001okay are we ready over there for recording okay it is now 7:00 p.m. and I'm re uh reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular Board of Education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday February 24th 2025 Michelle will you please call the RO Mr kis here miss gin here Mr Rising here miss fasik here miss Deming present Miss Donahue here and Miss Jane here Miss Jane will you lead us and the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all the next regular board meeting will be held on Monday March 10th we now have a public hearing it's now 701 one and I'm calling to order the public hearing for the
002amended budget evening members of the Board of Education I don't think that's on all right good evening members of the Board of Education tonight is the final step in adopting an amended budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year Administration is recommending the adoption of an amended budget to reflect the successful November 2024 referendum We Believe adopting an amended budget demonstrates with maximum transparency the impact of the referendum on the budget for the district as outlined at the January 13th Board of Education meeting where the amended budget was initially presented there are no changes to the operating budget for the 2425 school year the successful referendum was for Capital needs and thus only impacts the non-operating capital projects and Debt Service funds the primary amendment was to the capital projects fund which had Capital expenditures initially
003budgeted for 13 million we are now budgeting $26 million for Capital expenditures for this fiscal year uh obviously doubling the amount of capital work we plan to do this um this fiscal year uh this reflects the portion of referendum Capital work that will be completed by June 30th of 2025 a significant amount of that work will be done over the summer but I I am proud to report we are already starting a lot of that hard work now the capital project fund budget also now includes the proceeds from the initial Bond sale that was completed in December of 2024 that brought in initial proceeds of just under 15 million all these proceeds will be used and are restricted for capital projects whether they completed in this fiscal year or the next fiscal year The Debt
004Service fund is the fund that will repay the bonds and as the first payment of the bonds are not due until after June 30th there was no Amendment necessary to these expenditures uh consistent with our message from referendum the referendum will not increase the tax rate paid towards Bond and interest this is also reflected in the amended budget Administration has now Incorporated the successful referendum into our forecast for future periods and that includes the 5-year forecast presentation scheduled for later this evening as such we do not believe we will need amended budgets in the future as a result of the referendum consistent with requirements of the State Board of Education the budget was posted on the district's website for 30 days and a public notice was published in the neille Sun newspaper noting tonight's public
005hearing the business office has not received any public feedback on the budget and as such tonight's amended budget is presented with the recommendation that is adopted later this evening um I'm now open for any questions or for the next steps in the public hearing so we had no um public comments signed up to speak on the amended budget so um I will move to I need a motion in a second to close the public hearing I move that we close the public hearing second is there any discussion okay Michelle will you please call the r Miss fosik yes Miss gent yes Mr kurubas yes Mr Rising yes Miss Donahue yes Miss Demi I and Miss Jane yes the motion passes to close the public hearing so now we have seven board salutes we'll start with
006Miss fasic Right Illinois music Education Association all state music festival the board salutes the 68 District tool for high school student musicians who are selected by the Illinois music Education Association to perform at the all state music festival in Poria Indian Prairie annually places at the top of school districts Statewide and the number of student musicians selected for this conference this year District 204 had students participating in the All State Choir orchestra band jazz band composition track and future music educator seminar congratulations to our Allstate music students and their teachers Miss Jane Granger Middle School student wins DuPage County Regional spelling be the board salutes shuti ayyagari a seventh grader at Granger Middle School for winning the DuPage County Regional spelling be and advancing to the National Spelling be in Washington DC this may we
007also recognize Granger Middle School 8th grader duu Gali Gola as a run runner up and the still Middle School sixth grader aparna sarar for finishing in the top 10 congratulations to all do you have a second one or just one okay Miss gun I do have two Neighborville Public Works snowplow challenge the board salutes District 204 students for winning the name your Neighborville Public Works snowplow challenge the winning schools and their snowplow names are Brookdale Elementary School with Frosty the snowplow Cloud Elementary School with scoop I did it again fry Elementary School with blizzard of Oz May Watts Elementary School with chili Watson and Patterson Elementary School with Seymour snow congratulations to all the students involved in this fun event District 204 students earn Microsoft user specialist certification the board salutes the Mattia Valley business
008department for the success of 44 students who earned their Microsoft user specialist certification and microsof roft Excel during the first semester this certification validates their skills and prepares them for success in the workplace boosting their confidence and career opportunities congratulations to the students and business department for their achievements Mr kurubas Nia Valley students win Top honors at Silent Film Festival the board salutes n Val media students for winning top honors at the student Silent Film Festival their film friendzone earned both the outstanding achievement in cinema award and the audience Choice Award niav Valley was one of 11 high schools participating in the competition congrats to all Miss dumming Nika Valley teacher named as Golden Apple award finalist the board salutes niav valy English teacher Jullian Schneider for being named a 2025 Golden Apple Awards finalist
009for excellence and teaching she is just one of 30 teachers in Illinois being recognized for her dedication to students and her Innovative approach to teaching writing and literature winners of the 2025 Golden Apple award will be announced in the spring congratulations Miss Schneider on this well-deserved honor Mr Rising Illinois State Board of Education those who Excel and teacher of the year and Service Awards the board salutes several Educators and community members for their outstanding achievements in the 2025 Illinois State Board of Education those who Excel and Teacher of the Year Awards uh congratulations to Christina Min Claire Johnson and Sheria Holmes from Georgetown Elementary for receiving an award of special recognition we also recognize Laura ree from marcardi elementary and Sydney pulk from Brooks Elementary for earning an Award of Excellence a special thank you
010to Jillian Gibson District 204 parent who is also being honored with the community volunteer Award of Meritus service this educator recognition program acknowledges and appreciates Illinois's amazing teachers administrators support staff and community members who make a positive impact in their schools congratulations to all so let's have a round of applause for these amazing accomplishments next we'll have our student representative report by Ben Gula from Nia Valley High School good evening everyone I hope you're all doing well my name is Ben Gula and I'm the Schoolboard representative for nikai high school school to update you the first two months of this new year has been a major success for ni Val students and teachers first February plays a major role in student performance events such as our annual orchesta showcase and variety show each of these
011events are a major opportunity to provide our students um a showcase for their unique talents tomorrow our student council will be hosting one of our favorite Nia Traditions Mr and VHS ultimately based off of Hot Seat interviews creative outfits and unique talents a senior candidate will be crowned the title of Mr nvhs audience members have the opportunity to bring a full-size toiletry item to vote for their favorite contestant we hope to see you there moving on many of our sports team and extracurricular activities have seen many successes recently first we would like to recognize our varsity cheer team for placing third at State their hard work and dedication throughout the year provided them with a well-deserved spot on the podium next our boy swim and dive team got first place at DVC and did great
012as sectionals additionally our chess team and speech team plays top 10 at State showing that they both have a lot of hard work and dedication next I would like to congratulate two teachers whose hard work and dedication to teaching has gotten them to be recognized first Miss Julian Schneider a teacher in our English Department has qualified as a golden apple finalist which honors outstanding teachers and leaders second Mr Jim Fox has won the award for distinguished mathematics teaching recognized by the mathematical Association of America we are so grateful to have these talented Educators and the impact they have on our students is truly amazing looking into the future we have many events and and opportunities planned for our students this Wednesday we'll be holding a college admissions panel to help our students plan out their
013future we will also be having our annual monologue show on March 7th and 8th where students get to perform and act out their own writings our student council is introducing a new event called lucky to be a wildcat where they hold unique Spirit Week events and activities during the week of March 17th our fine arts department will be having our nvso concert on March 18th to hear our talented musicians and lastly we'll be having our first major senior event which is our Indian Prairie Scholars induction ceremony where we recognize the hard work of seniors who have met a specific GPA requirement as we start to transition into the final months of our school year we aim to provide the best resources and events to truly end the year off on a good note overall Nia
014has K been kicking off the new year on a great note and we hope to keep the momentum going thank you so much for listening and I hope you all have a good rest of your evening thank you next we have our school spotlight with stack Elementary today presented by Dr Elizabeth pman Miss D Bachelor and Mrs Nancy fiter good evening my name is Elizabeth pman I'm proud to be the principal of St Elementary School I'd like to thank you for having uh us visit you tonight it's my honor to introduce two fabulous teachers uh at te that are here to Spotlight our work with Sam labs and all that it has done for our students in our community so I'd like to introduce you to Mrs Danielle D bacheler and Mrs Nancy Fister we
015are honored to be here this evening D and I couldn't be more proud to represent STC and discuss and Spotlight we're going to do this in five minutes the best that we can um if you look at your today you have a kit right in front of you so you can see all the kits that the children receive from K through 5 um we're we're going to go quickly so we're going to start out with what is Sam labs and Sam Labs is a learning tool that helps students explore stem by building projects with simple coding connecting Motors lights sensors to see how their coding works and it is also letting them have Hands-On activities so the history and the goals of stem started in 2022 when it was initially rolled out we are currently
016in year three and hopeful in 2027 we will have full implementation in the elementary buildings the best thing I feel about Sam Labs is it is absolutely the portrait of a graduate the critical thinking the the resilience the collaboration the communication those are already starting in the elementary school so if you look at our STC Journey here in 2023 there were three teachers you're looking at two of them right now who were go-getters before school being trained by two of the best Liz Keta and Laura nyen who spent our mornings with us we knew right away it was going to be a love of children and we jumped right on board and wanted to go for it in 2023 the Sam sisters brought on latia Johnson the three of them have trained and co-taught and
017believe it or not dni got everybody on in 2024 and 2025 in our building cuz we sold it some of the great things that we do if you look at this is a seasonal thing where this is a second grade class they're coloring it they're coating it with RGB lights they have systems they're pairing it and you can see them right there just the magical things of the cooperation of those kids working together I'm just so excited to be back before you talking about Sam Labs again I don't have Graham with me this time um but I have some really fun things to kind of walk you through here um we strongly believe that intentional stem integration enhances student engagement um we start with these low pressure opportunities for student teamwork creativity Hands-On problem solving
018and Sam Labs is a tool um that kind of bridges the coding world to those real world applications that we're doing uh if you take a look at this picture students are looking at symmetry in nature we collected leaves Made A Little Fall Lantern um and then they coed some lights and motor sensors to kind of go with that and create a fall Lantern another example is where students are collaborating to brainstorm build and debug projects so in the winter time we built these little gingerbread house lights they designed them um we had up to six lights connected to each one um and students are learning from one another while gaining valuable experience um the big thing is they're presenting and explaining um their creations and so we're fostering that confidence and communication ability and
019young students once we've taught all of the beginning lessons we then have started to integrate it into our science lessons and so if you can look at the science integration we did with sea turtles in second grade we do habitats last year I did a whole week long with my team who jumped on board with me and they we did reading integrating writing integrating um LMC with the lock boxes and then we ended it with the Sam sisters coming Dr tally thank you for coming Dr Lee came um we looked at how the light uh the Sun and the light and the turtles travel um through the water and we spent that whole week looking at it and if you look at that picture there you can see how we made the ocean and how
020we made the sunlight and how the kids are working together so the whole week long we talked about sea turtles and tied it into our science unit Sam Labs elevates learning um it challenges students thinking and encourages creative problem solving it's Hands-On and we're exploring multiple Solutions um which is huge with kids debugging and designing interactive models um here in this picture um Miss Jane you were actually in our room the day that we were trying to do this um students coated weathered boards um to change colors with seasons and then also built a wind model um and then kind of had the windmill match the speed of the average seasonal temp so when you think of the science content we're covering and the depth we're able to go these kids make a difference um
021sticking with science your goal is for us to do three a year um and I've had the honor of doing all three so I'm going to highlight one more um Sam lams also deepens student understanding through creativity and experimentation designing interactive models Bridges the art Creative Design coding um and we're nuturing that Curiosity um we value our LMC if you take a look the students there with the bloxels um you know like the tiny little designs um we're able to not only code it but then take it um through that multimodal learning that way something else I want to in our building we have buyin um because our teachers are empowered uh the little badge you see there on the sign outside the classrooms that have done the four starter lessons they're on display so
022as you walk around um the district take a look and see what teachers are engaged that way um this part I'm really excited about um the opportunity that you've given me as an educator by having Liz and the role that she has lets me go into kind of my creative depths as well um with the new Ela curriculum um our inquiry project was how plants and animals uh work together to survive so they were supposed to do a scrapbook um and you know a little written entry and we were like well what if we kind of integrate Sam Labs with it um and so students were given task cards or they could develop their own project um and there's a lot of problem solving that goes in when you have to work with someone else
023to create some sort of design um and we found that failure becomes learning opportunity so the um students here um had ANS and AIDS and they wanted the bug to move 180° um and with the motor it moves 360 and so we were able to reach out to Liz and say hey we're looking for a block that moves 180 students advocating for their learning um and she got a Servo blocks and so um in the video of that it's not live on your PDF slide but the little legs move and there's power in that when students are able to do that um again Collective problem solving and perseverance so in summary we Empower our students at stack through personalized learning Pathways we allow them to take ownership of their learning and there's value in that
024um we want to showcase our student achievements at the national level um the very first year we rolled this out with Liz we had three teams tie for first place in a national design competition last year we had um two sets of teams play second and third where they're creating their own designs submitting them and winning again there's value in that creativity at STC we're committed to excellence and ensuring our classrooms evolve with the instructional um technology that's out there um and supporting others and so in elementary land we love prices so you all have a blocky um sticker so that you can remember um the great things that are happening in our elementary world you also have the Sam sisters link um I would encourage you to see all the wonderful things on that
025link of all the opportunities because of them the teamwork the collaboration that is why the teachers can strive and do this with children because there are so many wonderful resources to use and then there are two Eagles on the board tonight and there is one more and those are to thank those two that have come already to our school to see our Sam lab activities and we encourage any anyone else who would love to come to our school to see all the wonderful things that we are doing and we're honored tonight that you would give us the time to share the great things that we do at stack so thank you one more shout out we made those our 3D printers so thank you so thank you that was wonderful and so exciting thank [Applause]
026you so now um we also have another very exciting um agenda item tonight first for us right we haven't done this before so um we had a safety contact safe school starts with us and we will have a presentation by Miss Lisa Barry and officer Ron wilky we also like prizes okay good evening Dr tally president Donahue and board members thank you for allowing us time this evening to present awards for the winners of our school safety contest I'm joined by District 204 safety security and emergency preparedness coordinator Ron Wilkey and we would like to welcome all the student finalists and their parents who are here tonight we'd also like to welcome Tony burnit CEO of rival 5 Technologies invite him to the front to help in distributing the prizes to our winners we thank
027rival 5 for their generous sponsorship of this program which is allowing us to give away over $3,000 in prizes this evening we appreciate those who participated on our judging panel which included members of local law enforcement a representative from our sponsor rival 5 a representative from the Indian Prairie parents Council and our district safety security and emergency preparedness coordinator we thank them for their time and effort in selecting the winners who will be awarded this evening so this is our first annual safety contest in which students were encouraged to create posters digital designs or video PSAs to raise awareness about the importance of preventing threats to our schools and fostering a safe learning environment school safety is a shared responsibility and it is crucial that students staff and the community work together to create a
028culture of awareness vigilance and action by participating in this contest students are not only showcasing their creativity but also playing an active role in promoting safety and responsibility among their peers threats whether real hoaxes or made as a joke can have serious consequences and raising awareness about reporting concerns to trusted adults or law enforcement is key to keeping our school safe we had over 200 students from preschool through High School participate in this contest we also received entries from 26 of our 34 schools this initiative underscores District tool for is commitment to ensuring that every student feels secure valued and supported in their learning environment we are proud to see our students using their voices to make a difference and we look forward to continuing this important work together we'll begin with award for our
029elementary and early childhood level in which students submitted a drawing or a poster when we call your name please come to the front to receive your certificate and prize and stay at the front for a group photo that will be taken when all of the students in your level have been awarded we have three honorable mention Awards our first honorable mention winning a $50 Amazon gift card is a kindergarten student from Peters Elementary madash please come [Applause] forward oh sure our second honorable mention is a third grade student from May Watts Elementary an come on up fun fact about an she might have had a Mrs wilky for a teacher last year as I remember her right y our final honorable mention goes to third grade student from Brooks Elementary sanne [Applause] our third place
030winner at the elementary and early childhood level receiving a $100 Amazon gift card is a second grade student from Brookdale Elementary rajat [Applause] our second place winner receiving a $250 Amazon gift card is a fifth grade student at Owen Elementary Arnav [Applause] and our first place winner at the elementary and early childhood level and receiving a $500 Amazon gift card is a first grade student from kalesha elementary Arya please come up to [Applause] [Music] receive and we do have a brief video highlight of arya's award which we'll play now oh that's all right hey and if we could do a photo of all of our elementary students and if parents want to take a photo as well you're welcome to come up as well and take a picture of your children [Applause] okay moving on
031to the Middle School level students submitted both digital designs and video PSAs again when we call your name please come to the front to receive your certificate and prize and stay at the front for a group photo after all the students have been awarded we have three honorable mentions our first honorable mention winning a $50 Amazon gift card is a sixth grade student from Hill Middle School [Applause] Abigail our second honorable mention is a sixth grade student from gra Middle School G [Applause] our final honorable mention goes to a group of eighth grade students from Hill Middle School aditia doc Maxim Dylan and Rashi [Applause] our third place winner at the middle school level receiving a $100 Amazon gift card is a sixth grade student from Hill M School Isabella please come up for your
032our second place winner receiving a $250 Amazon gift card is a seventh grade student at fiser Middle School [Applause] Evelyn and our first place winner at the middle school School level and receiving a $500 Amazon gift card are eighth grade students from Hill Middle School Dylan and Kaden fortunately Dylan and Kaden are not here tonight to receive their award but we have Dylan and Caden's video to view now hey everyone we all want to feel safe at school right but did you know each one of us has the to make that Happ threats in school can come in many forms real fake or even just the joke and sometimes it can be hard to know do but we can't ignore them if you hear something see something or feel something's off it's your responsibility to
033report no matter what kind of threat it is real or a HX it's important to speak up never know your actions could prevent something if something serious does happen report it to a trusted adult or even the police it's always better to be safe and sorry we all have an important role in keeping our schools safe remember safe schools start with usar so speak up don't let fear or doubt keep you from doing the right thing together we can keep our school a safe place for everyone let's do our [Applause] okay and we'll do another group photo okay for sure yeah [Applause] okay and finally we will award students at the high school level students submitted drawings and posters digital designs and video PSAs when we call your name please come to the front to
034receive your certificate and prize and stay at the front for a photo we have three honorable mention Awards our first honorable mention winning a $50 Amazon gift card is a senior at wabansi Valley High School Andrea [Applause] our second honorable mention is a junior at wans Valley High School Maria [Applause] our final honorable mention goes to a senior at Nia Valley High School [Applause] Kira our third place winner at the high school level receiving a $100 Amazon gift card as a senior at Nia Valley High School [Applause] Sam our second place winner receiving a $250 Amazon gift card is a freshman at Nia Valley High School Alisa [Applause] and our first place winner at the high school level and receiving a $500 Amazon gift card as a group of students from oans Valley High School
035Michelle Jackson and William please come up to accept and we also have Michelle and Jackson's video to share now as well [Music] we'll do a group photo congratulations again to all of our students who won awards during this year's safety contest we would also like to acknowledge all the students who have participated in the contest and the parents and teachers who supported our students in the process we appreciate your partnership and recognition that safety of our schools is a shared responsibility and takes all of us working together we'd again like to thank Tony Bern and rival five for their generous sponsorship of our first annual safety contest we will be holding the safety contest again next year in conjunction with school safety week in October watch for information at the start of school year thank
036you everyone thank you thank you y that was wonderful all right it is now time for public comment and 60 Minutes is allowed each person is limited to three minutes when addressing the board we ask that you respect the confidentiality and safety of our students and School District Personnel we also ask that those addressing the board be cognizant that this is an open meeting and is available to all age groups and as such ask that you consider who the audience members are this evening and keep comments age appropriate public comment represents the voice and opinion of the speaker there will be no feedback from the board members during the meeting but followup will be provided by an administrator as appropriate although this is not required it is helpful for the board to know whether the
037comments and concerns we hear are being raised by residents so we ask that you state if you live in the district and if you currently have children in our schools we have one speaker tonight Alisha Smith hello my name is Alicia Smith I do live in the district I live in the gombert attendance area I graduated from wans Valley high school and also attended Gregory Middle School I taught at Georgetown Elementary School and Kendall Elementary School and my niece and nephews attend gombert elementary school 204 needs equity in having successful schools three 204 Schools fall below the state average in State Testing Georgetown Longwood and mccardy when the district designed the boundaries of Georgetown it gave them a low income population of 63% that is more than triple the district average of 21% longwood's low-income
038population is 58% which is almost the district average of 21% both are also higher than the state average then the district created even more INE Equity by having three of its schools with the highest low-income percentages feed into fiser Middle School school districts do not have to create inequitable schools that cannot meet the State Testing averages Neighborville 203's low-income average is 18% compared to 204's 211% Neighborville 203 does not have a single school with the low-income average that is more than doubled the district average let alone triple as a result every single School in neille 203 is well above the state average and State Testing a 2016 study found that in almost all major cities black and brown students are much more likely to attend schools where most of their peers are considered poor or
039low-income researchers have found that the single most powerful predictor of racial gaps in educational achievement is the extent to which students attend schools surrounded by other lowincome students we should not be surprised at the racial gaps in the district or at fiser Middle School when black and brown students are in schools with high low-income percentages the time is now to fix systemic equities in our educational system the needs and rights of children cannot wait for a kindergartner at Georgetown mccardy or Longwood how many years of the same trend line if the school board an Administration are committed to equity this segregation by income needs to be fixed if Neighborville 203 can make sure that all of its students are attending successful schools why can't 204 we deserve to be included in the district's educational Excellence
040we want Equitable schools for Georgetown longwin and mcari all of this information is available on the Illinois school report card online go online to the Illinois school report card and then type in the school district or school to see the information thank you thank you we now move to our consent agenda and superintendent report we will start with the superintendent report Dr tally Miss Don Who members of the Board of Education Indian Prairie Community last Friday Mr Jason stip principal of wanzi Valley High School was identified as the Illinois PTA principal of the year we congratulate Mr stip for his dedication and commitment to the students at Bans Valley the application for his nomination read in part Jason stip is the principle everyone should have at least once during their school career because of his
041dedication to the students in his building there is no doubt for anyone who has been in the halls of leonzi Valley High School in Aurora any time during the past 12 years that Jason's capacity for student well-being is his top priority we are thankful for the PTA in submitting the nomination their partnership with the school and the district makes a world of difference on Saturday March 8th we will have our third annual mental health Symposium you can find information on our website about the Symposium that will take place at Matia Valley High School there will be a breakout sessions for both adults and children we are pleased that neille 203 weaton warville District 200 East Aurora West Aurora and iGo districts are working with us on this event more than 300 people have signed up
042for the um um Symposium already so you still have time parents are asked to complete their school's five essential surveys survey results are important part of the school improvement process data from the survey help surveys help each school's Administration understand what is going well in their school and where they can improve for a school to receive results however a school must have 20% of its parents complete the surveys you should have received information about the survey from your child school or you'll also have received it in our weekly email that was sent out on Wednesday surveys must be completed by March 31st finally we have a request to name the auditorium at wanzi Valley high school after Mr Dave Calbert who retired from lanzi Valley in 2024 after 3 4 years of service to the
043school district and more specifically to hansi he taught English and film studies he was also the drama and thesbian Club sponsor for 25 years and he directed over 120 Main stage and musical Productions if anyone has caused for us moving forward with naming the auditorium at leonzi Valley for Mr Dave calber they need to contact my office before the March 24th Board of Ed meeting and now I'll turn it back over to you Miss Don H we now move to our consent agenda items I need a motion in a second for consent agenda items D through N I move that the Board of Education approve consent agenda items D through n as presented second any discussion okay Michelle will you please call the RO Miss gin yes Miss Deming I Mr kurubas yes Miss fck
044yes Mr Rising yes Miss Jane yes and Miss Donahue yes motion passes next we move to our action items I need a motion and a second to approve the amended budget as presented move that the Board of Education approves the fiscal year 2025 uh amended that would be the school Year's 24 through 25 school year amended budget um approval as presented a second is there any discussion okay Michelle will you please call it rooll Mr Rising yes Miss Deming I miss gin yes Mr kis yes Miss Donahue yes Miss fosik yes and Miss Jane yes the motion passes okay I now need a motion in a second to approve the gifts and donations report for the first semester for the 2024 2025 school year as presented I moveed that the Board of Education approved the
045gifts and donations report 2024 25 first semester as presented second any discussion Dr T can you just remind the public what this is of the GES and donations report pull it just helps these are gifts and I a school district is only as good as our connection with our community and our engagement with our families and so these are gifts that are given and donations given to our schools through a variety of organizations or people people who donate um either direct money or other items to the schools and so um this is uh acknowledging what the schools and Gifts have we have received and other services that we've received ta didn't mean to put you on a spot but thank you no it's it's important it it's um it's valuable to take a look at
046that because you see how generous our community is and our families in supporting our district and um we couldn't do this without that help and support so thank you um Michelle will you please call the RO Miss fic yes Miss gent yes Mr kurubas yes Mr Rising yes Miss Deming I miss Donahue yes and Miss Jane yes the motion passes now I'll have a presentation from Dr Trudy Ransom regarding the Indian Prairie Education Foundation which is a major a contributor to supporting the district um these programs good evening and thank you once again for having me here to report do my midyear report for the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation um my name is Dr Trudy Ranson and I am the executive director of the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation also known as ipf um I am
047proud and honored to be serving in my third year as executive director for the foundation we are delighted to renew our partnership with the district for the 36th year uh we have been around since 1988 and we have come a long way since then but our overall mission Remains the Same to be your dedicated partner to enrich education for students all students supporting their academic artistic emotional and physical needs here tonight I'm going to give you our our midyear report and a preview of some of our upcoming events at the foundation some of you might recognize those yellow shirts um as part of our full Financial disclosure policy I wanted to give give the actual numbers uh to the board and to the public of our section of the midyear giving report um this is
048I am incredibly proud to say the largest one semester donation um in goods and services that the foundation has given to District 204 uh in the last 10 years so I just wanted to show you sort of how our funding overview broke down this year um District support team team ipf uh grants the A+ award and kid Essentials are our uh five biggest categories and I also wanted to break down the district support because that does include a lot of our regular programs um the Fine Arts Festival Valley Runway young hearts for life all three of those programs are how much we have spent so far this year and a bonus program that we were able to provide this year thanks to a grant from the Illinois State Board of Education and in collaboration with
049Dr Tara Bell here at the district offices um we were awarded a substantial Grant to help support the district's rise after school programs um these programs uh support after school programs for lowincome students in our district at Brookdale keshaw Georgetown gombert Longwood mccardy and Welch elementaries and also at fiser Hill and Granger middle schools we are proud to present uh three very widely diverse kind of programs for these students um the man in the black chucks who is a middle school Youth Development uh social emotional learning speaker um the africanamerican men of unity and their after school mentoring program for both middle school and Elementary School students and the joy of reading or Club Joy which is for our elementary students a reading interventions program in the form of a fun and engaging book club
050and then they get to go on a field trip down to the Harold Washington University or Library Harold Washington Library um at the end of the semester our A+ award program is in its 11th year and so far this year we have given out five Awards to outstanding uh teachers and staff members everyone from an elll teacher to a first year teacher to an administrator to a uh robotics coach we are hitting all the buttons and no spoilers but we will see you all tomorrow at Matia Valley to hand out award number six go go Mustangs team ipf 2024 finally wrapped up in January with the big check tour I had a really great time going around to our various schools uh handing it with my giant oversized ipf check everybody loves it when I
051show up with that thing um but this year team ipf 2024 had 285 participants that is staff students community members um parents alumni everyone gets together to support their schools all all 34 buildings had a team this year and we raised over $80,000 now of course half of the money raised by our Runners at each school gets returned to their school so uh we got to write a very big check for over 38 almost $339,000 out to the various schools and I would like to give a special shout out to tiny little Graham Elementary the small school with the very big heart who was our biggest fundraiser this year they raised over $112,000 for team ipf this year um and I had the privilege of giving them back a check for $7,100 uh all of
052this money is complete as I say mad money so the schools can spend it on in whatever way they need to on whatever programs they would need a little extra money that might not be in the budget so it's always fun to see what they do with it um um it's anything from uh friendship benches to uh software that an entire Middle School uses um we have a good time seeing how they spend it and we are very grateful to everyone who runs with Team ipf including everyone who is sitting up here who has at one time or another run for our team we appreciate your support and we appreciate the community support for this important fundraiser this year we gave out 10 teacher Innovation grants we had quite a few uh pretty cool entries
053this year everything from um stem and we did hit science technology engineering and math so I feel like we ran the whole gamut there World Language um grants reading grants writing grants seal art um and we did have a really nice spread uh four Elementary three middle school and three High School Grants this year um shout out to Granger and their Bluebird uh houses that they do as a part of their Hands-On projects the students actually build their own so it's really kind of a Nifty uh thing to see and uh the other picture up there is from our um gaming Across America so uh we do all kinds of fun uh classroom supports so that teachers can try out innovative uh approaches to education okay I'm super proud of this one uh so is
054Dr tally we were so proud we had to uh collaborate because we were both going to mention it but I would like to say that our cardiac screenings program um is a huge undertaking we only do it every other year uh partly because of that partly because of cost but uh ipf is proud to fund this program because every time we do it I keep saying it it saves lives and I brought you that the the real up-to-date numbers we just finished Matia Valley at the beginning of February and they were our last school to go as you can see um each High School exceeded 1,600 students uh wans Valley edged everybody out just a little bit um congratulations Warriors but at the turnout this year was just amazing and it wasn't just the turnout
055for screenings the volunteers that came out to help us I cannot thank them enough obviously this can't be done and you can see this needs a massive amount of volunteers uh this year over 580 in total um and 36 students were flagged for further review um in the aggregate at our high schools um that is 36 students who were flagged with an abnormal e CG the um the the students are referred on to an extra to a additional um screening an additional doctor's visit and these tests have a false positive rate of less than 1% so that is 36 students and families whose lives we have directly impacted just this year by the program and because I'm a statistics person and I can't help myself I wanted to give you the overall numbers this year
056since we began in 2008 2009 school year we have screened over 44,000 high school students 444 were uh referred on for further review and over 4,400 volunteers from our community have come out to help us with this important program it really does take a community it really does take a village and look at all of those children that we helped um so for everyone in our community who participated in this thank you and um we are looking forward to doing this again in the let me see if I get this straight now 26 27 school year thank you also to our partners the Young Hearts For Life um nonprofit Association Endeavor health and international paper for helping us uh uh present and um make these screenings available for all of our students in the academic
057enrichment uh category um near and dear to my heart we did a lot of music support in the first semester uh collage Crystal prism our holiday concerts were amazing as always wonderful job to the students uh meet the artist at um wabansi Valley and the Masterworks concert at Nia Valley High School both well worth seeing if you haven't had the opportunity um I threw the magical singers up there because uh I could and um and uh congratulations to the magical um for not only performing at the collage concert but also for performing around our community and spreading holiday cheer uh in the stem category we have already uh had several High School robotics tournaments taking place and our Middle School robotics tournament just took place at the beginning of February congrat congatulations to uh Team
058Crone C and all girls robotics team uh who took the championship at the February tournament um upcoming we have our elementary robotics tournament on March 7th and 8th ipf is incredibly proud to continue to support robotics in District 204 and finally I'd like to invite you all to breakfast because uh it's the most important meal of the day and uh and there will be coffee I promise um we are going to do the Inspire event a little differently this year in the past it has been a night event but we wanted to make sure that we had everyone in a room it's a captive audience we're going to feed you breakfast and we are going to tell you about our mission and about the programs uh the highlights this year will be our Fine Arts
059support our cardiac screenings and our kid Essentials program um so please come if you haven't already bought your tickets uh tickets will be on sale for another about a couple of weeks uh or until they sell out which is a distinct possibility as I'm running the numbers so uh please do join us we would love to see you if you would like to sponsor sponsorships are due um a one week from today finally if those out in YouTube land are wondering how they can make a difference how you can make a difference please join us at our Inspire breakfast find out what we're all about um or you can register for team ipf 2025 I know it seems really early to be talking about this but charity registration um to get the most bang for
060your discount um runs from March 3rd through April the 30th and so you will be seeing all of those yellow shirted posts in your social media um you can nominate a teacher or a staff member for the A+ award anyone who has gone above and beyond um for you for your student uh we would love to hear your stories and then finally if you'd like to learn more about any of these programs that I have discussed tonight please visit our ipf website at ipf 2014.org um or you can contact me directly at Trudy Ranson ipsd.org um I would love to answer any questions uh that you may have for me this evening thank you very much for having me again and um I'm open for questions I'm just going to open it up to anyone
061if they have any questions or comments I just have one quick question um will ipf still be taking donations for Valley Runway and if so when does that happen Valley Runway is actually happening this Friday at Graham Elementary I believe that the appointments are already uh scheduled for this year but we do take donations for gowns and accessories year round um because we do have to find clothing for a lot of girls for those of you not familiar with the valley Runway project it is the opportunity for students who might not be able to afford to go to prom to get a to come in and select a prom dress of their choice um on the special day so I'm looking forward to attending that event on Friday I just wanted to uh not only
062compliment you but I know you have a board of very dedicated committed parents and community members in our district so I just wanted to give a shout out to to them as well because I know they help you with a lot of these things because you can't do it all yourself um so just wanted to give that shut up yeah thank you very very much for everything that you do Trudy I know it's a a lot of effort but it's a loved effort and it really is a very expansive array of things that you get involved with you know from music to robotics to you know um Project Runway you know all sorts of different aspects of helping out um our community and our students and uh I I know it doesn't come without a
063lot of work so thank you so much for everything you do thank you we are glad to be of service to the district okay we will now have a presentation from Mr Matt Chipley regarding the 2026 2030 Financial forecast all right good evening again Board of Education I guess most people were here for the amended budget this evening so uh thank you for for allowing me to present this evening uh twice uh both on the amended budget for the current fiscal year but then to also look forward to our financial forecast uh and primary focus is going to be the next five years so fiscal years 2026 to 2030 although as part of the presentation we're going to look look back a little bit as well as looking at the current year as well as
064even go go uh past 2030 in some instances too so this is the most comprehensive uh review and and of the longrange forecast for the district that we uh give to the board each year um tonight's presentation is consistent with board policy 4.10 as well as strategic plan priority number four um and I'll mention the uh we were here a few weeks ago myself Dr tally and Dr Lee presenting on the um the Statewide Vision 2030 and I know there was a a comment or an ask that we we sort of work to tie some presentations with that uh with that Vision 2030 and so one of the things I'll emphasize that we talked about in that present ation that'll sort of uh kind of come come up several times in this presentation is the
065importance of predictability uh in in financing uh public education and so we'll talk about some um Revenue sources and some actions that are that are fairly predictable for our district as well as some that that are maybe a little less so and we can talk about um the potential impacts in that uh as a result of that but but again one of the the key pillars of that Vision 2030 is just that for our districts and for our students to to Really Excel uh we need to have that that predictability and stability in place for our districts um tonight's presentation really is kind of the presentation that kicks off our our annual budget process although of course um the budget is a year round process and we'll also make mentions of some actions that and
066some discussions we've already had at a district level as we look forward to next year um so our Focus uh our agenda uh we're going to start by just looking at a uh summary of the prior year operating budget and compare that to um our actual results that we've now received we'll look at where we are year-to date so through the first six months of this current school year uh again comparing budget to actual uh we'll look at our operating revenues uh a fiveyear forecast for those revenues we'll also look at an operating expenditure 5year forecast and talk about uh some specific expenditure challenges uh that we're having uh we'll look at our non-operating funds which is our capital projects and Debt Service funds those are the funds that are going to look the most
067different uh from prior years as a result of our successful referendum uh we're going to spend a little bit of time looking specifically at our fund balance uh sort of a long range projection and Analysis for our fund balance as well as um sort of an initial proposal that that uh Administration would like to bring to the board this evening for how to uh maybe better manage our fund balance or or use those funds uh in the future and then finally we'll just close with a summary I'll be available for any questions and we could talk about the next steps as we move towards the 20 26 fiscal year um so I just want to start before we uh really dive into our operating funds uh just kind of providing a few key def definitions
068or or overview of our operating funds uh again I know uh in in education and and definitely the business office is no different we tend to talk in in jargon and abbreviation so hopefully uh a few times this evening we're just going to try and uh take a take a deep breath and maybe uh maybe take a step back and talk through some of some of what we mean by by some of these terms so we talk about our operating funds we're talking about six funds six separate funds or or six separate sources of money uh that are maintained by the district and those six funds are education fund our operations and maintenance fund uh Transportation fund um imrf which itself is an abbreviation for the uh Municipal retirement fund and Social Security uh a
069working cash fund and then a tort liability fund um all these funds are reported uh in accordance with state board of education requirements so all school districts across the state are required to to maintain These funds and and Report revenues and expenses uh in the same format within them uh the focus of these funds is really the day-to-day operations of the district and revenues dedicated to fund daily operations um so this is this is the the overwhelming majority of both our revenues and our expenditures and again they're tied to to sort of annual recurring expenses um and so as a result these operating funds are not directly impacted by our recently successful safer stronger 204 referendum and that's why when we passed the amended budget earlier this evening we were pretty explicit that that really
070just impacts those non-operating funds which we'll cover later in the evening um so talking about the operating funds the the first step this evening is really to look at last year or the 23 24 school year and talk about um the the actual results compared to budget we have received our audit back and that that was provided to the board several weeks ago as well as being posted online it's publicly available for any any Community member and and uh any user of those financial statements but that audit uh was completed and met all requirements it was a clean audit uh which which meant we received no controlled deficiencies or compliance findings we had no significant adjustments uh to the financial statements as a part of that audit uh as part of the audit the Auditors
071reviewed two Grant programs they reviewed our Esser Grant or the the federal Co relief funds as well as our tital one program and again found no uh compliance issues with those those uh Grant programs uh we will obtain recognition status from the State Board of Education as a result of that audit so this is our um we're going on on several years in a row of obtaining that recognition status and I'll point out one of the key drivers of that is that we ended the year with about a 39% fund balance to revenues ratio and that compares to 25% which is required for recognition status and again it's it's been almost two years now since we really started talking about uh that fiscal year and what that that the budget priorities would be but I
072just want to say we did did generally meet those those uh priorities that were in the budget and that was uh to fund some summer and auxiliary learning Pro um programs which were tied with the Esser funding uh it was to complete a significant Elementary Ela curriculum adoption as well as several other curriculum adoptions that we did during the year and then also it was to fund capital projects out of operating so again this this budget was pre-referendum it was pre having that that uh referendum funding source for Capital and so we did make a priority of completing some capital projects out of operations um we did these priorities knowing that we had several non-recurring Revenue sources occurring in that fiscal year and that included those those Esser Grant funds which have now expired but
073it also included some interest income uh as interest rates continued to rise during that fiscal year as well as some one-time cppt revenues or or replacement tax revenues and so this shows the prior year budget to actual um compared uh again comparing the actual uh results to to what the budget we passed back in the the summer of 2023 and shows the variance there um so I want to say both revenues and expenditures were over budget and they were both over budget by approximately 10 million uh 10 million is obviously a large number but but given the size of our budget that that's just over 2% of the total budget for both revenues and expenditures uh you know we didn't you know as you know we amended the budget this evening for some non-operating um
074needs and we didn't amend the budget despite it being over for um revenues and expenditures for a few reasons um the first is that in total the budget was balanced you could see that our Surplus and deficit came um really almost uh you know less than uh $23,000 in line with budget so there wasn't um a need to to amend the budget because of a a deficit our expenditures um although they were above budget uh did tie really closely to the revenue that was over budget as well um we did acknowledge these these variances throughout the fiscal year uh when we updated the board and so that was sort of our informal acknowledgement of some of those those um those variances and then just in looking at some of the specific state legal requirements none
075of these variances uh triggered like a legal requirement at the state level to amend the budget um so I did want to acknowledge that although we were over budget uh in a few areas there wasn't the need to amend the budget like we did this year um so with that I I just added a few uh specific comments I wanted to make about some of the the specific line items where maybe we we saw significant variances for the prior year so first when we look at that other local revenues we were above budget by uh 3.8 million um this was a budget number that we had already sort of increased from prior years but we saw even more Revenue again tied tied primarily to higher interest rates so the district we received a significant source
076of our revenues property taxes we received that all at the beginning of the year and so we have an opportunity to invest those funds in earn interest and we're investing in very short-term investment products those things that are very closely tied to the federal funds rate and to what you see as some of the shortterm uh interest rates you may you may see when you drive by bank and and they're kind of flashing what they're offering on a six-month or 12- month CD um so while that was good that we that we received some of those um uh influx of Interest Revenue again that's very that's that's that's tied and can change very quickly as interest rates decrease and we've started to see an environment where uh that federal funds rate is starting to come
077back down and so we are starting to prepare for lower interest rates in the future uh the second large Revenue variant was in the federal revenue uh space of uh about 5.4 million uh we did receive some one-time federal grants uh primarily tied with the the Esser funding that that we were able to to develop specific programming around that that drove that increase um I'll also point out our school lunch participation has increased significantly over the past couple years too and we've sort of from a budgetary standpoint struggled to to keep up with the higher participation we're seeing um a lot of that's that's tied directly to our participation in what's known as the C program program so last year was the first year we were able to offer free lunches for all students at
078several of our buildings and uh we've actually been able to increase that by another building or two this past school year and so we're seeing an an increase in revenues but but that does tie with an increase of expenses as well uh so the two the two expenses that were sort of significantly over budget that I'll that I'll quickly highlight the first is purchase Services uh so again that's purchases related to some of those federal grants I just mentioned whether it's the school lunch program whether it's specific um summer programming or or programming where we were using contractual services to deliver Services uh we also have I think talked with the board over the past several years about uh we are using some contractual services to fill some special ed um needs some specific um
079High need services are now being um provided through purchase Services as opposed to maybe a um a full-time employee and that is kind of creating a little bit of variance you'll see our salary variance for example favorable but then that's offset partially by that that purchase service um um being over budget and then the second area was was Capital outlay so uh again this was pre-referendum we saw an opportunity as as some of those interest revenues were coming in um above what we budgeted to to use those one-time funds for for some one-time capital projects and so we really felt um uh excited about the opportunity in the summer of 2024 to use those funds to to increase our capital outl program so with that said I'm this is now the year-to-date budget to actual
080operating funds and so uh this is through um December 31st uh 2024 so it's six months of actual data and then using sort of projected or forecasted budget data for the remaining six months and then kind of comparing that to our budget um on its face it looks fairly similar to what we saw last year where we we have a positive variance in revenues that's roughly offset by a by a um expenditures being being over budget but uh I do believe there's some key differences when we really dig into some of these line items that are impacted in some of the data um so first of all on the on the revenue Trend again revenues are trending above budget however you'll see that federal revenue um variance has has gone away and again that's that's
081with the expiration of the SR funding um so it really is just that excess interest income that's really driving uh that positive Revenue variance um when we go down the the expense variances um again a difference from last year we're now over budget on salaries uh so our our goal you may remember when we presented the the last budget was actually was to decrease FTE by about 8 FTE uh just to recognize that uh the SR funding had had expired and we were going to need to sort of rightsize our staffing uh but as we got into some of the specific needs we had uh as we prepared for this upcoming school year we actually increased FTE by about five positions and so we have a variance in FTE of about 13 between what what's
082occurring today in our schools and what we had budgeted um we're continuing to also use some of the purchase Services line items to to fill some of those special education needs as well um you'll see not a lot of the Varian is coming from Capital Outlet we we are um spending very little uh for Capital out of operating this year um and then you will see a a a variance tied to that other objects category and that is um primarily driven by a significant increase in outplaced students so these are students with significant needs that uh after um uh working very closely with our student services department uh a decision's made that they the best way to support those students is through an outplaced environment or through through them being um placed in another facility
083uh you know that that's really a last resort for our our team and after we've had many years of of successfully sort of of minimizing the number of students we we outplay and having that number uh decline slightly or stay stable um but but we've now seen a significant increase and that those students um that outplacement does have a significant budgetary cost with it so as that increase has gone up we've we've exceeded the budget um in that area and so really what what's sort of the the the overlining me message or that that we're looking to as we talk about um kind of looking at both prior year as well as year-to dat so in both years our Revenue has performed favorably compared to to the budget but again that's primarily been temporary revenues
084in both years uh in 23 24 we were using that additional Revenue to support temporary programs so again some some one-time Grant funded programs some one-time Capital programs however this year we've now seen a shift where that additional revenue is supporting core programming it supported legally required Services it's we're um supporting our student services operation it's it's Rec it's supporting recurring expenditures and so we're now at a point where our recurring revenues no longer support current expense Trends uh and so as a result uh we've been proactive as an Administration and we've begin taking steps to address the budget challenge for next school year um but we'll we'll show here shortly that um while we balanced the the current year we're still working to to look at how that Trends out and and results in
085a balance budget going forward um so shown here is our uh operating funds forecast for the next five years for fiscal year 2026 through 2030 um again you'll you'll notice in fiscal year 2026 we are projecting a small surplus of about $57,000 that is after we've um projected some reductions for next school year and we'll talk uh primarily in the expenditure section here about what those what those specific reductions are but then going forward into 2027 and on we are projecting small deficits uh ranging from about 1.3 million to about three million over over that period And so uh if the current Revenue Trends hold that does mean that we'll need to look at at some further expense um reductions or or changes to our to our programming expense structure to ensure a balanced budget
086so uh now we'd like to transition a little bit and just look at our uh summary of the the revenues that are included in this 5-year forecast so we'll start start sort of with the traditional pie chart that shows how our revenues break down and this does tend to be very consistent between fiscal years um so the district continues to be extremely reliant on local property tax revenues with property tax revenues representing 78% of our operating revenues uh you know sometimes we spend a lot of time talking about state and federal uh revenues tonight will be no exception but uh as a reminder those represent just 14% And 3% respectively of our revenues um other local revenues makes up a smaller portion about 5% again that that includes the interest revenues we've we've already talked
087about it includes um student fees Services it includes some building rental revenues it just really includes a variety of of um transactions or and fees generated at the local level um just there there's a lot on this chart here and I don't want to go into um every every box or line item here but uh just wanted to put put through through in sort of one graph some of the key um drivers of our property tax revenue the key assumptions we're making about those those um assumptions and then also the not just the impact on the district operating Revenue but also the impact on District taxpayers so property taxes as as as you know operate uh differently than than most if not all the other taxes that our our residents and individuals pay and so
088I think sometimes it can get um a little confusing how how actions taken by this board or act assumptions we're making about um our property tax revenues uh impact our taxpayers as individuals and so um this document here or this chart kind of kind of summarizes how how the different assumptions or pieces of that property tax puzzle impact both the district but also our taxpayers um the couple I'll just highlight uh quickly uh the main driver for how much revenue we project is the Consumer Price Index uh for tonight's uh forecast we are ass assuming the actual Consumer Price indexes for 2023 and 2024 as well as a projection range of 2 to 2.5% for the remaining future years uh the reason this is the most critical assumption is because our tax levy is capped
089to the CPI each year um if you look at the far uh column there where we talk about other considerations that does mean as we really look to manage our budget uh it it's important that our expenses also are tied or or we do our best to manage those expenses towards CPI and when we get into the expenditure section I've I've chosen two expenses tonight to highlight that are specifically increasing above the Consumer Price Index and as a result are are ultimately taking funds away from other District programs in order to meet those needs um the second piece I I'll cover is just kind of our our new property and and Tiff distribution section here um so while CPI is sort of the cap on current or existing property the district does receive additional tax
090revenue when there's new property added to the district um about 50 million of new property generates about 2.5 million in new Revenue annually and that's about what we're assuming um I'll point out though that new property often especially if it's residential means new students and so a lot of times um depending on the the the property type uh we will see students generated in excess of what that that new property is generating and Revenue uh one of the challenges as as a district is as many of you know a lot of our new property over the past several years has been residential um and it has been a um a variety of property types um we've we've seen everything from um Apartments to and and town homes all the way to single families still being
091added to the district um and that's why it's so important as we uh see the headlines about about some new commercial developments finally coming in into the district that that's why it's so important that we continue to encourage commercial commcial development in the district we continue to work collaboratively with our cities uh we encourage we continue to encourage our residents to to shop local and and patronize those those local businesses because that is so important for our property tax base um and and again while it's while it's good news that that we are seeing some some new commercial Redevelopment um I personally will probably be the first person in line when STS Donuts opens in the next couple months um you know it's been a long time coming and we really are still playing catchup
092on that commercial development piece um and the Tiff distributions piece really speaks to that as well we are anticipating we'll start receiving some distributions from the city of Aurora for residential property within the Fox Valley Tiff however we're only receiving those distributions for residential property any commercial property within that is is still not um generating property tax revenue for the district and and won't for the length of the Tiff which is still another 10 plus years um so this this next slide is is attempting to to talk to um at a high level that that taxpayer impact column of the previous slide so how how are taxpayers impacted by those those sort of CPI increases each year that that occur to our Levy and the the truth is that their impact really depends on on
093what happens to property values both at a at an aggregate or Global level as well as the property value of the individual taxpayer um so right now our our current property tax tax rate is the lowest it's been in 10 plus years um it's it's coming in it came in at about 5.2 for 2023 our most recent year and if some of our projections hold we we believe it'll continue to decrease um over the next several years um and that and again we'll emphasize that that safer stronger 204 proposal did not result in a tax rate increase um so the tax rate again is is stable or slightly declining uh with that said if individual property tax payers have seen a significant increase in their property values an increase above maybe what's what's occurring in
094the in the broader Market or occurring in our area they will see a a significant uh increase in in their taxes paid and and we know we we heard a lot about that over the past year as a result of uh the tax rate the uh reassessment of properties that occurred within the district uh we don't believe it'll be as uh significant this year but again something we continue to monitor how the how individual property values how different property T types so residential commercial industrial how those values are kind of ebbing and flowing within the district so moving on to to state revenues um again I'll just emphasize we we talked a little bit last uh last time about the importance of predictability of funding um so you we talk about how important that predictability
095was uh and then we kind of transition into the current state budget situation and so if you had made a Google search of the state fiscal year budget within the last couple weeks you would have seen headlines similar to what's shown here uh where the state was talking about projecting over a$3 billion deficit uh really that is that is the result of some long-term structural imbalances uh the expiration of federal Esser funding and just some some growth in tax revenues maybe stagnating a little bit from from significant increases over the past couple years um some good news I guess the governor budget uh address was last week and he did announce a balanced budget um there were some last minute Revenue adjustments which sort of increased Revenue slightly um but there were some programming reductions
096most significantly in the education space towards Early Childhood that were not included in the budget um we expect to continue to see the budget discussion evolved throughout the spring but traditionally that the governor's budget um speech especially with both both uh legislative uh Chambers being being control by the same party as the the governor we expect to to come in close to where this this budget was um I'll point out that the statutory increase to ebf funding is included in this budget But it includes only level funding for categorical payments um and then finally we are not included directly in this year's budget discussion but we continue to monitor uh two significant issues within the state um pension reform uh and the need to to address tier 2 pension um funding specifically and as well
097as the potential for for changes to the property tax structure we're not aware of any specific um uh proposals on either that seem to have significant legs but we are continuing to monitor that and um assess its impact on the district um so again just talking about um State revenues really quick uh if the governor's proposed budget goes through uh ipsd would see an increase of ebf funding of approximately 500,000 so that's an increase of about 1% % of our um ebf funding so again thinking about um where CPI is that would come in um below what the Consumer Price Index has been over the past couple years um we do have what's known as a hold harmless provision within the ebf funding so we are guaranteed we'd receive at least the same amount we
098did as the prior year um but when we talk about categorical funding um flat categorical funding could cause a reduction in Indian Prairie funding because there's no hold similar hold harmless provision within the categorical funding um categoricals as a as a revenue Source are are supposed to fund a significant portion of Transportation expenditures and outplaced student um expenditure payments those are both costs that are rising above inflation we already talked about um the outplay student tuition and we'll talk about Transportation here shortly um and so what you can see is when when there's flat funding combined with an increase in in costs and again a fairly significant increase in costs you can see that that paration percentage or the percentage that those categoricals are actually funding continues to decrease and you'll see that the levels
099we're projecting for next year are some of the lowest levels the state has seen um going back to even um the beginning if if of the Great Recession um and again you'll see a real significant drop off really over the last three or four years and I think that uh special education Transportation categorical in particular is is really surprising to to me you could see even in in in some of the leanest state budget years uh there was a commitment to fund that uh you know above 90% and we're now projecting that to fall below 70% again um talking about another area where where that concern about predictability comes up uh we'll move to Federal revenues and so um again here's here's sort of a a recent uh Google search if you if you just
100wanted to read a little bit about the Department of Education and so again most of the folks when you do that now is about whether the Department of Education will uh continue to exist here or or continue to to be the entity that that it is um in the near future and so just wanted to spend a few minutes digging into how some of that that news about the the federal government would impact Indian Prairie um so I'll start with sort of um we'll say we'll we'll call it good news um and then kind of move to some of the the challenges so uh first of all a reminder Federal funding does represent just 3% of our our revenues so again we talk a lot about it but in in the total picture it is
101just 3% of our total revenues and those revenues actually come from several departments um not just the Department of Education and so uh again it's you think about uh you know School District you you'd expect the the funding to primarily be through the Department of Education but we actually receive significant funds through the Department of Agriculture that's the school lunch program and we receive funds through Health and Human Services as well that includes Medicaid and a few other programs um most of the funding that comes through the Department of Education is tied to statutory requirements which even predate the Department's creation and that's primarily the idea in Title One grants um so so again just just kind of big picture there is you know some diversity and exposure here when we talk about what a
102what a change to Federal revenues could look like for us but it's important to remember a reduction would still impact all students because most of this funding is tied to legally required programming so it's programming we would still have to offer even if the funding is not provided uh and then specifically with the school lunch program I just wanted to point out uh the school lunch program subsidizes all lunches purchase it's not just students with with that free and reduced lunch status so again it if that funding were were to be reduced and again it's it's not directly through the Department of Education at this time but it but if there was some changes to that programming that wouldn't just impact that those free and reduced lunch students that would that would impact all our
103students and really our ability to offer the lunch program as it's currently structured all right and so with that sort of um background of where we are with our operating revenues uh just want to spend a few minutes tonight talking about our forecast for expenses um so again just starting uh with with showing how our expenses break out in total again this is very consistent with prior years and this is consistent for all years throughout the forecast um salaries and benefits continue to be our largest expense uh totaling about 77% combined the next largest source is purchase services at 15% that includes our transportation services our food services as well as our building operations team um so those are largely funding people who are in our buildings who are working with our students and working
104with our staff on a daily basis as well and then when we get into other areas of the budget we're now talking less than 10 % of our budget spent on supplies technology um and other objects um the forecast is is built to reflect all known agreements so that's all our Union agreements significant contracts and all known obligations and then it reflects our best estimates for expenses that are not um covered by a contract or or to have a contract that expire at a point in the forecast so I as I mentioned earlier we've we've had a lot of discussions as an administrative team really really starting in the fall about how we would sort of um bring our projected expenditures in line with our resources um so as a result some of the reduction
105measures we are um starting to enact for next school year include a net reduction of 19 in uh 19 FTE or full-time equivalents uh in our headcount um but with that said it really is a specific Focus going going position by position to really identify what the needs of the the district are and so even though there's a net reduction we still have additional positions next year to help focus on our elll services as well as anticipated General enrollment growth uh so uh Ju Just to talk about sort of priorities and other other um presentations the board's received over the past several months um we have heard from our El team about the need for additional staff to to complete those services and that is being addressed for next year and then again we know
106the priority that the board and and our Administration has put towards class side specifically class sizes at the K2 level and so we have um allocated some additional positions to to ensure those um smaller class sizes are possible next year um again that does mean there were some um some difficult decisions on on some some reductions and but we are looking at 28 reductions that again are tied to some to a review of the specific needs and and specific uh positions that that we that we were able to review and believe we can um and we and we We Believe are not as student facing and not a direct impact to the classroom as as some of those needs are um we will have no increases for discretionary budgets these are the budgets that support
107our curriculum technology and other supplies so this is the second year those budgets will s will effectively be Frozen with no increases and we will be proposing to the board later this spring that we increase our registration and other fees by approximately 5% again those are tied to specific costs that are increasing um this would be about the first time in in seven or eight years that we would come to the board with with increased in the registration fees um so that's not a decision we took lightly either but we do feel it's it's appropriate and necessary given the current environment um so again I emphasized earlier uh just that that that need to keep the relationship between revenues and expenditures um tied together and and specifically with property taxes tied to CPI um our
108goal is to really keep our expenditures in line with the Consumer Price Index so I just wanted to touch um on two sort of um um supporting expenditures that are rising above the Consumer Price Index and that we as Administration are really trying to work proactively to manage but are still still challenging to keep in line with um the Consumer Price Index so the first is transportation expense and I think we've shown a similar uh graph to this in the past but um in the blue is sort of a cumulative increase in the Consumer Price Index since 2019 so again we had some years where CPI was pretty significant and that that accumulated increase is about 25% um the challenge is if you look at the um cost of a Transportation Route so the rate
109we're charged per route that numbers increased by over 80% so that's growing at over three times the rate of CPI um and that's what's shown in the orange here um and then so so we're really seeing that that challenge to try and keep that expense to CPI and that really is seeing the underlying costs associated with Transportation whether it's fuel costs cost of driver rages the cost of the capital so just the cost of of of busing we're seeing across the the industry across the country those those costs continue to increase um there is a little bit of good news though in that um the district has identified efficiencies and work to put efficiencies in the system and so that's sort of that green line there so you can see that we're trending above CPI
110but we're still keeping our total expense below um that rate that the actual rate charge per route that does equate to about $6 million in savings so since 2019 we've come up with operating efficiencies which have saved over $6 million annually in transportation expense um and I I just want to point out what some of those efficiencies are uh first I want to I'll give some credit or I'll give a lot of credit to our transportation team um their work with technology integration our scheduling um keeping a very high ontime performance uh metric is is critical to to driving that savings that's obviously the most significant part but um our board and our community has done a done a part of that as well uh if you remember our boundary changes decreased miles driven by
11118% of part of our transportation Network and so that was a significant um driver of savings as well that we've seen sort of um accumulate over the past several years but the the credit also goes all the way down to our school Personnel uh so these are these are our um principles and other other leaders at the school that make sure that we're getting arrivals checked in quickly we're getting dismissals out quickly because we rely on a three-tier system so when high school ends at 225 we need those buses on the road by 2:30 uh to ensure we can meet our middle school and Elementary routes and so our school Personnel play a key role in that as well and that again allows us to schedule as efficiently as possible um the second EXP challenge
112I just wanted to cover uh relates to energy or electricity uh so we are budgeting a 20% increase in budget electricity cost due to the The increased delivery and demand capacity charges uh this again is really tied to a Nationwide uh challenge I have a headline there from a few weeks ago where uh you know it was it was noted that that we're going to see record high electricity costs coming soon to Illinois uh Illinois's actually been um performing a little better compared to other regions of the country when it comes to um grid challenges but the truth is we're seeing an increased demand uh tied to Data Centers tied to electrification um but we're seeing really only stable or actually reducing electricity Supply out there uh as as different um coal-based power plants and
113other power plants are sort of sunsetted they're not being replaced at the same rate um to ensure that energy de um Supply keeps up with demand um so again we've for many years maintained existing strategies to try and um manage that cost and really double doubling down on some of those strategies so that includes um expanding our use of demand response programs and collaborating with both combat and the City of Neighborville on how we reduce our usage uh it includes our LED lighting initiative which we've included in our uh Capital plan for this upcoming year um we are starting to eval evaluate potential for solar generation so solar um panels on our on our district facilities that is something that was not included in the master facility plan or in the referendum so would have
114to find a funding source for that um and then a just a real continued focus in everything we do um on how we efficiently use uh energy and and uh address our Capital needs in an efficient manner so that was the operating funds and now I do want to transition to our non-operating funds and uh we do have two non-operating funds maintained by the district um our debt service and capital funds and again before we get into them I just want to provide a little bit of of background or def definitions around those funds so um the focus on these funds is really the long-term investment in District facilities uh that's primarily the capital projects fund and then the repayment of related financing which is The Debt Service fund um so again operating funds we
115were talking day-to-day operations with non-operating funds we're looking at really a longer term Horizon for the district uh in general there's very limited recurring Revenue available for capital investment and again we talked about that as part of the vision 2030 presentation that there is a need Statewide for some recurring Revenue Source tied to Capital um so this is these are the funds that were impacted by our successful safer stronger 204 referendum uh and the safer stronger 204 referendum is required to be tracked separately just to ensure compliance with various um legal and and compliance requirements tied to the bond um and so we will show those funds separately here tonight as well um before we sort of show the the the the specific funds there are two sort of background slides I want to go
116into um the first just kind of providing an overview of The Debt Service fund and just some um some Concepts as we look at at how this fund is going to function going forward after the successful referendum um so again our safer stronger 204 um Bond referendum allows for 420 million of issuances through 2029 so we've gone many years where this fund was really stable and was really about just repaying bonds and not a lot of decisions um going on in this this fund now we will have the ability to to issue bonds and impact this fund for the for the foreseeable future um the board actually has the full authority to issue and structure the repayment schedule of these bonds so what is legally authorized by the referendum is just the total dollar amount
117of issuances um with that said we we made a commitment to our taxpayers to keep the current bond rate at 37 cents and to not increase that rate so uh as we look to structure bonds that really becomes our our guiding principle is to not increase the rate above that 37 cents um and so we'll show show a few Concepts here in a in a few minutes or two but just some things to think about again thinking about how property taxes work um and some of the concepts we talked about earlier as our eav or property values increase that would reduce the tax rate if we kept the bond payments the same um we're also going to be adding new property to uh to the tax roles as we go go through and issue these
118these bonds and so it will be important to to determine if we want to use that that new property to increase annual payments and maybe pay the bonds off a little sooner or if we want to use that to um to lower the rate or lower the the amount of the bonds that have to be paid by current taxpayers and just kind of the second background slide before we go in this is this is again I I well past 2030 um and even P um but looking all the way out to 2048 uh you'll see that our referendum approved bonds are are forecast to be spent by 2032 they're legally required to be spent by 2032 and so that means that there will be no referendum bond funds for 2033 and later um however we
119will still have repayments of those bonds and that's what's shown sort of on the second graph and right now we're projecting we could repay those bonds all the way up to 203 2048 and so really as we look at these next couple slides some of the questions we're we're asking our ourselves and in administration is how do we ensure that there's Capital funding available after those bonds after the capital funding from the referendum is is used in 2032 because we know that those bonds will continue to be need to be paid and so we will have Bond payments but not necessarily a related source of Revenue coming from those bonds and uh you know really this is this is the sort of challenge we're coming out of you know we're coming out of a period
120after Matia was built in 2009 where we were repaying bonds but didn't have a new source of funds so we're trying to think about how we do not repeat the same challenges that we've that we've had as a district over the last 10 plus years so the first the first slide that hopefully kind of kind of shows how we're thinking about this or or how we want to to engage as we we think about these these Bond issues is here and so we've shown this um this slide or or a similar version of this slide um in the past as we showed proposed financings so you can see in Gray and now in the the sort of um well the blue color the the ocean blue I'll call it those are bonds that now have
121already been issued both our pre-referendum bonds as well as our our first issuance in 2024 and so now we're thinking about how do we structure the remaining three issuances so that we are um so that we're achieving a variety of goals so that we're keeping the tax rate um at or below 37 so that we're paying the bonds as off as soon as possible and that we're potentially um creating an opportunity to to refinance the bonds in a way that's going to um to minimize that gap between um when Capital funds expire and when we're still paying off bonds um so I'll first point out we can always re-evaluate the structure with each new issue as well as each refunding opportunity so there will be that there will be an opportunity with Each Bond issued
122to specifically figure out where we are with our needs where we are with our tax rate and and structure the bond accordingly um what what's shown here is is a proposal where we would increase the the issue by about 1% each year is and so the goal would be that we say well we know we have some new property coming online so if we increase what we're paying what we want to pay towards the bonds we could use that new property to effectively capture that excess at the same time as long as our the eav continues to grow a little bit each year that would keep that tax rate stable or potentially decrease it each year and so this is a this is a proposal for future structurings where we would gradually increase that payment
123um but we could also see a declining tax rate being passed on to our taxpayers as well and again this would help minimize that gap between the time that our bond funds are used and when we're able to fully repay off the bonds um so if we take sort of that concept and look what that that looks like over the next 5 years um you'll see that the total expenditures related to to Debt Service would increase slightly each year just about $2 to $300,000 each year um shown here uh under Debt Service current issues so that's bonds we've already issued and you'll see we don't have a lot of flexibility over the next year or two but then even but as we get to that back half you'll now of the the five years you'll
124now see those payments are really driven by Bond issues we haven't completed yet so the anticipated bond for this summer uh as well as the a bond in 2027 and 2029 as well um again just to reiterate we can continue to re-evaluate this and our team will continue to to be running scenarios and working with our Municipal adviser to determine what what the most appropriate structure is and make a recommendation um I will point out one other point uh um all of these assumptions are made uh assuming that our interest payments that our taxpayers receive continue to be exempt from federal income taxes um so that is part of what makes our bonds so competitive in the market and what keeps our interest expense uh relatively low compared to other forms of borrowing uh again
125we're not aware of any specific initiatives at the federal level that would um jeopardize that uh but uh in this this era of maybe some unpredictability that is something that that could really throw a significant um curveball to us as we look at structuring um our future Bond issuances all right so moving on to our uh forecast for other revenues and capital projects um this is what we're looking at spending from those bond funds uh I believe we've showed this several times as we in sort of the runup to to the referendum and in our um capital projects discussions so I'll just say this is we're still similar to or the same budget to what we've presented to the board in the past um just something to point out we do earn interest on those
126bond funds on the once the bond is issued we talked a little bit about in the financing plan some of the restrictions around that interest but those funds will also be available to supplement our capital projects as well and we've started a budget for that as well and then finally just to show again these are our capital projects from our other revenues are for non-bond funds again we're um keeping these separate from our uh Bond funds for legal reasons but uh you know we we do expect these funds to continue to generate at least a little bit of interest income and developer contributions over the next several years our plan is to not touch These funds until after 2032 again to help fill that gap between when the bond funds are are spent and when
127our um bonds are still payments are outstanding so this will be the first source of additional funding we could look to after 2032 all right and so now the the home stretch tonight uh just wanted to touch back in on our our fund balance and and um just just provide a little bit of analysis of where we are in our fund balance and and um hopefully come with with a little bit of a recommendation to start a conversation about how we better utilize that fund balance so again just going to start by by saying what is our fund balance um so fund balance uh some synonyms would be our reserves our Equity or our net assets um the represent available financial resources that ensure the district has Capital to meet operating needs and prepare for
128unforeseen expenses or Revenue delays um the way fund balances are created is over time as you have operating surpluses that builds up your fund balance so as a district that's been around for 50 plus years we've um in general we've gradually increased our fund balance slightly um each year as we we budget surpluses um it would decrease therefore with operating deficits or with strategic onetime purposes one onetime purchases so the way you would spend down uh fund balance would be through deficit spending or through through designated the funds for for a one-time purchase um fund balance is generally measured as a percentage of revenues and that's um really used to demonstrate the resources available and to address Revenue variability or or Revenue delays um our current board policy uh recom is uh is for a
12925% fund balance to revenue ratio that's also a recommendation that's set in the State Board of education's recognition status which we mentioned earlier um and I'll point it's it is a little bit of a coincidence that that we use the 25% you know that does happen to be kind of the right number for us um the each district that that fund balance percentage is going to vary based on their uh cash flows based on how their revenues are distributed uh based on what county they're in so different counties distribute property taxes at different times and that can impact that that recommendation for that percentage so there are some districts where a a much higher fund balance percentage may may be what they need and there may be some districts where a much lower fund balance
130percentage still allows them to um to meet all their obligations but for us it seems like that 25% number is is kind of the right number um and as mentioned previously we're currently at 39% um and again one one thing that we'll show shortly here is that that ratio does vary throughout the year and and so just showing our fund balance by month um you'll see the um each fund again we have six operating funds is is what's shown separately in the bar graphs but I'll focus on sort of the the line graph that's going across the top of this document and you'll see that due to timing of property taxes and collections there's almost a $200 million difference between our high point and our low point in monthly fund balance so again a very
131significant swing um between our high point generally in September and October and our low point which includes which um occurs in in mid to late May um we talk about fund balance generally at at June 30th so that the beginning or the end of a fiscal year and you'll see relatively speaking that that is kind of a um a high point uh again we do have months you know March April and May specifically that are significantly lower than that number and that's why that 25% is is so critical to ensure that when we're at our low point we still have the resources available to meet our obligations um you know make our vendor payments make payroll um and again have some Reserve even after that to Ju Just for some unforeseen circumstances with that said
132if we just look at our operating fund balance uh as it stands today we're projecting $167 million fund balance at the end of this year uh our budgeted revenues for fiscal year 26 is 453 million and so 25% of that number would be about 113 million and so we do see that we're calculating an excess of that 25% of about 54.1 or 54.2 million um so again that that's in excess of that 25% that's necessary to meet cash flow needs um just some Concepts we we've not done as a as a boorder as an Administration in the past but we have the ability as as a Administration to make recommendations and as a board to accept a res um a recommendation to designate fund balance for specific uses um this effectively segregates the funds um
133to be used for that specific purpose and then you know we can structure it so that they can then only be used for that specific Purpose with additional board authorization and so um that is something that that can be done to to provide the board assurances that those those funds are going to be used for that specific purpose um but it can also be structured in a way that gives some flexibility to that use as well um so as we look towards fiscal year 2026 budget this is something that Administration would would recommend we do is is look at how we can sort of start designating some of our fund balance to to ensure that we're um meeting future needs and obligations and and just providing for the the financial wherewithal the district um so
134here's just sort of our our um initial recommendation or thoughts that we would like to um that we'd like to explore over the next couple of months is we would take of that 54 million we would designate 42 million of that for future Capital needs or contingency um and that would leave about 12.2 million which we would then designate for various operating support um so just talking about the 42 million um again that would be uh restricting 42 million of the operating fund balance so we would not move it to Capital yet we would leave it in operating but we would designate it for Capital needs um the amount could fund Capital maintenance after the completion of the master facility plan in 2032 or it could help pay for Capital needs that weren't included in
135the master facility plan or referendum and so I mentioned earlier looking into to solar panels uh um you know that that would have a pretty significant return on investment um a relatively short repayment plan um this this could be a potential source for for completing some solar projects on on some of our newer roofs um this amount would also be be available to provide additional liquidity until 2032 in case of funding delays or other Revenue challenges um the 42 million is about is about 260 days of State funding so it would represent a significant portion of our our state funding if there were state funding challenges and again we could we could propose restricting this amount or or a similar amount um through board action with the adoption of the 2526 budget um and then
136just looking at at some other deferred needs we have where where as Administration we we believe we could use the this fund balance to really positively impact our our operations uh create some stability with the budget and and really most importantly um have a direct benefit to our stud students in the classroom um uh again we've had some um previous reports to the board about our some operational needs that have been deferred such as curriculum adoptions um some technology needs again these were things that that when we had onetime expenditures in 20 or revenues in 2022 and 23 we prioritized getting caught up and we and we were in better shape than we were four or five years ago but we we still have some deferred needs in those areas we'd like to address um
137again with Transportation being a continued challenge we've we've had some successful use transitioning some of our um extracurricular uses to to White buses um so this could be an opportunity to expand our white bus program or at least provide funds to to replace those buses as they come do as well uh again the focus would be on one-time necessary purpose purchases anticipated during the next um 3 to five years um and again we believe using these These funds in in a in an appropriate way could um allow other operating funds to be used for recurring costs and help sort of stabilize some of those deficits we saw earlier um similar to the capital money we would propose the Restriction through board action with the adoption of the budget and so with that uh I am
138um available for any questions I will say we are uh we will continue to update the Board of Education throughout the spring uh we will provide another budget update on May 5th um hopefully a little shorter than this evening's uh we will continue to have to the board approval of referendum fund projects as well as a bond parameters resolution for our next um bond issue and that'll be done throughout the spring including some significant approvals that were on the consent agenda this evening um June 16th uh I'll uh say we're really excited about about that date because that's when we're going to give our first referendum projects update for some of the work we've been planning for Nik and wanzi so that that's a um you know Circle that date on your calendar that's going
139to be a pretty exciting night and um with that said we will also be continuing to uh update our community on the process of our referendum uh projects at ips.org safer stronger 204 all right how about Mr kurubas do you have any comments or questions you went an hour straight through 32 slides no drink until now well 57 I'm sorry yeah I got under an hour it's Financial guys um couple comments on the evidence-based funding uh State increased funding by 350 million and we get 500,000 so that's 0.1% so it might sound like a great number for somebody to give a presentation at the state level increase funding by 350 million but for this district for our residents it only calculates to 500 ,000 so I think that shows how the funding formula really isn't
140working for our district um I understand the the motivation behind it but we're not going to see benefit significant benefit for many years so that's a deficiency I'd like the state to correct and I'm sure they're going to get right on that uh the budget so kind of page five page six let's let's head to that the overall um gist of my comments on this is I think there's an opportunity to increase reporting and transparency when our expenditures um exceed or are forecasted to exceed our budget our actual budget um I know that the board kind of makes monthly approvals um of the finance is and we do get some reporting about where each of the funds is at as from a percentage standpoint uh but we went you know last year we went on
141what page do you have up there uh this is last year's yeah so is that page five page five yes yeah so on page five you know we went $10 million over budget now the board approved approved each of those payments over budget um but were we you know fully transparent and reporting to both the board and the public about you know how we got to that point um and I know we went through the exercise with officially amending the budget and I'm not sure that that process really is a transparent um way to do it um it's a budget and so I can appreciate that there's going to be pluses and minuses um but I think there's just a way from a reporting standpoint to say um we're going to go over the budget
142by 10 million but we had 10 million in Revenue so look we on a $423 million budget we only had a two two two $22,000 deficit which is very impressive um so I think there's some opportunities for us to increase transparency and Reporting um on a regular basis when we get out of line from our budget and I think that's important because you know policy dictates and part of why we get approving the budget is that we stay within budget um so I'd like to see improvements on that especially when you see on the next slide um you know it's it's starting to grow and so still not a big variance but we're forecasting a a a greater deficit um and this is only for you know half the year so what are we going
143to look like um for the balance of the year so I I it's a reporting thing I don't have any concerns from a um we're doing anything or or you know that's not above board I just think we could be a little bit more transparent um now the reserves you mentioned you know it's kind of it's easy to shrink them and it's hard to grow them it takes a little while for them to go back up but if we're looking at uh what slide is it let's see a second yeah let's go to slide 28 so the 25% is in policy and that is for recognition but at some level so what it's a percentage the important part is this slide eight to make sure we have enough money to make payroll because that's one
144of our largest expenses and you know I recall when the state was missing payments that we got down to a very low number where we had 16 million in reserves and a 20 mil plus payroll and it was close the your predecessor was sweating a little bit uh so now we have a little bit more cushion this 82 and now we're considering talking about dropping it by 54 and so that bring us to now 38 and are we as a board as a Administration kind of comfortable with that being enough enough of a cushion um kind of considering what's happening at the federal and state level as well so we talk in the 25% you know we don't get like extra money for being recognition right we do not you know it's it's it sounds
145good um but the only real benefit of that percentage is to make sure that we make payroll at a lowest point uh so that should be the focus for for all of us to make sure that whatever we do with reserves pluses or minuses that come May um nobody's having a problem um now the bond structure on page 23 I I I look forward to kind of more discussions on this one um you know we have authority to borrow [Music] 420 and then we're talking [Music] about possibly um increasing the payments on it and so I and so there's kind of a little disconnect for for me um why are we increasing pay why are we taking out a loan and then increasing payments is there a way to match that better um you know
146if I'm going to borrow pay interest and then just pay it off quicker maybe I don't borrow as much at the end of the day um you know if our commitment was to keep it at 37% and then we're proposing dropping it from 37% with increased payments and you know as a taxpayer that's very advantageous but do we want to try to keep it at 37% just to remain flexible um as well so I I kind of appreciate further discussions on how to structure this um I think in Prior years for the the building bonds we kept it flat at 25 mil or there was some some fixed number we are less concerned about the rate um now this time we're not looking at the left side as much as the right side of this
147graph um and then we see the Blue Line decrease but maybe we want the blue line to remain flat um and that could be a combination of anticipating the eav increase not taking out 420 mil total um so I I need some more help with that as we go forward and you mentioned we don't have to figure it all out today we don't have to figure it all we have years of bond issuance where this can be tweaked and who knows what's going to happen with the AVS we're making assumptions so um but I still think this is a slide we should see in the future as we as we do additional bonds and budgets when we look at the non-recurring part of it this helps us kind of think about the structure um rather
148than taking it out at each of these Bond issuing states where we'll take it out you know every two years or every year and a half maybe there's changes in the eav OR interest rates where we want to say the interest rates aren't favorable or they are and we want to do something different so I would appreciate seeing this on a regular basis um so I know I barfed out a lot at you but that's all I got 11 minutes without taking a sip so that's it's pretty good R out drink uh yeah no I I appreciate all the all the comments and and uh some really good uh thoughts there I'll just uh a couple things I just want to comment on real quick uh you I do do agree we're you know as
149a as a district and as a business office we're always is looking for continual um Improvement and so um there are definitely some opportunities to improve our financial reporting um both to the board and Community again that's part of our intention with our sort of safer stronger 204 website as we continue to build that out uh as the board knows we've recently transitioned to a new financial reporting software and so we are um starting to to Really explore what we uh what we can do with that to improve financial reporting and I think we'll have um uh something pretty soon but we will even put it on higher on the priority list based on some of those comments um on the fund balance piece I I will point out uh you know the concerns are
150are definitely valid and it's not a recommendation any of us um make lightly when we talk about potentially reducing that fund balance percentage because uh um you know we uh we know the the importance of of of monitoring that and and of ensuring that um we do have the funds ail to meet meet all obligations and you're correct the big biggest obligation um is our payroll and it it would be the those sort of April and May payrolls that um you know there are other districts that that take out a a payday loan effectively to to make those payments um but but I'll point out Point part of um part of what we've done as as part of the recommendation is is and just a reminder is that 42 million we're talking about for Capital
151that would be um you know designated for expenditures after 2032 and so that is money that would that would stay in the operation operating fund for for several years uh hopefully right out this this maybe period of of um unpredictability that that we're seeing at at sort of the state and federal level um and so it's really just it it would really be about the 12 million in in operating um payments that we would look to um sort of in the short term in over that you know next three to five year period uh and and with that said our our hope is to um to come back as as part of future budgets with some really um um strategic uses for those funds that that do um have a positive impact in our for
152our students and in our classroom but also um put us in a in a more stable position uh moving forward with with future operating budgets um and then just a a final comment on on the bond rate because I think it it is something that uh as you talked I probably should have mentioned earlier uh uh you are correct a prior uh prior structures really focused on keeping a a level Bond payment um but that was coming out of a period where uh we really had a significant bond rate or or tax rate going towards bonds so um our 37 Cent rate sort of the rate we've we've committed to from the taxpayers is the lowest bond rate this this district has seen in in many years when we were kind of at the the
153peak coming out of um constructing Matia that rate was um over 60s so we've already brought that bond rate down fairly significantly uh I would um you know definitely if if um as we work work towards this and talk about future future fundings we can look at kind of um benchmarking our our debt service rate to some of our peer districts and some other districts but I think you'd find where we are at 37 cents is is at a pretty good um Place 40 cents is kind of what at least in my mind I I tend to see is sort of a a reasonable rate so uh you know I I feel like M you know the recommendation to to maintain that 37 Cent rate or what was built into the referendum proposal is is
154starting with a a fairly sound sustainable rate for our taxpayers um okay so let me jump in there uh there was a change in the law recently I think you gave a presentation on where we districts have an opportunity to take out bonds without approval for Life Safety type of stuff um that might be another factor in here where we don't just have 420 mil now we have an extra ability to borrow x amount of dollars um that might be something we want to put on the table for us to show some variability um and that might give us an opportunity to um spend money um in those years where we don't you know we need the capital Improvement stuff done but um we don't want to borrow um you know during the first five
155years of the issuance um and so the rate might decrease because we want to pay off the safer bonds but we might still want to do the life safety um bonds uh and that might be where we maintain this 37% so I think including that capacity just for awareness might help us yeah uh yes that's a that's a very good good point and uh um thought I thought I threw all I could at the the group tonight but that would be another V variable that we can consider I blacked out it like slide okay um Miss Deming I just have a couple of questions um thank you very much staying on um slide 23 just so that 37 cents though we are we that was a commitment that we that we made so we're there's
156I I want to make sure that the public knows we're there's no not going to be any variance up on that that's a commitment that we made um and then just uh real quickly um over to the left um it says structure can be re-evaluated with each new issue and each refunding opportunity so does that mean I want to make sure I understand that um does that mean that every with each new bond issue that that we might look at what seen whether or not this needs to be re-evaluated and yeah AB ABS absolutely so U fir first statements absolutely correct nothing that we're showing tonight is is showing a rate above 37 cents so uh you know we we still feel comfortable that we can um keep our projection with that rate so the
157the best way to to explain it with with this slide is I'd say right now we are locked in with the gray and the the blue and then we're going to come to the board in um May or June looking to to kind of lock in what the the green what the sea green could look like um so that would be an opportunity to then add the green and then in 2027 we'd potentially come to the board and try to lock in the purple um and so every time we're we're not locking in the full schedule we're locking in little bits and pieces of it and so that is an opportunity every couple years to evaluate where we are with with both the project needs and and what our um progress is on the projects
158it's a chance to evaluate the interest rate environment and what we see um what we expect to be available to us in the market it's a chance to reevaluate where where eav is and property growth is in the district to see if that's meeting our expectations and and so yes it is an opportunity to evaluate portions of that chart each time those opportunities come up and then uh we do have opportunities to restructure those bonds usually at about 10 years so we may have a little Gap but then sort of the process can repeat itself when we get a chance to you know potentially refund or restructure uh each of th those issuances and so that that's that ideal s sort of that gradual um evaluation of of each each Bond and then again the
159last piece that uh board member kruis threw and right at the end is is if there is an opportunity to to add some Life Safety pieces to that mix that could be part of that discussion that's continually evaluated as well okay um slide 15 I just wanted to share with as much a conversation and a little bit um uncertainty right now regarding um some of the conversations the federal conversations that have been taking place this was extremely beneficial just to help reinforce to uh to us and and especially the public what that percentage is from a federal funding standpoint that we receive but the the portion and I sometimes forget this so the comment um regarding at the very end of that slide but talking about um the lunch program and the fact that that's
160there's a subst substation there um for all children is really is really important can you what what amount um if do you have any idea that you can share what either percentage or amount that is um relates to what our cost is for our um yeah I I ju Just to sort of speak in in general terms or back up a second again for for everybody we you know uh approximately 20 21% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch and so they're receiving either a completely free meal or or a they're making a partial payment and then that full amount is subsidized by um the federal government uh we spoke earlier in the presentation we do have several schools that are on what what's known as the CommunityWide provision um or or you
161know short into C uh so there are students at those schools who don't qualify for free and reduced lunch who do receive a fully subsidized free and reduced lunch um and then uh again to this this comment we do have students who who pay for lunch every every day and do not have free reduced lunch status but the federal government still gives us a a an additional subsidy for those lunches too to keep them affordable um to ensure that we can meet some some nutritional requirements on those lunches as well um offand I I'd be guessing a little bit at that number but uh you know I think it's at least a dollar per lunch um and we can follow up and get that that exact amount is it is I mean it is a
162significant percentage of that lunch payment it's not a nickel or or a dime or something it is a it is a significant dollar amount it will follow up with the board um I'm sure Ron Johnson's one of the 12 people watching at home right now and I may even start getting buzzed from it in a second so um so yeah we'll we'll we'll have those exact amounts to to the board soon but it is it is it does it would substantially impact that that program I mean our school lunch program would look very different if if anything changes with that program thank you and I'm sorry I didn't ask you that before um I just want to add we we say lunch but we also want want want to include breakfast breakfast and s yes
163that's that's also um true as well and again those those schoolwide programs uh that that's breakfast for all students as well as as lunch okay and just a really um if you could remind us on slide 31 um just remind us white bus transportation needs what can you share what um what white bus transport white white buses um um are used for sort of that Spectrum yeah great uh really good question so uh what we use our white bus program uh for for various extracurricular activities um that can include some some things during the school day specifically for our for our steps program they're using them to to take students to job sites and and other activities like that otherwise our our middle and high schools have um a fleet of white buses they use
164for for extracurricular activities um we have worked with our team again one of the the uh strategies we've used to sort of minimize our transportation expense is to get um as many of our club sponsors and and uh um building leaders trained on how to drive a white bus and it's uh it's it's takes a little bit uh but but it's not nearly as intimidating as driving the full bus right but so that we're able to to use those and and use a um you know use a 15 passenger van as opposed to a yellow bus um and and using that that full Fleet and so that has um you know that does require that one-time Capital purchase of that white bus but once that's made um we're using our our District employees who are
165already sponsoring the event to drive them uh and and so there's a a again a cost savings or cost efficiency to to that and so again one of our proposed U sub um a proposal or or a potential you know need that that could fit fit a a fund balance expenditure would be um either expanding that program or at least making sure that we have the replacement funds available um because again that does save operating U money in the long run and um those are really my questions and just echoing um board member kis uh I eagerly look forward to seeing that uh the focus on tier 2 and uh just right away I just I know that that is something that is so critically um urgent to everybody uh but um but you know
166from a serious you know comment anything um that you feel as we continue to move forward uh you know advocacy that we can help in that Arena please don't hesitate to let us know yeah we we do continue to have um good legislative Partners uh uh the the message about about ebf and specifically the challenges we have as a tier 2 District I think is is is being received by by some and uh we we continue to work to to drive that message home so I I uh I do appreciate the bo the board's support on that as well thank you Miss guns thank you so much for this presentation I know that there was so much you had to talk about with the wh ifs is when it comes to funding especially Federal so
167thank you and it was impressive talking absolutely non-stop I will not hit the 11 minutes that Justin did either but um I just wanted to honestly talk a little bit more on slide 17 when we're talking about the the oh yep thank you the reduction in Staffing just to make sure I'm kind of I'm understanding what we're saying so we're talking possibly for next year reduction in 19 fdes but the 28 reductions would that be part of that or would that be additional yeah so it would be it we we'd have nine new positions for next year um 28 um positions were reduced and that would be a net of of 19 okay so the and and I just want to say absolutely the nine additional positions I think we can all agree especially after
168seeing that elll presentation just how absolutely essential they are so that is absolutely wonderful um the the 5% proposed increase in registration would that help address the or lessen the need to reduce by that many FTE or would it address other issues uh our recommendation would be for 5% and that's kind of built into the the rest of the The Proposal so a a larger increase would would maybe maybe help offset help offset that but okay uh again we we sort of started with with 5% and I think uh this may be an area that as as we um work to improve uh sort of process and also improve transparency maybe we we look at tying that to well it it is already tied to specific expenditures uh primarily the students Chromebook and some other
169uh consumables but that is an area where we could um improve transparency about for the community about what that's tied to and then be intentional about keeping that you know um Ratio or percentage that that's offsetting going forward so um that that would be something or is something we're looking at going forward so that hopefully um you know again we're we're increasing just our our communication with our board and our community into the the rationale for some of those fees no that I think that's that's excellent thank you so much and I know none of these decisions are easy um that was that I think that was pretty much all of my questions um and I do want to just reiterate I really do look forward to continuing conversations because there are so many uncertainties
170and and unknown factors that I know all these numbers can change to in an instant so thank you again miss bastic okay I just want to clarify something partially for myself but partially for community members who might be in the similar position um if we're going back so I'm understanding to slide five and six um so for Slide Five was our budget last year the overage of 22,000 which I did have some calculation help on this is 51,000 of a percentage difference between the proposed budget and the actual expend expenditure correct uh it's it's a very small percentage 10,000 okay I'm just clarifying and then you said you know going forward looking forward um on slide eight with the projected budgets going forward you know we we see some greater increases so for fiscal year
1712027 the difference between the expenditures and the deficit is is 39% that that's yes that sounds correct so still less than half a percentage difference between what we budget and what we propose to spend or may end up spending so my real question here is what level of budget variance triggers reductions in staff costs because when I look at those those actual percentages they seem absurdly low and really impressively very close down budget but with the budget as large as ours are is it it ends up being real money yes uh real dollars even though the percentage is so so incredibly low so what what typical and I'm sorry I didn't have this question for you Ahad of time hearing you it's very different for me to read through this on my own and to
172have you explain it to me so in a perfect world I would have had this question for you well in advance but um it's coming to me now sure well I I mean it's a it's a it's a good question and I think I think the message to the community it would be um it is a it is a relatively small deficit we're looking at um but we are being uh proactive in in addressing it because we don't want to see it um we don't want to get to a point where it is a significant deficit and the the challenge is that um not just school districts not just governments but any organization that that that see a a a small deficit and kind of say well it's just just one year A lot of
173times that that's maybe it's just one year but then it it grows slightly over time and and so what I would say is it's it's it's a combination of things it's the it's the amount of the deficit but it's also how that projects or forecasts out and that's what we're showing here is that it's it's not just one year but it's fiscal year 27 on okay um so it's a it's a trend we're seeing as as um again as some some revenues are um T our our kind of primary revenues tied to CPI and we have expenditures that are increasing above CPI we have other revenues that are that are flat that have some predictability concerns and to the extent that we have expenditures that are are rising at or below CPI that still creates
174a challenge in that environment so um it's the it's the combination of I'd say both the amount as well as how that projects out over over a longer term time Horizon and that's why sort of when we start this process we we start with a 5-year forecast and again even when we get into the non-operating we try and go out as as far as possible uh because we want to see not just what what the impact is on next year uh but we want to see how that that projects out over time um so I will say with with the with the deficits we're we're showing now um again relatively um relatively small compared to total revenue uh but they they do need to be addressed but they because of the the size of them
175it does create an opportunity where we can look at at fund balance we could look at at how we structure some some some expenditures how we uh again maybe use some onetime dollars to create la to longer term savings um this is the time to to address this because we still have a lot of options on the table whereas if we waited a a year or two or or three or four we could get to a situation where we don't have as many as many options so uh that would be my um sort that would that would kind of be my general response and again to to emphasize our our administrative team has been looking at these Trends um even as even as some numbers kind of EB and flow and change we've been looking
176at these Trends since um really since last spring to some extent uh to to Really ensure that as we we address them we're again putting all the options on the table to the extent uh reductions are necessary we we are being um specific and and uh very um conscientious of where those reductions are um as opposed to again how things are maybe being done at at other levels of government right now um and then again thinking about what some of those other opportunities could be so okay I hope that that question yes that helps that helps quite a bit um is it fair to summarize that and say we're being resp exceptionally responsible stewards of our taxpayers money by making sure that even a small difference doesn't snowball into something in the future I I
177think that's that's fair yes okay thank you Miss Jane thank you um so I'm going to go back to slide 15 again like um board member Deming stated I I really appreciated um both at the state level and at the federal level your um insights on um an explanation on how our district might be impacted by various changes um I was wondering if you could take a moment to explain the difference between um the statutory uh distribution or how that what we get through the education under statutory versus discretionary like what programs does that support yeah so so really in in in breaking out what what we um mentioned ear there there are some programs that are uh that predate the Department of Education and the primary ones are are the title funding so title
178one which is a uh allocated by by poverty count for a district uh title two three and four which are U smaller portions but also um sources of funding tied for uh teacher professional development uh El students uh and then as well um those fund a very small portion of the the total services or total expenses we're doing in those areas but that's the intention of those funding and then also idea funding so funding for students with um for for special education needs again um a a relatively small portion of the total expense we're we're spending in that area but it is it is tied to those so um you know again a lot of this is is sort of uh you know new to to all of us but uh the interpretation is that
179even if the Department of Education um was was dissolved or or by an act of Congress those funding sources would would still exist and just and legally just be transferred to a different um department and again there there was a time when there wasn't a Department of Education and those were administered through the Department of Health and Human Services or or the justice department or other other uh departments so um that that's that's what we're kind of considering to be statutorily required funding um again for for this current year we have a very small portion of discretionary funding that has there's been years where we've had more programs some of the Sesser programs that we were discretionary and we had those um you know that would have been a slightly larger share of the P
180but uh you know the substantial portion of that federal budget is is tied to those specific programs thank you thank you so much for that um the other question I had was on slide 18 regarding transportation and um although you described so beautifully all of the things things that our district has been doing to try to uh lower that cost despite the the looks like expodentially growing rate here um I'm concerned about what this line Looks like 5 years from now um and despite our efforts I I'm wondering if there's been discussions around I don't know long-term planning around transportation in general um just a thought not not anything that I'm expecting any specific answer to but just how this how this direction is um just concerning and also um there doesn't seem to be
181any reason that this or there's not good reasoning behind this line changing if if the reason for it is you know um D the the driving cost like you mentioned you know just cost of uh the driers fuel costs and things of that nature and then our inability to purchase these you know purchase these buses like other districts are able to do I was just curious what your thoughts were around that uh we are also concerned with the with the trend um we are working uh uh you know we're working I would say around the clock to try and uh try and address that but but you're correct the the big um you know some of the big big concerns are or big issues are are still still going to be out there I you
182know 2019 is sort of a um a good good starting point for this I think where we we saw a shift or or where we've seen the the shift specifically to on driver wages is really as um we saw an increase in Amazon and and sort of um home delivery uh other um just just changing um uh consumer patterns which which really puts some of those jobs in high demand right again our our bus drivers are actually um more certified than a Amazon delivery driver and um um packages don't misbehave as much as sometimes uh uh students on a bus do so yeah um you know and the reality is we we've seen individuals who have um uh trained to to be bus drivers and spend a couple months with us and then then transition
183into to one of those sort of um careers after we've you know potentially helped help pay for some of their licensing and training and things like that so uh you know that that's a challenge that hopefully is is just past us but um you know I again I don't um I don't see a world where that that Amazon delivery or or those challenges are are going away but hopefully at least it's it's started to um um it started to sort of be built into the the model a little bit um you know we do uh again some things we're we're trying that are maybe Statewide initiatives and and Dr tally has been more involved than I but you know working on some of those licensing requirements um you know we can uh you know trying
184to trying to get that that school bu bu driver license maybe a little easier to obtain and maybe not as um as much a direct competition as some of those other um delivery services um you know so so trying to work create um collaboratively at a state level to to again really educate our our legislators on what the challenges are and also work with other districts to think of some solutions but yeah definitely um it's definitely a concern for us as well um that's all I have thanks Mr Rising yay um slide six please any concern I mean you had brought up um revenues trending above budget with the interest income and interest rates is there any concern about that like longterm going forward or any ways that could impact us or does it kind
185of all even itself out or well it I'd say there are concerns uh we have budgeted for reductions and interest income uh moving forward kind of gradual decreases so that some of that's built into the budget but definitely um if there are decreases that that are not in line with what um what we budgeted and and what's kind of currently being projected that that would be a challenge uh just just sort of the the raw numbers on interest income um again most of our funds are invested on the shortterm side of the Curve a um what they would call a 25 basis point reduction in the interest rate which is kind of the standard fed federal rate cut is about $500,000 for our district so okay um the FED meets seven times a year and
186that's seven times a year they have a potential to cost us half a million dollars um and when interest rates were increasing the opposite was true every time they met we were putting $500,000 in our bank accounts potentially so uh you know that there is a significant risk tied to to being so um on the short end of the the interest rate curve uh a comment just uh just about again as we look at our our fund balance policy that could be a another potential um benefit of that is if we do um restrict some fund balance for for longer term Capital needs we could also look at investing those funds out a little bit longer maybe getting a little bit more protection against some of that interest rate risk and then um going back
187to what Mr kruba said about maybe posting monthly updates on on budget and stuff like that and again this doesn't come down to myself not trusting the work you do or Administration does with our budget because we all kind of come out even at the end of the day even when you look at last year's compared to this year's um this year obviously we did are trending a little better but but um I think it's important for the community to know like listen like look at our purchase services that we constantly go back and try to get rebid these contracts and get lower rates and the reality is going back to miss fosk thing is like the revenue that's coming in from property taxes and CPI and state and federal is not keeping up with
188the expenditures that are far exceeding CPI like you discussed and and it and it continuously gets harder and harder to keep up especially on that purchase service side on the expenditure side um because correct me if I'm wrong that purchase Services is also Transportation right correct okay so now go to slide um what's very FR frustrating about this to me and I will call out all Transportation vendors equally is that rightfully so I understand coming out of Co that they had struggles um they had struggles getting drivers they need to drive raise driver rates um but the interesting thing about that if you look at the categorical pration rates that also went up from the state so Transportation vendors rais their rates significantly on school districts the state paid a lot more on pration percentages
189and now the pration percentages are bottoming out and we're still paying the same amount of money that we were paying on Transportation actually probably more than we were in 2022 um and oh by the way Transportation vendors are making Rec record profit margins but that's a whole another conversation for another day um I'm very concerned about this I'm very concerned where this money is going to come from because I think we're going to continuously see that purchase service expenditure um be out of balance um and this is kind of where us being a tier 2 really starts to impact us um where tier ones are building new buildings and you know getting some of the things and right so that those tier one districts have been missing um but it's it's it's hurting us because
190we're having to defer other Revenue back into purchase Services um if you go to slide eight regarding fund balances I won't get into well maybe a little uh regarding fund balances if I'm looking and projecting this out and looking at fund balances I understand we're at 39% right now and I'm not disagreeing with any of the things that you discussed about you know looking at Future capital and operating support with some of the excess fund balances we have but looking at the fund balances projecting out that also concerns me to take that much money out of fund balances is when it's projecting lower five six years out so any comment you want to make there uh I again I I think that it is something that it is a recommendation or or or idea we
191bring forward with with a lot of thought and we recognize it's a it's a serious recommendation for Administration in the board to to consider uh I think uh again one other piece that I'll that I'll add that we haven't mentioned in the previous hour and 45 minutes here is you know the the to maintain that 25% balance does require a small amount of surplus each year to kind of keep the 25% as revenues go up so uh one of the challenges is when you're you're um recommending a a reduction or or a a deficit spending you're you're kind of it's not just the amount of the deficit you're decreasing it but you're also um passing on the oper the the amount you would traditionally be adding and so a $2 million deficit really is is
192closer to a $4 million deficit towards that 25% for example so that is something that um uh we're aware of and and I and will consider as we we refine that proposal um again some of that uh uh $12 million amount we we'd be recommending the goal would be to try and try and find things that will reduce operating expenses in the future um so so prioritize things that that are you know that that have a have a payback to them um again to hopefully hopefully stabilize it so that it's maybe a year or two of deficit spending followed by um followed by a stable stable amount or a small Surplus then just two quick more comments slide 11 uh property tax rate thank you for bringing that up that we continue to lower the
193rate but if people are seeing increase in their property taxes that is because it's a shifting of commercial versus residential and when there's less commercial residential takes on more of the burden so even though we're lowering the rate people's taxes could still go up thank you for mentioning that um slide 15 on the department of Ed funding the part I'm not going to overstress about this because we're going to have plenty of heads up up time if if any reductions are made um but what does have me most concerned is the is the individuals with disability and act and the title one because that is hurting our most vulnerable kids if they cut into that um but again we will have plenty of time to plan for that um should that happen I'm not going
194to worry about what ifs uh and then just finally I do have a lot more comments about some of the future Capital that you brought up and the operating with the fund balances but I'll just send those and and ask those questions to you because I know we're still that's a recommendation and we're still discussing it thanks okay thank you for everyone for all the comments and it was a lengthy discussion and presentation but I thought they were all excellent points and questions um I do appreciate us we've always had um not only a short-term Focus but a long-term focus and um I appreciate that that continues to be our way of operating and so when you're looking at what are we going to do for Capital expenses like out beond 2032 it is a
195concern we're we're in a happiness mode we got a lot of Capital Money available to us but we don't want to go back to where we were before where we were spending what $3 million on um maintenance in our buildings and things so it's like we we need to figure out what we can do to address that so I I do appreciate that I find that when I'm um listening to these presentations that I'm much more of a worry wart than I thought like usually I'm a very positive speaker or whatever but I guess lately I just I worry about a lot of funding things with public schools and I um so when you are projecting to % CPI and 2 and a half% CPI is that comfortable I mean it it seems like we
196might have years like we had before where all of a sudden CPI just jacks way up and it's like I see that being projected out and it it seems yeah I think the uh again uh I probably uh uh hopefully people think I'm I'm a positive happy person but I like you I worry about these things too uh yeah I think that just speaks to the importance of ensuring we're managing expenditures towards that that CPI number as well so um you uh if if CPI does increase that that would mean an increase in in revenues potentially but it also means a a potential increase in it is in expenditures and so uh making sure that we keep those aligned and again making sure that we um you know we have a sort of ort of
197structural um balanced budget I think think is important to protect us regardless of what CPI does um yeah the biggest risk to us would be a number above 5% because then we do get get hit with the cap but do see some expenditures go go above the cap if if if that happens so um that would be the biggest risk we're not at least right now it doesn't seem like that's that's the the concern it does sound there's some concern that inflation's back ticking back up but we're not um um seeing concerns about it going above 5% yet but that would be the that would be the amount that that I think we really have to worry about I just um you know I go back to slide five which several people brought up and
198looked at um it is fantastic that we had a budget that ended up $22,000 you know within our but we did have significant overages and under spending um to get to that point and I think that was brought up as where they see a concern like maybe we should have more information when something like that's trending that way I I also know that you also have to be careful because sometimes you have an expense that is front loaded and you can't straight line it for the rest of the year and say that's what it's going to cost but it's um you know so it's something that I think is interesting to the board but I think we have to be careful about how we present that also because um it's not always a straight line
199yeah again I think there was some really good comments on that again I think one of the uh the good pieces about last year is that it was sort of intentional and and um tied to some specific Revenue sources where those those overages were so um Again part of the reason that purchase Services is over is because we sold more School meals but that also ties directly to to a revenue number so um you definitely some good comments about about transparency and uh again we we will um we'll continue to work on on that communication level but at least at least as we looked to last year there was there was some pretty um there's a pretty direct correlation between those increase in revenues and and the expenses on page eight again brought up by
200several it's like um the deficit worries me you know and how do you how do you make that um not B Brad and because we don't have I mean we don't have a lot of funding to make up for for something like that and there's no Magic Pot in the sky that's going to come to us so I worry about the state and federal level of funding that we're going to get and I know we had a comment earlier about well it's probably going to just transfer to another department at the federal level if something happens which could be but I also see a lot of talk in the news about um voucher programs and reducing and nobody's going to give education a lot more money at the federal or state level I mean it's
201not going to be like magic happy day and if they want to do something with vouchers at either um state or federal I think state has been kind of squashed a bit though um that by definition would take money in my mind from public education and it would have to come from something that already is is there because they're not going to bump up that's my opinion but so I worry about about that so I you know I hope things would just transfer if something happens but it could be that it also could be reduced and I think things like idea funding uh is vastly underfunded right now um to support the needs of the the kids so any change there would be uh very dramatic for for us to to absorb so um the
202other thing I wanted to just I know we had recently a report on head count in the district because that also is impactful on our budget right so our headcount Trends I mean we're kind of stable right yes they are and so I I think it's important for our community to know that because sometimes there's comments like oh your head counts like dropping or whatever but we just recently had some information and it was pretty flat actually so when we were doing our multiple multiple one more time multiple meetings about the bond referendum the issue of enrollment came up many times and we said then as we will say now our enrollment is relatively stable now we have seen a decree we saw a decrease over the last several years um from a high of
20330,000 to now where we are about 26,000 and so we stay where we are and we should be um in that area for the next several years is what we think will happen uh and the LA the last report that came out um um supports that right and so that that Trend actually is impactful in our our budget forecast and calculations too how many yeah yeah we've and uh it sometimes it doesn't have a real direct impact just just because of um how the state funding formula works and things it it but it but is an IND direct impact uh um again we do receive new um new property allocations for for students that are coming from from new new property developments I think the um this does tie to your comment a little bit
204about vouchers too that I'm um confident in this district and the strength of this District that um you know our enrollment will be stable even if there is a voucher program offered um but that doesn't mean that there's not an indirect impact somewhere um but overall uh you know the the reality is is there are some demographic challenges at the the national and state level that are kind of keeping um K12 enrollment um declining but uh we're we're a destination District people want to come here I think people will continue to want to come here and we're we're projecting fairly stable um enrollment moving forward yeah so I um you I appreciate the discussion about the fund balance I think more more discussion will continue it is something I see why it would be beneficial
205but I also have concerns about um what we would do with that so so thank you very much for um the information it's a lot of um thoughtfulness behind this and yeah we are careful stewards of our um funding that we get from all the sources and and I also do also think that we absolutely have to keep our uh 37 commitment to that Bond referendum that's our word and uh for sure I'm a very strong believer and that has to maintain yeah all right I just wantan to I know we are way over time but I I want to go to slide 30 please I'm sorry okay there were there was a lot discussed tonight but about the fund balance I want people to look at bullet number three amount would provide additional liquidity
206in case of State funding delays or other Revenue challenges and I just want to reiterate this Mr Shipley has talked about how careful and thoughtful and I'm going to say he is a very conservative approach to funding and which I appreciate um but this also speaks to people's concerns about what might occur with the budget um so I just want to reiterate this because I think it may have been lost in what people were thinking with regards to spending down the fund balance that you still have the liquidity of 260 days of funding that would be available for us operating funds would allow us to take care of some one-time needs that we have to have things such as uh technology equipment for um our middle and high school and some other things such as
207um uh um other services that we need to have so I just want to be say that and that's it good thank you all right I think we're done thank you thank Youk you okay um does anyone have any uh legislative advocacy or a board of education update items no I just wanted to very quickly remind whoever is still watching all five of you you um about the coffee and conversation coming up on Wednesday night at Springbrook Elementary at 700 p.m. where Dr tally Mr kruis and myself will be to answer questions concerns chat thank you for that yes it's a great opportunity for everyone to have those con conversations in a small group with some of the people making decisions in the district so thank you all right I need a motion in a
208second to adjourn motion to adjourn second all in favor