Albert Lea Area Schools - Board Meeting - December 1, 2025

001truth and taxation portion of the meeting. We will start our regular meeting and uh then we will get into the actual call to order the pledge and all those kind of things. So truth and taxation we have our finance director Mr. Derban and I will hand that over to you. Thank you, Chair Clot, school board. Superintendent Hy. We'll just get some housekeeping items here. Get set up, ready to go. Thanks, Darcy. Okay. Um, so this evening is our um 25 pay 26 levy truth and taxation hearing. Um, as we go through this process, there's a couple requirements of us this evening. Um, one, discuss district budgets and the 25 pay 26 property tax levy. And also, um, it's necessary to provide an opportunity for public comment and questions. Um, so we'll try to make sure

002we address both of those this evening um, through this presentation. and then concluding the hearing that's when we will um start our regular board meeting process um after that. So um first thing I want to do is let's just um look to see if we have any um anybody present for public comment. And Darcy, you mentioned there wasn't anybody on the list, but I want to just make sure um if there's anybody in attendance that would like to make public comment, this would be the opportunity now. Just get this microphone going here so we can hear. >> Okay, mic working. Okay, we'll just have you uh state your name and address and then go ahead. >> Hi, my name is Marla Wong and I live in Hayward, Minnesota. I'm a farmer there brought with a

003proposed taxes and for the simple reason that I'll show you what others will do it in black and white if I can approach you can read it yourself or I'll read it to you. >> That's fine. I can >> do you want to bring it to the board and >> Yeah. Well, they they should know that if they want to know the exact numbers. I got it. Black and white. That's fine if you would like to share. >> Okay. So, okay. Down here you have we have district 241, right? Okay. And then we have New Richland, right? Okay. This particular farm, the acres are within one acre of each other. And yeah, several years it's always been approximately 50% less from congressional. God darn it, those guys are either really good because they can operate

00450% less in district 241 or they don't know what they're doing. So I'm going to start here to find out which. All I want is a comment or two, maybe even three on why it is that your neighboring school district can operate. And if this proposal goes through, you can see that they're a third less actually on a couple acres more. There they got a couple acres more and they're still a third less. And I do have some land in which I'm sure you're aware of and it they're they're $2 an acre under two uh under New Richland which is a third less than 241. So my question is what me as a taxpayer am I getting if this goes through 26 goes through it's I'm spend 50% 2/3 more what do I get for

005that 2/3 more per acre there it is in black and white anyone else want to see it you can read it district 241 one and you got New Richmond. That's the same piece. It's just that north half of the pieces in New Richland and south half of the piece in Yep. There's more land of that farm. Yeah, there is. But that particular piece is split 50/50. >> Is the assessed valuation the same? >> Yep, pretty close. So it won't be it won't be if Freeborn County who's you know made the newspaper again I'm going to be the highest county in the state with their increase other pages too page >> what do you want >> you want us to look at all the pages >> there's your information in black and white right there money

006anything you want >> that uh Geneva Township. >> Yep. Geneva Township. Sits here, but it's all there. Black and white. Everything is identical except the school district up there has got another 1.7 acres more, but I mean their money is still way less. You know, I didn't bring the whole farm obviously. I just brought the split. >> There's Geneva District 241. So all I'd like is, you know, give me something to feel good about here. Why I can pay but over half now for as long as I've owned a farm. 50% more. But now we're going to go to just about twothirds more. Why should I feel good about that? And Iowa has less than that. Again, the school districts in Iowa aren't near as good. I can tell because they get way less money.

007New Rootstone isn't as good a school district as 241 because they get less money. Help me out here. The exact acres are right there piece by piece. Now, if you want to get into the bigger pieces, then it shows a huge difference. But that one is as close to 50/50 as I can get it. bare piece. That's why I brought it. That's as close to my dead as I can. Did Geneva in Steel County? >> Huh? >> Geneva is in Steel County then. >> No, Geneva is in town. >> Has been for several years. I'm just look I was just just looking for something to base it on because the next comment I'll make is my wife didn't come from this country and consequently why did they come here and what happened she comes from

008the Netherlands you know you go to Scandinavian countries I don't care you've been to Norway so have I been too oh okay well because those countries after the World War II started taxing the taxes and taxes. Oh, how many acres do the farmers own over there now? Country owns them all. You want to go to the Scandinavian country, you pick them up there, too. There are a few small businesses left in the Scandinavian countries. There aren't very many small businesses at all. You want to go to Germany, try you can get that information. So, at what point do you draw the line? Pretty easy as tax. What's it cost the farmer to raise a bushel of corn? Somewhere between $48789 to 512 to 520. What's corn on the market worth today? $421 422. >> Yeah,

009over a dollar an acre. Excuse me, a dollar a bushel. That's over $200 an acre. But let's put more let's raise the taxes on that farmer so that oh now we can eat up his capital investment. You know, we just heard the state's going to raise a 26% sound. Do go to the computer and read it. So, consequently, I would like two or three comments if I could get them that would be positive on why 241 is doing that much better job. And by the way, when I walked in that other room, I was almost late, right? Who's doing their job? Did you set the clock in that room? The clock's no more off in that other room I just come from. >> So, >> no, it's just little, it's just little details because when

010you get enough little things, >> pretty soon they can get a big blow. >> Yeah. So, you were on time for the truth and taxation hearing uh which started at 6. >> What time What time did that clock in the other room say >> I I when we started that meeting, it was at 5:15. That was a committee meeting prior to the board meeting. So, >> off. >> Okay. So, um I I would like to address >> if if details are just >> gone, no big deal, right? >> Sure. >> That's my comment. That's what you asked for. >> Okay. We appreciate it and would like the opportunity to provide some context and reply a little bit. So, one thing I would encourage is as you look at the tax statement to add the two

011um the other levies and voter approved levies um together and look at the total increase in tax from last year to this year. And on our egg properties, we're we're not seeing a large a very large increase. And so, if you do that, um I I would think that you're going to see a fairly neutral or a decrease in the school district tax impact on those properties. Um, and I would be willing to sit down and look at that at the conclusion of the meeting tonight and show you what I'm indicating. Um, but the other thing is, and I I added it to the slide here and asked RC to update this, I would like to compare New Richland's tax impact compared to ours in other districts. And we added that slide tonight so we

012can look at that um, specifically with our neighboring school district. So, I will do my best to articulate what's happening with the tax impact specifically to egg properties and we can look at that tonight. So, >> yeah. Well, since since you know they're letting you take and represent them, you know, there are there are more things just everybody's adding. That was my comment. Let's keep adding this. Let's keep adding taxes and stuff like that. And the other thing so far and you know I was in the other room kind of by mistake but and now here what what do all every one of these people have and what do you have that I don't have >> updated forms that you're going to talk about there it says truth and taxation requirement right there. Do I

013have that? >> That that's the purpose and intent of this meeting this evening. >> Okay. >> So the public has the opportunity to see this information. >> Uninformed. You have all the information here. They are stacks. You have all the information. I bring something myself. I don't have any of that. How How do I make a good decision >> when you have all the information? >> Okay. Well, I think let's let's present the information and then I can share with you where to find the resources um that are are publicly available. So, um if we would >> Can I ask you a personal question? You have all this written down, right? Because why? You probably can't remember it all. But I'm going to sit down in that chair and you're going to expect me to

014remember it all. You think that's fair? >> Uh, respectfully, there's a lot of information to cover this evening and we'll do our best to present the information and then we can share with you >> information so I can read it just like you. >> Certainly, we can get you a copy of it. >> Okay, great. >> Yep. >> All right. Um, if there's no other questions at this time, we can dig into the resources that we have available um to go through the 25 pay 26 levy. Uh, Darcy, I don't know if it's working. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's not working. Is it a battery? >> Darcy comes prepared. I love it. >> Not really. >> It's okay. Why don't you just click through for me for the first couple slides and then we can >>

015All right. So, first thing I want to do is look at what the timeline for a school district tax uh levy. um looks like. So, the work begins back in the summer months where the school district submits data to the Minnesota Department of Education for preliminary levy calculations. Um in September, as a board, we have a public meeting where we discuss preliminary levy amounts um and certify those by the school board. Um come December. Um so, this evening, this is where we have our uh legal requirement to hold a truth and taxation hearing. uh and the school board certifies the the final levy. Um and then what will happen from today uh moving forward is that we will have a um the property taxes will be collected by the county in 2026. Thank you. >>

016Great. And then um what we what we end up realizing is the 26 27 school year we realize this is revenue. So what happens um 25 pay 26 we're establishing a levy now the the the revenue is collected from our our constituents and then in 27 we realize it is revenue for the school district. So really we're planning in advance um and a lot of it is based on enrollment estimates um as we submit that data to the state and then enrollment actuals as well. So, this is the way I like to look at the timeline um and compare our levy a little bit closer to other municipalities because the levies truly are different. Um and so what 25 pay 26 means is that we certify in 2025, property taxes are paid in 2026 and

017the revenue would then be realized in the 2627 school year. Now, this chart is kind of an interesting chart. It kind of shows the legislative cycle, January through May, give or take, of each year. And then the city, county, townships, and the school district will all have our, you know, where we're entering our our preliminary data. We establish a preliminary levy. And then by December, we are finalizing our levy. But if you notice the green and gold bars there, those would be like your city and county. And then the blue and red down below would be what the school district cycle looks like. And so you see that we're offset a little bit where we don't realize that revenue until the next fiscal year where the city and counties maybe realize their revenue right away.

018The other discrepancy and I I won't try to explain city or county tax levies um because that's not really our our arena. Um but what we see with a city and county um or other municipalities is typically they will establish their wants, their needs, their plan, and then they levy for that amount specifically. And so when they set a preliminary levy, it's typically a levy that they set based on what they what their desires are for what do they need to fund those programs. and then um they build their so they basically establish their budget and then levy. We're a school district. Our levies are generated by state statute and formulas and we will establish our levy and then the revenue that we receive is a mix of this levy and aid based on those

019formulas and we build our budgets based on what revenue we receive. So this year we did not ask ask for any additional uh referendum or we haven't for the last four years as a school district. So that will lead to our our conversation a little bit about what's happening with our levy. Why are we potentially going to see an increase to a tax statement on some properties may and some properties may not. And so we'll look at that a little bit more in depth as we move forward. Um but certainly wanted to point out the differences in municipalities. Okay. So one of uh the requirements was that we address uh on my initial slide this evening was we address uh budgets and the 25 pay 26 levy. When we look at our budgets um there's

020five main funds. General fund, food service, community service, building construction, and debt service. Only three of those funds have a levy component, right? So general fund, community service fund, and debt service fund will be the funds that have a levy component and that we'll truly speak about. So when we look at our budgets here uh in review this evening, we'll just look at those three buckets. So looking at our general fund, fiscal year 26, the revenue uh that we obtain for the school district mainly comes from state aid about 83% of that revenue. Interesting. Our levy was about 11%. So fairly small portion of our revenue is generated from the levy. What we'll discuss this evening still a large amount. Um and we'll talk about how that is changing. What this slide demonstrates is that

021we're really is is really a big part of what we want to demonstrate this evening to our community and to the school board. um we'll be we'll discuss how much this piece of the pie that's highlighted here will be levy and how much will be aid. So if we look at this breakdown, if we look back to the other revenue chart, we broke down by state aid, local levy, and federal aid. And then there's another little sliver for other miscellaneous revenue. What's hard for people to realize is that this red circle, all state aid, there's actually some of that big red piece of the pie here that is tied to the levy amounts. And so when we look at it this way, that levy and associated aid is about 15% of the pie. So as

022we start talking about levy versus aid and how much we're getting in aid versus levy, and we'll talk a little bit about a shift to the the burden to our taxpayer, the levy and associated aid together is about 15%. And so if we think about that 11% from the prior slide, there's about 4% of this pie. So if you broke that up, that is aid tied to that levy. And this can swing one way or another based on our tax properties and our enrollment. Okay? So it's another way to visualize what what are we talking about tonight? It's really these two pieces of the pie. Okay. So the other budget related discussion, I put the food service up here even though there's no levy component just so we can really see how things are funded

023differently depending on what fund we're talking about. So food service is majority federal aid and some state aid and then obviously we have some sales and miscellaneous revenue. Community service is mostly levy, right? So, when we go back to our general fund where we see it's mostly state aid and we compare that to these other two funds where one has no levy and one is a little bit state aid and mostly levy, they're funded differently. And so, as we look at these three funds today, our general fund, community service fund, and our debt service fund, um it's important to realize that they're they they're funded in different ways. Um but they all tie together in this this uh levy discussion. So the fiscal year 26 expenditure budget. So now shifting from what our revenues are

024and what we've budgeted for expenditures this year. This is the categories that that we commonly see. How do we break down the expenses? So about 80% of our expenditures are salaries and benefits for for staff people jobs. So enrollment. So, I think as we transition here, um, the reason that we put a little bit of information about enrollment into a levy discussion is that enrollment really drives a big chunk of what's happening with our levy. Um, the two big factors are property values and enrollment. So, um, what I've done here is I just kind of put some definitions up here and then some, um, enrollment numbers for us to consider. So, the October one enrollment count is a significant number. Um that's an official enrollment count generated by MARS and that helps us generate um

025an endofear projection um and it's also used by MDE and calculations for some federal revenue and some formulas that we um use for other revenues. Um the process um for the levy normally uses what we call an ADM or APU. All the formulas will be driven or a bulk of the formulas will be driven in some sort by our enrollment which um the ADM is your average daily membership um which is the portion of the school year which a student is enrolled and the sum of each student's membership days divided by instructional days. So if a student's only here half of the year we will get a 0.5 ADM for that student. Now, an APU is your adjusted pupil units where it's a weighted average daily membership. And essentially, there will be a multiplier for

026um a secondary student of a 1.2. All right. So, I want to make a couple points here. This is a very simple slide, but we will look forward to our revised budget um this winter. Um but there's a couple key u points along the way here. Um, so we are required to provide a revised budget annually, um, based on a board policy. Um, and so we are going to try to bring that forward a little bit earlier this school year than we did last. Um, but right now we got to get to a couple benchmarks. We need our audit presented December 15th. So we'll get our fiscal year 25 audit results presented by Smith Sha Sha Smith Schaefer on December 15th. And what the reason for that is is is that will establish where our

027actual fund balances on the books are. So when we look at our fiscal year 26 budget, we know if we're over under with those fund balances. Okay. Um also we will have our our October one enrollment numbers um updated in early January. Those are released by the Department of Education and that will help us with our end ofear projections. And what that does is it will help us with any financial projections um which will lead to staffing decisions for the next fiscal year. So we've got some important benchmarks coming up um between um audit enrollment projections um and revised budget uh in the next few months. All right. So, I noted that enrollment has a big impact on the levy. And so, what I wanted to do is kind of show and these are just

028screenshots right from our levy report that we have. Um, and I wanted to show what had happened with the fiscal year 25 um adjusted pupil units. So, this is driving a little bit of the levy um increases that we may see in 25 the AP the projected AP use. So if you look the 23 pay 24 column the left chart we were projecting that our enrollment would be about 3534 APU. So that's our weighted um adjusted pupil unit. In 2425 we were still projecting about 3526. And if you remember some discussions as a board last year we were really having trouble pinpointing where our enrollment would come out. in our preliminary numbers for 2425, we came in a little better than we were anticipating at 3,612. So that's causing a little bit of an increase

029or some adjustments in our levy for the 25 pay 26. Now with that said, there's been a lot of discussion about declining enrollment. I thought it was really important that we still really step back and look at the big picture. So I provided a historical ADM chart. I added a line of best fit to kind of help see how this is tracking. And those that have been following along with our district task force discussion or prior board meetings will know that our enrollment projections are still declining because we're seeing lower birth rates in the county, smaller kindergarten classes, and our larger graduating senior classes. So, as we look forward the next few years, we can project that we're going to see a decline in enrollment. So, as noted, a lot of components of our levy

030are tied to enrollment. When we see a property tax increase, our community is going to be considered more property rich or property wealthy by the state. So the way the education formulas are derived is that means that our local tax base would be more on the hook for our education or our school district levy and that the state would provide less aid. Uh it's something that Minnesota uses called equalization. So as property values and enrollments change that mix of aid and levy. And if we went way back, let me go back a couple more slides here. We talk about that mixture. What's happening is that piece of the pie doesn't necessarily change. But as we get more property wealthy and our enrollment declines, it's creating a ratio in those formulas that's shifting the burden to

031our taxpayers to pay for schools. That's built by state formula, state law. It's not a local decision of how much levy versus aid. We're we're following those formulas that's provided by the Minnesota Department of Education. So it can get quite complicated um but in the end um the declining enrollment plays a factor in levy aid and so do the property values. So this next slide um this graph comes to us from one of our financial adviserss at PMA. This isn't necessarily related to levy, but it does talk about our general um need for um revenues and why we maybe are having trouble funding schools. And this is not an Albert Lee problem. This is a statewide problem. So, this graph shows the general basic formula allowance um per pupil um versus what's happening with inflation.

032And um what's important to note here is that um this basic formula allowance is is really our our biggest bucket of aid that we get from the state of Minnesota. And um you can see here that the green line, the basic formula allowance is not keeping up with CPI over time. So going back to 2003 and it's creating a gap in funding per pupil. If we looked at it, um if it kept up with CPI, uh in theory, that same formula that was back in 2003, um would be at 9,112 per pupil unit. Now, in the 2027 projected or estimated um basic formula allowance would be 7,658. So, if we take that times our projected APU enrollment, it's about a $5 million funding gap that we would have if we kept up with an in

033uh inflation increases, we would um um we're I guess the simplest way to put it is inflation is impacting everybody and it's also impacting schools, right? We're we're not necessarily keeping up with that. Now, this picture isn't holistic. Um, we know that our our total revenue as a district, um, and I've had some discussions earlier with others about this, but we may be seeing a lot of revenue, but it's it's dropping into restricted funds or or different, u buckets that maybe have some mandates for it. So, it's not like we can use it for staffing concerns that we might have as uh funds get tighter. So, it's a little bit dramatic to think of it this way, but if you took this one year in fiscal year 27 where we see a $5 million gap

034and we walk that backwards all the way to 2003, think of all the money left on the table that we could in theory be looking at as a district and how much healthier our schools would be if these formulas had kept up with inflation. It would be a difference maker. >> Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead, Mayor Joel. You know, it's besides inflation as well because the legislature in 2001 in trying to going to CNI, commercial and industrial trying to be competitive as a state and our boundaries of South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, you know, the tax burden was the ratio was 4:1. Four on CNI, one on household. The state said we need to be more competitive. So the ratio statewide went 3:1 CNI. CNI 3% of the of the tax capacity 1% homeowners and the state

035said we it's going to help businesses so we can bring in the businesses and not lose them crossing the borders and the 1% though for homeowners to keep the kind of a hold harmless for homeowners so that we're not just shifting that tax burden out to homeowners and increasing their um tax liability. the state said, "We will hold homeowners harmless and we will fund that gap in um starting after the 2001 session which it started and you can see that it started following it. Then of course in the legislature and this is a nonpartisan comment as the legislature keeps going. Well, we found some other priorities because the plan was to hold homeowners harmless was to fund the general education fund fully for school districts. Now, the the burden has shifted to local schools. Those

036of us obviously who are in property poor districts are much more affected. and Eden Prairie. Um they had so much when this started and then the state wasn't following through with what the plan was. Again, my husband was in the legislature at the time, so very well aware he was there during this time. When it's when the legislature wasn't funding the local districts, they're like, "Well, you can go out. We'll give you the levy amount and then you can go uh non- voter." So, it's not a a voting levy. It's a non- voter approved levy. And that can be that will be your tax capacity. We will give you that that number of course in Albert Lee versus we've talked about this before the the wealthy suburban districts there's a difference and in such I

037don't remember what year kind of in the middle there Eden Prairie says yeah we're going to do a referendum and we're going to ask for this amount and it was voter approved. However the state law says well you can't go above this amount. Eden Prairie says we'll let them change the law. They changed the law. So when you look at an Eden Prairie district, their opportunities for students is different than in an Albertly. So I just feel the state put school boards, property poor districts in a bad situation of we're increasing property um taxes on homeowners. I understand, Marlo. I understand. We're just trying to maintain services as a district. We're not asking what the Eden Prairies are doing, the Chescas, etc. So part of that graph is what's happened with um the switch in

038the legislature and how they were funding districts. >> I appreciate that and the sentiment about trying to maintain um I think it in reality we're we're cutting and and reducing programming um based on what's happening with enrollment and as we see those um you know class sizes come through um and as we see these higher graduating senior classes we're making adjustments accordingly annually. Right. And that's uh the proof is in the pudding. We've reduced uh over $2 million uh last year and then 1.6 million I think the year before. We're making reductions in line with our um enrollment and trying to maintain um a balanced budget. So I I appreciate that context. >> So Marlo, I didn't answer your question exactly, but I think we would be glad to sit down with you because there

039are different services that Albert Lee number one has to offer that a new Richland doesn't because we're an ANI district. Um so there is a little more info there but again um wish we would have talked before this meeting but >> next time. >> Yeah. Okay. So >> Paul just one comment too. If you go back to that slide I believe it was in 2005 there was um >> and Mary Joe and Dave maybe corrects me on this but there was some borrowing that happened from school districts from the legislature on shortfalls. And you can see we we never made up that that difference with inflation. And I think that has to be noted as well that on the backs of school districts it was never paid back. >> I think it's good context and

040and this is just a good visual. Um and as I mentioned it's not holistic. Um there's other areas where we've received increased uh aid in in different buckets but most of those uh follow with some sort of mandate or requirement use of those funds. So, um, just to be mindful of time, uh, tonight, I think we'll get into some really, uh, the meat and potatoes here, um, as we talk about the levy, but I I mentioned enrollment is a big driver, but property values are as well. And so, as we look at property values, I think there's a couple different categories that we need to make sure that we understand the difference of. Um, so a property um, value, when we look at the levy, um, there's kind of three main u markers that we

041look at. So the community's market market value is basically the value of uh that homes are being uh sold at and if you look at 2024 so we're looking back for this levy the impacts are from the the state formulas are driven by the 2024 values. Okay so as we think about 25 values and and so the current home values that that is a going to impact next year's levy right but uh the current values the $2.8 8 billion in our community. That's a large number for market value. Referendum market value, if you remember, is um properties minus um agriculture um with the exception of a homemacre garage. Okay, so the referendum market value um and also subtracting from that would be like seasonal wreck and we don't have a large pool of seasonal wreck

042property in Albertly but um so the referendum market value is subtracting agriculture there and you see about almost $2 billion. So a difference in the market value and referendum market value in theory is about $800 million. And so we subtract that seasonal rack and egg property and that's what we're looking at for referendum market value. Now the net tax capacity um this assigns the tax rate to each type of properties. So all properties are included in that tax base the net tax capacity and you see about 28.5 uh million dollar the net tax capacity. And so you can see in in both scenarios the referendum market value and net tax capacity those are increasing year-over-year. We're seeing a steady increase in property values in our community. Now, if you look to the right, the reason

043I put this slide up here, one of the reasons was to show that increase in property values year-over-year, but the other is what parts of our levy are driven by these categories or which ones are impacted. So, our local optional revenue, voter approved referendum, equity transition, those are examples. Those are parts of the levy that go over the referendum market value. So, when we see an increase to those parts of the levy, it doesn't necessarily impact your eggland. Now, the operating capital, Q comp, which is your teacher performance pay, your ATPPS, your career tech education, so the the programming at the high school, your long-term facility maintenance, so the the the care of our facilities and the maintenance of our facilities, those are all driven under net tax capacity. So, those are over all of

044our properties. Okay. So the 25 pay 26 levy this year noted we have three different funds general fund community service fund and debt service fund. So a reminder the preliminary levy was approved by our board back in September. Um because we did not ask for a voter approved referendum and there weren't any adjustments by the department of education. Much of the information you're going to see is going to be the same this evening. The levy that's going to be proposed is the same that we had in our preliminary conversations. So here's a summary by those three funds, general fund, community service, and debt service. What you see is a increase in the general fund levy of $377,568.95, a decrease in the community service levy of $11,53,546 and an increase to the debt service levy of

04528 $298, uh7622. So in total, the gray bar at the bottom, you see uh an increase to the levy of $664,19.71. So remember, levy comes with an aid component. And if we see an increase in our levy, it doesn't necessarily mean an increase in revenue to schools. And that's a really challenging concept for people to understand. Their taxes may go up, but the school district does not necessarily see an increase in revenue. we might see less aid just because of that piece of the pie that we were talking about that's driven by state formulas. Okay. Um so for board members, you have a summary um that has all the different lines numbered on the left hand side of it. And um just so you can see where these are at on your sheet, the general

046fund levy is on line 40. That's a summary of the total general fund levy that includes both referendum market value and net tax capacity. community service levies on line 51 and debt service levies on line 59. Okay. So now I think this is uh an important slide to to note. So when we look at um that piece of the pie what's happening. Okay. So um as we noted earlier that aid levy split. Um so here up above we have that same levy um summary that we had, but it's important to note that some of our aid tied to the levy formula is also decreasing. So we're not seeing a huge increase in total levy or total revenue from from this levy change. Um if we look at those three categories, um you notice that our

047our general fund has a $80,000 increase in aid. Debt service is a big decrease in aid. Uh and community service has that slight increase. So really community ed is going to see pretty neutral um stance on this year's levy. All right. So this chart here is simply showing the percentage of revenues within the levy process that are derived from levy versus aid. So we took the total revenue in 24 pay 25. So last year's levy compared to the total revenue in 25 pay 26. So split up that piece of the pie for each of them. So in 24 pay 25 we had about 3.5 million in aid and just under 10 million. So 9.8 million in levy. That was about 73 and a.5% levy. Right. And then in 25 pay 26 we had about 3.2

048million in aid and just under 10.5 million in levy in this year's levy. That's a about a 76.5% levy. So what we saw is about a 3% increase to levy. So we see that shift from aid to levy this year. So we're seeing an increase of about 3% on that piece of the pie. Right? So um at the end of the day, we're not seeing a huge increase in revenue, but we're seeing the burden shift to our local taxpayer for this part of the pie. It's the simplest way to really look at it. So really hammering home more levy doesn't necessarily mean more revenue, but we're seeing the shift of the burden to our local taxpayers due to state formulas. Okay, this slide uh is a a better visual, but it's not completely inclusive. It

049only shows a referendum market value revenues aid levy split. So this is not including agricultural land or seasonal wreck. Okay. Now what's depicted here the green bars is how much levy and the blue bar is how much aid. And you can see now our revenue has been fairly stable over the last nine years here right or 10 years. And um what what's happening though is that burden is shifting more to our local taxpayer. We're getting less in state aid. And it's a really good visual to see what's happening. The revenue is not going up. In fact, um it's down slightly from where it has been, but between levy and aid, we're seeing more of the burden on our local taxpayers. And that's all driven by state formulas. So, some summaries about the the levy, what

050we're seeing happen. Um the general fund is seeing a levy increase of $377,569. Uh the voter approved referendum um has an inflationary adjustment that was in um and part of the language of the vote when the voters approved um the debt um is that every year it will adjust with inflation. So this year that inflationary factor was a 2.37%. So that increases the voter approved referendum. And then both local optional and voter approved referendum levies are increasing and it's mostly due to property values. Um but the um voter approved is due to property values and inflationary factor. And we should say that enrollment um surprise that we had in that slide about the APU, right? Those positive adjustments that we're seeing now. We're projecting a decline in enrollment offset by increase in property values. And

051so what we can foresee moving forward is probably a similar pattern that shift of the levy being on our tax base. So we will continue if this if this same pattern continues where we're going to see an increase in property values increase in assessed property values then uh and enrollment declines, we're going to continue to see this um the same shift more towards levy versus state aid. Um, also in the general fund, a couple um, uh, points for consideration. We will see a decrease in our LTFM uh, general fund levy due to a um, payments for the 2024 bonds that we sold or against our LTFM revenue. So that that amount for those payments will actually go straight to our debt service now instead of on the general fund. And then also we see a

052slight decrease in our Q comp and safe school levies um, this year. Community education, we noted that there's no significant changes. There's a slight decrease in the levy um and that'll be offset with a slight increase in aid this year. So, no real conversation over the community education uh fund. Now, debt service, um there's a $298,76 levy increase. uh the fiscal year 27 principal and interest payments for any of the debt that we have voter approved or other um is calculated based on those pay principal and interest payments uh plus a 5% um and then that makes up for itself in adjustments as we move forward. Now um this includes bond payments for our LTFM bonds that we sold in 2024. And the big important piece here, what we're seeing in our shift from general

053fund to debt service is that the 2011 alternative facilities bond is coming off of our debt service in fiscal year 27. And then in 2018 when we sold bonds for Hammer complex and the voters approved the activities uh uh facility here um those payments are going to increase to maintain that stable um tax impact. And so that was part of a long-term debt service plan dating back many years. Um but it's going to have some impacts to our tax statements. And I want us to dig in a little bit tonight so that our community is um aware of what that what those you know impacts might look like on their tax statement. Um so we'll try to go there. Um so there's kind of two themes. The shift from LTFM from general fund to debt

054service and then the shift in the burden to our taxpayer. So let's kind of dig into that second uh shift here when we're talking about uh general fund to debt service. So I highlighted three rows from our uh levy summary um just for us to understand this shift. I noted those payments from the LTFM general fund going straight to debt service but also that 2011 bond series coming off those alternative facilities bonds from 2011. I think they were for HVAC projects. Those are complete. So now that comes off and we're increasing payments to the 2018 bonds we sold for the Hammer Complex project. And so the net impact here is pretty neutral. If you see the difference in our levy is 32,394 increase, but the change in aid for LTFM is a decrease of 33,932.

055So pretty netneutral uh impacts, but over the two funds, so we're seeing that increase in aid on the general fund, but a decrease in levy and then vice versa in the debt service. All right. And this slide really shows what's happening with those debt service payments. Again, this is a long-term plan that started 2011. We're seeing these um alternative facilities, bonds, payments coming off in fiscal year 26. Remember, this levy is for fiscal year 27. So, you see no more blue bar in 27 on this graph. and those that you know uh were in this position well before me planned these debts and approved these bonds. The blue alternative facilities bonds were not voter approved bonds. The purple one here is that 2018 school building bonds for the hammer project. And so what you see

056is we backfilled as that debt came off and they built out the plan for those 2018 debt so that their taxpayers didn't see a big spike in debt right away when those bonds were were approved. They spread it out over time so that we can maintain our tax impact. So the idea was to not have any roller coaster for our constituents right in in taxes. Now, what's going to happen this year for fiscal year 27 is that the purple bars here on this graph represent debt that is voter approved and the blue bar here on this graph represents debt that would fall into the other levies category on your tax statement. So, we should see fairly neutral impact to tax. Okay. Um but it might be in a different category. So, when we look at

057a tax statement here shortly, I'll revisit that and make sure that our community understands which um lines we're looking at on our tax statements. Okay. So, in levy summary, um I've got a couple things to point out here before we kind of get into some closure. Um property values and tax capacity. So, our referendum market value um levy amounts this year. So levies over the referendum market value which remember does not include seasonal record or eggland um and is evenly taxed or proportionally taxed across the tax base is increasing about 642,000 or 642 uh,892 where the net tax capacity leveies are only increasing 21,217. So very minimal increase the net tax capacity. Okay. So in theory, your egg land with the exception of if the property values really increase shouldn't see a large increase in

058tax uh from last year to this year's tax statements. And um we can we can dig into that on individual tax statements if we need to. So the big burden is going to hit on residential homestead. That's where we'll see a lot of increase to tax based due to our levy. Okay. So, this next slide comes from our financial advisors at Ellers. And the assumption that's being made here is that we're going to compare $100,000 home, market value home from fiscally or 24 pay 25 to $100,000 home in 25 pay 26. Or going down the list in property values as you see on this chart, um you could say $150,000 home compared to $150,000 home. 300,000 to 300,000. So if somebody's curious what the estimated impact should be to their statement if their property values

059do not increase this is what we would see in tax impact as a from the school district. So far right you see a percentage and then the second column from the right you see a dollar amount. So in theory, if a home value does not increase, a residential homestead value doesn't increase from last year to this year, they may see a decrease in their home residential home uh homestead property tax. Um now with uh commercial industrial, same thing. And with agriculture, uh you're going to see a larger decrease because we, as we noted, our tax impact is going to be more over the reference on the market value, not the net tax capacity. Right? So, um, important to note that's assuming that values, property values aren't increasing, and we know that's not realistic for most

060people, right? Our property values do continue to go up. So, just a little visual of what we're talking about, and I just picked two arbitrary numbers. We used to use $100,000 residential home. We know that our um approximate home values continue to rise, and the more average is closer to about 180,000. So, this is what the school district tax on $100,000 home over a 10-year or um let's see what is that a 9-year history would look like. So, we actually see a decrease if that home value doesn't increase. And it's more just to compare apples to apples. But when we start comparing these homes uh with a property value increase, which we'll do shortly, you see a little bit different uh picture here. there is an impact. So, and same here with $175,000 home, which

061would be closer to your average home value in Albertly. This just puts those side by side. This is a comparison of fiscal year uh actual taxes payable 25 to those estimated taxes payable 26. Data is from Ellers. So, the same charts that we were just looking at. Now if we look at this chart, what the the x- axis or the bottom values are the home values and then the tax values would be on the vertical axis the on the left there. So you actually see if the home value doesn't increase our tax um impact is reduced. And here's just a chart showing our average residential homestead market value. So values are increasing. This chart also shows what's happening with our property values. So this is over our tax base, referendum market value or net tax

062capacity. So you see we saw kind of a trend um year-over-year of small increases but in 23 or 22 pay 23 we saw a big spike in valuations for both referendum market value and net tax capacity and then a big estimated increase for uh 25 pay 26. So again these are estimates for upcoming property values based on county data. So, it's not safe to assume that home value would stay the same, right? So, what we wanted to do is present a little bit of a chart on what would happen with a residential homestead if we had a 15% value increase to that property. So if we kind of target this middle row where a home that was 152,200 last year, the 15% increase would be 175,000 and 25 pay 26, their tax from the school

063district may increase from 5.58 to 628 or a $70 increase. So being more realistic, homes are going up, property values are going up. that's driving what's happening on our tax statements. So, as we talk about property value increase, just that reminder, that's shifting the burden to our taxpayers and we're receiving less state aid. So, as we look at this picture, it really comes full circle. What's happening to the actual taxes? And then what's happening on the other side is we're getting less aid from the state because our tax base is picking up that burden. All right. So, I I added this slide this evening to compare what's happening on tax levies for agricultural homestead. So, you can kind of see where Albert Lee sits in comparison to other districts and most of that impact is

064not voter approved debt. And just to note there, New Richland out of this group is well below the state average on their tax impact. So it's just due to what types of levies they're levying for, what debt they've had in the past, right? Uh and this is a um I think a per acre dollar amount. All right. So, getting to this tax statement. Um, and I really want to make sure that we take a moment to just pause and look at this. So, this is a fake tax statement. Notice Spruce County, the years are wrong. The idea is that we can educate people on where to look for items on their tax statement. Um, so just reiterating this is an example. It's not a legitimate tax statement. Um, now what the previous slides have told

065us about increasing property values and shifting that general funded debt service, we'll potentially see something that will catch our eye this year. And I want to make sure we pay particular attention to that. But the school district is going to be this third set on your statement. Okay? You're going to have your other municipalities on the statement as well. You'll have a county, city, school district, and then you might have something like a watershed district or other municipalities. In our case, would be the third on the list. And what's important this year is that as we look at these tax statements, this would be your prior year tax amounts. So if you add those up, that's how much the school district impact on your tax statement would be. So if you add those two together

066and then this group would be the current year proposed or estimated tax impact on your property. I also want people to draw their eye to the top because you're you're going to see your property valuations up there and a lot of your tax impact may be driven by those increased property values. Okay. The other thing to look for is if um it for example eggland and we're not seeing a property value increase this may actually decrease the sum of those two values compared to the sum of those two values. You have to put those together. Now the item that I want to that would catch the eye of a lot of people is that when we talked about this slide going back let me backtrack a few slides here. We talked about the types of

067debt in 2011. That was a non- voter-approved debt that would show up in the other levies category on your tax statement and the purple bar would show up in your voter approved categories. So, what we're going to see is kind of a flip on the tax statement this year. It's going to look like there's a larger voter approved tax on from the school district. And that's because that was by design from those that were here before us, right? We approved that debt. They tried to maintain the total tax level and we're going to see a decrease in other levies and an increase to voter approved. But at the end, those should maintain a a pretty stable tax impact from the school district side. So when we look at this chart again, if the property value

068doesn't increase, that's what we're talking about. You're going to see that U voter approved line probably go up this year and the others other levies probably go down this year. And I don't want people thinking it's because we approved some other levy. We didn't. That was approved back in 2018. That shift is part of the plan. It was all here before. Okay. Also, when we look at this statement, I want to make sure people understand that there's an appeals process. If you feel that this property valuation is not fair, check out I think it's on the back or the second page. There's an appeals process for your um property valuation. And it's important to read up on what that process is. Um that's through the county. Um and you can look into that. So, um

069one last little exercise I like to do when we talk about the levy is talk about the impact of the property valuation changes and really just simplify the concept. So, if we had a total levy of $100, that piece of the pie, okay, was $100 and our school district only had two homes and they were equal value of 100,000. they'd each pay the same amount of tax. Now, if they both went up this year the same amount, they'd still both pay $50, okay? Because they're still valued the same. The levy didn't change necessarily. There was no change in that tax burden. But what we can look at with this exercise is, okay, let's use that same $100,000 home prior year, and then this year, one of them goes up less than the other, the other

070goes up more. it's going to shift more of that burden to the one that went up by more than the one that went up by less or stayed the same. Right? Now, if we add in all the other households in our community, the 4,000 or 5,000 homes, and then you add in your commercial industrial, it gets really messy, right? So, this is a really primitive exercise, but it really does help us see what happens with those tax impacts. Now, in this case, our levy is also increasing, too. So, that is another variable, right? and we can see how quickly school school uh finances can get complicated as we try to figure out what's going on with our um our taxes. So, um, one last note that I want to point out is that in Minnesota,

071we have an egg to school credit in, um, in our community. Um, we're at the maximum and this slowly increased from, I think, I can't remember when the program started, um, but it it reached the maximum in 2023. I think it was like a five-year transition to the the maximum amount. And that maximum is 70%. And so essentially what that means is that the state is paying 70% of the debt service for these types of um properties and the farmers paying 30% of that portion. Okay. So um it applies to general obligation voter approved and non- voter approved debt service levies. And so this egg to school credit again agricultural land and buildings um not including homeacre garage and it does not increase or decrease the tax impact on other properties. This is straight subsidized

072by the state. They're just giving us this extra amount um towards in in aid. So in this case um our egg to school credit is $640,000. And so this program is a really supportive program in that that's taking that burden $640,000 off of our local farmers. And it's just important to note that that's part of what what we see here in Albertly. So um I guess in summary a couple closing slides here tonight. Um we are not increasing a levy to increase our revenues. The burden is shifting from a taxpayer uh to our taxpayer via levy formulas that are governed by law. This is state statute driven. We haven't gone out and asked for any additional monies. So our total proposed levy is 10,461,564. That is by formula. Uh it's an increase of $664,110 or

0736.78%. And we see a potential increase to our tax base in a refer market value of about 7.3% increase in those properties and the net tax capacity about 15.78% in the net tax capacity properties. So I guess this last slide here kind of shows a summary of what we're asking for approval. Three funds, general fund, community service levy, and debt service levy. So this evening in the regular board session, so we won't vote now. You'll go into your regular meeting. I ask that you approve at that time the final pay or the 25 pay 26 levy for the amount of 10,461563 and 71 cents. Again, this will be an agenda item for board approval in our regular board meeting. And then lastly, um I do always like to offer up the opportunity to discuss, as

074we noted in our preliminary levy conversation, if anybody does have um the need to look at their tax statements or want to talk more or just um if they have questions about the the process or looking for resources, we can certainly sit down and look at them. Um here's my contact information um from the school district here um and email or phone number and email address there uh as well. So, um, at this time I think I would ask if the board um would like to have discussion now or would you like to enter the regular meeting and when you uh motion for action then have discussion? I think it's up to you at this point to decide how that would work. >> I think we'll hold discussion till the regular meeting. Okay, I'll uh

075shift gears into the regular meeting and the agenda is in front of you there. So, um I'm going to call that meeting to order and we'll stand for the pledge 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. >> Okay. So, I will look for approval of tonight's agenda for a motion. >> Is there a second? >> A second. >> Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose the same sign. Okay. So, our agenda is approved. We'll go to action item which is for uh Marlo, we're in regular session. So, just that I you don't think I don't see you. You won't be recognized during this because

076we don't have a discussion portion. >> Speak before. No, not I I appreciate you asking and not just speaking but that was uh we had comment earlier and so we did shift into the regular meeting but it gave us a lot of information that gave no options and I have a couple from just listening but like everything keep the public in the dark and you won't have any issues give them no information work but if you give us enough I got enough information that you could all think consider. >> Okay. All right. Uh approval of the 25 pay 26 final. Sorry, we got the Yep. So, we're on 4.1. So, we're looking for a uh motion to approve the 25 20 25 pay 26 final levy. >> Motion's made. Is there a second? >> Second.

077>> And there's a second. Now we'll open for discussion. >> Trying to put all of that in a nutshell. Our levy is shifting to taxpayers because of increased assessment of property values. But in addition, we're seeing less state aid due to a decline in enrollment. Is that a fair overall assessment? >> Yes. So that's >> and that's what we're going to be facing in the future, too, I'm assuming. >> Yeah, I think it's it's fair to say our projections show that this shift is going to continue where we'll see more burden on local taxpayer than we will um via state aid. So um total revenue is not necessarily increasing. Those formulas are consistent. how much money we get between this combined aid levy combination, but more of that will be paid via local taxpayer than

078it will be uh via aid. Um so there's two factors that really impact that increased property values, declining enrollment. So as that trend continues, those ratios are going to continue to increase and shift that more towards levy than it will aid And again, as you stated, we're really not getting any more money other than a few thousand dollars here or there. It's just a straight shift, which is has to do with mandates and everything else the state level. >> Yes. In general, the formulas uh that we do see an increase in are also statute driven, right? So, if we do see uh an inflationary factor on say voter approved or we see an increase to the general fund formula, those would be these slight increases that we do see. But um to the point, yes,

079it's not really changing the the grand scheme. We're we're not asking for more money. This is just driven by formula. So, no new money added. It's just a shift more of the burden for that bucket of money to the taxpayer versus via state aid. Did that make sense? try my best to articulate that. >> So, Paul, not to put you on the spot, but if we were to not vote this levy in and go at a lower amount, that would mean cuts to people, correct? Since 80% of our costs are people, >> we are so to be very clear about that, we are on >> Sorry, I'll turn my mic on. To be clear about that, we are on the verge of making additional cuts as we've communicated in the past. as our enrollment declines,

080our responsibility is to maintain our expenditures so that we don't get out of balance and we can maintain our our or try to maintain our 12% fund balance as a school district. Um and and that's via board policy. Um what happens is we have to make reductions as we um see expenditures increase and and as you saw that chart about inflation, as we see our expenditures increase beyond what we're getting in revenue, that's where we have to make those adjustments. So, we're already planning and we forecasted last year and and as I noted in my presentation, um we'll have some benchmarks in the next couple months where we'll we'll build in new financial projections and establish that that target. But we were forecasting about $2 million in reductions or more this year already. Um and

081we don't want to pinpoint a number because it's kind of dangerous to do that until we get our enrollment and our revenue projections in line for fiscal year 27 and obviously approve our levy. Um, but as we go through that process, we already know we're going to make reductions and any money left off the table here would be further impact to that. And I'll just be very transparent, those reductions are not getting easier. We're getting down to a really challenging time and that's what's driving our task force initiative that we've started. Um, we got to make some changes as a district, but in the short term, we don't have the ability to really pivot off of that model of just making a reduction for next fiscal year. So that will be the task coming up

082forward is establishing um >> yeah so if you yeah so that's a good point too. So Dr. Hyle mentioned that um if we if we reduce our levy then our aid will follow. So it's I don't think it's dollar for dollar. I don't know um too many districts that have really done that. Um but as you navigate that process, you leave aid off the table too. So it makes things it compounds the impact of that. Um so um whatever and going back to how our municipalities are different. The city and county is pretty clean. What you establish as your levy, that's your revenue. For a school district, we have those components that are tied to each other, the levy and aid, and that would shift uh lower as well. So we would leave some aid

083off the table if we ever looked at that. Um, and so back to the point, yes, it would make more cuts, more people would lose their jobs. Yes, be a big impact. >> And one other point quick, we made the choice not to go out and ask for operating referendum to to burden our taxpayers even more to make up that $2 million. I think that's just uh worth noting. >> Yeah. And I I'll just add to that. Um, Director Nelson, we for the past, I think 5 years have not asked for additional um, operating referendum um, while we've been making fiscally responsible reductions over that time. U, Paul, excuse me. I'd like to piggyback kind of on other comments that have been made and I'm speaking in favor of this resolution. We have bills to

084pay and we have already, as you indicated, uh, been forced as a result of declining enrollment and the the loss of revenue that goes along with declining enrollment, we've been forced to already uh allow for $2 million in cuts. If we decrease our revenue by not approving this resolution, that that will add to the cuts we will have to make. And another um point I'd like to make relative to taxpayers, we all pay taxes to the state of Minnesota and a huge part of the budget of the state of Minnesota is to fund education. And so we are paying taxes to the state of Minnesota to fund education. If we do not approve the proposed levy, we would as taxpayers be receiving less aid from the state of Minnesota. We would be our taxes our

085our taxes that we pay to the state of Minnesota would not go down, but the benefits that we get for paying those taxes would go down if we do not approve this this resolution. >> And that's a good point. And I I again and I don't want to just keep eating this uh to death here, but the other thing just to to mention is um you know as a a community we want to provide quality education to our families and students in Albert Lee. And what happens when we make larger reductions is that has direct impact to the classroom experience for our students. And so, um, being fiscally responsible, making reductions as necessary to meet our budget targets, um, and maintain a positive fund balance also means that we have to make tough decisions at

086times like this and approve a levy so that we can fund our schools appropriately. Just because we approve a levy does not mean we're not going to make reductions next year. We will we will be making reductions. Thank you for all the information, Paul. I've been very conflicted on this. Um and and first, thank you for the information this morning. Um Mary Joe and I met with Paul and Dr. Hy and you made a very compelling case for voting for the levy. Um I can definitely see the need to take the maximum more than ever. It what I keep coming back to is can the taxpayers bear the burden? And I I'm not convinced that that everybody can. It's very tough out there. And you know, there's just a fine balance. We need our community

087to be successful, you know, in order for the schools to be successful. We need vice versa. Um, and so I'm really struggling with this. I don't have a perfect number in mind. I am struggling with going to the maximum. I know I I I understand what Neil is saying. It makes sense with all the incentives. Um, I'm just concerned with what people can afford right now. So, >> as you, as you've noted, I'm sure we've all read and heard that Freeborn County is one of proposed the highest tax county in the state of Minnesota. Minnesota, that doesn't mean it's just the school district. It's a city, it's a county, and the school district. And unfortunately, as we've seen that burden continue to shift and from the state level, I mean, go back to the constitution.

088The states are charged by the constitution to educate the kids. As Mary Joe said back as far as even 2001 when Dan was there, we were doing a pretty good we were doing a much better job at it. Now, as we continue to spend our money into other areas, then we're finding a way to shift it to every one of us in some way, shape, or form. And I'm not for it. I agree with Angie. There's definitely people uh you know, I look at my tax bill and you see 30 40% increases. Not something that I enjoy. Even when you sit down and contest your property values and that changes or doesn't change or the usage of your property values change or doesn't change, it it just seems as you had mentioned or Neil too,

089if we all of a sudden go to 5%, we get back less money from the state and so we got less money to operate on. We're not only cutting more people, but then we're also cutting our programs like you said. I mean, we are responsible up here not only to our education, we're responsible to every one of our employees and we're just as responsible to every one of our taxpayers. That's a pretty difficult balancing beam. And um it's unfortunate that we continue to see these increases, but we have not went for an operating levy like Kim had mentioned, which a lot of districts are. Uh it's kind of interesting as I said on the state school board you start seeing the Yisettas Eden prairies and we're represented by all them they don't have any big

090but what they do is they go off our vote voter operated or operating levies they and so here we are get their property values because we are a somewhat poor property value county. So >> yeah, and and we're seeing that um as some districts have been fully funded by levy completely based on their property values already and some have less and so we feel that impact as we're shifting that burden, right? Um the other thing I wanted to point out is just that our levy has been fairly reasonable compared to other municipalities over the past few years. I think uh last year we saw a decrease in our levy. The year prior I think was a 4.2% and the year prior was about a 6%. So, it's it's it's um been a testament to the

091school district and being responsible with our levy. Um and again, that's a lot driven by property values and enrollment, but again, we're not going out asking for those operating referendums when we don't have to. Um we've been pretty firm on that and being fiscally responsible. >> And I it's already been said, but I'm going to repeat it as well. We know we're dealing with um declining enrollment, so we will be cutting. Just that's a fact. Um, and I also I have a lot of confidence in Dr. Hyle, a man coming with an experience running other districts now here. He's been already very proactive. I think August you were already talking about we need a task force and start addressing. So feel very confident in the administration that they're going to lead the efforts responsibly, fiduciary,

092however you'd say that word, responsibly. Um that I think it's this is all heavy on our hearts. We we know what's been in the news for Freeborn County, but we're also here to represent the students in this community, and I'm not going to give them less. I think we're just asking to maintain. We're not asking for an it is an increase, but again, it's that state burden that shifted and this percentage what we're talking about in the levy in 2001, that would have been zero because the state was funding it. think we need to go to our legislators legislators and say this this model isn't working what you've proposed and stop following it's hurting and so I think we have work as a state to really as they said in the constitution it is in

093our state constitution all students res deserve an equitable education I I don't know that I would say that's happening right now when you look across the state but I'm not going to give Albert Lee less I remember my uh father many years ago said made a comment to me when I was even looking at moving back to the state of Minnesota. We were talking about our taxes and he said something about we got good roads. I said, "Well, that just means I can drive faster." Now, let's just leave that one alone and say I don't test the roads that way. But he also made a comment to me and I always remember that. Um I don't have any grandchildren. I don't have children in our district anymore. But I remember he said to me, he

094said, "Oh, always remember somebody paid for your education. Now it's time for us to pay for everybody else's. Like it or not, want to be with deal with it or not." That's that's my final thought. Any other comments? All right. with a motion on the table uh to approve the uh proposed uh levy at 6.78% uh or 664,000 whatever that number was Paul sorry. Uh all those in favor signify by saying I >> I oppose the same sign. >> I so carry motion carries. All right. >> Tonight from staff and student. >> Yeah. Uh Darcy G. Perfect. Thank you. Realized right before the board began I forgot to share it with her. Um so the feedback I'm I'm getting a lot of feedback. Strong. They like the words. um um they kind of like the

095direction that we're going with this. So um kind of over in in my spare time, I sat down. I said um I was at a tour of a business in town. Um I always say it wrong. Ready design control. Uh design ready control. There we go. Uh I don't know why I want to put the R first. Um and they've got a little employee manual. And so I kind of looked at it and I thought that really would be the way when we welcome new employees. Tanya and I were talking a little bit earlier and she's like we need to just get the employees off there and this is a booklet we can just talk within the community um that we have. So I just kind of put it this is a very rough draft

096needs a lot of input. Um, but moving forward, this is kind of what we're looking at. And again, all the feedback I'm getting, um, strong. They like the wording, they like the sentences, they like they like the direction that we're talking about going. Um, any most of the comments I get back is the last one didn't go anywhere. Yeah, that's correct. It wasn't rolled out correctly. So, this would be again another way to roll it out. Um, but as as Tanya and I talked about um just kind of a soft roll out um in her last presentation, she started to tie it in places to see how did that feel? How did we like that? Um and I think it's starting to make a lot of sense. So again, tigers in action is what I

097what I called it. I was trying to think about how do you do this? And it's really how do we put the idea of tigers in action? And so that's what we should call it, tigers in action. Um, we have a little introduction in there. Dar, if you want to go next slide. There you go. Um, and again, I won't I won't read it word for word, but this is really we're talking about an operational uh blueprint. Um, we want to share our mission, vision, priority areas, core values. Um, and the essential guide translate to our strategic commitments. Um, we want to outline those daily desired experiences for all stakeholders. and we want to detail our district and classroom theories of action. So, if we put those all together, we can shape um the culture

098of excellence for our school district. So, we've got a little table of comments and again we go to the mission. That piece we hadn't changed. We go to the vision. That piece we hadn't changed. Uh again, when we talk about that our mascot is is the Tigers, um I love it that it's cherry and blue. That was something I I could tell you my wife latched on to that and she's like go cherry and blue. She just loves that. So again, we have to play with these traditions and really build them up because I don't think people understand when you have those traditions, people are very proud of that. And I can tell you in Albert Lee, I'm proud to be in Albert Lee. I've been telling people this for months. My family's proud to

099be here. My kids are having a great time. This has been an absolute great transition and I think it's just how much tradition that this community has and how proud they are of it. So um again our motto always learning. Um we are dedicated to ensuring our people have career opportunities that support personal and professional growth through collaboration and shared leadership. You've heard me talk about that. leaders at all levels. And again, that's where we're bringing that in. That's a shared leadership model. Um, and I think we also have to recognize the essential role that each individual has in educating the communities that make up Albertly Area Schools. So, that's today. We're talking about taxes. We're talking about the opportunities our taxpayers give our students, but we're also talking about community ed. We're talking about

100our preschool. We're talking about our daycare. It's all the opportunities that we give to educate our children. Uh going on next are priorities areas. And again, I've been getting good feedback on the icons. Um I think they're just good. You can see the icon. You don't necessarily have to say teaching, innovation, grit, empowerment, readiness, and systems, but you can kind of see where they're where they're all at. Um people like them. it it gives us kind of that new updated uh piece to the strategic plan. Um and then we get into our core values. So again we have teaching deliver that high quality instruction grounded in literacy aligned to guaranteed viable standards ensuring student um advances academically, socially, emotionally as a lifelong learner. and I tied in those district commitments, PLC's, literacy, HRS levels one

101and two, academic rigor and continual improvement. Uh, with innovation, we embrace purposeful innovation to enhance learning, expand opportunity, equip students with skills and adaptability required to thrive in their preK12 experience as well as college career and community life. If you remember the original one, it didn't say required to thrive in their pre preK12 experience. And that came out a lot actually from our teachers. And actually, uh, one of the students uh, picked that out when that wasn't in there. And they said, "Hey, we're just not about college and career here. We're about our experiences as we go through this school district." And I was like, "Oh, you hit it. You hit the nail right on the head there." Again, with the district commitments, that's innovation, college and career readiness, technology tools, and what I call

102future ready skills. And I think that's what that prek12 experience is all about is making sure that we're future ready at every level. With grit, uh we had a lot about talk about grit today um in some of our staff training and meetings. Um we foster resilience, responsibility and sustained effort in students and staff cultivating a culture where hard work, perseverance and continuous improvement uh drive a growth mindset in their personal and academic development. Um drive a growth mindset came from a lot of the teaching staff because they said we don't want to just um um improve their personal and academic. We want to improve the fact that wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you can learn and grow and become better no matter where you are in your career. And I agree with that

103because I strive for that myself daily. Um, so again, grit and hard work, um, mindset, our district commitments, culture and effort, and character development. We put in parentheses CARES because we don't want um our elementarymentaries to lose their focus with the CARES. And what was really interesting with the student cabinet is when we talked about this, if you remember the first time we kind of talked about the acronym of Tigers and what should it be, they could rattle off CARES to a tea. Every single one of them at the high school, they're like, "Oh, what we used to do in elementary cares." And they rattled it off and they went through it. So, I can tell you that's ingrained and that's that's actually a really good ingrained uh piece in the district and again that

104continuous improvement mindset. But a lot about what we were talking today in literacy was you can challenge our students. It may be a skill that you don't think they can learn, but you need to challenge them. And you know what? I've known 100% of the time the students respond. So it's a matter of getting that mindset. Our students will improve. They can do it no matter how challenging it is. And we need to have the ability of adults to help them learn that too. Uh with empowerment, we empower staff and students through collaboration, professional learning and shared leadership ensuring every individual has a support and authority uh to contribute to collective success. I think collective contribute to collective success um is a powerful piece of that statement because they do have the authority to do

105that. They don't have to wait around to learn. Um that district commitment of of PLC's and professional learning lead to that statement. Um again, we put empowerment there and I also put staff shared leadership capacity. We're all in this together. From the school board to the parent to the staff member to the administrator to the parah to the lunch lady to the bus driver. We're all in this for the kids. Um and even to our students as you notice I've said I've had had some conversation with my uh student cabinet. I'm looking for their shared leadership and they're more than willing to give it to us. So um and then of course student agency um readiness where we prepare students for each stage of prek learning, college, career and life by promoting rigorous learning, character

106development and the real world skills needed to positively impact our community. Um district commitments that's at prek growth and learning, character life skills, career readiness, HRS level three, and real world engagement. And we're talking a lot about that. I Kim and I have a meeting next week where we're talking exactly about that rule real world engagement and how are we helping all of our kids take the next step. Today we sat in um writing uh we had curriculum training and writing uh for our staff. Um Tanya and I went through what we're seeing, what we need to start doing, what we need to stop doing, um what we need to continue to be doing, and we had a a a pretty good um conversation with all of our K5 staff. Um, and we talked about

107that engagement in literacy and what that really can do for our students if we can get them all to be truly literate, not just in reading, not just in writing, but in speaking and listening so that we can create that really deep thinking. Um, that's going to be the game changer for our students in the future. Everybody talks about 21st century skills and how are students adapting and how are they doing all this? It's that real world engagement that those strong literacy skills the ability to adapt think and adapt and overcome those problems um that really help create those strong community members. Um so looking real forward to our meeting and seeing what we can do. Um we're working with Sean again on some registration stuff to be real forward thinking there and again we're

108really working on the literacy components. Um, we're stepping up to BAT next. We're starting a math task force um within the district, too, to update the math curriculum and get our kids moving there because we're seeing we're seeing some areas where teachers are saying this doesn't match anymore. So, it's time to time to pick that up, too. So, and I it's mathematical literacy. So um systems we create aligned reliable systems while acting as responsible stewards of our resources and community trust ensuring sustainable success and continuous continuous growth for every student and staff member district commitments of literacy HRS PLC strategic alignment sustainability transparency safety long-term operational success and continual improvement. And Mary Joe, you are right. From the start, I talked about we need a task force because we can see budget-wise we can't cut

109our way out of this. And I told that in the first meeting to the task force. So, I'm looking forward to all the information from the task force. um having that come to the board and the conversations that we're going to have, they're not always going to be the happiest conversations to have, but I think we have to make sure that we have that long-term operational success so that we can create that continual improvement within the district so that we do uh ensure sustainable success and continuous growth for every student and every staff member. Um the next page we have our day daily desired experiences and you can see they print kind of small there. So that probably needs a little bit of work. Um we've already have some ideas on how to do that.

110But I think it is very important that we do look at what are what do we desire that our students environment and their engagement look like? How about our families and what about our staff? Um I think that's an important part and then I think we try to strive to make sure that we achieve all those. Um and then the district and classroom theory of action. Um, and again, we didn't change either one of these two because I think they are written exactly how um, the board would like to see them, but more importantly, that came from information that I gave the district task force too last time, which talked about all the surveys that the staff, the community, the board did, and then how that all went together with what our daily experiences, what

111are our theories of action both from a district and the classroom, and then how do we ensure that that translates relates to successful really citizens of our community. And then of course you get to kind of the future ready. So my my kind of future ready statement is we become the essential hub for lifelong growth and community development serving every resident from early childhood programs through comprehensive prek12 system and a robust community education offerings. Um, we are committed to an educational system that is defined by purpose, highquality instruction, and opportunities for all. By actively, uh, bringing our Tigers framework to life, we ensure every student and staff member is empowered, challenged, and supported, cultivating the individual excellence, deep readiness, and resilience needed to become engaged citizens who will strengthen the Albert Lee area community for

112generations to come. Just like Dave said at the end there, somebody paid for my education. I have to make sure I pay for their education. And we need to make sure generationally down that we continue excellence so that when we graduate kids, we have a strong, thriving community. So, kind of in a nutshell, that's what I put together. That's how I spent my Thanksgiving besides smoking a turkey and a ham and trying to make sure the other food and then uh shoveling and and uh snowb blowing slow and having fun and putting the rink up in my backyard that they were skating on tonight, I think. Um and all of that I kind of came back and forth and just adjusted, adjusted, adjusted. So, what I'm asking here with shared leadership is look at this

113a few times when you can and as you come up with things, hey, have you thought about this? Maybe this should say it this way. Does it really? Right. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for this to be our community kind of call to action here and this is what we want to do. So, the cabinet's all um on board there. They're looking at it. They're going to give me their feedback. Um and uh we'll keep going forward. I still have some students to to talk with and we're still getting some staff and student input back and we're going to really make this our project about us and then how we're going to move forward using it. So, and I've already put a lot of the things in motion that we've talked about the

114task force um working with some of the ANI budget and the um comprehensive uh ready uh why can't I think of caker right now? U comprehensive achievement. >> Yeah, comprehensive achievement readiness. So, um anyway, so that's what we've got. Let me uh let me know. I need your feedback. And again, I just want a powerful tool um that we can look back forward to so I can continually hold myself accountable for the work that we do. >> Oh, thank you for those thoughts. I mean, it again, like you said, it to be held accountable, it has to be meaningful. And the more meaningful that we can continue as you're working on to make these things not only for the staff but for the students, the more they'll remember them like you did with some of

115your acronyms and and things like that. So, thank you and uh appreciate the extra work and we'll get back to get back to you later with comments. All right. Um that is brings us to the end of the agenda. Just want to mention our uh next meeting will be December 15th which will be a Monday. That's our regular meeting. And also within the regular meeting, we always have time for public comment. So feel free to come back for that and sign up and uh we got a little two-minute time limit. But either than that, uh we're available. Um but again thanks for coming tonight and uh we will see you in couple weeks.