001It's all right. To the flag >> of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Good job. >> She's like, "Mom, when I practice and weren't this many school Wait, >> we have autographs after the board meeting. Thank you for the uh rendition of the pledge. Now we'll move on um and take a look at the agenda. Has everybody had a chance to review the agenda? Does anyone have any questions? Do I have a motion? >> Mr. President, I move we adopt the agenda as presented. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Alexander, Mr. Russell. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. >> The eyes have it. Uh, next
002we'll turn over to uh the academy and Mrs. Pernad to to uh talk about the CG spotlight on the Bridges Academy. >> Hello. Uh, first we'll start with our teacher spotlight, Amy Shaloski. Amy has been um a teach teacher at Bridges for six years, but in education for over 20. Amy goes above and beyond for her students and families, not only at Bridges, but for the entire academy. She mentors new staff, provides a safe space for colleagues to learn and grow in their positions, and is a staunch advocate for our students, families, and staff. She isn't afraid to take on new challenges and always brings humor to any situation. Amy brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our team and we're better educators because of her. Thank you, Amy. [Applause] Next up, our staff
003member spotlight is Mrs. Sarah Hos, who is unable to be with us, but I still wanted to highlight the amazing work she's doing. She is our occupational therapist in our preschool program. She's probably one of the most genuine, caring, accepting, and giving people you would ever meet. She supports our unique diverse families in so many ways and provides opportunities for them to be a part of their children's education, even hosting community events over breaks to help parents learn ways to support their development. This year, she's hosting virtual parent groups um to meet the unique needs of their families, providing them a platform to learn more about their child's abilities, and providing a way to bridge the gap between community and school resources in a convenient and accessible way. Sarah embraces our diversity and is a
004shining example of what it means to be an exceptional educator. Thank you, Sarah. And last but not least, our student spotlight, Miss Marlo Grant. Marlo is a student in our developmental preschool program in Center Grove. She's had never met a stranger. She makes sure to greet everyone she passes in the halls every day with, "Hey, friends." She's grown so much during her time in our developmental preschool program, blossoming into a strong, independent, kind, intelligent, shining light in our program. She's exceptional in so many ways, lights up any classroom or playground, and is a role model for her peers. Thank you, Marlo. [Applause] We get we get all three. >> Green giant down there. >> All the way down. You have to talk. >> I know. Take that. [Laughter] >> She's like, >> I'm going down.
005>> Thank you for that. It's always good to hear from the academy and our other schools on on the spotlight. Um, next we move to public comments and I know we have good for the Grove coming up later and there's a couple folks have signed up for that and we also have a budget hearing but nobody uh signed up today for public comments at the board hearing. So, we'll move to the next agenda item which are the consent items. We've all had the opportunity to review the consent items. Are there any questions or comments related to any of the consent items? Hearing no question or comments. Do I hear a motion? >> Mr. President, I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Do I hear a second?
006>> I second. >> Thank you, Mrs. Counts. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I opposed. >> We hereby pass the consent items. Next to the action items, um the first action item is a recognition of Mr. Ivan Smith. And I'm going to read a resolution uh that we've read a couple of times now. We wanted to do it tonight so that we could have a bunch of tennis players here and and Mr. Smith also. He's meant a lot to the community and and a lot to the program, not only as a teacher, but as a tennis coach, too. So, let me read the uh the resolution. It's a resolution honoring Ivan Smith and approving the Centerrove High School varsity tennis courts being named Ivan Smith Tennis Complex. Whereas the Center Grove
007Community School Corporation by and through its its board of school trustees is the authorized agent for purposes of managing, maintaining, and otherwise overseeing school property. And whereas Ivan Smith has been a tireless and lifelong advocate for the tennis program in the Center Community School Corporation. And whereas Ivan Smith is recognized as a leader in Indiana high school tennis. And whereas Ivan Smith has been a dedicated and faithful servant to the Senrove Community School community through his service as a teacher, department chair, and coach over 47 years of dedicated service to the Center Grove Community School Corporation. Whereas Ivan Smith has been recognized for his many accomplishments, which includes 781 wins, most of any Indiana high school men's tennis coach, and two IHSAA team state championships, two IHSAA team state runner-ups, and he coached four IHSAA
008single state champions, and four IHSAA doubles champions, and was named the state tennis coach of the in 2001 and district coach of the year in 2015 and inducted into the Indiana High School Tennis Hall of Fame. Whereas the Centerrove Community School School Corporation by and through its board of school trustees believes it's proper and fitting to honor Ivan Smith for his dedication, leadership, and exemplary commitment to the Center Grove Community School Corporation and the tennis program. And whereas the board of school trustees determines it is most appropriate to recognize the dedication and commitment Ivan Smith has shown to the state of Indiana and the Centerrove Schools community by honoring him for his service through the naming of the Centerrove High School tennis complex in honor of him. So the proposed resolution reads now for now.
009Therefore, the Centerrove Community School Corporation Board of School Trustees does hereby resolve as follows. One, the Centerrove High School Tennis Complex shall hereafter be named the Ivan Smith Tennis Complex. Two, the Center Grove Community School Corporation administration and athletic department authorized are authorized to take all reasonable steps necessary to designate and identify the high school tennis complex as the Ivan Smith Tennics Complex. And three, a copy of this resolution shall be maintained in the official records of the Center Grove Community School Corporation. We thank you, Mr. Smith for your for your service through through the uh through the years here at Center Grove, not only as a dedicated educator, but also tennis coach. And I think it's a testament to see how many young men are out here um and and young women who who
010have either taken summer lessons from you or or you've coached it at uh at the school here. So, do I have hear any other comments before we uh we call upon a vote? >> I'll just make one other comment. Um, you know, I've had two boys go through the program, so I got to spend a whole seven years of my life, uh, pretty close to Ivan and getting to know him. And, um, there have been a lot of Ivan stories and Ivanisms, uh, quoted in my house over that period of time. So, I think the cool thing though is I got to talk to Ivan a little bit before um, before we actually got into this per this uh, process of renaming the tennis courts. I think what was cool about that conversation is he's
011proud of his accomplishments for the tennis team, but he's really proud of his teaching accomplishments as well and and being the social studies chair. And I think that just is a really cool reflection of kind of how he thinks about his life and all the things that he's accomplished so far. So I just think and and too so many boys are here tonight and there'd be my god how many hundreds of other boys have you coached that would be here if they could. So congrats. >> Well, I'll just talk about where tennis started here and I don't I I don't remember that or not, but we used to have to uh the band would march on the the area that uh last period we'd go up put our instruments ways and those of us who
012in tennis went down and put in the poles and the nets back up and we played tennis on the parking lot area, you know, uh sometimes we had to go up to County Line Road even where there was a tennis court at one of the subdivisions. U that's where it kind of started. Uh but when Ivan got a hold of it, uh very obviously we've seen where it's gone. And so we appreciate that very much. And uh Ivan and I hit high school about the same time only he was teaching. >> So u couldn't let that one go. >> Jack, I was your coach for one day at a freshman track playing field. I tell the story if you want to tell those everybody else sometime. >> Yeah, we just keep that one. I only
013had one job by the head track coach and it was a bunch of freshman. One of them was Barb's brother. >> Yeah, Bob. >> The most important thing you have to do is Jack Russell. And when I came back, he told me that I failed. >> I'm sure you gave it everything you had. >> I tried. >> Well, I'll add something on a personal note, too. I I was fortunate enough to take tennis lessons from both Steve Gance and and Ivan and Gary Robinson and enjoyed my time there. I only played as a freshman and sophomore and then gravitated towards basketball. But I remember those two years fondly. My brother was a manager for uh four years in the program. Absolutely loved it. He apologizes he can't be here tonight. He wanted to be, but
014he had a a wife duty that he had to honor. but he uh he absolutely, you know, thinks the world of you. Our whole family does. So, just the idea that we can do this and you see all the the young men you're still leading. So, yeah, he he coached me back in the day, too. Now, I've got gray hairs. So, so he's just meant a lot to uh to a lot of families and a lot of people. So, I thank you. By the way, Steve did say, my brother, he took as many of your classes as possible, too, because he enjoyed you as his teacher as much as he did as a mentor within managing for you. I I forgot to mention we had wooden rackets and you had to put them in these
015frames otherwise they would warp. >> Not that I'm dating myself. >> Actually, you are. >> Any other comments? Or Jane, do you want to make the motion? >> Sure, I'd love to. Um, Mr. President, I move that we approve the resolution naming the high school tennis courts the Ivan Smith Tennis Complex. >> Thank you, Mrs. Donigan Smith. Do I have a second? >> Second. Second. >> We all >> Everybody second. Can I get on that too? >> Yep. >> All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. The eyes have it. Congratulations and thank you for your for your efforts over the years. >> Thank you. [Applause] Okay. >> Good point. It's okay. >> I can All right, we'll take a few here. I was starting to walk away. >> Really?
016I'll see you tomorrow for coffee. >> I'll see you tomorrow for coffee. One day I'll get the invite to the table. >> Oh, >> interesting. I think I know this story. Strange fruit every morning. >> What? >> Strange fruit every morning. >> Oh, it is strange. >> Mhm. >> One Monday I'll get invited to the table >> at the table at >> Strange Strange. >> Oh yeah, >> they're young on Friday. >> That's the honor to be invited to the table. >> He's always there. Wow, that uh we just lost a lot of tennis players. >> Al, moving on. Uh next on the agendas is the Purple Star School designation. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Long, >> which was Are you Oh, she get the dog out. All right, hang on just for
017a minute. >> We can wait for Christie. mine suit. >> Oh, it does say I'm going to present it. Um, >> so, um, if you remember a few years ago, we added synergy, I thought you were going to give this. I'm stumbling along here. Uh, the purple star uh, designation. Uh, the high school has asked to be able to do that. And to be able to do that, we need to uh the board needs to pass a resolution. Uh it's just uh displays um it's for schools that display significant commitment to service members, veterans, and students and families connected to our mil nation's military. Uh it's valid for a three-year period of time, and it comes from the Indiana Department of Education. So, we'll have to renew this and it there's not a blanket where
018we can do this for um the whole corporation. we have to do it for each individual school that wants that designation. So, tonight we're asking you to approve the uh uh resolution for the high school to become a purple star uh school. >> Thank you, Dr. Long. Does anyone have any questions about the uh request for the designation as a purple star school? >> Was this like something we applied for or >> Yeah, it's a you have to you have to do certain things. You have to have a space on your website. You have to have >> different events. >> Yeah, I I caught that. But we but we applied for this. >> Correct. >> Right. Awesome. >> Right. It wasn't awarded to us. It's something that you have to apply for and and prove.
019And we did it. It's been two or three years since Middle School North did this. >> Okay. I thought we had another school that did that. >> Yeah. I was hoping we we could be able to do a blanket for all of the corporation, but it has to be individual. >> Okay. Very cool. Do I hear a motion? >> Mr. President, I move to approve the resolution of the Purple Star School designation. >> Thank you, Mrs. Counts. Do I hear a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mrs. Delegate Smith. All those in favor, please signify by saying, "I." >> I. >> All those opposed. >> The eyes have it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, I'll turn it back over to Dr. Long. He'll present a first reading of proposed policy revisions. This is
020a first reading. We will not be taking a vote on these tonight. Um our we we have two readings of a policy proposal revision. So the second reading will will occur next at the next meeting. >> Dr. Long. >> So this is an existing policy that the that we have support policy 9160. The change that we've added to this is the ability for us to control the broadcasting rights. Uh and uh after our attorney reviewed this, she felt like we needed to to be a little more specific uh about that. Uh so the the changes uh include um sorry, I'm scrolling to it that that it mentions that the school corporation is the sole and exclusive owner of certain proprietary and other rights and interests to the marketing and broadcasting of school events. And the
021other change was um Oh, thanks. Couldn't find it on my uh that recordings can be made by parents or other members of the audience for personal use without restrictions, but we need to make an announcement that that they can't rebroadcast that. And I've sent an email to our attorney to ask clarification. So, I don't think it's intended like if my son makes a great play that if I have it on my iPhone that I can't put it on Facebook. Um, I think it's really intended that it can't be the entire event rebroadcasted for for pay, but we'll clarify that before we read this for the second time. Um, but those are the two the two changes to that one policy 9160. >> Thank you, Dr. Long. Do I have any questions or comments as it
022relates to the uh policy revisions >> other than the clarification I already noted to know? >> No. And I and I think that was the intent that I understood too is this wasn't to stop grandma from posting when somebody does something great. It's just broadcasting an entire >> Right. And I you know we've we've had more people want to broadcast an event, a game, a match or something and this gives us a little bit of control over that that we've not had in the past. And so felt like this was important for us to be able to do that. >> Any other questions, comments as it relates to the proposed policy revision? There's no vote to be taken on this tonight. We'll have it back on the agenda next month. Moving next, I'll turn it
023over to actually Dr. Long, if if you want to start with our with our budget hearing. >> Oh, yeah. We'll turn this over to Dr. Taylor um who will give a presentation for this year's budget. >> Sorry. >> Oh, the script. >> Okay, that's fine. >> Oh, this evening >> this this evening's board meeting has been appropriately advertised as a hearing in the 2026 budget, the bus replacement pan and the and the capital projects fund plan. I now open this public hearing. I'd like to call on Dr. Taylor to provide an update on the budget and he'll make a brief presentation with some slides. Dr. Taylor, >> the word brief. >> Yeah, >> I will be brief as I can be. >> No, honestly, you're right. I don't We need to hear hear it how
024it is. >> All right, we're right here. >> So, for this year's budget, some key important dates. Um, this was publicly posted on the Gateway website. That's the legal requirement. We also posted our bus replacement plan and capital projects plan on those same dates. Um that was 10 more than 10 business days before this hearing. Um tonight we will have a hearing not only on the budget but also on those two documents I mentioned. This constitutes our bus replacement plan and capital projects plan hearing which are required by law. We will then ask the board to review these and bring them back for recommendation on October 20th for official approval of plans and the budget itself. Next slide, please. We're going to go through about nine different areas. Um but each one only has about
025a slide. Not too much. Um and I'm not going to go through these. We'll just go through them. You can kind of see the layout of where we're going to start at the big picture and then work our way down to to how things are operating. So, the first thing I want to talk about legislative changes and that was my joke about being brief. It's been it's been quite a year in state in the state of Indiana for local government finance not just schools but all taxing units and entities throughout our state. And you know, Senate Bill one was approved and amended um this year and it was done early in the session. So, we've had a lot of time to review that. The goal was to lower the residential tax tax burden and to
026shift some of that burden to the other tax taxing entities which are mainly commercial. There's some agricultural in the middle. Well, Center Grove is an 81% residential property district. And so any changes for residential taxes really does impact us. There's not a lot of commercial to shift that burden to. And so you're going to hear and I'm going to share some of those things that we've done to absorb those those big changes. But in short, lower tax bills simply they have to mean less funing for all Therefore, as we talk through this, you're going to see not just the school corporations, but other taxing units will need to increase their rate, their tax rate, um higher than what they had asked for in 2025. And just by raising that rate, it doesn't necessarily mean that
027there'll be more money. You may have to just raise that rate to get back to the funding level that you received in 2025. And that's what we're going to talk through as we work through here today. The other addition to Senate Bill one, and this was something amended um late in the game. It's a post tax cap credit. Um this is 10% of the tax burden or $300. It's the lower of the two. Um and this one's really impactful because it's actually going to hit our debt service fund. That's a fund that's been protected for as long as I can recall. Um we have minor hits to that from tax caps um in like the 60 to $70,000 range. Well, this is going to go to two plus million. Um, and so our debt service
028fund, which is what we use to pay our our debt back and our mortgage, um, is going to be impacted as we move forward. And so we've got to make up that revenue loss in that. The second major bill then is the the state budget. This is House Bill uh, 1001. Um, Medicaid constrained the state budget significantly. They were clear about that up front. It represents almost as big of a share as education does in the budget now, and it continues to grow annually. Um, and so that's something we're going to have to maintain and work with throughout the the upcoming years. Um, but in an effort to give a 2% increase, which the state really wanted to do, they wanted to give a 2% increase in both years, they reduced some of the special
029grants. And this really this really impacted Center Grove because as a large comprehensive school corporation, we have a lot of students who take advantage of these grants. CTE is our vocational grant. So those are career courses offered not just at Center Grove High School, but a lot of them are offered at C9 Vocational School. um special education and our grant that serves students with special needs um was reduced. Academic performance is a really big one for us. This was an area where really this cut while it only was a fraction of percentages for center growth we lost about twothirds of this money um just simply because of the way it was changing and and we do have strong academic performers and we qualify for a lot of that funding. Non-English speaking not a huge grant
030for us it's around $100,000 not cut a lot but one I wanted to mention. So when you boil all those changes down for Center Grove, then the average the actual increase for us is about 1.8% in in 2026 and we're projecting 1.6 in 2027. Now that includes new student population growth. If I remove that growth, you'll actually see it's 1.3 in both years. That's what the impact of cutting those grants did to us. Um it kept us from getting that 2% each year. Um, another big point, we've talked about this a few times, the basic tuition support now includes revenue for curricular materials. Um, so that's baked into it. We will get those in monthly installments instead of one big drop each year. Um, they did remove the income limit on vouchers and there weren't
031a lot of households in the state, but it it now makes 100% of homes in Indiana and households are eligible for vouchers. And so we will see a slight uptick next year. Not hopefully not the same upticks we've seen over the past years when this number has really changed. And then finally, one one real negative change is there was a change in the teacher appreciation grant. I do think it was the change was that was made to promote competition. Um what we've really found though is really negative competition between not just teachers but school corporations for this money. We went from a grant that rewarded teacher performance um really in mass um to one that's very limited to only 20% of our teachers and they have to produce a lot of work to qualify for
032that and so it is a real negative. We've been talking to our teachers about that multiple times since we found that out uh letting them know to expect a big change and even spent this week in our coalition having a really deep conversation about those changes so that we can share that with the future broadly as we move forward down this path together. I'll just any questions on legislation or anything to add and if not we'll move through the rest of the contents very similar to what we've done prior years >> albeit negative we we want that money >> yes >> I mean it's it's a catch 22 so to speak >> that's true we don't want center to get no teacher appreciation dollars but it is difficult the pain that we're going to endure
033just to get the 20% >> we'll move forward then enrollment we actually were a little concerned about enrollment so in our community we're seeing less students at the elementary age that that growth was overcome not just this year but last year by growth of the secondary age. That's not just center growth. There are some statistics and population growth that would show that's from view of the entire state of Indiana. We just have smaller cohorts of kindergarten kids coming in versus the high school kids that are graduating. Um our official enrollment I'm projecting at 9660 and I'm actually a little off my game this year. I'm about six off as of today and so that's one of the the biggest discrepancies I've had. So Mr. Alexander will hold bet against me, but I do think we'll
034land probably just under that 9660 when everything shakes out by count day on first. Um there's the funding. You can see we now receive about a little over 7,200 per student. That does include $158 for curricular materials. Next slide, please. As I mentioned, we do have to share the capital asset plan that's posted on the website. I'm not going to go too in depth. It's large projects that exceed $10,000. Um, we are supplementing that with the use of geo bonds. We've been doing that since 2010. Um, and that is to supplement the equipment and hardware that we would normally buy out of the operations fund um, to pay for these capital assets. We buy those out of our debt service fund and that's going to be 8.1 million as we talk about the 2026 budget.
035Next slide, please. You can see a detailed listing then how that breaks out. Money that's in the actual operations fund spent on the asset plan versus money that's in the bonds. right through. This is hardware, technology, and security equipment. For the most part, it does include the purchase of our school buses. We moved those a few years ago. We are incre incrementally raising that by $50,000 until we get to 100% of the school bus cost each year. SLE, please. For the bus replacement plan, um we plan to continue to replace eight buses. That's seven regular fulls size buses and one activity bus per year. We're going to forego that in 2029. There's some big changes that hit us in 2028 in Senate Bill one and um so our current plan would be to go down
036by one bus to absorb some of those hits and then we return to that number still well within a good replacement plan and we're turning over enough buses to keep not keep them too long to where they become service issues >> and this is per IC correct? >> Yes, we do have to produce this plan. It is a little arcade. Um we will try to get to eight. Typically we don't hit these numbers because of funding. Um but we do keep very well operated buses out there for sure. Not concerned about that. >> Not concerned about that. But but a lot of this is predicated because of Indian code that says you have to replace X number of buses per year. >> That is correct. There probably will have to be some changes to this
037as we talk about limited funding statewide and the state's aware of that discussing whether or not this is the way to handle this. >> Making the assumption when they put the IC code in place buses were much less expensive than they are today. These numbers would have been in the 1 million less a few years ago and you can see what we're spending now is about 15 and so as we talked about major changes in revenue. Well, I shared some of this earlier so I'll jump over a little bit of this but you can see what that actually shakes out to. New money, curricular materials money and money for new students. You'll see some red numbers that show the changes in those grants. Now a couple of grants are in white. That's because we have
038student growth. We have more students qualifying for the special education grant than we did prior. However, if we were to remain at the same funding level, that number would actually be closer to 700,000. And so that's where that cut came. We didn't get that additional revenue, but we have those new kids. At the end of the bienium budget, we will actually receive the same amount of funding in these grants that we received in 2025. They'll just restore it. It doesn't grow at all. We get the same amount of money two years later than we received that the past year. Other change in here then we do have a limit on what's called the maximum levy growth quotient that limits how much our operations fund can grow. Um so in in this year it'll be 4%
039that produces $560 $60,000. Interest has been good. Um we are gaining more interest income. This is something I brought every year and increased it slightly. Um I did see interest rates were slated to drop or they dropped quarter a quarter base point yesterday. So we will watch that. Um but for right now we feel confident we can meet that number. Um in 26 we did take some um an advantage now we can move two of these uh smaller taxes. Um the commercial vehicle excise tax and financial institution tax. We're going to move those out of debt service into operations. Operations is really where we need as much money as we can. That's where we pay our custodial, our maintenance, our transportation departments. And so we're going to move those over and that will help. $70,000
040something. And then again the other you can't there as well in black or in red is um 2.1 million is actually lost revenue. So with all of these changes and we know other entities are going to raise their tax rates. Um we also have an estimate from the state on what our tax cap loss will be in 26 and it's actually going to go up to 8 million and for us to absorb that we need to increase what we're expecting to lose by 2.1 million. And so that'll what we're saying yes here's what we'd like to go collect. We're not going to collect that money. It's just not going to come in. It's been capped off. will not receive it. All that in total produces $1.8 million. As we move into then expenses, um we
041really sharpen the pencil hard here. Um this year we have made a lot of changes in our administrative secretarial positions in this building. We have not impacted the schools as much um or any um but we did reduce positions to say $350,000 um since 2023 24. Um, also in that number, you'll see a lot of other changes that we've made to reduce costs and you'll see just some turnover of people retiring, being replaced by other employees. Um, we did get hit with an increase to the teacher retirement fund. It's a 610th of an increase for all certified teachers and so you can see that number there. That's something we don't have any control of and it's effective January 1. Um, health insurance premiums, we've had a couple rough months this year. Um, and we need
042to make sure that reserve level stays the same. We'll have on this next week to discuss more in depths and things we can do to help this number. But for right now, we're projecting we need to get about 6.4 in new premium from the corporation and 1.5 from the employees. Now, the corporation already pays about 70 to 75 actually sorry 80 to 85% of the healthare cost. And so when we talk about our six% that's about eight times what we're talking about for the teacher percent as far dollar and we'll share more of that as we move through bargaining and share some of that information in the upcoming months. Again curricular materials as I mentioned that's due to the education fund. We've been paying that out of a separate fund for us that's $ 1.5
043million in revenue that turns right around and it's being expended because we're exceeding that amount. Property casualty insurance is up for us. This is mainly roof and wind damage. Um the reason this is up is we didn't take as big of an increase last year and so we're catching that up um because the premiums went up on us before after we could close the budget last year. Some good news then in a lot of areas here utility savings really paying off for us. So a little over 500,000 in utility savings and this is directly due to our solar and our geothermal projects that we have going on. Um, we also anticipate next year when I bring the 27 budget, another one half a million dollar savings in there. Um, from that work, we also reduce
044fuel. We we've been looking at the fuel cost and we're expecting them to go up 350 to $4. They've really maintained a lower level about $3, especially at our co- up rising less than that. So, we feel confident we can pull back the fuel budget right now. It doesn't appear like it's going to continue to rise. Um, again, there's the savings from moving 50,000 more in debt service for the buses. And then we've really sharpened the pencil on all of our departments, our sub accounts and some of our school accounts to reduce a lot of money and spending there. Um things that we could either move to the bonds into that service or things we could just go without. We did however not go without hiring new teachers. Um while we're up 64 students by
045projection, we've added seven new teachers and one IA and that you can see that cost in there. Um and then we also list the retirement savings. That's that's a bonus and we turn that right back around. put that into the teacher uh compensation fund. And so when we get to the very last line, the good news is with all of these reductions in expenses, we are still able to offer an increase to our staff. We've built a budget um on a 3.3% increase for teachers and 2% for the other groups. Those numbers will change as we get into collective bargaining, as we talk about what we want to do for the other employee groups, but those are the numbers the budget was built on at this time. You can see that cost. So all that
046expense adds up to about 1.9 million 35,000. Dr. Taylor, that was a lot. But, you know, at the same time, the administrative secretarial reductions of 351,000, the utility and fuel savings, you add another 600. I mean, that's almost a million dollars in savings from sharpening the pencil at the admin level and then also through through the uh cost savings through the the what what you brought to us years ago. So I I applaud you and your team and and all the admin for doing that because that makes more funds available for other things. >> And for department budgets, I really want to give credit to corporation treasurer. She's really worked hard to to do things like look at uniform purchasing. How can we do that more cost effective still provide our employees with proper uniforms
047for the work they're completing, but we saw that the cost down. We're also doing a lot of things in the copier area really reduce our cost as we move forward. And I didn't mean to overlook that one, but that makes it that's about a million eighth then in savings just from sharpening the pencil. So, thanks for reminding me of that one. Also, >> did I catch something you say correctly and like when you were talking about one of the first slides about getting the drop monthly now versus >> Yeah, we'll get it just like we do all other student tuition. So, we get a monthly deposit that will include the money for materials. Um, prior years, we would submit our cost and they give us one time. >> Okay. >> And we're going to that
048cash balance how that impacted last year. >> So talking about curriculum materials, it doesn't cover it, does it? >> No, we still set aside 900,000 more than that. We've actively been talking about that. We've got an adoption coming up this year that we're talking about how can we reduce and do better with what we have. >> And if I have been hearing, it's a finite set of money. In the coming years, that finite is going to get smaller. >> That's correct. Now that it's in the We can use it for a lot of other things and so we have to treat it like that accordingly and decide and we're to really make some decisions. >> It's going to be a lot of if this then >> more to come on that for sure as we
049do our work this year. >> As I mentioned earlier those property tax gaps um this is not a fun chart. Uh you'll see they haven't didn't impact us very much the first 10 to 12 years but they really have taken off. U we did get a little reprieve from the prior tax um tax acts that tried to help out homeowners bill, but this latest one is a jump as you can see up to that almost $8 million loss. Next slide. So what does this mean then? As we look at our budget, it is a balanced budget. You can see our revenue matches our expenses currently. The only place that it doesn't that debt service. Again, we've got to overload that debt service cash balance now to offset those cap losses and prepare us for future
050years of cap losses in that area. So, that's what that additional cash balance is there for. If we get some great news, there's nothing that restricts us from making an extra debt payment and we will do that. We will come back and talk about that in the future. But for right now, this is the reality of what we face in that that fund, which is a new reality this year we haven't faced in the past for our rate. Then we're recommending a 4% increase. Um you'll see that that doesn't increase the operations fund tax rate. That's the one that's capped. We can only increase by by the 4% number that they allow us. We would gladly increase that a lot more if we could. and we would stop paying interest on these things that we're
051purchasing that could come out of the office fund. But with that maximum levy quotient restriction, we just can't raise our operations fund. And so we have to shift some more items to debt service and cover those there. These are not new items. It's not anything that we did recently. This is just simply to maintain what we had in that debt service fund. You'll see there we do advertise a very high number. We want to give this time to shake out. a lot of things could change between now and January when it's officially certified by the county. And so we always estimate high hope to bring it back down to that that rate that we have in the 2026. Um just for comparison sake, we did look at even tax rates in 2024. Um and that
05210.4 would still be well below the state the uh central Indiana average. So the donut schools, they were close to 118 at that time. They are all going to go up and I'm waiting to get those new numbers and report those back to the board when we get the numbers they're planning to increase themselves. All right, next slide, please. So, tried to maintain a flat tax rate. Again, this only worked when we didn't change the net assessed value of homes and how we tax and collect their tax bill. Now that that's changed, this also has to change a little bit. What's great is, you know, we're not talking about a drastic increase. And I'm going to show what this increase means for the for an average house household in township, but it is a 4centent
053increase. offset some of this revenue that we're going to lose credits. Uh just a comparison looking at last year's tax rate for Center Grove and the Johnson County schools, you'll see we're right in the middle. Even with this increase to a$110, we still remain in the same spot. You'll see the three schools above us. Not only are their tax base tax rates higher, but they also benefit by having the referendum and the referendum rate above and beyond that. So, we will remain fourth in this list. Um regardless of those changes. So, as we talk about then what does this mean for a house that's a $300 home here in White River Township and we picked the Greenwood taxing district um for this this model is one we've used for year after year. So, you can
054see on the left side of the chart the 2025 tax bill and you'll see then some of the tweaks and changes that were made for the 2026 tax bill. The first one is on that a new supplemental deduction goes from 35% to 45% of the home value. So that's reduced right off the top that changes the tax how much money the tax rate can produce. And so even though we're increasing that 4 cents, you'll see after tax caps are played out and that post tax cap credit, the absolute bottom line is that this homeowner would have paid center schools last year 14.97 and even with our tax increase, their bill is going to go down for 2026 because of those credits reductions that impacted that collection. I wanted to kind of show this in future
055years. And so the next slide similar, but Senate Bill one rolls out over a five or six year process all the way till 2032. And so on the next chart, you're going to see how this homeowner's tax rate would change and their tax bill would change all the way out to 2031. So here I've increased that red box because the biggest change is the supplemental deduction goes up from what's currently 35 and going to be 40 all the way up to 2/3 of the home value 66%. And you'll see for this homeowner um in the 26 versus 31 column what changes is that supplemental deduction reduces so much of their home value that when the tax rates applied there's just less collected. And you can see as that trickles all the way down in 2026,
056while we're saying they might pay 1385, if nothing else changes, their home value stays the same, our tax rate stays the same, the general assembly doesn't change its language, we would collect,39 in 2031 in that same home. I did also then want to include, let's say that house goes up by a third in value. It's six years, it's possible. We've had good growth here. Let's say it goes up to 400,000. with all those deductions, everything that kick in, we end up in 2031 with this tax rate, still collecting the same amount of money that we colle that we're planning to collect in 26. That's the change of SB1 as graphical as I can provide it. Hope that helps. >> Pretty good. >> Yeah, >> reading the bill, we were trying to pick that apart. >>
057So, we always like to talk about how are we doing cash balanced our cash balance up. We knew these changes were coming. We want to be able to spread them out over multiple years. Um you'll see that there's a large spike in 2024 and the reason for that is that change to curricular materials. So when the fund went away for curriculum materials, all that money went into the ed fund and it was about $2 million last December. And so that's why that number is inflated. That money was spent on curricular materials throughout the summer and the spring, the spring and summer. And so I'm projecting now at the end of 25 a little more realistic cash balance. And then you'll also see it does continue to reduce though as those tax caps keep going up
058on us. That's just something that we're going to have to deal with. And the nice thing is we're not talking about taking all that cap loss in one year. We can spread it out over the next year. Next slide, please. So, a summary, balanced budgets, enrollments up 64 from last year. That's great. Uh tax rates up a little bit, but the actual money collected from the homeowner will go down. And you'll see that that annual impact for a home is $12 less for $300,000 home. I just want to point out to all of this has been published next slide please published on our website. Miss Conrad does a great job even added some new charts and slides and some new bullet points to really highlight how we spend our money. Um been available for a
059few weeks now. You can always reach out to ask us any questions if you don't have an answer out there. We like to be transparent this process, try to share and educate as much as we can. That's all. >> No, very informative, Dr. Taylor. I I appreciate it. >> Um, this is the time appropriate time for members of the community. Um, if there are any public comments on the 2026 budget or the information presented this evening, are there members of the community present who'd like to comment? Seeing no comments, I close the public hearing. >> Now I ask, are there any board comments or questions for Dr. Taylor? >> Probably more of a comment than it is a question. I mean I mean Senate Bill One affects all the taxing entities in Johnson County. So
060everybody's going to find themselves in a similar position. They're going to have to raise their tax rates to garner the same amount of money. Anybody who wants to go above and beyond that or going to dip into the $112 savings that we're that we're proposing that we're going to give even though our tax rate has gone up. >> Correct. >> Absolutely correct. My cap loss numbers too are based off that not happen. >> That's the estimate we have to work with at this time. And so that's why we we do understand that cap loss will be higher than the number I put on and it will hit cash balance >> right until we can fix it again next year. >> Okay, >> you are correct. >> Any other comments or question from the board? >>
061I would like to clarify one thing. I may have misspoke and said 4% tax. I apologize. >> It's like 3 3.85%. Any other questions, comments? There's no action required. There'll be a second hearing um next month at the uh the next board meeting. >> Thank you, Dr. Taylor. >> Now, we move to the 10th amendment to the lease for the 2026 2028 districtwide long-term capital maintenance and equipping project. >> I will be brief on this one. So, this is an action that we have the board must take this evening. We're recommending that they approve this. There will be a formal public hearing on this at the October 20th meeting, but this is the addition to lease amendment to allow us to continue the work that the board approve. It's our 2026 and 2028 project. So,
062it's those bonds I talked about in the budget presentation. This is our school bus purchasing. This is any projects we're do over the next three years. This gets the ball rolling so that's all we need to share this evening. I'll entertain any questions you may have beyond that and we'll dive deeper on. Any questions or comments from the board? >> Hearing none, do I hear a motion? >> Mr. President, I move to approve the resolution of the school board preliminary approving the 10th amendment to lease for a public hearing the issuance of bonds and related manners. Do I hear a second? >> I second. >> Jane and I second. >> Should have made you get to read. >> Sounds like we got a second and a third. Thank you, Mr. Alexander, Mrs. Dunigan Smith, Mrs.
063Counts, Jack, you sure you want to join that one, too? >> Well, I'll give it to the ladies. >> All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I opposed. >> The eyes have it. >> I was protested just for what I had to read. >> You know, some of the short motions, there's people jumping right on, but the long ones, you have that long pause till somebody makes them. All right. So, that closes our action items and now we'll go to announcements. Um, I'll start with just general announcements. We do have a Good for the Grove work session immediately following the board meeting tonight. Um, fall break is October 13 through 17. There will be no school. Um, our next board meeting is on October 20, 2025. We also have an executive session
064uh at two o'clock in the in the learning hub before and the board meeting at 7. That is on a Monday instead of a Thursday. We had to change the calendar around because of other commitments. Um so that is on a Monday, October 20th. With that being said, uh Mr. Russell, do you have any comments to add at the end? Announcements? >> Just this past Monday and Tuesday, Dr. Long and Dr. Taylor and myself went to the Indiana School Board Association fall conference. Uh the format was changed a little bit, but still had a lot of good seminars going on there. And of course, discussion of budget was a lot of the discussion going on around the uh coffee table. >> Thank you, Mr. Russell. Mrs. Dunigan Smith, do you have any announcements tonight? >>
065I do not. >> Mrs. Counts? >> I do not. >> Mr. Alexander, >> I have nothing this evening. >> Mr. Taylor, Miss Simmers, >> Dr. Long, >> I do um just want to mention, I know it was in the the Daily Journal that we recently were notified that we received the the Indiana Department of Homeland Security safe school secured school safety grant uh in the amount of $92,500. And I wanted to point out, and this is a brag of our department, our safety department, but that puts the value of um grants and donations that we've received for school safety to just over a million dollars, a million500 thou a million500. And so, uh we're pretty proud of that. We've worked hard to to improve school safety and we've tried to do that as much as
066we can through grants. We still have a federal grant out and we should hear something uh on September 30th, but that's I think that's a really big achievement for our team. >> Absolutely. And and I know Dr. Long is is even before he was our superintendent as an assistant superintendent was very involved in safety and security. So personal thank you to you for pushing those forward uh both in your prior role in this role. Um I don't have any other announcements. So, with that being said, do I hear a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thanks everyone. We're adjourned.