School Board Work Session

001should be live now. Oh, especially our property. trees of trees planted like on the property line of their babies. And I'm like, "Okay, great. When one of our kids take over in 40 years, the trees will be up and they can roll over." Oh, I've known a few because they literally were like this high off the ground and not all the plates were still in the ground and so the only ones that I probably haven't messed with are all the fruit trees. Those are like big. They're already producing. Yeah. [Music] They planted. if they did because I know that was like I'd like to call the meeting to order. It's 5:30 May 14th. Originally scheduled as a work session, but we changed this to a special meeting tonight because we had a couple of items

002that needed action to vote on. So, I have one announcement real quick. Uh Dr. Godfrey did have a prior obligation with the school, so he will be leaving after old business. Other than that, we should be good to go. And Marge is on her way. That was her on the phone. She's about a mile or two out. So, all right. Uh, roll call. Sarah here. Jade here. Susan here. Jen here. Paul's here. and as mentioned barges and wrote. All right, I'll stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Approval of the agenda. Is there a motion? A motion. Second. Okay. Motion by Susan, second by Jen. Any

003discussion? Okay. All those in favor of approving the agenda say I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Eyes have it. Motion to approve. Moving to old business 2.1, the uh CISO business, I think that's how you business management presentation. So I have Jason Mud Mudsenberger on the line from Casso and he's going to be here to kind of give you a broader discussion of what CESO can offer and then he'll be here to answer any questions you have. It's your all yours, Jason. Wonderful. Well, good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, we can hear you. Yes. Yep. Wonderful. Well, uh, good evening, school board, superintendent. Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about, um, the Center for Effective School Operations. That's what CISO stands for. Um, and, uh, we are excited

004to be able to talk about a potential um, engagement with you um, and the proposal that we sent in. So, first of all, who is CISO? We are a full uh service consulting firm uh serving K12 school districts um primarily here in Minnesota. Um we do that um across all operations departments within the school district. So everything from finance to transportation, facilities, communications, human resources um and and others. So, um, we help with strategic planning and lots of different project based work, um, with lots of schools here in Minnesota, but also around the country. Um, in those other divisions, uh, we we operate in 37 states, uh, in our country, um, largely in communications and transportation. And so, we support schools all over um, our wonderful country and and try and um, try and help

005them become uh, as efficient as we can um, with uh, with our consulting. Um but our primary finance work is here in Minnesota. Um and we've got about 35 clients uh currently on the finance side um that we work with um ranging in lots of sizes. So we work with districts that are 250 students um all the way up to something as large as St. Paul um where we do some consulting work with them. Um we find that our sweet spot though is in districts that are less than 5,000 students. Um, and we've got a number of districts in in that 1,000 student range. Um, so not too far from from where you're at. Um, and so, uh, we we'd love to come alongside and partner in that finance space in those small to medium-size,

006uh, school districts. What we do is come in and and in in the role that you're requesting, serve as your business manager, um, for the district. um all of our finance staff used to sit in school districts in the the business office. So chairs from payroll, accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, the business manager, all of our team, every one of us came from those seats. Um and so we feel like we know exactly what you're dealing with. Um how to navigate the issues, how to ensure the work is done and and make sure we're compliant. Um I think that's unique uh for this consulting role. I know there are a few other companies that do similar work as us. Most of them don't come from school districts, though. Um they might be great accountants. School

007finance is a little bit unique here in Minnesota. Um and so we pride ourselves in the team that we have. Um our team uh is spread around the state. Um in fact, we've got one member that lives in Texas um and works remote, but most of our team is uh here in Minnesota. Um and we are spread across our state. So, some of us are located here in Minneapolis um and and the surrounding uh area. That's where CISO is headquartered is in uh Northeast Minneapolis um where our offices are located. Uh but we've got team members up on on the Northshore and throughout the whole state. Um we work largely in a remote environment. So, you might say, what does this look like um if we would hire CESO to come in? And we work

008largely remote. We find there's a lot more efficiency in being able to do the work. We're not um necess ne necessarily pulled into all the meetings that happen on a day-to-day basis. Um but we are pulled into key meetings. Um and that allows us to still be part of the district. Um and and we pride ourselves in building relationships. We're not just a consultant. We we want to build relationships with everybody there. Um so that we feel as we're part of the team, but we're not going to be as part of uh involved in every meeting that maybe your current business manager has been. Um, and I know you currently outsource as well, but um, we will be largely remote. If you'd like us on site for specific meetings, for board meetings, for different pieces,

009we can uh, certainly talk about that. Um, we don't have any of our team members located in uh, the Detroit Lakes area. So, we'd be traveling to come to those uh to those meetings, but are happy to talk about what that looks like as well. Um, one of our clients is International Falls School District. um similar size to you. Um obviously way up on the northern border. Um we've been with them for a little over a year now. Um and we have actually not been on site yet. Um but they're a great reference um that we can provide some contact information for you to to see what does that look like um and and how does this work in this remote environment. our skill sets in this uh business manager role. We can do all

010things budget, the the financial audit, truth and taxation, hearings uh and that tax levy component. We can do day-to-day accounting, journal entries, cash receipts, all all the things that come within the role. So, we have the knowledge and and skills to do that. We come as a team. Uh so, you don't get just one person as your business manager. You'll get two or three. Um, and we feel that that provides a much better uh way to be able to provide continuity for you to be responsive to any questions that you have. Our communication that we send. Um, and then just the fact that um, if any of our team is on a vacation or something, you still have access to the rest of the team. The work still continues. Um, and we think that's a

011better model for us um, in in what we can offer. So you'd you'd receive somebody who is a business manager um and likely also a controller um on your account um and then potentially a finance assistant as well. Um so we divide up the work and and you'd have one point person that you'd work with, but we'd have a team working behind the scenes. As unique things come up in districts, as they always do, um I think that's one of our value ads. Um we've got people with expertise in all kinds of areas um of school finance. and outside of that in other operation areas. And so if you have a unique thing come up in negotiations, we've got an HR team that can support as well and and help you through that. Um, you

012know, if you consider a bond referendum, we've got team members that are well experienced in in running those campaigns, not only from a communication side, but also from a finance side and what that might look like. Um, and so that's one of the ways that we can support you as a team better than just an individual that you may have on site. Um, and maybe I'll pause there. I don't want to take too much of your time, but I'd love to answer questions that you have about who we are, how would this arrangement work, um, and those those types of things if you have any questions? Any questions? With a district our size, what kind of time frame do you feel like you have to all lot us to comfortably handle the finances? And if

013there is uh inconsistencies, you know, how do we handle that and what could we expect? Yeah, that's a great question. We um I think uh part of this is a there's a discovery process that we like to walk through for the first maybe 30 days to understand um where you're at with things. What are some challenges you're facing? maybe even recent challenges, what's on the horizon, just to make sure we fully understand um what's in front of us. Um the proposal that we wrote um uh and responded to in your your RFP um included um a number of hours that I'm I'm forgetting. I'm trying to find that here real quick. Um and we felt like it it was reasonable um up to 50 hours a month is what we what we put in there.

014We felt like that was a reasonable amount of time for a district your size based on what we see in other districts that are comparable. You might be saying, "But I have an 80 I have a full-time person already or had one at one point in time that was 40 hours a week." Um, and we do find a lot of efficiencies in the work um that we when we can do it remotely and so that's why those hours come down a bit. So um there are different times of the year where work is higher, right? budget season right now is really busy for us. Um, and so while we might be saying 50 hours a month, it might actually take us 80 hours a month or 90 hours a month. Um, but there are other

015times of the month that are quiet or other times of the year. Maybe July, for example, is a quieter time where we might be under our budget uh for hours. So, we don't uh we don't necessarily bill you for additional hours. Um, we're we try and average that out over the year and make sure that we have an appropriate number. And I think the 50 hours a month seems reasonable uh for a district your size. Again, we'd like to go through some discovery with you and and see if there's anything that might might change that or might be unique uh for you or things that you would want from us. I'm sorry I was late. Uh what is the cost again? The proposal we put together was for $7,000 per month um for those 50

016hours. Mr. Chair, I have a question. Um, as I'm the treasurer on the school board, I did get the word today. Uh, will I be able to have the detailed detailed payment check register? Perfect. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so your process doesn't change. Um and and we would absolutely provide you that check register um and would want to before it goes to the board for approval um so that you had time to review it and um certainly if you'd want to look at any of the detailed checks as well um if you have questions on things the process would stay the same and we'd continue to provide that. Perfect. Thank you. I guess I another question I have just being the Minnesota finance is obviously a very difficult cumbersome situation I guess and relatively most

017of us are pretty new to the whole situation. Is there any opportunity just for on some way just a coaching just the things that we should be watching for you know just that um what's the word I'm looking for a word but just just to help educate us um because right now I mean we look at numbers and they just they're numbers but what is it that we should be looking for I mean what are I mean we got to we should be able to identify some highlevel numbers and then those would be the keys to really focus on and then make sure we have to drill into it, but right now we we none of us really know. Is that something that your firm would be able to help us through that transition to

018help make us a better board member? Absolutely, we would love to do that. Um, some of that work is just built into how we present to you um and the information we provide and we we try and explain uh those numbers where they come from and and maybe some of those pieces that you're referencing. What do I need to know? What do I need to ask more of? Absolutely. Um, we also do some additional work or can around specific um, just strategic work and how to help you as a board um, understand those finances. So, there's there's a couple of different layers we could go depending on what you'd want. Um, and I've always believed so I I I've worked in school districts as well. Um, my last job prior to coming to CESO, I

019spent 10 years in Eden Prairie School District uh, here in the the southwest metro. Um, and I always felt like it was my role. um to teach the board um to help explain what is what is the tax levy, what numbers should you be concerned with, um how does this all come together, what's the impact to us. Um so, yes, we we feel like some of that is inherent uh work that we need to be doing to help educate and bring you along because we want engagement in this. We don't want to just give you information um and and have it overwhelm you. We want to have engagement and and conversation about these. Um, just as I look at your financials, I know fund balances is running low for general fund. Um, I'd love to

020to talk about what does that mean for you? Um, is that are you satisfied with with that that level of fund balance? Would you like to try and grow that? What are steps you've taken or tried to take in order to do so? That's part of the conversation that we'd like to have just in our role as business manager. And then with that being said, would you also provide like this is what you should this is what we're generally seeing and this is where you should probably be shooting for. Is that some information that you would probably provide also? Yeah, we certainly can. Um uh we have a lot of that data uh available to us. Um a lot of it's on the Minnesota Department of Education's website, but we can compile it for you

021so you don't have to go dig for it. Um, I think that comparable data is always helpful to look at in in what are your comparable school districts in your area. Um, and and what levels are they at? Um, and and again, that's only part of the conversation. The other part is what do we feel is reasonable as a board. Where do we want to be um in that? It might look different than than the neighboring district. This will be my last question, I promise. kind of a and maybe it's the wrong spot to ask, but we we are always we're always challenged with getting our teachers pay at a a uh competitive level, but I feel like in order for us to get there, we got to really look at our operations to try

022to get that number under control. So then the money that we can save on that side of it, we can then share with the faculty and our staff and our administration. Is that something that you could help us get to? Absolutely. Yeah. um we would provide some analytics behind your your expenses um and how they compare to others and be able to identify some of those categories if there are any that may be out of line in a sense from from a comparableness level. Um and then be able to talk about what that looks looks like, right? Um and that's work that we would do typically with the superintendent. Um and and do a lot of that internal uh management kind of work, right? Um and if there are recommendations that we have um out

023of that that we would then bring those forward uh to the board through the superintendent. Thanks. All right. Any other follow on questions? Okay. Well, uh, Jason, thank you very much for sitting down and meeting with us, telling us a little bit about the the operation and and what you can provide. And I think we'll uh take it to discussion here. And I don't know, are is he going to stay with us? Jason, are you good with signing off? They'll have a discussion. I can let you know um what the the results are of that discussion tomorrow. That sounds perfect. Thank you so much for the opportunity tonight and uh have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we've got the presentation. Is there any motion someone would like to make? Because

024we need I make a motion to approve Cisco. Yes. Okay. Motion by Susan to approve CESO as our business management uh ceiling and seconded by Jen. All right. Is there any discussion? My big question chair is um can we afford this because that's kind of a lot of money a month even though I think it would be great. because I think it would help us out a lot. But can we afford it? What are we currently paying? I was ask 70. Wasn't 70 freshwater or was it our last place? According to the budget the not the budget wherever I was 70,000. Tim, are we currently think 70,000 right now? Yes. just let you know that we've got we're entertaining Brady Marts to um so the big issue is going to be CISO coming on and

025working right into a budget I mean excuse me an audit the audit will start in July they have no background so Brady Mart's offered to extend Lisa to transition them in but that'll be about another $40,000 so if you ask me is this doable we were struggling paying the seven but on the adverse of that there's no other option. Mr. Chair, uh being they have a lot of experience in it, how how long is Lisa looking to extend to train them in and do they usually have a training period when they start? Usually they do a trans transition. Y so what they had said both Freshwater and CISO had said that they would hopefully come on board a couple months ahead of time or the contract would approve. so they can work with the business

026manager to kind of go over everything before the audit. Um, we should be expecting I Bailey to give us a a letter of engagement to begin the audit anytime now. They notified me of that um last week. So, and when is Lisa currently on until June 30th? So, the extension and it's on the for the May agenda because I got the notification too late to put on this agenda. So, it'll be through September. She'll be on from July through September to transition that and that'll basically help work through the majority of the audit. Uh, what what did you say again there? Can you say that again? You got the notification to it to put on the agenda. The I got the notification from Lisa that she got the okay to extend her duties. I I

027believe that was yesterday. So, you couldn't put it on this agenda. It's on for the May 27th agenda. Has there budgetary uh process started as far as building the budget for fiscal year 20? Yes, she's working on that now. That will be done and ready for the board at her June meeting. But this is going to cost 40,000 to extend it, right? Another 40,000. Yes. So 84 for first year with CISO it'll be 84 plus 40. So was June 30th until when? um July 1st until September, I believe September 9th. So, with the services that this gentleman said they're able to do, how is that different than what we're currently getting? We won't have anybody on site, which Lisa's minimal now, right? One day a week. Yeah, Lisa's minimal on site one day a week.

028Um but she's been working and that's one reason that Brady Marks pulled the contract. She's basically working 30 to 40 hours a week. for us which is what typically takes one business manager to do. So a one person job it's a 40hour a week job. CISO the advantage they have is they have several people that be working on it simultaneously. At least that what was explained to me. So with Lisa's on site one day a week or full day, but she's working the other four days as well. So if we were to pay Lisa's drew for what they're putting into it. Does that change the whole perspective of why they want out? Because right now it sounds to me that they entered a contract that was not favorable for them and we should have probably

029reached out and offered them a hand in that to help maintain the relationship in some way. We did. So, so if we were to clean that up, could we retain it? retain them? Probably not. So, they're scaling back what they do. They're becoming more of an auditing service rather than business management services. Um, and they do help with some payroll, but they're they're scaling back the majority of that because we're losing a lot of district finance auditing companies. I Bailey and really Brady Marks are the only two right now, at least on this side of the state. um when they were discussing behind the scenes of and we've been doing a year-to-year contract with them. We tried to get a multi-year contract, but they would only do year-toear. When Lisa found out behind the scenes

030that they were going to not offer another contract to continue, she went to bat for us. We treated Lisa like she's part of our staff and she'd really become part of our staff. Um but they they would not look at it. Um, I discussed it with them. When we brought them back in, it was in a kind of in dire straits. We needed them pretty pretty quickly. So, I worked with them to negotiate a decent contract and we had a lot of hand shaking for lack of a better term. But, it just is just overextending what they expected. And that might happen with CESO too. And it's not that our budget needed to be fixed, it's just that they came right in on on the getting them an audit. That's a lot of work. So

031the audits, the audits, 30 hours a week at least. And then it depends on the auditor and what they find. So it might even be more than that. So that really at least that's what really put her well over what they had originally intended her work to be. The auditing process lasts from and our auditing just to to clarify our audit. Ike Bailey dropped all the small districts. Several districts were dropped by Ike Bailey because they wanted to rely on what they were doing. So we put an RFP out. We couldn't go with Britney Marks because they had been our business management services for I think less than a year. So there was a conflict. They had to wait so long before they could take that over again. Um, we have one company that did

032Whimmer out of North Dakota and it was not a good audit because they are not they're a North Dakota auditing firm. They didn't know anything about Minnesota. So, usually the audit begins in July. We usually get the results October, November. We didn't get results from them until February. And then when we did and we lost our business manager and this is a long story so it might be hard to understand. We lost our business manager contract with Brady Mar. They went through that audit and they had to go back and wouldn't correct. Several things they did, they're not coherent. So, yeah. And I Bailey, I'm hoping that they we are in a three-year contract with them. I'm hoping that we can retain them beyond that. Uh because there's just not there's not a lot out

033there. Mr. Chair, you know, may try. If you don't try, you'll never know. Is there a possibility for maybe two weeks here? We could advertise one more time and see if someone's driving Highway 10 with all their kids and their business manager, you know, Minnesota. We can put it out there. I can The only thing is is last time we had nobody with school finance. I know. You know, I would hate to I like he said and he said it very well. You could be an accountant, but without that school finance experience, right? You still won't know. But I mean, maybe they have that, you know, who knows? That's a possibility. Realistically, I mean, are we going to find a finance business manager for 80 grand a year and then have a team of background

034that can help support us and the passions that I mean, the company has got feelers that go in every different direction, a root system that should only help provide more um just more support. And most of this with Lisa's one day a week, she's she does a lot of work with staff. I think they'll come in, principles will will work with her to find out what different balances they have in their accounts. Our directors will too. She helps our directors build budgets. I mean, she does a lot of work directly with people here on site when she's here. Um, that's that's the one downfall of completely off-site management. Um, if we had full-time business manager that had school finance experience, that would be that would be a goal to have. Um, I just last time

035we weren't successful. Many people there's school business manager postings now that they're not filling because there's just no qualified people to do it. It's one of those things you have to juggle. Um, so, and this looks like it's a year-to-year contract as well. Mr. Chair, I know I had somebody mention to me when we were not even out of the meeting last time when we had these present and they said, "Why don't we just hire an accountant?" And they would only cost you 120,000. So that puts the 80,000 more in perspective, but they like they said they could be in your school all the time. But like you're saying, school finance is a whole different thing. Yeah, that's why I'm saying but they would want 120,000, right? Versus the 84,000. I mean, First the first

036year would be 124 though because when you have that extra 40 I have a question about how did we come to the 40 because that is way more than what she's currently making for those three months to stay on the extensions. That's just what Brady Mars sent us. So she won't be she works under it's a contract for Brady Mars to extend that. So that's what so including the monthly pay they will charge travel. So she'll be traveling to the school. Um, I'm not sure how many days a week, but we'll look at that in May. Um, she'll be traveling to the school to do the during the audit. It's a lot of hands-on work. So, basically, I believe and I I'm pretty sure Lisa I I feel positive that she's the one that talk

037pretty much to let her do this so she can transition us into the audit because with nobody here has the understanding experience with her finances, I don't know what they're going to do for an audit. I'm not going to be here either. there's nothing I can do to help them with with accounts receivable on table and they're going to have questions about that. Yeah. So, when we go through the audit, so just even this last year as we walk through our audit, Lisa and I worked with them on the audit. Um I get information, she get information, we get Sher to get information, Susan get information, but it was Lisa and I worked with the auditors to get all that together. So, a superintendent coming in not having that experience at all, that's one thing.

038But the business manager, not having the business manager here, they're it's going to be difficult. I mean, I think she should stay on and we we need that transition, but it's almost double like what we pay currently for them. So, it just seems like it's a lot to for us. Yeah. I think she'll be on site more. I think the travel we weren't charged travel before. So, that's that's what Freddy Marks came up with. I guess my mind would be it's whoever we decide decide to go with. I think it's up to them whether or not they tell us if they feel they need that for transition more so than us deciding if they need it for trans professional if they're rehearsed in the Minnesota side. Let them tell us what they would need for

039support. Consult them first. I would before keeping this up. Well, it never hurts to consult everything. Always ask questions. Right. So if we decide to go with CESO, let them know. First question would be, do you need what you think this would be a good idea to help transition? What would they need from us? And then we could talk about that on the 27. I guess you since it's on there agenda night, you can approve CESO and I think you have two options. Wait to approve them until we find out what they need and put that on the 27th or you can approve it tonight and I can converse with them even tomorrow and see if that's what they want. It doesn't seem like they're it's like do it now or never kind of thing

040for CISO, but they probably do need to get something in play because they're going to pick up other contracts. July 1st is when they're going to it's kind of running with school districts. So, you know, they may Mr. Chair, I have a question there. Would they have the opportunity to start a little earlier while Lisa is still here? Um, they would. I don't. But maybe not 40,000. It would give us a chance to give that disclosures and our inputs to them before they want to start. You know, that way they could maybe assess. I'm saying if we approved it, could they start just as soon as they able and then Lisa's still here till June? June 30th. Gives us a little bit of time. I bet it costs more money. I bet it does, but

041it might not. I'm hoping it doesn't cost a year. It would cost more. I mean, if they do an extra month, just take 12 months and 7,000 a month, right? So, so be Yeah. Lisa's working on budget right now, so that's why she's doing a major time, which is good for that, but she probably can't help a lot with with audit. Yeah, we won't know we won't know what I Da wants as far as audit documentation or access until And when does that start? July 1st. It starts July. It might probably not directly on the 1st, but it'll start July. And so the September 9th was the not when the audit should be done. You know, the audit's pretty close to being wrapped up around that time. Our audit um I should say not wrapped

042up, but the what they need from us, then they do the analysts, the analyzing it after that. So all all the information they need from us is September time frame. Well, even if we could bump it up and pay them the extra 7,000 a month and then instead of July 1, September 9th, August 9th, and only pay them 20,000. Well, you got to see how much. Yeah, we got to see. I'm just making I'm thinking of ideas. It's a big decision. a lot of money kind of uh don't have many options. So there's one on the list. I I recommend the board to approve CISO. There's not a choice unless we do want to advertise and try and find a business manager for a couple weeks. We could do that as well. But then now

043we're back weeks. Yeah. Then we're back more weeks and you're talking an audit coming and and you're interviewing and no I just said you know you've got till the July 1st to start a new one. So what the hey I probably not you're not going to get a new one but what the tribe what's our history been with business managers. We have not had a Wow. When I came on board, Bry Marks was doing our business management services in the board and I wanted to go with full-time business manager. There were no um Nicole before that. Was it Nicole? Nicole. Um and she was probably a couple years before I came here. Yeah. She was a business manager. So then went with a business manager just didn't have the school finance experience and she resigned

044and we went back to Brady Marts. We've had Brady Marts now for two years. A lot of districts are contracting out business management services just because there aren't, you know, finding a licensed certified business manager. It's it's really difficult unless you you live in one of the metro areas and you have a lot of money. Well, I think accountants in general are starting to get to be a loss talent that's becoming very expensive talent. They're starting to retire out or not replace them like everything. I don't know. In my mind, it'd be, as you said, it'd be nice to know how they would like to see the transition. It'd be nice to understand what would be Lisa's opinion on what would help them in between that collaboration, just make decision off would make the best

045sense there. I see Mar's point though if we had more time it'd be good to it's really I think the staff would love to have one somebody in person but I understand that's hard to find people but you did say it was like a year contract so maybe maybe we go this route for the year and then we can advertise again and see if there's anybody out there I can let you know it's a year to year typically they're going to want an agreement usually February, March. I mean, so if we advertised or the board were to advertise next year, it would have to be early because they want something. But the thing is is like take Brady Marks, if they have a lot of clientele, they need to be able to balance it out,

046make sure they have people like Freshwater was going to hire for us. I I don't know if CISO is going to hire for us either, but or they already have people in house available to do it. Part of it is is building a relationship for long term. An employee would be great, but if you decide to leave tomorrow, there is nothing there, right? I do want to pose one concern the board I think needs to take in consideration. I have two negotiations coming up. Um, one on teacher contract, support staff contract. Those are going to be costly even if they're minimal. um we saw a pretty good hike on uh health insurance. So my my guess is both you and this is going to try and negotiate an increase to that. Um their payments are

047going up considerably through month-to-month payments. So if the board were to approve an expensive contract like this, I I I felt confident that staff were going to expect something, you know, pretty healthy increase for them. Um, it'll be a matter of, well, if you're willing to do this, $10,000 different than the other contract that we had, though. Freshwater was 70,000. Right. Right. It actually is $14,000. Yeah. 14,000. And then, but I was thinking with that and then adding the 40. Yeah. Adding to 40. I mean, I just I think you have to be reasonable that that's going to be something that's going to be brought up. That 40 is going to be there either way. Either way we go, right? But I mean, if you if you do the 84 and then you decide to

048contract Alisa for that extra time, that's another 40. So 124,000. They don't change. So at the same time, if they don't want Lisa because they have their own team and then we don't contract the 40,000 or is that already set in stone? It's not it's not set in stone. It was an offer from Brady Marsh. What Brady Mars and it's because Lisa petitioned Brady Mars to allow her to do that because audit it doesn't matter who you bring in and how much experience they have. The audit's a very difficult thing. If they don't have experience with our finances, um it's going to be difficult for them to extrapolate that. Mr. Chair, Dr. God, do you know how much their payments are going up in health insurance already? Um it's a variety. We have a scale

049anywhere from about $300 a month on up depending on what plan they they take. A lot of them want to a lot. Some want to stay with the current plan. Yeah, that's going up significantly. The family plants are the ones that are going up tremendously. I'm not sure how many people we have on the family plan, but they're going up a lot. I've heard of one that she can't afford it anymore, so she's not going to have health insurance. I believe that. So, we've got one company and a potential bridge with our current business management. Are there any other variables you guys can see or discuss before because the motion right now is to to approve CESO? I think the only thing and Susan you had said this already is you know just checking with

050CISO to see how much time and transition they they feel like they need. If we can get rid of the 40 or even 30 of the 40 because we only need her for one more month. If they can start earlier that would be fantastic but at the end of the day I mean we need them. I mean that's that's the bottom line. We have to have a business manager and we have to have somebody or someone ones that have experience. I mean we can't we can't go without I um so I have I have quite a few years of experience with school audits, finance audits and um I mean Ray Mars it was easy when they came in because they came in in January February. So they came in a few months prior to that

051audit. So they were able to delve into the financial records and understand and they had a long history of audits and our audits for a few years too. So it was easier for them to start organizing things before the audit started. Um it's a lot of money but it's going to be difficult for CIS to come in with nobody that was the background in our finances to come in and just start blocks. They don't have access to everything. No. Um but but I take that back. they won't have access to everything because we do have paper receipts still. We do have some things like that. They'll need somebody to pull those records and like like Lisa would pull them, scan them and would send them or they created a a shared drive and she would

052scan them into the drive and I don't know who would be doing that but you said excuse me Mr. uh we can make this decision on the 27th correct? Yes. and and without too much damage. So, we can maul it over. Yeah. My my suggestion is if you're not going to advertise for a business manager, my my suggestion to the board is approve CISO tonight and then and then Lisa can even present at the May 27th meeting what they can exactly do and how they'll be here and then you can make a decision on that that time. I agree. And then I could speak with CISO and see what they would need as they transition in because they're transitioning in directly into an audit at the same time. Anybody satisfied with discussion or can we

053amend it with understanding what their needs would be? Your motion, but amend it to with having that conversation with both of them. It would be really nice to know that. Oh, right now it's I think that that could be implied, right? Like we're going to ask them what they would need. That's going to be You don't want to make a You don't want to make a motion of approval on a tendency. Yeah, that's Well, that's not really what I'm looking for. I just feel like there's a dot sitting out here in floating space that we really don't understand how it's going to connect and it'd be nice to understand how it's going to connect. Well, sorry, Cherry. Like what he was saying is if we approve them tonight. Yeah. And then on the 27th and

054Lisa presents he says, "Hey, you know, I can do da da da da." Y and then we can say the name to Lisa. In the meantime, he was going to contact Cisco and say, "Hey, do you actually need Lisa to be a transition?" I can tell you if I call CESO and say, "What if we extended that contract with Lisa?" And coming to a they said that would be great. I can guarantee you they'll say that because their hopes were to be on board already, either them or freshwater or be on board already and they both said we would like to be on board already, you know, sooner so that they could transition and they would work with her and probably start gathering things. There's no time. Well, it pulls back in what you're saying

055then that was the question that we can ask them like start right away or can you start right away you know even that would be you know what 7,000 versus 7,000 I'm sure if they have the availability of you know for individuals to work with us to do that it would be more money um I mean it's one of those things I don't I can't predict how effective that would be. That's up to them. Again, Lisa is working on building budget right now. So, that's what a lot of her time's devoted to. I'm sure Brady March is starting to pull back what Lisa is doing for us behind the scenes. Um, again, my recommendation is approve CESO. I'll talk with them and find out what they feel is the best course of action transition in

056and throw out all those scenarios you talked about and then when we come back to May 27th I'll have that information and you can make a decision then. I think you should get them I mean again if you're not going to advertise for business manager I think that the sooner the better that you get contracted with the service. Did you follow up with references with them? I wasn't given any references at the time for them. You have one tonight international poll, right? Being a um a lot a lot of people know CISO. I I've talked to other people. I've heard nothing bad about them. I haven't talked to anybody that contracts with them. I've talked to a lot of other people that know CISO, know their services. Being a national company, I guess, is they're

057fairly reputable. It'd be nice to have references, but on both sides of the world there, but it is what it is. I can tell you that I I know somebody right think uh discussion has been well vetted. So in the the light of this motion to approve CESO as our business management services all those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Eyes have it. Motion is approved. Cesso is our new business management service. Moving on to 2.2 PDM. So I had distributed to the board um the information I got from our auditor um for perdeium that if we do any type of pdium whether it's a set amount or we do state rate um we do not need itemized receipts and that was the question last time. Um I I sent that

058I don't have it included in here. I apologize for that. I can pull it up again if you wanted, but um according to him, it's we don't need that. So, and rephrase it. If we do PD GM, like right now, the amount we pay for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, um even in our area is not doesn't make it affordable. I worry I I see a lot of uh expense receipts come back from our bus drivers. Their meals were more than we offer. I'm afraid that when they go on long trips, you know, we're selling them short and making and they just drove to Minneapolis and I can't imagine what they pay for food. Um, so and even our teachers, I mean, you know, they don't make a lot of money to begin with. So, if

059we go with the state for peram, then we're giving them the opportunity to have a meal and not pull out of their pocket for supporting our district. Okay. Do we have any motions prior to discussion? I'll make a motion that we accept the predium that we had initially set out to be okay. Motion by Marge. Second. Second by Jen. All right. Is there any discussion on accepting this new state predium rate for board chair? I actually did look into it too and so yes the predium is fine for individual meals but say in the instance of multiple people eating together so multiple teachers eating together they want the itemized receipts for multiple employees. We just have to get the check separate. Yep. Which you can absolutely do. Yeah. That's that's something they just have to

060be educated on is otherwise it gets sticky. Well, I'm just asking because we had one that was a big group. So, but you turn in one receipt for I don't I don't know if that was the remember that one I asked you that I wanted to see the that wasn't a that wasn't an employee. So, that was um that was a purchase through student activities funds for the one for Oliver. Yeah. Was a purchase through student activities funds. The elementary student activities for food for parent teacher conference. Parent teacher conferences. So, yeah, it wasn't employees. Normally we tell our employees to bring get their own separate own separate receipts always. That's our policy. Perfect. That's what that's exactly what MSBA said. We can do PDM just fine. And they said we can do it multiple

061ways. Another lady we just have to unless we want to do the reimbursement and if we want to do reimbursement for exactly what somebody's pay then we have to have a receipt. I would say to not do the reimbursement because then then you have to look at every receipt. It would be prime rib. So yes, I have no issue with that as long as if multiple people are eating together, they do a separate receipt for each individual. That's our policy and that's what we Any other burning questions about PDM? Let's go to White Castle. Do we have a good word? I don't know. Okay. Only White Castle off of the uh but uh noted go get five or six burgers for five bucks. I don't know. onion. So, no further discussion about PDM. Um, all

062those in favor of changing to the PDM where we utilize the state rate for employees and staff say I. I. All those opposed say nay. And eyes have it. Okay. I'm going to I'm going to send myself. So, I'm just leaving the call. Yeah. As long as we don't drop off. No way. [Laughter] [Music] Get you back tomorrow. Thank you all for watching. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. several hours. Have a good night. All right, that concludes old business. Uh, moving on to new business 3.1. Got uh tech department presentation. We'll pull that up. There we go. Not really techy. I'm more it. Um, so right now what um we're going to talk about is our K through8 Chromebook refresh. Kind of do the uh why and how like why are we doing this

063and how did we get here kind of deal. So, um I mean I could just give you guys the biz and say this is the best one. Just let's go forward with this, but in these dollar amounts and the contract involved, we need board approval. So, so, um I'm going to kind of walk you guys through my thought process, the whole bidding thing and whatnot. So, um what we got here is so why are we up for bid right now? Well, um, we're currently at at the end of our three-year lease with these. Um, K8 is a really big swath. It's our biggest portion of kind of have our different devices segmented off to try to keep the tech budget from doing this every year, every two years. Just trying to keep it as level

064as possible. All well and good. COVID screwed that up and, you know, this tariff thing might screw things up, too. So anyways, um 3 years, why 3 years? 4 years is too long. Um the devices get a little long in the tooth, specifically the tech, processors, all all that stuff kind of gets gets a little uh old. And also on the physical aspect, um they just there's a lot of travel with these. I know people say that kids are um really tough on their devices. Honestly, they travel a lot more. Like for me as quasi professional, whatever you want to call me, I show up to work, I pull out my laptop and set it down and it sits there for eight hours and I close it, put it back in. It's moved twice in

065a day. Our high school kids and junior high kids, there's eight up to eight movements a day. Two, so almost 16 in, one in, one out per class period. So that's a lot of travel. That's what happens. But even so, you know, the hinges, the plastic starts to give out after that long. So, I've gone to a three-year lease, which seems to be kind of a happy medium between affordability and staying relevant with the tax. So, um, so let's see. Um, our numbers, what I do to figure out how many I'm I'm getting is actually look at our census data through our SIS, which has our preschool enrollment, too. So I will look three years. Basically I'm trying to project what's our student population in three years. How big do I need to order now

066to make sure I have enough product then essentially. Um so that's kind of how I look at that. I kind of look at the population bumps. We got pretty good data in there, but I always assume that there's other people that are going to be moving into the districts or kids that aren't just showing up in there right now. Um, but we do have kids on down to one year olds in there. So, we kind of know what we're looking at. We also kind of look at historical data. Where were we? You know, we had x amount of kids the year before, you know, in preschool and this many showed up into kindergarten. So, where is our variation? So, I try to make the best education guess I can because I really don't want to

067be caught short on devices at some point. So, um but um so I'll take that number and then I'll add about 15% and that 15% accounts for transfers. That's transfers in. So maybe we get a little bump. We had a couple families that open enroll or something like that. So I'm going to make sure we cover for that. defects, any manufacturer defects. We haven't had any issues, but who knows? It could be something like a silly hinge that just bad manufacturing falls apart and they have a 10% failure. Well, I want to make sure I have enough devices on hand. So, if I got to send stuff back for manufacturer repairs, I'm we're not sitting short here. And then also any miscellaneous stuff. And miscellaneous could be something like a change in class rotation. You

068know, a classroom might have say 20 kids in it pretty much all day long, but due to one rotation or something, the class population bumps up to 35 kids or something like that. So, make sure we have enough to cover that stuff. So far, we haven't run short. When I first came on board, the numbers were off a little bit, so we were short and I decided I was never going to let that happen again. So, um, and so I take that information, create the RFP with those numbers, create a list of minimum stacks I want from, um, from vendors, and then I send out. So, the I reach out to vendors. Um, typically I pick several that we've worked with before and have had good experiences with, and then I try to mix in

069somebody new each rotation. so that we're still keeping oursel diverse and we're not just keep going down the same lane. So this year um I did send RFP um requests out to five vendors. We got four proposal pro four proposals back um which was pretty good. Uh one of them I didn't even hear back from at all. So that was interesting. Sometimes I'll hear back from vendors just saying that your numbers are too small. It's something that's outside of our scope. So that happens. But um so with that being said, I'm assuming all of you looked at all the proposals that were attached to come through all of them. No. Yes. One of them was 26 pages long. So, um, to me, as I was right, um, as they were coming in, one stood out,

070um, it was pretty obvious choice, but I still need to do the leg work and and kind of prove it on paper. So, um, what I did was broke them down and did a sideby-side comparison. And so I comb through the proposals, pull the pertinent data um and then and then not only look at them, but actually kind of scored the specs just to come up with a solid yes, this is I mean these look good on paper, but let's prove it. Um so how I did that, my scoring, the scoring of the specs, it's pretty straightforward. I try to keep it as simple as possible. I made up four options, right? So, four proposals and I just scored each spec one to four points. Four being the best option, three points being the second,

071two points for the third, and one point for the fourth best. So, pretty straightforward that way. And then can kind of walk through an example real quick. Um, I just isolated. We'll just pick on the processor here because there's multiple specs that go into a processor. So, option one had eight cores. Option two had two cores. Three had two cores. Option four had four cores. And this is a category where more is better. So, option one had the most, so they get the four points. Option four had the second most, so they get the three points. Option two and three tie for third, so they both get two points. It's pretty pretty pretty straightforward. Um and then moving on to the speed specs. Um again, this is a category where a higher number is better.

072You know, faster is better, right? So, um option four had the best or the highest speed, so they got four points. Option one had the second most, so they got three. And again, option two and three were tied for third, so they got their two points. Um power consumption. This is a category where actually lowers better. So um option one was at four watts. Option two, three, and four were all six watts. So I mean there's a three-way tie for second place. So you can kind of see where I'm kind of going with this. Um and then release date was the last relevant um spec across the board. So I just went this is one where newer is better. So uh option one and four were both released in the first quarter of 2023 and

073then two and three were uh 2021. So a little bit longer and the twos there a little bit older tech. So um that being said any questions about that scoring system? I mean, try to keep it super basic and just obvious so nobody questions or claims that the district was showing favor to any vendor or anything like that. So, good. All right. So, went all the way through, scored them all up, tallied out the up the the points. Option one came out pretty far ahead at 76 total points. Option two, three came in at 70. And option four at 69 points. So option one right now is is pretty pretty much clearly the out in front and then there's a few um things in there not just specs but I'm also gauging their warranties um

074what they have in there and then you know other little things that they have uh added in there. So, one category there was variation was the manufacturers's warranty. And you buy anything, you get a standard one-year manufacturer's warranty, which covers any defects and what they make from a potato peeler to, you know, a truck. Um, but part of my step uh specifications was I wanted coverage for those three years. So, um, option one only came back with just the standard one-year, um, manufacturer warranty. Option 2, three, and four had a three-year option, um, which again just covered all the manufacturer defects. It just extended it. Feel like I'm in an eye exam. But John, is there is there one down there in the corner? Where? Uh, one. Yeah, that's the total cost. What was that?

075Oh, okay. Um, what did that represent? The one the $43 total cost per unit with So, this was the You're talking about this one, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, this was the most expensive. Okay. Per unit cost out of the out of the four. Um, so right now I'm looking at no no extended manufacturer warranty with option one, but the other three are are covering that, which again is just a manufacturer warranty. So anything that's their fault, they'll fix. Um, but the other one that really stuck out was the vendor warranty. option one, they actually at no additional cost, no line item cost, I think it's baked into their just their per unit cost. They actually have uh facility actually uh one right here in Minnesota and I think they're based out of I think they're

076facilities in St. all, but they'll cover accidental uh damage protection, hardware failure, um vendor pays shipping both ways, uh theft loss, spare parts on site, and extended battery coverage. So, that was like a really big This is really good. This is baked in. It's no additional no large additional cost. It's just baked into the the price of their units. Um whereas with the other ones uh the other option you actually have to seek out a third party to cover those kind of things. So these are like the broken screens, the things that unfortunately happen because of the travel, the drops, you know, whatever. Um they cover all that. So that to me was like a pretty big deal. Um, and then another little thing that option one that vendor put in there was um because

077we've worked with them before. or we have a previous lease and I had reached out about um bioricing for those devices um because we're facing another kind of a tech cliff cliff at the end of um towards the end of this year where Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows 10. So, everybody has to move up to Windows 11. Um I've got a bunch of peripheral devices. They're older laptops. They still work just fine, but they don't meet the minimum specs for Windows 11. So, I can't install it. They're basically going to be junk by October for us. So, those I'm going to have to dispose of somehow. But, um, which actually shouldn't be that hard. Um, but what they said they do is they uh instead of buy, if we go with this option one

078for the Chromebooks, they just sign over at no cost the those devices. So, I'll be able to take those devices and I've got about 50 60 of them floating around the the district and they don't do a lot, but they do like time clocks for I've got a couple of those in each building for staff to punch in and punch out or when they have to change job duties when you know those kind of shifts. Um, they run the the displays over at the high school. We'll be adding those this summer over here, too. So, they run those devices. Um we usually do a bank of devices for activities um registration in the fall and then uh in the spring too. So those we have a bank of those ready to go. They don't need

079to be fancy. They just need to be able to get on the on the website and ready for people to use. Um and then um yeah, couple other little things. I can't remember what all but there's about 50 60 of those floating around. So I didn't need to come up with a plan to replace those. this kind of answers that question for us. So that being said, that option one is the one that I'm going to put as a recommendation of the board approve at the meeting at the end of the month. So um was a very obvious choice and kind of proved it through this. So any questions about any of that stuff or any other tech related fun things? I do I have a couple of questions for you and um mostly it's

080just because I'm new on the board so I haven't been through this process with you yet. Is the cost covered over three years or is it all upfront? No, it is we just do a three-year lease so it's just a flattened out. That's part of the instead of having I wanted to keep it nice rental. The reason we lease them too is then if we buy them then we have to figure out what to do with them in the end. And e-waste if we're a bigger district, heck yeah. We'll buy them and we'll figure it out. But we don't I mean there's only one of me. Yeah. And my time's premium when it comes to our staff and students. So like I don't need to coordinate that with some junk dealer or whatever. And there

081are some caveats depending on the state you're in. Minnesota is pretty much a tougher one like auctioning things off because it is public. These are public property. Everybody gets a fair shake. So, you can't just sell them to students and and staff and whatnot. And I was told I haven't verified this, but in the state of Minnesota, they employees cannot buy. So, if you're a public employee, you cannot buy any of any equipment. So, best you can do is have an relative or friend go and purchase it from from the auction for you. So, bunch of loopholes. Second question. No, sorry. That might actually be wrong because I was I'd have to look further into it, but I was taking the treasure training. It said if you save up everything once a year and then

082everybody it's just when the doors open, it's like a garage sale and anybody can come in. Oh, really? But you just can't be like, "Okay, we have this and anybody in the school or anything." So it's just because it's public property, everybody can have at it at the exact same time. Yeah, that's all those are the stipulate. I mean, I think other depending on the some states, yeah, they like when I talk to other tech directors in other states, they're like, "Well, yeah, when we're done with it, we put on a shelf." And this is the if you want to buy it from us and as far as I know, we can't do that quite here. So yeah, I'd have to double check it, but yeah, learned that one just a little bit ago. No,

083it got answered while everyone was talking. So it was good. Like I mean because Yeah, it's it's answered. It doesn't matter. Well, I didn't know with technology sometimes there's stipulations. Minnesota is really bad about like strict not that strict about the sell of it to you at a certain time. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on what it is. I mean, the best we can do is write it off the books as junk junk and then basically call a junk dealer, you know, and I get emails from people that are they they do, you know, they strip them down and harvest all the precious metals or try to refer them or whatever and they're, you know, I get emails saying, "We got a truck coming through your area. Let us know if you want us to stop by

084and pick something up." Most of it's free. Some of them will give you a little bit of money for it, but for the most part, I don't know. In the school like this, space is premium. The last thing we need to do is store useless crap. So, pardon my French, but that's what it ends up being. We need to gas, you know, foot on the gas all the time. So, I just have one. you you mentioned like the movement of the devices and how that plays into wear and tear and whatnot with the K through eight. Would you say that's a like priority of why that option one with the accidental damage like is that what kind of puts it over? What puts it over? Um because the warranty coverage there no cost for like

085the standard there's zero cost here and zero cost there. So if we wanted any extra, we'd have to be paying 40 bucks a unit minimum, right, for the other three options. And that that swath of the the kids K through eight, that's where most of our damage comes from. Well, it's the biggest group of Chromebooks. It's the largest bunch of kids. Now, fortunately, we don't get as much issues over here. And now that we've kind of changed the way we do things um for seventh and eighth grade where the devices basically stay in the rooms, they don't travel. Um and there's no reason for them to go home either. That would mean seventh and eighth grade is it may seem like this sometimes like and this is a this is across the board not just

086us this is everybody like do these kids think it's their mission to destroy these devices? Um, but you know, I mean there's lots of kids that come in. I mean, last, was it last week or the week before came in, there was five of them. Three of them were just hanging by one cable between the screen and the the keyboard. So, it is what it is. But, um, no. Um, but yeah, so I think bang for the buck. Um, that's our best option. And then we've got those kids all used to those same devices. um all the way through and then we get the high school. Um you know, we're making a movement towards those being Chromebook top to bottom. Next year will be the first year we do that. And I mean feel like

087I'm stepping on thin ice a little bit just because we'll see if it's it's feasible at this point. Some of it's going to be curriculum dependent, but I do have one other question. Thank you. Are you accounting or I maybe I should say are we providing these Chromebooks for the new open ed students as well? The uh yes, like if they're enrolled here, we try to have a device ready for them. Not everybody takes them. A lot of our um um online or remote kits and whatnot like about I don't know. I don't know if it's even 50% of them will take a district device, but I still try to have one on the shelf for them. Even if they because we do have kids, upper classmen that are doing PSO or or workbased stuff,

088they've got their own device. You know, parents parents uh like to like to do that around Christmas time. So, they all get three, four kids that come in like, you know, I've got this. Can I use it? Like, yeah, that's fine. Um, if you're not going to use your school issued one, give it back to me. It'll still have your name on it. I'll just leave it here. Um, the other end of the stick on that is any of the testing and I want to say ACTs and AP I think they have to use a school issue device. So, you can't use your own. I can't remember if MCAs I think are that way too. Um, I can't I can't remember. There's a couple that you abs we absolutely have to have them test out

089on a school issue device. So, um but yes, we try to make sure now open explodes and we end up with 14,000 kids. you know, we need to come up with, you know, another, you know, angle at this point. Yeah, they're showing up on our our um census data and our SIS and that's all I can go with for right now, but who knows? Maybe we get to November and we're having an emergency meeting. How do we deal with this? So, so the last group of computers, Chromebooks that we received, is that through the same company? the ones that these would be replacing mean. Uh so is this is K through eight and then you have a 9 through 12 kind of group that you get computers for? Yes. So they're on uh I try

090to alternate the whatever. So yeah, so 9th through 10th are on Chromebooks right now. 11th through 12th are on Windows devices through this year. Um that vendor I reached out to him because it's an open-ended lease. I said, "Really, can you get 100 more of those or whatever the number was?" I can't remember exactly what it was. We'll call it 100. Um added on to that lease cuz that again was a three-year lease. So, next year what'll happen is those um try to look at it this way. Those those ninth graders and 10th graders this year that were issued those Chromebooks, those will be their same Chromebooks for the next three years. Okay? So next year 12th and 9th will be issued the new ones that we get in the summer. So So basically I'm

091just tagging onto that lease so I can keep that schedule so I'm not refreshing everything all at once. I'm just trying to spread things out a little bit. So does that make does that answer your question? Is it a different lease company then? Uh the same lease company. Option one is the same one though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and they've been great because they will report repair anything. So, I can send something back, but the time to get back can be a little long. So, I can just order parts and they'll usually be here within a week and I can get it fixed and back out into circulation. where I've gone to to try to expedite some of it while I'm waiting for it to come in. I'll take a a device that's the exact same

092device that's on the shelf and then just donate parts from that to that one and when the new ones come on I just put it on that one that one back on the shelf trying to keep it moving as much as possible but sometimes you get in five a day is what it is. So, okay. Anything else? All right. Good. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks you guys. Thanks for the organization. It was easy to follow. I hope so. All right. Let's move on to 3.2. The board member application reviews. So, we have an open board seat. uh sort of sort of dropped on us, but it gives us an opportunity to reach out to the community, right? And uh extend that that out to them again. Um for the we have six applications or

093not necessarily applications, the forms that we filled out. Pretty sure it was the same process that we had last year when Sarah went through looks like. So we tried to keep it the same a precedent has been set now just to keep it so that there's as little variable as possible. I don't know if you all had a chance to read through these yet, but uh I know last time I kind of rack and stacked them and then I wasn't in on the interview process, but I would recommend you do that again this time. So, is there any good practices, bad practices from last time that you guys would like to see different in this selection or things you want to bring up before we get started, lessons learned kind of thing. Mr. Chair, I

094have a question. I think our practice, you know, maybe somebody else has a different light on it, but I thought we tried to do pretty good at it. Um, I do have a question. Dr. Baffrey said that we is that correct that we only sent it out to um people within the school district or did we send it out the whole community? I believe it was whoever was registered was was it ser synergy excuse me and then it was posted on Facebook. So that's how we've reached out and the website. Yeah. So, that's what we had done last time. I know it's not We've had this seat open for a little while now. It probably should have been a little sooner, but we had some some fires that were a little hotter we were dealing

095with. Um, but this is very important. If if there are people that didn't get reached, I have no idea. Haven't heard of anybody outside of next time we we could hopefully give it a little more time. I know this was a little expedited, but being this was a work session, it made sense to to slide it into an and caveat to that would be if we do select somebody, they they don't get seated right away. They have to be um kind of in a 30-day holding pattern. That's right. So if we want this person for like our June board meeting for example, they have to be seated 30 days prior to that which also added some kind of conraint to it. Uh we did have several good applicants last time. Um it was tough decide

096and two more came back, right? Gina Sh. So I got the names from Susie after we talked on Monday when they reached out and two people responded, but um Gina's the only one that I think submitted an application Megan Hernandez. There's two Megan Hernandez. Sorry. Yeah. And she had uh she had also emailed Dr. got back. I think asking him a question that I was CC was just more of like a question of what she thought she should put back in said. Yeah. So, um I do have a question at the same time. I I'm really sorry. I'm like, you are so quiet. I'm so sorry. I'm so tired. Um, we I mean, it's not it's not a secret that I'll be leaving. Are you going to try to do maybe the top two? I

097wasn't going to I think you have to resign first. Because you said about the 30 days, what we could do um without you having officially resigned Like we can't fill the seat technically, but what we could do is say, hey, for our ideal second choice, not to put that down, right? It's not uh but yeah, we have obviously interest in the board and you don't want that to to Wayne, right? So if If somebody is interested today, they're hopefully going to be interested in a month or two would be open. And there are some some rules with that depending on when the board position is open, how much time is left, um how proximity to an election, things like that that need to be considered. But so it might might not be an appointment opportunity

098depending on but I think in your case I just don't like hang you know what I mean like I don't want you guys coming to sit like this again. Yeah. Well and well but I think you have to resign but you don't have to be gone from the board yet. Like let's just say you give us like a 60-day notice. Are we able to then interview and start that process knowing that she's given a notice and say, you know, this is I know that is so weird. That's creepy. Um, so let's just say for for easy numbers, let's say Jen is like, I'm done July 31st. So, and then if we do the interview process and we're like, we have another seat, but it it's not available until August 1st, we can still do the

099process knowing that she's given us her notice and resignation, or does she have to be gone before we can do that? You have to do this process all over again? I think you'd have to look to be exactly as of like for today because it wasn't on the agenda. That's my guess that you can't. You're just looking for one. That's right. Okay. And then if you foresee the future and know what you know, you put it in then you go through the process. I sorry I was a great question. I mean and we are technically reviewing all the applicants. Um I think one may have been had difficulty with forum or something. Is that was Gina Gina? Okay. All right. So, before we get into this though, I would say I think we need to

100do a better job with just getting out there to the general public. I get we're using the school system parent level and I I don't even get it because I don't even have my name on her as a parent. Probably good reason why, but that wasn't supposed to be fun. So, but just community level, how do we get it there? I think we need to get better at that because even when the position was available back last fall, I I had no idea. And it's not nobody's fault but my own. I am not on social media. I I don't I don't go to the school website every week. I mean, I don't follow that. I don't have my email. So, how do we get better at getting out there? Yes. And I know last time

101they did put it on the cyanote on Highway 10. Unfortunately, that was not an option this time, but yeah, absolutely. You want mass dissemination, right? But you also need to do it like economically. You can't Yep. you know, spend $100,000 mailers over. But that was an exaggeration, but you get what I'm saying. You have to use the mediums available twice and realistically probably the only other option is paper is probably and that's probably Jane put in there uh after the board minutes too. We have one uh like at the end of for next month there there will be well whenever someone's term is done they put that down and then they in the board minutes. Mhm. So you have to read them in minutes. Well, you know, you might you can do as much game.

102Which one are we going to The people still have to like search to an extent. I mean, we're we're trying to make it as as available as possible in that short amount of time we had. But going forward, absolutely, we can. same token though if they're really interested they're going to be searching for it. Well, even on the ballot it'll say four years. Well, that person say, "Okay, four years. I'll put on a calendar and I'll maybe I'll maybe I'll run the next time." You know, I mean, there's only so much that you can You're right. You know, do it. Most people don't. Well, I will say my husband found it and he doesn't check his stuff because that's he came down and he goes, "Guess what I just did?" I go, "Really?" So, that's

103his name there. Okay. And there's for anyone that had questions. I don't think there's any I looked it up. No, except for separate sides of the table maybe. Um, I don't know what um, as far as you guys haven't looked at them already, you know, not to be sensitive or anything like that. Is that a way that you would prefer to, you know, rank them or then we can discuss? I mean, you know what I'm saying? like we don't want anyone who's interested in the board to feel like they're being right. But there are certain criteria that once you're on the board, you're made more aware of Are are we looking at doing the interview process or are we not? Because I really feel like that's where we can really explain what your expectations. I

104agree. I think we should interview all of them because sometimes on paper, it looks really good and then they sit in front of you and the interview process does not go well and they might not be a good fit. On paper, it's great, but in reality and person, I mean, I think it's really important where on paper they might have short answers and then you have others that have long answers and you're like, "Oh, that one's awesome and this one's not." But then you interview and you're like, "Oh, Yeah, you should have typed a little more because we really like you. And I guess on behalf of consistency, that's what we did last time. True. How How did you What was your procedure though for me? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get interviewed at all. That's

105That's how it means. So, I came into I took over somebody's term and then got elected, right? So, that's previous of 2025, right? Yeah. 25's a new year. I'm just saying that you come into it sometimes in different entities. Right. Right. That's what she's trying to say. It's like sometimes it's not always the same. Yeah. Yeah. The only thing with the interview is we've already had three meetings. Is it this month already? I've had a lot. It's our responsibility. Yeah. It is true. um that like I said, it be nice to have somebody determined and appointed that we could announce at our meeting on the 27th that this was we got next week for special. No, we do a special meeting and only have this on the agenda. I I chose Sarah just off the

106interview. Yeah, I mean I as an organizational leader who also has a full board, I feel like it's really important that we sit down and talk to someone be prior to just saying, "Hey, this looks really great. I like your answers. Okay, come and sit down." And then they get here and it's like not what we anticipated. But I feel like that also gives everyone the same level of playing field. Absolutely. As well as to give them that opportunity to come in and speak. Not everybody likes to type and answer questions. Some people prefer in person human contact. Well, that's where my husband when he came down and said he did goes, "Well, I could have typed more, but I'll tell them more in an interview." Yeah. Okay. So, with that, I think we are

107getting kind of into the discussion for the motion. Of course, Carter has my bad. Um, motion And I'll just say one more thing that we were kind of in a hurry because we've been procrastinating this but now to do the interviews now it's going to go beyond you know time again. So what's the best fix? Well I don't know. I'm just saying you don't understand absolutely but realistically we should have as soon as that decision became available should have posted that day there's no reason why it shouldn't have right or do we have to approve to post it but if it's open it's open right that's something we have we really should figure that out since we're a seven member board um like we have to go through some hoops to become a six member

108board and There isn't like a timeline per se like dedicated like you have to have this seat filled within two weeks but it's recommended as soon as possible but or again the time straight they it has to go through to a certain short or long you know. Yeah. If it's because I've never gone through this if it's right up next to an election this time and the last time. You don't have to you don't have to appoint anyone that that seat can remain vacant until But it's how close, Paul? What's it? But it's how close? Oh, like technically mine I think was I think I should have had to because it was that close to an election. Yeah, that might be why there was Seems to me like a two is in the So if

109it's Do you know Susie with this? I got the Did you make a motion? Yeah, we can we can make a motion and then I know we're motion to discuss the board member application right now. 7 o'clock. We're on a roll here. Are there any motions to what's this called? review the board member applications for our seventh seat. I motion motion by I second second by Susan. Now we can discuss how we want to do this. We're not discussing I I think just to proceed forward since it's been since the first of the year where we're at I think we just said open it up and we do interviews. Yeah, I agree. And if we have to do a special next week, we do a special next week. That's what uh I mean that's as

110open as we can be to everybody in the community. We can announce it on the 27th who we have three days notice for a meeting and sold. Would would people be willing to after this meeting go home, take a good look um and just kind of rack and stack them on your own and then send that feedback I guess I could compile it and then once once we get that we we might find that of the same person at the top. You know, it is, but else I still I still think it's very important that we give everyone a fair sit in front and let's talk. Again, it's expectations. Yep. I wasn't I was going to pick different. I when I've read them I've all read them all now. And I was going to when

111Sarah interviewed I said, "Wow, that's I I liked her experience. I like your knowledge of policies, but you I just got a different feeling than when I and I had gone through them all previous. I knew exactly. I don't think I wrote a lot of my answers. Like thinking back, I think my answers were pretty short, but the interview process was much longer and much more detailed, you know, and I mean it was which is a great thing, but I think that's why I feel like the opportunity for everyone to sit down and have a discussion with us is important. I agree because I was definitely not voting the way I voted. Thanks, guys. We love you. But it would be really it'd be really good too to look for somebody that's extremely interested in

112longevity on the board. Can we ask for input from our audience on this? Uh because I do know somebody here has a lot of experience on the board in the past. Susan said shaking her head. I don't think so. No. I don't Yeah, I Turkish we could like even during public comment I wish we could answer the full board but yeah and do we do the same that would have had to have been on the agenda and open to all applicants to be here which so if we were to do the interview process in order for it to happen to vote on it by the 27th We'd have to do that next week. Next week is this much room. Kind of a big deal for some people in this community. Graduations and specifications. Well, I

113I'm not concerned about that. I'm gradu Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Friday be the earliest. I could be at Monday. We couldn't do it Monday, right? because that's too short. So, it has to be Friday. Thinking is it three business days or is it three? It's just three days. Send you out of town Monday. Sunday through Wednesday. I'm out of town. I could probably make it back Wednesday evening if I really push. I'm down by St. Cloud. You said they're back. I won't be back till Thursday night if I'm lucky. So, I'm I'm kind of uh at the wire at work too next week. I probably won't be in town most of it. So, with that, we had how many interviewers last time? Six. Six. All six. No, I mean people interview. No, it was me.

114It was here. It was the whole time. Jay was there. You were there. You were there. March. I think it was everyone in the except for you. Except you the little random. So, how important is it that we vote on it by the 277th versus how important is it to give everyone a fair shake that has give us input that they're interested and so it ends up not being on until what would it be July July then we wouldn't have one to see I mean well I have a quick question so since next week is a really big deal you know because like everybody's kind of thought because I'm not 100% sure that I can be here Friday either um and that's like the only day you guys can be Is it possible that we

115could do like the interview process right before the meeting board meeting? I mean, I know there's a lot of special meeting. I know that's a lot for everybody because now you're like we're cutting into people's work time. Oh, that's actually that's actually meetings. See what we have Monday. We do have sometimes so we don't the fourth Monday of June is the 23rd but we moved it to No no no I'm just saying like the the meeting in June would be the 23rd. Yeah. So if we don't have somebody appointed by 23 Mayish like then they can't sit anyway. So it's kind of a point and and you end up going into July, but they would be able to sit at the work session in July. Yeah. That would be the earliest if we missed that

11623rd. You're Yeah, you're saying because the date which in the past, but this year different. Yeah. So we agree we want to interview all the candidates and we would like max board participation. So prior to next week's coordinating then try to shoot for like an afternoon. What about if we just schedule them consecutive? So what time is there a meeting like 5:30? But he said that it has to be done by the 23rd. Well then they can just sit in for the work session. So they'd miss our next So if we don't get it done by the 20 by next Friday, right? um than them being on by June meeting because the date line up. Is that a big issue for in the US? I know. I'm asking I it just it's just kicking the

117can again. So some people that are going to be gone can't zoom in or whatever that That's what I was going to say. I'm around so no graduations at my house. I know through Zoom, can't you? Yeah, maybe you can ask questions and stuff. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I won't be the Zoom one, but we could do if it if it depending on people's flexibility, we could come up with a night and have several distance. We just have to say three days in advance. Yeah. On the agenda where it'll be because of that's all. So, Friday is the only day that we're too I can do Thursday or Friday. I mean I I could work a Zoom type of thing. I suppose done before. I feel like we should do it by Friday so that

118we can Yes. You're saying next week is out, right? I'm not saying it's out. I just might be in a different state so I can zoom in if I know I'm going to be somewhere. Do you know which day would work good for you, Paul? Are you good? It's ridiculous. That's why I kind of thought about having because but then it's because it's the 27th 23rd. If you guys What's our June meeting? Could we put our meeting back a couple days? You could slide it back, but I mean that's June 27th of the 28th. Is that could do the 30th of June, but that's fourth of July week. Yeah, that's one of that's the Monday. And if we bump it up to the 16th, then you're back to back weeks with the with the other

119work session. Uh I don't know. I I can make something next week. If you guys pick a date that works best for you, I'll do what I can. Works best for you. Friday works best for you. to be here. Yes. I'll just make if we consider doing a Friday, what if we bump the time up because that's Memorial Day weekend. So, you want to go do something that explains why I mean I could. It's tough trying to navigate six different active schedules. Yeah. Well, I mean I think the transparency of doing it there's consequences for everything and by doing the interview process the consequence it just gets pushed off. It's not that we're not proceeding but we're proceeding in a proper way that's given everyone a fair chance. I I think that there's a value

120to that and then whether it doesn't the position doesn't get seated till July. I mean I mean pros and cons. I feel like that's the con but does it hurt us in any way? I mean at that point it might. Who knows? It might. How so? I don't know. I just I don't know. I can't foresee anything but then sometimes I can't look back and see anything. So I don't know. Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, we have it here and then we're going to change it. It's like, oh jeez, I don't know if I can I I mean, I feel like next week's we're just trying to force a square peg in a round hole right now trying to make this work. And I I just think we just the alternative to next week would

121be prior to the meeting on the 27th just have a special meeting. I mean, we could I mean, being that one set up and that that actually gives our our folks at least some time to prepare. Yeah. I mean, because next week everyone's kind of commencement Saturday and it's all I mean, who knows where everyone's going and watch some some meetings from the past year and say, "No, thank you." Somebody did that interview last time. They said they would watch them. All right. So, we're going to do one before the meeting. if that works for everybody to to schedule it prior to the 27th meeting and then we can So how how long are we thinking interview should take for six people? J was like probably 15 minutes, wasn't it? We kind of Yeah, I

122feel like it was pretty fast. I mean it wasn't like crazy. So, do we keep that time frame at 5:30 and then just we interview and then our meeting just ends up being later? That way those have an opportunity to get home and get here. I would say try to be done with the Wait, are you are you talking about the applicants? Yes. Getting home and Yeah. Let or I mean do we let what on the 27? What what part of before we actually move our meeting from 5:30 to maybe to 6:30 and then interview first and then do our meeting. Can we can we move our time? Can we move our time that way? I don't think it just has it. We'll still gather at 5:30, but we'll interview the candidates first and then

123we would conduct our meeting afterwards. So, are we saying we want to try to interview them at like 4 4:30? No, he's saying start at 5:30 and then just put our meeting back. My only concern is folks work. Well, we have to take time off and it's right after the holiday. I mean 5:30 at least has a fighting chance that if you you can still kind of get there. I'm pretty sure though that just whenever the meeting whatever time we have set so that we do it like an hour for 15 minutes, we have to stop whoever and make sure our meeting starts exactly on time. Right. So, put our meeting at seven. We'd be safe. I like that puts us back at like 9. Meetings are lasting two hours at What about if we

124started at 5? Yeah. I just I'm 4:35 5 hour. And I mean, if you set the interviews up, maybe we can ask individuals if there's a certain maybe some are okay to sort it. Maybe it works better for that. They could be I don't know. Well, I I thought I read on here. There's a couple that like So, we do know that, but I I think we kind of have to just make it 10 minutes. What's 10 times? 10 time. If we do like say, "Hey, this is the time that we could do it. If you can make it, great. If not, we have to go off. We go off the list." I agree with you, Paul. Unless they can call in, you know, if they can phone in and interview that way. But if

125we try to accommodate Nobody. No. Well, I think it's the first step of welcome the board. I mean, I understand your point of view. Seriously, it's my third board meeting this week. It is. I'm not kidding. It's my third, too. Oh gosh. And we we're going to cap it at these six applicants, right? Because our window ended, right? Yeah. And then next time we would welcome them to encourage more methods of disseminating that vacancy and with regard to oh my gosh your position potential vacancy. I could talk to MSBA and see like there's certain steps I need to take right and then just let us know because if What do you have left on yours? Excuse me, Mr. J. Excuse me. Nobody else goes by protocol. I usually do. I usually do. What do you

126have? Two, three years. I I don't know. But I get She's got as long as I She's the same as Paul and I. Lynn. No, she took because I got I got I No, I got four because Lind was done. I still my year. Yeah, January I started in a new term. Four years and I are at four years. This was not a planned situation. This is we have to take over the farm. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying so there's a situ Well, look that one up. If she's hasn't even been on here a year then it might be I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember. That's why I said I'll talk to MSBA. I I took over for someone that had two years left. But that went that went

127through No, I was elected on that one. All right. Something appointments to fill vacancies and special elections. special elections fill a vacancy must be held no later than the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November following the vacancy. So being as Brian um it's 11 months out from November, right? Uh that's not really applicable. The vacancy occurs less than 90 days prior to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. That's essentially election day, right? Right. So, if it's less than 90 days prior to election day, um a special election must be held no later than election day of the following calendar. If the vacancy occurs less than two years prior to the expiration of the term, no special election is required in the appointee board shall serve for the remainder of the

128unexpired. That's that's y that would be this situation one now but not Jen's situation. Jen's not Jen is in the first Yeah. Brian Brian would have less than two years. So it was a two. So Jen has three and a half. So you took over for Lynn's vacancy but that ended in January and then you got elected in January. My term started. You're at a fouryear term. If the vacancy occurs. Yeah. Also, I I know that they say the minute that my house sells, that's considered a lot of district, which puts me by law. Yeah. The whether I want to resign or not, that that takes me out of court. All right. That's the only I had read about initially. So the Okay. So the motion to Are we done with that? We haven't done

129We were in discussion about it for like the last 40 minutes. Um All right. So the motion to review this and uh can you jog my memory special? This is to amend it to change it to have a special meeting. The motion was just to discuss the applicants. Okay. So we did pretty good at that. Say I. I. I. Okay. Next motion to I'll make a motion to have the specialty meeting prior to our board meeting on the 27th to interview our applicants. A second. Okay. Seconded by Jen. Any discussion on that more than that? All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Eyes have it. Okay, quick question. No, I know we can do Zoom for the specialty meetings. Are we able to do Zoom for the full board meeting

130on the 27th? Yes. Okay, that that is what I will need to do on the 27th because we are out of town, which is fine. I mean, I don't I can zoom in and do that. I just didn't want to miss it. just let us uh I don't know if you can send me and Dr. like you're at a hotel just the address of a hotel and I don't think she can be in a room but doesn't she have to be down in the space then the door is technically supposed to be open or in your door because if somebody from the community wants to meetings adjourned you know what I mean you're you have to perfect we will be campaigning so I'm going to the whatever it's called You know what I mean? That

131makes more sense. Yes, I can do that for sure. Regular monthly pound it again. Because And we need to start [Music] inter questions.