001happy birthday all right we got T minus one Megan make sure and let us know thank you very good I'll call this special meeting to order for the revenue neutral rate hearing for tonight for USD 348 Board of Education may I have an approval of the agenda please is there a second Phil has moved and Kelly has seconded to approve the agenda as presented all those in favor please say aye raise your right hand I motion carries 7-0 thank you Susan at this time I'll ask us to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance amazing I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God the indivisible with liberty and justice for all right uh four announcements tonight we'll get into this
002a little bit more later but because I don't think there is any way that we will be able to finish this hearing before the second hearing which is scheduled for 6 30 don't worry what we're going to do we have a plan for that we'll simply call a recess for the first meeting that doesn't mean anyone will have the opportunity to be deprived to speak I want to make sure everybody knows that up front to follow the law of the second meeting which is scheduled and was published for 6 30. I'll simply call that meeting to order recess it and come right back to the first so I don't want to have anyone have the impression that just because the second meeting is scheduled at 6 30 that that's going to cut into time um
003both for the presentation and also time for the public testimony that everyone is here tonight either to participate in or to listen in so I want to say that up front okay with that at this time uh unless anybody else has any announcements we'll move on to C which is the revenue neutral rate hearing part one the presentation to exceed the revenue neutral rate will be given by our financial director the alert along with superintendent Dodge I want to make sure does everyone have their packets before we begin that way we're all working with the same information if not those are available in the back if you weren't able to get one already foreign there we go all right everything's working okay thank you you have the floor gentlemen good evening so his first five
004years for the r r comparison obviously for uh the actual access Levy last year in 2223 uh and then the actual tax break uh in the center column so we've got a total um of the action Factory uh requested America and then the one column over to the right is the mutual forever Revenue tax rate in the final column there's going to be the estimated taxes and the neutral tax rate is what's necessary to generate the same amount of dollars this year as previous previous year so the purpose of this hearing is for us to share with you our Our intention our our needs to exceed the revenue neutral rate in order to operate and fulfill our obligations and goals for the upcoming school year this slide here is the comparison of the metals performed
005with a reflection of the voter rules that we had in October November last year so you see there by bullet point for supplemental General there's a 7.99 you want to know is that we have to lower to again it's important to let the reduction from 13.26 what Mills that I would approved to 7.991 and the other will be results only lost by 667 000.00 yeah um so due to the photo ruling itself to make it the reduction of the funding the roughly about 340 if that 667 was transferred from our contingency funding um is there a microphone there's not a microphone that was a good idea that should help use your booming projection voice you're yelling at me boys so again to make up the reduction that we had um roughly about 340 000 of
006that was transferred from our contingency reserve the remaining through 27 excuse me 327 000. production came in by the way of Staffing freezes to firmative school and safety uh Safety and Security needs and updates to the 2324 and transform custodial maintenance that's uh you know deferring additional building District improvements in the 23 24 and Beyond and so what what this what the spread that this slide shows you is initially what was approved last year by the board the impact that the voter ruling had and then where we are this year in our efforts to operate in and recover [Music] if you don't mind if we'll go through the presentation and then as the agenda States we'll have time for the public testimony but let's go ahead and go ahead and get the the presentation part
007done first and we'll make sure and and listen to any questions that you have when we get to the public testimonies part go ahead thank you Nate 661 which as you can see through the two-year comparison there are coming in from a little bit of a downtrend so the approved Mills uh all right ready okay uh so this next slide gives you kind of a historic look at the Mills that we had just kind of give you a trend an idea uh just kind of put everything together um so we have a 2021 uh Mills and um for 21.22 uh yeah 54 909 uh for 23.23 because of again of the increase in levels in reality but that lower down 49.568 so these next few slides will just kind of give you a run out
008of each uh funds that we have for the taxes so first we'll start off with general fund uh General kind of set the 20 Meals by the state statute uh general fund is used for operating expenses of the district roughly is about 83 of the channel front this will fall for the staff salaries some of those break down to certified staff equates to 54 classified staff and by certified you're talking teachers or your licensed workers in that sense [Music] administrative staff is 10 and supplemental and coaching staffs uh completes the three percent uh so the remaining uh percentages which is 17 is for your operational of the district example utilities supplies and also transfer it to funds such as sped at risk and CTE special education at risk are students that need to provide additional
009supports for whether identified through create and reduce or academic needing academic supports and CTE is the college and Technical education pathway so we're talking about the different Pathways our new pathway that we're trying to establish with agriculture Science Education that will become a CTE pathway we've got our business and computer Pathways Mr Harmon's industrial Tech Pathways with woods and metals those are all considered CTE or Career and Technical education pathways um next we have the supplemental gero fund so commonly known as LP statute allows local school board to adopt the supplemental General clinology in addition to the general fund and the school district to receive the state receipts funds from the state each school year the supplemental general fund is calculated by the percentage of the district's general fund and we see state aid for
010those below are some again some examples of the LLB we have special education Career and Technical education which includes existing and new Pathways this year new to the cost for the district this year is for certification of testing for students so when a student goes through your your CTE or Career and Technical education Pathways they have the ability to earn industry recognized certifications that can help them with continued education or employment so there they can use that to gain a higher wage than someone without one of those certifications in the past those were up to the families or the students to pick up the certification costs starting this year new legislation now puts that under the the tap of the district to pick up uh then we have K through 12 at risk funding supplemental
011supplementing salaries obviously associated with substitutes the total recovery from 2223 North Dakota at a supportive tax bills uh costs associated with increases increased enrollments of students and I want to address that so each year when we build our budget we we utilize a funding mechanism and the state requires us to use what's called full-time FTE and they sent staff out to us after after September 20 to go through and and basically certify the students that count within our building based on their attendance on September 20 and then a couple of days after September 20 and we utilize those numbers to help fund our budget the way the law is written we are not able to use current year numbers we have to use the higher of the previous two years so when you're a growing
012district and in our case we are last year we were up 41 new students we don't get to count those 41 new students until this year's budget based on how they they come out with the September 20 count but we still have to pay for that but we still have to pay for it right so this year we'll get those 41 new students um this year on top of those last year's 41 new we had about 30 what I tell you last meeting 35 36 new heads coming into our buildings we don't get funding for them until next year and so the supplemental general fund it helps us be able to pay for that education if you will and then just the impact to the tissue as far as supplies next we have Capital Island
013expansions from these funds which is um is to adopt uh um are used for Capital employment expenses were approved in eight mil lady and the catalogy in the past last year fiscal 2223 we actually lowered a couple of automated Mills to 7.089 we have a lot late funds again are used for the items listed Fair State team security equipment and Furniture technical technology equipment activity and uniforms maintenance and custodial salaries facilities and parking lot improvements Transportation purchases such as Vehicles buses repairs and fuel lease agreements such as Baker University our high school HVAC police and our intermediate Center of H faculties one of the things that you try to do as a district is not put salaries in your Capital outlay line if you can if you can avoid it for the purpose of you
014want to reserve those dollars for those those Capital Improvements the the train to offset or trying to prevent deferred maintenance but when you have to move those salaries into capital outlay it it's up dollars that could go towards those capitals I'm interested nobody is approved by the majority of the voters for Capital Improvements the bond and interest funds are solely used and utilized payments the SE funds cannot be transferred to any other budget s this gives us a list of our current Bond principal balances and plus the maturity rates as you can see they're the first one in the series 2016 will expire at September 24th uh the total there's 12 million 365 000. class is there an accounting of where all of that stuff went uh as far as business projects the dollars where
015do they go to take advantage Michael what did that buy um we'll get to that we'll finish your presentation and then we'll get to questions no hold on to that yeah oh we are there okay sorry you were first first student okay all right thank you all right at this time any Patron that wishes to provide testimony to the board may do so uh seven statute 79-299 excuse me 79-2988 States the governing body shall provide interested taxpayers Desiring to be heard an opportunity to present oral testimony within reasonable time limits and without unreasonable restriction on the number of individuals allowed to make public comment and so before we dive into all this um in the spirit of making sure we do everything as correctly and as forthrightly as possible I'm just going to say as
016very specific as many pieces of our state statutes are I find Define reasonable time what might be reasonable to me might not seem reasonable to someone sitting there so we're going to as a group Define what we feel is reason able so that everybody knows it should reflect the opinion of the elected body not any one person's opinion about what reasonable is and the board is going to discuss and establish what is reasonable and then that's how we'll go forward with the testimony just for a frame of reference for nearby communities how they handled their hearing of doing this the same way both Eudora and Wellsville use their public comment policy time for Eudora that's five minutes for Wellsville their public comment policy time is three minutes so they just used that for the hearing
017Paola used five minutes Ottawa allowed five minutes Douglas County allowed three minutes so there's kind of a range of what nearby Geographic entities deemed as being reasonable um so I will open the floor to discussion for the board of how we will Define reasonable our current practice for Normal public comment is three minutes yeah sorry I should have mentioned that five and a half what does everybody else think it says talking yeah thank you for catching up Susan are you trying to say something okay just want to make sure all right what's everybody else think so far we've we have five and a half minutes okay with five and this isn't Limited right that should be part of what we Define too oh yeah okay I think everyone should be allowed the opportunity to speak
018um I think everybody should anybody who's here who wants to speak I believe should um once everybody gets one turn I think that's fair and I'm I like the idea of exceeding our normal three-minute public comment policy um for the purposes of tonight everyone comfortable with that I would like emotion so that we have it on the record I'll make a motion that we [Music] would like to speak for one opportunity uh for a couple of five minutes thank you Phil has moved and Tony has seconded to allow public testimony comment or questions time to be up to five minutes one turn per person for as many people who would like to do that and not capping that like we're not going to stop at an hour we'll do it until everybody's had their chance
019while somebody's talking maybe other people should interrupt them whether it's us or anybody in the gallery that five minutes is sacrificing that's their time to talk correct that this is our opportunity to listen um that's what guides our normal public comment time that should Guide tonight that is an adherence to statute um and so this is not our time to to go back and forth this is our time to prioritize listening to everything each Patron wishes to share ask or say and then when we get to the point of our board discussion I know I'll be taking notes I'm sure you will be too then that becomes a component of our board discussion um I think that's an important clarification we want to have a good professional discussion of the highest level of Civic engagement
020um that is an example worthy to our students so yes Mr finkled I yes correct sure thank you for that point of clarification and this is not a substitute for the next we really want to make sure everybody has their opportunity but that is an important clarification yes sorry this is Brad finkeldei this is our district attorney and he was going to make sure that we do everything correctly that's important okay so we have a motion uh to Define what reasonable amount of time is it was moved by uh film seconded by Tony all those in favor of approving the motion as presented please say aye and raise your right hand I motion carries seven zero all right so at this time we will move to our public testimony feel free to step forward or
021you can remain seated whatever you're most comfortable with and Megan will keep time for us if you can Megan yes please if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself when you step forward and then uh go from there thank you last year after USD 348.5 degrees will be taxes by 61 if I filed appeal against them because they did not follow the property that stated they were exceedings I prevailed in that appeal to the benefit of all taxpayers sieged by random for the use of Wendy's whose rapid increasing validations evaluations to explore their budgets yet despite the support tax appeal requiring USD 348 return approximately 660 000 taxpayers they were still able to increase tax levies by four and a quarter percent last year and when it came time to determine which tax accounts they would adjust
022for this refund they selected the supplemental LLB as you've heard account for the reduction rather than reducing your bonded interest tax account where there is a currently a healthy Surplus and where they still where they were and they still are collecting more tax Fair dollars that is needed to meet their bond obligations this was followed by some letters sent out by the district blaming me for their mistake in both public and private forums to anyone who would listen rather than taking public accountability themselves a letter in August talked about transferring 340 000 from our reserve and 327 thousand dollars in budget reductions to a staffing freeze and the virtual safety yes you just heard some should blush for choosing to pad the bond account in advance of a bond election at the expense of school
023safety yet amazingly at the end of fiscal year 2023 after moving six hundred thousand dollars from the reserve to the LLB washing it down through the spending accounts that they could USD 348 had 7.1 million dollars in total cash Reserves whereas at the same time in 2022 they had 6.2 million so that's right despite all of this despite a 660 000 refund that we were granted USB 348 was still richer by 943 thousand dollars 426 000 of that was a cash increase that was attributed to over collection and bond and interest and their Capital funds and the remaining 517 000 was due to overfunding of accounts supplied by the general or supplemental LLB including money from local Levy so again they got richer alphabets what this tells me taxpayers board members and superintendent is you
024are over taxing the patrons of that USD 348 the plan you're posing proposing tonight is also going to over tax us impacting the most vulnerable in our community who are barely making it in this economy our general elevi which represents about 60 percent of our operating budget is increasing 11 percent we can't avoid that increase it's well spent to pay our teachers higher salaries unchecked our lob would increase 8.4 percent over the amount they targeted last year capital outlay is to increase by 10.3 percent this year over last year I urge the board to make cuts to the bond and interest account by adjusting the middle Levy to 11 and a quarter percent based on the plan I presented to superintendent Dodge a few weeks ago I urge you to consider and approve this plan
025tonight as it would save taxpayers three million dollars over five budget cycles and payoff robots three years earlier than you just published 2030. you pay them up by 2027. I also urge you to reduce the supplemental LOB by at least one bill or 138 000 it's obvious that your stated budgets and expenditures will not meet or exceed the collections from the state in the community and you will again be using these over collections to pad your account Reserves at your end just like you did last year please reduce these levies I am making a modest proposal if enacted USB 348 would still have an increase in its local tax levies of 17 over two years over two year period I believe that an eight or nine percent increase per year is more than any of
026us get in our own personal budgets make it work for USD 348. thank you who would like to go next it's Richard I have this thing here and I would appreciate because I'm on my very smart person okay I I look at this your presentation comparison of the bills I look at this this is Mill levees that these are prepared by the county ISO but the name names here do not match these here one from one and it's hard for me to understand why I have to try to do a conversion process when you guys have all this information the board and everybody else I want to be able to say oh here's General oh that's this line here oh here's here's Capital athlete oh that's the smelling weird let's see your USD 348 Baldwin
027City it's uh 20 point the 20 20 25 22 rate was 20.385 I have no idea what USD 348 Baltimore city is well I think it's the LLB but it doesn't matter what I have here from the county does not match what's here now I'm perplexed because if the county is misrepresenting what's happening or USD 340 is misrepresented the military's in funds to me I'm an old geezer I'm about I have probably 10 years left on the service but you guys are taxing the hell out of me not just you but every casting agency you know there's no creativity involved in anything no critical thinking anything when I worked in the corporate world yeah 14 uh my senior CEO the CEO uh what chief CEO made 14 million dollars a year you know how creative
028he was about in the balance sheet to look good lay people off here what you guys do is bonds and Mill Leverage you guys are going to attack me out of my house it's not a funny issue so I thought to somebody here once and they thought it was funny when I said that that's not a funny matter I live in my house for since 1988. now the superintendent may make 167 thousand dollars a year whatever he makes he can afford it these increases because it's dropping a bucket for him but for me it's money that I do not have and if you guys I'm sorry to interrupt you I will come back to this this is what I was talking about at the beginning we'll come right back to this I'm going to call
029a recess for this first meeting so that I can move to the second meeting or to come right back to you sir I'm sorry that's abrupt but we're right at 6 30 and I have to follow um yeah you're you're recessing the hearing so just the hearing follow the timing protocol for the budget hearing and we'll come back the second budget special meeting I'm calling to order it is 6 30 so for the special budget meeting uh that will happen later is officially called to order may I have an approval of the agenda for the second meeting please so moved and Chris has seconded all those in favor of approving the agenda for our second meeting please say aye and raise your right hand motion carries I'm now recessing that meeting I've got to put
030that one on ice and now we're back in the first so I'm calling back to order it's 6 31 we're recessed for the second meeting and now we are back in the first meeting I'm sorry for the interruption your your time can continue we're back to order in the first meeting well I didn't I I didn't you you were talking about the expense and that the last thing you said was you were talking about that we speak the language of bonds and Mill levies that was a friend but I have to I'll have to thank you make me move I appreciate it every one of y'all I appreciate your creativity and and clearly you knew you guys still make money because there are 17 I think one year is 17 increase in uh evaluation average
031and last year was ten percent yes it decreased by seven percent but guess what it's still ten percent more if you have at some other point time so yeah you lost a little bit of money but not really because you're paying 10 percent evaluations people's property yeah you guys want to increase the military to suck more money out for me you know Douglas County is doing a damn good job of taking my money for my for my property and you guys just hop on the bandwagon you know you guys just think we are endless supply of funds for whatever desires you have you know whatever you want is tax and spending taxes but I'm a Democrat and on this I'm a tea party guy you believe me taxes been has got to quit you know
032bottom line here's your fixed income attachment spend does not sustainable that's all I have to say I appreciate your time thank you very much who else would like to speak when we go back to that meeting yes this is just the revenue neutral rate part but then we'll do all of this again with a separate presentation for the budget yes sir thank you um on September the 6th I'm sorry I sent a memo to USD oh sorry Ruth Miller sorry about that you ready on September 6th I sent a memo to superintendent Dodge and to the school board members now they've received it and I have received a response back from superintendent Dodge but I thought for as a reminder of what I said to the school board and the benefit of those are here
033I thought I would reread that memo at this time okay and here's what my memo said can you all hear me yes yes this is what my memo said upon receiving the letter from superintendent Dodge telegraphing a substantial proposed increase in the USD 348 budget for 2023 24 followed by the property tax notice received from Douglas County Clerk's Office I was disappointed and frustrated especially so seeing what the USD 348 proposal will do to my property tax burden where I live my total property tax burden increased over four hundred dollars of which approximately 60 percent being in support of the school district your proposed increases come at a time when individual and family budgets are under stress due to the increased cost of everything from laundry soap and toothpaste to food gas and utilities and
034back to school supplies in managing our individual and family budgets we have to make choices sometimes hard choices between wants and needs unlike a public taxing body which can increase revenues by increasing the mill rate or leaving the mill rate flat and relying on increased property values to generate more Revenue we as individuals or businesses must trim our budgets to find ways to work harder and smarter to meet our obligations many property owners in our school district are senior citizens on fixed incomes we have many farmers who are constantly fighting against weather government regulations and increased costs in most everything associated with farming also worker also working households who find any increase in wages deflated because of the high cost of goods goods and services individuals and business owners have to figure out ways to
035live within their means so two should our taxing bodies yet when the school desk district is questions about about its increased budget proposal the general response is usually it's for the kids or it's for the students I too want students to achieve above average academic success to achieve above academic success I understand the public school system requires public funds to operate however according to a recently released Academic Year 2022 student achievement report from the Kansas policy Institute only 19 percent of our high school students were College and Career ready and math with 27 College and Career ready in English language arts while the overall school grade for Baldwin Junior High went from a d to a c showing positive Improvement the overall grade at the high school level remained at a d and the elementary
036intermediate Center remained at a c additionally data shows that higher per pupil spending does not correlate to higher student academic achievement I ask that the board members take a hard look at the 23-24 budget to separate true academic needs towards student academic success from mayor Watts putting wants aside in meeting the board's vision statement of one providing a rigorous balanced education where all students can reach their full potential and two being good stewards of public funds Albuquerque allocating funds strategically The 2023-24 increased tax burdens you are proposing on property owners within USD 348 are truly burdensome and irresponsible now um do I have any more minutes left I guess I don't I will like to say I did get a response from superintendent Dodge which I appreciated [Music] um he did because he did say
037that it was not there in tension to to over tax but rather was they um to maintain efforts to continuously improve while absorbing increased costs and new legal obligations my property tax is going up to the point I'm sorry my property taxes are as a senior citizen have been increased to a burden thank you [Music] how much money was the ways that when you segregated our children that's something that I really would like to know and then the other thing is if you talk about the ways that is very developing in the last 12 years at least that I know of over half a million dollar has been wasted on this building a brand new ability so the other thing is there is plenty of contractors here in the Baldwin cities never ever has a
038school and Senator using local non-drivers don't even ask them for a big you're wasting thousands of dollars by using the union contractors from Missouri or far away from Baldwin City where we have plenty of contractors here in town yet never ever do you guys considered even asking local contractors we all you expect all of us to pay more taxes for the school but that when it comes down to work that needs to be done on the building you don't even consider anybody alone though and I think that that is a very big problem I think what you guys have done in the last couple years who are children knowingly and willingly a harmless and I think that that's a problem and that's beyond the increase I think none of us can keep spending like we
039would like to spend because of the Holy economic situation why would you guys be able to constantly spend more and more money and part of that is really being wasted and I think that that's really something that you guys just looking through submitted a proposal to Mr Dodge and I was wondering if that could be shown to us what what that is it's part of your budget packet it's in here okay and if you could maybe explain to us and give us an explanation as to how that budget could work or not work it's part of the budget presentation we'll get there I'm not trying to be rude but this is about the the RNR side so I'm not trying to be rude to you but I I do plan uh to address that okay
040would anyone else guarding yes ma'am um bear with me because I've just jotted down notes that might kind of go scattered normally or the other but we're all shareholders here in USD 348 needs to listen and stop being tone deaf to the community last year the people attending the hearing pleaded with you do not exceed the revenue Mutual right we did in the lesson we voted for it the school bond failed as the community said no the community is maxed out on taxes we all have to look at the needs and not wants an example of a want that I saw well didn't see it on your proposal but I've heard incorrectly if I'm wrong that we're getting a new FFA program that is very costly don't get me wrong I totally support FFA my
041kids were in FFA my son-in-law is an FFA teacher for over 15 years but it's costly it's new it's not a necessity it should not be funded not until there's funds that are not taking extra tax dollars um what is being cut out to provide for this program probably nothing just more cost again a want a very nice want to not only need um I don't feel you're good stewards of the monies when the community has asked for the spending to not increase I fear that low-income families will be forced out of the district with higher taxes then have an equitable education for all be provided how are we as taxpayers best to continue to live in this community when was the last audit performed in the Republic maybe that needs to be done I
042saw listed on a fund for activity uniforms why it used to be a fundraiser type activity and very well could still be one um as Miss Kelly there had said earlier something to the fact a set of standard worthy of our students then don't have the standard of no not meaning no the community has said no program over please be on the events thank you thank you thank you who else would like to speak okay my name is Ken Steiner uh Facebook last month except I got a uh there's a news article published just a couple days ago by the U.S Census Bureau and I thought it was first part is pretty relevant stating real median household income after taxes fell 8.8 percent from 2021 to 2022 and the poverty rate after taxes as measured
043by the supplemental poverty measure increased 59 percent up to 12.4 percent so this is 2021-202 data bus the latest we have available I don't think it's going to be any better uh for this year and it just uh highlights the fact that families are hurting we don't have due to inflation the dollar doesn't go as far as it used to and you know for my for my family personally it's going to be tough trying to figure out how to come up with extra money for taxes this year when I spoke up at the County Commissioners meeting last month I I told him it would be quite easy to cut money out of their budget I'll admit school boards harder you know out there because there's just not as much fluff as what the county puts
044into their budget but I'm running for school board next year I'd love to take a shot at it and uh well to help you out thanks who else hello my name is Craig Cruz we have a shop downtown mechanic shop just so you know we recently were able to purchase our building and however um finding all this tax stuff is immunity got fixed and then understanding that now that I'm in my building it costs me 500 a month just for the privilege of owning that building more than half of that goes to the school oh and I I have to run my business such that we don't spend more money than what we take in and I don't I don't know a whole lot I'm not a good accountant so I can't crunch all your
045guys numbers and figure that out I I do hear some things the bond issues that you've had in the past that's why I asked I'm kind of curious where that money went um and please if the school spent that much money how do you still have well I don't know what he said seven million dollars in a bank or something um and and why is it necessary that that the way I understand this Revenue neutral thing is that it's supposed to be a law and I don't it doesn't make sense to me how it's neutral I don't understand that but now when you're looking at raising that so that 500 a month is going to go up more and it trickles down into I mean all of you if you get cars fixed in and
046I have to pay my bills I have to raise what we're trying to say and I know that's a universal understanding but I I just don't know if a lot of people understand how much that really is and and in addition to that the the county also raised our valuation our building by 70 percent so not only is it going up because of this thing you guys are doing but it the property valuation is wrong we have a handful of customers that have noted to us they have to move out of this District because they can no longer afford to pay the taxes to stay in the house um we were looking at purchasing a house I want to stay involved in but I don't know I can afford to live in Baltimore I'm going
047to have to go to another County or at least out of the school district and I don't know how long our business is going to survive to where it's at it may end up closing I don't know and that's also sales tax revenue for the county involvement as well we taught god with sales tax attorney and everyone so um just so you guys understand where we're coming from and I know you guys have houses also and you pay taxes and all that I don't know if we get hit double because we're in the city as well as in the school district and not out of the country so we get hit a lot harder than that just FYI I would think there would be some way um I did send an email to all of
048you if I got a response from a couple of you about the grants that are out there available if that would be some other kind of funding that could be used to avoid things like this and reduce some of the tax burden what else would be great and I'd like a plan about the better we can live without learning about better there we go Mike Bradley I'm also running for school board um so something I didn't see in the presentation it talked about Mills but didn't talk about the increase of property values over the years which should be considered you guys raised 27 over the last two years most of you are benefits owners or at least happy or more business owners I cannot protect I if you raise your rates that much and not
049communicated that properly I could just walk away and go to a different business the same law you guys are complaining about that you lost taxes from from not doing stuff properly it's the same law that will be used to seize our property if we decide not to pay or can't pay I've talked to a lot of people as I'm running going to the door to door I talked to 16 people yesterday knocked at 16 houses 10 of them brought up themselves a lack of trust and transparency in the board the bond showed that as well 55 voted against it I heard that being said they didn't understand what they're getting I don't think you guys are understanding that there's a lot of lack and trust this presentation is a legal requirement your lawyer's here it's
050making sure it's done but you guys are not doing anything else to explain to me or the citizens are out here of how it's being spent I have a my undergrad has been Finance from the University of Kansas I can look at this stuff I can read but most people can't I have a master's degree as well put in basic simple lameness terms most people out there are farmers good working hard people out there all the way through it's bare minimum you missed the perfect opportunity to communicate the other day when that letter was sent out hey this is the reason nothing said hey this is where the extra money's going to I know you guys are looking to giving a good pay raise to the teachers that's what we want to hear where the
051money's going nobody nobody nobody is mad about that we all think our teachers underpaid but they don't know we don't know so there's a huge lack of trust again you've heard numbers you heard everything else what are we doing over and over again this this tax Trace is perceived as a punishment by some people because of Bond film plain and simple yeah that's what I'm hearing and perception is reality whether it be true or not I think you all are good citizens and stuff like that we may disagree on execution and stuff like that but I don't think you're trying to actually punish the people here because of bomb fell but that is reception out in the community I used to run organizations in military that was 10 or excuse me a thousand people strong
052never did I get in trouble for over communicating and talking to the public you have no communication plan to explain what we're doing what you're doing I want to support you I want to help that's why I threw my name in the Hat because we've got to communicate the people out here at how it's done you never get in trouble for communicating too much maybe on the battlefield but in this classroom you don't you don't get in trouble for communicating too much again I know it probably won't change it I know it probably won't do it but just please consider that as you go through and look at that my taxes went up 13 roughly 60 67 is because of the school board again I got kids in the district I believe there should be
053a fine balance between taxation education my salary for 21 years is paid by taxpayers dollars I understand sequestration all the other stuff hurt me on the ends too I lived to some crappy Barracks I had crappy gear because my we're funded by the taxpayers so that's all I got ladies and gentlemen thank you I think I'd like to speak a little more too you know we talked about um yeah I just have to say you know somebody had mentioned the the more under funded people the people that don't earn this much money and most of those people are renters and a lot of the a lot of the parents here that have kids in school are not homeowners and they're not really well represented here today um and if if housing costs keeps going up
054for everybody and Taxation is a big part of that then it's driving just more and more people out of our district because of the rent going up so much that the average people just can't even afford it and a lot of these rents that I see these people are moving out what's moving in is what's taken in place is kind of Baker students and and other people like that that don't you know help our district so you know just further increasing taxes is not is not helping those people in any way either I think there right now is overburdened as anybody again one just a reminder yes sir go ahead and come forward that this is part one of our statutory requirement for this evening and the second part is the budget part which is
055going to drill down into the level of detail of questions that are coming up but we're also keeping track of other questions that are being discussed here yes sir my name is um I actually served on the Blue Valley School Board Advisory board for 13 years so I can appreciate what you're dealing with with the school districts that are growing so fast you can't even fund them so I really do appreciate that I thank the concern that we have and I did attack the people I did the tax protests and appeals and the sensitivity with people you know who are on fixed income and stuff is a real is a real issue and now with rampant inflation you know a lot of people are wondering I've got a daughter that's going to hang on she
056lost her job she would feel afraid and 30 they laid off 30 000 people so those are issues that are real and I guess what I would just ask you to really be sensitive with the revenue neutral position because these are yeah and it may be that you know our economy will change and we won't have the chance of inflation but right now I just think it's a a real issue and I think all of you would probably remember when reappraisal went in back I'm part of it in the 70s and the boards you know most of the district are the boards the County Commissioners all assuring everybody don't worry about your tax raising once the revenue goes up we'll drop we'll drop the mill it doesn't happen and uh so I guess I guess
057in that in that sense I just ask you to really take a hard look at it be sensitive do the people like myself now that own fixed income so every day when you look at taxes or food and all those to become an issue thank you thank you anyone else like to speak yes sir yeah my name is looking at this sheet that was handed out here even you look at the actual budget for 21.22 compared to the 23 24 there's a 27 tax increase in your budget there are all of them if you go to the U.S Department of Labor website or replacement rate for the last few years has been about 16 and I understand across the world but we are in inflation of times right now and people I just drove them
058trying to meet their budgets and their expenses and yes to go above the revenue neutral gold set here that you guys are proposing I think it's really unfair to the public right now and I think that uh we all have to tighten our belts and it doesn't seem like a lot of our government agencies do that I've looked at my city taxes in the last I've moved here in the bought a house in 2016. it makes seven years of my taxes and then you guys are up about 45 of the week and that's just in a seven year period And it's like those numbers are just the state stays the same Palmyra actually uh district has decreased they've adjusted for them for their needs but it doesn't seem like a lot of our government agencies
059and school districts are adjusting it for those uh adjustments as our property increases and it just doesn't seem I think what I'm feeling from the people I talk to is we're being well while times are good our housing is going up then our government agencies are pulling in the money that they can into your above Revenue neutral seems excessive to me and I I totally believe that the schools that I totally believe that I have three kids two of them went to college and one didn't and the ones that went to college have excelled in their careers the one that didn't she succelled in her career so um but I just think that the schooling is very important that at these levels and uh but I think that we have to be careful of how
060we spend people's money and we've heard a lot of us I'm retired I'm on fixed and adults and uh but I know that if I don't type life out in a couple years then there's going to be tough for me to make it and I I don't seem like our government agencies in our school districts doing that I see him I look at my taxes since I moved in and I've never seen the decrease in my property theft hearing that but I still hear an excessive amount of about this Revenue neutral um supposedly you're asking for and it just doesn't make sense to me so but I I love Baldwin I love living here since I'm over here it's been a great community and I would I feel the same I I absolutely I can
061find a place to cheaper place to live in most expensive taxes the first thing I look at is what what taxes so not only from Colorado I have a daughter that's paying four thousand dollars on seven hundred thousand dollar home I'm paying for three thousand dollars so it just seems like it feels that's it so thank you for your time thank you anyone else like to speak one comment about the revenue neutral my name is Nancy Chris and I just want to remind you all that Revenue neutral is fairly new it's recent it was enacted by our state legislators because taxpayers needed relief because people like those who've talked today went to their legislators and said this is what we want we're your constituents we want some relief from the constant increase of taxes in
062our local areas what can you do to help us and they found a way in Revenue neutral is a balance is a check and balance on these kind of local things that happen where at a higher level they've put something in place that can provide some relief and to ignore that is to ignore your constituents and to ignore that that exists for a reason so as Citizens I hope that you all will just remember why there is a revenue neutral ruling would anyone else have to speak like I believe reasonable time has been offered for this discussion thank you for oh we've got one more yep my name is Stacey Anderson and um has very big concerns about where we are heading in this town I know that these 12 families that have already knew
063because they will give them tax out to the maps that they can't afford to live here I know at least not anymore who are planning on living and they're going to go ahead and pull their kids out of the school because we cannot afford to live here it is across the board everything has worn up except people's wages we are at a time in this world where everything costs so much that we have to make a decision are we going to put pay our rent or are we going to put food on the table I have a very severe illnesses a lot of them and that costs a lot of money so am I going to get my medication or am I going to make sure that my kid has school supplies and clothes to
064our school because you guys have money in the reserve it's not that you guys are hurting you guys are mismanaging me that you have been collecting money for years and you have that and you choose not to use it in the appropriate way that it should have been done you guys wanted a stadium and the whole bar thing guess what there is brown bear why can't you build around the Merle Venable sports complex and make a statement that that's what you want instead of trying to get it out of a bond and since the bond is passed and you guys are trying to do this bull crap and I want to know is your decision already made because it seems to me the way this is written and you're thrown in their lack of security
065and safety and blah blah blah all of that stuff was in the bottom so has decision already been made and you guys you're just snowballing us to come in here and talk to you and to bring our voices to tell you how frustrated as a community we are as a whole and most people will not come in here and say anything and voice their their voices and their complaints about how bad people are struggling as a whole Community because they're afraid of repression either repercussion that they're sitting uh utility bill and it's going to be increased in some way um that they might get pulled over by the cops if they have kids in school maybe you know kids aren't going to be treated as nicely because their parents spoke out about it I've been
066very vocal Kelly and you know what I have been local with everybody I had tried to talk to us regards about it and experience that happened with my daughter last year she was bullied by a teacher and physically hurt he pinched her he's still working on his goals I don't understand what you people are doing and how you can say it's the kids first and we care about the kids and this is all for the kids when our kids are being bullied by students being bullied by teachers they are failing teachers are putting hands on it and you guys have a whole step load of money somewhere and it is not going where it needs to go our kids are failing my daughter came from homeschooling and she had an A in every class and
067last year she failed now because you do not believe the criteria that Greenwich that you use for the high school last year this year because I talked to her English and I said this is not right that only high school students get the opportunity to use Greenbush if they are not doing well to get extra help in learning and it's not fair that the other kids do not have that opportunity as well well this year they started at it from six took up to the high school I think it should be available for every kid when our kids are failing and there is a lack of I don't want to know where the money is where is the money that you guys have that you are asking us to put out more but you have
068that money and you are failing and have failed miserably for years to do any improvements or put in a stadium you put in a trap that's not even regulation and you could have put that in and made it correctly and we would have had our own you want to compare us to every other town around here because they have their own stadium so guess what they were smart when they were building their school when they put it in you guys have had over 20 some years to put that in place but now you're wanting to put the burden on us we're getting hit from every direction everything has gone up utilities water cable Insurance our home runs property taxes we are struggling as a community not just below not just the young everybody is struggling
069except it seems to be you guys now Mike has come up with a very good proposal and I don't understand why you guys won't even take the opportunity or the time to go you know what this actually makes sense and it will ease the brain on the community members so that our community members who have been long-standing here and some who have just moved here find out you know what we can't afford to with you because this place is our outrageously cut you won't even listen to his proposal to try and make it easier on the community because the community has kids in this school district it's not just the outside you know what I'm going to finish what I'm going to say you need to stop taxing us use the money that you have
070no idea and our pocketbooks cannot make it this way thank you we cannot we've listened about above the five minutes and we want to make sure you've got a chance to finish your sentence um at this time we're going to conclude the public testimony everyone who wants to has had the opportunity to speak in order to conduct our business at this point okay there are many statements that have been made this is the opportunity for the board to discuss keeping in mind that ideally I would like all of this to be one thing because several of the questions that came up are actually a statutorily required part of our budget hearing and I know that's hard to keep it separate even though it is very much interconnected but the part of that is required as
071far as setting caps to then pivot and be able to talk about the budget is this step um and that is board discussion regarding the resolution to exceed the revenue neutral rate the floor is open for discussion feel free to among the board if there's anything anyone would like to say or add or answer this is the time to do that for example great so this is our board discussion time guys so let's answer the question in its entirety um let's let's extrapolate on that so so when it's in ninjas can you use um right now I think we just got done paying for payments so even if we wanted to you couldn't take that money out okay by a bus or I couldn't just build a few part of what makes this confusing too
072is that there are limitations on you can't just move things from one column to the next some areas you can but there are also a lot of limitations on what you can move one thing that I heard that came up well there were several things um but we have dropped Mills historically and you know that this ongoing conversation that is very valid and very real and many of you spoke very respectfully about that um when you talk about the needs of everyone dealing with the cost of living in this environment that's that's everybody we are also people who sit here and live here and pay these same taxes too but the particular point of concern for how all of these decisions do affect everyone but most especially those who are already at the margins those
073who are on fixed income that that's a real thing um at the same time when we come into a conversation of separating needs and wants this board unanimously approved A needs assessment which is also required as part of our process we're going to get into that more with the next discussion I know um but it is it is a balance between two very important populations our students and the needs that the district has determined that they have educationally and everything else so I do want to um invite us to not run away from that discussion by any means but for the purposes of getting to the next part where we can really discuss that part we have to complete this step first great um Revenue to the neutral rate um what what what are we
074what does that look like I mean like what are we giving up well I mean obviously fun DS right yeah the difference between the two so I I know necessarily have a question and ask about it I guess I just feel compelled to comment and you know listening to the comments tonight you know a tour of my Heartstrings one you know I'm two years into this and I valuable learning experience today probably can relate to this that we sit in the chair and volunteer with good intentions uh trying to balance and manage so many different wants and needs and opinions and feelings and situations and you know I'm not going to get into you know a long in-depth attacks or political discussion uh and listening but you know I I believe similarly to many of
075you and frustrations with our tax system from top to bottom and it doesn't change sitting on the scene I learned some of the restrictions and some of the things and the ways that the school district has has got to the main engine in limited usage for funds and special education and things that just aren't mandated makes it makes it challenging uh I wish honestly every one of you that is being impacted by this could be exempt you know you don't have students in the schools anymore you know it worked hard and got into a place in your life that I wish there was some point in all of our world that we became exempt and didn't have to be part of this conversation or funding mechanism but that's not the system we live in so
076we've got to play The Cars work now and we as board members I feel like have also the obligation of trying to help our district um you know succeed and not just well not just survive but you know Thrive and and that's what you know that's what the parents who have students in the district expect that's what a lot of the community members that's what people that are moving here with their families expect is ones it's why I came to this community it was a school district and uh it's just challenging and it's hard to sit in this spot and attitude you know how to try to balance this because everything you're speaking about we're experiencing as well with the increased cause but so is the school district and uh you know and that's that's
077difficult and so anyway I I some some of the things I'll speak to the FFA program as an example that's something that this sitting board is very proud of and and if you knew how many times we've been shattered at why is Baldwin City this rural community sitting here without that and how are we letting that happen and and uh you know in the big scheme of things at the out doesn't cost money but it's very small compared to you know many things that we have to we have to fund and deal with so we're very proud that there is you know an AG program so I think we're going to be better because of it um and then budget you know and some people spoke you know really very personally towards us and you
078know I I apologize sorry you feel that way but you know we are truly sitting here trying to do good for our community and our school district and along to your role and I wish we could somehow make everybody happy but at the end of the day I think we have to do what what our leaders our admin tell us that they need in order to you know be relevant and public school systems that we are leading and and within the area that we are also won't say competing with but there is a new element to this and that is open border School uh rule ruling that just came into effect this year where you know it used to be you know you couldn't just go to school anywhere you want to but now kids
079and families they can send their kid anywhere they want to and we gotta you know try to protect and make sure that we can keep our kids and our in our community and make sure that we have so I don't know that that helps anything I just feel compelled to say something I took a lot of notes um I would encourage everybody that's in here to approach us and visit with us throughout the year not just tonight after you know I mean a lot of what you have to share we can talk through them sometimes it could have some influence both directions and I I encourage that communication because in this format at this 12th hour of the decision making sometimes it's difficult to completely sit down and and re-evaluate you know the entire process
080so that's all I have to say are there other points yeah one thing that I think is somewhat related to the RNR that I did want one question if we're ever audit just as a component of transparency um we are required to be audited every year um we have received the highest Commendation every year so that is a part of that's presented publicly at a board meeting it's presented the audit is not just something that happens it has to be presented to the board and accepted by the board so I do want to assure I'm not saying that's going to you know involve Universal agreement about all the other things but having an open and transparent audit process is statutorily required and we're happy to do that it's part of our open meetings it's presented
081to us we have to review it in Open Session now that we're putting everything on YouTube and videoing all those meetings in addition to being in the minutes are also archived any any of that you can always look up and that's important that you all know that that information is happening all throughout the year the budget process is not just what happens tonight it is a process that that truly is ongoing and um and I'm sorry that people are feeling like it isn't transparent I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how I could possibly you know and how we could possibly be any more transparent that doesn't mean that your opinion is wrong or that there aren't ways that we can and should continue to strive to do better um but there also is
082no intent to deceive or hide there may be disagreement but there is no ulterior motive for anything that we do we may just have different ideas about how to best get there and doing what's best for the most people um but an annual audit is important I wanted to make sure that was part of the record and to answer your question ma'am um because that's nothing is part of the annual process um yes in the spring it was the spring semester and it happens every year um we will double check I think was it January or February but then when it was presented to us to wear a patron could go look it up everybody has internet access which may or may not be true that's true so so there's got to be a better
083way but there are also the minutes all of which and those things um I know can be accessed yes at our library but also coming to our district office everything is on file and people are very happy to make sure well I don't want to get into all that in public session because that's that's your that's amazing that's okay we have to have point of order when factual let's let's not the reality is that's not always available to everybody here well the meetings are always open and you're always welcome to come absolutely when we moved out over the I see four years ago that's when we started putting them online so prior that it was always open I mean for the two or three years that I was on the border while we were at
084the ICA I think I'm sorry the PC now right yeah um well I think I probably had a total of four public comments I mean literally like four nothing ever nothing nothing ever was one thing about sidewalks um but the board makes them always always been open and it's sometimes there's nobody here you know and so we sit up here and have our discussion and put on put online and then people say well you never it's not open you didn't do this at Kelly's Point there's nothing and short of like maybe sending somebody to VHS tapes or of the meetings I mean I don't know anybody can make it more open I'm certainly open to any suggestions um spend an endorsement for the drawings that was privately raised that has nothing to do with us
085and I'm gonna I'm gonna interject that has nothing that has nothing to do really with the with the part of business that we're doing tonight that was part of a public comment that I was addressing as part of the testimony that was relevant thank you over to everybody is there other discussion no I asked this question this question again we do this R in our hearing first which has always been challenging for me right but just regardless of what happens with this we're just positioning ourselves to be able to I guess would you want to speak directly we're setting uh caps essentially uh maximums uh for the budget conversations that take place in the veterinarian because it's the actual budget that's submitted that actually impacts right the taxation whatever happens right here is not going
086to impact by exceeding the RNR it allows us to identify specific Mill Levels that we can have in the budget discussion we can always come down from those levels but you can never go above them based on the conversation or what's approved at this time and as a point of reference if my information is correct this is reported in the journal or the state of Kansas which created this statute exceeded the revenue neutral rate I don't know if there's awareness of that so I'm not sure well there's not very many areas it's very small correct um and so as that's related to the procedural lever step that's required for us to go on to the budget part yes Kelly you are correct and then you then you said work through your budget to submit for
087what actually takes place once you do that you can always come down in front of those Mills which we did last year which we did last year yeah I didn't think one of the questions yeah and maybe we don't have answered as part of it compared to others surrounding school districts how how close are we in the ballpark open Network Mills to Wellsville Indiana give me one second Chris I think I can find out trying to compare ourselves that's cool oh that makes it okay though that's how it works that doesn't mean seriously which is what you guys are this is where this is made please no swearing that's not appropriate Stacy I appreciate your passion and your advocacy and you can do all of that without swearing that's fine and you're entitled to your
088opinion the public has had its opportunity the public has had its opportunity and you'll be asked to be removed you've had your opportunity we have listened and and let's just all take a deep breath because listen I know we may disagree we're not enemies here and we don't need to have swearing that's too far we're gonna we're gonna keep it orderly okay yeah yeah we've we've heard you we've heard you all right so a question was asked of a board member about surrounding and I'm looking for that spreadsheet I mean I'm struggling well part of the reason why I I think that is relative not because we're trying to be anybody else to because I am listening and I do want to listen and meet you where you are but I'm but it's got to
089be respectful and professional but to merge what you're saying and then also why is that relevant our inner local partnership is Baldwin Eudora and Wellsville so when we set our budget and we have our special education in our local with those two other schools when if we are miles apart on many things it also makes the educational collaborations that are uh both legally ethically and budgetarily necessary to work if we're a million miles apart that would be one relevant example of just taking a temperature not because it's we're trying to be identical we are Baldwin but we also need to know what's happening around us to take the temperature that helps make sure if you're far off course or if you're on the right track that's always a good thing to check that's why we
090you know research it isn't a copycat thing in that sense for sure um but it is relevant for a lot of reasons and I think a big reason is is because of that does anybody see that differently no no just that exactly no living rate varies a lot by how much that pulls in like per per male how much money do we bring in berries compared to any of the community right so like for instance has a much bigger industry base and so their meal is generating more money because it is a industry that can pay into that right so right just thinking from a comparative sense how much did it help and the spectrum of you know zero to 100 or whatever there's no other place could be it's out of curiosity wondering what
091are last year districts have their online meetings already ignorance is tonight I do not recall when uh Ottawa was was and we'll go I think they're just coming up soon the deadline for it is coming yeah and Lewisburg had theirs but they tell us last week it seems like we're doing this in Reverse today why don't we the law this is what the law requires we don't like it either we don't like it either that's what the state the state mandates how we have to have to do that we have to because it feels like I know at your home that you've decided to clear out your budget and then you pay the check I mean the law the law allows for the budget and the r r conversation to take place at the same
092time but it doesn't require it it doesn't require one before it does it no well it requires the r r has to be our exceeding of the r r has to happen before a budget approval takes place that part has to happen some District you have the flexibility to have conversations at the same time you could have your budget in our hearings concurrently yes and that that's the caste is the State Department of Education recommends you do it this way we're we're following that that protocol and that's another reason why we have an attorney present what else do you do you have any other discussion we've got nothing budget and so and so what we're looking for even right now is it's still less than what we've asked for in 21.2 minutes valuation that's the
093one that has the the 348 Mills yeah that and again that's our speak for money and I know that that's not dollars and that's not percentage um that was a discussion because we didn't have to give that back so I think somebody at one important times that we you know we never go down well we did and that was a big discussion because we could have stayed you know kept that I think I met that came out a bunch of that came out on an interest because we had a bond that mature it paid off and so my argument at that time was hey look we don't have any use for this money now let's give it back and then that was the whole I mean so I'm kind of a scapegoat for the whole
094bomb thing and my you know the reason why there wasn't no Levy mutual bond because you know I argued to say let's give that money back and then we had to ask for money back you know by the school districts around is the Eudora did a mill Levy neutral Bond because every time they have a bond mature they just keep that money so that they're able to continue to fund that so that they can come up with a middle name we said as a board I'm like hey we don't have a good use for this money right now we are not going to collect it and so we reduced Mills not because our operating costs went down not because we paid teachers less but because we were we had a bond mature we didn't feel
095right to keep money that we were not putting towards a bond so again those are middle levees I mean the those Mills back so I'm I'm very fiscally conservative um and like Kelly uses good words about plugging in heart strings I mean I cannot I'm you're a tea party guy tonight I'm a tea party guy all the time um you know so it's a really really hard decision there is there are no nefarious I mean up here you know we don't all agree all the time but there is no nefarious slush fun trying to just like go crazy we don't care about your money we just want to do Stadium no I mean it's we we sat down that whole bond issue and I don't want to get back into that but that was that
096was well thought out well asked you know well that we are rehearsed everything's I mean I mean hours and hours and hours of time in the community talking to people what do we need to do so this there's nothing about this that's easy to sit here and talk to your neighbors and friends you know Greg Williams my son jack will never get to drive again because it's a really it's a really hard thing to sit up here and have to look at you guys and say hey look you know we as a school district this is where we're at but you know we've got we've got a guy who's you know our financial guy and this is he's saying this is what it's going to take you know we go through the budget I'm not
097a budget guy you know I'm not a finance major not this is this is I don't even know how to do I gotta you know my math is not good but we have we have to go through and talk about all of this um and it's hard and please in weather whether this thing is right and you know the revenue neutral rate gets surpassed or it gets held up whatever it's not uh um a foregone conclusion and it's not us not listening to you it's about us trying to do what feels like the right spot for me as as a board this guy who's in help you know one seventh in charge of the school district trying to figure out what's best for the school district you know like Kelly alluded to earlier the um
098the open borders thing that's going to be really difficult because you know here we are you know I don't have any social media so whatever you post on Facebook I don't see my my wife does she shows me this guy's post from wherever the junior high play football and he was like making fun of our football field because he's like there's no bathrooms there's no concession impossible there might be a shame you know if I want to laugh kind of apropos but you know it's we we do have to compete and you know this the school like um Christmas mentioned we don't have a big industrial base I wish we did you know if we have the Amazon Intermodal right here you know property taxes I mean we wouldn't have to collect so much to
099keep the school running but we don't have anybody to rely on except for you guys I'm 100 agree with Kelly with it sucks to be you know my dad's a fixed income guy he's gonna have to pay taxes you know what his taxes are going um I'll be I I would love to be here and be a fixed income guy someday right I mean that's what that's my goal is I want to be buried in my front yard um you know it's gonna suck someday but you know it's just it's it's really really difficult to sit up here so please I know somebody said oh if you guys made this you're just snowballing us give me a chance no we're not I mean it's it's a really really really hard decision um to do it
100again the RNR like Kelly said to make super clear that does not mean that we are we could very well you know vote to exceed the r r you know vote how to give our associate authority to collect more money and then go through the budget and then not do that right so I mean there's this whole vote it is it's 100 backwards and last year's the first year of having to do this um you know and that was the whole boater ruling thing we had a grammatical syntax error in the in the manual it wasn't that the bonus slapped us down because we were evil or had some near various plot or we were doing something wrong we read the motion um so that you know I just I want to pour my heart
101out to you guys to let you know that like that's I mean this is a hard spot to be um you know I'm a little jealous that I'm more you know I don't get to go this is a hard spot to be I mean you know go through all the stuff we go through um but yeah so please know that it's not just letting you guys talk and say stuff and we've got this little cabal of like we're going to do this anyway it's not I mean this what you see here in this before is being open what you see here is all that ever happens we don't have like behind closed doors meetings there's no like secretive slush fund for us to go to Cancun when we all get off the board um you
102know but we've all been on the boards for varying lengths of time you know we're talking about like you know what happened to this building you know when 12 years ago I don't think anybody maybe maybe Andy was on his first term you know back then nobody else is on the court I don't know 20 years ago with building a stadium I was on the board back then I had to push to build a stadium then I think it's ridiculous that they did I have no control over the fact that the track is you're not irregulation I think it should have been I'm sure at that time somebody was in your complaining about wanting to build a stadium you know and probably 20 years before that somebody was complaining about why you know why are
103you wanting to build a stadium 20 years from now somebody's gonna look back and say why did you guys build a stadium 20 years ago people were outraged at building the primary center right now it's not long after um that's another reason we were out of room you know things happen but to your point none of us though no no it's okay it's okay um yeah sure um so I do attach myself was lowered at a certain point of time interest for the last three years than you're paying out every year and as a result of that you reserve it on the audience again the start of the system here before you make your happy payment a lot of interest if you're sitting on 4.1 million dollars and when I am trying to accomplish what
104I'm proposing is that you can reduce the bonded interest levies to taxpayers by five hundred thousand dollars a year so let's talk about that when we get we have we will address that as part of the budget the budget conversation um we'll absolutely address that as part of the budget conversation for sure but in the meantime we have the are the revenue neutral rate I'm going to conclude public comment at this time and move to any action that we I believe we've met the standard of reasonable and I want to go ahead and move to item number four unless the board has any further discussion board members no more okay Megan can you drag up the um all right so in your packets I'm including packets there this is a copy of the resolution that
105uh is a line alignment with our ask to exceed the revenue neutral rate the purpose of building a budget for this course of the school year um this is the revolution here that we've had crafted in conjunction with our attorney for you so I'll give you an opportunity to read that Megan do you mind scrolling up a little bit so that we can see there tube tie right there the uh the most or the the resolution there it indicates that what the revenue neutral rate Mill Levy is it also states that uh on on this date here we allowed the opportunity for the public to be heard and it's it's necessary for the development of our budget that the district exceed the revenues and that's what this resolution speaks to and it's in accordance with
106Asa 79-298 which is also provided in your packets Megan do you mind sliding the presentation back up and moving to I will need to possibly final slide this is the recommended motion from the district necessary in the process to exceed the revenue neutral rate by resolution it does require a roll call vote by legislation they can just stepped out to a problem wait for it to come back considering she has to record just record any votes should the uh the motion be made in a second and uh speaking of the roll call the the way that will work um just because ain't nothing about it is fun but a name will be drawn from the envelope all seven board members names are in there that determines who goes first whoever is first will respond with
107either I or nay and then it will proceed in alphabetical order from there so it won't be drawing out of the Hat every time it's simply drawing out of the envelope to decide who gets to go first when it actually comes to the roll call vote itself but that would only happen after the motion if such emotion were to be made just like always she's getting names thank you what's up I've seen her hand I haven't heard it I'm here I'm here bless you thank you all right um I moved to see the revolutional range by resolution Chris has moved and Tony has seconded to exceed the revenue neutral rate by resolution which is written and will be read as follows resolution of USD 348 Baldwin City to Levy a property tax rate exceeding the
108revenue neutral rate in accordance with KSA 79-2988 whereas the revenue neutral rate for USD 348 Baldwin Kansas was calculated at 44.886 Mills by the county clerk of Douglas County Kansas whereas the budget proposed by the governing body of the USD 348 Board of Education here and after the governing body will require the levying of a property tax rate exceeding the revenue neutral rate whereas the governing body conducted a hearing on September 14th 2023 allowing all interested taxpayers Desiring to be heard an opportunity to give oral testimony and whereas the governing body having heard testimony finds that it is necessary to Levy a property tax exceeding the revenue neutral rate now therefore be it resolved by the governing body of USD 348 Baldwin City Kansas in accordance with KSA 79-2988 the governing body hereby approves exceeding
109the revenue neutral rate of 44.886 Mills this resolution shall take effect and be enforced immediately upon its adoption and shall remain in effect until future action is taken by the governing body I will not read the adopted part because we have not voted but that would be the motion in its entirety at this time we will proceed with the roll call vote which Megan will draw a name from the envelope just to see who is going first yeah and a vote of I in favor or nay in opposition Susan I and then you'll just read their last names in alphabetical order and then everyone else I Brown all right hi myself here hi motion carries seven to zero therefore adopted by the governing body of USD 348 Baldwin City Kansas this 14th day of September
1102023. all right thank you everyone we have no executive session so if we could have a motion for adjournment then we can proceed to our budget hearing so moved okay all those in favor of a journey please say aye and raise your right hand bye okay motion carries 7-0 meeting adjourned 748 all right do we need a restroom break yep so we are still at recess and the second meeting and now we'll get into the budget work thank you thank you so that's separate in your blue folders you can put away the work of your yellow folder and go to your blue folder thank you so much needs to be talking away are we ready to resume yes okay Megan are you okay if I multitask by calling it back to order okay okay all
111right we were in recess for the second meeting we are going to call back to order um the budget hearing special meeting it is 802. we already approved the agenda for that and so now we're gonna go into the snate oh yeah it's just a visual block with the like I think he's there um back on for the budget presentation now for 23.24 all right and I I'm gonna hijack the first uh several slides here um as we get into the project here um and so for the board I want you to notice some of some additional information that we'll be talking about this year good uh last year you know haven't been a new superintendent um kind of learned some some things here so with that I want to talk about uh with the
112budget one of the things we've talked about uh for quite a while is the importance of our mission statement and our mission statement statement should be driving what we do and the decisions that we make and when it's coming to the budget your budget needs to reflect your mission statement and that's preparing students to positively impact the world through academic social emotional and behavioral success that's that's our why that's what we're doing in the district that's what we're doing in our buildings that's what we're doing in our classrooms with that as we've talked about before prior to my uh coming on board with the district that you started a strategic planning process that include included hours of conversation survey results discussions that led to the identification of these uh four target areas and our budget
113needs to also reflect efforts that are going into these target areas bearing students for Success supporting the needs of students and staff engagement in schools and school activities and Target area four operational effectiveness and maintaining and improving facilities to create safe healthy and inspiring learning spaces and finally the efforts that we put into our budget goes into what we're trying to accomplish as a as goals for our district um from uh social emotional standpoint we'd like to see our students scoring low risk um on my Savers by 27. we'd like to see that number around 90 now we're not saying that we don't want it to help us identify a student that may need some help but we're also wanting to notice that we've got a culture and environment A system that they feel safe
114uh welcome and embrace there 80 of our students scoring the two on the Kansas State assessments or 23 or higher on the act by 2027. it's important to understand the rubric the state department put together when they built their state assessment was a two indicated that those are the basic skills and learning necessary to be post-secondary ready so it's important to understand that this year as a district we had 74 and 75 percent in Reading in ela or Ela and math excuse me within those two respective areas important to point that out the last one there we'd like to see 90 of our students by 27 graduate with either six college credits or a Career Technical education certificate not every student is career boundary or excuse me College Bound not every student knows what they
115want to do right out of high school and so a CTE certification can help them uh in in the in the work industry there the work field or if they are going to college those CTE programs can help them as they enter into those those College Realms additionally at the high school level if we can help students obtain college credits before they enter into college we're just helping them Advance if that is their desired path with that said we've got our budget highlights in your packet you have a copy of several budget items there you've got the the form 150 which is basically an explanation of how the budget gets calculated you've got What's called the code 99 that is a breakdown of the various main budget categories so that's those are some items there
116that you can reference when you're looking through the budget a couple of things that we wanted to point out as a comparison to last year as well as what we are proposing this year this first slide there is the Mills as well as taxes Levy and I'll allow Nate here to do a little description here or an explanation of the slide yeah since we're 22 23 our continue to cover the general fund access Levy we're 1.989 million um which supports a total of 20 mils uh supplemental General there will be taxes Levy were just over a million uh with uh with the Boda adjustment to the 7.99 Mills Capital outlay potassium for 873 000 a total of 7.39 Mills Levy and bonded interest taxes money was both considerate filed a total Mills of 14.488 our
117proposed for 22 or excuse me 23 and 24 with the carryingover for general fund for 20 meals a statute is 2.472 million or supplemental General proposed tax levity is 1.8 million with 13.073 Mills a little bit of a decrease over from last year for the person else Capital outlays are proposed is 982 000 with a total note of 7.10 so a little bit of increase over last year and the bonded interest proposed tax levy is just over 2 million at 14.488 foreign all right so a couple of things there let's see wait a minute am I I'm gonna slide ahead on my computer here all right we want to make sure that Nate you might have said this I was digging through my notes here I'm at top of the comparison we wanted to make
118sure as you're looking at the comparison that you see there's that reflection of what last year's LLB Mills were and then uh what the adjustment made in terms of Boda to balance out the rest of the school year anything else her name all right this next slide it's the highlights go ahead Nate yeah just like the r R1 estimating taxes excuse me yeah so for general fund um again carries the 20 medals over uh supplemental Journal fund you can see in it but we did have that dip in 2122 but I had the adjustment and then our uh estimated the 13.073 for the 23-24 year um and then Capital outlay began we did have an increase in 2122 Hills we did decrease that in 22-23 and then we have our 7.10 for 23 24. uh
119bonded interest it was obviously 14 997 and 2021 uh with the increased in 21 22 to 14.502 um we had a 22 23 or 14.488 and we're doing the same request this year for 14.488 a couple of things that I want to point out here the district qualifies for what's called a cost of living adjustment and what that what that has to do with the fact is there are roughly 20 districts across the state that were given this extra opportunity within the general fund due to increased assessment values within those districts we declined the opportunity to leverage that because that would have required an increased Mill within the general fund so that would have been additional tax dollars levied against our community we declined against using that the second item there we wanted to identify
120is back in the spring we approved the resolution the board approved the resolution that allowed the district to develop a budget that could take the yellow bead to the maximum of 33 percent annually if they choose if the board chooses to this year the development of the budget budget we decided not not to go to that 33 percent rather we are trying to leverage a 31.7 percent which is a 0.1 percent higher than the state average of 31.6 okay another thing that I wanted to to bring up this is um this is the time where I I want to reference and I when I had Communications with with Mike Kennedy he mentioned it in his his previous previous comment that he provided a plan to me um he gave it to me what was that
121Mike about a week and a half ago a week ago and I spent time looking at that plan I ran it past a couple of individuals that uh that are that work with school financing um and in terms of the uh the ability to pay down the debt that he's got there yes it does that it does that and I've had the conversations with Mike on it and I gave it the thought about it long and hard for a couple of weeks I had a meeting with him Mike explained some of the details to it we went back and forth in terms of some ideas and what are some concerns that I have with it um one of the concerns that I have is the the idea that if we're looking at paying down bonded
122interest over five-year period Then what that's doing is it's the reduction of the Mills occurs but I wanted to look at what happens to the cost of construction over time within that five years and the plan that he's presented to me it says that there's a savings of 2.227 million when when I run that against the cost of construction increases over the next five years I wanted to say okay what is that what's the difference between the cost savings within paying down up front and what does that do to the cost of construction in terms of what the increase looks like in conversations and getting that data cost of construction over the last several years has been as as low as the four percent 3.9 something about four years ago went up to 13 and
12320. it was down to about or 21 excuse me excuse me and it went down to um nine percent last year this year it's looking to be around four percent those costs of construction items it's the industry is looking at what could that do in five years and I was comparing it to the needs that we put together with with the bond project and that was based on the 25 million what I knew there if we're waiting to look at engaging in another bond process the Obama capacity that was 25 million in 2023 by 2027 we would be paying the cost of increase at four percent would be an increased cost of about four points a 4.24 million if that cost of construction increases at eight percent the increase goes to 11.73 million and so
124trying to justify what does the short-term savings look like versus the long-term Savings of engaging in a bond project in 27 or 28 to me it's it's the answer is it it's it's going to be asking our community to do more it's going to be costing them more and as it was stated earlier the dollar just doesn't go as far there's there's that line that comment of it's never cheaper to build more than it is today so with that taking that into consideration in in hearing some things over the weekend it did not it wasn't a within my I'm going to diverge a little bit I heard a conversation or a tweaking with an individual um it's trying to help an individual in the community so I mean my oppose of my heart too but
125in terms of trying to accomplish the strategic planning goals that we've got the mission statement that we've developed or our district goals the budget that we've put together in front of you is with those Mill Levels is what's going to help us get there looking long term keeping our Mills at 4.48 right now and unless there is the decision to part ways with our plan to to enter into the bond we've still got two more opportunities and we as a board We are continuing those discussions it's the best thing to do right now is to keep that Mill where it is at 14.488 we wait to discuss it but but yeah that's we can talk about that and then when we get to the discussion so so the parent uh so in comparing what was
126initially approved in 0.223 uh this year 23 24. a total reduction of the 0.212 Mills uh is what we have as our estimated Mills uh proposing a decrease of these Mills overall is in an effort to increase Patron tax responsibility and still maintain funds and necessary operating conditions absorb increase inflationary cost increased salaries and wages that begin fiscal year 5.3 percent increase for staff and supplemental rate and approve the budget excuse measures establishes excuse me the maximum limits of the 23-24 budget so one of the things that has taken place is through budget cut through our negotiations conversations our teachers starting pay for our teachers has been the lowest in the area by far and we had an opportunity this year and there was a dedicated effort this year to provide our staff with a
127with a raise that is that they have been uh that they've been seeing other communities gather we're trying to make sure in terms of getting our the best out of our students we want to be able to hire the best we want to be able to retain the best and so those efforts do not go unnoticed but our budget also needs to reflect that foreign technical education pathway expansions uh to Sublime that the instructional materials and resources caused from UCT Pathways from two new Pathways and to the high school in junior high uh RCT certification as mentioned before for the cost that a New York bus station from this year for the students a special special education increased costs facilities increase costs for the classroom substitutes instructional material adoption is covering costs for expiring grants
128and it possibly with increased increases excuse me increasing students so I wanted to talk about a couple of things there so the special education increases costs that's an important item there the percentage of funding that comes from the state level that's statutorily 92 percent is only coming to us at 69 percent which previous year was 72 percent so we've got to make up those funds out of our out of our general function that's that's where that comes from um the other The increased cost for classroom substitutes we've already reached some impact there while there are times where we when we've got some testing going on within a building so we've had a high volume of Subs in in the district of when we get to our normal day daily uh sub uh sub job filling
129we're getting better results there we're already seeing that um instructional material adoptions as legislation came through we were able to to purchase a new Ela program for our our students at the elementary level and now we are in need of updating our secondary curriculum materials and there's about four different areas that need to have material adoptions occur um covering costs for expiring grants this is an important one the whole purpose of developing that three-year Staffing plan that took place which is also included in your documents is to help us foresee what are those positions that our building administrators our operations team which is our directors our department directors and our principals identify as needing to be able to move forward so we can continue to address the goals to address our strategic plan and we've
130got a list of individuals that come that are coming off of expiring funds by those expiring funds we're talking yes sir we've got four positions at Student Success a position that have deemed themselves uh Irreplaceable within those buildings they are making a huge impact we need to figure out how to sustain those positions when those Grant dollars run out in December of 24. we've also got some health aid needs that we've got a great healthy health staff health services staff across the district and they are they're also very beneficial we want to make sure that we we've got a plan to maintain those and those those that's not about growth there that's about maintaining um and then the cost with increasing student enrollment I mentioned that earlier we've got about four uh 35 new students
131entering our buildings that aren't getting the the state aid that the other students that came to us last year are and so we the cost money to educate them it costs money to to to serve them so we want we need to make sure that we we get that built in the college Career and Technical education pathway expansion I'm very proud of the high school in terms of the work that they're doing they are they they've got a renewed focus in terms of what we want to do for our students and what our students want their students have had voice and choice in that and that's incredibly important and it's being utilized in a way that's reflective of our community and and what the Partnerships that could exist there those programs I I don't mean
132to be flippant with this but those programs are not free it does cost it as the point that was made it does cost but those are incredibly valuable programs that are very necessary for our students I've talked to a number of kids but I ask what are they they graduated this spring what are they doing several of them are going to K-State to study animal Sciences would have been great if we could have had a CTE Pathway to help support them as they Venture down that path um with with that career technology or Career and Technical education support behind them so sorry to go off on a little bit of a uh again Jerry Maguire round two um statement on but I wanted to point out is where these funds are headed that's that's a
133big impact and this is just a we wanted an underground just to show that as I mentioned salaries from the staff it's exactly that's a reference here um as you can see our Cloud our our licensed staff our certified staff are getting a large share of that and when it comes to the general fund as Nate mentioned earlier 83 percent of the general fund is is allocated to Staffing again so that is the the budget itself in terms of where we are looking to head uh with the with the Mills that we've uh that we're looking to apply um we believe that this this budget here will take us to accomplishing our district goals as well as guiding us down the path that you the vision that you've set as a board in terms of
134where you want us to head and where you want us to lead our students and then tying back to our mission statement this will help us ensure that students positively impact the world through academic social emotional behaviorals so Kelly we are back to the public testimony time thank you all right okay so we want to make sure um again to offer opportunity for us to prioritize listening and the form of public testimony and so at this time is the board um okay with the same definitions of what is fair and reasonable for this hearing as well if so let's have let's just have a motion so that it's formal and it could be as simple if if you're okay with how we did for the first it can be as simple as adopting the thing
135that we adopted [Music] speaking and testimony okay a second and I want to say last year we allowed back and forth that I don't think was productive and that's not what we're voting for now and we can't allow that we can't we're not here to have a long conversation we're here to listen and then have our discussion that's what we're voting message received are not strict enough all those in favor please say aye and raise your right hand hi hi hi thank you Susan uh motion carries seven zero um okay at this time if anyone would like to speak again you are welcome to do so um at least bringing up the The Proposal around the bonded interest I don't agree with you on some things obviously we know that um I want to explain
136this to the board and the film who made some comments earlier your current power of taxation allows you to collect bonded interest taxes to pay for the projects that were approved by voters in the past it is unethical for you to continue to collect over collect taxes to put a bigger Reserve in place for some future project that hasn't been approved by current or future voters and what has been happening over the past few years in particular last year when you had to make a critical decision about which account to cut is you cut LOB instead of cutting bonded interest because she wanted that 1.8 million dollars in levies to go into the account and make it look better so you can sell the bond hopefully sell the bond to this Putlocker and say it
137had it had a lesser impact you were spiking the taxes in advance of a vote despite losing that boat what you're proposing tonight is to continue to spike the taxes because I've given you a very clear plan how you can roll back those taxes to people and paid bonds off early by using half of what you have in your reserve account and that will save our taxpayers three million dollars over the next few you can't rely on a current our future Bond being approved by the voters some future costs for some future project that may or may not be the same as what you tried to pass in the spring in fact four of you are laying ducks in that regard and I strongly advise you not to take the power to put a new
138Bond onto the ballot in the spring after you're already gone that should be the responsibility for the newly elected board so I'm asking you consider this proposal it saves the taxpayer money today it leaves future taxpayers the opportunity to vote on a bond and a project and the taxes that the new poor will have to come up with and the size of the project that the new board will have to come up with but if you continue to tax these taxpayers today before there's a new project you're just you're just soaking us you're soaking us right now to try to stash it away from a future and that is I just I'm sorry it may not be illegal but it's unethical it is completely unethical for you to collect money in advance from your project
139to make that new project seem more powerful in the future if you need any more details on this plan I'm happy to talk about it but that's the message I wanted to get across you on that on that matter today I don't know if you can answer questions I think there was somehow some stuff in this presentation or justifying some of the expenditure items here it's hard to sort out with the information provided in the way accounts are moved around but at risk K-12 spending has gone from seven hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars uh providing proposal for the last two years I don't know what you covered Mr Dodge um Mr Holder will explains why we're seeing such a rapid increase in that area and you know maybe that would be helpful to
140tell the public like specifically like yeah we got more problems or there's teachers coming off of funding or something like that I think it would just be helpful to clarify that so so we can understand that we certainly want um you know what Opera's kids could be to get caught up we're all trying to push these kids to higher levels I think we all want that um there was another part I mean I know that you've given across the board six percent raises to to his teachers as well as all other staff this year um I wish I got a 60 raise this year it didn't happen um looking at the budget at a glance documents again they sort of parse this information differently and um I think that like the amendment support line has
141gone off really really large there like you're showing in that in that particular view of the budget you know prior years were somewhere around 1.8 1.7 1.8 million dollars and this year it's spiking to 2.4 million dollars and I don't know I can't I can't decipher from what what that what admin and support is other than salaries um but it certainly seems like it it um is going up and I don't I really don't understand why but I don't know if anybody else can explain that tonight that's all I want to say again I'm here really here to really hurt you guys to consider retooling this bonded interest a olive branch of standard of the community thank you for all equivalent comment um it would put us on a behalf of the future voters decide
142what they want rather than tax on front Builders there's something that hasn't even been yet thank you um so you said that special education uh the state assistance is going to get 92 and it's only funding that at 69 right now and I know that's historically low it has not been that low in history and then on the budget expenditures for this community we've got slightly over three million dollars budgeted for special education so if you can't answer nominated by this later um is that the amount that the district's company anyone else what Bradley again um yeah I just want to hit on a couple things come back to transparency issue and stuff like that and I like what kind of Mike said I think it'd be you know bad on transparency if you guys
143try to put another Bond pass another Bond especially before we leave in I think it gives the voters a chance to sit there make that decision and what people vote and make that you know I think that's probably what the election is probably going to come down to to be honest with you all so uh but transparency and stuff like that I'll talk about strategic goals I've always believed transparency accountability comes back to it's never the receiver's fault it's always to deliver and like I said I really want to see you all succeed I really want to see the board succeed because I have a vested interest in game like I said we may disagree on topics but we can agree to disagree on that so um it always starts at the top I've heard
144a lot of things from admin coming back and saying hey they're they're hitting a lot of flack from parents from teachers going in or from parents just the community and it starts at the top you guys are the screen for the administrators you guys got to be that stream that this this presentation I'm not saying it was horrible but most people most farmers and stuff can't read this they can't get it you know what where does it go down to what like what's the Nexus of what it's going down to the objectives you know because at the end of the day it just hurts the kids if if you got parents mad at you guys and stuff like that and they don't want to pass bonds they don't want to get stuff people think I
145I was a no vote but people think I'm against the stadium no I think this is this we need a stadium I know that price shocks a lot of people but I think we got to be you know good with the money especially when I'm seeing documents that say Hey that's why I come to strategic goals they're more they're not written in a smart format your action items I think your strategic goals high level or great but there's nothing the whole anybody accountable to and that's what people are wanting for example on preparing your students for success in one of the deals says like increase uh act tutoring or academic prep and one of the action steps you guys have no way to hold anybody you guys can literally hold one extra class and you
146got it done it would really be helpful those are some type of smart goals everybody knows smart goals specific measurable attainable realistic and time-bound so for example by the end of 2025 we increase ACT prep scores or uh prep classes or tutoring to make sure 75 of juniors seniors get it to the overall goal of increasing ACT scores by one percent that is something when you guys go to budget and increase the budget decrease the budget you can go to the public and say hey I've increased this budget because to get the rest of the way we need to do that or we've thrown money after bad but none of those astronaut if I get it your strategic goals are big picture and you don't put that on there but your actionizing should have that
147from a military planner it should have that pole people account an issue you talk about operating Effectiveness maintaining improving facilities and stuff like that you guys talk about them in your state assessments are mentioned twice about the IC and PC not having enough room needing more space but there's nowhere on strategic goals and those were created in 2022. a stadium wasn't on there CTE stuff wasn't on there so that's where your lack of trust is coming from in the budgeting process and stuff and trying to get this stuff across I get it I don't think you need to probably have everything plans changed we didn't know the Panasonic plant was coming in and stuff like that I get it you can't always plan for a future tell me you missed all three of those on
148there that's where trust is coming from when it comes to the budgeting process stuff ladies and gentlemen and again I will go back again the presentation was great but why wasn't it out before I know there's legal requirements you can't give everything out I get that I understand that uh mark but weeks before Rita had a general idea of what's coming down the pi is really going to help the community go and understand the budget and support you guys on the open communication even a couple of slides here's the big picture items here's what's coming out Revenue rate neutral we'll go back to that a little bit like what are we doing what are we doing with that money that's how you're going to increase this transparency and accountability that I keep hearing and then
149hopefully down the line when we come to a bond vote we come to vote because I said I know you guys didn't do the three those six Lanes on the track but you guys inherited that problem and you guys are the school board now so the school board pass whatever you want you say they kind of put that pile in your guys's lap and whoever inherits the seats again from the election whatever you guys put in place we're going to inherit that pile as well and I can't sit there and say point to the last one nope you guys own it or we or whoever the other candidates will own it at that time so that's what yes you do again that's what I would like to see talking to you know how to increase
150the accountability I'm a senior program manager I deal with billion dollar or a million dollar budgets something I do all time how you take two people on opposing hands to come in the middle communication communication communication all right thank you yes sir that's okay I'm kind of a kiss person keep it simple stupid person so I look at the numbers and that's that's what I look at it's taxpayer and when I look at the sheet that you guys handed out tonight total USB taxes levied from uh 2021 22 to 20 what you're proposing for 20 23 24 it's a million and a half dollar increase and that's a 27 increase in two years and what I don't understand is nobody makes it clear where that money is going I get a packet like this and
151even when I looked on the school districts uh website I can't understand this I'm not an accountant and without really somebody to sit down and explain to me what all this stuff is there's no place that really makes it simple for a taxpayer if I could understand where the increases are needed where that's the money needs to be increased and would help tremendously and it just has to be in a simple form I don't need to do these big charts the other thing I know is I've been in businesses and I've worked for companies who have different departments give them their budgets and everybody has a budget that they wish they could get and so if you get that budget you're going to spend that money so what I know is you you can hand
152in all the numbers and all these different categories and say you think this is how much we need and everybody knows that when those numbers are handed in anybody everybody knows that they're going to shoot for the Moon not in excess but everybody wants more money but what I know is we're in inflation times and now we're going with with an increase in in our oh taxes of 11 from last year and um it's just hard it's just hard to understand as a taxpayer what why these are increasing at such dramatic rate and so I guess that's why I feel like my house value has gone up last year I think it was like what that I have here 8.3 percent and then on top of that you guys are increasing your Revenue neutral numbers
153on top of that you know so to to me as a taxpayer you're collecting 8.3 percent more taxes just on the increased value of my house based on your meal Levy from last year but yet you want to propose another five meals on top of that for this year it just for a taxpayer it doesn't make sense it doesn't comprehend in my mind and I am a numbers guy I was good at math doesn't not bragging I'm just saying nothing just one of the things that I I liked and so for me to to understand why this increase is so dramatic it doesn't make sense to me so and like I say I love this community it's been a great place to stay and I hate to have to lose it thank you Ken Snyder
154uh just to go back I want to reiterate the fact that you guys definitely have a harder job than what the county does when it comes to uh trying to random budgets but I'm sorry I can't help but think that um you know the idea that look in here and do some you know identify really what what is our scope as a school district and what can we do for Creative Solutions I mean I just looking here over the next four years we're talking about spending 1.2 million dollars on computer and iPad Chromebook rotations with occasional some other upgrades for switches and access points that's a lot of money and we have uh you know I don't know those things like you know driver training that's gone up from 13 000 two years ago to
15538 000. I mean maybe it's necessary maybe it isn't I don't know but it as when I'm at home you know crunching my numbers you know there's a lot of things I'd like to increase it'd be great I'm sure you know my wife and kids would enjoy it but it just doesn't work um you know into uh you know to go back to uh to the point that Mike was making with the extra money in the bond and interest fund I mean because people are upset about in Topeka when you know we have the you know you know tax revenues for the state exceeded what their projections were and so instead of giving that money back you know stay in Topeka a lot of people have said and I think that's not too much different
156than what's happening here where you have excess Revenue and you have an opportunity by you know to cut Mills and uh not taxes quite as much but I don't think the action is being taken on that part thank you anyone else like to speak Greg Bruce I have a question for and I don't expect the answer right away um I don't know if you guys have heard of the micro Foundation um he has to do um he's been around for a long time I don't know if there's any Avenues through that for operation for the school with the CTE stuff and then I had a question relating to this if the state's supposed to be funding the special education stuff they're supposed to be a 92 but they're only 72 how is that possible are
157they reneging on their agreement or crack and there's nothing you can do about that we have to pay for it that blows and then uh the bond thing with respect to what he was saying about the increased construction cost in a few years um in my business when I pay off a loan I don't have to pay the interest anymore so that's extra Revenue in my mind that's available for use as opposed to servicing debt so I didn't know if that number was calculated in with hey if we paid this off early we're gonna have this much more because we're not servicing done and paying but that's interesting I'm sorry go ahead and the technology then would be better for the CTE I mean everybody knows if you pay your debt opportunity um foreign it's
158on the at a glance summary of total expenditures uh let's take care of the community that's here now so they can afford to stay here yeah we wanted to stay here foreign what's the other one can I answer that now all right law enforcement Corrections and Public Safety foreign anybody else no you already spoke sorry sorry and you went for five right did you speak for fun oh okay if you didn't speak for five then go ahead yeah I just want to make sure it's fair for everybody currently people could come into the district right now but the principals the ministers have the option to deny them here even if they come in now if open borders allowed them to come in um but they have to accept them now basically the thing is we're
159pretty much that capacity if you read your guys's plan on IC and PC he looked at the older kids we don't have to transport those kids outside of District a huge factor for those parents and people coming in is going to be the transportation issue the kids that can drive are going to be in high school by that time you're pretty well set I'll tell you as a personality but when I moved to Pomona I finished my last two years in Ottawa one because I had wrestling and they had baseball you know and two that's where all my friends work so if I just take in consideration you guys look at that and stuff like that I don't think it's going to be the biggest impact of what you guys think because of that Transportation
160issue with people coming in we'll leave some impact will be zero you know it won't be zero but there will be some it's something to consider it's not going to be someone who also has a report that she is here it looks like almost everyone is smoking does anyone else want anyone else like to speak yeah why do we have to have adults here I'm sorry what why do we have to have cops here they were asking this is a passionate conversation and we wanted to make sure that everybody had the opportunity and we wanted to make sure that everyone was safe this is just ridiculous so it's for your protection what about our profession no it's for everyone it was for everyone I'd much rather uh have them and not need them than need
161them and not have them exactly yeah anyone else have any comments I have a comment I guess I need to address your question go ahead yeah would you would you like to address my question now because I think you kind of did in a way and I wanted to yeah the question itself was does the plan that was provided it does exactly what he said who does it it reduces bought an interest debt it accelerates it 100 it also does it within a by five years right and that puts the district in a position in five years to look at what a bonding interest or what a bond could look like if you're looking at pursuing a a bond issue at that particular time the scope of what we were looking at this this may
162is what I used as my comparison to it in five years we're going to have deferred maintenance needs we're going to have those needs continue to compound between now and then if we make the decision to focus on that debt reduction versus reinvesting and so at that point in time to accomplish what we were attempting to accomplish in the future sure in five years that particular project goes from 25 million up to 28 30 or even even higher and that that was that was the the that was my uh consideration that's what I looked at so I looked at the immediate results yes there's that immediate savings but in five years it eclipses any savings we would have encountered due to the accelerated cost of construction due to accelerator cost and instruction construction I don't
163think you can because we've talked about us being in this statement of a budget that you're working on five years prior you need your whole mind your whole focus is just on the next time you can get a chance to put another bond out there and to get another Pet Project well let's include that as part of the board discussion as part of a holistic because that's a relevant point and that has to be part of the consideration of of the conversation we have here does anyone else have any other specific questions or things because what my hope is is that as a part of our conversation here at the board table that we are addressing what do we think about that why are we thinking this what is that for that should be part
164of what we do so with that do you have more questions I didn't mean to I'm sorry yeah I mean I don't think that paying down interest on a bond versus what the accelerated cost of construction five years from now doesn't equate just like right now the the cost for people the people who are going out and building houses right now because of the interest rates are up that's exactly why the FED does that so to say that the costs are going to accelerate I understand you need to maybe look at that in a long range plan or budget but to to put that into your budget right now just to take taxes higher it's not it's not good for the people and it doesn't even make sense either because if you're paying down interest
165if you're saving interest money you are going to be saving costs for your construction down the road it doesn't equate the other way around I think you're completely wrong with that I unders I understand you looking at it that way and the percentage that it you're paying interest all this interest up front and you add another you know 20 million on top of that is you're going to be paying 10 times more in interest rates and interest fees than you are in construction increasing costs to this yeah absolutely so as we pivot to the board discussion now let's address that and everything else so yeah we'll be part of our discussion yeah yes you know we've been very freshly involved in this Bond project it wasn't something that we sought out it was something that
166was proposed to us from uh Piper Sandler who acts as our District's financial consultants and Mike's plan very viable and it was one of the options that was presented not in his not to the detail that he's put it together but the concept was is that we could go ahead and accelerate paying off the debt or we're in a unique position because of this additional bond in interest and and the recent retirement of other bonds that we could potentially take on a project now okay that would be up to 20 left in the 20 million dollar range without it with it being milled neutral okay so no additional Mills levied to our community well we went through the whole Community project and study and everything and it came back we were just a little bit
167short of doing the project and if we added a little bit which what was it almost two mils 1.2.9 2.9 pounds thank you it would allow us to accomplish the entire project okay well that failed that was not what the community wanted and we broke and that failed so now to I think all three of them spoke to that that has been involved and I think we unanimously have some similar well I'll talk somewhere I think we agree we're going to talk further about it but we feel it's up to the next sitting board to make the decision on what takes place next okay and uh there there's you know there's conversations and they'll have to get caught up to speed on that but what we do right now might take that like tonight if
168I understand correctly if we were to if we were to make a major decision on cutting the current and we'd have to reconcile and get confirmation from our financial consultants Piper Sandler but it could possibly eliminate the next sitting board from having an opportunity to maybe revamp or redo the bond proposal and do something now and if they choose not to do that then they can take everything that's in there that is sitting there now and everything that's collected from this time around and they can put Mike's plan or the same plan that Dustin had presented to us and it can happen and I I think that's going to be up to that next sitting board on how that takes place but if we handcuff everyone tonight by going ahead and taking action on that
169that doesn't allow the next sitting board to have the opportunity to have another Mill neutral rate potentially maybe not making the decision we did and adding the two Mills or 2.9 mils maybe that was a bad choice on our part but regardless of what that option is we feel like that should be their choice and we don't we don't want to be taking action tonight that doesn't allow that to happen I think we could all argue if we had a crystal ball it would be so easy to make some of these decisions okay and also in your own Financial lives how long am I going to live when am I what am I going to need for deferred maintenance costs those kind of things and if we knew those kind of things right now to
170my to Mr Dodge's point you know is it is a better use of our communities tax dollars to wait till 2028 and spend six or seven million dollars more than what it would cost to do it now by saving the money today maybe that maybe that maybe it is maybe it isn't I don't know I know that I think the sitting board now felt like our district could use these upgrades now and I don't think very many people and even you in this room would argue that we probably would benefit from having the facilities sooner than later so that's kind of my take from my viewpoint of what I've seen and been involved in this and and I guess it's I really truly believe it's going to be the next sitting ultimately determining place and
171look at it from a retrospective you too you know we look now here we are look back six years in the past or whatever that you know that track got put in and if we would have man if we had just done it then see how much better it would be now well six years from now we're gonna be looking back at you I wish you so I think from a from a retrospective aspect the the best time to ever to do something was yesterday and the second best times today um well in the concept of business I mean we're not a business and it frustrates me because I would much rather run our district like a business but you know businesses reinvest in their business before they've become debt free uh you know uh
172families buying new bigger homes before they've paid off their home you know they take the equity and so you know there's two different models my grandma and grandpa they would be hey you don't you're paying off that car before you buy another car you know and there's and there's more than one way to peel an orange and we're in in uh you know to uh bucks point we can agree to disagree on some things and there's different people with different different mindsets and philosophies towards it so and then I think between Phil and I we've given uh not given let me use the better term sorry released yes um I more than six Mills and you know yes and you know that that seemed like the right thing to do because again as it was
173noted earlier if there was not a specified reason the way this is like hey this is what we need and we need it for this reason then in the spirit of let my yes be yes am I know me know and you know I heard a comment earlier it kind of I think I physically you know Farmers don't understand stuff I come from Farmers and farmers are some of the smartest people I know they understand stuff just fine and property taxes if you're a third generation farmer you understand that property taxes I mean they're they're just this shy of being the devil themselves so um you know that that is a real reality I can't say that I regret releasing Mills um but I also there is a part of me that I do worry
174I'm just being honest I do worry that the releasing of those Mills has now put us in a situation that you know we're taking some medicine here you know this these are the needs that are reflected this is how much it costs it does cost more this year than it did last year and shoot Buck wants us to buy buses I mean we can this is what it is and I I do too like but but we cannot afford that because this is what it has now you can have good discussions about what the right kinds of priorities are and that's why it's good for people to talk about those things it is people can have different ideas and we can respectfully agree to disagree I mean that with all my heart um but in
175terms of identifying and what I want to make sure is that we do not rush this discussion I want us to try to truly hit every single question another question that Mike said before you go on yep I'm sorry extend everybody tonight but we need a bill break oh sorry my next thing I was going to say okay I'm gonna call recess but the next thing I was going to say I want to address questions about increased funding for at-risk and some of the other questions that got peppered along I want to make sure we do our best to address those all right recess sorry Andy man I'm gonna be on your list tonight I'm not strict enough I'm not letting people go to the bathroom sorry sorry foreign wait yeah all right okay and
176other folks feel free to jump in I just want to try to address questions in a way that also facilitates open discussion at the board table um the first one the in the explanation of proposed it was on the proposed highlights screen um over two years and it says right there increase of 1.5 million how are these additional funds being used okay um I think we've talked quite a bit about Career and Technical education Pathways expansion but and that is a big chunk um the two new pathways are AG Sciences with FFA which is new this year um and the other one as Mr Dodge mentioned is the law enforcement pathway it isn't just called law enforcement law enforcement Public Safety and Corrections yes I remember there was a three-legged table and I could only
177visualize the first part um and so and because of the change as was noted earlier but it does add up those certification test costs which also is exciting because it gives our students uh something to show for their work and makes you know we've gotten a lot of feedback we need students to be more viable for the workforce message received but then that does not cost nothing and we have to invest in that so that is a component um certification tests used to be on your own dime now those are are required to be a part of the District budget so that's a chunk there um another question was about um covering costs for expiring grants you might have heard a word as part of the explanation Esser so let's talk about what Esser is
178what it funded in terms of positions that money is going away you will see that reflected as part of this 1.5 million those are Staffing positions would you please elaborate on that so Esser was a covered relief grant that the school districts in the state of Kansas or even across Across the Nation could apply for and it required focus groups to help the district determine where how would they spend those grand dollars um and with the the seven different focus groups that were that were built the recommendations came through to fund it or to fill it with Staffing positions in almost its entirety um six people six Staffing positions if you think about it so it is four Student Success teachers at across the district one of the primary Center one of the Center one
179at the junior high one at the high school they work with students who are struggling the the scope of it is to help students that were that faced some struggles as a result of the pandemic and the ins and outs and the chaos that that ensued and now they've worked themselves into a position of relevancy to where they have they have made a huge impact the high school in particular is a tremendous impact and it's changing how we look at students who struggle and so it's one of those it's a position that that building is identified we need to we need to keep them all the way down to the primary Center we had a presentation last year in the spring the impact that's being made at the primary Center that you know it's this
180is beyond just recovery from the the scheduling chaos that occurs this is helping our kids and it's making a huge impact same as that same stories come from the ice and the same things taking place over at the junior high those are relevant positions their Staffing positions so when you think about salaries you think about benefits based on the years of experience that individual can have that's the dollars connector so when you're talking about salary whether it's you know 50-ish and you can throw benefits in there it's not unreasonable to think that a teacher could occupy 70 to 75 000 within a budget to be able to uh to take that position you multiply that by four you've got a big a big sum of money that needs to be allocated there we've got nurses
181that have that were hired as part of the response to the pandemic and they came through Health Grants but part of that also needed to get offset with funding from the the Esser program and so we've got additional nurses that are helping our district our students across the district um it's it's been great to see the asset uh it's they have worked themselves into a position of relevancy there um so that's those are the primary Staffing one of them we also have a social worker over at the junior high and she's been in a phenomenal job and embedded herself into a pro into a position there that Derek in Banks rely on around or tremendously and the kids are giving great benefits to having her in the building and the impact that she's making not
182just within the specific students that need her but also the culture across the whole building um so it's Staffing was a huge piece to that um can we talk about the increase this was mentioned um and I know it's what we're looking at here it's um the expenditure at the K-12 at risk that line item if you look from 21 to 23 because we're at 701 94 941 to 8386 to 1 million so as a budgeted expenditure which we've not voted on yet but let's talk about why at the app risk line item has increased and what that's for can you come over here cool well he's looking at it but I'll also point out in terms of the funds that come through for at risk a lot of those those funds there come from
183federal uh at-risk programming back average dollars and so you're looking at funds that are students that are identified and then they apply for free and reduce those students that service free automatically triggering a paying mechanism that the federal government has their own formula and I'm going to be transparent to this I don't know what that formula is but we get funds for that and as your free immigration numbers increase then you have the opportunity to receive additional dollars with that we're going to tell you right now our free introducer numbers I just got an email today you know spoiler alert our free and reduced numbers went up several about 50 or so students from last year this year based on the the numbers I got today so it's those at-risk dollars are also come from
184the federal government we also at times need to supplement that to make the salaries of the staff that we serve and the materials that they used the average money is I mean does it also have like like that 50 student increases increase is that also impact Food Service as well Etc that changes the problem so so yes so there will be and that will also in order to see the real benefit there what that will take beyond the audit has to come through and tell us what those extra numbers are but with the free and reduced meals that come through as students come through and they get a qualifying meal meaning they have all three components to it then we get reimbursable rates from the federal government for to go into food service that food
185service itself is is a at this point in time is fully sustainable self-sustainable um we we have the the additional funds that came to us for two years when the federal government said all students can be for free yes and so we we're leveraging that we've been able to add to our Our Food Service staff we've improved the meals that we are putting in front of students offering more fresh fruits and vegetables when I'm over at the high school during that lunch time I'm seeing flights walk out they're just packed with with fruits and vegetables and the kids are enjoying it they're providing higher Quality Meats as the cooking department so they're utilizing those funds um in that you may have been notified by the state that we need to spend down those those excess
186dollars you're only allowed to keep about three months worth of sustainability going and we exceed that and so it's every District that received those free meal funds is dealing with that I've not come across the district who said okay check we've done that yeah so this is the big jump that we've seen good service I would say inflation rate costs we've also added some staff yeah so the cooler I'm gonna I'm not getting too far from my skis here because I know you dealt with the inner workings of it but some of those the the the funding for the purchase of the coolers some of it could have been could be pulled from food service but it was also a capital outlay because that's that's what falls under the cap a lot like yeah typically
187you can okay just like food service typically if you were to do that because we want to keep tons of features so indirect costs allows us to they moved it up last year it was 14 this year is it 16 17 yes so when a utility bill comes through you could leverage up to 16 17 out of food and nutrition to pay the utility bill in addition to together that's what an indirect costs for hours of 12 000. budget and then a lot of the salaries would recruit included gross salary health insurance or Social Security appointment because we have certified some non-certified staff or excuse me but there's different sections of the students performance that are certified but that's where that one might remember so we do we do get some funds from Title One
188dollars that's about I think this year was um now so so out of our budget this year for Capital holiday um we have a um expenditures uh is about two and five million uh historically what happens is we always carry money we don't spend it all so you could spend the whole the 1.4 million at least they're only 165 that's minusing the cat the cash on the carryover commercial so you have projects that you may start this year but it may roll over to next year or there's may not be projects that you just have casually roll over to help fund projects for the phone so that's kind of why it looks skewed because that's the same if you spend the whole whole amount okay um but historically um let me go back through here
189I think last year we rolled over 963 000 rounded up and then 21-22 we had about 742 000. um this year you know we we have done a lot of projects through our Capital like plan um so we want to stay around that those funds just because when we build our Five-Year Plan we want to be able to help sustain as instead of spending it all this year I mean you could do it either way historically that's what they meant so but again you buy a bus we've already a year and a half okay so that 130 000 has been carried um so so it goes down as a we can't it goes down as uncovered but it doesn't leave our funds until the Bus shows up on our lives and those funds are taught
190we have to encumber it um so we don't touch them so that one of the best shows up we have one so we don't understand um another question had to do with special education let's expand upon that currently it's funded at 69 the law is that the state is supposed to be required to fund at a level of 92 percent correct yes there is a multiplier that gets that gets applied as they build as they take on their legal obligation for um State funding and that's uh actually printed off that uh legislation it's 72-34-22. the multipliers is by law 92.192 um and what the multiplier that's been used by the state in 2223 was 7.72 and what's being used this year is 0.69 and so just doing the math there it's that never is coming
191down and because it's not at 92 what that means to us is this particular fiscal year it's around 500 000 that we are pulling out of the general fund is the One Fund that you can move to any any line we're utilizing that out of the general fund which that is relatively three and a half almost four Mills out of the general fund that's going to pay for something that's going to be quite honest with you I have a hard time with this because we've already paid into it with the state it was already mentioned this year that we got a three to four billion dollar Surplus at the state level and they didn't fully fund at the 0.92 for all districts in the state when they had the chance the governor's plan was to
192fund it to to do a five-year approach to stair step it in so unfortunately it's placing it on the school district's uh plate and it's being placed on the backs of the taxpayers to pay that twice we are legally required to make up the difference which is when you phrased it differently in a way that I appreciate it frankly but would not be appropriate from this chair there is a um in honor of my friend Allison Bauer you all have heard me say this before there's been a trend over the last few decades for the paid legislators to push their taxing authority to our volunteers at this level and I'm not crying Victim Because I did this once and I chose to come back and do it again and I knew what I was getting
193into but what that looks like is raising the lob so they can say that they lower taxes and they can push it down to local boards to raise taxes to make up the difference and the latest generation is refusing to properly fund special education as the courts are dictated and that falls upon us to make up the states breaking their own law and I would advise I'm not telling everybody how to spend their time I wish you would go Advocate at the state level like you're doing here tonight because they need to hear that they don't you don't think that's fair and the solution is not to rewrite the law to match your practice and I'd like to related to that I'd like to address a point that was made with me right here it
194was another one that got me right here and it was the explanation of why the new laws were written about establishing the revenue neutral rate as a form of transparency um I think that's great I think that the increased abilities to have you know the processes processes in place I think are very healthy ones what would have really helped people out though and the state of Oklahoma does this they cap property taxes once you hit a certain age you've done your time essentially that would that would be because the impact on anything that we do does affect again everyone and everybody's stuff is tight we all live here but it specially affects and I said this earlier in the first hearing and I wanted to come back and say it again it especially affects those
195people who are already on the margins barely hanging on and it especially affects people who are on fixed income I've lived here for 20 years and 17 of those 20 years I have been very heavily involved in both forms of Outreach to senior centers in various ways and I've also been a food pantry volunteer for 16 to 17 years I am very clear about the weight and the responsibility of this of these types of decisions and the impact it will make um I also am very clear and feel very comfortable with the level of detail and research because of laws like what was created with statute and we learned a lot last year because of that you know um attentive of an idle need to be lectured on it but a tenant of leadership is
196just because it's not your fault doesn't mean it's not your responsibility we had an opportunity to learn I duck away from none of that um My ultimate responsibility and this rubs and pulls at my heart as a community member and also where all of this intersects with my faith of what we are asked to do for the least of these and that is in direct conflict with raising people's taxes along with my history of growing up um with farming and knowing the impact that property tax is made but sitting in this chair with this responsibility I am a school board member and it doesn't mean that the other things are not important but I I feel very strongly that my priority has to be to respect that I previously voted on approving the needs assessment
197that was given to us with much time to think slash and consider if I voted for the needs assessment then a person of Integrity I have to vote to fund what we came up with um I'm not necessarily saying I'm ready to vote tonight that may be nuggets for other parts of conversation I think there's good reasons to I want to see first of all how the rest of the board feels we do not have to vote on adopting the budget tonight I thought this would be an opportunity to point that out we are welcome to we can also wait and have it as part of Monday to let some of the things that have been brought forward marinade offer more time for reflection prayer whatever whatever your thing is to to make hard decisions
198we we do understand that all of this is hard decisions and they're not being made in a vacuum and whether we ultimately agree or disagree I can assure you that every person sitting here takes the solemn nature of our responsibility with the seriousness that it requires for the benefit of Education for Baldwin students the component of the budget that has to do with raises that was mentioned earlier raises five percent our teachers deserved every bit of that five percent and then some that's reflected here I'm going to be quiet now uh Susan I don't know if you have anything you would like to say any other board membership discussion I want to let you know just I Advanced the slides of the board discussion I I got sidetracked when when Kelly started that and I
199failed to advance it so that is the slack for discussion okay one thing I have a confession I won't be here in the 18th I'm at a business thing come out so if that affects anybody's I'm not trying to shirt this vote I just want to hear all the board members no [Laughter] um Mike brought up the idea of you know the keeping the bond stuff and saying that it was unethical for us to keep that money um I don't know how I feel about that I know that that's a pretty standard way of doing it when you do a bond you approve a mill Levy for that Bond at that time that's x amount of dollars um and then you can tell that about Bob that's paid off with increasing in property taxes you
200wind up getting more of that much original and we're getting what you were originally getting for that money um and I think that's again that's how everyone around us has done it I'm not trying to say that that means it isn't ethical or that it is ethical um but to that end um trying to see things from both sides um right now for our for our bond and interest payments what what you know not trying to pay them off early not trying to do anything other than maintain our payments what is what is the middle Levy that you know we're asking for 14.88 what's the middle Levy that would be required to just meet yeah okay yeah yeah we noticed that right um you know that was a possibility because we did we did want
201to look at the best for the community the school district um but also in turn we were right on the kids could we have um that's the Navy here for Monday's meeting all right turn around for him but I could ask him I guess I'm just curious of the impact that would be to the next board and their options well this is too you know the idea that part of this whole contract with um we'll do this three times I mean there's there is got to be times we have we we have the ability to buy out buy yeah and and at this point in time when I development of the budget in in looking at all this that's that isn't kind of at a bill about a hundred thousand at this point in time
202without going through and doing his line items right building of it right so we have the option to buy hours or to go through it if you do it two times and you buy out your paying yes up to that point yeah no it's not but it's not it's not giving Services up to that point less than three three times yeah what would this be obviously um but his suggestion is carry through this year and I don't speak for as many people and then look at potentially looking at next year's budget because you have any more coming in having that time to to analyze or where the relation is and then possibly adjust from that so I mean there's multiple options because if so and again this is a hard thing to do because here
203we're stuck in the idea of like around basically 54 you know the voting majority of new people out of the board right that we're on now and so we're trying to set this budget and then also handing off the spawn of India so that's a hard thing because you know I I kind of feel like you know the community we thought we heard of everything that the community wanted we tried to put it in there we said oh we need a little bit more money and we put it in there and then we said okay yeah that's great for one was very very shocked that it didn't pass because we had so much good feedback and how we built that all up um but the idea that you know it did get voted down um
204you know maybe that's not you know at least the majority of the communities focused right now I mean I'd be open and especially hearing all the stuff tonight hoping to reducing that and then just what does that then look like so then they have to change the bond and now it's gonna now instead of asking for three meals or for 2.9 mils they're gonna be saying we dropped the bottom interest two Mills they're gonna be saying we want five mil so we're also kind of like using handicapping handicapped in the next board if you drop it if you put it at uh if you leave it yeah four uh 14.488 projection is 23. uh million if you drop it to 13 488 you're at 20.25 . um known to Mike's point though I think so
205you know I think that there is there is some um I mean that's why we gave back the bomb the the game back released that we're starting to work on um you know at the end of the day that extra money that's going into that it's not going somewhere else right so it's not like we're taking in a lot of interest and then we're spending it somewhere else so really it's going to go it's still going to that bond interest and then there's a slush fund and then the new board wants to come on and they say hey we're going to take all this money we're going to pay this down there to do that you know and it's money that would get paid anyway um it's also an investment mindset versus a um and
206and you know both are valid approaches but it a bond will have to happen at some point there will be some point when certain things that we are doing are not going to be sustainable um I think that time is personally just speaking for myself I whether people want to publicly own that or not I think that time is coming sooner rather than later in in certain areas when it you know comes to Athletic Facility usage just because of growth in other areas um and I know things always cost more money when you're playing catch-up so I would need more time to think about because when I listen to the logic of waiting for the next board by that same logic I make no change here right however I also understand the the very real
207um request for those people who have come tonight to say now we've already millwise we've already we are down a little bit but I understand that equates different with the the raise and valuation so that that would be something I personally would need to think more about because that is not an investment strategy that is a again doing just enough to get by and take a little heat off us right now in the short term and kick the can down the road that's kind of what I'm just going to call it like it is it's kind of what has been happening in in that area because it is so hard in a community our size and then people say well you should have done that a long time ago so do we repeat that cycle
208by making I don't know I'm just I would need time to think about that um we're the ones at um that you're responsible for offsetting increases in evaluations versus the County versus the county or the state or whoever you know I mean you know we're you know we're the we're we're the ones that are responsible you know where the you know the ones that are what do to do that we are being asked to offset the property tax burden um I look at this budget and I think man I want I want to cut this as much as possible you know outside of you know that bond interest so I don't really see much that you really could do and so if you really want to pair anything I think it winds up having to
209come from there um but then that has its own whole box of trouble so yeah I wish I wish this could be tying or delayed so that so that the newborn could make this decision right now because that's [Music] to just either direction and I'm not sure which is better I don't know I appreciate that and I I share that concern on the other hand I was elected to do the right thing for things that were put in front of me for four years not for three years and ten months nine months and and I don't want to step aside and say no it's not my hands because I won't be here much longer well our intent as it says on the screen is to not seek approval tonight but rather to seek approval at
210the 18th board meeting as part of the regular board meeting agenda um it's more about payment scheduling because I know it's kind of squirrely where we're just being one payments to go out yeah you need to come back over here and use your outside voice don't try to escape nice try that's right so okay so the this might be a multi-layer question for foreign four different uh Bond types of your currently carry I'm looking at the bottom interest page I know that there's also big chunks in which those go out like it might be a million dollars goes out on October 1st or whatever day right so and they're carrying over money year to year to cushion some of that so that if we hit that you know it would be reset our fiscal year
211July 1st so we have to kind of carry some amount of information at all you've got to be able to make that payment because that payment comes before we get our first big check right in October right right so if I'm from the there are payments immediately going out went out September one yeah 4.1 on July one when do the payments happen yeah just myself so I mean if we're paying that I mean we've got we got fun sitting in there in the previous Direction with that that's just how they they structure um so yes I mean you there's so many options you can do and look at well and to this point we we have done we've checked with four different attorneys we've checked with ksde we've checked with Greenbush this strategy is not
212an uncommon strategy and and it is it's it's as Mike pointed out it's not it's not against the law to do it um the idea behind it is my job in my role is to put together a budget that reflects a strategic plan that reflects our vision reflects our mission statement and our goals and it also reflects the conversation direction that we've been having for me to come in here and unilaterally pull that away from you would would not just have an impact on on you and your ability to have this continued discussion because as we've indicated with DLR we still have by contract another couple options if the board chooses to do so or the next board that comes in because they are inherited they are taking on and taking ownership of whatever takes
213place this year up through December if we have any Flex on this budget I think it does come from Biometrics right so and we would and we would work that yeah so whether that's a reduction in our members we actually looked at that last year called the budgeted in a million dollars extra interest because we were one to call a bond we have the potential I think 36 32 percent and so one in one of the conversations one of the conversations that we had with with uh an attorney he had mentioned that very Point some boards become aggressive with their bonding interest so that they can pay down early I mean they they will raise new they'll if I'm you talk to Kevin so I'll make sure that I say this right that it Miller
214before the bottom interest for some districts gets uh elevated so they can pay down and call bonds early I mean that is a strategy that some districts choose to operate as far as an example exactly because as long as you have an application you can as long as you meet your application there's no limitation on that But there again it comes back Direction what projects if any you know I would say if we had any facilities you know we were good absolutely modern interest funds can only be paid towards those bonded interests items so like I said that's why I keep coming back to there's so many options for sure so yeah what's up perfect so I just wanted to cover a couple items so again our intent was to seek approval on Monday night
215give you some let this marinade and go with you on Monday night uh well we will ask the board to approve a budget and if that includes the reduction there to your point Phil and Chris that we can do that within that meeting in any case we still have to do what's called the local option resolution because we are exceeding the state average by 0.1 so it's 30 it's 31.7 percent is what our local option budget uh percentages so there will be that resolution um there that's regardless of what we do because that's that's tied to lob uh local option budget or supplemental General however you're reading it um so that resolution does not require a roll call vote but we'll have that resolution for the board and for those in attendance uh at night
216as well any other discussion Luke had asked earlier about um local contractors across the local contractors we said when we send out bids um our maintenance director our facilities director he sends it I'll tell you what if you'll if you'll meet up with me when we're done I'll get your information I'll make sure our facilities director has it um as we send those projects out to local our local companies and then it also goes out through the state bid process that he has to follow them you know because they'll give back to the community to do something about the bigger jobs and we have used we have used local contractor I know Mike has used local contractors for a variety of things so but I wouldn't disagree with anything you said and to that point
217that I've learned that we don't always get complete choice or control them right so there's some there's some processes that were limited by by the state of how we accept bids and under Denmark you know if we've been challenged by that but I can assure you that I'm pretty sure we're in unison here our desire and goal would be to always allow local contractors to do all the work always and so much so it was actually that was one of the things that was adopted in the Strategic plan in under the facilities section was to improve in that area you also have to remember year two Nate year 2.4 ish months right tier three that's not an excuse Mike so a lot of these guys are still getting to know people in the community too
218so if you know somebody come introduce yourself everybody here wants a good working relationship and sometimes people are just ships passing the night without even realizing it um so appreciate the input on that anybody else are you required to hire contractors nope that's that's I'm not aware of that I'm not either funding involvements okay as I mentioned him if he if he's got a service he wants us to pass on to our our maintenance director of facilities director just if we don't already interact with them just let us know come visit us give me a call shoot me an email stop in there's your business card whatever I'd love to visit and see what we can do one of the things that we've got in within our street opinions is engage with our community and
219engage with our business partners and uh if you've got a service that can benefit our school district in terms of of job performance would love to be able to visit with you good to be here It's usually the general contractor that has we do a lot of work through schools and it is for real language every single time I think it's the same it has nothing to do with school absolutely nothing to do nothing well it's the general contractor the school has nothing to do with it okay so as far as the discussion here do we have any more board discussion about anything related to questions um points of clarification direction for what we want to have prepared for Monday night one meal two meals two and a quarter you know maybe did you hear
220that Nate well and I guess if we're throwing out of questions I guess I'd like to get and then also I think Nate answered this already but just to confirm what would be the minimum that would meet the obligation to the bonds to carry the material that's what I heard you say I would I mean some things some things to think about and this this is maybe maybe for Monday night but I'll bet you think about it now one of the things that's being discussed in terms of State legislation that I've heard in the taxpayer I don't necessarily know that I disagree with the idea but as I'm looking at the budgeting there is talk of putting a cap on assessments by counties at four percent that was that was something that I that I've
221I've seen come through some of my uh lack of a better term my Twitter following my Twitter feed there so one of the one of the concerns yeah my ex my ex phone one of the concerns I that I have is knowing that that would have on future budgets I don't want to get too aggressive and wind up having to pull from the general fund to make up Bond and interest payments that is yeah no crystal ball I know we can't budget for the hypotheticals but that is something that plays through my mind you have within their extra money a little bit of a guardrail well then you can adjust accordingly yeah right now we've tried to avoid going up but if we're going to go down again this year and there's a need in
222the future they're just going to happen right you know go up right when we haven't but okay lots to think about I have a question was it the same board member said he was going to work for four years who said he can't be here Monday I apologize I really tried to avoid the conflict I wasn't gonna call you all right all those in favor of a journey say aye and raise your right hand all right I'm all over that meeting adjourn 951 thanks everybody for your time tonight thank you