001brown is here mrs galbraith here dr ho here mr sowalis here mrs walters vice president group here president here please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all terry was there any public comment no sir okay i'm sorry do we want to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future thank you yes we do any board updates uh administrative updates um i just had one item this evening and that was just to give the board a a preview of the first read of our policy review we had quite a few of them we've split them into two sections i provided those
002for you again these are from press plus these have been attorney reviewed from them and these are recommendations and for the most part well i did not see any or disagree with any changes mr brown was review these with me as well and the only one that we wanted to make note is that there is a new policy as noted in my notes okay and that comes for our february agenda for approval yes yes so committee of the whole i'm going to do for february i'm going to do the press part two and then you'll do all the february okay next up is consent agenda approval um before i take a motion are there any items that a board member would like to take off for a separate vote okay can i get a motion
003to approve the consent agenda second any questions or comments here under the business when when there's purchases made out there by any of our employees or staff do we get a tax exempt on purchases like a sales tax exempt there there are some that we get tax exempt on like if you order we have it set up now through amazon so if you make purchases through amazon type the business account that is taxes i sell zero for taxes there for all of those amazon okay right so so that is set up there are some purchases though that um there are some companies that will not honor that very honestly things like sam's club and things like that we bring up tax exempt letters uh departments do what the school's doing they just won't honor that
004there are also some services like food services that automatically tax and do not uh eliminate taxes too and won't honor that too so what other schools do because i have gone back to our principles for department heads as i look at that and say you know there's taxes on here and so they've done that but i i know they've done it with me also in our department for food or anything like that so there are times that we do pay taxes they just they just weren't on earth okay um just some some of the big box stores uh home depot menards so on and so forth i saw there was quite a few purchases there and i'm like we can have an opportunity and then i pay taxes there just by putting us on records
005there yeah i'll i'll check out if you could say well i will tell you mr brown that all of our credit cards actually have our tax exempt number on them too uh for some reason yeah so there are there are some that just won't do that you know right and then i know some of them do bring up bring along a texas letter yeah you know and all that so a person that used the credit card it's just that we have an opportunity with a lot of tax taxes paid yes and i think the protocol is you go to the pip that department store or whatever and you you might have to fill out an application and submit your letter on file kind of a registration process yes all the schools and departments have our
006tax exempt certificate certificate and all of that stuff they have all that they can take that okay slowly trying to ingest that what about like our phone bills like sprint you can't do that i did it with my my uh taxes that would come in so yeah those type of services will not they were not taxed but sales tax a lot of those taxes though that are in those type of bills those are federal taxes i'm just talking about sales tax so just look at safety in general i appreciate it and uh there's a purchase or expenditures or invoice by nolan boiler and tank i don't know if you know anything about that we did maintenance on a boiler over there it was like 35 30. over three thousand dollars and i'm just wondering what
007was the scope i could i could find okay that's a big ticket item for a fairly reasonable new almost a reasonable new boiler sure so they just kind of stood out with me okay i'll i'll check it out okay also there was a invoice that someone paid a maurice brown 362.98 thank you look that's just a joke guys this is just gotta break the ice here okay and that is all i have thank you all right can i have a bigger picture question i noticed you're now forecasting a surplus for the year we are we are forecasting a surplus for the year uh which you know we knew and again i think you know mr robert you and i have talked about that the way forecast five is projecting things out and then at some
008point i can share it with the board it's a little more complicated but they use some historical percentages when they forecast that out so we are projecting the surplus right now i uh i could pull it up do you remember what the surplus is right now at least think about this yeah and it seemed like it was driven mainly by higher than budgeted federal revenues yeah and uh i i will share that um we're getting another round of property taxes this month that we normally don't get to from last year already so there's another distribution coming and i know the budgeted amount for in january is a lot less than what we'll be getting so i i think it's good that surplus is going to increase still okay as we go forward so it is
009looking very positive for this year good yeah okay any other questions on the consent agenda okay roll call please brown is an eye hi this is roo i vice president albert uh aye oh oh yeah because i miss saying vice president for the first time yes i do motion carries well thank you okay good thank you okay uh next up under action reports the first item under business this first item first consideration is a parameter resolution for the issuance of the 45.5 million general obligation limited tax school bonds to pay claims against the district and 7.5 million general obligation limited tax school bonds to increase the working cash fund based on the advice of bond council the entire resolution does not have to be read out loud since it was posted as part of tonight's
010agenda in accordance with open meetings act therefore mr brown as secretary of the board of education would you read aloud the title of the resolution yes i will resolution providing for the issue not to exceed 45.5 million dollars in general obligation limited tax school bonds for the purpose of paying claims against the district and not to exceed 7.5 million dollars general obligation limited tax school bonds for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of the district providing for the levy of a direct annual tax to pay the principal and interest on said bonds and authorizing the sale of said bonds to huntington securities inc and blaylock ban llc okay may i have a motion to accept the parameter resolution declaring issuance of the 45.5 million bonds for the purpose of paying claims against the
011community unit school district number 201u will county illinois and 7.5 million bonds for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund second as a summary of the parameters included within the resolution the following pertinent terms are summarized the district has outstanding and unpaid claims in the aggregate of amount of 45.5 million dollars and that the claims are authorized and allowed for school purposes the board has agreed that it is in the best interest of the district the claims be paid from the proceeds of the bonds the claims consist of the outstanding general obligation debt certificates limited tax series 2021 the 7.5 million working cash bonds will be used to increase the working cash fund all bonds are being used to fund the capital projects stated in the short-term facility plan presented by the board of
012education the money will be paid back through installments not to exceed 20 years based on the preceding information do any members have questions or discussion on the resolution being presented so just i think it'd be good for as a reminder to the public um we went through in november our intent to issue the bonds went through the petition period now we're at the point of selecting the underwriter and actually issuing the bonds so uh with no further discussion or questions mr brown we take a roll call vote to approve the resolution as presented yes i will this is galbraith hi dr hall hi brown is the president mr smallish hi vice president rule aye president albert aye motion carries okay the next item um is for consideration is a parameter resolution for the issuance of
01335 million general obligation refunding school bonds for the purpose of refunding certain outstanding bonds of the district based on the advice of bond council the entire resolution does not have to be read allowed since it was posted as part of tonight's agenda in accordance with the open meetings act therefore mr brown is secretary of the board of education will you read aloud the title of the resolution yes resolution providing for the issue of not to exceed 35 million dollars in general obligation refunding school bonds for the purpose of refunding certain outstanding bonds of the district authorizing the execution of an escrow agreement in connection with said refunding providing for the levy of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the principal and interest on said bonds and authorizing the sale of said bonds to huntington
014security inc and bladelock banned llc may i have a motion to accept the parameter resolution declaring the issues of 35 million bonds for the purpose of refunding certain outstanding bonds of community unit school district number 201u will county illinois so as a summary of the parameters included within the resolution the following pertinent terms are summarized the district has current outstanding bonds and debt some of the current outstanding bonds in debt will be refunded to remain to maintain the district's current annual debt payment and lower the annual debt payment in future years based on the proceeding information do any members have questions or discussion on the resolution being presented so again just for the public this action is refinancing existing bonds that the school district has outstanding okay with no further discussion or questions mr brown
015you take a roll call vote to approve the resolution as presented yes brown is an eye miss mrs galbraith dr hall hi mr swallows hi vice president group aye president albert aye the motion carries um next action item um can i get a motion to accept and approve the base bid of six million two hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars in alternate bid number one for sixty six thousand dollars for a total contract amount of six million three hundred ninety five thousand for r.l sohol general contractor of plainfield illinois for the mechanical work in talala elementary and the early in the early learning center should that be yeah i think it's entry in mechanical work in kalawal elementary second any questions or comments yes i have i have one two this this particular contractor that
016we are awarding looking to possibly award this contract to tonight they are familiar with the work and and in our district because they pretty much did some work at dlc as well as a lot right yes that was written up and the question i have i'm not sure if we finished up that punch list if we finished that i didn't quite get that out of the i have been notified that it has been finished so they're preparing the proper paperwork so that they can get a final payment that final payment will come in february for that okay so that's it's all done all finished so work is done all work is done okay and it was the lowest bidder uh with the combined bid right brown is an eye dr hall all right mrs galbert
017hi mr sowalis hi vice president rupert aye president alford aye motion carries the last item under action items tonight is uh can i get a motion to enter into contract with alliant insurance services as the district's employee benefits broker and consultant moved second so ken is this is this replacing metro so yes it's part of our and i shared this with the board back in december as part of our due diligence process we went through an rfq for employee uh benefits broker and consultant we did receive four uh qualifications we interviewed two of them one was vista national who's our incumbent who's our current uh broker and then alliance insurance services now which is uh is almost immediately quite honestly because we'll be starting to work on a renewal if approved tomorrow i already have
018a meeting with them uh online to begin the process and then we're meeting with the insurance committee probably the first week of february with the new broker if the board chooses that okay any other questions well like did you have creative criteria for how you were choosing this or was it price based what was it it's really not price based because and the fee will really remain the same because it's certainly an rfq they're presenting their qualifications based on the scope of service and so uh in the rfq uh i'm just trying to yeah in the board report dr hall i do i do list out the different criteria that we had in there for the scope of services that are needed and so once that happens then you know the committee really a lot
019of it is about building relationships and being comfortable with that broker that i think can take us to the next level when it comes to employee benefits because as we all know employee benefit benefits continue to escalate so our goal is how can we better uh [Music] save money really for the district and for the employee at the same time broker can do that for us okay and actually i think we were looking for somebody that had options that we may want to address right now we're we're kind of we've been in the same bucket i guess you would say and um i think as a member of that committee i was looking for what could they offer the employees that may not be in that bucket anymore because as we know not just employee
020benefits but health insurance anything for anybody is skyrocketing and i think what we're looking for is somebody who would work for us and say this you've been doing this but it may not be the best thing for you take a look at this and see what you think and in that meeting that's the impression i got is that we were going to open the box a little bit and see what else we could offer us a whole lot more options and thoughts i mean they were throwing things out during the interview like this in the district okay questions roll call please brown is designed dr hall aye mr smallish aye mrs galbert aye vice president ruth aye president albert aye motion carries uh next up is personnel and culture can i get a motion to
021approve the personnel let me start over can i get a motion to approve the personnel report including approved certified staff employment leave of absence return from leave of absence and resignation and educational support staff employment leave of absence resignation and retirement any questions on the personnel report okay roll call please dr hall aye mr suamish hi this is galbraith hi brown is and i vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries uh next up is old business anyone president albrecht if i can just answer mr brown's question about the one invoice for nolan uh boiler tank service mr brown was for a boiler the boilers over at the high school uh beat out and welded crack between two left bottom rear end tubes and re-rolled the tubes uh looked like it took some overtime
022so it looks like it was had to be done after hours and all of that because he had to shut down the boilers so it was for the high school boilers and a crack developed you don't know if those are single tank or double tanks so you i don't know that okay i'm just wondering i just don't want to be surprised and we get a big ticket item and a quarter million dollars to replace those so do we have those inspected uh i i believe they have to be respected because by the state about that and then i can put that information every two years okay okay yeah that was a pretty intense uh repair okay thank you yep so i and i just have one item um after the committee hall meeting um mr
023cermak shared with me this uh ratings report that comes from s p on our debt rating and it was affirmed at um an a level which is investment grade but the good news is that they revised our outlook from uh to stable from negative so and they cited i i would share this with all the board members because i think it's it's pretty easy to read and one of the things they cited was our strong reserves which you know our action that we took last fall to strengthen our reserve position was definitely looked as a positive and i don't see it in here now but i'm sure i read that one kind of the negatives is something we have to keep an eye on is just that our um wages were increasing faster than our
024revenues so it's kind of a point that we're going to have to keep an eye on something and i think that was shared with us i just read it wasn't it was it i think i put it in the fyi did you put it in the fyi okay because i i misread it at first and i thought we went from stable to negative and i was like no so no and i i just said i was like i don't think he gave the report but he told us okay oh okay i don't share the report though yeah i think it'd be okay i think sure it's uh thank you for confirming that and i was surprised i thought the district's ratings would be just pegged off of what stages you know so is [Music] again
025as long as we continue the same trend which which i you know look to do so right so yeah so so real quick on that so isn't january 1st minimum wage change again i believe it does so that affected us it won't affect us this year actually because when when we did our budgeting and actually all of our employees are above that right now um so it really doesn't affect us at all it starts hurting us at some point we talked about that a year and a half ago or a year so it'll start affecting us you know now that we go into we'll go into negotiations acne when you talk about starting wages of some of our classified staff is what it does and because some of them are an hourly rate so it'll
026affect that so those are things that mr neil and i are looking at as we go into negotiations and start talking about that yes okay any other old business any new business i guess it kind of falls in a little bit of old business that was being talked about here it looked like a cpi is like up the roof seven seven point seven percent thereabout and we're going to have to first time i ever seen this cap cap at five percent in a long time i think in a long time yes yes so how do we prepare you know we're looking to do with the borrowing tonight approving the borrower you know far the facility works and all of that and we're looking to kind of draft our refinancing to the point where we can
027lower the debt from 12 million to 10 million something to that ballpark but it looks like that we may end up taking back so we just got a talk and we got a whole year before our next 11 period let's say if we're looking to take the whole five percent increase so i i think it just lends itself to start talking early on that can well here's what i will say and dr karen and i were having this conversation today in that we we are in a pretty good position and here's why right i do agree that it's a seven percent increase in cpi yeah and you know uh our cap is five percent right now that told now and please bear with me i'm just going to give you some rough numbers off the
028top of my head so i can just kind of show that you know that amount is approximately two and a half two point seven five million dollars you know that five percent sure in as a levy sure however remember we talked about this property tax relief grant right and if we get that next year i don't think we'll get it this year but you know because we're down the list but i we can get it next year that amount is about 4.1 million dollars so that 4.1 million dollars we could update back to the taxpayer and in essence they're going to gain money on that and and their bill will either stay the same or even go down a little bit now a little bit maybe a couple dollars but it'll go down a little
029bit because we're actually gonna we would only gain two and a half million but we would abate 4.1 million so so so there's some effect there and everything so again we we are going into a good situation dr karen and i talked as i start preparing the numbers for next year whether that be july or august i'll be sharing that with the board you know and that and letting them know what my projections look like when we go in and we start looking at that from a abatement standpoint and all that and how that would affect the taxpayer okay so we're in a pretty good position i i wouldn't panic yet no but one other component and you know if everything is played equal you know and the assessments of these homes are going to
030go up as well so that being said that's going to affect you know a certain percentage of a home being assessed at a higher value equates to higher taxes as well well we we just and we ourselves has really very little to do with that but that's not how the taxpayer sees it sure you know we do not have anything to do with assessing a property yeah again i think the way the district looks at it is the amount of dollars that that is the way to kind of look at it because even though excuse me even though property values go up right i can't bring in any more money right over five percent that's correct so again it has a lot has to do with the tax rate and all of those things so
031again i i the district is in a good spot it it really is and you know if it was in a bad spot i'd let you know it's in the best spot no we don't want to know but but it really isn't a good spot as we move forward so come july or august i'll be having those conversations with the board and then sharing with the public you know at least how that projection looks but i i think i think we'll be okay you know that would i love to update more money yes i would love to admit more for sure i would i would never recommend not to balloon you know unless it really really harms the taxpayers um but again we'll have those discussions i think the other discussion we're going to have
032come fall to show the board is we're going to start talking about tips and tips rolling off and how that effect is going to be on the district because that'll have another major effect on the district so i you know if i could say this in a positive way in a positive way in a very positive way and so the stars are kind of aligning here as we move forward and it doesn't mean that uh you know and i'll pick on lyle because he's not here but it doesn't mean him and i haven't had discussions too about looking at stephanie you know dr karen knight that's how we all we do have having conversations about staffing getting more efficient all that so it doesn't mean we have to go that route but again i think
033the stars are aligned and well i think the one big project that's going to be hanging out there that we're going to want to talk about and even though dr hall is here i'm going to mention it is the athletic facilities and i know that and so you know where does that fit in the equation so i think starting july and august we'll start having those conversations they're on my mind like they are here's when i saw cpi jump to seven percent i think there's gonna be one more year of it so and again i don't believe and you should not negotiate in public but we do have contracts negotiation coming up right and that has always been a major component in negotiating is the cpi in some way shape or form so and the
034last time i saw what a cpi was was close to this was in 2000 this actually before i got on the board just something to think about you know right now as opposed to later and negotiating was based on that cpi and then the cpi we enter a contract again i wasn't on the board at the time the district the board entered into a contract with the teachers union and it was over a good amount of years and then cpi went right back down right right but the district was locked in that price so just something to think about for okay sure thank you all right and oh i'm sorry okay um for my new business it's in regards to the email the social media oh that was mine so i was gonna say that
035too but go ahead well i guess i wanted to um ask what has what was the process for trying to find out who the student is because this looks like a less than a day's work for me to find out who the student is and i'm looking at who the followers are and i see the different racial undertones like the preaching tones and the cotton pickers and things of that nature this is like for me less than a day's work and this this to me should have been found out so this was shared with the the building administration uh when we received it and they did take a look at it and they were trying to determine who it was they were not able to so we are continuing to try to find out they
036are doing things internally as well to try to address this as a system the deans are going into classrooms discussing these kinds of things as a whole group you know sometimes students will come forward to give information so that makes it a little bit easier to address but i do know the district as well as the uh the building is heavily frowned on this type of behavior and uh you know we're working to try to do what we can to correct this we have reached out to the uh the carrier of the accounts numerous times in fact several of our administrators have reached out numerous times and there has been no response typically when you go to make these types of reports they usually do their due diligence and will take them down they have
037they have not done that and i get that part yeah i'm just saying both offense yeah i'm sorry it has to be done at both ends right yeah because i'm like looking at how many people follow this page this to me for me would have been less than a day's work and i would have found out who had this paint job doctor how can i ask you a question about that yes how do you like i just read the email and i am i'm ignorant to instagram i don't understand how it works i don't want to understand so can anybody how do you find that i mean how did you know what you were looking for and where to go well i was sent the actual page so i that's how somebody told you right
038at the extra pace i know the actual page okay but in essence we didn't know that no no this isn't for you you wouldn't know this all right i'm referring more to because i really am not into snapchat and all that stuff i don't understand right so i thought i missed something and that's why i was asking you yeah no you didn't i'm more referring to at the school level um like looking at this looking at how you look at followers and talking to kids um and that to me because this is part of just building those relationships with students if you have a good relationship with students this this is this is easy work right this should have been found out so we can i'll go back with the uh the building to find
039out where they're at with their investigation but last time we had talked about it they were they didn't know who it was and we're beginning to try to look at that to determine that so i'll follow up with them tomorrow okay because for me it starts to make like that they really care but that's how i'm looking at it um but they didn't put that because i'm looking at this like this others were reported as a possible hate crime yeah so i i we have we as far as um communicating with instagram we've tried a bunch of different uh ways what one thing did learn is no matter what they do they're not going to let you know that they did it right so there's no response they just don't if they if yeah correct
040if they do do something they're just going to do it but they're not going to call you back and say oh by the way or look into this um but i did i have and continue to have communication with the police department on this as limited as maybe uh but i i do believe there's one or two that would qualify under that and i guess that's not even the the issue the point that i'm making i'm making this the student or students who put this up who are having fun with this they should have been found out because i see something here about january 7th or whatever um i think that's what i read that would have that's just building relationships talking to students dude somebody will say something and i mean well the one
041thing you want you don't put anybody on the spot and have them with groups of students to ask these questions but it's a hunt there's 148 followers 148 followers i'm sure the number of them attend greek only high school looking on there and figuring out whose instagram page is whose and who put what up and he started talking interviewing students this could have been and maybe we're trying to look at this and too broad and say hey this is is this a hate crime is this and i was trying to get the police involved instead of going to the people who know that they're working from network small but i just i'm disappointed that it's posted as i'm sure um everybody would be anybody would be but at the same time i'm probably more disappointed
042that is still they still haven't found the stupid and i'm like this is just more students could be more than you know and then i started looking at all of the pages and it's not just about the pattern pickers when i see the ching chongs and then the other thing that's i mean the cotton pickers had probably the most pictures of course but it's just you know well like i said i'll be fine with the building tomorrow to see where they're at in the investigation okay and i'm sure mr seamson will be involved with that as well yes yeah uh have you the district been contacted by any parent anything regarding this that that is actually how we became aware of it okay that's i think everybody knowing the nature of what's going on here
043that is not our vice president read our mission statement and our core values is not indicative of what's being publicized out there by allegedly our students and everybody should be upset and looking for some type of fix and some type of corrective action to prevent this from reoccurring again the condition is so adverse it's deployable and we can't does the district accept this okay i couldn't agree with you more and i does say that we have more work to do to get this on uh directly um to adjust how our students are thinking students sometimes don't realize their words and what they're doing they think they think it's funny but this is not and this is i don't know again i don't want to get into these kids not knowing then they're just kids i
044hope we don't go down that road but i think this is a this is a teachable moment i agree for the district in my opinion the district is the public and everyone that feeds into this district in some some manner so we've been down this road a little bit before but nothing to the magnitude that i was witnesses to see you know i mean as a mother or father or one of those kids i would be highly upset i'm i'm upset and i know none of the kids that has been victimized on their social media like they have i said this is unacceptable so if i could uh president i just want to have one more thing regarding new business i talked to dr cosmanese over the weekend regarding somewhat disappointing on how the district
045was was socializing martin luther king's birthday i went to all of the schools over the weekend just looked at their marquee and some schools were communicating the holiday of martin luther king some some were not i even noticed again this doesn't have anything to do with us but the villages themselves a couple villages and nothing about martin luther king's birthday so the doctor congratulations surely that they already had a plan to broadcast the holiday on our social media and our district webpage which he did i appreciate it and she communicated with our director of community curriculum again gentile appreciate that and our director of communication natalie nash so i think again it lends itself for a little bit more rigor i know the empathy may not be there again i'm not going to say how
046bill or janine or nelson and vice president brookfield as opposed to how dr hall and myself feel but it is it is something that's very meaningful to me and we don't have to have a parade about dr martin luther king and again i shared some personal things to dr kagunis about how i felt about martin luther king's birthday so i think again this is a teachable moment for our kids to understand what martin luther king did what his legacy meant and here we are you know our kids is doing things that if they really understood what he represented they probably would not have invoked in such behavior so there it is thank you okay thank you any other new business i have a question for mr cirma um going over the fyi again i believe
047there was a statement that you hope to get the soil tests the week of january 10th it's the 18th that we heard anything i have i have received them uh i've received a copy of them actually they've gone to the architect and so now we're asking for the interpretation of that because i didn't do very well in chemistry to be honest with him so uh it's about three or four pages of soil samples and everything so we're getting the interpretation of that of what that means uh and then once i get those i'll report those back to the board and yeah they weren't like any red flashing i didn't really see anything i i but again i i don't know what i'm looking at to be honest with you and again this is soil samples
048from under the underground tank in front of the sixth grade yes yes so once i have that up i'll get that out okay i was just wondering if it if it appeared because they're pretty close to that area yes it has appeared so we have it and i'll i'll follow up with the architect again tomorrow or the next day too okay thank you okay any other new business okay we have no need for closed session tonight can i get a motion to adjourn moved second all in favor say aye