day at the beginning of the year where we just kind of brainstormed um just kind of got us this lovely poster that we got to write down and make it like a physical thing. Um so, we wanted to look at two separate areas that we could um involve ourselves. Um the Buckeye community and then the community outside of Buckeye. So, Madina County and things like that. So this is a huge that was

037just a huge list of all the ideas they had of ways that they could help our community either as in just Buckeye's community or when county and so they came up with a huge list of things and we narrowed it down. So we have crafting connections which is Julia Anderott's project. She's the only person doing that project. She um took us on a field trip over to what is it called now? It used to be Echelon, but now it's >> Story Point. Thank you. Now it's Storyoint West Madina. And uh we went over there and we uh passed out Christmas cards and Christmas cheer with a bunch of residents. And Julia just finished a craft over there by herself. She went and did it in the evening one night and she created um coffee filter

038butterflies with the residents. So they got to use watercolors and coffee filters and things like that. and she is in connection now with their activities director and she enjoys going over there and the residents love to see us. >> Yeah. And then our second project that we're doing is myself and four others. Um we're doing our senior sitdown podcast. So we really wanted to choose something that would engage Buckeye High School students, especially with the new phone laws and trying to really focus while we're at school. So we wanted to make something that was entertaining but also informational. So we talk about a lot of different topics. Some stuff being school related. So like sporting events, shouting out our fellow students um and classmates and also just like fun stuff, stuff that high school students

039want to hear about. Yeah, they were very excited to include some of this information from the Grammys that happened this past weekend. Uh we went on a trip way way at the beginning of the year. Uh Mr. Snook said, "You want to do a podcast? That's awesome." And then the kids said, "Well, we need like a podcast place and we need like a couch and we need this and I'm like, "Uh uh uh, okay." So Mr. Swim suggested, "Why don't you guys go thrifting?" So again, in order to give back to the Mazaga County community, we went to the giving place in Habitat for Humanity and we bought a table and a chair and a couch and a few lamps. Is that everything we got? And we ordered some other stuff from, you know, Amazon,

040but um the big stuff we got for a good price and also helped the community by supporting. Then we had lunch over at Cool Beans and I got to call the Cool Beans manager and he was very excited to have us and knew we were coming and was very happy that we were all there as well as the giving place. Stephanie was wonderful at the giving place. She talked to the kids, walked us through some of the stuff. They tried to bargain with her. She was no go. This is a picture from when we went to Storyoint Nursing Home. Um this was Julia when she was doing some of the Valentine's Day crafts. Uh this woman is uh hooked. She used to be a teacher. Um we think it may have been a long long

041time ago, but she still talks about all her students. And then this is a picture of them greeting a woman who was outside her apartment and was just so happy to see anyone and just talk with the kids. It was lovely. This is our podcast team. Um we have Ethan, Sophia, Julia, Hayden, and Shayen. And that's anything else you want to add? >> No. So, we're hoping to get more enrollment and we just wanted to share with you that that is what a portrait of a buck is. So, thank you. >> So, how did how did you dream up this and do other area high schools do this? >> Madina High School has the same class. It's called Portrait of a Bee and uh we were trying to develop new and more interesting English classes

042to get kids to stay here on campus and do things that will facilitate a more modern feel to English classes and uh we came up with this and I contacted the lady from Madina and she met with me and I got a lot of her information and things like that and we went from there. >> Anything else? >> Very nice. Just a comment. Thank you and thanks Josh. You know, I thank you for the invitation that you gave me earlier this year to come and talk to this class. It was a a great day back in September, at least from my perspective. Hope it was for yours as well. But, you know, we we talk about these competencies. We talk about the eight competencies that we say that we want every one of our students

043to experience as they are students in our district. That is incredibly important to everything that we do here. And yet, you know, as I as I mentioned in my last last month's presentation, I've mentioned before It's challenging because those competencies aren't something that you can just automatically rate and see how it's working. We don't get a report card score on our competencies, right? But yet, we know how important they are. To see those things come to life in an exciting elective class that our seniors are saying, "This is what I want to do." And to see what you did with that to to extend out into the community, just bravo. So, so thank you. Nice job to the students and just way to go. Keep up the great work. >> Thank you. >> All right,

044I am next with two presentations. I'm going to try to pull this off from the podium here if I can. Uh I think I'll be able to All right. And I apologize once again for um you guys see that the back side of me here. So um but okay. So, I wanted to present to the board and to the community an update for from our from our facility plan uh as I have every month and also wanted to bring into focus some of the work that GPD GPD architects are doing with us. So, um we see there can you slide up just a smidge? No. Okay, no problem. Okay. So the leadership team there um our our leadership team from G GPD from left to right uh we have we have Mark South there we

045go we've got Mark Southpac um he is the senior management leader for the project we have Aaron Rodenba who's going to be the project manager for us Abby Reneeri who is the educational planning and design uh person and we have Bill Prenisol uh from uh from GDP as well. What's interesting when we talk about Bill, Bill prior to his work with GPD for years was the lead person for the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. He was their guy. He was the main person. Uh he has left there, retired from there, and now he works for GPD. So, we've been very beneficial to have those experience in working with the OFCC. That is the main team that is working with us so far, working with our with our core facility group. um as we have gotten the

046project up and running. Okay, Vic, thank you. Uh the next slide here is just a a picture of Cloverleaf High School. Now, why am I showing a picture of Clover Leaf High School? First of all, because of the the familiarity that we all have with our neighbors that are just a little to the southwest of us. Um so, so that's certainly the first part. But, uh, Taylor, CTO Construction is the construction firm that builds, um, and they are the construction firm that is building our new high school and is helping us renovate this building as well. Slide up just a little bit. Okay. A little bit hard to see, but some of the campus experience that GPD has put together, they have done work at the Highland local schools. They have done work at over

047in Amherst and Lraine County. They have worked in the Akran public schools. They have worked in Hudson and uh they have worked in Berea. And Vic before you take that next slide up, I do want to talk about Berea. Uh Berea is actually a school that our core facility group along with some of our teachers just last week went and visited. So to see the things that GPD put together at at Bria was very interesting and certainly things we can learn from them. take it up just a little bit. Thank you. First impressions. So when GPD started working with us, they talked about how the first impression of a new facility, the impression that the community is going to see is so important in in in a in a con in a design construction facility.

048And what we see here, and again, I know it's kind of hard to see how it's projected this way. Um, and this presentation will be available to the community starting tomorrow morning. But we have a vision there of Hudson Middle School. On the left, you've got some pictures there of Cloverleaf and Triway. Uh Bedford, Bedford City Schools was a 68 building. Um they also did an elementary primary building in Bedford as well. You see Coventry and then you see some work that they did in Strongsville Middle School. And you'll notice a common theme in all those pictures of how as you are entering into this building, it is new. It is wow. It is so different than what we have been accustomed to for schools that were probably designed any time between the 40s and

04980s. I would say school construction looks so much different and there certainly is a wow factor as you walk into these new buildings. GPD has come out with us and has met with us and has surveyed our teachers so far. And so far, the survey and the information with our teachers has been primarily focused with our high school teachers. Now, that is going to expand a little bit as we get into making this building a 78 building for a year and then ultimately a middle school. We will expand, but for right now, we are talking only to our high school teachers. and GPD sent with the help of our curriculum director Bridget Elias and the help of help of our uh student services director Don Kashanic sent a survey out to our teachers before they

050came out and met. And here's what they said. Our teachers said, "Oh man, they're so excited. Can we get started? Can we get started on this project?" This was this was in November. Concerns. Our teachers said, "Listen, we're concerned about space. We're concerned about program specific needs and we want some clarity on the timelines. And last but not least, a recurring theme that our teachers told GPD on this survey is we need to make certain that our teaching staff is involved in the planning and design of what is ultimately going to become the new Buckeye High School. So what GPD said? No, one bad. Yes. Thank you. >> How that's all good. How are they going to use that information? We've also heard you got to prioritize communication and you know I have tried to

051bring a facility update to the board once a month. I've done that relatively consistently but I know I need to continue adding to my to my communication. Uh we need to make certain that our community, our staff, our parents, our students are always up to up to speed with what's going on with this plan. They made it very clear that they want to continue engaging directly with our staff and they absolutely have done that in the short time that they're working with us. Now, we're going to address some they address some practical concerns and as we look up here here at the practical concerns, those things make sense, right? Our teachers, especially at the high school and our junior high school, have become accustomed to working in a building that isn't ideal for learning. So

052our teacher said, "Oh, we're so excited that we're going to have things like new furniture. We're going to have windows." You know, we joke about it when we're in this facility all the time, but this is one of the only places in this complex that has windows, right? But it is, right? So our teachers said, "Yeah, can can we have some windows? Are we going to have proper air quality? Are we going to have additional safety and security features? And is the building going to have proper outlets?" Now, as much as those are practical concerns and I can say of course in new construction that stuff is going to happen, they are still things that are very important to our teachers and to our students. And obviously the enthusiasm was off the charts from our

053teachers as we are, you know, working working towards building a new high school. Thank you. So, what's the scope of the project? Again, not the best picture there, but but for everybody's uh knowledge, that is where we are building. You'll see some other uh u slides here as well. We are building a new high school on the corner of Wolf and Columbia roads, right? You know, not even an eighth of a mile from where we're standing right now. New Buckeye High School project. We certainly need to build a new high school. That's what we are doing. We are going to renovate the existing high school, the building we're in right now, to make a middle school. Ultimately, in that first year that this building is open in 2930 school year, this building will be a

054junior high school for one year. It will remain a seventh and seventh and eighth building. The following year in the 203031 school year, we will move the sixth graders to this building from the elementary school. that will allow us, we are hoping to expand our preschool opportunities for students in that building. And clearly, we have heard from the community that we would like more preschool here in the district by by the 203031 school year. We should be able to deliver on all this. Our new high school will include a new auditorium and then of course we will demolish our existing junior high school. Okay, this graph indicates how we're trying to put together the concept of everybody has some say in the design of this building. And understand this building has not been designed yet.

055We don't have a mysterious uh drawing that's going to show up. We are visioning this right now. We are designing. No pencil has been put to paper yet. But as you look up here, clearly, you know, the the small circle in the middle is the Buckeye core team. The core team is going to be two board members. It's going to be myself. It's going to be Mr. Donley, the treasurer. It's going to be other members of of the administrative team. It's going to include representatives from GPD uh architecture. It's going to include representatives from CTO Construction. It's going to represent, it's going to have our our owners rep uh from Westfield Consulting on it. And that is our core team. Our core team has been meeting consistently now probably since gez I'm going to say

056um our would you say November? November. Okay. Relatively consistent. That's the core team in the middle. The other equal parts of of our diagram up there are our students, our community, and our staff. It is very important to us that when this building is open that all three of our townships have an aspect of this new building. It is very important. So we are going to continue to engage with our community. We are going to continue to engage with our students and clearly our staff as we go through this project. Thank you. >> So where are we right now? This one I'm sorry I have 58-year-old eyes and not 38y old eyes. So I'm going to have to come a little bit closer for this. But our design engagement process, where are we right now?

057Here's our timeline, our time. Here's February. Here's where we're at right now. And I want to indicate what some of these colors mean. The light blue here is our core team. So you can see the work the core team has been doing. The darker blue is our staff. All of those indicate areas this school year or what will come up in the next couple months where our staff is is involved. The red is the survey. This is an interesting thing. In at in the month of January, uh GPD came in out and did something they call a fly on the wall. That was really interesting. I didn't know what that was going to be. GPD architects came out and spent a day with us here. They just observed. They watched our students. They watched our

058teachers. They wanted to see the flow of how this school works. And I thought that was a pretty cool experience. There is some surveys and some mini visioning that's coming up as well. In the middle on this screen, I want to talk about the educational visioning team. And actually, when I get done with this presentation, I'm going to give a little bit more detail on the visioning work. But we are visioning this project right now. Now, this is just a snapshot of what we've done between December 2026 and June of 2026. and I will continue to update that timeline for the board and for the community as we work through this project. Thank you. Okay, so our schedule you see between now and spring of 2027, it is all about visioning. It is all about

059design. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring of 2027 through spring of 2029. The project is supposed to be done on time and on budget. We move in and final final construction will take place summer of 2029 and through winter of 2029 when we demo the junior high school building. Pick it up one slide. Thank you. The process that is used again orientation engagement all the way down to the close out of the building. The steps that GPD will work with us throughout the entire project. Okay, our design approach again we're going to engage with the community, engage with our students, engage with our staff. Again, you see the small uh picture there of of where where we are located. One slide up. Okay. Educational visioning. I'm going to touch base a little bit more

060in detail on this when this presentation is over. But the the side the uh phrase that is on the right is very very important here. Our curriculum has to drive drive the design of this building. What we are teaching and what we are planning to teach going into the future has to be a driver of the design of this building. Because we build a building, we have to make certain that we are professionally developing our teachers and giving them access to the curriculum that is going to be needed not only in 2029 but in 2039, 49, 59, and 69. As best as we can figure that out. the site diagram itself. Uh the next few slides are all about the site diagram. You you see where where we're located there and where where this will

061be. Some things that that were noted by GPD. You know, we there is certainly a request from our staff and from their observation, can we get a little bit more green space? Right? We we have a lot of asphalt in our district. How can we make a little bit more green? Can we connect the buildings? We have my opinion here. We have an amazing bonus here at Buckeye that all of our schools are on one campus, right? Can we connect them somehow a little bit better? We have to. Anytime you have an opportunity to improve traffic flow, you're going to take that advantage. and and my experience with school construction has been not only by requirements but by practice traffic flow will improve when we come to a new facility. So we're going to again

062uh our scope is list is limited to the following things. We are going to build a high school. We are going to renovate this building to a junior high school and that is the plan. You see, daylight is a priority. Yes, daylight is a priority. Natural light is a very good thing. Okay. There are some logistical challenges in in our in in our building. You know, we don't have a huge amount of of of land to work with. So, we're seeing can we figure out a way to connect our schools with our stadium, our stadiums, our our the library across the street is such a great asset for for our kids and our staff. Can we organize the parking? Can we um can we organize the the the high school space to make it an

063academic uh facility, more of an academic facility and more of an academic campus? And the the early thoughts are we can certainly do that. That's it. That's the last one. Okay. So, I wanted to present and again this will be available on on on web page as early as as tomorrow. I want to present to the board and to the community what has been presented to our staff so far and the work that we're doing. This is a continual process. We continue to bring updates to the board and to the community as we work. Okay. I have some visioning things I want to talk about, but let's start stop for a minute here and I'll ask board members if you have any questions for me on this or any comments or or anybody I think

064Jeeoff uh the timeline that you show I think it's it's always going to be good and important for us to continue to show that being able to understand where we are. It's a long journey in order to get there right and making sure that we understand the work that's been done. What are those next steps in front of us and how we're going to end up collaborating with the more we talk about this as well the better plan being able to share that There's going to be some >> Yeah, we're excited. I mean, we we think the team that that we have here is, you know, not not only our internal team, but the architect and the CMR, we think they're just an A+, right? And we've seen that already. And we had all kinds

065of great options. I mean, everybody who did the job was was a great company. We're we're really happy about the work that we've already done. became and I believe that's going to continue. Mr. Salazar, you are correct. There are some hurdles coming. Okay. And there always are. We will work. Good. Okay. I'm going to quickly transition into visioning here just a little bit. I want to bring everybody up to speed as to what's going on with vision. And again, uh, understand that nothing has been designed in no way, shape, or form. But we had a visioning experience on on uh January 29th. We had some snow days in there, so we had to adjust the dates. And our next visioning experience is actually Thursday, so two days from now. There are two visioning meetings that

066were scheduled. So what is visioning? We had 50 to 60 community members, students, teachers, staff, parents, district partners have met with us and to meet with us again Thursday to begin to lay out a vision of the new high school from a physical plant perspective, from an instructional perspective, from a course offering perspective. It's really heavy work, I would say, but great and rewarding work. There are no drawings or renderings of any building at this point. We are visioning and we will get there. We're going to do a similar activity over the course of this project for our junior high school and sixth grade teachers as we transition this building into a junior high and middle school. Eventually, we will keep the community updated, but we we know that and want to do that with

067our junior high school teachers and our sixth grade teachers as well. The themes that came out of last week's visioning meeting in no particular order included these things. We heard loud and clear. Safety and security needs to needs to continue to be improved. There needs to be comfort. There needs to be spaces for collaboration. We need to be flexible. So if we build something in for a class so to speak, we don't know in 2039 if that class is still going to be there, if that class is still going to be relevant. So let's make certain that we build the state the the the school so we we it is flexible and innovative and we can move as as we move forward. Community identity was important engaging exciting curriculum for our stu for our students.

068adaptability and flexibility, social well-being, prep for life outside of school, inclusion for all of our students. These were the themes that came out of visioning number one. Now, here's the thing, folks. They weren't Jeff Stan's themes, okay? It was a hard meeting for me because I had to walk for about six hours we were here and I was given the direction that you can't be at these tables building what Jeff Stan wants. Okay, you have to let the visioning happen and let's hear what the community was saying. Let's hear what the teachers are saying. Let's hear what the staff was saying. These are the themes that came out of there. Some other things that we're doing, we are visiting some schools at this point. Uh we we visited last week the core team. We visited

069Berea as I mentioned a little bit. We had teachers, we have members of core team. Uh we went to Berea and were treated incredibly well and saw so many great things that they did there and also some things that they've learned uh to to not, you know, not do again. We also went up to uh we went north of here a little bit and we visited Magnificat. Now you might wonder why would we visit Magnificott? There's nothing that connects Magnificott to a public high school you know in the mag county but we are working with FY international for curricular perspective professional development perspective. FY international is also working with our friends in but FY international has done an awful lot of work at Magnific was a great day. Next uh next week we are scheduled

070to also visit uh our friends at Firelands and we are also gonna take the team forward. So the visioning experience is going on. It starts it starts again on Thursday. After that is over, there will be all kinds of comprehensive summaries of the visioning not only from me but from our friends at GPD, from CTO impact group, our communication group was here working with us. We will certainly get more formal summaries of visioning too. Okay. All right. Questions from the board on anything? I mean, I I'll just add that uh at I was able to be at the last visioning session. Um the role that the students played was phenomenal. Um each table had probably I'd say two to four students at it. And as a community member, I learned a lot about um what

071students like about this building, what they don't like about this building. Um, many of the students have been to other facilities around the area, so they kind of know what what they would like to see. Um, my confidence level in terms of what this new high school will look like um is very high because of the students and the staff that were in on those visiting sessions. They really do know what direction we need to go in from a curriculum perspective. And I think the role the community played was we we listened a lot as a community. Um, we listened a lot when when when students say, "Well, we don't really need lockers." I mean, as an older school, you know, high school, I mean, lockers take up a lot of wall space. So, that

072was interesting to hear our students and staff say, "Well, do we really need lockers?" And I was like, "What are we joking?" >> Um, so that was, >> right? >> What they tell you? >> They said, "No." I mean, it was it was I bet you most of the community members in there, including myself, were like, "Yeah, we need lockers." And staff and students were like, "No, we never use lockers." Uh so anyways, it it was it was I think the community's role was really powerful in sense of kind of reminding everybody that we're on a budget. Uh you know, yes, it sounds like we're going to build an $80 million school, but we have $58 million to spend. So, uh it was it was just a powerful day and it was a long day,

073but it was um it was powerful. >> Thank you. And thank you for for being here. response as well. I think going to see other facilities certainly a good idea students and maybe some of the community members. We've been to other high schools kind of know what's going on but you don't go in with that eye of what could be represented in Funky right what would fit for us. So going through that and finding maybe those best practices that other sites have that we might be able to adjust or adopt certainly a good idea and I would second the budget right think as we go through these visioning exercises and I know we talked a bit about this already but we have a budget we have to make sure that we're defining maybe our our

074wants versus our needs make sure >> Thank you Mr. Sal, are you going to comment on what you just said? One of the things that was very evident to me probably when we were at Berea more. Um, you know, the superintendent spent a large amount of time with us and and we we took we took a lot of people, right? It was a little overwhelming, right? Superintendent her team spent a lot of time with us, but we also had a teacher walking with us. We also had an operations director walking with us. So as to hear what they experienced with GPD and the build of that school and the design of that school from a teacher talking to our teachers from an operations director talking to Mr. Justice from a superintendent talking to me that

075was pretty neat. I want to remember because in my mind in 2030 2031 there are going to be people coming here saying hey can you walk us through I want to make certain of course we will say yes but I also want to remember that having members of that team connect with our team was a key so okay you good all right thank you for your time everybody thank you for your time >> you can suggest something. I know I don't want to get out of order with the agenda, but so you don't have to go back and forth for the financial presentation. I think you have three more items. I could jump ahead and do the five forecast. >> Yep. Why don't we do that? >> You got it. So, you want me to

076kick off my items right now? >> Concerned about your need. I want to give you excellent work, >> Mark. That's a good suggestion. >> Okay. So, my other items, Mark, this was very good. They are quick. So, just a uh we we Buckeye Day Buckeye Day is going to take place on March 11th. Buckeye day this year will happen at the high school. So if you remember two years ago we were over at the elementary last year at junior high. This year it is at the high school. Um our Wilma J. Bunch award for certified and classified employees of Buckeye. The nomination form can be found on the Buckeye website. That is an award that we give out at the beginning of the school year. So it'll be next year. Why do we put it

077on so so so early? Because as Mrs. Calvin tells me all the time, it takes a long time to get those nominations in. So, uh, thank you, Vicki, for putting that on. And last but not least, I'm sure you all know, but Monday is President's Day, so we don't have any school on Monday. Mark, that was a good suggestion from you. I see looked forward to you. >> I did. >> One good suggestion a week. Mr. Y. Okay. can see >> what's going to be presented, but in case there's a number you can't read or some can't see, before we have information, uh, ladies and gentlemen, I want to present the five-year forecast for the second half of our fiscal year 26. Um there's been a lot going on with all the state legislation of

078property taxes. Um it's and quite frankly Jeff and I were in a meeting just the other day with the the county auditor staff said they're still working out the implementation of the new tax laws. Um I've talked to several people consultants and I've got what the most common line of thinking is on what's going to happen to our funding. Um, I think it's important we all hear that, but also important to understand some of the things that we're doing and some of the plans we're making so we can be a viable school district for many, many years in the future. So anyway, um, if we can go just to give you a quick road map of where I'm going to go, we are going to go over some noteworthy financial impacts for the current year

079and into the future as well. Revenue expenditure changes and maybe some other financial issues that come up. and I'm going to get into projected revenues. I'm going to discuss that for a while and I'm also going to talk about our expenditures and then I'm going to try to summarize what I feel um we may have to you know tighten our belts and move forward together. But it's it's it's something that because of the uncertainty of the county auditor and it's it's getting more clear. But I probably will have an updated forecast in May once u maybe some better information available. Maybe the implementation of the tax laws out there. So for the financial income tax, of course, the legislators passed four new tax bills. Sometimes they pass one tax bill and we we adjust to

080it. Four new tax bills. They interact. They they affect each other. Um but House Bill 129 includes emergency levies in the 20 mil floor. So that reduces the value of emergency levies over time as it gets absorbed the floor. House Bill 186 caps the millillage increases to the rate of inflation is that property tax uh uh increases the actual property value increases. The thing is until recently our property valuations have not climbed like they have in the last five years. This is really a one in a century kind of thing. It's kind of a correction on home values and there's a few reasons behind it, but it private equity firms coming in, buying up homes, fixing them up, and making money, and reducing the supply of open homes. But it's it's a long story. Um,

081House Bill 309 grants greater authority to the county budget commission who could look at our finances and our cash balances, and now they have the authority to say, "You don't need all the money you've levied." and they could reduce our levies because they feel we don't need the money. They they have that authority. Um, House Bill 335 caps inside millage revenue growth because there's 10 mills inside. It's kind of difficult to explain, but the first cap is on outside millage, the second is inside millage growth. So, they're cutting off the growth of our property taxes. So, our property taxes will not grow at at a steep rate. I'll explain later how that impacts our financial forecast and in schools in general. Also, emergency. >> Sorry, just a quick question. With the four house bills, we

082don't know the impact yet. Do we know the timing? >> Um, they're they're all different. One, >> will any of them impact 25 26? >> The answer is yes and no. And I'll try to The answer is no. We'll get all the funds from those two and 26, but they make up for it at the beginning of 27. So they kind of come back and grab what they didn't grab in 26. So sorry about the confusing answer. That's what happens. Um our emergency levy expires in December of 27, so less than two years from now. That raises 3.2 million a year. Um House Bill 129 will decrease the value of that as it gets absorbed into the 20 mil floor. So 3.2 million may be 2.8 million, 2.5 million, then it's gone. Um other noteworthy

083financial impacts, um the board approved the new high school plan, as we've all heard many, many times. Um we're going to demolish the junior high. We're going to renovate this building. Um this will involve using cash reserves and taking on new debt to be serviced from current revenue streams, but not general fund revenue streams. We have an 071 sales tax revenue stream that brings in about a million and a half a year. We also have an O3 permanent improvement revenue stream, those can be used to service the debt, not impacting general funds. Um, I just said this, but that while the debt will be service 3 and the 071 sales tax revenue, they're not part of this forecast. But it's important to note that funds available for future capital improvements will be reduced because now

084we're paying debt. But we're taking care of a lot of our capital needs with a new building. Getting rid of an old building that's a bit of a maintenance nightmare. Updating this building with the most urgent needs being addressed. Taking care of roofs and parking lots and swing sets and and playground sets currently with other funds we used last year and we're going to use this next summer. We're taking care of a lot of those capital needs. So, we may not need big chunks of money for capital projects in the future. So, we're not too concerned about only having $600,000 a year for capital gains. >> Um, >> Mark, I'm sorry. Permanent improvement is how much? Sales tax is 1.1 million. >> Sales tax is 1.45, maybe 1.5 million. Depends on what the sales tax.

085The 850,000 or so from uh PI money3. That's uh that actually got a bit of a bump, but that may or may not stay there. We get 50 grand. maybe it goes down 800,000 a month. Um, other things that we have to be concerned with anytime I put together a 5year forecast, state foundation, where is that going? And quite frankly, state foundation has been flat, but for some odd reason this year, we got $300,000 bump in what they're giving us. It's not unappreciated, but it's it's not the amount of money we're going to lose from the property taxes, but it's helpful. I still re I still project state revenues to stay flat. Just as an example, in 2000 we have 5.2 million coming in from the state when our budget was around 156 billion. 25

086years 26 years in the future we're getting 5.9 million from the state. Not exactly a lot of growth. So we can't really count on the state bailing us out just so we we that's why we go to the property tax property owners because we can't and we ask for support and when we get that support was very much appreciated other revenue expenditure changes with the new property tax legislation with the new property tax uh legislation and resulting decrease in revenue Buckeye local schools will have to critically review all current and future expenses to ensure we're getting best value for all expenditures. I've always defined value as the best combination of price, quality, and service. We have got to find the best value for how we spend our money. So the taxpayers and our students and

087our staff can continue to do what they do with the students, but our staff needs to have the materials and the the the tech and all that to do what they do. Our students deserve a good education. We cannot short change the students just because of money. We've got to figure out a way. Without the expected revenue increase and the property tax reappraisal, Buckeye local schools will have to search for new revenue streams and or reduce costs to ensure we maintain adequate cash reserves and we can sustain ongoing operations in the district. The sooner you make systemic changes, the less the impact is. This is a bad example, but say you realize we need to eliminate some positions. you eliminate three positions this year, if you wait three more years, now you're eliminating 17 positions

088or something because it builds up. So, the sooner you can make choices and and if we can do some things, and I'm not saying eliminate positions, but that that was the only example I come up with. Um, also, we most likely will be in a deficit spending situation shortly. As with all deficit spending situations, like I just said, public education, the sooner we implement a new plan, the less drastic the impact will change. Okay, let's go over the revenue forecast. This only includes general funds. So when I talk about bond improvement, PEI, sales tax, food service, uh uh federal funds, those are not part of this forecast. It's just general fund or operating money, turning the lights on, payroll, salaries, supplies, those things for operating the school districts. General property tax, personal property tax, and

089state reimbursement for property tax credits are all local revenue sources accounting for 76.2% of our revenue, which is over 25 million currently. The previously expected bump in fiscal 26 and again in fiscal 27. And the only reason why it's kind of hard to explain, but our fiscal year starts in July, ends in June. The tax year starts with the calendar year. So their first half is our second half. It's kind of hard to explain. It's something to get used to as a treasurer. But you get part of the bump in fiscal 26, we get the other part of the bump in fiscal 27. So we have two years of increases with the reappraisals. Um, however, with the way the tax law is going to be interpreted, our 20 mil, excuse me, our emergency living will

090make us go above the floor because it's included with the floor calculation. Therefore, we do not get a reappraisal bump. We simply get what our tax uh our effective bills would generate based on the balance. So, there is no major bump. state aid is projected to rem remain relatively flat and investment revenue which last year was pretty significant um went from 550,000 up to 1.7 million because we've moved a lot of funds significantly into the 070 account a lot of interest that's generated by those funds is going into the 070 account so over the course of this fiscal year we'll get over $2 million in interest but most of it's going into the 070 account directly because that's what the funds So that those as if you ask where did the 8 million come from?

0912 million comes from interest. Another million came right away from the bond retirement fund. And between the PI money and the sales tax money, there's another $2.5 million right there. So that's a big chunk of our 8 million we're going to put away this year. Um so let's get into the actual numbers. This is the current forecast that I'm projecting right now. Our revenue streams actually this year they don't be where we rejected them just because like I said they can't react the tax bills already created before the governor signed the bill December 20th December 19th. So they're going to have to backtrack and claw back some of those top dollars they're going to pay us this month and part of next in August and September. They're going to take some of that money back.

092So our revenues will be about the same for here. Our um property personal property tax also the state reimbursement. So we're this year we're solid these I don't know if you've been on fiveear forecast presentations this year but this $3.8 million it looks like a nice revenue bump that is simply a transfer from the 06 fund which is part of the general fund. They closed it down so I had to transfer the money in. It looks like revenue it's not. It's simply transferring money from the right hand to the left hand kind of thing. It's all general and these other items here are other we had bands that came back in a couple last year and also for 56,000 we get reimbured in the the career center for lead away teachers work in our district

093we pay anyway our revenues it's not quite 38 million because it is but we're still $34 million of revenue we're doing well the next few years We take a significant drop here and part of that drop is money that they gave us too much of in 26. So we're going to go from 18 million to 16 million. But really our personal property tax drops and our state reimbursement drops. So it's like a $3 million loss next year. And then the following year because in 2018 we lose our we lose our emergency living and more of the our village caps kick in. We dropped from 16 million down to 15 and a half slightly more. All of our other revenues continue to drop. So our total revenues, we're 34. We dropped to 31, now we're down

094around 30. Um, and it continues to drop to 29. Um, because of the cap uh situation with the inflation uh cap for any increases in property values. So we will not get what I thought earlier, excuse me, last I will not get a reappraisal bump for 29. So revenues all in all they really don't look too bad. We're going to stay about 34 million down to 29 million or so. It's not too bad. It's manageable. But let's move on to expenses and find out where we're at with this. And I want to say one thing right now. our expenditures, general fund expenditures. It's not related to the capital project, the new high school, except for one item. I'll point that out. Um, okay. Didn't turn out like I wanted it to, but the red line

095is the projection we had in the fall where we were with revenues. Um, this is the projection we have now, the lower revenues and between Between this is fiscal 20 8 9 30 the next four years there's 11 million worth of revenue being built not over what we were going to next slide and here's a comparison of revenues I hate when things don't work comparison of revenues that I projected in the fall to where we're at in the the highlight. Sorry about the highlight, but I was just trying to point out how some of these revenues were definitely decreased in a big way over what we projected. Okay, expenses. Uh before I go on board, is there any question expense forecast? Payroll expenses will increase this year as they always do because there's raises. Employee

096raises, new cleaners will add maybe another position or two, but we will have increased payroll expenses. Employee retirement insurance is a function of their payroll. So those will increase as well. Purchase services have increased because this year legal utilities that our electric bills are going through the roof right now. So utilities up transportation costs um we had some service contracts transportation special education services and needs ESC costs have all risen over the past two years supplies materials increased this year as custodial maintenance and transportation needs increase plus some of the capital projects and other maintenance projects that operations department is doing it's not you know million-dollar projects but there are projects that because we got to go out and buy supplies and more paint or more uh HVAC equipment that all adds to the increase

097in the supplies And the capital outlay has increased this year because we're trying to continue with different projects and different things we need to do. We purchase some vehicles and we've done some other things too. But um we know we can't continue spending at this rate. So let's take a look at the numbers. Go to the next page. Our expenditures for payroll are projected to go up. We have expenditures here in the retirement benefits. This year is low by 400,000 because a bill that should have come in in June didn't came in in July. So 400,000 not paid last year and it will be paid this year plus the amount that wasn't paid last year. So it's really $800,000 increase just because of medical bills that that we pay $4,000 a month. So this looks

098like it's really high. That's just a function of timing. Anyway, our expenditures, we're not in horrible shape this year. In fact, um we have transferred I don't know $3.8 million was transferred into on the revenue side. The 3.8 million is included in this number here being transferred out. There's another 3.2 million actually there was 3.2 million plan transferred to the project. This is the one impact on general fund on the capital project fund. We're transferring 3.2 million but in an effort to maintain general fund balance thinking we only transfer 2.2 million keep an extra million into the general fund because our budget was 65 million. We were going to come up with 60 uh $63 million and interest would feed the rest of the budget. If we short change ourselves by $1 million, we'll still

099get that three $4 million of interest out out of the project. We'll still have our $65 million budget and we'll leave a million dollars more in the general fund to help with any shortfalls or any deficits. >> So, here we are. Our expenditures you talked about, is that representative here? >> That is represented. This was 7.3 billion. Now it's 6.3 also and I will show it on the next slide highlight this year was going to be5,150,000 that $5 million with because of our additional revenue we expected next year we going to be able to transate $5 million out towards capital projects should we need something else with a new high school or even renovating this building if we needed it was going to be there if we didn't need it back in the general fund

100that $5 million has been taken out of the budget. So between this line and this line, there's $6 million that are no longer included in our expenditures. Allowed us to make make our our expenditures more palatable within our revenue streams. And if you look down here, you're showing positive cash flow, positive cash flow here, get deficits that exist 28. This this number here is manageable. If we do a really good job of watching this, this $ 1.5 billion dollars could be lowered to maybe a zero, maybe no deficit spending, but it's going to take some work. It's going to take some tights. And these other numbers here, we uh we definitely need next. Yeah, I highlighted figures here. I got to figure that out. Um, but I was trying to point out how this number

101here $7 million last year and this number here almost 7.7 million big difference. I tried to point out we had 7 million being transferred now 60 million. We had 5 million being transferred,000 where we cut costs cut projected expenditures. We also we're spending 750,000 of a general fund capital this year. These dollars were 250,000 each year could be reduced 50,000 each year. Just going to have to pay those kind of reductions in the budgeting in the future plans helps us maintain a positive cash balance. >> So capital outlay you're going from 750 or you had 250. Let's say that you're going to go to 50. What would that um what are you cutting costs on? What what are you spending money on? >> Well, this last year between buying equipment and we we spent $2.5

102million last summer on a lot of things, but we also bought some equipment. the uh HBAC repairs, uh textbooks, tech equipment, and and I I wish I had a whole list of everything we've purchased, but we have purchased a lot of stuff. This budget of 750,000. We may only be spending 350 400,000 of it, but it's it's there because of all the capital projects we're doing and all the things we want to catch up on before we build a new high school. We just want to make sure we can take care of it. And up until six months ago, we were fine, but now we haven't changed. >> So, I have another question. >> 2.5 million is estimated for the elementary school for the groups. >> Where's that money at? >> That's already in the

103at the beginning of last summer. We had five million total between 071 sales tax and the over improvement. That five million, half of it was spent last summer. The other half is going to be spent this summer. But this fiscal year, we're still collecting another $2.5 million in those funds. Those dollars will be transferred to the capital project fund to allow us to hit our 39. Anybody can go to the next page. Um, I want to do this. This graph here is meant to be much smaller and bigger. But real point of this graph is really to say our costs are constantly going up. That's just a function of life. Things cost more year after year and utilities are going through the roof. Um, employees deserve raises. Benefits cost more. You know, turning on the

104lights cost more. costs go up. But what's not going up is our revenue streams from the state. They flattened out our property taxes. They flattened out our state revenue. We have got to come up with a way a revenue stream that will grow with us. If if federal tax the federal government has more tax, well, if the year income goes up and they take a percentage, well, they get more. They don't have to ask for it. It's just included. Same with state tax. But for us, we have to ask for it. We make mistake. We don't get a lot. We ask uh the local property owners if they'll pass letters. It's tough and people don't necessarily just want to keep spending money on schools. But we got to learn to value education and we got

105to be smart with our money and smart with the way we do things. So the public can trust what we're doing and help us move forward. Next slide. So there's basically a new funding. We've known for a long time state funding provides multiple revenue growth year. The new property tax legislation has taken away a source of growth to the local revenue streams. This can't there can be some growth but it's not going to be enough to keep up. Future increases and expenses will be much more difficult to fund due to the systemic change. 20 mill floor reappraisal bumps will be reduced. Emergency levies will be meaningless after the effective bills and after it reaches the floor. And the once in a lifetime property tax value increases have been created reaction from our legislature hamstring school

106funding for decades. We are challenged to find a funding source that can increase over time and they can keep up with inflation as our costs rise. There's there's some ideas out there, but that's, you know, for future consideration and maybe we got to do some research before we Um for the records >> graphs out >> this the biggest point of this graph was to show ending cash balances um the fall forecast our ending cash balance stay right below $1000 but in a very acceptable range. The next graph for spring uh 26 if we stay on the same current track our cash balance goes to zero. That cannot happen. We we cannot let that happen. We have to make changes here. So we we can maintain the district for many many years to come. And the

107last in conclusion we have to manage our costs very carefully over the next few years and look for ways to reduce costs. without impacting the quality of our services to the Buckeye community. We need to find a sustainable revenue source that our community will support. And it must be made very clear that this funding challenge was not created because of the decision to build a new high school. It was created by state legislation that changed our expected revenue streams without a real solution or option to replace those lost revenues. The future of our community and our students depend on our school board, administration, and our staff working together to find real solutions to problems that we did not create. Are there any questions? Sorry if that was confusing. Sometimes financial information is not easy to

108follow. Um, and quite frankly, I know sometimes people have questions and they they they feel like we're not being upfront. If somebody were to call my office and say, "I have a question about finances." I would invite you in. Let's sit down. Let's go over the finances. And because really, I'm an honest guy. I try to be upfront and honest about everything we do. And if we work together and we understand each other, we're going to make headway. If we fight each other for the next several years, we're we're not going to make We have to learn to value education as a community and go forward that direction. >> Thank you for your time, >> Mark. I'm sorry. Um think through what you presented. Thank you for the presentation. We know that we're going to

109be impacted. We don't know the exact timing or the impact, right? Changes are coming. I guess in my mind, it's going to take a little bit more time to understand what those changes are and we'll have to figure out how to adjust. >> Yeah. One of the thoughts on the way the law was enacted because the governor signed the law on December 19th. It doesn't go in effect till March 19th, but our tax rates going to be certified before. So, we thought if the law's not in effect, we should have those taxes for the rest of the year. Um, it's not the way it's at least that's what we hear the point of building a school impacting the issue by state. I think there's lots of other districts that are not building the cost of

110looking at >> yeah we're going to see a record number of schools go on the ballot in the next year and a half two years just because of the impact what can we do how do we make up the shortfall because you know planned revenue streams have been changed >> so I have two questions real quick the 5 million to fix this place up is that in the um 63 whatever the number >> it's in the 63 6 >> and so that's already >> that's already seventh grade. >> Okay. And then your statement that you said, you made it clear the funding challenge was not created because of the decision to build a new high school. It's created by the state legislation changing. Is it is that something that you saw was coming or is

111that something brand new? >> Back in the summer, the state was talking about it, but there's, you know, there's no concrete evidence it was going to pass. You weren't sure it was going to pass, quite frankly. Um, if you constantly don't make a decision because you're waiting for something else to happen, you'll never make a decision. And I think this the kids in our district deserve a decent building. Um, and to get out of the middle school that rains inside on day and all the other issues with Virginia High. I mean, I honestly believe we made the right decision. We made it at the right time, too. We can move forward. We can do better. And we will. We just got to pick up our, you know, pick ourselves up our bootstraps and work together

112as a community instead of being divisive and attacking each other. We need to do a really good job deciding what what do we value as a community and go that direction. Mark, I if I remember correctly when your predecessor Snap was the treasurer maybe four years ago when we looked at five-year forecast, the projections were that we would begin deficit spending in school year 2829. And we had conversations back then, I guess that would have been four years ago, so 2022. She was projecting that we would begin deficit spending in six years and we I remember mapping out or her presenting uh where our levy dollars were coming from. Now this was before both of the most recent property tax increases. So, four years ago, when we were just expected to rely on relatively stable

113real estate appraisals and our current levy structure, we had talked about four years ago needing to renew the emergency levy for $3.2 million. And that renewal should get us another several years. Then as the first reappraisal occurred, we were um we were happy as a district because it put us at the 20 mil floor which then allowed us to um see a benefit of that appraisal with more revenue without having to go in essence back to the voters to ask for any type of an increase. And um then we when we looked at the five-year forecast, it really pushed the deficit spending by several years. You know, let's call it 2031. Then last year when we got the second reappraisal was when we started to realize that if this trend continues um and we can't

114pass a bond, we could begin to shift some of these savings into um a major master facilities plan without having to go back to the taxpayers as well. It really was a win-win. uh we could accomplish a lot of our campus and facility needs and continue to operate without deficit spending. And that ultimately was the plan as we created uh this summer this self-funded if they'll call it that. It's it's I mean I get it right. It's it's uh somewhat of a fiscal responsibility savings plan that allows us to build a new high school and renovate this. Then when the state began to talk last year at this time about the bianium budget and we all started to say, "Wow, there is some major rumblings on property issues going on at the state level." Then

115when Governor Dwine vetoed a lot of those and then when they were brought back up this fall was really when we started to realize that yes, we can move forward with the building of a building and the renovation of this building, but now we need to start talking about we're going to begin deficit spending again in the 2829 school year, which is very similar to the conversations we had four years ago prior to the real estate uh appraisal up. So I guess for for me, what is your timeline on having the conversations of now that you know post elections of 2025, now we're sitting here with all these decisions that have been finalized at the state level in December? What is your timing as the treasur on how you envision kind of presenting options on

116how we get to the point where we're not deficit spending in 2829? We probably need to have real hard discussions between now and next November. Not that we'd be on a ballot next November unless the board decides to go sooner, but at least by then we'll have a much clearer picture of the impact of all the legislative changes. >> When you say next November, you mean November 27th? >> I mean this. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. The way I It's the next time November. >> Yeah. But in 11 8 10 n months we'll have a real good idea of how what the impacts are and we'll have a much clearer forecast of where we're going. We may have to be in the ballot in May 27th and we begin but it's going to be important to

117make sure that we have a plan if we don't pass um it will be pretty we have we can't deficit spend all the way to we have to maintain the cash balance so there's a certain point where we just take drastic measures and hopefully we don't have to nobody wants to do that especially if I stood up in front of the entire I want to protect cash. Make sure jobs are secure. I didn't realize that the legisle I just want to say one thing. People ran on the ticket that we're not going to have new taxes. So, I'm not having any discussions on any taxes. >> And I'm not arguing with you, but I do want to say flat revenues, >> expenses go like this, it's truly not realistic to Otherwise, it's you're just you're

118laying people off every year and you're cutting uh transportation and you're cutting programs and you cut to the bone of our operation and we won't be schools anymore. So, that's my commentary. >> I think before we have any of those conversations, we have to understand the impact from the state. >> So, thank you for your time. Thank you for your interest. If you have questions about anything I said because you're confused right now, you don't know what to ask, call me, email me, and we'll just sit down. Thank you. >> Thank you. Presentations. Let me get my computer. Okay, we are on I think number seven. >> Yes, >> we have a treasury action item. >> You know, we have a then purchase order. I think we had a couple last month. We have a

119a purchase order to the Koga Community College Kyoka Community College. It's dated January 6, but the invoice is actually dated back in December 19th. Um, and it is over $10,000. So, this does require according to policy board approval to uh allow us to go forward with this. >> Can I ask a question or do we have to do >> No, you can ask question. >> I quickly looked this over. Is this the one about the books? >> CCP books. Yes. So, are do we do online or do they actually have books that they >> I don't know how they ordered it. I just know I've got an invoice that's December and I got a PO that date January. I I remind staff frequently do the PO order. Um they're on a phone and they don't

120think about finances like I do. I'm always thinking about if I can answer there that it's combination. So if you're going to have both resources part like a book >> okay I was just wondering if that's books I know my son did online you know during co and that and I know the books he got books and then himself do we get the books do we do we keep the books or do the kids keep the books >> you want to go you're coming right now >> we keep the books >> and then they become and then they're over there on the shelves yeah and they're outdated after a file and they don't actually allow the resale the back. >> So if a kid takes just say English 101 and do you have a book

121for that? I know it's eventually you'd have new books but do other kids use those books? We reuse any of them? >> They do. They use them until we've exhausted their their shelf life. >> Thank you. >> Madam President, I move to approve the attached on and now. >> Thank you. Second. >> I'll second that. >> Any comments or questions? Roll call. >> Mr. Kuya? >> Yes. >> Mr. Salazar? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Silich? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Die? >> Yes. Okay. We did your presentation. >> You want to do it again? >> And I have some consent items. >> Okay. >> Um, two items I have under consent agenda tonight. I have the financial forecast approval which has to be filed with the state by the end of February. Um I'm asking the board

122to improve the financial forecast um which is really you're improving this set of numbers and um most treasuries agree across the state that they're they're giving it their best effort but they know updated the forecast and I'm also asking the board to approve the January financial statements um that they're standard monthly statements and send out >> and those are both part of the consent agenda. >> Yes, they are consent. >> Okay. Then we'll move on to number 10 superintendent recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Gona, and thank you everybody for hanging with us. We know that it's the second month in a row that we've had a long board meeting. Uh, but we appreciate your time uh and your attention this evening. I have uh some nonconsent uh agenda items for board's consideration tonight. All of these

123would require an individual action by the board, a motion by the board. The first one is I'm asking for your approval of the contract with CTO construction for pre-coner pre- construction services for our new master facility. >> Uh motion please. I move >> Second >> and uh any questions or comments? >> I just want to make a statement that anything that we're doing towards the school I got just got elected by the um community. I'm the voice for the community. We voted down a new school three times and this was not what our community wanted. So from now on, anything that you have to do with the school, I'll be voting no. >> If I'd like to add a comment as well, I think we need to be clear on what was voted down in

124the community was uh an increase in taxes for 20 to 25 years. what we are doing is executing a smaller efficient version of that plan through current funds that does not put an additional burden on the taxpayers. So I would say those those situations are fundamentally different. >> I can't I disagree because we just saw that we're going to have to be having some talks about going back to taxpayers. >> Any other comments? >> Guess we only need four scissors at the ribbon cutting. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Burchie, >> yes. >> Mr. Kua, >> yes. >> Mrs. Silich, >> no. >> Uh, Mrs. Salazar, >> yes. >> And Mr. >> Yes. >> Thank you. My next uh item for your consideration this evening is our resolution with GPD uh architect firm to approve the

125resolution authorizing GPD and in an engineering contracting agreement uh to perform design services for our new high school and the renovation of the current Buckeye High School into a junior high and a middle school. >> Motion please. So >> move second. I'll second >> questions or comments. >> My comment with this is the three things that you are going to approve adds up to $8 million. A little over $8 million. >> Any additional comments? >> I think as we continue to build these facilities, I think anytime you're doing some of this prep work, just like you would build a house, right, you're going to have schematics, designs, constructions. Those are all part of the budgeted we have. exciting to see us starting to move forward. >> And then I would just add that the GPD

126contract, a standard contract like this is a certain percentage of the building cost. It's $4.7 million for this contract. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Kuya, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mrs. Le, >> yes. >> Mrs. Silich, >> no. >> Mr. Salazar, >> yes. >> And Mrs. G, >> yes. Okay, thanks. Next for your consideration is a Bruit Garrett commissioning agent contract. This is uh to approve the attached resolution authorizing an agreement between the district and brew Garrett companies performing commissioning. This is the testing and balancing services for when we will open up the new high school. Mark, you've got an expertise in this in this area. If you don't mind, can I defer to you to explain commissioning a little bit? It's an engineering firm who comes in to make sure all the mechanical systems

127that are very sensitive are working according to manufactured specs. U the testing and balancing is basically making sure the air that they pull from the outside because they're required to pull so much outside air balances with the air they're exhausting through the vents. Um if you've ever gone into a building pulled on a door and you can't pull it open because it's sucking the door in, you got a negative balance to the building. or if you try to pull the door open, it flies open in your face. It's a positive valve. Too much air has got to get out of the building. Company makes sure that it's also good for our uh utility cost to make sure we're not overspending on utilities to make sure our building is balanced and all the mechanical equipment there

128are working according to manufacturing specs. And this service is done by per square foot cost assigned by the OFCC. It's not really a negotiated rate. It's something that goes along with the project and it's included with the budget. >> Motion, please. >> Also move. >> I will second it. Um, >> I've got >> questions, comments. >> Mark, as we look at this contract, who will Brewer Garrett kind of report to? >> We have the contract, they report to us. So John Justice, Jeff Sen, myself will work with them. It's important we hold the contract. So they're not beholding to the construction manager and construction manager tell them, "Don't point that out. Just let it go." We want them to point stuff out to us. And that's why we're contracting with them now because they're involved

129with the design along with the construction manager and architect. They all work together to make sure the building gets heck got a really good design from start to finish. So, it does it says in the contract that they'll be a part of the design process and they'll be on site during construction. Um, I just that's accurate. >> Yeah. And it's not 247. They might be here one day a week based on the schedule what's going in. If they're pouring concrete, maybe they're out here testing. You know, there's other testing companies, but if they're putting in mechanical equipment, um, they got to make sure it's put in right. I've heard stories of pieces of equipment turned in or backwards and it doesn't run right or they leave it wrapped in plastic or something. That's why a

130commissioning agent is important to have on your job. >> And are they just for HBAC? >> Um it's other mechanical systems too. I think the life safety um some of the kitchen equipment uh they they get involved with the engineering specs of all the new equipment because as things are brought in and they're jostled around and they're dropped off, maybe they're not covered exactly where they're supposed to so when they get installed they make sure things are going the way they're supposed to. It helps us on our energy. >> I had a comment to that for Mr. Ku's question as well. The school district also has made a decision years ago now at this point to work with an owner's agent. We have an owner's agent from West Mill Consulting that's been working with us

131for another for throughout this entire project. that will continue and that's another resource or safety net to make certain that this project is done right. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments? Roll call, please. >> Um, Mr. Salazar, >> yes. >> Mrs. Dman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Barti, >> yes. >> Mrs. Cecilich, >> no. >> And Mr. Puya, >> yes. >> Thank you. And my last item, non-consent for your consideration tonight. We talked about it earlier in the meeting. because we added it to the agenda. It is the ELP agreement. Uh this is to approve the agreement between the Buckeye Local Schools and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission uh to partner with the construction of our new high school. Um so that is for your consideration tonight. And again, I want to um mention again

132something that I mentioned in my presentation. uh remember that with GPD one of their main principles was uh the lead for the OFCC for years. So I feel very good that the OFCC work and the EL agreement. Um we have the right information and the right agreement for our school. >> Motion please. So move >> second. I'll second >> questions, comments. >> I do have a question. Um, can you know can you explain um why the ELP agreement is so different than kind of the modified plan? And I know Joe Deario from OFCC has explained this to us, but can you just out of >> explain how facilities master plan was created and how we're allowed to >> agreement? Many schools build at the OCC on what they call CFA. Your number comes up in

133the equity list and now you get the money like say it's 6040 and you're building a $50 million building. They give you 20 million, you get your 60 or 30 million, you got your funding in Elk. It's expedited local partnership where we fund the entire bill and when our number comes up later 5 10 12 years whatever then we qualify for our CFA money at that point but it's it's important to get our EL agreement approved as soon as possible because the dollars we spend under the EL agreement are reimbursible. Dollars we spend before that's approved by the commission are not reimburseable. So we want to get it approved as soon as possible. So we can qualify for our 19% coupon and get 10 million $12 million back from the state. >> Can we explain

134the the verbiage in the ELP agreement as a shared middle school high school compared to the plan that we're doing now? >> The way the state looks at us because we have 2,000 kids. It's a rough rule of thumb. They say they're in their mind we're a two building district. their agreement might say might say high school, junior high. We're building a high school. That's what we're doing. We have this building to serve as our our middle school for 20 years from now. So, we're going to build the high school and get that piece of the puzzle taken care of and take good care of this building. Their terminology is their terminology. I can't make them change it, but we're building. I >> mean, my understanding also was the original ELP agreement was created in

1351999. It was signed by Judy Rundle and Craig Bailey. That ELP agreement, which we are still operating under, cannot be modified. It can be amended, but it cannot. The master's facility plan that was created 26 years ago, we are still operating under that initial agreement. It's why we still have a reimbursement of about 1.2 million that the state still owes us for building that school. So when we talk about why doesn't the ELF agreement read like the current plan, that's because we're operating under an agreement that was drafted 26 years ago and this OFCC allows us to finish the next portion of the project which in their eyes is building a new high school. We then become eligible to request the full 19% reimbursement. When you add the elementary school build from 25 years ago

136plus this upcoming bill, our reimbursement from the state will be around 13 to 14 million. It's the same program Cloverleaf is in and they are getting their reimbursement this year, three years after the completion of their building. And from our conversations with the OFCC, that timeline appears to be kind of the new trend. So we in hope will get $14 million roughly three to five years after the ribbon cutting of the new high school, which will then we can use to pay off the rest of the cops loan, which is about $23 million. I mean that that I've summarized a lot of the conversations we've had in the fall about the cops loan and how will help us pay that off. >> So for myself, I've never been through the ELF agreement. I know you

137guys have. I know you guys have history with that. As a new board member, I would have it's 102 pages. I would have appreciated sitting down. We just had a uh finance committee and I know it wasn't here yet. It came yesterday. We're agreeing on it today. 102 pages. It includes lines that have absolutely no figures in it. It's the LFIS, which are our locally funded LFIS, which are locally funded initiatives, which means anything we want to put in there that the state's not going to give us any reimbursement for, that should be on there. It should be listed on there. I'm just amazed that a president of a company and the vice president of a company are signing something that it's completely open. It has absolutely no like the last one had everything written

138out. This one is just completely open just because you want to rush it through instead of sitting back waiting another month and working through it all. >> I I can sit down and explain this to you but I don't think this is probably the time but a lot of those NFIs are not We haven't designed a building yet. They can't fill it in. But I'd love to sit down with you. >> But the LFIS were for the last one for the when we went out for the bond. That's the the ELF that we were working on. >> They might have had to build design. We don't have this building design. There's reasons for those being blank and they will be filled in over time as the building design and the cost become known and then

139the numbers and the percentage that is all known. There's a lot that's unknown until we get close to completion. >> Right. But what I'm saying is we're signing a blank paper. We don't know what the costs are. >> But this is for the reimbursement of the state. >> We're we're not signing to spend money with the state. We're signing up to partner for for roughly 1012 million or $13 million off of the price of this building. Otherwise, we build it all ourselves. And I I will say of the 102 page document, 52 pages of the of them is a um I guess it would be called an enrollment study. So the agreement the agreement with the state is 48 pages and then 52 pages of that roughly is an enrollment study that was done in

140November of 2025. Um very interesting study. The ELP agreement has many eyes and hands that have been a part of the creation of this ELP agreement and the and the adjustments to this ELF agreement over the last 24 months. So, I do understand that some haven't read the ELP agreement. Um, but some of us have also read the ELP agreement dozens of times over the last 36 months. Um, and it's we've had numerous conversations with the OFCC over phone calls, face toface, virtual. So, this is an extremely wellthoughtout document and all of my questions have been answered over the last 24 months and I have asked a lot of questions about the alpha grid because it is not an easy to understand uh process that the state uses. So, I'm full support of this >>

141but from a from a high level right our plan is separate from the agreement. The plan is what we control with the building, with the design, what we're going through with the visioning. What we're looking at here is how do we get reimbured at 19% and that and if we end up putting in an extra toilet here or there, that's not in the plan because the OFCC is well aware of our plan. I mean, we they they are well aware that we're partnering with GPD that CT tailor the build. Um, we've done a great job communicating with OFCC >> and I just want to mention we have some experts who do this every single day. Um, who have done this plan for us. Um, so I feel comfortable about it. >> I just want to

142mention that all four of you have been involved in this whole process sitting in the meetings through through day one. I have had nothing and I've not been invited to anything either. So that's my perspective. That's where I'm coming from. Any other questions or comments? >> Roll call. >> Mr. Kuya. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cathan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Silich. >> No. >> Mrs. Bart. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Gumble. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, let's move to action items under consent under my category. I appreciate uh again. So, we'll move through these ones a little bit quicker because they don't need individual votes. Uh these are the consent items. Uh first I'm asking you to approve our agreement from uh CCP College credit plus memorandums understanding between us and Kyahogen County Community College

143as well as Lraine County Community College for the 2627 school year. Next, I would ask you to approve the agreement for our Buckeye Intermediate students and staff uh to once again participate in our outdoor education program, Camp New Hop, that will take place October 28th through 30th um next October. Um I I we are all grateful that that doesn't coincide once again with Halloween. I heard you loud and clear there, Miss Doll, Mr. Wilson. It's just it was a quirk of the calendar last fall. Uh but but a great trip nonetheless. Uh next I would ask for your consideration for an approvement an approval of theou between us this school district and our ops uh OC 216 that is our our group here. Um this is the item that we have talked about at previous

144meetings. This is to uh add compensation to our bus drivers effective uh February 1st. A quick reminder of what this is. Uh this will be re raise our bus driver rate from 1.344 1.594 on our salary grid to 153 and 1802. What this means in layman's terms is our bus driver's rate will go from 1999 to 2380 an hour to 22.49 to 2680 an hour. We've had a lot of discussion over this over the last few months. Um our our membership approved it and is here this evening for your consideration. After that I ask you to consider the just agreement with us in Buckeye High School uh for our yearbooks. The cost next year for yearbooks will be $75 per book per student. We move into personnel. You see some salary advancements. Again, I'm always

145a big fan of this because this means our teachers are continuing their profession professional development as teachers and that's always good for them and good for our students. So, you see those adjustments here. We have some FMLA leads that are upcoming. Uh we also have an amended FMLA there for uh one of our teachers you see which is item number three. Uh, continuing on under staffing, we have an amended uh, I'm sorry, we have a recommendation for an unpaid medical leave uh, for a second grade teacher there that will take place here this spring for the remainder of the school year. We have some extended hours uh, for uh, some additional need uh, for support for special education students that you see there that will take place from January 28 through March 6th of this

146year. As always, we have list of substitutes through our partnership with the county ESC. Let's move to classified personnel there, our OC members there. Uh we are very happy uh that Miss Ginney, our junior high school head custodian, has returned to work. So, we're glad that she's back. We also have some employment. These were the additional additions to the agenda that I asked for earlier uh in the meeting. Uh we have a new bus driver, Mr. Galden, will be joining us uh effective February 17th. So we talk about bus driver happy about that and this salute trainer will join us as a pair of professional working at the intermediate building. It is almost springtime and all of we were all very happy with the warm weather today. I made a a joke. I was in

147my car going to the career center this afternoon and my temperature gauge said 50. I didn't know what to do. I thought it was a mistake. Uh but it felt good to have some some heat out there. Uh but as we are getting into the spring, you see some recommendations from from athletic perspective uh for for some coaches. Uh we also have a correction here. You see a fall coach there for soccer, Mr. Widows. Um Mike was a coach for us this this fall. He was a boys varsity assistant soccer coach. Um and it was missed. Um I don't know how it was missed. We don't know why it was missed. U Mr. Myers, myself, Mr. found out about it. Actually, Mike reached out to us and said, "Hey, why haven't I been paid yet?"

148And that that should have happened. So, I asked for your consideration. Mike's a great guy and a great coach and and he was very understanding and but we need to get him paid. So, I asked for your consideration so we can uh we've got some donations for your consideration tonight. Thank you for the Fraternal Order of Eagles for the Dina uh troop 2224. a $2,000 donation to the high school key club food pantry. We have a 250 donation, $250 donation from Heaven Becker on behalf of Sher Williams for supplies for the Buckeye Primary School. We also have a donation of $200 for the Dying County Bar Association for the Mock Trial Team Registration, which we appreciate from the Bar Association. That is going to be my recommendation this evening this. >> Thank you. So, we're

149seeking approval of the consent agenda now, which consists of agenda items 9 A and B, which were two of the treasur items, and 11 A through G. Um, may I have a motion, please? >> And a second from Seth. >> Any questions or comments? >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Sal, >> yes. >> Mr. Kuya. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Cilich. >> Yes. >> Uh, Mrs. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. >> Yes. At this time in the meeting, we have some time for a board member comments. Is there anyone who would like to start this evening? >> Well, I don't really have a comment. I just wanted to ask Mr. Stanton just quickly, how did the um leadership of Dana County Education >> Oh yeah. Oh, Mr. Oh, >> we hosted it, right? >> We did.

150Yeah. So, thank you. I should have mentioned that. Wow. What an exciting day on families. Um, leadership Madina County was here um at Buckeye U. That is a great group of young leaders and and very very tuned in with Madina County growth. Um, they spent the day here at Buckeye. So this morning we started at the high school. We we had a breakfast. Greg and his crew threw a breakfast out there and then after that we went about I would say 40 to 45 people or so were here this morning. Um, we walked up to the elementary school. So, thank you, Mrs. Rivera. Thank you, Mr. Wilston, for allowing your students to help us because the sixth grade ambassadors were helping. Um, and then a succession of Mr. Snook, our high school principal, Miss Mrs.

151Elias, Mrs. Konic, Mr. Justice, Mr. Donley, and myself had presentations for for the leadership of Ada County. Our theme was culture building through leading with yes. Okay. Making decisions for an organization through a lens of hoping to lead through yes. Um and Adam and everybody else that did a great presentation. I even had a couple compliments from mine. So it was it was a really neat experience. After that leadership county goes to the career center. There was a financial update given by Dr. Velasco and by Dr. fromly and from the ESC respectively and then the rest of the day is a round table with superintendent all superintendent from from the county we're up at career center for about 4:30 this afternoon so it really was a wonderful day so thank you we missed for not

152having brought that up >> that's exciting but it was exciting and a nice reflection the Buckeye schools our students and really outstanding job by the administrative team Thank you. >> I'm an alumni of that association and um the leadership of county is just a wonderful wonderful thing. >> Thank you. >> All right. Anyone else? >> I just want to say thanks to Oopsy for having a healthy discussion and for voting to allow the school district to um increase the pay for the bus drivers. I know it's something that we've been trying to do and I just really appreciate. I know it wasn't an easy decision, but thank you to OC for making that decision. >> I'd like to echo that, but no, certainly appreciate the flexibility from OC. I think that the team working together

153to improve the the compensation for the the transportation, which is our biggest issue that we're facing right now. So, certainly appreciate that. >> Okay. Anything? >> I just want to say thank you for everybody for sitting through another meeting like this long meeting. Um, thank you to our bus drivers. We do appreciate you. It's a job. Once again, I have to say nothing that I would ever want to do, but we do appreciate you guys out there at 6:00 a.m. in the ice and snow and everything. Everybody have a good night. >> All right, having no more comments, then we will entertain a motion for adjournment. >> I'll second that. >> Um, I'm not going to ask for comments or discussion on adjournment. So, roll call, please. >> Mr. Kuya? >> Yes. >> Mr. Salazar?

154>> Yes. Mrs. Village. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Vari. >> Yes. >> Mrs. D. >> Yes. Thank you everyone.