Board of Education Meeting 1/7/26

001Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Welcome to the January 7th board of education organizational meeting for Kayahaga Heights Schools. On behalf of the board, I would like to welcome all students, staff, parents, and interested community members to tonight's board of education meeting. The board values and encourages public comment on education issues. Anyone having an interest in the actions of the board may participate during the public comments portion of the meeting. Please identify yourself on the board sign and sheet if you wish to do so. Copy the board meeting agenda is available on the website. And we do ask that you silence your cell phones um during the meeting. At this point, please rise for the flag. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it

002stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. The >> first order of business is to swear in our new board members. So, I will turn the meeting over to Mr. Muio. >> Yep. We have two new members tonight and I believe both will be reading their oaths of office. Uh Carolyn, if you would like to start. I, Carolyn Pajesa, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge my duties as a board member of the Kaiga Heights Board of Education and Kaaga Heights, Kaiga County, Ohio, to the best of my abilities and in accordance with the laws now in effect and hereafter to be enacted during my continuence in said office and

003until my successor is elected and qualified. >> Congratulations. I, Peter Rossy, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and I will faithfully and impartially discharge my duties as a board member of a Kyogre Heights Board of Education in Kyoga Heights, Kyogre County, Ohio, to the best of my abilities and in accordance with The law is now in effect and hereafter to be enacted during my continuence in set office and until my successor is elected and qualified. >> CONGRATULATIONS. >> OKAY. Thank you very much. Um Mr. Mucho, now that we do have enough people up here, could you uh please call attention? >> Mrs. Dea >> here. Miss Pesca >> here. >> Mr. Rossi >> here. >> Mr. Saki >> here. >>

004Four present. One member is absent. The oath of office has been given to Matt Rush on January 2nd as noted in the agenda. Mr. Rush could not be here due to a employment commitment this evening. Um so we will proceed with four board members. This point I'll entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. >> So moved. >> Okay. And do we have a second? >> Second by Miss Pesca. Any discussion? Hearing none. Preer, please call the role. >> Mrs. Deka. >> Hi. >> Miss Vajeska. >> Hi. >> Mr. Rossi. >> Hi. >> Mr. Chaki. >> Hi. Motion passes 40. Chief. Because this is an unusual meeting where we have uh half of more than half of the board uh being uh sworn in tonight, we're going to take a little break here in case

005people would like to save some pictures and also so that if ne if you prefer not to stay for the entire meeting, you can uh leave and then we will continue with the rest of the meeting. So, we're going to take a five or 10 minute break. Pictures will be out there. I what we have in the uh display. All right, let's uh reconvene and and uh start with section 4, election of president for calendar year 2026. At this point, I'm open the floor for nominations for president of of the board of education for the calendar year 2026. I will nominate Carrie Jackie. >> Okay, >> I will second that. >> A second. All right, any other nominations? Hearing none, we'll close nominations and declare the winner. I guess I don't think that's the right

006terminology, but that the concept that's supposed to be done at that point. And then we need oath of office. Do you want me to read it for you? >> I don't have it. Do I have it here? >> Uh, it's item 4B. >> Oh, there it is. Um, >> no. No, I don't. I don't have it. >> 4B. Oh, I'm sorry. There it is. Okay. I, Gary Suchi, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge my duties as president of the Board of Education of the Kagite Schools, Kayaka County, Ohio, to the best of my ability, and in accordance with the laws now and in effect, and hereafter to be enacted during my continuence

007in set of office. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Then we'll take the roll calls the vote. >> Yeah. >> Oh, that's right. >> You didn't actually do the vote, did you? I'm sorry. >> We got it. >> Uh, Mrs. Dea, >> I. >> Miss Pesca. >> Hi. >> Mr. Rossi. >> Hi. >> Mr. Jackson. >> Hi. >> Can I say nay? >> Don't say nay. >> I can't say nay. Okay. >> Otherwise, that would be not a unanimous >> to the board. >> That's true. Let's move on to section five, election of the vice president for the calendar year 2026. I open the floor to nominations for vice president vice president of the board for calendar year 2026. >> Like to nominate Jen Da. >> Okay. >> Second. >> Caroline, you're in the seconding mood.

008Okay. >> Okay. Moved by Mr. Rossi, second by uh Miss Pajesa. There any uh any other any other nominations hearing? None. Let me get the wording right if I can find it. Uh motion to close nominations and instruct the treasurer to cast a ballot for the nominee is in order. This motion requires an unanimous vote. If this is done, the individual is declared elected to the office of vice president. So I'll make the motion. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Rossi. Any discussion? I assume there's none. Vote. Roll call, please. >> Mr. Saki, >> I. >> Mr. Rossi, >> I. >> Mrs. Ste, >> I. >> Mr. Pesco, >> I. >> Motion passes 40. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations and as item 5B. >> Okay. I, Jennifer Deca, do solemnly swear

009that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge my duties as vice president of the board of education of the Kyogre Heights Schools, Kyoga County, Ohio, to the best of my ability and in accordance with the laws now in effect and hereafter to be enacted during my continuence in said office. >> Congratulations. Okay. Uh, moving on to board president comments. Well, first of all, this is going to be a situation that I don't think I've ever had before when there were three new board members at the same time. Certainly, there I've been through two at once, but not three. So, this is going to be an an unusual start to the year until we all get our our

010feet wet and kind of get used to how it works. Um, and unfortunately, I have something I need to read which um is going to add a little bit more to that. I have an email here from Matt Rush. Matt says, "Dear Gary, I am writing to formerly formally resign from my position on the board of education effective January 21st, 2026. After careful consideration, I have accepted a new professional role that will require weekly travel out of state. Given the meeting schedule and the level of commitment the role deserves, I do not believe I would be able to serve as effectively or consistently as the board and community expect. It has been an honor to be elected and entrusted with this responsibility and this decision was not made lightly. I remain deeply supportive of the

011district and grateful for the opportunity to serve even for a brief time. Thank you for your leadership and understanding. I wish you the board and the district continued success. Sincerely, Mad Raj. So, our first challenge as a new board is to find a new board member. Um, we have Matt's resignation is not effective until the 21st. So, that gives us a little extra time. Uh, Mr. Young did was aware of this and he has prepared uh some handouts and we have a discussion. >> Yes. So um first of all congratulations to Mr. Rush first on his election his appointment to board of education u and secondly on his uh job opportunity. Um, I know he was really torn on this uh decision. Uh, but it's a professional opportunity that doesn't come along very often and

012uh he respects I think the school district too much to not be able to fully invest uh the time that he felt it deserved, but uh it's disappointing to look forward to working with him and we'll continue to still work with him as a parent uh in our community. uh he's an alumnest of the school district and takes a lot of pride in the school district with four children going through the school. So I just wanted to state that uh at the beginning uh wish him very well uh and look forward to just still seeing him out there supporting his children at all the various events uh that they have. So um when u Mr. Rush explained this to us on the day that he was sworn in on the 2nd of January. Uh that

013set us in motion to do some homework on this. So what I've done here is taken documents that uh you know Matt had secured from the last time that this happened uh when we had Mrs. Sugar resign from the board of education. I think Mrs. Decka that's when you came in. >> And so there are statutory deadlines and requirements uh that we need to make sure that we're following. So if the resignation was announced today and it takes effect uh the 21st at that point uh that starts a timeline, the earliest that you can appoint a replacement is 10 days after that vacancy and that's required by law. And the deadline is 30 days after that vacancy takes effect. So 30, it's calendar days, it's not work days. 30 calendar days from the 21st puts

014us at February 19th. Should we not arrive at a decision or should we drag our feet and be delinquent in our duties, then the probate court would take over and fill that position temporarily. So that's that's an important as far as timelines go with with respect to legal requirements. Ohio Revised Code 3313.11. Uh it does state that boards must fill the vacancy at a regular or a special board meeting not earlier than 10 days after the vacancy occurs which is in our timeline. The board must act within 30 days or the probate court fills the position. That's why you see that up in the timeline. Uh a majority vote of the remaining members is required. Uh if you know when when you do decide upon a person to fill that position, it will require a

015majority vote. appointee must be 18 years or older, must be a district resident, and must be registered to vote in the district. As far as our policy goes, that's policy 0145. The board must solicit candidates. Uh you have to seek qualified candidates through there's there's no required mechanism here. It can be word of mouth. It can be through uh the media like the newspaper. It can be put on social media. It can be through um the website and we can have a link on the website. Interested parties click here, they click there and we have directions for them. We just have to be able to communicate it out. You don't have to mail anything home to every resident within the district. You just have to make it publicly known and usually multimodal communication is is

016best. So we would recommend potentially using Cleveland Plane dealer which is our official newspaper. Um, if you want to go that route, uh, we will use our district website. I feel that's a great place uh, to do it. We could also put that out u through our social media if we wanted to do that as well. Uh, as well as the newsletter if you think it would be good to go out in my my newsletter that goes out to parents and the community. Just don't want to, you know, we want to make sure that we're hitting the broadest base that we can. Um, so that's just something to consider. Uh we've got some time for to get feedback from the board on how they'd like to do that. Uh you have to accept applications. So

017all applications um all applicants must submit written notice of interest to the board president. The interview of the candidates, you must interview all interested candidates uh to determine their qualifications. You can do this. I, you know, I recommend doing it as part of an executive session or calling a special um special meeting and going into executive session. You want to be really hesitant about even though if two of you showed up and did interviews, only two are interviewing the individuals. That means some people are being left out. As soon as you get to three people, you have a quorum, you know. So, you need to make sure that we're doing this above board. Otherwise, we're violating uh the law. Go ahead. >> Two things. We have a template from OSBA that we can use as

018the sample application for people to fill out. So, we'll have that prepared and ready to go. And then also, um OSBA has sample questions for um the board interview process. So, if you guys would like to use this as a sample, there's 17 on here. So, >> and you wouldn't have to ask all 17. Certainly, you could add to your own. I would just recommend being consistent and not asking some candidates questions that you don't ask others. We want to make sure that we have a fair uh consistent process. And then you have to appoint by majority. Formal action must be taken in open session. Some important notes. Uh the appointee serves until the completion of the unexpired term or until January 1st following the next regular board election if more than 90 days after

019the appointment. We've been we kind of thought that that means that will be when the next regular board election would be potentially. Is that how you read that or does that >> I jumped in in Lindy's spot. So like I was her term and then when she was up then I ran again. >> Yeah. So So this I'm not sure if this one would be for the whole term or if it's until the next election of the of >> I believe it's until the next >> which would be Mr. Suchi and Mrs. Da. So I think it occurs >> because it was different. You came in after the election after the midterm election, right? I mean there's less than two years left when you came out. >> Yeah, there was one year, >> right? Now

020there's more than that. There's an election in between. So, okay. >> I believe they will have to run special elect. It's part of the usual election, but it's a special category. >> Yeah. So, expired term. >> Our our policy specifically at the very end of it says the newly appointed board members selected to fill a vacancy shall serve the shorter of the following periods upon completion of the unexpired term, which in this case would be four years. >> All right. So, that auto automatically makes you believe it has to be B because that would be shorter. It says until the first day of January immediately following the next regular board of education election and that would be when the two of you are up for. >> So that person then would fall on your cycle

021as opposed to Mrs. Vajesa and Mr. Ross cycle. >> Well just for that but that's only two years. It's just for the un unfilled. So they'll have to run again in two years. >> Okay. >> So it'll still be the same. The two of you will still have a companion to >> speak. All right. So, uh, the board is not obligated to appoint. So, this isn't really applicable to us because you had three seats open, you had three people run. If you would have had four people run for three seats, you would not be obligated to automatically say, "Okay, well, the person who didn't get elected should be the front runner." That's what that statement means, right? Not obligated to appoint the highest vote recipient from the last election. Uh, the treasurer must notify the

022board of elections immediately after the appointment. And it says the OSBA vacancy toolkit provides sample applications, interview questions, and resolution templates. So, uh, that's a quick one pager for everybody. This is my my first go at something like this. This is your I think second time. So, >> probably >> when I was a principal, we went through this many times. So, unfortunately, I' I've done it a number of times. >> We had quite a quite a revolving door eight or 10 years ago. >> Any questions about that process so far. Well, >> we'll work on a more polished timeline to have that out there, but you know, just roughly looking at it. So, the effective date is January 21st. Um and then >> but that does not mean we can't start advertising now because >>

023right >> because you could be receiving applications, interviewing people and then >> picking people um within that 10day period and then 10 days after the 21st >> have a special meeting and actually appoint somebody. So >> right, >> we would probably not want to drag our feet on this. So we will work as quickly as we can to get it. >> And I don't think we've ever used dealer though and I would encourage that we don't do that because who knows how many people are going to apply who don't even live in the district. Don't miss that minor point. Um if you advertise it widely. So if we're going to if we want to go beyond social media and the and the website then I would recommend that we just mail a letter to all

024residents >> or I think just include it in your news electronic. I I have no problem with putting it in the newsletter, putting it on the website. Um >> social media and the word about >> social media and then spread a word about >> I was just going to ask and the website would you have something for them to fill out? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yep. So we're thinking about either a Google doc or some other type of you know just PDF application. >> I think what we'll do is a Google we'll work with Mr. Hartman back there. But it should be as easy as there's going to be a tab on the homepage. Uh just like where it shows like the 2526 calendar. You can click on it, takes you straight there. It

025will be apply for board of education and we'll have an application. We could have it just right there. They could fill it out, submit a resume. >> Does that cover the they must submit written notice to the board of board president. Would that suffice? >> Yes. It depends what type of application we want. So if we want, you know, if we want to standardize it and make it like a PDF and everybody has to fill out that or if we want to, >> we could have, so what we could do is we could have an attachment. You need to attach a letter of intent or to the board president >> and then when that person hits submit, the board president receives an email notification that an application has been received. >> Okay. >> So we

026could have them upload a letter of interest as well as the resume if that's what we want. It's whatever we think that they they should include. Um, which would make sense and you would get a notification then we could set that up that you automatically get notified through your school district email of who's applied. >> So, >> and we'd want to put an end date on the application. So, >> absolutely. For example, >> an end date and frankly I I've done this several times as I mentioned earlier. We've always interviewed all the candidates on one night if there were less than half half a dozen or less. I don't ever remember having to go to two nights. We might have, but I don't think we did because we usually don't get that many people. And

027the interviews are relatively short, 10 to 15 minutes depending on the number of people. At least that's again what we've done in the past because you don't need that too much more than that. And then if you decide if you can't figure out, you can always say the possibility of a second interview. You could you could mention that that maybe we'll need a second interview. we'll let you know and go from there, >> right? >> Certainly with your HR experience, you can provide some some insights, you know, so that can be helpful. >> And for an end date, January 30th, throwing that out there, what do you guys think as like, you know, end date to collect all applications? >> Um, >> yeah, >> three weeks. Really? >> Yeah. No, later than that. I might

028even push it up a little. I don't know. Uh have to think about that a little bit. >> I think you have to give at least two weeks >> realistically. >> Um and by the time we get something everything together and out, even if it's at the end of this week, we're still looking at two and a half weeks roughly to put it at the 30th. So >> I think the 30th would be a fair >> Okay. With interviews the first week of February. >> Yes. if that's >> and hopefully week so that we >> we have the we have the schedule here but so that we can uh possibly get it done um the middle before the middle of February >> on that first meeting we can start the first amendment >> that would

029work now it depends on when we have that first meeting >> so we might have to modify this after we talk about meeting schedule >> it'll be the second week of February February the week of February 9th is our first first meeting. If you wait until the week of the 23rd, we fall outside of the deadline window and you would have to call a special meeting. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Rather not do that if we don't have. >> Okay. So, no later than the 30th I would say it would have to be in and that would give us enough time. Well, and we'll have to figure out what date to use the following week. new people. In fact, we might push everything up a little bit so that we can announce >> we don't have

030to wait for all the applications to come in to interview. We got four or five people by the 21st. We could absolutely interview some people and then just see if there's anyone to catch after the 30th. >> Yes, we >> which would which would cut down on the the interview time as well. >> Right. Again, we you know, maybe we've been maybe it was just coincidence, but I don't I one time we only had two And when we walked into before we did the interview, I said, "I know who you're going to pick, everybody." >> Yeah. So, >> and I I don't ever think we've had more than six. >> So, we'll work with um we'll work with Mr. Hartman, three of us here, we'll work with him to come up with an application process

031and some verbiage and then we can share that with the board to view. And then if you have any, the application should be fairly straightforward. you know, name, age or birth date, village of residence, upload your letter of interest to vote. >> Yeah, register to vote because we have to hit those things. Register to vote. >> Um, and then letter of interest and uh resume, >> right? >> And it should be fairly simple. And then as you receive those, Gary, you can how you want to disseminate that to the rest of the board. It's >> sure >> up to you. just be be we just again I hear John written on my shoulder. We just have to be careful like so if you receive an application and you send it out to the other board

032members, you would want to blind carbon copy everybody because if you send it out to everybody and you start replying back and forth, you now have a quorum and you are potentially making decisions that are violating sunshine laws. So just you want to come up with what your process is going to be to share with the other people as well so that we're not at risk of anything like that. So >> right >> with this timeline that we're talking about we're saying the 30th um we want two weeks. So if we send everything out on Friday the 16th that gives two weeks before Friday the 30th of January for that timeline. So maybe that's our idea >> unless we want to release it sooner. So >> we're going to try to get it We'll try

033to have a a preview for everybody to see for the weekend. >> Okay. >> And then we can launch it as early as next, you know, early next week. >> Right. That's good. You give people much more than a week. I don't I don't think you need to really give them much more than a week or week and a half. >> Too much time. >> Five question Google forms six question. It's not hard to create. This isn't going to be hard for us to create. >> No. So, and we have verbiage from the past >> that we can use to craft an introduction to the Google form. And Matt's really good technology. >> Yes, he is. >> So, >> that's why he has the job that he has. >> We'll be able to get that

034up and running. >> Okay. >> Pretty quickly. >> Okay. Do we any any further discussion on this? >> Okay. And I'm sure Mr. are Matt and Matt and I'm sure you will keep me u informed as as as project as it progresses. I am happy to show up, sit down if the three of us need to sit down to hammer out or plan wise. Just let me know and be welcome to if you can make it. >> You have a busier schedule. I'm trying to >> Gary, if you're able to afford me to copy that email from Matt Rush, I'll save it for >> sure. I will do that. >> Maybe not at the moment. >> All right. Okay. Um, so I think we're done with that. So let's move on to section seven, organizational

035meeting business resolutions. Now I'll introduce this by saying these are pretty much boilerplate. Um, it's the same set of resolutions that that I remember from the very first uh board meeting I ever attended. And it's the same set of resolutions that we do at the career center. And this is really boilerplate, but we do need to go through it and we'll let Mr. Young uh give us a brief uh outline of those items. >> Yes. So, Mr. Mucci and I will tag team this based on, you know, what the information is. So, uh 7A of this organizational meeting resolutions is the motion to adopt the bylaws for the board's own operations and board policies as recommended for the operation of the school system. Letter B, right? And we want to have a little bit of

036a discussion about this. Uh, regular board meetings. So, I'm going to like to give options to people and I'm going to explain. So, here's one set and here's a second set. These all the way down here. Maybe, maybe not. Right. Hold on. I think I might not have done that already. I think I might pass the same thing down. >> Seems to have two of the same. >> Two. You got two of the same. >> You got this. >> No. Okay. >> I had one and three. >> You have one and three. >> I have one and three. >> Okay. Okay. So, here's three for you >> and version one. >> Oh, no. I don't. >> You have one and three. >> I looked at the wrong. >> Here's three and you have I have

037the two different ones. You have one and three. So, you're good. I'm tired. >> All right. So, draft one, this is our what I would consider our traditional schedule. This is where um this is where meetings are on Wednesday nights every uh either every two weeks, sometimes there's every three weeks because you'll get three Wednesdays in a month. Uh the first meeting of the month is the organ is the uh work session which starts at six o'clock. The second meeting of the month starts at 7 o'clock. uh mainly because we do um we do students of the month and we've delayed that by an hour because of activities and work schedules and things like that. So this is draft number one is just your traditional this is the way we've always done it. It also

038has agenda review meetings on there which are recurring um the Thursday before. That way we and we rotate that. We assign a rotating list with the with the board members, two at each of these, two members at each of these. We can do them virtually for those that are at work and need to step away and uh takes about an hour at most when we do those agenda reviews. the second uh second one draft number three. There was a draft two and I took away draft two. Um it just wasn't necessary. It it just shifted a January date. Uh these would be board meetings on Mondays as opposed to Wednesdays. We find that in the middle of the week we have an awful lot of student activities. We have basketball games, volleyball games, we have

039concerts, we have uh a lot of things that are happening in the middle of the week that quite honestly we miss. If you have children in the district, you may miss and um we don't have a lot on Mondays. We still have practices, don't get me wrong, and things like that, rehearsals, but we don't have a lot of formal activities on Mondays. um moving them earlier in the week has, you know, it does have its advantages. Again, Mondays you're avoiding a lot of the competitions, but also it gives us more time during the work week to act upon items that were voted on at the board meetings as opposed to, you know, why don't you do it on a Friday night? Well, nobody wants a Friday night board meeting, but you run into the weekend.

040And so, from a business standpoint, we are stalled on things that we can take action on. So, it just makes sense in the beginning of the week. So, um, so the two difference in the two drafts are Mondays versus Wednesdays. When there's a Labor Day, for example, which is a Monday, we'll just do it on Tuesday, move it to a Tuesday night. That's just some of the there's not many of those, but there are a few. Um, and then I guess to determine whether you know if you are moving to earlier in the week, is there an advantage is just having all of our board meetings at six o'clock. That way it's consistent for everybody. You know, it's always going to be at six. You don't have to it's just a six meeting or a

041seven meeting. It would all be at six o'clock. So that's something else. Now I didn't list that there, but it's something that we you can certainly discuss. Matt Mucci and I are going to show up and George and Mr. department. We're showing up no matter when you guys have the meetings. Um, but it's it's certainly something to discuss. So, I'm going to turn it over to the board to discuss that. >> Yeah. My my only concern about starting that second one at six o'clock is that students of the month. So, we want to make sure that the families have enough time to get here. And I don't know what what would work best. You know, it's been a long time since I had to worry about that sort of thing. So, I looked to our

042board members who have younger families and said, "Do you think it would be all right to have students of the month at six o'clock?" If that's the case, then I'd prefer the consistency. >> Um, if you think that's a problem, then we may stay where we are at 6:00 and 7 or do them all at 7. The reason for moving it earlier, of course, is our staff members are here at at least one case six in the morning. So, you know, that that that makes for a very long day. That's why I actually got moved to six o'clock. My idea we don't complain. We don't >> I know you don't complain. >> No, it's it's really it's up to what the board members feel is is best. Uh I know you all have this is

043this is not your primary job. Although it's a huge responsibility, you you also have work schedules. So, that's why we want to throw out some options for you. I would prefer the Mondays and I I do agree with the all the events and stuff. There's not a lot on Mondays. And I think student of the month, it seemed like we're missing high school students quite a bit because they're at a game or something or an event. >> That's true. We miss more because of that. >> Not really elementary, but the >> Yeah, >> our average kid averages between two and three activities per kid starting in seventh grade. Uh and that's a lot because there are many a third of the kids aren't doing anything. So that means a lot of kids are doing three,

044four, five activities. So >> it's just it's a lot for especially once they get to high school. >> Yeah. >> So >> I don't know how you guys feel about six, but I also like the consistency of it too. >> Yeah, I like the consistency and I think it's enough time. I think there's a fair amount of activities that families go to that start at 6 already. It's not unreasonably early. you know, 5 or 5:30 would that would be too early. I think six o'clock is good. Keeping the agenda review the same day if we had questions. Um, that kind of you would have to reply kind of more right away. Do you think that gives you enough time? I mean, I know you typically do reply to any questions, but >> I hadn't thought

045about that, but you might. Yeah, >> the agenda review doesn't the date doesn't matter to us. I mean, it's it's about are you available at 3 o'clock? You know, that's because that's typically when we do them uh is 3 o'clock. We do them virtually or in person. If you're in the area, stop in and do it in person if if you are at work or but they're typically at 3:00. I know those are tougher to do if you prefer those at four o'clock. You know, we can push them to four o'clock. It's 6 in the morning. >> Mr. Richio, do you push out the the agenda on the website after that meeting >> or is it >> So, right now we have those meetings typically on a Thursday and we send out the agenda on

046a Friday for the >> usually 4 p.m. on Friday. >> So, we can modify that. That's not a problem. >> And board policy says two days to publish the agenda. >> So, would it I don't know where you're going, but would it would it help to move it earlier in the week? >> That's what I assume you're thinking. in other words have the meeting on Wednesday for example the agenda review >> it's fine with us it it all that does for us is shifts our timeline that we tell people they have to have items submitted to Mrs. Deal myself and Mr. Muchio so that we can get it on the board agenda in a timely fashion. What we don't like to do is add a lot of things after the agenda review unless we've communicated

047it. Like sometimes we'll put placeholders because we know something is coming and it's very rare that we should ever do anything after the agenda is published. It should only be for we get a water main break and we have $25,000 emergency PO that needs to be approved. You know, that's the only reason why you want to throw something on there at the last minute. So, >> so that's my >> if you think if you think Thursday's if it was a Monday meeting and Thursday is okay for agenda and you have enough time, then I'm I'm fine with keeping it because we still have the weekend to look and ask questions on Monday if we have to before the meeting. Right. >> You do. >> Yeah. So, >> yeah. And I'm I'm fine with leaving it

048where it is, too. I just want to >> make sure that we we're giving ourselves enough of a cushion now that we've moved >> the meeting forward a couple of days. I want to make sure we have >> we have a really good system in place. feel like by Thursdays we've got everything pretty buttoned up. Um, so there's not a lot that changes between a Monday till a Wednesday of the following week. Nothing has happened in the two days leading up to this. >> So I'm supposed to remember everything Friday. We we lose track of it on Tuesday. We're like, what did we even know? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. So I'm okay. >> Yeah. a couple. Um, oddly enough, that Monday schedule is the absolute worst Monday schedule possible for my family because of

049family commitments. >> Okay. >> Is that every Monday? >> Every other Monday, we have a a family event going on. It just happens to coincide with that schedule, but I was looking at it and if it was moved up one week, so starting the 19th >> and it was the second, the 16th, >> right? That would also give us a meeting the week before the deadline is for the special >> uh appointment. Um it would not interfere. We wouldn't be doing a meeting the day after Memorial Day or Labor Day. >> If you could um so if you could get me a uh if you know for sure what your schedule sometimes there's three Mondays in a month, >> right? >> So which Monday is it? That's your That's your You know what I'm saying?

050>> Yeah. For me, I know it starts on the 12th and it is every other Monday. >> It It's just every >> other Monday like clockwork. >> So if we did the 19th and just write like the 2nd, the 16th, 2nd, 16th, and so on. Now, we would skip See, that's that's where we >> Right. >> So you'd skip we would not do >> we're done. We're done in May. So in April for example, I guess that's where we when you had that fifth Monday. So I would if we did we would do like March 2nd would be a good Monday for you. March 16th, but then we have March 30th. That pushes me to the 6th again, >> but then the 6th is a bad day for you. Now that's okay because we have

051the 13th and the 27th. >> But the sixth should be a good day based on what you said. >> Is that true? It would seem like >> every other week. >> It seems like the 30th would be a good day for him, but that would be a third meeting in the month. >> No, through May. I've got no no conflicts on this because >> so we would do the 13th and the 27th. That still works in April. Actually works better because we avoid the spring paper break Monday. >> So when I look at this, I know I've got the 12 at the beginning of May you said >> I've got the second let's see so for me meeting on the 12th the 26th, the then the 9th and 25th, then the 9th. >> Those are

052your commitments. >> Yeah. Then that would be Yeah. See, then if it hits all the regular meetings and then if we may, but if everything is moved up just one week, then I'd have zero conflict. >> But so this is so 19th is good. >> But the six would have to go to the >> second's good, right? >> 16th is good. Yes. >> 2nd is good. The 16th is good. >> Yes. >> Now, see, I run into the 30th. We're not going to do a third meeting in the month, >> right? >> So, that would default to here, which is a bad day, but that's okay. We still have the 13th and the 27th. We just have a big gap there. >> Three week gap every now and then. >> 13th and the 27th. >>

053Mhm. >> That works, right? >> Y. >> So, then it falls then on the 11th. >> If I miss that day, I miss that day. So you're saying just just for the remainder of January, February, March, and April, if we shift to those dates and then keep everything else the same, we're going to be good. Absolutely. Even into the fall. Even >> Okay. Okay. I was going to ask that if you pick back up in September. >> Well, we'll we'll talk with the group at that point and just say, "Hey, this is this is what it is." >> So, they're flexible, too. And then sometimes they skip weeks and so we just need to get them on >> on track. Okay. All right. I will um So you're you would vote on version three with

054these modifications. >> Absolutely. >> And all six o'clock and all at six o'clock. >> All at six o'clock. >> I love the all at six o'clock. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> That's fair. So when you do go to so when we are vote just to be clear when we vote on this you're you are voting for version three with the modifications we just discussed and option or draft number one is then eliminated from consideration >> we'll upload that one >> and we will then upload that the corrected one into board docs so that you will see the final version and then that will be published on our website almost uh immediately I'll send that out this weekend again through my uh weekly update and it'll be published on the the school website. >> Okay. Let

055me make sure I have all the right dates now. >> Yeah. Just so you know, just the modifications right now. So, we are going to we're going to to have a meeting on the 19th >> Yes. >> of January. >> Right. Got it. >> And then we're going to have the 2nd of February. >> 2nd and 16th. >> And the 16th. And it repeats in March. The 2nd and 16th. >> And then we're going to actually skip, it's going to be a four, it's going to be four weeks. Um, which is okay. There's a spring break in there. Okay. So, it's I think I think that's okay. So, then we're going to pick up on the 13th of April, the 27th of April, and then we're going to uh follow the normal schedule from there.

056Now, if there's an opportunity for me to shift everything because, you know, I do see that we have uh if you know, if we shifted things in September, for example, to the 14th and the 28th and then I shifted October down to the 12th and the 26th and I shifted November down, that avoids those Monday holidays. Uh, and so it still keeps it. So, we may shift those two, but that's later in the year. Why? >> Yeah, I I'm worried about the first few months. >> Yeah. question. Um July, we've traditionally only had one meeting in July. Um do we want to keep two or >> So my I guess my our recommendation is to have two and if we needed to cancel one we could do Can we do that? We do a lot.

057See July is actually our busiest month for hiring. >> But if we don't have a lot of people to hire, it may not be necessary to have a second meeting. But if we have it scheduled, we could always cancel >> the meeting as a I mean, obviously you could schedule a new one, but I think if people know that there's a potential for one, we'll work really hard to just have one meeting. >> Okay. >> But July 10th is the deadline for a certified staff employee to determine if they're going to retire or leave leave the district. After the 10th, you can hold their license. So some people it's that's actually how I got my first job. Somebody somebody retired on on July 10th of 1995 and that's how I got my job. So it

058was great. >> Yeah. >> Worked for me, but it puts a lot of stress on the school district and so you want to get somebody in to hire them because anybody else is in that situation are competing with a very shallow candidate pool at that point. So, so that's that's why we had recommended having just two meetings published and then if we needed to walk one back. >> Okay. >> Uh we we could. >> Does that seem okay to you? >> Yeah. And the 13th works because it would be after the 10th deadline and then then if we need to cancel the 27th, we could do that. >> Okay. All right. All right, we'll work on that and I'll get that to uh again I might play around with September, October, November just to avoid

059Labor Day weekend. Somebody wants to come back on Tuesday after Labor Day weekend board meeting if we can avoid it. So we'll work on that. >> Okay. So when we vote on the calendar, this is the one we're voting on. >> Yes. Okay. >> Get rid of that. Yeah, >> okay. So, >> all right. So, then letter Yes. moving on. Letter C. Do did you want to talk about service fund, Mr. Muccia? >> Um, sure. So, motion to establish the service fund at $15,000 calendar year 2026 uh for the purpose of defraying board members expenses action incurred and performance of their duties. The law allows this fund to be up to 20,000. So, um we could bump it up to 20,000 if necessary. We have 15,000 which should be more than enough. I mean I

060have a small history in the past. I haven't updated it since but we haven't come anywhere close to spending $10,000 for example. So >> I don't have any problem with leaving it. >> Hey letter D. This is the publication of record. This is uh designated which we're required to do um the Cleveland plane dealer as our official publication of record for posting of all legal advertisements for the Kagite schools. So, for example, if we had to go out for competitive bid of a project, we would we would post it to officially to the Cleveland plane dealer. Purchasing agent. Uh, this is a motion to appoint superintendent treasure as the purchasing agents uh for the district. Letter F, state federal grants. Uh, this is a motion to authorize superintendent treasure to apply for all available state

061and federal uh funds and grants. Letter G, district spokesperson. This is a motion to appoint superintendent or superintendent's designate a spokesperson for the board and the school district. And I should say with with many of these items, very rarely does it happen without notification of the board of education. So for example, if we were to have some type of emergency incident at the school, superintendent or designate as the spokesperson, but the board of education be roped into the conversation uh prior to that going out. So u same with uh purchasing a if we need to make an emergency purchase, uh quite often we would notify the board of education either through email or through um verbal contact. Hey, we have a water man break. We need to fix this today. do you authorize a, you

062know, $25,000 purchase emergency purchase order? We would let everybody know that that's happening. Then we would vote on it at the next meeting. But, uh, it's very important that on big items like this, that nobody's in the dark. Okay. Letter H. This is the employment of personnel and accepting resignations. Motion to authorize the superintendent to employ personnel and accept resignations as needed during calendar year 2026. Such employment resignations will be reviewed by the board of education at its next regularly scheduled meeting. Sometimes we uh we will hire people with an effective date prior to a board meeting. Um for example, if we have somebody who has a medical event and they need to go on a long-term leave and we need to bring in somebody as for a long-term position, we're able to do that.

063We may need to do that prior to board action on it. Uh but again, information with the board of education prior to that happening. Uh letter I appoint leaison in 2026. So we need to what what we don't do anymore are uh board board uh I don't call them board sponsored board committees and things like that. Uh because school districts around the state of Ohio were being litigated by a certain individual for violating sunshine laws during those meetings. That's where uh so something like the best committee. The best committee is the superintendent's committee. It's not a board's committee. But even with the superintendent committee, I need to be very careful about how many board members are showing up to those meetings. I can only have two people or three show up. It could be construed

064as a a meeting of the board of education. Now, >> I have to make sure I'm publishing minutes. I have to make sure I have notification. That's why you'll see in the best, you know, my newsletter, hey, next best committee meeting is February whatever. If you're interested in attending, here it is. That's I'm doing all those things per the guidelines of our attorneys. So, we've done away with those committees uh that were board committees because of things like that in the recommendation legal council, but we do have liaison to uh different entities. So, for example, the the Kaga Valley Career Center, uh Mr. Suchi is historically been our liaison and he's interested in it again unless you Mrs. Paja wants to arm wrestle him to go to the career center board meetings. Um, you know,

065that's he's a he's right now his term expired at the end of at the end of 20 2025. So the next term would be for another three-year term. >> So that would then run through, you know, we'd have to correct that those dates. >> We've already actually passed that resolution. >> Yeah. Yeah. So you did that at probably a prior meeting because those have already started. So that's 25 26 26 28. So there dates are fixed. You'd have to refresh. But we also have now you know Maria Eder former board member was interested in being the value economic development leaison. even though you know doesn't have to be a board member. She's former board member but being that she's in the real estate business uh she had asked to be considered for uh this liaison

066and then will make regular reports to the board of education um you know through other channels. Um Mr. Dobbins had said, you know, he's been so invested in the legislative part, you know, he would be interested in being considered. Certainly, you could have more than one. Nobody says you only have to have one person. So, if somebody else would like to and Mark not being a board member, you don't have to worry about a quorum or anything like that. Um, same with Maria. So if you're, you know, interested in, you know, something like the legislative piece, it's so critical to really be up to date with what's going on legislatively in Ohio. You know, if you are open to Mr. Dobin still continuing, but you also want to partner with him, it can be a

067nice transition uh over time. So that's just something to consider. I know Mrs. Deca is interested in being the OSBA student achievement liaison uh as she has been in the past. So you Mr. Sichaki has done tax abatement review leaison but again >> you can have two people just can't have three >> right that is coming that we're down to one tax abatement open so we don't even go downtown anymore we just do a conference call it takes 10 minutes. >> Yeah. So we have transportation communications forum. This is uh tied to our teachers contract. Uh should um you know should there be a challenge that arises uh that you know requires an open discussion between the administrative staff and the representatives from the teaching staff. You know before you would get to any type

068of major conflict you try to resolve it through the communication process. The uh contract requires two board members to attend those meetings should those meetings be called. We haven't had u communication form in maybe two or three years. I think it was some last one was during levy time. Uh was was after we failed the first the first go at the levy back in 2023. That was the last time I recall we had a communications forum. Uh but Mrs. Prowse attended that meeting and Mrs. Eder I believe attended that meeting. So, so we would need two people for that one for sure. Transportation leaison. Um, you know, we could talk to Mr. Dobbins. I think he has been our transportation leazison on exactly what that entails. I know there's a lot that goes on around

069the state of Ohio legislatively around transportation. So, uh, there's probably some overlap there with with legislation. Uh and then the legislative delegate that is the and I don't know if we vote on that now or if that happens closer to the OSBA conference. That's the >> typically we do it that way. >> That's a member from this board of education that attends their legislative um meeting and actually votes on large scale issues that's being initiated by your governing body, the Ohio School Board Association. Typically, we've elected that person prior right right before, but you could do it now because if there's anything that's occurring throughout the year that committee meetings, things like that could possibly get involved. So, that's something to consider. These are the main leaison that we have right now. If there's something

070else that you feel along the way that we need to add, we could certainly always add something. I think we got the PTO leaison covered. So, I think I think we're good there. Anybody want to fill in a blank? >> Um, I would be interested in doing the legislative liaison with is Mr. Dobbins for sure still interested in that. >> He is interested, but he is also he he understands that that's if if there are two people here or there's more people that want to take that on right now that he can certainly. He just asked he had requested that if if the board would be open to it to stay on because he's done so much work >> on the back end. But we can't have two. So >> what's that? >> And we

071could have two people doing that. >> You could have another person here because Mark is not on the board of education. >> So you want to sign up for it, Carol? >> My Yeah. My interest would be the legislative leazison because I attended the legislative updates at the capital conference and I found that very interesting. Um and I want to continue being informed about it and the communications forum. Okay. Are >> are we okay putting her name in here? Okay. I don't know why fonts look in size, but we'll fix that later. >> This is just for one year. >> It is. Yep. Yep. And then we would redo it next year and you could continue in that role or say enough's enough. I'm done. The legislative piece >> for the three-year term. It's still

072showing as 2025. Just >> Yeah, I have. >> You have to you need to refresh. I think if you refresh >> like you changed it to 28. Did you change the 25 to 27? >> Oh, the 25. You're right. I I will fix that. >> Yeah, I made it a four-year term. >> Yeah, let me take care of that for you. Yep. Okay, that should be good. Once it refreshes, you'll see the new date. Okay. >> Uh, you got communications, too, if that's okay. >> Communications form. Is that a person? >> Okay. Okay. Then you have the Kaga Valley Chamber of Commerce leaison. So, have you done that in the past, Mr. Suchi? >> I don't ever remember anyone doing >> No, there are two me there there at least two large meetings. >> I

073go to both of them >> that are held every year by the Chamber of Commerce. One is the state of um state of the region so to speak with Valley View, Brooklyn Heights, Kyoga Heights, I think Seven Hills, >> Parma, and Independence. >> Not not Parma. Independence. >> Independence. Thought I thought the Seven Hills mayor was there. >> Yeah. Seven Hills mayors, the ones that show up. >> Not Parma, but Seven Hills. Yeah. So, >> Southern Hills Valley >> that is in the fall and that's that's typically your village governments or city governments and they they provide uh the mayors will provide updates on the state of their state of the regions and what's going on in their uh their world. In the spring there's a state of the schools. So, it is us, it

074is independents and it is the Kaga Valley Career Center uh and and the educational service center. we provide it's again it's a dinner there's a a presentation by every superintendent of those and a Q&A so but I don't know if there's any other regular meetings that people from this board have ever attended >> no I haven't >> so but that at least those two events uh and they are typically at 11 o'clock >> 12 I think >> 11 or 12 somewhere in there It's it's it's somewhere in an inconvenient time for people who work. >> Yes. >> So, >> it's a lunch, >> but not for people who want to get together and uh have have a lunch and uh talk politics >> and and that one there's no limit on the numbers that I

075know of. Um you know, I go as a CBCC rep to those two. The CBCC covers my expense for that dinner. >> Yeah. Um, we can, you know, but I I've seen >> we've had all my board members there before. >> Yeah, we have we can have multiple the villages bring the whole council some of them if they're available >> for example to the one for the cities. So >> So it's it's essentially a dinner and then the four or five four entities they're key people superintendents in the case of the schools report on the last year significant events. >> Yeah. You don't necessarily have to have somebody for these, but if you know if somebody's like really interested like oh boy transportation, you know, we um >> I don't ever remember having anybody on

076that. >> Yeah, you you you could really get transportation updates through the legislation piece. So that that tends to be where the the biggest things are right now um are things that are happening in law. So anybody going once twice for a chamber of commerce. You can leave it open-ended and if you can make it, you make it. If you can't, you can't. >> Um, transportation leaison. Then I've already filled in the communications forms. If you refresh, you'll get the filled in version. All right, think about it. We got six more items to go through. And if you want to come back to any of those, again, it's uh it's it's hard enough to, you know, prepare and be be ready for two meetings a month here, let alone going to other things. But if

077you're as as you get comfortable in your roles, we can certainly go back and add these. So, >> are we good to move on to? >> Yes. Am I biting at the bit there for the transportation piece? All right. George is our transportation supervisor that works with our coordinator, so he can provide updates if he gets to spend more time with George. >> There you go. Uh letter letter J, uh this is our school district's credit card limits. Matt, you just want to talk about that quickly? >> Everything stayed the same, so no change. >> Okay. Uh letter K, this is approval of the wireless communication allowances. So for those um those employees who have a communication stipen written into their contract, uh these are the amounts that are set. I've been working to slowly

078phase those out of people's contracts. And I'm talking about exempt employees as they're expiring. The the world of cell phones is different than when this went into place 10 years ago. more than that. >> Um well 11 years ago when I came in I had the cell phone sten but I was also you know paying for data plans and minutes and >> you know got charged extra if I went over the data plans are different now used to have cell phones when we started. >> Yeah we had a separate cell phone >> like you had your your cell phone and then you had your school cell phone or you could take the the $60 in lie of the school cell phone. Nobody carries well some people there's still a few who carry two cell phones

079but not not many in the world. >> So it's it's just become a an unnecessary um benefit through the lens of the school district and savings. At one point we were spending about $7,000 a year on this. We're scaling that back and eventually the goal is to be zero dollars a year. It's just not necessary anymore. Letter L is performance bonds. Anything on that one? >> Just the two. >> Yeah, for the bonds. >> Yeah, bonds for the superintendent 50,000. The board president amount of 50,000. >> The treasurer is insured in li of a bond for county year 2026. Investment of funds. This is to allow authorize the treasur to invest interim and active funds as prescribed by Ohio Revised Code. Letter N, you want to talk about your alternative tax budget here? >> Sure.

080Um, there's not too much to talk about. So, there's a reminder that Kyogre County sends out. This is the reminder. So, comes out December. They say the alternative tax budget. Uh, this is going to be for fiscal year 27. Must be passed by your school board on or before January 15th and file with the budget commission on or before January 16th. Um, so we have the template and it's pretty easy um for the whole uh tax budget. So it's not a full tax budget, it's an alternate tax budget and they give kind of the whole history of why it was scaled back and they're just asking for certain information. U these are the guidelines for completion. This would be our schedule one. The first page, these are all of our levies and we just valuation

081that Kyoka County provides to us as well as the DT515 which has the um effective rates from the department of taxation and we merge those together and quick calculation to arrive at these figures. I will highlight this more down discussion item uh because we had a meeting with the three mayors today. We'll talk about that later on and I'll go back to this. Um, the second one has all of our funds rolled up together uh to the county. And uh for the first line, which is our general fund, I can't grab those perfectly. There we go. Super small here. Um, but all of these numbers come from someplace. the place they come from would be our not fiveyear forecast but the financial forecasts now for what it's called. So all those numbers are um from

082the notes and from the forecast. So plugged in here um and then the others are not applicable because we don't have any debt. So super easy to turn into the county and then essentially they turn it around and say okay here's your your funds that you have. But um the budget commission uh as Mr. Young has articulated has a lot more power with the new legislation. We've been talking about that um quite a bit. So um we'll see how that transpires with it. So um any questions on that or uh item O the last one legal counsel for board of revision hearings. Um it authorizes the treasur but really we let our legal council David seat uh handle all these. So those are all the items on your organizational meeting consent agenda. >> Okay. So

083we need to approve that which means we need a motion. >> So moved. >> Okay. Moved by Miss Deka. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Second by Mr. AI any further discussion hearing none treasure please call the role >> Mrs. Stea >> I >> Mr. Osi >> I >> Miss Peska >> I >> Mr. >> I motion passes 4 Z um moving on to nine number nine law firms. >> Yeah we have uh right now we have four law firms that fulfill different purposes. Um we can certainly add others uh in the future. We have done interviews in the past for these law firms. So if you ever were to to want to bring on a every even within educational law, some people have their areas of expertise. Some educational law firms

084are better with special education, others are better with contract law. Others are more, you know, general. Brennan McIntyre and SED is that's all about property tax assessment valuations. So certainly NS Britain could do it but not as well as maybe somebody with that sort of specialty. So a couple of these are tied to which one's tied to the embezzlement? >> Uh three four to an extent. >> Yeah. Three and four to extent are still tied to the embezzlement that occurred years ago. So when we receive when we receive funds a lot of it this is filtering through >> Yeah. recovery for the uh the scandal. So that still flows through um >> flows through them before it comes to us >> and they take their >> Yes. >> their share. >> Yeah. So when we

085get an $18 check, you know, it's going through it's costing us more money to to have them review this than the money that we're getting, right? But >> all those were kind of baked into the cake years prior. Do we need a motion for the >> motion? Separate motion. Okay. >> Entertain a motion for the four law firms. >> Motion. >> Okay. Meta. Second. >> Second. >> Okay. Any discussion? Further discussion? Hearing none. Treasurer, please call. >> Miss Peska. >> I. >> Mr. I >> Mrs. Deka >> abstain. >> Mr. >> I motion passes 30 with one abstension. >> Okay. Comments from the public. There's nobody here. Moving on to approval of business. Treasures business. >> Yep. Just a couple items tonight. I ask for item 11 A, 12 A through 12E for approvals tonight

086consent agenda. >> Okay. Entertain a motion for those items, please. >> So moved. >> Moved by Miss Da. I'll second and any dis discussion. >> Uh we have our minutes from our December meeting there for 12A or excuse me 11A. 12A is going to be the financial reports for November. Um and the way they're set up uh we have a lot of reports here. Um and they go from A to Z. Uh also too may want to look at a couple other school districts and see how their financial reports come out. It's always interesting to kind of compare and see because I do it all the time. So, we go overboard with all of ours. But if you were to compare like you know a couple others, look at board docs because a lot of

087schools use that be a good barometer just to see about oh that's the only thing they put out there. That's what they put out there. Um really the big four would be um the first four that we have. So uh our bank reconciliation just shows that we're in balance. Uh what our fund balance is right here and all of our different uh cash accounts that we have. Huntington uh for our operation star for our investment as well as uh Redtree US Bank. So Redeeree is the firm that invests our cash which is sitting in US Bank. So there's approximately 5 million uh at US Bank invested by Rederee and then Stari approximately 17.5 million and then uh the rest about 500,000 give or take is operating cash that we have. Um and we have all

088of our uh highlights that trace to our lead sheet there. Uh B is going to be our cash summary report. So this comes from our accounting system. Um has all of our funds and at the end we have our initial cash. Uh it shows monthto date, fiscal year to date uh received and fiscal year to date expended. Uh so we're 71 to 630. So, we're getting close to that halfway point, which actually uh we just crossed December 31st and um close out of here. And we'll talk about these a lot more as we go along the way. We have our budget verse actual. Um this is a tool that I used to use when I was an auditor. Uh it's extremely useful. Um, so this has everything set up with all of our funds and

089everything traces back uh to those items we were just looking at. So whether it's uh T2D or T2 um B, you know, our cash summary because this is C right here, we can go back and see because everything's tick marked there that we would have B to B, A to A. Um but we have our beginning cash balance, any prior encumbrances, so anything that we would have p sort of drawn about to pay it and then anything unencumbered which is free and clear that we have to spend in those funds. Um we have the uh estimated resources coming from Kyoga County. So the county does this first one and sends it to us and really they use our alternate tax budget to say give us the numbers and we're going to use it to craft

090that first estimated resources um coming from them. And then we modify that every so often um with changes that we have coming. So maybe we get more in grants or whatnot or we just feel, you know, we can make some changes along the way and we always keep track of it too. Um then we have our appropriations over this side. We do a temporary then a permanent one uh before September 30th and then we have some changes along the way uh for uh certain reasons. So, we bumped up our permanent excuse me our yeah permanent improvement fund uh $600,000 and that was for the fire alarm and security project that we had at that point in time. Then we also increased uh our fund 19 by $30,000 for the Ka Valley uh career center grant

091that we have received. So, we make those changes along the way. We have our ending cash here. And you guys always want to make sure that you know these are positive numbers and if they're negative, why? And um really two funds that you're or two areas that you're going to see it would be our food service from time to time. So that's not uncommon to see a negative there. Um it is positive here and we have a large encumbrance, a large purchase order. So that's to purchase all of our milk and cheese and pizzas that we have for the student lunches. So we do a large blanket purchase order which draws the fund down but then we even it out as the year comes but we haven't dipped into the negative with our ending cash

092that we have here. This is just the unencumbered balance that we see. And then grant accounts are typical to see going into the negative. So we'll spend that money. So we start here with zero. We spend we'll go negative. Then we'll do a uh PCR with OD in the CCIP. It's a lot of acronyms. and then Matt loves that. But all that means is we just spend the money and then we do a reimbursement request through OD to get that money back. So we start with zero spend and get the money back and head back up there. Um we're still in good shape overall. So we started the year with approximately 22 million. We're right around approximately 22 million as well. So we're in good shape. Just wanted to point out that due to the

093legislation that was occurring, we did have to transfer out $4 million from the general fund to the permanent improvement fund. So, you know, we are good overall. We're strong, but that did accelerate um the general fund on a trajectory down. So, but there was a lot there with that history that we had. Um, any questions on this? Or >> when you say start of the year at 22, that was starting in July 1st or that start? Okay. >> Y out of here. And then the last one's just our lead sheet for the general fund. Um, and then this just tracks as we go all along the way. The green are the estimates. Everything here would be actuals that we see. And it's just uh revenues on the top, expenditures on the bottom half of the

094page. and we have that measured against our beginning budget and then the two forecasts that we do. So, um that we have used to be the May and the uh what was it? November forecast and they switched it up and now it's it was October but now they're going to move it to August. At some point they're going to have us doing a forecast every month of the year I think. So, um but uh this is very important just to see where we're at as we go along the way. So, um the others, you know, if you're ever curious about, you know, what goes into our supply of materials for the month of um November, you can go here and look at one of the line items that we have for our budget just to

095see, you know, how much we've spent to where we're at. Um as we go along the way, what we're looking at, but we'll definitely talk more about these as we go along. Uh any questions or Okay. Uh new vendors. Um the reason we do this um we have it in our policy and also this was a recommendation of the scandal that happened years ago uh that the state came and said approve new vendors to the school district. So this is something that we've had in place. We have three um we have this first one for aiology uh products. Uh this is okay and approximately $2,000 from the general fund. Uh number two is Buckeye local schools for a swim meet approximately $200 for the athletic fund. And number three is set a trophy that's for

096athletic trophies approximately $1,000 for the athletic department that we have. Closing out here we have a new grant. So we received a 3,34141 uh Ohio Attorney General's uh school safety grant. Want to thank Mr. department for uh really spearheading and leading the way on that grant. And Mr. Hartman, do you want to talk about it? >> Uh it's a yearly grant that we apply for. We use it to re refresh our security cameras. We use it for licenses as well as whatever cameras in areas that we find troublesome. Currently, we're going to with this uh grant, we will be installing some panoramic cameras, reducing some of the ones that have like three in a spot. We'll take those cameras, place them in other areas that need coverage. So, we're just going to make everything in

097general security cameras. >> And this is one of two grants that we had uh applied for. >> Correct. The other one is the project based. That one has a $40,000 cap. That one would be used for PA speaker, but I believe we're still waiting on the state to tell us if we got it or not. >> Um item D is to modify our permanent appropriations. We have three modifications here. I'll just pull up our sheet for what it looks like. So, we have all of our funds. Then we have the amount was beginning and then each addition along the way and then the total over here. So, we just have three. Um, I'll save this one because we'll talk about that one uh together. Uh, number two is an increase of $5,000 to our 07

098fund. That's due to more scholarships. Uh, it's great that we have that up there. Number three is increase of $20,000 to the 300 athletic fund. Um, our overall amount was 615,000. I'm just seeing an increase in expenditures. They're just tracking higher. So, this $20,000 increase represents a 3% increase. Um, higher. We are drawing in money, too. So, it's not just all spending, but expenses are just tracking higher. What I'm saying? And the number one is a large one. So, that's an increase of $800,000 to be able to spend. We're appropriating the money from our permanent improvement fund. Now, typically in the past, for the past 10 years, more than that, we've always had a contract if we were going to do um like our fire alarm system. So, the contract and modifier appropriations to be

099able to spend. So, we have to we have the money, but we have to appropriate the money and say, "Yes, we came, you know, the board approves us to be able to spend a million dollars on the fire alarm system." And then we send that appropriation resolution into the county and the county signs off on it. And then we're good to go. 10 years. I don't want to say it's been rubber stamped, but um there's been almost no questions really ever asked. So, it's just been an easy process. Um with the budget commission and the new legislation of them uh attaining more power, uh we wanted to make sure that we have uh the appropriations board approved and then approved by the county before we bring a contract forward to be able to approve because

100what if we approved that contract on the same night as we approved the appropriations. If the county says no, you know, like a week later on those appropriations, then we're kind of in trouble like uh you know, so this way it's new way of going about things, but we just felt, you know, from talking to each other that this is the uh maybe best path forward for the time being. And then as far as the 800,000, uh Mr. Young, you want to talk about the next phase that you have set up for the roofing project? >> Yeah. So, if you read my weekly update, which I know can be laden with all kinds of interesting information, I did provide an update about the uh the roofing projects. So, we um you know, last summer we

101sat down, actually it was it was late last spring, we sat down with TMCO. We've had a business with Trimco for approximately four decades back to the 1990s. Uh we've got binders where they have helped us with our roofing projects. Um we are in phase two. All right. And phase two is a summer project. Uh we again we're working working with TMCO. We also pulled in the Ohio schools council because we just want to make sure that everything is per our policy. Um we received four proposals for our roofing projects this summer which is much more substantial than what we just did in the fall. And what we're we're likely looking at is about $720,000 uh which was anticipated as part of this four uh four to five year plan right here. Recall back June

10230th we move $4 million from the general funded to the permanent improvement account. It was something that we said that we could always do when we passed that levy. People are like why why didn't you ask for more PI and less operating? We had the flexibility to do it. We knew we were up against a cash carryover cap that could have wiped out up to $8 million worth of our reserves and we transferred four million to PI to protect that for legitimate capital improvement costs. The roof, you know, we're we're behind in a lot of our sections of the roof and we've worked with code to prioritize this. So, u that was the January, sorry, the July 9th version of this. There's a different version of it now. >> Actually, they have a notice here.

103So, you do have a notice that we are continuing with the plan, you know, to break roof in into two parts. There's an air handler on top of the roof. It's approximately, you know, anywhere from 150 to $300,000 that cools the auditorium. Right now, it's being held together with Atari switches, uh, so to speak. Uh, but it's working and we have a great, uh, maintenance team and an HVAC person. So, uh, but we anticipate, uh, that coming to the board of education in February because that needs to they need to start ordering the materials and and prepare for literally like the first Monday after school's out that they're going to start tearing off roofs. These are some of our most saturated roofs. They I think roof >> roof N is near 100% saturated. like it's

104it's in full fail as far as a roof goes. So, we have to start tackling that. It's a big section of roof. So, you know, but this is uh this is part of the work that we've we've been doing really started this right right when I came in as superintendent started working on this because, you know, in talking to Mr. Evans in the transition, he knew this was something that we were going to have to do, but we had to wait for some of that PI money to come in. We had to wait for billboard money to come in, things like that, so that we can really start tackling it. So, >> right. So, you guys aren't approving a contract tonight. It's just allowing the ability for that in the future. So, we're saying we're

105appropriating 800,000. Doesn't mean we have to spend a dollar of that. So, we're just saying we can't when we verify with the county, the county is saying you have the funds available. You're not going to, you know, go bankrupt from this. You're good to go. So, then, you know, Mr. Young, if he brings that contract, you know, in the future, you know, at the next or the next after that one board meeting, then, you know, the board can really dive into those details and say like, you know, all those questions on that contract. >> So, quick question with this five-year plan, um, at the end of that 2029, are we good then with the roof for >> 20 years. Okay. >> Minimum. >> There'll be some maintenance here and there, but >> yeah, there will

106be. And you know, the costs are coming in a little bit higher because they had what they didn't factor in the first time. And when I say a little higher, I'm talking like 20 $30,000 higher. They didn't factor in that they had to do some uh they had to account for lightning, which they didn't do in the initial um in the initial and it's a loose proposal. The big thing is is is as I mentioned they have to follow uh RS means guidelines and that RS means sets the this fair market price for everything. There were a couple that came in like one group came in at $1.1 million. It's like you don't you're not even following the guidelines. You just toss them to the side. Sometimes people put that out there because they want

107to be disqualified. Um other times they just want to see if you're going to pay it. Um, but that's why we worked with OSC and u Trimco as part of the AAA cooperative purchasing program and things like that. So, a lot of their stuff has already been been out and set for a period of time. OSC will accept that contract and then when it expires they have to go out and renegotiate prices and or stated it another way. Uh maybe some you know contracts in the past we would have went out and bid got bids back and then we would say this is the lowest responsible bidder. We're going to go with them and maybe our architects would draft the specs that we would have in place so we know uh going in. This one's

108kind of different like uh Matt's saying where we went with Ohio Schools Council and they uh are partnered with a cooperative purchasing program called the AEA and the winning bidder of you know when they posted the roofing contract AA was Trenco and then Trenco comes back and says you know we have the contract Ohio schools council you know um reviews and assesses all that documentation as correct Um and then you know we sat we went with uh so the review of the um four proposals that were sent in and why would they send proposals where they came to us and said well we're you know they have the ability to do this in their AEA uh contract uh to go out and solicit bids for this project. So they went out and said this is

109a baseline uh the RS means baseline was 750,000 approximately. I think it was 754 >> 754 756 >> somewhere in there >> but uh 750 and then from there we had like one that came out like 1.2 million. So that one you know is disqualified. Two that came lower were about 720 and 740. So those two are going to be the ones that are assessed and then a recommendation is going to be brought forward. So when that contract does come forward we know that um you know that is the best price, lowest and most responsible bidder and we did have a meeting scheduled. Three of us sat with Ohio schools council and we wanted them to review all the documentation to make sure that uh you know nothing was missed and you know they gave

110their assessment that um you know a couple things like the lightning here and there but overall um you know the two that were not disqualified are compliant. >> Um any questions? Um, let's see. And purchase order over 5,000 just one. And this is for Ava G. She was the winner of the Don and Dory Patrunia Ohio State University Memorial Scholarship. She was awarded the full scholarship of $25,000 back in 2024. And she had submitted a request for reimbursement about $6,000 each. So two this is the balance left 12,000. So we're doing a blanket purchase order. So anything she would submit for that scholarship we have we had just bumped up appropriations for that too. And that's all I have for tonight for approval. >> Um any questions for the treasurer? Hearing none. Um treasure please

111call the role. >> Uh Mrs. Dea. >> I. >> Mr. Such. >> Hi. >> Miss Pesca. >> I. >> Mr. Ross. I >> motion passes 40. Any further discussions or comments from the treasurer? >> Yep. Uh just two. So our new forecast filing timeline. So for the it was called the five-year forecast. It's now the financial forecast and they chopped off the fifth year. Um by law we now have to update and have it submitted uh by February 28th. So, with our new board meeting schedule, um, we could do one of two things. I'll try to have it all completed by February 2nd's board meeting so we can review it and then take two weeks to digest it and vote on it at February 16th's meeting. So, that's going to be my goal. um something

112twists that goal. Um it might be bring it forward the 16th and vote on it the 16th, but I really don't like that. So I'm going to do all I can to have those two weeks there to review and go from there. So does that sound like a good plan for the second review? >> Yes. >> 16. >> And then the next one uh deals with the update uh for the county property tax issue. Matthew, did you want to set the stage for this one for today's meeting with the mayors? Absolutely. Yeah. So, last uh Friday, we sent emails to the three mayors explaining very briefly that we had a dispute with the Kaga County Budget Commission was not >> Yeah. clerical error uh that they admitted to that created a shortfall of funding for

113us, but also was going to have ramifications for all the class 2 tax bills that were going to be going out in uh this upcoming year. And we wanted an opportunity to meet with them to explain our journey. Uh Matt did a great job of providing documentation. Uh David Seed was there. He provided the the legal expertise to explain exactly what happened through his lens. Uh so that you know our our mayors and our also other fiscal agents were also there are able to u proactively prepare for questions that may come from all the class two. It's it's it's bigger than just our class two in our school district. It's it really is going to affect the class two in the entire county. Uh overall, it's much bigger than than just Valley View and then

114our school district. It doesn't affect resident taxes, but it does affect businesses. U you know, to some degree there was David estimates that um someone like Charter Steel may have an increase of $1,500 in their tax bill. Is that right? >> For a larger entity. And for a smaller entity, it could be under $100. Like it's it's hard it's hard to to project, but it all has to add up to um our loss of approximately >> Yeah. You know, I'll talk about that, but it's still Yeah. of about $2 million that he's still trying to nail down the exact number, but also everything else that was affected like the metro parks and the zoo and things like that. So, >> yeah, tremendous meeting. We met with uh the three mayors. Mayor Jack invited us over

115across the street uh to have the meeting um which was today. Uh the fiscal officers in each village attended as well. Uh we did have David Ced, our legal counsel come and we just really wanted to explain to them the entire situation you know answer questions for them and you know the mayors were happy that uh they were notified left the meeting. You know they were very you know thankful again that this air was found and that they're attempting to correct it. One question that, you know, popped up is, well, how is every everybody going to be notified? You know, is there going to be one particular entity doing it or what does that look like? Um, we know that we had crafted a legal letter from David C that asked the county to put

116together a letter that would be sent out. But since this this issue has a chain reaction now that's affecting the whole county from what David Se was saying, the county Actually, one of the mayors said, "Let's just call the county." So, David Seed actually pulled out his phone, dialed up uh Cal County, and we got Lisa Rockco on the phone in front of all of us there. And, you know, we asked her point blank that, you know, how is this issue going to get communicated to all the class 2 commercial and industrial businesses out there of what's happening with the tax bill? and Kyog County said that um they're going to have a website page dedicated to this issue and that they're going to email the fiscal officers like school treasures um directions to that

117web page. Um what day did they send say that they were going to have that ready? >> Friday. No. >> Or is that tomorrow? >> Tomorrow. >> That's not happening. >> But that's what they told the three mayors and the three fiscal officers and us and our legal counsel. So they said tomorrow, which I don't know if that can happen, but that's what they said. So there's going to be a website. So if any questions come up, we will direct everybody there. So I imagine that, you know, the news media will catch wind of this as it goes. Um so that was part A. Part B is how is the fix going? So, we know that um the Department of Taxation had provided a third um updated DT515, the effective rates, and I actually put

118together 10 folders with all of the documents uh given to each mayor and fiscal officer today's meeting and we kind of went through those. Um and we know that the rates for 2025 have been updated. So, when I got those items and it was this past Friday and this past Monday and actually called the Department of Taxation to get the effective rates sooner to um put the numbers in, um our effective rates went from 37, which was the corrected one, and I have it up here kind of a history, but if we look at row um 28 in green, excuse me, not 28, if we look at row 22, uh class effective rates. So uh in the past let's say tax year 22 it was 29 and this is just business and tax year 23

119also 29 and our valuation was about 430 million and 452 million. Then in tax year 24 is in the yellow and that's the air year that we have. So initially our tax rates were 27.66 and our valuation was 576 million. They thought the Brown stadium was being built in value. Um, now they up this almost doesn't happen and we asked the fiscal officers, have you guys ever seen more than one DT515 with the effective rates in a calendar year and they they said no. So, it's very uncommon. We actually have three that occurred in tax year 24. So, um, we have the first one and then, uh, in column K, the updated came out in May, May 9th, 2025, and our rate was 27.68. It went up 0.02 because railroad values were left off. So

120that's why they sent it out in May. Um, and that still didn't fix our problem. We've been communicating with them using that DT that effective rate spreadsheet report that we have. Then we come to the updated one that was provided by Lisa Roco um recently and our rates went from 27 to 36.74 using a valuation of and I called them today uh 4860 was what they said and I had 480 here with that and I guess that the county said that there were some adjustments on their side um and that produces for us about 17 million give or take and the county remember gave us million. So that's that $2 million shortfall. Um the issue is the fix right now. So before we had underolcted and we were going through the numbers earlier and we

121have to talk to the county about the fix because it's possible that they fixed this wrong and now we're going to overcolct by 1.5 million. So I we pointed that out David Seed and myself um because the new DT515 with the effective rates for tax year 25 looks wrong because it jumped from 36 to 42. Um so it does not look right to me if that's the way we're not fixing this. Um I do have an email here from the Department of Taxation and I have it highlighted here. um talking about kind of what we're going through now um where this is coming from Kelly Tennant who is the executive administrator for department division of tax equalization the DTE reports so in it she's talking about um Ohio vice Ohio administrative code uh requires the

122tax commissioner to determine what should have been the correct factor um for the purposes of calculating the factor for tax year 25. If there were over or under collections for the prior year due to an incorrect factor for tax year 24, the factor for tax year 25 will take that into account so that the under or over collections will be corrected. All is equal. So when I read that, I said, okay, they're rolling in the fix to the factor or effective rates for 25. And that's why we see an increase from 36 to 42 because the 42 effective rate is going to bring us to 18.6 million by my numbers and we should get 17 million 17.1 give or take. So that's about a $ 1.5 million increase that we shouldn't be collecting 18.6. We

123should just be getting our 17 unless they're ruling in that fix of our 2 million >> to tax year 25 like Kelly just stated. But Matt, do you want to point out what David Se said or do you want me to go ahead >> where he said that's not how the fix is happening? And he met with the county today and David sat there in front of the mayors and said that they will be applying it to omitted taxes. So that has not been factored in yet. And I said, "Okay, well we have a problem, David, because we got two things going on at once." And then I showed him the 36 and the 42. he kind of dropped everything and he called the county and he asked that point blank, you know, point blank

124question. Why did it jump up from 36 to 42? And they didn't have an answer. So, they're going back to look at it, but right now it looks like I don't think Well, not only that, but what was also brought up at the meeting is that there are a couple other areas going on. Um, where David Seed said the county was dealing with an issue from 2019 where they now just have their arms around it. Is that an accurate statement from what he said? So, they're now just trying to fix some item from 2019 separate. Not only that, but he was explaining that there's an issue with two systems um not talking to each other at the county where on property, let's say, for example, there's a starting number, you have your additions, subtractions, and

125then an ending number, and then that ending number rolls into the beginning number for the next year. He said the two systems are not talking to each other, and those numbers don't match. So, that's another issue the county is dealing with. Not only that, but Matt, do you want to point out what he said about Beachwood, their bond? >> Yeah. They had overestimated, the county had overestimated the value of of what they were going to anticipate their class 2 to be correct. And they went out for a bond issue expecting their projections to be $40 million higher than it was going to be. And it turned out to be wrong. So now they're going to collect on a bond issue to build whatever it's not going to be enough money to cover the cost because

126they were expecting an additional $40 million to be bringing in revenue that doesn't exist. >> So that's an issue that's happening in Beachwood. So >> So we're on top of it. We'll report back, but that's just what we're seeing now um from the outside. So >> shaking my head. >> And that's all I have for tonight. Thanks. >> Good. It's a good news for everybody, didn't he? >> He gets all the fun. I get all the >> You get all the good ones. >> It's fun. >> Moving into section 15, superintendent's business. >> All right. There we go. All right. On the consent agenda, we have items 15 A and B, items 16 A and B, item 17A, and items 16 A through E. Sorry, 18 went backwards. 18 A through E for consideration. >>

127Okay. Entertain a motion for those items, please. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. A second. >> Second. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> Okay. Uh so 15A is the 2627 district calendar that has been u been on the last two board meetings. Any new board members have any comments or have any questions or recommendations? Okay. Um, that will be as soon as that's done, we'll get that published on the website. I know people are waiting uh for vacation plans and things like that. A letter B, this is updating our miscellaneous pay rate schedule. So, this this is a schedule that's created that doesn't typically operates beyond any of our contracts. uh for example, cashiers for a pool or fitness center or ticket takers, uh summer maintenance workers and things like that. We've had to make

128some adjustments to this highlighted in yellow in the attachment uh to reflect the change to minimum wage in Ohio. Correct, Mr. Mccio? And that information is noted here. Uh there may be some recommendations for changes in the very near future. So, for example, item number one up there is substitute teachers. We know that there is a substitute teacher shortage. Uh, or if you didn't know that, you're going to learn it pretty quickly. The transportation folks are pretty uh in demand right now. Uh, Independence has a rate of $135 per day and Brooklyn schools has they're 160. So, two neighboring school districts are outpacing us. You know, a person has to substitute 31 days in this district before they exceed what they're making at Independence. And so, people are going to Independence in Brooklyn, which are

129not they're good schools, right? Uh as opposed to taking jobs at Kyoga Heights. You know, when that happens, then our teachers have to cover for their colleagues through the periods process. And while they do get compensated for that, uh, some teachers are literally, you know, seven and a half hours a day in front of kids with when with no breaks except for a lunch in there. So that's just it's unusual um or it's it's a a demand that takes its toll as you get into March and April where people have not had consistent breaks in their days. So it's something that we may want to consider, but for right now, we're just tackling the minimum wage part of this. Okay, going back to the consent agenda uh 16A. This is to approve Sohare Solomon to

130mentor Drew Evans who we hired at the last board meeting as a cleaner. For our Chase contract uh and actually both contracts, new employees are provided with mentors. And so, so hair would mentor Drew Evans for the remainder of the year at a total amount of $250, which is consistent with what we've been doing uh this this school year. Letter B is to improve our supplemental positions. Uh most supplemental positions are approved in the May and June meetings, but throughout the year, we do have some that uh get added along the way. for example, you never have enough basketball scoreboard operators or uh scores for the ball game. So, we are always looking for uh people to fill in. Uh in our transition from Mr. Kelber as our athletic director to Mr. Garish as our

131activity athletic activities director, we did not hire officially hire the wrestling coaches and the swim coach um back in May as we have the other typically the other positions. And so this is just official getting them hired. They have been working and they actually have been paid their first half statement I believe. Um but that was an oversight in the transition between uh the directors. 17A this is the resignation of uh Grace Laskkey as our student monitor. She worked in our elementary school cafeteria with all grade levels. Uh she's an alumnist. uh she has done some coaching for us, but she's also a college student and her class schedule changed for this upcoming semester and she's no longer able to give us the three to four hours a day. She was outstanding, outstanding human being

132and if uh it ever works out in her future where she wants to come and hang out with elementary kids at lunchtime for three hours a day, um it takes a special person to do that and she's certainly a special person. We'll miss her. uh but have a feeling she'll still be around helping with some of the coaching responsibilities. Uh 18, these are our agreements, contracts, and memberships. So, letter A, this is our inter agency agreement for uh services that affect our prek program should we ever need uh any of these services. Uh this allows us to benefit from being part of consortium uh through the ESC of uh northeast Ohio that houses state support team three. That is our uh region that that tends to work a lot with at risk school districts, at

133risk populations. And so this is something we adopt every single year. It doesn't cost us anything unless you you need to use these services. Um, so, uh, this is required as part of our, uh, preK programming to be eligible for that highest. Used to be a, uh, step up to quality five-star rating. It's now a gold, gold, silver, and bronze now. So, we're looking for to maintain our gold rating. So, this is necessary to do every year. Letter B, uh, this is our first college credit plus memorandum of understanding of the year. We typically adopt four to five of these per year for uh students who participate in our dual enrollment programming. Uh where is that here? I think I had mentioned that in the weekly update. Um this sets um the roles or responsibilities,

134course offerings, the costs, the books, all of that stuff related to the college credit plus programming. And this is with Kent State University. Should any of our students take advantage of dual enrollment uh at that particular university? You'll expect to see Cleveland State University, Lorraine County Community College, uh potentially the University of Akran, TRICE, several of the the local ones. You'll you'll see letter C. This is the agreement u with uh the DJ for prom. Uh it was initially going to be approved back in December, but we needed to do a little bit of leg work to make sure there was no conflict of interest with anything with this, which there was certainly not. Uh so we feel comfortable moving forward with uh the recommendation of our class advisors from the senior class and Mr.

135Dietree who gave us the agreement. Uh the $1720 comes out of the student activity fund for the class of 2026. uh should that fund run dry and there are other costs that are incurred then that goes into the price of the ticket for prom. So that's the case when it comes to spice catering. And one of the things that we need to to be aware of is that sometimes when we go to these venues, some of them have strict requirements with respect to uh who the security company has to be that you hire, how parking works. And in this case, it's catering. Spice catering is the exclusive caterer of the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. And you don't have any other option. You can't bring in can't do Chipotle buffet or anything like that. To bring down

136cost, you have to go with spice catering. And for the typical what do we have 100 to 120 students of prom annually, uh it's going to cost $12,000. So once the student activity account is depleted to cover costs like that, then that gets rolled into the price of the prom ticket. So depending on how much money a class is able to raise over their four years, prom tickets could be anywhere from $30 to $120 or or more. You know, if you do zero fundraising, you're going to pay for your entire prom. And that's kind of the way it works. Um, so that's the agreement with Spice Catering and a purchase order. Uh, letter E, this is our contract with Neonet. Neonet's our ITC. Uh again done an acronym there. Um but this is for our

137phone services, our digital phone services, our voicemail services, all those things they house it there. Mr. Harbin, do you have anything to add? It's a fiveyear agreement, correct? >> Yeah, it's just for licensing and our voice over IP, so our digital phone system. >> Okay. >> So we transitioned from AT&T um lines it's it's been a process um over past year. Um, so we no longer have any hard lines or we used to have old uh pots lines which are the most expensive that they keep jacking the price on. So this stabilizes the pricing on that. POTS stands for plain old teles phone service. By the way, >> yeah, Mr. Mr. Burk became knowledgeable about pots lines and analog phone connections more than he ever thought he was going to in his life. So, uh,

138that I think you spent most of the spring, didn't you? Last spring working on the summer. >> It's literally been a year. I don't know. I think it's done, but it will probably come back somehow. >> I mean, I think Mrs. Martin found that they were jacking up the price by $800 a line and we were paying >> a month. Yeah. A month. Like, >> yeah. Per month. Per line. And when you had How many lines we have at once? >> Yeah. thing we transitioned cuz uh there's a there's a lot 12. We we ran our security off of them. We ran all our phone lines through that. Um so we've transitioned to cellular. So just cheaper, more efficient options. >> Yeah. >> Across the district. So we're we're in a good place. >> Yeah.

139It's much smarter. So those are all the items on the consent agenda. >> So there's no hard lines. I thought >> how many hard lines do we have, Mr. Hartman? there the uh the POS lines were analog and security lines like the ones in the elevator that would be the ones that reach out to the fire and alarm systems. The these ones we used to manage our own call cluster in our server room. We migrated it to neonet. This is se voice over IP is separate from the lines. There are no analog lines in the district. Everything is all over the internet now. Zero old school phone lines in the district. >> Used to run the what's our fax running through now? Is that our copy machines? >> That's through com that is a eax

140solution through that. >> Yeah. So everything is has pretty much been converted to digital. Is that correct? >> That's a trend everywhere. That's it's much more cost effective for everybody and then plus everybody has a cell phone as well too for the most part across the board. So um it's more efficient usage >> wise we move forward any further discussion hearing none treasure please call >> Mrs. Becker >> I >> miss paja >> I >> Mr. Rossi >> I Mr. Hi. Motion passes 40. Section 20, superintendent comment. >> I'll try to be brief. Um, our tuition application process opens up on Monday. Uh, that will encompass our uh, new preK and kindergarten applications as well as any students first grade through 12th grade from outside the community interested in attending Kyog schools next school year.

141So that will uh go that will go live next Monday and stay open uh I think until the end of February. So it's that time of year to start enrolling students for next school year. We talked about the roofing project already. Um I don't know if you had an opportunity, one of the big things I've been working on is communication around the topic of property tax reform. It's something that uh has been a topic of the best committee meeting uh which has been kind of exciting. I um I actually had spent some time based on feedback that I got from the best committee and I I went through and I did a really quick um like generational study based on the census data because we know different generations access technology differently. Um, we had a

142whole discussion about whether, you know, the hard copy newsletter going home four times a month is effective. And it certainly is for our older generation. Our baby boomers and our silent generation love to have hard copy in their hand, but our Gen Z kids aren't going to pick up a newsletter necessarily. So, how do you I guess Gen Z aren't necessarily kids anymore. Um, some of the younger ones are paying taxes now, but how do you reach how do you reach them differently? And it was kind of interesting that you know when we we looked at the different demographics like Kyhoga heights the the biggest demographic are baby boomers at 25% based on the 2020 census the the second highest group are your genzers in the village of Kaihoga heights and how do they access

143their their communication differently uh and I'm using the property tax topic as kind of my I guess my guinea pig here because it is on everybody's mind. Brooklyn Heights, uh, your baby boomers, you know, are at 27.1%. And again, there's your Gen Zers right behind them. And then Valley View, largest population of uh, your baby boomers. Now, you can kind of take the silent generation and bunch them all together and that population goes up anymore. But you, if you look at your overall, your composite, your three villages, your your baby boomers are at 30%. You throw in your silent generation, you're sitting at almost 40% of your people still liking to receive information that they can actually physically touch, smell the paper, and read it. And we know that those generations when they do, they

144they tend to be your most diligent voters. Um whereas your genzers maybe are not your most reliable voters. they're maybe college age kids or their their students are still living at home or um they're just trying to figure out how to do the adulting thing. So, uh so it became important and I think uh I I put this in again in my newsletter the other day uh for you to see like the draft of one of the things that was recommended was well do you have a landing site for people to go who really want to read more information? Maybe people don't want to read about property tax reform, but maybe people are really interested in knowing more about it. Um, I've been working on this page of the website uh to really expand my

145communications about all things property taxes. Going back to the history of, you know, way back in 2025 when Matt Mucci and I started sparring with the state legislature over the the cash carryover cap. um all that is memorialized kind of that journey through through this. And so the goal is to have this live here in a couple weeks. Um I'm certainly not trying to influence anybody one way or another about anything in politics. I'm just stating the facts of what have happened uh going into what are the what are the driving forces of property tax reform right now. And If you've I know Gary, you know Dr. Howard Fleeter. Dr. Howard Fleeter has done a lot of research on it. I've used a lot of his documentation in this uh talked about the the levy

146and its influence here when we get into trends like like I thought this was a very powerful graph if you looked at this one because you see how what's our school funding look like proportionally in this school district and how do we compare to the average school district in Ohio over a 10-year period. So, for example, you'll see our local residents, the revenue we bring in as a school district, 18.2% of that came from your local residents in 2025, uh, sorry, 2015. But in fiscal year 2025, that was down to 17%. We actually lost a about a half a percentage there. People probably didn't know that. They, oh, our taxes went up. Yeah, it represents a a smaller percentage of what we're bringing in from our homeowners. uh whereas our commercial increase from 44.8 to

14751.1%. It's coming from uh the district profile report which is found on Ohio Department of Education's website. You can look at it for any school district in the state of Ohio going back to I think 2010. Um but then when you compare us to the state of Ohio, you know, in fiscal year 25, our local residents are contributing 17.3% of our total revenue in this school district. And the average school district in Ohio is 35.4%. double. So some school district and some are much higher than that. Some are much higher than that. So you can also see state revenue state revenue decreased for Kyoga Heights from about 30% in 2015 to uh 13%. Is is our state share. Why? Because we have a huge per pupil valuation. We're our district's worth a lot of money.

148And you you could be you could be blue collar, white collar, dirt color, I don't care what what color you're wearing, um when you have that high of a per pupil valuation, you're not going to receive a lot of money from the state of Ohio, which is why we're in the bottom five. Now, that says you're a healthy school district, but also says state's not going to help you out. If you want more money, what the state is saying is go pony up more money with your taxpayers. And you know that's what they're saying through the numbers. But on the other hand they're saying oh we got to get rid of prop you got to get rid of levies you know that type of thing. So it's a contradiction but if you look at overall

149the state's gone from 44% 10 years ago to 37% in fiscal 25. It's going to go down to 32% 32.2% by fiscal year 27. It'll be the lowest in the last three decades. The lowest percentage. So when you use raw numbers, oh we contributed10 billion or $8 billion to public schools, but then $8 billion doesn't go as far anymore. It's only representing it will represent 32% of the total funding for school districts. It was at 47 or 49% back when the D Roth case uh was ruled upon back in the late 1990s that said the way that we fund schools in Ohio is unconstitutional and it's been ignored >> ever since. And those are just facts. And that's that's that's just the way it's working. So, um, but all of this is leading to, you

150know, continuing to talk about property tax issues because we know it's going to be a hot button item in 2026. So, I'm going to to need to we're going to need to stay up to date on this um so that we can communicate that effectively. We can advocate when necessary. But we also know that in 2026 there's the potential for a proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes altogether. And those property taxes fund $24 billion worth of services that people actually depend very much on in the state of Ohio. And there's no solution to replacements. Like let's just abolish property taxes. So you people in Columbus they they they worked they've worked really hard and they worked on the you know their positive you know rhetoric around those four those five property tax relief bills

151re that that they have uh they're claiming you know it's going to bring significant relief to Ohio taxpayers 124 129 186 309 and 335 and I want to make sure I'm communicating what that impact is. Uh but I also want to uh be able to address things along the way as as it changes because the cash carryover cap conversation probably isn't dead. There could be a completely new school funding model by you two years from now. Uh we know that one of the recommendations and you hear it a lot right now and it's very real and people need to understand um one of the recommendations of the government of the governor's uh property tax reform group and you've heard it from several lawmakers recently is the ne the ne it's necess potentially necessary to consolidate

152governments and that means consolidate school districts And we know the lawmakers can make that happen very very very quickly. And so it's something people need to be aware of that, you know, if you love your Kyoga Heights school district, uh you're going to have to really tap into what it means to love your school district because there's going to be a push to eliminate your smaller school districts, especially in suburban areas based on what the tea leaves are showing. So, that's a very real concern that that people need to understand. Um, and I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means yet. I just know that we can't ignore it. And that's that's true of your villages as well, village services. Why do you need three police forces? Why can't you just

153have one police force for your three villages? You know, why do you need three mayors? Why not have just one mayor for your three villages? It's that type of conversation that that they're talking about. The area that they're starting with the most is your central offices. Kirtland, for example, shares a treasurer with mentor schools. They share a transportation director with mentor mentor schools. >> Services >> food services. They share with mentor schools. So you have this huge school district of mentor who is just taking on couple, you know, another thousand >> Perry. >> What's that? >> Maintenance with Perry. >> Yeah. So you already see it happening in some areas. So, it's just something that people are going to need to be aware of and we need to to have a a mechanism to communicate

154uh that as well as when Senator Serena was here in September, he said, "You need to educate your people on what it means to eliminate property taxes. This is a real problem." The mayor mayor Botchi echoed the same sentiment. You know, we're going to need to communicate this to people. I talked about this with the prior board of education last fall and we said let's wait till we get closer to this really ramping up before we start communicating it. This is going to be a mechanism um aside from the content which there's a lot of content here. Gen Xers love this. People genex they like to do their own research. Uh so this is a good place for people to go and um I created a five to six minute video that's going to Matthew

155Arman helped me with that that accompanies this what do these property tax bills what does it mean for cogite schools and create a six-minute video that resonates with our millennials so I'm really trying to do a multi-generational tactical approach to some of this communication and if I if I fall on my face follow my face we don't have a communications department here we have communication people who help us with our newsletters but they're contracted services. We don't have a devoted communication staff here. So, we are left to we're left to ourselves to figure this stuff out. It's why the best committee is helping me through this. And this is a this is actually a direct result, Mrs. Majesca, of the conversations we were having in our last best committee meeting, how we can hit different

156generations where they love their technology and information. Not quite comfortable with the social media thing yet. And I don't know that my genzers care about property tax reform quite yet, but they're going to pretty soon, but we're going to start with three generations right now. If I need to go to my fourth, I will. So, that's that's in the works. So, I kind of wanted to demonstrate that for you here a little bit. >> That's not live yet. Wanted >> it's not live yet. So, the the Heights Highlights is going to come out I think the third week of January. that will have a um it'll have a QR code that a person can scan and it will take them to the six minute video that complements the article that's in heights highlights and at

157the end of that article or at the end of that video is the URL. If you're interested in more information, type in this URL and it will take you directly to the property tax page. So, we'll see how it goes. But just we are doing our best and there's a lot of links in there for people to see, you know, what this board and what our administrative team and our staff overall has been trying to do to be financially responsible and advocate for this school district. And >> I just want to give you props. Uh I mean, everything you put together, that's amazing. >> I mean, just >> the amount of information, the history, >> the time it's taken you, that's that's a great job. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Young. That's a

158lot of work and a lot of information >> all in one spot. That's That's great. Yeah. >> Yeah. Thanks. I didn't do it by myself, but I I'll I'll say thank you. >> Uh for sure. >> This is easy work to do when you're sitting in when you're sitting around in hospitals. So, you can get a lot of this work done. So, okay. I I think I think that's enough. I kept our new board members here for two hours and 18 minutes. Feel like you were going to have a retreat after this? Are you kidding me? When I get home at 3 in the morning, you must be crazy. >> Speaking of that retreat, let's schedule that as a special board meeting, please. >> We can do that >> because board meetings typically go two

159to three hours and then we have a retreat afterwards. >> That would be a bit much. So, >> it's a bit much when the sun sets at 5:30, 5 o'clock. All right, that's all. >> Okay. Uh board uh discussion, comments, committee reports, anybody, anything? Okay. Next, uh career center meeting is tomorrow, so I don't have anything on that today. Uh future agenda items, anyone? Okay. Informational should be noted. Board of Education members received their agenda several days prior to the actual meeting. This they've had considerably considerable opportunity to study it. ask questions and so on. That's going to change a little bit. It's rather than several days, it's going to be a few days because we, you know, we're still getting the Friday update, so that's when we'll see it. But the weeding is moving

160to Monday. Gives us a little less time to go over. >> I have to do the weekend anyway, so that'll be okay. >> Yeah, but still a weekend, right? >> Um, what's this? Alternative tax budget notice. Notice hereby given the Kakai school alternative tax budget for school year 2027 is available for public inspection in the office of the treasurer. Upcoming board meetings. Uh we just changed some of these. >> We will. Yes. So those these are going to be we'll do an update to this. >> Okay. But I can verbally uh they're going to be January 19th, February 2nd, and February 16th. and they will all be at 6 pm. >> Real quick, should we talk about even for the agenda? Who's gonna >> agenda meetings? Thank you. >> Thank you. I do have I

161have that note right there and I almost forgot to read it. We need uh for the new board members, what we've been this has done been done several ways in the time I've been on the board. Um at one point they just went there's five of you. two two of us or five of us two of us get get scheduled for each agenda meeting um those you when I first got on the board it simply rotated among the five perhaps alphabetically I don't remember but that's the way it it was going what I instituted a few years ago was that the vice president would be the person that prepares the u the meeting like tonight Okay. And then the president would chair the meeting preceding the regular board meeting when we tend to have more

162community members because of students of the month and so on. So we've been doing that for the last couple of years. Is that still okay with you doing it that way? >> Okay. You don't have to. If you choose to come here, it's in the treasure the superintendent's office. If you choose to dial in, you choose to dial in. The other three people then rotated. So in someone would get the first someone else gets the second third person gets the first of the next month first person gets the second in the next month and so on and it just rotates and if that's all right with uh with everyone I guess we can continue doing that we've done other things at one point the the board president showed up for every meeting there was a

163specific board president who was took a different approach just leave it at Um, so I've seen three different approaches. This one seems to work pretty well. It keeps your two officers on top of it. Um, and it gives everybody else a chance to rotate through. So if that's all right with everybody. >> So the next one will be you and somebody. >> Yeah. And we were doing were we doing it alphabetically? I don't know. I don't remember. Um, >> so that would be myself and >> Carrie and Carolyn for the next one. >> Then the next meeting after that would be Jen, >> Peter >> and Pete. Okay. >> And then by the one after that, we might have a third board. So, >> but it would be then Gary plus whoever that person who

164third person is, >> president, vice president or every other. >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. That's all right with every first one. I'll put those on the calendar. You'll get calendar invites on that. >> Right. >> So that will be on the 15th since we moved up. >> Yeah. So we would do >> Yeah. It would be the 15th. It' be the Thursday before. >> What time? >> We've been doing 3:00 if that works. >> That works for me. And again, we I include a Zoom link so that if you if you can't um and if you can't attend something's coming up, we've we've had other people substitute. We've had people trade. Uh that's happened in the past. If you say three three o'clock this week doesn't work for me, but does in

165two weeks, can you trade with me? And and you guys have done that as well. >> That's not something that has to be published, >> right? >> You know, who's doing the that we do that? That's our internal thing. It's not required to do an agenda review, right? Okay. So, we got that figured out. >> The only other comment I wanted to make was again to thank our our two new board members for accepting this responsibility. Um, the meetings can go quite a while. Uh, and you and as you can see, we're talking about big numbers here. You know, when we're talking budgets, we're talking in the millions. We're talking about uh you know the needs to make to take care of the students. We're trying to bring to the board our job is to

166bring to the board the community input and then to um select re and review evaluate the president or the I'm sorry the superintendent and the treasurer. That's our primary job. And it's not to run the district. It's to provide community input for those who are running the district and that community input can say, "Hey, I don't like that." That's okay. But, uh, you know, again, we we have to remember our place. It's an important one, but it it's not hands-on doing things on the district. So, but that doesn't mean you can't show up. And I mean we we occasionally show up and um I could just a few months ago when we had the contractors in doing their review. I happened to have time that day. So I joined the review. >> Our our offices

167were always our doors always open. So right you could ask show up, ask questions, view documents, send us emails, phone calls, text messages. I mean when you have questions about anything, we work really hard as a team so that we are working symbiotically and in sync with each other, but we also want to make sure that we are as transparent, data driven, making decisions are strategic and have long-term positive impacts on the school district. We're imperfect. So that's but we work really hard at being perfectly imperfect. So try to get it right. So we're open for feedback all the time. All the time. >> Okay. So um if I think on on on the uh publication on the on the website, the phone number that listed for me is actually a number here at the

168school and then I get a text me or email that I had a phone call. Um if you want some level of separation there um I think we could Matt we could still do that sort of thing. >> Okay. Um if you if you preferred on the website that you don't have your personal cell phone you can do something like that just a little easier for you. Uh for me because it's been a long time since I had kids in the school. I think my last one graduated about the same time you did Carol. Um I I don't have a close relation the same relationship that you will have with other parents in the school. So how you want to deal with that is up to you. I know it's very different for Jim than

169it is for me. For example, on the contacts contacts that I have. >> I think it's probably under contact us like somebody goes to Yeah, it's in there somewhere. Maybe it's under board of education. >> Yeah, it's >> each of us. >> No, only your email addresses. There's We'll We'll update this now that the new board's in. We'll get this updated very soon. >> I only see email addresses right now. >> We had phone numbers for them. Correct. >> We did not. >> Okay. I thought I thought I had a phone number somewhere on the website. I don't >> I'll scroll the website and make sure and switch to >> Yeah. At one time that was the intent was to give you a school >> phone number, >> right? >> That would somebody left you

170a voicemail goes to your email, >> right? >> Yeah. >> That way >> it still works. I mean, I've gotten one, but not >> if you want level of separation, we have the ability to do that, >> right? >> Okay. So, anyhow, welcome. And now, is any any other business? Does anyone want to bring anything else up before we adjourn? Okay. >> Yeah, I think we do. Yes, Mr. Young. >> Okay, >> we'll get this uh now that we have the new board members and we will start updating this quite a year. >> Okay. >> Very soon. >> Okay. Very good. Well, at this point then I will entertain a motion for adjournment. >> So moved. Second, >> Miss Deca and a second from Miss Pesca. And I assume there's no discussion. Let's call the

171role. >> Mrs. Deka. I >> Miss Peska. >> Hi, >> Mr. Rossi. >> Hi, >> Mr. Jack. >> I motion passes 4 Z. It is 8 30 8:29 and we are turned.