001e testing testing one 2 three testing e e e all right I would like to call this meeting to order for creep mon School Board of Education School District 201u it's the committee of a whole today is Tuesday September the 10th 2024 6:30 p.m. Madame secretary roll call please sure Mr alre here Mr gagos here M rup is here Mr swales here miss s stumbras here Dr Hall here president Brown here let us stand to take the Pledge of Allegiance led by board member Mr Alex gyos led by our mission statement following shortly thereafter by Dr Hall I pledge alance 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 for all our mission statement engage and
002Empower our students to positively impact their community and future thank you both all righty I would like a a motion do I need motion open yeah like a motion to open up the public hearing for the 2024 2025 budget some move second moveed by board member Nelson second by board member Alex any comments if not roll call please miss site stumbris I Mr swales hi M rupis and I Mr gagos I Mr alra I Dr Hall hi president Brown I motion carry like we're going to have our business director of business speak first on this ran jnon good evening everyone my name is Brian Johnson Director of Finance for the school district this is our 2425 budget hearing Cher Do we have any public comments we do have okay um so this is the official
003version of what we presented the tenative budget last month a few small changes based on some more accurate information so this should be very familiar just feel free to stop me if you have any questions throughout the presentation as an introduction here are the steps we need to do to formally adopt our budget post our notice of the hearing and availability of the budget to the public prior to the hearing that was posted in the Chicago Tribune on August 9th we will vote to adopt the budget next week will then post the budget to the district website and submit it to the State Board of Education within 30 days as an overview some definitions for you our sources of revenue our main source is property taxes taxpayers pay their property taxes the county levies that
004dishes it out to the school district that's our main source of funds state revenue federal revenue that's our evidence based funding grants and then other revenue is just additional sources that don't fit in anywhere else that could be donations field trip Revenue at a school level and then expenditures our main source of expenses our salaries and benefits purchase Services is anything we're paying an outside contractor to perform a service supplies and materials is purchasing of physical Goods Capital out that's our building and grounds upgrades capital projects other objects are just things that don't fit elsewhere and then non- Capital Equipment are items that will last a while but don't cost enough to require being considered Capital Outlet so we don't need to worry about depreciating those our tax levy is the amount the district needs
005from property taxes which we submit to the county in December every year our tax extension is the amount that the county gives us after we request our Levy and then our debt limit as of June 30th the district's long-term debt liability is just over $125,000 with an outstanding Bond principle of just over or I'm sorry $125 million with an outstanding Bond principle of $96 million here's an overview of our budget in all funds our revenues did go down some compared to our tenative budget in August which we'll get into more when we talk on the next slide for the operating budget but again we got some more concrete information based on evidence-based funding and our property replacement tax amounts so our deficit did increase some our projection compared to what we presented in August so
006the next slide is our operating funds we did see a decrease in our overall projected revenues we originally were told to expect about a 10% decrease in our County replacement tax we got our actual number that's going down closer to 40% which the good thing is we got a more official number for evidence-based funding and that went up to help bridge that Gap a little bit more and for those that aren't familiar the property replacement tax is revenues collected by the state that are given to the school district to replace money that was lost when they stopped being able to impose taxes on corporations and Partnerships so that's one that we also didn't receive the full allotment we were told of last year so that's something we're going to have to keep an eye on
007because again we don't know what that looks like in practice right now so you'll see we're showing just under a $570,000 projected operating deficit which is an increase of about $80,000 from what was projected in our tenative budget in August so are there any questions there before we move on so Brian on the column there that says the 2023 2024 approved budget revenue and expenditure is that that's the amended budget that we approved in June correct so that's really it's a fairly close to actual yes um although we we did a fund balance trans we got rid of the deficit because we received the transportation funds in July so it's a it's just a timing issue correct okay and then again on our audit it might look a little different because we present on a
008cash basis and then they were able to acrw back right for instance our big construction payments that are made in July is for work performed in June so we'll acrw that back for audit purposes so it does get a little bit tricky When comparing our audited financials to these numbers but yes that is but that wouldn't be in operating funds anyway right it was just a okay I just one quick question Brian and you mentioned we got quite a few outstanding bonds out there that we need to pay back can your team look at just see what we have that what bonds that we have out there that could be callable that possibly we can refinance those bonds given the fact that it look like the Fed made lower interest rates and I just don't
009know where we are percentage maybe they are at a good interest rates you know but just it may be an opportunity there to start watching that yes and if you can see what we have outstanding that's callable that we may have a opportunity to refinance those bonds yes and that's something where PMA is our banking firm that we use for those bonds and they're also very diligent and giving us updates when it makes sense to keep an eye out to make maybe have those conversations as well but that's something that we do look at monthly at a minimum okay excellent thank you so then this next slide is all funds this is our projected cash balances month by month as of July 31st again there is that big gap between our 180 days cash on
010hand and where we expect to end up again this is all funds so this is including bond funds that we showed in Prior years that aren't reflected here as a source of Revenue because those are already in our accounts and then o sorry and then here's our projected cash balance in the operating funds we are currently showing just under $2.9 million below our 180 days cash on hand as of June 30th 20125 again at the beginning of the year these numbers do tend to fluctuate just because as actuals come in these numbers can change our tax levy cash is coming in we got a big bigger payment than expected in August which will help bridge this Gap so again we're keeping an eye on this and it's something that we're definitely cognizant of to make
011sure that we're meeting all of our goals for our financial profile score and just maintaining a healthy cash balance for the district does the um property tax revenue include the at least half the Levy annual Levy for the University Park Tiff that's rolling off we did not account for that in our budget just because it's not nothing's official yet okay so that this doesn't have that projected in here correct okay good yeah so again that's a big question mark that it could make these numbers that if they different they do vote to dissolve it we would get at least half of that in E June next year yeah correct yeah I think it's around 40 45% that we would get in June because that's when we get one of our bigger tax ly payments for
012the year so that should help this okay uh so that being said this is our budget for July 1st basically to June 30th right and so if we get x amount of dollars prior to well we we don't do a cash method we we have an acove method I guess but if we get just say $10 million on a book in June that would not go into revenues obtained during this fiscal year no it would you say it would yes M cash received in June of 2025 would apply to the fiscal year 2425 all the way up to June 30th so so that will wipe out any type of deficit that we have all things being considered right so we can feel pretty comfortable just from that if this Tiff were to be signed off
013from up that we receive x amount of revenues in June of next year that at the end of our fiscal year we would show a surplus in the everything filed correctly yes that would be a safe assumption okay and best that it's not in there you know what I mean until it happens yeah right believe me Murphy's Law always but also it would sh up that $2 million difference in our projected cash balance at the end of the year which would help our financial ratios yes absolutely yeah yep good any more questions here before we move to the final slide so we always end with the current year goals for the business department our first Milestone would be completing the prior year audit by October 15th we had a great meeting with our audit firm
014last week all of the substantial information's been provided they're hoping to get us drafts of our financial reports by next week so we should be on Pace to meet that goal and hopefully present the audit at the October 8th Committee of the the whole meeting wow everything's been moving forward as expected same conversations as last year where you know they're always helping us improve and increase our efficiencies and correct some small errors that happen around the way but it's been pretty positive so far and then a big project that we have is finalizing our policies and procedures manual for the business department and training manuals for external departments we've done a lot more training externally this year than we have historically and we have a good foundation for a lot of this but now it's
015time to formalize those documents get everything in a usable form so that the next people up to perform tasks have those helping tools and they can be more efficient and effective moving forward and then as always keeping an eye on our capital projects and facility planning which Jason's been doing a great job with that as we wrap up our current short-term facility plan and then we look forward to the 2024 through 2026 capital projects this year the the um audit that's a new firm right last year was our first year with the new firm and it's going pretty good yes which our audit manager from last year got promoted so she's now the audit partner partner so we have a new audit manager who it's just you know he's learning us we're learning him so
016it's it's a little more back and forth towards the end here just cleaning up some of the small things but again she's still on board and helping to keep things moving so shouldn't have any issues meeting our deadlines sounds good any further questions all right well I appreciate your time thank you thank you thank you thank you Brian thanks Brian okay there's no further discussion or comments on the public hearing public comments there was none Brian speaking so can I have a motion to close the public hearing on the 2024 2025 budget so moved move by Nelson second second by Alex any comments or any questions if not roll call please Mr swales I Mr alook I Mr gigos I miss s somus i RS and I Dr Hall I president BR all right motion
017carried any other public comments non related to public hearing or could be related to public hearing any public comments any emails okay hearing none board updates um we had a Beek meeting uh yesterday um that's the uh bilingual parent uh advisory committee um we had an announcement that mon uh will be having their first annual Hispanic heritage mon month event uh that will be on uh September 20th at 4 P.M uh so I'm excited about that um we are going to be having a uh family night uh the last Friday before Halloween um for our Beek families it will have um uh a harvest theme uh we'll have like pumpkin decorations um maybe a movie maybe like Trunk or Treat um uh things like that we just spit balling ideas um and then um we
018got to meet um Miss ES uh our new family liaison she was at the meeting yesterday so that was that was uh uh very good and then um I had something else um I think that's about it I think that's it if I remember something I'll just blurt it out but I think that's it great job Alex you're really doing a great job you know representing this position that you have here and what was that date say September 20th uh it's in it will be in Moni I'm not uh exactly sure um on the location um M Mr mon do you know Mr Mo the location for the uh the event yep yeah that's our homecoming yeah yeah wow so is that a Saturday that's a Friday it's a Friday a Friday yeah Fireman's Park
019Fireman's Park Fireman's Park okay okay well bill will be out here right at the homecoming I'll be at the high school yeah yeah you can't set off fireworks in two places huh or maybe you could okay so then you plan on yeah I'll be I'll be at the um at the uh uh mon um The Heritage Month celebration and then that's early that starts at 4:00 so um and then I should head over and meet meet you guys at the uh homecoming game so okay we'll see you at the inzone yeah I'll be there all right reserve for the homec a box Reserve that's what a home come we had a box reserve for the board it we are working on okay I'll be in concessions visit me there yeah we have a concession thing
020well we have a concession truck oh they bring the truck back very mobile the warri booster Warriors bought a truck okay cuz it was a tent last game well okay we're growing every day all right okay and we are not going to partake in that one bullet item understanding the relationship between school finances and property taxes Robert gry illuminated Crystal Consulting I understand he's under the weather yes and we'll take a look at maybe rescheduling that in November a timely timely uh training okay very great uh any other board updates okay I would like to just add one I just want to thank this board my colleagues for us being recognized by the Illinois Association of school board for outstanding board governance and I tell you what I could not be more proud or than
021this than I am to have you guys as colleagues and be representative for that outstanding award so thank you guys for all you do each and every one of you I I when I heard about it I actually cried like Mo Never Cry yeah right so thank you thank you thank you for all you do each and every one of you getting out there into the community you know and and our superintendent has a lot to do with it too she she like to fly up under the radar and your whole cabinet as well has a lot to do with helping the board function as a high performance group here so I really appreciate that and I did seek to recognize and correct me if I'm wrong I recognize one of your cabinet members or
022someone in the central office but they have to have five years or more in that position yes for our board the board secretary yes so the board hold on come on now the does she have five years or more she does not okay so any one of your cabinet members has five years or more in the position that they are in now we got a young team over here okay so you kind of straddling the fence there huh okay uh Pam do Pam have over five years H okay see what I can do all right well thank you guys really thank you so much and I think we are going to be officially recognized in the April time frame April yes it's the April um Three Rivers Three Rivers okay all righty if everyone can
023make it there I would appreciate it so we can wear our shirts being Unison okay what they are I don't know but we'll find something that we all look unified thank you so much administrative update okay I've got three items uh I was surprised none of my board members mentioned this but we had the mon parade over the weekend on Sat want you to mention it yes so um it was a lot of fun as usual we had the van and we had all of our candy it was a little bit shorter parade because so much is going on in mon with their rep paring streets and so forth but they had a a marvelous parade they had uh sea lions out there uh if anyone had a chance to go see them but um
024we had um several of our board members uh come with us pass out candy uh for those that attended so it was a it was a fun day yeah a shout out to Jean Kahan for driving the driving the bus yes yeah yeah he was loading down I saw the back tires kind of down because of all that candy they had something they called a mo box yes we did it was a very big box he was right all time I was you know I was just I mean I was really giving out candy and he was right he saw my bucket empty he gave me another one so yeah he was great give that guy a raise um and the other thing I just wanted to school years off to again another great start
025as we're getting deeper into our September school year and I think we've already mentioned we've got our homecoming uh game which is Friday night September 20th I believe it it's at 6 o'clock so I have met with the boosters as well as um the administration to really fine-tune some of the last things we believe and I'm going to knock on this wood table here that this will be our last home game or Homecoming in the stadium that we have so we have uh sought out a videographer that was going to be taking a video of this we have a drone that will go and take some aerial pictures of it so we can start archiving The Stadium as in its existence um we working with uh the team to uh find some special seating for
026our alumni that will be there and we'll be writing some special scripts so when we can recognize those in the audience we are really focusing on getting our alumni back here um we are going to have an alumni table up as well um the boosters I think is going to be again having that food food truck um there's going to be tailgating as usual and right now starting in January we are starting the homecoming committee for the kickoff in 25 and we're going to do a big so we're looking at having going back to some of the things that homecoming used to be with the bonfire if any of you have been around long enough they used to do a bonfire here we're going to have thinking about having a parade in every town which
027might be starting you know the week of um some other things that we would be having we were looking into getting some floats that will be here in our we've got a a mascot costume that we've got ordered so we're really who's gonna be the mascot Alex me oh well we will be looking for volunteers the warrior right a warrior right so anyway we're really looking forward to it so we're going to have a just a huge committee pdon me what type of what kind of costume yeah right now we have to be sensitive of you know some of the logos so we were looking at um an Arrow Head perfect thank you but it's been kind of an odd shape because it goes this way yeah so uh Mr you still want to be
028the mascot Mr opinski has been working with u our vendors to try to find one and where are we at in that process I think uh we're going to customize it and then uh it's like yes um we're actually in the process Miss p is assisting me she's over here in the business office uh she's our system auditor but also helping me in other capacities and we're currently reaching out to uh meet with the student government representatives from the high school in an effort to start an introduction and get some student input on said masat design yes so we're really excited about that um so again the committee that we're uh going to form we're reaching out to stakeholders and all of our communities so it's going to be our First Responders since they're going
029to be part of the parades the fire departments um we're going to be looking for uh people that have access to alumni relationships we're going to be looking at each of our Park District Partners as well um as well as many others so um we're actually looking forward to this it's going to start in January if any board member would like to be involved with that um please let me know we're going to meet once uh we're looking at maybe just once a month um to get this going because by June we need to be ready to go because it does take quite a few months to get everything organized um and then of course we're going to be advertising this a lot um and make this part of the community where looking at maybe
030getting some benches for each of the towns with the students they decorate them and then there might be a bench in every town and so forth so anyway I'm not going to give away too much there's lots going on we're super excited about that well we havei know about the Drone for Friday night yes he does okay he was at the table okay he was at the table and there's certain um there are certain requirements that are for that like it can't be over the game it can only be on the sidelines I mean we we uh because we've got to preserve that Focus Focus uh for our players so anyway do we who do we play Doc one of the Thorns I think yes th Thor is it Thor thoron I think th I
031thought Thor was this weekend you might be right about that I have to it's one of them it's one of them my fault I did see the yeah that is this weekend that's senior night that was on my mind prior so it's probably Thorn wood either one I think I yeah we're going to regard that's what I was hoping you say cuz I think we're getting off to a kind of a rough start right so anyway we hope to see everybody out it's going to be a lot of fun uh for this event and uh hopefully show our Warrior pride and that is all I have for my good news I can move on to press if that's all right please sure I just I just remember what I forgot oh remember what you forgot
032all right yeah did you forget what you remember no I I remember what I forgot uh this is uh the first uh will be the uh the uh Education Foundation uh Fun Run uh five forgot to mention that so yeah that'll that'll happen uh the day after this uh the homecoming game so don't you know go out parying too much because uh we have to get up uh bright and early for that 5K and I will be there walking I will be there walking so thank you for that it's it's a 5k regardless is if you walk or run so yeah yeah m m r you can certainly walk with me we carry the team there pardon me push you push you okay all right I wanted to bring attention to our first press re
033um I emailed you a little bit late today but we did uh Cheryl and I were reviewing a few things and we wanted to tighten up the the press release so what I have is a hard copy for you in front of you this we wanted to tighten this up because as you recall anything with a two colon Something is all things we've already covered in our um our board uh self- evaluation so I didn't want to go redundant and go through all of that again so I I left it off the only one I wanted to bring attention to and that's in front of you was the board member expenses so wanted to make it very clear I think this is where we left off I have it in green and I think what
034we put in here is um uh expenses per board member it says once you exceed the $4,500 the board member will seek approval that was the one verbiage that I think that was agreed upon at that time and then to a company that we've put we've added in as the exhibit the form that some of you you've already seen so we've labeled it an exhibit and basically this just outlines it's in a um a signed dock that you would get if you're going to go to anything such as the triple ey conference you'll receive this it basically just outlines um the param ameters for you know collecting your receip uh itemize those kinds of things miles and so forth so we now add that so I just wanted to bring that to your attention the
035rest of the uh items in here um there were really were no substantive changes other than the legal references in each of those so I'm not going to go through those with you um but basically we just need to update these that these have been reviewed so um I have a hard copy so you can feel free to look at those over the next week as we get ready to vote on that um next week any questions okay that's all I've got okay thank you Dr coges any no questions no concerns any old business any new business we have no reason to go into close session can I have a motion to adjourn so moved move by Nelson second second by Dr Hall can I take all in favor all in favor say I any
036Nays we are adjourned thank you public for joining us today enjoy took the