001We'll call the meeting to order and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I 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. >> Want to welcome everyone to the school board meeting this evening. Um remind you um that we are live streaming this event. Um so welcome those who are joining us on the web as well. Um so um to start the meeting tonight, we'll entertain a motion to accept consent agenda items. Um I have a motion by Travis. Do I have a second? Second by Chelsea. Any discussion? All those in favor? Seven. Um next we'll ask if anyone is present who would like to speak to any item on the agenda or any
002other topic. Hearing none, we'll move on to old business. We have some Neola policies for approval. Yes. Asking for approval of this group of NEOLA policies. Entertain a motion to approve those policies as listed. I think everybody's had an opportunity to review. >> So have a motion by Cheryl. Do I have a second? >> Second by my gosh. >> Welcome to the board. Um, any discussion? >> Just turn that. >> Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? 7. I'm so sorry. >> All right. >> I know, right? Next. >> Next, we're down under programs. We have an athletic handbook. >> I'm just asking for approval for our athletic handbook. This will be used K through 12 and our athletic directors will use this for training. >> We'll entertain a motion to approve. Have a
003motion by Mary Lind. I have a second. >> Second by Pat. Any discussion? >> All those in favor? 7. Um next we have some um human sexuality curriculum. >> Yes. I'm just asking for approval. Um just reminder that we um clarity provides this um instruction in sixth, seventh, and high school. um they have updated their curriculum to be aligned with new legislation. Um you can check out the curriculum on the website I decide for me. You can call me um if you have any uh questions about it. And um just a reminder that parents can opt out of out of this if they um would like to. And I'm just asking for approval. >> And Carrie just I know you mentioned several things, but you did um ask for feedback from parents. Yes. Presented this.
004>> Yes. Um so again um the um curriculum update we'll entertain a motion for approval >> by a motion by Pat. I have a second second by Mary Lynn. Any discussion? All those in favor? 70 and again that websiteforme.com if you would like to review the material parents are able to. Um next on the agenda we have a Panther online academy update. >> Yes, this is just an inform right at as of today we have about 20 um students we have 20 students signed up. Um we started off between 40 and 50 um that were interested and several of those have decided to stay in person. Um so as of today we do have 20 and they um anybody still interested will accept out um we'll still accept them till about the end of September.
005So again, registration is still open for that. >> Yes. >> Does anybody have any questions? This is an inform item. >> Hearing none. We'll go down under finances. >> Yes. This is an update from the u couple meetings back. We engaged Kelly Davis of CSI Advisory and she's here to present the information that she has taken care of. >> Good evening everyone. Um, I wanted to give you an update on the 401 and the retirement programs that the district currently offers. Go to the next slide just to give you an update of where we how we got here. This is something that multiple districts in the state of Indiana have been exploring for a few years now. And really what they're looking at is typically when you've had a retirement plan offering for school districts,
006it has been a multiple vendor situation where the 401A, which is the employer contribution, is going into one provider, but then you have multiple other providers that the employees can choose from for their 403b. And for many years, was a legal requirement that it had to be that way. Um, legislation in past years have changed that and now school districts are moving to a single vendor model which is typically what you see in the private sector. And what we've seen some of these other districts do and some that are neighboring to Jennings County is that they've seen a reduction in their fees. They've seen ease of administration on staff. They've seen increases in enrollment and participation. and they've seen a number of benefits to going to the single vendor model. So, this is something that
007the board approved the district to proceed and look and evaluate and that's what um we've been doing. If you want to go to the next slide. So, pending that approval, we sent an RFP out to 10 different vendors that have a great deal of experience in the public school sector. Out of those 10, five responded with a full response to the RFP. And of those five, four were interviewed in person a couple of weeks ago um with the JCCTA um executive team here to hear those presentations. Um what we found with the RFP process um combined 403b and 401A assets, there's just shy of $29 million in those accounts. These do belong to the employees of the district. Um, MetLife administered the 401A and they were one of the administers of the 403b. Corridge and
008Voya were the other two administrators of the 403b programs. There's about a thousand participant accounts. So, this includes existing active employees as well as employees that have left employment or retired over the year. And what we've seen was that it was an average of 1.93% is what the employees were paying in fees. So, um, if I had $100,000 just for easy math on a Thursday night, um, I'm paying just shy of $2,000 a year in fees for my program. So, um, again, we went to 10 different vendors. We had five back. The four finalists were Corbridgeidge, which was an existing provider, Equitable, which was a new which was a new face in that life which was one of the existing ones and after the five were after the four presented go to the next slide.
009Um they presented for 45 minutes the JCCTA executive st committee voted unanimously to um choose equitable as the new vendor. So when we look at Equitable's fees on an all-in basis um we're going to be saving the employees about 50,000 a year in cost savings. So that will be spread out among all of the employees, but it is a significant cost savings that they'll be seeing as a result of this. So the next steps um if you approve to move forward with Equitable as a single vendor, um they'll begin the paperwork process. Uh they will hold the legal plan document going forward. Today Metife holds that since they're the 401A vendor. They'll hold that going forward. All of the 401 assets transfer over to Equitable. Um they'll go through that process. The 403b assets because
010those are employee directed employees will have the option to stay with their current vendor or move to equitable. So they will not be made to move those existing balances. They will get the option to do that. Um but that's something that they'll each have to decide um once we get to that point. Um and then Equitable will continue on the transition until everything's up and running. from an administrative capacity as well. >> And a side note, all new employees will be put on 403b. If they want 403b, that will be what that will that's part of the single vendor package thing. But that's just for the new people. All the old people will, like she said, will stay where they if they want to. Any questions or Kelly can answer. I guarantee it. All right.
011In light of any no questions, uh, I'm asking the board for approval to adopt ECAL as a single retirement vendor for the district pending legal review. >> I have a motion by Travis. Do I have a second? >> Second by Pat. Any discussion? All those in favor? Seven. >> Thank you very much. Um next we'll move down to new business. We do have some um policies. >> Yes. So um this next policy update group um volume is very large. So I've been breaking it into sets. So this is the next group of those and if you have any questions please reach out. This is just a first reading in um next we'll move down under programs. Um we have certified staff evaluations. So, an update of last year's evaluations, a breakdown of each category. Highly
012effective was teachers at 61%, effective was 31% and ineffective was 1%. Um, in your package um packet, you have the updated staff evaluation form that the committee's been working on um since last year. Um, we made some changes in the spring and then house enrolled act um 10002 um asked us to come back together and make some new changes. Um we have shared this also with JCCTA. So um any suggestions or anything reach out to me please. Again that's an room. The next item on the agenda is also an does anybody have questions about that. Okay. The next item on the agenda is also an inform. This is an enrollment update. So this is day two of school. So um for day two our enrollment is 3,587 students um from where we left last year
013in May that is one student left less than where we left at which um seeing stabilization of enrollment during that summertime is a very exciting thing for us. Um we were very um hopeful and happy to see that. It is from last year's day to um 117 students less um which we did anticipate goes along with what the demographer did predict. Um so I will keep you updated. Typically we see enrollment continue to increase over the next couple weeks. So I'll bring some more numbers back to you in August again the next meeting. >> Thank you. Anybody have questions for Nikki? So next we are down under professional staff. We have some recommendations. >> Yes. the following um recommendations to be approved. Lesie Barton, Jennings County High School family consumer science culinary arts teacher. Matt
014Capes, Jennings County Middle School sped parapro to MBE sped teacher. Brianna Codell, Hayden Elementary teacher. Payton Moore, Jennings County High School sped teacher. Payton Moore, Jennings County High School volunteer football coach. Brad Moore, Jennings County Middle School boys soccer coach. Tom Felis and Timor CDL lensure program adjunct instructors. >> You will entertain a motion to approve those items as read. >> I have a motion by Kurt. Do I have a second? >> I will second. What's his name's motion? >> Sec. Any discussion? >> All those in favor? We have one other item. >> Yes, please. Also asking for approval, please that Tom Felis and Temp 4 CDL lensure program adjunct instructors receive the stipen. >> We'll entertain a motion to approve that. >> I have a motion by Pat. Do I have a second? >>
015Second by Cheryl. Any discussion? >> Question. So is that because they're adjunk instructors or for preparation after hours? Yes, that's for preparation and time spent outside of their regular job ro to be prepared for those classes and to be fully licensed to teach CP. Any additional discussion? All those in favor? All those opposed? 61. Um so next we move down under support staff we have some recommendations. >> Yes, please. Asking for approval. Phyllis Absley. Parttime bus aid Sarah Black, middle school administrative assistant. Ellen Garinger, Jennings County Middle School assistant volleyball coach. Penny Harkshimer, Jennings County Middle School custodian. Derek Hill, middle school girls soccer coach. Haley Johnson, middle school sped parapro. Heather Lock, Jennings County School Corporation OT, a change from 185 days per year to 149 days. Thomas Melanchamp, middle school assistant football coach.
016Dan Mouser,ce part-time custodian. Melissa Wner, part-time bus aid. Polar River Vera, Cypio Elementary custodian. Sandra Whitney, high school sped parapro. >> I entertain a motion to approve that group of recommendations as read. >> I have a motion by Kirk. Do I have a second? >> Second by Cheryl. Any discussion? >> Question about that one, too. So, the OT position that we're moving from 185 to 149. Is that because we need less days or the person >> the class load or the workload has decreased the case load? >> Any additional discussion? All those in favor? Seven. And we have some additional recommendations. >> Yes. Asking for approval. Approval pending their hiring requirements, please. J.R. Douglas, middle school volunteer soccer coach. Abby Erle, high school assistant volleyball coach. John Simmons, middle school volunteer assistant girls soccer coach.
017Levi Ross, high school sped parapro. And then the list of um JCSC youth football program volunteer coaches that include Jerry Curry, Crystal Danford, Ryan Hinton, Jason Jud, Brandon Kendall, Jared Maguire, Rusty Macauan, Owen Miller, Levi Peacock, Dustin Roller, Justin Snyder, Nehemiah Scrugs, Tyler Stock, Gary Tungett, and Michael Watts. We entertain a motion to approve those additional recommendations as >> motion by Travis. Do I have a second and second by Mary Lynn. Any discussion? All those in favor? 70 which puts us down to finances. >> Yes. Asking board approval of the following donations. Cummins and United Way worldwide. 250 backpacks filled with school supplies. Premier Sports, Small Cers, and Jennings County uh high school hats or Jennings County School Hats. Jennings County Youth Football Program donations in memory of Earl Tagard, Denny and Katie Walker, Pam.
018Wow. Ron and Patty Kentner, Jerry and Victoria Strickland, Pearson Body Shop, Scott and Becky Davis, Chuck and Jimmy Berky, Janet Dbor Price, Keith Price, Kyle Price, Andrew Price, and Emily long board for approval. >> Entertain a motion. >> Motion by Pat. I have a second by Cheryl. Any discussion? All those in favor? Nice to see those in memory. Um, next on the agenda, we have the 2026 JCSC budget. first presentation. >> Yes. Um, we will just blaze right into this. All right. Next up, next slide, please. This is the calendar. We've got first presentation tonight, second presentation on the 21st, third presentation if need be, on the 4th, and then the public hearing on the 18th, and the adoption of the budget on the 2nd. And obviously, those dates are wrong on the bottom three
019because those are actually 2025 but the single day is right the year's wrong. Next page. All right. Just so everyone just a short recap. The budget is made up from the um education side is one fund is supported by sales tax and income tax. That's your basic grant and it supports the uh education fund. I'm estimated it's going to be roughly $32.3 million. The property tax funds two accounts debt service and operations and that's going to be approximately 142 and there are additional funds supported with multiple grant sources also. What we're advertising currently for uh version one first reading is education fund 35 million debt service 4.5 million operations 13 million and rainy day 500 million which is roughly 53 million you advertise high um is the way it's always been done in Indiana actually
020come in more like 48 million but you always advertise high just to protect yourself from that standpoint. From an education fund standpoint, these are the basic things that happen out of education. You've got the salaries and benefits, instructional supplies, um support staff, area vocational tuition, travel and uh PD for curriculum development, health services, library cost, and athletic and coaches. out of operations. You've got the board, all the business operations, the your insurance, all your utilities, all your facility maintenance, all of your uh transportation, and also the admin cost of the um vocational school also and all your licenses and all the expenses with school buses, debt service. You're taking care of your lease holding payments, common school loan, general obligation bonds, and any interest you have on temporary loans. So, it comes out of the
021debt service fund. From the cash balance standpoint, you can see that the if we drop down about $400,000 this year from uh from December 31st of 24 from December 31st of 23 about a $400 uh spend down from um you can see it's slightly less than we we really spent down quite a bit from 22 to 23. So not quite as drastic in 23 to 24. The next slide just shows the visual of that. You'll see that the you know you had a you had a slight uptick in the operation side. That's mainly due to pullback spending. Um and the education dropped slightly but you know from it's not a huge amount there. That's also due to not quite we we started making our corrections. This is prior to that. You got a better part
022of the year before that happened because this again is cash balance as of December 31st 24 not June of this year. Rainy day fund just so everybody knows it's been sitting at 2.775 for the last couple years created in 2005. U and that's our current balance. We haven't pulled from it in I believe in two years. Debt service budget. This is our what I'm anticipating the debt payments to be. Now, this is with an estimate in there. The actual the actual does not um is around 3.9, but I've also got the anticipated payment for the 2025 GEO in there that we are currently in the process of uh doing. So, on the education side, we're back to the original screen. We're going to be advertising 35. I anticipate the actual to be about 323. And
023the next one on ops, we're advertising 13. I anticipate it to be about 11. And which brings us to this is one we had in there every year. And this is basically just updated. This takes a little bit of a different turn and I'll probably you'll see me probably bring some more detail back on V2 on this one. You know, how the AV affects our budget. This is just this has nothing to do with Senate Bill two, Senate Bill one. This is just to do with how how this the AV works. If the AV was to drop 15%, you'd see we go from the 1.1, which is our 25 down to about 992. And what that would do is create a loss of about $1.4 million just with an AV drop. Now, Senate Bill one,
024which I'll next time I'll bring in some more details on that. It that has another another layer of effect to it, but just in general so people understand AV how AV affects it. This shows where AV is anticipated to be in 26. Now, typically this slide would show an increase because in the past use a five-year average and as you can see the last five years has ramped up, but with Senate Bill One, we already anticipate that going down. So I use the numbers off policy analytics estimate of where they feel uh this will be versus our historical average. This is last year's advertised versus actual. We advertised the 1.19 or 1.96 which you can see is obviously high and we came in at 1.18 which basically matched our 2024. So 25 and 24 are
025pretty much the same. the 2026 based on the normal way I calculate we looking at an advertisement of 1.88 and the a the estimated actual is going to be about 1.24 24 uh 2025 cap levies. Debt service has no cap. Operations obviously does have a cap and education is not based on the levy. And just a recap of the uh numbers matches slide number three I believe it is where it shows what we're going to what we'll be advertising as the budgeted amounts. And lastly, property tax update. This is just general property tax information. Um assessed value can decline after recessions obviously and uh as property values and new construction reduces. Property value increase in 2025 will be assessed in 26 for taxes in 27. Whole purpose of showing this is just that slowness of
026how when something does happen, it takes a little while for it to work its way through. The maximum levy growth quotient is set again this year at 4% max. And if the levy rises more than assessed value, the tax rate rise, the tax rate will rise. Um, but the key to this one, this this one, the levy will not rise based on, you know, Senate Bill one. We're going to see, we will see, not the levy, I'm sorry, the assessed value will not rise. We will definitely see that go down. The levy rising or the rate rising is what's going to sort of filter its way out over the next couple presentations. And our current rate is 1.17. And the last slide just shows that's the same as last year's. You know, we we we're
027trying to protect our tax rate. That's our hope. Uh advertise high and then advertise a low AV and adopt the uh operations fund to get the maximum rate. Any questions on V1 or presentation number one? All right, that was number one for the regular budget. Now we'll move on to the next one, which is the capital project budget. In your packets, you're going to see the detail uh which is the the specific jobs and those specific buildings. But at the high level, we'll go through the next slide, please, which has the exact same adoption schedule except I got the dates, the years right on this one. >> And so they're all they all should line up. Next slide, please. And what your detail proves out is from a capital asset standpoint, which is basically in
028this plan in case any of the major items break, you know, a bus actually breaks down and we have to buy a bus or we have to buy a maintenance vehicle or we have to buy a mower, those are all things all that totals up to 520. That doesn't mean we're spending it. It just means there's a possibility if something goes south in the major hit areas of the uh of equipment. And then for 26, 27, 28, you can see them laid out there. These numbers are, you're going to notice these are a little bit skewed from years past. Uh I've got quite a bit more in 2026. That's a product of the 2024 geo bond which has the safety and security entrances on it. So you'll see that that's a fair chunk of that
029as opposed to the normal. Normally it's around two million. You you see it's increased quite a bit because of that. And then in 27, you've got um I went ahead and threw the pro the projects that we're looking for with the 2025 geo bond are in this one, which is the uh Brush Creek HVAC. That number was bumped up. I previously had that lower on the list. We bumped it up obviously because of the bonding issue. And then there's uh 8.9. Again, we all know we're not going to be able to get all this stuff done, but these are the things that are identified as projects that could be done. Any questions on the capital project plan? >> All right. Lastly, we've got the bus replacement plan. And we're going to find out if I
030got the dates right on that. So, we're good to go on this one. Slide two shows the exact same adoption calendar. Slide three, you got the detail in your packet on this, too. This has to do with the Well, I went and messed that one up, too. I got 2025 on there. I'm sorry about that. These all should say 377. So, basically what we've got here is the buses. That's our our current bus situation right now with the loan that we currently have, the two loans that we currently have, and is going to be 377 for 2026. Those numbers are going to set that way because we're going to have uh three more years on the first set of buses. Then we'll have all five years on the next set of buses. And then there's
031the plan on your packet shows that in three years for uh years 8 and 2029 or 2029 and 2030, we will be getting more buses to backfill the older buses in the system, which is what the whole purpose of this plan is. which the detail is what actually gets submitted to the state. This is just a highle view of it. Any questions on the bus replacement plan? All right, that is all I got. Um all of those items again were in form. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to them. Um next relations. We have a contract that needs approved. >> Yeah. The Indiana State Department of Education has switched all IEPs and ILPS to P school. So, we're required to use that. That's not something that's costing us anything, but we
032have got contract to go with our 504s with P school as well, so that everything is synced together. So, I'm asking for approval to accept the contract to add P school for 504s. >> So, move. Motion by Travis. I have a second by Mayor Lanning. Any discussion? All those in favor? 70. Which brings us down to other. I just have a thank you for all of our students and our staff and our parents and our law enforcement partners because we've had a wonderful first two days of school and it's it's taken a whole community effort and it's been it's been great to see. So, thank you to everyone involved and looking forward to a great school year. Hearing nothing else, we'll entertain the motion to adjurnn. >> Motion by Pat. Do I have a second?
033>> Second by Kurt. All those in favor? 70. Meeting.