001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Hi everyone. How are you? Hey, good. Christmas, my favorite time of the year. Okay. All right. Red glasses, wrong head. Yep. You're ready to go. Good morning. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We don't We don't have enough people in the Everybody sit down first. We could say the Pledge of Allegiance, though. No, I know that they can't start the meeting until I mean, I don't know. You You're older than I am and much wiser. Do you hear that? I said you're older than me and much wiser. I don't know about that. Maybe older. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Let's make small talk. Is everybody ready for the holiday? You know, are we ready? Is everybody
002ready, excited? Good. Who's traveling over the holiday? Who has to travel? Okay, so we'll be praying for safe travels for you guys. Everybody's Christmas trees are up? Yeah. No? No? That's all right. That's all right. I had some clients yesterday go to E B Trees and here it's a cutting down place, right? They only had four trees left. Yeah, is that crazy? So, then I love the Google and I was like, oh, I sent one to Nappanee to Flickingers, one went to Grape Road. Everybody found trees by 6:00. I got some texts, people had trees. That was good. So, yeah. Yeah. So, and um I can't sit in silence, you guys. I'm sorry. I'm a hairdresser and also a pretend talk show host. We are in a quorum. Let's go. All right. >> [laughter] >>
003Good morning. Eric, you saved the day cuz I was about to throw down my own talk show. Oh, well, here we go. Save everybody. Good morning, everyone. Uh Stacy said she's running a few minutes late, but uh we can go ahead and uh proceed this morning. Going I'd like to call the meeting to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Thank you. Yeah. Elkhart promise, every student is known by name, challenged, and supported by highly effective staff, and in partnership with the community, will graduate career and college ready and life ready. Thank you. Okay, and We have an invitation to speak protocol. Does anybody need me to review and for you the protocol? Dora, do we have any uh people who would like to address
004us this morning? Okay, just one. All right. Okay, Okay. Uh um Mr. Spellbring, please. Good morning, Ralph. How are you? Good. Uh my name is Ralph Spellbring. I live out in the East Jackson area. First, it seems to me there should be a trolley stop sign down by the stoplight. There's one just after you turn off in Appian Way and there's one out here, but like I said, I think there should be a trolley stop sign at the stoplight along California Road. >> [clears throat] >> It It seems to me that we want to keep the Bristol Elementary in Washington Township. We want to keep the Cleveland School in Cleveland Township. That means that Eastwood and Mary Feaser would be candidates to be closed in my opinion. >> [clears throat] >> Michigan in 1989 had
005a referendum with two proposals on school funding. Both were defeated. If both had passed, it would have been the one with the most votes. School finance is a pretty difficult situation. That's something that needs to be decided by the legislature, not public referendums. >> [clears throat] >> In the early '90s, 2/3 of the money for Michigan public schools was coming from local property taxes. So, they held a referendum in June of 1993 on whether to increase the state sales tax from 4% to 6%. 70 in Michigan counties voted yes, but it was defeated. So, that meant that the big population counties in Michigan had to vote no. Berrien County is a good example of the shortcomings of property taxes to fund schools. The Bridgman District has the Cook Nuclear Plant, so it has plenty of
006money. The Benton Harbor District is one of the poorest in the state. So, it It doesn't have much in the way of local resources. Michigan after the June 1993 defeat had a Republican governor, Democrats in the house, so they said, we'll put it on the ballot again. This time, if it fails, the income tax goes up. So, this time, it passed. By 1998, [clears throat] more than 80% of the money for Michigan public schools was coming from the state. Essentially, local property taxes would have been paying for debt service in the late '90s. So, you went from 2/3 local in the early '90s to 2/3 local to less than 20% local in the late '80s. So, that's In Indiana did that back in the early '70s. We increased the sales tax from 2% to 4%
007to reduce property taxes. Additionally, Elkhart County adopted an income tax. We were the largest population county to do so. So, our property taxes went down considerably in the early '70s. Thank you. Thanks, Ralph. Consent items, do I have a motion? Motion. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, good. Kelly, are there any gifts to be announced? >> we do have a gift. We have from the Elkhart Education Foundation, we have a $1,000 donation for our JROTC. So, that is going to be used for like their ball, their competition supplies, snacks, anything that they need. So, thank you, Elkhart Education Foundation, for that beautiful donation. That's it. Does the board have any other comments on the consent items? Anybody else? Good. All in favor, say I. I. Those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. It
008appears we have no old business. Okay, and new business, contracts, Ms. Ross. Good morning. The administration presents contracts for initial consideration starting with Crowe LLP and Barnes & Thornburg. Do you have any questions? Crowe would be related to the WVPE audit and Barnes and Thornburg will be related to our bond issues. Thank you. Uh Mr. Thorn. Good morning. Vice President Weaver, >> [clears throat] >> members of the board, Dr. Huff. Uh this morning, the administration's presenting for our preliminary consideration uh proposed agreements with the University of Notre Dame, Professional Benefit Administrators, and the City of Elkhart. Are there any questions from the board? Okay. Thank you. Uh Ms. Lozano. Thank you. Good morning, Vice President Weaver, members of the board, Dr. Huff. The administration presents for initial consideration the contract with All One Health. >>
009[clears throat] >> Any questions from the board? Okay. Thank you. [snorts] Uh Ms. Brander. Good morning. The administration present this contract for initial consideration Salient Health to add school psychology services. Any questions from the board? Okay. I'm seeing none. And apparently we don't have to vote on that. Okay. Thank you very much. And uh Dr. Roush. Vice President Weaver, school board of trustees, Dr. Huff. The administration presents proposed revisions to the 2026-2027 school calendar and requests a waiver of second reading. The change came from Memorial Day is not on May 24th, 2027. It's actually on May 31st, 2027. [clears throat] >> [snorts] >> We also have three built-in asynchronous days and then a built-in snow day. And that built-in snow day would be used if for some reason we called off school and we could
010not do asynchronous or synchronous, then students would come in person on that um March 26th day. If we don't need to use it, then we would not be in school on that day. Um do you have a motion? Motion. Do you have a second? Second. Thank you. Any comments from the board or questions? Any comments, questions from the audience? Okay. Seeing none. Okay. All in favor, say I. I. All in favor, all All opposed, say no. Motion passes. Thank you. Uh Mr. Smith, recommendation for award for the fuel contracts. Good morning. The business office recommends award of a contract for fuel for the 2026 calendar school year. Okay. Thank you very much. Do I have a motion? Motion. Do you have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion or comments
011from the board? Any comments from the audience? No. Very good. Okay. Seeing none. All in favor, say I. I. Thank you. >> Motion passes. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> And Ms. Ross. Thank you. Um I'm here to propose a resolution for a transfer of appropriations as we close out the budget for the 2025 school year. Um certain accounts are in need of transferred appropriation in terms of we may not have we need to move money from one object to another just to balance the budget. So, it's just a transfer in that regard. Do you have a motion? Motion. Do you have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any comments or questions from the board? Seeing none. All in favor of the motion, say I. I. All opposed. Hearing none, the
012motion is passed. Thank you very much. And also right on to the finance report. Yes, thank you. Right. So, we have here our monthly financial update. I'm presenting the financials for November 2025. Um here I'd like to start with the education fund. Here's our budget um as I've presented this uh recently, you'll see our we have three columns here that itemize our receipts in the first column, our expenses, and we're getting down to the projected ending cash balance is what I want you to see. So, if you take a look at the 1782 budget as you've seen, um this is the budget we started the school year with, what we anticipated. And if you would draw your attention to the third column, the adjusted budget, a few adjustments since the previous update, local revenue sources
013slightly down, state sources slightly down, but we still are anticipating total receipts about 93 million for the school year. Just a reminder, that's a $6 million revenue reduction from our 1782 notice. And jumping on down to our transfers to operations, just a reminder that we are decreasing those to balance the revenue reduction. And getting down to our projected ending cash balance, this takes us through December. We're looking at a cash balance of about 1.5 million in the education fund. But just a reminder, our goal is to transfer um a total of 3 million to the operations fund, so 1 million will be transferred to the operations fund. Ending with our cash balance of about 500,000 in the education fund. And just a reminder here, I have a circled that 92 million in the middle column
014is our appropriations, our authority to spend up to 92 million this year. And due to kind of a decreased spending trajectory, we shall it looks like we shall be under that spending authority. Um so, that's good news. All right, moving on. Education fund expenditures, we have here presenting November, but October is presented here just as a comparison. So, we're looking at November highlighted here. Our total receipts in the education fund about 7.2 million. Um you can see our expenses. You may be able to see wages are trending down as we'll speak about momentarily. Um And as you go down the expenses, you can see some ebb and flow of some items, but you will see transfers are up significantly and those transfers are transfers to the career center. About 3 months of transfers owed to
015the career center has appeared here. So, normally this line item would be about 200,000 when things level out. So, you see our total expenses here at about 7.4. Net revenue. Um we have made a transfer to operations, the second of the 3 million in transfers, leaving us with a 2.3 million cash balance in our operations fund. I'm sorry, in our education fund. Um Before we leave this slide, just take a look at our remaining budget. Highlighted here, we have about 7.7 million left in this fund for December expenses, so you it appears, as you can see, our expenses are about 7.4. We have about 7.7, so we anticipate having enough money to cover our expenses through the end of the year. Rhonda, I just want to make a clarification on this slide. >> Sure. Um
016in reference to the slide before that, so the remaining budget on this slide, that's from that's the 782 budget um line, correct? And not the adjusted budget. Say that one more time, please. Um the remaining budget on this particular slide so, that's the 782 budget. In the middle column. Right. Um on the next slide, under your remaining budget [clears throat] that's using the 782 budget, it's not using your adjusted budget. >> Well, we didn't adjust the expenses, we adjusted the revenue. >> Right, but that that was my point. So, the remaining budget on this slide is showing 13 million remaining, but that's based off of the 782. Correct? And we're not going to be receiving 6 million. So the remaining budget, if we're looking at based on our adjusted budget, is is going to be
017about 7.3 million left. See what I'm saying? Not quite, but just to clarify, on this slide we didn't adjust expenses, so what we did was adjusted the transfers primarily. We did not adjust the expenses for the education fund, we adjusted revenue and said, "Hey, we won't be able to make those transfers over to operations." So, this is pretty much as is. The expenses we didn't adjust from the 1782. Right, but but the revenue we did adjust. Correct. So, what I'm saying what I'm think I'm trying to say is when you look at the remaining budget for revenue, it's showing on this slide 13 million. I don't see that on this 13 million on this slide. >> Uh-huh, under remaining budget for total receipts at the top. Oh, correct. Yes. So that's based off the 782
018budget. It should not be. It should have been adjusted. If it wasn't, then I missed it, but >> Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. [clears throat] >> Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Well, Oh, yeah, any other questions? Cuz I still have operations left. Oh, okay. Okay, let's see. Sorry about that. Okay, so looking at our education fund, taking a step back as we're closing out the year, um we can see the proportion of wages and benefits that are spent, and that's [clears throat] 93%. I know you've heard a higher number, but two things to add, wages and benefits have been trending down, and also you'll see that purple slice in that pie, the transfers were not included. So, that's taking up about 3% of expenses that were not factored before. So, you may
019have heard like about 96, 97% of wages and benefits were the portion of the operation education fund. It is closer to 93, but the point I like to make here is, as we close out the year on that first bullet, 86 million of our 92 million was spent on wages and benefits, and 7% for other items. So, curriculum, supplies, professional services, these all benefit the classroom. So, out of the education fund, 6 million went to these items. With that being said, um the point is that the savings that we must accomplish must come from wages and benefits. You already see the other items are a smaller portion of the education fund, right? Curriculum, supplies, just 7%. The savings have to come from wages and benefits. With that said, we are looking at um to be
020in budget for 2026 school year, our wages and benefits would have to be about 70 million. As you see here, we spent 86 this year. We have a $16 million budget gap. We do anticipate a bond issue, but that won't change our structural issues. Averaging out those savings that we need per month, we would need to save about $1.3 million per month for 2026. Um and we've already started some of these savings initiatives, but I just wanted to share with you the the the scope of our challenge. Um wrapping up with the cash balance in the education fund at 2.3 million for November. Um moving on to the operations fund briefly, you see November here, you see our total receipts. It has received a transfer from education. Pardon. Um and you can see our total
021expenses and our net revenue. Ending cash balance. Again, wages are down. We see repairs are down and other purchased services are down. A few items went up, utilities as expected, and also a transfer to the career center also hits the operations fund. Here's our operations fund cash balance, ending at 1.9 million. Rainy day, no change. Our total cash balances across funds, ending November, 11 million. And just to recap on some of our saving savings initiatives that we're still moving forward on, including the district footprint and consolidation assessment. And putting some numbers finally putting some numbers to those savings initiatives this month, I like to highlight payroll savings. So, looking at the education fund, um from August to the the first pay in December, comparing 2025 versus 2024, the education fund is down $745,000. Operations fund,
022same period, is down. So, that last line is all funds, so that includes federal grants just across all funds that the district has, the payroll is down 1.8 million. And that concludes our finance update. Thank you. Thank you. Questions, comments? Thank you. Okay, good morning. Dr. Huff? Good morning, Vice President, we remember the board members community. I'll be very brief. I just want to hope everyone a very safe holiday, Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday that you celebrate. I think it's important to always to practice rest but and recharge. The work that we do is very heavy. The work that we do is also very taxing and not just taxing on you, it's taxing on your family as well. So, want to make sure that you really are prioritizing yourself over these holiday over these holidays.
023I also want to wish the kids who are in school watching this board meeting feverishly in the classroom a very safe holiday as well. You're the reason why we do this work and we appreciate you. Staff members in whatever department you are. Same wishes that for the people in this audience we wish for you as well. So, everyone have a great holiday break well deserved hardest working staff that I've ever had opportunity to work with. And on a different note, as a reminder in January board meeting times to change. They start at 6:00 p.m. Starting on our January 13th meeting work sessions will begin at 5:00. So, I just want to reminder. We'll send out some reminders to our community as well. But, those two things are important. They were on my heart this morning
024so I thought I would share that with the community. I'm going [clears throat] to turn it back over to you Vice President Weaver. Dr. Huff, thank you very much. Any comments from the board? Eric, Ann? I know Kelly does. No, I'm like my Kelly score is just going to be Merry Christmas. I just love this holiday season so much. So, I hope you guys are blessed and happy and enjoy yourself because we all need a rest. Period. I think. So, thank you. Stacy? Good morning. >> Also, I didn't say it before but it was actually Eastwood Elementary School that won the basketball championship for elementary. So, hopefully they send you something Wendy cuz they did a really cool championship march. But, I didn't want to like say it if they were going to send you
025something but that is who won the basketball. That's it. I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and it's thank you for everything that you've done this year and going forward into 26 and 27 and 28. We appreciate it. I personally appreciate it. Thank you. Merry Christmas. Have a good