001e e e thank you we'll now go ahead and move to item A3 I'll call the meeting to order and then A4 I'll ask for a roll call of members who are present this evening Mr Allen here Mr mclen here Mr meler here Mr Roth here Mr jger is absent Mr wall here Mrs Helm here all right we'll move to item A5 Mr trout are there any revisions to the agenda this evening we do not have any this evening Mr Roth okay we now move on to item B1 core values discussion this is always a great part of our uh board meeting that we can recognize students and staff that have out have um been outstanding and uh exciting part of our our time together and uh I'm excited to be the the one that
002gets to read this uh for Lauren hog so Lauren if you would come on down tonight we are proud to honor Lauren hog a dedicated teacher at Andrews Elementary School she's been there in their district for five years who truly embod embodies our core values Lauren has consistently demonstrated high expectations high achievement and accountability in her work her commitment to focus on the future and continuous Improvement for all is evident in everything that she does recently Lauren had the honor of presenting at the 2024 model schools conference in Orlando Florida where she earned the prestigious title of Epic educator the model school's conference is a renowned gathering for educational professionals showcasing schools districts and Educators who have achieved remarkable success this event celebrates excellence and innovation in education and Lauren's participation is a testament to
003her dedication to these ideals in her presentation Lauren shared her expertise on how to use data to differentiate instruction and form skill groups based on NW assessments she took the initiative to create charts to help staff organize and interpret the vast amount of information we receive from these tests by turning complex data into an easily understandable format Lauren has made it possible for her colleagues to make evidence-based decisions that directly benefit our students her leadership in this area is a shining example of shared leadership within our district Lauren's work not only enhances the learning experience for her students but also empowers her fellow Educators to to achieve their best Lauren on behalf of the Huntington County Community School Corporation we thank you for your dedication your Innovation and your unwavering commitment to Excellence you're an
004inspiration to us all and we are honored to have you as a part of our team congratulations Lauren we're proud of [Applause] you and that is the only core value that we have this evening all right we'll go ahead and move on to item C1 one items from visitors this is an opportunity for public comment usually on matters that we're addressing this evening um so if you would like to address the board you can come forward to the microphone there and uh we'll bring the sheet over and you can sign no one signed up in advance but if anyone would like to address the board uh now is your opportunity to do so all right no one having come forward we'll move on to item D1 um Indiana works and hccsc Jag memorandum yeah board
005I present to you tonight our annual agreement with the Jag program at Huntington North High School it uh each year it is also reviewed by Mr Wy very successful program in our high school and this is our annual request for uh renewal thank you Mr brimberry would anyone like to make a motion regarding the proposed m memorandum of understanding make a motion that we approve the memorandum of understanding between Jag and hccc is there a second second any questions comments or discussion um just personally I think this is a wonderful program that started I believe uh Mr deits kind of started that here at Huntington North and U it's it's really been successful uh Chief Blair in particular um great group of students so it's a good thing that we're continuing this excellent program benefits
006our kids uh greatly so I'm I'm always pleased to bring this forward all right hearing nothing further we'll vote on the motion to approve e all right motion passes six to zero we now go to item D2 alive and well and hccsc agreement board I'd also bring a our annual Middle School alive and well agreement for board action tonight has been reviewed by Mr Wy has been reviewed by our Corporation nurse mag FR both Middle School principles as well this is truly an outstanding program uh information has been sent to our parents uh as well as uh all stakeholders on this and uh Meg will be also having a with our Middle School principes a optional parent meeting on this topic if anyone were to choose to come again it's a mental health and mental
007uh awareness um program and curriculum that we've done for many years at Huntington and a very valuable program very important to our district so I recommend uh your action tonight on that okay would anyone like to make a motion regarding this agreement well agreement with hccsc is there a second second any questions comments or discussion there will also be a letter going out to the parents if they're not able to attend that meeting too correct that's attached I'm sorry Ryan could you a little out yeah there will be a parent meeting you have you talked about the parent meeting but there's also a letter to the parents as well yeah what letter parents have went home electronically and otherwise um and uh Meg is available as well as principal Whois and principal jger middle schools
008parents have any questions whatsoever reach out to us we're glad to help uh there will be uh a parent square that goes out for the Middle School parents for six and eth uh if they'd like to attend an optional meeting as well thank you yep well and I'd like to thank Administration we did receive a parent email asking about the informational session and whether one would be held because initially we weren't going to offer that because the materials that go out to parents are pretty thorough and there's a lot of information online uh but I'd want to thank admin for checking the other box and now we do have a parent information session on September 12th so uh thank you for accommodating that request certainly if there's no other questions or comments we'll vote on
009the motion to approve this agreement all right motion passes 6 to zero we'll now move to the consent agenda items E1 through eight yes I will highlight a couple of these for you this evening the first one uh for your consideration is the English language uh learner program coordinator uh Mrs Gro has happens to be with us this evening um Angie has done a Yan's job she's been incredible she has worn many hats uh over the past couple of years and and um not only has served in this capacity but it also has taught um any of you who know Angie knows uh what a tremendous person she is a consumate professional but our English language program is growing isn't it and um we are uh in need of and we're in in your personnel
010reports you'll see some things being done today where we're adding staff and so Angie thank you um I appreciate you I appreciate your coordination this program um there is this is a heavy lift if you look at her job description um we're asking a lot and I have no doubt that someone of Mrs gr's Talent skills and disposition will do this and do this extremely well so Angie thank you um I am grateful for you and we're and our students are the benefit of that um with our English language learner population growing like it is um Chuck and Jay and I along with Angie will be we'll be talking about how do we continue to accommodate the tremendous needs um of our community in this area so Angie thank you I I sincerely appreciate that
011um we have uh for the for your consideration there too uh another uh officer uh for your consideration security officer for that uh sometimes I feel questions in the community this is not an SRO this is just someone who comes in from time to time to to help us with uh supervision issues at ball games maybe at lunch maybe at whatever you'll see that this is a lunch position for that there too um requesting donations uh Lincoln Elementary is requesting permission to accept a donation the amount of $474 from donors choose for Mrs sp's class for students vocabulary and background knowledge and then the hccsc food service is requesting permission to accept a donation the amount of $100 from Valerie Stout to be used to pay for students paid lunch accounts across the district so
012uh in number eight you have the accounts payable and all the payroll recent payroll vouchers so I'm requesting your permission for consent agenda from items uh E1 through 8 all right thank you Mr trout would anyone like to make a motion regarding the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda is presented is there a second second would anyone like to pull out a particular item and vote on it separate from the full consent agenda all right then does anyone have any questions comments or discussion before we vote all right hearing none we will vote on the motion to approve the consent agenda items E1 through eight for all right motion passes six to zero and the groove family is welcome to stay for the budget Workshop if you want to or not so now
013we'll move on to uh F1 budget Workshop okay uh this evening um we are thrilled to have Mrs Smith here as our virtual CFO um who not only does a lot of Pres presentations for us but a lot of training so Becky um I continue to be grateful for you and your support of us in this school district um I I continue to learn a lot from you and so I am grateful for you and everything that you do for us as a district um this evening what we're going to do and what she's going to present to you is a 25 budget tip it's the budget Workshop um there's a few slides here we're going to go through this evening um please make make sure that if you have comments or questions on any
014of these that you do not hesitate to ask Mrs Smith but Becky again thank you welcome glad you're here thank you superintendent trout U members of the board uh thank you for this evening to be able to present this budget workshop for you and we'll move right along like Mr trout said we have several slides for you to um look at some Trend data and um the budget information you'll see the agenda here where we just go over a couple of objective schools Mission Vision the budget calendar and schedule uh the school corporation and major budgeted funds stakeholder input um data Gathering review the comparisons and then the next steps so our objective um of course for a budget is to maintain the expenses within the revenue streams um provided and our goal is to
015focus on programs for our students and services for achievement while providing a competitive compact um compensation package to obtain and retain empy employees next you'll see on the screen uh the 2024 2025 budget calendar deadlines by the department of local government Finance this information is um dictated straight from that um agency that gives us the parameters that we must meet each year for instance it tells us um what our last adoption date can possibly be or hearings or Workshop or permission to advertise those type of um criteria that's required by law so what we do is we take that information and then we work backwards from those dates so then we develop this um budget preparation calendar just for Huntington um County Community Schools and we work backwards with your board meeting dates and um
016to be able to uh adhere to all the the mandatory requirements for building a budget for each district and then you'll see here um just talking about about the school corporation and the public funds we work on a cash basis there's a handful of school districts in the state of an Indiana that um do work on a cruel basis anyone that has over 15,000 students is required to um go buy a cruel but here at Huntington we're able to do the cash basis we go by a fund accounting where we have different funds the the regular funds that you'll see across Indiana are the education fund the operations debt funds some have referendum funds art and historical Food Services Grants other other ancillary funds um throughout the district donations and such and then the budgets
017of course um the major funds are approved through this this um process that we're doing uh these next three board meetings and then um other budgets through Grant funds are through the federal government or the department of ed through um State resources this is just a a a slide uh indicating the major budgeted funds if you recall back in 2019 a lot of people still say general fund just want to kind of explain that in the past it was a general fund then there was also a capital projects Transportation operating and then bus replacement back in 2019 they took the four buckets that used to be in the general fund and they split them out two buckets moved into what we call now the new education fund and the other two buckets got moved to
018operations along with the capital projects fund Transportation operating and bus replacement all those moved in the operations so the state uh looks at it as quite our education fund is all the education straight aimed toward students that's from the building levels and anything that's curriculum related so that's our principals all the staff there our teachers all that is coming out of our education fund the operations are uh departments such as a superintendent office the business services um department and such so those are the overall operations facilities those type of things and then um our sources between each fund I'll go through when um I review those individual funds themselves so our Revenue our main revenue for the district comes from um two different main sources and one is the state tuition which is also called
019basic Grant and that's based on our student enrollment it's it's called ADM average daily membership and there's two counts per year uh for that one is um in the fall and one is in the spring one is October for fall and then February for spring and the other funds are our local property taxes and other miscellaneous um revenues what type of um expenditures are allowed with within each of the funds it's what I just described between the education and the operations fund the other uh ancillary funds is our debt service fund that is above and beyond what we could afford through our operations fund and that is to maintain our buildings through different um General obligation bonds and Lease rentals uh through uh different Bond sales and such and then referendums of course we do
020not have referendums here but some of the other districts do that hold um an additional tax for um more items throughout their um School District a building a budget takes all different Avenues of of input of data Gathering and of course goes all the way from the superintendent the school board all the different departments within the um School District along with uh it has to do with of course negotiations any kind of bargaining agreements that we've had in the past technology um special services uh all different uh directors of Elementary and and secondary education so it it includes a lot of different variables for to build build the budget for the district and all this data Gathering wanted to supply some um historical data for you and uh the the known variables that helped with
021the data Gathering and the budget projections for 2025 here you'll um see a a slide of our history of enrollment this is our average daily membership for our fall count that fall count provides our revenue for the first six months of the fiscal year which is July through December M each year and then you'll see the the um the trends with our enrollment and uh our enrollment for this year of course we do not know until we do the count in October and then we also show the trends of the spring enrollment which is in February and you'll see that history for the district also from 2018 all the way to 2024 and just an estimate for 2025 so Bor this is what we talked about at the very end the last meeting Uh Kevin
022asked this question um when we're going through this you'll notice that our estimates are lower than what I stated um at the end of the last meeting this is done intentionally this is done quite frankly on purpose is that we're building a budget very conservatively um if something would happen to our student enrollment between now and Count Day October I think it's October the 1 I mean October the 1st is that we haven't built a budget on students that we do not have exactly and so if you're looking at this and going why is this number different than what you told us at the end of last meeting is strictly because we're hedging we we want to make sure that we're building a budget on a very conservative number now above and beyond this will
023be absolutely fantastic right and we're anticipating that but we can't build a budget on that does that I hope that that's making sense of what I'm trying to say and and the community understands that because that is different than what we quoted but that's what Becky and I are trying to do here absolutely and and to re remind you that this budget for these major budgeted funds are January through December of 2025 so just think of that that's two different school years it's an end you know of one school year and a beginning of the next school year like Mr trout said it's hard to um look into that crystal ball to see what our enrollment may be so on the revenue side we're always very conservative and then on the expenditure side of course
024is the opposite way where we do worst case scenario so then we um don't get in trouble with our budget then you'll see we take that information and we have um a tuition support worksheet that we do through the Indiana Department of Ed so we take those estimates and then we run a formula based on what the legislative session approved for funding for schools and it lets us put in those uh estimated enrollments to get an approximate number for our basic Grant tuition support for the future so moving on you'll see the tax rate history for Huntington here and wanted to show you that from 2019 to um present year and you'll see the difference column there and of course you can tell by the uh The graft so you'll see in 2020 it went
025down 12% we went back up up in um 2021 and then went back down in 2022 down in 2023 and then down in 2024 so um just wanted to kind of I mean the difference just the change but you'll see that variation between um looking at the graph of um not exactly a stable tax rate so when we look at these type of things we have to try to um project out what our assess valuation it's a form you'll see that little formula in the green box there and how you determine uh what the the rate will be and with those formulas it's uh General um algebra if you know at least two of those variables then you can predict the third variable so that's why you have three different uh formulas there the next
026slide you'll see our assess valuation and our assess valuation is um as your assess valuation goes up up your tax rate naturally goes down because it's a formula based on that so um there's different means that you can do through budgeting um process to try to stabilize that tax rate that's what we're trying to do if you remember over the last couple years that we have um communicated to the to the board and to the public that we're trying to keep that tax rate stable so then our community can rely on that and be able to budget their own families within that rate uh um for the future so this is you'll see here the trends for Huntington with the cess valuation it has um gone up ever since 2020 you'll see that was just
027one% then 4% then 5% then you'll see in 2023 across the state you'll see that big spike of 15% then most of the state in 2024 kind of leveled off we still had an increase here in Huntington at 3.8% and then in 2025 before everything came out the projections were um that they projected anywhere from four to 6% then we got our um net assess valuation for Huntington and we had a 133% increase so um we're still looking into that to see what variables uh are known for that Spike this information was just released in August so we are looking into that with our financial advisers to see if we can um narrow down on the spike that we did receive this year the others I would say from um middle of the state on
028down south averaged between four and six% three actually three and six perc so um so that is a significant um increase that was not expected for Huntington in for 2025 so Becky if you could if we could jump back to slide 15 there um this here is what we're talking about so for our community that's watching at home and those in the audience tonight you know our some of the trainings we have done with all of you some of the conversations we've been having is is to talk about the importance of a flat tax rate um what we're going to try to do here over the next few years is to flatten that out okay and so that we're not sending this message to our community that the tax rate is all over the board
029here so to speak so just please know that um this is a really important slide in this whole presentation here and I want to draw your attention back to that but what we're going to try to do there in the left column is the actual tax rate is quit that variance from happening there is to have a consistent steady um flat tax rate and so that's what we're trying to accomplish here that's what she's talking about U within that that's some of the previous discussions that's some of the training trainings we have done is the importance of that and then if you look on 16 the variable that makes this so hard is the assess valuation piece and so many times the community does not understand the connection between these two slides here between AV
030and tax rate but how that plays into this bottom line so I think I said that correctly didn't I Becky so yeah and then we'll expand a little bit on that um when we come to our debt service slide and um some other uh information that we'll be able to share so then we're going to go through the review comparisons for each one of the funds and um what we came up with for the 2025 budget so this is looking at our education fund remember the the main uh source that we get is from State sources and that is our tuition support our basic Grant and it's based on our enrollment so you'll see there um our 2024 budget order that's our certified budget for this current calendar year January through December and then what
031we're um asking later in this uh this board meeting for advertising purposes and the difference between each one now the difference of that is just that um the estimate from our enrollment and you'll see uh that wasn't a a huge increase for that uh so we wanted to kind of maintain uh that information uh for the future to like Mr trout indicated to be conservative on our Revenue side then next you'll see the expenditures our expenditures we have um divided out by what we call Objects objects are the types and I like to put in that percent on the right hand side and show everyone how over 96% of our education fund is what salaries and benefits these are directly aimed towards students these are Educators that are um educating our students that come out
032of our education fund so you'll see the majority of this fund is all salaries and benefits and then you'll just see the the comparison with the budgets and what was certified as the budget order and um our previous assess valuation it does not have a levy or a rate the levy is property taxes and of course um like indicated that we have um our Revenue comes from our our basic grant our tuition support based on our ADM uh just to go back to if I can get on the right slide uh slide 19 uh with the expenditures with the um combining of textbook funds going back into educational funds where would we see that in this expenditures line item you'll see that in the supply line item there 586 th000 yes thank you MH yes
033and thank you for that reminder um it is changing our curricular materials currently is in a separate fund 0900 and it is moving the state has moved that where after December we're moving that into our education fund they have um provided some separate account numbers for us to use but it will be embedded in our education fund so you'll see the difference in the revenue that we've projected has to do with that state um Support also so that wasn't just um a plain line item just for our ADM enrollment but it also will be for our curricular materials dispersement I remind everybody that it's not a reimbursement like it used to be it is a dispersement based on a Statewide formula and um we received that in December of each year but now when we
034go to do the expenditures in for calendar year 2025 they will actually come out of the education fund so that is another reason for the increase in the expens in the proposed budget for Education fund cool and that 586 th000 is not the entire amount that we currently have in our curricular funds right that's just what we no it is not so our curricular materials fund has over $2 million in it and um that Revenue will be moved into education fund for January 1 and then our expenditures average around this 500 and some thousand dollars per year so um we're able to if we would have a different adoption year and um Elementary or secondary has a larger amount then we would have the cash to be able to come back to the board for
035an additional appropriation if needed we went on the base um the trend of what we usually spend per year you answer my next question so thank you awesome thank you so here was the comparison that we talked about moving on wanted to talk about our debt service fund this is one of another major um budgeted fund and then you'll see here the difference between 2024's official budget order and um advertised for 2025 now for 2025 we um are averaging um a would like to advertise a little bit higher um property Levy but that does not mean that the tax rate will go up to remind you earlier that we talked about is keeping that tax rate stable so we advertise high so when they go to calculate our budgets and based on the actual Debt
036Service amortization schedule it's just like your home mortgage so your home mortgage you do a 30-year mortgage and you get that schedule that it shows you how much is going to the principal and how much is going to your interest every year it's the same exact thing for our debt service fund that it does once we sell um General obligation bonds and Lease rentals for our debt service and those type of um fundings fund our overall uh repair and maintenance it can be Roofing it can be Renovations here at the high school can be all kinds of different things that we do through our debt service fund so we uh advertise those projects we sell those bonds and leases and then we uh go ahead and do all of our construction and then we pay
037back those bonds and leases over time so this Debt Service fund is where we pay back that money through here is what we call Long Range debt service plan so this schedule it shows all of our current debt um by type you'll see in the yellow or orange color General obligation bonds you'll see in the blue lease rentals and then some ancillaries that might have um fees or common School fund loans those are in the purple along the top there you'll see the years and every time that we sell or um purchase sell bonds and leases we get those amortization schedules and we put it on this long range Debt Service schedule and then it shows how long and what our payments will be for how many years also what we build in there is
038any anticipated future debt so you'll see that on the last line in each category you'll see that um statement in there with uh some future estimated numbers and then along the bottom you'll see those formulas that I talked about where you take um the assess valuation times the tax rate all that good stuff to try to estimate what um we would like our tax rate to be so you'll see there highlighted at the bottom our goal that we've had over the last two years is to um maintain or stabilize that tax rate and not go over um 39.5 cents so that is by Design and that um the board and Administration has made that decision that they will not go over that rate so when we go to publish our our um budgets we actually
039put that rate in because whatever rate that you advertise for you cannot go over that rate so we put that rate as um a safety net to make sure even if it would calculate over the state will only maintain that rate that we advertise through you the board to the community next you'll see this where um we talked about the the the budgets the assess valuation the property tax that it would approximately raise and that rate that I was just talking about you'll see here um 2024's budget order was approximately 3898 for the rate and that was due to some debt falling off before that the rate was much lower and that's where you saw that um roller coaster in the rate in that um graph and then you'll see in 2025 the advertised uh
040is that Max that we said that we would go as a district now that doesn't mean we have to go up to that that doesn't mean that we you know might or might not sell um bonds to um keep that tax rate stable but that is our goal is to come back as uh debt falls off to be able to insert new general obligation bonds or at lease to do major projects that we need throughout our district you know that what we've done here at the High School we're doing some things at salamony and there's a lot more that is needed throughout the district that we plan to do as debt falls off that we can do within our limits of our um maximum rate for our debt service fund our operations fund you'll see
041here the difference um from this fund it the most of the revenue um comes from our property taxes and this is a a maximum Levy fund and I'll explain that on a couple more slides that we that we get to so the state does a calculation for us and gives us a maximum amount that we can raise in property tax for this operations fund that is another reason why we utilize our debt service fund is because this is um it does our different departments our superintendent's office our business services office our technology all those different departments throughout the district General Repair and maintenance but not large large project items so as you know here with the project that we're doing at the high school and some other projects across the district that that cost a
042lot more than what this 11 million shows here we um in 2022 we did over you know $30 million uh lease for to be able to do some projects and we have a lot more on our um building envelopes that we have to do across the district that we haven't been able to do in a lot of years so we've set ourselves up financially to be able to insert those throughout all of our um Regular major budgeted funds without having to go to the public for a referendum so this is the calculation that comes from the state where they give us that maximum um Levy calculation uh for our operations fund and this is just an estimate at the time that's why when you see that uh property tax in the budget it's higher than
043this amount because like I said this is an estimate so you have to make sure that you advertised high enough because if they recalculate this and there was any kind of error you're stuck to whatever you advertise so that's why we always advertise that amount a little higher for our operations fund so when they do the final calculation they will change it to the maximum calculation that they can do for the operations fund okay so a couple times I get asked about why the numbers are so different from the previous year and I I just want to rehit this again exactly you keep using the words advertise versus actual okay yes and and and I don't want people to think that we're not being totally transparent through this process because even though it's advertised at
044this level the state will make the adjustments and it will come down yes it's a protection for the district in case the state would uh would calculate higher then we protect oursel to be able to utilize that Revenue that they calculate at so I want you to know you've heard from her a lot this evening about actual versus advertised absolutely and for for community members who may not deal with this on a frequent basis that can be enormously confusing it is through the process and so when you see the variances of the number people may come back in a in a month and say well that's not the same number you you did at your budget Workshop well exactly because in the 15 years I've been a superintendent this is all it always the state
045it always brings it back down yep and am I saying that correctly yeah 100% okay and then what we do at the end of the calendar year you'll see that later in the presentation on the steps is they certify our budgets and give us those final budgets we come back to the board and the public to let you know what those were calculated at and then here we don't want you to forget about the circuit breaker impact the circuit breaker is a limit of um what taxpayers can pay on their properties so when this was established years ago we used to get a certain amount whatever the formula calculated and then that's what the the district received in their property tax when the circuit breaker when legislative session changed and they instituted this circuit breaker
046and um helped the taxpayers that loss of Revenue hit the school districts so this is a history of this amount that we have lost as a district of what was originally calculated and then what they take off our Revenue calculation because they do not charge the taxpayers over their certain amounts there's one a two and a three% that we could go into a whole another work session explaining how that is calculated but this you just um would like to see as anywhere from 1.6 million to the 2.4% which is very is High um for this this District uh the another District that that I do the budget for um ours used to be two million now it's down to 600 some thousand do and double the size of this District so you still have that
047maximum Levy that you get in your operations fund then they take the circuit breaker and take it off that Revenue that you would have received so this is a direct impact of a loss of dollars for the school district but it's one of those double-edged swords that then it's there to help the taxpayers not have to pay above and beyond what the state um calculates for their taxes so then what we're projecting is is that about 2.4 million loss okay in um in this tax cap yeah and I I just want to clarify where that usually is taken out of that is taken out of the operations fundations fund so when you're looking at the different funds it's not the education fund it's not dead service it's all out the operations so another reason you
048have even less money in the operations fund to do the things that we need to do with the corporation because of tax absolutely that's correct yep thank you then you'll see this spread out um here for operations fund by the type by the objects and you'll see there a little over um 42% for salaries and benefits and then you see all the rest of the stuff we have anywhere from utilities to General supplies which that's our repair and maintenance and those type of things that that might come through other purchase services and then capital outlay and Technology um you'll see there uh also listed so just to reiterate we're budgeting 21 million but we know we're going to be two and a half million less than that absolutely that is correct that's why we budget
049high in case that calculation for that um circuit breaker tax comes in lower than they anticipated of that 2.4 million and that's why we advertise a little bit higher to um be able to give us that leeway now remember we will not spend over what we get um from our property taxes or any other ancillary um Regular Revenue that we receive so you'll see that here where um those comparisons with the budget order versus what's advertised like we talked about and same thing with the the tax rate the state will adjust all of the number 20 um the information in that column 2025 advertis they'll adjust that once they um finalize those that circuit breaker uh impact and then also the maximum uh Levy so after that then that's what they'll certify and we'll come
050back to the board um later December slash um January because sometimes it's right at the end of December then we bring it back to you in January to explain the actual uh certified budget order that we receive and then also part that were required to do is a capital projects plan a three-year plan now what this plan means you might look at and go wait a minute we're doing way more than this Becky well it's because this is gives you the opportunity to purchase these type of things through the operations fund so this isn't what you do out of your debt service fund or those bonds or those leases that we talked about if you want to use your operations fund you're supposed to come up with a capital plan and that's what this is
051so it's comprised of two different uh sections and that is capital acquisition and this is any kind of equipment those type of things that's over $10,000 that um you might want to utilize your operations fund for so it is a three-year plan the only plan that you're held to is the current year that we're doing which is 2025 so each year you have to do the three-year plan but you can change the other two years once you come to that year so next year when we go to do the 2026 budget if we have different needs and want to change our plan we can change it at that time when we do 26 27 and 28 those threee plan but um we're held it's just to give the the the administrators the school board and
052the public an idea of what might be be purchased uh out of our operations fund the next thing is um projects in nature over $110,000 so so this has a large scope you'll see things like uh regular Landscape Maintenance or HVAC repairs or Replacements it could be um these are usually little projects so to speak um that you wouldn't warrant uh a bond or a lease for so these are usually under a million dollar projects that's what I talked about um for needs in your actual operations fund and then all the higher uh projects in that are usually a million more so these are things that doesn't mean that we're doing all these it depends on funds available and timing for these but this gives us a an envelope to be able to use as
053a guide when we go into 2025 we also are required to do a bus replacement plan a five-year bus replacement plan and this is usually any buses that are over 12 years of age now there are times that you can do replace a bus earlier than 12 years and we keep track of the mileage we keep track of repair and maintenance we could have a lemon that comes that's what I call a lemon that you know one that could be eight years old and it's just given us problems for some reason it's it's not a good vehicle we've all had that personally in our lives unfortunately where we buy this vehicle we think it's the greatest thing on since sliced bread and then all of a sudden it nickel dius but um so every once
054in a while you'll see one that might be replaced earlier than normal but our general guide and that we do with this bus replacement plan is our 12-year replacement so this shows you the next five years of what um we're looking to do this screen shows three of those five years and then this screen shows you the last two years and then uh the totals that are anticipated so this is a guide this doesn't mean that if the money does not come through that we'll still do nine buses in 2025 that's our goal um if we have the funds available uh so this is our best case scenario and then if for some reason all the funding doesn't come through then we still use this as a priority of um the first so many that
055are listed on the list so we are if you've known for the last couple years we're back to our regular replacement uh for our buses so that is our goal each year is to do this approximate amount um for the next five years so you answered my first question that we're back on schedule but it looks like over the next five years we're planning on replacing 44 buses how many buses total do we have in the district do you know oh gosh um trying to remember you remember how many we have 80 I say yeah I couldn't remember my apologies more than okay yeah I knew that but I was like oh what's the other years so um and that's why we excuse me 62 62 so that's why we look at each year and
056we look at the mileage too so depending on the routes we could have one bus that you know has a lot more miles than another bus that is 12 years old and that one's acting perfect so we could flip-flop those two and replace one and wait another year or so for the other one that had lower miles so that's why we record all that you may not know this but May at what year do they require a second inspection for number of years is it 10 or 12 do you know uh I don't have the Year Vanessa handles that Ryan but I do know that our percentage when Mr trout and Becky and all of us arrived the percentage of buses that were at the 12 years or higher was extremely high in this District
057so getting uh catchup as Becky said has been extremely important um and so our buses um do a great job and are expected annually and inspected regularly and do a great job but just the mere age of them alone uh this is a uh an outstanding need for Huntington schools absolutely and I'm going to say um it has um maybe not been prioritized in the past and it needs to be yes thank you and we are required there is a state requirement that they do come in annually and reinspect our buses annually yeah and I know that there's an age at some point where that annual gets turned into tce a year that's that's the number I was looking for and I think it's quite around that 10 or 12 year yeah I and I
058whether it's 10 or 12 R I do know that the bus inspections go well here but uh again the the mere age of them is concerning so this will get us back in uh in the good graces uh they're safe they're excellent but they are old and uh the bus replacement plan will take care of that for us you know we are we've we we're waiting on two orders as we speak yes and so this is something that still has not caught up since the Pand M exactly um so many other things have but for whatever reason in this industry it hasn't so literally we have we have placed two orders that we're waiting on uh to still come in to this day so this fall once you approve this we'll be making the third
059order and so Chuck Vanessa and I have to continue to remind ourselves now where we at in this process because if we don't get our names in the backlog just continues and so it's just really important that we stay up with this at this point and that's what's really helpful with a bus replacement plan that they can do this since this is started so what the the U manufacturers require is what's called a letter of intent so that's what we've been doing is sign in this letter of intent based on this bus replacement plan so that guarantees that we're setting aside this money for the this bus replacement in that aspect so hopefully I've heard this across the whole state of Indiana that there a minimum of two years behind the manufacturer is not not
060Huntington but the manufacturer yeah thank you okay next steps so um talking about the steps uh through the the budgeting process the budgeting process consists of three major steps one is this evening that we're holding this um budget workshop and then later in this um board meeting we'll ask for permission to advertise what we talk about during this budget workshop and then next is um a budget hearing that's at the next uh board meeting after we've advertised and then the last uh process for the board would be to adopt the budgets and that's in the October board meeting after we um put all this budget projections together then of course our work doesn't stop so there's more forms that we have to fill out and um and this is a flow chart that shows what
061we have to do in the Indiana Gateway site and um it has all these different forms that actually create the form the form three that uh we are utilizing this evening uh for and asking the board for permission to advertise and we'll go over some of those figures um that summarizes everything that we're talking about this evening so this next slide is that is um a portion of the form three which are the budget estimates that you saw from the other uh summaries so now on top of this I want to show you and remind you this the transfer that you see up there on the screen where it says transfer to operations fund remember when I talked about those four buckets and two of them were moved in the new education fund and two
062of them were in the operations fund well when they moved those buckets of expenditures they didn't move the money that went with those buckets so the money that comes into education fund is still that Master amount that we used to get in our general fund so the law um allows districts to transfer up to 15% of that money to um cover those expenses from those other two buckets that were moved in the operations fund um why they didn't separate that I can't I can't explain I I don't know I thought after this many years that they would have done that by now and um separated out for you but they still have not so um districts can do up to 15% around here we um Aver um average anywhere where from I think 11 to
06313% depending on the year and the needs um from our education fund to our operations um fund for those expenses from um 2018 of those buckets that were moved into our operations fund and then you'll see the other ones listed that match uh our our projections that we had on the previous sides per F fund and then the estimated levies these are your property tax these are also the the summary from those previous slides for our debt service fund and our operations fund um you'll see here of course we don't have anything for our education fund because that's based on um basic Grant tuition support so there is no property taxes and then rainy day if we were going to advertise in rainy day that's just from um cash balances that um from rainy day
064savings savings um fund that we have and we we do not have any um property taxes in that f either so then what do we do with this we we need to advertise after this this evening's um meeting we're required to advertise um our bus replacement plan and our capital projects plan so on Gateway which is our Indiana um uh State website for government units and on our our actual website for our school district and then also for our form three that we just went over is what's considered our notice to taxpayers to um notify them of what we're advertising for our budgets and letting them know that uh we will be holding a public hearing at our next board meeting which is on September 24th so there are requirements between each of these three
065steps that we talked about uh there has to be 10 days in between from advertising and holding the public hearing and then again from the public hearing to adoption so do we still have to advertise it in the newspaper or did that get changed in law the Indiana Gateway superseded that cool thank you so that is the public um means to be able to um see the budgets for all uh entities in Indiana that that goes for schools libraries all that so this talks about um next board meeting what we'll have is we'll conduct three budget hearings and one is um for the major funds that we just talked about and the other is the capital projects plan and then the bus replacement plan and then at our October 14th board meeting that's when we'll
066ask for um for the board to adopt the budgets and if you recall that one's has different forms that you look at that has um different resolutions that we are required to uh adopt along with the budget along with the capital projects plan and the bus replacement plan so other different um requirements we have things that we get um from the county after we've held our um public hearing and adoption that we have no remonstrance against our uh budgets and we get that certification from the the county and then also we have to upload all the sign forms that goes through the board those resolutions that I talked about that the board um has to sign off on and um we upload all that that's when they take that information over the next three months
067and they C do all our calculations they do that across the whole state of Indiana and then they issue what's called a 1782 notice and that what I call that is a draft budget order so they they give us that draft budget order we have 10 days to respond we go through that like a fine tooth cone um I would say at least 30% of the time there's an error I would say that um in my 20-year career um doing this that uh we might notice that they left one of our debts off so if they forget something in your budget of course that does the calculation completely different which we wouldn't receive as many dollars with that calculation so we check everything um with that 1782 notice and then we either respond with yep
068everything's correct hunky dory go ahead and certify or know wait we we find this error or we need you to um look into XY or Z so um after after all that goes to back to the Department of local government Finance then there there um there is a legislative Indiana code that says they're supposed to certify by December 31st now that doesn't always happen sometimes it goes into January but then like I indicated earlier after we do receive that um certified budget order then we'll come back to the board and um present those to you and go through those numbers with you at that time now I know that's a lot of information it's everybody's favorite topic talking about finance and budgets but i' would be happy to answer any more questions the board may
069have at this time it's my favorite topic as you can tell so that's why I'm a CFO but I love budgets it's my favorite Becky I'll say again thank you um I appreciate the detail uh appreciate working with you this closely um the training you provide for us the education you provide for us as a board is also enormously helpful uh in a lot of settings so thank you um board you've had this in your board packet you've had time to Che it over I've talked to a couple of you about specific details within that if you do have any questions between now and the next board meeting she's laid out very well what we're going to be doing next please don't hesitate to reach out to her okay all right we'll now move on
070then to item F2 permission to advertise so um Becky you want to talk a little bit about this I know you you're going to feel like you're going to repeat yourself here but I think it's important that we go through this one more time absolutely so what this is the um part of the first step that we talked about that's required so we we just held the budget workshop for you and the community and next we're asking for permission to advertise that form four that we that we had um those numbers up there that um give the budget estimate projected estimate and the um levies estimated levies to be raised that notice to taxpayers also shows um the public hearing dates for the public and also the adoption dates so um that is an official
071notice to the taxpayers that will be posted on our website tomorrow and then also on the gate Indiana Gateway website so we have the form three of those numbers and then we also have our capital projects plan and also our bus replacement plan that will um advertise the same exact way on our website and the Gateway website and we're asking for permission to advertise those as presented this evening all right thank you uh would anyone like to make a motion regarding the proposed uh budget advertisements for the 2025 budget make say capital projects right yeah I covered all three okay y all right hearing nothing motion passes six to zero and thank you very much Mrs Smith we appreciate your help we now move to item G1 items of discussion by board members um just
072so everybody knows um what's coming up here in the near future U mentioned this to a few of you before is that um we will be board informational evening um I hope to get letters sent out to current board and board members running uh for this evening this will be broadcast to the community um topics to be covered um that night um will be the roles of the superintendent and the roles of the school board uh District finances academics uh we will cover quite a few topics that evening there'll be a free flow of questions and answers throughout the evening but um you as board and people running for board seats coming up will'll get a letter for me hopefully uh by the first part of next week you will get a letter from me
073inviting you to come uh to that evening so you can learn uh I know we give this current board even an opportunity to ask questions too but we'll be covering variety of topics that night and giving everybody a chance to do Q&A and that will be broadcast to the community just like we do the board meetings the um the second piece um on here too is that um I've been in contact back with our Teachers Association I think they're going to set up a question and answer session um for board members running for the open board seats and that'll be coming up at some point in time I don't know if they've set the evening yet or not but just so the community knows that that will also be broadcast when that when they determin
074when they'd like to do that but they've been in contact with me about having a Q&A session with all board members running for the open board seat so between now and election um those two evenings will be we'll get that broadcast out to the community so they can see that and to the participants also so I just wanted the board and the community to understand that those will be upcoming here over the next few weeks okay I just had two things uh we've talked about it in the past but the isba's fall conference is September 23rd and 24th down in Indiapolis I know I'm going I didn't know if anyone else was going to attend uh but the other more important one I think to have on your calendar would be November 4th is the
075fall conference or the fall information session uh that is going to be November 4th up at cudes um I think that's the place uh that's where we'll be covering uh the legislative priorities that we're going to go into the fall uh budget session for uh and just a couple other topics that coming up as we prepare for next the budget year or the next budget cycle coming up um so always a good night it's a short meeting it's a short program but it's good good educational experience and a great opportunity to to network with other Schoolboard members uh from around northeast Indiana like to also thank Mrs lochmire for Pinch hitting tonight job well down over there Tanya all right anything else all right we'll go ahead and move to H1 and I'll entertain a
076motion to adjourn the meeting so moved is there a second all those in favor say I I opposed all right the eyes have it