DCPS Board Meeting 8/27/25

001All right, we are recording. >> All right, it is 7 o'lock, so I will call the regular or a special board meeting to order. Uh, everybody, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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. >> There is an open meeting statement on the south wall of the boardroom. Um, all members are in attendance. We have um staff and student involvement as kind of the first order of business here. And we have introduction of new certified staff to all of us. >> We just got one here tonight. I think we had three left to introduce. We got one. So, if you'd like to introduce yourself, what uh you're

002doing for us, and maybe where you came from, and whatever else you think might be important. >> All right. I am Jen Johnson. I'm one of your new school psychologists. I came to you from Wahoo Public. Um, if you have questions, you can ask. I don't know what else you want to know, but it's been a great first what 13 14 days getting to know everybody. It's been very welcoming. Um, it feels like a really good fit. So, thank you for the opportunity. And Annie, our other psych will be starting here, I hope, next week after maternity leave and super excited to be able to work with a site team. So, thank you to the board for making that happen. >> How long you been at school psych? >> This is my 21st year. >>

003Wow. >> You and Lindsay know each other? >> Yes, we did. We've known each other for probably 15 of those 20 years. >> Our boys are in the same grade. >> Oh, nice. >> Oh, that's fun. >> So, I worked with Lindsay when she was a teacher at St. Wentz and then she moved into special ed at St. W and then she came over to public and then reading. So, we worked together pretty closely for a long time. You can if I do great, you can thank her. >> Right on. Something goes wrong, it's her fault. >> You're reunited. That's She's great. So obviously I wouldn't have had as much interest had I not talked to her. So >> very good. Well, we're going to go around just for for you and we'll go and

004the board will introduce ourselves. Okay. >> That mean I'm starting. I'm Casey Kman. I have three kids in the district. Nope. Two. >> I had one graduate last year. Um >> me too. >> Yeah. >> My youngest just graduated. >> Oh, you're on your last. I'm on my first. But anyway, I have a sophomore and a sixth grader. Justin Krafka. I'm a farmer over by Bellwood. I have three kids, a sophomore, a freshman, and a sixth grader. >> I'm Don Warick. I'm a financial adviser, accountant. I farm a little bit. My wife Amy's a fifth grade teacher. I got that right this time. Fifth grade teacher at the elementary and I have a daughter that's senior and a son that's freshman here. >> Marcus Tindle, pharmacist up in Columbus, lived by Bellwood. I have a

005fifth grader, a junior, and a senior, and one that graduated two years ago. >> Uh Stephanie Summers, uh former teacher. I substitute a little bit in the district, and then I I have a I work for the schoolboard association also. Um I have two kids in the district. One graduated a couple years ago. Um but I have a 10th grader and a fifth grader. >> Aaron Ruka. I live over by Bellwood. I have four kids, two of them in the district and they are in second grade and kind of first grade. Second grade and first grade. Y >> very good. Thank you for coming tonight. We really appreciate being able to see your face and get to know you. So um you are free to go if you want. You can stay for the riveting

006conversation. >> I haven't been home yet. So >> yes, please go. Yeah. All right. I have not received any public form. So, we'll just move ahead to um item number four, approve claims against the district. >> It's the last minute bills for the end of the fiscal year that we cleaned up the last couple of weeks. >> Does anybody have any questions about anything that's listed? [Music] >> No. No. >> No. All right. Then I will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda um claims against the district. So move >> second. >> Moved by Casey, seconded by Marcus. Donnie, >> yes. >> Justin, >> yes. >> Casey, >> yes. >> Marcus, >> yes. >> Aaron, >> yep. >> I vote yes. >> Who seconded? Me? >> Marcus. >> Moving on to 5.1. Discuss, consider, take

007action to approve an early graduation request. Yeah, we've got a senior that moved in the district and ready to graduate and start the next phase of his life. And so asking you guys to uh approve his request to be done in uh December. [Music] I'll make the motion. I'll second it. >> Justin by Donnie. >> Donnie seconded by Justin. Um Casey. Yes. >> Aaron. >> Yep. >> I vote yes. Marcus, >> yes. Justin, >> yes. >> All right. Great. All right. Um, do we need to We don't have Well, you can tell us. Uh, next item is discussing or take action to approve the purchase of the property. >> Yeah, we do not have a purchase agreement in hand. uh been trying to negotiate back and forth with the owners and we're still quite a

008ways apart and so I don't know if we'll ever come to uh mutually agreeable terms for me to bring for you guys for final approval. So at this time there is no action to take cuz there is no purchase agreement uh in place. >> Okay. All right. And um last thing on the agenda and the reason why we're all here discuss the preliminary budget and a tax request for the next school year. We'll grab I think I I think I gave all of you one but didn't give myself one. So, hold on. >> Here's an extra. >> Oh, there's one. And then >> does everybody who wants your phone? >> Okay. Okay. >> Mine has a few more notes on it than yours. All right. Never really know where to start when you're talking budget

009and tax request. The two kind of go hand in hand. And so, um, this document is not necessarily in any particular order. Just the order that I decided to review them with you. And so, um, if you have questions as we go along, obviously, please fire away. I'll try to do as good of a job as I can giving you an in-depth um analysis and and rationale for what I'm requesting, etc., etc. And so, um I'm just going to go ahead and start on the first page. It says tax levy, tax request, and valuation history. You might ask, why do you start at uh 200910? And to be honest, that there is no rhyme or reason other than when I got here, that was the first year of information I could find. And so, uh,

010there's nothing special about the 0910 year other than that's just what I could find. And so, you can see our history the last 1516 years. Um, I've reviewed it every year, but just a reminder, I came here in 2013 2014. That that was my first year here. And so, when I got here in July, most of the budget decisions were already made. It was just a matter of putting that stuff into the proper format and submitting it to the state. And so whether or not I get credit for the 13 14 year is probably up for debate, but like I said, a lot of those decisions were made before I got here. But that was my first fiscal year here. Um I always like to remind you guys, uh back in 2010, 2011, and 112,

011you saw an 18% followed by a 10% increase. Those years were years where uh in all honesty, the district wasn't taxing enough. And so they uh were not going to be able to make payroll. They actually had to get a line of credit from the bank in order to pay bills. And so uh two years in a row the board made significant increases to the tax request so that they could get healthy again. And so uh that was before my time. I think Angie was, you know, here as as bookkeeper and can kind of confirm some of that, but that just gives you a little of a historical perspective um for those years. Before I get into the rest of this, I had I had mentioned that a lot had been done before I got

012here. I went ahead and took the liberty of putting on the board back here in red just kind of a timeline or just to give you an idea of really when some of those decisions are made just so that you have an idea that the budget doesn't get put together or started in the summertime in July or August. Uh so just to give you an idea um we will actually start teacher negotiations around uh the last week of October. In fact, we have to have our first negotiations meeting no later than November 1st. And so, uh, we try to, uh, wrap up teacher negotiations in November. Uh, that's a big one. Uh, to give you an idea, for the 2627 school year, that will be over 7 million of our budget. Okay? So, our our

01368 teachers roughly uh will be over 7 million of the budget. In December is when you typically uh settle on my compensation package. Uh but we did a two-year deal uh or contract this last year, so you won't have to worry about that in December. Uh January is we when we take care at the admin level their compensation packages. February is another big month. This is when I try to get to you guys our speech path contracts and we've got two of them. uh school psych um and now we have two of them. ESU7 sped contract comes out in February, sometimes in March. And so you got to forgive me a little bit. Sometimes these months are a little bit fluid. You might say, "Well, what's that ESU7 sped contract?" Well, that's our life skills

014kids. Uh that's our behavioral kids and that's also our early childhood. They provide our sped services for our birth to five. Okay. So that's a big one. That one this year was uh give you an idea that contract alone for a million dollars as well. Okay, that doesn't include like this year we have two kids that go to Boytown. And you might say, well, how much does it send a kid to one of those programs? Minimum is 45,000. If they are a severe enough case where the kid might need their own one-on-one parah, we're also responsible to pay that parah wage in addition to the tuition. And so if tuition's 45, parah might be another 25. So at minimum it could be 70,000 for a student. If they also have some severe medical needs, you're

015also paying uh for some nurse time as well. Okay. And just to give you an idea, I think this year we have either 15 or 16 kids we're contracting out. Uh I want to say it's 13. And if Carrie was here tonight, she could confirm for me, but I think it's 13 kids that we contract with ESU7 in Columbus and two kids that we take to Boytown and Duncan. So we've got 15 kids that we contract out. Keep keeping in mind that the cheapest tuition rate for any of those would be 45,000. Okay. And then we also uh contract with the hospital for sped services for occupational therapy, physical therapy, and any excess speech path needs we have that our two current speech paths can't handle. So, they kind of take the overflow uh for

016us. OTP. Remember, this can start as soon as they're born. Okay? So, as soon as a child is born in Butler County in our school district, if they have occupational or physical therapy needs that are going to affect their education at some point, which happens uh with kids with disabilities, we are responsible for that. So, we actually contract with the hospital to take care of that. So we have OT and PT. In some cases they go into the home and provide those services. Sometimes they'll do it at daycarees. Sometimes they'll do it at preschool. And then once they get school age, they do it here at school. Okay. Um I and I didn't even add in here uh vision when we have students that that have some some vision needs as well. So that's February.

017Sometimes it it it goes into March. It just depends upon how quickly they can uh pull those contracts together. In March is when I bring you guys all of our classified staff contracts. So that's things like our bus drivers, our paras, our cooks, our custodians, our maintenance staff. We also talk about summer maintenance projects and what we have on the list, whether it's asbestous removal, carpet replacement, you name it. It's also when we order textbooks. Uh typically I can tell you this year at the high school um I don't think we have maybe as many textbook needs. However, I think it's industrial text year um on the rotation. So while they won't have as many textbooks, they'll have a lot more equipment needs potentially welders and plasma cutters and 3D printers and those types of

018things. Uh we do that on a seven-year rotation. And so I say textbooks, but that's also the related things that comes along with when we review curriculum. April is when we have our teachers do their teacher requisitions. We basically ask them to requisition everything that they're going to need for the next school year. So the hope is then that we have everything here before they go off contract in May. We've inventoried it. We've put it away. They don't have to freak out over the summer whether something's going to show up or not. They don't have to go to the summer on a career and a wish that everything will show up. We try to have everything in hand before their contract ends in May. So, they have the peace of mind. They can put everything

019away. We can uh get rid of the old textbooks or the old equipment. Um cuz we obviously don't want to do that till we know we have everything in hand. It's also when we talk small vehicle purchases, do we need any buses? And also technology like this year we replace all the teacher computers. Okay. We also replace all the fifth grade and 9th grade computers every year as well. We put that on a on a four-year rotation. We also have things that are on a multi-year contract. Things like copers. I think I just signed a 48-month lease this year. That's the last multi-year contract that I think uh we needed to take care of for the next couple years. We also have some of our technology is on multi-year contract. Some of the software that

020we use. Um, I'll try and take a look and if we can get a two or three year agreement and and have significant savings and I know it's something we're going to use from year to year, maybe something like Microsoft Word, then I'll go ahead and try and sign a two or threeear contract if we have the funds available and I think it's a significant cost savings. The other thing that happens is in the summertime is when we normally get our grant allocations from from the state. The feds give them to the state. The state then sends us the info. This summer was a little bit interesting in that the Trump administration froze all federal grants for the longest time. So we didn't know if we were going to get any of our federal grants.

021Uh they did release the title one grants and then title 4 and then title 2a. Uh believe it or not, the last group of grant allocations were not released until Monday. So, I didn't know until Monday afternoon of this week. So, we're in our third week of school, not knowing what all of our grant allocations were for the year. And here we are in week three. That makes it tough when at the federal level, we're trying, you know, we're trying to locally prepare a budget and figure out a tax request and we don't get grant allocations till late in the summer. Okay. The other piece to that is that these are typically due in September and we don't get notified until December or January whether or not our grant allocations or how we plan to

022spend that money is approved. So you're already spending that money in August, September, October, November, December. Sometime in January it'll get approved. That's the first time that you can even submit a reimbursement request through one of those grants. And luckily, I don't do that. Angie does. So, she has all the fun with that. And once you submit one, you can't submit another one until that one's approved. So, if we submit a title one grant reimbursement, uh, some salary maybe reimbursement for one of our title one teachers, until they approve our first submission, you can't submit another one. And Angie, how long can it take for them to approve a a grant reimbursement? >> Weeks or months, >> right? So, if you don't submit one till January and you don't get uh approval of that submission

023until March and get reimbursement, you've went a long time. You've been paying bills from August to March before you get your first grant reimbursement from the state. And so, that's one of the reasons why you have to have that extra cash on hand because from a cash flow standpoint, it can get a little bit lean at times. And so, I didn't put any of that on paper. That was kind of a last minute throw together that I just thought might help people understand that, you know, the process for putting next year's budget together for the 26 27 year, we're already having those conversations in November. >> Okay. >> One quick question for the classified staff. >> Yes. >> Do you have an approximate how much that cost us a year in salaries and stuff? >>

024Uh, similar >> similar to that. Yeah, I I would say um yeah, this is probably teacher negotiations next year will be 7 million. This might be 8 or 900,000. Uh when you add these two groups together, um >> that was a little over a million. >> This line is probably going to be about 1.8 8 million cuz you're going to have about 1.1 million here, another 250,000, another 250,000, and then whatever our hospital spend is. So that might even push 2 million here. And then I would say classified staff if teachers are 7 million, classified might be 5 12. >> Okay, I just >> roughly. So yeah, pretty significant. And later on, I actually have a document that'll show what we've budgeted for all of our staffing needs for this year. And I, if I

025remember right, it's over 13 million of our budget. It's like 84% of our budget is people cost. And and I and I've got more details, I think, down the road here on on on this sheet. So So that's just like I said, a little extra I threw together uh last minute just to kind of give you an idea on timeline. Now, back to the the tax history and levy request. Um, what I'm recommending to the board is a 64 C uh tax levy. Uh, last year was 72 cents. It would go down to 64 cents. But I want to be clear, just because the tax levy goes down doesn't mean the tax request goes down. And you'll see some school boards and some school districts uh put articles in the paper about how they lowered

026the levy 8 cents and how great that was. But what they didn't tell anybody is that the valuations went up so high that people are still paying more in taxes, you know. And so I tried to be very clear that there's a difference between your tax request and your levy. Okay? So the levy would go down to 64. However, our tax request would go up uh $287,176, which is a 2.48% tax increase. That's what I'm recommending. And I'll get into more of those details as we get into the pages. You can see our valuations went up 15.92%. Our valuations are now 1.8 billion. Okay. uh valuations went up over 255 million this year. Um some of the neighboring districts are more, some are less. It just kind of depends. Um um and and that's what

027uh you know, it's hard for farmers who have farm ground in two different school districts. You know, they might have farm ground in our district that's 64 cents. They might be in a neighboring district and it's 95 cents or 50 cents. And the farmer is going, "Well, I produce the same amount of beans or corn per acre on that ground, but I might be paying twice the taxes in one district versus another." And so it gives them cause for pause. And that is um hard to explain. Um, I will tell you that our valuations, uh, I'll be curious to see what they do the next few years cuz I did go down and talk to the county assessor and, uh, David City has tiffed a lot of things. Mhm. >> Um it's it according to

028them they tiffed um uh TY you know when they brought their headquarters here a few years ago they tiff the AGP plant. They tiffed Casey's uh tiff where potentially Lincoln Poultry may come. They've tiffed where a hotel may come. They've tiffed Casey's. They've tiffed the housing development on the north side of town, which means all of those properties uh their taxes are basically frozen for 15 years. So, you don't see the growth for 15 years. Now, on the flip side, people argue, well, but those companies may have also not come here had they not received the tiff financing. And you never know for sure whether that's true or not. And so, but just know that there is a lot of areas in town that have been tiffed in the last 5 years that does prevent

029from additional growth, which does obviously then uh limit your valuation growth and doesn't spread out that tax over a larger uh group or make sense. Mhm. One thing I want to make sure we point out is that because I think sometimes there can be some confusion on the valuations piece and that I know that all of us on the board know, but just making sure that everybody knows that we have no control over what the valuations are. We just get that information. So, we are not increasing the valuations. We're not doing anything with that. That that's just something that is done through the county assessor. So that's a completely separate thing and I just want to make sure that that's clear. >> Okay. I I was just going to say I mean I had a

030conversation with the gentleman today about kind of some of the tiff stuff with the AGP and and something I didn't really realize or think about I guess is that there will be a large amount of personal property like avail like from that AGP. So like the tiff goes towards the real estate. So the actual buildings and stuff but any equipment that there is subject to personal property tax. That's the thing with personal property taxes is that after 7 years or its useful life, it's gone. You don't get to tax it anymore. And so I guess my point is is that we should see some increase in valuation of personal property for the next 7 years once that comes online. Um how much I have no idea but there should be some valuation there in personal

031property requests on on the equipment parts of that project which to my understanding like the tiff part was capped at up to 100 million of real estate but I mean that thing probably cost 750 million to build so I mean potential of 650,000 of p or 650 million of personal property but first year that's 90% of that next year it's 82 then it set you stair steps down until it's gone till it's used up or whatever and then it then that valuation is gone. >> I I did ask too about the personal property and they said there's no guarantee um for the first year the company doesn't have to declare any of that and then it's on them to declare it at the year mark. >> It is it's up to them to file it

032>> and it's up to them to decide how much of that they file as personal property. And so they're like, "So don't hold your breath that you're going to get this big," >> yeah, >> you know, increase cuz you don't know, >> right? >> Remember, they got to be up and running a full year and then it's a matter of what they report in their personal. >> The reason I brought it up is I just I I personally wasn't thinking that way and I, you know, my profession I should have known that this is kind of I was kind of like, well, yeah, that is true. Um, you know, and so the other thing with it is is that the sooner that they can get that paid off, and so to my understanding, like the

033higher they value the actual real estate, the more taxes they'll pay, the quicker they'll be able to pay off their TIFF loan. And so, I mean, it can go up to 15 years, but if they if that valuation comes in on their real estate higher or they pay more tax, they're going to get that mo they're going to get that tiff loan paid off quicker and it can come back online quicker. So, so if it, you know, if it's 110 million or whatever and they're paying on that versus what what they maybe thought was 80, you know, they're paying more on on that extra 30 million for however many years. They'll be able to chew down that TIFF loan quicker than the 15. >> Correct. So, and thank you for that explanation. >> Any other

034comments on that? Okay, moving on then. I always like to give you guys just kind of an example. I I showed you what the land values are um for each of the four counties in which we do hold some property. In Plaque County, it's one piece of property is all and in Sewward County, it's two pieces of property and then uh a little bit more obviously in Saunders County and then the significant portion in Butler County. Some of you might ask, did you make an error on the K8 QC puff because that's only 1.6 6 billion and everything else is 1.8 billion. And the answer is no. And um I could I can give I'll give you an example of my acorage um that I own north of town here. It was in the Skyler

035School District when I first bought it. Okay. Any bond that David City had. Okay. because then a few years later I moved it into the David City School District. Any bond that was approved before that land transfer, the homeowner is not responsible for. And so any bonds um that David City had done while my land was in Skyler, I don't pay on. But the flip side is also true. When my land was in the Skyler School District, they approved a bond for that new gym and cafeteria and etc, etc. Okay, so I was paying on that bond a few years ago. I moved my land, was able to get transferred into David City. I still pay on that Skyler bond until that bond is paid off. Okay? And so that's why you see a difference

036because if a piece of property wasn't in the district when a bond was passed as a homeowner you don't pay on that. And so there used to be school districts in Octavia and Lynwood etc. And so when those districts dissolved those land owners had one chance to decide what district am I putting my land in. So if they had kids going to Skyler and they lived in Lynwood, they probably put their land in the Skyler school district. If their kids were coming here, then they probably put it in here. But again, if there were bonds in any of these school districts before they did that, they're not responsible for that. And so if you look at the Lynwood school district or Lynwood community, for example, we always have to look at their address and pull

037it up to see what school district they're in. There are nextoor neighbors in Lynwood that aren't in the same school district. One of them might be in our district and one of them might be in Skylers. Same way in Rising City. We just got an option enrollment paperwork today for a family that wanted to go to Shelby and they had a Rising City address. Well, that particular piece of property is actually in our school district cuz I had to go look it up cuz I was wondering why they were wanting to option when they didn't need to. And actually, they were right. They did. they were in our school district wanted an option to show you. Okay. And so that's why you see some differences in QC puff versus building fund or um general fund.

038Okay. Uh moving on, you can see how much valuations went up. They have been certified. They were certified to us on the 20th. I always like to give you some property tax examples. The first column 2425, that was your school taxes last year, 72 cent levy. And if you had, for example, a $250,000 home, your school taxes were $1,812. The second column is if we would have kept the levy this year the same with that 15% tax increase. You can see your uh taxes, school taxes would have went up quite a bit. The third column is our new levy and what would have happened if your valuation didn't change. So if your house was valued at 250 and stayed at 250, your taxes would actually go down. The last column, which is probably the one

039that most people are interested in, if your property went up the average, which is 15.92%. And our levy is 64. Okay, you can see what you're going to pay. And I'll use the $250,000 home again. Last year, you would have paid $1,812 in school taxes. This next year you'd pay 1,857. That's a $3.75 a month increase. So that's a homeowner. Let's look at a farmer. >> Hey, real quick. That column's called It says 2425. >> Oh, sorry. Should say 20 knows. >> Should say 2526. >> 25. Thank you. >> Appreciate you catching that typo. Let's say somebody that has uh 10 million in farm ground. And remember, farm ground is not uh taxed at 100%. But let's say you had 10 million. Last year, you'd pay $72,484 in taxes. This next year, you'd pay $74,281.

040That's $149.75 a month in additional taxes. So about $1,800 more a year. Okay. at the bottom of the page. And again, 0910, I only use that year because that's the earliest information I could find when I got here 12 or 13 years ago. If you had a $100,000 piece of property back in '0910 and your property has either increased or decreased what the average has been over the last 16 years, that $100,000 piece of property would now be worth $296,665. So in essence, that $100,000 property has tripled in value in the last 16 years. Now again, farm ground isn't necessarily the average. You know, there's been years it's went up 20% or 22%. Okay? So, I'm just giving you a hypothetical example of if your property was the quote average increase or decrease from year

041to year. At the bottom of the page, then in 16 years, taxes went up on average over 5% a year. Okay? Again, I just picked 0910 because that's the earliest I could find. Since I've been here, taxes have went up on average 2.23%. In in my 12-ear tenure, 2.23. Okay. The questions on this page. Okay. All right. How do we get the numbers then? How do we get the tax requests? The first page you'll see QC puff five-year plan. We're going to start with just over 500,000 in the bank. I'm asking for a tax increase that is exactly equivalent to what our bond and interest payment will be for the year. You might say, well, hold on. The bond payment's $244,175 and you're asking for $246,641 in taxes. Well, the county takes the first 1%.

042So, you don't get the full 100%. You get 99% of what you tax. Okay? And so, that's an increase of $1,692. Okay? if we would keep that same uh tax request the next 5 years and we have roughly 75,000 in projects each year which I don't know from year to year exactly what it will be. We would end in 5 years with approximately 115,000 left in the bank. Okay. If you're curious about the uh what's left on that QC puff bond, on the next page, you can see the 5 years that we have left on that QC puff bond. When I got here, it was a 30-year bond. We've refinanced it twice and saved over a4 million in interest payments, and we have 5 years left. I've been here 12, so we basically went from

04330 years down to 17 years. we were able to cut, you know, more than 10 years off that payment schedule cuz luckily a few years ago interest rates got pretty low and we could refinance and save the patrons a lot of money. >> Can you explain what that QC bond paid for at the time? >> That was the elementary edition, >> right? >> What that was the build America >> It was some Build America bonds and that's what paid for that elementary gym and office area. So that was before I got here. I can't give you many more details than that. Yeah. >> So, restrooms, restrooms, art room, offices, gym. >> Yeah. >> The other the other kindergarten room. >> It's guidance room and kindergarten. >> Guidance and kindergarten. >> Yeah. >> So, we're getting

044close. You can see light at the end of the tunnel. That should be paid off during the 2930 school year. So uh we this is where we also um any asbestous removal this is where we take it out of. So we not only make our bond payment out of here but when we remove asbestous tile and glue and stuff that's where this comes out of u it's limited to things like asbestous mold air quality and this last year they let us add in um security projects. So, if we add additional cameras uh to the building or some additional locks, um Heartland communication, put in some additional phones for safety in the classrooms, uh and some additional security cameras, that's the fund that that would come out of. >> Did we Is that what we Is

045this the fund that we paid out for the wood when we had the water damage there or did we just play out of building? >> We just paid that out of building fund in general fund. I didn't know. I couldn't remember if we had any mold. >> Yeah, we No, we did not pull anything out for that. So, questions on QC puff. Okay, moving on then to the building fund, which is the second of three taxing funds. We're going to start the year with almost 700,000 in the bank. Uh, give or take a little bit. That's my best estimate. Um I have in there property acquisition again a line item. So if we do have the opportunity to buy whether it's the tan house or the white house or whatever or if we have something

046unexpected come up there's a $250,000 line item just like we had this last year. we would make our last lease purchase payment and you can or excuse me payments one in December and one in June that total almost 1.3 million. Um on the previous page at the bottom you can see what we have remaining left there for payments both both uh principal and interest payments is on that previous spreadsheet at the bottom. The interesting thing about lease purchase is it's not included uh when you list your indebtedness on the state budget spreadsheet. Lease purchase is not included in that. Okay. And so but I do include it here. So if you do remember we do have that debt and then I also make sure that our auditor also audits that includes that in our annual

047audit so that it so that uh people know we have that. Um we then budget roughly a h 100,000 for maintenance uh some maintenance throughout the year or some fire marshall um or ADA stuff that comes up. Again you don't know from year to year exactly what's going to come up. And so my recommendation is we don't increase our building fund request. We keep it the same and we continue making our lease purchase payment and then if we would decide to continue with another lease purchase project or build another family consumer science room or whatever you guys decide to do or parking, whatever the case might be. Um we can talk more about that, you know, next year and the years after. But in the meantime, I'm requesting the same tax request in the building

048fund to make our lease purchase payment and then put us in position for potential projects down the road. I will remind you that we do have two chillers on the west side of the high school sitting on the asphalt uh which uh are over 20 years old and so they're meeting their life expectancy. And the initial quote on that was 460,000 and that's just for the two chillers outside. that doesn't touch anything inside the building. That's just those two uh metal um pieces of equipment on the west side. Okay. Questions on the building fund. The last page there is I did have Bank of the Valley print out the actual uh lease purchase payment what's left. So you can see I didn't just make those numbers up. They come straight from the from the bank.

049So you can see that. And then the big one, last but not least, the general fund. Um gave you a couple additional documents this year. Um partially because you had uh asked the question last year at this meeting. Somebody had asked, "How does the line item budget compared to the previous year?" And it might have been Justin that asked that, but I don't remember. And so this year I went ahead on one of these next two pages I put the 25 26 budget and matched it up to the 24 25 budget line item by line item of the major categories cuz so you can see that we don't just copy and paste from year to year. We actually do go through with a fine tooth comb to come up with those numbers. Now I will

050go through um you can see our budget increase of uh over 850,000. It's a little bit higher than normal uh over 5%. Uh we have no unused budget authority. Okay. In other words, we couldn't grow our budget anymore even if we wanted to. Um, part of the reason for the uh higher growth than normal is if you go down to the line that says 6301 and 6330. 6301 is a literacy grant in which we did get approved for 130,000. So that'll flow through our general fund. That's not any additional uh taxes or cost to our patrons. And then I was also notified we may be eligible for a rural schools grant of another 36,793. I don't know that for sure, but you have to have it in your budget. So if you do get it,

051you can use it as a flow through. So if we don't get the grant, we won't spend the money. If we get the grant, we'll spend the money. But I don't have enough details to know whether or not that'll happen. But I have to show it as a line item in the budget. Okay. Um on that first page you can see our debits and then our credits. Um you can see that our uh sped budget is over 4 million 4.3 million 4,335,574. You guys had asked how much are the employee costs. When you include the hospital employees and the ESU7 employees that we contract with, you can see what we're budgeting this year. Our employee costs alone are $13,745,548 is what we're anticipating. That's our best guess at this point, which is 82.99%. So, right

052at 83% of the budget. Okay, you might say, well, how come you don't know exactly how much that is? Well, there's a few things in play. Uh, yesterday we had a PAR resign and so we'll be advertising for a new PAR. I don't know what we'll end up paying that new PAR. Depends upon if they have experience or not. Depends upon how long it takes us to replace that parah. So, that number could go down or up a little bit, you know, compared to what we budgeted. Okay. Um, I don't know exactly how much overtime somebody's going to get. I make my best guess estimate on employees overtime, but again, I don't know from year to year. I can't predict how cold or how much snow we're going to get in January and February and

053how much overtime I'm going to have to pay my maintenance guys cuz they're out at 3:00 in the morning moving snow so we can have school at 8. You know, those are things I just don't know. But that is my best uh guess estimate. Okay. And I'm going to go into a lot more detail here in a little bit as we get into more pages. But I also want to take a look at the credit side and you can see where our finance comes from and you can see some of the different grants and etc. And you can see special ed and it says 80%. You see that on several lines. And so all I did is I took the debit column and took it times 80% and that's what I put in the credit

054column. But you got to put a little star there because you really don't get that 80% till the next year. Okay? You get paid a year in the rears. You don't get it as you pay it. And so what will happen is they will look at our audit in November that gets approved by the state auditor. They will look at what our special ed costs were for the 2425 school year, look at what the feds reimbured us, and then the state reimbures us the rest until we get 80% reimbursement. So, you're really not getting this 80% till next year. you're actually getting 80% of last year's spent expenses if that makes sense. Okay. And so it we get so they'll take a look at that in November and then we will get our special ed

055reimbursement in seven payments from December through June. But that reimbursement is for last year. Okay? And so just to give you an idea like last year um uh we budgeted 11.8 million or excuse me uh 3.9 million for sped. This year we budgeted 4.3. So almost 400,000 more in sped costs. So you got the additional cost. You're not getting additional reimbursement till next year. Remember it's a year in the rears. Okay. So again, you got to have you want to have a healthy cash balance when you start the year for those cash flow purposes because your expenses are actually outpacing your reimbursement levels. Okay, questions before we get into the more line item by line item analysis. >> I have a question on this page that's comparing both last year and this year. >> Okay.

056Um the two things that I was just curious about is um in 2425 budget and I know I know the answer to the summer school line item 1300 where last year we had 12,000 now we're budgeting zero and I know that we got we were not renewed for that grant but I guess one of the things that I was thinking when I was going through this is that you know things are always changing. we don't, you know, at some point maybe we do want to restart that summer school program. Maybe that's something that we need for our students. Maybe we need to do the jump start again. Maybe our teachers now we're, you know, things are going to be constantly changing. So, while we had that in the budget before, now it's $0. So, just,

057you know, having that on our radar that there's some things that programming that we've gotten rid of that might be needed because that's what our students need. But so I know the answer to that one, but what I don't understand and I would like explanation on is the CTE budgeting of the 7,000 and then going back going to zero this year. >> We will actually spend the same amount of money on CTE, but because we don't have a state certified CTE program, we can't I can't use that budget code is all. So, we'll still spend the same amount of money we were spending on CTE, but in the budget, that line item I have to zero out because we're not a state certified CTE program. >> Okay. Is that pretty involved to become one? >>

058There's really no benefit to being a statecertified CTE program that I know of. >> Okay. >> And so, we won't spend any less on our career technical ed. It just won't be coded to the um >> 3551s anymore. >> Okay, that kind of scared me a little bit. >> No, our auditor our auditor let us know last year, you don't have a state certified program. So even though you budgeted and allocated, so we had to make a journal entry and recode it into regular education. >> Okay. >> So it'll be in the 1100s instead of a separate line item of 3551. >> Okay. >> So yeah, great question >> cuz when we did our strat plan, everyone was like more CTE and then our budget >> So yeah. So yes, that's a great question and

059and that's a great clarification. We're not cutting our CTE program or our budgeting. It's just >> in the 1100s in regular ed instruction instead. >> Okay. >> So, yep, good question. All right. The next multiple pages is basically a budget code by budget code more in-depth explanation of what you've seen on the previous pages. And so for example, 1,100 regular instruction. You say, "Well, what's regular instruction?" Well, that's your regular ed teachers, that's your computers, that's your textbooks, that's your teacher supplies, that's uh your teacher software. That budget uh that I've recommended in the 1100s is 5,662,023. Well, on the next following pages, you can see the,00 budget codes, which takes one, two, yeah, basically two pages of the budget document. And if you would add up all the 1100s, you would get the 5,662,023.

060You might say, "Well, I see right away on the first line you have regular ed teacher salary district code extra." Okay. Well, at the end of the school year, if teachers have extra personal days that they haven't used, they get paid out for those. You have to have a place to to budget. That's where we pay that out of. when we hire new teachers to the district and we pay a re hiring bonus, that's where that goes. um if we would have um maybe a pregnancy that we weren't aware of and we don't find out until, you know, November that the teacher's pregnant and they're having a baby in March. Well, we didn't plan enough put enough money in the sub budget. That's where that would go. or we've had years where somebody unfortunately was

061diagnosed with cancer and was out for half a year. Well, that more than ate up our sub budget in that building, so I have to have another place to put that. Um or, you know, god forbid you'd have to put a teacher on extended leave cuz I made a poor choice. So, you had to put them on paid leave and in the meantime hire a replacement teacher. Well, again, you got to have the funds to do that. So that's just an example of what that extra teacher placeholder is. Okay. Um it's also a placeholder. I don't budget for any additional paras anymore. And so if we would need an additional parah, it at least puts some additional money in the budget uh for me to do that for. And you might say, well, why would

062you need an additional para? Well, if you get a kid that shows up that's special needs that has seven different disabilities and is wheelchair bound, you're probably going to need a one-on-one pair for that student. Or an example, this week I think we had a freshman student show up from I'm going to say Ecuador, but it might be another uh Central America or South American country who speaks zero English. So, we may need to look for an additional bilingual para to work with that student because it's a little hard to do freshman algebra or physical science or whatever if you speak zero English. And so, that would be another example where we might need to hire an additional pair. And so, that's where that would be consumed. Everything else here in the 1100s I think

063for the most part is self-explanatory because it either says teacher salary, para salary, social security, retirement. um questions if not the 1125s is a flex funding grant that is part of Barb swat itself. So she gets paid partially out of title one funds and title and partially partially out of flex funding. And so she spends uh 2 and 1/2 hours of her day uh doing title one reading andor math at St. Mary's. And so and then the rest of the day she's here. So we split that cost between two different grants. A flex funding grant that I write and then a title one grant that I write. So that's where all of those funds would go. ELLL is your English language learners. So that's our one ELLL teacher and our two or three bilingual paras

064that we have and any resources they might need. 1160 is poverty. We used to get poverty grants or funds from the state. We don't get those anymore. However, they've told us to continue coding our kindergarten teachers to that in case the feds would ever change their mind and go back to giving us the poverty grant. You have to show that you've continued to have a need for all these years. So I code 50% of our kindergarten teachers to poverty. So half to regular ed and half to poverty. So that's the 1160. 1190 prek that's pretty self-explanatory. That's your preschool teachers, preschool paras, and all of their supplies. 1290 is school age sped. So that's your kindergarten through age 21. Remember, we have kids that can be educated in our district through the age of 21.

065In fact, through the school year in which they turn 21. So, if they turn 21 on August 15th, they actually can be here all the way through May. Okay. Um 1291 1292, that's prek sped. So I code half of our um preschool teachers um if they have a sped endorsement or early childhood inclusive endorsement then half of their salaries get coded to preschool the other half to preschool sped all the paras get coded to preschool um because I can get 80% reimbursement on them. Okay. Um, actually, no, we don't. Angie, do we do 50/50 on our preschool parents? 50? Yeah, sorry. We do 50% regular ed, 50% uh special ed on our prek. Sorry, I misspoke there. And then that's also some of our birth to two services that we the ESU provides for us

066cuz again, I just want to reiterate, we are responsible as soon as the kids's born. And so what'll happen is a hospital will contact us. Say we had a child born. I think the since I've been here probably the youngest we have served is maybe three months. >> Yes. Three or four months. >> Maybe three or four months old. Question on that. With the PTO OT, that kind of stuff. If they have like primary insurance or Medicaid, does it get built through that at all or are we responsible? >> They don't have to. >> Nope. We are on the hook for it. So, yep. uh summer school. Uh like I said, we that grant ran out and we also felt like our money was not well spent there. We just didn't get the bang for

067the buck. So, we removed that funding. Uh guidance is our uh two guidance counselors and the services they provide. Health is your two nurses and all of their health supplies. That's also our licensed mental health practitioner gets taken out of there. uh school sites. Uh we now have two. That's the 2141s. 2151 is your speech path and deaf ed. 2161 is OT. 2171 is physical therapy. 2181 is vision. And it's really hard on some of that to know what to budget because you don't know what kid's going to be born tomorrow. and you don't know what needs they're going to have. You don't know what families going to move into your district um and what needs they're going to have when it comes to special ed services. So, you know, you take your best educated

068guess on some of these. Uh 21.90. Um it says activities. It's it's our uh coaches salaries and like our ticket takers and those types of things, but it's not referees or uniforms or uh basketballs or any of that. That's more your your salaries of your coaches and ticket takers. That's Mr. Hermal Brock's salary. Um and then um um any of the dues for our coaches. So like if they're a member of the coaches association, for example. But the activity fund, which is separate, that's more uniforms, equipment, uh, referees, uh, renting the fields, those types of things. So that's so 2190 is kind of a split between general fund and and, uh, activity fund. >> So I just want to be clear that that the OT, the PT, those are both what we contract through the

069hospital >> and some speech. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> What about vision? Where is that contracted through? >> Um ESU7. >> And so >> we just did a bunch of Brail. Well, maybe it's been longer than what I think. Brail >> Yeah, it's actually been a little while. Our vision our vision needs have actually went down in recent years. >> You know, remember when I first got here, we had a student that we educated in Nebraska City. So, we would drive her uh to Lincoln every Sunday and uh the school for the for the visually impaired would meet us at Arby's out on Cornhusker or not Cornhusker, Highway 2 um in Lincoln and take her for the week and then on Friday afternoons we would drive back and go get her and bring her home

070to her family for the weekend. And all of that responsibility is on us, not only the tuition and the room and board, but also the transportation costs. And again, that's B through 21. And so, um, so it adds up. The other thing I will remind you because we're getting close to the end of special ed is the federal government requires you to spend 5% more on special ed than the previous year. It's called maintenance of effort. And so they look at what your actual expenses were in your audit and take it times 5% and that's what you have to spend on special ed the next year. That's the federal government's way of ensuring that you are not shortch changing your kids with disabilities. They equate more money with adequate services which is not always the

071case but that's how they work. It's called maintenance of effort. So every quarter, Angie, uh submits a report to ESU7 um and they review it to make sure that we are on in line to be at that 5%. And when we get to the summertime, there are times that we make a journal entry because in all honesty, you don't want to spend, unless if you have to, you don't want to arbitrarily spend an extra 15 or 20% than you did the year prior because then your base number the next year is already higher. You got to go 5% on top of that. Some years you can't help it because you have a bunch of special needs kids move into your district. Okay. Um, but what we do is we try to be smart in our

072coding and if there's things that can be coded to regular ed or special ed, we will code it accordingly to so that we meet the 5% but not go so high over that uh um uh that we're going to have a hard time meeting it the next year. You might say, well, what happens if you don't meet the maintenance of effort? Well, what the state does is they look at some of your sped reimbursement that you're getting and let's say you were 20,000 short on meeting your maintenance of effort the next year. Well, then they just give you 20,000 less in reimbursement the next year. >> There's no factor for sped enrollment. >> You can apply for a hardship exemption, but it's pretty hard to get it if you had a >> that seems nuts

073if like I mean it doesn't happen, but quarter of your SP if your sp goes down by 25% serve like kids that I mean I know it's not going to happen they age out >> they age out whatever it could and now all of a sudden we got to spend 5 grand or more than what it is >> that would be a tough exemption to probably get you're probably more apt to get an exemption because you had that uh student with seven disabilities in which you were paying outside tuition a para and some nursing services and it was costing you 100 150,000 a year to educate that kid and they now graduated. That would have a much better chance of meeting the exemption rule than just that you lost five sped kids or six sped

074kids. So it has to be a fairly I mean I'll give you an example one that I didn't get approved a few years ago. We were contracting two uh speech paths through ESU7 and you always have to pay a little bit extra because they have to guarantee them a job throughout the year and and they contract them with multiple schools. So you pay a little extra premium for that to happen typically. Well, I had we had the opportunity to hire uh two of our own which we still have. We still have Anna and Jessica. we didn't qualify for an exemption. Even though we were going to save the district about 40,000 a year by hiring two of our own, that exemption was not approved, we still had to meet the 5% rule. And so it's

075it's fairly difficult um to to meet it to be honest. So, but good question. Um moving on. Can I ask a question about health insurance? Like >> Yes. >> Um, you know, since that's a big part of our, >> uh, budget, can you remind me like when new insurance rates come out and when they take effect? >> Yep. We get the insurance rate the last week of October. >> Okay. So, we have it for negotiations. >> So, we have it for negotiations, but it doesn't kick in until September 1 of the next year. So it is school count it is school calendar year not or school year not calendar year >> the premium is but the deductible is not >> right. Yeah that I know that I know I'm like >> two different headaches >>

076how you would know like I mean for budgeting purposes on health insurance being a big part of it. I just wanted to make sure that was kind of apples for apples. >> Yep. And so it makes it really hard for the EHA because you know their actuaries have to set an insurance premium the last week of October and they only have September and October uh claims to look at. They don't know what the next 10 months are going to bring. And so they have to make their best educated guess because that premium gets set the last week of October and doesn't go in effect till September 1. And so but yes, we have it when negotiations start. So as I'm running payroll numbers and what our total package increases are and and everything, I have

077the insurance numbers. Do >> you remember what that was this last year? Was it the jump in premium? >> Was it? >> Would you would you look that up, Angie, on ehap plan.org? >> I can't remember. I don't think it was I want to say it was 4.8 or 4.9% but Angie could probably get that for you. >> I was going to say >> some years it's been 9 or 10%. Right. >> You know and and it's interesting though because sometimes they've been able to keep it under 5%. But when they kept it under 5%, they also increased all the deductibles by $50 and they increased the maximum out of pocket for your employees and made a couple other changes just so they could, you know, it looked good that they kept it under 5%

078but really it was costing your employees more than that because they made changes to the plan, right? >> So I always take that with a grain of salt. Did you happen to find that, Angie? >> Um, medical and dental together increased 5.49%. >> Okay. >> Um medical alone was 4.77. >> Okay, that's where I got the 4.8. So, yeah, thank you. So, so yeah, good question. >> Okay. Uh moving on then, school improvement. Um that includes um all of the trainings that we do that we send staff to uh throughout the year. Uh staff support is things like if we get them all a t-shirt or sweatshirt, we do our staff recognition banquet every spring. That's where those types of things come out of. Uh the board wants to give them all ice cream Sundays

079the first day of school. That's where that kind of stuff would come out of. Media is your library. So that's your media specialist, the media paradise, and then all the books and supplies for the library. The board is you guys. So that's your dues. That's if you go to a conference. Uh we provide a meal because we have a work session superintendent office that's yours truly. So that's not only my salary and benefits but you know anything I would purchase for the job as well or a computer or books or markers, pens, binders, you name it. Legal, we set aside 20,000 for legal fees every year. Some years we get close to using it all. Some years we, you know, don't use a fourth of it. Principal office, that's a little bit deceiving. That's not

080just the principles, that's also everybody in their office and all of the supplies that go through that office. So, it's your it's not just principles, but that's your secretaries and then, you know, all the supplies that are in the in in the office, you know, your pink passes and pens and pencils and some of that, all your extra stuff, any mailings that go out. Um, business office, that's Angie, that's Angie, that's Leslie. Anything that's business related comes out of that office. facilities, operations, maintenance. That's exactly what it sounds like. So that is uh all the things that are maintenance and custodial related. So that's your three maintenance guys, that's our seven custodians, all of their supplies. The other big part of that is all of your contracted services. So whether it's, you know, HVAC, plumbers,

081electricians, security, you name it. All the different contracted services, tree removal, um, fire extinguisher service, tao security, Johnson control, um, that's a bulk of them. Um, transportation, that's your busing. Um, I can tell you, and we'll get into this in a little bit, but there isn't a new bus that's budgeted for in the general fund budget. Okay. Um, that's our bus drivers and fuel. Fuel's a tough one to guess from year to year because you don't know. Sometimes it can spike pretty high. That's the other thing I would tell you on facilities, operation, maintenance. That's also all of your utilities. So your electricity, your natural gas, your water, your sewer, your garbage. So that's also a big a big part of that sped transportation. That speaks for itself. Um those are our trips to Columbus

082every day and to Duncan taking kids to either Boyce Town or issue 7. summer meals. We've allocated typically the last few years 15,000. This summer we didn't spend all of that, but you don't know from year to year. The HAL grant, our budget for HAL is 22,000 because it pays for part of a teacher salary. The grant itself is only 6,300. So it doesn't come anywhere near uh paying for anything. Title one that pays for a part of three teacher salaries. Jody Andle, Barba, Amy Williams. So it's title one reading intervention, sometimes some math intervention. Does not pay um for all of their salaries. Obviously, it pays for about 35% of each one of their salaries. Then the other 65% gets coded whether it um to flex funding or regular ed just kind of depends.

083So it doesn't come anywhere close to paying for all of it. Title 2A, that's professional development and mentor funds. So if we bring in Marzano, um all of our new teachers have mentors. We also now have somebody mentoring our second and third year teachers. That's where that money comes out of. You might ask, how is that shared with the private school? It's based on uh free and reduced lunch numbers. So every fall, in fact, I just got the numbers from St. Mary's Aquinus yesterday. We go back to June. We look at what their enrollment was uh for resident students only. So kids who opt into Aquinus or St. Mary's from another school district are not counted in that number. And then we ask them for their free and reduced lunch numbers. We put those into

084the system. We put the same numbers in for our district and it spits out a formula and that tells us out of that grant what percent of it goes to the private school. So it so it it uses free and reduced lunch numbers from the previous year. So So that's kind of how that works. I already talked about the literacy grant. IDA that's some sped early childhood. Uh that's federal grant money proportionate share. We are required to make sure we give um comparable services to our kids that attend St. Mary's Aquinus. And so um I mean just to give you an example, you know, this year, you know, we have to give them $29,360 in services. We give them way more than that. You might say, "Well, how?" Well, Joy Hoya is a full-time teacher

085salary and benefits. Um, Tara Builtto is a full-time parah. Vicky Hine is a part-time parah. Anita Cisco is a part-time parah. Jenna Urban is a part-time PAR. Okay. We go above and beyond because we also provide speech services on top of resource to those students. So, they get way more than $29,000 worth. You might say, "Well, why do we give them so much? Why does it work that way?" Well, we're going to have to provide services, you know, one way or the other. And I can tell you, it's easier for us to have a full-time teacher in their two buildings trying to provide those services than figuring out how they're going to transport themselves to this building or the elementary to get services. It would be quite a disruption to our building, but also to

086their buildings. And so, way before I got here, that was a gentleman's agreement, for lack of a better term, of that's how we would provide sped services to students. um that are resident students but attend St. Mary's or Aquinus. You might say, well, what about kids from Shelby or East Butler that attend St. Mary's or Aquinus? What happens there is I actually send them a bill. So, I look at the IEPs for the kids who are non-resident students attending St. Mary's and Aquinus. Typically, they have some from Shelby, East Butler, and Skyler. I look at what their needs are. I look at how much OT, PT, uh, resource time, figure out what our costs are per hour, and then I bill those districts for our employees providing those services. And it's much cheaper to those

087districts to pay our employees to provide those services to those non-resident students because otherwise if Skyler has a student at a quinus that needs sped services, they would have to take one of their sped teachers and drive them down here for part of the day and provide those services every day. Well, that's kind of a waste of manpower and resources. So, it's much cheaper for Skyler to say, "Hey, Dr. banker, would you figure out a contract and just bill us for that time? And so we send that bill out every November and April and then twice a year they send us a check. Um so if you ever see tuition reimbursement um or whatever from those districts, that's really what that is. That's us providing sped services. So again, even though we get reimbursed for

088that, it runs through our general fund. So that's another example of things that inflates our budget because all those expenses um even for the uh the other school districts, it flows through our general fund. All of those grants that you see are shared with the private school and in some cases it's a 50/50 split like title four funds the 10,000 it's almost a you know 50/50 split. All 10,000 goes through our budget because we're actually the ones who writes the checks cuz actually I write all of their grants for them. Okay? So, let's back up a little bit. They tell me how they think they want to spend their money and I write their grants, okay? And then send them off for approval. And then when they get approved, I let them know they're approved.

089And then when they want to spend their money, in theory, they should ask us to make sure it's an approved expense. And then they uh send us the bill and then Angie writes the check and then um also then submits to the state the reimbursement request from that grant. So we pay for it initially and then we ask for reimbursement. We cannot pay St. Mary's or Aquinus directly. That's illegal. So, if they want to have training paid for through the grant, we pay the company that's doing the training. If they want to bring their teachers in in the summertime, and I think we had some claims this month, they bring their teachers in for some professional development in the summer and they're off contract and they want to use some of their grant money to

090pay them for their time in the summer, they can do that. But we can't pay St. Mary's or Aquinus, we actually have to write individual checks to each one of their employees that does the training in the summer. So if they bring 30 teachers in in the summer for training, Angie gets the fund of writing 30 checks, one to each one of those teachers. We can't write a check to St. Mary's Aquinus and then have them pay their teachers through their payroll. That's illegal. You can't do that. Okay? And so that's something that some people don't quite understand about those grants. The last thing I'll say on the grants is as a school district when I write the grant, I could take 8% of their share and count that towards administrative costs for my time

091writing the grant and Angie's time paying the bills and reimbursing. But I can tell you at least in the 12 years I've been here, we've never charged St. Mary's or Aquinus any amount of money in administrative costs. When I write the grant, I write it and they get their full a lotment. I do not take 8% off the top in administrative costs, even though we could do that. And so I think that's sometimes important for people to understand, too. So, so thank you Angie because she really does the hard work. Writing the grants much easier than getting the reimbursement. Uh Title 4 grant um we use that um um to reimburse our seniors who take the college classes through like Central Community College. If they pass the class, they bring us the invoice and we

092reimburse them. That's what we use that grant money for. You can use it for technology or expanding course offerings. And so the way we expand our course offerings for kids is offering up those uh reimbursement, tuition reimbursement. We have probably tripled or quadrupled the amount of kids that now take college classes when they're in high school compared to when we uh before that we got that grant. Does that money cover everybody still? Um sometimes second semester it'll pay 80%. >> Yeah, >> we we're always able to take care of first semester and most the second semester, but not not quite all of it. >> But that's only if they take it through us. It's like their dual credit. No, it's any >> No, it's any Okay. >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, we have a lot

093of kids like Well, my son's actually one this year. He's a senior. I think he's taken uh public speaking and college algebra through CCC, but we the kids have to pay for it up front and they have to pass the class otherwise they don't get reimbured. So, they can't slough off and fail the class and expect us to still pick up the the tuition check. And and we do get a discounted rate um like on our dual credit English class cuz Jamie Olsen teaches that. And we choose the option where students get a discounted rate on that class versus us um taking the money. We've given that money from CCC basically in essence back to the kids to make sure that those college classes are affordable, especially when you're hovering between that 45 and 48%

094poverty rate in your student population. So, we've made it a lot more affordable for some kids to maybe get 12 or 15 credit hours before they graduate high school. It makes maybe the credit load a little easier when they get to college. So, they don't have to take 18 credit hours. maybe they can take 14 or 15. So, so that's kind of where the title 4 funds goes. Uh transfers to other funds, you don't budget for that, but just keep in mind we've had to um help support our activity fund. We've had to help support our lunch fund in the past. I don't budget any money for that, but just know that, you know, that's happened in recent years where, you know, we run in the red in the lunch fund and the activity fund.

095costs outweigh what what we get in receipts. So, um that's in a nutshell um the general fund. I don't think I made any notes uh that were specific on the next 10 12 pages. Um, and so if it's okay, I'll move past the really long big Excel spreadsheet and move on to um I think the first one I have, if I kept them in order, is a bus replacement schedule. Just so people can see, we do a lot of future planning. Um, you can see our bus replacement schedule. Does it change from year to year? Yes, it does. Sometimes we don't put on as many mileage as we think we're going to or our buses made it through the gravel roads in the winter better than we anticipated. But you can see, you know, last

096year we did order a 14 passenger bus. It's not here yet. It should come sometime in October. And so, um, the last time Tammy checked, they did say it is on schedule for an end of October delivery. Um, you can see that I don't have a bus listed in this year's replacement. I do have one listed next year, but again, that'll be up for conversation because maybe we don't put on as many miles on it as we think and maybe it's still in good shape. Um, and so at least for me, I don't really have much else to say on the bus one cuz we don't have anything to purchase this year unless if you have a question on the bus replacement schedule. I just I would say my my question would be um I

097mean I think the answer is no, but have things gotten better? Um in my kind of anecdotal listen hearing other places looking for buses, it's extremely difficult and it's getting more so. It's always been kind of difficult, but it's even like you got states borrowing from other states trying to make sure that they can fulfill the orders that have been done this last year alone. I can tell you I'm glad we're ahead of the curve and that's a great question. You we won't get a 14 passenger bus I would guess in the future any quicker than a year to 18 months because at the federal level and it drives me crazy. They just eliminated um come this fall 11 passenger vans. So you either have to go to eight or nine passenger suburbans or 14

098passenger buses. [Music] We knew it was coming. We've known it. Our insurance company already gave us a warning 3 4 5 years ago said get rid of them. Now it's come to fruition. So people are scrambling trying to find nine passenger suburbans and 14 passenger buses. So, I can tell you, thank God we're ahead of the curve and we got a 14 passenger coming in October. Cuz if you ordered one now, my guess is you would get it next Christmas. It'll be that long of a wait because it's a federal law, not a state law. And so, all 50 states are going to be making that transition. And so, luckily, we don't have any of the big bands. We've got all suburbans, uh, traverses, an enclave, uh, 14 passenger buses. So, we're ahead of the

099game. So, all these other schools are sweating it. We're in good shape right now, thankfully. And that was from, you know, good planning on your guys' part. So, good question. >> We redid the the pickup routes and stuff like that, the drop off pickups. Have you noticed any significant difference in maintenance and that kind of stuff? because we're not going over the rumble bars down those gravel roads having everything rattle loose. And so, yes, I think we've had a lot less. The the kicker is though is that we now have to do these rather involved um 80-day inspections. They're 90-day inspections. They are uh you know, we and our small vehicles have to do them, too. And so, state >> law. >> Yeah. New federal law. >> New federal law. >> And so, unfortunately, some

100of what we're saving in maintenance cost We're now going to be still giving to Koba and Schmiden Sons and whatever because we now have to do all those 80 or 90 day inspections on small vehicles too, you know, and so um I mean I hopefully we'll still save some money but you know we got a fair number of small vehicles and buses and so when you're doing 80 or 90 day inspections all those codes of Motors flat out said we're not going to do them all. you're going to have to send someone elsewhere because we got other things we need to do. And it's not like we're not willing to pay for it, but they don't want to tie their their people up doing 80 90day inspections on school vehicles. >> So, we've reached out

101to other, you know, people like Schmid and Sons and said, "Hey, would you be willing to take some of this over?" And so, we'll spread out the [Music] our our expense with with multiple people. So, but it's frustrating, right, Angie? >> Yeah. >> We get to hear about it every day from the transportation director. So, uh the other kicker is is every vehicle that that carries students has to go through a checklist every time it leaves your lot andor anytime it sits for more than an hour. So if Jared O' Cander takes a suburban of kids to Lincoln Northeast for a speech meet, he has to go through a rather lengthy checklist to make sure everything's working. You're even supposed to check the oil, check the radiator fluid, check everything before it goes out. So

102in his shirt and tied sport coat, he's supposed to do all of that. You are no longer allowed just to put a check mark or put a line all the way down. You actually have to put P for pass on every one of those 40 line items on the Excel spreadsheet. >> He sits up there at Lincoln Northeast, does speech for 6 or 8 hours. He in theory is supposed to do that again before he puts kids on that in that suburban and drives them back here. That's the federal law now. And I called the state and said, "When's the next time they're going to review that federal law?" is not that anybody cares what the superintendent David City thinks, but I'd like to at least provide some input somewhere. And they said, "It's funny

103you should ask. You just missed the um time period for >> public comment." >> For public comment, they just wrapped that up a couple months ago and so they won't do it again for 5 years. >> So that is the law the next five years. And I and I told the people at NDE, I I shouldn't tell you this out loud. But I said, "You're going to make liars out of school teachers and coaches because there's not one that's going to get up at 5:30 in the morning and go pop the hood of a Suburban and check the oil and everything in their nice clothes and then do it again before they come home." >> Except all David City stuff we >> Except for ours, of course. >> And so and they're like, "Don't kill

104the messenger. We're just sharing with you what the federal law is. >> And if something happens to a kid and you haven't done those inspections, do you want to be on the witness stand in that situation? And they're right. No, I don't. And so, but um it it's frustrating for I said, you don't do that in your own vehicle every time you hop in, you know, and you're carrying precious cargo in your own vehicle. even if it's not you that's precious. Your wife or kid probably is, you know, and it doesn't matter. That is the new federal law. And so it it's ridiculous. You don't have to do it if you're just taking yourself, but if you're carrying students at all. And so a bus that sits more than an hour. So, if you have

105a bus driver that runs a route in the morning and then we have a field trip in town where we want to take the kids to the post office at 10:00, they would have to do that inspection a second time and then we get back from taking the kids to post office, do it again at 1 >> and then because it sat there again running. Does that count? >> They'd have to do it a fourth time. >> So, so do our people that even drive the missiles part time even know how to do that? >> I know. That's what I was wondering. Tam Tammy will explain to them if they if they need to. Um, most of our people that drive the missiles know because they're our bus drivers. >> What about any substitute bus

106drivers? They're going to have to do all that. >> Oh, yeah. So, so luckily, I mean, your normal teacher is not going to drive the bus, >> right? >> You know, but it's just it's frustrating. Um, and you know, there might have been a time or two that I've driven a vehicle and forgot to do that, but I don't usually take kids with me, so it's usually not an issue. But anyway, kind of a tangent there. All right, vehicle replacement schedule. Um, we were scheduled to replace our 2016 Chevy Suburban last year. Didn't put as many miles on it. And so, uh, transportation committee said, "Let's hold off." And so if you notice, I have that one and the 2018 uh Traverse both on there for replacement this year. We may or not need to

107replace both. I'm sure we're going to need to replace at least one of those. At the bottom of the page, I also had their 2526 uh pickup, the ' 04 pickup, and I talked to Travis and Matt after I'd already printed these out. We're actually uh we had bought a Gator last year, >> and they're using the heck out of that thing. And so we're actually going to sell that 04 pickup and not replace it. So we're not going to keep it. We're not going to replace it. We've got some people interested in it. And so even though it says it was up for replacement, you could put it next to that. We're actually going to sell it because we still have the a white pickup here. We have a white pickup in Bellwood and

108we've got that Gator. And so we'll actually eliminate a vehicle off off of our list. So that that can be nixed off of there. Um, any questions on the vehicle replacement? Okay. And just so you know, I already have somebody clamoring uh wanting our Suburban uh we cuz they know we take good care of our vehicles and like when you get ready to sell, sell it out, right? Trade in. We'll give you more than it's worth. So, so we'll see. I don't have anything on the textbook. Um, in fact, I didn't even update it from last year, but I just wanted to show you that we do have a textbook replacement schedule. Um industrial arts um industrial tech egg is scheduled uh for new curriculum this spring like I said earlier in our presentation. It

109probably won't be a lot of textbooks. It'll be probably a lot more uh equipment needs and so we'll start putting a list together on that. But you can kind of see what the replacement schedule is. How soon do they or when do they kind of go through some of that equipment to know by getting like the Carl Perkins grants or different grants through the ESU that I know like some of those pieces where we've gotten >> Yeah. They'll submit um you're a little bit limited like you might get one >> yes >> three or four or $5,000 piece of equipment but you're not going to get six new welders. >> But yeah, they'll be working on that throughout this year. And we we submit almost every year we submit Carl Perkins grants and we've probably

110gotten them more years than not maybe eight out of 12 years we've gotten Carl Perkins funds through the ESU. Um so I'm not going to talk a whole lot about textbook and equipment because we're not there yet and it's not a big year in terms of controversial stuff like health or or any of that kind of stuff. Uh technology replacement schedule. You can see we have a 4-year technology replacement schedule. Pretty indepth. We There's a lot of software that it takes to run this place. You can see see that for yourself. Try to have a line item there for everything we use. Um there is one piece of software that's not on here that we just purchased actually this week. It's called Deep L and it's a piece of software that the administrators asked for

111because it translates our documents. How many different languages will it translate in? >> Hundreds. Yeah, >> more than 100 different languages that we can translate everything from our enrollment forms to handbooks to option enrollment papers in especially Spanish in what seconds? >> I think I did our district handbook in 30 seconds. >> Yeah. >> And we've checked the accuracy and it's really good compared to like your Google translate and some of that. >> So, will that get rid of some of our translation services cost? Are we still going to have to use that? What is that? >> We'll still need them to translate the parents, >> but we hopefully won't need it as much translating documents is the hope. >> Sure. >> So, it's interpreting interpreting. Yes. >> Interpreting, >> but hopefully for translating documents,

112we'll save it. It's $350 for one license, and then you're limited to x number of characters, like a million characters or whatever per month. >> We don't think we'll exceed that. So you get a second license, but right now the admin team would share that one license. >> And so and we think it'll be enough, but till you start using it, you don't know. >> Is there an opportunity like is it like a talk text? Can you do that? What if you would have a language barrier? >> We actually have a piece of equipment that we purchased last year >> in the office. >> That's in the office. >> Yeah. >> That will do some of that. >> Okay. It'll actually translate what they say. >> Yeah. >> Into English >> and vice versa then.

113So they >> or what we do is we ask Mr. Lindsley >> who used to be a Spanish teacher and if it's basic Spanish to help us >> or usually >> yeah you know or we use one of our bilingual paras. >> Okay. >> So but I can tell you we could use more. Um the next two pages is summer maintenance projects. I try to keep at least a couple years of projects uh just to kind of see um like next summer in Bellwood looking to get rid of the asbestous tile there, put down a rubber surface. uh would also maybe like to consider replacing the indoor hoops um with something more quality that would actually be uh tied to the rafters. So, more legitimate hoops. Um I think by doing those things, it potentially

114gives us another practice place at least for third and fourth grade if we put some actual real hoops over there and a nice floor with all the lines painted for volleyball andor basketball. Uh maybe it gives us another practice place for at least elementary kids, like I said, third and fourth grade. And then it also would be a lot less maintenance in the summertime with the stropping and waxing of floors. Um we can, you know, clean it with soap and water. >> That' be might be nice then for third and fourth and fifth and sixth and so it's not till late. >> Yeah, potentially. I mean, it just it's another option to help us. Um, >> you know, kids are always driving here to go to D. You know, >> we had one team that

115used it last year. It worked out well. >> We did. >> Um, I think the issue was they maybe didn't have as good of a turnout. >> Oh, shoot. >> Because couldn't transfer to Bellwood >> after school, right? >> Yeah. >> I But they used it quite a few times. >> At the high school, we got some big cracks in the east parking lot. So, we'd like to fix the cracks and then just repaint it. Repaint the lines. Those lines over there are a little bit too narrow or those parking spots are >> word. Yes. >> So, we freshman that parking. >> Yeah. So, >> my daughter, >> we can actually expand the parking east west a little bit. And so, I think we wouldn't lose any parking spots. We can just expand it into

116that alley or almost to the alley. and and just make all of those spots about a foot wider. So So we kind of like to do that. Uh a lot of door dings over there. Um it is time to replace the carpet and flooring in the band room and the choir room. Um it's pretty worn if you go down there. And then um also like to rip out the half walls in the Morgan um Stiscoll's classroom and replace the carpet there. She would like a more functional space. Those half walls and built-in counters just makes it difficult for some of the group things that she wants to do. So, that's some of what we'd be looking at the high school, preschool, looking at maybe replacing that chain link fence with a white vinyl privacy fence.

117Um, we just we get kids playing over there in the evenings and weekends and they're just not always taking very good care of our stuff over there. Could you lock the chain link fence? Yeah, but they hop right over it, you know, versus a vinyl fence. So, look at doing something like that over there. We also had uh you know, kids trying to shove stuff down the uh HVAC pipes over there. And so, we do have netting over those, but it it's not our preschool kids doing it. It's upper elementary or junior high kids going over there after hours. And so we'd like to protect that place a little bit more. At the elementary, uh we'd be looking at redoing the library and the reading room. Those are the last two spaces in terms of

118classrooms where we haven't updated carpet or flooring. Uh would also look at updating all the bookshelves and stuff in there. So I've already talked to Austin um and we'll visit with him a little bit on some ideas. And then we've already bought the flooring for that front entry outside of the principal's office. We've actually had it in stock. So, we would tear out the that tile and replace it with what's in the all the rest of the building. That tan tile >> tile is as >> the uh glue. >> Yeah, the glue. >> That's surprising when it's been not that long ago. So, that's my job. >> And then uh um and we will test it again to make sure. Um and then at some point um we're going to need to replace the 43

119HVAC units over in the elementary. We have two that are starting to die now. Um they're about 13,000 a piece. There's 43 of them in the elementary alone, just to give you an idea. So, you're looking at a half a million dollar project at some point. And then, um, as you know, we bought the corner lot. Um, bids are due on that house on the 7th that you can approve the selling of that house on the 10th. Once it's moved, we're going to need to fill in that basement with dirt, get rid of the the basement that's underneath there, and then add some crushed rock uh for additional parking. In the meantime, and it's not on here, but I did submit a building permit uh to the city, um requesting the ability to put parking

120on the south and west terraces of that corner lot. Believe it or not, it actually has to go to the planning commission. So, I've submitted the $250 permit. All that we want to do is blade the two terraces smooth, which they're almost there now, and then put white rock on it. Travis and I went out and measured. We can add 13 parking spots just on those two terraces >> on the park. Is that what you're talking about? >> Yeah. Between the sidewalk and the street. Yep. So, I've already submitted the permit. I've paid the permit money. Travis went and talked to ARPS and they thought it would be uh $2,600 in rock. And so, but we have to they promised me they would expedite it to the planning committee to try to give us official

121approval. So, excuse me. So, that's kind of what I have as a potential list for this summer. You can also look through and look at the following summer and in the future. I try to keep this as kind of a ongoing list that I bring to you guys as things come up, but I try not to surprise anybody and let you know far in advance that some of the stuff we need to be looking at doing. So, that's summer maintenance. Um, I don't know if I put this one in here or not. the executive summary of our roofs. >> Can I get that added in? >> Unless if something happens, excuse me, we should not have to do any more roof replacements for four or five years. We've caught up. We had an unexpected partial

122roof replacement this summer here at the high school when we were catching water in 19 buckets in the pan room every time it rained. And so we did get that roof part of the roof replaced. That was 350,000. [Music] And so that's was no uh small potatoes, but um we think we're in good shape now. The Garland company who warranties all of our roofs did a walk through. We have one that's in fair condition at the elementary. Everything else seems to be in good or excellent condition. Excuse me. Um, but I want you to see that we have done that as well. >> Questions there. >> I see like the metal one is aged 35 years. >> That's the fair one obviously. >> Um, and that's the metal and that's the only metal one we

123have, >> right? >> So, and that's So, what's the longevity of the new material that we're using? >> Most of our roofs have a 30-year >> Okay. uh warranties now. Okay. So, the reason we use the Garland company is that even though it costs us a little bit more, nobody can bid it unless they meet their specs. But in exchange, when there's an issue on a roof, you don't go back to the contractor that did the roof. We call the Garland company and say, "We're having issues on this roof." And they take it from there. So if one company did this half of the roof and another company did this half of the roof, you know right away where it leaks right on that seam and it doesn't matter. You don't go and say, "Well,

124Weathercraft did this and Rocky did this." You call the Garland company and they take care of it. They're they warranty the roof. And so, like I said, you pay a little bit more upfront, but then um it's nice having that extended warranty when when things come up. questions there. All right, the last few pages then I just made you copies of this year's budget that will go in the paper compared to last year. So, one's listed 2526, one's listed 2425. You can see what uh the 2324 expenses were. You can see what 2425. You can say why does it say actual estimated? Cuz you don't know. The fiscal year doesn't end until Friday. And you also don't know what things will have cleared the bank, not cleared the bank. So Angie and I make the

125best guess we can. And then we estimate for next year. [Music] You can see at the bottom breakdown of the taxes from one year versus the other. [Music] The budget hearing will be September 10th at 7:00. [Music] Any questions on that, Chief? The next one then is the actual budget. You can compare 24 256. Again, [Music] it's budget or it's uh fund by fund. So, it's broken down not only the three taxing funds, but all the other funds that we're responsible for. You can see what our certified state aid is. 1.1 million 1,116,929 best estimate on motor vehicle taxes. You might ask, why is the county treasurer balance so much less this year compared to last year? Okay. Or why do you think it's going to be less? Well, one of the things I didn't

126talk about earlier is remember we got our school tax credit in April or May and it was about 1.2 million. So that means we'll get 1.2 million less this September than we did last September. I actually looked last September we got about 2 million. And so that's why this year I estimated it because again I don't know. I estimated at 764,000 and some odd dollars. And then I also did the same thing for the special building fund because we received a school tax credit in April or May for that fund as well. So that's why you see less in terms of what I'm anticipating [Music] in county receipts in September because it's so new. You don't know. It's the best estimated guess I can give you. Until we've been through a full budget cycle with

127this new, you know, property tax and school tax credit, you don't know what your receipts are going to be. And so, I have made the best estimate I can make. So, when you look at the starting balance and you say, "Well, you have a million dollar more than you did a year ago at this time or whatever," you're right, but we also got 1.2 million in additional school tax credit in April or May. that we're not going to get in September. So, I'll be more curious, what does our general fund balance look like in like November after we get some September or October tax receipts? Cuz you don't know for sure. You just don't know. You know, I'd warned you guys earlier, it's just going to take a full calendar year to know what the

128new expected is from month to month and then from year to year. So, since we haven't been a full fiscal year through a new cycle, this is my best estimated guess. And hopefully I've been at this long enough, I can hit it fairly close. Um, cuz obviously we don't want to put ourselves strapped for cash, which I I don't think we'll do cuz we're in good shape. But, so that's your your budget document for the two years. And then the last two pages is your tax request hearing. So you can see what we requested in taxes last year for each fund compared to this year and what the change changes in the tax rate. So last year we were at almost 72 1.5 cents. This year we're at 64 cents. However, the overall tax asking

129goes up uh at what 2.48%. [Laughter] It was what roughly 280,000. >> Yeah. Less than 30, >> right? >> Okay. And and so the budget hearing would be at 7 and then right after that the hearing for the tax request. The next page says 2526 allowable growth percentage computation form. This is the formula the state uses to see whether or not uh you need to go to the pink postcard hearing. We could raise our general fund and special building fund 2.53% and not have to go to the pink postcard hearing. I'm requesting a 2.48% 48% increase that also includes the increase in the QC puff. The QC puff is actually exempt from the pink postcard meaning and is not included in the calculations. So the 2.53% is just general fund and building fund and we

130are under that. That's why we don't have to put the pink postcard. [Music] The last few pages are just you can see um what our valuations are in the four different counties um that we have property in. Now the one thing that I didn't highlight that I would probably be remiss in highlighting is clear back on one of the early general fund pages when we talked about unused budget authority. It's the one that's got the debits and the credits on it. And I talked about we've maxed out our budget authority. The other side of that that I didn't mention is what about the taxing authority. Okay. And I did list that at the top of the page that between what we approved last year in taxing authority and what this board could have done in

131terms of an additional 6% taxing authority which I didn't bring to you. We actually could have taxed our patrons and I have it listed here at the top of that page. another 1,379,311 without a vote of the people, an additional 6% and I've got that here. If this board would have approved an additional 6% taxing authority, that would have brought in 98,032. And then we still have over $450,000 in additional taxing authority left over from last year when you approved the additional 6%. So last year we used a sliver of that additional 6% and we're using a little bit more now, but there's still over 450,000 in taxing authority left on the table and you guys could have approved another 6% which would have brought in another $98,32. So, in terms of your unused tax

132authority, if you would have approved it, $1,379,311. Now, I didn't bring to you a resolution to um approve the additional taxing authority, and so you won't have, you know, the extra 98,000 carryover. you'll just have that 450,000 wherever carry over from last year that just keeps continuing over in case if you need it if that makes sense. And so, you know, could you tax your patrons more? But I'm not asking to do that. and I'm asking you to do what I think it'll take to run the 2526 year and live and leave us in a good position uh for not only 2627 but hopefully 2728. Uh for those of you that went to the area meeting last night, schoolboard association, um the current forecast is a $500 million shortfall and agencies are being asked to

133look at a 10 or 15% cut to their budgets and school districts are one of the largest uh receipts of state revenue. So, I'm nervous about whether or not they're going to be able to fully fund the TIOSA formula in the next year or two without making some changes. And so, I think that you as a school board have shielded us um from any uh major issues the next couple years because of the financial position we're in. and hopefully with the financial position we'll be in after this budget and tax request is approved and we get through the the next fiscal year. Uh because you just you don't know what the future will bring and I would tell you that it's my goal is to leave this place in good shape. You all know my

134plan is to leave here um after next school year and I want to leave the this district, this board or future board and whoever the new superintendent is in in good shape where they're not scrambling trying to make program and staffing cuts the first thing out of the block. And so, um I feel good that these numbers are legitimate. Um that they can get us through the year. Um, just know that that really long spreadsheet that I gave you on the general fund, Angie and I look through that 18page spreadsheet line item by line item every year to make sure that what we're budgeting we think is is enough. In some cases, we adjust it down. Sometimes we have to increase it. Um, if something looks like an anomaly, we'll go back and look at

135the last two or three years expenses in that line item to see if it was just a fluke. You know, did he spend a lot more on on bus transportation this year because gas was $5 a gallon instead of 350? And was that just a one-year deal, or is that going to continue? That would be an example of the type of conversation we might have. You know, did food costs really go up 9% or 13%? Was that just a one-year anomaly? Do we think it'll go back down or do we think that's the new normal cost for food? You know, those are the types of conversations her and I have. We try to doublech checkck one another cuz sometimes I might see something, she doesn't and vice versa. And so we we feel good about

136these numbers. Um but uh obviously in the end I don't have a vote. You guys do. And so I'm more than glad to answer any questions you have. Um, just know that uh what you see tonight or whatever we decide, this is what has to be advertised in the paper tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. That's when it's due to be put in the newspaper next week because our budget and tax hearing is September 10th. We're up for approval on the 10th of September. And so I have to get stuff to the paper uh 10:00 tomorrow morning. So, with that, I know that was two hours of your time. You'll never get back. Um, questions you have. >> Does anybody have any questions? [Music] >> Not really. I mean, as always, I appreciate your indepth look at

137everything and explanation of everything. And I think the the one thing that would concern me is is yeah, what changes are coming down the pipeline? whether whether it be either through the state funding or I mean I look back at you know if we have a real bad a economy your delinquent tax rate might go up quite a bit and some of those things were I guess we have to be cognizant of that potential in our current a environment with 350 corn [Music] so >> yeah and I guess one of my concerns I Since we do have such a huge special education population, I do get very worried about like you said, yes, it's looking at I think that the governor called for like you said a 10% cut across the board and so that

138makes me nervous, but also with our sped reimbursements coming through that education futures fund, what does that mean for the 80% reimbursement and how much is that going to be ticked away which that just comes out of our again we're having put that cost also on our tax page. Did that state credit for property taxes sunset? Is that over? >> So, yeah, it's all done now. It it's coming directly to us from the state of Nebraska instead of going through the taxpayer and then claiming it themselves. >> They still get that though. >> So, when we request So, so >> they just pay less now first place where before they were before they were paying more to get it back. Okay. >> It's the exact same. Yeah. >> Yeah. That >> that's why that's why

139like our main September 1st or September Well, I guess it' be October draw cuz the people that pay September, they're way less because they're paying 30% less in taxes. But we're getting those funds twice a year from the state. Last year was the last year they had any claim to them and it was 100% of the community colleges that they paid if they paid community college levy but that's fully done. >> All right. Does anybody have anything else that they want to know or um anything that you'd like Dr. Dinker to either um explain further? Not necessarily, maybe even tonight, but as we prepare for our September meeting when we're going to be approving for everything. Just any sort of question, directive, clarification. [Music] >> All right. Thank you for again going through it so

140you're welcome. >> Thoroughly. It's very helpful and to be honest like kind of need to hear it every year. I know it's a big it's a big lift. So you you and Angie live it. We you know and and I appreciate the timelines too in month to month. So, um yeah, we will have all of these hearings um in a couple weeks, September 10th, two hearings, and then um that's the chance for the public to make comments and then we'll approve it in our regular meeting. Um so, with that, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So, moved. Second. >> Moved by Marcus, seconded by Tony. All those in favor? >> I I >> All those opposed? Thank you for indulging me for the last two hours. >> I was a little worried about your

141voice. >> I didn't either. >> What's his voice?