Board of Education Meeting - June 10th, 2025

001All right, we're a couple members short, but they will be joining us shortly. Uh, so we're just going to get this started. I'm going to call the meeting the June 10th, 2025 meeting of the Lakeville School Board for Independent School District 194. Please rise with me as we say the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, let's take roll call. Starting on my right, Brett Nicholson. Paul Carbone. I'm Matt Swanson. Michael Bowman. Carly Anderson. Right. Any uh amendments or adjustments to the agenda? If there are none, I'd move to approve the agenda as drafted. Second. All right. Seconded by Director Cameron. Being a first and second. All in favor

002or any discussion on that? No discussion. Being a first and second, all in favor of approval of the agenda as drafted, say I. I. I. It's approved. We'll move on to the good news. Superintendent Bowman. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good news from Lakeville Area Schools on June 10th. Today, June 10th, was the last day of school for our elementary students, and June 12th will be the last day of school for middle and high school students. Congratulations on another great year. We hope our students have a safe, relaxing, and fun summer. enjoy some of the fun that uh we all get to have during our summer break and the last day of school by visiting the district's Facebook web page. I don't have the URL for that, but uh you can go there and

003have a good time. Congratulations to the 2025 graduating class. 973 Lakeville area school seniors celebrated commencement on June 5th at Maruchi Arena at the University of Minnesota, including 478 students from Lakeville North and 495 students from Lakeville South. 28 Lakeville Pathways Academy seniors celebrated commencement on June 4th over at Brackets Crossing Country Club. and just want to wish and extend to all of our students and their families a congratulations and best of luck in your future endeavors. Class of 2025, let's give a little round of applause for that. [Applause] Students of the month. Lakeville area schools has students of the month uh recognition program we do throughout the year and we're excited to announce the June students are Zelen Hayes fourth grade at Lake Marian Elementary Sullean Hussein 8th grade Century Middle School and Virginia

004Ruig ninth grade Lakeville South High School. Way to go. You can you can give him a little bit of something. We also have staff of the month that we run all year long as well. Uh, and we're excited to announce that June staff are Steve Lendway, chief custodian at Crystal Lake Elementary Center, and Jamie Mohler, who is the art specialist for Cherry View and Orchard Lake Elementary Schools. Congratulations to those staff of the month. Lakeville South student selected as Minnesota winner of the 2025 Congressional Art Competition. Lakeville South High School 11th grade student Alice Yei has been selected as the Minnesota District 2 winner of the 2025 Congressional Art Competition for her piece titled Blue Sucker of Minnesota. Ye will have her artwork displayed in the canon tunnel of the US Capital for one year.

005She has also been invited to attend the winner celebration and lunchon reception in Washington DC on June 11th. Way to go Alice. And Lakeville area schools students earned bilingual seals. This spring, a select group of students voluntarily took the bilingual seals assessment, demonstrating their levels of language proficiency in languages other than English. When students show proficiency in all four modalities, listening, reading, speaking, and writing, they are awarded either a certificate, a gold seal, or a platinum seal. State colleges and universities throughout Minnesota award college credit for bilingual seals and certificates. Lakeville North speech team achieves top national honors. The Lakeville North High School speech team delivered an outstanding performance at the 2025 National Individual Events Tournament of Champions held recently in Kansas City, Missouri. Competing against the nation's best, the team earned a top three

006finish in the prestigious ACT 2 team category. Students also earned individual recognition for their exceptional performances. Mayor Leo, second place in program oral interpretation and fifth place in dramatic interpretation. Harper Jensen, quarterfinalist in informative speaking. Yong Jang, quarterfinalist in pros interpretation. And Ka uh one more Kalin Wyn uh quarterfinalist in oral interpretation. Congratulations to those speech students. Now we clap. And then uh if you want to read more about amazing things happening here in our district, isd194.orgnews. Uh, one other thing, we're pleased to share a short highlight video from the district's what did you learn series. Throughout the school year, we visited students from across the district to hear what they've been learning about in science, math, language arts, and social studies, and much, much more. This video captures just a few of the engaging

007meaning meaningful learning experiences happening every day in our schools. We're encouraging you to see more from what did you learn series visiting isd194.org/vide-stories. Okay. Do we have a video? Oh, here we go. [Music] Some of my favorite units were like the ballistics. So, you can like see the trajectory of the bullets and like also blood. We learned about like the different types of blood and how to identify them and like different tests that they use. Right now, we're learning about how to do algebra and the last thing we did was fractions. What I've learned in English is how to improve my vocabulary, grammar, and writing skills by doing lit circles to improve and advance in my reading skills. In social studies, I have been learning about Central and South America and the people who live

008there. Right now, we're getting ready for our pops concert. I'm also in the ac capella choir for encore. So, we are getting ready for encore night, which is a whole bunch of solos and duets in the first half. Then the second half is all of our repertoire from our entire year. A open circuit is a circuit that doesn't is like opened. It is not connected to the device as if like a charger is connected to the to the outlet but is not connected to the phone. We've been learning about um that all Minnesota license plates say that Minnesota has 10,000 lakes, but that's not that's actually very incorrect cuz it actually has 11,842 legs and they're off by 1,842. This flower in the yellow part is and I just draw all because this is the

009blue sky. There's like lava in the flower and then there's spikes all over the lava and then there's a big round circle. One thing that I've learned is um how to like dissect the story and what features are in it. I really liked welding this year. It was like a one of those new skills that you wouldn't learn like anywhere else and it was a really fun experience. What we're learning in math class is um tax and interest. So like the percent of change. Currently, we're going in Latin America. We're learning about the geographical and um cultural beliefs there. We just finished the Europe um section. We learned about the British Empire, their colonization, the Alps, and Russian Ukraine war [Music] and of course a lot lot more. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Superintendent Bowman.

010Uh there are no stakeholders signed up for public comment today. So we're hop past that. Move on to the consideration of the consent agenda. Any items that any board members want to remove for further discussion? If there are none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. All right. There's first by Director Carbone. Is there a second? A second. All right. Seconded by Director Anderson. All in favor of approval of the consent agenda say I. I. It is approved. Move on to the reports and we're going to invite up if they are prepared in here Senator Duckworth and Representative Witty. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Good to see you. Jeff, good to see you. I can't bring Jeff anywhere. Just kidding. Uh well, good afternoon or evening. It's a pleasure to be here.

011I appreciate the invitation. And if it's okay with you, we're just going to share uh a few updates from the legislative session. Then, of course, we're always open to your feedback and any questions that you might have if if that's all right. Great. Um, so I'll I'll dive right in. Uh, first and foremost, we do always appreciate the invitation to be here with you. Um, I want to start off by complimenting Lakeville schools. You all do a phenomenal job. Just had to go get two of my little kids from their last day of school at one of the uh, elementary schools. So, so they're pretty pumped up and excited. Um, but wanted to really give you all props and all the teachers and staff for what you do and what you achieve. uh 91% graduation

012rate, which is higher than the state average. Uh MCA scores well above the state average in terms of math, reading, and science, growing enrollment, and very, very strong attendance rates. Uh that's not easy. It takes a lot of folks, a lot of good people, a phenomenal educational culture to achieve that. So, thank you for what you all do on behalf of our community. We're very, very proud to represent you at the capital and work hard on your behalf. So, that being said, I'm going to cover a couple of things that that were in the education bill. Couple things that you heard about that you may be wondering that weren't in the education bill and what you can expect. And I mean, this this bill is fresh. It's less than 24 hours from passing. I didn't

013get home till 3 this morning. So, uh we were we were working hard on your behalf, Jeff. They were faster than us. They got home a little bit earlier. Uh a couple things that were not in the bill that would be of interest to you. Uh there was talk about a statemandated ban on student cell phone use. That was not included in the bill. The board uh and school districts will have the ability to still continue to address that as they see fit at their level. Um there was also a proposal that would have allowed school boards to renew capital levies without necessarily having to take it to the community for a vote. That was not included in the final bill just for your information. So you guys are tracking that. a few things that

014were in the bill and will become law um that you're going to want to look into and be prepared for. A cardiac emergency response plan mandate. Uh there is a an additional one-year hold harmless for compensatory revenue that I'm sure will be of interest to you. Uh some additional measures to address student truency and low attendance. There's several districts across the state that are continuing to struggle with that. Might not be as big a concern here. Uh but some things you're going to want to be mindful of to always find ways to improve that. Uh there was a school transportation training deadline mandate that was repealed. Some addition or minor modifications to the read act, which you're going to want to make sure that you're spun up on and compliant with. You now are allowed

015to legally donate surplus textbooks that you don't need anymore. For some reason, that was illegal. You can now do that. So, um now on to some of the more um uh important things. Uh Bill, we're going to talk some spending and funding stuff. So uh the basic per pupil formula allowance will increase at the projected inflation levels in the upcoming bienium 2.7% and then three 2.7 then 3%. Um and it's going to increase the current amount from 7,281 to 7,481 and then 7,75 per student. In the following bienium uh the basic pupil formula allowance will again increase. Right now that's projected at 3% in 2028 and 2% in 2029. So some things that you guys can begin to bank on, forecast, and do your planning and budget projections on. Uh the school employee summer unemployment

016benefits mandate does continue. However, the legislature did set aside some funds that districts will hopefully be able to apply for and utilize if you find yourself short in that regard. Again, that's just for a little while longer. After that, it might fall the districts to continue to cover if that remains law. There was a proposal uh from the governor's office to eliminate QC comp. I heard from some teachers about that one. That did not get eliminated. So, that is something the district will still be able to utilize and compensate teachers in uh in that regard. Um there was some other changes to a school fund. Senator Duckworth. Yes. About how many teachers did you hear from? Well, that's between me and them. Superintend a fair amount. They had nothing but good things to say. They

017just wanted to make sure that uh they knew if that was actually going to get cut or not. Uh there's a permanent extension and improvement of the short call teacher substitute program. I'm not sure how much that impacts you all here, but I know the teacher shortage is real. It's a big deal. Finding subs is difficult. This is to try to help you all do that. Um uh let's see a couple there will be and this is important uh a little bit further out in the 2028 2029 bianium there will be a $250 million reduction in the special education cross subsidy in terms of state funding. Now that's a little ways out so that could change or it could get improved. Hopefully it doesn't worsen. Uh but in terms of trying to adjust the $6

018billion deficit the state's facing. There is a reduction in the future to special education cross subsidy funding. I know when I sat in your seat there are really two things we always wanted to hear about. Education funding formula, special education cross subsidy. What are you going to do for us there? So there are some pluses and minuses and some trade-offs that you all will have to be mindful of when you're budgeting. Uh and then another thing, special education transportation reimbursement aid to school districts will be reduced by about 48 million. how that uh impacts Lakeville. You'll have to dive into a little bit more. Um but there will be a little bit of reduction there. Uh one other thing I want to mention that's important for uh teachers. I'm sure they're already aware of it,

019but Jeff and I were happy to to vote for and help pass uh an improvement to the teacher pension plan. Uh lowered the age at which a member becomes eligible for the enhanced early retirement reduction from 62 to 60 years old and lowering the associated benefit reduction percentage from 6% to 5%. So, I know uh teachers and districts were looking for some help in regard to teacher pensions. We were able to deliver that this legislative session. We'll keep working on it. We know there's more work to be done there, but those are sort of the highlevel uh changes legislatively that will impact you all and your students in the district. So, Jeff, I did a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Just kidding. Go right ahead. That's why they call him senator. Um thank

020you. Um I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the UI insurance. Um that was something that was looking to get sunset kind of held up. We did fund that. Um which I think helps um you know uh especially on some of the mandates removing some of them and that was one of them. But also uh for uh unemployment insurance clarity um there is now um required by their department to issue clear written guidance. school employees will be uh informed that UI benefits require them to actively seek work. And so that piece seemed like it was missing in this and they think that's going to be helpful for you um as they go forward. Um as Zach said, uh one of the bigger uh things was the teachers pension. Uh I was a

021co-sponsor on it in the house. And uh the reason I thought it was important um uh early on in session I reached out to the superintendent to ask um to connect with our teachers and send emails out. And one of the things I think is always important that we listen, learn, and understand the issues that affect um the boots on the ground, the people in those positions. And we are sending out information. And part of it was we wanted to understand um because we received so many emails on the teachers pension, the 604 uh the 6030 which was never going to be um possible due to the cuts that the governor had in his budget um but the amount of money and we offered some solutions from um uh just different ways of doing it

022and to cut it back a little bit and one uh was to go to the highest level 500% % on the uh school lunches for all. Um and that would be a a family making over $155,000 and um with four kids and then I think it goes up to 182 with five kids and over 200 and they would be taken off and that money alone would bring in 112 uh million bianium or each year. So that's well $224 thou uh million and that was roughly where the cut was from the governors. That would have funded the pension. It would have covered the UI and would helped us bring some money back and that's at the highest level. They still would have received breakfast. Um but we are happy to get the the teachers pension through.

023There's some more work to go forward on that and I'll be looking at bringing a bill forward that will also give them a little bit more flexibility. Um the QC comp thing was important. Um I had a great uh meeting with um uh uh Carrie Pop about um just overall teachers. Um but listening again, but the Q comp was one of the things that was brought up and I think that's very important when we work together and we're trying to solve these problems. Um I think it is very helpful that we're communicating and that we're on the same page. So, I appreciate um the when I've reached out or to different groups to talk to. I will say um my door is always open. It literally is cuz in our new building it's a a

024a cube. So, uh I don't have a door, but it is always open. Um but I do think it's important. Um the literacy piece was important and so was um uh gaining some more local control. And those are some things we still got a lot more work because we need to see this money get down to the classrooms, the teachers, and the students because ultimately that's where we're going to see the success and you're going to see the success in the scores. It was like Zach said, very proud to be um up at the capital and the good work that you guys are all doing here in Lakeville and our students and uh very proud of that opportunity. The other thing that we were able to um prevent from happening, which uh probably is a

025big deal, um is statement of uh economic interest that has to be filled out if you're uh a district employee at um an administrative level. Um I think that is um something that is paperwork, but it goes back and um was considered a good win. And then um the other one uh I was fortunate to have um a bunch of bills go through this time and all of them are bipartisan, but the one that I'm I'm pretty proud of is um lock boxes for all schools. And um there's a grant which I would recommend uh you applying for. And the reason this is important is for school safety. you can put it on the the back side of a a school building, but when seconds and minutes matter, we can get um our law enforcement,

026our first responders into the schools if something un unforeseeable um would happen. So, um I uh was able to work with Representative Green and from Edine on that bill and uh so very happy with that. The other areas I think uh we got a little bit more work to do. Um there was some information going around about PSO program and how some of it is um some of our kids are falling through the gaps and we need to make some improvements. Um we will continue to work and uh my understanding is the principal at North is very uh invested in this. So we will um connect and we'll try to figure out some language. The best part of what we do is being involved in talking with you. The best bills that we see come

027forward are the ones where we're trying to solve a problem and we're listening to the people that we have the uh pleasure to serve. So if there's ever anything, please let us know. Questions? Anyone? Yeah, Director Farbone, please. Um, I'm curious of of both of your opinions on this, but on a federal level, uh, passed the House, it's in the Senate, and it's, you know, it's called the Big Beautiful Bill, but a part of that, I understand from what I've read, is school choice. And I believe they've got like $5 billion uh, earmarked. And I and if my if my figures are right, I think that's about a hundred. There's a math teacher out there that'll correct me, I'm sure. Um, I think it's about a h 100red million per state. Number one, do you

028think that's going to fly uh federally and number two, if it does, what kind of impact do you think it'll have? Because I'm assuming the money will come to the the state, which is you folks. Let me jump in on the chat. Thanks. Uh, well, thank you, Paul. And remember, I'll remember next time to to send a memo that uh tough questions are not allowed. I'm just kidding. Uh I very purposely try not to follow what's going on at the federal level. Um I say that a bit tongue and cheek. Obviously we're paying attention. Uh but right now there's a lot of speculation going on. We do know a particular bill passed the House uh in Washington DC, but we also know the Senate has some thoughts about that. Uh what I can tell you

029is this. At the at the state level, locally, we're fighting for every single dollar that we can bring to our districts on behalf of our schools, teachers, and the communities that we represent. And should there for any any reason at all be some sort of shortage uh to the state of Minnesota or specifically to Lakeville schools, uh you can believe we'll be right back up at the state capital in St. Paul fighting to make sure that that is backfilled and so that you all aren't having to jump through hoops to try to find a way uh to uh without much notice address your budgets. Uh I'm an optimistic guy. I don't necessarily foresee that happening in a way that would be uh very dramatic and very quick. I would hope that people will be more

030planful and mindful of our our schools and the time they need to plan their budgets and forecasts. I think over the last couple years, we learned some hard lessons when we mandated a lot of expenditures without giving districts time to plan for that. We put a lot of school districts into deficit. They're still struggling with that and voters are getting a little bit of exhausted when it comes to uh wondering why and how their districts are finding themselves in tough positions. And so our job is to relieve that burden, to help you all, whether you're a school district here in the suburbs or greater Minnesota or in the Twin Cities metro area, um to fight and defend your budgets, allow you to do what you need to on behalf of your kids, teachers, and your

031communities. And so if that were to happen, we'd take we would step in and take care of it. Um but I'm hopeful that uh whatever bill does pass won't automatically see some um you know, lack of funding to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars that nobody was planning for. Yeah, thank you. I had a question, Zach. Maybe on the the cuts that we're looking at for special ed. Do you know why it is that special ed seems to be the target of cuts? I mean, we're seeing it now. I believe there was another cut earlier that we discussed in prior financial meetings or reports. Um, and again, as you're saying, there are mandates that are related to special ed. Um, and then we're just losing more money, which comes out of our general

032fund essentially. Mhm. The interesting the interesting thing about special education is the mandate largely is from the federal government. It's not even necessarily from the state government, which is our argument. So, if you're going to mandate this, you should fund it, right? The same argument we've made regarding some of the legislation that was passed here the last couple of years. I think largely because um it's not as well known or understood as some of the other uh aspects of funding. Um, but it's a it's a large piece of it and it's a little bit easier for folks to manipulate further out down the road when it when it comes to funding in order to try to balance the budget needs of today. Um, it did come down to the cut was either going to come

033from the special education cross subsidy or it was going to come from the funding formula. Whether we were going to keep it flat or even see a slight reduction, special education was the area that they decided to make that cut in, at least for the foreseeable future. I know it's difficult, especially for large districts like this one that do serve a lot of families and children uh that have special needs. Um and it it's uh uh it's a it's a hefty investment and rightfully so. We want to take care of those students and those families and all the people that take care of them as staff members here in the district. Um, but making sure that we're mindful of the financial situation that puts the districts in is important. And uh that's why you're going

034to see us continue to continue to fight to fund the two really important things in in my mind and um I think Jeff would probably agree which is providing districts if we're going to increase funding providing that funding in terms of the funding formula and the special education cross subsidy because that's where you need it most and it's where you have the most flexibility to then decide how you utilize those funds because I'm sure uh superintendent Bowman would tell us the needs of Lakeville schools are a little bit different than the needs of Farmington or Egan. in Apple Valley Rosemont or Prior Lake or New Prague. And so if we just get the money to those uh that can make the the right decisions on behalf of our students and the staff in our districts,

035those dollars will go a lot further and be a lot more impactful. And I would just uh I I would just say um we are looking at a $6 million deficit billion billion down the into the future here. We had to make some cuts on this budget and we had to work together. The House was 6767. Um that's why bipartisan worked. The Senate was 3433. We're divided by one vote. Um we are going to have to figure this out as we go forward. So, I would just tell you um make sure that the house is in order and there's going to be some more cuts, but hopefully we don't have to make the big cuts cuz we did what we did here. Um and so, I mean, I don't mean to be gloom about it,

036but there was a lot of um some tough choices and these bills didn't come out where we're all happy about them. And I think that's called compromise. And um there's different things that were um given and um you know the UI piece was a big one where we wanted to see that funded um because we didn't want to see districts being held on to that one. I'll let anybody else have a question before I go again. Or any or any uh feedback, anything that you want us to know that you're uh of particular interest, you're struggling with any needs that we can address. Feel free to either now or later email them to us, whatever you prefer. Zach, we we corresponded a little bit about I believe you had co-sponsored the amendment. Welcome, Director Thompson.

037Oh, I thought you skipped because you knew we were here today. I think you co-sponsored the amendment to allow uh attempting to amend the statute to allow boards to renew um a capital levy. Do you know why that didn't make it across the finish line? Well, it's because I wasn't convincing enough apparently. Uh you know, I I supported the one that was passed prior um and I uh supported this one just because I've been in your shoes. I know that uh um sometimes school districts need some flexibility. Uh, and I know we want to be inclusive of our communities and make sure that we get their feedback and their input as well. But I also know that many districts found themselves in a particularly budgetary, financially challenging situation. And I thought affording them a tool

038uh in the near term would be helpful. And so I'm hopeful that that's something that we can continue to to have conversations about in the capital. It is uh a bipartisan initiative. Uh and I'm hopeful that that is a flexibility that we can afford in the future. Uh, but I do also understand why folks would maybe have some hesitation about uh affording a school district the ability to do that without necessarily having to have it go to uh voters on a ballot. So, I think in this district, you all do a phenomenal job educating the public, getting their feeding, getting their feedback, having listening sessions, obviously taking things to voters when necessary. Um, but I think sometimes too when we vote you guys into the positions that you're in, we're also instilling a bit of

039trust in you to make those determinations and the calls that we need you to on behalf of our our students and schools and teachers and the financial uh situation of the district. So, I trust you all enough to uh have that ability in the future and maybe someday you will if we're successful. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. You can escape while we go get some sleep, I guess. Right. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. appreciate your work. All right, we're going to move on to the arena's annual report in 2026 budget. Mr. Burrquist, if you would. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for having me here to this evening. I am Joe Burrquist with the Lakeville Arenas. Um, I just have a little presentation to give you an update on where we've been

040this year and where we're at on our plans. Um, I know you have a lot on your docket tonight, so I will move as quickly as possible. Everything is in your packet and online for the public to see. So, um, I'll breeze through some of these without too much, but anyhow, let's get started. Uh, there we go. Um, I like to start out everything for the public's uh, benefit is we are a joint powers agreement between the city and the school district. Um, which means I report to a board. Uh, one thing unique is we do not operate, our operating funds have never had to dip into city or school district funding. Um, since 2007, its inception, we have been able to cash flow uh, the facility even after COVID, we did not need any

041operating funds. Now, debt service, you all help with debt service as well as the city. Whoops, I went the wrong way. Uh I we have been very successful since COVID. Um and I'd like to point out my staff. We have seven full-time staff members and three key part-time staff members. Um none of this would have happened that I'm going to be talking about a little bit without them. Uh and they are crucial as well as our partnerships. The city owns the buildings. you uh and you both share the debt service on the uh the new facility at HSI as well as the new pavilion rink or not the pavilion rink but uh some of the remodeling and so forth we've done LHA is a major partner for us we they are constantly helping us improve

042the facilities they're paying for part of the pavilion ring 1.5 million they're putting $85,000 towards that debt uh they purchased a brand new tre dryland training facility for 180,000. They just purchased scoreboards for 280,000. So they are very valuable partners uh with us. Other partnerships that are key, Heritage Figure Skating Club has been a part of the contributions, the Glenn Hassi family recently upped their naming rights and provided $250,000 for the naming rights. Align Health signed a $100,000 naming rights agreement for the new pavilion rink and South Metro uh South Metro Rental. I'd like to uh just touch on them. They do a trade with us, but they spend we do thousands of dollars of rentals, especially with the work we're doing outside. So, and then again, the Chamber of Commerce is very involved. We

043they promote us. We work with them on a lot of different projects. Uh we have a lot of public events. The biggest ones last year we were fortunate enough to get the Minnesota golfers and bumiji state playing at HI Arena as part of the Hall of Fame game and that was really exciting to a packed packed house. Figure skating club puts on a show every year. We have annual skate with Santa. Um, and Hockey Day Lakeville is a very big uh fundraising program for Lakeville Youth Hockey, but all the proceeds go to the the Hendrickson Foundation and so forth. None of that stays with Lakeville. So, that's a community giving. Um, which I think is very, you don't see that very often in hockey. Usually they hear fundraising, it's all for us. But they are

044a unique group. Next year we are getting a you know the you've probably heard that the international we're having an international youth tournament. Um the world juniors are coming to the Twin Cities next year and with that we were awarded two divisions compared to most organizations which only got one. So Lakeville is again high on that list. So our usage um Lakeville youth hockey picks up about 31% of our ice. Other rentals are about 25%. Public use, we have about 20% of that ice time is going for just general open to the public. Anybody that wants to come in for open skate or open hockey. Um, heritage figure skating has 6%, high schools by 12% and some of that is very valuable to us because it's before that 5:00 hour and that helps support us

045uh quite well. Our arenas programs, our learn to skate is one of the top in the in the state. We're usually number three. Um I believe we were three or two this year again. Um we have one of the largest. We've launched into our own other own programming. Uh you see learn to skate had 1,085 last year. Uh so that's grown considerably. We started some new internal might leagues which is for the little guys. And uh we've actually kicked off some camps this summer to fill that empty ice we're not utilizing. Overall, we kicked off and following COVID, we decided we needed to increase our revenue to continue doing more and on our own, not asking for more. Um, and these are just some numbers. Every uh area of the arenas has grown essentially this

046year at the end of this year, we will have doubled revenue since since co um and that's a big part of all the expansion and remodeling and we've been doing a lot of things with that money. Um, and there's just some of the things we've been doing. Uh, we've repainted the entire facility. That's all arena staff that did all that. Both facilities actually. We branded them in the school colors versus neutral colors as in the past. And you can just see by some of these slides many of the things we've done. We've uh renovations the locker rooms, new camera systems, video board wiring. We donated 30,000 for um light show installations and really it's we we had to buy a new Zamboni for the outdoor rink. We had to uh we're doing the re adding

047a whole bunch of locker rooms and warming houses and so forth on the pavilion rink ourselves and we've done a lot of landscaping projects. But ultimately that's where all this extra money is going. It's going back into the facility and back into the community. But more importantly, I think most importantly, we are transi trans transitioning to a full-time arena staff. Um, which now puts full-time staff members on site whenever anything is going on. In the past, it was almost always almost all part-time individuals and, um, just the care of the facilities, the facility equipment is being cared for much better now. And I think our customers are far more taken care of. So, um, you all have a copy of the budget. Um, and that's really what I'm here for is to submit that budget

048uh for your review or comment on it and any other questions you may have. Director Anderson. So, I'm the person who serves as the board member. Um, and I just want to compliment Joe. Um, you have done a very good job across many years as I've seen with reviewing the budget. Um, just keeping a very tight budget and with your goals of increasing revenue, you've found ways to really take care of the hockey community here in Lakeville. So, I'm just very proud of the work you've done and as a hockey parent want to also compliment you. Um, so yes, the budget Mr. Bowman was at the last meeting too, but um, tight budget, well run. So, thank you. Yes. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Appreciate it. Oh, D Thompson, just a Joe. Joe, one question.

049Joe, just just a quick followup question. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I don't have devices. Um so I saw the budget that we're we're projected about 2.3 million or so and obviously significant revenues from the past three years of or two years of 1.1 or something like that. Mhm. Uh so we were able to double it. Uh to level set expectations is like is like how much more are you guys expecting to go because as I think about additional revenue, I think about additional costs for our community and external partners that are trying to rent and borrow and and um uh use use a facility. So yeah, are we do is there a forecast of of your or of this of these facilities like there's a opportunity of $5 million or is an opportunity of three. Is

050the 2.3 uh something that that we can expect to be consistent now that you're going to have a full-time staff now that you're going to have whatever because there isn't we're not adding more buildings. So uh no uh there's actually quite a bit more room. One of the things that's helped us with this expansion is going from all three sheets are now year round. Um, and that's where we drive a lot of our extra revenue to put back towards the community. The winter time is full, but um, so we still have a lot of room throughout the year, so we will continue to see this growth probably for several more years. Um, and yeah, it will continue to grow, especially the new pavilion rink, uh, because we're gonna be doing a lot of stuff in

051for the communitywide with that in the off season from, you know, graduation parties to concerts. Panaprog is using it this year. We probably going to be doing some pickle ball. So, we're really excited about the expansion there to be able to make it available to all the community versus just hockey or just figure skating. All right. Thank you. All right. And board will be approving that budget at the next meeting. So it'll come before the board. All right. Safety and security. Is it Damian Nelson? Good evening everyone for directors. Superintendent Bowman. Thanks for the opportunity to talk again tonight. It was just a few weeks ago. I introduced you guys a little bit to of another safety layer, but this one's going to be a little bit different and and I'll walk through that with

052you guys. Uh, but it was fun to hear about, you know, the students capping off their school year and going off to what feels like a summer and eternity of fun and all those things, but for us it feels like a four-week window to jam a square peg into a round hole, to be honest with you. And I know our district office team can relate to that. Um, I want to talk just briefly a little bit about what I'm going to cover. And we know that safety and security is a top priority for the district. That hasn't changed. That's remained one of our top goals and priorities in the entire time that I've been here. But, uh, it's important to talk a little bit about, uh, I'm going to I'm going to talk to you

053guys a little bit about the comprehensive security and safety plan. What does that actually look like? But I'm going to get a little bit more specific and granular and intention around physical security. So, uh, understand that there's a lot more layers. There's a lot more partners and and things that go into making sure you understand that full comprehensive approach that we have, but I don't represent all those layers and they will be in front of you, I'm assuming, at some point in the near future. Uh, I do feel like a little bit of a disruption to all the budget conversation, so hopefully that breaks it up for you a little bit. So, as you guys kind of know, there's really no single overarching thing that a district can do that would represent we hit that

054checkbox, we're safe, everything's good to go. And the interpretation and understanding of safety as it relates to us is we've got a perspective from staff, caring for our children, and looking out for them. Got district office teams that focus and fly at 50,000 feet and look at how we doing what we do. Are we doing the right things? Where do we where do we need to apply pressure? where do we need to focus and also that sense internally for everyone that meaning is a little bit different. Some of it is satisfaction through seeing there's parts, there's pieces, there's things out there that we know are protecting us. And some of it is an internal feeling that I understand it. My best interest is kept in mind. It's that that feeling we have inside that this

055is a good place to be, which significantly contributes to the environment that we know our kids will succeed and go on and grow. And that's that's ultimately our goal. We don't want these efforts to be super visible and present. Uh we want them to be in the background. We don't want them to be super visible because uh that's not a distraction that we want to have in our buildings. Now, everyone has access to social media and watches the news and we know some of the uh intensity and some of the emotion that's driven by these things. And part of tonight is to make sure we talk a little bit about what some of those things are that are out there. and understand this is the end of the school year and we're talking about what

056we have in place, but our commitment to community is not just our school day. Now, that's been a large part of our effort because of the I'm going to walk you through a little timeline and information of where we are today and how we got there, but our commitment exists within our communities too for all the facilities use. And we have an enormous amount of things happening in the schools in the mornings, during our school day, in the nights, and for sure in the summers. So, that being said, oh, I'm going the wrong way. Oh, going the wrong way. I think sorry. Which direction is forward? Your guess is as good as mine. It's There you go. There you go. I'm really not touching anything. I'm really not trying to. I got to go back

057one. My apologies. Which chart do you want? I want comprehensive security plan next. There you go. Thank you. Maybe I'll just leave it to them. Okay. So, I I mentioned a little bit about comprehensive security plan and there's an enormous amount of partners, but when we talk about it encompasses district-wide programs. I talked about that. We have early ski early early school pro uh programs and activities through night use and uh facilities use with renters. Welcome. So, but the part one of the parts I want to talk about this is what as it relates to tackling a comprehensive plan that means having the ability to intersect potential risk and crisis anywhere in the continuum of issues from early detection when we're seeing behavioral changes or some red flags risks in content that's surfacing searches that

058are happening on computers to you know almost uncontrollable scenario area where all of a sudden an issue is in front of us and there's an enormous amount of work that goes into the prevention side. It's not what I'm here to talk to you about tonight, but it' be remiss of me not to at least say there's a lot of work that goes into that and I and I mentioned a lot of those partners and if you look at who's responsible for this. We know everyone is. As a school board, you guys have a commitment to safety and all the departments have some level of participation and support of our safety initiatives. Uh, but it ranges from IT to our student services departments and our core teams that represent our crisis response teams. And when you

059think about some of those things, if I was to just list a few, we're talking about work, mental health and behavioral teams, our school counselors, our psychologists, threat management, threat assessment process and procedures, the student intervention strategies, and and lastly, our inclusive environments, the things that make us feel like we belong, the things that make us feel like we're welcome in this environment. So even though I'm talking to you about things that are very specific and they feel like they're the hardening of schools and they're the physical security aspects, no, there is an enormous commitment and a lot of work that goes into that early detection and prevention side which ultimately is our priority. And in the reactive responsive, which I'm going to get into next, that's really the work that goes around some of

060those like physical barriers driven by systems that prevent exposure or vulnerabilities that reduce time or the ability to respond. It's really the physical security parts that I'm talking about and those are potentially the uncontrolled environments that aren't staffed by people where we have some of that risk or potential exposure. Just a basic example, we don't want people roaming our halls during the school day in any of our schools without having been vetted or expected to be there. So, we have barriers and things, the inability to get into the schools um and access the schools without working through that vetting process. When you talk about teams, tools, and partnerships, uh it's for example, I I mentioned the crisis response team. So, we've got sort of a few of us in our respective areas in those disciplines

061that focus and respond and react to some of these things. We're sort of the data collectors of seeing what's happening, what's potentially escalating and circulating around in the schools that we have to either develop plans, initiate response for, support the schools, and get on site just depending on what the potential issue is. So again, it's those dedicated teams and making sure that we have those that support structure in place if we're needed in the schools. Uh but again, you know, I mentioned that there's a lot of partnerships, there's a lot of resource needs. There's a lot of things that happen. We have to rely on other departments, other specialty positions to make sure that you we're not an exclusive group that runs around and tackles all this stuff on our own. We need to leverage

062all these people in their areas, whether it's teachers and the amount of information they have. Their connection to the kids is critical. We don't have that or the psychologists who do that, you know, mental health support and behavioral evaluations and those things. So, do I dare touch this? Oh, you already did it. So, now I'm going to get into that little granular approach. This is the physical security. I'm going to mention a few of the things that we have. This isn't absolutely everything, but these are really the highlight pieces that I'd want to make sure that we get a chance to talk about uh that do some of that protection and support that I was mentioning earlier about sort of the uncontrolled areas or some of the tools we have to make sure that that

063risk and vulnerability isn't breached. So visitor management and access for those of you who have students in in our schools have experienced this, but this ultimately is the vetting process that we have to make sure that if someone shows up and they're not scheduled to be there or even if they are scheduled to be there, we have the opportunity to evaluate what the reason is they're there for potential risks that may be associated to some of the visitors. uh we can for example track uh we can input information in to flag potential visitors against court orders of protection and different things legal things that would not allow them to be on school property are not allowed to have contact with students. So when we think about somebody just coming in and having access that shouldn't.

064Now it's a partnership piece with uh law enforcement and some of the legal teams, but uh that's certainly how we do some of those protection and vetting to make sure that if someone is in the building that they're supposed to be there and we can document and validate that uh they are in the building if we ever have to, you know, take any level of emergency response. Communication systems. These would be the things you guys expect. Um, you've got our PA systems that obviously they're used on a daily basis as just part of our normal routine to, you know, potentially saying, uh, we need a student to come down or some announcements from the principal to the students. Um, or in emergency situations, the capacity and capability to make sure that we're connecting with the

065teams to give them information as it relates to what the school is experiencing or some of the protocols we need them to follow. In addition to that, within the communication systems, I'm going to talk a little bit about timelines in a future slide, but it was making sure that we had consistency through the district, and one of them would just be communication tools, specifically all the same equipment as it relates to just walkie-talkies, a simple thing that we know exists in every school and every district for the most part. Uh, but years ago, they were just purchased on their own. they were, you know, buying things from Amazon or Radio Shack or different stores and there was no consistency or ability for us to track and monitor. How do we bring that communication need together

066and make sure if we need to reach the buildings, you know, through integration and other things that we could actually do that with good quality equipment. Uh card access and control systems. This isn't this isn't new to the district, but at the time when we started initiating a lot of our uh new lockdown system, it was one solid central system that was sort of the brains and the hub of all the information movement that we had including card access. But this system ultimately allows us to leverage users and access folks that uh come and go through the schools at different times. So we can set all the intervals, all the access and permission levels. We control different aspects, locations throughout the building to make sure that if if someone shouldn't have access, they don't have

067access to those things. And again, it's closing those gaps of vulnerability and risk to make sure that there isn't unneeded exposure or uncontrollable exposure that we can't manage. I I do want to mention one thing to you guys. I heard in one of the last presentations about uh the grant for lockboxes. Uh, I don't want to squash some of their great opportunity, but all of our law enforcement in Lakeville have direct access to our schools currently. Our system, we plan to integrate our system into there. So, they they have the capability to get in anytime to respond to our buildings if they need to. Thought that'd be important to note for you guys. Uh, multi-layered lockdown system. Oh, excuse me. Uh, cameras and surveillance. Uh the the reason we bring that up is that's a

068pretty common tool that we would expect to see to track, monitor, investigate, and research issues that we have in the schools. Uh but when I started in the district, we only had four buildings through the entire district that had any level of cameras, and they were kind of spotty at at best in some of the locations. So making sure that we have a minimum standard and an expectation that we essentially could track the movement of an individual from anywhere in the building to make sure which is going to play a role in our lockdown system for that investigation and that evaluation to determine uh what the risk is, where the risk is and and doing that evaluation. But as you would expect, we've got runners in the schools. We've got things that they need to

069look at based on staff and student interactions. And uh it's a great resource and tool to make sure that they can in real time either watch and observe or go back and investigate issues that they have. Multi-layered lockdown system. I'm going to go more into detail on that, but uh there's just some talking points and specifics that you're going to see in a video next that I've started to show I think three times already. But uh and then burglary and intrusion systems. You know, when we talk about ensuring that we have consistency through um start to finish from sun up to sun down, we've got low occupancy times throughout the district where we've got limited staff and they're in there. And then we have times where there's no one in our buildings. So, we want

070to make sure that uh there's no ability to get to our buildings. There's no concern that there's someone lurking or looming in the schools that had entry or access to the buildings. So we've got that system in place. So really that that now sort of touches from that sun up to sun down ensuring that we have tools and systems to make sure that we can monitor that stuff. All right, Director Thompson. Question on the physical security space. Uh do we do you have do bathrooms fall under this category or is that another page in your slides that you'll be Yeah, bathrooms, locker rooms. Do we what kind of security protocols do we have in place in those kind of uh spaces that are a bit more private? Oh, sure. I I see what you're saying.

071So, as it comes to surveillance, obviously, we don't pursue any surveillance in bathrooms or locker rooms. You know, if you were if you were to look at sort of where the capability of putting surveillance in is be anywhere someone could essentially observe a space without violating any privacy or concerns against that, we would be able to place cameras. But for those reasons, they're not in bathrooms, they're not in locker rooms. Are you thinking about lockdowns? Yeah. Lock down. Not not lockdowns, but I think it I guess is like what are we doing to um is your scope of responsibilities also include bathrooms? So, while we may not have cameras there, um does your team ensure the safety of students that go in and out? And the reason I ask is that I believe that uh

072uh in in Lakeville South, you've got one SRO who is a male and obviously that male can't go into the females restroom. Yeah. when there may be uh situations in there for whatever like for vaping or or I don't know. So, so I guess my question is does security physical security as that say does bathrooms fall within the scope of your responsibilities? If not, which is fine, does someone else have that covered? Yeah. So, here's how I'd speak to that. the buildings have um on-site security staff that they're either patrolling the halls, they're helping support the SRO's specifically in incidents where they might need access to a you know a male going into a female's lock room. So they they'll work with each other in that sense to make sure that that capacity or capability

073is done. Uh but one of the things that isn't listed in here is we we do have vape detection in the bathrooms uh that provides notification to the buildings in the event that the system triggers. So they have the ability to potentially watch for some of the concerns that we know happen in the buildings by systems monitoring and if it's physical presence is needed they work together with that security team on site to make entry and you know investigate. So, so to confirm, we've got um devices in there that can capture things that shouldn't be going on in the bathrooms from smoking and and vaping. And then you've got protocols in place where there's adults that are supervising and watch and ensuring and walking the grounds that nothing's happening within the bathrooms at the middle

074school, high school levels and so forth. So, great. Thank you. Well, go ahead. Sure. I mean, like let's be candid. I mean, if it's happening, it's happening. And I think like you're saying it's not happening because we have protocols in place. Is that true? Let me just interject here. I don't think he said nothing is happening. What he said is he's not responsible and what the protocols are. The challenge we have actually is how much security can we afford to put physically on the ground? I know that there's there can be access control to the the uh we call them bathrooms, right? Um there there are there is that admin uh for dean for uh APS uh principal uh other staff have the ability to I think your term was make entry. Um but it

075is not perfect. Uh I know some schools have have badging. I know some schools lock bathrooms during certain times of the day. uh and I should say districts. We're we're um I believe we're underst staffed in that capacity. Um but I do know that there's concerted effort and we kind of know where the spots are too, which is another challenge that that I think you have. Uh I can talk to you about South all day long. Um but I I just want to be clear on the fact that uh it's not nothing going on. There are things going on. We do know that. So So then do we and I I don't I apologize going down the rabbit hole, but do we have are we tracking those uh infractions so that we are looking historically

076to say, okay, it's getting worse and we need to do something about it. I mean, wow, good that we've got a vape machine there, but if people are still vaping, the vape machine's there. It doesn't if we're not doing anything about it, then why do we even have the machine? Well, my understanding uh from talking to principles with vaping is that they're putting the cartridges down the toilets and that's the bigger issue. It also has a financial component to it because you have to do repair. Um as far as incident tracking, that's all part of our our required process. Um once you once you identify that you have a problem and in a specific area uh our mitigation like it's limited because you you in my opinion you need physical presence or you need to

077lock it off and locking it off is has another component to it of actual just legitimate use of a latrine or a bathroom right so for another day I guess. Okay. Yep. Try this again. There we go. Uh, so I want to walk you guys through a little bit of a timeline. And this this is I'm not going to say this is old news, but obviously with a replacement of the board, we did work through this process through these years that we're going through this with board updates, but I I'm going to try and sort of condense this and make sure you guys just have some perspective that we're extremely proud of the work that's been done and the progress that we've made both from staffing and initiative and protocol and response. But by no

078means is it is it done because the you know the the culture of the climate is ever changing. the technology and the resources are improving on the response side, but they're also changing on like student use side. So, to assume that we're always going to be able to capture and and uh be able to say we're effectively where we need to be, it's all it's kind of a moving target for a lack of a better way to explain it. Um, but this is just again a little bit of a recap of, you know, where we are today and and kind of the timeline that we got here. So in in 2018, um I joined the district and then in and correct me if I'm wrong, Superintendent B, but it it was the first ground at

079full position to to fly at that 50,000 mark and just say all right, a lot of efforts been done, the accumulation of security and safety efforts were done by uh you know admin teams just a group that was put together and trying to make progress. So the introduction of my role into the district was to start to say all right what's the data where do we need to be how are we going to get there have intentional time and direct focus to make sure that we're headed in that direction and and we make that progress that's needed and certainly at that time it was recognized that Lakeville was just exploding there was so much growth so much coming up the district clearly was going to be one of the big districts um in size and

080in growth so making sure that that that focus and that priority was there was kind of the launch of the first position Uh so in 20 between 2018 and 2019 the discussion was you know the evaluation and the assessment of what's the district doing what are some of the things that we need. Uh we recognized we're going to go out for referendum and referendum was going to include uh the lockdown system which we'll talk about in a little bit. But in addition to that uh it was also recognized that additional staffing was needed. really wasn't a oneperson thing and we needed expertise in some of the uh behavioral and threat assessment support. Now that work was happening uh you know with the behavioral support a lot of those things were in place but to make

081sure that it was captured through the lens of the safety needs and some of those safety risks and things that we were seeing change that was the introduction of the threat assessment coordinator to help to help capture that and ground that team a little bit further. the surveillance system roll out in timing was one of the initial uh notices or sort of uh needs in the district was inconsistency specifically within that coverage and conversations that I had you know in this previous stint with superintendent Bowman was there was an idea of where we were headed with things and that included having consistent and streamlined infrastructure to make sure that when we made this leap and this change that we would have certainly what we needed to make sure that it would support the integration and

082the growth in the direction we were headed for for security. So, it's only worth noting in there one that it didn't exist in some of the buildings and it was like I mentioned earlier to capture that we need a minimum standard of at least being able to track and monitor the building in 2019. Uh obviously the work on what our approach was going to be for the request for the board to approve referendum for our community um was was captured. Uh it was in fall of 2019 that we went uh for that staffing increase and as well as the uh lockdown system which we'll talk about in a little bit which the board approved and subsequently went out to the community and the community was on board in our our initiatives to make further progress

083in both of those in 2019 and 20 uh lockdown infrastructure design and coordination and final planning. Now it it's it was a lot of work. It was evaluation of each building. Each building had to see where some of the risks were, what like just the material and the construction of the walls and things for the ballistics and stuff we were going to put in. Uh it's bringing on board the uh architectural firm W did a lot of the design work for us to make sure that as we got through the planning stages uh we were able to make sure it met code and you know would support the weight of installations and different things that we were going to be doing. Now really I I I would say it was it was a portion of

0842020 where we're starting to launch the construction but really through 21 and 24 all the security construction and implementation was happening. And when you look at you know we we leaned pretty heavily and if there's any silver lining in COVID it was that we had the opportunity to have access to the buildings during the school year for construction which is not normally done. Uh but we leaned pretty heavily on that like I said to launch all of this uh construction. So there's an enormous amount of work that went into you know tearing out walls, rebuilding this stuff, putting in all the infrastructure, um the cabling and pathway, all the stuff that we had to do. Um, and I'm not going to sequence you through all the buildings that we did, but ultimately the the idea

085was how could we streamline this the fastest to do it as quickly as we could to leave as few gaps so we didn't have buildings with such a long lag time from one being online to another waiting to come online. That was unavoidable to a certain degree, but that was looking at where do we have consistent buildings like uh Lake Marian, Cherry View, and Lake View all are like footprints and patterns. So we had an opportunity to sort of streamline and effectively launch faster there or Oak Hills and East View. So that was kind of the positioning to make sure that we could do it the fastest over the course of that three and a half years or so. So now I'm going to dive a little bit into this lockdown system for you guys

086with a video. In Lakeville area schools, we have a multi-layered approach to safety and security. Our number one goal and focus is always about prevention. We have many systems in place to monitor for red flags, risks, or warning signs long before they become a serious incident. It starts with our anonymous tip reporting system. There's an app called P3 that allows students, staff, and families to easily report any concerning activity or behaviors they see or hear about. School and district staff receive those P3 reports and are able to communicate back and forth directly with the submitter and quickly investigate, research, track, and take action as needed. This allows us to determine how to best support a student or take action to an escalating situation. We have digital security tools that monitor different types of searches and

087emails that are being sent by students. This technology monitors and looks for concerning content that might indicate risks or warnings that we can then respond to before things potentially escalate. We have dedicated staff and school resource officers trained to use these tools and investigate and respond to any concerns that surface. These prevention systems are part of our behavioral threat assessment management strategy. Threat assessment and anonymous reporting are best practices recommended by agencies like the FBI, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, and US Department of Education. But we also have physical safeguards in our schools in the event we have to react to an incident. Adding on to our existing safeguards like the visitor management systems, we are installing things like police buttons, protective panels, security window film, strobe light indicators, and magnetic door locks in

088classrooms and designated safe refuge spaces. Installation started in our high schools and we're moving through all of our remaining schools. In an emergency, a teacher can press the police button, which will immediately send an alert notification to police to respond to the school, which significantly improves police and emergency service response times. Simultaneously, magnetic locks on classroom doors and designated safe refuge spaces will activate so anyone posing a threat cannot get in. And emergency notifications will sound over the school's speaker system while visual strobe lights flash as well. There are ballistic panels that not only provide physical protection, but also eliminate direct line of sight into classrooms. Our district was one of the first in the country to install many of these protections together to function as one multi-layered system. They are protections we hope to

089never have to use, but protections we know are there when needed. By putting all these many layers of security in place, we've been able to greatly improve our ability to identify, react, and respond to potential threats and emergencies in Lakeville area schools. Anything yet? Damian, can I ask you about the P3 app? I feel like I've seen that before, but can't remember when. How do we inform parents and students about the app? Yeah. Yeah. So there there's another uh support function to the crisis team that manages that more closely, but I but what I can tell you is that that's accessible on the district web page. It's communicated out I I don't know what intervals throughout the year, but it's it's made accessible to them through our online platforms and some of the communication that

090goes out annually. Do you have any idea of how many reports we get through the app like on a monthly basis? I I'm not I would be guessing a little bit if I did. It's It's a lot. It's frequent. Um there's a lot of information that circulates. Um I I don't know, Michelle, if you have any. Yeah, we we can come up with some of that information and get back to you and let you know just what that frequency is. Director Thompson. Yeah, I was going to ask a similar question as uh I'm not familiar with the P3 app. Maybe it's on my son's iPhone. May maybe not. Um probably not because I check his phone. Uh, is it on is it on iPads on all the students iPads as well so that they can

091click and do whatever they need to do to make a report? I'm pretty sure it is. I can double check that for you as well. U, but the the app is downloadable for any anyone if they choose to, you know, put it on their awesome on their devices. Yeah, we can we can take that offline and look at the data because it would be interesting to hear or see um the kind of responses and then what kind of trends that we're seeing over the past couple years and and if they've become non-physical but more emotional trends uh and so forth. Uh but I do want to just circle back it because I am not very wellversed with the referendum that passed in 2018ish or 19ish or so. um ballpark. How much did we allocate towards

092the security of of um how much of that referendum was was security focused? Do you because I know I I heard that I saw I read that it said supporting staff as well. I'm trying to I'm trying to crunch some numbers in my head briefly. Does anybody know what that was for? Bill that the dollars that were put into the physical buildings was $14 million. So So we didn't get we didn't we didn't ask for a levy for 14. We asked for a certain amount for over a 10-year period. Correct. No, it was a one time budget. It was a one time for $14 million for the implementation and then we invested all that over about a three-year period over. Okay, got it. And so then is then what is the ongoing maintenance cost for

093this tool or if there is if there is one I mean the physical stuff is probably but there's basic upkeep of the tool. I don't know if there's a subscription fee that we have to pay for P3. I don't know if we do any kind of um uh uh negotiation because if it's the only tool that we use and and then lastly, can we jump to another tool? Is there a competitor where we can actually do competitive bidding or is this a one-of-a-kind and we are locked in with this particular rate and this cost and this tool. So just again I I don't know. So I'm just asking. Yeah. So I what I would tell you is uh you know our threat assessment coordinator does manage that system as well as the contracts and the

094other opportunities of tools that are out there available to that. They've done that vetting process. I can't speak to it but I I can't say when but I understand that that team uh will certainly prep them with some of the information when they get in front of you guys to circle up on this stuff specifically. Uh but they'll have all that data. So we don't have that information right now. Yeah, I don't. Yeah. And this video was made. You can see we started with the high schools, but it's a few years old and it was during the implementation process. So each time we've layered this out, we didn't want to miss the mark and making sure that they understood it wasn't just physical security, it was also some of the supporting roles and other things

095that were out there. Yeah. I mean from the video and just from the initial observation I think anything that we can do to ensure um you know uh bolstering our safety and security having an electronic tool an online app or whatever it may be you've got the facilities and the physical components I think that makes sense. I think we also want to just make sure that you know costbenefit analysis wise you know now the $14 million is spent and it's done uh what is the ongoing expenditures for something like yeah so if I uh I can tell you with P3 there's a couple elements to it the the the simple answer is yes competitive bidding process is a thing uh the what you have to manage in all this is if if I tell you

096it's P3 today and I tell you it's Q4 tomorrow you lose you lose the the uh uh fidelity of the reporting system. Um so that's one one of the factors that you have to take into consideration with it. Almost every software model that I know of in public education is based on a per pupil basis and it's a fee uh per student. For example, uh $2 per student or $10 per student. Um and obviously there are there are competitors out there. Um, we we landed on P3 a while back. Um, I don't I don't uh I don't recall the other um systems we looked at. Uh but we'll we'll certainly bring back to the board a layout of what that is exactly. Um the ongoing costs I think are more in our camera and our

097server support for those kinds of things. Our access control systems, the actual lockdown system is uh the reason it was purchased on a oneandone is because it does not have those standard kinds of upkeep levels that most of the systems that you do buy have. Um it also is physical structure more than it is um software structure um or electronics. Um so I where school districts I think get ongoing costs is when they when they just do cameras or they just do access control systems because those change the software has changed. Um we do have access control in this district um that that was brought in around 2017 18 I don't remember exactly I can tell you the story behind it but you don't want to hear it um bottom line is uh our surveillance

098system is what was I think hugely lacking a lot of disparity there a lot of inequity there also no baseline and I think uh Damian talked to that but that's has a maintenance component to it yeah just to clarify clarify because I think Brian was asking this. So the physical system, the lockdown system that was put in place, um we're not obligated to like pay some sort of subscription fee for any programming related to the company that installed that. Correct. I I'll go back and double check, but I'm not aware of any there's there's no programming. Um, we do have I think uh I can't recall what the it's a discharge system uh in the SIS. Yeah. Yeah. Um but those get checked. I don't think they the maintenance on them would only be if

099they were discharged. Yeah, but those are right. Obviously, you'd have to replace them if it's if it's released. Um, we don't need some special software in order to make it so you press the button, it calls the police. No, the the one component to this though, it's it's jumping a little bit ahead of something I was going to tell you guys. But when it comes to this system from its design, it's it's important to note that it's it's leveraged or leaned against like a fire alarm system. And the reason that's relevant is because a fire alarm system has the ability for any device to be addressed. Meaning if anything should happen within that system, the system knows exactly what device that is and where it's located. So it can communicate and report back your failure

100is here, your issue is here. Or in a lockdown system case, if it's activated, it will say your activation was here. So there's just a monitoring fee just like our fire panels have it. In fact, it's monitored the exact same way and and communicated either through activation or troubles and needs and support needs through that way. But that doesn't require someone to go in and upload firmware and and do those things. Okay. Sure. Director Thompson. So the the only two things that that that I want to just highlight is that um part of their data analytics component, you know, being able to leverage P3, getting that into Campus Infinite and being able to see holistically what's going on at a macro view for our district would be something that that I think we should consider

101as well. or maybe campus has a a P3 component like that where we might be able to discontinue it since all students pretty much have schoolology or campus on their phones or or iPads in some capacity. And then lastly, you know, I appreciate these overviews that we've done over the past couple weeks or over the past couple months. U but I I I think the biggest issue for me and just from a school board perspective is um I see the things that we're doing, but I'm not seeing the cost of what it takes to do those things. And so while I see the security components and we're showing all these good things, um I for me to just get that whole picture, it would be good to know like what is the security budget for

102our school district and by and if you had that budget in that budget code, we should be able to very cleanly go down line by line and say the subscription costs this much, this thing costs this much, the staffing of our SRLs cost this much, and our overall security budget costs this. And so while you're not I'm not saying you're not prepared, but uh we're not reviewing that today, but for me in the future, it would be good to see that holistic picture uh as we are uh reviewing our our 26 budget that's going to have, you know, $300 million. Now, I'm not saying we need to get down to the intricate details every dollar spent, but conceptually at a macro view, uh it would be good to know, you know, what are we spending

103on on this budget? because we'd be able to, you know, articulate the subscript the subscription cost $250,000 or not. So, for another time. Yeah, absolutely. We can organize that for the future. Uh, as far as you getting a little perspective on that just parts and pieces of the system. A few things that I I want to point out about it though are that when you look at the things that it streamlines and where it has an enormous amount of benefit is there is an immediate notification capability that exists for notification to law enforcement. So that activation on that police button sends a signal to a dispatch as soon as it's pushed with the information what the location is the room that it was activated and that uh law enforcement is needed for the lockdown system

104activation. So, you know, in when you think about other practices or protocols that you have, often times you find that someone is responsible for that information has to get to someone for them to pick up the phone, dial 911, and make sure that if any information is known, it moves to the right uh place. Director Baker, do staff have access to when that alarm goes off so they know where in the building that occurred? Yes, they do. Okay. So when it comes to well you know without going into enormous amount of detail the first activation of any button uh reports back to the operation center and the operation center is where administrative teams go in to essentially navigate and investigate the incident to broadcast information communicate to staff recognize and see where the issue had

105potentially started. So it has to go through someone else before staff are notified. No. So if you're talking about the specific location, so my so my thought is like the alarm goes off in third grade, right? Yeah. Um how do all the other teachers in the building know that something happened in third grade? Because then that's telling them maybe stay away from that part of the building. Where are my other students that may be in different parts of the building? um just the logistics of that because if if it has to go over the speaker for the elementary school then we're also losing time. So what here's how I'll respond to that is anytime one of the police buttons is activated an audible message over the PA says the system's been activated as well as

106the visual aspect of the blue strobes. So the idea of the exact location isn't what's broadcasted over there. It's it's immediate notification to them that they need to follow protocol, activate their buttons, get into their secure spaces, and await further information. Okay. And the strobe has to be part of the system. I'm sorry. The what? The strobe lights have to be part of the system. Well, we have situations where, you know, people can't hear the audio, so it needs to also have the vis the supplemental visual with it as well, just like our fire systems do, right? Okay. Thanks, Director Nicholson. Uh, Brian, to your question, page 42, 715. Um, in regards to training for staff, like what kind of training do we give staff, especially new staff coming into our buildings, do they get

107an overview of this is when to use these buttons, this is when to hit this button, this is when you can use that button, this is when you should notify. like how do you go through that process with especially new teachers to our district? Yeah. So we have access so every year we do a new teacher training. My portion of it to cover the system and explain parts pieces activation exactly what you just said. When building or excuse me when staff report to buildings for the start of the school year a buildingwide refresher happens as well where cover again not just the lockdown system some of it is protocol other emergency response tactics that we have. Then throughout the course of the year, they're doing lockdown drills to make sure that sort of the competency

108and the understanding is there as well. I'm going to talk a little bit about some other upcoming trainings that we have just in in the near future. It's just in a slide a little bit later if that Okay. Oh, where'd it go? I think we lost the slide. I didn't touch anything. Oh, click. There you go. Oh, there we go. So a little bit about system sustainability. Um I want to walk through a few things specific to this and it's dedicated monitoring in-house support. We actually hired and this this is a split between facilities and it uh we have a tech person who was part of the installation vendor or the vendor who did the installation actually was brought on to the district. So when we talk about knowledge and understanding of programming, system maintenance,

109system support, installation, all those things, we actually have someone in house who understands and knows the setup and design and of the system. In additional additional to that, we have monitoring. So on a daily basis, it has it set up. So if there's any system failures specifically with things like uh servers some of the other things that they monitor and track they get notifications whether it's you know this system or the card access systems or any other things. So we have you know real time ability to look at uh things we need to address versus staff reaching out to us and saying hey we're having some problems. We've had them all day long. We didn't have time to talk to you. Now, they do reach out to us. Of course, we want them to do

110that, but we also have the ability in the background to make sure that we're looking at the uh active use of the systems, self diagnostics, and notifications. I talked about this a little bit earlier, but like a fire system, anytime a part or a piece of this goes into trouble, whether it's a communication failure, a device failure, like a cabling, cabling gets grounded, the devices aren't talking back to the panel, it goes into a trouble alert, and then we get the notification real time just to let us know that a part or a piece of one of our systems is uh not talking to the rest. And that's where I was talking to you guys about it being like a fire system. All devices are addressable. So the system knows where each of these are

111and if there's a problem it will report back to the panel and then we'll get alarm monitoring notification that there's system issues. Uh this is just a note about like uh the question was um like kind of supporting the service and maintenance of this. Uh we do have funding earmarked within LTFM and just in deferred maintenance for the general sort of immediate needs that we have whether it's a replacement part or like some of these troubles or issues that we talked about. um district renovation uh renovation planning system inspections and preventative maintenance. Uh much like our fire systems, we do the same things. We have annual inspections of all the systems to make sure they're functioning on top of our daily monitoring of any potential issues that we have within the systems. Uh future system

112integration and upgrades is uh obviously there's work to continue on what we're doing. There's other integration interests that we have within the system to make sure that other devices are talking whether it's uh you know vape detection or camera systems to sort of lead in drive intelligenceled review of potential issues. That's that's the system identifying parameters that we set to capture video or other uh needs that we might have. So it's sort of waiting there for you in queue. Now these are future upgrades. Um we're we're making sure we're flushing and vetting this thing out fully as we have it up and running for one full year in all buildings. Um but that's just some of the details of where we're headed. So I'm going to talk a little so resources and next steps. This

113is a little bit about uh what was asked about for training uh but current resource availability. uh one of the things that staff have access to even though I talked about intervals where they would have the presence of one of us to say here what there's Q&A opportunity obviously but when it comes to what can they uh leverage themselves in the event that they want to uh you know learn more about it or get a refresh on it videos of all the parts and systems are landed on our uh staff internet that talk about system utilization and it describes parts and pieces it has a video of me walking through the activation kind of from start to finish. It talks about police buttons, uh the card access systems, just the functionality of all. There's about

114six or seven modules that are available to staff at any time if they want to refresh on any of these parts. Some of the next steps include uh emergency response team development. This is furthering not this isn't just a lockdown situation. It's building the teams to do some of the evaluation and understanding that are building specific because what we know are the designs are different the uh staff availability and staff sizes are different in each of the schools. So the idea of who they have access to what are uh some of the protocols and expectations they have just for example if they wanted to review where are all the building critical shut offs for gas, electric, those types of things. We want to develop a team that has the capacity to do those evaluations, those

115discussions um sort of at the team level. Yes. Quick question. So when you're dis when you're talking about that, are you available for building staff when they go through a drill like do you come in do a drill with them so then they can kind of find like the areas that you know we need some more work around or some more discussion about how to make our plans more you know workable. Yes, absolutely. In fact, since since we started the implementation or the launches of the buildings that went live, I've been present at almost every lockdown drill that they've conducted. Uh so, a little bit more drill practice and rehearsal structure development. It's part of that emergency response development. But what we're looking at doing is we don't want to present or have any gaps

116where staff have not experienced some level of, you know, the finger on the pulse of security. That's not necessarily all lockdown, but it's helping them time out and have intervals at every month. Every month having some touch point where we're talking a little bit about security, whether it's a lockdown drill, whether it's a fire drill, whether it's one of these emergency response teams meetings to talk about, recapping and evaluating incidents that they went through where they need to improve. It's really providing that structure to make sure that it's consistent through the district and there's intervals where staff are always having some level of exposure so we don't have those gaps where folks would say I don't remember how to do this. It's been a few months since we've done a drill or talked about, you

117know, uh, anything that they're working through security specific. Uh, tabletop exercises fall, uh, right in line with that. And that's really providing scenarios where we can introduce things like uh we want your team to work through an example where staff certain staff aren't present. Who are your next in lines? What are your plans to make sure that you've got support systems built in and how you're going to manage and navigate uh with just different uh sort of scenarios and variables that we can throw in with them that they can do those evaluations for. Uh districtwide program and collaboration for planning. That's a lot of effort has been done, you know, particularly in uh our evening areas and looking at consistency through our sort of security continuum, if you will, uh relating to making sure that

118we've got the resources, we got the people, and we've got the protocols and plans in place for response. You know, that can range from facilities use from our renters, community folks to our athletics teams and stadium events. Lakeville Partnership Police Training. This is one that we did a couple years ago. This is actually starting tomorrow. Uh but over the course of four days, every law enforcement officer is going to go through a scenario at our Lake View Elementary School uh where they do a response drill. Each officer will have three drills where they run through that has a different configuration somewhere in the building and our admin teams are going to be present to learn and understand how to navigate the dispatching of the arrival of law enforcement uh through the detection and identification of

119like a potential asalent um and leading and guiding them to that location just for that practical experience of understanding uh for a law enforcement side. What does it feel like to come into the building and see these systems live and going and uh administration to be able to understand the activation of the system, the utilization of the mic broadcasting, the cameras, all the research and evaluation through the course of event that gives them that kind of real-time experience. Obviously, there'll be no kids present for this. This is exclusive to law enforcement and our administrative teams. uh they're signed up on intervals throughout the course of the next four days uh to attend with the principal and their core teams to go through this exercise and experience. I think that would be a real beneficial opportunity

120to have the ability to navigate utilize the system without the stress or worry that there's consequences if you know if it isn't done really successfully or fast. All right. Well, that really wraps up the kind of the core pieces that I wanted to talk to you guys about as it relates to some obviously there's a lot of questions. I don't know if there's any more, but Director Cameron. Yes. Um, one thing you've noted and I think others, but I would be interested in learning more about our district's approach to prevention, risk mitigation. Um, obviously some of the things we're talking about tonight hopefully would be a last resort. Um, right. These are more like um response rather than prevention. Um, and so a couple things I'm interested in if we do is um well, one

121um when things are reported like through P3 and I know you're not in charge of this, so I'm just talking to talking to the world. um when things are reported in like P3 or other other um channels, how are we um supporting students who are maybe going through struggling times um to um get resources to them um to, you know, to hopefully address um their needs before issues become more intense. I'm also interested in um how and if we train all of our adult employees to recognize signs of distress um and um concern in our student body. Um we know students, they might reach out to a counselor if they're struggling. They might reach out to the gym teacher. It might be the janitor. Um, and I think, um, I think if you look at

122like evidence-based practice with with the topic that we're talking about tonight, um, making sure that kids have those systems of support welldeveloped is important. So, I'm hoping that our district um, takes a comprehensive approach to that. And then, um, finally, I know we've heard reports, I think, um, last couple months about like the data that we collect around FastBridge, like with SEAL, um, and also the student experience surveys. I'm interested to learn how does our district take those particular data sets and look at um gaps or um areas of concern within the district at the building level, grade level, whatever. And um how do we look at where might might there be pockets of concern and how do we allocate resources to address that as a district? So that's for a different time. Um I'm

123interested in all that and there's probably more to it than that. Um, but my other question, and Damen, this might be more to you, is um, I I voted for the referendum. I forget what year it was. It was on your slide. Um, and I I believe for a lot of our systems, um, there are lots of school districts using them, like P3 or our card access system. To my knowledge, um, I believe we're the only school district using this lockdown um, technology, and I I believe that's like where the bulk of the 14 million went. So, I'm curious like when we want evidence-based practices, how is our district approaching that particular um levy, that particular technology to make sure that we are buying products that are evidence-based and tested. Um, you know, we can

124be a leader and that might be one reason why um we're the only ones using it, but I also want to make sure we're not an island. Yeah. Yeah. I I I feel like I I understand the parts that you had asked for and I think the plan is to bring that team forward at a certain timeline when the district is pursuing some other internal trainings. Uh and I think it will clear up a lot of all the requests that you have and and I I can speak to it loosely but not to the level that they can answer your questions and confidence. You can't answer those. So um the her last question uh around uh being a leader versus being an island. Can you kind of explain how do you mean is Yeah. Well,

125and correct me if I could be wrong on any of this. Um but I believe for many of our systems that you mentioned like the card access and the the P3, there's many school districts who are using that. Um as far as I understand our lockdown system, we are unique. We're the only school district in the whole country that utilizes this technology. That's not correct. Um there are we are the only or only public education K12 system. There are some private uh systems or private schools that are using it. Um and to the issue of island or leader, a lot of leaders are on an island. So I I I I will do my best to try to paint that picture a little bit more holistically for you or any other board members. uh and

126also bring in our uh our other team that that deals with the the very important questions that you're asking because it's it's a yes and it's not an eitheror from my perspective if that's helpful. Yeah, that's helpful. Yeah. Sorry, I should have said I know we're the only public using utilizing this system. And so I think as our policy is around evidence-based practice, I just want to continue to make sure that we are vetting products that we are going out for bid on any anything, you know, even close. I mean, well under this amount, but certainly for a $14 million project. Um, and and hoping that that that's what we did. Um, and I'm curious to learn more about that. Okay. Director Anderson, thank you for shedding some light on kind of what's happening on

127the physical side of things. Um, I just want to kind of reiterate some of what you said and highlight. Um, I think this is important for our community just to be hearing. Um, I think about safety very broadly and especially when we think about the as you kind of started with evidence-based practice being more prevention, mitigation. um we have failed levies related to those kinds of efforts and that I think is what is probably most disappointing for me is knowing how strongly these kinds of um efforts get supported and that is the kind of um can feel in some ways can can feel like an illusion of safety like everything is okay when really that is the um like if we've gotten to that point where something like that is happening to me we've failed

128as a system so I like that It's the most reactive thing that we're doing. But, um, I just want to encourage our community to think about what we need to be doing on the prevention side of things, which means getting more behavioral specialists in the schools, which means having more um, opportunities for intervention before anything like this happens. Um, so I appreciate you highlighting that. I hope we do have more education on that and we need our community support behind that. So kind of thinking about a strategy for not just the bells and whistles technology but the people on the ground doing the work that that prevents us ever needing to do anything like this. Um so hope we can can aim for that. I do have a question so I'm not just commenting. Um

129if you know we this is all in capital levy coming up for vote um potentially if the board uh approves to put that on the vote the ballot this November. What is going to happen if the community does not approve um this le capital levy? Like how does that affect our budget essentially? Like do does this what would happen to this system slash would we have to make cuts elsewhere to continue to have the system run even though the community is not supporting it? Let's say that might be a bill question. Yeah. or if you have any one of just one of the things that I would mention is like like I like I said earlier there's we have identified sort of the the sustain the minimum sustainability through deferred maintenance for things that are

130already installed where we where I think we're going to encounter some troubles are future expansion renovations and remodels and different things where we have to do some new installations that then it becomes somewhat problematic thinking about what that fund has done to support us to make sure that if if and when we get to that situation that we have the funding capacity to do those things. In addition to that, there's some of the infrastructure that uh you know is does have a shelf life. So there's whether it's servers, some of the uh hard equipment that we have that are running um many of the systems that would need replacement as well. We're not at that point right now. Um a lot of this stuff is brand new and it's going to it's going to last

131a while, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to have failures throughout. So, I I will defer some of that to Bill, but I I do think that would be one of the challenges if that capital levy didn't get passed. Okay. Just I think it's good to put it out there. What is I mean for people to know how does this actually impact us on on every school level? um so that people know ex I mean obviously know exactly what they're voting for but and you know one of the things in that same sort of interest I would mention is that although these tools that I've talked about represent a pretty specific portion of physical security I I hope you do understand and recognize that they're used by our buildings and our teams on a

132daily basis for that investigative that research information they're not exclusive to we wait for something to happen then these tools become effective they're in use every today and they're even in use by our teams that support the evidence-based systems and and staffing that we have in here. So, they're using them, too. This isn't just exclusive to the tail end of an incident happening. Thank you. Any other questions for Damian? Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Mr. Mr. Homegrren, if you would. Chair Swanson's, members of the school board, Superintendent Michael Balmer, thank you for having us tonight. We get to talk about uh next year's budget. Um we had given you some preliminary numbers back in April. Uh now, um we have a draft budget to bring uh for you tonight.

133Um we have do have a balanced budget and we'll run through um uh the details. But first of all, I just want to recognize my staff. Um many many many hours have been put together over the last couple months to put this budget together. So I want to point out first of all Jack Baker, of course, our controller. If you look to the back side of the room, um our senior accountant Jill Daly would put your hand up. Hi. Okay. And then uh accountant Jackie Dulac. And then we have accountant um Tiffany Steer. Um um Shel's not here tonight, but she did a lot of work putting this book together, and we really appreciate their efforts all around. Now, this uh this enrollment projection, um we've been using this all year. We have not changed

134this. We have been when we look at when we look every week at what's happening with our enrollment and our enrollment as we come through this year is right on track um what we're seeing here. So, we expect next fall to be about 12,01. Yes. I I just kind of want to go on a little tangent here with the enrollment um because I have some questions and I think they're going to be future things that the board may want to address. Um but I've been doing some research into some of our numbers with enrollment within our district. Um looking at some of our protected populations, uh particularly special education and ELLL. Um when I looked over the past five years, and I've got this data back over 10 years, but I just want to look

135at the past five years. Um when we look at our enrollment from 2020, we were at um approximately 11,918 students or give or take some through that. Um when I pulled our special ed numbers for that year, we were at 1,788 students. Um so when I look at how our enrollment has grown um from 2020 to the current year and then our special education numbers have grown from 2020 to the current year. While enrollment grew approximately a thousand students, our special education numbers grew over 271 students and that was just based on our ch our October 1st child one count which was an increase of over 27%. Um, the reason I bring this up is because I'm looking at that just over the past five years and I'm also flipping through this book and looking

136at our staffing models for our teachers. And the reason that this matters to me is because we had over 20 positions in special education that we weren't able to fill this year. And it's not just that we can't find the people, it's that the people aren't applying. So why aren't they applying? And I think that's an important question that we as a board need to figure that out, too. Because if our numbers keep increasing like that, we're not going to be able to serve that population of students. So when I look at like the past 5 years for our special education numbers and I'm breaking them down by building, we really haven't increased our staff to account for the 271 students. So then I'm looking at our special education case numbers like case loads too

137high. And when I look in comparison to other districts, other districts have case load parameters that they put on much like we did as a district when we looked at elementary class load numbers. We said, "Okay, for this grade, we're not going to go over this number, and for this grade, we're not going to go over this number." I would really like to see like a report from our special services department on what their recommendations would be by program and level of need based on case load numbers. And I think as a district that's something we need to look at because I'm looking at this going this is unsustainable. Um I've seen this trend over 10 years. Now I'm looking at it growing almost 30% in 5 years. If that doesn't concern you, it should.

138Because that's not only like trying to fill our classrooms, but then I have to think about what's going on within our classrooms. Why are we identifying so many students? Is it our MTSS model? Are we not providing the right interventions? I mean, there's lots of questions that we could dive down and go down this rabbit hole. And like I said, it's a rabbit hole. I I understand. Um but I'm I'm really concerned about that when I look at our staffing models for next year, and I just don't see the increase in special education teachers to account for this many students that are being identified. Another area that I'm really concerned about is the ELLL numbers. Now, I remember gosh, I want to say it was like three weeks ago when they stood up here and

139they said how many languages are spoken within our district. And I remember that slide specifically because it was a lot. and all of our ELLL numbers for next year as far as staffing have goes have decreased. So then I look at how are we expected to get less kids qualifying for special education and our reading scores up like and our academic scores up like the board and the district want to do if we're not providing services for kids that can't even speak English with when they're within our buildings being taught during the day. Um so those are just some some really valid concerns that I have and like I said I've got all the data. I would love to sit down with the team and and look through it. Um but those the sped and

140the ELLL numbers for staffing for next year, like if this is our model, I know that we we're we're really tied on money. Um but we're never going to see those scores go up if we can't serve the students that are in front of us right now. Director Cameron, um just one more thing to add to what you said. I've had numerous questions in the last um two weeks from parents of uh special ed students who are concerned about our turnover with our special ed teachers as well. So I mean I think um director Baker in addition to needing to hire more um the turnover is something that is costly to the district and also um if we want to improve academic performance um having constant turnover for our kids isn't isn't um a recipe

141uh that will result in good results, right? And and I think it just leads to these are all the questions that I have. So why are we having constant turnover? Why can't we fill 20 positions? Um why do our numbers keep increasing? And if our staffing isn't increasing with the number of special education students that we're serving, I can see why they're not going to come here because it's too much for one person to do. Um, I just think that I would like more information and more data about that and I would like to see some recommendations brought to the board about um putting um parameters around specific case load numbers. Director Thompson, Director Baker, I I hear you. I do. And and I think um part of the budget exercise as a board that

142we have to approve and while um uh Mr. Grim, Mr. Mr. Baker, you guys have done a a great job in getting to getting us to where we're at. I I think there may be a desire for um more participation by the board or more knowledge gathering from the board on how the budget actually is formed. And so, while you guys have have had in the past shared that there is a cycle, you talk to the principles, you talk to the staff, and they provide you the recommendations of what they need for running their respective site. And so while we have while we hear it from our constituents around the the um maybe the some of the support gaps that we're that there are constituents are facing that we hear uh which may be a

143discrepancy from what your team might be hearing as the principles that are sharing this is what we need. This is the staff that we need. We can get by with this. And so I I mean it's not like I'm assuming you're making this up as you go. you're you're getting feedback from teachers and staff for this proposal. Uh but I would also am aligned with well this is the number I'd love to get to a place where we have zerobased budgeting where we can actually then you can quantify you can say this is how much we're spending for supplies this is how many teachers that we have this is how much we're spending for our teachers in this particular class uh and you start to horse trade within that respective building on the the top

144priorities and and and whatnot now it's a longer exercise but that is an exercise that that I've have seen successful in on the corporate side. Uh but but I think there's two different things going on here. You've got a recommendation by the administration as they've talked to the staff and and their teachers and then we've got a different year which is what we're seeing what we're hearing from our community and there seems to be a discrepancy. I don't know how to solve that but I don't know. That's what I hear. Yeah. Let's Well, can we ask Bill? I mean, how do you come up with the numbers as far as staffing and because I'm assuming you're not coming up with the numbers saying we know you can't have more special ed teachers. The business office

145is not coming forward with a recommendation of what the staffing should be. We are counting the staffing and we're creating a budget with the staffing that we receive. So, the true staffing budget is coming with a discussion between the HR department and the principles in the buildings to look at the staffing needs in that particular building. Um, we then receive of course what the staffing needs are and we put the budget together accordingly. I I agree with you. I'm just saying that this is a decadesl long problem that's that I have the data to show that's been going on in Lakeville and we as a community, as a district, as a board at one point made it a priority that we were going to look at classroom numbers for elementary school and cap it at

146a certain point. I'm looking at our numbers right now for special education and saying we need to have the same conversation. Um, and part of that's because this these programs are mandated by law, right? Like there are federal laws or state laws or everything around special education here. So if our intervention groups are smaller than our special education classroom small groups, that's a problem because that's no longer individualized instruction, which it says at the top of the IEP, individualized education plan. that is something that's a little bit more, right? So, I just think we need to look at things a little bit closer. I'm just asking for more information on it and and what the um what the plan would be to help relieve some of the pressure on our special education teachers to reduce

147the size of the case loads. Are there ways that we could be more creative with our programming? Are there ways that we could um serve our students by providing more LEAF support or more pair of professional support so we're not putting so many kids in restrictive classrooms that we need to cap it like eight. Um so I I just think we need to have a bigger discussion on that as a as a district and as a board. Um and I would love more information on it. Just so I'm clear. You're not asking Bill, you're just asking generally. Okay. Yeah, we can definitely put that on the agenda for something to discuss. Dr. Anderson, this kind of reminds me when we were going through the budget cuts and I don't mean to bring up a very

148awful process, but like the emails we would get from so many different people about why advocating for their own positions and your heart goes to every person who emails and every thing that was written to us during that time. And so I think maybe a just because I'm I'm not trying to minimize what you're bringing up because I think it's really important and at the same time I also think there are so many priorities in the district what we have talked about even establishing our own uh priorities as a board um there are many needs and so to me a perhaps a what I would add to that is is there a way that we can see the priorities of the district Mr. Bowman from the 50 foot or 50,000 foot view um to at

149least have an idea of what the really critical needs are and ways that we can figure out as a board how to support them as we move forward. Um so not trying to minimize the highlighting of the special ed because I think that's super important and there are multiple priorities that probably deserve some attention. So, not for us to dive deep, but just for us to see what's going on in different departments that seem to be what are the critical needs from each department at this time. Kind of like when the principles were talking to us, what they want like what's their Well, it would be fair to have the elementary principles be able to say that too. So, what are the higher what are the needs that each department is kind of saying? Y

150could we jump back to budget? Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at page 10, the budget, and just to uh make sure that Oh, I know, but I I want to just make sure I understand the the education point, and I think you are uh no no issues in in having further discussion around that, but we are projected to spend $40.3 million on special education this year and then $85.7 million for non-education, uh elementary and secondary education. And so we're we're spending half of of that. And so I would want to question the 40 million $40.3 million uh uh its effectiveness, its efficiency if 25% of our population is in that in this space, but we're spending over a half of or compared to the other 10,000 students that we have. And so maybe

151I'd love to love to add that on top of your discussion if we can. All right, back to you, Bill. Okay, shift gears a little. If you could just solve all those problems. I wish I could solve all those problems. Throw it in your budget. That'd be great. Talk a little bit about the legislative changes. I know we had a talk earlier today about that in general. But here is how it's affecting directly Lakeville area schools. Now, the formula allowance, um, we are getting a 2.74% increase, um, which we're pleased with because when they first started talking about, um, budgeting at the state level, they looked at pulling that automatic inflation increase out, but they left it in. So, we're we're looking at 2.74. So, we're very pleased uh, with that. The other thing that

152came up just overnight, so this number was not in the the plan we sent out over the weekend, but compensatory aid, they are going to hold us harmless. We have about $555,000 of new revenue that we didn't expect. So that's new as of today. So we're very pleased with that. Now, of course, on the other end, we have talked about this in the past, especially transportation, a 5% change is about $273,000 for us. That is a decrease in what we get now. And next year is going to 10%. So that will be double that amount uh for next year's budget. our student the student support dollars that were brand new two years ago were slowly increasing. That's what we we used a lot of this money for our increased counselors at our high schools that

153is now being decreased by $246,000. Um I think one one thing just to mention though here even with the negative 246 the the numbers for this year are actually bigger than they were last year. So I want to keep that in context. Okay, just the increase got lessened. And then library aid, we have uh enough library aid to pay for two of our our media specialists. Um but that is being decreased by $77,000. So these this is kind of the summary. There's really no other uh financial pieces that change for us except for what you see here. So you can see the compensatory aid pretty much covers the other three negatives. So, the compensatory aid, was that what we had assumed was going to drop by like 5%. The compensatory aid had dropped by $500,000.

154And what what they look at is they look at the the number of students that are eligible for free and reduced lunch. That's what generates those particular dollars to help support those students. That's where it comes from. These are restricted dollars. Um, so the the book we're see you see tonight does not have that 555 in it, but it's not going to help our un our our fund balance because it goes straight into restricted. So just to keep that in context. Okay. Okay. So when we look at our general fund revenue, you see that we are still seeing a four a $4 million increase. You see that at 2.9. Of course, that's bigger than what we just talked about the 2.74, but that's because we have increased enrollment. They all our new enrollment does they

155do generate more dollars. So, that's why you're seeing that more than the 2.74. Uh property tax, we've talked about this all year where we're seeing an adjustment for a one-year adjustment there with negative $2.3 million. So, of course, that's going down by 4% in our property tax area. our federal sources after we've used up all of our COVID funds, we're back to about where we were before. A small decrease here, $36,000. And then our other, of course, the biggest piece here where that's going up is in um investment earnings. Um so, we're very happy about we have we have a bigger fund balance and higher interest rates, so we have a little more interest. And so, that's helping fund some of our positions. So, that's great news. Uh but overall we only have a 1%

156increase in our funding from the previous year. So that's our net going into next year is the 1% increase. So I'm I'm looking at your report then um your 202526 projections is 12,14 students. Is that cor is what? Okay. And we currently have 12,29. So just an increase of about roughly 80 80ish or or so maybe 75 about 75. 75 students. Yep. So, how many FTEEs are we needing to add for those 75 additional resources? Well, that's not a a simple answer to um give you. As as students come through our our uh our especially our elementary students in each of the buildings, some weight levels go up, some go down. Some places we're dropping an FTE, sometimes we're we're raising. Actually, in our elementary schools, we're not adding any FTE on a regular programming

157this year. Okay? But there are a little bit of added staff at the high school at North because they have a relatively bigger enrollment than they had this year. So, I can't give you a straight answer because it's different in every every section of the building of the district. Yeah, that makes sense because you have some some classes that are just not at capacity and by adding these students, we get closer and then some that might be higher and so your staffing model here then um that you've had conversations with your with with the staff and the and the the administration um they've shared the number of staff that they feel like they're going to need for the fall and and so I I don't know what the teacher change the delta is from this

158year to next year, but we can get there get there later. That that's good to know. Thank you. You did. Okay. So, just looking at this graph just real briefly, you'll see in the proper under the proper tax area, you'll see that decrease that we've talked about. But I think it's important to know that it's truly not a decrease. It's just an adjustment from the year before because when we look at last year in the lower numbers we had, the blue line there for fiscal 25 is too high. We received too many dollars. So truly this is uh this is the increase that we're seeing but we have because of the adjustment we have to get back that's why we're seeing the negative but overall we are seeing increased revenue for the students that we

159have make sense. Uh so then again just as a as a as a look as a whole you see where our our dollars come from. You see that 69% of the dollars come from the state of Minnesota where property tax bring in about 25% of the dollars that we use on a yearly basis. All right. So uh now we will move into our general fund expenditures by object codes. So, interesting enough, our salary and wages are we adding new positions. So, that's going up by roughly 5.7%. That's with the STEP and the COLA increases for our staff. Now, you may be asking yourself, well, if salaries are going up by 5.7, why are benefits going up by 11.2%. That seems high. You would not be mistaken. So, that number, I believe, is correct. And there

160are three factors in there that make up that much larger increase in salaries and or in benefits than in salaries. So one would be the paid family medical leave act um that is being pushed through at the uh on January 1st to 26. So this adds an additional 444% from January 1st until the end of the fiscal year. With that we budgeted 22% in benefits for that piece of it on all salaries. um added that TRA is going up by 75 basis points. That is a very large expense. And then health the 5% increase in health between health and TRA alone that makes up roughly 4 million of that 5.3 million um change. So then we have our supplies. The supplies is going down as you see by 17.6%. This is mainly related to teaching

161and learning expenses. Um we are expecting about half as much expenditure in teaching learning as is in this current year. So that makes up about 500,000 of that 1.1 million. Uh other expenses is related to insurance. So as far as our expenditures by program area, everything is going up as normal. Um the biggest change is in our special education on a dollar value at 2.7 million or 6.9%. Uh the only two items really going down are building sites which is going down by 1.3%. That's due to LTFM. Um we have less expenditures in LTFM this and we're expecting less expenditures in 26 than we did in 25. And also our administration is going down by 1.7% because we are not paying for two superintendent. Um yeah, so we want to show this slide just to

162show the primary areas in which we spend our money. The two largest buckets are our elementary and secondary education as well as special education. They make up a vast majority of all spending within the district. And with that said, our educational portions of it make up 82% of our total expenditures going directly to students. So that's at elementary and secondary, special education, instructional services, and pupil support services and vocational. Between all of those, it makes up 82% of our total expenditures. Here we'll take a look at the general fund and our our expected ending balances um next June of 26. Our non-spendable, these are really our prepaids. Um expect that to remain relatively constant from year to year. You see that our assigned dollars though that is what we're spending down money that we set

163aside this year into 25 of course was the um backend loaded um contract with the teachers. So as far as we spending that down and now and then it was teaching and learning and curriculum that was set aside for that particular so you see that's falling. uh our restricted stays about the same on a yearly basis here running between uh five and a half$6 million and then of course our unassigned though here is still growing and that's what we want to see uh going forward even though you see our total fund balance there is relatively flat but I just want to point out that the unassigned is growing you see it here the blue line is our unassigned balance continuing to grow and uh you're seeing there the um the kind of grayish I mean

164I mean the orange line there signed falling down to the point where you don't even see it in the 26 graph even though I think there's $60,000 in that uh particular place. So when we look at our um unassigned fund balance, you see that we do see continued growth here um going from what we expect 6.3 at the end of this year jumping up 1% uh to 7.3 at the end of 26. I got next. Go ahead. I've got a couple director Anderson just going to say we just had that policy about the fund balance. So we're 7.5 was like where the flag would be raised. So we're approaching our 7.5, but are we cool with moving compared to like 211,000? Yes, I I I feel I feel good at 7.5 personally. But but but

165again um we want to strive for for 10% which gives us roughly 3 months of expenditures in in our in our unassigned balance. Obviously uh with the assigned and some restricted it could be higher uh but in regards to the overall percentage but for the unassigned where we have full discretion area of where we need to deploy it for onetime expenditures or whatever uh in in scenarios uh yes 7.5 would be great uh by the end of two years from now. Um I do have a question around fiscal year 2024 uh and then uh and I do appreciate the two-year forecast which is good. If you actually want to go back I think of three or four slides or so I saw so our actual budget for this year we're anticipating to spend uh I

166believe $187 million. Is that how I am understanding this? You talking about this slide here? Nope. That's the uh general fund balance. The expenditure I think it's a combination of both. I'm I'm just trying to figure out the math or understand because it gets a little clunky. Uh because we spent a hund we we're spending $187,000 in this current school year, correct? That is fiscal year 24. No, 25. Okay. Oh, you're talking about 187 million. Yes. I'm sorry. 187 million. Y that was last year. Or is that year that we're in just finished? That we're finishing. Yep. So we're projected to spend $187 million. Actually, that was in 24. 24. That was 24. That was 24. Okay. So we're projected to spend 204 million, correct? This year. Okay. Got it. And so with the um

167uh the 2.74 increase from the state of Minnesota um the the state increases from 141 million to 145.9 million. That just make sure I understand that. Mhm. Correct. Okay. Yeah. We're seeing about a $5 million increase from the state of Minnesota. Got it. Yep. But then um in your expenses slide the steps and lanes from from uh from this year to the next year is like 5.9%. And so I'm trying to I'm scratching my head here like how do we how do we afford that when this isn't totally steps and lanes. Okay. It's also increased staff going into the next year. Okay. Okay. So which we don't know what the increased staff is. I mean, well, because some because we just had the conversation, they get absorbed by some classes and then we we add

168some. So, we're not adding like 50 more teachers, right? We're we're probably adding, you know, five or maybe maybe I don't know. There's there's definitely some increase in our special ed ed area. We have um um four FTE particular and another 10 paras um as increases. So, that goes into that 5.7. Okay. and we we have them some more support going into the high school using using that uh um student support dollars. Um so that's shows up there. Well, I I so I'm just when I'm looking at the numbers, our revenue is 209 million and it jumps to 211 million. So only like roughly a 2 million difference. Now we are not getting $2 million from property taxes because we over we over received. So technically we were if we were if all things were

169equal, we would have received roughly $4 million if we two was going down two, right? But let's say if we didn't have to give any money back. I'm thinking we would have gotten the 2 million increase plus the the two from property. So an aggregate of roughly $4 million from a revenue side. We put about5 million from the state of Minnesota, another $2 million from 2 million more than what we have here from property tax. Okay. So, that's $7 million that we would have that we would have that we would have received. But we didn't because the taxes are down. Yep. By 2.2 or $2.3 million, but we have the 5 million. So, overall overall we're seeing that increase there of just under $3 million total for the year. Yep. So, which is only one,

170you know, we showed you 1%. So what I'm trying to get to is that our revenues are roughly6 to7 million but then our expenses are going to be roughly $8 million. And so that trend is not going to be sustainable. I mean that that's what I see. I mean because when when I look at our expenditures keep going up every year beyond what we're actually receiving in revenues in in in tax uh funding in general. Um, and I and I'm glad we got to a balanced budget for for this year. But I think that's that's what I want to make sure that in addition to special education, uh, we've got, uh, we're mindful of what we're committing to from expenditures because like the revenues are not our our expenses are surpassing our revenues. Yeah. Yes.

171I mean, you're you're looking at 11.2 2 million roughly just on salary, wages, and benefits is going to be our increase next year when the state funding. I mean, if we don't have, you know, decreases in other categories, we're in just a recap, next year, we took next year, we're going to see 3% increase from the state of Minnesota. Um, we were told that earlier um tonight. So, that's more that's more than we even received this year. We're going to not have a decrease on our taxes. We're going to have an increase on our taxes. Sure. Okay. Both of those pieces. You see that right here, our total increase in expenses from one year to the next was $3.9 million. Okay. Next year, the revenue will be more than that. New revenue in 27 will

172be bigger than 3.9. And we would not expect the expenditures to be more than that. 3.9% change. The change in expenditures is 3.9%. So, but we are having more taken out of special ed transportation next year. That's already figured into here. Okay. Plus, plus they have asked to form a committee to cut 250 million out of the special ed budget after that's down the road. Um, and yeah, it's a blue ribbon committee um to wax eloquently about I don't know what, but we have to we we're factoring in looking ahead. Um, and this is the this is the standard problem across all school districts is this revenue expenditure challenge uh yeartoyear. Um, and you know, I know we talked about zerobased budgeting and things like that. the those work great in corporate environments. They don't

173work so great in ours because we don't have control. We have control of expenditure. Revenue is a little more dicey and we're the only governmental entity that has to go to voters for um for revenue. And by constitutional Minnesota constitutional requirement, we can only use tax dollars. Okay. I volunteer for that blue kish commission too. Just so you know, it's on record. I'm volunteering. Brian, I mean, Brian, your comments, I think you're just trying to say as a board, we need to be aware of what we're going to be dealing with in the years to come. So, I think if you remember, too, last fall when we brought you a five-year projection. Yeah. You know, in 28 it pretty much plateaued off, didn't it? Yes. So, we expect that to happen. So, we're going to

174have to watch this very closely as we get in the next couple years. Okay. All right. Now to talk about everybody's favorite thing, uh, food. So, in looking at food service, I know the state has mandated the 3month um, uh, fund balance or 3 months expenditures as your total fund balance. Um, right now with this current budget, we are not meeting that. We need to come up with creative ways and our director of food service is working diligently to come up with those creative ways to ensure that we can meet that requirement. That way we do not have to pay anything back to the state. Um she's very good and I'm sure she'll come up with something just wonderful. So we can unfortunate that we can't use those dollars in other places where we might

175need them. Special education, right? No question about that. So, it's just it's food service food food service dollars and they're restricted funds to spending on food. Is there any way we could start like the summer program where we're providing food for students because I know that's been an ongoing need within the community. We are um our school district is not eligible to serve free meals in the summertime. Our free and reduced count is not high enough. So, we have looked at it every year. We look at it. Okay. At this point, we're not eligible for it. So, we need to get people to fill out the form, which is also tied to compensatory, correct? Because I think there's probably more there than you realize. Just um when I talked to um 360 communities, they run

176out of food every day when they're providing people food over the summer. So, I just think that's something we need to continue to watch. That is correct. I mean, that's one of the challenges of the free lunch program is that people there's no incentive to fill out those free and reduced applications, which does affect our compensatory revenue, which does affect our ability to initiate programs like the summer lunch. So, it's just a challenge, but um food service, our director, she is wonderful. Um she'll come up with some creative ways so that we can draw that fund balance down and be in compliance with state mandates. I think the state of Minnesota all Oh, I'm sorry. I think state of Minnesota also has some alternative collection method but um I'll go verify that. Are you talking

177about for the applications or they do um if I remember right they base it off of you the tax filings and basically overall wages. That's how they generate their compensatory numbers. I believe that's what they did but well but that's what they're looking at and that's why we they're just holding us harmless at this point. That's why we saw that $555,000 increase because actually our dollars had fallen into 26, but now we have that back until they finish studying that to figure out how they're going to allocate those dollars to districts. I just wanted to remind um all of us of the student who suggested perhaps we could get rid of plastic utensils as an option for, you know, where to spend some money. So, well, I guess just to make a note, if you're

178seeing in a particular building that's using a a paper tray or some plastic forks, it's usually a staffing issue where we can't get everything washed because we do have trays and we do have utensils in every building and on most days they are used. Okay. So looking at uh uned after the whole fiasco with the um budget, they have started to come, they clawed out of the hole in 24. We're budgeting that they're going to be at 23,000 at the end of this fiscal year and they're going to more or less triple that fund balance at the end of 26 is at least that is what we are budgeting. So they are making fantastic progress um in doing a very diligent job in their budgets and increasing their fund balance. I shift gears a little

179bit just for a few minutes here talking about um LTFM. Every year we have to put in a 10-year plan. Um and I had to bring it to the school board so that we get authority uh to continue with our our levies and with the revenue that we receive from the state of Minnesota. If you look on page uh 51 and 52, you'll see a little more detail than we can fit on the screen. So, you can see um where we're spending those dollars uh per building. And what I put on this slide here, you see, and I talked about it when we we were here the last time with the facilities crew. um what we've built into after 28, we have a 3% built-in increase in our health and safety areas, uh which fall

180under under Damian's area, and we have a 5% for our construction, which is what we're seeing in in inflation in construction materials right now. So, we'll bring this forward again uh for you to actually take a separate vote than just the budget um on our LTFM plan. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Yeah. Um, if I I read the update that Superintendent Bowman sent about all the legislation that happened, there's something about roof roofing that changed, right? And what they approved. Can you I didn't mean to put you on the spot. If you know about it, yes and no. Okay. Okay. The LTFM program for larger school districts is different than smaller school districts. I believe there's only 12 school districts in the state of Minnesota that are allowed to levy what we need. And

181that's we sit there. we're we're we're 10th um in the state for a size of a school. So when we bring forward, we put together the projects that we feel need to be done in these particular buildings and then we have two two sources of revenue um the general fund which we get from the state of Minnesota and then the uh the bonding that we do cover the other twoirds and again next spring next uh April or maybe March we'll bring forth um some bonding for you to approve and it'll be specifically for LTFM and we do a two-year bonding and then we use it for the next two years and then we levy of course to the fund seven to pay those bonds off. Um that way we don't have a huge levy bill

182all at once for our community members. We split that we spread that cost out over years. So you'll see that coming up um next spring. So that this and then back to your question, the actually um at a smaller school district, they can only receive $380 per pupil unit. That's all they receive in LTFM. It's a relatively small number or where we are spending more, but we have the authority to do it from the state of Minnesota. I can't tell you how that came to be years ago. Um but we certainly are glad that we have it available to us to get taking care of the needs that we have in our buildings. We have we have aging buildings and we have quite a few needs but we are catching up. Um the buildings at

183Yfield buildings are starting to look pretty good. Um but we have some you know for example this year we have a large very large project at at Kenwood Trail. They're getting all new air handlers put in um that building and some roofing in that building. Um another large project is and we talked about this last time but um believe it or not one of our newer newer buildings um Cherry View. We had a we have a very big problem in our sewer system. Oh no, not water again. Well, it's still it's from that. Okay. So, we actually have to go in the building, open up the floor, go down six feet and replace that plumbing. So, that's a huge job that's happening at Cherry View this year. But it now before it breaks because my

184poor kid was going to Cherry View when the building flooded with like two weeks left of school. It was a nightmare. Right, Mrs. Pop? Oh, yeah. Right. Yes. But we have found the source and it will be repaired this summer. School elementary school's over now so we can fix it. So I think you said this just to clarify. So the legislation doesn't affect us as far as the roofing. Yeah, we were able to do that already. So Okay. Okay. And would it impact I know last meeting we voted on roofing for 917. This wouldn't this change in legislation wouldn't help with their roofing project, right? Well, they were under the threshold that they could do. Remember they were spreading it over several years. Yes. Okay. Okay. Bill, the Cherry View project, is that starting tomorrow

185or is it starting next week? Well, I think it's Monday. Monday. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I think they still have daycare in that building tomorrow. That's why I asked. Okay. So, um, just quickly looking at the building construction fund, I just want to point out right there in the under the column of fiscal 26, you'll see halfway down the sale of bonds there, 21 million. So you'll see that come later later in the year. Uh debt service of course only thing that runs through here is payments for the debt that we have in place. Um so we can and I've said like I've said in the past we can levy 105% of what we need because not everybody pays their taxes on time. But what happens is we don't need a full 5% and it builds

186up over time. So you'll see that this fall when we bring the levy forward, you'll see a decrease uh um in the in the debt service fund where we'll be under levying. Um so that'll help our level level our levy going forward. You'll see that that fund balance is growing up now to about six million and we of course we don't need $6 million. So that that'll be a negative um levy adjustment just like we saw on on the uh students on on this year. Okay. Just want to touch on the internal service fund. Of course, this is where all our um self-funded insurance goes, both both our uh um dental and our health. We started this um five years ago and the fund balance has been slowly growing like we like we wanted to

187see. We want to get up to that 25% level before we can really um help. But I guess just to make a point right now when we look at health insurance going forward trend or or market is running 8 n% and as we've told you ours is going up five. So it's already helping us control some of these costs uh going forward. So we expect that to be up over 7.5 million at the end of 26. So positive and it's a it's a healthy fund balance for that. So this is just a snapshot then of everything put together. You see on the top general fund you see that that fund balance when we put all the fund all the different components of the fund balance together will be at 218. Um but we put you

188know the student nutrition um community service and so on. You'll see that we do expect a total fund balance about $62 million. Um so um overall I'd say that the school district is uh financially very healthy. Um we've made drastic improvements over here the last couple years. So um we will bring this to back to you for approval in two weeks and there will be a small tweak talking about that half million dollars and we'll point that out when we when we present that. All right, Bill Jack and team, thank you guys for all your work. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. any board member reports. Kim, so I just came from the 9:17 meeting, which was why I was tardy for this meeting. So, sorry for that. Um, but I just did I did

189have like a few things that I wanted to go over that they talked about. Um, one of the things that 917 is working on is called Bridge. It's a parent engagement program. They're hoping to have three sessions this coming year. Um, each will be offered at two different times, both in person and virtual, so parents have multiple options to attend. Um, their first session is going to talk about how they use story circles um to help build community. Second session is going to be talking about um Dakota County supports and services and the third session is going to be introducing families to nurtured heart. Um one of the things that I was talking to that superintendent about Dr. Faver was if there was ways that we could partner with some of the things that we

190already have going. So even if we have parents whose kids are not attending 917 yet, could the parents still come and get that information? And yes, that's definitely an option. So just some of those things to think about. Um they also um we had a presentation from the superintendent on his progress on his goals for the year. I thought that was really interesting. Um one of the things that they talked about or he talked about specifically has how he offered 15 what he called was 15 with Dr. Favor. Um just 15 minutes to meet with parents who were um had a question or concern so that he was meeting the parents where they were and and hearing all of those different concerns. Um he talked about the apprenticeship program, the hiring of international teachers, um

191how he's attending children's mental health conferences, and then this is something that would be available to our district too is that he has um completed the training as like a mediation person so that he would be able to facilitate if there was an issue for us um just to help with that. Um and then one of the other things that we discussed um was just student board reps. Um each of the people that are on the 917 board are from one of the member districts. Um so all of the well most of the member districts have student board members that sit on their board as reps. Um and they've had a lot of success with that program and I feel like it would be a wonderful thing to bring to Lakeville so that we could

192have student voice on our own board. Um I talked to three different districts before I left today just about the success of their program. Farmington is one that's had it for quite a while. had a lot of success and they're willing to share some of the resources with us that they have in place like the procedures um just so that we could look it over as a board and determine if that's a route that we want to go. Brian, sorry. Yeah, I um last last week I had a opportunity to shake a thousand hands uh at the at our graduation. No. Um but as you all were there as well but but what a what an awesome experience and being and just kind of um it's a it's a wow moment where our community uh

193helps uh and puts puts over almost a thousand students into our nation and a thousand students from our community are moving into adulthood moving into their next chapter of life. It's not like 150 kids or or I mean while those kids smaller towns but in general ours we've got a thousand kids that we bring out into into adulthood which is fascinating. Uh but super awesome to see uh and so that that also prompted a couple emails and so I will bring it up and just share with the broader board that a couple emails around the the logistics of where it was placed at. uh whether it be at Maruchi Arena and other communities do that at their local uh local stadiums and football fields. Uh and so I I would like for us to just

194uh entertain a uh a conversation about that over the next few months or so just to see uh the costbenefit analysis of of something of that nature. Uh but overall it was what a what a unique experience. Again, I I've done this six times already, but but again, it's fantastic for our community to be able to say we put out over a thousand young students, young adults, uh after high school. So, that's it. Director Cameron, um to add to Director Thompson, um I know Carly, Kim, and Matt and I were able to attend the um Lakeville um Pathways graduation. I forget the date. Um but that was also great to have that special moment at brackets to celebrate those students. Um and there were some fantastic student speakers there that that um at the ceremony.

195So and thanks to the district for putting that on. Um it was really nice. Um also um at the end of May I attended the Oak Hills Elementary family fun night. My kids attend there. Um, but it's such a great event and I know many elementaryaries have kind of an end of the year celebration and just want to thank all of our PTOs um for putting on these um very timeconsuming productions. I know our our students and families really enjoy them and benefit from them. And so, thank you to the parents and also the teachers who are there um volunteering their time um at Oak Hills, but also other schools. Okay, I'm just gonna add I love the idea of a student rep. We've talked about that before. Um it's been awesome to attend all

196the graduations. This is like the best time of year and the staff retirement. Um just thank you to all of our teachers. Um and yes, this is the time of year where it's just such a pleasure to be a board member. So, it's just a good experience to see all the hard work um come to fruition and and those graduates and those staff retirements. So, thank you to everyone for being involved in that. It's been a busy couple weeks since our last meeting. Yeah. All right. There's nothing else. We'll jump into uh seven reports and recommend Oh, sorry. It's okay. Superend. I'll just say uh to board, thank you so much for your participation in all those events. It's very very welcomed and loved. Uh so thank you for that. Also I I may I

197think I no I I don't think I got to East View today. I I tried to get to every elementary school today because it's last day with kids. Um and I you know I I was I'm I'm never surprised but I'm always pleased there was you know like good class instruction still going on today. There was also a lot of outside time and the weather cooperated because yesterday was not so no bueno as I like to say. But uh today was beautiful and the kids were out and running around and it's a great last day for for our elementary. So um just want to share that and also secondary will be done on Thursday. Um so come out and see what's going on. Maybe not maybe not in high school. No, I'm kidding. Thank you,

198sir. Hey, director Thompson. Yeah. Any desire for a five minute recess? I don't know if the next two topics might be lengthier. Okay. So, I said let's roll with it. Okay. If you're okay. All right. Um I'm going to give Superintendent Bowman some time off here because I think we've talked about this plenty and so I think we jump right into it. Um we are looking at for consideration. Uh it is the approval of the resolution. We'll just take these one at a time. Resolution on page 157 to 158 um of your board book packet. Um it's for the renewal of the operating the 2015 operating levy. Uh the specific details are in the resolution. The resolution is required by statute. Um so what we're doing um and and I'll just kick it off. I

199would uh move to approve the resolution uh which allows us to renew the 2015 operating levy. I'll second. Uh there being a first and a second, is there any discussion on the matter? Treasure Thompson. Uh I am in favor of this levy as a whole. I I think from what I've heard and as well as what I learned, uh there is significant value to our community for having this operating levy continue. uh from my understanding is that the the curriculum or the uh the classes for um art and band at the elementary level super vital. Uh and and they are um uh there are standards at the state level that are necessary uh uh for for us to have those kind of specialized skills uh within those elementary buildings. And now if this does not

200move forward uh I we will have a gap um I'm not exactly sure how those uh requirements uh from the state will be share will be taught uh and who will teach them and that would be add additional uh additional skills or additional things that that are already on our on our teachers plates and so maintaining the uh existing resources for those uh those skills and and and those requirements. Um I see a huge value at. Now, in addition to that, I think there is also high school uh classes or high school students or I'm sorry, high school staffing that would also be impacted. Um I believe I don't know exactly the number or however I think it's five or six or something of that nature. But in general, part of this operating levy was

201to reduce class sizes. And now, while it may not be super impactful because we have almost 2,000 uh students in each high school. And so when you displace you know two or three teachers uh but depending upon the class depending upon uh the topic that's being taught that extra three four or maybe five students in a particular classroom uh might might be uh over the edge and so I am in favor of this operating levy as as a whole. I do have another point but I'll pause here and let other folks share if they have any comments. Director Nicholson. Um, I would agree with you and I I think I I say let's go for it. Let's move it forward. Um, right now we're in a very good financial situation. I think we should continue

202that. I think we, you know, this does not raise property taxes. This keeps us steady state. Steady state, I think, is healthy and I think we need to continue on the trajectory that we're on because we have a lot of things that we're trying to do. We have a lot of, you know, objectives and things that everybody has talked about here and we need some investment to make that happen. So, let's I say let's go for it. I'll add in Oh, go ahead, Director Cameron. Oh, I was going to echo what um Brett said, but also just to add um for the for the community to make sure we're aware that this um operating levy supports 14.2 full-time positions. Um and if this uh levy were not to be renewed, um those positions would be

203cut. Um, however, there's no increase to property tax with this renewal. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And that's something I think we've discussed. There is going to be no increase. It's just renewal. Um, maintaining essentially the finances. And I guess my concern would be even if we don't cut it, that that money is budgeted in. It's going to have to come from somewhere. Um, I will note that I do have 19 letters from some Cherry View fifth graders encouraging us to uh renew this so they can keep their band class and art and while I am I'm not much of an artist I am a band geek and uh yeah played the baritone for many many years so and you're the director Thompson so I I will I I I feel like I do need

204to share my other point of view uh and uh the the fiscally uh the fiscally side of me wants to not even the fiscally side it's just the the communities being able to have a voice in in a in a decision like this and and while I feel the entire board and and I think a a community stakeholder if they were informed of what exactly what this is and why we're doing it uh probably an overwhelming majority of them approving this to move forward but we as a board we are uh from my perspective uh I feel that we are our responsibility is to ensure good governance as well as to be good stewards of people's of our communities money. Uh but I don't I'm not 100% aligned where they don't have a choice in

205us saying all right while they did make a choice 10 years ago in approving this levy. Uh I'm not I I just don't feel aligned that they don't get to make the choice to vote again to continue this operating levy. Uh it is an over a $10 million investment over the next 10 years uh for art and band and and and high school class sizes uh to to be where they're at today. And I agree, it's not an increase in property taxes. It's continued as is. Uh it continues the programs added as is. Uh but again it is uh an addition not an additional but it is 10 more $10 million that those that may not be here anymore you know are continuing that we'll have to pay. So that's where and and I shared

206this two years ago when we talked about was it renewing the 3.5 or $3.4 $4 million the state of Minnesota through the elected officials that are that our state has elected and and and gave then then made the then passed the law to give the school board members the the authority to p to renew a levy just once. And so, uh, while it came up through the ranks in that respect, I I still feel that I I feel like there's an opportunity that like where is their voice in in this in this decision. So, go ahead, Mr. Director Anderson. Uh, I believe we're representative government here and um I believe you said it in the meeting that I was not here. People elect us to make certain decisions. So, to your point, I get what

207you're saying. people are entrusting us with some of that fiduciary responsibility. So, if you think it's a good investment, if you think it's the right thing to do and we should have it, we should continue, go with your gut, man. Yeah. And I Thank you. I would just add that um not only are we elected, but Senator Duckworth and um Representative Woody were here tonight and I don't know if you were here for that part, but Senator Duckworth was kind of talking about um the importance of us being able to make this decision on behalf of the community and that we're elected. So, similar kind of thing. And they have also been elected. So, people making these decisions at the legislative level to give the school board the authority are also elected by the community.

208So I feel like the most important decision often that we make in this at this board is who is going to be leading our district. And that's a decision that we make as a board, not going to the community to say who do you want our to be our superintendent. So I think over the course of our tenure as a board member, we make a lot of complex decisions on behalf of our community. I would say just given um given everything the the three of us have been through as with our first two and a half years on this board um we have every right to make this decision. We are educated about what our district needs and I would say that um we've been elected to do so. So I I do see your

209point and I would say all of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a valid point. Um but having the authority to do so if there's no further discussion um having a first and a second for the motion to approve uh the renewal of the operating levy from 2015 um by approving the resolution at pages 158 and one sorry 157 to 158 of the board book packet. Um all those in favor say I. I. I. All those posed. All right, it's unanimous. Uh, moving on to the capital levy. Um unfortunately or well depending on your viewpoint we don't uh have the opportunity to renew this but in your board book packet at pages 164 to 169 uh there is a proposed resolution um which would support our approval of or our recommendation to renew it and put

210it on the ballot um for this fall. So I'll get this one rolling as well. I guess uh I would move to approve the resolution which sends the renewal option for the 2015 capital levy uh to the ballot this fall um as set forth in the resolution at pages 164 to 169 of the board book packet. Is there a second? I'll second it. Seconded by Director Carbone. Any discussion? Director Cameron. Um I I support um the renewal of this um going to ballot. I think just for the interest of the recording um to just go through the elements just quickly if and I have the the slide pulled up here. Um so this would be an approximately $44 million um increase per not sorry let me start over a $4 million um funding per year

211with no tax rate increase. This is again a renewal and it would um support many of the things we heard about tonight. Um it would support career pathways um including K12 STEM programming, cyber security, um security equipment, educational technology such as devices and infrastructure and um this supports 5.5 full-time staff um with this capital levy. Um so I just thought I would highlight that there's a slide but um just audio too. I appreciate Can I just add to that too? I know um when we were going to be going to one of the chamber events to talk about some of this stuff, Grace um provided a lot of really good communication around this that a lot of people think about this as the tech levy and iPads and so much of this is maintaining security

212of so not just the iPads and I mean that's a separate thing but making sure that our students are safe with their use of technology. So um just all the servers and things that are used to make sure we have that protected. So that cyber security piece is really important. I appreciate that. Yeah. And I would just build on what what Amber said about the STEM. I mean it is that technology that they're using in STEM. So if we want to expand those areas um of study within our school, we need the technology to do so and the funding to purchase it and maintain it. So Director Thompson. So I I am in favor of this moving to the community for letting letting them choose uh and and vote on this particular uh levy. Uh

213I I think uh at a high level there's a lot of good things in it. Uh and there's a lot of um uh I think value ad for for all the grade levels in this particular levy. It is a $40 million over 10 years. And and so for someone uh who might someone like myself who who like to see the details, uh I would recommend uh from a communications point of view uh to ensure that we're very clear like here's where $4 million are going towards and while $600 and $700,000 is going towards STEM. Great. I get that. Like STEM is awesome. But what are you doing it at? What are you doing with the $600,000 in STEM? Like is is it is it are you are you buying new, you know, STEM equipment? Are

214you buying XYZ? And then when you, you know, aggregate that out for 10 years, you're looking at $6 million worth of STEM STEM equipment. Is is that what we're buying or is that what we're is that what we're doing? And so uh there there is uh the the use of iPads, the use of technology, the use of security uh and and so while we we may not want to inundate our our community members with all the details and all that and all that stuff, but I think for there are some folks that may want to know, okay, if we're going to spend this much amount of money, it's a lot of money. Let's be very clear because I can quantify, hey, if you're going to get 20 teachers and each teacher costs $150,000, you can

215get to you can get to that $4 million. But if we're hiring five teachers and they're $150,000 on average between, you know, wherever they start and benefits and so forth, right? I mean, that's only a million dollar. So, what are we doing with the other $3 million? And so I think I want to be my recommendation so that uh our community members are clear with where this money is going, how it's being allocated. Uh and obviously there's a 10-year window that this is going to continue to run. So uh those are my recommendations, but yes, I'm in favor of this moving to the community and letting them have a voice. Director Cameron, um one question I have um for district staff on the draft ballot language. I know when you're going to go after a

216new levy, um, often it will say if you vote yes, you are, um, acknowledging that this will increase your taxes or there's some language to that effect. Is it possible to add language here? And and I see here it says by voting yes on this ballot, you are voting to renew an existing capital project referendum that is scheduled to expire. Can you also say resulting in no new? No, you cannot. Okay. Just thought I would check. It's a good question. There's a lot of no. Yes, I appreciate your question and obviously we asked that as well. Um but I learned a long time ago no can do. Um but to director Thompson's point and um others the communication and the details were you know if if this is successful uh we will be embarked on

217a on a robust plan to do that. All right. There being no further comments, um motion haven't been made and seconded. All those in favor of approval of the resolution at pages 164 to 169 of the board book um sending the capital levy renewal to the ballot. Say I. I. All right. Passes unanimously. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I. All right, we're done. [Music]