Regular New Castle School Board Meeting 4-14-2025

001There's a huge huge undertaker for whoever takes that next uh anyone anyone around anyone understands the patient head voice knows it's a tall order we ask so you know that's second grade travel that's local local that's middle school middle school so he was always always I ask him for that for that. He tried he tried to do as coach. So that's all I had. We also we also recognize our new staff member just 1985 very diverse background a lot of things um um but we're very excited administration and that'll be big bill. He can do it and we're just really excited to have 85. Okay. you were do we have do we have anything else on that next they don't need they don't need questions [Music] That's everything packets. Anybody have any questions or anything

002that all great business is always a lot more retirement throughout the year here. So, we have three she'll be with us tonight. Great teacher, great teacher, friends. So, we retirement and um next week we were all in. No, I know. I began and I and I went for seven and then I loved every school and love the kids. They know they know it and we appreciate a picture. Um um do I want to thank the family as well because it's the whole family that comes with so and and all the all the events and and things it it's it's it's a lot. So, I want to thank the family as well. They have helped me with my room. They help me. That's what I'm saying. All right. Thank you. And we have uh our Eastwood

003food service manager. It takes a whole village. We we got bus drivers. We've got uh custodians. Um it takes everybody to to serve our kids. Sandy Wright, Sandra Wright, served 22 years. Um Eastwood food service manager. Um and so let's give her a round of applause. She couldn't be here as as well. So um but uh we thank everybody um for Yeah. for everything they do. That's it. Can I tell a little story? Yeah. Um, Mary Jane's not here, but I want to tell a little story and please tell her that I told this. Um, it might be in the paper. um she has had it's not bogus, it's a high ability and um she had a student that just wasn't really engaged and she tried and tried um to reach them and little fella

004just was had a lot of potential but just just wouldn't engage and I don't I think she visited a church by chance one time and he was doing a little performance and he just lit when he was out there singing and dancing for people and put on the shadow and she said, "Okay." So, with that in mind, she started a fifth and sixth grade choir at Roller Rise. Um, and they then were looking for performances. I knew that because she said, "Well, do you have any place I can go perform? I want to take these kids out and they love it and they eat it up and it's, you know, so um, she took them on the road." So she started a choir, practiced with them, took them on the road, and that's not an

005exception. I think we could tell stories like that about any of our teachers, but that's the level level of dedication. And you know what? That kid became engaged and he his um attitude about school changed and it's just it's just exemplary and it's caring and it's loving the kids and I know all those people do that but I I I knew that story about Mary Chen just wanted to share it. Yeah, I will say if you want to leave uh Robin and family, uh you can stay as long as you would like. The the meeting agenda is riveting. It's I think you love it. But if you don't, we're going to talk about school finance and a lot of other things. If if you don't, then now would be a good exit time. I'm not

006pushing you out. You don't have to. Okay. There you go. All right. So, at this time, we'll move on to uh item B, and that's the uh building corporation lease uh financing option and reimbursement uh resolution. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Shoemaker to kind of talk about that. Yeah. So, um, as you know, we have a we've had a 22, uh, 20 22 geo bond, a 2024 geo bond, and a 2025 geo bond plan. And a lot of, um, a lot of these, this is the way that we get our our roofing projects done. And just for, you know, I'm going to reiterate this. I've said it several times, but I think this puts us, this new roofing project that we've got planned for the 2025 bond puts us in the nine uh

007a little over 9 between 9 and $10 million of roofs um since I've been here. So, um we have a lot of roofs, we got a lot of square footage, and we got to maintain all of this. So, we're in really good shape in terms of our um our facilities in that way. Uh but one of the things that u with new legislation coming in and and that session the legislative session won't be done until the end of April um in conversations with Ice Miller um uh the decision was made and it was a good recommendation if we if new legislation would impact the ability to get one of the the 2025 Garm like we had planned. And just for your reference the there's a $ 1.5 million roof in that and that's the career

008center. That's what we estimate. We don't have a a hard pricing that yet, but um the decision we made, I made the decision to talk to the board about a lease finance option because that would be independent of what the um of what the legislation would impact. So, I'm hopeful that we can still do a a 2025 geo fund, which is what we have planned. Uh but if if not then we would have the least financing option because it is not a good option that and this is no joke and you know McKenzie's here. I think she six buckets she had in her office I would imagine this spring when I visited one time there was probably six buckets. One of them was a big trash can. So we do have leaks there. Uh and

009that's you know one of the things that we need to address. So not doing it for another three years is is not a good viable option. We we had this planned for 2025. So, um uh we need kind of an insurance policy. If we can't get it done through the geo bond, then we're looking at refinancing. So, Lauren from Ice Miller is here, Matt's from Seville. So, I'm not sure which one wants to go first, but we thank you for being here and explaining more to about it. Yeah, since we uh are speaking specifically about the grouping project, I'll start off going through um kind of what a lease financing entails. Sorry, my name is Lauren Syler. I'm here from Ice Miller. Um we serve as your school corporation's bond council. So assisting with these

010types of um debt financings, um the issuance of bonds to help fund these types of capital projects. Um but we'll we'll start off going through um kind of the the legal process, why why we're here considering the lease financing, and then I'll turn it over to Matt. will give a a bigger picture of how the certain legislative proposals um will impact school financing going forward or how likely will um and we'll tie we'll tie into how as we plan for this 2025 project how those changes that Matt will emphasize how we'll have to keep an eye on that as we look to this project and and any future um financings that we we consider um you'll recall from last year and in 2022 the school board um passed and issued what are called uh general

011obligation bonds. Um so a little bit more streamlined directly issued by the school corporation. And Dr. Shoemaker is absolutely right. In an ideal world for this general's assembly session, the plan would have been probably to pursue a similar financing structure and use general obligation bonds for this particular roofing project. Unfortunately, what is in current Senate Bill One, what we expect is likely to pass and be adopted into law, um contains a restriction on the issuance of certain general obligation bonds. Um, essentially general obligation bonds with a that are through a non-controlled process as this 2025 project would be um and with a short maturity imposes a cooling off period after which um you would have to wait a year after the maturity of those general obligation bonds before you could issue GEO bonds again. Um

012so we want to avoid getting into that bucket. But even so, looking back from your 2022 GEO bonds, because of the uh maturity of those bonds and the non-control process we went through, should this legislation pass, uh the school corporation would be subject to a cooling off period that would be tied to the maturity of those 2022 bonds, essentially we wouldn't be able to go through the the geo bond issuance process in the timing that you all are hoping to to secure these funds and and proceed with this roofing project. So, we have to look to the alternative. Um, and in that case, in Indiana, the alternative for school corporations is referred to as a lease um rental um financing. It's something that Newcastle schools um lasted back in 2020. So, some of you may

013recall that process, but um we wanted to come back and just provide a refresher since it's been a number of years. Um but and even though it's been five years since this particular school corporation has gone this route with these bonds, they are commonly issued throughout the state of Indiana. Um, and again, I imagine as these these geo bond restrictions come into place, uh, we'll hear it pop up a lot more in communities like this one. Um, so we wanted to make sure we were here to to walk through what that looks like, um, for this 2025 project, um, and answer any questions you all have. So, please feel free to stop me along the way. Um, I want to first kind of give an overview of what the lease financing structure looks like and

014then we've also brought along a timetable that just lays out particularly for for Newcastle schools and this project what the timing would look like um in more first sense for the school. But please do if you have any questions um as I walk through this, please feel free to interrupt me any questions you have. So for the lease financing, the the key difference that uh you'll notice from from the school corporations, geo bond issuances the past few years is the lease financing is going to involve what's called a building corporation. Um that entity is actually the one that will be the issuer of the bonds themselves. It's a nonprofit entity, usually three to five members that are um affiliated with the with the commu with the community, but not directly with the the school or

015the board. um they don't have any operations or or process or use any of those funds other than the process of issuing bonds and then managing the the expenditure of those bond proceeds. Um what we also do is we have the building corporation appoint a less sore representative typically the superintendent or the CFO of the school corporation who basically serves as the school board's representative to that entity to help manage the funds as they the school board's approved project. the the building corporation issues the actual bonds for the project. Those bond proceeds are actually paid directly to the building corporation at a bank account that um uh Miss Bell and u Dr. Shoemaker will help us um identify and manage. And those funds held by the building corporation are actually the ones that'll be used

016to pay for the the the project, the roofing project and other deferred maintenance that we're we're looking at in this case. Then there's also a lease agreement and structure that is put in place and that's essentially how we be involved with the school corporation and the property tax levy that's used essentially to pay these bonds. There's a lease that would be put in place between the building corporation and the school corporation for the use of a of a school facility, a school building um that's tied to the project. So, we have not gone through that specific process of identifying the building or or the transaction of of of how we would um actually set up that particular lease premise, but we as your bond council in conjunction with your administration would would help identify that

017building um and use that as the the property that is being leased um pursuant to this transaction. So the building corporation would actually own that building at the closing and the issuance of the bonds and own the building for the duration while the bonds are outstanding. In order to facilitate that transaction, the building corporation would pay a portion of the bond proceeds to the school corporation as um compensation for the purchase of that property and then the school corporation would lease back that facility from the building corporation for the duration of the bonds. the um the school corporation would maintain use and occupancy of the facility the entire time. That would go unchanged. Um but the the title and the ownership would would obviously be different. There'd also be a mortgage on that particular property

018um as security for the bond holders, but that mortgage would um again only be there for the duration of the of the bond's maturity. Once they fully matured, we would release that mortgage and then transfer title back to the school corporation. and the school corporation in order to to make lease rental payments for that facility would levy property taxes. Not dissimilar from from how the school corporation would to to pay back um bond holders when they issue general obligation bonds. But instead of paying the debt, the school corporation's property tax levy will be used to make lease rental payments for use of that lease building back to the building corporation. The building corporation in turn uses those lease rental funds to actually pay the principal and interest that student owners. So Steve is your underwriter

019financial adviser helps us kind of set what those those parameters and terms are as we go through the process with you. We get into more detail in in future months about what those specific numbers look like. Um but we would help set that structure with their consultation and and your board and your administration's um property check property tax strategy to to set those particular numbers. practically in terms of how the project will will run and be financed, it it is largely just a few administrative differences for the um for your school business team in terms of how the dollars are expended. But you would levy property taxes quite similar to how you do to to pay back general obligation bonds. Um and you would have those funds available to to pay um the bond proceeds

020available to pay um for the the roofing and roof maintenance project as you would for a similarly approved project. Um, but there are a few legal approval differences, the different steps the board would be going through um, to approve this type of structure and approve these types of bonds. So, that's what we wanted to get into more specific today, what that would look like and what we'd be coming back to you in subsequent ones to ask for. But before I turn to the timetable, I just want to check in any questions generally about the structure of the of the lease financing. Seems like an extremely convoluted process. Do other states do this? They do. It's other states have other sorts of alternative uh alternative financing mechanisms besides general obligation bonds that we don't typically use

021for school corporations in Indiana. Um but when it comes to Indiana school corporations, the two main mechanisms are general obligation bonds issued directly by the school corporation and this lease financing structure. with the property tax changes, does that change at all our ability? At this point, we we always say, "Oh, we're going to do a bond and it is not going to raise your tax," but the property tax structure is going to change and that's going to affect what we have what we have. Yeah, we're we're going to talk through that. Um, I have some numbers that I'll share with you. I think long story short is we don't really know yet. Um, it's pretty complicated, but I'm going to walk you through some numbers to try to get you up to speed on kind

022of what's been going on with with the legislation that we think is going to pass in the next week or so. Will you tell us how this this one is going to dovtail with the one we already have in place? Yeah. Yeah. And and Warren explained that really well. What I would say about a geo or a lease, practically they're the exact same thing. Mechanically, there's some differences. Legalitywise, there's a little bit of differences. The market sees them as the exact same because they're backed by property taxes. So, the interest rate, what you pay, it's going to be identical on whether you do a go or lease. So, this isn't something that's going to be significantly more expensive. This isn't going to be something that every school corporation in the state has also done. Um,

023it's more just being super conservative based on potential legislation to give you guys flexibility moving forward. We didn't want to go through the entire process of doing a geo bond, have legislation come in that may prohibit that um or not give you the flexibility to do it when you want to do it. Doing a lease financing. Um the legislation does not talk about that at all. Uh so you guys will have a lot more flexibility to do what you want and when you want to do it. Is this process um in terms of uh is it any more expensive? Do we end up with with any more interest or or anything like that? So, in terms of the interest rate, no. You're going to get the exact same interest rate. You're the exact same credit

024rating. I know there's some extra meetings on the lease site or the building corporation. There might be a little bit more expense. But when I say a little bit, we're talking about thousands of dollars. Um, not tens of thousands or 20s of thousands or anything like that. But in terms of the interest rate, when we sell your bonds, you'll get the exact same interest rate whether it's a GEO or the additional expense we refer to as the cost of actually issuing the bonds. That's that's really the the delta in terms of the dollar difference between the GEO and the lease. But that's simply again the the additional documentation that's required for the lease structure, the a few additional meetings and the involvement of the building corporation. Um, and then pending our discussion with with your

025administration about how we identify the property to be used for the lease premise. In some cases, it requires some title survey work. Um, we're required to do an appraisal of that property. So, there are some additional administrative fees associated with this structure. Um but when it comes to affording you all the flexibility to to kind of structure your your debt and capital project needs over the next few years um we we view it as being more beneficial to pursue this structure so that you all have the opportunity still to to borrow um to meet your needs. building corporation doesn't have like a liability built in with their No, the the school corporation's existing insurance coverage that they that they have covers um some of the uh the liability that might be associated with the building

026corporation and there's also certain legal um autumn kind of built into the statute governing those those felt assured that you would not put us in a position that and we we did all this with the middle school and it was not very much more expensive. So we also do we try to preserve cost efficiency. So, for example, the the the real estate work that I mentioned, survey, title, appraisal work, in certain cases, we look out, we find properties where we don't need to go through that for a variety of reasons. And so, we do take every um measure to try to mitigate those costs uh if and when possible for the structure. But, Matt, right, the the real reason why we need to um talk about the the lease financing option today is because of

027the the new legislative restrictions on issuing geo bonds. It unfortunately affects the timing of how quickly we can afford this project and if we were to pursue geo bonds for this particular one, it would likely impact we didn't talk. Yes, sorry. Um, only other thing I wanted to touch upon from a legislative process because it it does not specifically pertain to the 2025 projects we're going to talk about, but I want to just mention it before Matt gets into more specifics on numbers. the school corporation in 2025, your debt service tax rate is below 40 cents. That's significant because the legal process for any um capital project that you you're considering to issue bonds to finance, the legal process is driven by two things. Um outside of these restrictions we're talking about, geo bonds, but

028what what the actual process you go through is driven by the total project cost and whether it reaches a certain threshold. And in some cases it's the applicable um debt service tax rate for the school corporation. Right now those debt service tax rate thresholds um the one that pertains most to the school corporation is 40 cents. So you might recall last year when we went through the process of issuing geo bonds um we went through a control project process because at the time the school corporation's debt service tax rate was above 40 cents. For these 2025 bonds we're looking at going through a non-controlled process. O not needing to go through um the same number of meetings and additional um kind of waiting periods that we did with those 2024 bonds um because we are

029below 40 cents as we are approving this particular project. But I wanted to flag that because of the changes that Matt will get into a little bit more detail. One thing that we're going to be looking closely at, especially as we we come into the fall, is how your debt service tax rate might be impacted by legislative changes for 2026. Um, if the changes are passed as as they're currently written and has the impact that um, steeple is projecting, there is a likelihood that the debt service tax rate could no fault of the board, but it could exceed that 40 cent threshold that is currently in place. Um, and so the the legislative changes may also affect process for future bonds. But I wanted to flag that because in this particular 25 project, we're doing

030it a little bit different than we did in 24. Um, but it may be different again when we when we talk with you all next year or in subsequent years after that again due to nothing corporation is is or is or is not doing, but simply because of how legislation is changing. And that's true for almost every one of our school corporation clients that we speak to. Um, but I just wanted to as we walk through this time table, I wanted to flag that it may be different um, as we approach 2026 and future years. Um, but I did leave for all of you just a copy of the timetable that we've illustrated for these 2025 projects. I just wanted to quickly run through just to give you a sense of kind of how quickly

031we we envision that the board could consider going through these approvals um, and what what we're going to come to for you um, for requests for authorization. um really focusing there's you'll see throughout this there's a number of references to notices that need to be delivered and published. We'll work with um with Michelle and Dr. Shoemaker to to facilitate those pieces of the project as well as the real estate work that I mentioned earlier. Um but I did want to focus on kind of the school board meetings, hearings, resolutions that will come to you all for um your consideration um to approve moving forward with the project. So the first we we've highlighted um for your next board meeting in May. Um the the first action that we would we would come and ask for

032you to consider is approving just the start of publishing those those legal notices that are required by law um to proceed with the financing structure. Um the first notice that you would be considering is just advertising the the first hearing on these projects. Um that notice would just contain the description of the project that you would all be considering and the date and time and location of the board meeting and the hearing itself. Um, so that that would really just be on in May the kickoff to have the board consider whether you're you're ready to move forward with the legal steps that are required um for the financing itself. And the second is a reimbursement resolution that we would present to you all. And essentially this is something we we've done for your previous bond

033issuance as you might recall it from the 2024 geo bond process. But it's a federal tax issue that if we uh if we adopt a reimbursement resolution, it preserves the school corporation's ability to reimburse itself to the extent that you end up having to pay any expenditures for the project before the bonds are actually issued. So up to 60 days before the date of that reimbursement resolution, any expenses that you might pay out of operations or your rainy day fund before the bonds are actually issued, you could then come back after the the bond issuance itself and use some of those bond proceeds to to reimburse the expenditures that came out of your rain operations for the project. Um so we view that as something that would be um prudent for the board to consider

034early on in the project. gives your administration the most flexibility to kind of start moving forward with the work. Um, and then the ability to still use the bond proceeds to finance the project. So, you'd still have those dollars down the road available in your operations or your rate. So, those would be the two items for your your May board meeting. And again, we'd be um advertising for the the first hearing on the project, which in this on page the second page of the time table, um, we've slated for your June your June board meeting. Um it would be uh a hearing for the the public to hear about what the project is. Um we'd be setting uh considering a couple of the maximum financial parameters, the maximum borrowing amount, the maximum maturity, maximum interest

035rate. Um and so the the public would have an opportunity at that meeting to come forward and express any comments or or questions that they have um to the board and to the administration at that meeting. Um the board would then consider a couple of the resolutions related to the project. Um, one again would be kind of setting those uh maximum financial parameters. Um, the the key there would be those would be informed by the analysis that SEL does um in conjunction with um our understanding of the boards and the administration's tax rate management goals and and borrowing needs for this particular project. So, we'd come back to you um in May and June with more specifics on what those numbers would be, but the board would set maximums at that point. you can always

036after that point set borrow a lesser amount um issue for a shorter term. You just would not be able to exceed the parameters that you'd set at that June meeting without going back through kind of redoing some of this legal process. Lauren, if I can say something right here. So, if you remember last year when we had the conversations, we did the $4.3 million in bonds last year for the projects at that time in consideration of coming back this year and doing an additional $3 million in projects for projects that Dr. Shoemaker had identified. Um, in in looking at legislation and talking with Lauren and her team and Dr. You may heard Megan an idea had come up about potentially approving a higher amount. Uh Lauren mentioned the 40 cent threshold. That's one of the

037key thresholds. Um anticipate the school corporation potentially going above that in the future with all of the legislative changes I had mentioned. Does the school corporation want to look at potentially authorizing a higher amount now under the current rules? um they have made changes over the past several years in legislation, they've always grandfathered projects that have previously been approved. So, while I'm certainly not telling you this is what you should do, the idea would be do we approve a higher amount, say $6 million to take care of this project and then whenever the next project would come up, say it's in two years, three years, four years, whenever the board decides, um, that would give you the authorization to do this project and then hopefully another project uh, without having to worry about potential future

038legislation. Could potential future legislation come back and say we're not grandfathering? It's certainly possible. Uh we haven't seen that in the past. And so in talking about those maximum financial parameters when we set those wanted to have the conversation tonight, put it in front of the board so you guys all could talk about it, make a decision. doesn't have to be tonight, but would you want to consider approving a higher amount so you could take care of this project and hopefully the next project and not have to worry about any potential changes to that future legislation. So again, I just want to throw that out there since we were talking about maximum something for you as a group to talk about. Does it make sense to do it now? We don't know what things are

039going to look like in the future. Maybe you're not harmed in any way and you can improve it in the future. I think this way we just give you a little bit more flexibility. rest assured that you don't have to worry about the next one. So, I did want to throw that out there since we were talking about the maximums. So, if we did um allocate more money right now through this process, then we wouldn't have to go through this process again either, even if the legislation didn't change, assuming it fit within the parameters that we set uh here in a couple months. Yeah. So, so say for instance we pick $6 million and you do $3 million this year. If in three or four years you decide you actually want to do 5 million

040or 7 million, some number above your authorization, then you would need to come back and get another authorization for that higher amount. But as we sit here today and what we know today, if it fits within the parameters of that $3 million or whatever number you guys decide, I don't want to put the number in your mind, then yeah, you would have already completed all of the steps and therefore wouldn't need to come back through those steps again. Not really savvy with this. How would that affect the 40 cent that we were talking about? So it would be if you went above 40 cents in the future, you would be subject to a different authorization process. But if you got that done now, and even with this legislation that I'm going to talk about, if

041it forces your rate to go above 40 cents and puts you in a different um legal authorization process, you already have the authorization for the next process. And so you wouldn't have to do a future one under different parameters. So for this 2025 pro process, we're going through again for a non-controlled project. So it's one lesser hearing. It's uh basically the what we went through for last year for the 2024 bonds where we had two preliminary hearings, a 30-day period for for um taxpayers and voters to petition the project. That does not apply to this 2025 project that's going through the non-controlled steps. If we were to come back and need to do a separate round of authorizations um after the school corporation's debt service tax rate was above 40 cents, we have to go

042through the the same process we did last year for the 2024 geopods. Two preliminary hearings, resolutions for the board to consider a 30-day period for for taxpayers and voters to have the opportunity to petition in opposition to the project. Um and then a decision based on how that 30-day period went for the board of administration whether they wanted to move forward. But anything that you would approve at this, let's just say that's a June board meeting. Anything that's approved within those maximum parameters at this June meeting would already be authorized pursuant to this non-controlled project process. So we would not need to come back again barring any again out of left through legislative changes. We would not need to come back uh next year to issue the remaining amount of the authorized bonds pursue to

043a different process. I do want to just clarify though, if you were to go that route and issue, let's say it's 3 million that you need in 25, but you want to approve six now to cover the 3 million you anticipate needing to issue in 2026. Um, the the preliminary steps to authorize that full $6 million amount would be done this year. we would not need to come back and redo those um or go through a different process because of of any tax rate changes. But there would be a couple of steps just more specific to the the bond issuance if we were to issue a second series of bonds, let's say in 2026 or 2027 under this initial authorization. So there would be a few additional legal steps for any second series of bonds

044um if you were to to split it or approve kind of a larger project at the beginning. Um but the preliminary steps to approve it and set those maximum parameters would would be taken care of at this June meeting. But if we go with a larger amount that would still fall under all the lease financing, we won't be eligible for geo bonds until 27 and it's currently written based on the maturity of the and I I want to offer a caveat just because the language is at best not clear. Um, so under the most conservative of interpretations of of how the unclear language is written, the the soonest that we could issue shortterm non-controlled GEO bonds would be January of 2027. Um, and then you also, if you were to go that route, it depending

045on how those were structured, the process we went through, those geo bonds might kickstart another kind of geo cooling off period is is how legislators are referring to it. Um we would certainly have discussion with you all about what your options were at the time when you if and when you did need to issue um additional bonds um what what your auctions would be. But those would be some of the considerations we we'd anticipate if that were what we were talking about next year. They've made all of this completely far too complicated and complex. I mean Warren and I have spent all day on the phone talking with different people. Um, what we're mentioning tonight is is simply playing a little bit of defense against what might come in the future. I'm certainly not telling

046you this is something that you should do. Simply want to throw it out there as a consideration. Do you want to just take care of all of it now so you don't have to worry about it in the future? If the answer is is no, does it materially change your plans in the future? Probably not. U, but it's just one one less thing you have to worry about if you decide to go with that route. again completely out to the board. Just for planning purposes or just to go back a step, we were planning on $3 million for the 2025 geo bond and then we had another one in 2028 was about equivalent. So, you know, that would be those two geo bonds would be about $6 million, which is kind of what we're talking

047about along the lines of here if we if we go for the maximum. So, as we were talking, that may that may actually take care of the 2028 gear bond as well. And in the projects within it, we'll get into specifics, but based on how they're phasing in changes to how valuation is going to be uh calculated and how that'll affect school financing. 2020 may sound like it's a far way off, but we anticipate that these changes are going to hit school corporations hard over the next five, six years. Um, and again, we don't know what legislative further legislative changes will come in the meantime. Um, so we do want to take a rather conservative approach, but to provide the board and the administration the most flexibility to to meet what we know are are

048really important needs for the school corporation. and you may be covering this as you as you go through and you don't have personal law under the order of that but looking at what we've seen the history of this um public schools um you want to comment on future funding um if I'm putting you on the spot you don't have to answer well I mean I'm going to talk about this in my slides too. I mean this the school public school funding is is is clearly under attack right now. I mean this is this is major legislation that is going to fundamentally change um how schools are are funded uh moving forward. Do I want to speculate on how this all ends? I I have no idea how this is all going to end. I don't

049know what it's going to look like in a month from now, let alone a couple years. Um but this this is a this is a big change that we're going to walk through tonight. the trend the trend that we've seen like you said public schools are under attack and to think in the future that we're going to get funded more completely is probably outside of the school corporation taking in their own hands and and doing a referendum. Yes, I would I would agree with that statement. We've heard from we've heard from many people that they know that the legislation is maybe not perfect, but they're going to fix it as we go in the [Music] future. This is being built as a historic tax uh relief for Hoosiers. I I find that hard to believe

050in the future they're going to fix anything that would cause the taxes to go back up. Um, and so yeah, I think what we see here if this gets passed, it's going to be hard to overturn any of this in the future. Now that the governor's getting his own health reported, this Jasper and the lieutenant governor got a $90,000 SUV. That's important. Yeah. I I mean Yeah. I heard I read somewhere that they were they were assuming that local taxes would have to be raised to make up for the loss in property tax. Yeah. So, so um schools don't have that ability. They need the ability for cities and towns to increase the local income tax or dollars to essentially replace any loss dollars. Um, Megan, do you guys get lit dollars at all? You

051don't. Okay. So, for schools that do share in lit dollars, now they're eliminating math from school. Schools are no longer allowed to share in lit dollars moving forward, but the cities and towns can increase their lit share. So, um, there's a whole lot of things there. I think it's pretty clear that, um, they're just coming after public schools for whatever reason. I I appreciate that. I I did talk to our representative A and he said that the assumption made is that there's at least 5% flop. Yeah, I will say that there is an LSA report out there right now that's been run to show the the potential impact of this. Um we've looked through those numbers. I can't find a way to tie those numbers. Those numbers show some school corporations getting more money from

052this, some getting less. Um but overall it shows that school corporations are going to get more money over the next three years which when um this is being built as a tax decrease I find interesting how schools can get more money if everybody is paying less. So I don't know I don't know where the numbers came from in that report. Um it's a it's a time organization gave the report. So LSA legislative services agency. So anytime they do a new bill that has an impact on funding, they have to run the numbers and provide it to the legislator so that they can review it. So it shows like a lot of schools are actually going to get a little bit more money and what what um Representative Thompson who is the kind of the big

053guy on the the House side and coming up with some of these is billing this is a less of more. Schools are going to get more but probably not as much as they would have gotten before this bill. Um I I can't find a way that he's getting it values maybe places that have really high profit covering values. So they are the the growth quotient which we've talked about in the past. That's what is um your operations fund grows by each and every year. Historically been up around 5%. They limited to 4% the last two years. The original bill had it going to zero so you get no new money in your operations fund next year. They did come back and put 4% back in for 2026. So that's probably part of the reason they're

054saying school's going to get a little bit more, but that's now going to be set on a year-to-year basis moving forward. So we know it's 4% for 26. We will not find out until next session what it will be for 27 and beyond. I'm laboring the point, but thank you very much. Piggy back on that. Um some of the figures that we look at how we've been seeing it is uh losses on uh the state representative called unrealized gains. And the numbers so like the numbers he provided was we were at 7.4 million for 2025 which would go down to 7.26 26 million in 2026, which is obviously less, but then back up to more than this year's, which is 7.57 million. So that that's the numbers that they're they're kind of pumping. And I

055think that's just based on that probably that report that you said. Yeah. So, and that's where there you got what we what we've found is um so the way that report works is it shows the money that you would have gotten if they didn't make the changes and then it shows the money that you will get if they do make the changes. But they're pegging it all to your net levy that you got in 2025. Me, I'm sure you look at this. Almost every school that we've looked at, the net levy they're showing is far less than what your actual net levy is. And so it shows a lot of schools getting an increase over the next couple years, but when you look at the money you actually got this year, it's a lot more

056than what they're showing as that baseline year. So it's actually declines each and every year what you got. Um, what we heard was LSA used your 2024 levy and instead of grabbing your actual 2025 levy, they used some sort of growth assumptions. And so most schools are grossly understated in what the 2025 number is. I didn't double check that for Newcastle. I can go back and look, but the many, many schools I've looked at all showed a um a lower net levy than what you actually got. Therefore, it's showing you getting more money, but actually we started here and we're going down here. So, I I just I don't know what else to say on that. Before we get to to more specifics, just to quickly wrap up the lease process, the the June meeting

057is also where we do the initial approvals. We for the maximum parameters, we'd also start the the lease sets the itself. So we would bring a form of a lease agreement between the building corporation and school corporation to you at that time um for your consideration um that would also be setting those maximum lease parameters. So the actual term of the lease, the maximum lease rental payments um that that would be authorized um and just to proceed with with the lease steps and um using the building corporation. We would kind of in tandem with the schoolboard meetings, convene meetings at the building corporation to have them also review and approve the form of the lease agreement. And then we come back to you in um July to uh do the last building corporation meeting and

058with the school board hold a a public hearing on the lease agreement itself. Um, if necess if necessary, have a a hearing related to the additional appropriation appropriation of any funds that the building corporation might have to pay the school corporation um as the purchase price for the property being used as the lease premise. And then um considering a number of resolutions related to the lease financing. So, authorizing the actual execution of the lease agreement, um approving that additional appropriation of of of bond proceeds if necessary, approving the building corporation, um assigning uh construction bids and contracts to the building corporation since they will hold um the large sum of dollars that will be used for the project. Um and then the final resolution you'll see there in July is the approve approval of a

059um supplement to the school corporation's master continuing disclosure undertaking. That's similar to what we've done for all of your your other previous um publicly issued bond uh bonds um just to comply with federal securities regulations. So we come back in July and detail that a little bit more with you all and ask for your consideration and approval of those resolutions. At that point we would be able to to issue bonds. Um again that's the school board and the administration would retain the flexibility to to move as slowly or as quickly as you would like. um issue any lesser amount or or within any lesser of those maximum parameters. Um but at that point, you'd be in in position to to see how your assessed valuation comes back in the fall um and how we want

060to um consider issuing bonds to to kind of marry that with your your tax rate management strategy. So, we'll we'd come back um in the summer for those particular hearings and board resolutions and then work with you all and your administrative team in the fall to actually go forward and issue the bonds. Any questions about those particular vehicles tax? So, whatever we do, the more ambitious one to anticipate changes or the lesser one tax, we're not going to affect the tax potentially. Potentially what potentially yes the the legislation is unclear on what it's fully going to do. I'm going to walk through my best guess on it. I believe the answer to be yes. Can I guarantee it? I do not. Okay. You know, we had the disaster at Blue River and what we want

061to get out loud and long is, you know, if we're going to have any messing with the tax rate, if we are, we'll lose. If there's any kind of referendum, and if not, if we can say it, you know, and be safe, then we know we're okay. So, I'm I'm I'm much more confident in the debt service tax rate. I think the debt service tax rate we can hold fairly constant over the next few years. the operations fund tax rate is going to go up and so the total tax rate what taxpayers see on their tax bill that the tax rate for Newcastle and every other school corporation in the state is is going to go up sometimes because of what we're doing correct well that's what I want to get 100% correct the dollars

062the dollars that you are asking for from the community are not going to are not going up because of this project whether we do the three or the six correct We can flat and categorically say we will do nothing that will affect your tax rate. Not tax rate. I can't guarantee the tax rate because the way these numbers, but the dollars you're asking for the dollars you're asking for were going to well is going to flatline the dollars we're asking for from the community. Now, the tax rate might be different because of what they're doing to the assessed value. and I'll walk through those numbers, but at the end of the day, they want to know what's the tax liability. That is not changing because of this project. Okay, I'll let we want to get

063out. Yes. Correct. Correct. I'll let Matt get into the spec specifics of the numbers, but if you all have any other questions tonight, um we'll certainly would like to come back if that would be helpful for for future meetings as well, but let me know if you have any questions on the legal process. Thank you. So just just for the record, I find school finance riveting. Tax shoe makers. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. From one shoe maker to another. So uh my name is Matt Shoe Maker. It's a happy coincidence. We are not related in any way. Um I work for a firm called Steeple. We've worked with corporation for a number of years. So um I'm here to deliver the the news on Senate Bill One. I'm sure everyone's heard of at this point. Talked a

064little bit about tonight. I handed this out. Um the amendment to Senate Bill One that they sent out was 350ome pages. Um we've read it. Do I understand all of it? No. Do I understand most of it? I hope so. I'm going to hit the highlights. Uh some of this is going to impact Newcastle schools. Some of it is not. Um all of this is going to impact every school corporation in the state in one way or the other. Some schools are being going to be impacted much more significantly than others. Newcastle clearly is on the list that is going to be impacted. So, we'll talk through what I see as the impact. It's it's it's more complicated than I could even begin to explain. So, I am not going to give you answers tonight.

065I'm not going to say this is exactly what's going to happen. My goal here tonight is to give you ballpark answers. I think based on what I know that this is the most likely outcome. It's probably going to be different. Hopefully, it's a little bit better, but it certainly could be worse. Um, but the way they're doing this is it's just it's it's too complicated for for anyone to give you real answers right now. So, couple of highlights of Senate Bill one. Um, we talked a little bit about the debt service rate. Um, for school corporations whose debt service rate is over 70 cents, which you guys are at 3999. So you're nowhere close right now. But for school corporations over 70 cents, every single bond issue they want to do, regardless of size and

066payback length, has to be placed on a ballot. Has to go to a referendum. Previously, this was 80 cents. They're moving it down to 70 cents. Again, we don't anticipate Newcastle to ever come close to that. Uh but there's a lot of school corporations that are over 70 cents that are really going to be impacted by this. The biggest thing for you all, and I'm going to talk through this uh in more detail and actually show you numbers. I'm a math nerd. I apologize if you guys don't like it, but you're going to see it tonight. Um the assessed value changes. Um so, we've talked about this in the past, but a refresher. So, the value of your home, which we would say is the gross assessed value or the market value, that is not

067the number that the tax rate is applied to. There are deductions in the state of Indiana. There's a homestead deduction and a supplemental deduction. The homestead deduction is $48,000 for the majority of homes. The supplemental this year is another $37 a half. So if you have a $200,000 home, you may only be paying on a net assessed value. It's just under I think it's $97,500. That is the number that that tax rate is applied to. So there are certain deductions uh the way the the legislation reads right now that allows you to reduce the value of the home that you pay taxes on. What they are proposing is essentially increasing the deductions uh up to 67%. So if you have a $300,000 home, when all of this gets phased in, you're only going to pay

068taxes on a taxable value of $100,000. What that means is all of your homes that are at a certain net assessed value. Now, when these deductions phase in, your net assessed value is going to come down. If you ask for the same dollars each and every year in a declining net assessed value, you're going to see a tax rate have to go up to fund those dollars. The distinction that that Greg brought up that we were talking about was regardless of the tax rate and how the tax rate functions in the future, we know that the majority of school corporations tax rates are going to go up. We're now talking about the levy or the tax liability. What are the people actually paying? And when we talk about this, and I'll show it in a

069little bit, we're not going to ask the the community to pay more dollars for your debt service levy. We're going to hold that constant. But is that tax rate going to go up? Most likely yes. And I'll walk through that. So the assessed value change is going to impact everyone. We're going to see assessed values come down uh and therefore tax rates go up for the most part. Um that is for homesteads, farmland, and your 2% properties, which are rentals. They're going to see a one-third deduction moving forward. Uh in the past, the 2% when I say 2%, I mean for tax cap purposes. they can pay no more than 2% of their gross assessed value. We're going to see all of those um farmland and rentals now get a one-third deduction whereas previously they

070got no deduction. Um you guys actually have a pretty big makeup of 2% properties. My guess is it's probably apartments. Can't imagine you have any any farmland maybe a little bit. So you are going to see an impact from that as well. I think 43% of your tax base was homesteads and then another 33% was these 2% properties which are probably mostly uh rentals. So you're going to see an impact your net assessed values from both of those categories. Business personal property has been a it's been talked about for many many years. Um the original bill had a complete exemption for business personal property. Meaning um you know if you take a warehouse, you get the accessory for the warehouse with the machinery, the equipment, everything inside of it, that's considered business personal property. Originally

071was going to totally go away for tax purposes. You would not see that benefit to your assessed value in the original language. uh they've now brought back uh a 30% floor, meaning you can depreciate it no further than 30% of its value. So a million-doll piece of equipment for your net assess value is always going to have a $300,000 floor. That is for business personal property that was in service prior to January 1 of 2025. any business personal property brought into service from here moving forward is going to be exempt from taxes. And so a lot of people were excited that you at least keep your current stock of business personal property. I think the Senate and me would say most corporations are probably going to push out the replacement cycle of a lot of

072their machinery and equipment because they're no longer going to have to pay taxes on it. So that's going to be something that we're going to have to pay attention to moving forward. I have no idea how to quantify that. We don't know the replacement cycles or how they're going to do that, but that's going to be uh an impact as well. They did also say if you have a tiff district, any business personal property put into the tiff district even from now moving forward will keep that 30% floor. Uh they did that because tiff districts have bonds. They need to repay those bonds and if you take away that assessed value, it it hurts their ability to pay back those bonds. uh operation fund and operating referenda. They've said if you have a hundred students

073or more that go to charter schools, you're going to have to start sharing that revenue with charter schools in the future. I don't believe Newcastle is on that list or anywhere close to that list. So, you guys should be fine with that. But there's a lot of schools fretting about that. General obligation bonds. I think we've hit on that already. Uh levy appeals. So, there used to be a way for school corporation to ask for more money in their operations fund um based on certain metrics for bus and transportation. That is completely being eliminated. So, if you don't have enough money to provide um busing or transportation, that's on the school corporation to figure out how to deal with that. Uh the credits, um I did not think that this was really going to be

074an important one, but I'm going to show you numbers on why it is. So, this is a one-time credit. Homeowners are going to receive a credit up to the lesser of 10% of their tax liability uh or $300. So, they can get a credit for no more than $300, but at least 10% of their tax liability. So, if you have to pay $2,000 in property taxes, you're going to get a $200 credit next year. I'm going to walk through the numbers, but this is going to be impactful uh to Newcastle along with every other school corporation uh in the state. We talked about lit revenues. schools can no longer uh receive lit dollars uh here in a couple years. They've changed some things with the budget process as well. They've done a whole host of

075things that are going to impact school corporations. I'm not even fully confident that we've listed everything here that might ultimately impact you. That's that's how many things are going on. So, let's flip the page. We'll get into the numbers because I know that always excites everyone. Um, so this is uh the potential impact of the deductions uh moving forward. So, uh, doing a little bit of research, it looks like the average home value, uh, here in Newcastle, at least listed on the internet, is $147,938. It might be a little bit higher, it might be a little bit lower. Uh, we can certainly change that to show you how that impact will change based on the value of home. The way the legislation is written, uh, this 67% deduction is going to be phased in between

076now and 2031. The way it's currently written, um, is interesting because the $147,000 home in 2025 with the deductions that we talked about currently pays taxes on $62,461 of the value of their home. So the18 tax rate for Newcastle is not applied to the 147,000 market value. It's applied to the 62,461 net assessed value for 2026. That net assessed value is actually going up. So if your tax rate stays constant, that $140,000 home is actually going to pay more dollars next year. The way the formula works, which is interesting, it's actually a 3.68% 68% increase in that net assessed value. In 2027, uh you're going to lose about 1.66% of that assessed value. And you can see the way that move going forward. The most impactful year is going to be 2031 when this fully

077comes in. You can see that home loses 13% of their assessed value. By the time you get to 2031, uh, that home is now paying taxes on $48,820 of its value, which is almost a 22% decline. So, if you think about all of your homesteads, every one of those is going to lose about 22% for their net assessed value, which is based on that's how your calc that's how your tax rate is calculated. It's just the levy divided by your assessed value. So if your assessed value is going down, but you're asking for the same amount of dollars, we're going to see that tax rate go up. So the messaging here is going to be it's going to be impossible trying to talk to the normal person saying, "Hey, yeah, your tax rate is actually

078going up, but we're not asking for more dollars." That is a difficult conversation um that everyone's going to have to have. Down at the bottom, uh we attempt to show what we think your tax rate might do moving forward. Um so 70 76% of your tax base is comprised of one and 2% properties which are going to see these increased deductions. Current school assess net assessed value is $844 million. Uh moving forward by the time we get to 2031 we are estimating that that 844 million will decline to $72 million. I want to be very clear here. That's not a number. It's it's not going to be that actual act actual number. It might be higher. It might be lower. This includes the current makeup of your tax base as we stand here today. If

079you see businesses leave, it's going to go down further. If you start seeing homes being built, that's going to mitigate some of this loss. So, this is purely based on how things stand today and how the formula is going to work. I've shown the school's levy. Uh the school's levy, property tax levy this year is $9,989,000. I've attempted to show what I think your levy is going to look like moving forward. You can see it's increasing in 26 2728. It's not increasing because of debt service. It's not increasing because of this project. I have flatlined that. Your debt service levy this year is about $3,375,000. I've assumed it's going to stay that way moving forward. The increase is purely from the growth quotient in the operations fund. If we see this increase uh which is

080about $300,000 a year, uh you can see what your tax rate is going to do moving forward. Not going to be an impact from this year to next year because of the way the deductions working and your average home value that assessed value actually going up a little bit. But you can see how this starts to escalate pretty quickly. A18 to$123 to129 to$133 to$138 and finally in the mid year a$154. So we're talking almost 40 cents in increased tax rates because of the interplay between the net assessed value and your levy. But again, I want to be clear, you're not asking for any more money from your community because of these projects. you are asking for a little bit more money in your operations fund which covers the day-to-day operations of the school corporation. You

081have costs that are going up from inflation each and every year. They're giving you 4% new money. Does that keep up with inflation? It hasn't the last several years. Will it in the future? Hopefully it will. Um but it seems like the cost of everything is going up more rapidly than that. So again, here's where the messaging becomes very complicated. Our tax rates at A$118. We think it might approach a$150 or even beyond, but we're not asking for more money because of these projects. That's the part that's going to be very difficult, I think, to explain to the normal person because they're going to see the tax rate and think that you're increasing the amount of money that you want. Questions on this comments? Property taxes have increased because of assessed value increases. Um again

082you don't have a crystal ball but um we are in a very chaotic period. Um how much will this be affected by assessed values periods? All of this is driven by assessed values. If they did not make a change to the assessed values you would not see a change in your test. So as assessed values change as chaos unfolds. Who knows what's going to happen. Yeah. So, I mean, we have seen historic assessed value growth in the state of Indiana over the last five years. I think this legislation is a reaction to that. We've seen a lot of that assess value slow down and a lot of communities completely stop. Um, I think that was purely coming from they think schools have taken advantage of that more than they should have where I would argue

083you have school corporations that haven't been able to do uh preventative maintenance for the last 10 or 15 years really since the great recession and now they're taking care of some of those projects that they've had on their checklist for 10 years. And I don't think that they uh see it that way. And so I think this is uh them coming back and saying we're not gonna allow that to happen. Well, there are communities that have done a huge amount of build build really nice big houses. It's just not us. Yeah. So, well, but but they broad brush everything. Unfortunately, that's that's the problem. They treat you the same as they treat Fisers, which you guys are not the same school corporation. Well, then Fisers because they'll share some of their money. Oh, no. I

084wasn't I was like sorry. Can you talk or address property tax caps and how that could play into what we we're seeing? Yeah. So, I think that's going to be the probably the biggest impact to Newcastle and when you guys are already hamstrung by circuit breakers. So, as we see, let me step back. So, Representative Thompson did a webinar a couple weeks ago with kind of his philosophy on how he wants to see property taxes moving forward. And he's essentially set this up so that once um a taxing district total tax rate reaches $3, the taxing districts being the school corporation, the city, uh the library, all of the taxing entities within that taxing district. Once it reaches $3, he wants no additional taxes to be paid. So if your if your if your total

085tax rate goes from $3 to $5, no one pays an extra penny. That's essentially how he's setting this up. Um most of your I have this on the next page. So 63% of your assessed value is contained in the Newcastle taxing district. 64%. The total tax rate for that taxing district as we stand here today is $424. Dollar18 of that is you. There's another $3 on top of that um that goes into that. So when you have 64% of your assessed value already at $424, that's why you're seeing the circuit breaker issues that you're seeing right now. Um, moving forward that $4.23 is going to go up and it's going to go up significantly. The problem is you're not going to collect any additional revenue and you're going to have all of the taxing entities

086sharing in that loss. So, I cannot give you numbers on what your circuit breaker is going to do other than to speculate that it's going to go up. How much is going to go up? I don't know, but my guess is it's probably going to be meaningful as all of this phases in over the next five or six years. Extra circuit breaker loss means you're losing more money out of operations. If you're losing more money out of operations, we're having to transfer more from education. If we're transferring more from education, we're not paying teachers the way we want. However, we have bills in the legislature saying we want to increase teacher pay. So, um, and take our books out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And share with this the there's a lot of it that I'm

087a little fuzzy on. The circuit breaker, I just don't know that there's any way of telling what the impact is going to be with circuit breakers. It's all contingent on what the other entities are doing as well. Um, and given that you're already at $4.24, 24 cents. As that number goes higher, it's just going to be more pain for all of the taxing entities. So, in my understanding, you said it was had to stop at three. Yeah, that's the way it's set up now. So, um, so a corporation can pay no more than 3% of the value of their business. And so once you get above $3, they all hit the tax caps. So, as you increase that rate above $3, the corporations aren't paying it. Um, the renters and the farmland, they're capped at

0882%. So, they can pay no more than 2% of their value. Well, now they get a one-third deduction. So, when you get to $3, that's really at the at the $2 or 2% for them. So, anything above it is capped. And then now the 1%, the homesteads, they get a twothird deduction. So, when you hit that $3, it's really the $1 or the 1% cap for the homeowners. Um, so when you're getting above $3, that's where the the pain is really going to be. I'm interested to see how this works out. There are several communities. We work with a school in Northwest Indiana that their total rate is 88 cents and this year they lost almost $6 million to circuit breaker because the total rate is over $5. When this goes into place through no

089fault of their own and no fault of yours, you're going to see the tax cap loss, I believe, go up. How meaningful? Again, I don't know. Am I saying it's going to double? I'm not saying that. Could it? Potentially over the next six years, but we're going to see those numbers go up. More and more people are getting pushed above the caps. When you get pushed above the caps, that's just completely lost revenue for the school corporation and other entities. I just want to remind you I didn't put this legislation in. Okay. Um this is the last piece of bad news I'm talking about and then I promise. So um the onetime tax credit that I talked about which was the lesser of 10% of your tax liability or $300 uh I think is going

090to be impactful. So again, this is back of a napkin. Don't take this to the bank. This number I think is probably in the ballpark, but it could be higher. It could be lower. So what I've done, uh, if you want to go through the math, is I've taken your net assessed value there at the top at 844 million. Uh, the percent of of your assessed value for the 1 percenters or the homesteads is 43%. So $363 million of your net assessed value is attributable to the 1% or the homesteads. The net assessed value of your average home. So if that $147,000 home is $62,461, I there was no way for me to find out how many homes there are in Newcastle. That data is just not available. So I've tried to back into this.

091So, I've simply taken the net assessed value from your homesteads and then I've taken that as a percentage of the $62,000. So, when you take this the 363 million divided by the 62,000, you come come up with 5,815. My guess is that's somewhere close, but probably not the actual number, but again, this is all rough math at this point. if you apply the average credit. So again, it's the lesser of 10% or $300. If your average home price is $147,000, then their tax liability is $1,437. That would be your average loss from this onetime credit because that's less than the $300. That's 10% of their liability. So, I'm coming up with a total loss from the onetime credit of $854,85. That's not your loss. That's the loss of all of the entities. So, what I've

092done down below is essentially just broken up the taxing districts, the percent of the AV that goes uh to the school corporation, and then looked at the district's rate and attributed what percentage of that district rate um is based on you. I know this this is total nerd stuff, but I come up with a projected loss of what you're going to see next year of about $320,000. This is on top of tax caps. This has nothing to do with it. This is an addition to Is this what the number is actually going to be? No. But I think it's going to at least be in the ballpark. So, in addition to all of this other stuff, you're going to have to find uh a way to plug a hole of, you know, roughly $300,000. and

093and these numbers. When we first saw the bill, we didn't really pay attention to this because we were so consumed with the assessed value, but as we dug into this one time credit, um it's going to be really impactful for all school corporations. Again, I know I've said that about like 10 different things right now, but you have all of these things that are going to impact you in a negative way coming at you at one time with very little time to plan for or react to. have to have a really big fake sale. So, all of us have were getting that extra $300 [Music] backend on. Okay. So, the last page is is good news. Um the debt you guys are in a great position when it comes to debt. This has been long-term

094planning. This is this is no coincidence. Uh the administration and the board has gone through this for many years. Um so I haven't gone too deep into looking at at repayment structure because I wanted to get all of your feedback first or at least thought on how you wanted to approach this moving forward. But we certainly will update this. But in looking at this page, you can see where you want to see too. You can see where the payments are this year. Those payments are going to drop. uh you have a lot of white space out here to really fill in those payments. That's where the repayment of the three million or the six million, whatever you end up going to do over the next several years, that's going to go right in here. And

095so when I say we're not asking for more dollars from the community, we're simply leveling this off. We're going to keep that if I'm saying we're going to if this is what you decide you want to do, you're in a position to say we're not asking for more dollars for this project. Sure, the tax rate might go up, but that's purely a math calculation. We're going to keep our levy the same, the amount of dollars we're asking from debt service for this project, and we can keep that level moving forward. You can pay off these bonds in as little as four, five, six years. Some of that will go into what you want to do with the next project. Is the 28 projects still on the table? Does it want to be in 27, 29?

096I want to get your feedback and then I'll update all of these different structures. Um, but I am confident in saying that we can keep that levy uh neutral moving forward. Having that conversation with the community when they see the tax rate built up um is a whole different story that I can say with a straight face. We're asking for the same amount of money in debt service based on this project. Wow. Any questions or comments? Feels like a gas pench. What the legislators will tell you is if you need more money, we've given you a tool and that tool is a referendum. Unfortunately, we know a referendum is is impossible in the majority of communities in the state of Indiana. That's that's the tool that you're you're left with at this point. It's the

097only source. So the last one that was done in Hendry County achieved what 17% of the It was 83%. No, I believe% and and on top of that they are also restricting any referendum to only general election. So it's once every two years to be shared right shared with charters and operating referendum is different but capital referend that would be you know coming trying to get contracts signed with contractors at the same time as anyone else who's whose projects are being considered and approved at the same time. So you run into just practical constraints as well with that limited tool that you're left with. So late last week um we heard this was a done deal. Um they were done talking about it. The governor came out publicly and said this is historic tax package

098tax relief. Um I will say that maybe there's a glimmer of hope now. The lieutenant governor came out this weekend and blasted this and said no one understands it. The governor needs to veto this which is very very interesting. Word from plenty of legislators that they don't honestly understand it um but have been told to get in line. There was a big rally at the state house today uh from teachers. Um so there is a rallying cry behind potentially looking at something different. Um they had um they had the the salter committee last year, the state and local tax relief committee. That was a group of bipartisan legislators to look at property tax fixes. I will say that what came out of that had nothing to do with any of this. They studied it for

099six months. So, um, does this pass? I think probably. Is there a chance maybe there's something in the 11th hour? That's certainly possible. Is all of this, even if that even if it doesn't pass, is this going away? No. Something is going to happen. Um, could they come back and and simplify it and make it easier to understand? Probably. Is it going to have the same impact on schools? Probably. So, I think we're going to have to just live with um some version of this moving forward. Unfortunately, I was told in the state house today that we by a couple of different um legislators that we should be able to figure it out that it really didn't all take effect completely until 2031. So, we should be able to figure it out by then. And

100we did have at least 5% fluff that we should be able every school should be able to um and that until they got the numbers um back for um money that's available, they didn't really know for sure what it is. Right. Well, Lauren, I want to thank you for sharing tonight. you probably don't get a standing ovation even but you should because your preparedness preparedness and um your ability to answer questions um it's it's very complex and I will say um like Matt said you know the latest I think last Saturday the amendment was 368 pages um that was submitted so just keeping track of of the changes and the multitude of changes and how is that you know it gets very complex in terms of how does it all work out to affect every

101single school corporation very very difficult. So um but it helps us this conversation helps us know how do we plan and how how do we move forward especially as it relates to the the finance these um project. So, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. And should things change again, we we're monitoring it every day and we will certainly keep your administrative team um informed of any changes, but we're happy to come back and speak with you all if there's anything um that we think or that you would just like to hear more of um that's being significant to Newcastle. Yes, Lord. We're only on three feet. Yeah. Well, if you'd like to if you'd like to take off and just say the same thing. That was riveting, by the way, just for a brief

102moment. I was Thank you. All right. So, at this time, we'll move on to item C, which is the additional appropriations hearing for debt, service, and rain funds. And I'll turn it over to uh Yep. So um we we've done additional appropriation um in previous years. Uh the most recent was last year. We did appropriate uh funds after the initial budget hearing and approval of the budget for 2024. As you recall, we did rainy day and as they they mentioned, you know, the reimbursement resolution. So we had appropriated those dollars um in 2024 in order to start a new project to get done and completed over the summer to save us funds and so forth. for the upfront that those dollars with rainy day um and reimbured ourselves when we issue 2024. So a piece

103of this um additional appropriation is also for rainy day again in 2025. Um that total came out to be $600,000 that would cover the e the second half of the ERS contract uh that we'll we'll talk about later on. Um but instead of um financing that project, we thought um it was best that we pay the full cost up front just due to the unknown of the operations fund and so forth going forward. We didn't want to further obligate dollars uh that might might not be there in years to come. So um that is a cash balance. We have over $2 million in the rainy day fund. We would use that to pay for that ERS contract and then reimburse ourselves. um once the the 2025 uh go lease was was um issued those those

104proceeds. So that's a part of this. The second part is the debt service fund. So in the fall when we had our hearing and the budget approved, we had a projected uh debt service payment for the 2024 GEO bonds. Unfortunately, once the amortization schedule was completed, uh we were about 80,000 short in what our estimated payments were. So, in order to fulfill the the debt service payment, um we would have to increase that appropriation by $79,142. Again, we're not affecting any rates or levies. Um it's coming from cash balances within those funds. And we had a we have a sufficient cash balance in the debt service fund. So, um that's where those dollars would come. So, in order to fulfill um the requirements for additional corporation, we have to do a hearing. So, that involves

105questions um by the board if you guys have any. But that's kind of just the basis of why we're here and um kind of what is included in the additional appropriation for 25. All right. So, at this time, I'll open it up for uh questions and comments. So you said 600,000 would be for ERS and then another 80,000 and we've got 2 million. So the 600,000 would be the only amount we would be appropriating in the rainy day fund. So that's where the from the $2 million that's where that comes from. The the just under 80,000 would come from our debt service cash balance. So there are two funds that we're looking at separate separately and just in the same area. Correct. Sorry. But essentially we would be paying ourselves back for the $600,000 once

106we get the lease finance. Yes. The $80,000 would just come out of our cash balance. We would not be um paying ourselves back. Do we have any other uh questions or comments on this? Okay. So, at this time, we'll uh close that part of it. And if we are uh ready to move forward with this, I'll just need a motion. I'll move to approve recommendations present for additional appropriations for the kids service and rain. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. Uh, next we will go over the final approval of the Newcastle Virtual Academy K through 5 and 6 through12. So, in August of uh 2025, we will have a new virtual academy. Uh, we talked about it last um board meeting. It takes two board meetings uh to go through this

107process. So once you have over 100 students, you have to have a new school number or a school number for this. So um right now currently we have 34 students, but we're probably going to add about I'm going to say seven maybe eight students to that here in the next um give or take uh in the next couple of weeks. So um we'll be in the 43 area. We would like to just um I'd like to bring it to your attention that it will be a K through five school and a 6 through 12 school. Um, and there's reasons for that, but um, I think it's it's going to be best if we just have the the two schools. Most other corporations that have this separate them out between K through 5 and 6 through

10812. So, it's really um, the academy would be two schools and um, with or two numbers. Two numbers. Yeah, two school numbers. Uh so the application will be the two numbers and Grant will we think that Grant will be the only principal that that's three times principal because he's got Hika and he'll have the K through five and six through 12. So two principles that's pretty um I I do want to say that the middle school and high school students will not be eligible for ISA competition. So say you have to do this when you get 100. Okay. So, we're we're we're ahead of the we're just in preparation, but it also it also takes students off the books from especially um high school um because they're um uh off the books meaning they won't

109be eligible for IHSA, they're not eligible now. Uh so um when when we do that calculation and it looks like classifications or whatnot, we will remove those students off there. Currently, they're in there. And um I think I asked this last time so I should remember the answer and and I don't this the staffing for this comes from um regular classroom teachers are volunteering to do this or we have special staffing. No, we have special staffing. We're paying an individual and we also pay adminum so they get instruction through admentum but we also have uh one one additional teacher that we're paying that's not a full rate but it's a retired teacher. Does does this include hiccup? Does this that does not All right. So this is separate totally separate. We do have virtual students

110on Hiccup but this doesn't include that. Okay. All right. So, if there's no further discussion, uh, if we're ready to approve this, uh, we need to have a motion. I move to approve the final approval of the new council virtualmies. Do we have a second? I'll second. All in favor? I. Uh, next we'll have letter E, and that is the, uh, approval of ERS security camera and camera servers. So, um, the middle school, uh, security cameras and camera servers were done when the when we renovated, but the rest of the corporation, um, I don't know if Dustin's still here. Yep. And Dustin can testify. We're we're we're patching. You're the guy the servers as they upg, right? And and so, um, and that's one of the things that we really need to upgrade. But, um,

111a lot of our cameras are very old, nonfunctional. Uh and so we've had conversations with the board. We really um wanted to to get this um and we signed a commitment prior to pending board approval um so that we can avoid the tariffs because much of it comes from overseas and also um so that we can um save about 10%. So it's about $200,000 in savings uh by committing to it at the end of April or at the end of um March uh in preparation for this. So, I I believe Chase, we've already um started the process and I want to thank Chase for his work on this. Um so, and I want to thank the board for um the ability to ratify this. So, any questions on this? Okay. All right. So, uh if

112we're ready to roll on this, all we need is a motion. Okay. I move to approve the ERS servers. Second. All in favor? I and then letter F on section three is partnership with E central uh education service center. So um I think we have a fantastic partnership with the service center and um it's been fun to see this uh property develop. You know when we look when I look back and say um when I met with the there were two or three meetings with parents in terms of we're going to we're going to close this. what are we going to do? And Sherry was part of those meetings. Um, and it was kind of teareyed in terms of what what what's this facility going to become? And so a couple of the parents on

113those uh student communities and just said we really want to see Sunnyside maintain its educational focus. And um, you know, so it's really edifying to come in and see, you know, 50 to 60 superintendent sitting in a conference or teachers in here for professional development. I think Friday we've got the uh superintendents from the region, probably 50 or 60 superintendents come in um just on that day. So, it's nice to have Newcastle as an educational hub. And I apologize. I didn't realize this was going to last so long. This is like I I when I called Pat, I said, I think this could be a light meeting. You don't It's not a problem. We got into school finance and if it you know, so I apologize to you and your staff and the floor is

114yours. Great. Thank you so much. very much. So, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to um share with you all and and share with you share with the board a little bit more. Um go back. Yeah, I had gone forward to test it earlier. Okay, perfect. Thanks, Justin. No, it is an honor to share with the board a little bit more about uh the service center um and with the the guests as well. Um so do you want me to go back? Uh you can go back. Okay. Point it the other way over here. Yeah. Is it on? Oh, it's like reload here real quick and back to the video. Give me just a moment. There we thank you. All right. All right. Now see a little very good. Um I want to take

115some time just to share a little bit about educational service centers um and the work that we do but then partic but specifically the impact that coming to Newcastle um has has made for our service center uh and really for our region as a whole. So, a little bit of the backstory, origin story of service centers is that it is based on legislation uh that took place in the 70s um that allowed school corporations uh to come together, partner together and create an organization that would allow there to be the opportunity for districts to uh achieve cost savings was the primary initial um function of the service centers. and cooperate and share programs and services which they could not individually provide but collectively could implement. And currently over 90% of the Indiana public school districts

116are members of a regional educational service center and our service centers across the state of Indiana currently support over 720,000 students and almost 50,000 educators nationwide. actually just learned this about a week ago because there was an article in the American Association of School Superintendent Journal um about educational service centers. Nationwide 553 educational service centers operate across 44 states. They're called different things in different states. They might be um in Wisconsin they're CESAs um comprehensive educational service agencies. In New York state they're Boseies. Um and so they have a variety of acronyms and names uh but all serving similar functions. Um and that mission is to enable schools regardless of size to collaborate, share resources, decrease costs and extend educational opportunities to students. And stealing a quote uh from that article that I particularly loved

117is that they are among the best kept secrets in the K12 system. So we uh here at East Central Educational Service Center, we are region four as you see represented on the map right there. We serve a 14 county region and we currently have uh 39 member school districts across that 14 county region uh that we serve and support. and uh that includes over 74,000 students, over 4,500 teachers, over 300 administrators, and approximately 200 support staff. So, as I mentioned, the relocation to Sunnyside Education Center has really been an instrumental part of our journey um and what we are currently able to offer to the districts that we serve. First and foremost, it moves us closer to the geographic center of our region, which you can see there in our regional map. It provides additional

118space for professional development services to the educators we serve. Um, and I believe to collectively in total we've uh more than quadrupled our space from our previous location in Connorsville. And what maybe the most exciting piece of all this is that it provides a space for powerful career connected learning experiences for students and for the educators who they serve. And um if you uh the six classrooms that uh are in the hallway here just outside the door to the left um are what we are calling the riot set classrooms. Um, so when this space became available and conversations with Newcastle started, we were already very deeply uh invested in a framework which is based on the Holland codes which spells out the acronym Ryasc to help students tap into their own strengths and interests and

119to think about potential career pathways that they might be that might be a good fit for them. So our facility is also really designed to be a hub of information and experiences for those students to begin uh dreaming about careers of success and impact in our region and also a place for the community to bring students, educators, community and industry partners uh together to serve and support our students. A quick uh snapshot of this is coming up I believe a week from Friday uh we have a lunch and learn event uh for industry partners, school partners, community partners to learn about youth apprenticeship and work-based learning opportunities and how to grow those throughout our region. So what all are we offering? I talked a little bit about the ryet classrooms. Uh we call that the

120forge your future student experience and it's career exploration and career coaching based upon those six riot themes realistic investigative artistic social enterprising and conventional and as I mentioned it helps students identify their personal strengths and interests and to start to begin dreaming and thinking broadly about career paths that might be a good fit for them. uh Taylor Philh Howard who is here with us and Liz Ferris are two of our staff members who are leading this forge your future student experience. We began on October 3rd with 12 students from Newcastle Middle School. We we set a goal uh not knowing how realistic it would be of a thousand students in the first school year. Um, Taylor, to date, we have hosted 1,825 and we have another 700 plus by the end of the school year.

121So, we will host over 2500 students from our region here uh at Sunnyside. And um that we are already uh booking schools through March of next year uh to come and be a part of this. So, um it has been I just can't even begin to put in words what the how amazing it has been to see this vision uh these ideas, these conversations uh become reality and to see students um here experiencing it um and walking away hopefully with with new insights about um what they have to offer to um to really the world. And so with that in mind, um this next slide, we have a few pictures there, but uh we recently finished a quick promo video that I would love to share with you that hopefully shares a little bit better

122insight about what this experience is all about. Thank for middle schoolers where students learn more about their own strengths and interests and connect them to possible future careers. Students learn about the Ryasc model and are able to explore all six themes and through the lens of many different careers find the two or three themes that fit them best. Hey, did you have fun today? Yes. Yeah. What rooms did you like the best? I like the uh realistic, social, and artistic. What have you liked? Oh, artistic and uh realistic. Our voice is 100% best. Yeah. Can you tell me what you liked about the social room? I liked that it was like we all know together. What did you make with those people? So, I like being like hands on and like doing things with my

123hands. And then social, I like helping other people. And then artistic, I like doing art. Which room have you liked the best so far? Uh, about realistic. What do you like about realistic? The learning is the most fun and are the hands-on things. Which themes did you pick for yourself? I thought realistic, investigative, and social. Would you recommend other students to come through security? I would, especially if you don't know what you want to do, cuz it'll help you find like which ones could relate to something you might want to do. I think they're really taking away that there's just different interests that they might have and what those interests might lead to. So narrowing down what they like and what they don't like cuz sometimes knowing what you don't like leads to better options,

124too. So, so it's just been awesome to watch them be able to kind of picture themselves in the in a future or maybe not and kind of go a different direction and use process of elimination. Everybody can find something that speaks to them no matter which room you're in, which I think is awesome. We have a quote on the wall of the realistic room from Maria Montasauri and it reads, "What the hand does the mind remembers." And I love watching students walk out of this experience knowing that there is a place in the world for them. So, as we've been making building upgrades, one of the up one of the things we will soon as you walk into that hallway over the doorway, it will say so every child will know that there's a place

125in the world for them. So, that is really um that that quote is is what really drives us. um and what uh this experience um you know we hope is is providing to the students as well. Um along with the for your future um student experience uh we are starting we we've been honestly so busy with the student experience here uh that the mobile experience has been a little bit slower in development but we want to be able to bring components of it's it's hard for some of the schools that we serve to maybe get to Newcastle for a three-hour field trip and have transportation on both ends of that. Um, so to help with that and also to provide another entry point for schools, uh, you saw, you probably seen the two trailers that

126are out in the parking lot. Uh, we want to bring components of the student experience on the road, uh, through the mobile experience as well. There we go. Um and then there's that quote about uh really the rise framework really creates a connective tissue, a common language so everyone in your system can be speaking uh that common language of self in the world so every child can know there's a place in the world for them. But that is just one piece of what we provide and what we offer at this here at the service center. I will skip over that. It's okay. You can Yeah, you can skip that one. That's okay. I was trying to help you out. Um, career boost uh is a partnership with Eastern Indiana Works in which uh it is

127a grant-f funed project where we are trying to place youth apprentices uh youth apprenticeships, establish youth apprenticeships and place those apprentices throughout our region. Um and that is actually the focus of the lunch and learn coming up a week from uh a week from Friday here. A lot of professional development, literacy, STEM, leadership development, career connected learning, uh a person who may be a familiar face to Newcastle Prince, Dr. Laura Wilson um helps to coordinate a lot of those opportunities for us here at the service center. And then we indeed have a podcast. uh we uh interview area superintendent and leaders and give them a chance to just talk about the great things that are happening in their district. Uh we are on season two of the forer future podcast and you can find that

128find it on Spotify and on YouTube as well and cooperative purchasing. Um, as I mentioned in the beginning, uh, we we really allow or or lean into the fact that we have, uh, 39 member districts and that creates volume and through that volume, uh, we can bring savings to districts that they might not be able to, uh, provide or procure on their own. Um, so this is a a part of the job that has been a lot of fun to learn and grow into. uh is is learning how to bring value and bring cost savings and operational efficiencies as well to the districts that we serve. And just recently we went through an entire uh strategic planning process and uh we love uh the you know kind of getting a chance to live out our

129mission every day. Um, and our mission statement uh just states that at ECESC, we believe the students strengths and interests serve as a blueprint for shaping futures of success and impact. And our mission is to empower East Central Indiana school educators, schools, and communities communities through innovative and workforce solutions that support career connected learning, prepare students for post-secary success, and and drive educational and economic growth. Um and you know each one of those words obviously when you go through a strategic planning process uh you spend a lot of time word smmithing but we really do um believe that both educational and economic um outcomes are front are really center central to the work that we do. And um we we have amazing school districts in our region um amazing leaders and to be able to

130be a place where educators come together to network and to learn and grow and share best practices um really lifts the entire region. Um, and a a big next step for us is partnering more directly uh and explicitly with uh industry um and and actually bringing their lens and their focus into our work as well. There's a picture of our team. Um when when I started uh we were I was one of nine staff members and we now have a team of 14 uh focused in all of those areas including supporting schools through the lit uh the literacy cadre. Four of our staff members are focused uh strictly on K3 literacy throughout our region um and currently partnering with 32 elementary schools in that work. And we would invite you to connect and follow us.

131uh Facebook and X and LinkedIn are three areas where we like to uh lift up our districts and and share the great things that are happening in our region for students. And at the conclusion of the board meeting, which I think is actually very soon, um Liz and Taylor and I would love if anyone would like to see the rise rooms. Um you know, if you don't have families that you were wanting to get home to or something, I'm just kidding. Um, we would love to we'd love to show you uh the riot rooms um and let you get a kind of a little bit more of a taste of what students experience when they come to Sunnyside to be a part of that. So, thank the board for the opportunity to share. I'd love

132to come back maybe once a year or whenever you would have us to to share updates and and how our work is progressing. Um, but it has been impacted in so many positive ways by the opportunity to be here at Sunset. So, you did a great job. You had to follow school finance and and legislation, but you did a great job. And the great thing is is that what it was. It was now that was um but the partnership, we appreciate the partnership. It is fun to be a part of this. I want to thank you for the way you support all of our um 39 corporations. Um and because we need all the support that we can get and um you do a great job. Um one of the the the neat things of

133having uh the service center here is um and I I'll be quick um when Riley we had to move Riley over um because they we had the uh the smoke going off in the HVAC system. um they didn't miss a step and you can tell they were teachers because they just took every kid this way this way and it was it was just like they were part of the team. It was part they were part of Riley was already here uh and we just assimilated all the kids in here real quickly. So that was kind of cool to see because the kids were um it was a big uh field trip day for them. So uh thanks for your your flexibility. I should mention too really quickly we are we're governed by uh an executive

134board of seven members. Uh Dr. Shoemaker serves on our executive board. Um, and we've established it so that the superintendent of Newcastle will can continue to be a part of that executive board. But we're blessed by great leadership through our executive board as well. So, um, what's next? Building grounds transportation services. I do I do want to add that I I work um quite a bit with the team over there at at the service center and nothing but a joy every time we come over and just the I mean always helpful always such a great partner. So I I do echo easy too. It's not quite yeah the drive is a lot easier than the commerce bill. So we appreciate that need. Uh couple updates with some projects we have going on. High school restroom

135uh progress. A lot of great progress. We've seen it on all three floors. They're working actually on a lot of flooring. It's it's neat to watch Terzo being laid if you haven't seen that before. So, uh they're doing some of that right now. Uh the track bidding process for that track expansion and resurfacing. We had a preid pre-bid meeting actually today. Uh we've had about five or six companies uh uh reach out with interest in that project. So, we're interested to see how that will play out here in the next couple weeks. Uh, working with a company to to facilate facilitate signed mockups for signage at the fieldhouse for those of you familiar with that project. And we are doing uh CEC roof bidding and quotes. Those will be coming in uh pretty soon, but

136we do have a meeting actually tomorrow with local companies because we would like to stick with with a local company for that because we have more control over who we can request quotes from and bids from based on the price of the uh the expected price of the project. Uh we are working currently on summer improvement plans and we're working with principles and directors from across the school corporation to talk about building needs and what they could possibly uh we could possibly do over the summer while students are not in the building. Safety concerns of course will always be made the first priority with those requests from those principles and directors, but we're going to do everything we can to make sure we uh facilitate those improvements as necessary. Want to also mention uh we

137are excited about the partnership we have with the Live Coalition, the that coalition here in Henry County. they applied for a grant and received that grant. And as a result of it, they're partnering specifically with Newcastle High School to do the teens linked to care grant um working with our students at the high school with a youth advisory council. Uh and they'll also be providing a full-time site coordinator for that grant at the high school. So, we're going to have a staff member for two and a half years, full-time staff member uh along with that grant to facilitate some neat experiences for our students. All right. Uh, next we move into the superintendence report. So, as Dustin loads, we'll show the pictures. How's that? That sound good? As That's all right. As you as you

138load it up, um, uh, Mr. McDaniel mentioned some grants. We also got the $100,000 behavior grant that'll provide professional development for some of our teachers and board certified behavior uh analyst support for them. $125,000 for advanced manufacturing grant. And we also get a grant to support early childhood uh infants and toddlers through the Henry County Community Foundation with the um early childhood network. So that's that's exciting. So we're just going to go through some of the pictures here. our notes the as some of you know some of you don't know the board's been here since 4:30 so it's it's been a long meeting um but I I would like to go through and and the first one I am going to mention these kids did a phenomenal job a lot of resilience here they they

139went through some adversity and challenges the dynamics won small uni uh small uni boys grand champion best choreography best vocals Mattie Lowour Louder was selected as outstanding vocalist overall which is huge Red Hot Blues took uh and won small mix first runner up people's choice. Um and congrats to Judy Huard and Ethan Hutcherson and DJ Shoemaker for their dedication uh to the students. Um I'm not going to go through all of these in terms of the the reading of them, but um national the next one you're going to see some of our students. Two sophomores, 105 juniors, and 90 seniors uh were inducted into the National Technical Honor Society before spring break. Um the next one is vehicle extraction and that's to the career center uh Newcastle Fire Department. They taught our career center fire

140and rescue classes how to um extract student not students but people from people from wrecks and collisions. So that was uh that would be exciting if I was that's the hands-on part. Um the Gayla winners is next. Um we were fortunate to to win the uh large incorporation or large business award of the year. That was for 2024. I don't think we've ever won that. So, that's fun. In the middle of that, not not just fun, but it's rewarding because we put a lot of time into the development of our our programs. Judy Hubard won citizen of the year, gave a wonderful speech uh and uh congratulations to her. Zoe Williams, one of our um career center students, won the young professional award. So, we just prayed we we were we were we were on

141a roll that night. We also had John Thompson, Aiden Habler, and Emily Hurst who were all nominees. Um, uh, middle school college visits. The next one is students at the University of Indianapolis in Ind Indiana Wesleian. Uh, the next slide is Panther Awards students, uh, showing glow notes. I have no idea what that is in the middle. I I couldn't tell you what the glow notes are, but they look happy. If you look at if you can see if you can see the faces, they're ecstatic and like that's that's a good uh beach day. Um again, I the that's the next slide. Yeah, when you you can't go to the beach, you bring the beach to you. So, there you go. Beach Eastwood students got to have some fun right before spring break. Percussion state

142finals. Becca Juan, she always does a phenomenal job. Uh the the middle school earned gold rating and high school percussion took sixth place. Congratulations to them. The next slide is Riley Nights of the Art, Night of the Arts, um, and Bam Jam. Uh, so students having fun uh there. Uh, we want to thank Mrs. Thalls for organizing and hosting the event and Wildcat Assembles. Uh, no, Wildcat Assemble. Okay. I just I I don't know what that means, but I I do know what that means. [Applause] It's from the new thing. Okay. kind movie. It's a kid kindergarten. That's what I was going to say. It's kindergarten roundup and that's the Wildcats there. So, um the Wildcat team, they're excited and they always do a great job for our uh incoming kindergarten kids. Uh next one

143is tennis um in full swing. I like you how you play on words, tennis, full swing. Um and so we beat Rushville 5-0 and that was that was fun. The next slide is is historic and that's our first boys volleyball team. Uh first time ever in the history of 2000 schools and we won a game. Yes. Yes. Um and we we beat um uh Irvington Prep. No, no, our first home game this is this Thursday versus Irvington Prep. So come out and see the that's Thursday this this week in the fieldhouse. Uh John Dickin is very proud of the to be the first ever boys coach and um we have nine games scheduled. So uh it's really it's about five more than what we thought we were going to have. On May 5th we have

144Shelbyville. Uh and that's u that's exciting. So um the last thing I've got believe that's the last thing and that is stand with DJ. I'm not going to go into the details, but you know, DJ Shoemaker um uh uh had had a medical episode and is still in in uh the hospital and will be um in there for quite some time. He has made some nice recovery. So, there's a benefit concert on April 17th, which is Thursday. Uh and I um Jackie, do you what what other corporations are going to be there? Uh Westfield is bringing their all girls show choir and Noblesville is bringing uh parts of both of their showires and they're going to stand and sing and um you know the response that DJ received from the Noblesville um community and and

145the school was phenomenal from the uh nervous mergency rescue, uh, uh, lifelining, the whole nine yards, superintendent coming, bringing food, uh, bringing counselors for the kids. It was extremely amazing. So, um, just very appreciative and they they wanted they still continue their support of his recovery. I I don't know what the GoFundMe amount is. probably in the neighborhood of 25,000. So it's above that is it? Yeah. So okay, that's it. All right. At this time, uh we will discuss the budget and the transfer from education to operations. Yeah. And real quick, I noticed in the agenda notes the amount hadn't been updated. So in the resolution, the amount is 325,000. So um I just didn't get that that changed. honestly miss miss scale for these little things and big things too. So sort of bring

146that to your attention. But for the the March 2025 um transfers and education um to the operations fund, that amount, as I mentioned, is $325,000. Again, that reimbures the operations funds for those expenses that were once allocated in the general fund. Um and I just move approval to make uh do I have a motion uh for this transfer? Second. All in favor? All right. At this time, if we have any public questions or comments, uh you you have three minutes and you can state your name and address and those out. Real quick before Okay. Um Mrs. Sucklebee's child education class from the career center helped um um as kindergarten prep get bags ready for providers for child care and they were such a huge help. They got 161 thank you notes plus helpless pack bag.

147So that was a huge help for us and they were just charming. So yeah. All right. Anybody have anything else? All right. This meeting is a journ. Good job board.