001e e e [Applause] as far away from me as I can get it put that microphone right away [Music] all right it's 6 o' uh welcome everyone to our February 25th 2025 Public Work session I will now call the work session to order and we'll start off Mr quiet thank you president Scott School Board of Trustees and Dr Huff um I'm excited to introduce a partner of ours um Mr Barry Gardner with policy analytics uh Barry has many years of experience in public education as a educator as a coach as an administrator uh and now he works with policy analytics and he's going to give us a little bit of background on uh property tax um kind of what Elkart counties looks like specifically Elkart Community Schools um and some factors that we can um
002help um educate the public and consider as a school board as we move forward um strategically um in Elkart community school so I will turn it over to Mr Barry Gardner thank you uh good evening uh board Dr Huff appreciate the opportunity to be here with all of you this evening um again just real briefly policy analytics is a firm based out of uh Indianapolis and we specialize in helping provide economic analysis for government units uh really uh primarily on the property tax side in terms of tax rate property tax revenues and and the impacts of of those areas and so work with about 60 school districts across the state uh and one of the things that we do for school districts is what we call a property tax analysis where we help the district
003really understand uh the makeup of your community in terms of assess value property tax revenue and and some of the levers that sometimes pull and so that's what we'll kind of go through tonight um more than happy to answer any questions uh throughout with the report but if not I'll go ahead and get started here uh so again just a little bit there with ourselves I I'll move through uh one of the things we often talk about with boards across the state is the complexity with school Finance uh as simple as we often hope it would be to understand how schools receive revenue and how tax rates are are formed it's a very complicated system uh and for school districts you're often faced with many of these areas uh from circuit breaker in terms of
004dollars you don't collect uh to assess value changes to you know uh long range stability in terms of your finances to legislative changes which are currently happening and being discussed um it's a quiet week down at the state house which is a good week uh I think in some regards uh within that but a lot of bills being proposed right in terms of that we've heard about property tax reform quite a bit and so again all of those things create moving parts for school districts and at policy Analytics our goal is to help really analyze that information uh on those uncertainties provide some clarity uh for the District of how your story uh is right and what is your story when it comes to your your finances especially in the side and then what's that
005plan of action knowing that information how does the district react what are the things you should be aware of uh to ultimately again provide what the success for the district in terms of providing services and supports for students the end of the day so the first piece uh really is our tax base analysis and going to start out here this is a map on the Le hand side of the chart excuse me is a map that is outline of the school district boundaries uh so that's Elkart Community Schools and then within that you see a number of colors that represent the different taxing districts within the School boundaries uh all school districts uh typically have multiple taxing districts uh we often refer to those as Incorporated and unincorporated uh Incorporated means they have a city
006or town associated with them a municipal unit on the right hand side of the uh page you can see each of those units and the overall tax rate Associated within each of those uh the school district's tax ratees kind of in that light blue at that rounded up 92 cents uh there's a county tax rate in many of these a Township uh sometimes a library and then you can see the municipal tax uh within that and that would be the the city tax rate we call those overlapping units because as they stack uh they create a liability on taxpayers uh and then also have impact on what each of those units receive at the end of the day in terms of dollars and so it's important to understand um that you have different taxing districts
007they have different rates and depending on those rates they could have different liability and different impacts so sometimes we want a broad sweep right of tax increase or tax decrease or liability and it's going to play out very differently depending potentially on where you live within the community uh based on those overlapping factors the other piece that we look at then within that is what are the number of parcels that are what we call at the property tax cap and a part parcel is a piece of property so it could be a home could be an apartment complex could be a commercial business uh but it's really any property inside of the the township excuse me the community uh boundaries and the orange on this chart represents the parcels that are at the cap and
008what we mean by at the cap if you're familiar uh in 2009 Indiana voted in property tax caps of 1 two and 3% uh 1% for homeowners 2% for apartments uh in agriculture and 3% for commercial and your tax liability means that you can as a homeowner for example can only pay 1% of the gross assess value of your home so if your home is assessed at 200,000 you can only pay 2,000 in property taxes regardless of what may be asked as a part of the math calculation of tax rates so what we say there is a a tax liability may be $2,400 for that homeowner but the most they can pay is $2,000 they're at the cap right and so that's important to understand because if a district uh were to lower the rate
009in that situation that taxpayer may not feel any relief in an area that has high uh tax cap impact wherein some of the townships where we don't have that City rate they would feel the impact of tax rate movement both as an increase or decrease so again that creates a little bit of complication in the story because a movement a district or a unit may make is going to have different impacts in each of these areas for each of those homeowners in terms of their liabilities one of the really important pieces with your makeup as a school district is the assess value composition as we call it and these are where do the parcels in the school corporation fall into various taxing categories uh residential uh industrial commercial apartments and then personal property and we
010want to look at this because at the end of the day this is going to impact the dollars that come into the school district in terms of property tax revenue it's going to have an impact on that this is actually a very diverse tax base uh we work with a lot of school corporations where the pi of this chart is 70% residential versus the 60% here and when you're more residential resident homesteads are going to hit those tax caps first and so it's going to start to limit property tax revenue so this is actually what we say a very diverse which is a positive piece in terms of at the end of the day what dollars is the district going to receive into your operations fund or Debt Service fund um and so that's an
011important piece you can see the breakout there on the right hand side we often track the changes from year to year um while we see some big movements and things like a and apartments it doesn't have have a whole lot of impact it doesn't move the deal for the district because they're such a small part of your overall assess value what's really going to determine growth and assess value for the district is your residential which are going to be home prices and then any movement in the business kind of commercial sector right that's really what's going to drive things things here within the district this is on the left-and side I I'll focus on this chart for now is just the historic um Trend in Gross assess value so what has been the assessed value
012growth and we've seen growth in assessed value here in the district over the last 10 years and that's typical uh within that we've cut off uh in some ways it's far enough past when the 2009 2010 when the recession came into play we actually saw assess values decline across the state um now in this piece with the last 10year look it is a much more upward uh positive trend and then you can see the individual categories the biggest change for the most part is the resid itial the gray bars that you see is seen the biggest growth uh in terms of assessed value and again that's we talked about it's about 60% uh it really drives the assessed value uh which again is going to impact Revenue going to impact tax rates uh within that
013and that is primarily driven by this chart so what this chart shows us is the gross sucess value of homes within the community over the last 10 years and they're broken out by percentiles the green is is the 25th percentile the Orange is the median gross assess value in in the district the red line there is the average and then the blue is the the 75th percentile so kind of a range of home values gross assess value is relatively correlated to home price sales price our assess value system is what we call a market-based system so as home prices increase or decrease the assess value is going to follow that in some correlation and so when you look on the right hand side of this chart and you see the run up in terms of
014that average gross assess value that's pretty typical in most districts across the state and if you think of the last three to four years in home prices not only across the state but across the country we have seen a pretty dramatic rise in home prices uh it really doesn't matter where you've lived right um and because of that assess value tends to follow that so that's been a piece within that what that also does um kind of at the end of the day for a homeowner is as my assess value goes up so does my liability of what I can pay right and so that's when you often hear about property tax reform or you hear about increase in tax bills it is because the assessed value or the value of the home is going
015up and in our current property tax system when the value of a home goes up that means that you in turn can potentially pay more in property tax dollars or pack tax liability and so that's speaks to that a little bit here in terms of both what we've seen across the state what you're may be hearing down the state house and then really kind of that localized context of terms of your assessed value growth part of our data uh really comes uh we we track a number of different um kind of data points to project assess value because one of the things we tend to bring to the district is uh project assess value moving forward and we use home prices to do so this is localized to Elkart County and it shows the year-over
016year change in median sales price within the county and it can give us a little bit of insight part of the reason we look at this uh I focus from 23 to 24 you can see the median sales price went up about 5% sales data that happened in 2024 will be assessed in 25 and will be a part of your 26 assessed value when you talk about your budget in 26 and so what this is telling us and we're seeing this really across the state is that home prices are still trending upward and that means assess value is still going to have a prediction of trending upward as well so just a kind of a localized piece that we use amongst uh building permits commercial data uh our just for reference our software goes back
017about the last 15 years of assess value of every single parcel U so when we do an analysis for your assessed value here in the community it's not taking this percentage and saying hey we're going to think your assess value is going to grow by 5 per. we're actually have data on every single piece of property and we're able to analyze changes in the economy to those individual Parcels to help project that out moving forward and so it's a really granular report at the end of the day probably if you ever want to go to sleep I can sends you some of that data and I'm sure it will help you uh be some light reading material to to go through all that so um but it is it's it's really important because it helps
018us understand that localized context right and because every Community is going to have their own story in terms of changes that are happening in the economy and home prices and we want that to be reflective in those those projections the second piece that's really important as well is you are not your tax revenue does not come from the gross assess value while that's important um overall it comes from the net assess value and you can see the change in this chart is that the residential Pi gets smaller and the reason for that is homesteads are the only group that have deductions there's a standard deduction of $48,000 on a home and a supplemental deduction by of 35% which brings down that assess value that we actually tax against and so when we do that you
019can see that homes actually become a a little smaller portion and the commercial side becomes a little larger and again that's a good thing in terms of having a diverse tax base so if there are changes in any of these individual areas in the economy they're somewhat protected right it's kind of like a stock portfolio right if you're heavily invested in one area and that area has a drawback it's going to be more impactful when you're spread out and diversified it allows you to adjust to those changes so that again is another positive for the school district a lot of numbers to this this chart uh within this but I think it's really important for some of the work that we do with with Mr quiet in terms of helping the district understand future Financial
020capacity when it comes to your operations fund and your debt service fund the easiest way sometimes think assess value is a little bit like a wallet right the bigger it grows the more dollars that are potentially available uh which are important because at the end of the day we have inflationary costs Things become more expensive we need to reinvest in our build bus and so we need some of that additional capacity potentially and so the blue on this chart shows the historic uh growth in your um assess value year-over-year and again been fairly positive overall um the Orange is where we're projecting kind of moving forward and again we're still pretty bullish on the housing in terms of the economy that right now we feel like assess value is going to stay fairly strong in
021terms of growth again another positive as we try to plan moving forward the colors in the middle have a little story to them uh in 2023 the state legisl passed House Bill 1499 which changed that supplemental deduction I just mentioned it increased it from 35 to 40% in 2024 um that was to give homeowners some property tax relief because if I increase the deduction that lowers that net AV that we're going to tax against so that was the intent what it did was actually pull pull aside some of your assess value growth so if you look at the bar there on 2024 uh if that Bill had not passed the district's assess value would have grown by about 10 per. that's a really strong strong number it grew by 6.7% because that deduction pulled some
022of that AV away but it's not lost it's comes back because that deduction goes from 40% down to 37 A5 and 25 and then back to 30 35% excuse me in 26 so if you can see for 2025 we said if that they had not passed that bill you would have only grown by 6.1 but you actually had a little stronger growth some non-organic growth really in that that deduction rolling off while that's kind of in the weeds the reason I bring it up is it's really important based on what we're hearing down at the state house because they're talking about again deduction changes potentially for homeowners and if those happen we know that those could potentially have impact on our assessed value moving forward which again is going to to impact the revenue and
023dollars available for the school district and that's something we're going to want to watch closely and try to Monitor and model out to help the district understand any potential changes that might either a increase your tax rates or b lower the revenue without you doing anything differently uh really at the end of the day um last piece here and I know there's a lot of numbers within this this is just an example uh of what we provide for the school district it's really to help you make informed decisions and this is one scenario that we run we run a number of scenarios but this is just simply if the district for years last years has maintained about a 902 Cent tax rate and we said if the district were to continue uh maintaining that 92
024Cent rate you can see in the bottom right hand uh corner there uh you can see the tax rates uh there what we then help project out is based on the assessed value growth what Revenue will you see and that's that certified Levy there on the top leftand side and for example that grows over time as assess value grows however the district also experiences what we call circuit breaker loss which are dollars you do not collect because that homeowner has hit the cap once they hit that cap they can't pay anymore in terms of property tax taxes and so those dollars go in uncollected it's about a $3.4 million U impact on the District of dollars you don't receive so we're able then to model that out because if the district is to change any
025of those inputs on tax rates it could change that circuit breaker if the legislative body were to change any of the levers it could change the circuit breaker impact and at the end of the day that determines how much revenue you end up in the operations fund the greater the circuit breaker impact the fewer dollars you have in the operations fund and we want to monitor that again as we talk about that long range financial planning and that long range stability depending on those moves we want to understand what that impact is going to have financially for the school district and so again didn't want to get too far into the weeds but at least wanted to show you some of the work that we're doing with the district and at the end of the
026day one of the questions I always ask Mr Qui this is what are the scenarios you want us to run right and so we can look at a number of scenarios and then we're also waiting again to see what the legislators bring out we're at the kind of halftime Mark we'll see what the next month or so brings in terms of potential changes and then we would recreate this model for the district to understand what do those impacts have and what's the revenue look like moving forward for the district in those pieces the last piece that's really um kind of I think an interesting chart uh within this is we sometimes talk about if the district were to maybe decrease their rate right what impact would would that have and what this chart really says
027says is if you were to decrease your debt service rate by a dollar the total decrease would actually be 77 cents in total Levy because you create circuit break relief and you would actually get 23 cents theoretically back into your operations fund so again we talk levers if I reduce tax rate I push more dollars into the operations fund if I increase tax rate I'm going to see fewer dollars in the operations fund but in terms of total Levy when I reduce I actually end up with fewer dollars so it's this kind of pushpull a little bit in terms of that of what projects do you have where do you need to see your debt service rate and is it beneficial to lower that because you're not going to get dollar for dooll back in
028the operations fund is really what it's saying right so if you reduce by a dollar in your debt service you're not going to get a dollar back in your operations fund right and so that's an important metric to kind of measure to know again where are your strengths and where are your liabilities in terms of funding and how do you again kind of try to maximize the dollars that you're receiving on an annual basis into each of those those funds the last piece within this uh is if we uh decrease the rate how many people would no longer be at the cap right and what it says is if you decreased your debt service rate by about 10 cents only another 500 people in the community 500 homes out of 20,000 almost would no longer
029be at the cap okay that's a pretty substantial that's a you know roughly over 10% reduction in your tax rate doesn't generate a whole lot of tax relief because so many people are already currently at the property tax cap okay and so again that's one of the metrics we always you know we want to be good stewards of those dollars but at the end of the day if we reduce by that 10 cents does it generate the impact that we're hoping for on homesteads uh when you reduce your tax rate if you go back to that original slide when you see like the $3 tax rate like in the city where we have all those overlapping units most of your homeowners are all going to be at the Caps most of your 2% are going
030to be at the cap so when you increase or decrease in this case decrease rates who first sees that tax relief it goes businesses then Apartments then homeowners so sometimes again we think hey we're going to roll that rate in our home owners are going to see a difference it's actually going to work in in a reverse piece and again doesn't mean you we don't do those pieces but I think it's an important concept to understand of is the impact the the intent that we want in terms of those pieces right uh within that and you know you may think by lowering it you've impacted homeowners and then home homeowners come back with feedback saying my tax bill hasn't changed well it's because they're already at the cap and that move will not impact them
031um same kind of chart I I'll go go through that quickly just in terms of an increase uh for the board I'll allow you to kind of look through those pieces allow Mr quiet to kind of follow up but it's really the same thing kind of an inverse just helping understand if we push poll where those dollars come from um the last piece I want to spend just quickly a little time going through I think is really important is understanding your tax rate um tax rates are really driven by assess value the more assessed value you have the lower your tax rate can be and really generate the same amount of Revenue so we look at assess value kind of on a per student basis allows us to compare School sizes and so on this
032chart this is kind of within Elkart County you can see that you're just below the state average when it comes from AV per student okay and so what typically happens is the districts you see on the right hand side of this chart we're going to show another one here in just a second they're going to be on the leth hand side because they're going to have a higher tax rate lower AV tend to generate a higher tax rate and then in the top right hand side you can see where you fall really in regards to the the state as well um so when we look at this if you look at a Concord a Goan that are now on the left-and side having a higher tax rate if you were to go back to the
033previous slide they had lower AV per student you're a little bit of an anomaly on this chart okay you have midsize kind of in the middle of the road AV per student but overall you have a fairly low tax rate it's lower than the state average primarily in that Debt Service fund uh that's a uh again you can see your debt service tax rates only 29 cents and you can see some of the comparative rates within those pieces um so again just something to be aware of uh in terms of your ability to uh guess when we talk with districts about tax rates it's a hard conversation because at times it can sound having a low tax rate is a good thing and having a low Debt Service rate tax rate can be a good
034thing uh we work with the district recently they had a 5cent tax rate sounds great but they had gone many years without doing necessary projects and it caught up with them and they had so much deferred maintenance that this year they're having to do a 29 Cent tax rate in order to make up for that right because our buildings need to be reinvested in and so is that the right measure in terms of the investments in terms of your facilities um and that and that's a question for the district to understand right what's your Capital project plan and is that rate giving you what you need in terms of reinvesting your buildings because projects get more expensive over time and you need to invest within those and so it's a it's an interesting question because
035all outset we look at and say low rate that's great but is it allowing us to invest in our buildings in the way that we we need to right to to keep them safe and and functional really same data here uh this just expands this so now this is uh based on ADM so five districts that are larger and then the five districts that are just below you in terms of of enrollment again you really fall in that middle area uh in terms of assessed value but you can start to now see a little wider Gap right this this got a little wider as we stepped outside of Elkart County and you see some District especially down in that Central Indiana um donut area that have some pretty high assess value got a lot of
036business in their Community some high value homes um and that again is going to typically allow them to have a lower uh tax rate overall um in terms of this but again in this group you really stand out you have a really overall pretty low tax rate and I think again not encouraging the district that you need to do projects and those pieces right but I think when you look um across the board where what's where's the difference it's really in that Debt Service piece and and that in terms of dollars um that's really where the rate difference is for the the district and I think again that's uh a conversation for the board to to consider uh within those pieces that's really it I know it's a little bit Fast and Furious I'm more
037than happy to to answer any any questions you know I think the the overall take uh I would give to the district is right now you've got a pretty diverse tax base that's allowing you to have a little bit lower rate uh overall despite that kind of lower pursued Navy um it's allowing you to generate some Revenue um some decent Revenue in terms of operations fund I think it's a piece to watch because as this legislative session happens a lot of the M the Maneuvers they're discussing would again I'll go back to the point you could do nothing different next year and that 92 Cent tax rate could be a dollar five and you've done nothing different it's because they may again if they give additional deductions to homeowners and they lower your AV as
038AV goes down the rate has to go up to generate the revenue that you're currently generating and so again you may have the same amount of revenue from one year to the next and yet a higher tax rate within those pieces and so I just bring that up we talk with that with a lot of our districts because that especially those that are have been managing to a rate like a 92 cents you may have to open up that Paradigm and that that mindset in terms of where that's at because it's going to be forced upon some of that relief that that might be out there um the other big one to watch is personal property uh that's the equipment inside of a business there's two bills that would eliminate that if that goes away
039it really forces the liability onto some of those other areas like homeowners like other businesses so again some of those moves are going to have some impact not only on you uh potentially in terms of Revenue but in terms of what we often say is who pays right at theend day who's bringing those dollars to to the table and so um really today and tonight was just to kind of set that Baseline that we'll continue to monitor we'll continue to work with the district as these things come out um but uh appreciate it and again happy to take any questions good great job thank you awesome thank you well yeah thank you Barry for that very informative I I think uh it's always good to keep on top of where we're at as the district
040I I would like to point out one of the things I find interesting is when he shared with us where that dollar goes only 23 cents right we gain from the circuit breaker but you also look at that reallocation to other taxing units is 35 cents so more dollars are going into some of those other taxing units uh levies as we reduce our uh potential Levy impact so um but yes thank you Barry I think this is very informative I hope it was informative for the group and um that concludes the our session here thank you I can see everybody's just enamored with the finances that we seen tonight so thank you very much um is there anything else nothing else I will uh adjourn the uh work session e e e hi honey [Music]
041are you gonna are you update doing an update just oh okay just say it okay well good okay yeah just whatever is it going well is it going well yeah okay okay good it's good to see yes good evening and uh thank you all for coming out tonight to the February 25th 2025 elcar Community Schools regular board meeting at this time I like to call the meeting to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Elkart promise Miss Davis every student is known by name challenged and supported by highly effective staff and in partnership with the community will graduate career college
042and life ready thank you very much Miss Davis uh next we have our invitation to speak protocol all of you tonight should have H had one of these on your seat on the right hand side there's a little form here please fill it out with your name and your uh affiliation with elart Community Schools all agenda and non-agenda items can be discussed during our public comment section please come to the microphone state your name and again your associate with a district you'll have a maximum of three minutes Dora do we have anybody okay thank you is it Daniel Walsh hi my name is Dan Walsh I've been up here before I think you know who I am um a high school teacher at alcart high school um I'm here to present my letter of resignation
043to the board I formally gave it to my chain of command this afternoon but uh this is uh presenting it to the board I really don't have much to say so thank you all right no other public comment uh next on the agenda is board member recognition good evening president Scott members of the board seems like last month we really missed board member appreciation month we recognize you but we did not recognize you in the fysical capacity that we should um one of the things I want to personally thank you for I'm sure our my team feels the same sentiment your hard work your advocacy all the things that you do for children and for our community um it can't I can tell you in my year here that I would not been able to
044survive literally without the support and the leadership that you provide on a daily basis um we know that you sacrifice tons of your time tons of your energy but most importantly you do it for the best interest of our kids in our community all of you are long-standing members here in Elkart and we know that you lead with love compassion but most importantly you have to make some really tough decisions this is not only a thankless job at times but I also think it can be the one of most rewarding that we can have for our kids so I just want to tell you from the bottom of my heart and I will think I speak for our team in our community we would like to just give you a personal acknowledgement for a little
045bit of the hard work that you do so um at this time we would like to call you up and personally um celebrate you just a little bit so I will let my lovely assistant Dora help me to lead this cause do right there [Music] first it's I have to dust I said Mr M rette A thank you you do thank look here's my smile principal's office should I C get thugs spech this is what I can tell you I can show 5,000 pictures of Doug in Mexico because he's been sending them to me every five minutes not it's the moment no do you see how I smile like this do we bring perfect than what a nice prise congratulations to all of you well deserved gon leave your sitting [Music] out well thank you
046very much great uh next on the agenda Excellence of velart Miss wagler all right thank you president Scott members of the board Dr Huff and the community the annual Trailblazer Awards celebrated the top African-American students excelling in academics and Athletics chapter president Robert Taylor emphasized the event mission was to highlight student achievement and celebrate education during Black History Month among the honores was am Marian cry who is recognized for having one of the highest gpas in Elkart Community Schools congratulations to our own Adriana Brown who is named the Boys and Girls Club of Elkart County's Youth Of The Year the honor recognizes teens who show passion drive and a commitment to making a difference incoming freshman night at the Freshman division gave students a head start on their High School Journey they learned about expectations
047scheduling athletic requirements and many of the clubs available at the high school and they got to travel around um the gymnasium and ask questions of those in attendance and congratulations to Roosevelt steam Academy students Ezekiel hry and Cruz brenaman for winning first place in the city science fair also a big shout out to amarantha I hope I said her name correctly amarantha Hostetler first place in beston show and Z DEA Reya first place and best project for their outstanding work and I think in April they go on to Regional science fair Beardsley's first and second graders gave a wonderful performance of the winter song festival and we always love to to hear the Young Voices and look forward to seeing how they grow in their musical education throughout the years congratulations to chance McCulla and
048Brennan W wicker for competing at the state wrestling finals and a special shout out to chance for finishing sixth in the 165 pound division which was an incredible achievement and congratulations to both Pinewood on the left and Mary feeser elementary girls basketball teams for making it to the finals for our elementary Sports and a special shout out because Pinewood Panthers won the championship this is their second district win this year because they also had an undefeated girls volleyball team so they're really putting the pressure on in Pinewood and oops there we go we had one other recipient of the Indiana blacks expo's prestigious Trailblazer award and this was the Garvin Robertson award given to a student who excels in both academics and Athletics this year's recipient was Anthony Leonard Jr he has a 3.8 GPA
049he's a multiport athlete and a straight a state track competitor and the chapter president Robert Taylor praised him for being such a role model for his peers and an inspiration to the entire community so we are very proud of him we are getting to the busy season in the school year so just in the next couple of weeks this is just a snapshot of what's going on but I would invite you all out February 27th to Roosevelt steam Academy to their Black History Month celebration this weekend also Circle the state and we are hosting basketball sectionals and that will be next week along with sat and e-learning and then we will continue our music with isma jazz festival um don't forget the Elkart High School Musical 9 to-5 and for parents who were not able
050to make it out to college school Sunday this past Sunday there are two other opportunities in March where they can come and get FAFSA assistance um and help with college so and as always stay up to date with our social media and we we will be posting stories on there and our website thank you so much thanks next on the agenda we have the consent items do I have a motion I have a motion do I have a second I have a second do I have any discussion from the board okay so we will take a moment oh we'll take a you're welcome a moment of silence for you know a couple of losses that we just experienced in our school system and one uh for one of our um staff members that um is
051needing prayer over healing so um Peggy Thomas who is Tanisha Dale's mother and the mother-in-law to Rodney Dale who was a former board member and also our chief of the fire department she was um cafeteria specialist at our um Hawthorne Early Learning Center so a moment of silence and the loss of Peggy and you know I some of our members know her very well but I took a chance to like read over her you know a bituary too which was like really truly one of the most beautiful stories of a life but inside of it it was just like joy joy joy smile cooking people coming over to her house always being at church even when her pastor is like you need to go home and she's like no I'm not going home just overwhelming
052like when you talk about walking with Jesus and being a servant of the Lord to others in our community like if if only to be a small smidgeon of her it was so beautiful so very sorry for the loss of her and um we just found out you know today he he is also a neighbor of our own Eric Ivory's here but it is um Lorna sugs so she is our teacher like baby holder for our teenage pregnancy program so like our teenage mothers have this beautiful program over at our Early Learning Center and Lura not only takes care of those babies but she also like guides our students but it's what she does with all of the kids inside of there so Lura unexpectedly lost her husband on Sunday and um you know she
053just even popped back in the school today because she just needed a moment of the babies to give her a little bit of healing so you know prayers for her and then um Betty Harris who is our cafeteria specialist manager at manger she um you know had a a very very serious medical issue and um she is recovering right now and needs plenty of prayers so if we could just say you know take a moment of celebrating life and praying for another and it's it's always difficult to transition in and I've said that before at other meetings when you move from like a moment of that but it's always celebrating life and being thankful the moments that we have but we also say goodbye to a custodian of ours for the reason that he's retiring
054so it's a joyful thing but 23 years as our elcar Area Career Center custodian and so if you went to the career center there's something special about those custodians because they're aware of everything that's going on and the timing that's coming in in each one of the students and for us like they played a very significant role even when I was back at that school of knowing what's happening so like we could not be more appreciative of the years of service that he had in taking care of all of the students over there um and that is all I have yeah thank you just just real quick just because you you mentioned that I would be remissed if I didn't also publicly acknowledge um Jan and and Laura the Mr Mrs sugs um you know
055great family uh no doubt you know um they are you know hurting need some some prayers and thoughts and so um you know she is a a wonderful young lady um he will definitely be be Miss um and much like uh Mrs Thomas Curry as well right she um service for six years in our lunchroom um life of service in the community uh so I just want to also acknowledge those those two people so thank you for saying that yeah thank you anything else uh yeah so um on a different note donations so our if you guys did not know this we have a boys volleyball team and um they starting to gain momentum and it's it's pretty amazing so the alcart Athletic Club uh donated $850 and then again uh the Career Center's Automotive
056program received um a a $1,500 donation from the mishigan and Mustangs which is James Yoder who's a huge supporter of our program and then this is always a cool one it is $1,000 from get wet for a vet and that is to our a our afjrotc again and um they're just gaining so much momentum and that group is growing and it's pretty phenomenal so $3,350 from our community so thank you again alcart donors anything else all in favor opposed motion carries next we have old business Mr Thorne uh board policy 3120.4 CS employment of personnel for extracurricular activities thank you and good evening president Scott members of the board Dr Huff uh this evening the administration is requesting approval of proposed revisions to this policy initially the policies was updated to reflect changes required in
057in a Law related to the qualifications needed to serve as a coach or sponsor of extracurricular activities as well as requirements for our coaching staff set by the Indiana High School Athletic Association since the February 11 meeting we have made further revisions to remove some duplicative Provisions within the policy as originally presented and to improve the overall organization of the policy and we're seeking approval of the policy this evening Mr Thoren do I have a motion motion do I have a second I have a motion and a second do I have any discussion or questions seeing or hearing none all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimous unanimously next we have board policy 31221 ACS drug-free workplace thank you tonight the administration is requesting approval of this proposed policy the policy codifies the present expectations
058that employees who report for Duty or attended Corporation sponsored function while under the influence of drugs or alcohol may be subject to disciplinary consequences again we're seeking approval of this policy tonight thank you do I have a motion I have a motion do I have a second second I have a motion and I have a second any questions or discussions from the board seeing or hearing none all in favor I opposed motion carries next we have board policy 53401 student concussions and sudden sudden Cardiac Arrest the Administration has recommended an approval of this proposed policy the proposed policy addresses the ongoing training require IRS for District employees supervising Athletics and other activities which where there exists an enhanced risk of concussion and or S sudden cardiac arrest you do I have a motion motion second
059second I have a motion in a second do I have any discussion or comment from the board seen or hearing none all in favor I opposed motion carries uh next we have uh for review only uh administrative regulation J-1 kindergarten early interest proceed did I miss one Mr Scott I believe you missed 5410 uh I will back up we have board policy 5410 promotion placement and retention thank you so much uh this evening the administration is seeking approval of uh by the board of the proposed revisions to this policy the primary rationale for these proposed revisions is to address the changes mandated under the law related to passage of the I 3 Examination by the district students thank you do I have a motion do I have a second second I have a motion and
060a second do I have any discussion or questions from the board seeing or hearing none all in favor I opposed motion carries now we have for review only administrative regulations J1 kindergarten early interest entrance proceed in application form tonight the administration is presenting for further consideration proposed revisions to this regulation which will provide will be provided to parents who might be requesting early entrance into kindergarten the intent of the proposed revisions is to assure that District officials have sufficient information to assess whether or not applicants are ready for kindergart is that it that is it thank you so much thank you very much next we have uh new business Mr quiet Wellness Services recommendation yes thank you president Scott members of the board Dr Huff um the business office is asking for the board's approval
061of a wellness Consulting and brokerage service agreement um per board policy 6 6320 we conducted an RFP um for these Services based on some um concerns that the cost and perceived um value of this plan may be um hindering hiring or retention and so we went out and uh sought some rfps we had four responses lhd who is our incumbent uh USI Gibson and gallager Gallagher all responded um to that call um they were evaluated on firm experience strategic approach um technology and analytics vendor management uh employee education um the references and costs um after some review I think we learned some uh very valuable insights and I think uh a term that continue to come up as a a plan uh poor plan uh well communicated is better than a great plan poorly communicated
062and and the emphasis that is needed to help our employees understand the value that we provide um in Wellness Services which primarily our health plan um and and uh agreements associated with that is uh Val valuably important we invest a lot of money in this District to provide those um as we should and so um I with that the recommendation is that we transition from lhd to gallager for those Wellness consultant Services um that would be effective April 1 um with the goal that we are educating and improving Communications to our employees around that uh Wellness Plan Mr Qui do I have a motion Mo I have a second I have a motion and a second do I have any questions discussions from the board Ador I would call for a roll call vote on
063this I will be abstaining because of my Association within the industry and my affiliation with Gallagher ER IV yes Ann Vell yes Mullin yes Mike berett yes sty Davis yes thank you motion passes um one two three four five five yes is a one obain next uh Mr require resolution confirming lease and taking other actions for the 2025 Middle School uh renovation and Facilities update project yes thank you president Scott um these next two items I will uh give a brief update on um and we will need to um open for public comment briefly um then we can close that and I'll I'll ask the board to um vote on these individual um resolutions or recommendations so the first resolution confirming lease and taking other actions on the 2025 Middle School Renovations and Facilities update
064um as the board will remember we've previously approved the lease agreement with Elkart Community School Corporation to facilitate the renovations at all three middle schools um this resolution confirms the lease execution and permits the issuance of the bonds to finance the projects the financing plan includes $6.6 million in bonds per School totaling $19.8 million allocated for renovations and facility improvements um as you recall a public hearing was held ensuring transparency and confirming uh that the lease terms were fair and reasonable uh additionally We'll be asking that the board approve the Appropriations resolution for the 2025 Middle School res Renovations and facility update project um this resolution authorizes the appropriations of bond proceeds and interest earnings to fund the Middle School projects um it outlines the financial framework for using the bond funds to cover expenses
065such as land acquisition construction and Associated costs um at this time I would ask that we suspend the meeting and open for public comment if there is any very good at this time I will suspend our normal board meeting and open it up for public comment is there any public comment one more time anybody it's excited that we're investing so much in the middle schools with the way that're can you come up and I'm sorry yeah please come up to the microphone didn't want to be that formal no I just wanted to state that I'm I know that that's a lot of money and I'm very excited that we are investing that much into all three of the schools and I think that that'll benefit greatly and I also think that it will ease the
066minds of the parents whose fifth incoming sixth graders who uh in the beginning felt rushed um you know that gives us some peace of mind that they that those incoming sixth graders will be given the resources that they need so I just think that's an awesome investment so very good yep thank you is there any other public comment hearing or seeing no other public comment I will now uh close the public comment portion and open the board meeting back up thank you president Scott at this time I would ask that the board uh approve the resolution confirming lease and taking other action for the 2025 Middle School Renovations and facility update project do I have a motion I have a motion do I have a second second I have a motion I have a second
067do I have any discussion or questions from the board seeing or hearing none all in favor I opposed passes unanimously uh next one is the appropriation resolution for the 2025 Middle School Renovations and facility update project um do I have a motion motion I have a motion do I have a second second I have a motion and I have a second do I have any questions or discussions from the board regarding this resolution seeing or hearing none all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you oh now we have the financial report yes thank you president Scott Board of Trustees and Dr Huff uh brief Financial update uh January was a 3 pay period month expenditures were um uh high but expected with a three- pay period month it did um eat into a bit
068of the cash balance but as uh as expected um additionally I would note that um the Food Service fund um you'll see a uh uh lower than usual cash balance um there has been a delay in our revenues in terms of receding those so December and January revenues were not receded um until February and so there's quite a bit of lag there in those um revenues to offset the expenses in that cash balance projection so I just want to make sure that was noted but um that concludes my report on the financial report if there's any questions i'' be happy to answer those any questions from the board on the financial report we're good thank you Mr Quay next on the agenda Dr Huff thank you president Scott me of the board Community um just
069want to uh wish our um robotic robotics team uh luck this Saturday as they compete at Penn um and I'm surely they're going to take home Lisa who they do they get gold medals what do they get yes I don't know no they're goingon to win they're gonna be first place um that that's it gold medals trophies no they get no no no yours matter of fact we're give them yours but I I no I'm just excited when we talk about having our kids go out and compete they learn not just the how to do the activity through robot but competition and collaboration and also um teamwork things that are going to make them also very attractive in the workforce and in their college career so I just want to say thank you to all
070the members who are getting those kids prepared for this Saturday um additionally I had an opportunity to attend the E pinning ceremony um this last Wednesday at the high school um that was 14 of our most um outstanding uh seniors who um some are Juniors too um was a combination of their academic prowess um their civic prowess around the campus and also um some of the things that they participate whether it's a SP in sports or in athletics um it was really um neat nice to see um students come back and just um talk to kids who've gone out and made into in in in the world um Jeff Miller um and Julie turowski they do a really a good job of putting on this event for the kids um also was a great time
071for the U parents as well um seeing these kids GPA in Notre Dame they're going to Notre Dame some are going to Stamford some are going to Texas A&M some were very proud going to ball I USB I just want to let them know that um we're very proud of you and that they we don't just give those e pins away it's kind of like a Letterman's jacket and they wear them with pride so if you see a kid where with that big giant e on their Letterman's jacket you know that they were earned it so look forward to seeing you around our campus um Ohio State I'm sorry Ohio State what about it anybody going do no no there's been a huge change in life plans in Ohio State I am now I'm now
072a Hawaii fan ladies and gentlemen okay for some for some very personal reasons um he's trying to throw me off isn't he do uh anyway um also I want to give a a a huge shout out to someone who you may or may not see all the time but their work is evident in everything we do and that is Jamie Snider who is our um director risk and assessment here on the campus he is a huge um just keeps our kids safe and he also is our main contact with uh epd um he's sitting back there very humble but this week we had a um a threat in our on our campus and his communication his level of professionalism and how quickly he responds situations I he's always avail I I think um him and
073his team definitely deserve to be recognized to keep our kids safe on a day-to-day basis and help us to make really good decisions and also to communicate to our public thank goodness it wasn't anything that was any District I was even close it was in another state but he really is a a huge wealth of knowledge in there so Jamie I just want to say thank you for all that you do um really appreciate you um and how you handle yourself in those situations always professionally but you always make sure that we are accurate before we send out information so really appreciate you sir um and thank your team as well last and certainly not least um I know our kiddos are really prepping hard for um I read passing and at all the 13
074uh elementary schools um so I just want to say we really recognize your hard work teachers thank you for getting them second and third graders ready for that very important assessment um and kiddos we know that you can do it too so um everyone in our team is not only rooting for you we are also going to be making sure that we're the first ones to give you high fives um after your teachers to make sure that um you do very well on that very critical assessment so at our next board meeting I look forward to U giving our board a private update because it will be encumbered information um but I think that our kids are going to do very well this season on that very important assessment so um lots of things are
075happening in elcr Community Schools we are definitely a destination district for everyone and also lastly for everyone who joined our school family tonight we welcome you we saw lots of name on HR report so we're glad to have you join the Lark family and I'm going to turn back over to you president Scott thank you Dr Huff do we have anything from the board this evening well of course we want to wish all of our um music department everybody competing in isma this weekend a very big good luck we have a ton of kids going to perform so eron I'm looking forward to your report on all of our gold medals from our Junior High all the way through our high schools so don't forget your tickets for 9 to5 and as we prepare to
076think about March you'll have a flyer I'm sure but it'll be the athletic fundraiser which will be a themed trivia night $200 a table March 29th phenomenal prizes great opportunity for you as an administrative staff to think about how you can buy a table dress up and you know throw some trivia out there all right you heard that as event so go I hope you heard it you heard it March you said March 9th 29th 29th 29th okay 29th okay we got time all right no pressure just kidding yeah that's it what do you have anything else no well and I will adjourn the meeting thank you all for coming