GASD School Board Meeting - 5.18.26

001People attending the board meeting and supporting each other. We're excited for all your presentations in a little bit The purpose of this meeting is to conduct the business of the Gettysburg area school district Board of Directors meetings and committee meetings are open to the public but are not public meetings All school district residents who wish to make public comment should sign in prior to the start of the meeting and request to speak during citizens participation School district residents wishing to speak to the board shall do so only during the citizen participation section of the meeting Public comment is welcome and all issues will be referred to the appropriate board committee or administrator Comments will be summarized in the official board minutes. Excuse me, which will be available by contacting the business office Please take a

002moment to silence your cell phones and other electronic devices Prior to start of this meeting the board conducted an administrative session to discuss board self-assessment and meeting procedures All of our board members are attended are accounted for except for Mr. Moyer, mr. Sigmund and mr. Dickerson who are all excused this evening Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, we're gonna start with our notices and communications We have 3.1 the cash activity summary 3.2 capital projects fund report 3.3 year-end projections report 3.4 food service report and 3.5 student activities third quarter report any comments or questions on that? Kathleen go ahead. Yeah, thank

003you. I'm looking at 3.3 year-end projection report right now We have a current year-end projection of just over a 1.2 million dollar deficit So what's our plan to pay the bills that 1.1 million deficit if you'll recall we have a budgetary reserve set aside of 1.4 million so obviously those resulting from charter schools and Therefore we have to pay the bills regardless and so the anticipation is is the plan And unassigned fund balance that we went into the budget year for last for this current school year Will likely be used. Are there any other anticipated costs that might add to that Belinda or is that kind of the final projection? Of course the projection could change but the I Largely a lot of this is resulting from special education the influx of 40 some students

004from the previous year and then as a as an identifier As well as treasure schools have just kind of outpaced What we currently had thought that it was going to do Dave has a question on 3.5. Go ahead 3.5 I'm kind of directly and indirectly involved with student activities because of volunteer basketball coach How is the funding that we the money that's raised by the individual sports? It seems that we're having an issue releasing it to fund the items that the money is earmarked for why we try to Generate income for each sport for instance. We play in a new Oxford summer league. It's four hundred and I think seventy-five dollars to put a team in for six weeks But I was told that we can't release it without a w-9 but it's less than

005four hundred and it's less than six hundred dollars, which is 1099 statute, so Why do we need a w-9? Whether it's for less than statute or not, we still have no address or contact information for the individual to set them up as a vendor to move forward. So the W-9 is the first and easy spot to identify the address, where we're sending it to, as one of the requirements, setting them up as a vendor. Okay. So how are other schools? The other schools that are in the league do not do that. They get a receipt or an invoice from the league, and they pay the bill based on the invoice. I don't believe we received an invoice from this gentleman. If we received an invoice, would we then pay the bill? Well, I mean, again,

006one of the W-9s is requested for the simple reason of just as a requirement to make sure that we could set them up as a vendor. If we have something in writing that says this is their address, then we could obviously use that. Regardless, if it's only $600, it's not going to institute a 1099 going to the individual. Understood. But what I'm saying is they said they needed a W-9. But if we get an invoice from J. who runs the league, and he sends you an invoice for it and gives you the address to where it's supposed to go, will that suffice? Yeah. We've talked to this with athletic department and clearly had stated that the W-9 was requested. My understanding is that the gentleman did not want to supply it. But if we can

007get something in writing that says this is his address, this is the vendor, so we have something to set up our system with. We'll get that in writing for you. Okay? Okay. Thank you. I have a follow-up question about 3.5. I believe this has been answered before, Belinda, but when there is a negative balance in our student accounts, student activities funds, do we have a line item that we use to pay for that? No, we do not. Negative balance carries forward until they're able to earn additional revenue. This 3.5 activity quarters is strictly student activities. This is not general fund activity at all. This is students raising the money. And our students issuing the money. Great. Thank you. So how does that differ than the athletic funds that we raise? The athletic funds are part

008of the general fund operations. The general fund athletics budget for the expenses and also expend the expenses out of the general fund. Are they then itemized on the general ledger as individual sports? Yes, by special call centers. We have our accounts are 19 digits long. And usually the last four is designated as a special call center. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's field hockey. Whether it's whatever sport it is. There are zeros at some of the end of those notations. That could be for snap which is paid by athletic department. It could be for the ambulance services that comes in. So there are things

009that the athletic department is special cost centers not designated out among the athletics programs. Okay. So one other question then I'll finish. So reimbursement for college. coaches. I'm a coach, but I don't ask for reimbursement. I do it voluntarily. But other coaches that are paid coaches that are required to get recertified, as I am also, how do they get reimbursed for their cost? So again, there's a difference between paid coaches and volunteer coaches. I understand. I'm a volunteer, but I don't ask for reimbursement. Correct. So you have an option to not turn in for reimbursement, right? So if it's a paid coach and it's budgeted, there's usually typically no problem of paying whatever the case may be. They fill out a reimbursement of expenditures. If it's a volunteer coach, we have very rarely, very rarely,

010and to my knowledge, only done one other volunteer coach to pay for training, recertifications. What we ask for, in a particular sense, again, is a W-9, regardless if it's not going to be over $600, a 1099 won't go out. But we've asked for that information because we need to set them up as a vendor is really where this is, and it's in compliance with the normal requirements that we do and we ask for. But a volunteer has the opportunity to not turn in for reimbursement. If they're turning in for reimbursement, they need to provide the copy of, so we know it's paid. We don't reimburse anything unless we know we receive something. That's indicated that it's paid. Last thing that we want to do is reimburse coaches or volunteer coaches that has been paid before.

011We like to verify that it has been paid and that we're reimbursing it for that particular issue is one of the areas. Now that could be in any certain terms of a bank statement, a canceled check, a credit card statement. We're not asking to see the details on those, like the account numbers. They can be blacked out. All we're doing is trying to ask for a a a certified copy of something that indicates that it's been paid. That would be turned in with the request for the reimbursement to be paid. Well. Like when I got, was recertified, I received a certification from the certified training, which I had to pay for before you do it. So the question is, is that not enough to show that they did this certification? Because you had pay for

012it to get it. Well, regardless, we still like to try to make sure that we've known that it's been repaid. Like, we, in terms of auditing, too, like, that's closing the door of making sure that we're paying and we're using taxpayer money to ensure that these items of reimbursements are true and correct. So we do not know, like, you can turn in a receipt. That receipt from the certification could have been paid by another district. How are we to know that? So, again, we're just trying to follow through to make sure that we have some sort of additional level of notification to say, yes, this has been paid and I'm asking for reimbursement. It simply is that. Okay. I'm just trying to find the easiest way for coaches, both male and female, because it's very

013difficult to get people to do it today. That's all. Okay? Thanks. Can I ask one more question? So it depends. Because that line of questioning, we can certainly come back to, but it's not about 3.1. Okay. It's about 3.5. So I'm wondering if we can stick with what's on the agenda for right now and then add that to the agenda as a topic for the future. Yep, but it's not that. Yep, that's fine. Yeah, go ahead. So, yes, if it's about 3.1 to 3.5, go ahead. Well, no, I guess it's not because it's athletics related. Is athletics part of this? No. Dave took it in a different direction. So I'm aiming to keep us on track because we have a lot of people in the room who are here for a very specific reason. But

014I might remind the board that we just talked about a spreadsheet where we're kind of gathering things to go on agenda items, and that is one of them. Okay, so it is on our radar, and we will add it to an agenda. I did have just one quick one about 3.5. So on 3.5, I just know that there's a couple of student groups and activities that, like the technology student association or speech and debate, that don't seem to be on there, and I thought that they had budgets. Is it that they have not raised any money that is going into an account for some of the ones that aren't represented on that spreadsheet? I'm not sure I understand your question simply because the student activity accounts are clearly activity-driven by students. So the speech and

015debate may do something within it. Like, there may be a budget for items to send speech and debate, but that's not necessarily a student activity function. Does that help explain? Like, there are many things that our district budget addresses in terms of transportation to and from allowance use of vehicles, of vans, and so forth, that are not underneath the student activities. Student activities will typically... The real correct term of student activities is where you have student representatives who sign off all revenue and expenditures. And the accounts are tracked that way accordingly for groups. Ryan, I think debate is on here. It is 8-0-4-0. Ah, you're just better at spreadsheets than I am. Thank you. It takes a team, team effort. Any other questions on our notices and communications 3-1 to 3-5? Okay, great. We're going

016to move on to 3.6, which is the presentation of our students' artwork to the board. Excellent. Welcome, everybody. There we go. For the Gettysburg Area School District, alongside of Ms. Linnea Johnson, thank you for the opportunity tonight to speak with you and share our artwork. It's something that we look forward to every year. It's very hard to pick the artwork to share, and we are so excited to do so. So I want to take a moment to highlight something that I believe is not only valuable, but really essential to a well-rounded education, and it's the arts. Whether it's singing, dancing, visual arts, media arts, you know, it's such an important part to our students' educational experience. Art education does more than teach students how to draw, paint, or sculpt. It teaches students how to think

017critically, solve problems creatively, and express ideas when words fall short. In our classrooms, students learn to take risks, to reflect, and to persevere when faced with complex challenges. Art offers a space for students to connect, to be heard, and to build confidence. It supports emotional intelligence, fosters resilience, and encourages innovative thinking. It's no coincidence that at any level, elementary to high school, students more often than not say that art is their favorite class. And this is because it's one of the only subjects where passion meets purpose, and creativity and individuality are met with encouragement from well-trained art educators. Within our district, we are privileged to have six talented art teachers. Each of us strive to cultivate an environment within our schools for students to experience the best of art education. At the high school, Mrs.

018Higgins, Mrs. Amy Dreeves had another successful year in her 31st year of teaching. She teaches AP art, jewelry and metal smithing, and 2D art. I'm also at the high school. In my seventh year of teaching, I teach art foundations, drawing and painting, 3D art, and ceramics and sculpture. This year, our high school students were given the opportunity to travel to New York City, Philadelphia, AP portfolio review day, and experience visiting artists who are masters in their craft. Our students participated in numerous art shows. This includes shows at prestigious colleges and universities like Drexel, Wilson, Shippensburg, as well as Scholastics Art and Writing, which we'll highlight in a moment. We had multiple shows throughout the year at the Adams County Arts Council, and we also hosted two ourselves this year. Of these shows, our talented high

019school students received recognition for their artistic success. Many of these shows include art students from not just Adams County, but York County, and the rest of the state. York County, Franklin County, and so to win an award is a really big deal. One of the art competitions that happens every year that is very competitive is the Youth Recycled Art Contest at the Adams County Arts Council. It's really cool. We look forward to it every year. Well, you'll be able to see one of these works tonight. We had two artists win second and third place at this contest this year. Junior Isabella DeCampoli won second place, and Riley Acevedo took third place overall in the category of recycled art. Of course, this was hosted by the Arts Council, and it drew students from all over the

020place to submit their artwork. It's also K-12, so it's really cool to see the development from the little kindergartners all the way up to the seniors. Bella crocheted a jellyfish out of recycled plastic bags. She individually created yarn from the plastic and then spent weeks crocheting this really impressive jellyfish. Riley made an intricate horseshoe crab that was more interesting if you look at it from the bottom, which is typically how we see them washed up on the beach. He had so many parts and pieces, which got him a third place recognition. For Scholastic Art and Writing, which is both a regional and then a national art and writing competition, receiving an award is incredibly challenging, and most schools are lucky to have one key or an honorable mention. We are privileged to be graduating a

021group of seniors this year who are highly decorated artists and have so many artistic accomplishments, including numerous Scholastic Art and Writing awards. Our graduating seniors have been awarded six gold keys. Which is really impressive. 16 silver keys and 15 honorable mentions throughout their high school career. Currently, senior Madison Garcia is participating at the national level after winning a gold key at the regional level for her piece that was made of recycled soda tabs, and it was called Knight's Dress. It was really cool. It also won the show last year at the Arts Council. At the middle school, Mrs. Linnea Johnson is in her 11th year of teaching and had not just one, but two fantastic artists, art shows for her 7th and 8th grade students, one of which was tonight, like before this. This is

022a really great event with the unified art that she participates in. It brings in so many families and many generations to see the artwork, to show off all the impressive works of art from over 300 students. Mrs. Johnson is providing our middle school students with a robust art experience in the six short weeks that she is able to see them. Over the course of these six weeks, students develop a portfolio through drafting, experimenting, and producing a final product, one of which you will see tonight. At the elementary level, student art was showcased at the Adams County Arts Council for the third year as a collaborative showcase between all of our elementary schools together in one space. In addition, our elementary art teachers collaborated with their music departments for numerous fine arts nights throughout the school

023year, which is always a really cool event to see the collaboration between the departments, and it brings many generations of parents and grandparents and siblings to all celebrate together. At Lincoln Elementary, Mrs. Amy Misenheimer is finishing her 26th year of teaching. She partnered with local businesses again this year to display student artwork throughout our community. Working with the Adams County Library and Gettysburg Pediatrics to display new artwork every month, she displayed over 400 pieces of student artwork this year. At Franklin Township Elementary, Mrs. Tori Davenport is finishing her seventh year of teaching and fifth in our district. She is so excited about how many talented artists there are at Franklin. At James Gettys Elementary, Mrs. Savannah Mineta is in her fourth year of teaching. She is heading the garden committee at James Gettys after revitalizing

024the garden, creating a space where students can interact with art and nature and find inspiration right outside of their elementary school walls. Currently, her fifth graders are celebrating their creativity, designing signs to leave their mark in the school once they head off to the middle school. Art education is crucial for cultivating creativity, developing critical thinking, and fostering emotional expression in students. It enriches their educational experience. And in Gettysburg, our students are so incredibly talented. It's more than just beautiful work that they're creating. They're creating meaning and community and joy. Now, it's time to showcase some really awesome artwork. Ranging from elementary to high school, the works you're about to see exemplify talent, and we are so incredibly proud of the students that are about to present to you. I expect lots of oohs and ahhs

025as they walk around. First up, we have from Franklin Township Elementary, we have second grader, Ellison Brown, and her mixed media collage titled, The Forest Ladybug. Let's give a round of applause for Ellison. Thank you, dear. You may sit back down. Next, from James Gettys. All right, you know what to do. Okay. All right, go ahead and start on that side. We have Kindergardener, Nicole Johnson, and his mixed media artwork titled, The Colorful Heart. All right, let's give a round of applause for Nicole. Great job, buddy. All right, go ahead and sit. From Lincoln Elementary, how about Maya? We have fourth grader, Maya, and her weaving titled, The Painted Plate. All right, wait. Let's give a round of applause for Maya. All right, go ahead and sit back down. From the high school, we have

026junior, Addison Key, and her cardboard sculpture, which this was one of the ones that was made to be sustainable, titled, Caught in the Headlights. That's pretty awesome. Let's give Addie a round of applause. Also from the high school, we have junior, Amelia Bennett. She has made a very intricate design out of nickel, silver, and lampwork glass, titled, Greek Inspired Crown. Let's give Amelia a round of applause. And finally, from the middle school, we have our superintendent award. This award was given to eighth grader, Charlotte Marino. Go ahead and stand up, Charlotte. And her watercolor and pencil illustration, titled, Mermaid. All right, let's give a round of applause for Charlotte. Wait, Charlotte, wait, wait. All right, Charlotte, you're gonna go over. You got it, you got it. Yeah, that's perfect. All right, let's give another round

027of applause to all of our talented artists. Thank you all for having us tonight. We really look forward to this. And now you'll have some new artwork to decorate your meetings. Thank you much. Thank you to all our art teachers for your support of your artists and to all the artists in the room tonight for sharing all of that wide variety of media with us. I liked all the detail that I saw in all of those works. So congratulations, you should feel proud of that. All right, we are on to 3.8, which is our Franklin Township and Lincoln Elementary presentation. So Dr. Lappe and Dr. Schaefer. Hi, I'm Shelly Lappe. I'm the principal at Franklin Township and... Kathy Schaefer, principal at Lincoln Elementary. We are going to present our Girls on the Run. We have

028our students and our coaches here to present for you. So we're gonna let them go ahead and take it. Hello, everyone. We are here to present about Girls on the Run. We have been... At Franklin, we have been doing Girls on the Run for I think about eight years. And this is Lincoln's first year doing Girls on the Run. It's a really good program. We have a whole lot of people that we brought with us because we love our program. I'm not sure, do we wanna introduce the coaches first or do we wanna just jump into the... We'll just jump in. Okay. All right, we'll just jump in, sorry. We'll get there. Okay, so I grabbed a few things from the Girls on the Run website just to kind of share what the program is

029all about. Their mission is to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using a fun experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running. And running is not the most important part of the program. They can pretty much do any kind of exercise or movement that they want because I am definitely not a runner. We envision a world where every girl knows and activates her limitless potential and is free to boldly pursue her dreams. So it's really about girls getting to know themselves and pursuing their dreams and getting to know that they can do anything they want. Here are some of their core values. Recognizing their power, having the same responsibility to be intentional in decision-making, embracing differences, expressing joy, optimism, and gratitude, nurturing physical, emotional, and spiritual health, leading with an open heart, and assuming positive

030intent, and standing up for themselves and others. Just these are some things that I wish that I had been taught when I was younger because they're just things that even I, as an adult, really take to heart. And I've had these lessons for eight years and I still, every time, they just, you know, touch me. So the program is Girls on the Run is for third through fifth grade girls and it's really just about them getting to become more self-confident, learning to be part of a team, learning connections. We do lessons each time we have a practice. It's physical activity, life skill development, learning for them to manage their emotions, foster friendships, express empathy, and then at the end we have the big 5K, which is a lot of fun and it really just gives

031them that sense of accomplishment. And this is another program called Heart and Soul and this is for middle school girls. And the director, the coordinator for the program had actually come to me and asked if we could get in touch with someone from the middle school. And so I'm kind of hoping that maybe we can reach out and maybe extend the program into the middle school. I know some of my fifth grade friends here who are headed to the middle school would really love to do it. And I know some of my friends that are at the middle school who did it for three years. How many years did you do it? Three. Three. How many years did you do it? Three. Three. A lot of the girls will do it all three years. And

032we had several girls that are at the middle school that, how about it? Your cousin. Would love to come back and do it again. So they love the program. So here are our coaches. These are Franklin coaches. I'm Coach Clough. We have Coach Flores. Coach Ayala couldn't be here tonight. Coach Solomon and Coach Temple. We have three coaches this year that are first year coaches for us. Coach Flores has been doing it for four years and I've been doing it for eight years. We actually started before COVID. We did it two, both seasons fall. They have a fall season and a spring season. We did it both seasons that year. That was a little bit much. And then we had to take a break when COVID hit. But then we came back and we're stronger

033than ever. And here we have our Lincoln coaches. Okay. So just you. Here from Lincoln. So my coaching staff couldn't be here. Unfortunately, they all have other commitments tonight. So I'm Coach Ketterman and then I have Coach Lush, Hawkins, and Doley. And we had a junior coach. Which was awesome. She was a senior from our high school. And she came over, Caroline. She was amazing. Which was really great. So our teams competed in the 5K. Which we went to York and did a 5K. Which was 3.1 miles. Which seemed like forever. Wouldn't you say girls? We ran the rail trail. Which if you've ever ran that, it just seemed like the trail went on forever and ever. And the girls, we were like, okay. And so the girls did awesome. They had some decorating stations.

034And the girls get a bib that day. So they have their bib which has their name. They get to pick their name. And then they get to decorate it. They have decorating stations there. It's the whole hoopla and everything that day that they can decorate. So many of the sessions, they have this book that has a lesson that goes. Do you want to take that over and pass it around for them to look at? So the lessons go with this book. And the girls complete a lesson. And then they do something in their book. And they have a goal that they take home then and do with their family. And this particular lesson, our girls had to do a body movement that matched a constellation. And so they were creating constellations with space. But they

035had to work as a team in order to create the constellation. So they had to, they had a picture on the floor. And they had to figure out how they had to work as a team to create that constellation. Which was not actually the easiest task. Some of them were like, what? And so they figured out if they worked as a team, it was better to work together than it was to just do the picture. So here we also worked with the Gettysburg College. So because we're centrally located in Lincoln and at the middle school, the Gettysburg College team came down. Because they wanted to do their volunteer work with us. So Gamma Phi Beta sorority came down. And they actually had, I think, 25 girls one day. And we went out and ran the

036springs with them. And they would practice with our girls. The girls set a goal of 150 laps this day. And every time they went around, we had a course on our perimeter. And five laps was a mile. But that day they said, we can go out and do 150. And our girls rocked it. As you can see, the chalk. Every time they came around, they would chalk the walk. And they did 250 laps that day collectively. So it was amazing. And then this is just some pictures from our race day. Everybody was, it was freezing. It was cold. So we had to be there super early. And we were all frozen. I don't think we've ever had a nice day for the 5K yet. And I think it must be me. So we were all

037a little bit cold. And I look like a blind person walking. Because I literally have to get a, yeah, I have a cane walking stick. Because I had to show the girls the perseverance. You can still do it. Because I get my knee replaced on Thursday. So willpower gets you there. So. But you can get it done. So here it's just decorating stations happening. And all this fun. And they were just, that was the warm up. They were just teamwork. Just having some fun. And so we have some testimonies of the girls. So this is one the parent wrote. It's very lengthy. You're more than welcome to read it. She sent it in. Her daughter was supposed to be here tonight. But something came up and she couldn't be. So she sent it in with

038her picture. Casey is also one of our high schoolers. She was her buddy runner. So all the girls have to have a buddy runner in order to participate and run. And so she just shared this opportunity about how her daughter came out of her shell with this program. A lot of the girls are shy. So the first practice they're very. But by week eight they're all really good friends. So. It's really great to watch them as because it's third, fourth and fifth grade. Watch the friendships form across the grade levels. Yeah. And so my Lincoln girls, they're here to speak their testimonies. And then we'll share their video. And if they want to speak they can too. But Lily what was your favorite thing about Girls on the Run? Do you want to say it?

039Or you want to talk to the mic? Or do you want to say it out loud? Talk to the mic. My favorite thing was about Girls on the Run is we get it to like just have fun practices. And we had these power awards which whoever like not did the best but like was like really self happy about themselves. Get it like a little power world like we did things with our hand like boom, boom, boom or like that. You want to say something? No? Not feeling it? No. Nope. Nope. They're not feeling it. Okay. And then this was the Franklin video maybe. Yeah. We made a little video. This is one of the. Yeah. Energy awards. Yeah. How many years have you been in Girls on the Run? Three. And what was your favorite

040part about Girls on the Run this year? They like cracked or. Hi, my name is Savannah. How many years have you been in Girls on the Run? I've been in Girls on the Run for two years. What was your favorite part in those two years? Um, either the 5K practice or the constellations. Hi, I'm Skylar. How many years have you been in Girls on the Run? Two. And what was your favorite part about Girls on the Run? Practice for the 5K and the craft. Hi, my name is Pauline. How many years have you been in Girls on the Run? Uh, three years. And why do you think girls should join this club? Because, uh, you can hang out with your besties and you can make new friends and have fun with them. How many years

041have you been in Girls on the Run? One. One year, that's your first year. And what did you like the most about it this year? Um, I like being with my friends and making new friends. Have you been in Girls on the Run? One. Alright, your first year. Why do you think girls should join Girls on the Run? Because it's a really fun program. Hi, I'm Mayla. Hi, Mayla. How many years have you been in Girls on the Run? One. One year. What was your favorite and are you going to join next year? I'm going to join next year. My favorite was running with friends. My name's Lita and I've been doing Girls on the Run for like one year. My favorite part of Girls on the Run was running and, um, and... What did

042you like to do at the 5K when you were there? I liked running. Running. Just running. Training. Hi, my name is Quinn. Quinn, how many years have you been in Girls on the Run? This is my first year. Your first year. And what was your go-to name? Quinn. Oh, so why did you pick that name? Um, because it was the only thing that I could think of that started with a G. That's a good energy name. What's your favorite part about being a mom? It's like being with friends and just telling us on time. Hi, I'm Autumn. Hi, I'm Autumn. Hi, I'm Autumn. And how many years have you been? This is my first year. Your first year. What was your go-to name this year? Athletic Autumn. Athletic Autumn. Awesome. I love that. The A's.

043And what was your favorite part about the 5K this year? Um, just like I'm very true for each other. Hi, I'm Lola Lola. And how many years have you been in Girls on the Run? One year. And what was your favorite part? My favorite part was Friday My Happy Days. Hi, I'm Lavender. And how many years have you been a go-to? Lavender. One. This is your first year. When did you want to become a goater? Second grade. So Lincoln had 19 girls this year, and we were capped at 20. We actually had a girl that decided not to do it after, like, the third week. But they cap you after 20. So we had to beg, though, to let us have 20. We had to do that most years in the past. This year we

044switched our days, and we had a smaller team, but we had girls on the wait list. So it's a very popular program. And James Geddes is going to have a program next year. So that's our goal. Yeah. So next year we'll have all three elementaries, and we're hoping maybe to get it in the middle school. That's our goal. So any other girls want to say anything before we go? No. Should we do a breakout? You guys know it. Ready? Bring it in. This is what we did at the end of every practice. Ready? All right. Ready? Girls love fun. Girls love fun. Girls love fun. Girls on the run is so much fun. Girls on the run is so much fun. Girls on the run is so much fun. Girls on the run is so

045much fun. Thank you all, coaches and students and Dr. Schieffer and Dr. Lappi, for your presentation. I have a ton of students currently also involved in Girls on the Run. I love the program. I think it's wonderful how it's thriving here in Gettysburg. So keep up the good work and keep us updated with the new teams next year. Thank you so much. At this time, we will be transitioning to the budget update. Which you are more than welcome to stay for. But if you are excited about the art and other things, you may exit at this time. Thank you. We're actually going to take like a three-minute break. That gives us a chance to stretch our legs and use the facilities if needed. We'll be right back. 3.9, which is our budget update. So I'm

046going to turn things over to Belinda. Good evening. I wish I could be as exciting as those young kids. I mean, that would be awesome. I apologize. Sometimes the budget information is rather boring for the most part. But I'll try to walk through some of the changes that occurred and just give the board an update. So this evening, we have a May 18th review. So we have tonight's review. And then, of course, we're preparing for our June 1st action, final budget approval with tax rate and fund balance. That's on tap. So what changed with the budget since the last presentation? So, of course, you know, for the evening, we had a federal program Title I revenue decrease. So these are all decreases in terms of the budget. And so Title I revenue decrease, which directly

047affects our revenue. In fact, today we were just informed that Title II is decreasing. And it was just informed today, but not made a part of the whole process. So it seems as if the allocations have gone down another 20-some, three-some. So it's kind of a for which Gettysburg's being awarded. But for what we have recorded in the budget, as the present moment is, we know that Title I is decreasing. We also have a decrease in the use of capital projects, assigned funds. In terms, I'm going to stop just here for a second. So the last budget meeting, we had our capital plan improvement ending 630 of 25 of 1.234. And now we're at the end of the budget. The budget presentation slide May 4th listed the 26-27 assigned fund use of $948,222 to help

048offset some of the budget expenditures with our revenue source. So decisions from the last board meeting is to reduce capital projects, capital plan funding of $500,000. So in doing that, we also needed to reduce the assigned funds $500,000 equally. So by reducing the assigned funds $500,000, it would leave $448,000 as proposed for future capital projects. And in the budget then itself, of course, the change to the capital plan was at $1 million and it's now decreased $500,000. So we have $500,000 of planned capital plan, first year plan functions of that. And then obviously, of course, the $500,000 is a reduction of the assigned funds, simply one-to-one type of transaction. As I stated at the last meeting, our homestead farmstead allocations did decrease. We had an increase in property approved parcels, which then had a decrease

049of funding. So we are seeing this change. It's a decrease in state funding, which then would be a decrease in local funding. State money comes in and we push it out through the real estate taxes. We had an update of the assessment data provided by the county and a decrease of about $27,931. The most recent update to the county did not include some of the additional changes in terms of exempt properties that are coming our way. So that's why we see a decrease in the update, simply because the update provided by the county included some of the parcels that we had projected as an increase. So it was listed in the update. So it was listed in the update. It was listed in the update. It was listed in as a truer update number, which

050then we had to reduce our projections. So the combined effect is a decrease in the assessment data of about $27,931. I mentioned previously before to the Board that we had this, once again, increase with our property casualty fleet program. We have since, with the broker, have gone back to and changed carriers. So overall, we've had an actual reduction of $119. $15,260 of not a reduction in services or amounts, it's truly a reduction in the premiums. So we initially years back we were with Liberty and we moved to Utica because Liberty had dropped us simply because of the high school claim on the roof, which was a roof damage that damaged the high school auditorium and all the chairs in your place as well as the roof. So Liberty dropped us and we picked up with

051Utica almost doubling the cost of our premium package. A few years with Utica we gained no claims, reports whatsoever. Utica was informed during the process that they needed to take a look and readjust our rates because we are looking elsewhere and they did so but only at the last minute. And so Liberty came back with an adjustment to the. premiums and so we're taking it and we're going with Liberty to reduce our premium and we're back where kind of where we you know we're comfortable with to begin with. So that's a positive portion for us because obviously no one likes to see the property casualty increasing when your premiums aren't really necessarily or your values aren't necessarily increasing. We had a decrease in high school emotional support software curriculum. This was. Kind of. Push forward

052with administrators as a reduction. Now that's not to say that there is no software curriculum available it's just the amount reduced so there remains about two thousand dollars in on the account to adjust the software curriculum. We also had a change in the capital plan as which I mentioned before was from a million dollars to five hundred thousand dollars. All right. So here is a big picture summary review. So the last board meeting. Our office was kind of noted to bring back two point nine three point five and four point two. Here's the revenue snapshot with understanding the highlight there of course the assigned fund capital projects. Is the reduction of the nine forty nine nine thousand dollar number to the four forty eight. You can see here this is just a revenue snapshot is

053showing what is changing in each one of those conditions as well as the three point five percent. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Really. And why select the three point five percent is simply because it was the administration recommendation as well as focus on the three point five. The second slide is a summary of expense these are updated with the expenditures and you can see it at the at the bottom of this is the unreconciled differences. So you minute two point nine percent we have a a budget shortfall of four hundred forty two thousand six hundred. Oh. I believe that's what that is. But. Even at 3.5%, we have a shortfall of

054$203,368. And, of course, the 4.2 is an actually addition to fund balance. And, again, I think I've kind of reviewed before that where our ending fund balance is, we would have to take a look at how are we going to be increasing fund balance because there is no fund balance to be able to use to be carrying this forward, unassigned funds, that is. And so you can see that the difference of 3.5 is $203,368. Now, I break these down by individual options. So I think after the board meeting closed, there was a request that came from the board itself to look at 2.8%. So here is the local and the expenditures in terms of what does it mean for 2.8%. So 2.8%, the unreconciled difference, is $482,541. As it's a little bit slightly higher than

055the 2.9. In fact, it's, you know, about $39,932. So, again, we would still be looking for a little underneath half a million dollars to go 2.8%. So 2.9%, again, this is an individual pullout slide of the original summary that was presented there. So you can see 2.9. Overall, the unreconciled, unassigned fund balance is still, slightly lower than $500,000. The areas that are highlighted, again, is just showing the change in the assigned capital projects appropriation to address the $500,000 reduction in the capital projects. The other changes that I mentioned earlier are a part of this budget in the numbers, the reductions. So we've already taken care of those at this point. Here's the 3.5. Just... Just showing the local sources at 3.5. Also, what I want to point out, and I appreciate one of the members

056reaching out. I want to make sure that we're clear when we're talking about a 3.5%, a 2.8%, or a 2.9%, or a 4.2%, that, in essence, whatever percent that there is, 1% still needs to be maintained for ACTI. So, and I've kind of highlighted that here, or actually, Mr. Fordham highlighted it here, just so it's a clear indicator that, really, what we're looking for, even at 3.5%, is 2.5% to fund operations, while 1% still maintains for ACTI, simply because we still need to build that in upon our budget. So I appreciate one of the board members reaching out and asking for that clarification. So we did make it a part of each one of these slides. And so you can see that, you know, in essence, 1% of ACTI needs to remain with whatever options,

057and that's the question that our board goes for. And here is what is balanced. So this is balanced. Do nothing more of 4.01% is what the balanced budget would come in at. There is a little bit small residual at the bottom of 112, but this would get us as close as possible to have a revenue and expenditure match in terms of budget. And that's still using 448% of ACTI, and that's still using 448,000 of the capital projects, still making those additional cuts that we've talked about. So this is truly a revenue source matching the expenditures that we have to date. So what is balanced? It's not 4.2. It's not 3.5. It ends up being 4.1 as we did those calculations. And then here, again, is the index, 4.2. And, well, you see a positive number,

058and it's highlighted there, simply because we're adding money to the unassigned fund balance. So this is a very good way for us to get that value up. Unassigned fund balance, which I wanted to reiterate, it's always a percent of expenditures. So if expenditures are 82.7 million, 6%, which is the lowest number of the policy, is $4.9 million that we need to maintain. At one point in time, as I think I mentioned before, we were at 8%, and over the years, we have now dropped it down to 6% of the unassigned funds. One of the board members asked about cash flow. Our cash flow shows as a representation here that we will be, by the year of 2027, will be 15 days minus of cash on hand. The following year, 41 days. Year after that, 68

059days. And the following year, 94 days. I just want to make note that the fund balance is assumed to be cash only, so there's no receivables in this, and it's based upon 365 days. I did want to mention that, the question came in terms of, well, how much is needed? What is fund balance used for? And how much is needed over the summer months until taxes start coming in? So in reference to how much was spent in July of 2025, and again, this is a year-old data, but it's usually, I'm going to say, as a benchmark, simply because the only cost can go up from there. But general funds in July, we spent $4.2 million. We also spent, $2.5 million of payroll. So in essence, we had 6.798048 of expenditures out the door in July

060that's utilizing fund balance until our tax revenue come in. Last year in July, we had tax revenue only began July 25th. So any expenditures that we paid in the month of July was pretty much using fund balance until our taxes started rolling in, which the first submission of payment from our collectors was $3.4 million. So again, it wasn't necessarily quite half, and it was very less. But I also wanted to mention that that timeframe from July to April was tax revenue, real estate, and earned income, which provided the cash flow for the district, because basic ed subsidy and other subsidy was delayed because the budget didn't pass from the state. And those funds didn't come in until April. So unassigned fund balance is used to take care of bills until our real estate taxes come

061in. Once they come in, we look at securing those based upon a cash flow report of when our expenses are coming due, and we're putting them out in CDs or an interest rate market to where we can pull them at the time that we need to pay our invoices. So it's not like we're sitting on cash, exorbitant numbers of cash. We are planning for a future month to pay our bills based upon that cash flow report. And we're going to be looking at that in the next couple of weeks. So I just wanted to mention, like, while it does seem very much increasing, 94 days less cash balance on hand, again, this is assuming, of course, 0% increases is where this is assuming. So obviously we're assuming the worst. So in the event that we

062start, you know, addressing in terms of tax millage increases, will our cash flow only slightly improve? And here again was the tax millage impact. This was a part of the last budget meeting. And again, what I'd like to mention is that the resolution will state that we have $1.9 million of funds coming from the gaming funds with 7,208 eligible homestead parcels and 160 eligible farmstead exclusions. So that was 25-26. So the exclusion was $266.16 on 11.481.5. And again, that resolution is on our website. So it's something that is easily to be looked at. Now, in the calculation for 2026-27, which the numbers just came in slightly before this meeting, we went from 1.938 to 1.937. So we had a reduction in certification, as well as we went from 7,208 eligible parcels to 7,422 eligible parcels,

063which will push down the allocation to be 0.3. issued out on the tax bills. And then lastly, not to take this too long, but you know some discussion and board directive in terms of assignment of fund balance. Do you want to see more? Do you want to see less? And what tax increase discussions you want to have? Our goal would be to come back with a recommended percent increase for the next meeting so we're prepared with all the reports. Now if that needs to be two or three options, that's fine. We just need to know in kind of having all the reports prepared because we would need, if it's two or three options, we need two or three resolutions, we need two or three PDE forms. There's just multiple things that need to be done

064in order to finalize those resolutions for whatever the tax proposal is. Any questions? Yeah, I'll start with one and then pass it around. So when we're looking at the 3.5 percent, which is what we had said, we're looking at the 3.5 percent, which is what we had been looking at prior board meetings, my recollection was that it was balanced better before and I'm curious the result of this unreconciled difference, I feel like it went up, but I don't know if that's from a decision we made or from something else. I'm just, I'm losing track of numbers and I'd just like clarification on that. Well, we changed revenue. Right. We changed, we reduced the assigned funds. Correct. And we also reduced the Title I. So while we had reductions in expenditures, still the revenue reduction is

065a result of the 3.5 percent. So actually, I'm not sure I'm seeing any difference in the earnings that we're seeing. I have to think that the revenue reduction is a result of this. Okay. Understood. I'll come back for my next question after other people. Other questions. Okay. Yeah, yeah. You can start. Go ahead. I do have so many questions. We didn't receive this information until 30 minutes before we met. So I would have preferred to have emailed this question, but Belinda, I've got to kind of put us of, well wait I'm going to back up a minute. So I feel like this document assumes that we approve all of the requests that were presented to us in the first couple of presentations. I'm not sure that we're there. I'd like to go back to those

066requests and I'd like to know which are needs, which are nice to haves. I also would like the cost of each as we have an eye on unreconciled difference line items. I think that's really important for us to understand. You know in particular I'm really troubled by the federal government rescinding Title I and Title II money. Frankly I think that's horrifying and I will go on record with that. We certainly can't cut those programs. That would be to the detriment of our students. So again please remind us what are needs and what are nice to haves in the requested items from a few meetings ago. The costs of each. And I think that's it. Thank you. Absolutely. Sure. So I'll go back to the first, the very previous meeting that we had. So we had

067two social workers with the removal of the family navigators. Mind you that there is one social worker coming from the IU. So really it was technically an add of one social worker to our budget process because the one from the IU to the district is just a matter of movement from one pot of funds to another pot of funds. So that was $121,064. Supervisor special ed, the secondary supervisor special ed was in addition of $168,208 all salaries and benefits. This was in line with the comprehensive plan in order to address the bringing back more services from the IU simply because the IU is getting out of those level of services. It's all in line with having us provide more AS life services. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And the other thing is the pres

068kedhe the budget from the budget was $129 and $115,562 as for the cost associated with the changes to the budget. If you need me to review and repeat those ... for the technology I'd be more than happy to do that but those were the items that were technically increased the budget given mandates and otherwise are any of these nice to haves or any of these negotiable could any of these wait for a future year I suppose if you want to delay special education secondary supervisor as an opportunity but then those services will be changed drastically for not being able to provide additional level services the tech department obviously if you decide hey I don't want to have this that's I guess that would be subjective to the tech department but then again the level services

069and not say you can be maintained and we continue to provide the excess over time for staff that are currently doing over time now social workers obviously comes at a price our families have become accustomed to having social workers as students have been become accustomed to having social work or I should say family navigators which we want to signify as making them as social workers. We've kind of pretty much endorsed the whole family navigator so making it consistent with what certifications there are, postings that have gone out for the jobs, interviews have taken place so this is transition from navigators to social workers. So if there was any one of those, I suppose in pecking order if you ask me, I'm not going to ask the department chairs because each one are equally to each

070one but if you're looking at pecking order, while the technology position has been asked for several years, that would be the first pecking order because I think you're going to need with special education services continually increase, you will need a supervisor and it was in the comp plan. As long with I think. I don't know. So that I would want to pull back family navigators slash social workers either because we've provided the service and it's very difficult to remove that level of service unless you want to have people calling you, emailing you continuously as to why this isn't being provided. So that would be my, some things that are non-negotiable in this budget which we have really no control over. Your contractual increases are in place. The service contract. The service contracts that we have

071in place. The transportation contracts. The hardware, software. All of the software that we have in terms of protections for our systems, the firewalls, the infrastructure surrounding it, the continuous computer upgrades. Those are, those in my opinion are non-negotiables because as soon as you start changing them then other things will spiral down. Kathleen, does that answer your question? No. Does that answer your initial question? It does. Thank you. Dave, go ahead. First of all, thank you for delineating the fact that 1% of the budget increase is not actually an increase. Correct. We only have so much for operations which is net of that 1%. From the positions you just said, what is the net neutral that actually is created, positive or negative from all those positions because a number of them are lateral. You're taking it

072from one place and just replacing it. Otherwise, there has to be a net neutral. Either it's an increase or it's a decrease. It's an increase. Okay. For those positions. Those three areas, those positions. Okay. So, and that totals how much? Or you can get that to me. 401, 330,000. Okay. So 401 and at 3.5% you had a negative 203. So basically you're off by 200,000. Mm-hmm. So, when I did. I was able to get this just before the meeting and try to do a few calculations. I came up with 4.12% is what you need for balance neutral. Mm-hmm. And I was at 4.01%. You're 4.01%. Yeah. Okay. So I have it a little bit more based on your millage, how much a mill is worth. So I mean, regardless what everybody thinks, if we don't

073finally get into a balance neutral for a couple of years. Yeah. We're just going to accumulate more debt. Sure. And more non-revenue. And it's going to create a bigger problem if we don't start becoming net neutral in budgets. Okay. So, I mean, and if you could rerun that because I ran it at 4.12% to be able to net neutral. 4.12%? Mm-hmm. As a final option to the budget? As a final option? That's my net neutral. Okay. Okay. Which is really 3.12%. Because of the 1% for ACTU? Yeah. Because of the 1% for ACTU. Yeah. ACTU was, I'm imagining. Your actual operations is only 3.12% of an increase, not actually 4.12%. Okay. Okay? Sure. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I'll just take this opportunity to say, I know we don't, Mr. Siegmund's not here for an update. I'm

074not sure if Justine's going to give an update on ACTI later or not, but we did get an email from Sean Eckenrode about progress made towards the building there. Okay. So, I think that's something in the back of my mind. I understand investing in and was a part of the board when we were investing earlier in ACTI. And the question was always if this is something that is coming in the timeframe that requires that fundraising now or later, right? And it sounds like they're moving towards a building. They're moving towards purchasing a parcel. Right. Which would be the first stage of looking at what the building would be. Sure. So, making progress towards that rather than this kind of amorphous unknown. I don't know. The meat step. The meat step. Yeah. It's coming up. We're

075getting more information sadly after today, but that will still be helpful. Other question? Go ahead. Not one question. Sorry. But I also issued out to you the five year. I just want to caveat is this is a five year based upon current percentages. So, of course, if percentages change over the next five years, it would change the projection. But we wanted to at least provide something to show that the revenue minus expenditures really pushes out a negative 5%. Pushes out a negative fund balance within five years of negative $14.9 million. So, I provided this to you this evening only because, again, this was a little last minute probably getting it together. We wanted to respond to Mr. Seitz on what the five year looks like. Of course, we have more time and probably even slightly

076after a decision on the tax increase. scale five-year plan through our forecast five and present that to the board at a later time. I'd like to reserve that full scale portion when I know what the tax increase will be. That way I can kind of look at individual accounts and specifically do salary and benefits and individual objects analysis rather than just looking at the total overall and just putting that forward five years. But this was just a quick snapshot to say this is where we would end up in five years if we're using the same exact percentages as we kind of have. And I will say that this was using an eight-year actual history in order to project the five-year projection. Sorry. I just had a quick question on this one topic. So was the

077eight-year also an average of inflation rates? Eight-year was basically, eight-year was actual. So whatever the revenue came in, whatever the expenditures were. It was using those actual numbers for eight years. Got our average, used that average to project the five years. And when you say using current percentages, you mean also taking an average of what we've So this here itself, so for in other words, for 2026, 27, if you're looking at the very top, the local portion of 3.4, it's using 3.4 percent in each one of the models for the years following. Likewise for salary and benefits, it's 3.15 percent using 3.15 percent as the actual. Now that's not saying that's what's increasing. It could go up. It could go down. But I'd like to reserve a truer reflection of a five-year projection in terms

078of next year's budgeting after we've already been through this year. Because it's a little difficult to say a projection now five years from now when I don't know where we're going to be landing this year and or by June 25th of 2021. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for pointing out that top line. Any other questions or next questions, I should say. Yeah, go ahead, Kathy. All right. Can we take a look at the forecast sheet? I want to make sure I understand this. So for 2026, the board essentially budgeted to have 13 days cash on hand in the unassigned fund balance. That was planned for? Well, it was planned to use unassigned fund balance. So we had to make sure that we had coverage. So yes, then in 2026, the projection would be

079that there's 13 days ending 2026 to make our payments on our invoices. Because as we established, and correct me if I'm wrong, in the last six years, the board only approved a tax increase for operating fund expenses two of the last six years? Oh, gosh. Oh, that's fine. Sorry, Kathy. That's correct. So I mean, to Mr. Seitz's point of where we are, right? I think that's really important to understand. So if we look at the forecast, I want to better understand what it looks like to have a, we'll say a 2.9%, 3.5%, or 4.2% increase. So as I look at this, so I understand it, if we have a 0% tax increase, and that has been the purchase, not the ACTI 1%, which is a done deal for the next three years. This is 0%

080for our operating fund. Then we will have a negative cash on hand 15 days where we can't pay our bills. Correct. Until, I mean, while we're waiting in July and part of August. Until our tax money starts coming in and paying the bills. We're not paying bills for 15 days. So what I'm curious to know is what does this look like with a 2.9 and with a 3.5 increase, how many days cash on hand would we have? Okay. We can run those numbers. Thank you. So next being just 2.9 and 3.5? Or do you want to see us see it 4.12? I just am having such like heartburn over 4.2, but we can look at that too. Sure. So three options, 2.9, 3.5, and 4.12. Yeah. Just Kathleen, for clarity, it is at the balance.

081Is that what you're saying? Not quite 4.2, but at the 4.2. Thank you. Thank you. See, it takes a team. No, I'm sorry. Do you want to see? 4.12. 4.12. Okay. Perfect. Belinda, can you email that to us before the next meeting? Yes. Thank you. And is that, that's Sunshine Act approved, right? Okay. Thank you. Just to, with that, it would be good to see the millage impact as well if we're going to. On the average? On the average parcel. On either, on all three of those options? The 4.12? The 4.12. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? So can I re-summarize my next meeting? So we're coming to you with three options, 3.9, 2.9, 3.5, and 4.2. So three options we're presenting to the board to take action on to the budget. And also emailing the

082forecast of the cash based on those three options. Okay. And the millage impact for 4.12 at the next board meeting as well. Did I make sure I covered everything? Yep. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Ryan, do you want to say something? Just one last, just with these numbers, just to clarify, we're then going to shave off the 4.2 and just. It sounds like we're looking for 4.12 as the upper end rather than 4.2. Yeah, so I'm going to shave off, I'm going to shave off the index. Yeah. At this point. I feel like we're. You're going to have three options in front of you. We're going to have 4.2, we're going to have 4.9, we're going to have 4.5, and we're going to have 4.2. Okay. And we'll prepare the forms accordingly. So whatever the decision,

083discussion is that evening as to what's being adopted, we'll be able to process those forms after that. So, okay. Anything else on our budget update from the board or administration? Okay. You do. Go for it, Ryan. Now's the time. Are you sure? I'm good. You changed your mind. You let me know. That moves us on to number four, which is citizens participation. We have two people speaking this evening. I'm going to start with Walter Glass. Welcome. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Well, my wife is an administrator. She used to work in the school system. Not here. Back home where we came from. And she jotted down a few things that I'm going to mention. Okay. There are three ways to resolve your deficit. One. Increase your revenue. Two. Cut expenses. Okay. Or three. A

084combination of both. It seems that this school board consistently chooses number one, increasing revenue. In addition to that, I can say that I've lived here five years already and my revenue has gone up and up and up and up. And according to that chart, it's going to go up a bit. Okay. It's going to go even further. Bottom line, before I get to the rest of us, from what I see, you're bankrupt. You're literally bankrupt. You can't pay your bills. That's what Mr. Sykes said at the last meeting I had, and the point was made. Now, I admit it is easier. I admit it is easier if you were all elected to do the hard work, and yes, you are doing the hard work. Okay? Look at the trends in the enrollment, and correct me

085if I'm wrong. The high school is maintaining its numbers, maybe adding one or two kids. The elementary schools are trending, trending down. It will only take a few years before those fewer numbers will hit the high school. We do not need to hire more administrators, more staff. And I'm going to add something. I'm going to add something to this. At the meeting I attended, we already were picking up people that are going to be employed. I understand that. But was that brought before the board to get approved? I don't know. Are these decisions being made independently? We do not need to hire more administrators or staff. Like Lancaster County School Board, I believe we need to furlough some staff. But I pause on any type of expansion. Like A.C.T.I. I visited the building, yes. It's

086crowded, yes. Does it need work? Yes. Or remodeling like a new team room. For a football, you don't need to remodel it, they have to live with what they've got. Okay? We need to understand that we need to live within our means. Ask yourself when you review your numbers, that we want to understand what we have learned, what we need to do differently. members, are these your wants or are these truly needs? Like you mentioned, Commissioner. Okay. Bottom line is, deal with what you have, folks. Don't keep adding and killing us and we're paying it. Not happy. And you know what? My bank account is going to suffer for it. And there's some of the residents here that feel the same way. That's why they're here. Live within your means. If you have to have

087teachers do double the work or you have to cut staff or renegotiate. I know it's a contract. I've done dealing with contracts in my career. All right. You have to renegotiate. Otherwise, you know what? Do what you can. If you can't renegotiate, you should be able to. You can only pay. You can only pay so much. You can only do so much benefits. I would love to, when I was in my career, I would love to have the salaries that these teachers are making now. I would have loved it. But please, live within your means and stop killing us. You are killing us. And from the chart, like I'll mention again, it keeps going down, and guess what? Our taxes, your taxes too, are going to go up. So I'm sorry, but I said my

088piece. I hope I don't do it again in the next approval meetings. Thank you all. Have a good day. Thanks, Walter. Thanks. Thank you for coming in. I'll speak to one of your questions that you posed, since I believe this might be your first meeting, attending and speaking. For us, some of those positions that we've absorbed as a result of the kind of shifting of special ed are there, we were aware of, and came to us earlier than expected, but are there, and have to be there, to follow state law with individualized assumptions. education plans. It's a special ed requirement. So some of those are things that we absolutely have to provide for students. But we appreciate that and we appreciate hearing your experience and what you brought tonight. Thank you. We also have our

089second speaker is Ken Calabrese. Welcome back, Ken. Thank you. First of all, you all are volunteers. You're putting a lot of hours in. Thanks very much. You're all trying to do the right thing. So we really appreciate that. And I appreciate your listening. The 2.9%, which was really supposed to be 2.8, and the reason for that, that's a social security COLA. So kind of the discipline is if every component of my budget goes up, no more than a COLA, then my COLA covers me. So that's the reason for the 2.8. So recommendation would be with 2.8, put that stake in the ground, then spend a couple of months trying to figure out how do we live within that budget. And as far as the ACTI, you do now I believe have numbers. I'm not sure

090how much money was put away in a bank to cover that. Needless to say, this year, I think it's going to take five, six months for due diligence before you actually have to pay that. So nothing's going to get built before that. So possibly reducing the amount in the budget that goes to ACTI if that money isn't needed this year is one possible way of dealing with that. For the unfunded mandates, I think using unrestricted reserves is the right thing to do. I mean, it was not something anybody anticipated. If you dip into the unrestricted reserves by the amount of the unfunded mandates, to me, that makes sense. And then as far as the capital budget that you live within the bond money and with the capital money that's out there, that's a component of

091the budget. Stay within that. Then I think spending some time maybe deferring when people are hired instead of hiring right away, look at ways that they could be perhaps deferred, different ways that can be done. I think a half a million in the budget, I think that's achievable. If you go on a diet and you keep eating the same amount of food, you're probably not going to lose any weight. So a little bit of discipline in the system. It's kind of getting used to the wants and needs. If it's a need, do we need it now or do we need it six months from now? Just kind of the muscle reaction to having an approach that tries to stay within that budget. So again, thanks for all the work you do. Thanks for listening. And

092hopefully some of those suggestions will resonate. Thanks very much. Thank you, Ken. We are going to move on to our routine approvals on our next meeting. So we're going to move on to our agenda. Looking to take 5.1, the agenda, 5.2, the financial report, 5.3, the human resources recommendations in one vote. Looking for a motion. So moved. Thank you. Any questions or comments on 5.1 to 5.3? Okay. Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Ryan? Yes. Justine? Yes. Dave? Yes. Kathleen? Yes. Donna? Yes. And I vote yes. Moving on to our items for board action. We'll take these separately. 6.1 is our transportation contractor transfer that we discussed in information at the last meeting. Looking for a motion for 6.1. So moved. Second. Any questions or comments on 6.1? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Justine?

093Yes. Dave? Yes. Kathleen? Yes. Donna? Yes. Ryan? Yes. And I vote yes. Moving on to 6.2, our PSBA voting delegate. We need to appoint up to two voting delegates to represent the Gettysburg Area School District at the PSBA business meeting held on Saturday, November 7th of this year in the fall there. And I'm going to open the floor for nominations. I have a nomination. I would like to nominate two people, Ryan Kearney and Donna Clark. Harrison. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Old Hampton-Steinhardt is terrible. My apologies. Sincere apologies. Any other nominations? Do I have to get a second on the nominations? Okay, that's what I thought. I just wanted to double check. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. All right. I'm hearing no other nominations, so we'll close the floor for nominations and take a

094vote. Does someone have to make a motion to vote on this? Yeah. Wonderful. That's what I thought. On the slate together. Correct. Voting on a slate. I'm looking for a nomination for the slate of Donna Harrison and Ryan Kearney to serve as our PSBA representatives, or sorry, GASD representatives at the PSBA business meeting on the 7th. So moved. Thanks, Dave. Wonderful. Thank you. Any comments? Okay. Hearing none, we're going to vote. Thank you. Dave. Yes. Kathleen. And with a sincere apology on the name error. It's a really okay. Donna. I vote yes. Okay. Done. Yes. Yeah. Ryan. Yep. Justine. Yes. And I vote yes. All right. Thank you guys for serving in that role on the 7th in the future. Moving on to 6.3, the VITA settlement 2016 to 2017. This we discussed at the

095last meeting. There was a change in cost, and it's settled from the past. This is past action from years ago. Looking for a motion for 6.3. So moved. Second. Thank you. Any questions or comments on this? This item. Just I haven't had the chance to compare the numbers, but it looks like it's the same as what we saw last meeting. Correct. When I said it was a change, I meant the concept of this item as discussed last time was that there was a different, well, I'm describing it poorly, but that there's a settlement to kind of even out payment from the past. But, yes, it is the same as what we talked about at the last meeting. Yeah, thank you for that clarification. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Kathleen.

096Yes. Donna. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Justine. Yes. Dave. Yes. And I vote yes. All right. We're moving on. I'm going to say a quick thing just to kind of plug, and then I'll hand over for program reports. We have the, I sit on the board of the Gettysburg Area Education Foundation, representing the board, and they have a fundraiser night at the Totem Hall. It's the Totem Hall Playhouse coming up on July 1st over the summer. And this is just, I think they're actively selling tickets for that now to help benefit that organization and what they do for programs here in the school district. The musical, I have yet to see, but I love the music. As a musical person, it's a great one. It's Come From Away, and it's on July 1st at 730 at the

097Totem Hall Playhouse. There are papers at the back if you're interested in at least getting more information about it, but I highly recommend checking that out and supporting our education foundation. And I think that's a great way to get more information about the program. So, I'm going to hand it over to Dr. McFarland. And I'm going to ask Dr. McFarland to introduce himself and talk about what he's going to do at that fundraising evening. Dr. Matzner. Thank you. I just have a few things to go over. I'll try to keep it short. I'm actually going to do Dr. McFarland's report as well. He is in Erie right now at the Federal Programs Conference. We have to attend that every year around this time. Unfortunately, and maybe that's why he's sending this for me to do

098today. There was some bad news. They did get predicted federal programs. They did get predicted federal programs. They did get predicted federal programs. They did get predicted federal programs. They did get predicted federal program allocations for the 26-27 school year. And it looks like for Title I, we will be down about another 8% from what we were this year. And just to clarify, Belinda, the amount you talked about with Title II, the number that we got today was for 26-27. And that is going to be down about 25% from what we currently have this year. So, again, those are just predicted early allocations for the next school year. We don't know if that's definite yet. But it does look like our. Okay. So, we're going to get that. Okay. So, we're going to get that.

099Federal program dollars will drop for 26-27. So, now that that's out of the way, we'll go on to some happier stuff. One week from today, students, families, and staff from all three elementary schools will be marching in the Gettysburg Memorial Day Parade. So, hopefully, everybody gets a chance to get out there. As far as superintendent program report, as usual, I've announced recently our GASI GLOWS winners, the staff members that we recognize at the end of each month for going above and beyond. And for April, we have three more winners. Alan Sadler from the middle school, Meredith Ruckie at the admin building, and Cassie Essis from Lincoln Elementary were our award winners for the month of April. So, shout out to the three of them. Also want to congratulate the high school, middle school, combined minithon

100teams. They were raising money to support Four Diamonds and raised almost $35,000 total. So, that's a lot of money. Which is fantastic. So, congrats to both high school, middle school, minithon teams on an excellent job. Just a few calendar reminders in the near future as we're getting very, very close to the end. High school has Keystones this week, tomorrow, and Wednesday. As a reminder, all non-test takers will have remote learning days both tomorrow and Wednesday. And those students that are taking Keystones will be in the building. So, hopefully, everybody remembers. Which one? I love Keystones. I love it. I'm excited to see where they're going. No school Monday on Monday, the 25th, for the Memorial Day holiday. And then the Wednesday after that is our class of 2026 commencement. Warrior Stadium Wednesday the 27th. So,

101we'll be there to congratulate all of our seniors. And then our last student day is next Friday, May 29th. It is an early dismissal day, so secondary will be dismissing at 11 o'clock, with elementary dismissing at 12 o'clock. Again, we're so close. We're just about there. Thank you. Thanks, Dr. Ratzner. That brings us to our calendar of board events. We have our next meeting coming up on Monday, June 1st, in this room at 7 o'clock. That is our approval of the budget. So a big meeting. Come with popcorn. And we will come prepared. I also am just going to give a little PSA to the room that when this board meeting adjourns, we're asking that you kindly exit as soon as you can so that people can set up for voting for tomorrow. Okay? Thank

102you so much. Have a good night. Oh, looking for a meeting to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Go ahead, Donna. I just want to put a plug in. I went to the Ruth Harvest board meeting this afternoon, and they are having a fundraiser at Dairy Queen on June 11th. Okay? Wonderful. Thank you for that. Now looking for a motion. I'm sorry. I just, too. Oh, go ahead, Ryan. A plug. I know everyone is dying to leave, but with these federal cuts, I feel like I'm going to steal Kathleen's thunder and ask, how many of them are needs? And if that's going to catch us out, just like LIU did this time around. And so I know it's probably in flux quite a bit right now, but it might be something that we're going to end up

103having to then weigh in terms of our taxpayers paying for these different services. And unfortunately, we don't know really what the final number is going to be or will be probably until like February or March of next year. So what ends up happening is, and again, when Dr. McFarland emailed that to me this afternoon, I was actually kind of surprised they got preliminary numbers this early. Normally we don't find out until the summer what the numbers are. And then we get a funding adjustment period in February, March during the school year where we may have to adjust. And when I was assistant super the last couple years, I know there was one year where we got the funding adjustment and we actually got more money than we thought we were going to have, which was

104great. And then one year it went back down. I know this year, the number that we thought we were getting in Title I, then we had the funding adjustment in April. And that is when Dr. McFarland announced to everybody that we were getting cut by about another $60,000. So the preliminary numbers he has today for the 26th, 27th school year, that's what we'll start with when we fill out our applications in the summer for our federal programs. But again, we won't know really what those numbers are until February or March of next school year. And if you, if anybody feels frustrated by these timelines that we get from external parties, you can always feel free to call representatives and let them know the impact. I think I am now looking for a motion to adjourn

105the meeting. Actually, can I say one thing? Oh, go ahead, Kathy. I was poised to catch Mr. Glass before we all leave because I want you to know something that I think is really important information. Right now when we look at enrollment data, we're not seeing the head count and the cost for students who live in our district but actually attend non-district charter schools. So we're going to be adding that data when we next have student enrollment data. I think that will give us a fuller picture of where we're going and where we're trending. So thanks for bringing that up tonight. Looking for a motion to adjourn this meeting. So moved. Thank you so much. Have a good night.