001This conference will now be recorded. All right. Call the meeting to order. Start with introduction of guests. Board chair Mike Ziggler and I guess Joel Basta, trustee. David Steinbr, vice chair. Frank, trustee. Alex Rivas, trustee. Bill Gibbs, trustee. Jay Failen, trustee. Stephan Rabbi, superintendent. Okay, that takes us to the consent agenda. Everybody's had a chance to look at that. Uh, we've been having a motion in a second for that. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. It's been moved and seconded. Any public comment or further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. takes us to communication. Is there any public not on the agenda? Okay. Uh there's no public comment. Takes us to reports. Trust everybody's had a chance to look at all the reports. Is there any
002questions or anything anybody' like to highlight? I have something I would like to I did not get it on my board report but for the first time since I've been in this position we have 100% of our paraprofessionals in our district highly qualified. So to that also what does that mean? Oh that means that they have passed some academic assessments that are required and then once they do that they get a certificate and they get a private. So, and then I also want to just do a shout out to our mentor and our mentees in our district. So, we had our final get together celebration last Friday. We went bowling. It was great fun. Um, but our mentors are our veteran teachers in the district and then our mentees are our first year to the
003district teachers. They may have taught before, but their first year. So, thank you to the administrators for coming and supporting that and just thank you to our mentors and our mentees. Anybody any other administrators have anything to add on their report? [Music] Uh Stephan, can you talk about these legislative bills just a little bit? Yeah. Um, so the STARS Act is something that got passed and signed by the governor um that allows for um they're trying to bump teacher pay is basically what's happening. And so um so that's there and then districts have the option to work with their teacher union to try to figure out what that looks like. And so we're in the process of talking with them to see if that's something so on Thursday we have to make a decision as
004to whether or not that we think that's going to be possible and then we um kind of move forward with that and then possibly go back into negotiations for that chunk of money that's coming. So, it's pretty confusing right now because it just passed and every it's like they've been leading up but things got changed and so now everyone's like and now they give us this Thursday deadline that we got to get stuff into the state so that we can possibly start getting the money and there's a two-year window and just it's so it's funded for two years or so what does it raise the the teach the base pay to well they in order to get in order for us to get the money which is basically just double the quality educ educator payment
005um is what they're doing. So we already get the quality educator payment based off of uh the credentials of our uh certified staff and so that would double it um the money coming in um if we were able to meet the different requirements. One of them is don't quote me on the number but it's like right at 40 like a little over 41,000 which we are not. We're at like 20 or 36 as a starting wage. So we would have to bump that up quite a bit. Um, and then the other one is you have to have an average of like the average teacher pay has to be above I can't remember what it is, but there's a certain threshold there. And so if you meet those two requirements, then that'll give you, um, the
006double the quality educator payment. And so, um, Hold on. Hold on. Put this put this on the outside. Um and so so it just depends on if we can get that all worked out. So there's anou that we um have worked on and signed with the DEA to start moving forward on that. So So if you raise base pay 5,000, doesn't everybody essentially go up to 5,000? Not. So there's different ways of doing it. So if you raise the base wage, that would be true. But that isn't the only way to do it. So there's no way that if you did something like that, the district would be able to afford that. That's it would work through the matrix and you wouldn't be able to. So there'd be more you would have to put more
007general fund money into it. Um and that's where the negotiations kind of. So that there's um the last negotiated time that you guys negotiated with teachers. There's the matrix now has a um fixed increment. um annual increment that's there that could just go and sell. That would be one way to do it. There's other districts that are just bumping basically moving the line on the matrix to 41,000 um so that you're not changing any of the matrix. You're just allowing them to start because it's just your lowest paid teacher has to be over that threshold. And so there's there's lots of ways that districts are on doing it. It just depends on but regardless of how you do it, it's got to be a decision between GA and the board as to would think it'd
008be an issue. I mean, for younger teachers who aren't starting teachers, I mean, potentially, wouldn't the some of the starting teachers be making more than making more than than them? Uh, no. No, no. I mean, because everyone would be So, if you bump that up, then everyone would Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean, that's what I'm saying. How How is that going to even look? I mean, yeah, that that's something that has not been um looked into as to that. I know that'll be something we'll look at different options and stuff, but yeah, the step right now that we're on is are we able to do we think that we can make an agreement on that so that we can get this in by the deadline and then then negotiations would have to start
009on that. So, that's kind of where we're at. So, I'm trying to get those things taken care of if that makes sense. Uh, that's the one probably I know a little bit more about on this. Um, so you have the well, if you look at HB15, the 3% inflationary increase that happened already and so that's why we would have to go out for and that's just av basically. Yeah, just it's just our general fun. So it's the it's the actual formula that we have. So they put that in there and so we um so if you remember we went out we were going to go to the public for that general fund levy in elementary and with that we didn't need to. We were actually that bumped us up to not need to go out
010for permissive levy which really um helped. Anytime you don't have to go to your local taxpayers, it's a there's no strings attached to that one. No. Nope. And so basically legislatively they allow for a 3% increase. And what was happening was the they weren't giving that to schools all the time. And so there's quite a bit of money that could have went to schools that didn't over the years. And so that was one of the big pushes is to at least get the 3%. that's a allotted. Um so that was a big win for education um you know this time and nothing changed in the fact that they didn't increase that to allow for more but it was good to get the 3% um that did help um and then some of these other ones
011you know the literacy programs and stuff is just really I mean there some of these things uh don't affect us too much the preschool one special education one u will um affect us a little bit and basically now our three and four year olds we have um now we can actually get AMD for for them and so before it's been unfunded um unfunded mandates now we actually get AMD funds um to do a program we already do so um and then and then the other the HB515 is really um just allowing that major maintenance funding so um the permissive levy, it increases that a little bit and allows for districts to to be doing that. So, it's not a huge difference, but it's something that helps. Yeah. Yeah. Is that answer? Yep. There was a
012And there was a lot more. These were just kind of the highlights that I picked out that I thought would be Yeah. The the stars one is the one that I was the most that's the biggest that's the biggest thing that's happening right now. everyone, every district is scrambling to, you know, some have already had the negotiation happen. Some are still in the process. Originally, I didn't think that it was going to happen. Um, and then the very last minute, they said anou would work with so you could not have to have it negotiated by the state. Um, and so once that happened, now it's time to get that taken care of and move forward. So, I think it's really good for education. I mean, that's if you talk to any administrator across the state,
013any teacher. I mean, when you look at recruitment, retention, you know, the starting teacher wages, a huge piece of a lot of things happening. We're one of the lowest paid for teachers in the nation. So that helps with that in an age where we no longer it's it's not a used to be where it was really difficult to find jobs. Now it's really difficult to find teachers you know teachers are getting out of the profession. Um a lot of people are talking people out of going into the profession. It's it's a really tough time in education right now. That's everything. I don't mind anybody. Any further questions or comments on reports? If not, that takes us to more reports, but building [Music] updates. So, everything was pretty much in my board report. um been working
014a lot on the HVAC project and the uh emergency sewer project dealing with um a while we had as the asbesus um testing agencies and baby contractors here where a lot of other quick um few minute cleanup stuff on different uh locations and stuff too. They'll be actually coming back again um end of this month and then again in July to do some more uh latent. So taking care of a lot of those types of things. Working on a lot of door issues and just trying to get through. We didn't didn't get to have a big like countdown where we turned the boiler off for the last time. It kind of had to go out because of that steam leak in the boys locker room. but it got shut off then and never got turned
015back on. So, it was kind of antilimatic, but it's off permanently nonetheless. So, um other than that, unless you guys have any questions or if you want to save questions for emergency project or whatever. Yeah. Wait till the I'm pretty happy that boiler ain't running no more. Yeah. end of an era. That thing's been Yeah. Good. Okay. There's no more discussions or comments on the updates. Takes us to action item A, canvas of the 2025 trustee election results, election by acclamation. So typically after an election, we usually have some kind of a general fund. We have a vote um because of how everything happened and there was x amount of positions and one person per um spot. Um everyone got, you know, accepted for acclamation basically. And we didn't we weren't sure. We checked on
016it to see if we had to still canvas it or not, but the answer is yes, we do. And so, um, Jackie checked on it. And so, this is just, you know, you guys doing your due diligence to make sure that we are doing things correctly with officially accepting um the results of that acclamation of the trustee election. So, basically us just saying everything went correctly and is in order and accept the results. Correct. We need a motion to approve that or Yeah. So, moved. Seconded. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comments? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Takes us to action item B, resolution for county to administer 202526 elections. Um, so this is something we do every single year. Um, and we just
017allow for we just we ask it just allows for us to ask the county whenever we do an election to run it for us. They say yes or no. Um, but it's a huge help for our business office. It's a lot of work. Um, this is what they do. And so typically that's happened. There was one time was it the bond Jackie that Yeah. they were they were going through the federal election I think or primary or something and um and they um said nope we can't do it for you this time and then they did help us out quite a bit still I mean you can't get in a ton of work on it and the other ladies in the business office but um but it's a it's a huge help um for that
018and so we just ask every year as this comes forward to you guys to um allow for us to you know get the county into in our elections. This is I mean it's what they do. It takes the pressure off the the uh school district and the fact of you know you have them controlling this not so you don't have people being like oh you guys winning the election or whatever. It's it's just to me it's a better way of doing it. So we do have to pay them but we would have to pay ourselves doing it. So it is some it is a cost um to the district but it's well worth it. Yeah, we still do a lot of work even when they do that. I mean, we're right um we do a
019ton of it. Just doesn't we don't have to do all of it. Yeah, I'll move to allow the county to run the elections for the upcoming school year. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comments? If not, all in favor say I. I I any opposed? Motion carries. Takes us to action item C, discussion and authorization to secure financing for DCHS elementary sewer project. So R if you want to talk about the project and I can I'll talk about the financing and recommendation. You want to do that. Does that work? Sure. So I don't know if you guys had a chance to look at the couple different sets of plans online. um on on my report somewhere. Um, so basically it ended up, you know, to kind of recap, ended up with
020kind of my original idea was more, which is redirect. Um, and we were able to modify that. So the girls locker room. Um, and if you notice the new layout because once you start tearing into something, you now have to bring everything up to code and that there's a lot that goes through that. So, um, basically move the showers, toilets, and sinks, urinal, and everything to each, uh, outside wall of the locker rooms, which, um, there's a lot of benefit in that with, uh, we don't have to tear up as much locker room flooring, and that's the huge cost in this, trying to keep the existing tile that's in there. Um, keep as much of that as possible. Well, of course, there's still a challenge that's going to be on top of that, which is
021finding a tile that can somewhat because we can't get that tile anymore. So, we have 300 square feet left um for for spares. So, I got a plan on how we can try to use that. But anyway, it moves all the uh the fixtures over basically over the pipe tunnels. And so now that the abatement has been done, we can remove the steam piping that's in the tunnels, which takes up 50% of the pipe tunnel and now we'll have room to put uh uh sewer pipe degrade in the pipe tunnel. So the boys will go into that pipe tunnel and go around and then through the tunnel into underneath the kitchen. Um, and that'll the kitchen and the boys locker room will go into the grinder pump and that will pump it up through the
022tunnel and then the girls locker room and we're still on the fence. It could go either way, but the public restrooms will either um go towards the auditorium, go through the foundation wall tied to the new auditorium uh sewer line, which is all crawl space, so it's a lot easier to access. put a new um auditorium line in that already has an updated line going from the building to the main out in the street. So we just tie on to the new portion that was done 10 12 years ago inside the building and tie the girls locker room possibly public restrooms into that and then the horse made tie into that as well. So, both bathrooms are moving the facilities over the top of the pipe tunnels um to save a lot of um a
023lot of cutting concrete work um hammering out um putting um underground uh sewer pipes and stuff in and then having to report concrete and then try to figure out a way to retile it. So, it's way more efficient and effective that way. And then it also creates kind of the the new layout for more modern locker rooms is more open space like you have here. So you can fit a whole team in. I don't know if you guys have ever been inside the girls varsity locker room, but I don't think they could even fit the girls varsity players inside that locker room. It's literally was about a third of the size of this room here. So um even on the boys sides, the varsity football team could not all fit inside the varsity locker room.
024Um, and so now it would be better to use just big open areas that you able to fit the full team, have a whiteboard that the coaches can talk to the players and everything. Better use for PE for day-to-day use. Uh, so it should be a a big improvement and obviously the girls locker room gets the biggest improvement um out of all four locker room spots. Um, it's going to be, like I said, a big improvement. Um, which is good for equity. It also opens up some uh some equity and some some efficiencies working with Wade on the uh the training rooms and what we'll be able to do with that down the road. So, um, it just makes a lot of sense. Also, doing it the way we're doing it, we don't have to
025tear any other flooring up in any other part of the building. The only flooring we're having to tear up is in the locker room. And even that is mostly over the top of the tunnel. Well, adjacent next to the tunnel. Um, and then tearing out. Of course, there's a lot of step up, step down in there, and we got to get rid of that for ADA anyway. Um, doorways are too narrow. Got to open up doorways in the center block. Um, you know, all that kind of stuff for accessibility. So, um, along with that then another thing, hey, Red, real quick. So Red already talked about the when you open stuff up and how you have to give up things ADA this and he he talked about it but I want to really hit home
026on this title nine is what he's talking about with equity. Um, we have to once that happens, you also make sure that if you have too many improvements done on one, let's just say the boys locker room. Let's say you don't do anything with the girls locker room, that can become a title n issue. And so you so that's that's also part of this. It's the same thing. Once you start get into this, things get a little bit bigger and costs are going up because of things that we're required to do. So, and so with that, uh, the lighting, um, is of course, even though it had been changed over to LED, but the fixtures were still original and all the wiring going to the fixtures were all original. So, um, we already had spots
027where the insulation sheeting around the wires, just like in the auditorium, had cracked and fallen off. We've got bare wires there arcing. We had a couple lights arcing just uh, week before last in there. So figured at this point and it's all open web uh trusses in there if you remember being in there. So um putting new light fixtures in with new wiring is uh really incidental to the total cost of project. So it's just a good a good opportunity to get this done all kind of things. So a small thing turned into a much larger thing but it's it's well well needed. it would have had to been looked at at some point in the future, the near future anyway. And so everything um in those locker rooms and uh everything in the locker
028rooms will be new except for the water lines in the pipe tunnels. So at some point in the future, the water lines in the pipe tunnels will have to be replaced, but um we don't have to do that right now. Otherwise, everything else will be pretty much new um other than maybe little odds and ends here and there. Um and then of course the sewer lines address the rest of the whole north end of the building and auditorium wall. So the only thing that we're not doing new that will have to be addressed um but it's just where you know you have to draw a line somewhere. You have to end sometimes. So in the public restrooms from the you know they're all wall mount toilets and murals. So you have your your uh your
029waistline coming off your wall mount and then it goes down and ties to your your drain line. So that piping from the toilet or urinal to our new M to our new drain line will still be deal with stuff. So at some point we'll have to go and replace that. But um like I say, you know, have to draw line somewhere especially with an unfunded unbudgeted project like this. But but that's at least small small things that we can bite off as we go. So I think that pretty much wraps up what I I've been looking at it for so long that I don't know what I've said or not said. Anybody has any other questions on the you click on the link right and you get to that the first page is the um
030cost out that red kind of put together a preliminary cost out um so you're looking at you know it's going to be about a million dollar project which I think I asked right at the beginning of this what this thing would cost and um I think if we were to do it a different way I remember you saying it was going to be three million or more fair number. Yeah. I mean, if we were to replace the sewer lines where they're at or fix them where they're at, we'd be Yeah. We'd be five plus million dollar and it would be a 18mon to twoyear project. It wouldn't be obvious. No, exactly. And that's the other thing we're really shooting for. Contractors feel good about it. So, um, and it's also working in coordination with the
031HPAC project. um that uh yeah, we're hoping to have um first day of sports is August 15th. So, we're hoping to have it done uh by then and having you saw that in my board report. The calendar that you you know, you guys kind of gave us a leeway of doing the one that we chose was the one that you guys were hoping that it was started a week later, which also helps with these projects. Um and so if you go to the second tab under financing. So if you this is this seems like deja vu. It kind of is a little bit right. So um when we had the situation at Lincoln um with their HVAC and the you know trying to figure out what we're going to do and do the modulars. We
032had another emergency meetings and um had an emergency project that we needed to get done so school could happen. And um part of that was in that that project was $2 million. And it's like how do you get $2 million when you don't have $2 million? And so that in that project we you know found out that there are um inner cap loans that you know a school district can get. And the whole the whole reason why inner cap even exists is to help agencies like ourselves um keep cost down as much as we can. So they have typically a lower interest rate um than most can get. and um it's it's for things like this. And so um when we went through that process and I talked with the people at Intercap, they told
033us that you know if you can get a better deal by a local bank that um you know they have the first right of refusal and and they would wave that um if we had a better um cost. And so that is what we were able to do. we went out um to banks and and got one that was um better. And so we um that's that's what we went with. If you remember, we had two loans. One was for 1.5 million, one was for 500,000. And we used um different pieces as collateral on the notes that we we had and um it worked out best. Um, we have the permissive levy in elementary for the 1.5 million and then the building reserve levy as collateral for the 500,000. The hard part is in that
034at that time we were we had just got the building reserve levies. So you had five years on that. So we were able to do more with with that. Even though it put us in a bad spot with you know here we had $400,000 per year for building reserve. we had to use some of it to, you know, pay um that loan. Um it still allowed us to get the project done and have money to be able to um do other emergencies that come up every year. And so we were able to um do that. So in a situation like this now in the high school district, we're in the same situation. it's not as you know it's not $2 million but we're right around a million dollars and you know we don't have a
035million dollars laying around so how are you going to fund something like this and so um so we're going back to the same structure um as that so if you look the inner cap is now to 5% before I can't remember what it was last time I think it was like 5.5 or something so that has actually gone down um we actually for the loans that we got before I think we're right at 4% so um tax exempt and uh bank certified loans that we ended up getting from Stockman. Um and so right now, you know, basically the whole reason why Intercap exists is to make sure taxpayers get the best price for that in these agencies. And so that's why if we can get a better deal, they just wave it. Um it's not
036that they need, you know, they're there to help support um entities like oursel. And so I talked with the lady again and and she's like, "Yeah, if you get a better deal, we'll wave that again and you guys can can do that. It's a lot. It's a it's a lot of work." Um, but we were able to do it last time. We have a structure in place. Um, and you know, all of the documents in place where now all of a sudden we're just looking at different numbers for different districts. Now, you know, collateral, what kind of collateral do we have? You know, we have the voted levy, which is 400,000. So that was similar to the elementary. the difference is 400,000. So that being for three schools, now it's for one school. But if
037you remember, right, the high school is the square footage is just as big as all three schools combined. So that was one of the reasons why, you know, you guys set those the same is because, you know, yeah, it's just one school versus three, but it's just as big. So that money is so important for what happens around here. Um so it's hard putting that money towards it but you really don't have a choice right so then the other option is just like in elementary there's that permissive levy that is there for the high school um just like the elementary school and and that is that is one thing that the district can do is look at into that um to be able to do that the the levy is 53,000 um is all they
038would let us go for for the permissive le there's a cap you can only do this much if you do anything over that you have to go to a voted levy, but you can do both the voted and the permissive at the same time, which is what we did in elementary. The nice thing about the permissive levy is um there's only part of it, and I don't remember the percentage is is on our local taxpayers. Everything else comes from the state. So, the advantage of using that is not everything's going to So, out of the 53,000, only 20,000 of itish is by our local taxpayers. Everything else comes from the state. Um and so that you know helps with that. And so in a sense you get this 33,000 that um you wouldn't have had
039before. And so those are right now the the for sure things. Um some of the things that we're looking at still are there 0% interest loans that we're looking into um from uh um rural development rural development. And so we've been looking into that for a while. we're not going to get answers on that um for a little while. Some of them actually have grants that come along with it. We thought it was going to be a lot more than what it was and then we were told it like 50,000 which is good but 50,000 is not quite what we thought right away but we are still looking into that. That's something that we won't know right away um for that especially with the speed is something that this has to be. I mean, when
040you're in emergency to try to figure out how to open school again, um, you know, you have to kind of, unfortunately, you're building the plane as you fly it, per se. But, um, but the for sure things are the voted levy, the permissive levy to be able to get notes. In the meantime, you can we're still going to be looking at that because if that's the case, and that might be something else that we do um down the road um is is try to figure out that as well. But uh for right now we have to have a way to start paying for this. Um we have so far paid for the uh asbestous and the engineering services. Um you know so we're about 20,000 I think is what we spent on this project up
041front. I mean, we we're having obviously there's been a lot of work behind the scenes and stuff, but that is um so we are able to use our building reserve levy right now to pay for those things, which is what you're going to see on the very next uh line item D is going to be an approval to reimburse um after we get this and we'll talk about that when we get there. But that's also coming that allows for us to anything that's being spent out of the building reserve once we get the loans, we can reimburse that with the loans. And this is something that our bond lawyer was saying, you need to have it. You really need to have this in place. There's a lot of pieces in this, but even if you
042don't use it, it's it's good to have so that you always have it in place anytime you have a project. Um, we should really go through this process of of doing it this way, especially I mean, if we're going to get a loan, but it doesn't mean you have to get a loan. It just means, hey, if you do, you can reimburse. You can um set this up. So, it's just good practice to get into. Um, so that's going to be the next action item. But uh for this and the financing, I gave kind of a an example of a repayment plan as as some possibilities. Um all I did was structure it very similar to what we did with the Lincoln. Um you know, it's something we've already done. Um and we kind of
043messed around with numbers to see what would give us the greatest benefit because not only do we have to take care of this project, this is not going to be the last project we're going to have to take care of. We're still dealing with Asian uh facilities and we're dealing with that. So if you put all of that there then what's going to happen if we don't have that right now we every single time an emergency project has come up somehow got by with the skin of our teeth that we have been able to figure it out with what we have to be able to do that. The only um difference is is the bond, right? Where we went out to our taxpayers and say, "Hey, these are the projects." But even those um you
044know, when we went out for it, when we started going out for it, the costs went up exponentially by the time the project ended up starting. And so, we're having to shift things to try to get the best thing we can for the $8 million that we're given. But that's just that's just part of what time does especially when you have inflationary costs and so forth. But um but the same thing, you know, for here, basically what we did is we just I just said possible outcomes. So you have if you use the permissive levy and the voting levy, it's it's to me it's the best bang for your buck to do two. It'd be nice to do one, but you know, if you use if we used all of the 400,000 a year under
045a because we only have three years left on it. Um you're going to have to use the whole thing to try to pay off this thing. Um that doesn't make any sense to me. Right now we have zero money. everything has to come out the general fund after that. Um so how do you then structure this in order to do that? Um even the inner cap loan will allow you to go up to 15 years um for the note and um so if you use that and you use 53,000ish you know per year you know if we did um if you did a combination between to try to use some of our voted levy still allow for some money in there to take care of the other issues and then use the rest of it
046with the permissive levy. That's the example that I use. We just said, "Okay, we started off with what if you do 200 and 200 of a voted levy, right? We use 200 and you only have 200 left to use." Well, once you do that though, it's not just 200. You have the interest on top of that. So, now you're looking at 175,000 maybe, let's say, a year uh to be able to use. Is that going to be enough to take care of all the other issues that are happening? Probably not. So, now you're going to get yourself into another situation. So, if you structured that down and said, "Okay, what if we did a $100,000 out of there?" And so so that loan would be $300,000 uh for the three years. Um you're going to
047be paying about um $110,000 per year. That's with the interest advertised. Um so you're going to end up having about $290,000 left to be able to take care of the other issues. And so you then use the um permissive levy um for 13 years. So you'd have to do the rest of it. So, 690,000. It's probably going to be more than that, just depending on it, but just as an example, 690,000. That's a 13-year um term on that. You hope that in 13 years, there's going to be more things that we're going to have to do. Say there's another bond or whatever. You'd use that um to pay off. That would be an option. But, um then we'd have to pay $73,470 for that one per year is what we would be doing. Um, so
048there would be some of the it's like $20,000 that you would get out of um so you take that 20,000 that you're paying over what we get for the permissive levy for the interest and either use that you can um the building reserve or even your general fund to do that. There really is no other option to do this. Um it's just what is what is that? What's the best um way to do it? And nice thing about using the permissive levy is it um a lot of it's coming from the state and we don't get a whole lot from the state um to be able to do this. And so 33,000 of it each year um would be from the state and not on our local taxpayers per se. I mean obviously you get
049it when it's coming from the state it's still spread out but it's spread out through the whole state right. It's not this direct right on our local taxpayers like the other 20,000 would be. Um, and when you look at $20,000 per year, it's pretty um it's it's not very much per person. So, ends up being a good structure um to have. But, I mean, those are your those are your options besides some of the things that we are trying to look for for the other 0% loans and grants and things like that. But just like before when you know we've had more members that have looked and talked with you know governors and state legislature u you know senators and stuff about grants. There's just not a whole lot of grants for this kind of
050stuff. Um I wish that wasn't true but facilities is we're not the only ones with facility issues. Montana as a whole is dealing with this and hopefully they eventually do something about it but in the meantime I don't know if I've drawn they're dealing with it. Yeah. Yeah. I probably get it. I think we all know here that we can't use the bond funds for this to get ahead of somebody else saying, "Hey, why don't you use the bonds?" We legally can't because it's not just Why is that? Just because of what is the scope of what you did for the bond. Um, and I did like I did check with a blonde lawyer. Um, and just just to double check that that question came up, you know, I wanted to be able to um
051do that. But because of So once you put the language out there, right, this is what we're going to use it for. That's what you have to use it for. At that time, we did not put anything in sewer um and things like that because that was something that we wanted to. Um, that was something that got cut because we, if you guys remember when we went to the facilities committee, we we said we really need I think it was like 14 million, you know, and then it came back like no, it's going to be 3 million. We're like, there's no way we're going to be able to do any of this for 3 million. Well, and then it went up to 8 million and that's kind of where Oh, we spent a lot of
052time on that. Everything in that bond belongs in there, right? And so just because we're having a problem with our sewer does not change the fact that we've got other problems. Right. We're sitting here. We're lucky enough to be in a situation where we did have a bond and we can't address some of those issues. We all know that's not enough money to even address those issues just because inflation and the cuts we made in that, right? So, I mean, yeah, that stuff's called out, but and and I I mean, you could look at it as being, well, darn it, but those problems are still there. Well, I think, you know, when we were going through the bond and going to our voters, there was a lot of people that said, you know, oh, don't
053give them the money. they're just going to use it for salaries and stuff. We kept saying, "No, you can only use it for what is on there, right?" But I hear some of the same people that were complaining about us doing stuff wanting us to use it for projects like this. And so it it goes it's the same thing. We we can't use it for other things that's not specifically told the taxpayers that we're going to use it for. Um and so since we did not have some kind of a device to be able to see the future, that was not there. We knew that we had um aging sewers and stuff and we were trying to that's one of the reasons why we had it in our building reserve. Building reserve was going to
054start taking care of um little chunks at a time, but we didn't see a project like this, you know, coming up um to be able to take care of that. You know, luckily we do have ways to to do it with um loans. I didn't I've told this many people, but I never thought as a superintendent I'd be getting loans for our school districts, you know, but I don't see any other option what we have. So, we were intentionally minimalistic at the time because it was just we need something or we're not going to have our doors open. So, and yeah, I mean, we went through that with a fine chain code. I mean, so those problems exist and that bond's there for a reason. And Yeah, we can't spend on this, but that's I'm
055okay with that. Yeah, we took as as pragmatic of an approach as we could with being cost conscientious taxpayers. Um, and sewer something we looked at was something we could address systematically over course of years with the building reserve levy. So, it was not something crossing our fingers crossing our fingers that this wasn't going to happen. Yeah. Because what we had seen up to that point was we could address a small chunk here, small chunk there, and over time replace it. It wasn't something to the drastic scale that we're seeing now, but we understand that issue better now with the tools and resources of the building reserve what we provided. Any questions on just the financing part of it? So if you look at the next tab on recommendation. So um you know that is
056our recommendation is using a combination between the two to get this taken care of. Um I do think the structure that we have as a possibility is a good structure to have. Um with that it gives us a lot more options. Um allows for a taxpayer money to goes as far as it possibly can. um you know and basically you know talking with inner cap um my job would be to um just to still secure the lowest possible interest rate that we possibly can um to allow for that. If it's inner cap, then inner cap is the way to go. If if if we can't find a local bank that gives us a better deal, but other than that, um I think we could get a structure like we did last time. Um but I
057don't know that until I mean I've already talked some people, but without numbers and stuff, it's it's difficult to um really get a good idea on that. So, so with that, you know, um what what I'm recommending is is the same exact thing we recommended on the lees um project that basically if you look at the possible motion, but basically give the board chair and the superintendent the authority to continue working with our B bond council, our local banks, and the state to come up with the best deal um that we're able to in order to secure financing um to pay for these expenditures. and also to sign the contracts that come in to be able to do that. I mean, I know it's been something that we've talked about. It's it's hard in these
058situations. I think Russ's done a good job of providing you as a pretty good cost uh sheet as to what we um after the engineering services all the time he's had with the local contractors to kind of walk around and get the best um idea that we we can at this time to to see how much this is going to cost. um there's going to be bumps and stuff that come up, but if we're staying in that range, you know, right, we would um we would be able to just keep moving this thing moving forward. So, so that's why that um the same thing we did on the the modulars. It allowed us to move and do the things that we need to. So, So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any public comment
059or further discussion required? If not, all in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. That takes us to action item D, approval for a reimbursement resolution. Yeah. So, we worked with our bond council um to make this happen. Um and so we went through all the laws. He said, he told me, you know, there's there's a lot in here and it's copied and pasted to make sure that we met everything that we needed to for this. Um but he he said that this is a really good thing for the district to be able to have the option to reimburse if needed. So, um, there's going to be a because obviously we don't have the loan right now, there's a time period where we have to pay for costs. So, we're going to be able to
060have to pay for stuff and then this allows us to reimburse those accounts. Um, meanwhile before the loan money comes in, reimburse with a bond with with the with the loan. So, the loan So, once the loan comes in, then we can put some of the loan money into those accounts that we've already paid for that project. Does that make sense? So it just allows for that because otherwise you wouldn't be able to. You'd have to just whatever we pay it out of that's what it would come out of and then once we get the loan then we can move forward. But that allows for once the loan comes we can reimburse those accounts that we took the money from. so that it all goes on the loan, which is what we're trying to do,
061which doesn't put us hu like if you remember with the modulators, we were really rushed to try to find get those financed because the modulars needed, we couldn't get the modulars ordered until they got a paycheck from us. Um, in that one, uh, luckily with working with, you know, not saying, but when you work with global contractors and stuff, it it does help a little bit um, with that. And it with the modular company, they were very adamant that they were not going to push that thing forward until they got the 1.5 or 1.2 or whatever it was. I can't remember what it was, but I remember think I think it was like 1.2 or something like that. Um, you know, so so we were really rushing to get that. This helps us to, you
062know, we'll be able to whatever we use to pay, we'll be able to reverse it once the law comes. Well, that's just responsible to us. Yeah. So move seconded. Was it moved and seconded? It's been moved and seconded. Any public comment or further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed. Motion carries. Uh was there any vocaser? There is actually. Okay. So, we are going to have to go through that. We need to We're going to try to wait till June, but we need this to happen. So, it's going to be So, I guess process is we'll have to go into close session where normally we try to load this on the end of the meeting, but we can't now because this is the end of the board and there'll be
063a new board taking over. we would have had to postpone I can't discuss it now but uh postpone care being given to people by postponing it. So what we got to do is end or uh go into close session where everybody's got to leave and then once we're done with close session everybody can come back in and then you'll see our vote. But that way we got to we can protect uh privacy like who we're talking about. We can't talk about that. U Yep. And then we'll we'll adjourn that meeting and then we'll start fresh. Any ETA estimated ETA? No. All right. I don't know. I'll stay I'll stay vigilant. Yeah. I don't know if it's any cooler outside. You can get a rather. So Josh, if you can hear us, um basically what we'll
064do is we're going to kick you off. Um and then um I will text you when um when we're out of close session and you can join back. Does that work? Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. This conference will now be recorded. Okay, we're back in open session. So, I'll make the motion that we uh approve the request for the roll by sir. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. And with that, do we say some things or do we? So you can do it either way. You can or you can say it before you adjourn it or you have to call Josh. Call Josh. Oh, thank you. might as well keep them. We'll keep we'll keep you guys here or you'll
065scaddle at least. Well, we have two board members. So, I appreciate everything you guys have done for sure. Thank you for being willing. How many years? Three years. Four years. You started with a one year, right? Yeah, somebody resigned, I guess. And then you were six. Not all shaking his head. Yes. I was just going to mention the difficult committees you guys were on. Joel's on policy for all four years, I think. And you know, run some tough things through through policy. I I always appreciate your focus on fiscal matters and also your ability to call me out when needed, you know. I really appreciated that and I appreciate you took my spot. So, yeah. And David was on a a labor labor committee. I don't think there is probably a more difficult one than
066that, you know, especially David's so pro teacher. It's it's like, you know, we we want the best for the teachers and you more than anybody I've met so far. So your wisdom will be will be missed by the district and and the labor committee. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Evening adjourned. Are you able to join? All righty. Well, thanks Joel. Yeah. Pleasure. Appcate. Thank you, Joel. Thanks, Joel. Thank you. So, I'll just put you on speaker at least for this part. That works. Oh, we get the keys. Oh, yeah. I don't know how to take that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You're laid off right now. Yeah. Back to work. half. So, I think we have enough chairs. We have And Josh, you still there on the phone? Welcome. Thank you. [Laughter] Y, you still
067there? Front and center. Guys, can you hear me? Might be on mute if you're talking. I can't hear you. So, he got in good, but then when we get him out, it's been hard for him to get back in. So, we're going to try to do it this way. So, at least he's Oh, he's doing right now. I think he's on. Yeah, he's just wait till he's settled. Can you hear? Yeah, we can hear you. Josh, can you hear us? Okay, I had to come out to my pickup because my stuff's just all over the place. No worries. We're glad that you made it. So, we're just getting ready to start the second meeting. Sounds good. Okay. Uh we will call the meeting to order and we'll start with an introduction of guest. Mike Ziggler,
068trustee. Tessa Hopper, trustee. Philip Pedrick, trustee. Tommy Sassy, trustee. Franken, trustee. Alex Ramis, trustee. Bo Gibbs, trustee. Chief Hen, trustee. And Josh, if you want to introduce yourself. Josh Kryless, trustee. Okay. Um, we will start out with the oath of office for the new trustees. Would you guys like to do your oath of office in your seats or would you like to Would you mind introducing yourself or Well, I'm Deianne Smith. I'm the county superintendent of schools. live. And welcome. If you guys want to stay seated. Sure. Okay. Raise your right hand. Josh, you'll want to raise your right hand as well. Uh, repeat after me. I do solemnly swear I doly swear that I will support, protect, and defend I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of
069the United States and the Constitution of the State of Montana and the Constitution of the State of Montana. And that I will discharge the duties I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity of my office with fidelity. And if you wish, so help me God. Sorry. Thank you. And welcome to the Glendai public schools. Yes, it's official. I'm going to have you guys sign. Is it okay if I take time to sign? Have you sign? You got my sign here. Thank you. Tony have you sign right down where it says signature of the candidate and brand new then the thing brand new thank Yep. Leave them away. It's because you as soon as you can do that, right, Jay? What's that? Um Jackie will after she had after they've elect you've told me
070right now. Okay, I'll go do and then with Josh. Yeah, you want to do that? I'll talk to Josh. Josh, being online, how is this work? Um, is Josh, are you able to come into either Jackie's office or my office and sign yours? Right. Right now, anytime in the next I believe we have 14 days. I'll I'll be back on Wednesday. Okay. If you want to stop in, I'll leave it at Jackie's office. Okay. And then how does that work? Like today voting on things. Mhm. It'll be fine. He took the oath. So that that's fine. So even if Yeah. And it's dated today, so I mean we'll be all right, right? double check. Someone coming back and say, "Hey." Yeah. Yeah. We should be okay. I think of it. I mean, there's nothing really
071substance. So, it's just his signature, I believe. So, we have 14 days to get this into the So, now what we're waiting for is once Jackie gets back with that, then Jackie will be the one that does the first action item and she'll go through that and you guys will vote that and once whoever the board chair is, then they'll take over the rest of the meeting. That's kind of what we're waiting on right now is make sure Jackie comes back. That's part of the district district clerk's responsibility is to start the organization. I don't think I've ever in all of my time that I've been in this district um because before I was in this position, I would come to board meetings that I have seen this many board members sitting around the table.
072So, so we have nine now. That's awesome. So, I think it's it's I don't think we've ever had nine since I've been this either. This is very Deer Creek. One was vacant for a long time. Well, when that one was when when that was filled, then there was another one that didn't. So, I think we've always had the limbs missing. Yeah, there was position. Are there 10 potential positions? What's that? Are there 10? Yeah, we have one more, which I always think is weird because you would think you would want an odd one. I told you to. I guess you have an odd as long as the board chair. Yeah, but they still vote. Yeah, they Yeah, on paper I vote if I don't say no. And then if you'll sign each of them right
073there, Jackie, and then your new board chair will sign there. A lot of Okay. Um, next we'll move to the election of the board chairperson. Do you have any nominations? Yeah, you do. Mike Ziggler. Mhm. You're welcome, buddy. Any other nominations? Yeah, someone's got a second or no second. You don't second that. Just nominations. I just call for any other nominations. And the third time, any other nominations? I'll move that nomination cease and a unanim unanimous ballot be cast for Michael Ziggler. Do you have a second? I second that. Okay. All right. We have a motion in a second that unanimous vote be called from Mike Ziggler as the new chairperson board for the continent. Second. I will. All right. Thank you. Alex has called me and called me out on some things before, too,
074and I welcome that. I mean, because I do represent you, the board as a whole. So I I try to keep that in mind on things. So but thanks. I'll have you sign this one. I can't be the only one here that's called you out on stuff. Alex is a great I do it enough that he doesn't normal conversation. It's an everyday conversation. Oh. [Music] Don't cheat off the ears. Okay. Uh that takes us to action item C, election of board vice chairperson. Would you accept? I'm I'm gonna make that nomination for Bo Gibbs before someone throws my head in. I I like what you're saying. I would do the same. But it's too late. Uh, I'll accept. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone know? Nice. Any other nominations? If not, uh, do you need the same
075motion? I think I think we do. We Yeah. We've mot seconded. So, I think last time we did this, I think Jay said the whatever he said. Oh, okay. Yeah, it really Jay's just smiling, waiting to say it over there. Do it again. Okay. Or we can just vote. Okay. You're you're the boss, so you tell us what you want. Well, I don't want it to be undone someday. So, okay. So, we'll move that nomination cease and a unanimous vow be cast for Bo Gibbs. Okay. Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Congrats. That takes us to action item C, appoint clerk. No, point D, appoint clerk. So here here's So I'll I'll just talk about this one. So the
076clerk the the clerk position is really like a uh what you call like a secretary of the board. So they're the ones that carry out what you guys um need. And so that typically in this district has always been the business manager. Um that isn't necessarily what the board has to do but it makes sense. It's kind of the positions together. Why it's separate like this in this I think it's just a legal but this happens every single year. you actually um couple months ago, was it a couple months ago or last month that the business manager position already got rehired for next year? So, I think it was Yeah, a couple months ago and and so it just allows for that. So, our current clerk is Jackie Stennis. I'll make the motion or I
077will like Jackie trying to make a motion out of this. I will I would like to nominate Jackie Sten. Second. Okay, it's been nominated and seconded. Any further nominations? If not, it was Alex. Okay, they were wondering on Oh, okay. They were wondering about the second. The second wondering about the second. Okay. Uh, all in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. So in about so the next one the assistant clerk so about you guys um we didn't used to have an assistant clerk um and we had a lot of change over in the business office and there was a lot of things happening and so one of the ideas was is we really need an assistant that way if something like Jackie's gone or something happens we have someone who knows um
078the similar things and can do that work when Jackie, you know, I mean, she needs to be able to take vacations just like anybody else. And so it's it's just a good way to have a backup. And so Kathy Brinley has been in the past, right? That's who it is right now. Um, some of you might remember her. You might be like Brinley Jacobson. Kathy Jacobson was who you guys, but she's got married and has a different last name now. So Kathy Burnley has been in that position and she's our assistant business manager. So, so I'll move to appoint Kathy Brimley as the assistant clerk. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any other any other nominations? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh action item F, authorize clerk
079to invest. So on this one, um there is um you know, some of it the county has our money and allows for them to invest it. So it's allowing Jackie to work with the county to do that, but also for her with the Vulker Wagaser accounts as well. So any kind of money that we have that we invest, that's really what it is. our money's house. So, the the county treasurer kind of does that and they they invest, but you allow her to work with them to be able to make sure that that is happening. That's what this is. It's just a thing that every year you guys do. So, seconded. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comment? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Takes us
080to action item G. Declared trustee positions vacant position one. The a Lindsay. It is a Lindsay, isn't it? Or is there two iss? It's the district 367s at large. It's Lindsay South, right? So it's district 367s and it's and it's called atlarge. So that's the one that you guys would be declaring. Okay. And how the pro that process works is then the board would be tasked to try to find someone in there which is what the board has been trying to do for a long time. Um but and then um and then there's a time limit of 60 days I think um with the board and so if after that 60 days the board has not found um someone to fill that seat then the county superintendent can actually fill that seat. Um but when
081no one's beating down the doors unless she knows someone it becomes really difficult. Yeah. I know in the past I'd formed search committees, but it's just like, you know, it's no no secret this has been vacant for however long. So, we haven't been doing that. Just I mean, this is our this is us declaring it's vacant to the public. So, if everybody wants it, there it is. So, move. It's been moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. I guess with that I welcome everybody new here. Thank you for Thank you for being here for serving. With that I adjourn the meeting. Thanks everybody.