001all right there we go all right good evening i'd like to call this december 7th 2020 special session public hearing border school trustees for the proposed project begin time at 603 this evening um if we could rise we ask mr angel to lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the violence 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 thank you be seated [Music] item two on our agenda this evening is our board of school trustees accommodations awards uh it's kind of a a neat situation this evening so something we're hopefully going to begin a new tradition here in crown point let's go through 2.01 is the 2020 corporation christmas card design we have luca
002jordanov fifth grader at solan robinson elementary winning design of the front of the card we'll get to a little bit of an explanation of what's going on once we present the accommodation we have maggie lukowski the fifth grader at seoul robinson elementary the runner-up for the design on the back of the card and our finalists were broden morrissey fifth grader allison haas a fifth grader and ella trapp third grader at jerry ross elementary we have a motion to approve accommodation wars that's presented moved by mr angel and second by mr babjack any questions or comments before we present the award all those in favor signify by saying aye hi opposed carries five zero so like i said this is a pull down speaker this really neat uh situation that dr terrell had you know brought
003to us i believe right i think you give you credit for this and uh at the last board meeting us board members and cabinet everybody had gone through a process of dwindling down several christmas card cover ideas that were presented from the elementary schools and it was difficult to pick a winner but we all kind of labeled number one number two number three and i think afterwards there was all the votes were accumulated and you know we came up with the winner that go on the front of the card and then the runner up to be on the back of the card so let me walk forward and present this award to you guys we're going to ask how about miss merrell you want we have the when we get to the finals we ask
004you to say a word about how the process worked at your school okay we'll wait until we get to the past so our runner-ups is not a runner-up for our finalists i'm sorry we're broden morrissey broden you want to come forward you need to come over here we're going to get a couple of finalists up here oh a trap let's bring everybody up all right we also have our runner up was maggie mikowski and our winner was luca jordano oh yeah um we have room in the space house because we definitely want to get the parents in here oh allison come on forward allison how about you stand for 7 45 we're trying to stay stay spaced out but we also want to keep you guys in here in front of your parents we've got
005some room right up here in the front too right there hey do you want to have the two the winner and the hold their poster so we can yeah let's see here we go after your poster right [Music] i'm going to read you guys i'm going to read you guys your accommodation i'm going to address it to all of you at the same time the resolution accommodation the crown point board of school trustees is honored to commend these fine students for notorious achievement we hereby resolve the divorce full trustee of the crownwood news school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to brode i'm sorry for all the students we've mentioned for being named finalists runners-up and the winners of our christmas card design the board of school trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders it
006perleigh to its minutes to be preserved for public posterity day the 7th day of december 2020. congratulations to all of you for our runners-up and our winners we have a stack of cards for you guys to take home with you and hopefully you can use them yourself for this holiday or we're going to present that to maggie said you have your hands full and baggy certificate and how about somebody for luca all right and as you guys as everyone can see the image that luca is holding up is on the front of the car and maggie's um will be on the back and uh you know like like we said we became a meeting last month and um all of your designs were presented and it's a really neat idea you guys did a great
007you know great job trying to put something together and hope this is a tradition that could go on for many years do you want to give them their certificates i'm sorry thank you scott yep allison allison here's your certificate and ella um ms merrill would you like to add to how the process went you know just give us a little bit of feedback on how the process went first long i missed my fifth grade kids right here they're my fifth graders um little chocolate is here this is chocolate is the art teacher here at seoul and let me kind of explain how she went about this i know luca you are in the art club or are you you're not married or anything okay and lucas but you want to kind of explain what you
008went through i made it mandatory for my art club to do and then um just kind of put it out there for my students to do they wanted to do it participate and but i told this one he would i think he walked right up to the so he's always been that way since his little baby have any idea how many copies we actually made some of them probably went out today and we had like what 250 yes so the the card as they mentioned has our winner here and the runner up on the back and then inside has a message from the board cabinet members here and administrators says that this holiday season our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have contributed to the success of our schools in this spirit we simply but
009sincerely thank you and best wishes for the holidays and a happy new year merry christmas crown point community school corporation board of school trustees administrators and dr terrell for the the two the runner-up and the winner this evening they will get 25 cards i believe it is and the inside is blank so then they and their families can use that for their christmas cards for this year so thank you guys we appreciate all your work parents if you would wave out there uh if you're a parent we appreciate you guys and the support and being here this evening with us and uh wish you all merry christmas um ms allen that's a good idea thank you thank you i congratulate you you guys may go have a great evening thanks guys get a couple pictures
010tommy good [Music] all right the next item on our agenda is for the board to hold a preliminary hearing on the proposed projects if you're interested in speaking at the hearing please make sure you have signed the sheet in the back of the room which should include your name and address mrs green has the sign up sheet over there and a blue clipboard after a presentation by the administration and its advisors there will be an opportunity public to make comments about the project at the hearing we'll ask that each person limit their comments to three minutes and that the topic be limited to the proposed project under consideration uh the notice of the preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required on november 26 2020 in northwest indiana times and at this time i'll ask
011cheryl zick our school attorney to explain the purpose of this hearing good evening mrs good evening board members of the community as mr warney said tonight begins the legal process for the proposed projects under indiana code 61.1 23.5 in order for an indiana public school corporation to issue bonds or enter into a lease agreement for a project for which the total project cost is in excess of the non-controlled project threshold it must hold two public hearings and adopt a resolution preliminarily determining to move forward resolutions also establish the maximum financial terms for the proposed projects as mr warney alluded to on november 23rd the board authorized publication of notice for the required public hearings for the proposed projects pursuant to that authorization and as as is legally required notice of the preliminary determination hearings the
012first is which is being held tonight was published on november 26th of the northwest indiana times proof of publication has been provided to mr warney for the record this is the first of the process thank you now we'll hear from dr terrell about the process of determining and communicating the project to the community and the needs for the project dr thank you before i begin my portion i want to make sure that everybody understands we have one of our board members tom hoffman who is unable to be with us tonight so per the governor's executive order he is participating via electronic device so he can be a part of this hearing as well [Music] this evening we're going to go through a presentation here i will be giving some of the information and then also
013our chief financial officer katie dowling will be giving some of the information as well for our board and for the members of our audience this evening i want to begin by just giving everybody a little bit of a timeline of our facility study the study began in 2017 here in crown point schools and really looking at a district-wide facility assessment looking at school capacity and then also the learning environment needs study to ensure where we are with our students and what needs to take place within our corporation through 2018 and 2020 there has been a continuation of the assessments of the study with priorities being placed in order for instance winfield elementary was identified early on as a priority and we are actually in the process of coming into the last probably third fourth of
014that that remodel that has taken addition that has taken place there currently we continue to review the considerations that are being made to us uh from the skillman corporation and gibraltar as well as they bring recommendations to us part of the facility study that we are involved in right now is looking at the annual review of the preventative maintenance priorities throughout our district and this is taking place in each and every building that we operate also it is continuing to look at student opportunities and achievement within all of our schools and at every grade level making sure that we have in place what our students and our teachers need to provide the best educational experience for our kids talk just a little bit about the school board's strategic planning goals as we have worked with
015them we being the administrators here within our district both at the administration building and also within our individual school buildings number one is the recommendation should support the mission of crown point community schools to ensure that all students become lifelong learners through the highest quality educational programming to maintain renovate or replace current buildings as appropriately supported by the verification of needs and then keep the school corporation tax rate at or below the current level which i think is a key that you're going to hear repeated this evening so the facility priority needs that have been identified are in rank order first one that we looked at was really the enrollment increases that we continue to see throughout our district we continue to have student populations that are increasing at all grade levels which are leading
016to crowded conditions number two is looking at taft middle school a building that was built in 1954 has had seven additions and three major renovations and the need there for a new building and a new opportunity for our students at taft middle school also crown point high school we have continued growth there it has provided overcrowding but also with that is looking at curriculum opportunities and technology and again trying to create the environment where our kids have the best possible experiences to prepare them for their futures also then across our district in our elementary buildings we are looking at the overcrowding and capacity issues that are taking place throughout our community which is a really great problem to have and we appreciate the growth that we're seeing there and then the last one is just
017looking at other student learning facilities and being where we need again keeping up with the new technology that's coming out and approaches to education so next we're going to get into really looking at our student population and i'm going to ask mrs dowling if she will address this area for us please thank you dr terrell just to give you give the public an idea since the the 2009-2010 school year we've seen approximately a 19 increase in our total student population some key indicators for us as our enrollment has outperformed our demographic study you've heard us talk about that a lot the birth and death rates the subdivisions available land real estate turnover we intend to have another one completed once the 2020 census data is received but we did outperform the initial new subdivisions as
018we all know i think continue to be developed most recently the 207 acres over in st john recently dr terrell and i received some information from the town of winfield there's another 525 unit subdivision planning to come in and that's in that's in addition to the ones that have already been planted out and are coming um so we're aware that that growth continues in new construction and then last we're very fortunate in our corporation that we're made up of three outstanding communities that continue to develop their business corridors which helps drive our residential development think about broadway 109th and i-65 corridor the 231 and i-65 potentially what's coming there down the pipe 109th and randolph 133rd and morse and cedar lake the lakefront so all of those things all factor in and drive our overall
019continued residential development in elementary in that same time period we've had school buildings who've seen as high as 65 percent increased enrollment since that 09 10 school year some in 24 some 26 but it's big big enrollment increases that we've seen in those facilities six out of seven of our elementary buildings have one to two classrooms or less available for use so when you think about what we have to support we just don't have a lot of room and then since that same time period we've added many student supports including high ability teachers school counselors interventionists rti response to intervention professionals literacy coaches just to name a few we don't have the sufficient space to support those functions the way that they were intended taft middle school we thought everybody would love the very crowded
020photo there that shows what the hallway looks like and that same time period from oh 910 the middle school at taft has experienced 25 percent growth in its student population uh the building is not structured to accommodate uh education in the 21st century of course we say that because it was originally constructed in 1954 and as we all know was two buildings that were blended into one down the line so it's just not an efficient use of space and again they have the same challenges as elementary where we've added significant supports for students that we just can't properly implement because we don't have the ancillary space at crown point high school same time period we've experienced 15 percent growth in their student population that student growth has caused us to exceed the available space in
021our ancillary spaces so the cafeteria the gym the field house small and large group instruction rooms they're no longer sufficient to hold the student population that is there as the curriculums developed and then when we look at the program offerings over the last 10 years it didn't contemplate career and technical ed offerings the addition of career pathways the dual credit programming you know that saves our families every year uh countless dollars in tuition and the expansion of our extracurricular offerings so as those have added the space just cannot accommodate all of those additions so as we've gone through this process our design team has laid out several objectives as we look forward to reviewing the information from them but then also as we come up with the conceptual ideas that are we're going to base
022our projects offer off of and they include the function value efficiency 21st century schools and then the aesthetics that go with the projects as well as we go through this next few slides i want to make sure that i remind everybody these again are just concepts we are not to the point where we have actual designs that are in place that say this is what it's going to be but these are the concepts that we're looking at so looking at a new taft middle school we're looking for a 40 acre site the new middle school will have a capacity for up to 1400 students again that's sixth through eighth grade looking at technology ready learning environment and having what we need there another important part of this that we think is is crucial in this
023design is to have separate car and bus circulation patterns similar to what we have we currently have in many of our buildings as well as sufficient parking for staff and visitors we want to make sure that the building is laid out and designed so that we can address the needs of the middle learners and offer at the same time robust technology infrastructure that provides again that 21st century experience for our students also i think one of the keys here as we look at this is really that energy efficient cost savings and looking at the amount of dollars that we will save from the new and improved systems the other part as was as katie mentioned was looking at our high school we're looking at expanding our student capacity from 2800 to 3400 the creation of
024a new two-story classroom edition that will fit nicely into the current plan footprint of our building looking at new science labs robotics labs with stem possibilities expanding our cafeteria as was mentioned before one of the keys as we have more students is making sure that the the areas for cafeteria for ancillary duties are adequate looking for space where we can put new lockers and have commons for our kids as they come in in the morning and throughout the day improve the circulation of our students as they move from class to class and then also look at repurposing some of our construction labs into other cte programs and again having an adequate and sufficient car bus circulation improvements for arrival and dismissal of that number of students as well as staff members also we are looking
025at a major renovation and addition to two elementaries the first of which this evening is macarthur elementary our goal with our elementary renovations is to get that student capacity up to 700 students within the building and then look at classroom upgrades and additional classrooms that will go with it providing again new opportunities for project labs that could include stem but upgrading the cafeteria a new gymnasium with community access where they can come directly into the gym without going through the building and then using that previous gym space to enlarge our cafeterias our media center and provide other additional opportunities for our kids also looking at making sure that our main office where students come in where parents come in is appropriate and welcoming sensory rooms having a clinic that is appropriate for the needs of
026our students today looking at restroom upgrades throughout our elementary building especially here at macarthur and then technology grades throughout the other elementary that we are looking at specifically with this project is timothy ball again looking at expanding that capacity to 700 many of the same things that applied at macarthur apply here one thing that we'd like to point out with timothy baltz just a little bit different it's a tri-level type building and one of the things we want to make sure we include in there is a ramp for accessibility to the second floor so that students are able to get around in the building without having to use an elevator although we will have an elevator there as we do now just providing additional opportunities for our students now we're going to get into the
027financial uh part of this and the budget and i'm going to ask ms dowling if she will speak to this please thank you we get into the bond terms i will also um have brock bauscher from baker tilley will be assisting as well as our bond consultant just to give a quick review the projects in the preliminary estimate are a newtaf middle school to summarize dr terrell's presentations additions and renovations to crown point high school additions and renovations to douglas macarthur elementary to timothy ball elementary addition or renovation of for preschool early childhood development addressing playgrounds at our elementary level district wide including soft surface and as well as some other district-wide improvements including its potential to expand renovate wheeler middle school other elementary school additions and renovations based on the district-wide facility assessment as
028well as technology upgrades that would make every classroom to be 21st century technology ready in line with available curriculum this slide you've seen previously this just gives you an idea that combined debt and project referenda tax rates for the lake county school districts right there in the middle probably should have made it red but in the middle yellow is crown point as you can see we're right in the middle of the pack at 75 cents uh that is our current um debt service rate and the rate that we intend to maintain even with issuing debt for these projects this gives you a little bit of a closer depiction on in what's in yellow there is our existing debt as you're aware we've talked about for for several years the debt cliff we refer to in
0292024 when we repay or retire a large portion of our outstanding debt so what you see there in blue is essentially the replacement debt that will fund this project while still keeping the debt rate at 75 cents and then the gray area gives us room for future debt issuance if it's necessary this depiction is designed as attorney zick said initially we are required by law to name maximum terms and so five percent is what we set the maximum at in terms of what we're saying the worst case scenario is for us and you can see for us having interest rates coming in significantly lower significantly impact our ability to repay this you know essentially five years sooner than anticipated and it keeps the school district tax rate at 75 cents which again that is what
030we desire to do is to keep that tax rate flat this uh getting into baker tilly's items this is the items we're legally required to provide to the board to the community because again the law requires us to set a maximum and so what you can see here is these are all based on that five percent maximum not based on the estimate of 2.1 percent and so as it states here there's an estimated borrowing amount of 247 million dollars 247 and 15 000. estimated proceeds available for construction is 214 million and a little more maximum repayment turn is at 18 years and eight months which is based off of that five year uh map or five percent maximum that we discussed and then you can see the maximum annual lease rental payment the max amount
031of the tax rate impacted you'll note there it does say 7925 that is based off of the maximum at the five percent and so we're required to show that if you want to add in it anywhere you feel free to and then our below that the max debt service tax rate increase we anticipate managing the debt service tax rate to not increase based on the assessed value increases that we believe that we'll see but by law we're not allowed to consider that at this level for these purposes if you don't mind i'll remove the masks we hear a little bit better brock bauscher with bakertilly it's nice to be out of the house as ms dowling mentioned dr l we've been working with their team for several months here and we've established the max parameter
032at five percent you heard ms dowling talk about however for those of you who have a mortgage at home and you may have refinanced lately you know the interest rates are much lower so right now is a nice time from a market perspective to consider a project like this just because we can minimize the borrowing cost related to this project as much as possible so even though on paper we're showing a maximum tax rate of 79 cents we think with a combination of interest rates being as low as they are and you heard about the continued growth around the community the anticipated net assessed value growth we are confident that we can manage that tax rate at no greater than 75 cents going forward so as part of the max parameters we're establishing that the
033maximum borrowing amount that you heard ms dowling talk about being no greater than 247 million 15 000 again we're setting the maximum amount in how that project can be broken up into three buckets of dollars and we're targeting you see on the far left hand side or my left hand side 214.5 million dollars would which would be project proceeds related specifically to getting the projects completed then a term you'll hear me mention a couple of times in this dowling a couple times from this point going forward is capitalize interest those are dollars set aside as part of the bond issue to repay bond holders to help manage our tax rate you'll see that little more detail in the coming slides but as part of the strategic plan on this bond issue to set aside those
034dollars to repay bond holders so we don't have to increase the tax levy or tax rate the debt service fund so it's done strategically throughout the state of indiana by a lot of school corporations to help manage the tax rate which again you'll see a little more detail here in the coming slide then the final bucket that we'd be setting up is for cost of issuance to pay bankers fees to pay attorney fees municipal advisor fees trustee fees appraisal fees title fees just about any professional fee that you can think related to the bond issue and we've set that at being no greater than 0.45 percent of the total bond issue so again to set a maximum parameter as part of the project [Music] you heard ms dowling what he mentioned this is the outstanding
035debt as of today so a couple of questions that may come up is why now well it's a nice point of time where you have existing debt maturing where we can fit this repayment schedule and wrap it around existing debt to minimize that impact to taxpayers that we've heard is part of the strategic goal to have no greater than a 75-cent tax rate so again from a timing perspective it works out well but more importantly those interest rates to keep that borrowed cost down for the community then this last slide here the gray represents the outstanding debt here on the prior slide the blue represents the the full blue represents the maximum repayment structure of 18 years and eight months and i think this board knows quite well that the maximum repayment term in the
036state of indiana is 20 years so whether we set the maximum parameter at 18 years eight months but we anticipate 13 years at eight months we're well within those confines of what's required by the state of indiana you heard me mention capitalize interest on the prior slide in diagonal bars in 2021 and 2022 that's where we're setting aside those dollars to avoid that significant increase to taxpayers again to help smooth out what we're levying in tax what our levy tax rate is for those couple of years so taxpayers don't feel a significant increase then a decrease right back so part of this overall strategic plan for the bond issue to help level off the tax rate going forward and for those who like to see the detail what we're estimating is the 18 year and
037eight month repayment schedule with a five percent coupon rate again it's our goal to continue working with your team both tied and ongoing to minimize those costs to taxpayers as our role is completely advisory only so i'm not here to try to buy or sell the bonds it's purely just an advisory role to help usher in the next steps in the project so with that welcome questions thank you thank you thank you thank you and brock we may ask you to come back up as we receive questions during our comment time as well and you can see why we asked him to be here this evening so another part of this hearing this evening is we just want to establish a tentative timeline right now our thoughts are that we will begin the projects this
038spring of 2021 with all projects being completed by december of 2024 and with that that concludes the comments that we have in our presentation for this evening thank you we'll now open the public hearing remember if you'd like to speak sign in on the sheet which is located with mrs green um if anybody has not had that opportunity because it will still add up an opportunity to do so if you missed it thank you you could also call um for those of you that opened up the agenda at home if anybody's listening watching um you should have this these numbers and extension with you but i'll uh i'll say it once and repeat it again you could call 219 663 336 then wait for the extension prompt and dial 10251. so one more time you
039could call the extension 219-663-3371 and dial 10251. if the call is not answered please just try a time or two more which we should get you through as i mentioned earlier we ask that you state your name and address limit your comments to the proposed project and financing keep any comments to three minutes and avoid being repetitive if possible we're going to ask scott angel if you would please be the timer on the three minutes so if you know the alarm goes off on you we'll uh give you a closing comment and then and then move forward just to stick with our policy let's see we have uh mr mark mark bates like to come forward good evening can i take this down yes okay and i will promise not to go over three minutes
040so my name is mark bates and i reside at 1235 east greenwood avenue in crown point and as a taxpayer with both residential and commercial holdings here in crown point i would like to tell the board that i am in favor of this project i applaud the administration and the school board in proposing these much-needed building projects without incurring additional tax to the taxpayers in our community we are fortunate to have a vibrant community and our school corporation continues to attract families into our growing school district our current buildings are in need of improvement expansion and even new construction of school buildings to keep pace with the continued forecasted growth not addressing the needs will continue to burn the existing buildings with overcrowded classrooms and unacceptable student-teacher ratios i would strongly encourage the crown point
041school board trustees to adopt measures to move forward with this proposed project thank you thank you appreciate your comments we don't have anybody else that had signed up on the original sheet but is it is there anybody that missed the opportunity or would would like to step forward we just needed to now it's name and address and we could hear your comments we don't have any here and this is a this is new for us as for the board too to be taking a phone call in so we have not had any but we'll give it a 15 seconds to see if anyone calls in we're gonna we'll pause and take the phone call so if uh if by chance you feel like you tried and missed us try again if the phone rings uh
042we'll be happy to take the call correct well that's going on i'll feel obligated just say one quick statement this is right for kids and the education processes those kids endure including our staff and members and to be able to do that with no additional tax increase is the right thing to do at this time so i just want to make sure that people understand why we're doing this and that pretty much sums up the entire project thank you mr angel anybody else from the board uh have any quick comments or closing comments on the presentation this evening well we don't have nobody's calling in mr angel thank you and thank you to everyone who participated in the hearing we appreciate your time and interest in the project and the future of our community um
043i agree strongly with the comments of mr angel personally uh please note that this is just the first step in the legal process no board action is legally required at this hearing rather this hearing is solely to hear public comment and thank you mr bates for your comment the board will continue to work with the administration and his professionals to look for efficiencies to conserve the tax dollars while meeting our educational needs and we will be holding the board will be holding a second public hearing in this room next week december 14th at 6 pm anything else we look for a motion to adjourn mr smith and second by mr angel all in favor saying five to sing opposed thank you all for coming