Albert Lea Area Schools - Board Meeting - September 29, 2025

001Welcome everyone to our early meeting, but it's early because uh we want to make sure we get to our homecoming parade. So, I'm going to be wa and we got a lot of information tonight. So, I'm going to be watching the clock. If we're not through by about 5:40, which I think we should be fine, I'll probably adjourn and then ask for a recess here a little bit later. But, so that's why I want to keep on schedule as close as we can. Okay. Um, do we have anyone for the No one for the open forum? Um, so I'll look for approval of today's agenda. >> So, move. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay, >> there's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by

002saying I. >> I. And oppose the same sign. Okay. Agenda is approved and uh approval uh for uh request for donations. Paul go through those. >> All right. Thank you, board chair, school board members, superintendent Hy. Um again, continuing uh this process of uh thanking uh people that make donations to the school district. And so here's um this month's list. Uh and I'll just read them off. Um and you can also follow along on the screen here, too. So, uh thank you to Compier Financial, a donation of $3,000 for agricultural education grant um going towards classroom supplies. So, that's a real strong donation. Also, Freeborn Mau Operation Roundup um Amber Jensen um at Sibi $500. Cargill has made a series of donations to our activities programs there. You can see so towards our boys soccer,

003boys basketball, girls basketball, girls volleyball, boys golf, um and cheer. So, thank you to Cargill. Uh the wrestling booster club making a donation towards the new mascot. If you've been out to our fall events this year, you see a new mascot on the field. Um, and so wrestling booster club making a donation there. Um, it looks like a blackbod giving fund, $28 to Brookside early learning childhood special ed. Uh, a ship grant for two pedestrian LED lights. These will get installed at Albertly High School. If you've ever been to the high school after school is out, um, and the students flowing out of the building and parents flowing into the parking lot, we wanted to increase some safety measures and the ship grant made that uh, opportunity come true there. So, uh, hopefully in the

004next year we'll see those installed. Uh, and then a donation from, uh, Miss Susan Mason, uh, going towards a high school scholarship. So, thank you to those that donated to Albertly Schools. >> Yes, I believe these are all still from August. And once September is completed, September 30th, then we'll get an updated report for the September donations. >> Any other questions for Paul? Seeing none, I look for approval for the uh donations. >> And a second. Any uh discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I oppose the same sign. Motion carries for the quest for donations. Uh number six is our consent items. Had an opportunity to look at those earlier. I would look for a motion to accept the consent items as written, presented, I should say. >> So

005move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Very Joe. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I >> I >> oppose the same sign. Motion carries. 70. We'll go on to our reports. Superintendent Hy. >> All right. Well, I'll make it real quick with it. Homecoming week. Um had a lot of good conversations with some students last week about um staying above the line or making sure we don't cross the line. Maybe it is. So, um had some conversations about um no paint. Um make sure if it's personal property, um like no keying cars, stuff like that. I got to tell you, we have really great kids. Not that I need to say that, but we have some really really good kids um that are really learning that

006line and and and asking permission about stuff. So, that was kind of nice. It's probably been since I was a principal that kids have approached me with that. So, um, got to work with some kids, meet some more kids. So, it's it's been a good start, um, to this week, uh, from last week. So, it's nice to see people coming to the school and laughing and giggling a little bit. Um, I was over there about seven, maybe 20, um, stayed through part of the morning and talked with kids and staff and, um, you know, people were actually smiling this week. So, I think that was good after last week. So, um, and then a little bit about last week. We'll, um, we'll move on. I've had conversations with our attorney, so that information will get

007passed down to you, and then we'll have some decisions to make. So, any questions? All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Uh, schoolboard reports. Kim, I'll start your side. >> Okay. Well, thank you. I um well I attended the football game last Friday and I got the chills most of the game but I don't think it it's not necessarily about the football. It's just the feeling of spirit seeing cheerleaders the band community members out there seeing people in the fieldhouse that I'm I'm assuming that's like sponsors get to Is that the deal? they get to sit in there or >> uh No, what we're trying to do is get the word out to alumni and kind of turning it into alumni base where if they want to come talk to each other, watch

008the game from up there, go out uh have a conversation. So, it's one of those things that we're just we're trying to again build community with our alumni and get everybody excited about being an Albertly Tiger. >> It was very cool. Um, so yeah, some some injuries, but it was a really good game and and we're five and0, so that's very fun. Um, I wanted to thank I had some questions about some agenda items and so thank you Ashley for responding and helping me out with that. Um, but then also, um, I want to thank Steve and and the staff at the high school because for the lockdown on Monday, it does affect Riverland because we have PSO students and and I'm the campus director. And so, we've developed a plan where in the future

009we'll be part of that call and it won't put any extra pressure on the school district, but it also a good partner at Riverland will be able to support the work and and uh, so I was thankful for that. Those conversations happen pretty quickly. So, >> yeah. and and thankful to you too, Kim. And and the other important part about that is, God forbid it's the other the other direction. Now we have information. It'll get right to the high school. Doesn't have to go through me. Doesn't it doesn't have to wait for Sean. It'll go directly to people we know are answering the phone and are there. So, we're going to have, I think, a much better communication plan in the event we ever have another emergency. >> Okay. Um, I would uh certainly second

010the the congratulations to our students and our football program. I've had this conversation many, many times over the years. It's, you know, we as a board, the staff, the administration can do wonderful things to benefit our students and to create a better atmosphere at our high school, but there's nothing like a winning football season. It doesn't seem right that that should be, you know, the determining factor of how well things are going in your district. But it's a reality when you have successful program, not just football, but any other program, theater, you know, music, uh it's it really does wonders for the whole atmosphere of of the school district. And so those those activities are important. All right. Um, I've as always am pretty much preoccupied with education foundation events and we have two of

011them coming up that are pretty significant and Tom Jones must be uh enlightened because this is the first year that we connected the athletic hall of fame with homecoming. Once again, the football team's record is going to contribute to the success of that event. The the reception is this Saturday, October 4th, at the Wedgwood Cove, and it's the same pretty much schedule as the Pathways to Success event, which will take place on the following Thursday, October 9th. Starts at 5:00. Uh very casual um no real formal banquet or or meal, just uh getting together people and celebrating the athletic achievements. uh going back to the days of Ralph Summers who was an activities director beginning here in 1940 something um all the way up to uh Larry Goodature who retired about six years ago I

012guess uh and uh it's it's a fun event. I have for the benefit of anybody that's here registration forms for those events. I put them on the table back there. Uh the cost uh to attend to pay our expenses at the Cove mostly is $30. So you know if you're going to come I don't care if you're the chair of the education foundation or there we the only guests at this event are the honores. The rest of us pay to attend and and should be happy to do so. So I put some forms back there. I think that's it. >> Um talked to some high school teachers and just want to share this. I thought it was very positive um in regarding cell phone discussions with the new policy or procedures. They are talking about

013their classrooms are a little louder because there's more chatter. More kids are talking and that's a great start. So I really happy to hear that as well as uh complimentary to uh high school administration on followup with behaviors and communication back to staff. So hearing some really great things. Um I attended the first meeting with Paul and Ashley for the negotiations for the LPN this week. Um last week I mean it's only Monday. Um, I had set up a meeting with a group of retired teachers that wanted to meet Dr. Hyle. Um, and a lot of things were discussed, discipline, consequences, literacy, lots of good subjects and the retired teachers really appreciated the opportunity to uh meet him, the time you took. Thank you. Um, and felt really great with the direction the the district

014will be going. So, thank you for that. uh worked with student council on some homecoming things getting the convertibles for the parade and the game and I think we're set. Um I'll be taking tickets Friday and then just one last thank you Dr. Hyle the incident last week your communication outstanding and you heard that from parents even though parents were calling and and concerned and should I send my child to school on Tuesday. It was nice to talk through things of we could what we can share is as much as we can share, but one parent said it best of if there's going to be any safer day to send your child to school, it is the day following this when security, police, everybody's involved. So, um, again, thank you. And that's it, >> G.

015>> All right. I would agree. Um, from what I can tell, the incident last week that was very scary was handled very well by the school district. So, thank you for that. Um, I attended a policy committee meeting. Kim was there and Gary was there and we went over um some minor um statute changes in the policies. I believe those will probably be coming up at our next meeting, I'm guessing. Um I've attended a few football games. That's been a lot of fun. Um looking forward to the game this Friday. And then I would say the highlight of my things to mention is I got a chance to job shadow with the head custodian at Hawthorne a couple weeks ago and that was a really um good experience. Spent most of the day out there.

016Um just got to see what a day in the life is like. Talk to people, see how things were going and um great experience. I'm hoping to do that in other areas also. That's what >> Thanks. um attended the finance committee and policy committee and uh also again took in some football. I want to get to do the same thing make the rounds to as many of those as possible. I did play cards with some alumni of Albert Lee and they told me 60 in ' 68 the team was undefeated football and in ' 89 they were seven and four. So take that for what it's worth. Um, also been spending time with this new initiative called creating entrepreneurial opportunities. So the found education foundation is going to be the fiscal agent. I'm I'm going

017to serve as treasurer and um those funds are lined up pretty much now to get that started. You need an initial $45,000 to start the program and then commitments and those are coming in I think uh very quickly and it's really gratifying to see that. So at some point, I think it's going to be fall of next year, students will be selected to participate and the ultimate goal is for them to create a business model and um it looks like a great opportunity for our young people. Again, I want to extend my commendations to Superintendent Hy, but also to chair. The communication was very timely. I had a couple parent because our phone numbers are out there. A couple parent calls right away in the morning and it was just a good place to be

018but be able to say that parents have been informed and things are the buildings are secure and our our kids are safe. So that helped me as a board member. Um, I also think too if you went to the football game, we the best decision we've made at the school, I think one of the best is to hire a second school resource officer because they were instrumental last week obviously, but on Friday with that injury to see them in action and how effectively that was handled and the kid is doing good. It sounds like there was been some reports that he's doing okay. But uh anyway, so hats off to the school district on handling some pretty big u issues last week pretty well. It's actually been a pretty slow month. I haven't had a

019meeting for uh any of my committees for a while. I don't really have anything to report. I do want to say there has been a lot of communication with everything that happened last week and a lot of parents um reaching out saying the same thing that they're real grateful for the communication. It was quick. It was It It happened a lot. There's a lot of phone calls every time a new update came along. So, it was really nice. It's nice change of pace for sure. So, thank you. >> All right. Just a couple things. I did get a chance to go to our first ball game here at home last uh game on Friday. Was up at uh our fall conference for MSBA. It was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And uh spent the whole weekend

020up there. Worked out pretty good. There's a lot of board team building that goes on and then of course we're trying to get ready for the delegate assembly which we have two nominees again on our board. You're both in. Thank you. Um but no, we spent a lot of time on that. We went through about I think it was 89 different resolutions on different things which again I every year I encourage our district if we have anything that we want to do at any level to uh come through uh us and then we can put it together and put a resolution in front of the uh entire uh schoolboard association in Minnesota and then they present that as part of their platform or their plank if it's approved. I mean, they do deny some of

021them, but anyway, it's kind of a cool process, which Gary and Angie have both been part of. Um, did uh have our finance committee, uh, Neil, I've got to echo, as an old football coach. It's not just football, but fall sports gets that year going. Winter sports keeps it going, and spring sports gets you into the summer ready for fall next year. So, it is nice to have some real successes happening there. And I did have an opportunity to watch our game on Elbertly Live on Friday night, which was the first time I've had that. I had a link sent to me and it was awesome because about the time I got in there was before halftime we got done with our last meeting and I was like I could see it. And so a

022nice uh thing that's going on here for the school and I know they've they were talking about a lot of the different they do an awful lot of activities. So again, Albertly Live is a a nice thing to listen to. And that's all for me. So teacher Thank you. Okay, we come to principal. I don't see Tyler here, so uh we will graze on over that one. Um uh 89 we'll go to number 10 effective and efficient operations and we have a uh W architects and engineers and Mr. Durban will help s and we're giving you a lot of time you two welcome. >> Good evening. Nice to meet you all. I got to meet a couple of you in the finance committee meeting right before this. So my name is Sal Begley. I work

023at Wald Architects and Engineers. Um and we are a company that um focuses in public um environment design. So I personally do K12 education environment design. Have been working with um 15 or 16 school districts over the past 10 years. Um we also have parts of our business that focus on government agencies. So cities and counties, state, federal, you know, everything from police stations to libraries to courouses. Um and then last but not least, healthcare. So, we're a company that's known, I think, for a couple of different things, but myself and my colleagues specialize in K12 environments. And so, I started um discussing a facilities study um with Superintendent Hy and Paul here about three months ago. We started talking about really, you know, some of the challenges facing the district and how data could

024help help you and your community look at your facilities differently. So, I'll Yeah, please. And just to note, um this really stemmed through our work in finance committee and um if uh for the community to know as we uh made the decision to hire superintendent Hy started getting engaged in those committee meetings early even before his contract started to be ready for um some of these discussions that were forthcoming and the decision to do a capacity study really stem from the finance committee meetings and um that's when we worked with uh financial adviserss at Ellers to come up with a recommendation of an engineering firm that would do a great job for us. Set us up with S and um she's done a great job digging into this study and uh I'm excited to see

025the presentation this evening. So, thanks S. >> Thank you. Um so, just some uh especially for the public who might not um be as in the in the know about what's going on with facilities for the district. Um so, as Paul said, hired to do a facilities study. So, we're looking at really two main facets right now and one I'll share about tonight and the other one is in progress. So, one is capacity. So that's really how many students can fit into the buildings that you have. Um and then the other one is condition. You know, how how well are those buildings doing on maintenance? What's coming to to you in the next few years and how might that align with the funding sources that you actually have to do maintenance? Um some key points.

026Obviously, the district is um projected to decline in enrollment some. I'll show some graphs at the end. Um and ongoing discussions about, you know, how to how to have your funding sources meet all of your obligations and needs and desires. So, um, the idea that facilities or other operating costs, um, should be studied was a a goal of the study. Um, as we've discussed what this might look like, there's a goal to have a community task force throughout this school year. Um, so all this data would get shared with them, likely myself, um, facilitating and then others from the district being resources to them. Um, but really want to make sure that the community's input is heard. So, probably a variety of venues there. Quick overview of timeline. So here we are at end of

027September. Um we did an update to the finance committee earlier today and then obviously you all here tonight um regarding that charge or kind of why the stud is being done in the first place. Um going through this timeline and then talking a little bit about process and we will go through the findings of the capacity study. Uh next month we will continue going through our evaluation of the condition of the buildings doing detailed walkthroughs estimating maintenance needs. Um my colleague Tyler and I spent a while in the district's blueprint room the other day um trying to categorize really what everything that's been happened and um what we can learn from those drawings. Um and then you can see kind of November December you can see that task force starting and on um and doing

028their work. So the idea would be to have community members help study you know what the district's facilities and budgetary um situation with us and then help have the administration help evaluate those um and eventually bring them to you all as a recommendation. Um, so this is a loose timeline. You can see it's really just at the month level, but wanted to make sure we could take really the whole school year to look at this. So nothing has to feel rushed. When I go through capacity, um, sometimes people confuse capacity with like maximum fire code occupancy. So I thought it'd be good to um outline capacity is really about good school planning um, so that it operates well as a school. Maybe just because you can physically fit a certain number of people in the

029building doesn't mean it's working well, right? And so we wanted to outline what it would take to be a a well functioning school. And another I think misconception about capacities that it's fixed forever. That that building was built for 400 students and it always serves 400 students. A good example is um recently when you did some moving of uh setting three programs between buildings, right? um that those classrooms serve a lower student count in them because of the needs in them and and they take up um really a full-size classroom still. And so that change in programming had a change and an effect in your building capacity. And so um this really needs to be done somewhat regularly just so you can keep on top of it. So really what we did is we met

030with um building administrators um over the course of the month of July. We had a meeting with each one of them. Um Paul and Superintendent um Hy attended I think almost all of them. Um and then we also did a walkthrough just to get our eyes on the spaces. Um so we heard a lot about how spaces are used but also how they are or aren't working well. Um and I can I can speak to any of that if people are interested. Um when it comes to talking about how many students a space serves well, um the idea that um we wanted to present is the idea that it could be a range, right? um instead of having it be a fixed number um that it might be healthy to look at it as a

031minimum and a maximum of that range. So you can see here listed are all of the grade levels that your buildings serve. Um and I'll pick out a couple examples. So for kindergarten, you'll see the math on every slide shows a minimum range of 22 students and a maximum of 25. Um you can see they go up a little bit for the kind of those intermediate um elementary school grades. Then um for middle school and high school they range 26 to 36 and 30 to 36. Um I should also mention um when we when we met with administrators there was um discussions or instances in which um there were some full-size classrooms that could be used as a classroom but it's not needed this year. And so we did document that throughout the study of

032where there was opportunity to use a space as a classroom. Another important thing to think about when it comes to capacity is scheduling and how many, you know, how many people a space can serve really comes down to how it's used throughout the day. And so at an elementary school, um it does become a little bit simpler because they generally move as a cohort all day, right? It's my second grade class goes to art together, my second grade class goes to lunchon, um recess together, and on the whole, usually nobody comes and uses their space behind them. So it's generally um thought of as that you can just count up home rooms. So, in this imaginary four room schoolhouse where there's two home rooms and two specialist spaces, you know, it's two rooms, 24 students,

033holds 48 students, right? Pretty simple. Um, gets a little bit more complicated at a secondary building. So, that same imaginary four room schoolhouse as a high school, we have to start thinking about, if you've ever seen a high school um administrator's schedule, um it's complicated, right? because the students no longer stay in the same group all day and rooms get scheduled um sometimes for use by different different users or for different reasons throughout the school day. And so then we start thinking about um for a good effective school operation, how much can a space be used and still allow like for example a teacher to prep in that space. Um, so when when we met with your middle school and high school principles, we talked about the schedules of the buildings. Um, and is there

034space for teachers to prep outside the room or how much of teachers on a car type things are happening? Um, and we really landed on that 85.6% efficiency factor. Um, and that's just really allowing one period a day for a room to be used for teacher prep. It's just it seems more specific than it is, right? But it's it's the way your schedule works. Um, so in this forum schoolhouse, you know, we can now start counting them all as teaching stations. And if each one held 30 students, that'd be 120 if it was every hour, every day full. Um, but then if you acknowledge that scheduling factor for efficient operations, it gets to 102. So I go through that because we do have maps of all of your buildings coming up here. Um, and I

035probably won't go room by room. Um, but I think it is available to you for who those who are interested. Um, they're really all laid out the same. So there's always a map of the building. Sometimes it's on two slides if it's a multi-story building. And then on the left hand side of the slide, you can see the calculations for the the range minimum when it was the lower end of that range and the range maximum when it was the higher end. Um here's a good example at Halverson. Um this I think I can point with this right. Um so I'll point for those of you who might have to look behind me. Um this is a good example of where you have a special program in this building, the setting three program. So they

036are using among other spaces um some rooms that could be used for home room classrooms, right? Um so I have a note here at the top that if you ever in the future were not hosting that program at this building, you could have four more teaching stations at this building, but it would have a net loss of four teaching stations somewhere else, right? So um you have two elementary schools that have that programming in it today. Um otherwise you can see the number of sections of each grade level on the lefth hand side. on the whole it's a mostly a two section. Um you do have three sections of third grade and so those ranges get you to 356 to 420 and then a couple examples of like um some of those could be used

037as a classroom if needed. Uh next we get to Hawthorne. Obviously a multi-story building so I have to go through it on a couple slides for it to be legible here. But we've got the lower level here where there's some storage and the art room. The kitchen and the cafeteria is down there. Then up on the main level, um for those who are familiar with the floor plan, that's like where the gymnasium, the media center are. We've got our three kindergarten. We've got our um two first grade classrooms here and a a third first grade classroom here. Um we've got third grade and second grade. And then once we get to the upper level, you've got fourth and fifth grade in addition to some um other other space uses like a special education learning center.

038Um here you can see the range gets to 424 through 498. So kind of once you get used to the system, it's relatively relatively simple to follow at Lake View here. Again, three stories to this building. Um the lower level is not a full story. It's kind of a walkout building. Um so you can see we've got two pods down there that serves third grade and second grade with a potential open room. Um we've got first grade and kindergarten on that level. And then um we've got uh fourth and fifth. So here you can see we get to a range of 498 to 488. And I will summarize this on an upcoming slide because we are clicking through here at Sibi. Um you can see we've got a range of 284 to 336. Another example

039where you've got a setting three program. So on the main level you have three classrooms used for that. And then there is another one um on the lower level and they do access the sensory space as well. So if that program happened to not be at that building in the future could pick up another four teaching stations. That's another helpful lens to look at it if you're ever looking at like historical reported capacities. It's always you know important to think about what programming was hosted in the building at that time. All right. When we get to Southwest here in the high school is where we'll start going through that a little bit more complicated math because we want to acknowledge the schedule. Um so here at Southwest there were 24 of these filled black dots

040of teaching stations used um during the school day and then there were another six spaces identified that could be um and so that gets to 30 stations. And if we use the minimums end of the range at 26 students and that efficiency factor here's the total. So 668 is at that minimum. And then if we increase that to a 36, again on that max side, that's 924. Um, and there's just some examples kind of in and around the media center of places that um could be used as a classroom if you needed it. Here we are at the high school. Um, there were 57 uh teaching stations in our interviews with the principal and walkthrough and then another two potential um areas. So that got to 59 stations. 30 students per station gets to 1515

041on the low end of the range. And then again, if we bump up to that 36 students per um grade level, it gets to 1818. This building that we're sitting in right now is a little bit more complicated to report on how many people it holds because the programming is so dynamic and complicated. Um but as we go through the facility study, we did want to make sure to document who's where in this building and um how much space are they using today. Uh you'll notice parts of the floor plan are white um just because they're more shared assets, things like the receiving area or bathrooms or hallways. Um so it didn't seem appropriate to allocate them to any one program. Um but you can see here colorcoded by their primary uses and then in

042parenthesis how much space each program is using. And then we do have that for upstairs as well. Again, more data as we think about educating the community on your facilities usage. Um so here's a summary of that capacity range for each facility. Um you can see your four elementary schools at the top with a total of those ranges being 1562 to 1842 and then the um total district capacity for K12 programming at the bottom at 3745 to 45.85. Um an important thing to look at is what does that look like against how many students are projected to come your way? um which I'll get to. Um I also thought um Paul shared some information with me about what enrollment was actually looking like for this school year that I thought was interesting. So on this

043slide you can see we've got our grade level. We've got those minimum and maximum ranges here and then this is the actual number of for example at least as of like last week Thursday um how many kindergarters you have right you have 195 and across the 10 sections of kindergarten you have that's getting to 19 and a half. So those kind of actuals as compared to really wanting to be in this range is an interesting thing to think about. You can see on the whole at the elementary level falling beneath those falling beneath the minimum. Um, so now if we look at comparisons of the Department of Ed and your enrollment projections, um, you have some enrollment projections that were done by Ellers and, um, I love charts like this, but graphs are sometimes easier.

044Um, so here we have, oh, I'm sorry, there's something goofy going on with the formatting, but um, here we have the capacity range are those two lines on the top and the blue is supposed to be between them. Um, so you can see that again the elementary capacity range for the district is that 1562 to 1842 and then the projection is the orange line. So that's how many across kindergarten through fifth grade students you're projected to have over the next 5 years. Same thing here for grade 67, how many students you have capacity for at Southwest between 668 and 924 and how many you're projected to have. And then last but not least at the high school grades 8 through 12. So 1515 to 1818 and ranging from what is it 1270 no 1265 up

045to 1341. Um and then in total but I think it's more interesting to look at at the grade level band. Um another good lens. So that's your facilities. other couple other lenses that are always interesting to look through when you're looking at school facilities is if you were building one from scratch, how big would you build it? Um, and so this is the Department of Ed. Not that you're going to do that, just to be clear, but it's just how much square footage do you have to serve a certain number of students and is that in the norm, right? We're we're looking against kind of these standards. Um, so this is right out of the Department of Education. Um, it's called the school construction and planning guide. And so the way to read this table

046is the lefth hand column is the enrollment. So um and then there's a column for elementary, middle school, and high school. So if you were going to build a elementary school of less than 550 students, they're recommending that you have between 125 and 155 square foot per student. Um, another lens to look at this is if you were building a high school for, let's say, 900, you'd go to this line and then go over to high school and it would tell you that you really wanted to be between 190 and 220. And this is really intended to be, I'll call it allin. That's buying the main office and the cafeteria and the media center and office, small group rooms and things of that nature. What it doesn't um, right off the bat accommodate really all

047that appropriately is kind of extra amenities. So things like pools, large auditoriums or community use or partnership spaces. Sometimes another way to think about that is like, you know, there's buildings that have like field houses with very large gyms. Those spaces can kind of skew the data a little bit. So you just have to you have to use it intelligently when you do it. Um so here is what your buildings look like compared against those guidelines. Um, so if you've never seen this kind of data before, um, the Department of Education does keep historical information on building sizes and ages. So this is how how your buildings were. It's like the year they were originally built and then any major additions. So I'll pick on Halverson because it's at the top. Originally built in 1956

048at 35,000 ft. There was a pretty large addition in ' 65 and then a small addition in 99. So it is 60,761 today. uh the current enrollment is 2 291 and so that gets you to a square foot per student today of 209 and again that department of ed guideline would be 125 to 155. So that's an example of the building that is um outside of that recommended range. Uh maybe another to pick on here would be Lake View. You can see at 418 416 students is at 140, right? Um, so all of this is just interesting information as you think about the buildings you have, how many students you have today and are projected to have. Um, as you think about, you know, what are your priorities for facilities because every square foot takes

049money to maintain and heat and cool and clean, right? And so it's really important that you understand that. So I know that was a lot to go through quick. I'll take any questions or anything you want to add. Um but the idea would be that the dis kind of next steps would be that we'd work on who might be on that invited to be on that task force. Um and that they'd probably have several meetings, right? Um and then we are working on evaluating the condition of all the buildings too because just how many buildings we have kind of quantity is one topic, quality is another, right? Which facilities are in good shape or maybe have the best bones, what have you. Um and that we would do updates to that finance committee and you

050all kind of throughout the process. So with that, I would take comments, questions. >> ESL, could you go back to the high school map? >> Yeah, >> it's a ways back. >> Click, click, click. No problem. >> Yeah, that this >> right here. >> Um, that building was designed and Paul can uh coraborate this u with the idea that teachers didn't own their classrooms. >> Sure. And and there's you see >> yeah these teacher planning areas right here and and everyone with little niches is a sort of office. >> Yeah. >> It never happened. And so typically a classroom would be you know to be five class teacher in the classroom during the seventh period day. Their prep was in that classroom. They had a supervisory assignment. It's usually in that class. >> The idea

051was that that that teacher could be doing their prep work in that office. But but I've never been a building where that actually happened. But it's the potential is there. >> The potential is there. I would make a couple comments. I think we heard about that um in our interview and walkthrough that um there are acoustic challenges because those walls only go to about I think 7 and 1/2 ft high and so it's open air, right? So that's a challenge. So a fixable challenge. I would also say in my work human behavior is that if you don't need to leave your space to prep it's an it's a couple extra steps like why would I right and so it's a nice thing to have but unless it is either enforced or required human nature is

052we kind of nest right as a spec recommending it but it isn't it wouldn't involve very many steps because it's right across the area from where your classroom is >> but I think probably the a very big obstacle to this arrangement is that then whoever it is that's assigning students and teachers to classroom would have a nightmare figuring that out. >> Would that change the utilization factor s if we accounted for that? >> I would say you could increase it some if you wanted to. Now there's certain space I would say that that's all very true for I'll call it kind of that core classroom wing. um you probably wouldn't be able to get to that level of utilization for like your music um and things like that, but you probably you could. >> Yeah.

053>> In a science wing, every classroom had an attachment between classrooms as an office area. So, and I'm pretty sure that probably the staff member does use they have a desk in that area. >> Yeah. >> So, it'll be more practical in the science wing than the uh those diagonal ones. And to your point, we did talk about those as I'll call them opportunity areas today, right? It's do you commit to them and that's where preparation is happening, right? In which case maybe they need to be modified some or is that not the model the district's going to go down and then that space could be used for something else, right? Like that would be kind of that's kind of the two paths. >> I know you'd mentioned um the square footage per student. >>

054Yeah. I I just want to focus a little bit on the um the uh special ed the level threes that we talked about in there. >> Sure. >> Is there I mean that's the recommended square footage like you said for building a building so you can plan and all that. So I just thinking that's probably something you look at is hey let's say if this was a level three room and there's only three students in here could be very easily used for something else and then maybe move the level three somewhere else where you could utilize the spaces better. Or is that the kind of designs that you look at even too? >> Yep. Yep. And um probably Paul can attest to this as we went through how rooms are used. There was a lot

055of discussion of how many students are in there. Is that most of the day, half time? Sometimes for offices or small group, we would ask is that a full-time position? Are they shared between buildings? Do they have a landing pad in both buildings? So, all of that matters. What I will say about the Department of Ed is um these are gross square foot guidelines, right? There is another I don't know 70 pages after this that kind of goes through every different space type um and helps you size each space type after that. So this is kind of if you step back look at the whole building. This is about where you should land but there are specific recommendations for different different specific room types. Yeah. >> Yeah. So if if I were to comment on

056this, this is more of the shell and then we would use the other guidelines to determine how much space for each type of program within that shell. Exactly. >> Um and I want to acknowledge the comment too. Um going back to the uh building maps for Sibi um and uh Helverson, we had accounted for the number of students that or potentially you could serve in those spaces. And if those programs, let's say we do decide to use a building differently and move a setting three program and that's not again we're not forecasting that that's the plan, right? But if they were used differently, we'd want to account for those somewhere else as we move the spaces around. Um, so just I think uh what the capacity is doing is helping us be aware of what

057those space needs are in each building right now and how much different education is today than it was in the 1950s and60s when these shells right were put up and how we're using them differently now. Uh and there's been a lot of modifications inside our buildings since then. So that's why it's been important to get uh the engineers in to look at those spaces, help us map it out uh and think about how we're using the space um and not just special services. It might be our interventionists or other um small group settings that we might have other specialists that we have in the schools too. So >> the the minimum and maximum for class sizes for elementary, is that our number or are you bringing that number? Because that seems different than when I

058was here. So, I'm just curious. >> Yeah, I think that's not an established minimum maximum. It's just more of a a range that we thought would be close to where we are at as a district or as a guideline. And again, through this process, um I don't think we're set in stone with that being where we have to be, but it's a good indicator that we probably do have some capacity in each building that we we're in right now. I'll just add I do have some some clients who have like approved like class- size maximums at a board level or like very directly tied to funding or things like that. But um because it was a little bit um we thought a range would be appropriate here just so that you can see you know

059if you had lower class sizes this would be what it would be and if you had higher class sizes this is what it would be. So >> are we currently anticipating that we will need to close a building in the future? Is that why we're looking at this? Can I answer that? Yeah, please. >> Okay. So, I think to answer that question as direct as possible. So, uh going back to where this conversation started in finance committee, we're talking about the need for future reductions in our financial planning, right? So, as we forecast millions of dollars in reductions over the next couple of years, so 2 million this year, 2 million next year, and so on. Unless we look for efficiencies or changing how we operate, we're going to have to make those reductions annually

060just the way that we um um are currently structured. Right? So, um I think what this study will do is start the conversations about how we can be more efficient, how we can be smarter with our money, smarter with our spaces. Um and also um W will start looking at the facility condition assessment next and there might be further recommendations that come out of this. Um but right now today this is data right we're not forecasting a change. We're not saying this is what we want to do. We're analyzing the space we have um and then we're going to get together with our uh task force here build that task force and go to work. So superintendent Hy do you want to speak to that too? Yeah. And ultimately, in order to do a task

061force to really look at how we do education in Albertly, we got to have data. Um, and we can't we can't just decrease the budget every year and still maintain what we need to do for students. So, um, that's that's why I mean, even prior to me signing my well, I guess I signed it, but uh, starting um, we contacted W because we got we got to let the community get the information. then we need to put that community task force together so that everybody can look at the data. I've been in other districts where there's thoughts about what should happen or what should do and then when the data comes forward that actually gives us numbers to work with it can let ideas come out and then it and then those ideas can be

062brought forward to the board so that you have the information the data the ideas from the community and ultimately you can make your best best decision on how to step forward. >> I'd like to just add one other piece to that. So in in the context of the finance committee discussions, uh one thing that we're realizing is that our buildings are getting down to two section elementary schools. And when we look at that, if if you intend to make more reductions, you're getting down down to where you're going to have one section per grade level or we're going to be forced to mix grades together. And so this all comes together in um I think in a more of a planned um discussion. And now we're going to bring the the community administration staff board

063to the table talk about what we what we can do um because we are going to be forced to make some decisions um just due to finances as we move forward. So >> that was my question around um just the framework of this task force um what are there ideas on who or how you're going to go about vetting for people to be on that? >> So yeah. So, we'll work our way. We'll call for uh community interests and then ultimately there'll be a group of the board that sits down and then we'll we'll do our best to get as many as interested parties in on that task force. It can't be the hard part is it can't be like everybody can't be on it, right? It's too hard to make a decision. Um but

064we'll work with W. Wald has expertise in this. I've worked with them in other districts um and and worked with other districts who have worked with them um and so they come highly recommended because they can help us really and and help our community really sort through the data to come up with what's best for Albertly not what is everybody else doing or what is everybody right we want to do what's best for our students for the future >> if I might I would also say that you know being on the task force would be the only way to solicit public opinion. We can do surveying, we can do listening sessions, open houses, you know, send your thoughts in by this date and then have the task force do the heavy lifting. So, yeah, >>

065and that that may be part of the task force is duty, right, is establishing what other ways are we going to solicit broader input from the community. Any other questions or comments? I mean, I I I think as Paul said, efficiencies are so important with our current budget constraints and what we looking at in the future that we do utilize the facilities to our best ability, just like when we uh turn Brookside in to what has morphed in today now with our our kids and our ALC here in the administration. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. Have a good evening. I >> think so. >> Hang on, Paul. >> All right. So, number 10 two will be then uh we'll be talking about a proposed levy and uh Paul will be handing out

066some information. All right. Um, I'm going to take a moment just to make sure I got my resources organized here as we're shuffling a lot of papers and changing subjects here. And um again, Chair Clott, school board, Superintendent Hy, thanks for the opportunity to speak this evening. All right. So, um I normally don't like to go off script here, but a couple uh month or so ago, I saw a post on social media on a uh you know, you're from Albert Lee. I'm sure some people are familiar with this post on our Facebook site. Um, but it showed a photo of Hawthorne Elementary from 1952. Um, and again, just for the context of how we're using our buildings differently and the the students that we serve today, um, it showed uh, and I give credit

067to where student Gary Thorson, I'm not familiar with Gary, but he's the origin of post here. Um, stated uh, Hawthorne Elementary School now ready for its first year. newly constructed building. 650 students are expected. So 650 students were in that building originally and our education has just changed tremendously since then. And so to S's point from the study here moments ago, uh it's important to reflect on how we're using our spaces every so often. And so it'll be good to dig in. So all right. So to the levy. Um I believe what time do we need to depart here? I can see what we can do for timeline. We'll see what we can do. All right. So, I always like to start with some definitions as we work through um any presentation that might include

068um something that is uh needing interpretation. So, um often with um our levy and formulas that the state may use to determine revenues, they are tied to enrollment. So, average daily membership is the most common. Um and S used uh our projections that we had from LR's last year. Those are going to be slightly updated just in the recent days from uh the MDE. But average daily membership um it's uh the sum of each student's membership days divided by instructional days which equates to their ADM. So if I was in attendance at school every day and I'm an elementary student, I would equate for a 1.0. If I started 50% of the way through the school year and I was there for 50% of the days, I would be a 0.5 ADM. Now, secondary students

069get a uh multiplier when it comes to APUs. So, APUs will take the ADM and times it by the multiplier that they have for an APU. So, for example, a secondary student would get a 1.2 multiplier for their APU. Um, one other just item to note is that MARS reporting is uh the Minnesota automated reporting student system and MDE uses this for um reporting student data. So when we move from estimates to actuals, the actual enrollment comes from Mars. All right, one other housekeeping item before we move on. I want to make sure that I acknowledge the board here. I as I was uh exchanging an email with a board member this afternoon um asking about the levy information um I did some reflecting and realized that last year I actually provided this material that

070I handed out this evening in advance and I don't like to surprise people with that. So my apologies that we didn't get that material sooner. I'll try to make sure that we follow that system that we have in place moving forward. So um don't want to I want to be as transparent as possible there. So, um, and, um, again, this is our preliminary levy process. So, um, tonight we will approve a preliminary levy and then back, uh, we'll be back in December for our truth and taxation hearing and that's when we will approve a final levy as a school district. All right. So, as we look at enrollment, um, and as I noted, the APU is often used, that adjusted pupil unit. that's with the multiplier to our student count. Um the APU is used

071for most of our formulas when it comes to levy and revenue calculations. So if you look at our last two levy reports, so the 23 pay 24 and the 24 pay 25. One thing I want to point out here as we start discussing and as we we track um those APUs from the past. So those were estimates. Now in 25 pay 26, we have preliminary MARS data that's showing where our actuals came out. And if you remember back to the spring, we had acknowledged that there were some challenges last year with trying to pinpoint where our enrollment was going to come in. And we thought they were going to be a little bit higher. And this shows us now with that 1.2 factor how much higher the APU actually looks in a a levy report.

072So that Mars data here for uh 25 pay 26 levy uh is showing that our enrollment is a little bit surprisingly high, which typically will lead to adjustments on our levy. If we were low on our guesses or we came in lower than our guest, then we would have a negative adjustment. Um, but in this case, we'll see a couple small positive adjustments due to that. So, um, just acknowledging that, um, that's the importance of accurate estimates with enrollment. Uh, and I believe we've we've got some work to do on that front of trying to get a handle on what's really happening. And as your district uh experiences some change, um often I think that's what we're seeing now is this we're seeing some changes in enrollment. Um and uh we got to get a

073handle on what's happening there. All right. So one other factor that's really important with the levy is our property values. So just showing you what uh this comes right from your uh our levy report from MDE and um this shows that our property values uh in our district are steadily increasing. So if you look at the market value um that's our total tax base. So the 2024 market value is $2.8 billion where referendum market value shows the tax base without our seasonal wreck or eggland of about $ 1.96 billion. So if we look at that, you see about 8 800 million less from the market value to refer on the market value. That's just removing the seasonal wreck and egg land uh minus the one acre home and garage for those egg properties. when we

074look at uh levies that are across the referendum market value. So over to the right, local optional referendum, voter approved referendum, equity transition, those um are all taxed on the RMV. And so those properties, so not including seasonal wreck, uh and eggland, um they're all taxed proportionally. So meaning a homeowner and business owner are taxed to the same percentage um for those levies the l voter approved referendum equity and transition and anything else that falls in the RMV. Now levies distributed on net tax capacity this would be all property types. So with no exclusions in the net tax capacity. So commonly um the bigger ones in this category would be like operating capital, Q comp, which is your ATPPS, teacher performance pay, uh career tech education, long-term facility maintenance program. Those fall under net tax

075capacity. And under the net tax capacity levies, each type of property is taxed based on a class rate. So they're taxed differently disproportionately across that tax um group. Um so not uh you know one homeowner and one property business owner might be taxed differently based on their rate that they have there. Okay. So before we move on uh I think the one of the three themes that we're going to hear this evening is about what's happening to our property values and the impacts on levy. So one thing to determine how much levy our community contributes that we need to be reflecting on is our property wealth. And the way that you would measure property wealth would be your property values um by some in a ratio to some per pupil rate, right? So a common

076one that we see in the formulas would be either the RMV or the net tax capacity towards a resident pupil calculation or an APU. So, as we see a a property value increase and an enrollment slight decrease that we're seeing year after year, what we see is that our property wealth is increasing, right? And that means that we s tend to see a shift to the levy. So, we're slowly seeing less aid, more levy in the categories that are connected or tied to our levy. And we'll look at that a couple different ways. All right. So, school levies. Um, one other theme that I I'm hoping we can make sure we communicate is the is the differences in uh a school levy uh compared to other municipalities. So, it's it is the levy season. Um

077we're seeing a lot of news about levies with the county, the city, other levies that we we may see in our uh area. Um, now a school levy is completely formuladriven and set by statute. So our our levies that we are talking about this evening are all tied to a formula. They're based off of a a statute of some sort driven by law. C pupil counts and property values are going to determine how much levy or how much aid for each of these components that we get. the more property rich our community becomes, the more levy, more tax burden that our taxpayers take on versus receiving that funding in aid. So revenue from levy is the combination of funding the school district is entitled to by statute and revenue um voters approved via elections maybe

078in the past. So, for example, in 2018, the community voted on um a hammer complex, Halverson projects, and the that is has a levy component to it. It's a voter approved levy, and there's multiple um and goes way back in time. And so, over um when we approve a a voter approved levy, um that will show up on future years levy is until that that is paid off. um which will be a concept we'll look at a little bit later here as well. Um so the point of a school district levy being unlike other municipalities is that um and not saying it's right or wrong, it's just different. We are provided a revenue based on formulas that are set at the state level. Whereas a city or county might establish their needs or wants, determine

079a budget of what they would need to do that levy for that. So they're setting their own levy and then they'll have discussions before their final levy trying to reduce that down to what they deem is appropriate. Where at the school district we're basically at the mercy of these formulas, what's happening to property values and what's happening to enrollment. And in most part, not saying entirely, but at the most part, we don't really have much say on what's happening with property values and enrollment. We're seeing declining birth rates. We're seeing our property values increase in the community, which is a good thing in most people's eyes. we should celebrate that our property values are increasing. Um it's probably meaning that they're desirable properties, right? So um we will work within the formulas that are provided

080to us to set our levy and then we work from there. All right, just as a review, uh 25 pay 26 when we say that phrase um that means that we certify the levy in 2025. So this December, we will certify our final levy payable in 2026. That means the taxes that are collected over the 2026 fiscal year or excuse me calendar year. So starting in um January taxes. So what is it? March and um what's the ex the tax at May. Um so we have our our tax collection in 26 and then we actually will realize that in the 2627 school year as revenue. So, um I got a little typo on my chart there, but you can kind of see the phases here. So, through the summer, we typically will submit data, those

081um enrollment estimates to MDE. Uh in September, today we're setting our preliminary levy certified by the school board. That goes to the county. They get tax information to MDE. In December, we certify our final levy. Um and then through 2026, property taxes will be collected. And all this levy information that we're reviewing today is actually forecasted revenue for 2027 school year. So we're thinking ahead. All right. So here is a snapshot of our levy summary for fiscal year or for 25 pay 26 again for revenue in 27 and a comparison to the 24 pay 25 levy. So last year's levy was 9,797,454. This year's levy at the maximum would be 10,461,563.71. Again driven by formulas, right? So state formula is showing a shift here uh an increase to our levy of $664,19.71. Uh broken down

082in this chart is just by fund type. So, general fund levy, community service levy, and debt service levy. And we can look at it a couple different ways. Um, that just kind of shows the impact or what's changing with formulas in each of the cases here. This slide um is demonstration purposes only. This really has nothing really directly tied to this year's levy, but I wanted to make sure we understand what our funding sources were. So, what I did is I just took a snapshot of our revenue by source from 2025. And again this is preliminary not final data not audited data from last year. It's just for demonstration to give us an idea of how much revenue we generate and from what sources. So if we look at the pi in theory our pi

083is not changing and also if we look at this we see 50.8 million in state aid last year where in 27 we look at the levy and when we look at our levy and aid numbers here tonight you're not going to see that much aid. The aid we discussed this evening is just aid that's tied to these levy formulas. When we talk about how much comes onto the taxpayer and how much is is coming from the state and aid. The rest of the aid is just coming to us through formula that isn't tied to the levy. So, we're really looking at a small sliver, but what we're going to see if we see that property value increase and that uh enrollment decrease, we're going to continue to see that levy piece of the pie increase

084would be a good estimate to see what's going to happen. So, if we look here at our levy that I just put up on the prior slide and we look at the associated aid. So, again, it's nowhere near that 50 million that we just saw. This would just be the aid that's tied to these levy components. So, for example, just a real base one, the typical levy that you hear about is your local um optional, your L. The L has a levy and an aid component. So, board members, in your summary, you have a a a table. You should be able to see in the notes on the right if there's an aid component tied to each levy and they should be outlined in there how much aid is coming from each of those. And

085the sum of all those should be this 3,27499. All right. So the reason I went through all that to frontload this was I want us to visualize that shift from aid to levy seeing what's happening when our property values are increasing and our enrollments on a slight decline. So what we see is last year's levy we saw about 73 and a half% of our um money in these revenues that are tied together with levy and aid was in the levy category. This year we're seeing about 76 and a half percent which is accounting for 664,000 increase in the levy. We are seeing a a decrease in aid. So showing that shift to levy decrease in aid. Um and it's not going to be dollar for dollar. It's not going to be exactly the same revenue

086this year because we are seeing an inflationary factor on some of our formulas. So again, that point of um property values increasing and um shifting the burden to our tax base. So a couple summary items. Um our general fund will see a $377,569 levy increase. Uh again, some of those formulas there have a voter approved uh or specifically the voter-approved referendum levy is adjusted for an inflationary factor. That factor is set by MDE. Both the local optional revenue, the L as I mentioned earlier, and our voter approved referendum levies are increasing. The local optional is forecasted to increase 104,761, mostly due to property values increasing. Now, the voter approved is showing a large increase in levy, 186,172 due to property values, but that also includes that 2.37 inflationary factor. So, the voter approved levies. Um,

087so for example, back to your hammer complex build we did in 2018, those leveies have an increase in their um, just due to inflation. Um, and also just to tie it back to our enrollment conversation, the levy also includes positive adjustments due to enrollment. Uh, noted in the slide about our APUs uh, estimate being lower than we came in higher. Um, the some positive adjustments come along with that. So, we are still projecting a declining enrollment, increase in property values, and just a couple stats here to show where this is going to continue. Um, our APU this year, uh, compared to last year's levy was 3,437, so slightly less than last year's APU. And the other one that we've got preliminary data from the county on is our referendum market value and our net tax

088capacity. So, if we look our net tax capacity in taxes payable 25 was 28 billion 549,242. Um, whoops. This must be a typo here. Please disregard the net tax capacity. I think it's supposed to be 33 million 55,450, but I'll confirm. I think I had finger on the wrong key there. Uh, the ref run market value 1.9 billion up to 2.1 billion. So, we're seeing an increase in each of those. Um, and actually on your summary sheet, there's a gray box at the top of the RMV and the net tax capacity. I listed those uh amounts in there. So, um, if we just take a moment um, to make sure we're getting correct information to our community, that next that tax capacity should be 33,55,450. So, yeah, I just had a typo there. So, the

089point being, we're going to see our property values in all likelihood increase next year as well. And if our enrollment continues in the pattern, we'll see a similar shift in the levy. Um, also another main point here from the general fund is a decrease in 397,469 uh dollars in LTFM. It does not mean our total LTFM funding is decreasing. What's happening is we're getting uh on the general fund side of things a split between levy and aid. In the past, it was all in the levy. And this has to do with the composition of our debt service that we um now will have some payments coming off which I'll show you here shortly where more money is going to go to debt service and then that's changing how our general fund LTFM is allocated. Um

090we also see that our Q comp and safe school levies are decreasing slightly. Regarding debt service, we have a $298,76 levy increase fiscal year 27. So this to determine our debt service uh for um levy uh they take our principal and interest payments plus 5%. Um honestly I don't know the rationale for the 5% but we see it uh adjusted if the payments come through at 100%. Um then we see a negative adjustment just a small one uh for those debt service payments. But fiscal year 27 principal and interest. So, we're forecasting what will we be paying in our debt service in fiscal year 27 to set the the levy for debt service uh here today. Um this includes bond payments for our LTFM maintenance bonds which we sold in 23 for the new boilers

091that we installed at uh Lake View and Southwest Middle School, the pool HVAC uh project at the high school that are just wrapping up now. Um, now the big one that we're going to highlight this evening is that our 2011c alternative facilities bond. Um, which I think was for some work at Halverson Elementary. Um, but I would have to double check. Um, the finance directors and administration from those years could probably speak more accurately to that bond. Um but what I want to note is when we take on that debt as a community um what what our financial adviserss are doing is planning out when the payments and the draw down will be for each of those and we have uh this bond this alternative facilities bond coming off in fiscal year 27. So what

092is going to happen then is we're going to see a planned increase payment for our 2018 project so that we don't see a a roller coaster if you will in our impact to our taxpayers. Okay. So, I'll try to articulate that with a graph here in a minute. So, this is a long-term debt service plan that dates back many years, right? Um, so we're trying to be cognizant of our taxpayers and not have big swings in our taxes yeartoear. So, this graph here, I took out three lines from your summary that I want you to just draw your attention to here for a moment. So, our general fund LTFM levy is going to go down that 393,000 that I mentioned on an earlier slide. And then we see these two big changes in debt service.

093So, the two blue cells are tied together a little bit here. And then the purple cell, they're for a different project. So, the blue would be our 2011. Those are coming off of our levey at 2011 C. And the purple cell would be that 2018 payments are increasing part of that long-term plan when we took on that debt and passed that referendum. But the big thing that I want us to see between levy and aid, if you see the total change in those two bottom cells, we're not seeing a big swing. We're seeing a um 32,394 uh increase to the levy and a 33,932 decrease to the aid side of um these debt service and LTFM. So putting that general fund component with the debt service fund component the impact to our taxpayer and it's

094a well thoughtout plan from the past will be minimal because they had accounted for when this debt would come off. So just this last slide to bring the debt service conversation to full circle. This is a small snapshot of a much broader graph that we have. Um, this is a five-year window just so we can kind of see when our financial planners are um our financial advisors are giving us a plan on how to um what we should schedule for debt service payments, they're thinking about when this fiscal year 27 comes up and we no longer have payments in our 2011 C. So this graph, if you look at the navy blue components here in 25 and 26, you see the last payments for that 2011 alternate facilities um bond will be coming off. So

095there's no more 2011. And then you see this purple payment. We've been making relatively small payments for this 2018. Uh, and I can't remember the A and B, which one's uh Hammer and which one's the Alverson improvements, but um this purple portion um you see it increasing is that blue steps down. So they plan to make larger contributions or larger debt service payments uh moving forward for the 2018. So again, steady less impact to the taxpayer um with that plan that they had come up with in the past. And the reason this conversation is so important tonight is this next slide here. So what I want to make sure is important that our community hears is that as we change the type of debt that we're making payments to now what you would see on

096maybe a a potential tax statement and again I normally would only bring this up on a final levy presentation or truth and taxation hearing but because I think this one is important for community members to hear I want to point it out. So on our tax statement, the school district's normally the third thing listed and there's normally two lines for schools. One is voter approved levies and the other line is other levies. With this shift to the 2018 bond, that was a voter approved levy. So now what it will look like on a tax statement is a much larger tax um amount for voter approved. So you're going to see a voter approved portion that may look bigger and a smaller portion for other levies. But in total, that levy shouldn't be changing much more

097than the the levy impacts that we discussed this evening. So in total, we're not out asking for more money. I want to be clear as we navigate this um levy season. The reality is we're our levies are going more towards that voter approved levy than they are the other just based on our debt service payments. Okay. Um let me make sure I've covered the points I wanted to hit there with this. All right. So, no significant changes to community education. In fact, it's very close to what we were at last year in total levy. So, no major changes there. Uh worth noting our levy summary. Um I wanted to start getting into some uh facts about what might be happening with this levy. And so, this would be the other uh main point that I

098want people to hear this evening. So the big change in our levy. So we we can look at a levy in different uh components. We can talk about what fund it's going to impact our say our general fund, community service fund, debt service fund or this way kind of broken down this way on the summary that you have as well. You can look at it what's happening to our referendum market value properties and what's happening to our net net tax capacity properties. So on this levy, preliminary levy, what we're seeing is a um $642,0008 or $642,892 um change in the positive on our levy in RMVs. So the referendum market value again going back to one of the first slides we talked about this evening, that does not include um seasonal wreck properties or agricultural

099land um with the exception of your homemaker garage. And the RMVs are evenly taxed. So proportionally across the entire tax base that's included. So when we look at that chart, the net tax capacity, which would be all property types, it's tax based on class, the RMV is t is is experiencing a much larger increase to the levy than the net tax capacity. So if this holds true and um again, levies are complicated. Not one property is going to be treated like their neighbor or the other, right? But in theory, what we're going to see is less impact to that um seasonal wreck eggland uh because that's where the they're excluded from the RMV where the majority of our levy is increasing. All right. So, my predecessor had um and I really appreciate the the um

100the real simplicity of these charts, right? to be able to look at um what a $100,000 home five years ago was taxed compared to what it might be taxed today or so on. Um so my pre predecessor used these uh charts and I've tried to keep them continued but I also realize that our home values again we're noting our property values are increasing quite a bit. I want to make sure we're looking at more realistic numbers as that keeps happening. Um, in this case, what I want to celebrate is as a school district, we've maintained um some stability to our tax impact um by not going out and asking for additional um voter approved levies or referendums. So, you see over the course of the last eight years here, um 2018, obviously, we took on

101that uh hammer complex levy, but um realistically um we're seeing a decrease in the school portion of our tax impact on the community. Now, I I mentioned our property values are increasing and so another look would be on say I think our average home uh on the latest report I saw was 183,000. So just a generic $175,000 home. This would be uh another look and these would be residential. So forecasting for that 26 um maybe $648 in tax on that home. All right. So a similar chart from the beginning noting our increase. So in summary, the $664,19.71 would be the increase if we approve at the maximum and the percent would be a 6.78% levy increase. So a reminder that when we look at this chart, it does not include the egg component. And so

102what we've seen is not necessarily a change in the total revenue available to us based on formulas, but a shift in where that burden falls. Right? And so that would be the explanation for that levy increase. Um and then the one other uh thing I want to forewarn our community on to is it doesn't mean a 6.78% increase to all properties across the board. Right? So this every property is going to be unique and the tax impact may uh be different depending on what's happening with our total RMV. It might be dispersal uh across a greater tax base uh or your property values might be going up or down. uh you personally. So, for this evening, um I want to just throw a couple items out as a reminder. Um we are not increasing our

103levy to um increase our revenues per pupil. We are looking uh at this based on the formulas that are provided to us. Uh the revenue that we are entitled to through formulas from the state of Minnesota. Um, and what's happening and the reason that we're seeing an increase in the levy is the burden is shifting to the taxpayer v via those formulas that we're we're using to generate our revenue. So, the information below is based on preliminary data. Again, this evening, we're going to approve a preliminary and then in December at our truth and taxation hearing, we will approve um as a board approved certify our final levy. Um, so a proposed levy of 10,461,564, an increase of $664,110, that's a 6.78% increase. And then a reminder that we're seeing that tax base increase um

104there. So there's your RMV and that tax capacity increases. So, at this time, I'd ask the board approve certification of the proposed 25 pay 26 levy uh for the maximum levy authority. And at this time, what would happen is we would certify the approval. Uh we get a board clerk signature this evening. I send this off to the county. They get the data MDE. Then we plan for our truth and taxation hearing in in December 1st. we have uh opportunity for community to come uh speak hear about tax impact and then uh we would certify that final levy on that December 1st meeting. >> Thank you Paul. All right. Um I'm going to look for a motion before we get any questions or discussion for Paul. So I will look for a motion for uh

105the approval of the um the preliminary le levy at 6.78%. >> So move Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Now I'll look for discussion. Any questions for Paul? >> Yeah. Um Paul, that's a lot of information, but it and it's complicated, but I'd like to try to make things as simple as possible. The way this works is, as I understand it, the state allocates an amount of money every year that they consider necessary to educate a student. Is that correct? >> So they they they they present an amount of money that is assigned per pupil unit. >> In other words, what it costs to educate a student. >> Yes. Now, there's many formulas that contribute to that dollar. And then that amount is multiplied by the number of pupil units we have which

106determines how much the state considers it takes to educate all the students in our district. Correct. >> Yes. >> All right. Now, the Minnesota Miracle provides a long time ago that once that figure is determined how much it costs to educate all the students in our district, now they look at our how much revenue our local property taxes generate. Is that correct? And based on that amount of money that we can raise locally, the state determines, how much we can pay locally and and how much the state will pay. In other words, if our property taxes are really high as they are in I think last time I looked Redwing, their local taxes pay everything. State pays nothing. I mean, that's possible, right? There's a sliding scale uh based on how much your local property

107taxes generate that the state will pro that determines how much the state provides and how much the local >> leies provide. Right. Yes. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> All right. Now, just let me finish. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Fire away. >> Right. So in the state's determination then based on our property values, how much we can afford to pay, what figure do they use to determine how much we can afford to pay? The maximum that we can levy or something less than that. >> So I make sure I'm answering your question correctly. So you you've articulated the process pretty pretty well. I think that's the whole idea. There's certain fund a certain amount of revenue that we need according to their eyes, their expertise >> to fund our schools. >> Um

108within each formula for each um levy, they may use a different factor to >> Yeah. But but but that's true. But uh in general the when they determine how much we can afford to pay the the amount that we can afford to pay is based on what we levy not not what we decide to live but we can the maximum we can decide to >> correct. So in other words, we it takes X amount of dollars to educate all students in our district and then that amount is going to be is guaranteed. It's allocate guaranteed. State will pay some we will pay some based on our ability to pay. So if we determine and and our amount of money raised locally is a function of the levy that we decide to impose upon. And what

109I'm what I'm suggesting is that if we if we do not levy at the maximum that our students are not going to get the amount that the state has determined it takes to educate the students in our district. Right. >> Yeah, that's right. Right. So, in other words, it would it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to not levy that the maximum that's that's available because if we do, then according to the Minnesota Miracle, our students are going to get less money than a district that did level at the maximum. >> Yeah, that's that's correct. And I'll be um frank too that the formulas um you know every levy calculation isn't necessarily increasing with inflation like maybe the >> that's my that's my next point. Uh the the these I mean if you look

110at the history of what the state has determined it cost to to educate all the students in your district they're about 2% shy every year. Yeah. One. So in other words, somehow the district has to make up that actual cost that it takes to educate the students in your district as opposed to what the state has decided they will provide. >> Yeah, that's a really strong take on it. Um we also I so I think you could in summary say that we are underfunding our schools based on that. Yes. >> Yeah. And then I think there's a sort of additional factor here because if we if we decide essentially that oh I I think the state is wrong it doesn't take that much so we're going to levy less then the state looks at that

111and say oh so I guess maybe that we don't need we the state don't need to contribute as much towards the ely school district on the basis of of of the fact that we levied less than. >> So if you levy if you underlevy um you will also leave aid off the table as well. So you won't get the state contributions for what you underlevy. Now that could be >> not necessarily dollar for dollar. It could be based on what that contribution looks like or the formulas look like but you would be leaving aid off of the table if you under levy. Yes. So there there's really a from my point of view there's not a whole lot that can be said for leveling levying less than what we are able to. Uh and then

112and as you pointed out um city county they don't have those restrictions. I mean they they they're not tied to a maximum. >> That sounds correct. And I don't want to speak to the city and county's processes, but typically their process would be to establish their levy um based on their needs. And >> okay, I have one other question. I'll be quiet maybe. Um the um you mentioned the refer which is which happens in virtually every district in the state of Minnesota because of the fact that the state's determination of what it costs to educate students in their district is a little bit shy of what it actually takes. So virtually every uh school district in the state has a referendum voter approved so that this this the local district can make up the difference

113and we we are not an exception. Uh in 2018 we we entered into another agreement with our taxpayers. Now that those referendums, voter approved referendums uh consists of an approval for a c for x number of dollars. Correct. So if so, so so we we uh that that agreement uh puts a a burden from 2018 till probably 2028 of of amount of x number of dollars every year. It's it's in other words that that if our property values go up that doesn't mean that that increase is going to increase the amount that the district agreed to raise in 2018. >> Yeah. The only increases you would see on those le on those referendums would be if there was an inflationary factor tied to those. >> Oh yeah. that but but still it's in a sense

114a sort of dollar amount every so if your property taxes go up >> that doesn't mean that we just raise more money >> because of the effort no >> all right that's it >> just a point for clarification because I think we used what the calculated percentage was for the motion I think if you want to levy at the maximum your motion has to be that you want to levy at the maximum >> that was the >> right but I think that's the wording that needs to be >> yeah I I believe it would be a dollar amount or the maximum levy authority so as listed on the screen would be the recommendation >> okay we'll change that motion then I guess >> I that's I move to approve the two to to approve the

115pay 2026 levy at maximum that was the intent of my motion anyway Any other uh comments, questions? Angie, >> one quick question. As you've been planning the budget and budget cuts, is this in line with what you were anticipating? >> I'd say our financial projections and our budgets were based on levying at the maximum. Again, to Neil's point, this would be the total of money that we would have available to the district would be based on the levy and the revenue generated through those formulas. >> Yeah, I Yeah, thank you, Neil. But, um, this was a lot of information and I think we need more prep next time before this happens because I thought I understood some things. Now I'm confused with some of that discussion. Um, so the state doesn't say this is what

116you need to educate at this level. The levy is based on a formula which includes property tax values which we are a property poor district. So if you're a metro school, you may be levy levying an extra 2,000 per student. We're not nowhere near that. So I I just I think I want to clarify that statement that the state doesn't say this is what it takes to educate a student. I think we're still underfunded obviously in Albert Lee uh because we don't have the property wealth of a metro district who their students many more opportunities and and much larger levies. So I think that conversation wasn't accurate in just that this is what the state says to educate a student properly. Um, I I think I want to clarify that because I I don't want

117that taken out of context either on all the state says this is what it takes to educate a student. Um, a lot of information I think we're feeling the time crunch to get to homecoming. Um, so now I thought the max was a 6.78. >> Yeah. So, the reason that you don't tie to a percentage or a dollar amount to answer that question and I'll try to al your other point as well, but um is the levy changes and for example, um I put a tremendous amount of work into getting the the summary put together for you. That changed Thursday evening. It sure changed Friday. Um it very well could change before December. Um and at the rate that we're getting a response back from MDE, we don't want to tie ourselves into what if

118there is a mistake in here where we're levying too much or too little. And so you don't want to tie to a dollar amount or percentage just in case something does change between now and December. Um and also to the point of um in theory, I think in in just a general terms uh to director Scor's uh point of the amount it costs. I mean that goes back to the Minnesota miracle um the theory when it started, but I don't think in today's current communication from the state they're saying this levy aid combination is going to be enough to fund your schools. That's obviously changed over time, but um the whole idea of we have this bucket of levy and aid provided to us by the state. Um it's just what I've been trying to

119get across this evening is how much of that burden falls onto our tax base based on formula versus how much we would receive an aid. And to your point, uh Director Dorman, you you might have a district that gets all of their funding via aid and some all other districts get it all via levy. And then also um some districts um maybe go out to their communities asking for that operating referendum or or community support more often. Um and so they may see a much larger levy because they're asking for money from their community >> and and that's a result of the fact that they with like the diners and the very wealthy wealthy people are the ones that are paying the taxes are perfectly willing to agree to uh an arrangement where they get

120more than that dollar amount that is determined by the state. and and we do the same. Every district in the state uh finds it necessary to uh to ask their voters to approve referendums so that they can provide the kind of services that they want for their students. uh if you if you come from an area where money is not a problem, uh they're much more willing to do that and and and probably should, which is why, you know, that's it's the Minnesota quote Minnesota miracle was designed to level things the playing field for everybody in the state, regardless of how wealthy your area is. If if you're a tax poor area, then the state pays more, but everybody gets the same. That was the idea >> originally. >> So there is a lot to

121unpack here and you have um the data in front of you on a preliminary report. Um this this is not a final report from NDE. This levy report again updates frequently um and we will be back for truth and taxation hearing. And if there's any conversation that we need to have before then I'd encourage you to uh just give me a call or set up a time to meet with me and we can look through it together. I think just one point I want to make too for clarity too to speak to Mary's Mary Joe's point there what I have used many times um when we talk about this is if I am for the max levy because it's the potential of leaving money on the table for our district and that's the that's the

122kind of the rule that I've used and if that's different that's what I want to know but I feel like that's still the case. >> That would be the case. Yes. And to Director Hoffman's point, um you know, if we think about our budgets that have been set and our financial projections, if we underlevy, we would definitely be looking at much larger reductions um moving forward. So, >> and I'm I too am for the max. I mean, I'm just saying that I I want to make sure I understand when the phone calls come tomorrow from the community and they ask, "What are we loving?" that I understand what the answer is. Um, and the other thing back to Neil's statement or your comments, which were are good. Um, you know, I see in Albert Lee,

123we're still under or we're still pulling from the general fund to um the cross subsidies of of special education, EL. So, we're not getting all the money that we need. So, of course, I'm going to vote yes on a max. I just want to make sure I understand when the public starts asking questions and they will as they should. We represent them that I understand what that answer is. >> Yeah. And at any time um if you need to direct any questions or set up a time with those constituents and myself, I'd be willing to sit down and have a a look and even looking at tax statements or projections for their properties, I have no problem looking at it with them as well. That would be very useful because I we all get those

124tax statements and they can be kind of confusing and when you look at it's not a lot of explanation and any other comments, questions. All right. All right. Seeing none, then we do have a motion on the table to adopt the proposed 25 pay 26 levy at the maximum and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose the same sign. Motion carries 70. Thank you, Mr. Durban. Uh thank you everyone for attending tonight. Our next meeting will be Monday, October 6 at 5:00 PM again and it'll be a study session.