BRUSD Bond/Override Study Session, Thursday, April 23, 2026 @ 5:00 pm

001Folks, we'd like to call this meeting to order and we're going to begin with a pledge and I've asked Jonathan Roloff, our superintendent, to lead us in the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Looks like we have a great turnout. I hope this is going to be aformational meeting for everybody. This is an open forum today that we won't be voting on anything. So there can be a conversation between the board and members. Uh we have an outline we'll be following. It'll be posted up so we can follow. Also, if you'd like to follow along, you can download the QR code and it'll go right to your phones

002to follow along with us. I'd like to excuse Margaret. uh her sister passed away and they're having a memorial for her in Texas. So, she's had had to be excused. So, I'm going to turn the time over here to our superintendent and he's going to walk us through this. Good evening everybody and thank you for coming. Uh you know, we never were sure quite how many people would show up, but we're we're glad to have people here. Um, and we're glad to present what we're thinking and hear everybody else's opinions as well. So, I just want to thank everybody for coming and because this is a very important thing for our community. Um, what we're going to do tonight is um, Mary's making copies of the agenda. They will be available on the QR code

003and online as well. So, um, but we'll have paper copies too if you want to take notes and and take a look. But the QR code is available if you want to follow along. The presentations will be posted, but if you wanted to take a second look at them later, um it's very important. Um and I want to kick off with our reason for meeting tonight. Um you know, when I was younger, I always respected Blige. Like Blige was kind of the gold standard in the state of Arizona for a lot of things. And even though I grew up uh you know on the other side of the state, seeing Blige doing well in football and academics and Blige was kind of a small town, amazing place to be. And you know, growing up in

004the valley, I knew um that Blige was a place of excellence. Um and so when I came in and I applied for the job, I knew that that was my mission to come in here and make sure that the excellence was continuing to happen at Blige. And that was something I tried to convey in my interviews and in my first year here um looking around and seeing things. I can tell you our employees here are allin. Our employees here are committed to excellence and um and I want to make sure that they have the tools to do that. Now, we're not looking to have a Cadillac, but we want a Chevy that functions down the road. We're going to talk about some of the needs that we feel um are important to address in our

005district so that we can support our employees. But I can tell you I'm all in and our employees are all in. And I think it's very important that we step up. I think that the most precious resource in any community is the children, especially in a small community because we have a unique opportunity to raise our children as a reflection of our community and raise them and we're working on the yellow jacket profile and to raise our children in a way that we're proud of and that we want to come back into the community and be contributing members. I think a a public school system, a strong public school system is the lifeblood of the community. We have some amazing things happening and just like I said, our employees are all in. Um, our students

006are, you know, the past few days and the past few weeks, we've been going through testing and I can tell you our kids are coming in. They're working hard and we have great feedback on how testing has been going. our kids are taking it seriously and you know they're human beings so we're not in a perfect world but we have an amazing group of kids here and so it makes me excited for the future of our community and once again um in my first year here I as I go around and I see things there's evident that there evidences there's things that need to be fixed and we need to take a look at those tonight and like I said I just want to make sure we're supporting our employees and our students so that

007this community has a great future I I know we have a lot of professionals that choose to bring their kids here because of the level of education that we provide our children and I don't want that to go back. And one of the things I've said since I started here is one thing that I heard a lot was that how good Blige used to be. And I've said it if I said it once I've said it several times. I'm sorry for those of you who are sick of me saying that. But I want to get to the point where we don't talk about how good Bluidge used to be. It's how good Blueridge is. I want Blige to be the gold standard for education in the state of Arizona for our community for the mountain

008and that and I think we have the right people to do it and I just want to make sure our people get supported in that mission of excellence for our kids in our community because I think our kids deserve it and I think our employees deserve it and our community deserves it because for the lifeblood of the community I think it's very important and we are allin and we're hoping that the community supports us in being allin with that. So now um you know there is uh there's a parable that talks about talents where when people are away um when the master leaves he gives five talent to one of his servants, two talents to one and one talent to the third. The servant that gets five talents goes out and multiplies. And so that's

009what my plan is to do if we're able to pass and bond and override to take that because the research says that when we have pass a bond in the community and spend money in the community that dollar gets spent nine times over in the community. So what we're looking for is prosperity of our schools, prosperity of our community and prosperity of our businesses. We don't want to be the servant that gets one talent and buries it in the ground and tries to guard it and it ends up ends up losing it. So, with that being said, we are going to have tours in addition to um what we show here on May 6th. So, if people want to come and see firsthand our facilities and not just the pictures, um maybe they think the

010pictures, I don't know, there's AI out there. If people want to see it firsthand, know that it's not AI. Um we're going to offer tours on May 6th. We will have a tour at 9:00 a.m. in the morning. We'll meet right out here at the district office. We want to show people around and let them see what the facilities look like firsthand, answer even more questions they have. So 9:00 a.m. and 3 p.m. we're offering tours to the community to anybody who wants to come by, check in here. Um, you know, since we are a school, we want people to check in, sign in, and so uh, we can keep them together as a group and show them around if they want to see it firsthand as well. So, um, with that being said, before

011we move on, um, I hope everybody has an agenda, but what we want to do tonight is we're going to go through some of our different needs assessments. We're going to go through our different areas of needs. And when you have three minutes to participate, we want you to be able to ask questions and make comments. So, the first group that we'll talk about is facilities. and we will do a facilities presentation and we will show you some of the things that are wrong with the facilities that we intend to fix with the facilities and we want to hear your comments. We want to answer any questions you may have. Um, and then we're going to get into technology and hopefully everybody has the agenda and so we're going to ask that whatever comments and

012questions you have that we can group them based on the presentation and that we we want to answer the questions while the PE while the presenters are there, the experts are there to answer questions. Um, but before we get into each of these, we've had some questions. Um, we're going to go to Miss Hoffmy's presentation here about how the last bond money was spent. what it was spent on, how it was used, some different things like classroom ratios, how we spend our money currently. And so some of the specific questions we wanted to get out in front of and answer before um if if these were still on people's mind and we wanted to share it and just be as transparent as possible because once again um if we pass this bond, we want to

013be transparent. We want to be good stewards and be efficient with the finances of the community. So, what we want to do first of all is start off by to report on how we've used these in the past. So, I'm gonna shoot it over to Miss Hoffmire. >> Thank you. The first So, following our last board meeting, there were some from then until tonight, we've had some questions that came up regarding just uh what Mr. Lo was saying, the how the dollars were spent, but then also some of our classroom spending. And so, I just wanted to go through and answer some of those questions that came up to me. And then uh when we get to the question piece, if anything else comes up, please feel free to ask. Um Mr. Doogie, can you

014are you able to scroll in just a little bit on the Yeah, thank you. That's perfect. So this first um this first column will show you the dollars. This these are bond dollars that were spent each year between um fiscal year 17 and fiscal year 25. So totaling 15 million uh roughly $15 million. And then if you um can go to the other side, this breaks it down into what specifically all of those bond dollars went through. And I think did you say that this was going to be available? This is the presentations are available online. >> Yeah, the presentations are available. >> Presentations are available online and if you guys scan the QR code. So, so if you want to take a little bit more time on each of these, feel free to go

015back and revisit, but this will show you all of the just breaks it down kind of by uh line item on how that how that those bond dollars were spent. If you can go to the next slide, please. Thanks. Another question came up about our school facilities division uh division and that was that is the we talked about that that is how we get reimbursed for big projects. We put in requests for projects, capital projects that need to be completed and we get reimbursed by the state. And so this shows how many projects have been paid out since 2022 and how many active projects we currently have. If you look at this graph right here, you'll see that a total of 129 projects, 90 of which have been paid out. And then these other ones

016are um are actively are still actively um um they're they're active projects. Um, and then if you can go to the next slide, please. This next slide shows what all of our current active projects are. Some of these projects have actually been completed. So, the projects themselves are done and they're in the finalization process and that just means that we are um we are working on getting the reimbursements completed. We it is a process of getting all the paperwork submitted to um to the school facilities division. Uh there are a lot of working parts in that and that takes a little bit of time. And so um these are all the current projects that we have pending. Okay, next slide please. Another question came up. Uh there was some there was a little bit of

017confusion on our classroom how the on the classroom spending breakdown. And so I wanted to give a little bit more clarity on the classroom spending. Um this is going to be the operational and the nonoperational spending. And so if you can go to the next slide there's and I apologize this comes straight. It's is this one is a little bit harder to read. You can zoom in on it and it'll show you all of the different components. But in operational spending, it will it will it'll itemize everything that's within the operational spending. And so you can see how what exactly is included when we talk about instruction dollars, the percentage of instruction. That's what it's specifically referring to. And then the other side of that is going to be the non-operational which was the land

018and buildings, the equipment um interest and um other things that were right um service programs, civic activities and things like that. >> Courtney is is this doc are these documents available to to like on our website or anything like that? >> So this actually I left a link at the bottom of this page. Um and this so this is just the glossery on the auditor general's website. That's where this comes from. Okay. And so this link you can go to that and it'll give you a glossery of actually all of our uh peer groups our obser you know >> but it will show us our our spending and those yes and that was that previous slide that was where that came from as well that is going to show you that just came straight from

019the auditor general's website. >> Okay next slide please. Um, another question came up and this one the question was uh was asked on how much spec how much we're paying on deferred maintenance and preventative maintenance. Um, and that one's a little bit gray. I because you know there are we have some things that we're you know we we spend dollars on repair and upkeep. Um, and so if you take a look at this is just a comparison of our operation and maintenance of plant expenditures. And what that means is ju so this is just looking at a specific object code in our and that is just on um operation of buildings, maintenance of buildings, care and upkeep of grounds, right? So those kind of dollars and it'll tell you what is specifically it's talking about

020down there, right? Maintenance, repair and supplies, custodial capital and utilities. And so that's just a comparison of where we were in FY25 and where we are currently in FY26. And I think too looking at the numbers and then seeing the slides, I think one thing that'll be evident is our facilities people and to be quite honest, all of our employees, our budget people are doing more with less. They're really working hard to make things happen with with what we have. And so with no further ado, our first presentation tonight will be on our facilities. So I'm going to invite up um Mr. Bosley as well as uh Russell with performance services. Um we want to thank performance services for coming out and doing a full facilities audit. And so come on up gentlemen. >> Yeah.

021Thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity to come and and speak with you again. And uh thank you very much, Mr. Bosley for the help. Um, any of you that get a chance to do the tour, I highly recommend it. What you're going to see are some of the pictures and some of the images that we captured that were indicative of the type of things that you will see on the the future tour that do show the the needs in the project in the school. So, one of the first ones, and some of you have seen these pictures before, and I'm I'm sorry to rehash them for those of you that have already seen them. There are also some additional pictures in there that we've we've done. These are the cooling towers that show

022the level of repair or disrepair on those cooling towers. You can see the rusting. You can see the calcification and the media that is on here and on the inside. The components are beyond their useful life. They cannot be cleaned. Any attempt to clean these will uh cause degradation. They will come apart. They're brittle and falling to pieces. The these cooling towers need to be repaired. >> This uh isn't necessarily an option. This isn't an add-on to our cooling system. These cooling towers are a vital part of our cooling system. In fact, they are the cooling system. So, from the months of say March when it gets warm all the way to the months of October, our school would be almost inhabitable because of how hot it would be because this tower is down. And

023this doesn't just serve a building. This particular cooling tower serves the entire main campus, all of that instructional area. >> Yeah. Here's the other cooling tower. This is on building 13. Uh you can see from the rust on this one and on the inside the rust that's evident, it is time for this tower to be replaced as well. Um and as Mr. Bosley has uh stated all of your systems, your HVAC systems in these building are what's called water source heat pumps, which means it has a compressor unit in there, but that compressor unit is cooled by the water and the energy and the heat that is displaced from these cooling towers. So if these don't operate, the air conditioning units in the room do not operate. So what this go ahead so this slide

024this slide is actually showing what we have done. Now, you might see an empty ceiling and you might see an open unit with a cover taken off. But what I actually will tell you I see is we use that room, we use that unit to make another unit work because finding parts for these units is virtually impossible. So, what I see is we made another unit work. And in that other picture, we're always working on units. So, yes, that cover is off. So what you see is only a sliver of what we deal with. That's actually a happy picture because I know that somebody else's room is working and a nonused room is now being utilized. >> Do you have an idea when these units were originally installed? 1998 was when a I would say

025about 90% of this campus including high school least multi-purpose junior high and high school main 1998 is 90% of these units sir >> and and what's the economic life of those units >> 15 years >> that's perh standards ashray standards will usually put a compressor unit between 8 and 12 years before you start doing repairs 15 years is end of life you guys They're well beyond that uh because of the good work of your maintenance staff keeping them alive. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Here's another picture. I don't know if there's a laser pointer on there. The picture on the left, it's hard to see, but you can see the wires that are disconnected. And then you can see the box opening of the um the duct work. That's a whole unit that is

026missing completely. And that unit is missing completely because maintenance had to take that because the parts are unavailable for the other ones. So, they're having to scrap parts out of other areas of the building to get that. So, when the tour is being done, I encourage you to look and and uh see those open space. Anywhere you see that big section of duct work missing, there is a unit that is supposed to be there. Again, this is another picture of units missing. Um, and then you also have the controls that are that are hanging there. You can see that when you take a unit out, the way these controls operate is they run through daisy chain. And so when you take that unit out, you have to daisy chain it to get it by to

027keep your control system operating. And your control system is desperately in dire need of repair and replacement. I don't if you can speak more to the controls as well, but again, another picture of units that are that are missing and and being parted together as best as possible. Again, on the left, this is a unit that's missing. And it's very interesting. the unit on the right. This was new. This is a newer picture that that uh Mr. Bos Bosley showed me. This and it's hard to tell. If you're an HVAC mechanic, you can tell those white pipes. Those are not supposed to be white. Those are copper. What you're seeing is frost that is building up on those units. And frost starts building up on the units because your subcooling is too cold. It is

028not discharging the the it's not collecting the heat from the space for whatever reason. So you could have I mean there's a multitude of reasons that could be you could have low low refrigerant. Could be a crack in the line. It could be a problem with a fan. It could be a problem with the air circulation. But that is not the way that is supposed to be. So that was actually a new one since since uh original visit there. What you're seeing here, this is the horizontal pump that runs the cooling tower on building 8, I believe. >> Yes, sir. And so what you're seeing, and it's hard to tell from this picture, but you can see water uh at the base where the pump the motor shaft goes into the pump. So that pump

029uh has been there for since the '9s. Uh those shafts, they just wear out and needs to be replaced. The pump housing needs to be replaced. The motor is a less efficient motor. Newer motors are much more efficient and can operate with better controls sequences. And what you're seeing is water collecting on the floor because that pump housing is is in disrepair. What you see here is again another picture, another angle of those pumps. And you can see right in the middle of the floor there's a floor drain that is it's not made to handle that much water. So that floor brain floor drain has been overcome by uh by excessive water. And it's interesting to note on the other side, it's right up against your electrical gear. And anybody that knows anything about electrical,

030water does not interact well with electrical gear. And that's your main panel there. Yeah. One of them. This is a picture of And if you can see the discoloration on the wood, this is some roof damage. This is evidence of leakage that has happened in the past. And Mike, I don't know, you you pointed this one out to me, which was was good there. Um, and we'll see further roof tiles, ceiling tiles that show evidence of of past leaks. And again, you don't want water in places where it doesn't belong. It can cause uh um air issues, uh air quality issues with your students and the learning environment. You don't want that. So this picture here um it's a couple things. It shows water damage that is apparent. It also shows if you can see

031the discoloration around those registers. What that shows is that is uh old units, older coils, older duct just by the nature of age of units that collects that dust. is you can filter it all you want, but in 20 years you're going to collect what you don't want there and you start discharging it and you can see the staining on the ceiling tiles from that air quality. This is another picture that shows the uh ceiling tile uh conditions with some of the uh the water damage. And you can even see some of the fixtures that are coming down. And when water damage occurs, it can affect the grid, which can also shift that around. You can see a light uh fixture kind of coming out. Go ahead. When you have a ceiling tile that you

032see that's stained, it's always more than just a stained ceiling tile. Uh replacing a ceiling tile, by the way, is not necessarily cheap. They're about 15 to$20 a piece. So, one of those pictures you see the ceiling tile removed. We actually keep it removed because we know there's a roof leak. We've been chasing it. And why put up a ceiling tile every time it rains? We know we're going to lose that ceiling tile. So, seeing a stained ceiling tile actually says more than just we're going to lose money on replacing a ceiling tile. It means there's a roof leak. It means there's an air conditioner that's not working that's backed up the system. So, a ceiling tile is just a sneeze when we're really seeing the big flu that is going on. So, there's ceiling

033tiles throughout this school that are stained and my gentlemen replace them all the time and they continue to be stained because we do the same thing. >> Yeah. Again, this more pictures of ceiling tiles and missing and on your subject of the ceiling tiles. There's levels of criticality. If you don't have air conditioning, you don't have air in the space. I mean, learning is fully shut down. Ceiling tiles can be missing and the learning environment can still continue. Lighting can be a little bit different and it can still continue. So, those things are lower lower priority. So, if you're always you're always chasing the most highest priority and I I I hesitate to do this, but I'm going to go ahead and do it. I invite you to just look up with where you're sitting

034here. You have several fixtures out, other several fixtures that are different color temperatures. That is due to it is much lower on the priority to get things done. >> One of them is psychedelic right now. >> It is. That's indicative of a ballast that is going bad and needs to be replaced. Yeah. A ballast. A ballast runs for that particular fixture runs about $280 for that particular fixture plus light bulbs. Now, for about $250, we can actually put an entire flat panel LED fixture up there. Once again, that makes sense. Or does it make sense to put a light bulb up there so at least we have light over for the board? It's been that kind of way. I have a particular example real quick that we are dealing with. Uh there is a door

035that's not working on one of these campuses. I won't share that information. Those that know it know it. So, the quick fix would be to padlock this door closed or find a way just to secure it. That's been what we've done as a district for the last many years. The correct way to fix this door would be spend the $2500 that it would take to build to get a new mullion, the door closers, the new push bars, or because we've trying to prioritize where we're bleeding the worst. In times, we have done the $20 fix where we just put a a padlock on the door when it probably didn't need a padlock. It really really needed to be fixed the right way. But due to the times and the financial struggles that we were having

036at those particular moments, that is why we did that this way. But now we need to pass the bond so we do it right. So what you have here is this is uh pictures of your existing shower facilities and locker room facilities and your your sporting areas. And as you can tell, those showers are outdated. And uh uh there are other better and more ADA compliant facilities that need to be put in. Again, this is another picture of one of your bathrooms in uh in one of your schools there. Again, this shows the lack of ADA compliant uh space there. Oh, here's another good picture of the showers. Again, you can see the rust damage. You can see the tiling missing. Um, I don't think they use these anymore and it's probably a reason why

037they don't use them anymore. This is uh uh to show what could be done. The picture on the right is a rendering of what it could be done. And in fact, you guys have done some other locker room facilities that look look good that are that are newer and they're very very similar to this. This is our last slide and this is shifting all the way over to the elementary school. And these are pictures that show there's some heaving that is occurring in your uh corridors that is displacing your flooring. And this picture shows some of the doors that cannot open. U luckily that that door on the far left that's a storage room closet I believe. Yeah. So, it is not an occupied um school space, but whatever is happening there needs to have

038some investigation and figure out how to correct that. Thank you very much for the time. We appreciate it. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> Yes. So, now we'll open it up if anybody has questions. If the board or any community members would like to approach the podium, you guys have up to three minutes. If there's anybody that has any questions or comments about facilities, thank you gentlemen for the presentation. Um >> I just I I just have a comment. I don't think and and so anybody else who's presenting tonight, I don't think we're I don't think you have to convince us like we know there's major needs. Um I think it's going to be convincing taxpayers to part with more of their money um to to fix those things. So,

039so just just kind of keep that in mind. Like I mean I've been here for the last 30 years and and seen seen it go from what it was to what it is. And so um yeah, there's no there's no lack of of uh seeing the need. Um you know, we just got to we just got to come up with good solutions. the um just if I'm not mistaken, the bo the bond money that we took last in 2017 went to remodel, rebuild basically the junior high and other things. So none of that bond money oh and to fix some of the oldest um locker rooms for visitors and stuff like that that they're in pretty good shape right now. So a lot of this stuff none of that stuff none of this stuff was

040addressed back then, right? That was just pretty much the junior high to get it back up and running so we could put kids in it. >> Yeah. And um yeah, most of this stuff hasn't been addressed since the '9s, if not before. So this is all things that weren't addressed in the past. So, my understanding was is in 2016 that they were whoever was hoping to get a little bit more to cover some more um projects, but decided it would be easier to pass with the community um but also 2016 dollars. So, passed $15 million bond, but there were still a lot of things. Um, but as we all know, dollar went a lot further in 2016 than it does in 2026. So, it probably would have been better to address some more of the

041issues back then, but um but they spent the full 15 million then and but yeah, these are other things that hadn't been addressed. >> I have a a question. How many of the showers and locker rooms are not ADA compliant? >> Mr. Bosley, Russell, do you have a a number for that? >> And Russell, I think, gave a good um description as far as, you know, code and compliance because at one point we we were in above code and compliance, but then he said code and compliance has changed throughout the years and so and we just haven't kept up with that. But how how many total restrooms locker rooms do would you say? >> I don't I don't have a complete count. So actually for a complete count for fully ADA compliant shower areas, the

042only areas would be the two locker rooms off of the old gym. >> I don't believe there's showers in the junior high. >> Yes, ma'am. But the uh that's more of a staff andor sped shower if I'm correct. Uh so as in locker room shower areas there is only at the moment off of the old gym. >> Okay. And what is not ADA compliant with them >> as in for the rest of them? >> Oh yes >> in general. Yeah. >> In general. Well wheelchair access. You got to have grab bars. You got to have handles a bit available for people to transfer from wheelchairs into the uh restroom facilities. Uh there's also privacy uh with ADA compliance in there as well. There's also again it goes back to a lot of wheelchair accessible. None

043of those showers have their own wheelchair accessible in there. I think >> I think ones, >> Michael, those those two locker rooms that are ADA compliant were upgraded to last bond because they were falling down. >> Those those are original to the school locker rooms. >> Those were remodeled. So, it can be done >> and they're nice. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> But I I will say this and because I think we're seeing it now, even with those locker rooms, they're already starting to show wear, I think, because they don't get used very often. um spec specifically the showers and um and I feel like a lot of our like those pictures that you see they look so bad because nobody has used them in probably 20 years um and so they just sitting they're just

044sitting there you know this the toilets they don't use the toilets >> I actually do have one correction to my previous statement um so I do believe the girls locker room off of the main gym It's more ADA compliance privacy >> and there is the privacy issues and those showers do seem to be in slightly better condition than say >> the boys locker room. I don't know if that's a female versus male >> destroying ability or not, but uh for some reason the girls locker room does uh have some nicer showers in the moment. So, if the privacy issues were corrected, do you feel like I mean those rooms are going to be used or are we going to be spending money fixing them and them still not being used? >> That might be a

045good question for Coach Kluff. Do you feel like if we were to update the lock or coach Hamlin? I don't know. Do if we updated the locker room and had privacy and showers available, is that something the students would use? I know when I was in high school, it was mandatory. We took a shower and we had those old ones and you know you were standing next to your teammates which a little uncomfortable what kids the these days wouldn't do but if we had I I think if it's something that we encouraged or was culturally acceptable right now or we had the time in the day you would see probably more kids shower. We we have some kids that come from Koncho or McNary or like even White River that that don't have running water

046at home. So there's there's a couple kids we have on the year where we we have to get some kids some showers. We normally do that in coach's offices. Um we I know that in the main gym um off the varsity locker room, I don't think they've showered in there in quite some time. I know the showers over here on East Campus haven't been used. I know that our visitor locker rooms are used by opposing teams to shower when they come, but definitely not our kids. Um, I know that in the year that I got here last year in 24-25, our female wrestlers were wrestling in the morning and they were using those showers before they had to go in the day. It was just for our our coach, Coach Navaro, that was coaching at

047the time. That was his schedule. He could be here in the morning. But I can tell you that the gra the gross majority of our kids don't shower. They don't shower here. >> I had five kids K through 12 here. I don't think one of them ever took a shower here. >> I mean, obviously for camps and stuff, I mean, if they're staying overnight, they're they're going to want showers, but our kids just go home. So >> that was actually one of the concepts is if we were going to bring sports camps, if that was an option and if that was an avenue that the district was going to pursue that we have 3 to 400 teenage boys playing football day in day out for a week with our facilities. We would definitely need to

048have showers available if that was an avenue the district went in. And once again, I actually see that as the district making an investment on itself. If we are able to have good bathrooms, good showering facilities, districts from the valley that have nice facilities because they've got nice stuff. Um, if we had that, we would help bring the draw and continue. I think it would be an interest in the district in that rep >> and maybe that's something if we decide or as a board if you decide that that's something we don't want on the scope of this bond. You know, maybe as we get football camps going and stuff. I know that um or or athletic camps. I know Coach Kloff has talked about making money on those camps and infusing them back into

049the school system. So that that might be one of the projects that we could look at with with the camp money if we thought that that would be not a wise use of bond money. >> Um I was wondering if you could talk to us more about is it the SDF fund? SF SFD. >> Absolutely. Do you mind stating your name and >> Yeah, I'm Elaine Smithson. >> Hi. Um I'm curious to know how many of these projects could could go on that list. are we expected to have them um addressed soon or not? And um how that fund works, can it do things like the HVAC system, the bathrooms, the AD updating things to the ADA um standards? Um or is that something that we shouldn't depend on at all? I'm just curious. >>

050So that's that's a great question and I think Mr. Bosley has done a great job this year. he took over the SFD um liaison position uh midy year and he's made some great headway in working with our school facilities department. Unfortunately with the state budget uh the with the state budget as it is um there's a lot of other things that are um priorities in the state budget right now that are are big ticket items that are pulling money from public schools. And so SFD hasn't been funded for a lot of projects and we have a lot of our projects that have been pushed to elevated status for a few years. And so one of the commitments I think I need to make as the superintendent is that we're going to continue to fund as

051many projects through school facilities division as possible. And that's what the plan is to do. And if they are, we don't necessarily need to um sell all the bonds if we get a good windfall. And Mike's been doing a good job. If we get a windfall of money from the school facilities division um or from the the lawsuit, the Roosevelt versus lawsuit where the state is being found liable and they owe money to public schools, but they continue to wrap it up in appeals court. So, we haven't gotten that money. And I think Mr. Georgia office said some of the litigation has been at the state level since the 80s and 90s about appropriate funding. So, as we're talking about waiting for that to happen, that's a great question and I think we are going

052to try to be as efficient as possible and if we get that money, we will use it and we don't have to um go to the public for that. But when you're looking at those cooling towers and they're they're providing the cooling for multiple buildings. If we're waiting on the school's facilities division, one thing that has been made clear to me over and over again, it's way more expensive to fix things in an emergency than it is to fix them the right way ahead of time. They're past the usable life. If we can get that money from school facilities division, we're doing everything we can. But in the meantime, if that goes down, we're just trying to be responsible stewards of the communities, the school district funds by trying to get those replaced ahead of

053time instead of waiting for those emergencies to happen. And like Mike Mike Bosley talked about, you know, at this point in time with our budget, we're we're trying to allocate as much money as we can to to stop the bleeding in the in the highest priority areas. But when we're looking at millions and millions of dollars, we can't plug all the holes in the dam. The dam's eventually going to break. And if we have to look at building another school um in a few years down the road, that's going to be it costs about $90 million to build a new school. So, um, I think there's a lot of lot of history here and it would be sad to me if this building went into a state of higher disrepair. So, we're doing everything we

054can on all options, but we're asking the community to help us out with the bond, but we're still going to be doing our work on the backside of working with school facilities division and doing everything that we can to to fund that. So, I hope that was a good answer and that answered that question. But trust me, we we got the wheels spinning behind the scenes. We're not just waiting for someone to come save us. We're doing everything we can, but there's only so much we can do as a district. >> Yeah. >> And Mr. Mr. Bosley, you can um correct me if I'm wrong, but as we were looking through, in total, we've requested around 10 point 10 about 10.5 million from SFD and and in total we've been awarded about 4 million I

055think 4.3 4.5 million. >> But the bottom line is we can't we we can't rely we don't know. >> That's the ultimately the thing is we don't we don't know as is usually the case with government and schools. that uh 4 million what what was the time period? >> I don't it didn't give me a time frame before 20 before 2022 I'm not sure I'm not sure how far back goes so I can look into that >> because my understanding with SFB is that uh it's on a rotation and if you're after 12 months it hasn't been funded then you have to put it back in the rotation again. Is that right? So you have to keep on top of it to make sure and it rises to the top and if it doesn't get

056funded and it goes to the bottom again unless you unless you're the squeaky wheel, right, Mike? >> Yes. Yes, sir. That is exactly correct. >> And that's happened to us in the past. >> If the stars don't align with some grants, then yes, sir. Things can push past that initial one-year mark. And then pushing that project several more months creates more wheels to be pushed. And uh yes sir, it is a system. >> I'm the one that has to go sign those papers and every week they have me go in and sign those papers for SFB. So uh I know they're working hard at trying to get that done >> and I know there's not enough money. I think that I heard one time there were like nearly a billion dollars worth of repairs to

057schools in the state and they only funded 9 million or something like that through this legislature. So it's way upside down. Is any of this stuff on the HVAC side in SFD right now that we've applied for or not >> at the current moment? The only major well the control system which uh he saw had the wires hanging down uh that is in the SFD. Uh it's slated about a almost half a mill project to bring the main district back up to date. Also that cooling tower is currently in the works as well. Uh the cooling tower itself cost about 180 just off the factory floor plus installation. So that one is in the SFD as well as uh yeah that would be the main HVAC. The it it's really when we didn't start getting

058big projects through the SFD. We started attacking small projects and we started just kind of nitpicking them as much as we could for a compressor here and a compressor there. um getting anything that we could out of them at that time. Uh but >> does that and that seems to work with go asking for smaller money. kept us floating, but I don't know what we can say has worked and hasn't worked. >> Well, and as you know, as there's turnover within school facilities division and they're running short on funds and stuff, sometimes there's not really a rhyme or reason why they approve things or don't approve things. In my mind, I try to be a really rational, logical, and efficient person. I would think that one of the things they would fund first would be

05930-year-old air conditioning units, but that you know. All right. Do we have any other public comments or questions on facilities? Okay. Well, we will have some time at the end for general publics and comments. So, the next uh presentation we want to bring up is is Mr. Neil on technology needs and one of the things uh I want to preempt this presentation with is we have looked at a lot of things recently and we've heard the community talk about the appropriate use of technology in the schools and this is something we're committed to looking at because I think one of the things we all agree upon is when our kids need to take state testing when it's that time we need our our systems to work because we don't want our kids to perform poorly.

060because they don't have access to um a network or a computer that does it. But I think we can also agree that back in the day, you know, um well, let me take a step back. The RTI methodology says any child can learn anything with between five and 250 repetitions. You can teach anybody anything. And until we get all of our kids passing, that class time is valuable. Back when I was in school, when a student would complete their work, you know, they were given uh, you know, something to color or, you know, go ahead and open up a book and read it. And I think what we want to do, number one, is value class time. And I think we could all agree that now, um, kids, we're an electron electronic generation and kids

061have a tendency and and a lot behind the computer scene is screen is secretive. And so, Mr. Neil's one of the first ones to point out that our kids are are getting um into places in electronics. And so what we that you know maybe isn't the best thing for learning and there's sites out there you know like cool math that you think your kids are doing math. There's no math on there. It's games. So as we're getting the reports and the kids are logging onto a site like cool math because they can get through the web filters and get to cool math and they're just playing games. That's those are the things we want to eliminate because they have all you know all afternoon and and evening and whenever they're out of school and that's

062between their parents and them how much screen time they want to allow. We don't want to add any unnecessary screen time. So somewhere between we need working computers that work for state testing and and important features and we we need our teachers to have working computers to take attendance and log in. But then we also do not want to have those times when our kids are are spending their times gaming at at school. They need to be learning while they're at school. And instructional time is so important. One thing I have never heard a teacher say, I have too much time. I don't know what to do with my time. So, um, so I think we're committed to bringing in a committee and looking at that and what what our, um, technology integration looks like

063in the classroom. And so, I'm excited to hear and move forward with that because we have heard that from the community. So, getting together and having our our teachers and community come together and commit to what that looks like and with Nathan helping to lead that. But go ahead, Nathan. I'll but that was my little preemptive and I'll let Nathan take it over. >> And thank you for that. I'm a computer guy, so I don't talk much. So, thank you for all of that. I can skip now, so thank you. Um, so yeah, as we're talking about old things, uh, we have, uh, technology across the district. So, uh, basically what we have up on the screen here is a list of kind of what every classroom looks like in in Blige. We have a

064teacher laptop, we have a projector, we have a wireless display that the, um, teachers connect their laptops to to present in the classroom. We have an access point for wireless. Uh we have the servers and then of course uh we're a onetoone school district. Um and you can look at the board here and see that just about everything's about 10 years old and those in the tech world are about to roll over. We're about to roll over model years in the tech world. So this time next month they'll be 11 uh model years old um on there. And not to mention as well with budget constraints this year like technology took a 28% cut. Um, so we have older equipment that requires more repairs more often and we have less staff to do that with.

065>> Is it safe to say, Nathan, that that the last uh bond bought all of those things? >> Yes, sir. Yeah, we we did um we bought originally we bought um the one to one um laptops for students and we were actually able to refresh those um with bond dollars as well um and get those COVID um era type devices um for the one which is actually when we actually went truly onetoone was during that COVID era um and so yeah it's been spent as is as we said it would be spent uh for I believe for the most part we could uh elaborate on that. Um, so with our classrooms, again, we're one to one school district. Um, we lead the White Mountains in, uh, digital equity. Uh, because of our 1:1 program, every

066student in our district has um, access to a computer um, while they're on campus here. um to keep us in that lead. Going back to one to one, um staying at one to one, we're just doing the maximum numbers here. Um would be uh classroom teachers totals with projectors, laptops, all that about 650. You guys can read the numbers on there. Um but that's what we're looking at as far as just classroom modernization. And here's a little bit further breakdown of kind of what that looks like. Going from desktops for our faculty or for our staff members that are um desk deskbound positions um attendance clerks, those types of folks. Uh laptops for faculty. This includes uh administration that has laptops, teachers, um across the board with those. um maintenance, transportation, um maintenance uses theirs

067uh to do work orders, um those types of items, docking stations, um in certain cases, especially admin, um where they can take their laptops to a meeting, come back, plug into big monitors on their desk, full keyboard, uh full mouse, those types of things. Um I won't read all of these to you, but they kind of continue to go down there. Um which is funny because I saw Miss Hoffmeer's report earlier that our technology spend on the last bond was like 1 6ish. Um so we're very close on there. Um and again these are kind of inflated numbers. Um we recently got a new quote on the teacher laptops there and that's dropped about 38% um with our most recent um um negotiations with them. Um so that's the that's just the devices that you

068need in the classrooms um and with the uh students there. As far as the technology infrastructure, um the district made its uh I got here in 2013. At that time, we put in the first master plan um uh network uh across the district. We spent about a million dollars back then um to doing that. Um that put fiber throughout the entire district. Um but well, sorry, not the entire district, just one campus. Um and in 2018, we were able to come back and do the entire rest of the campus there and put us on a 10 gig backbone. um which is very substantial for where we're at and what we can do um and takes us well into the future probably for at least another decade or so. Um on that um and um as

069part of that with our infrastructure we have servers. It's important to note that these items that are on this list here um whether we end up going back to a one to one or not these are items that have to be purchased. It doesn't matter if we have five people on a server or uh 2,000, we still need these items on here as well. Um, as far as the wireless access points go, uh, we actually are uh replacing all of the wireless access points this summer throughout the district through um, and by using funds to do that. Um, we'll save about $220,000 for that and have a brand new mesh wireless system throughout the entire district. Um, and some of those access points are from the original 2013 build as well. Um, so on the

070last bond, we didn't even have enough um money in that bond to do a full complete wireless here. Uh, next up we have our campus safety and security. Um, one of the biggest needs we have here of course is our paging system has been been defunct for some time. Um, and speaking of SFD funding, uh that came up earlier, this was a project that has just completed at the end of 2025. Um, that saved uh BR about $1.3 million. Um, and put in a single intercom, not intercom, paging system throughout the entire um throughout the entire district. Um, it's a modern system that can be um joined in with like our fire alarm goes through it. Everything is attached to it now. So we can do messaging through it, all kinds of stuff. Um, and

071so our camera system, um, is very weak. We have it up. I think that system when we put in with the last bond, we only spent about 200,000 on that system. So it's it's not a great system to start with and now um, you know, it's approaching eight years is eight years old now. It's probably a model year older than that. So again, we're running on another decade there. Um, so we're looking at security cameras. Um those are they're saying the high end on that for us would be about 1.7. Um and then the other things for us is the door keys and locks. Um and when we're talking about safety items especially like um um active incidents like active shooters uh to this point yet there has not never been a door breached knowing

072known that a door has been breached during an incident um and had somebody lose their lives. So, it's incredibly important that we keep those doors locked, that we keep those doors shut, um, and that we keep keys secured. Um, and one thing that we've noticed is that we have locks, um, handles that, uh, door handles that don't work correctly. Um, keys that you can find find walking out in the parking lot, you find a master key sitting on the ground, those types of things that need to be resolved um, for the safety of our students and staff. Um, and that's really all I have uh for tonight. If anybody has any questions, there's just a a final breakdown of all of the um anticipated costs. And again, these are more MSRP than they are negotiated

073prices. >> I have I have two questions. One, I assume that there's probably a camera system between 200,000 and 1.7 million. >> Yes, sir. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we would definitely, again, these are just numbers that we're just trying to say this is the max that it would cost us to put in. And then the doors, the door locks, are those um technology related or or you just kind of put that in there? >> They're not. I just picked up the safety security thing most of the time. Yeah, it's just something I do. >> Doesn't really fit in with the computer stuff, but I take it. So is mine. So, >> well, the Yeah, the cameras fit in with the safety and security stuff, so it's logical. But as we all know, um, when campuses

074around ours were built, safety and security wasn't as big of an issue as it is in 2026. And so I think that's an important thing um that we invest money into getting those things shored up. >> I have a question. >> Oh, go ahead. >> For the infrastructure for the you said, >> turn your mic on. >> Coaching voice. Um, for 2018? Did you mean for the next 10 years from 2018 or the next 10 years from right now? >> Yeah, we should be 10 years from right now. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, at least 10 years. I'm I'm probably thinking more like 15, 20 even. Yes. >> Great. Thanks. >> I don't know if you can answer this or if Courtney answers this. How much does it cost us for network connections, our bandwidth so that

075we can test students on a yearly, monthly basis? Well, um I don't know the exact number right off, but pays 80% of it for us. Um which is sad because Courtney and I just met about this because we just were looked at renewal rate renewals a month ago or something the 90 days of April as they call it has uh I've lost my memory with that one. >> Yeah. I'm just curious because I know it's not cheap. >> Yeah. And we had to up our bandwidth because kids weren't able to complete their state tests in the time allowed by the state because bandwidth was so slow. >> Yeah. >> Which brought test scores way down because kids got bored trying to sit there go to the next question. >> When I arrived in two 2013,

076we had a 1.5 megabit connection. 1.5. Yes, sir. >> Yeah. Is there do is testing on uh computers is that our only option? Is there no more paper testing? >> So, right now um the state is going out for an RFP for new testing. And one of the things that's been bounced around and the legislature is allowing um schools to possibly take that paper option, but as of right now, it's it's electronic. Well, you think they'd have they you think they'd have results a little faster since we're doing it on a computer. But >> well, the interesting component to that is they want they want to do an adaptive test on paper. And so I'm really interested to see how that would work and if any vendors would actually put in for that because I

077remember when I was a kid, I really enjoyed a choose your own adventure book, but I don't know how that works with state testing on paper and pencil. Choose your own adventure. So we'll see. I mean, it's 2026. Who knows? Anything's possible. We just did a trip around the moon, so who knows? Okay. Are there any so public comment? Any questions? Board, do we have any more questions for Nathan or comments about technology safety? I see someone coming up. So, we'll start your three minutes. go ahead and identify yourself and we'd love to hear what you have to say or ask. >> Hi, Curtis Jones. Um, we've lived here for 15 years. Both my kids graduated from here except for our daughter's first year and a half of school. They were here the whole time.

078Just one question about the, you know, onetoone laptop thing. I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's some data that suggests that, you know, kids having laptops doesn't help with education. Um, and so, you know, both our kids had laptops. they were both here during COVID and I didn't see any plus to it. So, I think that we may be able to use that money for something else. >> Yeah, that's a thank you for that comment and I think that's why we're um we're bringing together that committee to decide how to integrate technology into the classrooms. Some of the things that we're or integrate technologies in our school system. Some of the things we've already started talking about is we used to have computer labs at the elementary school. And so instead of

079one to one, you know, we can have labs to where our students um and and I was even there with Miss Butler yesterday, room 110 and 111. They actually have a really cool uh escape room um made for the kids right now, so the kids can do some project-based learning stuff, which I thought was amazing. But um putting back together a lab so that they we can sign up for labs. And you know, Miss Butler had a great comment on this. And I think if we just talk and listen to people, we can come to the the best common sense um solutions that are better than any one person can come up with. But she said, you know, as a teacher, if you have one to one, you're more likely, you know, go ahead, flip

080open your laptops and whatever for different activities. But, you know, if you wait and you have to schedule it out and go to the lab, you have that those authentic uh learning experiences. So, we're in agreement and we're looking at the research with that. There's some um some of the first schools to do it to go um computer-f free now after computers have been in Silicon Valley. So people who work in the computer industries also recognize that, you know, there's a certain time and place, but overuse of technology in the classroom can be detrimental to kids. And so I think that's something we're ready to acknowledge and take a look at. You know, once again, we need them for state testing, but then we don't need them to play games. That's not a thing we

081should do. So thank you for your comment. Appreciate that. Any other comments or questions? come on up. State your name and your business. >> I just wanted to clarify that last statement. So, they did just pass a law here in Arizona, SP 3300 that went into effect in January. Your state testing can be done on paper. Just your ACT, your ACT, Aspire, and your AP have to be done on the computer. But every, according to that law, we do have state testing that we can do right now on paper. So, just wanted to fill you in there. >> Thank you. And since we just finished state testing, um, you know, we did do it all on computers, but Miss Hoffmeer, who's our district testing coordinator, will make sure that we have all options available next

082year. Thank you. >> Jonathan, I have a question. How many how many what is our student population in the elementary school combined total? I can pull up the report on my phone from this morning, but it's what about 800, Miss Butler? How many how many students do we have at the elementary school as of right now? >> 780. >> And then how many compared to the rest of the school district then everybody else outside of the elementary school, what are we looking at for student population combined? About the same. So I believe this morning was right about 1570 is our total student K12 student population. So if there's 780 you know that's about half of them at the elementary school. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any other comments, statements? Come on down. state your

083name and >> Merlin Larson here in uh the district. So my question is with regards to the laptops with regards to the one to one. What is the the plan for getting the information out with regards to this bond with what the choice is from the district to the taxpayers with regards to what they're going to do because I'm there's that's going to be contingent on whether or not I support the bond and some other issues. So, I'd like to know before because that's a big issue for me. >> Great. And I think that's why we're putting this committee together and we want to have answers as far as the techn just to clarify the technology piece is gonna sway you one way or another. >> Yeah. Well, well, I will tell you as a

084district, one of the results coming out of the committee is we will not be supporting students to play games on laptops in the classroom. I can guarantee you that because that that will be one of the non-negotiables that I'll put in there. Um, but I think within the next few months we can come to some common sense solutions on what that looks like on how to integrate technology. Um and so part of that will be taking a look at how many computers we need because if we have failing computers and we need to do certain things and some of it's teacher computers, some of it's student computers. Um so even if we put a lab in the elementary school purchasing computers for the labs so we will have to have some um computer and infrastructure

085purchase even if it's for a lab because our technology is aging. But I think we're going to be somewhere in between um no games and what are the things we have to do and we will be looking at labs and we're interested in people and hearing their voice for that comm uh committee whether it's you want to commit to a committee or just give us some written feedback on how you feel about that work. But we should in the next few months because we want to make sure by next school year we have that in place. So we'll have that in plenty of time before a November election. for the board to approve a bond, we it has to be specific. We just can't uh throw a dollar amount out there. It has to be

086a specific number for this, specific for this, specific specific for that. It can't just be a total, oh, we're going to bond for $50 million, and we're not going to tell you how we're going to spend it. It has to be a line item there. So to answer that question, we're >> and that and that's what we're trying to do now is is try to get that down to the >> trying to accumulate some knowledge and that's why we're asking for feedback because feedback's really important. You got to remember I just graduated from Snowflake High School so I don't have a whole lot going into what decisions I'm going to make. And that's okay. >> I graduated from >> Well, that answers a lot of my questions, Mr. I'm just kidding. I just confirmed it.

087>> See, the newspaper's not here, so I can say that. >> Well, and and and I appreciate and I'm sorry we'll have you come up. I appreciate this discussion because you know, there's books and I know there was a Senate hearing this past week and um you know, the anxious generations out there and just technology in general, how it's affecting our our children of our community. And we want to look at that and we want to make wise decisions for our children of our community. Whether it's technology or recess time, we want to do what's right for our kids with the latest research. >> Thank you. >> Hi, I'm Rachel Watson. I'm not a graduate of Snowflake. Uh, shallow actually a little while back. Um, I just have a few clarifying questions as far as

088looking at safety for our students. You had mentioned kind of the firewalls. They're able to get past those. Is that something that's part of the bond and uh looking at ways to make sure that kids are safe while they're getting on? >> You talk about the content filter. >> Uh, yeah. >> Yeah. Our content filter is very robust. the boss was speaking about uh cool math games and so we're a public school district so we can't block things just to block things. Um it's a first uh amendment violation for us uh free speech violation um and would cost us some serious money um on that and so we can only block things for certain things. That's uh compliance like security um we can have fura which is the education records um SIPA which is the

089child internet protection act protects children 13 and under from harmful things stuff like that. So when they're able to get to cool math games there's nothing in cool math games that allows us to block it legally. Um, and so that then it becomes a classroom management issue. So it's not that they're getting past our web filter necessarily, but maybe past their teacher. >> And I think it is just called Cool Math, but it there's no math. I think it is games, but I think the website is just called Cool Math. And I'm sorry to point them out as the example, but yes, >> there is tons of those websites out there. Uh, I do know that. Um, there are a couple of things though. Have you guys considered can you whitelist things? Um, so that

090that is >> Yeah, we have we have a very robust blocking. We're just restricted by laws and so something like with coolmathgames.com and that there's nothing in there that allows us to block that and it would be a first amendment violation for us to block it. >> So the use of say um a software that comes in and it only allows the teacher to watch what's on the computer. >> Sure. Yeah. Monitoring software. Yeah. Yep. That's available. >> Absolutely. >> Is that something we currently use right now? We don't currently use it. We've had it in the past and it went unused in classrooms. So we don't we don't haven't used it in a number of years now. >> Okay. Um and so kind of looking into the timeline of one-on-one and continuing that that

091seems to be a very hot discussion. Um and you said that Jonathan there was going to be time set aside. What would that look like? Um is that more a call to the public or just encouraging people to share out? Yeah, that's a good question. We were going to start with the committee, but it can be an open meeting committee where um you know people can come and share their opinion. So, we'll uh we need to identify um I asked the principles to start by identifying teachers who wanted to contribute on that committee and then we'll bring in some community members and and we will uh post it and let everybody know when those meetings are. I think that's wonderful especially to include the teachers who it's going to you know drastically affect. Um, I

092just wanted to know is the lab the only choice or have you considered using like the cows, the computers on wheels where you really reduce the amount especially in K6 where I think most parents probably have the biggest concern >> for sure and um, you know, I find it amazing teachers are amazing people and I think um, we'll be surprised that teachers will come up with great solutions for technology integration in the classroom if we trust start teachers and I know there's a lot of narrative on out there in the media about teachers and stuff, but I think teachers really are amazing people who do care about the kids in our community and do great things and and so I think part of this is allowing the teachers and community to have a discussion and

093say what is needed to educate our kids and talk together. And I really do think like I mentioned at the beginning our you know the school district in a small town is the heart of the community but I think having those community voices alongside with the teachers. So to come back to that second part of your question about the carts that is something we've considered. Carts are a little bit harder to maintain because of um you know if there's vandalism to computers and sometimes they don't get plugged in right. And so, yeah, we look at a lab versus carts and and how that would work and th those are discussions we're having behind the scenes about what's the most efficient use of our our funds. >> Thank you. >> Yes. All right. Any other questions,

094comments, concerns on technology? Going once, going twice. All right. I would like to invite Mr. Bernardino and u Mr. Bosley up to talk about some of our transportation stuff. And part of the reason Mr. Bosley's coming up is I want to announce that Mr. Bernardino is um his family is going to be moving to Oregon. And so we're very sad that we were going to be losing Justin. And in the meantime, we're um bringing Mr. Bosle on as our interim transportation director. And that's one of our cost-saving measures because it's an out of the classroom position that we're reducing. And so I know at one point in time there used to be one person who was in charge of facilities and transportation. And so Mr. Bosley is going to take that over and we're going

095to see how it goes and hoping he doesn't get too overwhelmed. But we're going to play it by ear for a little while and see if it's something that we need to um you know. So, in the meantime, we're giving him the interim label. And so, he's up here with Justin in his last week of working for us to so they can work together on this. Okay. So, our buses are aging pretty rapidly. Our fleet is 23 buses is what we have. There's a lot more on property. We have started scavenging some of the older ones because you can't get parts for them. We pulled steering columns out of some of our 2006 buses to put in other buses. Um, only 12 buses were purchased in 2017 with the bond. We actually got one for

096free via the Volkswagen settlement. Mr. Rollolof can talk a lot about that because I wasn't I didn't know a lot about that, but he knows a lot about that. Um, two of the buses from 2016, they used to be our White River buses. There was two buses were actually purchased with free and reduced lunch money. So, we didn't pay anything for those. Um, we do have four buses that were purchased in 2011. We don't use those very well or a lot because they're smaller buses. They were purchased. They're only 77 passengers and that is three full-size adults to a seat. That's how they measure sizes and it doesn't work. I can assure you me, Mr. Rolloff and Bosley are not going to fit in those seats. But that's how they measure the accountability of the

097seats. We usually only put the buses at two to a seat. Unless they're kindergarteners, then we can't go three, but then they start fighting. And then the rest of it is the other four buses that we have on property that we're running daily are from 2006. The usable lifespan of a school bus is considered 12 to 15 years, about 150,000 miles. um they're getting about 5 miles to the gallon with the 2006s. The 2011s are getting about 7 to eight. The 2016s, depending on the trip buses, are getting about 8ish. The ones that we're using for route buses, they're getting about six to seven. Um they're, as you can tell, they're sitting pretty high up on the the mileage. the 2006s, almost all four of them that we are running have all had engines replaced

098to the tune of about $65,000 each time. And then when you replace the engine, it takes out the transmission as well because it finds the next weakest point along the way. So getting new buses, your fuel economy is going to jump to about 10 miles the gallon, which is going to save us a lot of money in fuel. I just filled up my truck and about cried cuz it's just under six bucks a gallon. I got a 26 gallon tank. It's rather expensive. The taller seats help with accidents. So events of heartbreaking stuff like that, the kids will hit the seat and not the floor. That's why they're designed. They're designed to be taller to be safer. A lot of the bu new buses come with traction control. If the bond passes, all new buses

099will be ordered. And I've already talked with Mr. Bosley, Mr. roll off. Miss Hoffmeer, Miss Ford, they will all be purchased with automatic chains. So, in the event of a snow day or you get caught in an afternoon snowstorm that we've all been caught in many times, you flip a switch, chains drop below the wheels and it's like a weed whacker head with chains on it and you just drive over them. It's like driving on tire chains on a semi-truck. So, back in 2016, buses were a lot cheaper. So, I got some prices here. These are just ballpark prices based on the quotes that we got. A non-air conditioning bus, non-storage, is going to cost you about $241,000 for an 84 passenger bus. That would be a route bus, not a trip bus, no storage.

100That is through Canyon State bus. We also got quotes from RWC. They're comparable. RWC, which is international, no longer offers a rear engine bus. They only offer front engine buses. They get a little bit better fuel economy. They're a little bit more comfort for the driver and the student. You have a little bit more room. They hold 83 passengers. So, you lose one passenger, but you get a lot more comfort for the kids as well. Your special needs buses, the most important kids we have. The bus from 21 has 75,000 miles on it already. The bus that was purchased in the bond in 2017 has 90,000 miles on it. Those buses do not stop. They pick up kids at 6:00 in the morning. They're done at 8:30. They go back out at 10:00. They come

101back at 11:45. They're back out again at 1:00. And they don't stop till 5:00. Those buses are run to the ground constantly. Buses are considered like severe duty, like a trash truck. They're not like a semi-truck that runs along the 40. Our white buses because we are being short on drivers. Mr. Kluff, Mr. Grace, they're white bus certified. Mr. Rolloloff's there. Miss Hoffmire's pretty much there. We have a lot of our coaches that are white bus certified. They have they hold 14 passengers. You're not restricted by hours of service like I am with a CDL. They're $128,000. They get about 181 19 miles to the gallon. Xolo's running, I think, a fleet of 15 of them. They send a lot of their trips with them because they're short on drivers, too. Your trip buses with

102air conditioning and storage is $276,000. So, the plan is if we pass the bond is to stretch the purchases over the length of the bond instead of doing a one-time purchase so that you don't all your buses don't wear out at the same time. So, you can get build a plan. So after the bond and after you buy all your buses, you take two years off and then you build it into your budget to buy one bus every single year. You rotate your fleet every 20 years and you're keeping up. You know what I mean? As Mr. Rolov says, you're keeping up with the Tahoe. You know, we're not buying the best buses. We're not getting them with USB chargers on them and all that kind of stuff. We're getting just basic what is needed.

103>> Thank you. And I think buses are similar to when we talked about I know in one of our prior meetings looping back to the discussion on AC units. I believe the AC units we have on our campus are what six seere and now they are the new manufactured AC units are what like 16 seere. So you know we're saving money and they're more efficient. Same with buses. If you're going, you're replacing buses that get 5 miles per gallon with buses that are safe during safer and get 10 miles per gallon. I mean, our student safety is something you can't put a price tag on, right? And um but the fuel savings in the long run, hopefully that'll be a good thing. So, are there any public comments or questions with transportation? Okay. Um, the

104next thing is is M. And I just I just wanted to talk briefly about our M. Um, and this is something I've talked about at the last meeting. And this is something we really don't have a grasp on, but we know our our budget in the past, there's been esser funds and a lot more money contributing into our M. Um, this year we were able to give a basic cost of living raise to our teachers. But when we're talking about a maintenance and operations override, we might not be able to give raises in the future and we actually might have to make cuts in the future if we're unable to pass an override. And so if we look at making cuts, um, taking a step back, u, Miss Hoffmeer presented at the April board meeting

105of our employee salaries compared to our neighboring districts. And, um, I know Courtney and Mary and I, we have great personalities that want to keep people here, but it's hard to keep people here when our neighboring districts are are paying. um when we're one of the lower paying districts around and that's a hard that's a hard pill to swallow because we think we have amazing people who work for our district and we don't want them um going to any neighboring districts. Um and many of you probably got the notification this morning that it recruiting you know and it's not just teachers. So, we are we don't even have a full staff of bus drivers. And so, this morning we had to cancel another route because we're short on bus drivers. And bless Justin's heart, he's

106in there today like working, you know, the pencil to the nub to try to like shift around as routes so we can pick up a lot of the stops just so we can provide transportation to our kids. But if we don't have bus drivers, we can't do those routes. And when other districts pay more um than we pay for bus drivers, it's just a really hard thing. So if we're looking at doing M cuts and we can't pass an override, um that's going to be difficult. So the things that we look at if if we have to make M cuts, first of all, the state only funds half day kindergarten. We think full day kindergarten is very important and so we fund that from our community. Some school districts have gone who don't have any

107um M override funds. They go to half day kindergarten um or they'll tuition out offer a tuitioned out option for the afternoon. Kindergarten was not like when I went to kindergarten where we got to color and play and go half day and go home, take a nap, you know. Uh I don't know if I took a nap in kindergarten. I was pretty wired. But um um but now kids are expected to read by the time they leave kindergarten. And um and so the standards are high. You know, if we talk about making cuts, some of our classes with the lowest class sizes are honors classes and AP classes. And we don't want to cut those because we know that a lot of professionals that live up here in the mountain bring their kids to Blige

108because we have the best education, specifically honors and AP education. And so we don't have to cut those. We don't want to cut those. Um, and once again, salaries, class sizes, and when we're talking salaries, we're not just talking teacher salaries. We're talking, you know, bus drivers, our facilities people. So, we talk about our facilities people doing so much. And and we're talking about our folks being amazing people that are doing more than less. You know, they're another uh group of those people. Um, positions. So, I know at the board meeting, one of the questions was what positions were cut. um four out of the five positions were outside of classroom positions. So what that means is is some of the support staff that has been able to support teachers in the past. So even

109though we're not cutting classroom positions, our teachers are going to be, you know, providing more tier 2 support in their class with kids struggling. Um and so it becomes harder um in that way. Um and just maintenance expenses. So, if we if we're able to pass the bond and a couple years down the road, hopefully our maintenance expenses by getting more efficient units come down a little bit, but if we don't pass a bond and we don't pass an override, we're we we're going to have to put a lot more money into maintenance. And like like Courtney showed with that first set of slides, we've been very efficient. But, you know, that's that's also how we burn people out is trying to consistently ask people to do more with less. And so we would like

110to provide some of our relief. And so I'm just giving a general thing that these are discussions of cuts that we'll have to make next year if we're unable to um get an override pass to where we can um maintain our budget at least. >> And I'm sure the the effort has been there to be efficient, but I'm sure the maintenance costs are are high, you know, to keep this stuff going. You know, like we talked about with I mean LEDs, not only are they going to cost about the same, but they're going to lower our electricity bill. >> Yeah. >> As well. So, you know, and there's different things. And coming back to the school facilities project with the pump house, you know, if the water goes out, it's a disruption in school day.

111It's more expensive to fix it in an emergency. And then you're spending precious M dollars. Um and and in addition to that, you know, we have to have a strong firewall because if we have to endure cyber attacks and be prepared for that and you know, those can be um very expensive things as well. So there's there's just a lot and we have to be vigilant on all fronts and not having any bond or override money in our district right now and having the state and deferred funding since the 1980s. We're just really making do and and um like I said that that's what leads to burnout. And our our people are amazing people that just keep showing up every day and doing their best. And so I'm going to continue to do the same.

112I'm going to show up every day and do my best because I don't want to let any of them down. And so, like I said, hopefully we can go with the community and the community can we can be allin together and make Blige the district that we think this community deserves. >> I have a question. If if the district had all of the um maintenance department stuff taken care of and does our budget support our operational expenses outside of that? I mean, we can't I depend on an override to to fund all the time. >> So, that's Yeah, that's a great question because I think if we were able to get a bond passed a couple years down the road, we would see a couple hundred,000 of um ease in our maintenance and operation funds

113that we could put back into other um other things. But since we haven't had either in a while, that both are kind of tapped out. So, our capital funds and our maintenance and operation, we we are running very skinny. And I once again I want to give kudos to our budget, our purchasing, our business staff, our facilities, our sites. Our sites are doing as much as they can with the budget we have because there are things I think we need to provide as a school for our kids. We've had community partners make donations and do great things. And I don't know, I heard someone donated some chickens to third grade and um you know, even you know, one of our local insurance agents was bringing crayons to our kids last week and different school supplies

114and our communities really rallied behind. But when you have cooling towers and and millions of dollars and HVAC expenses, like that's that's something, you know, and I think what do we have government for? And and what you know, those are for the projects. it it's hard to do like one by one and take care of you know like building a interstate through through you know we need you know and having a military and but I think big things like when you're putting when you have millions of dollars in needs in a school district that that's something you know hopefully that we can rally together and get the community to support as a quote unquote government thing. So, because I don't, you know, I don't think any I mean, if I could be like Kenny Dillingham

115and asking, you know, if someone wants to write a six, seven figure check, we would take it and we would maybe not need to do a bond or override. And so, if we have someone, we we'd appreciate a stepping forward, but until then, I think we're going to go forward with it. Again, he did. ASU got a new practice facility, Mr. Go. It's gonna going to look really sharp. But, you know, and we if we can fund these things with the outside donor, we'd love to do that. But until the until that person steps up, I think we need to stick with the plan and and try to get a bond and override. Are there any community questions, comments, concerns on maintenance and operations? Come on down, state your name, and state your business. >>

116Good evening, Sada Chednoff. Um, in regards to the override, I we're going with a 10% that's proposed at this time. Are we going to see teacher raises and effort for staff and teacher retention? >> Yes, absolutely. And I think we don't want to lose any of our precious teacher and our experience index is one of the highest in the state. So, but I also want to reiterate it's not just teacher raises. We need to pay our bus drivers more. We need to pay our fac and so we would like to pay all of our employee classes a little bit more. As we know, inflation 2026, Justin was just talking about gas prices. We want people to, you know, once again, people didn't get into education to be multi-millionaires. It's because they care about the kids

117in the community. So, keeping up with inflation and just allowing our people, our cost of living is high here in the mountains. So, yes, that is that's a long answer to say yes, that is one of our priorities. Sada. All right. Well, in Okay, next thing is okay. So, what do the financials look like? And so, what is this going to cost the community? And I know we've had Mark Reer from Stiffel come up before and present to us before and I think he did a very comprehensive um presentation before, but he wants to come back and and talk about, you know, if we go out for a bond and override, what will that cost the taxpayers, truth and taxation, um to to make sure our school is is a safe uh efficient place to

118learn? What will that cost us? So Mark, thank you for coming down. >> Thank you. Thank you for having me. Uh, Mr. President, members of the board, Mark Reer with Steifol. I was up about a month ago, what, six weeks ago, so some of this may be a little bit of a repeat. So, uh, appreciate, uh, your patience on that. We've updated some numbers for you. Um, we're here to help. As you know, we were hired by the district to help with, you know, bonding and, uh, bond issuance and tax rates. You know, Arizona's got one of the most complicated property tax systems in the country. And we have to take a very complicated property tax system in the country, and we have to be transparent with voters to show them what it looks like

119so they can understand it, so they can vote uh intelligently. So, I've got I've got some of that information tonight. I'm going to make it really easy for you. Um, and I'll we'll dig into any questions you might have. I'm not going to go through every page uh in the PowerPoint presentation. I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to take you to pages I think that are extremely relevant and I'm going to take you to page page five here. I think it is and give you a reminder. This is this is very positive news for your district from my perspective. You've done an an outstanding job in managing your tax rates. This chart shows right here over the last 10 years what your district has set your tax levy at each year. Okay?

120You haven't had a bond for 10 years, have you? Prior to that, it was another 10 years. The Arizona finance system for K12 public education requires school districts to go out and have bond elections to fund their capital. That's the system that we live with. And up here in Blue Ridge, it's been kind of few and far between. We appreciate the 2016 bonds, 15 bonds. I I was involved in that. We appreciate that, but it wasn't an extremely large amount of money fair. And you had to spread that around the district. It's been 10 years. And your deferred maintenance is huge. I suppose if you did a a master plan, a capital improvement master plan of all the needs of your district and maybe people behind me and to my left can help. Probably maybe

121hund00 million. I don't know what the number is. The numbers are huge and the inflation has reared its ugly head on all of us and our construction projects have doubled across the state. In the meantime, you got all this deferred maintenance. You're getting further and further behind. It's been 10 years. And in the meantime, your tax rates are going down. You haven't had an override, I think, in four or five fiscal years, something like that. You haven't levied a tax for an M override. Okay. As a result, as you can see on our slide here, your tax rate has dropped. So, you've really set it up nice, I would think, with your voters to educate them, communicate them over the fact that you have reduced your primary property tax rate for maintenance and operation. Okay,

122that's the uh that's the orange orange bar. That's a little more more steady, if you will, but still it's been declining because your tax base continues to grow up here. And remember, the larger our tax base, the more properties we can spread our property taxes to, the lower our tax rate. That's kind of what's happened on your primary. As you can see there, the bond issue, we got a we another thing we have going for us is we're paying bonds off from the prior issues. So, our tax rate is expected to drop significantly. And so I think um you've really set yourself up um strategically I would think from a very reasonable ask depending upon the amount of the bond that you're going to call. I've got information in here that ranges from 30 million

123to 50 million. We have time to study it. We have time to prioritize the projects. My guess is you're going to have to prioritize all this capital. You got buses, you got technology, you have you have buildings, right? Um all of these needs and you're probably going to get a spreadsheet that adds up to a lot of money and you're going to have to probably prioritize your bond issue. How big is too big? I'm sure you could use 50 million. That's my guess. I don't know. Um and I'm going to run some numbers for you here. Show you some numbers. And I'm the bottom line here. It's going to be somewhere between 10 and $12 a month. Bear with me uh to support a bond election in your community. I call that reasonable. We'll get

124into the override as well depending upon the amount of the override because as you know the override is in addition to the bond. Okay. So I wanted to start there give you my editorial comments. I hope that was helpful. Um, we're getting ready to set the 2627 tax rate, right? We've been working with staff on that and we think there's a good chance once again your bond tax rate is going to drop. Okay, your primary property tax rate, I know staff's working on that. So, as we go into the election year, election year 2627, we're going to set your primary and secondary tax rate. So, let me pause there. Was that helpful just to kind of summarize that for you? I I know you were aware of that, but I guess as your adviser and

125coming in from the outside, as I looked at that data, I I think it's it's very reasonable and there's some good news here on that front. Any questions? All good. We we'll keep moving. Okay. Um this next page is your current bonds. You've only got about 9 million outstanding. Um I like this slide. Here's another good slide in our favor here, right? And we've we've incorporated this in all the mathematics I'm going to share with you. But as you can see here, we got a about three more fiscal years, your debts at about 1.6. And you see it's dropping down to 800,000. It's dropping in half. So by the time the election hopefully passes, by the time we sell bonds, we're going to structure our new bonds around the reduction of your debt to minimize

126the tax rate as best we can. Does that make sense? So, I I see that as very good news for you as we start to model in a tax rate that we think is reasonable for the community. So, I I more good news for you on that on page seven. Uh page eight, not going to spend a lot of time. You got over a hund00 million of available statutory bonding capacity under the statute. Not that you would ever go for a hundred million, but it's a formula based on state statutes for K12 public education. You're north of a hundred million. Now, usually when I see that, that tells me that districts have not been out for bond elections very much. You've only got about $9 million in bonds, which is very minimal for a district

127your size. So, we're all good there. Okay, here's where the fun starts. Bear with me. Um, and I'm going to take you to slide 11 if that's okay. And I I'm sure our friends in the back here are going to have a hard time. But let me let me share with you why we have a 14 column spreadsheet here is the reason why we have to do this is this is exactly what goes in goes in your voter information pamphlet. So once the once the board calls an election, if you do, probably going to call it in Juneish, right? We got about 60 days. We got some wiggle room in there if you need it. Okay. >> Yeah. We'd have we'd have to call it in May, Mark. >> Okay. >> So, um, we would

128then once we come to the board and determine a dollar amount of your bond and an override if you elect to go that route, no decisions are being made. then we all have to start working on a voter information pamphlet that will go out to all qualified electors within the boundaries of Blue Ridge Unified. This table will be in that voter pamphlet. And that's why I want to kind of just slow it down just a little bit. Um the you know you have your tax base in column two, right? That's your that's your assessed valuation. That's it's called the net limited assessed value. This is where the property tax system gets a little bit complicated, but if you take out your property tax statement for your residential home, you'll see a value on there. It

129says net limited assessed value. That's how they set the tax rates. In column three, we have our projected growth in your tax base. Okay? And we'll be very conservative on that. Um, column four is your your current bonds that we talked about. That was the one six going down to 800,000. That was that chart I shared with you. Okay. We then assume the district would call a $30 million bond in November of 26. If it passes, we can sell bonds, you know, in the first quarter of 27. We've got time. You tell us when you want to sell bonds and we'll go ahead and activate that part of the process. So, in the first quarter of 27, we have modeled in a $15 million bond. kind of get you going. And then we assumed over

130the next, you know, 18 months or so, you'd be ready to sell the other 15 million as you finalize your engineering, your design, and your public procurement of all the items that we talked about. So, if we pass a $15 million bond and we sell bonds over, you know, a couple year period, then uh we we will add additional debt service, which is column 10, and an additional tax rate column 11. This is what what we put in here. So, in column 11, you can see what the additional secondary tax rate would be. 26 cents out to about 26 cents goes up to 55 and then and then goes on out from there. Go down to the bottom. The average secondary tax rate to support a $30 million bond issue would be about 47. All

131good? That 47 cents then we'll plug into some property values in a moment. But let's finish the spreadsheet here. Um, and this is, I think, kind of cool. Um, if you go up in column 13, our current secondary tax rate to pay back the bonds is about 47 cents. And we're going to set it for next year, right? Uh, this isn't final yet, but we have about 45 cents in there. Why? Your your tax base grew, so we're going to lower your tax rate again. And then you can see um uh what the other uh tax rates are as we head on out. So I think what's nice about this scenario is uh if we set your tax rate next year at 45 cents and we go down to the bottom at 47 cents, we're

132increasing the tax rate by two pennies. Um and we'll get it we'll put that into perspective in a moment. But a lot of times people will look at what your current tax rate is and they want to see where it's going. And we're telling you your current tax rate is 47 to 45 cents. And if we stick with the 30 million, we're going to be able to keep it pretty darn close to that. That's very rare, but we're able to do that because of a lot of debt coming off the books as I mentioned to you. Okay. So, I know that was a lot, but let's take the 47 cents right in column 11. Let's take that and let's plug that number into what it would cost somebody who owns a residential home in your

133in your district. This is where it gets really important. Okay. Okay. On page 12, this is a little better table. This is another table required to be in the voter pamphlet. So, when people get this in the mail and the voter pamphlet will explain everything we're doing, it will talk about all the projects that you're going to prioritize in the coming couple of months. And so, the community is going to be aware of how the bond money is going to be spent and prioritized. So, we plugged the 47 cents, I'll round up the 48 cents if you don't mind, into the average value of a residential home within the boundaries of your school district, which the county we got from the county. And this is the county's valuation, not market valuation. I got a really

134good slide on that. The county is not picking up all the the higher valuation of what our property is worth. So, the average value on the county records is about $22,824. Okay. We take that number times 10% residential properties assessed at 10%. We divide it by 100. Tax rates are per 100 times 48 and it would be $97 a year or about $8 a month to the average residential homeowner in your district to support a $30 million general obligation bond. Um the property taxes are are not always the most fair and equitable. This is the way it is all around the country. the amount of taxes that that we all pay is a function of the value of our property and the tax rate. So if my neighbor's house is twice my house on the

135county records, they pay twice twice the property taxes. So that's just the way the what they call the advalorum general obligation property tax system works around the country and um and how taxes are paid. Um, we did it on a per $100,000. That's $4 a month. So, you can help extrapolate this. Um, commercial property is assessed at 16% and agricultural property is assessed at 15%. And you can see, you know, if you own a commercial piece of property and you go through this exercise, what that would be. Looks like the average value is $439 or about $28 a month for a commercial owner. Okay. So, I'll pause there. I'm I'm not going to go through the other uh two scenarios we've done for you. We have a 40 and a 50, but I wanted to

136walk the board or remind the board a little bit about how we do these calculations. Any questions so far? >> Okay. Thank you. >> I I have one one quick question. So I know, you know, our tax rates, the schools tax rates have gone down over the last 10 years roughly, but the total tax bill for residents in Navajo County has not necessarily followed that. Any any suggestions on how we overcome that that feeling that that a person's tax overall tax rate has gone up even though the school's cut has gone has gone lower. >> Yeah. Now, very fair question. uh go to page 24 and um this is exactly what you just said. So if I live in the Blue Ridge Unified School District, these are all the other what we call overlapping political

137subdivisions that we all pay property taxes on. And uh you know the county of course um the uh the community college, the fire district, the library district, flood control, etc. And your tax rate there, as you can see, is about $9.56 down at the bottom. Can you see that? That's actually pretty low compared to the valley. I can tell you that. But to answer your question, you know, that's difficult. Uh, and so what we try to do in our communications with voters is certainly remind them of the other political subdivisions. They're going to be setting their tax levies, as you know, coming up as well. and try to maybe isolate the variables a little bit and keep it focused on K12 and and and share with them our story here at Blue Ridge. So, okay.

138So, um I'm just going to take you to the $40 million scenario. We'll just take you right down to the bottom line here and then we'll show you the 50. So on the $40 million table, um that tax rate is uh 50, let me find it here. That tax rate is 59, right? So we went from 40 48 cents. Round it up. We do another 10 million at 40. Now we're at, you know, 59 cents per 100. higher higher amount of debt, higher amount of that average tax rate calculation, right, that we shared with you at the bottom. And so then uh the monthly would be about $10 per month, okay, on 40 million versus the $8 on the previous slide. So not bad, you know, to get an extra 10 million, a dollar a

139month. Uh, I think I might do it if I was a voter given inflation and given the needs of of a particular district, but all voters would have to come to that conclusion on their own. And then 50 million, uh, we go to 66 cents. Okay, we go to 66 cents and then that number would be about $1121 a month. So, we've shared scenarios from 8 roughly to 11 11:21. Bear with us. We're going to need to update these once we get your priority list and the type of public infrastructure that you want, the type of projects you want to do. Okay? Then we're going to update all these numbers, but I wouldn't expect them to change materially. So, let's call it eight to, you know, I'll round up to $12 right now um in

140terms of what it would cost to support the capital improvements that was discussed this evening. Okay, so that concludes the bond uh what we call the general obligation bonds and I was going to shift over to the override for just a few minutes and then we'll answer questions and we'll wrap our presentation up. any questions on the bond material that that you have that I can help address. Okay, let's shift over to the override. Um, your district used to have one and uh it doesn't and it's not uncommon for school districts to have M overrides around the state. We have statistics on that that we can share with you. And so your district um obviously and the board and the community now will consider the potential need to go out at the same time if

141you want. We can do this two ways. We can go only for the bond. Uh we can do it three ways. Only for the bond, only for the override or we can do a combination of the bond and the override all in one voter pamphlet. It's a little overwhelming, isn't it? But districts do it all the time. They do both. And for your consideration, you can be thinking about how you think your voters are going to handle, you know, two questions. One for capital and one for helping you out with your with your budgetary needs, which you really need. So, um, I'm going to go to the bottom line here. Some of this has been kind of chatted about. Um, in under Arizona law, our overrides are limited limited to a percent of what's known

142as the revenue control limit, which is kind of your budget, school finance law. And your revenue control limit is $12,500,000. And we made this table really simple for you. And let's just go ahead and assume for the moment that the district would like to proceed with what they call a 10% M override. That would be 10% of your revenue control limit, which would be 1,250,000. And you can go all the way up to 15% and you can select whatever percentage you want. We have a five, a 10, and 15. using the 10 you can see and uh calculating the tax levy to generate another 1,250,000. We're calculating a tax rate of 36 cents per $100 of assessed value. So that would be uh $3 a month for each $100,000 home. So this would be in

143addition to the bond scenario that we just talked to talked to you about. So depending upon your perspective, is that reasonable and is that acceptable to the community so that you have another 1,250,000 to, you know, run your district the way you want to run it? Okay. Questions on override? Yes, sir. If once you pass an override, you're kind of you're kind of stuck. We wouldn't go for another override, let's say, in two or three years. Oh, >> we'd have to wait for that one to to expire basically, >> right? Seven years and it winds down after the fifth year. >> So, you're good for five and then it winds down a third and a third. So, most districts will renew it as they're approaching that fifth year. So, we got five good years of

14410% of your RCL, 36 cents per 100. And I hope this book is helpful for you. to take home. And I like hard copies. I'm more old school, but I like I like having hard copies. So, Mr. Olaf gets on the internet and all that, but just Okay, so uh in wrapping this up on page 22, uh we want to just kind of share this with the community. This is this is kind of cool because go home and get your tax bill and and check it out. And what you're going to find, and we have some good estimates here. Let me let me show you let me show you an est what's going on here. Um um we picked a property my colleague Randy did that. She's really good at this stuff. So we picked

145a home on Jerger Lane. You familiar with Jerger Lane? Everybody? Everybody. Okay. Maybe you all live on on Jagger Lane. Okay. And um the average value according to the county is 222,000. So if you pull your tax bill out, you're going to see 222,000. um the assessors um on the limited value which is how we set where we set taxes. The county assessor picks it up at 3.84. Okay, that's kind of their idea of valuation. But the 222 is what we set taxes on, what you pay your taxes on. It's called the net limited. If you go on to Zillow and you type in the address, that home's worth $416,000. So, the good news is as it relates to our property taxes, same thing going on down where I live, as it relates to us

146paying property taxes on the property we own, it's at a much lower rate than what the actual real valuation is. So, we're just trying to, you know, educate folks about, you know, again, complicated Arizona tax system, one of the more complicated ones in the nation. So, we try to just kind of uh help communities out in identifying how this is working right now. And I think it's it's it's more of a positive from my perspective in that regard. So, with that, that concludes my presentation. I hope that was helpful. We'll continue to be by your side the next 60 90 days as you, you know, make some decisions on your bond and your override. And I I appreciate your time and your patience. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mark. And um right now

147we're allowing people if they have questions or or comments about the fi possible financials of the uh bond and uh potential bond and override to come on up and ask any questions or make comments. And I don't Okay, just one thing. I think it's important to remember that this is based these numbers are based on what the uh the assessor's office assesses your property at and what they tax it at, not what your market value. There's an assessed valuation and then they figure your tax valuation off your assessed valuation, not your actual full cash market value. Uh there's a difference between what market value is, assessed valuation, and the limited property value that they assess. So, um what you would want to sell your home for is not what the county is going to tax

148it for. Um so, when you start looking at your taxes and you think, well, my house is worth this much, my taxes are going to go up this much. That's not what's happening. They're going to assess your property based on what improvements you have to your property to your to your property. And then off that assessed valuation, they calculate your tax, not on market value. Market value and assessed valuation are two complete different things. Market is what the market value is what the market will bear. Assessed valuation is what they figure your property is worth with the improvements it has to it. Just just a clarification on that. Right, Bridget? >> All right, come on down. State your name and we're happy to give you three minutes to hear. >> My name is Misha Steinreer.

149I graduated from Blige. I have lots of family in the area. Um, I don't think that anybody would say that Blige doesn't need some help. That's not it. Having spoken to others in the community, family members, my parents, uh, since seven children here, they're retired. We have a large retirement community. I think to get public support and opinion, they are going to want to know what their money is going to go to and what it means to them. So based on the numbers that were provided tonight, if you take the maximum for the bond and the M override, my parents who are retired, living on fixed income, it will equate to an additional about $350 a year for them. Now, my parents have grandchildren that go to school here. They value that. In just my

150conversations to them prior to the the previous bond, they were not willing to vote for it. Having spoken to them with the information that I've gathered from the study session that I attended and the knowledge of what it is facing, their opinion changed. That is going to be your biggest obstacle to overcome. That's just a personal reference that doesn't include the business references where they are going to have their own set of concerns. But um I agree with some of the other comments on the technology. I think that is going to be also a big over a um obstacle in getting a bond passed. So I thank you for your time and those are just my observations as a citizen. >> Thank you for your comments. We we appreciate that. And um and yeah, I

151I definitely think um you know, the fact as Mark just presented, you know, we have a bonding capacity of what did it say about 113 million that we could ask for. And I think some districts go out for the maximum um every every few years and whatever they spend down they continue to go out for the maximum. And you know I I also want to talk about the importance of fiscal responsibility and hopefully we've been fiscally responsible enough and we've shown that but then also have demonstrated a need. And I once again um you know going back to the parable of the talents I I hope I hope the community invests in us and gives us um an opportunity to make good investments and and I I think there are lots of benefits that it

152will share with the community. So thank you and and I'm up for hearing things and how you think we can spread the word and share this more publicly. Um, I'm up for hearing that just so people can see where we're at, what we need, and um, have conversations and listen to people. And with that said, uh, at the end of the meeting, we we had a loted time for any general comments on the bond, override, facilities, technology, any of the components we discussed that tonight. So, we can open this up at that time and give people um, up to three minutes to comment or question on that. And I just want to thank you guys again, everybody who came tonight, because this just the attendance here tonight shows the importance of this to our community

153and shows a support for our staff that is literally all in on supporting the kids to the community, the kids in our community to grow up and be, you know, effective great members of our community that we're proud of. So, thank you guys just for showing up and showing that support. And um at that we will open it up for any comments before we end the meeting. >> And and I'll just say um all of us as board members like we've all lived in this community a long time and we certainly don't I don't want my taxes to go up. But with that said, I know that there are needs. And so just know that from our perspective, we we're going to do everything we can to to not have your taxes go up as

154much as possible and to do the most with whatever we do get. Um that is certainly our commitment as well. >> Come on up. State your name. >> Britney Hamilton. Sorry, I've already been up here. Um I was waiting till the end because I just thought it was easier to kind of state everything at at once rather than it kind of getting lost in the mix. Um, I mostly want to address the board to be completely honest. I know we've got a lot of new board members and we appreciate you being here. Um, and just kind of reiterating to what Mike just said, the responsibility that you have to represent us, the citizens and the taxpayers, because it is our money being used to fund this school district. And so that has to be a

155partnership and has to be well represented on that board from our perspective. the school gets to be well represented from their perspective and bringing in all of their information, but us as taxpayers, you are the governing body of this administration in our behalf. And that is a huge responsibility that I hope that you take seriously. Um, and that you engage with us to find out really what what we want, what we need, what our kids need. Um, because it's also not only our money that's funding this, but it is our children that also reap the positive or negative consequences of these decisions. So, um I was just looking up some research and have gathered a lot of data um up until this meeting and I wanted um in last week's meeting when we talked about

156finances and stuff. I noticed that we mentioned sped percentages and poverty levels and so I went and looked up our neighboring school districts and of course Snowflake is the most comparable to us. They are 1% lower in sped kids at 14% but they are 1% higher in poverty level. Um yet their enrollment increases on the average. They're up 9% right now. and our enro our enrollment continues to decrease 17% over the last five years. Um they score almost twice as high in testing and I believe that this is due to the fact they consistently keep anywhere from 56 to 59% in their instructional learning. I know we have 66% going into the classroom but only 49% went into instruction. We are at a historical low of our annual budget percentage going into instruction in the

157classroom and I believe that our children are are negatively affected by this. Um when enrollment falls, cost should follow along with it. Increased spending without corresponding improvements in student performances raises serious concerns. Our peer school districts have to classify spending the same way we have to classify spending. Yet their spending is lower than ours despite their enrollment being higher. their test scores are significantly higher, proving that more money does not equal better education. Courtney reported last um I already touched on that 49% sorry um instructional effectiveness while instructional spending has increased there's no clear evidence that these investments are translating into better outcomes for our students. That is not a funding problem that is an effectiveness problem. And this is not about criticism. It's about alignment and about asking the questions a governing board exists

158to ask. Are we staffing appropriately for our current enrollment? Are we prioritizing classroom impact over administrative overhead? Are we measuring whether our spending decisions are actually working? Every every dollar spent should be tied to student outcomes and long-term financial sustainability. Your responsibility as board members is not to accept numbers at face value or the inadequate responses of uninformed staff, but to ask whether those numbers make sense and whether decisions are genuinely serving the students and community that we represent. Um, let me see. Don't be so quick to push the bond without all of the information. What are the effects this will have on M? What was the deferred maintenance cost that we just talked about about 2016? Yes, a bond does cover that M burden upfront, but then we filled those pressures at the end

159of the bond in that year's seven, eight, nine, and 10 after. And that is what we are facing now from our previous bond that we just passed. Every time you bring up a bond, you say that the bond or override doesn't pass, we're going to have to cut teachers. Everyone knows that bond dollars can't pay teachers, but the override can't. If these costs are making it to where we are unable to pay our teachers, that's something we need to strongly consider when moving forward on another bond. Research needs to be done to understand the long-term effects and impact on M so our teachers are not suffering the suff the consequences of our poor decisions in passing bonds without doing our research. Long story short, people always ask, okay, well, what's the effect of bonds versus

160the M, right? and we don't we don't relate them even though we should relate them because basically bond dollars buy the stuff but the M now has to pay to run the stuff that you just bought. So it is greatly affected and we should do our homework. Um we are already putting our students at a disadvantage by testing them on a computer and the data supports that. Even just the distraction of a screen or someone on a computer next to their neighbor has detrimental test outcomes. Computers are not needed for learning and testing. It actually has a negative effect. And to answer your question from earlier, Hazlewood School District versus Colemmyer in 1988 saying public schools have the power to censor. That is not a First Amendment law broken. You can restrict categories, but you

161cannot pick winners and losers in a debate like politics. You have a meaningful way to request access. We can censor. You can censor games. It actually specifically said that. It said, "What what is clearly allowed? Schools can generally block pornography and explicit content, malware, unsafe or illegal sites, non-educational or distracting content like games and streaming, etc. Content inconsistent with curriculum or age appropriateness. >> Excuse me, Britney, you're way over. Appreciate everything you have to say and and honestly, everybody here is agreeing with you. Um, appreciate your wisdom. Appreciate your uh research. Um, we ask people to limit it to three minutes and basically that's what I'm going to ask you to do is just give somebody else another chance. >> Okay. Well, when I talked to the county superintendent, she didn't have a three-minute limit.

162She said, "This is a wonderful public open forum for your representatives to know the community's thoughts on these subjects." I had one paragraph left, but >> Okay, go ahead and finish. >> I just said we all know we need the bond. However, we haven't shown that we can be fiscally responsible and the responsibility now lies on the board to govern the administration to make changes to be more fiscally responsible before the public will be more interested in giving more money. Thank you. >> Thanks, Britney. Anybody else have any comments you'd like to add? And honestly, we'd like to keep it to like three minutes and uh keep it less personal um so that uh it's accepted more easily by the board members. >> Thank you. >> Hi. So, Curtis Jones again. Um I had a

163just a couple comments. Um one thing that you know I think you guys touched on and I think is being overlooked by some is that Arizona doesn't fund schools the way they should. They've lost multiple lawsuits about it. So, I think that's something everyone should consider when they're talking about whether or not the school district is being uh responsible with the funds that we may or may not add to to the coffers. Um, additionally, when people say, "Well, Blue Ridge used to be good," that begs the question, why? Right? I was involved in the last bond and override that passed and I think that's part of it because we had support from the community. Um I think also um comparing Snowflake to here is tough because I don't think Snowflake has the the snowbird population

164that we do to overcome. So I don't think that's a a fair comparison. Um, and then I guess the one other thing that I wanted to say, but I wanted to get that out of the way first in case I ran out of time, was that, you know, for most of you guys, this is this is a problem from your predecessors, but I think the biggest problem is going to be overcoming a lack of trust in the community with you guys, right? Like I voted for my first bond when I was 18 when I was living in Tucson and the only bond I had never voted for I hadn't vote I've voted against was the last one for the school was because the bad taste I had in my mouth from the lack of maintenance

165that you guys were talking about when you talked about oh the money's got to go to a certain poss room instead of some of these other things that could gone to um and then I just think some things in the classroom like punishing the whole class for a couple kids um you know acting out um not punishing behavior for certain people because who their parents were um attendance which is an issue with school funding right you guys are going to lose $100 if kid X isn't in a chair today he gets 100% I mean gets uh straight A's, but he's gonna maybe not get credit because he didn't he didn't go to class enough days. Um and then the one last thing is instructional instructional hours at the from my experience when my kids were

166going here after the last tests were done the last week and a half, they were just goofing off, which is not okay, right? If they're going to be in class, they should be learning. And so I think those are those are some of the trust issues that you guys have to overcome and ensure to the assure the the public that um their money is going to be spent the way they expect it to be spent and that when the kids are in class they're going to be learning, not goofing off because it's the end of the year. Thanks. And thank you. And typically in a board meeting, we don't respond to public comments, but since this is study session, we're not voting. Um, you know, I as someone who's new here and who sees um

167some of the things that have been wrong, I I can't always unpack how we like all the finer details of how we got to here, but I have been in places where we've been very successful doing and to speak to both of the last two comments, doing more with less. And you know when you when you peel back the onion, what it's about is just excellent teachers in the classroom doing excellent things with kids. And um I think both of the last two comments coming back to them once again coming back to support this so our community can support so our teachers can go in the classroom and just do amazing things with kids. We can work through and hopefully through this year I'm I'm I'm trying to build this back up. We have almost

168a complete new administrative team here, minus Nathan and Mary who've who've been around uh a couple election cycles. But I'm hoping that we get that opportunity because like I said, my goal and I hope is aligned with the goal of this whole community, our governing board, our administration, our teachers and the community members is to have the best Bluridge is yet to come. And once again, that comes back to excellence in the classroom, personal relationships, and high level of expectation and academics with our students. And so, we we just want to fix the cooling towers and AC units so that our teachers can teach kids at a high level and do some amazing things. I would love for you guys to see through my eyes the amazing teachers we have and how much they're doing

169with our kids. But if the cooling tower goes down, if the pump house goes down, it's an interruption to education. And we just want to we and I know our test scores haven't been what they need to be in the past, but I I can tell you we had a professional development here on Friday and our teachers were locked in. We have great professionals in our district and they were working hard and they're they're rolling up their sleeves because they know we can do better with our kids. So, we appreciate both those comments. come on up. State your name and your business. >> Good evening. My name is Bridget Cobb and my business is Blige Unified. Uh I am new to the community and I am new to Blige as an employee. I'm a former

170business person of 30 years in a different state, but I also served for 12 years on the school board in my hometown. And we did m we had much of the same issues where we were a small district. We had a lot of part-time, summer residents, homeowners, me being one, and now I'm a homeowner up here. So, I recognize uh some of the challenges. First and foremost, I have to say that I'm incredibly impressed by the turnout tonight. It shows how much the people in this town care. I've gotten to know quite a few people so far in my short tenure here. It's an amazing community. every day I spend in the classroom. I I'm actually very thankful that I'm semi-retired from my business and am now on the educator side. I love it. The

171kids are wonderful. They want to learn and I and I'm impressed with the board. I was in a similar situation where we had a brand new administration and a relatively new board, myself being one of them, and we had not passed a bond in 20 years. And the one thing that made our bond successful, and that was back in 2016 where I was from, is that we made sure that we were very specific, very transparent, and communicated every moment we had and were always open door policy on exactly what we plan to do with that money, where it is going. And I just want to reiterate that Arizona is just like the state where I came from where you cannot pass by law a bond that doesn't exactly do exactly what you said it was

172going to do. And so I think that what I'm hearing and and the sentiment that I've been learning as I'm talking to people in this community uh is that some of the mistrust that came from the failed bond measure was that they didn't feel as though they were communicated to. They didn't understand the message. The message wasn't clear. And what happened was is that then in the absence of clear communication, you invent things of what exactly is going to happen with that money. And as a homeowner, I'm with you. I don't want to pay more taxes unless I know exactly what it's going to because we pay enough taxes without knowing what it's going to already. So, I want to thank you for what you're doing. I appreciate President Merrill making it clear that this

173bond doesn't go for anything but exactly what is put in that ballot language. So, thank you very much. I love it here. Your children are wonderful, and I'm very happy to not be in insurance anymore. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bridget. >> Is it good? Okay. Hi. This is way out of my comfort zone. So, you know, I'm serious when I'm up here. I want I want to tell you a story of what happened to me today when I was volunteering at the junior high track team. Um, I had to run some papers up to the announcer who was a guest in her school and he said, "Look at me. Look how I'm holding this microphone. I can't even It doesn't even work. I have to hold it with two hands. can you go

174get so and so and have him help me fix it? And I was embarrassed, but I'm like, of course, I'll go get some help. So, I go say to the person he's, "Hey, the microphone's not working." I know it's broken. It's not my problem. Go talk to so- and so. So, then I go talk to so- and so. I know, not my problem. Go talk to so and so. And that has been my theme of what has happened to me in Blige. I've only been in this district for a year and a half, and I've had positive experiences and a lot of negative ones, too. But there does seem to be a theme of lack of communication, lack of organization, lack of leadership, and a divide between the parents and the school board. The best

175school district I was ever in was in Texas. And one thing they did to make it outstanding was before the school board voted on anything, they would send a per parent survey and they would ask the parents and then they would publish those results to the parents and then they would vote on it. And guess what? 80% of the time the parents usually agreed. It was 80% overwhelming majority on all these issues and I would ask you guys to consider maybe doing that with your parents because it bridges that gap that seems to be here. Thanks. I'll address that. That's an excellent idea and I think that's something lack of communication is what we've struggled with in the past. People not understanding what the bond was for or even if they were even in the

176school district. I had a lady tell me the other day, she said, "I would have voted for the bond last time, but I didn't think I lived in a school district because she lived in in White Pinetop Country Club." So, you know, that type of communication needs to be corrected, and thank you so much for that. Um, you know, there's a there's a couple of things that I think we as a board would like to do, and that's communicate with the the people that elected us and represent them for what they want done. What I've what I've on the years that I've been on the board, what I've u experienced is most people that come to the come to the board with a problem is a personal problem and they want their personal problem uh

177satisfied for everybody in the district even though it doesn't really satisfy everybody in the district and take care of that. It was a personal problem for them and so they felt like it was the most important thing for them to be uh recognized for their personal problem. Um, sometimes you have to make a tough decision and I'm glad I don't have to make those decisions as a superintendent. Um, we uh we have struggled with a declining enrollment in our community and I've lived in this community for 50 years and I've seen where we were and where we are and why we are where we are. Um, simply because of economics. Um, Pinetop Lakeside is a little community that's stuck between the White Mount Apache Indian Reservation and Forest Service on the other side. There's not

178a lot of devel developable property and the property that is developable is not developed because people want so much money for it. Xolo, Snowflake have property that's been developed and families can afford to locate down there. So, they're growing. Um, Snowflake has, to answer Britney's question, Snowflake has a poverty level because they have a lot of east uh of Snowflake, a lot of poverty in that part of town. Um, their demographics is completely different. I think, and if somebody could correct me from the city, I think um maybe a third of the homes in our school district are occupied year round, their second homes. And so that the the disconnect from those folks to what's actually going on in the school district is is huge. Whereas in when my kids were going to school here,

179that wasn't the case. It was just the opposite of that. There was a lot of yearround professional individuals that lived in this community and they supported the community. Some of those people are still here, but it's changed. We don't have that demographic anymore like Xolo and Snowflake do. So that's one of the things we have to deal with. you know, it costs just as much money to teach a class of 20 kids as it does a class of 30 kids because the teacher has to get paid the same. So, those are some of the things that small declining school districts have to deal with and that's where we are and hopefully we can stop the flood, uh, crack the, you know, fix the cracks in the dam and let things move forward. I've also noticed

180in years past that there's a lot of apathy in this community. If things are going pretty smooth, nobody cares, you know, and then all of a sudden things get a little upside down and everybody cares, you know, there's been half a dozen elections and uh nobody even ran uh against anybody. And so, you know, people that were on the board were just appointed to serve again last time. I think these three individuals are on the board. Nobody ran against these guys last time. Um personally, I'm not going to run anymore. It's time to hand it over to the next generation. And I hope there's a battle for the seat I'm at. I've asked people to run and they say, "Well, it's not my time." But they have a lot of information and they have a

181lot of lot of data to share. It's easy to look out from the outside, look in and have a lot of lot of u uh corrections from the outside, but when you're on the inside, things look a lot different. So, I would just challenge anybody that's here in November to take my seat. Please let let there be an election. Let somebody step up and and uh let the cream rise to the top instead of just uh having to appoint somebody because nobody wants to run for an election and because of apathy. I I hope I'm not offending, but I do think there's been a lot of apathy in the community and all of a sudden it it it heads because that apathy has just let things go to the point where uh things are out

182of control. And I'm not saying things got out of control. I'm just saying things have declined because of the declining membership we have in this in this community because of the demographics of this community have changed so much in the last 20 30 years. It's uh it's shocking if you look back to what the demographics used to be to what they are right now. uh you know we got we got free basically free buses two buses because of free and reduced lunch you know that was never heard of in the past you know so um I think the difference between if you pay for your lunch right now it cost you like $310 if you're free and reduced it cost you 30 cents or 46 cents or something like that so there's there's a big

183difference and uh I just hope somebody in the future will step up and and uh want to be on the inside, want to take the criticism, want to help make decisions for the community because they're invested in the community. And I appreciate everything that's been said. All of it's going into his ears and into his heart. And we I can't say we we have the best superintendent in the White Mountains right now. And his willingness to dedicate his time and his knowledge and energy to make this school district the best to come. >> Thank you. That that is a great compliment. I don't know if I've earned it yet. And I know our last speaker, I think she she walked out, but um you know, on on behalf of our district, I I want to

184apologize because I think we have great leaders and great people, and I'm sorry that um she said that she's had bad experiences because I I do think we have great people in our district. And I think everybody that walks through our doors, um whether it's parents, bus drivers, facilities, the the superintendent, everybody has value. you know, we're all we're all equal here. And uh I don't want anybody to be treated that way because part of being an amazing um district is is treating each other well. And I've I've had a great experience here so far with um the way people treat each other. And I'm sorry that some of those things happen. So maybe I can apologize to her in person when I get a chance. But even something small like a microphone because I

185I feel like when you strive for excellence in the organization Oh, is my microphone getting cut off too? Um, when you strive for excellence in the organization, it's not just the big things, it's the small things that that bring you to that point of excellence. But come on back down, Elaine Smithson. Um, I just like would like to offer a suggestion. Um, and it's not actually from my personal point of view, but just from hearing the speakers in this room, um, a suggestion I think that should be considered as we do study sessions about the bond is to leave technology completely off of it. if that's going to deter a lot of voters and just seems like and here it doesn't sound like the community supports that. I would suggest in the future talking about

186leaving that off, finding other ways to fund that through grants or something like that in hopes that that doesn't deter voters. Having technology on doesn't deter voters leave it off. So hopefully we could get the votes and fund all the other things needed. >> Sorry techn sorry tech guys. Thank you for your opinion on that and those I think are our discussions we'll be having going going forward in the future. Hey, I'm Kate Snugrass. So, I completely agree with you. Our teachers are phenomenal, but I heard that maybe 13 are not coming back. I don't know if that's true. Okay. Yeah, somewhere in that number due to re different reasons. Yeah. >> So, I'm just wondering if do we know why the teach the teachers seem unhappy and I agree with you, they're so great.

187So, we'd love to keep them. >> Yeah. And I think um Miss Ford's doing exit surveys with all of our teachers, but then also we try to listen and we try to promote good two-way communication because, you know, the lifeblood of a great district is great teachers. And we have heard things like anything from salary to um you know job satisfaction to there's some people who've retired and everybody has um a different reason. Um some people you know sometimes it's not a good fit and people decide that they don't um fit well and and they're moving on. I think change is hard and having a complete new administration in our district. I can say I think we have really good people in our administrative team, but sometimes personalities don't always mesh together, but I have

188full confidence in in our team moving forward. And I I agree with you that looking into um each one of those employees that's leaving and it's not just the teachers, like I said, it's it's the bus drivers, too. And um I think that also reminds us that you know when we're overstressing our employees and and we're asking we're continually asking our employees to do more with less it does lead to burnout and it does lead to frustration. And so that's one of the reasons we're coming to um uh you know ask for our community to support us in those ways because ultimately like yeah I I don't want to rehash all the points but we we do want to honor our teachers and all of our employees. So they they stay here and they enjoy.

189Nationwide, you don't hear it a lot, but at the past few campuses I've been at, teachers enjoy coming to work and I want Blige to be a place. And I think when we turn that corner and people start seeing the excellence come back to Blige, I think people will enjoy coming to work and feel fulfilled in their work every day and the kids will enjoy coming to school. So I'm hoping that we can continue to grow that in our community. So thank you. >> Okay. And is it possible to fill that many positions? Like are there that many people that are going to come and fill those positions that are vacant? >> Yeah. Yeah, we we have pretty much most of our positions that have come open filled across our campuses. So, we still have

190a couple more positions to fill. And I'm talking about teaching positions. Once again, the bus driver positions and some of the other positions are harder to fill because, you know, if we think it's hard having 25 kids in front of us teaching, try driving a vehicle with 84 behind you. And you know, I know my dad when I was a kid, how many times he threatened to pull the car over with just my sister and I. And so if you consider 84 full of life youngsters on a bus, that that's a hard job no matter how you slice it and dice it. And so those jobs are a little bit more difficult to fill. But most of the teaching positions have already been um offered. >> Okay. And then one question for you because I

191also am I'm worried about the one to one computers. Uh but when you came and presented you said we're the only district with onetoone. So is that a good thing? Is that like a cert like is that something >> that would depend on your viewpoint and even like principles and uh other educators and stuff vary in their responses to that. So yeah, I wouldn't answer that directly. Um but >> it's not like a certification or something. >> No, typically what you see too is you see like wealthy families that are opposed to 101 onetoone whereas uh the opposite end of that you see them more u wanting the computers just because they don't have those resources at home. >> And I think too answering that like as as the research is becoming more readily available

192like you know once again reflecting back to my my childhood because I didn't have a cell phone when I was a kid. We had these long um spiral cords that if we wanted privacy we had to try to get around the corner and crank our necks. But you know when we were a kid it was TV time and it was still screen time. And what it is is is a passive just state where you are just you know watching and and you know our parents were really cognizant of that. And I think you know technology came out and technology was supposed to cure a lot of things and like and and and so I think that's kind of the new TV time where we got to be careful like you know what the content we're

193absorbing through that. But I think the thing with technology is a lot of people have almost everybody has these now. And so, you know, in our house, we turned on the TV and everybody saw what was on the TV. This is a lot more more covert and personal on what people are doing on on their phones and so or or on their um devices. And also in that regard and and as we talk about being able to see around corners, we have this whole new revolution that's going on that all of us are aware of and it's and it's AI. And so actually last week I was at a conference about trying to view around some of those corners to see where AI is going to go and how that's going to affect learners because

194we have certain things in the past like TVs and now we're dealing with computers and as a school system in general it seems like we react always and so trying to see around those corners and be more visionary in the school district. So as as AI is entering our world, we're already seeing that kids are very more savvy with it sometimes than us adults. So you know, is AI writing their paper? How do and how do we catch up with kids and get in front of certain things like that? So it's not just about the devices, it's about um societal issues such as AI and what's an appropriate way to be able to view it and integrate it. And so you're not being reactive to it and so you're trying to get out in front

195of it. And so now we're talking about computers, but I also want to look around the corner and and have us do that as a community. So we are taking a a sober stance of what AI is going to do to education. And I think whatever we're looking at with computers, we also have that foresight to know that AI is going to be like computers on steroids where AI is doing so many things. And so what is that? How is that going to affect student brains? And I can predict that if we're more reliant on AI, just like we've be become more reli re reliant on computers just in general life, the the learning and the capacity for critical thinking, just like when you look at books like the anxious generation, and I'm sorry, I'm

196I'm kind of going over a lot of this, but I I want to kind of get the elephant out of the room where you're looking at the anxious generation. Our anxiety rate rates have increased down as low as kindergarten with kids who have devices. And it's not just at school, it's at home. And so it's a societal issue. And now that we have AI being introduced in society, this is not just going to be a school issue. This is going to be a society issue. How we view AI and how we go into that um corner together. So I'm excited because this is going to be our next generation's challenge. Are students going to be able to critical think? Are they going to have an attention span? Are they going to have higher levels of

197anxiety like have come about with computers? And how do we attack that ahead of time? So, we're not just going to be talking about computer and computer usage. We need to start looking into AI, too. And so, I know Miss Hoffmire started looking at that. You know, our our technology department, I've started personally doing because I don't want to be in this place where we're 10 years behind and reactive. I want to get out in front of it and help our kids as much as possible. So, I'm sorry. >> I love hearing you talk about anxious generation and all of that. I'm so glad that you're aware of all of that. It does feel almost like we need to protect them in the school, you know, and we almost have to cocoon them from the

198electronics. I think that's what all the parents are so afraid of. >> Yep. >> Um but yeah, a lot of a lot of moms and dads really interested want to be here. I can feel Tara and um and Britney's passion and it's hard to be non-emotional because it's our kids. A lot of y'all have kids. So, >> we do want to participate as much as we can. And the other thing too that I want to mention that's kind of on the opposite side of that, I'm sorry. Um, once again, looking back to our childhood, we had to solve a lot of problems because we had a lot of time quote unquote alone where we were, you know, riding our bikes and doing things that now we look back on. And now our kids sometimes don't

199have those authentic experiences too where they're allowed because as parents we do. And I I'll speak from my personal that you know we do try to like resolve problems for our kids. So that's I think another thing too which is a societal issue and we want to partner is how do we allow our kids to get into that problem solving mode but when you have computers when you have AI it becomes so much easier. So that's that's one of our views. Those are some of the things as a school district that we are and a school district's a big organization with a lot of people but those are things we want to start approaching. So >> okay thank you. >> Thank you very much. more comments. Here we go. I I just have to again

200compliment our superintendent. I think he has a correct vision for where we are where we need to be next year and for right now and the years to come. You know, the vision is great. Appreciate it so much. Uh anyway, I don't mean to take your time away from me. So, my name is Micaia Preswitch. I have two small children, and we talked about technology today, which is why I decided to come up here. I'm not I don't do this. Um, but we're all worried about the children and what the children are looking at on their computers, but we're not paying attention to what the teachers are doing. Because I've been in the classrooms. I've seen multiple teachers pull up like ASMR videos and just let their kids sit there in front of YouTube during

201their teaching time. And as a parent, I'm not I'm not a super big fan of that. Um, and I like what Britney had to say. Um, because I came from Xolo, my husband came from Blige, and we chose Blige because of the teachers and the quality and the things that were going on. However, their discipline standards and what I've seen in the classroom has got me thinking about going to Snowflake because it has kind of sucked. Um, and so that's my one technology thing. All the kids that I've seen on the computers, they do what they're supposed to. Yeah, the games I've seen them do those, but they're multiplication things. I don't know. It's But I also haven't seen that like specific website or whatever. Um, but mine is the teachers putting on like random

202what was it? The hydraulic press things where they watch things smash. I don't know. That kind of thing that I've seen in the classrooms and that kind of bothers me a little bit. >> Yeah. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. And I want to I want to go back to a comment I made before. I think the best um system of quote unquote accountability is not like a punishment system. It's when you have the great teachers who stand up and say this is who we are as a school district. And in my experience, the great teachers are willing to stand up and say, you know, we're not going to just play ASMR crane smashing videos that this because we don't want the community to think. And it's like I think sometimes, you know,

203like with police departments, you see the videos of the of the bad police officers. And so the narrative is is all police officers are bad where I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of police officers in my experiences are are good people who want to do the right thing and firefighters and teachers as well. And so I think in my experience and me being uh a teacher as well at heart is that I think as a good teacher you don't want the community to view you as a bad person because there's narratives out there in the media about teachers as well. And when parents have experiences with that, I know teachers who really care and love teaching don't want that to be the narrative. And we hold each other accountable as teachers. Teachers

204and and sometimes we don't always know what's happening in in our neighbors classroom. But I think once again coming back and resolving these problems and then we appreciate you bringing it to our attention. So what we do is when we have these committees, we can talk together and our teaching staff and our professionals and our community can agree that that's a waste of valuable time. And so you know sometimes and I as a teacher I was guilty once in a while too where when I was a younger teacher I thought giving kids free time was like a reward or something that was a little bit of a break. But then when you realize I I don't remember who said it but you know the last week and a half of school can become a zoo.

205I realized so I taught the first day of school all the way until the second to the last day of school because I noticed as soon as I gave students free time they're going to do all the things you don't want them to do. And then if we're allowing them so and those are conversations once again as we're striving for excellence that I want us to have with our teachers and our community. So we can we can state what that yellow jacket profile is, what we expect of our students, and what we expect of ourselves. And those are definitely things we want to take a look at and not have that be who we are as a school district, >> right? No, I love my teachers who my kids have. I I love them. They're

206they're great and they do strive for excellence. That was just something that I had had noticed. The other thing is is I don't think most of your parents know that this meeting is going on because I didn't know this meeting was going on until like a couple weeks ago when I ran into a lady who knew it was going on and said, "Hey, you should come. You should come." It's not put out there. It's not widespread. We're not getting the emails. We got emails on the bus 9 cancellation. I got email, text message, and a phone call about that and so did my husband. But a district meeting, we have no clue. And so I think, you know, maybe that's something when we do a community survey to ask questions. I think asking how people

207um take uh or receive information the best what's the best way for people to receive information because I know um based on the feedback we've had, we've tried to be real communive and put it on the marquee and put it out on social media and put it out in different places. Um, and so we're we're really striving to do that. And if we're falling short, we want to know how the community receives information. And some some people might need a um an oldfashioned flyer. Um because as we talked about, if computers aren't being effective that, you know, um having flyers printed out and those Yeah. So, those are things we definitely want to communicate because I know we've we tried to get it out on lots of different sources, but um if people still aren't

208getting the message, we want we want to do a better job communicating that. >> Thank you for that feedback. >> Can I say something about what she she just mentioned? I think I think what she's saying is she got multiple communication from the school about a bus route that probably didn't affect her. Email, text, phone call, but when it came to the open public meeting, people are having to rely on either social media or the marquee. So why are they not getting the same form of communication about something more important that affects a whole diff that the whole district instead of just a certain class of people? >> Yeah, and that's a good question and I think probably every district that I've been in um which is not not an excuse that that's the way

209it's always been. We know that that's not a good reason for anything, but you know, board meetings are typically posted on the website and they have paper postings in the public areas. But, you know, I think that's something we could take a look at doing is getting those out on email and getting those ahead of time. And and >> my suggestion would also be to make I keep turning >> to make it very specific. come to the meeting so you know about the bond not the governing board of LNLP QR maybe just simplify the language to say exactly this is what we're going to do that would grab the attention and go oh that's what they're going to talk about because I think people that don't participate in this may think that they can't participate

210in it you know and I think if you leave it more open and simple just couple sentences and on the whole book and chapter and verse, they might just go, "Oh, yeah. I need to be there. It's about my kids." Period. >> Oh, thank you. And we we found out the hard way with this meeting because we were going to call it a town hall meeting and then everybody was asking if it was going to be at the town hall. So, we were like, "Okay, let we we'll rename it a study session." So, we, you know, we're we're taking feedback. We make mistakes as well, and we we appreciate opportunities to get better. So, thank you guys. We're not through. Anybody still want to say something? I just like to say I I appreciate everybody

211that's been here. Years ago, I heard a a guy say, you know, the grass grows greener where you water it. And I think everybody here tonight is watering the grass. Uh you're not walking away from it. You're willing to give it the extra effort to make things happen instead of walk away from it. So, I appreciate everybody that's come and the things that you've said. they're all taken into consideration and I'm sure it's I'm sure it's going to go a long ways. Appreciate it so much. Anyway, keep keep coming. Keep those comments coming. Like I said, we we're here till everybody's through. >> I have I have a couple more questions as a new board member and also as a parent. So, enlighten me. And you may not know the answers to this, but with

212the bond, um, are the funds specifically tied to an itemized list or can that shift? >> Itemized list. Okay. So, do we already have controls in place that will prevent re um reallocating funds after approval or what does that look like? My experience is if it says it has to be spent there, it has to be sent spent there and the money is put in the fund until it's spent for that specific item. >> Okay? >> It can't be spent somewhere else. So whatever whatever gets the money gets spent on was in the initial uh presentation to the board that they voted on. And whether it somebody didn't pick it up or not, I don't that's their fault. Uh but all those funds were specifically earmarked for each item. >> So >> legally has to

213be that way. >> When will we get that if we decide to move forward? When does that itemized list come? >> Well, I don't know. >> Right. >> When we get that, >> we h we have to before we can vote on it, we have to have it specific. So it needs to be presented to us by the faculty and the administration. >> Okay. >> So we can vote on it and change it whether we need to or not. >> Yeah. So, next month at the board meeting, we should have that prepared. >> So, it sounds like a lot, you know, from the community that people have questions and concerns on on oversight, too. So, I mean, is there something going to be in place um on how the spending is going to be, you

214know, tracked and reported to the public already or how does that look? >> Go ahead, Courtney. our financing system. So we use um visions is our is our accounting system and that will track so we have to code things very specifically when we when they come through as requisitions to and then when create purchase orders out of them there are six different coding categories that we have to list them all together. So we it is very specifically listed and so when I and that's how I pulled the information to present tonight too is just going to a very specific code to say these are the this is the amount we've spent so far on this item and then that's that's what allows us to actually pull all of those itemized pieces out and present it

215to the public. >> Okay. >> That's also our job as a board to to have that oversight. We we should be looking over the expenditures as well. And so and and Courtney will be doing, you know, reports as, you know, her financial reports as well. And I think in generally a lot of that stuff's listed on the auditor general's website, too, for public to access it. I do think there's after the bond has been passed, I do think there's room for uh an amendment to it. I remember when the track was originally put in, it was black, but it was cheaper. Actually, we wanted to go purple school color, but we couldn't afford the purple track when it got right down to it. So, it went black the first year. We had a black track

216and then the next time when we had money, we upgraded it to what it is now because the original installer, I mean, two years later, it was bubbled. It was terrible. So, um anyway, so yeah, I think there's room for an addendum and a and a and a change, but it has to be voted on by the board. It can't just be uh written in to another if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. One more. Hello, my name is Merlin Larson. I live here in Blue Ridge. Um, that was supposed to be a joke, but nobody laughed. I think everybody's really dead. It's like, okay. Um, so one of the things that I I've heard and I don't know if it's like when I'm usually in committee meetings, if there's something that's been said, I usually like,

217okay, that's been said. I don't think I need to say it. But sometimes it takes in these kind of forums multiple people saying the same thing to be able to say, okay, maybe that's more of a group consensus as opposed to one outlier. Does that make sense? So that's the only reason why I'm bringing up a couple of things. Number one is is with regards to this. You've heard it a couple of times. There's a little bit of distrust. I think I I look up at you and I think I'm grateful for you. I think you're amazing, wonderful people. I look at our teachers, they're amazing. Our coaches, our administrators, I think they're great. Um, I think there needs to be and and you don't have to respond to this, more focus on getting community

218input. Being willing to say, I don't have the answers, let's get some input. One of the things that I would uh have asked is do we have any professional kind of advisors that we can take and ask for some consultation some consultants and consult us as to our budget expenditures and other things. And I'm not trying to say anything bad about anybody just an outside eye outside voice professional paid. Uh I don't want that buzzer to go off. So yell at me, okay, to be able to come in and say we have some guidelines and we've come in and brought in a professional consultant outside. I believe we have a consultant on that's on a retainer right now. And if that's the case and we haven't consulted them and had them go over that that

219then maybe we need to get somebody else or maybe we need to get them to have some more input or maybe we need to have them consult a little bit more or something with regards to that. So there you go. Community input, being able to have that. I I think there's a lot of mistrust because of other other situations I'm not aware of, but those are my things. I love everybody, but I also know that there needs to be trust and that needs to have a complete transparency and real clarity with what's going to be used on this. Thank you. >> And we love you, too. We don't hold it against you that you went to Snowflake. So, um uh with with that being said, we do have auditors that come in and that's a

220mandatory thing that we do and they do go over every all of our purchase. I'll let Miss Hoffmire talk to that um really quick. Got it. and and you know the auditors actually they do give us best practice type things. We don't have a a hired consultant um for our business. Miss Hoffmire is part of professional organizations such as ASBO where they go and and they talk about best practices for for business. Um but but yes, thank you. And those are things if if you hear me more than a few times speak in public, I want to be as efficient as we can in the district. And that's that's very important to me. And I'm a taxpayer of the community, too. And I'm not going to vote for things that I think are unnecessary. And

221I'm sure not gonna ask our community to vote for things that are unnecessary. Just I don't I don't think it's fair to add taxes to people. I just am looking at cooling towers and different components and and hope that we can fix those just to have a um once again have a functional school district. Not fancy, but a functional school district. And you know what? As far as the trust thing, and I've heard that lots of times, and all I'm asking is my first year, give me a chance. Give me a chance. and allow me to um do the best I can with our our students of our community. And I will tell you, I will love our kids in our community and I will love our community and our teachers and our adults. And

222I will do everything I can to make this school district an amazing place that you guys are proud of. And it's hard to say that in the first year because because organizations I've been in as a principal, as a teacher, as other it takes a little bit of time to to get that culture as a it's a mindset. It's a it's an organizational mindset of excellence and it starts with it starts and ends with me. But I can't do it alone. It takes everybody including you all. And so I hope you guys can give me that trust and that I will be fiscally responsible and efficient with the money if the community trusts me with that. and um and just know that my um my intention is to do my best and to be transparent

223and to communicate with folks and to empower our teachers to just have an amazing district that we can be proud of. So, I'm hoping that um you guys give me that opportunity. More comment, questions from the board. any anything you've thought of that you'd like to share, Michael? >> Bridget, >> I I just have to say I did not vote for the last school bond either for for various reasons, but I will and I've said this the whole time to my sister. I I will give the benefit of the doubt this time and and see how that moves forward and especially since now that I get to play a part in the backside of it. So I'm thankful for that opportunity and yeah, you have my vote. >> Siliana, sorry. >> That's all right. I

224just like to say that um I was one of the whiners that sat at home and said, "Why are they doing this? Why aren't they doing that? that and um my loving husband said why don't you shut your mouth and do something and just like that and that's how I feel everybody that's here everybody that takes a risk and opens their mouth and says something to us with the potential of oh how are they going to receive it thank you for doing anyway because you're speaking your truth you're speaking what you know and that only helps us to make the best decisions that can be made and I'm proud to be on this board because I can say from the top, Jonathan down, everybody's transparent. You have a question and you want the answer, you're

225going to get it whether it's answer you want or not. And I feel like the board members on this board are that way, you know, on down the line. So, thanks for taking the risk for speaking up and telling us what you think. Appreciate it. >> Does take a lot of courage to stand up and and speak your mind. appreciate all of that. Here we go. >> Thank you. I'm Ally Brandon and I felt like Bridget when you said it just now of oh, I want to give the benefit of the doubt especially because I'm on the back side. I think that's what we all want to feel. So when we talk about when is the list going to be there or prioritizing it to deciding how big of a bond can we ask the

226community, my biggest question is when are you going to ask the community what we want on that list? Not when are you going to present it and ask us when do you want us to communicate to you about us presenting our list to you, but instead send that survey out and say this is all the things that need to get fixed. Because at the very beginning when you said, "Oh, you don't need to convince us." I thought, "You don't need to convince us either. We just have to know that we're on the same team with it." So, if you send out a survey, definitely ask, "How do we want to communicate?" But also ask, "What do you want us to be communicating about? What are your priorities as a community?" And we'll respond. Or at

227least I will. I can only speak for myself. I'll respond. I want to be on a comm on a committee. I want to be able to talk where I see the purpose of having three minutes, but can you really problem solve with a I'm gonna speak for three minutes and then you may or may not respond and now I've sat down. Like if there could be a different forum to actually talk about things, I think that would be really beneficial. And I've heard you talk about some of that, but it's still unclear to me, is that happening before you prioritize what the bond is focusing on? And are we weighing in on that or are you weighing in on that? And that right there is a problem, right? That it still feels like a we

228and a you thing. So, if that could be communicated and decided on of hey, we want your input before we make decisions that we're going to vote on, that would be great. >> Absolutely. And and I think that's the intention and hopefully um when the survey comes out um you'll feel like you have a voice in in matching that because even though we had a decent turnout tonight, we want to know how everybody in the community feels. Not not only the people in this room, not the people on the dis, not only here, but we want to know how the whole whole community feels. And and I want to echo u Mr. Merryill's uh sentiment that I I hope everybody is as passionate as you about filling out the survey and telling us because if

229they don't tell us, we don't know. And I would rather know than be blindsided so that by the time we come back in May with some proposed budget, we have some information. And um and yeah, I I hope people fill out the survey, honestly. And and so uh that's that's what we'll go off of is is what the community says cuz we don't want to go one way and have the community going other another way. We want to do it together. >> Will we get a chance to see that survey before you guys send it out or? Um I you know so there was a preview of the survey sent to the um political action committee and they were looking at that but then they were talking about possibly going with a different consultant and

230a different advisor. So, let me let me talk let me set up a meeting with them and see where where they're at with that so we can get that survey because I think we're at the time we need to get the survey out ASAP. And I I'm right there with you. I would like to see if they're going with a new consultant and what that survey looks like, but I think it's important that we put the questions I agree that it's important we put the question of the needs on the survey because one thing I've heard a lot tonight is we don't want bond money spent on a lot of technology. And um but once again, we want to get out get that out to the whole community and see where everybody's at with that.

231And I want to know as well because if I'm putting things on the bond that are um upsetting to people and it's going to crash a whole bond because we're putting 1.7 million out of 50 million per se in technology, you know, we're not going to put something on that's going to crash the whole bond when we need cooling towers and HVAC units and and whatever that was pump in the room that was leaking all over the place in the electrical box. Those are the things we want to fix. We're still waiting for more comment. I'm Lynn Craig Bomb and um I really appreciate being at this meeting. The girl before is pretty much what I was going to say. I'm wondering what your timeline is for if you're going to have something to pass

232out to people. I like to talk to voters and I'm planning to go around and talk to my neighbors and other people about why we should pass whatever it is you decide we should see whether we can have that or not. I'm planning to go and see the um the tour on May 6th. I have no idea how terrible those pictures were. So, um I think there's a lot that people need to know about, but I'm wondering what your timeline is on when when you're going to have stuff to share with voters. So, I appreciate the the survey idea and then you're going to have something that's going to be a fold out, a piece of paper to take around to people and talk about. Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you for that. And

233yeah, I think so. Once we get the survey out and we decide what we want to bring to the board for possible passage and the board decides, then we'll get the information out once the board makes the decision. And then we we will hopefully the political action committee can find you with lots of palm flyers and information so that so that you can share it with your neighbors on what what's decided. >> Right. Sada Chnoff. So, one interesting thing about the survey is we have what, $46 million of HVAC and bathroom. I can't imagine that's like the most exciting survey. Like, we're really going to put it out to the community and be like, which a HVAC should we put on this bond? Should we go for another bond in two years? I mean, this

234is the reality. It's $46 million of infrastructure that has to be repaired. Now, when we're talking about the five million for technology and then the buses, maybe there's a little bit of wiggle room there, but I I think we're starting to split hairs at some point when we're like, let's send out a survey for these real needs that we have. >> Thank you, Sada. And and those those are conversations I'm looking forward to have having in the next few days about what's on the survey so we can get that information out. Um, and just a reminder too, the technology piece, the the bulk of that budget was actually safety and security. And we were asking Nathan how that ended up in his ball court. So I I think it was only about 1.7 million in

235in computers and stuff, right, Nathan? But there was >> Yeah, it's about 1.7 and then the student computers I believe in there are about 800,000 um altogether, which is those are MSRP. So you we usually save about 30%. So you're talking about if you're just taking out like student computers in there, you're saving 750, maybe 600 to 750,000 is all out of that five, four point whatever. And and you know, I want the survey to go out and see what people think, but I would be willing to bet that the community would um would be very supportive of a couple million dollars um and in security measures to make sure safe place for the kids of our community. I I would be willing to bet that. But we'll wait and see what the survey says.

236I But I'd be I'm strong believer in that. It's a couple of you guys out there haven't said anything. Now's your chance. >> Actually, I thought you were watching YouTube videos. Uh, anything else anybody'd like to add? I I would just like to say thank you so much for your information, for your passion. It helps make decisions to see which direction people's minds are. I'm really looking forward to all the work you're going to have to do in the next couple of days, get all this taken care of before the next board meeting so that we get some uh good information that we can react on. Um I have total confidence in these individuals on the board right here. They are totally committed to this community and 100% and they'll make the best decisions, educated

237decisions that they make that they can. So, um, if there's nothing further, we'll just dismiss this meeting and we'll meet again at our regularly scheduled board meeting, which is May 12th. All right, this meeting is dismissed. Thank you.