5-17-22 Board of Education Meeting

001call tonight's Indian Hill School District Board of Education meeting to order. Mr. Davis, could you do the roll call, please? Mrs. Eichholz? Here. Mr. Marks? Here. Mrs. Singh? Here. Mr. Summerall? Present. Mr. Tullis? Here. Is there a motion to adopt the regular meeting agenda and addendum? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. I would like to move that we go into executive session in accordance with ORC 121.21G1 to consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of a public employee or official administrator salary proposal. Second. Approved. Mrs. Eichholz? Aye. Mr. Summerall? Aye. Mr. Marks? Yes. Mrs. Singh? Yes. Mr. Tullis? Yes. Best of the very best. She does have a twin. That would be great. Good evening. Thank you. Apologies for the delay. We are back in session and ready to rock and

002roll. We have a special guest tonight to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, Ms. Beth Lee Dalton, to lead us away. Thank you all for being here again. Apologies for running a little late in our executive session. We will now move on to our public commentary. Mr. Davis, anybody tonight? Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis. We have a lot of things to be done this evening. We'll move on. Correspondence, recognition and announcements. Mr. Konecki. Welcome, Board members and guests to this evening. We have a lot of celebrations here at the beginning of the meeting tonight. First up, I'd like to recognize our partner organization, IHPTO. Is Erica Camp here? Erica, would you mind coming up? Heather, you can come too if you

003want to come up to the podium for a moment. Anybody else who's a PTO officer or member? Amy Kondorotis, come on up, please, to the podium for a minute. we are not going to show the entire the podiums right there in case you want to say some words I'll give you my mic to in a minute put you on the spot our PTO has done an amazing job not just this year last year every year however when we think back about what students were not able to have two years ago our PTO pivoted and came up with amazing and creative activities to reach our students and our staff and to celebrate them all and this year as we return to the new normal of having activities again for staff and for students they have just

004had an amazing year I think I counted up something to the tune of over 70 plus activities there you go 82 thank you 82 activities this school year alone PTO helps sponsor across the district with so many parent volunteers putting in so many hours we can't do what we do here at Indian Hill without parent volunteers and so we'd like to recognize our PTO partners and I want to announce that they have made a wonderful membership video and reflective video that will be linked to our minutes and on our website and we will push out and be brave Friday it's about a five minute video that captures the essence of PTO as a member and partner what they do for us all throughout the year and it is amazing I hope you all get a

005chance to see it so if we could give them a big round of applause and our outgoing president Erica Keane our incoming president Heather would anybody like to say anything thank you all and Amy thanks for putting together the video I watched Amy helping edit the video with the executive board the other day that's not an easy task next up we'd like to honor our Indian Hill High School we have 45 students inducted in the National Honor Society as of Sunday May 1st and in addition we want to congratulate our teacher Mark Atwood who has also voted honorary National Honor Society staff member for the 21-22 school year if anybody is here from NHS or if mr. Atwood is here would you please stand to be recognized at this time congratulations okay I have a

006script here and miss Schoenauer if I don't get anything right you can help fix it okay next up we're going to recognize DECA DECA has had a history making year for the program here at Indian Hill High School 29 Indian Hill High School DECA students earn the right to advance to compete at the DECA international competition in April following their performance during the DECA state competition held in Columbus during March of Indian Hill 62 competitors 50 advanced to the finals and 40 finished in the top 10 of their event with nine first-place finishes during the DECA international competition that took place in Atlanta during April 5 Indian Hill high school students are in recognition one student William Dalton made it onto the international competition stage by earning fourth place overall out of 125 students who

007competed in food marketing congratulations for other students earned medals including Sanibel betts for travel and tourism vinya evituri for hospitality selling Ryan Romney Kerr for quick serve management and Peter Shakely for business finance congratulations additionally we want to celebrate again William Dalton who made school history by becoming the first DECA state officer to represent Indian Hill. We're very pleased at Indian Hill to offer career pathways programming in this marketing program in partnership with Great Oaks. It's just one example of how our students can find their own path and we can help learners as individuals along the way and I'd like to invite our marketing instructor and DECA advisor Susan Schoenauer up here to say a few words. Susan? Hello. Hot mic. Great. Okay, we had a great year as you said. Actually, William got fourth

008place out of over 250 students. So it was it's a very big deal to do what he did. It's an endurance challenge, the DECA international event. These guys will tell you you don't stop moving for four days. But it was fantastic. And I'm just gonna have each one of them come up and just say what their event was because there's so many unique events that they were all in different events and it's like a track meet. Everybody has their specialty and then we all just cheer each other on. So it's amazing. Unfortunately, Phil, my counterpart, is officiating a track meet right now. So he is not here with us because he does all kinds of other things in his free time. So anyway, I'm just gonna just we'll go really quick, but I just want

009each student to just say their name and what their event was. Come on up. Alright. Hi, I'm Sanibel Betts and I do travel and tourism team decision-making. Hi, I'm Kunal Ranjan and I did the startup business plan with my partner, White Higgins. Hi, I'm William Dalton. Sorry, and I competed in food marketing. I'm Emerson Evans and I do hotel and lodging management. I'm Bentley Dolan and I do automotive services. I'm Yvette Dutweiler and I do principles of marketing. Hi, I'm Pernille Vestoghi and I do business finance. Hi, I'm Wallace Chan and I did principles of marketing. I'm Arjun Velayutham and I did principles of business. I'm a business manager and I do business management. Hi, I'm Nina Fouad and I did sports and entertainment team decision-making. Nina, I have a question for you. So I've

010watched like the last couple years when Indian Hill DECA walks in, does like the rest of the Ohio Earth just go like holy cow? Indian Hills here, is that pretty much what happens? Because every year I see... Yeah. Congratulations to all you guys. It's awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Susan. Thanks everybody. Congratulations students. Next up, board members, we want to congratulate our nine IHS students who won their events at the Ohio Technical Student Association State Competition held Friday, April 22nd at the Hamilton campus of Miami University. The winning students included Sarah Grace Brown, Sophia Liu, Kunal Ranjan, Connor Vandenboom, Nick Guinan, Jack Gerber, Sunuka Abasing, Krish Ranjan, and Arjun Verma. Are any of our Technical Student Association winners here this evening? Let's give them a round of applause. We're just... Just getting started. Next up,

011we want to celebrate our IHES student team of Carter Compton, Dylan Mikula, and George Harold, who won the Stock Market Game Portfolio Challenge for grades 4 through 12, recently sponsored by the nonprofit All Paw Family Economics Center of the University of Cincinnati. Are any of our Braves here from the elementary school? Okay. This is an ongoing annual tradition where our fourth and fifth graders beat out college students and high school students, all college students. And we're doing this across Ohio. It's quite an amazing thing. And all of our students in the grade level are participating now, which is amazing. Any stock tips? Because we don't need them right now. We're going to move on. Another amazing celebration tonight. If Raylan Coward is here, can you come up, Raylan? Why don't you go to the podium

012and you can say a few words here in just a moment. Indian Hill High School wants to congratulate senior Raylan Coward for earning two USA Gymnastics Expo awards. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Excel Diamond State Championship titles. Raelynn finished in first place in Ohio for both vault and bar competitions during the state meet in April. Raelynn also became a Region 5 USA Gymnastics Excel Diamond first place regional floor champion, finishing second all around. Raelynn is a member of Team Ohio, which also won and beat out Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and that place we call Michigan. Congratulations, Raelynn. You're a state champ. We're so proud of you. Would you like to say a few words? Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come here tonight and celebrate my achievements. Thank you, Raelynn. We're proud of

013you. We have a certificate here for you. Great job. Just so everybody knows, when we don't have enough athletes to field an entire team, we're able to help sponsor that student athlete through our OHSA rules and work with their partner organizations. It's wonderful to be able to help each individual. We talk about learners as doers. Raelynn is able to continue to do what she wants and represent Indian Hill in such an amazing way. Anytime we have a state championship, that's a really special and unique thing in Ohio, especially in gymnastics. It is so tough to win in any category, let alone two, and second place overall. It's just amazing. Congratulations. Okay. Next up, board members, we have three IH students, Maria and Elizabeth and Katherine Fullen. They finished in seventh place. And Maria and Elizabeth's

014duet placed 10th out of 43 duets recently at the National Synchronized Swim Meet. Do we have any of our brave swimmers here? Again, another unique sporting celebration for our district. Congratulations to all of those students. Next up, we'd like to share that we're so proud of our ever-evolving STEM program. And tonight, we want to talk about the Design Award, especially the work of our youngest Braves who are here from the primary school. Tonight, we want to recognize Indian Hill Elementary School third grade students Will Esselin, Andrew Schubert, and Nate Strickland for earning the 2022 Inspired Innovator Award as part of the Architectural Foundation of Cincinnati's Design Lab Citywide Architecture Competition. Come on up here, gang. The Design Lab is a project-based K-12 education program tailored to broaden and deepen students' awareness, appreciation, and active participation

015in natural and built environments. We would like our gifted intervention specialist, Monica Dawkins, here, our chief STEM officer, so to speak, to say a few words. I have to tell you, while their final project is very impressive and award-winning, their process over the last eight weeks is just as noteworthy. They really amplified our 21st century learning skills of creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and what's the fourth one? One voice. Creativity, collaboration, critical thinking. Did we say creativity? Well, they exemplified all of them very, very well, along with a lot of design thinking. So please give them a very nice round of applause. Congratulations, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you, Monica. Next up, board members, also exciting, Mr. Jim Nichols is here to give us a facility and operations presentation. An update. I do not appreciate, Mr. Konecki,

016making fall of that. That is tough acts to follow right there and very exciting to see all of the successes of our students. But I do have exciting news, and I want to give you just some quick construction updates. I encourage anybody that gets a chance to drive by our middle school campus right now to see what's happening over there. We've poured some concrete, which is exciting. It's a huge step in the building coming up. We understand some walls might be going. We're going to see some new buildings coming in soon. So you're going to see the building take shape. And then as you're driving in there, I know a lot of our families drop off in the morning. You're starting to see some new roads go in, and our car rider lines will look

017different next year. We're going to be sending you some beautiful maps to help you understand where to go. But just some specifics. Again, there will be a complete redesign at our high school, middle school campus of what the parking lot looks like. The biggest thing I think you'll notice next. Next year is a much larger bus lot that will create enhanced safety for our students. At the end, there will be an island where kids can walk down and safely get on the bus. If you've ever seen our dismissal right now, our bus drivers do an amazing job of parking. But it's kind of like a puzzle that just fits the right way. Moving forward, we'll be able to get a lot of buses in there and quickly get those students on there and get them

018home. So we're excited about that. You will also now, since we're in the primary school. Let's do it. Let's talk briefly about what's going to happen here this summer. This space here will eventually get some new fire suppression. We'll see when the project's done. Some new ceilings in here. But the main core work that will happen this summer are some offices back behind us here. We're going to be renovating some older spaces. Some of them have been locker rooms at one time. And so I know some of us here may have even experienced them being a locker room while you came to school. But we're going to be renovating those spaces and offices here at the primary school. We'll talk more about this down the road. But eventually this front entrance won't be utilized for

019a period of time next year. We'll have a temporary entrance where the students generally enter for recess. And so we're making some work this summer to get that ready. I don't think families or students will notice much of a difference until we're done. And you have a beautiful, safe new entrance here at the primary school. So that's coming up. If you're at the elementary school, you're going to notice the parking in the front. We're going to be reopening. We're going to be redesigning that as well. One of the things we want to do is separate cars from buses. Currently, those two vehicles mix over there. We have some great procedures in place to keep students safe. But after this year, we'll have an area where cars can come and loop around in front of the

020building. We're going to expand some bus parking over there. So we'll get a couple more buses in. And those two spaces will stay separate. Our good friends at the Indian Hill Church are going to let us borrow some of their parking lot next year so that we can make sure we keep cars off Drake Road. We're not backing up traffic in the morning too terribly. Everybody's trying to get somewhere. So we're very appreciative that Indian Hill Church is going to work with us on that. Again, we'll be sending you home a beautiful map in August so you'll see exactly where you need to go. Also, we'll temporarily be using the side bus lot for our playground next year at the elementary school. We'll continue to use Shawnee Field. What a great resource we have there

021for our students to play. Because in the back, we'll be renovating that space for our playground. They'll be doing some storage materials there while we're building the new performing arts facility at the elementary school. So we have a really busy summer ahead. But we've got great partners that you'll hear from later tonight. And we are well on our way to a very productive summer. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Next up this evening, we're going to talk about the IH Promise Plan, our strategic plan. And we have an update from Dr. Melissa Stewart and Dr. Kim Given. Well, like Mr. Nichols, I too have some exciting information to share. So I just want to say thanks for letting us give you an update. We were a little bit quiet last month because we were

022really busy behind the scenes working. And now we're ready to unveil how we are starting to launch this strategic plan. So if Dr. Given would join me up at the podium, we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about our initial steps, which includes Dr. Given. One of the main things that Dr. Given has been doing for us is we've been talking about the IH Promise Plan. One of the main steps that we took was that Dr. Given is now officially our strategic plan and innovation coordinator. And we recognized as a school district if this plan truly was going to make a difference for each and every one of our students, we needed somebody who that would be their sole focus, was helping us to stay very organized and very intent and purposeful

023about all the decisions that we were making regarding the strategic plan. And I will say, you're going to see in a few more minutes our strategic plan. see in a few more slides what incredible work that she's been able to do in a very short period of time. We also last week had a day-long leadership meeting, and the entire meeting was dedicated to our strategic plan. Every building leader, as well as support personnel, such as the athletic director, all leadership really got to focus on what does our strategic plan mean, and how do each one of us help to carry that plan into the future. So having a day to really think purposefully about all the steps that we want to take next year, and how each leader is going to make a difference, already

024set us up for success. We are continuing our partnership with Education Elements, which is the group that helped us to facilitate the strategic plan process. They are offering us some free webinars so that we can stay involved with them, and we can hear some of their helpful hints, so we are participating in all of those. Last, you're going to see a video of the strategic plan. We are already taking some action steps. So at the high school, for example, we have adopted eight new classes for next year. There is some description of those eight classes within your red folder, and each one of them is innovative and supports one of the initiatives associated with the strategic plan. Probably one of the most important steps that we've taken was thinking about the collaborative teams that would

025support planning for each of the initiatives. The first one is the 10 initiatives. So to get that started, we started with our own staff members. All educators within the district got information about what those 10 initiatives are, and they had a chance to review them and decide if they wanted to be part of that steering committee for each one of those 10 initiatives. Here's the good news. We had so many people raise their hand in this district, we had to turn some people away, which is just a testimony of the incredible people who work and are dedicated to the students of this district. So turning people away didn't mean they were done with the work. Dr. Kiven is going to talk to us a little bit about what that meant to have lots of ways

026that people can be involved with the strategic plan. So we're very excited that we're tying all of our thought and resources and process into strategic plan. One of the things that we really pride ourselves on is the amount of learning that we provide for teachers, and one way that we're going to make sure that all of us are understanding how the strategic plan works is that we're going to be able to make sure that the strategic plan is going to impact the student experience is by providing professional learning. So we were able to offer teachers and staff members many opportunities for them to decide how they wanted to learn. One of those was serving on a committee where they get to look at strategic plan initiatives, but there were 70 other offerings that people could

027choose from in order to be able to consider their instruction and maybe make some shifts that kind of align with the things that we've been talking about. So we're really excited about that. And we're also excited about the opportunity to have a lot of people come in and talk about what we're talking about as a community and as a district. Another thing I'm really excited about is how many people took part in this work to help us plan it, and I think that people are going to really enjoy being able to take part in these things. Dr. Stewart mentioned that we had some people who volunteered to do this work. I told them, don't go anywhere. We're going to be working on this for five years. There's going to be lots of ways that we're

028going to be able to get input from all of our faculty and staff and also from our students and from our community. In the short amount of time, we're going to be able to get a lot of information from our faculty and staff. And we're going to be able to get a lot of information from our students and from our community. I'm so glad that Dr. Given has had this opportunity to lead us in the strategic plan and coordinate it. She's already spent over 16 hours meeting with small groups or individuals, teachers, to make sure that they felt clear about what the strategic plan is, what that means for them as teachers, and how they can be involved in it, including their own professional learning. So she's quite dedicated to making sure that it is

029a personalized experience for every student. So she's quite dedicated to making sure that it is a personalized experience for every student. And she's quite dedicated to making sure that it is a personalized experience for every single teacher. And you will hear this term, PPL, quite often, which stands for personalized professional learning. And you will hear this term, PPL, quite often, which stands for personalized professional learning. And we recognize, just like our students, our teachers come to Opportunity to Learn with all different backgrounds and experiences and interests. And we recognize, just like our students, our teachers come to Opportunity to Learn with all different backgrounds and experiences and interests. And we recognize, just like our students, our teachers come to Opportunity to Learn with all different backgrounds and experiences and interests. And we recognize, just like

030our students, our teachers come to Opportunity to Learn with all different backgrounds and experiences and interests. and experiences and interests. So no matter what their entry level is, we have a way for them to engage in personalized professional learning that's meaningful for them, specifically in a unique way. I would just add to that, very few public school organizations in Ohio or across the nation have truly implemented a PPL model the way that Dr. Gibbon, Dr. Stewart, and the team are working on this as a part of our strategic plan. And we think it's so serious and we have so many teachers involved for a reason. And making sure that employees have voice and choice is one of the best ways to retain world-class educators in public schools. And it takes a large lift and a

031large team to be able to offer this many menu choices to almost 300 staff members on an annualized basis and plug and play in a calendar where we're doing relevant things and we're able to evolve annually to meet the initiatives in the strategic plan. And that was one of the most important comments that came out of the teacher feedback while we were creating the plan. Things that they wanted to see in their own work styles and it's going to impact children in a positive way. So thank you for all the work that you've both been doing on the plan. Dr. Gibbon, I want to also interject thank you for your time, what you're doing. We're excited to what is happening. You're making a difference and we look forward to reports from you in the future.

032Thank you. Thank you. One other thing that we wanted to share again tonight that came out of a lot of the dialogue with the Board of Education, as we were launching the IH Promise Plan, and that was that the Board had piloted three new committees in January. Our District STEM Advisory Committee, our Safety, Health and Wellness Committee, and our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. We've had over 31 parents, community members and professional experts in different fields join us for two meetings for each of those committees this spring. Really proud of that. We've had Board volunteer participation as well. And we are going to be extending those committees into the 2022-2023 school year and inviting any interested stakeholders, that's parents, partners, professional experts in our community, to come and talk to us about a future slate

033of topics and quarterly meetings. Those are designed to be all inclusive, welcoming, and to be able to talk about timely topics that matter to parents, whether it's issues, concerns, interests, or the strategic plan initiatives. And we encourage anybody to reach out. If you're interested, please let me know. And those are open for all to participate in, as well. If we move forward, we'll have an entire slate of those dates on the calendar. Thank you, Dr. Stewart. That concludes the recognition portion of the agenda. And, oh, sorry. Almost all of the recognition portion. Next up, we have announcements, of course, our five-year forecast presentation from our treasurer, Mr. McDavis. Thank you, Mr. Konecki. And thank you to the Board for giving me the opportunity to do this presentation. Just as a note of history, back when

034I started in 2016, the district obviously was required to file a five-year forecast back then in October and then also in May. But at the time, it wasn't the tradition to do a presentation. So the Board allowed me to sort of start that tradition of doing the presentation twice a year. And I feel it's great for not just the Board, but also for our community to hear some key words that we talk about all the time, while we're conducting business, but may not get the time during these meetings to talk about it. So I have the opportunity to get about five, 10 minutes, twice a year, and talk about all the important things that we do with our finances here in the district. And with that, we'll get right into it. As we look at

035our five-year forecast, you think of it as your checking account at home. We do cash accounting here in the district. That's later converted. We converted to accrual accounting at the end of the year, and that's audited by the state of Ohio. But as you think of your checking account at home, you look at your revenue, your expenses, and then the difference goes into maybe a savings account, maybe investments, wherever they're applicable. That's what we do here in the district. We look at our revenue, we look at our expenses, and then at the end of the year, we hope there's a surplus, and that goes into our carryover and serves as the savings account for the district. As we look at this first slide, this is our projected revenue. Some things I like to point out

036about this, we are what's called a property tax district. A significant amount of our revenues come from the property taxes, not just the regular property taxes that we see on our tax bills, but there's also a section that the state of Ohio pays that's called the allocation that consists of the rollback, and the homestead money that was part of the deal back in the 1970s, where they helped offset property tax payments with a payment out of the revenues collected at the state level. As of 2013, that's no longer allowed on new levies, so any new levy that's passed by a district is 100% funded by the property taxes of that district. So that's just something to think about as you think about the world of levies. Moving forward, we'll no longer have the opportunity to

037offset some of those with state revenues for our taxpayers, but that will stay with the old ones as long as we have them, and all of our old levies are continuous, so that will stay part of our revenue moving forward. There's also a public utility personal property tax. What that is, if you just think about the poles, the pipes, all the things that public utilities use to move electricity, gas, those are all taxed, and part of that goes to the school district. Also, we have no income tax in this state. We have what's called other resources, and most of that consists of, again, property taxes. We have some districts over in Kenwood area, some commercial properties, that are under what's called a TIF agreement, and as part of that TIF agreement, Sycamore Township pays us

038their taxes in full. So that goes into that other resources line, and as you can see, now we've filled up almost all of our bucket with property taxes. We do get about 4% of our income per year from the state education fund. They just recently redid the way they calculate those payments, and Indian Hill received about the same as we had before, so nothing exciting to report there, but at the same time, nothing was removed as well, so good news there. Just a quick check on where our funds do come, like I said, state funds provide about 4% through that educational fund. We do get to supplement some of our general fund education money through grants from the federal government. That makes up about 2% of our total revenue. Some of the things we use

039those funds for are our IDEA special education funds, which fund some special, some educational aids that work here in the district. It also funds some other resources that we use, such as an interpreter. We also have a Title I fund, which we use to pay some reading teacher, and then some tutors as well come out of that fund. Generally, though, the federal funds and the state funds make up a very small portion of our overall budget. This is a look at our property value breakdown over the course of about two decades. As you can see there, the middle it was up very high and then had a steep drop that was of course the recession that happened in the early 2010s you can see we built back up over time and the two tiles there

040at the end represent tax year 2020 which broke the record for the highest property valuation in Indian Hill School District and then 2021 which surpassed 2020 so property values are growing in the district they are over the last few years growing very slowly that trend is because Indian Hill Village makes up a large portion of our property to valuation and that property valuation has been moving very slowly over the last few years however we do see a trend that's coming where values in the district could be going up as we see more homes that are being sold for some time now in the Kenwood area and the Sturbridge area we've seen houses that go on the market and come up with a sold sign before they when they put the sign out that's beginning to

041happen in the village to houses are not staying on the market very long and as we get to the next reassessment year that will occur in 2020 tax year 2023 we'll begin to see property tax taxes go up and I'm hoping that we'll see a pretty good increase as well. Mick if you could I think it's helpful just explain the correlation of the values with the outside millage just I don't there's a perception that as the values go up the school districts automatically bring in more revenue that's a that's a good segue Mr. Tullis as we look at this slide I have what's called House Bill 920 House Bill 920 was a bill that was passed back in the 70s this bill basically says that revenue will increase uniformly with property market values this includes

042the outside millage which means as property values rise as millage goes down and that the district collects pretty close to the same amount that we collected the year before it also works in reverse if the property values would go down millage would go up and the district would collect about the same as they collected before the one exception to this is what's called inside millage those are non-voted mills on property taxes we do see some growth with that millage each year so as those property values go up throughout the district we will be in and of itself notice after the district, we will begin to see a small climb in revenue. But basically, we see very flat revenue through property taxes over time. Unless, of course, a levy is passed where revenue then flows for

043whatever the voted amount is starting at the time of the levy. So as you can see, I made a note there. Our 2021 levy began collecting revenue in fiscal year 2022, which we are currently in. The first year, it will collect the full revenues fiscal year 2023. So you can see the corresponding tiles moving up there and then flattening off as we get to that period of House Bill 920. And those market values start to react with millage. So expenditures, you can see that the two big numbers there are salaries and benefits. We are about, on average, anywhere from about 70 to 75 percent of our annual revenue. And then we have the next slide. So we have the next slide. So we have the next slide. All of our annual expenditures go to the

044salaries of our teachers, of our aides, of our bus drivers, our administrators, our educational aides. Hopefully I haven't missed anybody because everybody's important to the experience of our students. We are a human resource business. We do have some other expenses, personal services, which are some big numbers include such items as outside education that we need to provide for students that we were unable to provide here in the district. That comes out of that category. We have supplies and materials, which is everything you can think of from the supplies and materials in classrooms to the gas that powers our buses. Some of the smaller ones we could see, we have capital outlay, and I will advance. Just real quick here, this is a look at our salaries over time. You can see that we had some

045trend there where they went down over in 2019 to 2020, and then again to 2021. They've started to increase again through year 2022, and then fiscal year 2023, which is the first year of the new collective bargaining agreement. We made some commitments to the staff to begin to increase our salary again as we looked at some of the districts and saw that we were beginning to not be as competitive as we wanted to be or where Indian Hill expects to be as far as we can go. So, we've had some trend there where they went down over 2019 to 2020, and then we've had some trend there where they went down over 2020 to 2021, and then we've had some trend there where they went down over 2019 to 2021, and then we've had some

046trend there where they went down over 2019 to 2021, and then we've had some trend there where they went down over 2020 to 2021. So, those have begun to climb again. As you look at benefits, the main driver of this is healthcare. Healthcare, we have done a phenomenal job here in the district. We looked at a 3.9% increase for calendar year 2022. The calendar year 2023 renewal is looking fantastic at this point. Throughout the rest of my forecast, I've estimated 8% to 9% increase. However, I've got some intel just recently as we talk about how healthcare works. If you think about the anthems and the United Healthcare of the world, what they do is they get three, four-year contracts with all of the different providers here, not just in Cincinnati, but in every other region.

047And what we've seen in healthcare, their salaries and benefits, I can speak from an example of my own home. My wife works with a person at UC Health as a nurse who took a job in the state of Texas with a $30,000 sign-on bonus and a $20,000 moving bonus. So, when those contracts come up in three years, Anthem and United Healthcare are going to look to renegotiate, and we're going to see inflation in healthcare start at that point. So, again, that brings some trepidation for me, and those are things that we have to look at. What are we going to point out for? That's a great point, Nick. Thank you for bringing that up. That's a real concern for us as we look forward in being fiscally responsible, and that to me is one of

048the biggest, if not the biggest, points that we've got to be aware of looking forward. So, thank you for pointing that out. You're welcome. So, another thing we talk about in expenses is our capital outlay. We had, for a period of time, been repairing roofs and putting investments into capital throughout the district from our general fund. We went ahead and did the, we were fortunate enough to get the $77 million bond levy passed, and that took care of a lot of significant needs on the district capital side. We do have some other needs that we found as we were going through that process. The board did vote in February to proceed with some of those items. You can see those reflected in years 23 and 24. I budgeted, I budgeted, $900,000 moving forward for 25

049and 26. Those cover such items as our buses. We've made a commitment to get two buses a year to make sure our bus fleet continues to be modern and efficient. We put $140,000 as a set aside for all the synthetic turf fields we have in the district. When I arrived in the district, we did not have a set aside, so it was extremely, I know Mrs. Eichholz can remember some of those finance committee meetings we had where we were staring down, you know, how long did we have until those fields need to be replaced, and we had no money set aside for it. So we've been able to get that up to speed and get that to the point where our fields are going to be replaced and maintained for the safety of our students.

050We also have in that, within that budget, a significant amount dedicated towards technology each year. What about, Nick, what would you set aside for things that happen as far as rainy day fund and maintenance? Do you have a formula that you would use to set aside something to put in some of these amounts in the years looking forward? Is there a certain process that you do? So I really don't have a process in place to put that into, you know, for those items that you don't expect. We do have what you could call a rainy day fund. I know if our person in communications heard me say that, she would be cringing right now. But that's our carryover fund. We won't call it that. So you do have something accounted for, for something that's unexpected.

051That's my question. Absolutely. We do. We have a carryover fund. That got down to about $14 million before the levy. We were looking at our deficit over the next few years, seeing where that would take the carryover. And obviously that gave us the signs that we needed to gain more revenue. That was the motivation to do the levy at the time. One thing interesting about school districts is because of levy, the way they operate, we get all of the money the first year. And then over a period of time, it doesn't grow much. So we have a pot of money in year one. But our expenses grow with an inflation rate that's much higher than our revenue. And that line catches up much faster to where that revenue is. And that helps, or I won't

052say helps, but that's what attains that deficit spending. That's the cycle that school districts get into. We've been fortunate at Indian Hill, we have a very healthy carryover. That carryover will increase based on my five-year forecast as I've presented it here. Part of the balance of being a prudent school district and being fiscally responsible is the balance between what do you carry over and what do you spend? What should be spent on those students? Obviously, you know, a huge carryover. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We

053don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. We don't get much advantage. from because I'm limited on the investments I can make. They're very, you know, Ohio Revised Code makes it so they're very vanilla. I make sure the capital's main, or the principal's maintained, and then the interest is very small from those types of investments. Mr. Davis, can I just point out on the slide prior that in 2020 that big jump in expenditures capital outlay was because of Home of the Braves? That is correct. A significant portion of that 2020 investment was for Home of the Braves that was also offset in the revenue line at the time and continues to be paid down

054through pledges accrued from the foundation for that project at the time. Correct. Thank you. That's what I wanted to point out. So with that, as we look at the final tile here, we see that, you know, this looks at our revenue versus our expenditure. Revenue's in black. The expenditures are in gray. You can see that, you know, you can see the carryover line, the yellow line, increases slightly year over year. If we continued at the estimate I have for the five-year forecast, we would have about 21 million in the bank at that point. But we do have to realize that there's some key target dates that are coming up. We do have to negotiate the collective bargaining agreement. It will expire in June 30th of 2025. So at that point, we will go back with

055our Indian Hill Educators Association, and we will then go through the, I'm sorry, professional organization. I don't want to give the wrong term there. We will go back with them, and we will collectively bargain that agreement again. And, you know, as always, we will reach an agreement that's fair for both sides. But that will, I don't have any numbers really built into that 2026 forecast to show any base increases at that time. So, you know, at that point, you know, we'll have to negotiate. We'll have to negotiate. And at that point, we could potentially be looking at deficit spending again, and we have to address that. As a board of education, as a community, we'll probably be talking to a revamped finance committee at that point and start to think about what our strategies are,

056you know, moving forward after, you know, that levy renewal, and then all the things that come with that in the future. So, you know, as we look at school finance, especially here at Indian Hill, there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving pieces. That the board has always, you know, I've always been very welcomed by the board to talk about. We spend a lot of time discussing these things. I just don't always get to share them with the community a lot. So this is a welcomed opportunity to do that. Thank you. That's all very helpful information. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Next up is the superintendent's report, board members. Item eight, letter A is resolution declaring impracticability of transportation offering payment to parents in lieu of transportation. Item B is approval of the following

057courses that Dr. Stewart had highlighted in the strategic plan. Letter C is approval of an overnight field trip for our boys and girls cross country teams. And letter D, one through 19, are a host of personnel actions, tuition reimbursements, professional meeting approvals, and approvals of certified contracts, classified contracts, salary adjustments, continuing employment contracts, and approvals of supplementals, service contracts for classified staff and certified staff as listed, including administrative salaries and benefits and adjustments for some of our classified staff members not covered in the collective bargaining agreement. I would ask, unless there are specific questions, that the board would entertain an approval motion for items eight, A through D-19. Thank you. And this is the last item. Just as a note, there was also some items on your addendum page there. Yeah, the announcement that I

058made includes the numbers and items on the addendum, as well. Okay, so I move that we vote to approve, superintendent report, sorry, back up to the numbers. Letter D, one through, sorry, letter A, one through, sorry, one through 15, plus the addendum. Sorry. Second. You said, what was the motion? It was what? It was A through D. D15 plus D through 19 on the addendum. Yeah, inclusive of A through D. It's a long one. Mrs. Eichholz? Aye. Mr. Summerall? Aye. Mr. Marks? Yes. Mrs. Singh? Yes. Mr. Tullis? Yes. Thank you. I'd like to make one comment. Which is, we've got some different supplementals in there and want to thank Mr. Phelps, our athletic director, board member Summerall and others that were involved. We've made some, in the last several months, some awesome hires in the

059world of athletics and super excited and very appreciative of that work. We've got some top-notch folks from golf to basketball to football. We've always had awesome athletics, but I think it's going to take it to the next level. So, very appreciative of those folks' work. Thank you, Mr. Marks. And just to underscore that one other point, we welcomed last Thursday evening our new basketball coach, Mr. Ricardo Hill, who joined us and we're very excited to have Coach Hill here. And he's already begun morning practices. And as a bonus, he's a wizard at teaching computers. There you go. And computer technology. Who knew? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Konecki. Mr. Davis? Thank you. Mr. Davis, the Treasurer's report, please. Under my report this evening, I have to approve the minutes of the April 12, 2022 regular

060meeting and the April 21, 2022 special meeting. To approve the financial reports for the month ending April 30, 2022. To approve the following contracts for the 23 school year. Item 1 is comprehensive concepts in speech and hearing, psychology services. This is on behalf of All Saints School. This money is money that comes to the various the various private schools within our school district boundaries and we are obligated to manage those funds on behalf of those districts under my under the addendum it should read item C actually it should read item C number two I apologize sometimes the the formatting on the addendum gets out of out of whack that item is a Warren County ESC it's for nursing services and a master service agreement the cost is two hundred forty three thousand six hundred forty

061eight this is for again as we talked about earlier in my forecast for services for students that must be provided by law that the district cannot provide using our own staff back to the agenda we look at item D as a resolution accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Budget Commission if you remember this process we started it back in January where we approved the the tax budget that went to the county auditor county auditor reviews that sends this back to us to approve so we are proving the the rates as sent out by the county auditor on our property taxes item E is the approval of the May 2022 5-year forecast as presented earlier item F is the approval to participate in special programs for the 23 schools school year these six

062items are those those federal funds we discussed earlier item G is to approve the establishment of two clubs finance accounts IH computer club and the smile club and then finally the final item is to accept donations the two on the agenda are the Indian Hill PTO for ice space at the elementary school 3165 dollars the Indian Hill boosters provided a bus for the Latin club at $100 and then on the addendum the Indian Hill PTO provided $10,995 for the high school prom after prom as always we like to thank our partners for those donations without the partners we cannot provide the uh the privileges that we do here and I believe Mr kanecki has a uh has something to say yes thank you just as a to add to the PTO donation we want to

063thank the PTO for those you are not familiar with ice space it's a stem Immersion facility where our students go to do immersive field trip experiences at different grade levels it is an amazing facility in Hamilton County unlike any other and our students and our staff have a great partnership with ice space and we'll continue to expand and work with them on all things stem moving forward and hopefully all of our students get to experience the new ice space lab soon it's a phenomenal facility that our partners have built I would say I have acknowledged that after prom was super fun um and it was fun last year it was even more enjoyable this year so thank you to our awesome team that put that together and I'd like to make a motion to approve

064the treasurer's item 9 a through H inclusive of the addendum of which should be B2 and H3 so move Mr Mark yes Mr Summerall yes Mrs Eichholz aye Mrs Singh yes Mr Tullis yes thank you thank you Mr Davis um procedurally moving on to the other board you would be your business I'm sorry a items A and B would be your business so we have on items 10 here the approval of the amended superintendent contract and the approval of the amended treasurer contract make a motion to approve item 10 a approval of the amended superintendent contract move on to B if there's a motion what's that we can do them together individually it doesn't matter those are separate items yeah under other board business we do them as separate items yep let me re-clarify I

065make a motion to move to approve item 10 a the approved amended superintendent contract so move second Mr Marks yes Mr Summerall yes Mrs Eichholz aye Mr Davis aye Mr Johnson aye Mr I make a motion to approve item 10B, the approval of the amended treasurer's contract. Second. Mr. Marks? Yes. Mrs. Singh? Yes. Mr. Summerall? Yes. Mrs. Eichholz? Aye. Mr. Tullis? Yes. And if I could just thank the personnel committee team who spent a lot of effort coming up with all the work that you see here reflected on this. A lot of data was analyzed. A lot of study was done. And these decisions weren't reached lightly. And I know what your work was. So thank you to the personnel committee. With that, we'll move on to our esteemed guest tonight. Presentation by the construction

066partners. Who's going to lead us off? Chris? We have our partners. From MCS and Skanska and MSA here tonight. And I think Chris Patek from MSA is going to lead us off. I think we need to move that podium forward a little bit. Thank you for having us again here this evening. We're back from last month with some additional updates on the projects. And we're asked to kind of go back and revisit a few things last month. And so we had a chance to do that as a team between MSA and MCS and Skanska. So, again, we just wanted to share some updates tonight. Answer any questions you might have. Relative to these projects. So as we talked about last month, one of the things we've been focused on lately is looking at some of

067the music spaces and the wellness spaces within the middle school and high school. And some potential for some additional spaces to be added into the project. So as you recall from last board meeting, we talked through what was currently in the master plan for these areas. Area A, we've been talking about a potential for some additional music. So we've been talking about a potential for some additional music space to the south of the auditorium. And on the right-hand side, subsequently some wellness spaces that are currently in. And some music spaces that have some potential modifications to those as well. What we looked at here initially in this particular scenario was to the area on the left. We've talked through adding some additional band orchestra spaces, which are currently over in the high school. These will

068be shared spaces, as we mentioned. For both the middle school and the high school and the new building. And then on the right, some of the band and orchestra spaces that are there now. When they shift over to the new space, those would be utilized for wellness, fitness spaces. We'll show you here in a second. You can see on the bottom, the breakdown. Some of the expanded music spaces. What we looked at initially and went back and kind of looked through those again. Had a chance to meet with faculty and staff and music department. And I think there was a lot of good feedback. And discussion about what was being shown to support those programs both now and in the future. One of the things that was looked at was potential some additional enhancements. We'll

069show you here in a minute. To those spaces. To I think a lot of those spaces to again continue to serve the district well. Moving into the future that want to be considered here this evening. In addition to that, the wellness spaces, which we'll show you here on the right. Again, went back and visited those as well with faculty and staff internally. And came back with a couple other items that we just want to make sure the board has a chance to consider here as well. As we go through these particular pieces. The turn around here so I can actually see what I'm looking at. On the slide you see in front of you. Again, this is a update to the slide we showed last month. This is showing the addition of some of these

070music spaces that we showed to the south of the auditorium. Really the main modification that was made from last year. And talking with the faculty and staff and music department. Looking at the possibility of some minor enhancements to this space to allow for some additional area that could be used as a secondary performance space. We're calling it black box. This area would also be used for choral for middle school choral. As well as could be used by middle school and high school faculty and students. For other purposes as a performance space. And then we'll go through the other areas. As a space. And as a space with some of those additional enhancements. And I'll show you some detail here in a minute. In doing so. It has required some additional modifications to this particular wing.

071Which we'll show you. But it shows on the bottom on the right hand side is what we're kind of calling the base. Which is. You know most days it would be a choral space and a secondary rehearsal drama performance space. And then it also has the ability to be. Converted that same space into a larger performance space black box space that can be used as a secondary performance. Environment to help supplement the theater that's there now. You know it gets a lot of use and so that music department is looking at you know could we within the footprint we've been talking about with some additional enhancements allow that space to be used for multiple purposes. In order to do that you say there are some additional items that needed to be included. In this particular

072portion of the project. We highlighted here on this particular slide. Show some of the cost breakdown three primary elements. In order to to get that space to work. Working with her theater consultants. Who's been working with us all the way through on the projects from day one. And looking at different configurations of that of that. Kind of multi purpose black box. Choral space. That we weren't you know we did need to add a little bit of additional square footage to make that work. We end up stacking. Some of the streams on top of each other. Like you say still maintain the overall footprint but the upper level would get slightly larger to accommodate that. There's also some infrastructure. Needs for that black box theater. To allow it to function that way will show you that

073here in a second. You can see in green. And then the also the other part was. Some additional storage. Instrument storage and. High density storage that we want to make sure was also included in this piece. As part of this wing moving forward that we that we broke out as well. The black box specifically just to kind of. Provide some. Highlights to that again we looked at a couple different configurations the size and scale actually works out really well. For that type of space. As you can see as I mentioned the previous slide. The ability to maybe to be able to potentially separate the space into two spaces at certain times and then open it and have one large space for for performances you see some pictures there on the upper right. Of what that

074kind of environment would be. And again when it's when it uses black box. The breakdown you can see from infrastructure. And equipment so again the big. Items that need would need to be added into a space like that. From an equipment standpoint. Now there's grids and lighting and curtains and all those kind of things that make it function as an actual performance space. That equates to about a million or so of that particular piece. The other part of that is more infrastructure based. There's some things with the flooring that we need to be done. Structure. Some some of the acoustical materials and things that we would want to do. No matter what so whether that gets done all together at the same time or gets. Kind of piecemeal. The portion that's infrastructure you know would

075have to be done as part of the build no matter what. The infrastructure piece is what really makes it like you say work as a black box. Those are kind of additive items that. We've included in there to make sure you know we have all those pieces broken out. Chris can I ask you a quick question. Before we move forward. So where is this 3000 square foot. Additional space that you're talking about is it the beginning or is it in the middle or at the end of the. This whole wing new wing that we are talking about. Was that sorry to get the square footage you said. Yes so where are we planning on putting like on the picture it seems like it's at the end of the wing. So I'm not sure if I'm

076following you. So if you see that picture. Yeah it seems like that. Number two the black box is going to be at the end of that wing right. I think it's in the front we're just pushing the whole thing back. Yeah I think are you asking is it getting. If it's at the end of the wing. So it's at the. So the part that is growing slightly. That's kind of question where that additional square footage. Where are we adding that square footage. Right so the square footage itself is the addition is pushing further away from I guess to the. In this case plan north in order to get the proper size for the black box and allow for some of those practice rooms to occur. The actual black box space which would also be double

077as a coral is closer to the connector. So it can be kind of access directly off the connector. Can you go back to the next slide and maybe explain also what you had to do just with the square footage forwarded again please Chris. They are number one what you had to do. So. The blue space you see highlighted. Those are practice seminar sectional type spaces or small spaces. So we basically push those out over top of the band portion of the addition which also have practice room. So since they're stacking spaces on top of each other just to make it more efficient which allowed us to get gain more square footage inside the upper level of that addition if that makes sense. So the square footage is technically being added to your point Nikki toward

078the end. But the allows for that green which becomes that black box space to be sized properly to make that happen. So the point being that you say from a footprint standpoint we didn't have to didn't have to grow the size of the footprint. We just had to make that upper level grow in order to make that work if that makes sense. OK. So one more question is that supposedly we decide that OK we are going to make this black box maybe later in the time. Right. Can that be possible or when we are constructing this performing art building it has to be done at the same time. Yeah in order to for the size that we needed to be to function as the black box space and performance space and its location in conjunction

079with like I say the entry lobby and bathrooms and flow that it would need to be constructed. The actual square footage itself as part of that overall addition. Like I said there's potential there's some components within that space or maybe something that could be added over time. Some of the equipment components that we mentioned but the actual square footage itself we need has to be done at the time of construction. OK. So you're saying that the construction has to be done at the same time but not necessarily that we have to do the whole thing at the same time meaning like creating the black box like we can have the room but we can. Maybe in six months or so. Some you know we can create the black box later too or is there a.

080Yeah. So what this slide was trying to show is I think maybe getting to a little part of your point Nikki is that there's a portion the infrastructure portion is the part that we're saying that's going to need to be done as part of the initial build. It's stuff that's integral to the building itself and then the equipment piece are the pieces that are kind of loose that you could could push off. For. A. Time. Those will be needed for it to actually function as a performance space but wouldn't have to be installed purchased. Does that make sense. Yeah. So let's talk about the price point. Go back a little bit. Yeah yeah yeah this one now where you have the next one maybe. Yeah. So here the additional space you're seeing that the additional

081space that we create that would be one point two five zero. Right. Correct. So we can do that but we can. So you think we can wait on the black box that another million four hundred we can wait on that. Four hundred thousand of that Nikki would have you go to click to the next slide up on that top right. I think Chris if I'm understanding you correctly the specialty equipment which is the million dollars right. Part of that's the grid and the lighting. That's correct. And is the infrastructure part would need to be part of the package. The four hundred would need to be part of the package of the specialty equipment is the grid can be totally post. The million could be pulled up pulled aside and be done that full piece of

082equipment is something that if you wanted to consider doing that down the road. But you would need the four hundred thousand you would need to do as part of the build if you decide to move forward with this black box function. Right. So the one point four. Could be four hundred thousand. You could. Wait on the million. That makes sense. So you had to. Holly's talking to me over here so it could be a million. You take a million take that down to two point one. That makes sense. And again we can flip back to these. These are some of the same imagery we had shown previously as well just to give people an idea of what these spaces would look like. These are some of the band and orchestra spaces you can see in

083the middle on the right. Chris is it fair to say fair to say again with these artistic and 3D renderings we're looking at. These are not. Final. These are to give us an idea for anybody paying attention in the public. This is an ongoing design process. That's correct. Yeah. These are concept designs or exactly to kind of show intent of what these would eventually look like. When I jump to this and we can come back with questions. OK. So the other part we talked about again this was brought up as well is the space where the current band and orchestra music spaces live on the north side of the auditorium. These spaces would be proposed. To be converted into. Wellness and fitness spaces. To again provide additional needs for the school district. So the space

084you can see on the top again we think you saw some of these layouts last month. Would be where the band room is now would become some some additional strength and conditioning and weight kind of spaces. You can see there's also. Cardio type spaces storage new trainer spaces. Some of these areas. As shown in the previous slides. Wrestling is there now. So that we continue to exist. Trainer spaces were some of these areas as you saw on the one side were already. Going to be renovated. So some of this is already would be done. No matter what. But there's some additional work that we've shown as part of that cost increase previously. To to do a full bill to make it the wellness. Again we had a chance to circle back with. With faculty and

085staff and talk through these spaces again. We're working with some vendors on some of the equipment. To make sure it could actually lay out and work. You know I think everyone's been really happy with. The possibility here and what this would again provide for the school district. For all student athletes as well as community members there's some entrance enhancements. And some other spaces locker room bathroom kind of spaces that would allow for. Community members use these as well. We did take a look at some of the parking needs in the back. An overall flow. And again in general felt like these spaces were in fact meeting the needs and doing what they needed to do. Long term. So not a lot of modifications here. The one thing that we did is we were able to

086get some more accurate pricing on the equipment. There is equipment that exists in high school now it's much smaller space. There's going to be some additional equipment needed ultimately. Again that's something else that could be reconsidered as far as funding and financing for that. But we at least want to provide a cost. In here that we didn't show last month for that equipment. And the other part was it was something that was shown some of the early master planning. As a potential is to add some synthetic turf on the back side of the high school. For people that might not know there used to be a another gym back there back in the day before they built the high school. It was tore down. It's currently grass. And so we just we were able to

087provide again a cost that if we wanted to add some additional turf again and provide some additional space for student athletes for training but also during the day. Was talked about early on you know to provide some space for students for outdoor. Back in that area if you've been back there's not a whole lot there now so. Again just something we want at least provide a price tag. Could be done at any point in time there's nothing really nothing driving that per se. That you have to do it but it's we want to make sure at least include that in there. Because it was something like I said I think it was on some previous drawings. Can I have ask you one more question. Sorry so in this building wellness space. Is this design final

088or. It has a little wiggle room I'm not asking to add any. More square footage but the meeting room and I see there are two meeting rooms can they be reinvigorated. Can we use some of the square footage to do something different or this is what we go with. Again I think the Kirk mentioned with the you know the music spaces this is again was a. More of conceptual layout to show how some of these spaces and programs might. Work based on our conversations with with athletics and some other staff so I think. And I think that's you know it's still I can if we can develop some program and the cost was more or less developed around taking this existing space and turning into something like this. And there's some things with flooring and

089materials so depending on the program that you're thinking might be thinking of you know there's. There's certainly ways to now I'll tell you what I'm thinking about it I see there is a meeting room see in a high school. Because. This place is somewhere near high it is in the high school right and. And I see there are two meeting rooms but in a district we don't have something where. You know. With the counselors can meet these students. For. Like there's so many ways that these rooms can be used but right now I see there are two small rooms. Can they be something refigured so that maybe we can have. These rooms closer to the counseling department. Where you know because we had been talking about renovating the counseling department but that's a separate project

090I understand that but in the meantime can we have a space that is kind of connected with them can we connect this. To the counseling department so that they have access to this too or will this only be for the wellness I think I mean the spaces themselves obviously you know the location of it is where it is. Kind of upstairs but certainly any of these. I think. We've got meeting spaces multi-purpose spaces if it's a fairly simple room with furniture I think the size of those to be modified it certainly could be shared uses. By others. Other. So is this whole square footage on the lower level. That's correct. Yes so this is actually if you went to the left of this image you would go on to the stage of the theater so

091it's on the. It's on the lower level almost a gym it's just similar to the gym level right and the counselors are. Up above. So it's a space to get there. I get your initial point about you know could they be used for other purposes besides just fitness and athletics absolutely I think there's some that is already done like in the locker room spaces that were done a number of years ago right there's some spaces in there that shared uses so. I think there's certainly an opportunity for those to be configured in a way that can in access could be accessed by them by various. So we can refigure it. Well. A little bit not I'm not saying. The whole thing. I'm looking at overall as I programmatically that is a decision for the district.

092So how you program that space as like we can put different meeting spaces in a flexible space for you so you can use it for different opportunities throughout the day. Okay. That's good. Thank you. It's going to figure it. So then this is again some additional imagery of these wellness spaces. Again these are conceptual. I'm working with some some equipment vendors as well just to give folks an idea of what these spaces could look like. And. Their overall use and function. Within the wellness space. We then to and again we can circle back with a couple of these images. This is just a summary of some of the base costs of the bold items for some of the things that we had shared previously. And then the the lighter weight numbers are some additional costs

093that we've come back with additional scope just to make sure you're able to see all those items. It was those mentioned the three point one we kind of broke that down as we showed earlier. We could be broken down further but you can see all in with all the items. What that number looks like and then the individual items. Questions from board members about this slide or any other design questions. Yeah. No question but just thank you Chris to you and your team. I know we kind of gave you a charge last work session to come up with more. Detail on this plan and I know how hard you guys work the last two three weeks to get this together. So thank you for that effort and thank you most importantly for meeting with the

094music staff and the athletic staff to get a sense of what works best from an academic programing perspective. So thank you for that effort. Questions from the team. I was just going to add that this gives us more clarity so to echo bears comments. This this definitely helps gives us more vision and get and gives us some information we need so appreciate that. Thank you. Questions. Nicky Nolan. I don't have any questions. I guess Chris I'm sorry just go back. I know we talked about this a little bit on the timeline. Obviously we're asking you to do a lot more work so we're not going to stick you to the to the fall of twenty three or the beginning of the school year twenty three. I guess if you could give us a little bit

095of a sense of the time saving of doing this now as opposed to five years down the road. And then we talked I know the last minute we talked to the cost savings. I think we're covered there. But what do you guys envision from a timing perspective adding the scope. Ask the expert. Pete from Skanska is going to. I was hoping you would answer that. I mean. We we talked last month. We said that you know getting all the work done around the back on the back side you know our goal would be is to overlap it with the middle school work you know and it would take it out to the end of the year of twenty three. You know I would I would vision now we're still programming we're still trying to figure

096out stuff but I would envision by the you know obviously we don't we we don't want to plant grass. In winter. And do final touches but we'll be developing into that following spring. But I would think we can have it up and running by. Early twenty twenty four. And did we add on this plan Chris is there. Any improvements that parking lot back there where the current construction or the mid the seventh grade. Classrooms are. Parking back there is fairly tight. Yeah at this point again based on this particular plan layout. With the folks there we've at this point left the amount of pavement you know we're adding the drive around the back of the campus as part of this overall project. Was that. So yeah there was no right now there's not any plan

097they're looking at kind of the parking layout and configuration within the current paved area but it was decided this point just to that it it was meeting the need. That it needed to know further modifications from being made. So basically. Go ahead. I assume he'd adding parking down the road would be much would be that. Big of a deal from a. Timing perspective cost perspective. So do we have what we need to have in terms of timelines to make sure that we're not holding you up we've got the appropriate deadlines that we need to meet make sure we know when we're acting upon. Yeah I mean I think. Well you guys speak. I say sorry. Based on the. Kind of information we shared last for me I think we looked at may here getting if

098we can get decisions on the pieces we've been talking about. We'd like to mention they'd be able to overlap some of that. Timelines so that we can continue on. And keep these projects going with the rest of the work. This is our pushing past may. It's going to become more right so you would like a decision by the end of the month is that what I'm hearing that's correct. Okay realistically it's it's tonight because we don't have another meeting scheduled. Got it. It will give you the heart attack. Yeah that's correct. To. Ever get a question no it's going to say move on discussion but otherwise. Can I just say for for anybody watching publicly. I mean I think we're you know we've all. Been through a lot of these presentations but the project team.

099I know is trying to to also keep it light for us as we go later into the evening here but. The the timeline isn't isn't right there's we were all kind of giggling there for a minute because we talked a lot about this but. But the the idea is that the culminating decisions that we're seeing tonight on the performing arts wing and the expanded scope we need a decision on. In order to continue to design process and to make sure your timeline for the twenty three twenty four school year to complete the facility. Facility project would happen within the timeline we've discussed. Okay so I'm going to make a motion. That if it's seconded and we can move into discussion. Right around that that's what I like to do do we need to discuss first

100neck or what's the procedure on that really a motion to second and discussion correct and then a vote. I think the board could proceed either way that we don't have anything that we traditionally do. Let's just have a discussion first. Okay sure. Does. Jump in and share their thoughts I've got. Few thoughts I'm trying to organize my head. I'll share because I was really make a motion. Which is I think that. We've been talking about. What we're going to do on the athletic side in on the performing arts side for substantial amount of time. I think when we go back historically. There's been conversations going back for over a decade. Around how do we balance. The achievement in all areas. For our school and for our students. I think we. Collectively have had an opportunity

101to look at this and say hey. Do we want to create a world class. Opportunity for our kids and I think. The arts impacts a tremendous amount of kids whether they're going on in a post secondary education or not. In some type of artistic endeavor. And so my thought process is is that. We approve. Of. The ability for our architects to move forward. In the design and the scope. And but limit that to. You know. Roughly twelve million dollar expansion of the scope. Giving us the opportunity to move forward. I think that. Quite frankly our kids deserve it. And I've gone spent hours upon hours upon hours looking at the five year forecast. I think between a combination of. Some debt service and our cash balance. That we're in a position to. Have great financial

102stewardship and still make this happen for the district. And. I think it's the right thing to do for the kids and I think it's still a fiscally responsible thing to do. Thanks. And I'll I guess sure I am. Originally we looked at this. The expanded scope again not knowing. Basically what the original performing arts wing was to adding the additional performance space and then some of the additions to the wellness. Center. I didn't really anticipate it would be an extra three to four million dollars. I just don't have experience in pricing that out. And my initial reaction was. Man that's awfully expensive. It sure looks great. It would be phenomenal for our kids. But my initial gut reaction was I don't know that we have the capability to do that. And so I spent over

103the weekend and we've had this information. In a ton of time really diving through our budget diving through the resources. We have looking at our cash balance looking at our five year forecast. Comparing the five year forecast to how other districts handle their money and looking at the challenges of our revenue remaining flat. And making sure we can do this in a manner that doesn't cut people and doesn't cut programs down the road or put an unnecessary strain on our budget. So I went through this talk to Mick a lot about it talk to Kirk a lot about it. And what I've come to the conclusion is. I look forward to do this. There is no question this is a significant expense. It's you know unprecedented for this district to go out and look at

104using his cash for this type of project and some debt service potential opportunities. But as I look at our five year forecast and our cash balance I think it's responsible of us to invest the money the taxpayers give us into the school district. And this to me is a sound investment unlike any we've made before. Perhaps with the exception of the construction of the initial auditorium which was what back in the 70s or 80s. This to me is that next transformative project to really show to the community that we pride ourselves on our artistic and performing arts and endeavors. And when I go back and I look at the numbers of you know we've talked about how much do we borrow versus how much cash do we spend. You can play with those scenarios all

105day long and I've done that. And every time I do it. I feel that if you look at the our five year forecast and where we think revenues will stay we can make this happen. Now is the time to do it if we're ever going to do it now is the time we have the construction crews on site. We're disrupting the building. It will be so much more expensive to do this down the road. And my concern is we don't do it now. We don't do it. And looking back at the history of this district I feel like we've done projects in the past we've always left something there that maybe we should have looked at doing. When the high school was built we left the sawtooth. You know when the high school was built

106we left the old band rooms. And there's little sections of our school that don't meet the standard of what the new middle school is going to look like and what the balance of our schools look like. And I think it's look there's no question it's a risk. There's no question it's expensive. But I think it's the right investment to make. We have amazing amazing teachers in this area who are going to continue to do amazing things with our theater program and our performing arts programs. And I'm really excited for this. I think this takes us to a truly world class level in that area. So I'll share a few thoughts. I wrote down a few things based on because we all had been discussing about it. There were so many numbers that we all have

107gone through. So I just wrote a few notes. So we are spending about seventy seven million dollars for a new middle school building. We don't know how much more it is going to go up because of the inflation and you know the economy that we are in. So my worry and my concern is that we may put a lot of pressure on our savings. If we take this huge amount out of our 15 million cash balance which I think because at this point we don't know how much more we have to contribute towards that seven more than we are going to have to pay. For our middle school project which is not yet finished it is at the beginning. So we don't know what more is coming our way. And so I feel that taking

108this big amount is little concerning for me. Currently it may look that we have 15 million cash balance by our current project since. But this may soon decrease by several millions. The cost of that construction middle school go significantly higher as I said. said, and we don't know what number we are going to finish when we finish this building. I am of the view that we need to have the performance art building for sure. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have that. As we have seen more students enrolling into the performing art department from the previous year, so I do see the need of a bigger classroom, practice room, and storage room that they are suggesting. I'm not opposing that. The question is, can we take $12 million from a saving without knowing how much

109more we may have to spend on middle school? Maybe we can just wait six months. I don't know, waiting six months versus five years, how much does the price go up from $12 million? Maybe a little bit. A little, but at least in six months, we'll have a better understanding of what's coming our way, is how I'm thinking. So performing art, yes, we need that. Just for clarity, you're talking about the inflationary pressure or the cost overruns on the $77 million? Is that what you're saying? Yes, that's what I'm saying. We don't know. Maybe in six months, we'll have a better understanding of where that number is going. I think we are already a little over from $77 million. And we have just started the construction. So I just want to be a little bit

110more careful. If six months is not going to make a huge difference, then I would suggest that we wait a little bit just to have a better understanding of our finances. Nikki, I had that exact same thought, and I guess I have a question and then a comment on that. The question might be more for Pete, is what's left of the middle school spend, which is our most significant spend, I assume we've purchased the steel at this point and all the big ticket items. How much of the middle school building itself is left to bid out? And how much risk is there of our estimates today changing? Pete, could you step up to the microphone, please, so we can get you? Everybody can hear you? Thank you. I was going through a bunch of numbers

111and comparing those over the last week, knowing that this is a decision. You know, the market is very volatile right now. We have about, I would say, more than close to 50% of the building, the project, all the work left to probably GMP out. We're just now starting to get, you know, a couple more phases of that in. You know, I think we are taking most of our numbers by the end of May, that we've got to vet out. You know, we were looking at overcoming the site overages we had, you know, with the detention. I think that was a pretty significant number. Steel and stuff was a little bit over, about 250 or something. But we're in the process of vetting out a lot of stuff. And actually, we're having some more meetings this

112week and figuring out, you know, are we conservatively predicting a certain percentage of overrun? It's not a bad. Discussion point. There's risk in the market. There's also risk for waiting and then cost of general conditions and stuff like that. In my mind, you know, if we would buy that work, you know, would we buy it right now? You know, it's going to be, we could always price it, design it, price it, get it all vetted out and help finalize the risk. For the whole project. Or go forward. That was going to be my comment is, if we approve that we want to do this tonight, we're not writing the check tonight. Correct. And ultimately, we could invest in the time and the resources to prepare the drawings, to prepare the, to do the work to

113bid this thing out. And if by the time it comes to bid out this scope of the project, the rest of the project has gone to hell. Or this is way over, we can pull back. We would obviously have our investment in the cost to prepare the drawings. But, because Nikki, I share your concern. I, you know, the, who knows what will happen. And, you know, like everything, like these are our best educated estimates as to the price. And that's something to me that gives me comfort in that we can approve this, keep everybody online tonight, knowing that if it comes. At least in my mind, if this comes in at this number, if the rest of the project doesn't escalate significantly. And I think based for, you know, halfway through under the GMPs where

114we've mitigated that risk to some degree. That's, you know, who knows what tomorrow holds. That helps me get comfortable of approving this tonight. And we have a fail stop if something crazy happens in the next six months. Because reality is this probably wouldn't be bid out for another six to nine months, I would guess. I would say design two or three, three months. Yeah. That would be hitting the market. Yeah. I mean, so we have some, you know, if need be, we've got that, you know, ability to have that protection. I don't, I don't think we'll be there. I don't want to do that. But it's protection if we need it. So, but did we not at the last meeting approve that they can go ahead and design it and then bring us some? I

115think, I think we just approved the high level conceptual. The next. Next step would be truly engineered drawings with the architects and understanding, you know, how much steel is in the building and all those types of things that go into that. What we have approved, if I understand correctly, right, is we approved the, we knew there was going to be some overruns, right? And those overruns and some of the bid packages have come back and we've already approved those additional overruns that were already kind of budgeted in. So we're through those pieces we've already voted through. The project team also did share with us, and it's on a different slide deck, what the. Creep and inflationary costs could be last month if we waited different periods of time and we push the project out so

116we could review that outside of this meeting. But we have those numbers, too, that they shared last month. For this scope of the services. So you're saying that it's not the $12 million. It's we can wait and let me say it again. So you're saying that we don't need, like, I understand we're not writing the check. But we are. We are approving this project. And once we approve it, because middle school, you have already started putting the foundation in. And you will need to put this foundation, right? This is being bought separately from the middle school project. There will be a separate construction contract we enter into. Totally separate phased scheduled. But the goal would be is can we overlap three months with the middle school and save. I did a. I don't. I. I.

117I apologize. I don't have the cost. I did the cost delta for showing that overlap. And, you know, I can provide that back to Mick and Kirk tomorrow. And to meet the timeline of finishing the project the way we want. Right. I mean, it's two different construction packages. So it's two different bids that we would send out. So it's project A, project B. The idea is that we're going to have people here doing work. We're going to have guys and gals here doing all the work. If the project is going to overlap. We can save a substantial amount of money because the workers are already here. So they're here doing, you know, interior finish work. They're doing putting roofs on. There's an overlap there. But I think the motion I would at some point, obviously,

118you know, Nancy and Craig to weigh in. But what we're approving is the scope. We're approving the ability to expand the drawings to do all the prep work and package work. And then to that point, I think. To Bear's point, if all of a sudden, you know, we're some astronomical number over on the middle school project. We can then revisit. Okay, we've invested a substantial amount of money in the architectural construction plans and yada, yada, yada. But we are where we are. And we're still going to have to. This board will still have to ultimately approve the construction contract for the expanded scope at a future board meeting. Correct. But if we don't get the team moving tonight on the drawings, we're going to miss the opportunity. Right. Right. Right. And we're going to have

119to mobilize all the savings we've discussed. So each three months, we're looking at about 6% inflationary increase right now within the industry. And it's, I don't know when that's going to stop at this point. And I don't think anybody's talking. When we talk about overlap, we talk about this team as well. You've got oversight on your site construction. And you're looking just for a project team for 60 grand a month at a time. And then plus, if you had to bring a contractor back on, there's mobilization. And demobilization that causes that. If we already have teams mobilized out here, that's a different discussion. I mean, I think the delta, right, between the inflation, the mobilization, the management team, this project usually creeps from, my guess, not being a construction engineering architect professionals, this thing could

120creep from 12 to 14 to 15 million, you know, depending on if we wait a year, you know. Like I said, last month. Last month we put the, or maybe that was two months ago, we put the dollars on that creep out. So those are big numbers. So I just need to go back and give that back to Kirk and Mick tomorrow. Yeah, that's in the work session minutes. Yeah, we haven't. Yeah, if you can see those. I just don't have it on top of my head, sorry. No, that's fine. If we can see those numbers, that will, I think, probably help us a little bit more. But a four-month period of non-overlap was about $800,000. It was priced $767,000 or something like that, but $800,000. So we were looking at an eight-month time span

121of this extending. Four of that would be overlap. Four of that would go on to probably spring of 2024. Yeah, I mean, I've got it here. The total estimated savings from the work session last month all in was about $770,000. Yep, might ring some bells. $767,390 to be exact. I mean, in my mind, look, there's no doubt doing it now. If you're going to do it, we need to do it now. Well, I have a kind of totally different perspective than anybody up here, I think. I mean, I love the idea of the music space. I love the idea of the expanded athletics. I wish we could have a big innovation center. You know, it's my dream. But the reality is, last year in May, we went to the public for two votes. We asked

122for an operating levy, which we hadn't asked for in, I think, 27 years. And the community graced. They graciously passed that for us so that we can have the best academics and pay our teachers and pay our administrators and have small class sizes and everything else that we do so well. And they very graciously voted to pass a significant bond levy of $77 million. We know just because of the state of the union with inflation, supply chain, everything else, that we're hard-pressed to keep it at $77. Even with the scope that we presented. So as a steward of the taxpayers' dollars, I'm just really uncomfortable basically taking out another bond debt and spending more on scope without the community voting on it. And so regardless of how wonderful I think this all is, I'm just

123not in a position right now to support this. You know, we had great success with Home of the Braves. We had great success with the private funding. I would feel much more comfortable if we were seeing some of that already for this. But we haven't really had time to do that. We have a very generous community. So maybe, who knows, somebody will step up and help us out. But right now that's not happening. So as a steward of the taxpayers' dollars, as much as I would love to do this, I'm more concerned about our operating and not taking funds from our operating budget, even though I know on paper it all looks like it works out. So I'm just really uncomfortable. I'm just really uncomfortable. I'm just really uncomfortable. I'm just really uncomfortable. I'm just

124really uncomfortable. I'm just really uncomfortable. In four years we have to renew that levy, most likely. And we need the confidence of our taxpayers and our citizens at that point. And we need the confidence of our taxpayers and our citizens at that point. And we need the confidence of our taxpayers and our citizens at that point. So that's where I fall down on this. Yeah, a couple things. I agree with Nancy that we need to make sure that we're being financially sound and stewards of the community. I agree with Nancy that we need to make sure that we're being financially sound and stewards of the community. I agree with Nancy that we need to make sure that we're being financially sound and stewards of the community. But I'll caveat that with we've had unprecedented inflation

125in the past six months, nine months. But I'll caveat that with we've had unprecedented inflation in the past six months, nine months. inflation in the past six months, nine months that we haven't had in 25 years because that we're having our dollars not go as far. I would love to do more than this, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I'd love to do another field house. There's other things, the innovation center that was talked about and those things, we just got to draw the line somewhere. But I think that if we don't do this project, we're never going to do it. And I want to be on this board to make it academically, athletically, and arts the best of the best. And I think this gets us there. And I want to be

126prudent with our money. And I'm not trying to swing for the fences. But personally, I want to make sure we find that line and where that median is. So if we do this now and commit to it, and then things get out of hand, then I think we need to pull the plug. But we've got we've got to pull the plug. We've got to walk this line. And it's a very, very narrow line to me. So I'm okay with it. But I think if we have this creep, and then we get some surprises, then we need to step back and look at this and be smart about it. Yeah. And Nancy, I hear your point. And that's something I thought a lot about as someone who kind of led the campaign on the levy and

127talked to a ton of voters about this. There's no question this is a big spend of taxpayer dollars. To be clear, we're not raising anybody's taxes. We're using the existing resources we have. And Mick mentioned it earlier in his five year, when he was talking about the five year forecast, I think it's important to ask, if we're sitting on excess cash that has been given to us by the taxpayers, I think their expectation is that it gets invested into the school. And I think that's the prudent thing to do with that dollar. So I'm not saying you take every last dollar you have. We certainly need to, you know, keep the rainy day fund and account for the unknown because they will continue to exist and move forward. surprises always will come up. But every

128which way I've looked at this and the various models I've run that Mick has looked at, we have those built-in safeguards even doing the project at this level. And with being restricted onto how we can invest our resources, we're not doing anybody any good sitting on taxpayers' dollars, not putting those dollars to work. And as a taxpayer, I want the school district to put those dollars to work. It is, to Craig's point, it's a fine line of what's too much. That's a really difficult question to answer. But as I've studied this, I've come to the conclusion that with the resources we have and with some ability to look at, you know, creative financing on this, we have the ability to do this without jeopardizing our staff and without jeopardizing our programming. And I think it's

129the prudent investment to make. And I'll just add that I do think we need to do some fundraising and attack that so we can mitigate this. So that is something that we should definitely be in front of. And there's been some side conversations. I think we need to have something more formalized on that front so that we can go down this path and raise $2 million, $4 million, whatever that is, to help do that. Because I do not want to be put into a corner and be in a problem as far as a financial standpoint. I just, I'm not, we're not going to get to that point. I agree with that 100%. So, I'm sorry, were you going to say something? Yeah, just one more thing is, I agree that we have a good cash

130balance and I agree that we shouldn't be sitting on it when we clearly have a need for it. But we shouldn't be putting too much of pressure on our cash balance that it just shrinks so much that it could, you know, I understand that we can do fundraising and probably get some of this cost down. I have no doubt that a community would not come forward to help us. But right now, we cannot kind of assume that it will happen, right? So, that's why I'm not very comfortable taking this big of a chunk out from our cash balance, from our savings. And just to be clear on that, I'm not proposing we take this all out of our savings and deplete the cash we have. I think there is a, there is somewhere in the

131middle ground of contributing the cash we have and then going through the debt options, the bond offerings. We talked about it the last board session. And when I ran through the models that we all had looked at, we can do this to the point where we are still in surplus spending in fiscal year 26, assuming all the projections hold. We're not in deficit spending. We will still have sufficient, you know, somewhere in the 14 to 15 million dollars of cash reserves at the end of that five years. Again, assuming normal projections. And that's without seeking any, you know, additional dollars. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I think we'll be able to do that. So I just get back to it. Every time I've looked at this, and

132trust me, I tried to talk myself into thinking we couldn't do it because it is a very big spend. But I'm confident with our forecast that we can get there and not unnecessarily strain our operating budget. So I'm going to make a motion that the board approves adding the expanded music spaces, rebuild wellness spaces into the project scope and authorizes the project team to further develop the expanded music space and the music spaces, rebuild the wellness spaces in the construction document design phase, and that the budget of the added scope and planning will not exceed $12 million. Second. Mr. Marks? Yes. Mr. Summerall? Yes. Ms. Eichholz? No. Ms. Singh? I guess we'll, since everybody is willing to take that big risk, we'll go with it. So that's a yes? Yes. Mr. Tullis? Yes. So next

133steps just for the public, and everybody's review here, we will continue to work with the project team to move forward on design phase. We will convene committees next month prior to a board meeting and talk about next steps for the financing for that approval. And I think that's all that is left on the agenda. That's all I got. Thank you everybody for sticking with us until nine o'clock. Maybe we can find some money for a new clock in the budget. Motion to adjourn? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Thanks everybody. Thank you project team members.