001ation meeting for Thursday January 9th 2025 and um Mr serer do you have somebody for the Pledge of Allegiance e okay up next we have the adoption of the agenda are there any questions no do I have a motion Madame President I move that we adopt the agenda thank you Mr Daniels do I have a second second thank you M denigan Smith um all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes 5 Z and again Mr CER we have our CG Spotlight which is North Grove Elementary School e e e en w [Applause] okay uh now on to reports the Online Academy report ass command and it makes me feel really old because Emma was one of my eighth grade students and was one of my absolute favorite kids and then
002when I transitioned to the high school obviously she was there through the cadet teaching program and I got to write her a letter of recommendations so I'm super proud of her because she was a rock star in eighth grade so yep she's a doll um so I'm Tracy McMahon I'm the Pres principal of the high school and so I have the pleasure tonight of speaking with everyone about a new program that we're excited to bring to the high school which is our Center grow virtual campus so I'm just going to go through a few quick slides to provide some background some goals and what are our next steps so just a little bit of background when I first um took on this role um Dr Long spoke to me about U beginning the conversation about
003bringing an online option to the high school just knowing um some of the challenges and difficult ities that students have in the general um educational setting that was also something that Dr Taylor had started talking with us a few years ago and so kind of taking on this role um we went full in and that was one of my main goals as we began hoping to begin this process in this uh program as we start the school year in August so where did we need to begin with this because that's a big task and we needed to know who our Target students were so we did a little bit of research and we pulled some data there were 32 students who left Center Grove High School from the 22 year to the 24 year and
004in looking at all of their demographics we were able to drill down some facts that we thought helped us create our Target population so what we discovered is that students who are leaving us they are an equal number of male and females um they are more likely to be a student of color they are less likely to have an IEP they are more likely to have a health indicator um and you can see up there that might be any combination of those ADHD anxiety and depression and we also found that they tend to leave after four semesters of high school and their average GPA is about a 1.6 and 41% of those are deficient in credits and so keeping that in mind we began to tailor what this program could look like um because our
005goal was to draw our students back to our school corporation so when we had that data we then created two different committees one committee was made of teach teers um we asked for volunteers to serve we had a large number of teachers who were interested in doing that and then in addition to that we also had an admin an administrator team so that we could Tag Team all of the facets of it our administrator team did come to our school team and then that provided us the opportunity to gather input from our teachers and then take that back as an admin group and really kind of do some of the Dirty Work they brainstormed and then we would clean up the brainstorm and then come back so our goal is what you see in that
006first bullet point we want to create a virtually online a full virtual online program that provides the same exceptional learning opportunities that our students at Center Grove High School have our goal is that it's taught by Center Grove High School teachers teaching the same curriculum that our students in person are getting our online students would receive as well we would like to have a dedicated counselor tied to those students because we understand that there will be some additional uh maybe challenges or supports that those students would need and we hope to have um a a program coordinator that ties into that that can help us track those will likely be positions that we already have within our our current administrative structure but just looking at how we can maybe Define that a little bit differently
007we hope to provide a flexible learning environment for students and then again one of the significant pieces of that is to earn a Center Grove High School diploma so with this committee we've been meeting since August we met monthly we were able to draft revise and finalize policy expectations an application and then a potential four-year schedule for what this might look like by the end of first semester so we have met our goal of hitting all of those benchmarks which is exciting I met with um Stacy Conrad in December to discuss the promotion and marketing of our Center gr virtual campus and then hopefully presenting tonight to see if I can answer any questions for you guys as we move on so some good to know is in next steps because there is so much
008that is attached to Virtual learning and there are um a lot of things that we needed to consider and a lot of things that we learned as we researched several different schools across the state and so for you guys some important things to know is that this program as we begin to launch it and it's really a a pilot step for our first cohort we are offering a limited curriculum um in offering that curriculum we are doing that based off of what our data showed us on our students so that limited curriculum allows us to do a core 40 for those who are already students and then for those students students who will be coming to us maybe they are a current eighth grader who is off campus through home school or virtual somewhere else
009they obviously have the new diploma we would be able to utilize our curriculum to provide what they need for their new diploma so we'll be operating in two different worlds um so what that looks like again is a narrow down curriculum we'll make that extremely clear when we explain that to families who might be interested students in the virtual uh program cannot participate in ihsaa sports nor can they participate in Co curricular activities because the we are not offering the coursework that's tied to that co-curricular element they can however attend C9 and we do feel that that would be a nice blending and a perfect fit for some of our students who might not be your Traditional High School student so we're excited that that is still an opportunity that those students will be able
010to have they do participate in state mandated testing so they'll still be required to come to our school and participate in the SAT um PSAT those types of things we are going to ask for a commitment of a semester and that's just to ensure smooth transitions um without having students pop in and out frequently because our teachers will be teaching this in a Global Campus format it is student I'm sorry it's teacher paced and so that's important because if a class is student paced then students can just work through and get done as quickly as possible but with us we want to ensure that those teachers are being able to Monitor and maintain give feedback in a timely fashion provide office hours for those students who will be online and then we felt that teacher
011Le would be the best way to do that so that's why we're going to ask that semester commitment from families we are looking to um enroll students who are within White River Township and Center Grove boundaries first offering priority to those who have left our Corporation we want to continue to support our families and our community by providing them an opportunity that they've been looking for elsewhere and by doing that and prioritizing them we hope to bring the ADM dollarss back to Center Grove and should we have more room then we would be able to offer that to those students who might still be at Center Grove High School in person and to have some of these factors as well um it is an application-based program we do want to be particular about which students
012we begin taking because we want it to be a good fit both for the student the family and for our school corporation um ensuring that we can find success and again that's why we're limiting those numbers we want to have a successful launch before we move on so so next steps for us um we are ready to send out information to those families whom have who have left us again for either homeschool or virtual within our boundaries and we have the application set to go we are working with our teachers to select those who will teach these Global Campus courses and begin to have the conversation about the creation of the online course or the revision of the current course we do have some that we built during covid but obviously times passed and we
013want to again make sure that that educ education that their students are receiving online mirrors what they're getting in classes we would then based off applications select students for our virtual campus and then work to finalize Staffing so that we can see how many students we have in each grade level what that might look like as far as course per course kind of getting down into the nitty-gritty of that so are there any questions yes I mean I think I heard some of it but sure what's the differenti between this and Simon Academy oh that's a great question Simon categ is until junior year so yeah that's a great question so the question is what's the difference between the center grow virtual program and Simon Youth Academy so Simon Youth Academy is tied to um
014the Simon Youth Organization and there are specific requirements that are met by those um that is a program that is taught through Plato So it is completely student based typically for students who have been struggling um with either school or a personal situation and they are required to still attend Simon you either in the AM or PM and either have a job or work at C9 and provide their own transportation so and again that is only Juniors and seniors so our program would be 9 through 12 and that would be for um any student who would apply and meet the requirements that we would have there's no inperson requirement there's no job required there's no C9 requirement and Simon youth also does specific programming specifically targeted to social emotional and collaboration skills so while we
015are not saying we wouldn't focus on that that is a highlight of their program where they bring in guest speakers to do that and as with Simon I assume behavioral issues doesn't play into this I mean you can't be a behavioral student and get into Simon that's correct so same way with this one or um little more leadway there there's a little more leadway there because it would be an alternate to coming to our school in person so we might have a student who was a behavioral problem who is a homeschool or virtual student now another situation causing the yes and we do see that a lot students who maybe are in trouble um or who don't find what they view as success whether that's through academics or social emotional they may leave us and
016so we're hoping this will bring them back to our community re-engage them with our teachers in our school so we could have a student who had behavior problems but because they'll be receiving their education outside of the campus it may be an Avenue for success I I was curious what is like the rate limiter I see we have limited space so if this was just a raving success what would it take to ramp it up so uh the number is tricky so in I don't know if it's in the state of Indiana I assume it is any number above 99 the state requires the virtual school to become its own School number and so there are benefits of that and there could be potential implications of that both whether or not they stay within Center
017Grove or not if we have a successful virtual program then that's going to help Center Grove High School that's why we want to make sure we can kind of Target our applicants um if we don't have a successful group that could impact graduation rates and so that's a concern and something that's on our radar which is why we want to make sure we provide those supports especially um throughout that student's initial years being with us so if we go above 99 it would have to be Center Gro Virtual School its own School its own diploma its own School number its own testing so then the state of would evaluate that school outside of Center Grove that's correct yes we are not going to go above correct that is correct and our hope would be once
018we have them with us maybe we could if online isn't working maybe we can pull them in back to in person and and I guess um we could allow that but we have found in our research that very few schools if any allow ihsaa Sports to be in part of their virtual program so and and the difference is I and it could depend on the school but our Global Campus courses are approved to be able to taught and they're taught by a person instead of just a program but for us we feel like it's in the best interest of our students um to stay within our school there's a lot of complications between practice times and game requirements that we felt it' be S best to do that does that apply to choir and band
019correct they will not be able to do that because we won't offer co-curricular we will not offer band or choir at a course no you're fine we'd like to begin in August with our first group of students so the 25 26 school year and I guess this thank you question for Jason I guess uh Dr Taylor uh cost of is this an extra cost to us what uh it's time high school's done a great job of keeping this internally and plan to use internal sources I think as we talk about kids coming back and the money they bring that would all said I think many of these costs that might incur yeah so yep they've done a really nice job keeping that keeping that in mind are there any of the 132 students we lost
020that part of our to reach out to implement this that's a great question so Stacy has been pulling data of all of our students who would be um current eighth graders this year because obviously they're going to come to us next year freshman through Juniors who have left us and so that is our Target group so we're going to send them the letter the application those are our that's who our first Target is depending on what our numbers are in that that would depend on if we would then allow students who currently go to Center Grove High School to apply to the online school we do anticipate that there could be questions we understand that as soon as it gets out through one part we're sure it will be on Center Grove chatter and we'll
021get phone numbers and questions but again because we have students that there is a real need for them to go online and and that flexible learning environment would be positive for them but again because we want to have a successful launch and again reach out to the community members that we have who have left us that's our priority and then if we have space we'll look to pull in it's on it's it's factual it's factual that that 21 day fast is going to be great fantastic I'm excited thank youate excellent work thank you okay action item well no report uh 5.2 The guaranteed energy saving project and I believe Dr Taylor it is to you yeah during our budget hearing this year we uh received a question on this topic and thought it would be
022very appropriate to bring back to this first meeting of the year um we our great partner cmta on this project has completed quite a bit of the work that they presented a little over 13 months ago to the board um to complete and the only thing that's really held him up is um we're talking about replacing the roof at Sugar Grove so that's not complete yet um we thought it'd be better to go ahead and do that now um but you'll see some great progress has been made and so that includes rooftop mounted solar at Center Grove element School the Emergency Operations Center um the ground Mount solar at Maple Grove and the transportation maintenance center and then they've retrofit retrofitted fixed up um the ground Mount system we had at Walnut Grove you see
023it at the bottom in the photos where they came in cleaned out the weeds repaired some broken parts um ran some warranty services for us put down gravel um just made it far more Main maintainable and it's producing at higher levels um so you'll see those green check marks um they are currently working on Middle School Central I don't think they are tonight it's a little snowy um but they were up there through Sunday when it started to begin to snow actually so um and then the high school was just waiting on some of the AP to be finished um and some of those will actually go on to the natatorium and Activity Center um and so they're they're going to work on those as soon as the weather breaks here in the spring geothermal
024at uh at Maple Grove was also a part of this package um that we presented last year they have actually drilled and they are drilling most of those Wells now um um we can't change the heating system in the middle of the winter obviously and so they're going to come back in the summer and do a shutdown and they will install that equipment so when we hit this time next year it'll be up fully functioning and running and then the last thing they've done is um added some new controls at middle school north and recommissioned all of our current controls and that's a really fancy way of just saying they took a look at our set points um made some reasonable adjustments to save us on our energy cost when we heat when we cool
025the buildings still keeping it comfortable for people to operate really focusing in on the amount of humidity in the building that's the biggest thing they can do to adjust that and so um they've been great partners with us got nothing but good things to say about them and working with them and um they put together some of these slides that now I'm going to go into that talk about the actual savings we're seeing so this is the slide that we presented um originally as far as um what we were spending our utilities 2.4 million and that includes some gas and electric utilities obviously much smaller portion of gas um and then what the guaranteed Energy savings would look like so that's the introduction of that blue bar on the right it's about three 3/4 of
026a million about 750,000 annually that they said we would save just in our utility spend now on top of that we've got some other savings that we're going to look at on the next chart um that would actually come in the ira incentives and that's the inflation reduction act incentives if you scroll down one more slide for you Chris um oh I'm I'm stepping ahead of the game I apologize so let me talk about some more savings so what that looks like you can see when those savings started to hit our actual electric bill so in August we saw $4,000 savings um 177,000 in September as some of these uh HVAC controls were put into place um and they re and they fix the solar at Walnut Grove I think it's 26,000 and then 24
027and so those are all stacking and savings that we received um in the month in the calendar year 2024 looking at the next slide this charts out our actual utility savings then um as we move forward you see some of those numbers repeated and then there's some little bullets as that indicate when when savings came online and the only reason this chart dips back down is that we just don't produce as much solar as the um days get shorter and so that's why you see that stair step back down that after um we got some of that solar in and got the HVAC going um we got the HVAC going as we get that going in next September it will come back down in October November December it'll just kind of fluctuate up and down
028but kind of the average number across that line um and projected savings that we'd see in 25 is about 61,000 a month if we were to average that out um and that gets us up to about that 3/4 million doll Mark and so you can kind of see when they expect those next few projects to come online to complete the work so this is I asked them then since that dipped down could you give me when it's all said done what would we see in 26 and seven Beyond and you kind of see that stair step motion and so you kind of see the EV and flow as we have longer days in the summer um and that's great we'll produce and we'll earn credits um and that'll help offset some of those costs that
029we have in November and December when we're typically heating with gas um and most of our buildings are geothermal and then one more slide for me so this is what I stepped on earlier and this is the last slide just wanted to show so we've actually started the process of asking for these reimbursements the work has to be complete and then we submitted actually um to the federal government and U we will keep monitoring that submission and then expect that check to be returned um but you can see the amount that we're expecting in 2025 and then again once the work's completed in 2026 um and that number combined with what I showed you earlier that 3/4 million is what gets us roughly to that million doll savings that we were expecting annually over the
03020-year period of this project and so those are the the current savings we have are on that smaller slide you can see the work they've done the projected savings are coming up and um this is money that remains in our operations fund it's money we don't spend on utilities and we have begun already to allocate that back to help us um with our operational cost of salaries and benefits um and again to help us where possible with any possible transfer from the Ed fund to supplement the Ops fund so any questions I didn't cover there thank you Dr anybody else have any questions thank you thank you okay great great project all right it is time now for the reorganization of the board for the 20 2 calendar year and while I've had a blast
031this last year um we do need a nomination for a new board president Madam president I nominate Rob Daniels to serve as president for the 2025 calendar year thank you will to accept that nomination sure have somebody seconds if not I won't a second discussion would second that quick yeah okay um now we need to um every I'm sorry yes everybody in favor everybody that is in favor signify by saying I please anybody oppos okay welcome Mr President thank you do you want to turn now so on behalf of the school corporation the board we want to recognize Amy for her leadership the last year let's walk we've give her a nice to let her keep the G with her forever May it [Applause] take a coup so first order of business we'll look at
032the uh reorganization of the board if we could pull the slide up on the reorganization in essence uh I've been elected president and this is the Slate that I propose U Mr Russell would become vice president Scott Alexander secretary uh with members Jane dunigan Smith and Amy counts and the various organizations we're involved with are also listed below uh I've had good conversations I think with every board member as to what uh what this all means what the responsibilities are and I'm I'm happy that everybody stepped up and and contributing in the way that they want so does anybody have any questions or or comments with respect to the the proposed slate if not um I'll ask for a motion Mr President I move that we approve the 2025 board organization sheet as presented thank
033you Mr Alexander do I have a second I'll second thank you madam Madam coun president 2024 thank you Miss Council the current current past president there you go pres um all those in favor sign by by saying I I opposed thank you uh next uh we need to review and and take a look at the uh the board meeting dates and we've consulted and looked usually we try to meet on the third Thursday that doesn't always happen with scheduling so we try to do the best we can a year out and predict that schedule to put the public on notice these occasionally do have to change but we'll do the best we can to to keep them and you'll notice also that we have uh work sessions the good for the Grove that that are
034on here along with executive sessions um appreciate everybody's input and and Dr Long's uh leadership and trying to put this together and Corral five cats into into one uh schedule that works uh do we have any comments or questions on the proposed board meeting dates my only comment might be on next January 8 meeting as tentative that will be the same evening as the C9 board meeting I had to miss tonight C9 board meeting because we're doing this the second Thursday I know our constraint we have to get through the board re organization done and all those things by the 10th or the 12th 15th 15 I've lost I know it's in the first half of the month so um maybe if we can once we get a little closer to January 8th maybe move
035that second I appreciate the heads up I would I think let's approve it for now but let's keep that on the radar is everybody fine with that do I have a motion Mr President I move that we accept the board 2025 board meeting dates as presented thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second thank you Mr Russell all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed the eyes have it I did not I think I that's fine we'll just mention it now just um we may have omitted this earlier and jump straight into the election and if we didn't omit it I apologize for going over again but um we have a moment for public comment at each meeting and no one signed up so there's no public comment tonight I just
036want to make sure for the record we we had that um next uh we'll move on to the consent agenda has everybody had the opportunity to review the consent agenda and if so does anyone have any questions or comments on the consent agenda hearing no questions or comments do I have a motion I move we accept agenda as written thanks Mr Russell do I have a second second thank you Miss dunigan Smith Mrs sorry dunan Smith all those in favor signify by saying I I I all those opposed the eyes have it next we have a proposed resolution um for Teacher minimum salary and Dr Taylor has something to present to the board tonight Dr Taylor the microphone is yours yes we have a resolution in front of the board and I'm going to just
037summarize some of the whereas and now there four comments for us um this is something that began in 2022 um this is a resolution to raise um the school corporation's minimum teacher salary um this was uh will be provided as a supplemental stip into anything that's already been collectively bargained and that's what began in 2022 it gave the board the authority to do something like this um this evening we're we're asking the board that they raise the minimum salary for all um Center Grove full-time teachers um to the amount of $50,000 and that's following any increase they may have already received throughout uh collective bargaining um we're doing this to remain competitive we have four neighboring School corporations that have already met or exceed this amount for this for the 24 25 school year and
038so um we're asking the board through this resolution that they allow the superintendent of schools um to be authorized to pay a supplemental payment um to any full-time teacher with a 2024 25 salary that's currently less than $50,000 annually um equal to the difference between their current salary and that number of 50,000 and we'd like to make this effective on January 17th's payroll to those individuals um the number for this is about 76 teachers um and they range anywhere in experience with Center growth from one year to um three or four years um and uh this would bring everyone up to that level moving forward um what it doesn't do is guarantee this amount moving forward that's something the board could continue to look at into collective bargaining or um in future years um but
039it would allow us to correct this and and increase the minimum salary to 50,000 for this current school year um and that's what we're asking the board to do this evening thank you Dr Taylor we have any questions or comments with respect to the uh resolution to increase the minimum teacher salary I think the only comment I want to make this was when we began in September October time frame looking at making some adjustments to the contract this was one of the board's goals as part of that process and I want to thank Dr long and Dr Taylor for coming up with a with a methodology to accomplish this because this was this was a pretty important thank you I would Echo that I know uh we are conservative with funds because we're never sure
040what's there and when we found we had some extra funds this year um I'm I'm happy that you you you came to us with this proposal that was consistent with the goal that we had so we always want to you know be conservative in spending the public funds uh with the money there and comfortable that we can do this I'm I'm hopeful this keeps us competitive for new teachers and and shows our commitment to the community the teachers and the staff to to keep keep paying competitive wage thank you for saying that Mr Danel I did fail to mention this will be paid out of cash balance at the end from the end of the year this is not something that we're budgeting at this time any other questions or comments All U may I
041have a motion Mr President I move to approve the teacher minimum salary resolution as presented thank you Mr Alex do I have a second I'll second thank you Mrs counts all those in favor signify by saying I I I all those opposed the eyes have it next we have a proposed resolution dealing with the acquisition of certain sewer easements and I believe uh this is also Dr Taylor presenting and Dr Long carried a lot of this and his former role but uh left this one for me to finish up and I appreciate that one um but no these are four four four Parcels of land just to our immediate North it's in the neighborhood of the Brent Ridge Estates um and and we have found that the sewer pipes there need upgraded and as we
042work with the City of Greenwood sanitation department um they have asked that we acquire these easements um turn them over to them um and then the sewer lines will be upgraded um this is somewhat in partnership with the lenar development that's happening to the east of this location um but these four um easements would be either purchased obtained or um um or acquired so that the then the city could uh approve and and expand the sewer capacity to our campus and um the neighborhoods that share the capacity on our campus and you'll see some of these are written in a settlement language um some of these are written in just a straight acquisition language it just depends on the nature of that parcel the easements that currently existed and um reasonable amounts of money that
043we could pay to acquire those easements to get this work done and move ahead and know that we'll have capacity moving forward on this campus um so I believe that's what we needed to share this evening and I'll entertain any questions the board may have thank you Dr anything I missed there any uh any questions or or comments or Dr long do you have anything to add I know you put a lot of time into this project no I I think it's just important to remember that um that making those improvements was a requirement from the city of Greenwood for us to be able to expand anything on our main campus from the uh the North or the South of the high school campus all the way up to the EOC so they were requiring
044that we do that we were fortunate enough to be able to partner with lenar who is building a subdivision to the east of us to to work together with them and so the City of Greenwood while they required that they've been um uh participating and and making sure we're doing everything the right way and that meets their needs but it it's been a good partnership but just wanted to make sure everybody knew that we were doing this because we were being required by the City of Greenwood thank you for that clarification any other comments or questions with respect to the proposed resolution on sewer easements do I have a motion Mr President I move that we accept and authorize Administration to purchase property easements thank you Mrs counts do I have a second second thank
045you Mr Russell all those in favor signify by saying I I I I I opposed the eyes have it I want to thank Dr long and Dr Taylor for getting this over the Finish Line um this has been a work in progress for the better part of 18 months and I am hopeful that as we do additional project we won't encoun the same resistance from the city of greenw that we have in the pastre I think so main thank you any other comments next we have a strategic planning survey that's proposed um Dr long is this something you're presenting yes sir thank you microphone's yours yeah this evening we're asking the board to approve a survey of students in grades 5 through 12 to be used part of our next strategic plan for the school
046corporation we plan to share the student survey with parents so they have an opportunity to review it as well uh we also plan to survey our staff our parents and community members uh the survey is the first step in our strategic planning process we'll use the results to determine the priorities or really to build the pillars of our strategic plan during the process we'll also have the opportunity for staff parents uh students and community members to share their ideas and opinions through other avenues such as focus group um I think it's important to know too that this is probably the third survey we've done in the last what 90 days or so and and and and they were all for different purposes you know we we did the first one to find out how we
047communicate and and with our with our community and how they want to be communicated with we then did a survey of our students and our staff and and parents on the climate in each of our buildings and now this is one where we want to get their their input to build our strategic plan and and it's important to know that we've taken all those results and shared them with the company that's going to help us administer this this survey so we're not ignoring one as we've gone to the next one we'll use all three of the results to help us build a great strategic plan for our community and for the school corporation so we're recommending um the board approve this to be able to administer it in February thank you Dr Long any questions
048or comments from from the board relating to the strategic planning survey but just curious are we having parents wanting their kids to opt out not be presented this or anything like that and I mean are the students being done surveyed in school yes they will be this is the opportunity for them to review these questions um you can see there in front of you we're we're not asking anything I hopefully that would cause any parent any concern but I don't think so but they if they would like to opt out we'll allow them to opt out that's but we'd really like to have a a lot a high level of response from everybody because then that helps us build a plan that will uh that that that shares the vision of the entire Community as
049we as we move forward any other questions comments I guess Dr Long thanks for pushing us forward to you and your team so I think it's important that we kind of dust off a strategic plan and see where we're going and where we want to be so I I appreciate I know this is part of the process an important part thank you do I have a motion I move that we approve the strategic planning survey as presented thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second a second thank you Mrs Donan Smith all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed the eyes have it going down to announcements the the first announcement is that uh immediately following tonight's board meeting we're going to have a board of Finance meeting um I'll go
050around the room first and ask if any of the board members have any other announcements they'd like to make today Mr Russell no I talked to you guys earlier about ba uh do we have anything new on the yearbooks Mr drao still got about 50% of them we're waiting to hear back thank you Mr Russell Mrs well we are moving forward with the next round of of Hall of Fame Hall of Fame great thank you Mrs Don Smith do you have anything toab nothing for me Mrs counts uh I think Jen would probably appreciate if we announced the trivia night which is the February the 17th 21st put it in my calendar 21st 21st February 21st so go out and buy your tickets because Jane is super competitive and she's already recruited me to be
051on her team we're winning we're totally not winning because she has me on her team um may not want me on team and uh I'd also like to say that the new um softball cheerleading golf facility is now available for our students use as well so I think Sophia had their first conditioning practice there today so that's kind of exciting so anyway just that's my it's fabulous Mr Alexander nothing for me tonight I have Dr long do you have anything to sure if if you'd allow me to I'd like to introduce a guest that we have here tonight um as part of the school superintendent Association for new superintendent uh they appoint a mentor and I was lucky enough to snag uh Dr Jeff buts the superintendent at Wayne Township and Dr butts has been
052my mentor and really it's been awesome to be able to text or call or we've met a couple times for lunch or for dinner and it's just been a great he's been great and I just wanted to recognize him he obviously had nothing to do tonight because he came to our reorganization meeting um but but I do appreciate it and I appreciate his friendship and his mentorship so just wanted to introduce him to everyone and he just celebrated what his 14th year at Wayne Township just started right 15 so that's great thank you for coming we appreciate it great like a teacher evaluation is and I and I want to acknowledge one other event that happened at the end of December that may have missed on folks we had some of our political leadership out
053of the uh the State House come down and visit our emergency Operation Center Dr long and and Mrs Conrad hosted and did a great job of touring them and and answering all their questions I think a lot of the community knows about the emergency Operation Center where it's Center Grove Police it's Bargersville and White River Township Fire and it also we have a police substation there and we had representatives from all of those units there talking about how working together made a big difference in the community and I want to call out Dr Alex too for his help on that as a board member former doctor sorry Mr Alexander for for all of his uh for all of his efforts to to push to push the uh the board in that direction if that's the
054biggest mistake I make all year you know I'll make more but no I'm on a serious note it's it's something the community should be proud of you know we have invested money as a school board to try to make Cent Grove the safest environment that we possibly can we can't guarantee everything but you know we have put things in and and I I think Dr Long's presentation was well received had a lot of good feedback and questions and it's tax dollars well spent to protect our students our our staff and teachers admin everyone else so thank you for that great job thank you not doctor [Laughter] um anything else on uh there are a few other announcements I I guess uh Martin Luther King knows School uh February no school on President's Day and then
055our next meeting um I don't see a date but it'll be in February we'll post it um February 20th February 20th thank you do I have a motion to adjourn move thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second thank you Mr Russell all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed the eyes have it um now we'll move into our I believe it's I've got to open a new the board of Finance meeting is that correct yep give me a moment I I just hit the wrong button I hereby call the board of Finance meeting to order uh as everyone had the opportunity to review the agenda do I have a uh any comments on the agenda if not does anybody want to make a motion to adopt the uh Board
056of Finance meeting agenda Mr President I move that we adopt the agenda for the board to finance meeting as present thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second thank you Mrs counts all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed the eyes have it Dr Taylor uh will make a presentation of a resolution authorizing the board of Finance Dr Taylor thank you Mr Daniels uh the bo is required to establish a board of finance and receive an investment report annually um the resolution that will be presented tonight the information will accomplish this and it's the format we've used in prayer years um there are five legally required items that we're going to discuss this year the um Indiana codes are listed on page one of the document Miss leslee has up and
057on the second page I'm actually going to go into detail a little bit on each of those five items U the first would be a resolution to establish the board of Finance as we we've done in the past years a resolution to establish Board of finance will be attached and we would use the current members of the board for that board of Finance um the board also has an opportunity to reject any public depositories um that's not happened in my experience um and so we're not recommending any of those at this time um the third item is that we provideed an investment report and here you can see I've provided um what's a pretty good final number for 2024 um it might change um a few dollars here or there but um we were able
058to accomplish an interest rate of 3 4% in this calendar year um again we're limited on how much we can invest totally and you see that number out to the third column of 15 million doar um which is what we had in the bank at the end of the year um but we did earn quite a bit of Interest this year um and that was put back into our education operations fund um again to help um provide Revenue into those funds and pay for our salaries and benefits um and then you can also see our total in checking and and that will fluctuate from year to year depending on what kind of construction projects we have that we we operating um and so it was another successful year we are not anticipating that much success
059as we move into 25 um we expect it will go back down as as we saw in 23 and 22 um but still are projecting um moderate amounts of of of interest um amounts earned um the fourth area is an investment policy um it's a separate item I'll actually present that after this one um and then I'll do a report on the fiscal conditions which is also a requirement annually and I will provide that um using some of the slid slides from the duab um the distress units appeal board um and those are the five items that we're going to cover this evening and we've accomplished at least two of those already so I will turn it back over to Mr Daniels and we'll entertain any questions you may have thank you Dr Taylor does
060anyone have any questions with respect to the establishment of a board of Finance seeing no questions do I have a motion Mr President I move that we adopt the resolution presented to establish a board of Finance thank you Mrs counts do I have a second second I'm not sure who said that Russell thank you Mrs dunan Smith I heard her say it too so all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose the eyes have it Dr Taylor I know you touched on the investment resolution do you want to continue on with the presentation again just an annual requirement we list the board policy that goes along with this and it's something you know we're pretty restricted on where we can invest and this uh resolution would allow us to remain within those restrictions
061and to follow Pol policy 6144 thank you Dr Taylor any questions or comments with respect to the investment resolution do I have a motion Mr President I move that we adopt the resolution authorizing the assistant superintendent HR business and techn ology or his or her doesn't need to make investments as presented do I have a second I second thank you Mr Al Alexander and Mrs Co that's fine Mrs counts if I get everybody's name wrong tonight that'll be great you two are next actually I kind of V your yours already so Jack you're next we do not [Laughter] need um all those favor please signify by saying I I I opposed eyes have it and then uh lastly we have a report of the fiscal condition of the school corporation Dr Taylor promise less less
062words and more visuals on this one so again this is the report um we're going to cover each of the indicators um from the distress Urban appeals board this something we do annually um this is a requirement go ahead and scroll the slide two it' be fine uh started in 2019 there's six fcal indicators from the board um you may at any time go out and see this although it's quite dated and only updated annually so all data that we're going to look at tonight is from 2023 I've included a few 2024 reference things for us um there are no official ratings if one of these indicators were to fall short it's something that we'd have to go up and explain why it's going on Corporation had to do this a few years ago for
063some Investments um and we also entertained a question this year just on construction balances but nothing to be uh concerned about um we're in a great fiscal situation next slide please so the first indicator is average daily membership again as you can see the corporation continued to grow it's average da daily membership we're up a little over 100 students this school year next slide please um we do track that longterm and so you can kind of see that growth where we went up 100 students and we project that out and how we will continue to grow Crossing that 10,000 Mark somewhere between 2026 and 2027 next slide please second indicator is fund balances and in this case we look at the education the operations fund and you can see we're maintaining healthy balances um in
064the amount of about 9 million on the fund balance for 2023 next slide um one other indicator then is to compare that fund balance to our percent of expenditures um and this is what they would deem as our cash balance at the end of the year um you will see in 2023 they actually uh put that number at 11.3 and that's what we submitted um but because they look at expenditures it's a little off because we will carry things from year to year um typically buses um as we make those purchases or items that maybe take have a longer lead time we'll actually carry those from one year to another so we like to look on the next slide um at our operating balance as it is to revenue and so how much money do
065we have coming in and we want to make sure we stay within that goal and so that's why you'll see our percentage is a little bit lower there the amounts are very similar though and we did in 2023 with about 9.8 right around 10% cash balance compared to revenue as opposed to expenditures next slide please and that's just looking at the edops fund um again then they rechart that and show you what that would look like if you were running a deficit um or Surplus and so you can see there are slight little chart there again just looking at Revenue versus expenditures and any surplus or deficit you might have and you can see there I think it was 20121 where we entertained some questions from them because it got pretty close to zero um
066we track this with the board um we do provide monthly reports um to the board to just kind of look at here's what we budgeted and what did we actually expend and um that particular year this was at the end of 23 we ended the year with just a little over 1% um under budget in this case it's actually a a chart to look at there um another indicator is revenue by type and the sources of revenue for us and so you'll see these are the charts the good news is our Revenue continues to grow that's mainly tied to uh higher assessed value growth here and student growth and so you'll see all of the funds that are listed there and how they've grown over the past um 10 years number six if we had
067an operating referendum it would be listed here ours is a zero we'll skip that slide move right on um just like to talk then about um our local tax rate um we maintained a flat tax rate this year um I actually did get the final one in it's going to be a do 6.43 um so it rounds rounds down it's um right to where it was last year um and so that's the board did increase that two years ago as we talked about that guaranteed Energy savings that's why there's that little bump but outside of that the board has maintained almost flat tax rate all the way back to 2009 next slide just kind of explain a little bit more how that tax rate fits in our district we come in fourth in the in
068the county sorry um just buying three other schools that also in the blue bar have general fund referendums or education fund referendums that they they they've gone out for and successfully achieved moving on please um and then finally we like to just show how this looks as our debt service tax rate so we we have that imposed kind of ceiling of a doll four that then we increase to a doll six as our tax rate um at the very bottom you see the amount of money that's going into operations fund that is uh limited by State Statute and can only grow a certain amount it was 4% this year um and so you'll see that subtle increase in that in that gray bar um so then we look at how much money is in our
069current debt payments so everything approved up through um today's meeting is in the dark blue and then the new light blue layer is anything that we might expect to approve in the upcoming year uh moving forward again leaving some debt capacity as we move forward um it's important to note here that if that statute limitation wasn't imposed on the operations fund we would definitely like to have more funds in our operations fund and less in our debt management it's just not something we're able to do with the current legislation and the limitations on that growth um so therefore we do shift some of those costs Into The Debt Service fund we've done that since 09 in our maintenance and Technology departments to help offset some of those improvements in capital projects that we do but
070other than that we were very healthy in our debt scenario and then assess value um it did rise but a little over 10% this this year for White River Township um that's just short of two years ago which was historical growth at 20% um and we do expect a pretty healthy assess value as homes continue to to to be constructed in our district and home values continue to increase um I didn't entertain any questions on any of these indicators or anything else we have for the board of Finance meeting this is a report so there's no motion necessary I do appreciate the time and effort I'm just still a little overwhelmed that the assess values doubled in 10 years and I know some of that is growth but some of that is just increased property
071values too so uh thank you for the presentation um with that we have nothing else on the agenda can I have a motion to uh to close the the board of Finance meeting thank you Mr Russell and Mr Alexander guys want to get out of here all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed the eyes have it thank you everyone have a safe evening