January 2026 Board Meeting

001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Well, good evening everybody. Uh first item we're going to start off with this evening is our annual uh board of finance agenda. [snorts] We'll go ahead and call that meeting to order at this time. Uh first item to take care of is the election of the board finance officers and first uh position is the board of the finance president [cough] of nominations [clears throat] at this time for president of board of finance. >> Who was it? >> Derek >> [clears throat] >> I accept the motion. >> We have a motion and second. Are there any other nominations at this time? >> Seeing none, all those in

002favor signify by saying I. I. >> Those opposed. >> Motion carries. Uh, next is the board of finance secretary. Nominations are open at this time. >> Prior DJ. >> Yeah. >> Well, okay. >> I nominate DJ. >> Second. [clears throat] Are there any further nominations for secretary for finance? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. Motion [clears throat] carries. Uh, moving on to the business. First is the review of the investment report. >> So, Mr. Dicki is going to present some information. The paper copy will come when it Mr. Dicki brings it into >> I apologize for that. I got the copies. Uh, I did it separate from my regular board report. So, I'll do if it's okay with Mr. Davis, I will go through all three kind of

003at the same time. >> Feel free. >> Okay. Thank you. So, we will start with um the investment report um which when you get that I've given you um a breakdown. The interest earned on our main checking account last year for calendar year 25 was $16,827.73. When you subtract our service charges for the year, we had a revenue of $105,194.73. Um that does go into the operations fund which um had been that way for a while, but we actually had the board reapprove that last summer um before the school year started. Um as of January of last year, our um checking account was earning a 4.4%. That's decreased over the past year to a 3 65%. Um, we do not we did not invest any certificates of deposits last year and we do not plan

004to invest any this year due to cash flow purposes. Um, it helps with our liquidity and our bank balance to keep all our funds in our main checking account. Um, once you get those paper copies, um, your next page has a copy of the board approved investment policy. It does state that the superintendent and the corporation treasurer can um invest um funds into interest earning um checking savings and certificates of deposits. Um but as mentioned previously, we are not doing that at this time. So then and I think your paper copies might be on the way. Thank you. So then we'll jump into the fiscal health report and at the the last pages of your report do have um the fund report for the calendar year and that's what we submit every month to state

005board of accounts. That's really the overview of every fund that we operate here. But of course since we just went through the 1782 last week, we have four regular operating funds. education, operations, debt service, and rainy day. Um, all of our regular operating funds, and I am on page four now. Um, all of our regular operating funds end of 2025 with a positive balance. The education fund ended with a balance of $742,5778. This is a decrease of over a million dollars from the end of 2024. The decrease was caused by expending more than the revenue for the calendar year, including an increased education to operations transfer. We also saw um our revenue was less than projected due to a continued decrease in student enrollment and new legislation that refigured the curricular materials reimbursement. Um the

006operations fund ended with a balance of $311,221. This is an increase from the end of the year fund balance in 24 of over 126,000. This was due to the increase in the education operations transfer that we had done in calendar year 25 to help bring the operations to a little bit more stable of an end ofear balance because we get hit with a lot of expenses right at the beginning of each calendar year. Um the debt service fund did end with a healthy balance of 596,000 along with our estimated revenue for 26. We will make our current debt payments successfully. The 2024 go bonds are now paid off and we will have two lease payments for the big bonds that were closed on in 2023. The rainy day fund ended with a balance of 496,000.

007that balance did decrease around $59,000 because of legal fees we had to transfer to cover um the ox gym. So we transferred from rainy day to operations. Um so we did see a decrease in the rainy day fund. We did advertise a budget for rainy day of 450,000 for the year, but we hope to not have to use that because we want to have it on hand if we do have emergencies. [snorts] Um, but by advertising that budget, it allows us to be able to use it without having multiple hearings to get an appropriation. Uh, the fund for as you move out of the regular funds and move down on the fund report, the WRCTE programs that we host here did end the calendar year with a negative balance, but that will be positive by

008the end of the school year once all remaining dues have been paid by the participating school corporations, and we'll see those around March. Um the funds uh listed below in on page four um did end the calendar year with negative balances, but that's normal operating procedure because they are reimbursement grants. So we have to spend the money before it comes back in. So we had the secure school safety grant, the robots for autism grant, the high ability grant, teacher residency grant, and the title one grant all showing red on your fund report. And then the clearing accounts are the last accounts on your report. Uh in theory those should reconcile to zero at the end of the school year. We did have four funds end of the calendar year with a positive balance. Um the

009dental and vision insurance clearing accounts have positive val balances because we do have retirees who pay ahead their on their monthly premiums. And the background check clearing accounts. We had collected background check fees but the invoice had not been received to pay yet. Um and then we reconcile all clearing counts every month to make sure that those are in balance. Um as we [clears throat] move into more of the physical health, the physical health of school corporation is currently bleak. Um it's not as it has been the past couple years where um we've had a really good outlook. We've experienced significant decreases in revenue along with spending um increased spending um over the last few years. Um the education fund did expend over a million dollars more than the revenue received in the calendar year.

010The ending fund balance of the 742,000 is not enough to sustain that again this year. Um so we will need to decrease expenditures in that fund. Um and student enrollment again is expected to keep decreasing which further cuts our state tuition support payments which is the main revenue we see in that fund. the operations end of year balance is still not enough to successfully sustain the fund yeartoear. We need to look for ways to decrease spending in that fund as well. Um especially with us having to decrease the education to operations transfer for calendar year 26. Um so looking back to like around the year 2020, the operations fund has relied on an average of approximately 900,000 in transfers from other funds. And this year we're only projected to be able to transfer 750,000 into

011that fund. Um, so why did we get to this point or how did we get to this point? There are several factors and as I note at the very end of your report, school finance is kind of a beast of its own. There are a lot of moving parts. We just had legislation last spring that affected us heavily. Um, there's talk of more legislation that could further impact us. Um but some of the big things we've seen are the end of esser. So um the corporation experienced an influx of federal dollars from 2021 to 2024 due to the elementary and secondary school emergency relief also known as esser grants. This was part of a federal response to the corona virus pandemic. And in this time, Southwest Park uh funded approximately 12 different employees, including their

012salaries and benefits, and was able to purchase several supplies with these funds. And that staff had to be funded another way at the end of the 2324 school year. So, their salaries and benefits ought to come from elsewhere, which was mainly the education fund. We've also seen the average daily membership, also known as the ADM. That's our official student count has decreased from 986 in October 2023 to 949 in October 2025 and 37 students doesn't sound like a lot and um to go along with what you said we don't want to put a number on a student but when we look at the financial report we do have to see that 37 students if we still had those in our account we would be receiving an additional $283,000 in our education fund, state tuition support.

013So, by losing that student count over the past two years, we've lost $283,000 in funding. Um, we've also had the corporation funding or helping to fund some preschool programming. So, in 2025, the corporation spent around $60,000 to help keep those programs. Um, and it's estimated that we'll spend at least another approximately 30,000 through the end of the school year. Um, and that program generates no state tuition scores, so we've had to use education cash balance for that. Um, we've had a little bit of over staffing with the decrease in enrollment in the 24 and 25 school year. Um, so that contributed to some of the overspending we've been seeing in calendar year 25. We've also had increases in salaries and benefits over the past couple years. So, um, all staff received 8% raises in 2324

014school year, 2% raises 2425 school year, and another 2% raise this school year. Um, the teacher longevity stipens were also introduced in the 2324 school year and with benefits, those cost our education fund around $80,000 a year. Um, health insurance premiums also increased 6% in October of 24 and another 1% this past October. And we've also seen at least two recent increases in teacher retirement fund rates. Um, the most recent increase was we were just paying 9 and a half% in 25 and that is now 10.1% this calendar year. Um, we've also seen the state legislators mandate various changes to curricular funding since the 2324 school year. That's the year they did away with all of the textbook rentals at all public school corporations and they had they really hadn't decided what to do with

015that funding. We were at least getting a yearly deposit of a little bit of reimbursement. Um, but that has gone away. They've they've said they've factored it into our state tuition support, but in a board report I did in the fall, it shows that we really aren't getting as much per student as we should for curricular funding. So, our education fund has had to take that on. [cough] Um, we've also seen uh several athletic facility expenses in the past few years with the Oxygen project and um some other larger projects um which I've listed in your report. We've also seen our property and liability insurance increase over $30,000 per year. Um, local income taxes decreasing this year um by over $2,300 per month. So that's a loss in operations of over $28,000 uh for the

016year. Uh the state legislators also terminated the state connectivity grant which was intended to help uh public school corporations pay for internet service. So that's another 7,000 approximately we're losing that operations will have to pick up. And then the big one is Senate Bill One that we've heard a lot about, including in um one of our last board meetings. That's expected to significantly impact the corporation's operations fund revenue over the course of the next three years with projections indicating a loss of over $300,000 in operating funds. Also part of Senate Bill one is um the expected elimination of local income tax for school corporations beginning in calendar year 2028, which will be a decrease of over $150,000 per year for this corporation. Um so there were there was um a plan last year uh presented

017by school administration that the board of school trustees approved in the spring that did reduce um the savings estimated with that was approximately $450,000 per school year. Um but what is needed to correct the financial outlook is that the corporation treasurer who's myself and Dr. Mr. Harrison, superintendent recommend reducing education fund and operations fund expenditures by between a million and a million and a half dollars. As you go to page eight, um DWAB is the distressed unit appeals board. Um so Indiana code establishes the requirement of this annual board of finance report that I'm presenting now. It also um states different indicators to use for that distress unit appeals board that they review yearly um of public school corporations. So listed below you do have a spreadsheet um that shows back to 2020 some of

018our cash balance and fund history that shows since the year 2020 we've used over $811,000 of the cash balance of the education fund um and over $475,000 of the operations fund cash balance. And we've also seen a decrease of 166,000 in the cash balance of the rainy day fund. Another indicator is expenditures per your student count. Um so in October 2025, we had a count of $949. Um when you look at our ED fund expenditures for the calendar year, we spent approximately $9,900 per student, but in the state tuition support, we only received $7,600 per student. Other indicators that the distress unit of appeals board looks for are if you missed any payroll or vendor payments in the calendar year and we did not. We were able to successfully make all payroll and all vendor

019payments. We also were able to make all required contributions but we did fail to meet the 62% teacher compensation requirement um despite the overspending in the education fund. It should also be noted that that 62% requirement has now increased to 65%. And then as that is really the end of that report, I do have the full fund report for the full calendar year on pages 9, 10, and 11. Um, a lot of the accounts under the highlighted ones are really selfoperating funds or grants. Um, they're not really anything affected heavily by um any legislative changes or tax rates, anything of that matter. Um, but they are there for your review if you have any questions on those. And that does conclude the report I prepared for you for tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Pig. Are

020there any questions for Graham at this time? >> One thing, Grant, thank you for doing this. That's really good stuff. Do we um ask banks to negotiate or present? >> We have not since I've been here. Um >> in an effort to lower fees or get a better rate. The rate right now is is that's the overnight federal funds rate which is pretty good. That's a a strong >> I was going to say since I've been here it was really just the past year we started to see those rates drop which was really everywhere. Yeah. So before it wasn't really worth it to shop because we were getting a really good interest rate at first >> and making over $120,000 per year on interest. Um that is something we could look at in the calendar.

021>> I was just curious if banks come to us often or approach us. >> And the other thing is you're supposed to invest within your district and we have no banks in our district so we can really only go to the county level. But we will have more competition because there's another branch opening this year. So we will have five banks we could request a proposal from. Any further questions hearing? None. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn board finance meeting. >> Motion have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Have a motion a second. Hearing no objections. meeting is journed. We will now move on to our regular meeting. Um this time is there any public comment at this time? We'll move right along then. All right. Consent agenda items. Take a minute to review

022those. Chair will entertain a motion to approve as presented. [clears throat] >> Derek, I just have one question. >> Yes. just skip because I'm new. That's the only reason I won't ask it again. >> Mhm. >> On the hires that we submit, is there a way to have those submitted earlier? I know some of them can't be filled, but for instance, there's coaches currently working with staff or our students currently that haven't been approved yet, and I know that's probably common because of timing and such. Is there a way that we could ask those to be presented? For instance, softball's working on currently now. The coaches are working with them. Is there a way to present those a month earlier so we can at least get them approved? Because if there's questions or concerns with

023the coach, something should happen. Then we haven't approved them yet, but yet they're working with the athletes. I just thought would be prudent for us to >> We certainly asked Charlie to speed it up. >> Yeah. Just a month early. And and sometimes it just doesn't happen. I asked him about it the other day. He's like, you know, yes, but >> yeah, sometimes just >> Sometimes it's just timing. >> Yeah, it's time constraints and and uh just to get >> just finding people. Thank you. We'll check into that. Uh is there a motion to approve consent agenda? >> Motion to approve. >> Have a motion. Is there a second? >> Have a motion and second questions [clears throat] on the motion. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Those opposed?

024Motion carries. Superintendent report. Dr. Harrison. >> Okay. Page 14 of your board packet. You have my written report. It's short and sweet. Uh 1782 notice that we submitted. The DLGF responded to us immediately and accepted our revisions. So, you can see the new notice starting on page 23. Um, nothing out of the ordinary. The rate doesn't change and it meets our budgetary needs that we submitted. So, I think we're good to go there. Uh, diagnostic reports. We have academic data to review. So, beginning on page 15, you can see the district uh this is our second diagnostic. That's our midyear diagnostic districtwide math. We're seeing again more kids moving up to honor above grade level. Um, if you want to break it down by building, then page 16 gives you Monizuma. Look at look at

025the improvement there. That's that's impressive that we have so so few kids now down to 11% that are below grade level on this diagnostic. That's that's impressive. Uh se page 17 is Rosedale math. Man, they're going to gang busters, too. They they jump from 25% on or above to 47% on or above. That's impressive. Um then seventh and eighth grade math on page 18. Again, making great gains, seeing more of those movements that we need to see. Same thing with reading. If you look on page 19 of your board report, 42% of our students in grades 1 through eight were on or above grade level during the second diagnostic. That's an improvement. Again, looking at uh individual schools, page 20, Monizuma, 40% on or above grade level, an improvement from 24%. Rosedale 45% on or

026above, an improvement from 29%. and then uh 7 through 12 on or above 41% an improvement from 35%. So our students our teachers are working diligently to improve mathematics literacy and we're seeing those improvements um on our on our diagnostic report. So that's fantastic. Kudos to the kids and to the teachers who are working very hard to make those things happen. Excuse me. Page 29 of your board report, uh, you see current bond balance. This was from our big bond. We currently have 652,830 available for some projects. That does include 596,260 or 80 200. Yeah, 280 of interest money in there. So, that's the money we do have available for some projects. There's some things we can look at this spring. Um, just want to be conservative with that because we will not have access

027to bond funds for quite some time. Page 32, 33, 34 are cash flows. Um, end of year cash flow so you can see where we landed. I'll show you actually I think it's probably easier to see on page 35. Excuse me. I did the fund analysis report shows what those those funds indicate. We'll see this in a presentation here shortly as well. But you can see um difference in revenue to expenditure and ad fund was a million dollars. So this something we need to take seriously. Um cash on hand is dwindling and all of our accounts. Something we need to take seriously and we need to have some serious discussions about how we're going to to manage this. Again, shortly we'll have a presentation that's geared more toward that piece of it, but it is

028part of my board report tonight. [snorts] And if you go back to your your written report, just kind of an updated calendar. Um, got some public meetings coming up, some public information meetings. Um, again, we'll talk about those in the presentation that's here shortly, but just wanted to have that. So, if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer those. There any questions for this? >> I have a question. >> Yes. >> So, you gave a diagnostic of improvements. Do you have any setbacks or areas of concern? >> Well, I mean, obviously, we still got a group of of students ranging from 11 to about 22% depending on the diagnostic that are still below. So, we continue to we don't see people, you know, necessarily falling back, but we see shifts from from

029our nearing to our on or above. So there's a little bit of waiver, but nothing that's that's out. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Any further questions? Thank you, Dr. Harrison. Is there any old business to come before the board? >> No. >> All right. Moving on to new business. First item is the revision v revisioning education in the Southwest Park Community School Corporation. Okay. So, tonight I'm going to bring you a presentation for members of the community. if you want to turn your chairs around and stare at the big screen back there. Board members, you have this in your board packet. Covered up my board packet, so I don't know exactly which page it starts on. >> And I would would like to say this is this is not an action item tonight. We will

030not be taking any action on it. There are the public information meetings that are coming up. U this is nothing is set in stone. This is very preliminary. U so uh take from this what you will. [clears throat] Um, if you have further questions, please attend the uh the upcoming town hall. Um, I will allow for public comment tonight. >> Weirdos. [laughter] >> Y'all made it weird. So, I'm not sure. >> No, this will take about 20 minutes. So, you may want to take >> take a chair unless you want to stand for about 20 minutes. >> So, that being said, please. >> Okay. So, just as an introduction to this. Um, this is a presentation that I gave this afternoon to our staff members to get them aware of kind of where we are

031and what we're thinking about presenting this tonight to the board to whatever communities listening uh online. This presentation will be online tomorrow. There will be a narrated version of this presentation. Uh, we will be havingformational meetings where this presentation will be given again three more times next week. I have this pretty well scripted so that we get the same information every time that it goes out. I'll do my best to not sound mechanical, but I'm basically going to read to you the information as we go so that we hear the same thing at every stop. Okay? So, thank you for taking the time to view the presentation today. I'm going to give you a brief history of where we've been. I'm going to zoom in to the most recent decade and give you a reasonably

032clear picture of where we are today. Then I'm going to share a vision of the future of education in Southwest Park County that is informed by the challenges of the current day. I don't have to do this for many of you because many of you have lived this, but this is for people who may not have heard this before. Southwest Park Community School Corporation Incorporated in 1972 and adopted an overarching philosophy that was focused on offering our students the best educational experience possible within the physical constraints of rural West Central Indiana. Within that philosophy, the area saw township township schools reorganized as in 1986, the Riverton Park High School campus opened for business. At that time, Monizuma Elementary and Rosedale Elementary became K through8 buildings. Within a short period of time, those facilities were full

033of students and became necessary to relocate the seventh and eighth grade students to the River Park campus, which happened in approximately 1991. In 2005, as the debt for the high school building project was rolling off, renovations took place at the buildings at Riverton Park High School campus. Additional space was added to accommodate the junior high school students at the elementary buildings. Additional space was added to accommodate the preschool and early childhood education programs. From 2005 to 2015, Southwest Park became a leader in educational technology and offered students wonderful technology enhanced learning opportunities through the onetoone initiative. Since 2015, the focus has been on building a strong curricular and assessment foundation to meet the needs of students and to meet the mandates of the state. During this period of focus, the school has implemented the I

034Ready curriculum in math and reading, which includes fall, winter, and spring interimm assessments to help students and teachers get a better picture of the learning that's taking place. In addition to the greater emphasis on curriculum and assessment, we've also seen increasing involvement from the state of Indiana in the area of school finance. This increase in involvement started in approximately 2010 when the state moved to the current account system model that guides our budgeting. Currently, we have two major funds in our system, the education fund and the operations fund. The overarching reality in school funding is that the more control the state takes, the more mandates they push toward us and the less control that we have. In recent years, the state has initiated teacher salary and benefit mandates for public schools. By mandate, as of

035the 2022 2023 academic year, the minimum teacher salary is $40,000 per year. Also within that mandate is the directive that 62% of the state tuition support must be used for teacher salary and benefits. The Southwest Park Community School Corporation met the teacher salary mandate, but fell some short of the 62% mandate. By mandate, as of 2025 2026 academic year, the minimum teacher salary is $45,000 per year. Also within that mandate is the directive that 65% of the state tuition support must be used for teacher salary and benefits. Southwest Park Community School Corporation meets the salary mandate. The calculation for the 65% mandate will be made at the conclusion of the fiscal year. In addition to fiscal control, the state of Indiana has imposed more accountability legislation mandates on schools. The A tof accountability model for

036district for the district changed the way that we operated in schools. Under this model, the service location of students began to be of greater consideration. For example, where do sixth grade students fit into school? Are they best served in an elementary setting or in a middle school setting? The curriculum and assessment pieces associated with the accountability model would indicate that sixth grade students may be better served in a middle middle school setting. So, the Southwest Park Community School Corporation has had to begin thinking more about where to serve our sixth grade students. One of the greatest disruptors to public schools in the last decade was the pandemic. During the pandemic, public schools saw a decrease in traditional public school participation. Parents and students started embracing online or homeschool models and the Southwest Park Community School

037Corporation saw some decrease in participation during the pandemic. [snorts] Also, during the pandemic, we saw an influx of federal funding that was unprecedented. SR2 brought our district 664,767 and SR3 brought our district $1,539,493. This is both good and bad for the district. Yes, we had additional funds available and we had a three-year expenditure plan. So, that was good. But the large amount of money that was in our funds because of ESSER perhaps overshadowed some of the underlying revenue issues that were present in the last decade. We've also seen a decline in the number of school age children in our area. This map from the US Census Bureau shows the impact on the state of Indiana. Please note that Park County is in the dark blue purple indicating a significant decrease in the number of school-aged

038children with that decline being somewhere between 15% and 30%. Again, we're seeing more non-traditional school options for students. We're seeing increase in online, hybrid, and homeschool choices. And we're seeing an increased social emotional needs in our students, which means our spending in that area has also increased. The actual enrollment for Southwest Park schools in the last decade is displayed up here. Um to the left in blue is what actually happened. And you can see that our highest enrollment to date was in the 2016 2017 academic year with a total enrollment of 2017 students. Our lowest enrollment to date is the current academic year with a total enrollment earlier it was 9:45 when I was putting this together on our count day. So, that's a decrease of 72 students over the 10-year period. That's significant. Um,

039we've calculated tonight that as we stand today based on our Harmony input, our harmony data, excuse me, our ADM is 939. So, again, we're seeing it's not uncommon in the the spring to see a decrease in enrollment, but it we're seeing that. So the projected enrollment is to the right in the yellow and this projection is built on a statistical model called the cohort survival rate and it indicates a continu a continuation of declining enrollment for the district. Um if you can see that bottom number next year it's predicting 936 year after 904 year after that 876 866 and then 858. This data set was provided by our budget consultant Marvin Ward and he works with a number of districts districts throughout the state. His calculations have been quite accurate for us throughout the years.

040So the the last decade has seen increasing mandates, declining enrollments, and more student needs with fewer resources available. Where are we today? Today, we're facing a new challenge related to Senate Enrolled Act One, the sweeping property tax legislation. Public schools have long been funded by property taxes because property taxes were seen as the most stable funding source. Senate enrolled Act One negatively impacts the property tax revenue available for the Southwest Park Community School Corporation. The Indiana Coalition for Public Education released an analysis of the impact of SEA1 on schools back in August of 2025. This slide represents their analysis for our district. Notice the potential re revenue loss of $350,980 over the next three years. That's what the analysis projected, a loss of $350,980 in revenue. This would negatively impact our operations fund, which is

041what pays for buildings, utilities, insurance, and things of that nature. How has the projection actually matched up with our actual calculated cost for our 2026 budget? The actualized loss in the operations fund is $280,4928. This is a significant number and is much higher than projected in prior analysis. This significant loss of revenue has caused for considerable concern for our district and creates a number of challenges. We're still required to meet the additional physical mandates mentioned earlier and we do meet the $45,000 teacher minimum salary mandate for this academic year, but whether or not we can meet the 65% mandate is yet to be determined. I did include that currently you see House Bill 1170 is proposed in the Indiana General Assembly which would move beginning teacher salary to $60,000 minimum. Um I I only include

042that just for reference. Do I think that that will stick? No, I don't think that will stick. Not right now. But what I think it indicates to us is that there will still be movement that comes from the state house toward teacher salaries. We may not see it this year, but I think if we don't get to 60, it wouldn't shock me to see a 50 at some point in the near future or a 55. So, that's something that gives us concern. Additionally, there are many expenditures outside of our control that are increasing. Utility rates are rising and we have no control over what the utility providers will charge. Property casualty insurance rates continue to increase as schools are less desirable for rates because of the number of lives and facilities to be covered. Additionally,

043schools are litigation targets with schools having claims filed against them more often than in previous years. All of these make insurance companies wary of providing insurance coverage to schools. The revenue available to the district is decreasing. Senate enrolled act one reduces our property tax revenue for each of the next three years. Additionally, local income tax that's been providing approximately $150,000 for our operations fund will no longer be available to schools starting in 2028. And as we heard earlier this year, it already impacts us about $28,000. Additionally, all of our federal revenue support has decreased, will likely continue to dwindle. When I came 10 years ago, we had title one was about 280,000. This year, it's 183. When I came here 10 years ago, title two funded one of the salaries that we relied heavily on.

044This year, it's a fraction of it. 10 years ago, title 4 provided about half of what we needed for a particular program. This year, it's a fraction of it. So, you got all of those pieces and now the return of the AF accountability model, which will also cause us to carefully consider where we place students for their services and particularly with those students in the middle grades. All of these prior mentioned concerns appear to increase in light of the endofear fund report analysis. Here you see our major funds, their revenues, expenditures, and the differences between revenue and expenditures. You could also see cash on hand. The expenditure side of things is of great concern particularly with the budget forecast for calendar year 2026. So with this in mind, I ask our corporation treasurer the following

045question. To be fiscally sound in 2026, how much do we need to reduce the budget? Our treasur stated to be fiscally sound in 2026, we should reduce the budget between 1 million $1,500,000. So just as kind of a sidebar, the million that would probably get us to scrape by, right? Million5 lets us start to rebuild some cash balance that we've had to burn through. And of course, u in typical Mr. Gloom and Doom fashion, sorry, he added as soon as possible. Right. So, there is a sense of urgency to our budget matters and the Southwest Park Community School Corporation must take action. How is it that we must take action? Well, first we need to revision what education looks like for the students in the district. [clears throat] Right now, we may be thinking of

046all the obstacles that are in our way, but the obstacles that we face may actually become the new way. Clearly, our obstacles are declining student enrollment, decreased revenue to support the operations of the school, increased costs that are out of our control, and increased external mandates regarding how we spend our budget and how we educate our students. Within this context, now right now is our opportunity to revision education in our district. We have the opportunity to embrace efficiencies. We have the opportunity to revise our expenditures to stay within our revenue and rebuild some cash balance. We have the opportunity to align curriculum and instruction in meaningful ways. We have the opportunity to revise our offerings to meet the everchanging accountability mandates. and we have the opportunity to create what we hope will be an enduring

047educational presence in the southwest part of Park County. And I add the word hope in there simply because we know in the last legislative session there was some legislative activity surrounding potential for mandated consolidation language. We realize that could come back uh probably in 27 because that's going to be attached to a budget. But we hope that maybe we can make some changes that will keep us viable as Southwest Park for the for the near future. So what's the big picture here? What's the grand vision that we need to embrace? The big picture is to reorganize all operations to one centrally located campus. This is not something that we can do immediately. This would take several years to make a reality. It would involve moving students when we are able to move students. It would

048involve watching carefully for when our bond is paid off, which is June 30th of 2035, and then leveraging our physical assets to take care of any facility needs. This would be a challenge for sure, but this is the type of model that could offer the economic efficiencies necessary for our budget constraints while still offering quality educational experience for our students. Again, this is several years down the road, but it needs to be on our radar today so that we can start to make steps in that direction. And why is this a possible picture of our future? because it's a model that has shown its effectiveness. [snorts] Other districts in our region are already operating in such a fashion. Other districts in our region are taking steps to move toward a one campus model. And quite

049frankly, a simple math problem just tells it as it is, fewer campuses cost fewer dollars to operate. So here's a look at our current athletic conference and this kind of represents our neighbors in our region. So the table shows each of the school districts in our athletic conference and these are our neighbors. So they're very much like us. The table shows the assessed value or the value of taxable property within the district boundaries. Shows [snorts] the maximum operations fund levy, the number of campuses each district currently operates and the number the excuse me the dollar amount the maximum operations levy that can be allocated to supporting each campus. So again, the assessed value is important because it represents the tax base available for revenue support. We as a school district have no control over it,

050but it is a prime player in how much tax revenue we receive. The maximum operations levy is important to us to consider. Again, we have no control over it. It's established for each district by the state, but it is a prime player in how much we can spend to operate facilities. When we look at this, this table informs our decision making about how we might best fund school operations and does tend to favor fewer campuses within the district. And you know, again, as a sidebar, ADICA is currently operating on one campus. Yeah, they are a little bit smaller than we are. Um, but that means every bit of their operations fund can go to that single campus. They do have a little more AV than we do. Cington is operating two campuses, if you want

051to call them that. They've got an elementary building and then a middle high school. So, essentially two campuses. Um, but I think that's something we need to look at to see, okay, this is what our neighbors are doing. They're able to maintain their operations and maintain facilities by coming down to a smaller campus model. We currently have our three campuses and we have very little $623,000 per campus to out of the maximum operations levy makes it makes it difficult. So how do we manage this? How do we go about resolving this problem? Well, this is why we're coming to our communities. You know, we need to make some significant decisions rather soon regarding the overall organization and operations of the district. And in this process, we want to hear people's voices. We want to hear

052suggestions regarding the organization and operations of the district. And we want to hear questions. So, whenever it comes to public meetings, this is how we're going to manage this. We're doing this in a smaller setting tonight, so it'll be a little different. But, uh, you can provide your suggestions and questions in a variety of ways. is you can write your questions or suggestions on a note card and leave them here. That's what I recommend for our larger meetings because it keeps time a little bit under control. Um I had the question, well, what happens if somebody has issues with writing and reading and that we're going to have administrators and some board meeting board members at each of these sites and we're going to encourage people to come and just ask us questions. If you're

053not comfortable writing it down, I'll write down the question. I'll put it in the stack. Okay. Uh, additionally, um, as of tomorrow at 9:00 am, you'll be able to go to our website and access a form in which you can ask questions and provide suggestions. So, that's another option. All of these questions and suggestions will be compiled into a living document that will be posted on the website throughout the process. So, again, there's a tile on our website that's currently there. It's just not live. Tomorrow morning at 9:00, this presentation, which is narrated, will be there as well as access to get to the form so people can begin to ask their questions. So, you know, as we move forward, how do we manage all of this? Well, here's the timeline. Here's here's what we

054have envisioned at this point. Today, I presented to the staff, obviously, now you're in a board meeting. You're hearing this presentation. Tuesday at Riverton Park High School at 6 PM we'll have this presentation for we'll get these advertised by the way any we want community members we want taxpayers we want parents we want anybody who has an interest in what's going on with the school district to be present uh Riverton Park Tuesday at 6 Rosale Wednesday at 6 Thursday at Monizuma at 6 pm okay anybody can attend any meeting, all meetings, whatever fits with your schedule. Again, we will have a couple of board members at each meeting. We'll have administrators at each meeting, and we'll have conversations as well as written questions. Then, we are currently scheduled at this point for Monday, January 26.

055We'll have a full wrap-up meeting, and that'll be a full board meeting at the high school. I anticipate that probably will be in the cafeteria, but we'll work out some of those details shortly where we'll review the FAQ document and the suggestions and the board can begin to digest what the community is recommending and what they can tolerate and what and what we should think about. And then by Tuesday, February 10, the board will start making recommendations on how to move forward. It's a quick timeline, but there's a sense of urgency with the budget issues that we're facing. So obviously we want to thank people in advance for coming out to these meetings. We need to hear voices. Um we need to hear questions. We need to hear that. And please encourage people to follow

056our progress on the school website. This will be our primary focus for the next four weeks at least on the information gathering side of it and it becomes our priority. I know Mr. Davis had made a comment and we've got a small crowd here tonight. We've got some time for some questions and answers with the understanding that we don't have any answers right now. It's really we want to we don't want to poison the feedback loop by saying well I'm thinking about this well then all the questions start going toward that when somebody else may have a different perspective. So, if you have suggestions, if you have some questions and things we need to think about, we'll certainly entertain those tonight to the best of our ability. Um, but please know the response you get

057tonight may be that's a great question. We're going to have to get deeper with that. So, I haven't entertained questions from the community or board members. I mean, we did give the presentation at the high school today. They asked several really good questions. We're documenting those. We're going to get some things together on those. question. >> Is there a penalty or anything with the not meeting the 65%. >> No, initially, no. The first couple times you don't meet that mandate, you get what we call the nasty gram, which is just an angry le letter from the state. This is you have to publicly admit that you didn't do this and post this letter on your website. Um, we we've not pushed it. Obviously, you know, this is still relatively new in the cycles. Um, we

058don't know what happens after three, four, five cycles. We just don't know. >> Has there been any consideration with VGO County Schools consolidating how that may obviously these are just projections how it may impact Southwest Park. >> There's always the thought that it could positively impact our student enrollment, but it's an unknown. >> Absolutely. >> And so, you know, we're mindful of that, >> but we have to build our our physical future on the known. And if we get a windfall from additional enrollments, >> it's a good thing. >> Then booya, right? >> All right. Is there any further questions for Dr. Harrison regarding the revision? >> Just a couple things. Do you have information to present like on costs by campus is one of the things you're talking about there? And you know, maybe

059recent additions that have been done or something like that that might make it seem like you wouldn't want to do away with something. you just put a bunch of money into that. Just trying to think how you look at that idea of trying to consolidate campuses. What are you giving up? Is there any alternative uses for those structures that are in place? >> Right. And that's good data that we'll have to draw together. I mean, obviously, we can tell you I can't tell you right off the top of my head, but we have the data stream that we can tell what each of our campuses cost us to operate in terms of the operations fund. We know what percentage they hit. Uh we do have that data. Um, and that certainly will inform our decision-

060making. Yeah, we'll look at all of that kind of thing. >> And one thing, when you do those transfers, you've got a listing up there that shows expenditures like from education fund, from operating. When you do a transfer, where does that show up in there? >> It shows up as an expenditure in the ED fund. So, like when we do the 1 million, then it's considered an expenditure out of the ED fund. >> Okay. >> The last line item, >> but it comes to the operations fund, >> it goes to the operations and it is spent out of the operations fund in many cases. Okay. >> So, is it being counted twice? >> No. >> Okay. Just think that could be confusing. >> Well, it's it counted as an expense and a receipt on the

061top of the line. Correct. Correct. >> But also, the state sometimes looks at those as exceptions because you're moving the money between the funds. So, on certain reports, they figure it a little differently. But when it comes down to the hard numbers, it's an expense out of ED and a receipt into operation. So that's how we look at it. >> But I think you said earlier it was like 15%. >> We can transfer up to 15%. In the two years I've been here, we've never done that much. It's actually been under that. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving [clears throat] on. Next item is the approval of the corporation and building treasures. Okay. >> Page 55 of your board packet, you have the annual approval of treasures. entertain a motion to approve as presented. >>

062We'll make that motion. We have a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. Motion second. Any questions on the motion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion carries. We need the approval of Bose McKenna and Evans as corporation legal council for school year. >> Page 56 has the annual letter. I'll make a motion to approve. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second. Are there any questions on the motion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Review and approval of the 2026 mowing bid. >> Okay. On page 57 of your board packet, you have the overview document. We received two bids. T& Mowing, uh, who's been mowing for us for the last several years.

063Their total grand total for all properties 31,330. Our second bid this year came from US lawns. Uh grand total was 44,35834. If you want to see their actual documents, T& starts on 58. Um US lawn starts on 63. I have not had any concerns with TN based upon the fact that they've been with us and their number is $13,000 less. I personally would recommend that we continue with that. >> I think Eric does a good job and his team and they're more than willing to help outside of normal mowings or what needed. >> Oh yeah. He does great work and honestly he's so vested in the school district. >> Yes. >> There are times when he's mowing that he'll stop, he'll take a picture of something and he'll send it to me and say, "Hey,

064can you can you maybe address it?" Yeah. So, it's like having an extra grounds person who's keeping an eye on the buildings from angles that I don't normally see. >> He's a graduate and his kids are here. >> Absolutely. >> That matters. >> All right. Here the recommendation. Is there a motion? >> I will approve and make the motion to approve TN. >> Second. We have a motion to approve TN for the 26 mowing contractor. Are there any questions on the motion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Those opposed? Motion carries. We have a recommendation to avoid corporation checks that are two years or older. Pretty self-explanatory. >> A motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> A motion. Is there a second? >> I'll

065second. >> Motion a second. Are there any questions on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion carries. Next item is recommendation to avoid Riveton Park ECA checks two years or older. Is there a motion to approve? >> Motion to approve. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second. Are there any questions on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Those opposed. Motion carries. Final item under new businesses, recommendation to avoid elementary Monazuma Elementary ECHX 2 years or older. >> Motion to approve. >> Motion is second. I'll second. >> Motion is second. Are there any questions on the motion? Hearing none, all favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion carries. Um

066that concludes new business. Moving on to personnel. First item is a recommendation to employ Jessica Murray, teacher at Monazume Elementary School, effective January 5th, 2026. >> Motion to approve. >> Motion. Is there a second? >> A second. Motion to second. Are there any questions on motion? >> I just have a question. >> Yes. >> Is the board aware like how does that the interview process? is the the principal >> the interview and then you make the recommendations. >> Correct. Okay. >> All right. >> It's just process procedural. >> All right. Thank you. >> Any further questions on the motion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Those opposed? Motion carries. Final item under personnel is recommendation to employee Jamie Major Food Service at Rosedale Elementary January 19th, 2026. motion.

067>> We have a motion. Is there a second? >> I'll second motion and a second. Are there any questions on the motion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion carries. That concludes personnel. Is there any public comment at this time? >> I want to share some some positives from Rosedale Elementary. Um, we had our Christmas program on Friday, December 19th. was questionable if we were going to get it in with the weather, but we did on schedule. Um, we actually split into two programs and we were busting at the seams for both programs. They were both extremely well attended. Um, the only complaint was parking. So, we'll take that as a win um and work to to solve that in creative ways in the future. But,

068I just want to give a shout out to the staff member that staff members that prepared the kids for that and the kids did a wonderful job. Um, our PTO, I want to give a shout out to them. They gave gifts to all of our students, which they do every year. Students in preK to grade five got Rosdale Hot Shot sweatshirts. Um, so if you see those around there, black with the gold logo on them. It's my favorite. I love seeing hot shot gear out in the community. Um, so that was a lot of fun. And then sixth graders got sweatshirts with the RP logo so that they're prepared and have something in their closet that's RP for next year. Um, Dr. Harrison kind of stole a little bit of what I was going to

069share too about our diagnostic growth. Um, as a school, we have 94% of our students either approaching grade level or on grade level. Um, that's an increase from approaching to on by 37% from the beginning of the school year, which is huge. Um, and then reading, we have 85% of our students approaching or on grade level. Um, with a 16% increase to our ongrade level group. Um, so huge gains there. Um, we'd look to see, you know, that play off and to to iLearn when they do that summitative test. Um, but we'll see. It's measured differently differently, but definitely some good things to celebrate. >> Outstanding. Thank you, Abby. >> Couple things from River Park that I noted, some of some of which I noted in my board report, some of which have happened since

070submitting my board report. Um, River Park was one of 214 schools that to earn an all sportsmanship recognition from the IHSAA. That's uh we were able to maintain a 100 uh point score in sportsmanship uh through all our fall season sports. That takes in account all the players, coaches, administrators, and fans. Congratulations to Emily Adams. Somebody may know her here on receiving the prestigious Lily scholarship. She's got a full ride to any of the eligible Indiana public for private non nonprofit college universities in the state. Shelby Light Gable is going to be wrestling state wrestling ter state wrestling championship this week or Friday actually. Last year I put it up on the big screen for the kids to watch. U we're going to do that again. So something fun to look forward to on Friday.

071Congratulations to William Snellenberger, Natalie Msada, quarterback, and Mary Cla Featherling, rising stars for the Indiana class of 2027. Carson Sutton won the D good citizenship award for our county. Um, the farm the new a program farm operations vocational class is off and running. We have a tenative agreement to farm our kids farm. some ground uh thanks to Dicki Farms. So, basically just right down the road here. And then Rick Peacock right across the highway is going to allow us to utilize some land and let our kids do it all. Um and then there will be some signage up obviously promoting that. Uh and Mr. Newbie's been working with that. The next step in this process is getting some equipment leased for our kids to be able to operate. So, we're going to be meeting with

072some local vendors uh very soon. And lastly, the egg power class just this week prior to today, thank God, uh poured it was either 11 or 13 yards in the greenhouse, half of it. Um with proper drainage in there as well. I went out at the end of the day. It was a very busy day on Monday, but I went to the end of the day and I was absolutely blown away. Did an amazing job with it uh with with slope grade everything, drains. They just did a wonderful job. So, they're hoping, weather permitting, to get the second half of that greenhouse done next week, which is pretty impressive. That's the egg power kids. >> Can I have something? >> Yeah. I can't be I can't be missed. Uh, one of the things I want

073to attribute to our diagnostics rise. Um, we were able this year to use some title one funding to do some after school tutoring. And one of the um things that they are doing is on Mondays and Thursdays right after school till about 4:15 they are seeing almost uh 45 students and uh those are broken up between uh third grade through six or second grade through sixth grade and um and I want to say a lot of times during the day you have the intervention time to work with them but to give them some extra 45 minutes after school has just been a blessing and uh I want to thank our title one for letting us do that. >> Thank you. >> I want to take a second go back to uh something that Kyle mentioned

074in the first part of his report. I'm sure everybody's seen uh over the weekend. Uh there was an incident here at the school corporation. Um social media kind of blew the whole incident out of proportion. There was a full investigation. Uh numerous hours was spent by Mr. and and his staff. Um and police was involved. They made their they've issued their report. Um but a lot of the stuff on social media was just absolutely unfounded. So um I'm going to let Phil take it over. He's got some correspondence. Kyle, I want to thank you again and your hard work and due diligence and uh ensuring the safety of our students. And uh I appreciate everything that you've done to >> and it's just further proof that, you know, our students and our kids are our

075number one priority here at this corporation. And uh with that, I'll let Phil read some correspondence uh to maybe clear the air and and uh on some of those social media fictitious statements. So, thank you. >> Yeah. Well, at this point, you know, I think this is what's most telling is what we got today was an email from the president and CEO of the other school. And I won't read all of it. I'll read bits and pieces of it. He said, "I'm sending a message to you today to officially thank your team for their collaboration regarding the unfortunate events that took place on Saturday night between our boys basketball team and Riverton Park. Kyle Kerzy has been wonderful to work with and we could not be more grateful for the partnership, attention to detail, and

076effective communication." That was from their CEO directly to me. from their principal. I wanted to take a moment and personally thank you the way you and your team have handled the event surrounding our game on Saturday. Your leadership, responsiveness, and spirit of collaboration have been more than I can adequately express. So, while people can sit behind keyboards and anonymity and type whatever they want, the reality is that our people are doing great work. [snorts] and even the people that were here and on site, not just Mr. Kerzy, but there were athletic director, coaches, there were parents that were helping to to bring everything back down because it didn't need to be what it was made out to be. So, you know, thank you to the high school folks for your diligent work. Thank you for

077taking care of kids because we know everybody that was involved in that loves kids. >> Period. That's all there was. Piece of correspondence. The other piece of correspondence we have is from the Park County Sentinel. Got your annual letter. It's on page 82 of your board packet if you want to read it. The annual letter where they ask to be notified for meetings. So I have Mr. Spellelings's email and he's part of my email stream when it comes to meeting dates. >> Appreciate that. >> All right, that concludes correspondence. Moving on to claims. >> Many. So I would have you look in your board packet starting on page 250. uh you had received these under a separate email for review yesterday. Please again take some time to review and if you have questions, we'll do

078our best to get those answered. I saw a couple um paid invoices to ter not Terminex, but the spray. >> Yeah, buggies. >> Buggies. We got that taken care of. Yeah, he was out again yesterday. >> Okay. >> And uh >> Hed with everything he had. >> Good. >> The entire that entire facility. >> Good. >> So, it's been treated. It was treated over Christmas break. It was treated a week when they came back. >> Yeah, I saw. >> And then he was back again. >> Invoices. That's good. >> Some of those invoices, too, are his spray, his preventative sprays he did over Christmas break. >> Well, they're not working. >> Well, at the school building. >> Okay. >> Sports building. I guess if the sprays don't work, pointed toe boots for everybody. >> Yeah,

079>> we can get them in the corners. >> Yeah. Monday uh President's Day. >> No, we're we're always in session. That's okay. >> Just an special program for schools. A lot of schools do special programs on vet day. I wonder if they do anything special at all. classroom level mostly classroom >> on your comment on the transportation. the two that say additional mileage that's built into that contractor's transportation contract and that was for all of last semester. >> So [clears throat] [snorts] usually >> it's just always meeting >> that's such a big expense >> like a lot of people realize how much we spend on transportation >> and that that's our route 15 our special education route. >> So there are lots of goetweens all day long 300 miles a day. All right, everybody's had

080an opportunity to review the updated claims. Chair will entertain a motion to approve as presented. >> I'll make that motion. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion to second. Are there any questions on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Those opposed. >> Motion carries. It's freezing again. If you're looking for our >> our presentation on our web page, >> bottom right corner. >> So when you go to our web page, it'll say revision SWP. >> Okay. >> Bottom right corner. >> It's not active yet, >> but it will be tomorrow. >> The um teacher be like to fill out >> what's that >> the teacher to fill out the teacher response. >> Yeah, I said a link for that tonight. >> Well, they won't be >>

081right, but there will be a community somewhere on this. >> Yes. Yeah, >> the payroll ones, anything that >> the pay dates that happened before you were sworn in, >> it just didn't generate your name, but you can sign it. It's just something in the system. When I set you up, I put in your swear in date and those payroll vouchers were before you were sworn in. >> I I question that. >> That's not good. Can you can I ask a question? Can you clear up just a little something? Yeah, I'll try. >> Okay. On the timeline that came up from the board, um will we hear the ideas that the board is thinking about on the 26th? >> You'll hear all of the public feedback and then whatever they want to talk about at

082that point in time. They've got some ideas. We won't have anything formally fleshed out by that point. The the 10th is when you'll hear pretty much where where we think we're going to land. So am I not so when it says board recommendations that will be what you're thinking or that's what you're putting into place as a final. >> It'll be a combination. You'll have some thoughts and then it'll be like okay this is what we think we're going to do. So let's start down this path. There will be some undecideds but there will be >> so we won't really know until it's actually putting into place. Fe >> yeah February 10 we should have a pretty good idea where we're going. >> It would just be nice to like a heads up. [laughter] >>

083It's not going to happen. >> I like I said the other day though, I I strongly recommend looking at the financials and just looking at them and saying this is 80% of the money is spent here. Like you're not going to get to X unless you cut Y and Z without making some large chunks in some certain areas. So I strongly recommend to take the time and look at the financials online. I feel like a lot of people heard three campuses to one campus and they didn't hear a lot of there's all these things are going to have to happen. I just feel like a lot of people feel free to bring those questions to the town halls and >> sort through them the best part. >> Yep. >> All right. Chair will entertain a

084motion to adjurnn. >> Have a motion. Is there a second? I'll second motion second hearing. No meeting is journ. Thank you.