001themselves they moved our flag back to the same position so we'll start with the pledge tonight congratulations July one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice throughout foreign and tonight we have something special and we have some special guests here tonight so thank you all for being here um we are going to start with what is a project hearing so I'm going to call that meeting to order um the project hearing is um I'm just going to read the start from the beginning again the next item on the agenda is for the board to hold a project hearing on the proposed project if you're interested in speaking and preparing make sure you have signed the sign-in sheet which would include your name and address after presentation by the administration and its advisors there will
002be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the project at the hearing we will ask that each person limit their comments to three minutes and that the topic be limited to the proposed project under consideration notice that this hearing is published as legally required at this time I'm going to ask Jane Herndon to explain the purpose of this this hearing good evening to all of you I'm not sure pursuant to Indiana code 2026 7 37 before a school corporation may spend money uh on a project to build alter repair School building it's required to build the whole hearing and at the public hearing you'll hear an explanation of the potential value of the project and we will talk about maximum financial terms so the school board will keep control of that project and
003we can always borrow less than what's talked about tonight but they can't borrow more without starting this process phones um so now I'm going to turn the floor over to our superintendent and leave Tracy to talk about the process for determining and communicating the project to the community and the need for project yeah so um we presented a project last month at the board meeting that went over um in great detail the two potential middle school projects one may be secure in the front entrance of the middle school and the second being the um to cover all of the HVAC at the middle school back in 2018 the board charged the leadership to do a facility needed study and Performance Services was able to conduct that for us and um from the 2018 study we
004decided to move forward with the high school HVAC project in the locker rooms and at that time the Middle School front entrance of HVAC was also a priority at that time that we chose to do the high school project first so this past summer we asked performances Performance Services to go around to the all the facilities again and uh the Middle School both those projects goes to the top of that priority list so um at the end of the day the middle school is the only building in within the district that does not have a secure safe front entrance um and again the HVAC is long overdue so I want to now uh turn the floor over to Performance Services who will be our contractor and talk about how this proposed project meets the needs
005as described by Mrs thank you good to see you all this evening so they're kind of four major uh goals we're trying to accomplish with this project and then there's two components I really had mentioned to the scope of work so the four major components are Bulls we're trying to hit number one replace cold failing equipment through the building most of our equipment past its life expectancy Improvement line environment for the students and staff with the HVAC design that we provide that the units in the classroom will be very similar to what you have at Sprint on holmesburg and now some of the classrooms in high school reduced energy costs and maybe one of the most important goals that improves security secure engines for the middle school as you know right now it's on the
006West Side there's quite a bit of grade there when you come in you've got to go upstairs to get to the inside of the building to where the offices and Clinics are handicap accessibility kind of weaves its way around the entire building so we're proposing to improve that dramatically with [Music] so the first piece did you imagine the complete mechanical replacement you're replacing all of the classroom units all over the air handling units in the building the chiller the pumps the eating including pumps brand new control system that will match what you have Hispanic on Ellensburg and high school so you're really kind of getting that all of your buildings onto one system so Jimmy can monitor it remotely and really see what's going on if there are issues so the HVAC is a big
007component the secure entrance to what we're proposing to do right now and then it's early in the stages some of the staff and we're planning on taking three classrooms kind of on that North West Broad Road of the building that would be the new entrance create some parking out there and then we're going to create two classrooms in the existing clinic and officer it's an interior and then there's a classroom on the south side of the building that will house that kick over that third class so um you know there's long need times on a lot of equipment and so forth I think that the thought was probably construction will start at some level probably early or sometime in the spring early summer next year in 2024 and it will all be completed by the
008summer of 2024. yeah right thank you very much all right so now we're going to hear from our Municipal advisor from Baker Tilly um and this is about how the proposed project will be financed as well as information about the effect that would happen to it's Jason for a while to speak this project as far as sort of the financing perspectives a picture of your event profile and so each of those colored bars we start planning these out Wards to stabilize the tax return so we then instrument we're looking to utilize is a general obligation Bond so we compared to 2023 to 2020 we'll sit on here so the school district you have the capacities and so as you can see we have about 10.5 million dollars you did experience about 4.7 PD growth and
009so for your 2024 number that goes up a little bit we're talking about a bond issuance of about 6.1 billion so I think the biggest takeaway from this is even by issuing this you still have the ability children YouTube emergency items as far as the parameters move on again it's quite one million dollar borrowing amount of the amount available for the projects two hundred thousand dollars again budget cycles and as you can see there'll be a zero taxpayer impact tax rate and flat the total tax rate the recent variation within the debt service tax rate so as you can see we're looking to have a larger payment next year and then there would be some smaller payments in the subsequent years to be able to layer in some addition useful weekend financing so I haven't
010take any questions here foreign um so if anyone does want to talk specifically about this project so this is a project meeting just about this um there are forms back there if you just bring it up to me we will go ahead and give you your three minutes um we do again want to leave a comments only to that project and the financing event and um yeah so I anybody else who's here to talk about projects okay that's easy we will move on um thank you all for everyone who is here to our focus on Performance Services and we do appreciate all of your work so that it helps us uh do what we need to do um please note that this is just the first step of our legal process after this we will
011be continuing to work with the administration and our professional advisors to make sure that we are using all the efficiencies we can to conserve our tax dollars and also meeting all of our educational needs so um Jane can you summarize that project resolution for us and what we're going to be voting on first resolution that you've heard is entitled project resolution and maybe exhibit a in your documents and it is the document or the resolution that establishes those maximum financial terms that you've heard J Stanley speak about so it was the maximum six million 105 borrowing amounts there were cost of issuance of the 200 000 leaving them five million nine and five available for the actual hard and soft construction cost project you also heard that overall the tax rate would not be increased
012it would be managed The Debt Service rate associated with this bond is 0.11 cents so that would be the first resolution you would want to call the question okay so we do one at a time okay all right is there a motion and a second to adopt this project resolution all second any discussion Amy yes Carol yes Vicky yes Steph Yes yes all right um how about the preliminary Bond resolution this resolution is the first one relating to the actual details of the bond itself so it's anticipated that these bonds will be sold first payment on interest would be expected in next summer July 15th of and then the the longest time you can take to January 15th again it could come down it could shorten up a little bit depending on on interest rates
013there'll be some notices that will be put in the newspaper after this meeting and we'll have more action for the board at your October meeting as well right is there a motion and a second to adopt the preliminary Bond resolution that's a good 12 seconds any discussion here we go Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes all right and today will you summarize the reinforcement resolution last resolution this is basically a placeholder under federal tax law if you decide that you want to pay out of any of your own funds to start some of your work early before you have the bonds actually issued this just preserves your ability to reimburse the school for anything to pay out in advance all right is there a motion a second to adopt the reimbursement resolution any discussion all
014right um let's do roll call Amy yes Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes Doug yes right thank you appreciate it uh at this time I'm going to adjourn the project here and guess I said thank you all for coming so that's his hands thank you James thank you I think they've done this before all right and we are gonna close that chapter and thanks guys now we're going to move on to our regular board meeting so I'm gonna yeah I was gonna say I'm gonna call us to order again for the general meeting at 6 46 . and um are there any modifications to the agent two we're in reference to the Brown County High School expert for 2023-2024 and uh Janae McGill junior class sponsor and Rebecca O'Brien for bringing change to mind they
015have decided this year so because and there's no Replacements yet no all right is there a motion and a second to um except the modifications right any discussion Mr local Amy yes Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes Doug yes all right number three is a recognition of visitors and comments from the audience so as I mentioned before I had Daniel Smith here who said uh that you wanted to speak this evening and I'll just um we'll do generally just actually set a timer to make sure that we are fair to everybody and so I'm going to go ahead and do that and you can start when everybody um about a mile when I was here so um I will stay as long as anybody would want to talk about anything after this meeting um my
016name is Daniel Smith I'm a Columbus firefighter I'm very pressure a father of three in the school corporation Middle School cross country coach a former Middle School track coach uh my wife and I were uh fired from track and in Spring and we were lied too about why we were and that's evident in today's agenda because I'm we were fired because we were not staffed Baltimore um I'm being replaced by somebody's contact there's dozens of non-staff members of coaches I'm only going to touch on this a little Steve Fisher is an absolutely wonderful man and he will do a great no complaints there he will be an asset to this but I work I work somewhere that things like Integrity honor honesty matter those things don't seem apparent here things like complacency and difference my
017daughter spoke up about an inappropriate situation in school last year and she she applied for a program to get into this year and all of her friends of common academic standings first day of school she thought she she told she was told last year she waited in and I don't have no formal letter so I don't know exactly how that was commuted it was not on her schedule she went to the office the first day of school they told her she would have to talk to the teacher involved the teacher involved her off over and over again told her he didn't know he doesn't make the decisions she's passed seven times probably I've called the office I've left voicemails on two or three occasions my wife who asked me to be good down here today
018I'm trying my best my wife talked to Mr Steele in person told him I left messages and I needed to be able to talk to me nobody will respond we've got parents on the cross country team that have concerns that they've called the school about written emails nobody will respond my daughter feels like she has a Target on her back sad you wonder why the referendum didn't pass all the all the public comments I've heard from staff members were just scorning the taxpayers and calling them stupidly they didn't understand because the public and taxpayers have lost their faith it's things like this that are frustrated people say that the alarm sharing their frustrations I'll talk to anybody as long as they want him all right are there any other comments from the audience okay uh
019we're gonna move on to number four which is our presentation from Don Ray and she's gonna tell us about the budget hello so every year we get to get together and talk about our budget for the next year unfortunately the budget the way we do it with the state does not coincide with the school year so the state does budgets that are January through December which kind of can make things a little fun when you're trying to deal with school year budget and our calendar year budget so all this information is going to be what will be in our 2024 budget which is January through December 2024. so tonight we're going to cover three things the actual budget which is all of our regular funds that we that we use and then we have a
020capital projects plan and a bus replacement plan all three of these are required legislatively for every governmental unit so this is kind of a review of what ours what we're looking for for next year okay without it all right so funding overview we get our money from lots of different sources our education fund all of that money that comes into that fund is provided by the state there is a calculation they have very specific calculations it is driven by our ADN so the number of students K-12 that we have that attend our school district okay so the last time that we had an official count we were at 1546 that was last February there will be another one coming up the beginning of October second okay so that will affect and adjust what our state
021money will be um through the first half of our school year and then there will be London February that will affect the second half they're all rectified back and the very particular scales if you have any questions just call about that our operations fund that is the money that is derived from property taxes so our home owners our business owners that money comes into our operations fund and that takes care of those needs from that fund we have every governmental unit in the state is given a four percent increase for 2024. the amounts of the increases are determined by the state there is a Max growth quotient so for 2024 it's four percent so we will take the levy which is the cash that we get in from our property taxes what we were certified
022for for 2023 did you grow that four percent and that determines how much money we can get for 2024. um our projected circuit breaker just a reminder of circuit breaker is the money of property tax that we asked for and we're allowed to ask for but we will not get because some particular um homeowners business owners landowners things like that if they um are asked to pay more than what the state mandate is by the amount or by the type of land and everything that they own so that gets into a whole can of worms we won't have to open up today but one thing to note is our circuit breaker amount is very low we are very very fortunate we only have about 5400 our debt service fund so we tonight we talked about
023um getting uh I want another Debt Service to kind of replace things that have fallen off so Debt Service this is our release payments and our general obligation bonds we're adding on the general obligation Bond everything that is raised to go money into that Debt Service fund is needs driven I'll get into that in a little bit but it only looks at what are we supposed to be paying back out to the bank when we take our loan just like if you have a car payment you gotta pay your car payment all the time on debts we pay twice a year and it's based on the amount that we have to pay back the financial institution for the amounts that we have borrowed and we also have a very specific amount that we're allowed to
024have as our little Reserve it's very very small but it's okay there's been a lot of talk about assessed value because AV is all over the entire State have really increased I just want to put a little snapshot together for everybody going back from 2017 to 2023 you kind of see the differences there um a little chart looks like it wasn't that bad and all of a sudden babies just really started to grow so that kind of gives you an idea of the values of all of the properties everything that is that pays property tax within the entire County this is brown cutting school specific those are our AVS um we did have our 2024 came in I believe that Jason we had this number in his presentation as well 1472. um I just did
025kind of a five-year growth five-year grows 42.83 holy cow um but like I said they were in all over the place yeah and the school board really doesn't have any say so on leaving assessment nothing but that is the county assessor yes so the county assessor um they have uh they have assessors that work with them there is State formulas there's prescribed ways that they can look at the property what all is on it how much is there are there improvements there's so many things so all of that is determined 100 by the county we have nothing to do with it but we wait till that magic never comes out and when we use that in our declaration and also that's only on 49 of their land 49 there you go okay so our budget
026amounts these are the amounts that we are asking the state to spend okay so our education fund we've got 13.6 million um Debt Service fund the amount in The Debt Service fund is increased right now because we have anticipated debt so what they had the presentation on tonight what we're going to do is we're going to put our anticipated payment high and wait till it comes unofficial before the end of the year and then I'll allow the state to bring this down to what we're actually going to be paying out so that is why that number is a little bit inflated right now operations funds 7.18 rainy day we're going to go ahead and what we've traditionally done is around a million just to keep it to where if we need to use the rainy
027day fund if we have an emergency we have the money already appropriated because remember we cannot spend our money unless the state tells us we can spend our money which is through Appropriations that's exactly what this budget process is so our total budget about 27.4 okay you may remember that transitioning from 2018 to 2019 the legislation came up with this new way of how to do all of our funds in other words what buckets do we put things into so on the top you see General capital projects transportation and bus replacement those used to be individual funds that we had then all of a sudden legislation changed and they said we're going to take all these we're going to kind of move them around and you're going to get two of them you're going to
028get education and operations so I have a little demonstration because things were not completely just one or the other so if you watch this the first thing that moves part of our general fund there are some things that went over to operations so um the things that went over to operations if you were not aware your um everybody basically if you're not a teacher you can't get paid out of Education so your principles your administrators things like that those come out of operations and then we had a lot of them to the left and other items that went into education so if you see there's part of the split right there the next thing our capital projects there's a little bit that went to education and the rest of it went over to operations kind
029of a way to think about it for capital projects things that went to education are things that are affecting the kids um like their technology or things that they need to use um so if it's classroom and kid related with education all the other go into operations on Transportation all the operations all that went over there and then our last our bus replacement which is what we're buying buses that went over to operations as well so you can see the state kind of did a little switch of ruined some of these things so because of this because things didn't go clear from one to the other the stage recommends that each School District transfer no more than 15 percent of the state money that we get into education fund from education to operations and the
030reason is because some of those expenditures got flipped over so because of that we can go no more than 15 percent per year per year of the actual state revenue that we get into education we can transfer more than 50 from education into operations to help cover those costs now we historically have not done that we can't afford to do that and one big thing is with that Reverend move on my business when I have been sat down and done the hard hard number friendship but I I just don't see how this is going to be able to be done so this is one thing that we really are being very watchful on um there's also some new shifts that were not shown in that if people have paid attention there were things in the
031news about the legislation where it says the state is going to pay for all the textbooks parents don't have to pay the experts anymore well here's the thing is the state gives us some of the money but not all of it so now we have to figure out where are we going to pay for the rest of the rest it needs done so that's where we're going to have to kind of be creative and figure out what's going to come from where um we're still in the reporting process still the calculation process we are nowhere near knowing and what that impact is going to be but that's another thing to take into consideration okay so Debt Service remember I said that the amount that we're allowed to Levy in other words ask for money is
032dependent on what we have to pay these are the dollar amounts that we are going to be paying out of our debt service fund for 2024. first or release payments we have two lease we have two leases currently the double is 2.197 million Bond payments these are the ones that we already have those 439 000. unreaversed textbook there's a zero we used to be able to ask for a small amount of money to cover some of the expenses that we had to cover ourselves for textbooks so if we had families that we're all charged their textbook of course fees things like that and they were not able to pay them for one reason or another if those families um if they couldn't then we had to find a way the state would allow schools to
033fund some of it through their Debt Service for next year we are no longer allowed to do that so that's more than we have to look and see how are we going to fund this how are we going to cover those expenditures because my goodness obviously we're going to get those things for those kids because they so that will no longer be in there our new general obligation button uh we are guesstimating Baker Tilly is guesstimating around 3 million for payments for next year I think you saw Jay's chart high paying the next year and then going down if we pay it in convinced payments we won't pay as much interest so the reason we are allowed to have a little bit higher next year is because we had debt that retired that fell off
034so we're replacing what we already had [Music] total debt service payment around 5.65 by the way these are the amounts that are advertising will adopt once the uh the Geo Bond closes before the end of the year we will close on it we will have official numbers I will send all of that to the state to dlgf they go through and they adjust all those numbers down to what the real numbers are but when we advertise and adopt we have to advertise and adopt up and above because if we don't if I only put in their 2 million then we're supposed to pay 3 million next year that extra million well honestly on debt service they will fund it but if it was something else a lead would increase you're not allowed to increase after
035you advertise you cannot increase anymore especially after you adopt you can't increase anymore so that's a big thing to remember our Levy these are dollar amounts so if you look at education fund zero Levy remember education fund the money there comes from the state Debt Service fund we are guesstimating guesstimating High we'll wait till we get the real numbers in and the state will break 5.75 million what the state does to determine how much Levy you know their property tax money that needs to go to take care of that they look at the payments that we're paying in 2024 and then they look at the first half of 2025 and we only get 15 it's like our low percentage per cushion just to have a little bit of cash balance so it's very limited very
036small like I said those are brought back down once the state receives real numbers from us when they go through before they certify our budget they bring everything back down to real estate operations fund uh we're going to advertise and adopt a little bit above that four percent and allow the state again to bring this back down and that way we capture everything it's a rainy day we can never Levy for radiating anything that goes into rainy day has to be left over from our existing funds that we can put into there so we never ever for a total of 11.5 now this gives us a screenshot of what our advertised and adopted Levy the race have been and then what actuals so we advertise and adopt high and we let the state bring this
037back down if you look back through this sometimes it is very significant like back in 2016 they advertised 1.2295 and were brought down to put five six nine seven so sometimes there were huge differences um last year 7802 advertise and our current rate this is what has gone into calculations for the people in this County favorite property taxes this is what our current rate is right now are advertised for 2024 is 0.7243 broken down this is how it is um 3631 for operations 36-12 for that sir and like I said um those will be brought down according to what are maximum allowable are but this just kind of gives you an idea um it's historic this is the way that every government unit does it they always advertise in the Box above and let the
038state bring you down to your maximum amount you have any comments or questions about any of the loot break just the regular budgeting something else okay listen on that all right so we have two plans we have a capital uh Improvement plan and we have a bus replacement plan that we are required to do for the state so our Capital Improvement plan basically you're looking at things that will affect your Building Technology and Safety Equipment like our Capital items okay so what we're going to do is we're going to advertise availability for all buildings that way we're covered um but majority of the project during this time happens pretty much what is going to be occurring with our General Obligations Bond so you guys have already pretty much made those terminations as to what really
039does need to happen during County year 2024. but um I'm going to go ahead and advertise the costs of 12 and above 6 million this doesn't affect any money that we get in this doesn't affect anything so but these are things that we have to show that we have needs do we have leads here at broadside schools yes we do so this is part of that requirement our bus replacement on September 9th you already approved for two buses to be purchased this year uh what we're looking at with this is 2024. and uh for this year you approve the estimated total was about 224 225 000. I'm going to go ahead and build in the future need of 400 just up and above to show that yes we still need to be purchasing buses we
040need to do some things this is kind of a spreadsheet of the buses that we have and when they according to State recommendations could be replaced so as you see in 23 we have quite a few up here but the thing is is crew do an amazing job with keeping our buses beginning with safe he is very responsible of making sure and you know how to distribution to replace the buses on different routes according to how long is it what kind of Roads what's the need you know and keeping track of how many kids are on all these different routes so even though we have this because my state recommendation we're not going to have to do all of this chapter but this just kind of gives you an idea of what we have and
041not every single one of these are full size plus um then it's the stage of full size what are those [Music] okay any questions or comments about the capital Improvement or the less replacement all right um just in summary we will have our next two meetings um the first meeting in October we will have our public hearing on the actual budget so we will be able to have a problem with that meeting and then on our second day in October on the 16th we will adopt and after that I will finalize everything within the quarter portal and submit everything to the state and it shouldn't be long after that um that we end up closing on our General Obligations on whether we have all those final figures for our lovely dlgf rep to go through
042and to work on our figures and come back with some card numbers typically we will have them right before the end of the year or certified budget so the deadline is December 31st with brown editing a smaller County it's a little bit easier because we don't have that cross-county units where like it's partially in brown partially ones are going to do things like that so A lot of times we get push towards the top of the stack and we can get no winner numbers quick which I like that um we will have our tax rate should hold steady obviously they should actually increase and with that will actually even out well with AV increasing the tax rate decreases the amount of money that a taxpayers is going to pay isn't going to be that much
043different one thing to think of is so that makes a big difference um we do have collective bargaining with the teachers coming up in the fall so it's kind of an unknown moving piece because when we have increases in salary we have to just do projections and so we build it in the budget as a projected amount we will have those uh meetings in the fall that will be determined for the 23-24 school year um anybody has any questions thank you very much any questions well thank you you do a great job of making that understandable for those of us who don't do numbers as our sir primary job so thank you and I think for the public as well so all right and next is number five this is a discussion item on our
044community engagement survey and I think John thank you for staying up there I don't know if you can zoom in to maybe make that text a little bit bigger audience I don't have copies yeah so um I appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk through this survey that the board has charged me with um getting some feedback and reaching out to the community in the form of a survey to be since we failed a referendum last November so there's been a lot of talk and I hear a lot of people I even had someone asked me about the being on the ballot for this November um and that is not true it's important to remember that we are just in the information seeking period um to see really what the Community Values and what
045they would like to see for Brown County schools with a potential referendum on a future ballot so the this is the first page that I think it's also important to know that a paper copy of this survey will go in every mailbox in the county on this paper copy is also a QR code so people in the community will have the opportunity to either scan the QR code and take the survey digitally like that um if there's another person in the household they can also scan that QR code um and take it so you can have more than one person in each household take the survey but if there is somebody that would feel more comfortable doing the survey in paper form there will be a self-addressed envelope that comes with it and they can
046send it in another thing to note that um none of the data comes back to me or the board or anybody here within Brown County Schools this is a third party vendor that is putting this together and handling all of the data they will also be the ones analyzing the data and then I believe it is somewhere in December that they will make a formal presentation of the data to the school board and if the board decides to put something um to pass a resolution to put a referendum on a future ballot for May uh that timeline has to happen around January so the board will have ample time to be able to digest the data to make a final decision of what would potentially be on the main ballot so those are the logistics
047um we have a sensitive timeline um a belief that if if at all the timeline stays true to form um the goal is for this survey to be out sometime between the last week of October um and before Thanksgiving break so that would be the time period to collect the data or that people would fill out the survey um yeah the second page really is just collecting we want to know the demographics um we want to know if people filling out this survey as a primary residence within the county um which township that they live in are they an employee do they have children attending the school district and then a couple engagement questions of how would you like to receive District information or communication and there's options for them to choose and then on
048a scale of zero to ten How likely would you be would you recommend the district to a friend or family member again those are just two engagement questions we did put some information in here about some Financial background um we have a graph in here that that shows we're around Pali schools tax rate is the entire School tax rate so ours is that you could just learn from Don and Jay that ours is uh 0.5787 you can see these are schools that are around us and then you can see where the speed average is and Brown County is actually the eighth lowest School tax rate in the state um so this is just really good information that I don't think people know or understand or realize you know I get a call I get questions
049about well is it fair to really compare the school tax rate for Brown County next to um Columbus or Monroe because they're two giant school districts well it is different they're not small rural school districts but at the end of the day the tax rate still means the same for them as it does for us we get less of a tax rate which means we receive less funding we have less kids we've received less funding um we lose kids right we're losing kids to these school districts we're losing our teachers to these school districts their school tax rate is is almost double so um this is one of those comparisons that it doesn't matter if it's a large school district versus a small rule we pay a very low School tax rate oh yeah and
050they just passed their references yes in Columbus it's in the information seeking stage for a capital referendum to be able to do um some facility things so they will if if they go after it pass it they will also have two and I want to go back to Carol's point I think I think earlier when we look at that tax rate of 0.57 um that's not on every acre of land in Brown County because what you're referring to is that much of our land in Brown County estate and national forests were owned by the State national government and I don't know the exact number but 51 yeah about 51 is not taxed so not only do we have but we're only getting taxes at a very low rate on 50 percent of our and that's
051one of the reasons that we I think we struggle more than other school districts that don't have you know they're getting taxes on more Acres so that that's how I I think about it as well so you know I guess we because of the outcome of the referendum last November um we're listening to the community at the end of the day is there still a huge impact to Brown County schools and not having this current referendum um so we're trying to teach feedback or receive input from the community on what is it that they understand don't understand what would they fund what do they value so the first part of this of this funding plan is to explain uh renewing the current referendum the current referendum is at eight pennies for every 100 of assessed
052value if we were to be able to renew just those eight pennies it would stay status quo remember seven pennies is able to pay for wages and benefits for all employees um one penny is to fund the career Resource Center in adult education so this is a simple question of would you support renewing the current referendum to be able to maintain our program services and compensation it highlighted in yellow approval does not increase the tax rate over the current level it is what we have right now um that second paragraph just reiterates that one penny of that eight pennies is dedicated to the career resource center and adult education we also want to know that next box at the top there would do you support renewing that one penny for the adult education again approving
053that does not increase the school tax rate it is just renewing what we currently have so I guess the part I was sort of part at the bottom is just probably just a printing in common straps so the bottom of the one page goes with yes at the top of the next one I wasn't catching that until just now okay um and so that's renewing the current and then we have the additional funding and we've put this in here because um we want to know if the community would support adding any pennies to those eight pennies to be able to be competitive with Columbus and with Bloomington or Monroe County um in being able to pay our teachers and our staff higher wages so if we could expand the staff Compensation Plan by putting us
054on par with our nearby districts would you support expanding by two pennies for every 100 so that would be a total of 10 pennies based on last year's median home value that is an additional 1.63 a month um I have gotten some feedback that okay so the H is minimum it's status flow it keeps us exactly where we're at right now for the time being the two pennies gives us additional Monies to be able to try to be competitive with Bloomington in Columbus um which may suffice for a couple years I'm not sure if it would suffice inflation and growth over an entire eight years is there an opportunity here for an additional box or an open-ended box that says what what would you support above and beyond the 10 cents to keep us competitive
055well I mean I I think that's an important point for people to understand me say this is the eight cents would keep us the same but our expenses continue to grow and we are going to have to continue to increase just with the cost of living for all of our s so I don't I don't know that I'm understand that we talk about it in terms of the tax rate keeping at the current level but it really is not going to meet our needs for the next day I know we've not we're not worth nothing but I guess you know I want to I guess I want to say that but keeping in the current level really does not meet our needs over eight years um and then again it's my suggestion that we add
056another box here that says either open-ended how much would you support or make another suggestion that you'd be interested in five cents or ten cents or don't we don't have a number in our heads about how much we're looking for we're I'm just saying I think there are people in our community who would support them two cents and I don't want to cover and I also want to make sure that two cents um will that will be making it 80 cents to 10 cents will that really sustain itself over the next 10 years or next eight years those are concerns I haven't and I've shared those with Emily but I was going to share those with you guys have any comments [Music] at that point let's just see are there any names about that part
057of the survey okay is important to also know that there is an opportunity for the community to come back and say definitely not support any of it um and if that's the case then I believe that we need feedback on the cost cutting options and okay so if we don't support an operating referendum to help us um sorry where do you propose that Brown County Schools makes these cuts so um there are several that are listed um there's a few examples um underneath each one um yeah it it's not it's not a great page but at the end of the day I mean the board really does have a decision to make if the feedback comes from Hope then we've got to take some action so at least we will have some input or some
058data on where we might choose to do that and which one that is for survey I wondered real quick before we opened it up um again to review just a tentative timeline I would like to be able to bring um finalized survey uh to the board on October 2nd um and then if we are good to go on October 2nd and send off to the printers again um October 30th we hope that surveys land physically in the mailboxes um and then the deadline would be the 17th of November so right before Thanksgiving that gives uh School perceptions who is the vendor um time to be able to compile the data and then make a presentation a formal presentation to the board and discover December and then January and February the board will make a decision
059to get things like to move forward in May of 2024. so now do you have a question oh it looks like uh we didn't ask like four four cents we only have two sets because if one says extra ones is Google CRC extroverses or early childhood looks like that we did we decided we made the decision to take Early Childhood off of the survey and then off of a future um potential referendum at this time we just believe that this program is sustainable um as our whole moment and decided not to ask for that on the revenue all right so so really we have a proposed spending plan of two things and then the two things that we have currently right now and one is to be able to provide wages and benefits competitive with
060our neighbors or all staff and then to be able to provide support to this career resource center and develop it that's right according to get one cents uh so basically uh users only asking uh for the the competitiveness instead of not just that of course we just that's what only so eight cents or tens of steps we're going to ask I think I'm going to go back to the vendor based on the feedback and ask them to add an additional box that's either open-ended or puts out uh maybe it's 12 cents maybe it's 15 cents or whatever they would recommend wording in the survey to see if people would be or they would support going above 10 cents so this sort of you think the public will can be expressed okay you know what Abby
061happy to support more than this yeah that's kind of the purpose of the survey so you don't want to know where do they support continuing maintaining status quo maybe giving us just a little bit more or more yeah yeah to be competitive and then if they don't support any of that where do they propose you know I think it's important for them anymore I think that's right if you will support us no our children suffer this way I mean not not not in a threatening way but yeah I think that's a good idea but it's pretty black and white yeah black and white yeah at the ends 1.2 million dollars yeah I mean I just learned from writing on the newspaper uh letter to enter but I think that I think we need to have
062a little sticker you know without referendum she's gonna be that one point I think you should be more publicly honestly and I mean one of the really few Brown County people from videos and whenever I go to meeting we lose 1.2 million a year but we need really more how to make a stick or something this is kind of I I think it's hard with school financing numbers these are numbers we don't deal with in our daily lives yeah and so I don't a 1.2 million 27 million you know it's hard for us to like even conceptualize that and I think that's why School Finance is so hard for us to explain I always say if I can sit down with every single voter and explain this I think we passed a referendum and I
063would love to do that but I can't so how do we get this in simple language so that these people can understand it and that's sort of what the survey is is it is both a question do you support the referendum at all for a small amount for more and then secondly you know if you don't support it what what you think we ought to do and that's what we really want to know another thing we can approach is that we need this amount of this amount of money because I'm ready to pay teacher and all these things that's how we need to come up we have to that's what this much I will need that's what we need from you I mean that could be Improvement just number this is what we need minimum
064or good pay that's funny I need a minimum yeah minimum that's right I can get by with 10 cents foreign [Music] and I don't I don't think they feel like if they give the money but that money that their kids are going to benefit from us ing specific it's the same things I think just along with uh what do you think I work for governor and I think government agencies have a bad reputation for being inefficient and I think when people go somewhere and they see where their money's going and then they have a very poor experience it's really hard for them to feel like there's a good one insurance now I understand I understand the reflection on kids and I don't think the people in this community uh I think they would give everything
065to the kids to do what's right for them if they felt like okay I think there's I I know a lot of people in this Corporation a lot of people in this County I live here um there is a lack of confidence the the money will be spent in the way so how do you think you should be spending a difference as as a sample taxpayer okay yeah well I think the main thing is that we have this a long conversation I'm going to shorten you a little bit so she wasn't on the timer that's okay well a different part of the medium but but um I just if you go anywhere in your daily life and spend money on something and you leave there feeling like you didn't give them Facebook you don't want
066to go back and there's that I have my wife and I are permanently looking for a better school corporation Center 10 conversations with staff members in this school corporation about it and about zero answers about why we should save it why this is the best place for our kids far less because they don't have a good answer far less because they don't care just don't feel it's why we're losing a lot of staff and the good staff members we have are looking for someplace else well and one of the reasons they are is because we can't pay the same wages as our neighbors and that is what this rep so that's the that's the Chicken and the Egg well right do you want to stay here because we have the staff and teachers who are
067making salaries that are competitive and want to be here but if we can't compete with those other folks um you know it is a morale issue as well and I think that's probably what you're hearing I think you I've heard many many staff members who are very happy to be here and are very um feel very good and are very interested in the kids and we'll give you a different answer right so I I understand that's your experience but I don't know that that is a universal experience and part of the goal of this is to solve those problems so denying the referendum only exacerbates those problems it doesn't today um I think that that is something that uh we need to kind of a separate conversation and um to make that part improve yeah
068definitely I mean is is a communication is always prop communication but it doesn't mean that is providing so uh so I think it's great I really appreciate the comment because it's all probably communication is not only your problem everybody's problem thank you Claire I appreciate that it doesn't stop there and we could argue about which came first right we could have that argument okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna I think we all go very good I appreciate both of your perspectives why this that's why we're doing surgery have those conversations and people who want to engage with us on those issues you know we're here to listen um we have emails and phone numbers and you know we are happy public and you know Emily has an open door so please if folks you know
069want to talk about those things to share and if somebody says Hey I want to see your budget I think you're being an efficient we're an open book and we do believe that we are I mean believe me we're doing the best we can with the amount of money we have and so I any inefficiencies that were ever there are not there today because we had to cut cut since about 2016. it's also about thank you very much right any other questions or comments nope we will I have a meeting [Music] um tomorrow Wednesday for school perception so I'll give that feedback to them and then we're going to the board I'm really excited about this I think this is exactly what we need we always say we don't do polls in Brown County so
070how do we know what people feel and it's often anecdotal and so this is an opportunity through a vendor to do an anonymous well-researched study so I'm I'm really excited to see how that goes and whatever conversation so thank you all right um so show both there we're just going to move on to number six um approval of the public session minutes from September 5th 2023. is there a motion to approve D any discussion let's do a roll call hey yes Carol yes Vicki yes Stephanie yes Steph Yes all right number seven is our action needed items which is none number eight is our consent agenda items for personnel um starting with separations and appointments that starts with Brown County Middle School sixth grade girls basketball coach Dave Bartlett uh who's separating effective September 14
0712023 and goes on to page three through uh no transfers and Fox Festival uh sponsor for the high school alley thank you sorry I I'm misspelling someone's mispronouncing someone's name um all right is there a motion to approve the consent agent items for a second awesome any discussion all right let's do a roll call okay yes Carol yes Vicky in Stephanie and stuff yes all right um yeah we've got a lot of updates tonight so I will keep it brief and short um Friday is our second Ambassador meeting it will be held at uh promptly 8 30 in The Goldberg room this session is titled the business of educating kids so don Ray will get to come and do a presentation on public school Finance 101 uh Dennis will be here to talk about transportation
072across the county and our district Don Heimer will be here to talk about Food Service uh Jim Jackson will be here to talk about our facilities across the district um we're gonna do a little bit of myth busting um and I'm just always look forward to to this day of the month truly one of my favorites and this particular session is always a favorite of our ambassadors because I just think they learn so much um so I'm looking forward to the Ambassador meeting also we hope to have sent to the printers on Wednesday our next Eagle Eye which is our quarterly magazine so it is our back to school feature although it is almost the end of September uh it is it something to write about we needed something to write about we have a
073feature of all of our new staff members uh so that's really cool to be in there there's an article about sixth grade academy we've got um we're highlighting our teacher and staff members of the Year from last year um yeah it's just filled with a lot of great stuff so excited to get that pushed out um and then finally tonight we emailed our our Ted Ed uh team lead team meeting today and I I know the last time that we had talked um with this initiative to bring TED talks and tedx to Brown County Schools um if you know remember each one of our facilities has been approved to be attendance school um so those clubs will officially kick off in the next couple of weeks right when we get back from fall break but
074uh we had applied to be able to host or hold our own tedx event at the end of the school year and um initially the application got turned down and they told us they just stopped licensing school districts as a whole it would have to be like a high school only or or a completely different route and I will tell you the power of finding the yes um people at Ted Ed have heard that our up night they held separate meetings with tedx and um then I got asked to be a part of a tedx meeting and they told us they made an exception from Brown County Schools so it's a big deal it's the only K-12 um public education District in the state of Indiana that's going to be able to offer this to
075our kids and our community members on a platform like tedx so um although it's a big undertaking um that team is so excited to get started and we should look forward to that about mid-may that's all I got all right um last um is our claims use their motion to approve the claims yeah any discussion Amy yes Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes yes right and last thing on the agenda is the board update is there anything anyone wants to share I'll get you tires on that one thing it's not good the things they have plans we are uh going to there's a there's a Statewide School Board Association meeting next Monday and Tuesday so as many of us who can get away from our regular daily lives um and that is always a really
076uh um I find it really regenerative to meet with others for more people and talk to people about what's happening so we're excited to go do that so so we're gonna head up to Indy to do that uh anything else all right is there a motion to adjourn second