001Good evening everyone. Thanks for coming tonight. I'll call the annual meeting to order. We're at 6:01 it looks like. I'm board President Adams and we'll start this meeting with the pledge of allegiance. The flag is in the back. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Remind anyone who physically attends tonight like to speak up should sign up with Dr. Just as a reminder all comments should contain 203 resolutions on this evening's agenda. At this point, like to call for a motion and a second to approve the agenda. >> Motion to approve. Second. >> Motion by Carly Fisher. Second by Lipska. Should remind everyone that this is anyone in attendance
002can make motions tonight too. So feel free to speak up. And at this point, I will ask everyone in attendance here, uh, all in favor, please raise your hand. And any opposed. Thank you. Motion passes. I would now move and ask for a second for someone to serve as the chairperson of tonight's meeting. >> I nominate Adam Marks to chair this meeting. >> Second. Have a nomination from Cardi Fischer, second from Joel Craven. All in favor again, please raise your hands. Any opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you. Uh my name is Ed Herz. As I mentioned, I'm happy to serve as the chairperson of this evening's meeting. In addition to the members of the board of education, Dr. Seno, Mr. Scott Dion, who's our assistant superintendent of business and finance, we have Mr. Doug
003Witty the end of the table in front of Clark Law Firm. Mr. Witty will be serving as parliamentarian and legal counsel during this evening's meeting. The purpose of this meeting is for the electors of the Mount Area School District to decide on three resolutions this evening. A copy of the meeting agenda and proposed resolutions are available in the annual meeting and budget hearing booklet that's available via copies on the doorway and on the district's homepage. There's a lot of good information in there besides just tonight's meeting. So, please do take that home and uh read through it. A lot of preparation went into that. As for citizens comments tonight, um if we have anyone that does want to speak, uh everyone should introduce themselves, state their address, and we do have a 3minut maximum on
004that uh comment period. And at this point, I would like to introduce uh Mr. Joel Craraven with our treasures report. Thank you, Adam. So, on page 11 of the booklet, uh that's the the information that I'll go over this evening. Um, one of the things that uh we always look at, a number of organizations look at is is all the different there's a lot of different things they look at to determine the financial health of uh a school district. Things like budgetary management, following state and federal regulations, uh, meeting all the reporting requirements. Um, one of the big things on the list that they look at, of course, is general operating fund balance or the fund balance of the general operating fund. Uh so we're looking at as of June 30th of this year. And
005keep in mind the fund balance represents the assets minus the liabilities uh of the district. So what it what the district owns versus what it owes. Assets would be cash, accounts receivable, uh things like that. Liabilities would be payroll liabilities um for taxes, insurance, those kinds of things. uh as we look at it, the Department of Instruction, public instruction, uh recommends that a district has enough resources or cash assets to meet cash flow needs each year. So, it's as general of a recommendation as you can get. So, you should have enough. That's what they say. Um the issue is that or the the thing that we look at there is cash flows throughout the year because of how state aid is paid, how different things are paid, doesn't always match up with the district's expenses.
006So we need to keep a fund balance at a reasonable level to be able to demonstrate that we have some uh uh financial stabil stability. Uh and this is really important for managing debt costs. It keeps us from having to borrow in the short term and some of those kinds of things as we look at it. This past year we con concluded with a fund balance of a little over 7.9 million which was 22.02% of expenditures which was a slight increase from where it had been at last year which was at 21.2. 26 um as we as we look at all of that uh yeah 21.26 26. So a slight increase there. As we look at that, the importance of the increase there is as we look at rising costs within the budget to keep
007that percentage up there, we also need to see a slightly rising fund balance. in order to keep that percentage where we need to be. Um, and I know that we uh, as a board, we've discussed many times trying to keep that fund balance as level as we can, which makes a huge difference when we go out tomorrow, all those kinds of things as we look at it. Um, in addition to that, uh, we spent a lot of time putting together this booklet. And I say we, I mean they spent a lot of time putting together this booklet, um, to talk about the the fiscal position of the school district uh, and things like that. Normally the budget uh, comes out sometime June, July. This year we got it in early July from the state. Uh,
008so there's a very small amount of time between when that budget comes out. we actually have to pull these numbers together, make them ready to present. Um, a couple of things that were really important this year that we needed to incorporate. Um, the first was additional funds that were allocated for special education aid. Um, so they've allocated an amount, but typically the percentage that's allocated is not necessarily the percentage that a school district receives. Um, last year it was slightly less. Many years it's been slightly less. So, we had to uh incorporate that in uh at a rate for this year. Uh not quite at what uh from a budget standpoint, not quite at what the the state necessarily announces, but something slightly less. In addition to that, districts have been operating under revenue limits
009since the '90s. Um under the revenue limits, uh the amount of general state aid uh helps to determine what the tax level is. Essentially, there's uh an entire amount that can come to a school district uh and then the school district itself will provide uh their state aid. Uh and the tax levy makes up the difference. uh as we look at that um because of you know declining enrollment different things like that and as property values have increased uh we're actually seeing many districts including Mount Corb see a shrinking amount of general state aid that has to be offset by the property tax levy in order to uh make up that difference as we as we look at these things. Um, in addition to that, each summer the school district gets an independent auditor to
010come in and uh uh look at everything. I'm happy to uh inform you that once again there was a successful water this year. We've had a whole string of successful a lot over the last while. So, we had another one this year. Um, we'll get final reports on that as it comes up. Get the auditors coming and going and things have gone very well. So, thanks to the entire finance team for uh working through that. Uh I don't know if any of you have been through an audit, but it's always uh just a bumble of joy. So um they got through that. So appreciate the hard work on that. In addition to that, there's a lot of subcommittees that work uh throughout the year uh for the board. So uh this year it's the finance
011committee. Uh want to thank them for their efforts really over the last couple of years. Uh Carly Fischer has served on it both in 2425 and 2526. Adam has been on it uh 2425. Um in fact I'll this year as the president he gets to come to every meeting whether he wants to or not. Uh Tom Schlingian is on the board uh the the finance board here the finance committee uh for this year uh and I served on it for the last uh two years. So thank you all of you for your help on this. Thanks for listening to me ramble about those things. Uh I'll now turn it over to Scott to talk a little bit about uh the bottom of page 11 or fun 73. Well, good evening everyone. Thanks again for being
012here. Those of you sitting on the front row, welcome. Yes, uh Joel, thank you for that summary of our finances. And yes, on the bottom, page 11, our fund 73 trust. This was uh a program that the district started many years ago. Uh if you've attended annual meetings in the past, you may have heard me talk about this quite a bit. Um, it really allows the district to emphasize the importance of putting the funds aside to recognize folks when they retire that we can fulfill the retirement obligations so they have a benefit. Um, since 201718 the district has been able to put funds aside for that exact purpose. And so one of the reasons for an annual meeting is to provide you with updated information on our fund 73 trust. And so, as you'll see
013at the bottom of page 11, our trust balance as of June 30th, just a couple of months ago, was 1,792,6812. The investment return since the last annual meeting was $56,56528. The total dispersements made since the last annual meeting was $358,2512. And lastly, the total revenue received since the last annual meeting was $11,2367. Thanks so much for listening. All right. Thanks, Joel. Thanks, Scott, for laying that foundation for us. Those uh finance committee meetings are open to anyone in the community if you ever want to sit down on one of those and get an education from Mr. D Young about how this works. Tonight uh want to want to move into the action portion of the meeting uh statement first about those who can vote. To be eligible to vote at tonight's annual meeting, you must
014be at least 18 years old, a resident of the Mount Area School District, and must have lived in the district for at least 28 days. I can review our procedures for this evening as well. We'll take each resolution separately. First, I'll call for a motion and a second on each resolution. There'll be an opportunity for discussion at that point. We'll then ask those who wish to speak regarding the resolution to please raise your hand to speak. I'll call on you to step up to the microphone at the front. I realize this is a small room that we can all hear here, but we are recording. So, just for the sake of everyone once to review this later. Uh again these persons should please introduce themselves state their address and don't fall back on that 3minut
015plan as well if you have anything they want to discuss just to keep things in check here. After the discussion we'll accept a motion to call for the question and residents will vote with a show of hands. We'll have assistance in tabulating those totals. So, the first resolution we'll we'll be considering this evening is resolution number one, establishing the board member salaries for 2025 and 2026. I'll read the motion as it has been proposed. Resolved that the salaries of board members of the Monor Area School District be set at the following amount for the school term 2025 2026 $3,250. I will accept a motion and a second for resolution one. So move >> second >> move by longest gateway south first street in Morin for 210 street small coral. >> Motion by Cody second by
016Patty. Is there any discussion? All right. All those in favor please show your hand. Please raise your hand. And keep those up for attabulation. Thank you. And any opposed? All right. See no hands out there. That motion is approved. Resolution number two, reimbursement of expenses of board members for travel on behalf of the district. That resolution reads, "Resolve that the board of education members shall be reimbursed.7 cents per mile for each special meeting and committee meeting of attendance. In addition, all actual and necessary expenses of all board of education members on school business outside the district shall be reimbursed with the mileage at the same rate as established for district employees. I'll accept a motion and a second for resolution number two. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> All questions on 303 Golf Drive.
017>> Rachel Johnson 3864 county road. >> Motion by Paul. second by Rachel. Any discussion on this topic? All right, I'll ask for a show of hands. All in favor? Again, please keep those up for a count. All right. Thank you. And any opposed? All right. I appreciate that motion passes. At this point, I will share the microphone with Scott De Young, our assistant superintendent of business and finance, and give a brief overview of the budget. Thanks, Heather. Um, if you could all turn your book list to page 13, please. Um that is the beginning of our 4 page um worth of data for budgets for the upcoming school year. Before I get started with page 13, um I just want to take a moment to once again thank um everyone from staff to the board
018of education for all of their efforts in not only administering last year's budget, but also working toward our upcoming budget for the new school year. So thanks everybody. and most notably, thank you to the community for all of the all of you that not only came tonight to support the district to hear what we had to say. Um, but just also being involved with activities that take place over the course of every single school year, there's no question our kids are better for it. So, thank you for all of your efforts. Okay. Um, getting into some of the finance data. So, pages 13- 16 provides 3 years worth of fiscal data. Um it's the audited 232 24 fiscal year. So a couple years ago the most recent unudited 2425 data. Now the auditors were with
019us last month but until they officially give us their audit report in about 5 months is considered unodudited. That's the middle column. And the far right column um on pages 13 through 16 is our budget data for the upcoming school year. Uh just a a few points I want to make on on these four pages. Um first because of the efforts that I mentioned above. Um the budget for 2526 is a balanced budget but we are using a $200,000 assigned fund balance. Um and the purpose of that is we received some federal funds last school year that we'll be expending this school year. And that's the the purpose of you utilizing that $200,000 assigned fund balance. You may have heard us in previous years talk about those ESSER funds. Um Esser funds date us all
020the way back to the pandemic. Um we actually finalized and finished up the last remaining plan funds for those er grants um last summer and fall. So there's a a bit of of data that you'll still see from Esser funds for the last two fiscal years. Um in addition as we you know worked on this budget since last winter um and as um pointed out earlier the state budget getting adopted in early July. Um since then there were a couple additional updates we made in the budget. The first one is the direction of where we thought we might be going with some federal funding. um most notably is special education, food service, um and some of our title grants. And so we we we lowered our estimate and our uh federal and our federal funding
021for special education. We also eliminated if the title grants. Now, that was done prior to this book being printed and ready to go. We're now hearing that there may be a bit of a change to some of that. um if we're able to wrap our arms around federal funding in terms of title grants and some additional special education funding coming back to us, we'll be able to make that revision in October when we finalize some of our other details of the budget. So, I wanted to point that out. And then again, as Joel mentioned earlier, the new state budget did provide a couple of pieces that really helped us wrap up the creation of this budget. The first one being um an increase in primary special education categorical aid that basically means additional funding for
022our special education programs. Um that was really helpful especially under the caveat that we needed to start planning for some reductions and some federal funding for special education. And then the last item we'll talk about here in just a couple of moments. It has to do with, as Joel alluded to, some of the changes that we're seeing in projected general state aid. In other words, aid that comes directly from the state of Wisconsin. We'll talk about that in just a minute. Um, so pages 13 and 14 have to do with our general fund um budget, which is what we call keep the lights on. Um, most of our operations go through the general fund and then our special education fund. As we navigate into uh the last page, page 16, it includes all of our
023other funds. Really important funds. Um not quite as much detail here. Um for example, we do budget accordingly to making debt payments. We have principal and interest payments that we make for previous referendum that have been approved. Um we have a construction project happening. We're in the design phase right now. soon to need construction um as we navigate toward the end of next school year. Um so we account for that in our fund 49. And then you'll see at the bottom of page 16 is our food service fund and our packaging cooperative program funds. If you'll continue to navigate with me through the booklet, um the next two pages, pages 17 and 18, address exactly what I was referring to a second ago, which is our principal and interest payments for our referendums that have
024been approved. The next few pages, some of you might appreciate this because it's not a list of numbers. It's more of an administration. Some people like that, some people don't. um 19 and pages 19 and 20 provide us just a real quick illustration of our general fund. Again, the vast majority of our of our budget activity. And you'll see on page 19 an estimated fund revenue. You'll see property taxes um being projected at 49% of our total revenue and state support being at 45% in blue. Again, a projection at this point. One thing to note is we definitely saw a shift from last year to this year in terms of what we're projecting. Um if you were to look at the annual being booklet last year, you would see that blue section um being just
025over half. Um and now we're down to a rejected 45%. So we saw that blue shrink in this chart. Um, and when that happens is we are dependent on finding out from the state what type of aid they're giving us because under our revenue limit formula, that's the information we need to be able to calculate a tax levy. Now, as a projection at this point on October 15th, we'll find out exactly how much state a each district will receive, including ourselves. And then at that point, we'll be able to put our finger on the on the official um tax levy. So, as a projection right now, um we're projecting just um under a $1.3 million reduction in state aid. Um and that's why you see accordingly in this chart that we're down to 45%. So,
026that blue has shrunk. As I move on to page 20, um this is expenditures. really not much of a change here. Um we're a service business as all of you know and so um personnel costs take up the largest percentage and we're remaining at 81% of our overall budget. Um pages 21 and 22 were resolutions that you um just addressed um just a few minutes ago. So thank you for that. Um and what I would like to do because there are some really important pages in here. your school calendars in here and that's important. Um there's some other important things like enrollment our property um changes over the years and so forth. But if you'd be so kind as just to go to the appendix which is way in the back we have a few
027um appendix pages and specifically if you could go to page A4 should be the second to last page of your booklet. Um again it's A4 second the last page in the booklet. Um this provides um a number of decades worth of financial data and we always find it valuable to be able to do a comparison and contrast of of how things have looked over the last few decades. Um as you see the at the top of the page is called the levy equalized value comparison. And if you take a look at the first line at the top, that's our projected data for 2526 for this upcoming school year. And you'll see that our tax levy is projected as sort of the almost the middle column global levy. You'll see that our tax levy is projected
028to be 20,33,584. Um this is an increase of just over $1.9 million which quite frankly is a very similar increase to what we saw um a year ago. Um the increase is a result of the projected general state aid like I said decreasing almost 1.3 million and um correspondingly um property values are important in our revenue limit calculation because it helps us determine what our bill rate is projected to be. And so in that middle column for a mill rate, you'll see um a 2% again that's projection at this point, a 2% property value increase would result um in a projected mill rate of $8.86. That would be an increase of 62 from the prior year. I really appreciate you listening to that and going through all those pages with me. Appreciate your time. Hey,
029thank you Scott for that discussion. Uh, this brings us to the portion meeting in which anyone has questions about the budget itself. As was just discussed, we would entertain those at this point. >> So, want to clarify Scott's point. Sorry. >> Yeah. Do we have a question over here? >> Clarify Scott's point. So when the state you can speak with the microphone. >> Oh sure I can do that. How about my teacher voice? >> Um so to clarify when the state gives us less money we have to raise taxes or find local funds here to make up the difference so we're balanced or equal. Is that the is that kind of the gist of what that looks like? Okay. Thank you. Just just clarifying. Thank you. Any further questions the audience? All right, thank you
030very much. Move on to resolution three, which is adopting the 202526 tax levy. That resolution reads resolve that the Morg area school district led the amount of 22 million 33,584 in taxes against the property of second district for the 2025 2026 school year. I'll accept a motion and a second. Motion by all steady 1804 3wood drive. >> Thank you. Second by Katie Gin. Any further discussion of the tax levy. All right. I'll call for a show of hands in favor of passing this levy. Excellent. Thank you. And any opposed? All right. Motion passes. Thank you very much. That concludes our resolutions here. Looking ahead to next year, the board of education is author, as I said, the date, time, and place of the 2026 annual meeting. Following past practice, we will place that on the
031second Monday in August. And next year's date is August 10th, 2026. Are there any other is there any other business within the powers of the annual meeting we'd like to address at this time? All right, thank you all for coming. That concludes our agenda of business for the evening. Really appreciate you being here on a Monday night in the summer time to listen to this and hope you got something out of the the finance discussion as well. It's a complex topic and I know I can speak for the board and say how much we appreciate this community support of education. Uh at this point I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. So second >> a motion by second by just all in favor. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. The meeting
032is concluded.