001the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all is 6 o' I'm calling the March 3rd 2025 project hearing calling order purp hearing uh the next item on agenda is for the board to hold a project hearing on the proposed project if you are interested in speaking at the hearing please make sure you have signed the sign in sheet at the back of the room which which should include in your name and address after a presentation by Administration and its advisers will be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the project at the hearing we will ask that each person limit their comments to 3 minutes and the the top topic is limited to the proposed projects under consideration notices
002of this hearing was published as legally required at this time I'll ask the bong Council to explain the purpose of this hearing hi good evening my name is Kristen mclen I'm from Ice Miller um under Indiana code anytime a school corporation wishes to spend more than a million dollars on a specific building it must first hold a public hearing that sets forth the maximum amount to be borrowed for each project and that's why we're here tonight so I'm going to ask and we will know now hear from our superintendent about the process of determining and communicating the projects community and the needs of the projects yeah thank you um we have uh two projects that that we are proposing in the resolutions tonight um one of them is the building or resolution a which is
003the back uh projects with Van veren um and then to complete the HVAC projects at the high school so I think 2021 when we did the high school bond project um we did the majority of the high school building what we did not do was the science wing and the main gy the ox gy and the weight room um and so when we are are looking at our priority list um obviously van be has risen to the top of all of those priorities it is a very dated system um and they they are having and have had multiple issues with that HVAC system at vanir and um and we have decided to also take care of the science Wing um and the gyms and the weit room at the high school to complete that HVAC
004project as well um resolution B is an athletic um site project or improve athletic improvements um we have not done any upgrades to our athletic facilities in um quite some time we noticed that our football field is in pretty poor shape and um needed to be addressed at the same time our track needs at a minimum resurfacing um it may need replaced if they get in there and find out that it needs replaced um we also only have one restroom that is at one end at the school end of the property um which is has limited restrooms for the public to use we would like to be able to expand that opportunity and build another restroom um and add on a locker room and a concession stand so we could repurpose the current concession stand
005um we would like to upgrade our our lights to LED um for efficiency and then we have a scoreboard that could use a little TLC um so we're also looking at the scoreboard in that project we have communicated with the public um the last uh three board meetings um on the last board meeting we had uh Performance Services um give us a scope of a general scope and range of both of those projects um we also had ice Miller our bond Council here to talk about the process and um we had Ste here um to talk about financial impact for the district we will now hear from steel Nicholas Company Incorporated um about how the pro proposed projects will be financed as well as information about the effect of the typical property tax code hello
006good evening Lous people uh we serve as Bond underwriter for the school corporation this presentation is going to look extremely familiar uh extremely similar to the the presentation from a couple weeks ago no real changes from what we talked about a couple weeks ago please stop me point with questions so the first slide here is just the school corporation outstanding debt you can see from 2024 to 2025 you had some debt retire um you'll have some additional debt fall off in 2026 and then one final payment on the 2023 Geo bond in 2027 at that point the only bonds that will be outstanding are the 2014 bonds which we're actually looking to refinance and we'll talk about that here in a second as well so this slide shows the school corporation's current uh tax rate
007components that make that up in Gray is the operations Fund in red is the operating referendum for 10 cents and then in blue is The Debt Service rate and that corresponds to The Debt Service payments that was that were on the prior charts over the last couple years in 2023 and 24 the school corporations maintained a total tax rate of 5787 2025 and get to just below uh 52 cents and our goal was structuring the these Bond issues of this project is to make sure we're staying at or below that 5787 that Brown County Schools have been at to work so first is the building project the hard and saw construction cost of 6 million that matches the highend of what Performance Services showed at the board meeting a couple weeks ago we also have
008cons uh cost of issuance in there of 165,000 so a total borrowing of 6,165 and then in light blue is the site project layered on there uh the highend there from from that uh presentation a couple weeks ago was 650,000 again cost of issuance of 165,000 for a total bond issue of 6, 215,000 you'll see that again like I said the goal is to make sure we're maintaining that 5787 total tax rate but also leaving capacity in the future knowing that this is not going to take care of all your needs for the next 20 years there's always on needs uh for a school corporation so you'll see that you have some capacity again beginning in 2028 if you so desire to to do that and these are just preliminary estimates on where the tax
009rate could be we can shorten that payment up uh if needed but this just gives you an idea to make sure that we're staying at that uh total tax rate goal but also leaving some capacity for the future so the legal parameters uh this will be what's in the resolution the first three slides are we just walked through the total borrowing amount then broken down between cost of issuance and hard project costs estimated interest rates of 2 to 6% I'm sure if you pay attention to the news it's been pretty volatile in the market recently uh so if you sold the bonds today you're at about three and a half to 4% uh rate currently and then the final maturity of January 15 2036 that is the maximum that we're that we're setting up these
010resolutions for you saw in the previous chart is actually a 10year term you we're trying to make sure we're protecting the school corporation and putting in conservative estimates uh for these for these maximums and then the last two slides you'll see there the one on the bottom is the net tax rate increase over the 2023 and 24 rate of 5787 that is zero and then the one right above that is the net tax rate increase over the 25 rate which again that dipped a little bit in 2025 the goal is to go back up to that 0 5787 so it would be an increase of just under 6 compared to the 25 lastly is the refunding analysis for the 2014 bonds this is just a simple refinancing of your outstanding debt there are there there
011is a $3,545 th000 of outstanding principal on those bonds their final maturity of Jan 1535 so about 10 years left uh the average interest rate on that is just under 4% if we sold the bonds today we have a 31 6% so even after factoring in uh professional fees cost of issuance that gets you to Savings of about 75,000 so I think it's next meeting that will actually be authorized action be taken on this U but again they just want to bring that up again make sure that that it's on your radar if interest rates decrease that means savings goes up for the school just like you would if if so that that's all that I have on the project and happy to answer any questions a question for you l and this may not
012be something that the blue bars um that particular Bond do you know what projects that covered out of curiosity know chance 2014 B I'm guessing it's the change the gym and the wrestling room do that sound we'd have to go back and and look um that actually I know that I I student taught in that building in 2014 and so that's why I believe that gym was finished at that time I can find the paperwork it was just one of those curiosity questions so sorry that's the only reason I can tell you what you is that was before I was even thinking about we will now open the public hearing remember if you would like to speak please sign in and the sheet will be located back there as I mentioned earlier we'll ask you
013to state your name and address limited comments propos projects and financing keep any comments to three minutes and avoid being repetitive as possible may I have the I've got them Mr Lewis Jo 679 or 46 IND um duh you said a couple weeks ago that you had issues with the marbles going down the creek I have more issue with the chemicals we're putting on that field that field is not engineered to be a football field it's a field all those chemicals that we put on the this year I think wor over 300 gallons of chemicals just to try and do something field I feel worse about putting that into the Creed than I do about putting Mar into it the turf marbles I'm sorry um what's the bigger threats for our community that or the
014marbles um many the community many in the community have expressed issues with taxes associated with this advancement the taxes do not go up but with this impairment allows our most us to host athletic tournaments ban Color Guard activities semi football games other among other outside items that I have not in my vision but those are all things that I know we have not been able to host because we did not use the field which brings us to my next there have been many comments about how great the field used to be the reason it was so good is because we couldn't use it we were told we couldn't have athletic activities on that field we couldn't have outside activities on that field we couldn't have practices on that field that's why it looked Immaculate every
015year I for one was told numerous times we could not do this we could not do this we can't do anything with that because it was not accessible yeah it's going to look imaculate if you don't use it um the field will need some significant work significant work either way whether we do it to improve the field or we just bring it up to some kind of standard that's healthy why not go to the next level and do what we need to do um this field will be accessible to all for our community and upgraded Tech allows our uh community members to have the ability to walk run jog on the facility that's much better on the joints what we have currently is not um the field becomes a safe location for all available ages
016marching band soccer football lacrosse field hockey whatever it's all up open um the upgrades in lighting will lower the cost of oper ation while also giving the community the school the opportunity to set the mood for the stadium imagine setting finishing off Fourth of July fireworks with red white and blue lights instead of just the white lights or if we're getting behind our community blue and yellow on our field to support whatever activity we're doing um upgrading the locker room concessions restroom are gives everyone an opportunity to do more we currently have to walk 200t to get our pad supplies s seconds we need to upgrade we need to be ADA Compliant we need to do everything everything it needs to be um everything is with your control and I believe that you're going to
017choose the right thank you thank you thank you Mr B I didn't bring a bunch of notes but I got you I really just wanted to come and speak not so much about the Fe because the field you guys have a decision that's a great decision it'll help our community in many ways I want to kind of dis funct the fact the theory that football might not be a supportting program in our Corporation for the foreseeable future you know and I've worked at really small schools that had football I've worked at bigger schools that had football football's thriving in this community it has a buzz like no other and I'm not I'm not pointing fingers at people in the past but thing that probably just hasn't had enough support of is just people taking the
018right approach to give kids that opportunity to see what the sport of football will do I've coached it my whole life so I'm biased to what the benefits are but it is the by far the best team sport that that can Galvanize a group of young men and women a big group of kids that can come together whether you're winning or losing in football the joys that you have are so much more rewarded when you've just had a fellowship each other I've been to every school the last week and promoted some football camps that I have coming up and I can't tell you how many kids were just that buzzed and that excited about coming and doing something different so as a football coach my Approach is a lot different than maybe others have been
019and I really feel like when our program um we start back up in this next fall and our opportunities come for kids we're going to have a lot of kids joining this program that hasn't been that way May in the past for whatever reasons but all I can control is where we are in our current situation and you know as I said before football will be the sport but this this field will give so many more kids in our community an opportunity to do something that they haven't had that much interest in doing whether it is football whether it's soccer whether it's any other kind of extracurricular activity you know I I I'm excited about this opportunity just to use it for our physical education classes you know you know where I yes we were
020stuck in the waight room a lot of our time but we can go out and do excuse me some more things on an allpurpose field that doesn't just hone in on one specific thing so that was the real reason I wanted to speak was that the football program is thriving it is going to even see much more success than what we've had this year I'm not a guy that looks at wins and losses as determining whether or not your season's successful I look at numbers and I look at enthusiasm and there's really a lot of Avenue we are just now changing our youth league so we're going and play in a completely different new Youth League that we really think kids are going to be successful in parents are going to buy into what we're
021doing with our youth league and ultimately we going to give ourselves a better chance to be successful turfield will be great to do that he'll sell it to the other communities that want to come and see what kind of things that we can bu kids so that's all I ask you know the the saying I had was in fill of dreams they say you build it they will come I believe if you build it they will stay and kids won't be leaving our school nearly as often as they have been for the reason that we've took a of Pride and thank you thank you Mr thank you Mr gab uh first of all thank you the board for allowing this project to come this far listening to comments from the public um Brian Gabriel a
022former student alumni from Brown County uh former football coach football player even the marching band as well um so uh back in the dark days of 2002 one of the projects we actually completed was the we room so date myself but if you remember that 2002 we were making the first investment in our athletic facilities to create Buzz around our programs um I think the football field would be a very positive thing again the turf field we should call it generica because it's not just for football but for other events Sports marching band um so really I wanted to come and voice my support um my wife and I are lifetime residents of Brown County always will be um and really just I'm encouraged to see the continued investments in our community our kids facilities
023and schools I was very fortunate to be at Brown County alumni go to a great College and I feel like Brown County really set me off on a good path to do that so I'm here very passionate about what you all are considering doing with the field just to give opportunities as coach Bell said to you know students looking for that place to fit in whether it's football soccer band anything like that so I'll keep it short but thank you for your time and allowing us to speak and uh fully support the field and hope you will proceed today so thank you very much thank you uh John tan uh 2357 Grandma Barnes Road um this my goal here tonight to join in the excitement for this potential athletic project um I wanted to share
024my perspective as a Brown County uh youth basketball and soccer coach um this Athletic Facility investment IFI this community and I think that's that alone is amazing right and while opinions have differed uh this project has ignited The Passion of the community parents coaches uh board members and administrators and that's where a successful program starts as passion and that's how you maintain a successful program um through this it has prompted the formation of athletic steering uh committee Emily thank you for doing that I think that that is important um it is my hope that the current Athletic Facility project and the renewed Community passion will lead to more strategic long-term planning for our Kade through 12 athletic programs and less silent decision making uh it will lead to datadriven decisions to retain and attract student
025athletes also I My Hope Is that through this we will um understand how to Future proof our Capital Investments and limit our liabilities well I'm here today advocating that we approve this funding I also have some concerns with the current project plan um the need to align our capital investment with our operational capacity for the current the current Turf project to increase the maintenance complexity with an operation that is already struggling um the potential for flooding frequency and the inability to secure warranties or insurance I believe puts the future of further athletic Investments at risk with a very high potential for unplanned costs in replacing the turf field um furthermore I think it is important to make this note um I thought it was it's good that we're looking at other sports like lacrosse and
026soccer soccer is the most popular team sport in Brown in among Brown County youths right now and it is worth noting that the current footprint of our track is very narrow if you compare Indian Creek Seymour Bloomington and Columbus only two of those schools share soccer and football on the same field it's Columbus East and indan Creek and both of those tracks are 20 to 35 ft wider than our current track so I think it would be important if we're making this level of investment to plan for the future plan for our our soccer um thank you thank you thank you Mr Sher how's it going how are you I didn't type anything so we're just going to wing it um my name is Brian Sher 6210 State 46 East um I come here um
027I've been in charge and ran the youth football program for the last six years I've also have helped John coach basketball over the years I've coached soccer I've coached uh girls volleyball last year so name it I pretty well coached it in this community so um but I guess my point uh where I want to come to is is twofold um one over the last couple years particularly last year um during youth football we traveled all over the place Edinburgh Columbus and E Creek last year my what we call the senior team or The A Team when we went to Columbus there was four sixth graders that Liv in Brown County that were playing on that team when we went to Indian Creek there was six Brown County Citizens that were playing on that team
028and I know there is a financial attachment to each student when they leave this community and I know that that Financial attachment goes to that other school district when they do leave this community and I know um my friend my my children's friends have all had students leave and they're leaving for athletics and you whether you approve this or not um I'm here to tell you that the School Board needs to take a stance do you have to invest in in athletics or you're going to continue to lose students I've seen it I've coached for the last eight years and I have seen my kids have lost probably 20 friends across my three kids that have all left and they have left specifically for athletics no other reasons they they've moved from this community and
029some of them still live in this community and they take their kids else um the second thing I was going to bring up is they talked about the maintenance part of of the field last year there were holes throughout that field throughout that field and quite frankly I'm shocked that the school has not been sued for someone breaking not necessar one of our kids although it could happen another opposing team you know we would when doing intros we would have parents stand in different spots so none of our kids would run through there and break their ankles before the game and Mrs boink would attest to that because she's one of the parents that stood there um so I know that the field is is atrocious I mean we we travel we played on seven
030different fields last year Brown County is not now the only School in that League that did not does not have a tur field um and because of that we W unable to host playoffs stuff like that which is all a way to generate money not only for your school corporation but your Community as a whole that brings in tourism that brings in so forth so on so thank you for your time and um like I said I just want to see an investment in in the community as a whole but the students themselves thank you thank you uh anybody else didn't fill out a piece of paper you're supposed to fill one of these out if you want to talk okay I would like to thank everybody that participated in the hearing we appreciate your
031time and from the projects in the future of our community please note that this is just the first step in the legal process the board will continue to work with the administration and its professionals to look for efficiencies to conserve tax dollars while meeting educational needs sorry um you will have several resolutions to Comm tonight um the first resolution is the project resolution which again we talked about at the beginning anytime a school proposes to spend more than a million dollars it must first hold this project hearing so the first resolution is the project resolution that is approving um the buildings project can I have a motion to approve the project resolution for building project I just want to reiterate again that any decision that's made here tonight is going after the bond money correct
032not specifics of the detail projects so the approvals tonight will give you the ability to issue the bonds if you so choose okay I make a motion I'll second any discussion V duck yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes jice yes the second resolution you have in your packet is the project resolution for the site project again contains the maximums um for the borrowing and again it is because we're spending more than a million dollars on this project do I have a motion for the project resolution for the site project move to adopt the resolution for the site project second second vote discussion oh discussion my bad vote D yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes jise yes the next resolution you have is um what's called a reimbursement resolution this is required under federal
033law and what it does is it gives um the school corporation the ability to pay for initial upfront fees before the bonds are issued from your operations or rainy day fund and then once the bonds are issued that you can then reimburse those funds but you have to have this in in order to reimburse can I have a motion to accept the reimbursement resolution I move to adopt the reimbursement resolution any discussion any discussion let's vot Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes am yes yes and this will be the of the project hearing 29 now I'd like to call to order 629 the regular Board of school trustees public session before we do that I just want to thank all of you for coming and being engaged um I really respect all the coaches and
034telling us what you think and you know I I don't play on the field so I really appreciate all the information I I appreciate having kids here that's awesome seeing the process work so um I we've heard lots of we've so many people about this and I just I have to agree that I think that it's really kind of unified folks we're talking about things we're talking about what we should do and I'm just really excited about the future so thank you all yeah I I would just add that um John I appreciate your your words I I think it is a blessing that everybody has come and and and come out right to in unity um I I do think this athletic Ambassador uh steering committee whatever we want to call it is going
035to be a really great thing um a lot of people have expressed interest in it um again it's not an exclusive group so any of you know somebody that would love to be a part of it um believe they would be a great addition to that team please just reach out to me um I I I just think it's it is the Silver Lining it's a blessing that's come out of all of this so I appreciate that yeah I'm excited about where we go from here so again I do think that's really kind of started the the ball rolling on on what the options are and what we what we can do in the future so we're excited now I'm going to officially call to order thank you all for coming okay someone is Tak
036[Laughter] do we have any modifications to the agenda uh we do we have a consent agenda item personnel and it is the transfer um helmsburg elementary school special education par professional Le dinor to helmsburg elementary school general education teacher that's effective February 27th 2025 do I have a motion to accept so discussion yes Carol yes Vicky yes yes do we have any recognition of visitors motion carries my we have any recognition visitors comments from the audience don't have any discussion items and I have a motion to approve the minutes of February we don't have a presentation we have any discussions can I have a motion to approve the minutes of February 18th move to approve minutes from February 18th any discussion V Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes yes needed item the recation
037to approve out ofate F trip history Club to St Louis March 21st through the 23rd 2025 do I have a motion to accept I move that we accept the out of state field trip to St L I'll second discussion what are we going to St Louis for what's not to I don't know what the arch the're to city museum museum Des by arit and then we're going to Forest Park where there's I don't know six different museums Museum of History to an aquarium to all kinds of things you getting the zoo yes the zoo that you yes the zoo all kinds things options any more discussion dou yes yes Vicky yes Amy yes yes I have the recommendation to approve a donation the amount of $17 from County Board of realators for homb elementary for
038which for students to approve the amount of to second second any discussion thank you yes v d yes Carol yes Vicky yes am yes J yes motion carries I have the recommendation to approve the donation in amount of $1 15142 from Supply account approve donation of 15142 second second any discussion yeah than we love Kroger yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes jice yes motion Carri recommendation for Emily Tracy to attend Ted 2025 and Vancouver April 7th through the 11th do I have a motion to accept yes do second any discussion yeah this is um these were funds that were left over from the 3E Grant so I just want you to know those were Grant funds any more discussion dou yes yes Vicky yes yes yes motion carries I the recommendation for Trac The
039Academy of Arts commission for opportunities After High School in Boston April 14th 15 2025 do I have a motion to accept Mo to approve second any discussion yeah this is also being paid for by the Academy of Arts and Sciences um if you remember I was invited to be a part of this commission for opportunities After High School um it is a national platform and Incredibly grateful and honored to to be a part of that but the academy is paying for this not our County Schools any more discussion vote do yes car yes Vicky yes Amy yes yes motion carries the ECA positions for the 2425 school year at Brown County High School the junior class sponsors rer Jenny Bowen and Betsy Harman it will be split equally between we also have the ELA academic
040coach Cassie pus and the Fine Arts academic coach J F do I have a motion to accept so any discussion extracurricular activities any more discussion do yes Carol yes Vicki yes yes jice yes and then I just have the consent agenda items with Personnel starting with the separation of Brown County High School second sh custodian Steve Steve Bernard effed February 26 2025 through the transfer of helmsburg elementary school special education care professional Le dinmore to helmsburg Elementary School general education teacher effective February 27 2025 we have a motion to accept I move to accept second discuss vote Doug yes Carol yes Vicki yes Amy yes J yes superintendent's report yeah I will keep it short tonight I I just want from my whole heart and soul to thank the board um for the support with
041moving forward with these two projects I know the the HVAC isn't always as fun to to work through or to look at and and those are things that absolutely have to be done um but the the athletic site improvements is very exciting and I think the projects that that are recommended or propos um are exactly what we need to be able to to get some excitement back just like Mr Tan said um so I can't thank you enough for support of of both and all of the recommendations that I have put through um we will on March 17th there will be some resolutions that you will approve that are just legal steps to issuing the bonds um when we get down the road of of really developing these projects um we will continue to use
042Performance Services for all of the hbac projects because it is part of the guaranteed Energy savings contract they know our system inside and out um in all of our buildings um it it makes the most um sense to use them for the HVAC projects we we are required as a school district to put out the athletic site projects um for request for qualifications and we'll go through the design build process um which means we'll we'll put out the scope of projects that we have um we have to legally hire a design criteria um Personnel for this and they will help take us through this request for qualifications process so they'll push that out they'll get all of the bids in for those um they will walk us through um and try to narrow that down
043by the the most qualified uh companies that they believe would do best for us um and then we choose a a company um like performance Services uh could be Performance Services it could be somebody completely different but it is that type of company and um and then we'll take it out for the RFP um and go through those phases so that that will be the next steps towards that um so I just wanted to give an update on that um I I want to I'm so proud of the high school and Mr shoman and Mrs Roberts we held the they held the um incoming ninth grade information night and um I think what we've got 140 kids in the eth grade class is that right 130 um we had 100 kids here with their families
044um this is my fourth year here at Brown County and I have never seen that night um like it was and and that is attributed to the intentional planning for that communication and and um thank you so so much and well done I heard from an eighth grade parent like was super excited about everything that was to offer that night so great job um we have I read three going on this week um across our three elementaries so all of our second graders and all of our third graders take that test um this is the test that they have to pass or they will be held back in third grade we do give it to our second graders um if they pass it as a second they do not have to take it as a
045third grader um we will be offering um Summer School uh for any of the students who do not pass um and they'll have another opportunity to take that at the end of the school year right at the beginning of summer so we will keep you updated on that but please send Good Vibes to everybody that is involved with Irene um Everybody uh and and then um the calendars I just wanted to give a quick update we had talked about um adding professional days professional development days for the staff members um to the next two academic school calendars um and sent out a survey uh if if people they wanted to do just two days three days or four days if we chose four days we would have to add another student day in um and
046and just wanted to get some feedback across the whole District so we have made a decision that we will go with three professional development days um they will be the two election days that we already we have where kids are not here in session and then we will use uh the February uh which has typically or historically been the weather makeup day it won't be a weather makeup day anymore kids just will not be here on that February day but our staff will be here and we will be able to provide professional development um across the district so um excited about that um and I will bring that formal calendar to the board on March 17th so you can approve the changes formally and then we will communicate with all of our families um but
047I will go ahead and and give an update to our our staff and then I'll just wish a very much welld deserved spring break next week um I think think a lot of people are ready so thank you thank you legislative update yeah so you might have heard legislative session is in in full swing um we just I don't I follow this way too closely so um if you don't um we have a four Monon long session going on right now we have finished the first two months the last week legislators took a vacation and today they started back in the second half of legislative session what that means is that each house passes their own bills and now they've passed them and now they go to the other house and they consider the other
048houses bills so you'll see the house considering bills that have Senate bill number and the house will be cons the Senate will be considering bills to have a house bill number uh the good part of that is some of those bills there were 1,200 over 1,200 bills that started out in the legislative session and lots of them died so now we can actually put a microscope on the ones that have passed um really concentrate on the ones that are likely to become law and try to determine whether we support or oppose those um unfortunately an education um we're often at odds with the Indiana legislature because they are often trying to in some ways micromanage there a couple of bills about like what we should teach exactly which really is the purview of school board
049we're always trying to tell them that's local control that's what we're here for um but the biggest ones of course are funding um that comes a number of different categories and the hard part of this session is that there's a the governor put out a budget house put out a budget and the Senate put out a budget and now we talk about it and they're all different but it will be the last week of April in which um they will um get a forecast of how much revenue they'll have next year and then they will go into a conference committee and they'll come out with some Bill that we have no idea what it will look like so we can talk to them all we want to right now but it it's still kind of
050theoretical until that last week of April but that is when advocacy really hits is that you know you've really got to make sure we're letting our legislators know what your opinions are um as that affects Brown County bringing that down to our level um it there are a number of cuts that are proposed um that would reduce property taxes now as a property tax payer that sounds really great but always remembering that that money is coming from somewhere and it's going to come from schools um also that the uh legislature loves charter schools and vouchers they're probably going to pass univers vouchers meaning that um anybody of any income can go to private school using taxpayer money um and supporting charter schools which I I'm actually a proponent of of school choice in a lot
051of ways however what that has done is that takes millions and millions of dollars and puts it over in those private education buckets and that's money that no longer is coming to us as public schools where over you know 90% of kids go school so um one of the things that we're just if you ever talking to anybody you want to Advocate at the legislature for Brian County Schools what can I do um we have two legislators who you know there are people that's Eric cook who's our Senator and Dave hul who's our representative and it's important that you write them an email give them a call send them a postcard whatever it is and say I support Brown County Schools uh I think Brown County Schools needs more money I think Public Schools need
052more money uh I think they need to hear that um from many many people not just from a couple of us but from everybody to say you know we're really unhappy about that um one of the big things that I'm concerned about is one of the bills does in a referenda which we did last year would require a one-year wait between the time of referenda ends in the time you can ask for another one well we had that but and it wasn't fun as we all know because we have a year and a half in which we did not have referendum funding that pays for staff salaries it's not something you want to go up and down um and then also for the general bonds just as we just approved they want to also have
053a year Gap so right now we're money rolls off we borrow more money we keep our tax rate even um there are some proposals that then would make us wait a year before we would even be able to engage in this so this is one reason we're in a big hurry we want to make sure we get this done while we know what the rules are and uh who knows what the rules will be in May um so anyway that's a just a little bit of background but in general you know our concern is that the other bill um that I've been lobbying pretty hard on and and I really encourage you to talk to your legislators about is uh partisan School Board we are all elected as non-partisans we do not rep represent any
054party and uh the partisan School Board bill this is the fourth year that they have tried to pass this and it has failed every other year but we just have to keep advocating so this year there's a bill called uh SB 287 which is a Senate bill it passed but just barely by 26 to 20 and you need 25 votes to pass it pass 26 to 20 uh Eric cook did vote against it which I uh very much thank him for doing that um and then the house had a similar bill but they just never voted on it so now they're going to consider the Senate bill but that is still alive and so uh they want to try to make school boards into more partisan places and and I personally don't think that's um
055that's the way it ought to be so um it's an bill for them to hear from you about so um those are kind of the the biggest things that are going on if anybody wants to hear about any more details on that let me know um because you know we really do need folks uh numbers matter with the Indiana legislature so simply volume of calls volume postcards and all you need to know is like what the topic or the bill number is and support or oppose and they'll come up at the end of the day and say well we had you know 10 against and 50 in favor well I guess that's something people care about so volume really matters is why you recommend sending two different emails one regarding funding and one regarding the
056person yes uh when you do your communication do each communication is on one bill only because again they sort of they're just kind of doing a counting of how many they get on each one um you can call if you call the General house number of the Senate you'll probably get a very nice intern who will take your message it doesn't even have to be terribly personal I do tell them I'm a school board member but um you know it is just I'm a member of public I live in Brown County I'm a I'm a constituent of Representative hall or Senator cook you really they really only want to hear from their own constituents that matters a lot and then you just say you know on Senate Bill 287 I'm opposed to partisan School boards
057and you can say why they'll say thank you very much they'll take a note put it in a pile and count you up um but it really does matter when public gets engaged um just like we had here tonight like as we know we don't normally have this many people in the room so we're just really excited when the public is engaged that will absolutely affect public policy so anyway that's my summary thank you thank you thank you uh can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting second second second all in favor I