001[Music] And I know your time is valuable, so I'd like you to get this meeting going. Um, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. All please stand and join us to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] Mrs. Mr. here, Mrs. Walker here. Thank you. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the June 10th, 2025 agenda for the John Motor School Board of Education special meeting? Mrs. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. McCart. Yes. Mr. Roto. Yes. Mrs. Walker. Yes. Great. Thank you. Okay. So, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Sonia Walker and I am the Jonathan School Board President. And first, I want to thank you all for
002coming tonight. Better. Okay. Um, yeah. I need one of these at home, right? Okay. Thank you all for coming tonight. I I know that you all have busy lives and we appreciate you being here today. We appreciate you caring. We appreciate you coming to learn more information. We appreciate you helping us learn more information. Um, as you're aware, we had a bond issue on the ballot in May, and uh, we tried really hard to reach the entire alder voting community in the 18 months leading up to the uh, master facility plan, but we didn't have the outcome we wanted, and that's why we're here tonight to learn from you. Now, prior to tonight's meeting, the district sent out postcards with QR codes asking the community for um comments, questions, concerns, and then also u Mr.
003McCartney sent out on social media a link asking the community to submit questions, comments, concerns. Um all board members have reviewed your input and tonight we would like to hear from you in attendance. So, you can please feel free to write down your questions or there's a podium up here. Um, you can come up and ask questions or just raise your hand. We'll have um Tyler walking around with the microphone tonight, too, if you'd rather sit in your seat. Um, we hope to address all your questions here tonight in the questions that we received uh both online during in the surveys. So, we're hoping to cover everything. Now, generally at board meetings, we limit comments to 3 minutes and um we don't have a timer running tonight. Uh however, in the interest of respecting everyone's
004time, if if some of the comments seem to go along, we may just ask you to please sum it up. So, if you could have respect and patience with us, that would be great. Um okay. So based on the survey responses that we received, uh we received questions and concerns about the imminent need for space due to growth, the master's facility plan and all the options that were considered, the actual tax impact on homeowners and how the tax will decrease as more people move into the district. The rationale for property tax versus income tax and um trust and transparency in the entire process. So we categorize that feedback that we received prior to tonight and each board member will be addressing one of the five categories. So uh Mr. Pulley will be addressing growth and
005capacity planning. Um I will address proposal design phasing options. Great configuration and design choice questions will go to Miss Gutiler. Uh tax impact clarity Mr. McCartney and trust transparency and communication are Mr. time. Um, but we're all, this is going to be a dialogue. We'll all be weighing it uh to answer questions if anything is missed. Um, before tonight, I was thinking how to start this. And I think my biggest concern if I had um my perception based on the feedback received is that we could have tried to communicate more clearly to more people. um in the district. So, I'm going to start with a question to you and if any of you feel like answering that would be great. But do you think that that alone impacted the results of this bond issue or
006was it something else? I'm seeing some head nods. Okay. In that regard, go ahead, Tyler. Bear with us as we get our technology down. Um, my name is Kevin, I'm on the far my wife and I really nice Kevin and I moved here two years ago to community from Dublin. Okay. We're on the far north side as far as you can go and our son is um in kindergarten going to first grade. But with that being said, it's interesting to bring that up because we voiced concerns, but we didn't hear a whole lot of it. you know, it started 18 months or two years ago. But it wasn't until like three weeks out, a month out, I started getting texts, emails, it's online, and it's like, what's going on? What is this? And here's what
007we're voting on. There wasn't the plan. And you brought other people obviously brought that up, too. Like, what were the other options? Um, and obviously put a lot of work into this. You vetted it. There's community input, but we didn't see that. We were here for two years. So just a perception and sometimes reality. So I don't know if that's what happened but that's what we perceive. Yeah. Thank thank you very much for that comment. We did um we did try a lot of numerous ways to invite people. It didn't reach everybody all the time. That being clear. So we're aware that we're hoping to do this differently starting with tonight um in order to be able to reach the community. Uh, and we'll discuss the plan more in a little bit too to answer
008some of those questions. Do you have anything like that? Go ahead. First of all, thank you for uh bringing this to our attention. We are aware that I want to make two distinctions. If if the families have a child currently enrolled in the school districts, they're going to receive something every week from the buildings every month from our district e newsletters. If there's if you don't have a child, you're not going to receive those automatic emails. But what we try to do with the community, Tyler Jester, our communications person does a great job. I don't know who that is. So, some someone like you who has a kindergarten child, but you're in the district, you still should be using or receiving these. And what's happening is in some of the neighborhoods similar to yours where
009um it is our school district, but the houses are just being built and um sometimes the US postage uh office still doesn't distinct your neighborhood from Delton schools. So you could be in that area where you weren't receiving these even though we were trying to reach you. So that's something that we're going to try to do a better job. Uh Mr. Jester spends hours u with the US Postal Service trying to make sure that every one of our households are receiving this. And what's in these for the last two years it went out was how to get a hold of us if you had questions on the bond or give questions on the bill or the junior high um elevate alder.com and QR codes to be able to submit questions for the last 18 months.
010So we'll do a better job for those that are in position like like you are because obviously we have a lot of fans moving to the area. Yeah. Is this a Is that something that goes to all families in the district or just those with children? 9,000. This goes to everyone in every household in the district should be receiving these. We didn't. Okay. If you would leave your address with us, we'll make sure you get that. Sorry. Yeah. You know, quite honest, Steve, I think our efforts um to communicate were widespread in all honesty. I mean, we try to use all forms of media. We've held meetings like this. In fact, our first meeting was much like this um a year before um we actually went out. We've put it in the um Pioneer Press.
011We've um had a number of emails and social media that went out. Um we we had a lot of home meetings. I mean, I think Jim and the board, we we had probably close to 15 different meetings in the community in neighborhoods. Um, our our levy committee had a big social media campaign with tons of emails and texts that went out. And so, we tried the best we could, but evidently we did not get the word out to everybody, and we apologize for that. But we are committed to making sure that we communicate better the next time. Um the things we have done um are really about trust and transparency and we want your trust and we want you to know what's going on. We absolutely want that and so um we will continue to
012work um we will try to hold possibly more meets maybe in your neighborhoods. Whatever it takes um we will we will do this next time. Also, for those individuals that um didn't receive anything, uh there also is a website elevate older.com that has every single thing we have done for the past 18 months and really explains in detail how we got to our master plan. It's elevateer.com. And as we were working through the 18 months, every new meeting, every new decision, every new analysis was posted to that site. And I was playing again with it today. It's very it's interactive and it's easy to use and we will continue to update that site with information. Um, but by all means, please share your addresses. We don't want to miss anybody. And please know that it
013was never intentional and it wasn't our uh our plan to keep people in the dark. So, we know we need to do better. That's why we're here tonight and we are planning on doing so moving forward. Please go ahead. Thank you. Um, I apologize if I'm stealing your thunder for something you might cover in the next five minutes, but just out of curiosity, um, with the results, I would consider relatively low, disappointing turnout on this issue, regardless of how you voted. Um, do you have a plan to emphasize more on this form of advertising that maybe you didn't put as much effort or emphasis on, you know, before the ballot, things like that? Like, I'm old school, I say, for my age. Like, I I actually check the mail. I read mail. So, I learned
014about this a year ago or whenever we started sending this out. Um, but I would imagine there's a lot of difference to people that check their mail only, right? So, if they didn't catch it that way, a lot of people on social media, you would think your efforts there would been recognized, maybe they weren't. So, just curiosity where you think you should strike next if it didn't work in this or the other the first time around. Do you have some suggestions? Like I said, I I'm I'm the almost the worst person to ask in this scenario because I don't have a great feedback. I'm 35. Um, and I don't use social media. So, like people my age or younger, you would think that would be the first place you'd hit me with for a target
015and that would be the last place I would see it. Like I said, I pay attention to my mail. So, that's pretty direct marketing and it works for me. Well, so we're super interested in what other avenues because we have heard we you haven't reached us. Does anybody have any suggestions for what else we can do? I mean, obviously there are some homes that were missed with direct mail, but my guess is the bulk of people in the community received mail, but the vast majority of people that uh responded or not I wouldn't say the vast majority, a lot of people that responded said that they didn't know anything about it. And so, if we are doing direct mail and we are doing social media and we're posting to websites, we're posting to YouTube, we're
016doing everything we can for anybody in anybody in here that came in tonight thinking you didn't get me. How can we do it better? Does anybody want to weigh in and help us? Something besides QR codes. I didn't I read this carefully and didn't notice the QR code at the bottom. It is the tiniest QR code I've seen in a long time and I just overlooked it. That's fair. [Applause] Not to monopolize, but again, you guys did a great job three weeks, four weeks ahead of time. I mean, personally, I don't think you could do anything different three or four weeks ahead of time, but a year I didn't know prior to that. And then secondly is three or four weeks ahead of time, whether, you know, for or against. um there wasn't enough time
017to read everything on the website because there was so much. So all fairness to all of you, you did a great job I think three to four weeks out prior to that. Well, and if if I could just touch on that briefly. So a lot of the correspondence that you received in the weeks leading up to the election was from the pack and not the district itself. And so the pack was used the political action political action committee of volunteers affiliated with the district uh and they were using money that was donated by people or entities to help get the word out. And so that pack was spending money that I'm not entirely sure that is a wise use of taxpayer dollars for the district to be sending out text messages. I don't I'm not
018saying that we should or shouldn't be, you know, buying lists. I'm not sure if the district should or shouldn't be doing that, but up until this point, that's not a decision that the district has made to do. Bill, you asked a question about what else can we do? Maybe I'm old school. I've been in this district now for about 20 years. I moved here from a large suburb in northern Cleveland area. Uh, and it was a uh a a a a suburb that just relied only on bedrooms taxing. And so, you know, what I'm seeing here sounds familiar. Yeah. What I'm seeing here is is very familiar. And we realized long ago that if you want your schools to be uh in in a good place and you want to maintain the value of your
019property, you're going to have to support your school levies. And so, you were asking what else can be done. Uh we and we did uh door-to-d dooror solicitation. We we went door to door and talked to people uh to get their make sure that they knew the information and to get that information out. We did phone phone calls to people. I know that's old school picking up the phone and calling people, but you know uh you can have all this high tech stuff, but people like high touch to know that they they're important. So that's one of the things that I think might be something that we could do. Thank you, Mr. Sims. Sure. I mean, I got messages because I would ask somebody that told me about it, but three weeks before I would
020just say like I already knew because I knew you guys, but far as other people goes, like you know how the school send out like the mass like, hey, there's a two-hour delay. You could have even like notified I would say other people not give them the full detail but sent them a text that had a link that they could click on it saying hey and then it would take them maybe to the YouTube video or something that automatically gave them that information. It's easy. It's simple. They're not trying to find a QR code just like you said go doortodoor but like that would have been something and since you guys already have the the call that sends out or the one call that would you guys get automatically optimized and it's what free rice
021do you guys have with uncle actually not free but actually we we would love to do that unfortunately it's against the law so we we have to be very careful we cannot use any taxpayer money to support the levy in fact our staff can't do any campaigning on work time the board has to be careful as Well, we we can I mean we can actually go out to do more, but there while we're being paid, we cannot ask for your support for the levy. And so there's just some rules, right? Please get volunteers to do it for we can get volunteers and we can inform you about the levy, but we can't ask you to vote a certain way. Oh, right, right, right. I wasn't asking. I was just saying like give a like maybe
022a link to a video that explains the entire levy or bond just understand this and that, but people didn't know they existed. Right. Right. And I think I think we've been overly cautious probably about not stepping over the line. Um, and I all right, that might fall on me a little bit. My legal backgrounds, I'm an attorney by trade. Um, board members have been prosecuted for this very thing, asking people to go out and vote on a levy. We have to be very careful. So, I've heard some comments like we didn't really help, you know, spread the word. We weren't we didn't show up to certain things. We had, what we had done was strategically position two board members on every committee during this master facility planning process. no more than two because if you
023have more than two, you have a quorum and that has to comply with sunshine laws. You have to give notice. You have to let people know you're coming. Um, so we have been very careful and I probably even was too careful on my own social media because I was afraid of the perception. That being said, we can personally support the levy, right? And we all do. Um, and I could be more vocal on social media. Um, I've actually tried to over the last couple weeks regarding this meeting, trying to put that out on my own account, trying to put it on the community forum. Um, I do want to say this, there's lots of comments that happen on social media and online, and God bless Bill McCartney for getting into the weeds sometimes. But, um,
024just because we aren't responding doesn't mean we won't respond. Every single one of our personal cell phones is on our website under our board. If you ever have a question about anything, not just this, anything in the school district, call us personally. We're all willing to talk to you. Um, it's really difficult to get into a nuanced conversation in comments on Facebook. So, I resist that. Bill thrives on it, but we're all different. So, Okay. Um, any other questions or population you might zero in on is the retired people. We all are from Cupy Place and um I didn't know anything about this till I requested a absentee ballot and I thought I did get that newsletter for the master plan, but that didn't mean too much to me. But I all I saw on
025that was a bond levy to build a new junior high. Period. That's all I saw. And since then, I talked to a retired teacher who said it was much more involved than just building a junior high. And we all are on fixed incomes and that has a lot to do with it. And we're all 80 and 90 years old and we don't understand social media and all that stuff. So, we can't rely on that uh to get informed. So, I don't know how else you could do it. Um but the um older in older population I had some qualms about elevating their their uh taxes. That was the main thing. Well, I person I personally would love to come in and if if you guys would be willing to have us, I would love to
026come in and have a hour and a half conversation with you in depth. It probably goes deep much deeper into this uh plan than what we're going to get into tonight, but I would if you guys would be willing to have me, I would love to come home bring some cookies in. Okay. I just wanted to suggest um I I've gotten some I we have a son who just graduated about a week ago or so. Um big supporters of the schools. Um, one of the things I think could have been done in the materials that were sent out is um, bulleting what the key points are in a very concise way and being aware of what some of the challenges are. You know, I am on social media to an extent. I'm a certain age
027on Facebook. Um, but you know, I saw people saying, you know, they're just uh we don't know how they're using our money, you know, or whatever. And that's a valid question. And some people saying, you know, how efficient are you being with the money? And I did see somewhere a quote on the per capita cost per student of this district, which is really good, very efficient, and our academic performance is pretty darn high. If you look at those two things, you would walk away saying, "We're spending this money efficiently and getting phenomenal results." And I wish those could be in bullets and places that people would really pay attention to, you know, because they need to know what a good job y'all are doing and all our teachers are doing and how you're doing with
028not a lot of money and getting incredible results. But there is a thing in young folks lingo TLDDR too long didn't read. You know what are the I'm a college professor. I'm guilty of it all the time. Um but you know if we could have just those bullet points that really have display an awareness of what the pros and cons might be seen as and then addressing the spot. So, I'll I'll address that. My backtory get up. Uh, my name is Bruce Hulie. I'm uh the newest member of the board. It's my second year. And, uh, what you're referring to, sir, is the state auditor's spending efficiency map. Uh, which is something that, uh, I came across in research for my radio show. I talk a lot about schools, a lot about school issues throughout
029central Ohio. Hold on one second. Bruce, can you guys hear me? Is this microphone on? Okay, how's this? That's better. So, I was referencing the state auditor and his spending efficiency map for every public school district in the state of Ohio. Um, I do a radio show and I talk a lot about schools. Um, I don't talk very much that's good about schools because I'm talking about Columbus City Schools a lot and some of the larger suburban districts where they have issues that we don't have here at Alder. Um, as I said at the beginning, I don't know if you heard me, it's my second year on the board. And uh, I thought that if I ran for the school board, I could have an impact on development. Uh my motto to run was protect
030parents rights, preserve alers's values. And to me that meant that Alder is an agrarian community where we prize and treasure hard work. And um what I found is that I really didn't have to worry about protecting parents rights because what I found working with my colleagues in administration and on the board is everybody else shares that same mission. So, I've been super impressed with all the people that I've met. I didn't know what I would find. What I found is like far and above anything that I anticipated finding in terms of the quality of the people and how much they care about our students and how much they care about preserving Alders's values, which is very important to me. in terms of stopping development. Well, that was an education because I quickly found out that
031there are bodies that you're elected to that can affect that, but the school board is not one of them. Township trustees, uh, village councils, county commissioners, they're the ones who hold sway over that. And what I didn't know when I ran for the school board is that a lot of the land that we see being converted into homes right now was already purchased. And in fact, next week, uh, week from tomorrow, the city of Dublin is going in front of the Madison County Commissioners to annex land along 161 into the city of Dublin as far as they can get to the uh, edge of Plane City near Butler Avenue. They might not get all of it, but they're going to try to get all of it. And when I was um engaging with trustees about
032this over a year ago, I was told Dublin has an open checkbook and no, it's not an option for for them. They have had a a master plan to zone the area between Post Road and 33 and the 161 corridor. They've had that plan on the books for about eight years. And if you don't think they're determined, let me just tell you that they own 243 acres out there and the price they paid for it was $44.6 million, which works out to $184,000 an acre. So, I wasn't lied to about Dublin having an open checkbook. We all see the seven housing developments under construction right now. That will add 1314 homes to our district and 461 multif family units. There are eight more developments that are already approved or having preliminary approval which will add
033another 1,500 homes and another 1,200 apartments. I can remember being a little kid when we took my brother to college in Kansas and we were driving on I7 and my dad wanted to get past St. Louis and find a hotel. And we drove and we drove and we drove and I don't know why but every hotel had a no vacancy sign. I wish we could hang out a no vacancy sign in our district but we can't. People who move into our district, we have to educate their kids. We are at capacity virtually in every building. And I know there's a desire, and I share it with you, that we could make the new people pay for the new buildings in our district. That would be awesome, right? If every new home had to pay a
034$1,000 fee, like the great suggestion that we send out a YouTube video, here's the information because we already have all your phone numbers. That also is against the law. It's an impact fee. We can't assess it. Township can't do it. County can't do it. It's against the law. You guys have great ideas. There's the objections to the le the the levy that I heard were all great objections. Were all great ideas. You would be astounded how many of them are just not legal. And I don't know why they're not, but they're not. And the first thing that I have to do as a board member is not violate the law in any way, shape, or form. So, what's the solution? So, if you really want to make new people pay, I wish I had a
035really awesome tasting pill for you to swallow, but I don't. What I have is the sooner we pass a bond issue, think of it as a baton that you receive if you vote yes and we construct a new junior high and we expand some of our buildings. So, you're holding that baton and it carries a tax burden, but every time a new resident moves into the district, you get to cut off a little piece of that baton and you get to hand it to them and they get to pay a portion of what you're paying up front. And the way I can illustrate that to you is that currently on the books we have approved in the alder district over the years people are currently paying or have approved not paying but they have approved
03633 mills of taxes. What you are paying however because the alder district has grown over the years is 22 mills. So 33 mills are on the books, but you're not paying 33, you're paying 22. And that's among the lowest in the area. It's only two schools that are lowered. So yes, there will be a burden up front, but as new people move into the district, they will bear that burden. And the last thing that I would say, well, two things. I want to address uh Adam's question. Um just to reference to flesh out a little bit what this gentleman talked about with the spending efficiency map, I want to give you the numbers. The state auditor takes our total enrollment and our total budget and divides it. Very easy way to find out what you
037spend per pupil. In the Jonathan Alder district, we spend $10,22 per pupil to educate them. It's elementary Kindergarten all the way up through senior class. Spend $10,22 per pupil to educate them. that ranks in the 91st to 100th percentile in terms of spending efficiency in the state of Ohio. You can go online, you can look at the spending efficiency map from the state auditor. There are very few districts in the Ohio map that are green because you have to rank in the 91st percentile or above. We are in green. You know who's not in green? Dublin is not in green. They spend $13,500. A student, they rank 373rd among 600 public schools in Ohio. Hillyard spends se Excuse me. Hillyard spends $12,700 per student. They rank 418. Columbus spends 6 thou $16,200 per pupil. $16,200
038per pupil. They rank 599. Upper Arlington. Great schools, right? I used to live in Upper Arlington. Oh, vote for the schools. Your property values will sore. Upper Arlington spends $16,500 per pupil. They rank 304th. Fairbanks, let's, you know, boil it down to schools in our area. Fairbanks spends $11,815. They rank 220. Mary'sville spends 11,063. They rank 134. And WestJ spends 12,500. They rank 401. I can I didn't What was our rank? I'm sorry. Our rank 44th. We're 44th in the state among 600 public schools in terms of spending efficiency. That's a tribute to these these people over here, our administrators, our teachers, our superintendent, our treasurer. They do fantastic job, fantastic work. I was a skeptic when I was elected to the board. I'm People ask me, "Oh, I must be miserable serving on the
039school board." I'm like, "No, I love it. I love it because of the people I serve with. I love it because they're fantastic at what they do. They really care and we're getting great value for what we're spending and we're going to steward those dollars going forward if we are blessed enough to get approval." So to Adam's question said, "We live in the district and we look forward to sending our girls to older schools. We are curious and concerned in equal measure for what the school's next plan is with all of the population growth. Our plan is to educate our community better about the merits of what we are asking for and to listen to you to find out if there's a way that we can lower the the ask even more. We stripped out
040$12 million for a high school auditorium, which we desperately need. We have great band, great choir, great uh performing arts. you know, this is fine for a community meeting. It's not the greatest place for a school play or musical. Um, we stripped out a bus garage. We tried to keep it as low as we possibly could. Maybe we can go lower, but as Sonia said, as Mrs. Walker said, we're here to listen. We're here to learn. And um, unfortunately, we can't hang on a no vacancy sign. So, as our community grows, our schools have to grow so we can educate the kids that we have. By the way, our contract with our teachers stipulates that we can have what 28 kids per class, 25, 28. We're kind of maxed out at that if, and I'm
041not I'm not averse to renegotiating that deal, but it's a tribute to our teachers that we did not have a contentious negotiation this time. We wrapped up our contract negotiation in like three days. That's unheard of in the state of Ohio. If you have me any memory at all of the previous negotiation, it was not wrapped up in three days. I'll say that. So, we're all of us are on the same page. And I'm kind of preaching to the choir because if you're here tonight, you care enough that you've sacrificed your time to come and learn. And we ask you to like communicate with your neighbors. But we we blew this on communication. and so help us understand how we can communicate better because I firmly believe in everything that we're doing. Yes, ma'am. I
042have a question since you're um since you are an attorney. Um who is allowed to talk about the bond since you guys are obviously not are teachers are they? Everybody can talk about the bond. Okay. Who's allowed to promote it? I know the school can't pay for it. So legally, so you guys are C YA, right? Who is? The reason I'm saying is like if students are allowed to talk about the bond and the hurt points because it's a student, right? Like they're not absolutely the student. Anybody can talk about it in their free time, anybody can promote it in their free time. We just can't the board members can't have all of us at one place at one time. So for those students that wanted that, right? they want more space or maybe teachers
043if they're allowed. That would be a way to get it out there where maybe they made a YouTube video of the teachers saying, you know, it's getting harder to like express their concerns. Hey, it's getting harder to educate kids when I have this many kids in the classroom. And then maybe the kids are like, hey, it's really hard to catch up. It'd be really great if we had more classrooms. That would be more of a they are seeing the pain point. They're seeing why you guys need the bond because the kids love it, the teachers like teaching, this would be a good video. So, if you guys are not out of touch, this could be a strictly volunteer. And I'm sure there are plenty of teachers that would like to volunteer and step up and
044maybe give their personal opinion on it as well as students. I mean, for not all of them, but maybe some of them, you know what I mean? Go up and audience out there. You saw a teacher saying that? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And then you could have that out there and you could they could be hitting the points. They could share it on their social media. These kids could share it on their social media, you know what I mean? For the teenagers that have it, that would be a very good advertisement for you guys without costing any money except for a little um time and dedication, you know, from the students and teachers. And I think that might help you guys, especially if they hear it coming from the teachers as well as the
045students. So then people would be like, "Oh, okay. this is why they really need this. That that was just something that I wanted to say. Thank you. Um I am not on the pack committee, but I know they were talking about ways to engage more people to help go doortodoor and do some alternative options. I know the pack is working on that. I think that's a great idea that will definitely be brought back to them. Yeah. The one thing that I do need to say about the students though that um that's an issue where you have to get parental consent and things like that. So, strictly volunteer obviously. Thank you. Hi. Um I'm Betsy Bowser. I have a student at the high school and a student at Kanan. Um I'm also a teacher in a
046neighboring district. Um my husband's a teacher, my brother's a teacher, his wife's a teacher. And the reason I say that is even though my immediate family are all educators, I still had a hard time trying to convince my parents, you know, to vote because they're on fixed income because they're retired. And I have no idea if this is possible. Like, is there a way to um exclude people over a certain age from having to pay the property tax because that's what it is that goes towards the bond issue? I think that's really one of the biggest concerns is people on fixed income just really are, you know, you're stressed out about those types of increases um when you have a fixed income. Yeah. If I could address that real quick. So, a school district gets
047two pot has two pots of money and operating and then capital. Our operating we have an income tax, but it is an earned income tax. So all of our seniors, many of our farmers aren't paying for the operating part of our um our revenue, the bond. We can't do anything like that. So really just please keep in mind we re we really are concerned about seniors. We are concerned about the farmers and that's one of the reason we went with an earned income tax. And so, um, please keep that in mind when you think about the bond lending because because we've really tried to do that. It's just that we can't not legally do that with a bond. Maybe that could also be communicated because I know that wasn't something I was aware of to
048try to educate my parents about, you know, and they just kept talking about like that was their main concern where for people on fixed income to maybe So, just to just to address this a little bit more directly. So the the current ask is 5.12 mills. Okay, which is a property tax. We explore the option of income tax. However, our current with the two income taxes that we have for operating as Steve was talking about they're 0.5 and 75. So one and a quart% to fund the bond with with solely with income tax. We would need an additional four and 3/4% income tax which would bring the total ask at 6% which I don't think is going to pass. I mean that's that's an astronomical number. Well, the reason the reason that it's so high
049is because with a bond, you can pay it over 37 years, but with an income tax when you you still have to get a bond. It's you still have to go to the market for that. You can only advertise it over 20 years instead of 37 years. And so that's why the number is so high legally. You can't we can't stretch it out any more than that. That's why the the uh percentage is so high. Certainly. Uh yeah, that goes goes back to the whole issue of knowing what the uh knowing what the objections are. Thanks. I can talk. [Music] Uh but one of the one of the things is knowing what the objections are and you know the two biggest objections I saw in social media were property tax why you know that's affects
050senior citizens people on fixed income and the other one being efficiency because you know government efficiency is very much under a microscope right now and I would be interested to know that my assumption was we could fully funded through property tax because of the history of property tax funding schools in Ohio. And if that this is interesting, that's news to me and that might have made somebody feel a lot better about a property tax knowing that the other option is a multiple 100% income tax increase. we can do better educating people. And part of part part of the problem with that, think of it like a mortgage. If you're going for a 20-year mortgage, you're going to pay a much higher payment than a 37year mortgage. And the um you're also when you go to
051the market and you ask people to fund these bonds, they're more secure. You're going to get better interest rates on a property tax bond than you would on an income tax because it's much less it's much more set. It's much more certain. Income taxes go up and down. So, um really the most efficient way to do this was through a property tax. Mr. Yoder. My name is Fred Yoder. I am a farmer. I farm in both Madison and Anti County. Uh I dare anyone of you to tell me that I'm not paying my fair share now. They over $50,000 a year in in property tax. I'm well educated. I know exactly what you and you justify the need. I can't afford you. I just can't afford you. And Bill may have talked at length. I
052was one of the the citizens that started the income tax there years ago because I think it's the fairest. If you're making money, you can pay more. If you make less, you pay less. But I know so many, you know, I'm 70 years old now and I'm on this I'm semi-retired, but I there's many many senior citizens that just simply can't pay it. People cannot afford it. I love the kids. I support the kids. and I want to do what I can but but I simply cannot afford it and you can you can talk to me for two hours that doesn't make me afford it. So my question is can you make it affordable for me? I mean you know you said something about you uh you can't have a sage now that it's good
053for for place and things like that or or other types of things. You know, right beside my house is is Derby Plains or No, Darby Station, excuse me. Those far those houses average half a million dollars. Somebody's making money and it's not the farmer right now because our our expenses are skyhigh and our and commodity prices are very low. We're losing money now and you're asking me to to pay thousands more. I cannot afford it. There has to be a different way. you know the the Ohio Supreme Court ruled what 20ome years ago that the way you fund schools is not it's not legal but we still do it. There has to be a different way that you can collect money. I know you need money and I know you you you're also uh limited
054to what you get because I understand with with federal funds coming in you you can't refurbish something. It has to be new which is a bunch of It's not right. Okay. So, we're almost and and I don't get me started on and I do appreciate Mr. McCarti McCartney's talking about tiff pines. We're getting raped by by developers in this in this in this area and it's just not right. The right, you know, that they're getting filthy rich off of us. And the other thing too is is when you start talking about multif family apartments, you know, you can get a lot of people in a very small amount of area, but and and that's a different culture. There's people come that people go and but yet, you know, the school system has to adjust for
055it. You have to provide, you know, proper u uh amounts of of funds to to make it go. But my my whole problem is, you know, I simply can't afford it. And again, I I you say it's 4% for an income tax. So what? Four and 3/4 four and 3/4. Sorry. But my point is you've got to have to let the people that can afford it do that. You know, and what about some private citizen? You know what what you say the cost was for a thing? $12,000 or what' you say? uh if a private citizen wanted to fund a specific thing, uh there's people out here that's money. Why could you do that and then lower the cost of the uh the the bond? I'm just saying I'm for the kids, but I simply
056can't afford what you're asking. Make it affordable and I'll I'll be glad to support it. at this point in time. Another thing is yesterday I came I was at a meeting for almost a half a day with the Derome Township Fire Department and they're going to be putting on a bond issue and they're going to be putting on uh they want a couple more mills. So then the question I have is okay if you got two big bonds that you're supposed to be voting on which is more important fire protection or schools that's the that's what you're putting it's a perfect storm here. It's a perfect time that that's, you know, everything's going to be in jeopardy because you're having to deal with both things that now. I mean, I kind of like fire department
057protection. I'm, you know, I'm an empty neester. Been an empty neester for a long time. So, uh, you know, I I got to think about, you know, having them call out. We We just It's a It's We have to figure out a compromise. if you can get it lower and and maybe call on some foundations or call on some private citizens to help out. There are people with money. And so I I I just I really feel a a really I'm a soft heart with with our senior citizens that on a fixed income, they cannot do it and they're you're putting them in peril. So I I'm going to go ahead and jump in too. I'm also a local farmer. Uh my name is Andre Troyer. Um I've worked with agriculture for several years. Um
058you know Madison Plains is another school district that is rural has a lot of rural farms and stuff like that and they have lost every one of their uh bids to build a new school and they were really upset about having to bring in pods and stuff like that. But they didn't. And as far as I know from teachers that I know in the district, everything is going smooth with that. So why don't we approach something like that, get this first levy paid off, and then go back to the board and try it again. But I would also agree with Fred. You know, most of us here that have land cannot afford to do this. Not only are we dealing with low prices and everything else that goes with it, this year being hit by
059all the rain, last year the drought, we're barely surviving, let alone trying to put out more money for taxes. And I've got three grandchildren in the district. So, yeah, I love the kids, too, you know, and I want to see the best for them, but I also know that we can't afford to do this. So there's got to be a solution somewhere. Thank you. So we covered a lot of ground here. Um I wanted to touch on a couple of things. Um particularly Mr. Yoder alluded to the uh the money that this uh district rece is slated to receive is we partnered with uh when we did our last building campaign in 2002 and partnered with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission OFCC and they have certain rules and processes for which they co-und uh uh
060capital projects for school districts in the state of Ohio. Uh back in 2002 when the district locked in their share, the state of Ohio contributes 54% and the local share is 46%. Today, that number would be closer to 70% of local share. Uh so if you think about it like this, when the our district goes out to build a junior high, we're getting a 54% off coupon from the state of Ohio to build it. Now, with that, like I said, there's rules and regulations associated with that. And one of those is if you if the cost to renovate a facility is more than 66% of the cost of building new, they will not co-und the project. So, the question becomes, do we on principle spend the so to I think the the junior high portion?
061I don't know exactly what the number is, but the the question would be, let's say it's $10 million. It's more than that, but let's say it's $10 million, right? If are we willing to spend $8 million to renovate it so that we can um this this I'm I'm kind of losing my I'm losing where I'm going with this. The the point is if if we if we follow their plan, we get a 54% off coupon. And if we don't, then we have to uh fund it completely ourselves. And so to be good stewards of local dollars, we have to follow the plan. And and quite honestly, the plan that we presented to the community, we were going to get a reimbursement of $17 million from the state for the bond that we put out there.
062Um the problem is we we have to come up with the money first and then we get that reimbursement later. So we are working Fred believe me we are working every angle to get additional money we can. And you know the problem with a lot of this is that it's it's our state and local laws that prevent us from doing some of those things. I mean you are right that developers are making a killing here. There's no question about that. But there's no way to recoup that money. The tiffs and abatement process quite honly honestly has to change. But the only way that's going to change if is if we change the people in Columbus. And so we need your help. It's something that we don't have control of, but we have to change what's
063going on in Columbus to to quit that. I mean, the abatements at the day are unreasonable. It's just unreasonable for us. And that's why you're seeing fire more fire levies. That's why you're seeing more mental health levies. That's why you're seeing more developmental disability levies because quite honestly, the developers are getting the tax money that we used to get. And and so we're sorry about that, but we don't have control over that. We all do. Only in the way we vote. And so I encourage you to think about that when you go to the polls. You got a good point there. Talking with Fred. Hey Fred, it's Frank. You turn down Industrial Parkway. You talk about going to St. Louis site. That used to be all farm ground. There's no farm there anymore. Ralph wants
064to own this farm. Jerry just sold his to Amazon the other day. Where's that money coming from? You used to get taxes from the farmers. Now we're not getting it. Why aren't we getting it from the industrial moved in on the farm ground? The re I mean if you want to be honest, the reality is the honest answer is we receive some money from these big projects. However, due to state laws, local politicians and the state are able to offer incentives to to to big projects. And so they now we've we've done our best to try to advocate for what's called non-school tiffs and non-school big so the districts made whole. However, a lot of times there things are out of our control and the the developers or the the corporations are receiving abatements, but
065that's out of that's out of our control. We can't I mean, I understand your frustration. We're all frustrated by that. But the reason the reason we're here though is because these people got this property and aren't paying their taxes and it's their kids are moving in that we can't afford to have room for it. We never had a problem before. When's the last time you ever remember us having to have a levy that didn't pass? We'd always support our school. I I can tell you that in all honesty, um we haven't asked for a property tax increase since 2002. That was to build this place. That was to build this place. That's right. And we haven't gone back to the community for that. Now, we have gone back to the community for an operating tax,
066but we have not asked. Our last one was in 2014 and we have not asked for an increase. This one. What's that? We supported this one. That's right. Because we see a need for it now. I mean, look at in 1971 city was larger than Dublin. That's right. And now look as we get it swalled up. Like you said, Dublin's coming this way. And now we have these people that are coming in from Columbus and all around. When's the last time you ever heard of being found in the dumpster in Plane City? Till just a couple years ago. We never had these problems till everybody comes moving in. These are people that should be supporting this school. If they want their kids to come here, they need to pony up and pay for it. I
067think going back to something that was said earlier and I think it was by Mr. Hulie, the reality is that everybody who is here now, if they approve a bond levy, they are committing every single person that moves into this district without giving them the option. And when they do that, and I'll ask Mr. McCartney to address this. Everybody's individual share of the pie decreases exponentially with each new person moving in. So if we wait for example and we say 5 years from now, let's say we get, you know, 20,000 retirees for Dublin who are moving out to Plane City for the low taxes. Reasonable, right? Those people are going to continue to vote down levies. They're going to continue to vote down bonds because they don't want to pay the higher taxes. They moved
068out here for that. We need to commit people now. One, and two, we need it now. We are at capacity in the elementary school and we are very close to capacity in the high school. And it's not slowing down. We We can't hang that no vacancy sign. We need it now. But I understand I know that people moving in. Has anybody looked at Bobby Moore's proposal? Have you took it under consideration where we build from you now instead of buying 12 more acres? Yes, we have. We have looked at all of the information. Um specifically, so when you have I I'm going to address we can address the grade configuration separately. Um I'm going to address the buildings. So we have a junior high that we cannot renovate has to go. So our options were
069do we build just a seven and eight on that same property but towards the back of the property. Okay? Because you can't you can't tear down a building while you're building another building. Kids have to go somewhere. So we put it has to go on the back of the property. Once you put it on the back of that property, you are limited as to how much you can expand that building. It can't grow. You're putting the front of the building. The back of the building lines up against what? What is it there that runs against the back of the property? So, that building is permanent. It's going to stay that size forever. It doesn't give us much flexibility. It also doesn't give us much flexibility on what to use in the front of the property.
070And it also doesn't take into consideration that some of that junior high building that currently exists is redeemable and can be used for central office in preschool. So, okay, right you can't use it for K through 12. So, so we can still use some of the existing building. We are trying to make use of the resources we have. So, we tear down most of the junior high. We still use some of that existing building from central office. That takes central office out of the high school, frees up space. It also takes the preschool out of Plane City Elementary that's at capacity and frees up more space and Monroe. Okay. Now, in addition to that, you have Kanan that handles all the 56. Okay. But we got Clean City still at capacity. You got Monroe rapidly
071climbing to capacity. What if we pull the fourth grade out of both of the elementary schools and we make Kanan a four five building? We move the sixth grade up. Okay. Now, and this plan includes a classroom addition to Kanan. Also, a four class four classroom addition to Kanan. And we can still continue to add on to Kanan. Remember, if we built that junior high in the back of the property, it's going to be as big as it ever will be for infinity. Okay? We want flexibility. We're not trying to plan just for today. We are trying to prevent coming back to you again in the next 5 years, 6 years, seven years. We are trying to plan 20 years out by building us the most flexibility in all our buildings. So now we got
072we got more room in Kanan. it is now four five. So now we've got a 678 building and we add it to the high school. There are numerous benefits to to having a campus here at the high school. There are also numerous concerns. Okay. Shut the junior high school down now and use it for what she's talking about. What happens to the grounds, the old track, football field, the baseball field in the parking lot, but nothing's on. No, we took we we we will need a bus garage, which hopefully we can do on our own with some of that reimbursement money we're getting from the state. That takes the buses off the Kanan property and moves it over to the junior high property behind the central which will become the central office. We now have
073space for bus garage. We also are renovating that, not renovating but uh improving the property so that we have additional practice fields over that can be used by the kids in our district over behind the new central office so to speak old junior high. So, I know a lot of kids complain when my daughter's out of it now, but the water they all complain about the water there was disgusting. The building drift, it leaked on them and it's on the corner of an extremely busy intersection where I have the bus right there and you guys are trying to if you're putting fourth or fifth graders there, which I'm with them having their own building type thing, they are going to want a playground. Those kids are still like maybe the fifth graders, but the fourth
074graders are still very into wanting to play sports. There is no room at Kanan for any type of sports for those kids as far as that goes. Like that is not going to be like how many children like think about it all the fourth graders they like to play sports. There is no room at Kanan for sports. The question is is there enough room at Kanan to for fourth graders and fifth graders to play sports, right? Or anything. Yeah. So recess during recess and all that stuff. they're going to want to do that. And like right now, I know there's how many fourth graders are like, "Oh gosh, Kanan has no real playground." That is like the most depressing thing for half of these kids going into fifth and sixth graders. They don't really have
075that room to play. You know what I mean? Shan is Ian and you know when they building it's a variable building [Music] wants to weigh in real quick. is very tight. Um, so when we went through this master facility plan process with 60 community members, these were all the conversations that were having. So I want you to answer your question, Mr. Foder's question as well, too. If the bus drives can eventually go to the junior high with this plan, that frees up a bunch of space for us to be able to do more things can. Okay. And Mr. Mr. Ger, I know this is a very expensive plan, but this process we went through with 60 community members. Is Mr. Ger still here? Okay. There were other plans that were more expensive than the one
076that the board is proposing to you now. I'm sure Mr. McCartney talked to you about that. But we did try to look at how can we bring the cost down. Let's put an elementary building at 161 and Butler when we purchase that plan. Well, that does free up a bunch of space at the elementary, but that doesn't help us with the capacity at Kan. doesn't help us in the uh capacity at the junior high and the high school. Well, another favor planned and it was one of mines and another schoolboard members. Well, let's build a grand high school and filter the junior high students up to this building and make it a sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And that would be okay with the capacity. But then the uh price skyrocketed. So, we had to
077have these very hard conversations to continue working those costs down and getting us the most amount of time to have to come back to our voters. That was the goal of that four-month process with our community members. Let's create as much space as we can with the most amount of time before we have to go back to the voters. That's why we landed on this junior high plan. Then there was the junior high being built at uh the current space and then there's the junior high being built at this space. That was a really tough one. But what we did is we went back to our office. I put my administrators through this process. Let's talk about pros and cons of both. We can put the new junior high at the junior high site and
078operate exactly the way we are right now. That's that's great. That's a high standard. Or we can put the junior high at the high school now and we can operate at a higher standard for more of a headache through this process. But we can share staff, save money, uh share safety person, share nurse people, share reimbursement costs, have our eighth graders walk down the ninth grade hallway to take a high school class. So there was a lot of perks and positives that outweigh putting the junior high here and then preserving the junior high space for future opportunities and options. other other buildings like the like the central office going near PK in the bus garage creating more space than for why not trailers because that's your tax dollars going to trailers say trailers is still
079a lot cheaper temporarily not as safe no not as safe I I don't know we will have to go to trailers once we run out of space and we're trying to be proactive space don't like it I know it's cold and all that stuff but temporarily if no one trailers are trailers are coming regardless. It's going to take a few years to build these buildings. We are doing everything we can to try to prevent that from happening but trailers are coming. But are trailers a permanent solution to this growth? This district to to accommodate if if we say we put this off for five years, this district our our current budget is roughly $30 million. This district will be spending over a million dollars a year on trailers in less than five years. A million
080dollars a year. Is that how you guys I mean that I understand that trailers are a a means to a stop gap. But is that a good use of taxpayer dollars? Trailers that are that in a decade they're trash. They the walls rot, the roof leaks, it's unsafe. If you've got kids going outside, uh trans uh moving classes, we talked about in 2025 all of the security concerns. We've spent uh half a million dollars in state or yeah half a million dollars in state grants over the last three or four years to increase the safety and security of all of our buildings and now we're going to put kids in the parking lot. Like does that make sense? I understand. I just know that when I went to high school and they were remodeling like
081three of the three of the four years we were in trailers. That's going to be an option. But if we delay this entire plan approval of a bond for five years and wait, then we're going to be doing trailers and spending money on trailers for a decade. I mean, we're literally throwing money away on temporary housing. Also, I'd like to to make a comment to um Mr. Yoder. I I completely understand where you're coming from. Let me just share that when we did this building campaign about 20 30 years ago, it was five I think it was 8 mills at that point in time. But today, because more people have moved in, you're actually only paying about 1.25 mills to to finish up what we what we did 20 30 years ago. And in the
082next 5 years, that bond goes off the books. The other thing is once we get water and sewer coming up 42, we're our community is going to boom. This bond levy, you will not have to pay as much as it's advertised for very long. As soon as people start moving in, it's just like the baton that Mr. Hulie talked about. your property tax is going to go down and it's going to go down dramatically. Can I can I talk can I a bond levy can only be used to build a building. That's one thing we did not communicate effectively enough to the community. The the funds that we get off a bond levy are not spent on teachers. They're not spent on sports fields. They're not spent on anything other than building a building. Okay.
083So, that's important to know. And I had something else and I forgot what it was. Well, so if I can if I can talk just a little bit real quick just I know we keep talking about your your your share will go down, right? That's very great and all, but I I I called uh the Any kind auditor just to get I instead of talking about what Yeah. I wanted to give you a real world example. So, I pulled a a random Jonathan Alder property. Okay. So, back in 2013, this this property was valued at uh the auditor had it valued at $275,500. They paid four $4,296 in taxes and at that time they were paying six mills on the 2002 bond. Okay. It was originally in 2002 they were paying 8.9 mills. 2013 they
084were paid down it was down to six mills. So they were paying of their of their $4,296 in property taxes $56 was going towards the 2002 bond. Okay. Fast forward to 2024. The auditor has their house valued at $312,000. They're currently paying $4,29 but their effective mills as Mr. Votal said is 1.5 mills. So they're still paying the same amount of property taxes as they were paying in 2013, which I don't know how they did that because everybody else is paying a whole heck of a lot more. But regardless, they're paying the same amount of taxes, but their portion of their them uh their taxes that are going to the 2002 bond are only $134. So their value went up. Their taxes are roughly the same, but they're they went from $56 to $134 in
085a decade. So, that is a real world example of what we're talking about. I'm not exactly sure how to address this, but getting back to the Derby watershed and them redirecting everything down to Deer Creek and dumping all of our sewage and stuff down there should have never happened to begin with. And most of these houses should have never been here either. I spent nine years working on this watershed with the state and and here we are. So, how much you know how much volume you're going to end up putting into the watershed? Well, but in fairness, we're not doing it. We We have no control over that. I mean, I I I hear you. We I think everybody here that's lived here for their whole lives want to protect the derby. We would I
086would completely agree with you, but that decision is well outside of the scope of this school board. And they're not exactly sure how they're going to pay for that either. And I wouldn't be surprised if somehow they don't try to, you know, put it in some where we got to pay taxes to get that thing built too. And then the people whose property it gets to and two of them are sitting right here. So just like reinforce Mr. Phillips, can you wait on a microphone? Yell. Hi there. Um I was on the board at the time the 2002 uh bond letter was put on and we spent some time communicating um how over time as people move in as development moves in uh that it would reduce the impact of those dollars. It doesn't necessarily
087reduce the overall taxes you're paying, but the amount that's allocated from um the bond levy going to schools does. Um, and so I think that's one area that the school board, the the district could spend some time on, how quickly that old levy will roll off and and the impact that it does have because there are a number of folks that when I talked to them about the levy, uh, frankly, they said that as long as I'm paying for one, until that bond levy goes off, I'm not supporting another one because they just didn't see that they could afford it. And so it kind of goes along with some of what Fred was saying, but just from a little different angle perhaps. Sure. Well, and that's that would be a great idea if we could
088do that. Today, the estimate is $425 per square foot to build a school. This the the existing bond that we're talking about will roll off in approximately five years. we have about $8 million left on principal to pay uh to pay that down. Uh but the reality is we we gained it out and if we wait uh six years that cost per square foot goes from $425 today to over $675. Okay? And so I know we can't afford it now, but we're talking currently we're all paying 52 roughly $52 per 100,000 in valuation. Um, and we're going to we're asking for $425 a square foot. But if we wait to save $52 per hundred,000, we're going to make the our 70 million. If if we did the exact same thing in five years, our $70
089million project now becomes uh one and a half over one and a half times. So over 30 million o over a hundred million. So I understand that waiting would be great but every day that we wait I mean uh with in sorry uh construction inflation is raised approximately 5% a year the reality is we're going we're probably going to be back on the bond in no or on the ballot in November asking for some amount of money if we were to ask for the exact same amount of money our $70 million ask is now $2 million more, which it's not actually because we built inflation protection into the ask. However, the cost on average is $2 million more from asking in May to asking in November. Every every time we delay this ask, the price
090goes up. We're not talking by peanuts. We're talking by millions of dollars at a time. And as as we've said, the popular the kids are coming. We we're out of space. We have to ask for money. Whether whether we're going to come back to you and we're going to ask for money to build permanent structures or we're going to come back and ask you for money to put trailers, they're going to fall apart in no time. We we're going to have to ask for more money. That's just the reality of the situation. Um, I'd like to move on to the six through eight design. I know that there were concerns raised and we heard some things from the community about putting sixth graders with eighth graders and doing sixth graders at the high school and
091um what all goes into that because at a very high level there's not there's not an understanding. I can see how people would be concerned that you have sixth graders walking around with 12th graders and that doesn't seem good. We agree. So, Mrs. Delt, would you like to address six through 8 attached to the high school and the campus? Correct. Correct. We have multiple other districts in the vicinity up front of us that do this same layout. Um, and the concern was that sixth graders are going to be with 12th graders and this is too young and we're going to mix these kids together. But we were very intentional regarding the design stages of doing that that we have the sixth graders in a junior high building with the seventh and eth. And even though
092it's one entire attached building, there would be separation between the high school area, the junior high area, and the sixth graders would have their own area within the junior high building. They would have different lunch times. They wouldn't be eating lunch with the jun with the seventh and eighth graders. Um, we wanted to be really intentional about keeping them in their own kind of area, but the benefits that it gives us really outweighs kind of the the a lot of the negative impact that we could think of. Um, especially from a curriculum standpoint. Um something most people wouldn't un or wouldn't have understood previously is that our curriculums the way we have purchased go from K through 12 I'm sorry K through 5 and 6 through 12. So we have this overlap in the Kanan
093building with our staff and our students. They're having to use two different curriculums because the way curriculums are made does not adapt to our five six building as it is. It's more for the K through five. So the fifth grade teachers are teaching one curriculum. We have an amplify reading for our K through five kids. That's a CKLA. We have an amplify ELA for our sixth through 8th graders. And so even when we have professional development with our teachers, it creates a lot of inongruity because they're teaching two different curriculums, it causes a lot of um complication just in that everything's working fine. As it is now, obviously we heard from Mr. truly our our numbers are great for the quality of education our kids are getting for the money we're spending but it it
094would be really helpful just from the curriculum side of it alone when we move the sixth seventh and eighth graders together um there's crossover with kids that need to go up a couple grades um some kids you know they're accelerated in their math they're accelerated in their language They're then able to have access to those higher level instructions that they aren't at Cayman because of the distance and the the um transportation, that kind of thing. Um our math as well. We have kids that that elevate for their math. They um are accelerated in their math. They go to the high school. Well, we don't have to transport kids to the high school if we have a campus where they can access those higher educational opportunities right where they are. There's staff that are trained for
095that. There's, you know, a lot of the crossover that we have now um is that those issues are solved if we can put our sixth graders with our seventh eighth in the same building. Um there's a lot of research as well. We have a consultant with the district who sent over some research because there was um discussion about the sixth graders. Maybe it's not good for the sixth graders to be with the older kids. Um, first of all, the busing is not an issue because they're already buses with the high school kids as well as our fifth graders. So, in this new in this new layout, the fifth graders would be going down to a different bus route with the elementary kids. K through five would be on one bus route. So, we're actually maybe
096allowing for those kids to be a little more protected, the younger the youngest ones because the fifth graders will be going down the elementary routes. The sixth graders would stay on the same routes. It's not any different than what they have now. Um, but there's a lot higher achievement outcomes with kids that can be with the older age grouping in sixth grade. Um, more favorable student behavior. You can have peer mentoring if needed. We can have um a lot of other opportunities made available because of the the proximity to more resources for those sixth grade kids educationally, socially, athletically. I know one thing that has has been the case in the past with our junior high, a lot of our sports are club teams. And I just had the thought the other week, you know,
097it would probably really help our programming to have everything on one campus. We have the junior high baseball team here with the high school baseball team. And there's a lot of maybe crossover that could happen, whereas it doesn't necessarily with everything being down at the junior high separate from the high school. Um, weigh about Yes. Okay. Um so I read a lot of studies and I'm going to tell you this there is a study for everything especially in the field of education and the studies are all may show may do you know they're trending in this direction and when it boils down to it when you are talking about the actual educational experience of each student It depends on first and foremost the teachers in that room, the administrators in that building. So when you
098have concerns about the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade being on the same campus as the high school, I want you to ask around in the community and say, "How much do you trust your administrators? How much do you trust your teachers?" Because our plan is to keep the sixth grade separate. They're not going to be wandering around the high school hallways, nor are the seventh and eighth graders going to be wandering around the high school hallways. We do have control over these buildings. And we do, this board has the ultimate faith in our administrators and the job that they do to make sure they are protecting each and every single one of our students. So if you want to come at me with a study, I can come back with a different study that says
099something totally different. But really, people mean something. People and and we are very blessed in this district to have the people that we do in charge of making these decisions and in charge of the education and welfare of our students. Dr. Quick Carl, Mrs. Quick. Dr. Miller, Mrs. Okay. She's a doctor now all the time. Do you have anything you wanted to add regarding the sixth grade like with the curriculum and the doctor I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Carlo, assistant superintendent in charge of teaching and learning and I also was a I went to Ken 56 building. I grew up in this community and I we're just so blessed to have you all here to share your thoughts and your opinions about what's happening. But I would I would just say that Mrs.
100Stewart did an amazing job talking about all of the the talking points that we've been kind of debating and sharing with each other. I think from our department, this is our department right here and our principles. One of the things that is really uh important as we're thinking about this decision is um from a curriculum and instruction standpoint, sixth grade curriculum really does fit um from the standpoint of material with and what we know is our Kayan team is doing an amazing job right now making it work with two different programs happening within one building. So kudos to the Kanan administration and teachers. I think what I would add is just what Mrs. Walker shared is that our teaching and learning that's happening is is so successful because of the people that work in John
101and our parents that that do such an amazing job supporting their children. Mr. did an amazing job and thank you all for being here. I also there were some concerns about traffic and parking in the campus and um Dr. Miller and I talked about this today quite a bit. Um I'm going to have you address it because you said it so eloquently. I don't think I did. We were going through the master facility planning with the community. We did ask our architects and engineers, is it possible to put this other six up to 8 building on this site because traffic is already a bottleneck at some points in the mornings um and after school at release time. They did a uh drone study uh during the time that students are coming and going, parents are
102coming and going and buses are coming and going. And what they taught us is we're not utilizing the space in the property very well as as we sit right now with just a 9 through 12th grades. So we asked, okay, so if we add another three grades, can we do this better? and they absolutely told us that yes, you can fix the flow of buses, parents dropping, and student drivers with this additional building if you use more of the property, more of the queue, more of the driving space that we already have here. So, we've been doing uh more plans and putting that together. There's some concepts out there. Um the most important thing is that we get all of our uh parents, drivers, and student drivers off of 42 circulating around in the right
103direction and exiting as safely as possible. So that's a plan that we're working on right now. Um it's not completely set in stone, but what the experts said is it definitely can be improve uh improved. I guess one of the most important factors to this, one of the experts that is hired by the board through this uh engineer team, he is a Jonathan older parent who goes through this parent line. So he has these uh drone studies looking at the car flow coming in, seeing how much of a painoint it actually is, experiences it as himself as a father dropping off in the line. He's going to help us improve this actually going into next year with just the high school and then in the near future the junior high ends up here. So if
104the junior high or when the junior high goes on this site with the amount of green space that we have 140 more spaces can be brought into this area. And then the board just um agreed upon with under north of the high school, a 12 acre strip to allow us more bus loop and parking and activity field. So that is not part of the bond. That is a separate purchase that the district and the school board is willing to make so we have more space for all the traffic coming and going. So with the architects help we approve the the traffic flow starting next school year for our certain or for our high schoolers. With the uh construction of the new junior high going on this site, we can add 44 spaces. Then the district's
105going to purchase 12 acres north of the district to uh help with that space. Parking, drives, bus loop, and some athletic fields. Are there any more questions? I see one. Um, if you bring the bond issued back to the ballot, are you planning on bringing the same um facilities design or would there be any changes made or would you bring back the same exact design? We don't know yet. Okay. We're working on that over the summer. It could be the same design. It could come with alterations. It could be a phased in approach. Um, we're trying to, here's what I can assure you. This board is trying to make the most fiscally responsible decision possible while giving the best we can to our students. I also want to address this space here. Um, the music
106program deserves better than this. There's no question. It was probably it dominated our board meeting when we were discussing whether or not to include the auditorium on this bond ask. But in the interest of our community that elected every single one of us up here to to basically take care of your interest, represent the taxpayers. We made the hard decision not to include a new auditorium. new and auditorium on the bond. Instead, what this board decided to do was when we get that refund from the state, use that refund money to add an additional auditorium onto this high school. A portion of it. Right. Right. Because now it's it's actually gone up. Like so we're getting more back than we cover cost for an auditorium. So, we could do the auditorium, we could do a
107bus garage, we could do the additional things that are not included on this ask. And again, that property, that 12 acres is not part of this ask. That is coming out of our funds that we currently have to purchase that property. I think I think Can you hear me? My name is Mayor Yoder. We moved here to the AL district 27 years ago, our our children graduated from Jonathan Hall and and one of the things that drew us here was the school district and and what we've heard tonight if if I hope someone was taking notes this information I I can't imagine that the people of this community if they heard what we heard tonight would vote against this le the school district you guys what you're being asked to do is is is the
108impossible. You are. Thank you. And and I just thank you. We appreciate you so much. Well, thank you. I I I too want to thank everyone here and thank this community. You know, I have been on the board for over 20 years and this community has always invested in our kids. That is what has made Jonathan Alder great and our community great. There's a reason people want to move here. It's because we care about kids. And what we are asking, I know it's tough. It is really tough. But we're asking for one more investment in our future and our kids. And I know, I know it's really hard, but this community has risen time and time again for our kids. When you go to our sporting events, everything, it's just phenomenal what we've got here.
109And we want to keep it special. What we've got at Jonathan Alder is extremely special and we want to keep it that way. But the only way we can do that is with your support. And so I ask you to please keep Jonathan Alder what it is today and invest in our kids. Thanks [Applause] where's the next meeting? We don't have we don't have Are you talking about a school board meeting? Board meeting. June 24th right here in the library. You probably better start. Serious. I mean really place to place June 24th right here. Tuesday just just I don't know the answer. I know you will. What's the possibility of the sales tax? you know. All right. So, my name is Mark Engles. I'm the CFO here. Um, I, you know, I'm not a district
110resident, but been immersed in the community since I've been here since August 2023. So, I'll thank the board again for, you know, bringing me on this opportunity. I have been noticing um the suggestions of alternate ways of funding a large tactical project such as a school building construction project. Um Ohio school districts do not have the authority to let a sales tax. Um this is not one of our tools in our toolbox. Um I know Mr. McCardney mentioned the income tax. One wrinkle in that is we have to be in OMCC program right now co-funded for this segment to be able to even do that which we're not. So it's it's a nuance thing. So um we wish there was more tools in our toolbox. Um however the best and most responsible fiscally responsible manner
111of funding a large project like this is through a 37year bond backed by a property tax. The reason for that is we get better terms. We have to pay interest on this. This is like taking out a loan. We stretching out that payment period as far as we can um in order to reduce our annual debt service. We are also um looking at u being able to have the best term so we're paying a lower interest rate. We've been good fiscal stewards of your dollars. That's something that our um underwriters will look at. That's what the bond market will look at. That will give us a better interest rate. So it is something that I wish we had other ways of going about it but fortunately our our you know means aren't limited and I
112know we talked a lot about how great Alder is and it is great and I know one of the things that Dr. Miller has brought to the district is just a higher level of accountability to elevate our standard not standard low to begin with but we can always achieve more. We've been doing great with our current configuration and our current setup. However, there's a limitation on that. We're running buses that are half full in the elementary routes because of how we're running a 5 to 12 route and then a K through four route going two different buildings. That's not efficient. We're trying to address that efficiency through this app through the bond. Um we're looking to it if we when we developed this plan, we didn't add too many bells. We didn't really add any
113bells and whistles. We're reusing a property in the junior high. Um, we're looking to add to a build a facility here to maximize our current use. Um, and part of some of these decisions we've been asked that we're being asked for, we cannot answer it right now. We can't tell you exactly what the design is going to be. We can't tell you if there's going to be a skylight. We can't tell you how many windows there are going to be, what the playground at Keen is going to look like. We can't answer that question because that would be the next phase once we secure funding. We can't do anything. Right. So that's what we're doing here. Um that 70.6 million majority of that was going to that 68 building. That is the biggest need right
114now. But every building must be touched. Every resident of this district would see some benefit from a project like this. Additional space at Plane City, additional space at Monroe, a dedicated centralized preschool location. Right. Early child education is at a premium in the community. We're going to expand offerings um have the central office move out to a central location as well. Right now we take up three classroom spaces here at the high school. We have a teacher on cart. That's not a good way of serving students. We can get out move to the junior high and that' be a lot cheaper than building um even a modular unit on the 340 West Main which we did pursue. You know, how do we get the central office out sooner? that's going to be a a major
115cost and we want to be fiscally responsible. So, it is something that I do want to recognize that it is an additional tax burden and it's not something we take lightly. I'm a taxpayer myself. Um, I understand how everyone's costs are rising. So is the school districts. That's why this project at 70 mil $70 million at 5.12 mills. Um, that's where we're trying to be as efficient and cost effective as possible. So, I know there's Okay, I I don't know if you guys have thought of this or not. Do you guys own the property behind P uh Point Elementary that are you able to buy that land? It was available for sale. Yes. Okay. The reason I was asking is like right now you guys are saying you have buses that are half full because
116you need K through five to ride separate buses. Right now Kanan you have to split your K through five education curriculum. Why not add on to the elementary schools for four and fifth? No, you already have Monroe for one side of the district and then you have Plain City Elementary. Why not turn Kanan into fourth and fifth for that side of the district just like you guys split down the line and then just add on to here or keep them mix them into the junior high. You know what I'm saying? Or add them on into Plane City Elementary. You know what I mean? Add the extra rooms for just fourth and fifth grade that is on this side or where where the line split is. And then once they go into high school, you know,
117obviously there's that. within the junior high. I mean, you still have to do that. You could add, like I said, you could add the fourth and fifth to each of the elementary schools and then put that side junior high in Kanan. Sorry, is what I meant to say in Kanan and then keep the junior high here. That would still give you guys the extra room because now you pulled out the students by splitting the property line. You know what I mean? Like by how they do, you know what I'm saying? How you guys separate by where you live? You go to right Monroe. So you just add and then it's like Monroe gets their junior high basically that side and then this side and then now you guys have office in the junior high and
118now you're also not doing half empty buses because you have your K through five going just directly to the elementary schools and your curriculum, right? Yeah. Thank you. the that's something that we could look at, but the addons might be cheaper. So, you need the the fact of the matter is you need x amount of square feet per student. It doesn't matter whether you build it onto an existing building or you build a new building, right? The cost is almost identical. And so, construction, what's that? Why can't we get construction companies or builders like they do like football, whatever? If we could try to work out for that and try to see if we can get someone to sponsor the school, right? Put their name. Hey, this company sponsored the education department. The reality for
119them. So, we looked at a bunch of different grade configurations and adding kids in different places and moving them around. The plan that we settled on or not settled on, the plan that we selected was the most efficient use of kids butts and seats with the square footage that we need to educate those students. Does that make sense? No, no, no. I got that. That's why I was just trying I was just trying to save you like bus, right? It's the most It's the most efficient It's the most efficient way to do it, which translates to the lowest price, right, from from a value perspective. No, I mean, I got that. That's why I was just trying to turn into that whatever property line into their junior high. We did we looked at all that
120that it went to the community and it it was debated between parents. We we had a lot of comments about people not wanting to send their elementary kids to Kan um you know K through three. I it just there was there were so many different configurations that were considered through this process and we're going to look at them again. Um, and our goal, our goal is to do again go to the taxpayers with the least investment on your part that gives the entire district the most flexibility for the longest time period so that we don't have to keep coming back to you with bonds in the future. That's our goal. So, it's it's we could do anything we want, but we're not trying to do everything we want. We're trying to do only what we
121need and what we need now. And again, going back to that, let's wait five years. If we wait five years till that bond falls off, we also are looking an additional three years to build. And we're going to need trailers in the next year or two. So now we're paying for trailers for eight years. And let me tell you something, you guys, it's expensive. I did not think it was going to be as expensive as it is to get trade wars. But when we were looking at central office in town on that uh property, pardon me, the old elementary property just to put a trailer there for central office was and it was like 400,000 almost a million dollars for three years. Well, this board went back to central office and said, "Good luck, guys.
122you're in the high school for a little bit longer. We're not paying that. We're not going to spend money on temporary space. We're not going to spend money needlessly. So, it's a combination of all these factors. We h we are going to take everything in consideration. We're going to review it. We're going to make sure that this is we are coming to you with the most fiscally responsible ask possible. Um, thank you very much. Does anybody have any further questions? Obviously, you're coming back again in November and I understand a bond is the 37 years, income tax is 20 years. Is there any way of dividing the amount where part of it is property tax and part of it is income tax? I think the farmers would appreciate seeing a little bit of relief. Is
123that possible or is it not even possible? What? Yeah. No, sorry. Um, you know, again, you know, we look at every opportunity when it comes to financing and how to lessen the burden. Um, we did look at in terms of this current bond that's currently on our on our books. Can we leverage the the current millillage and roll it on to basically a no new millage levy? Fortunately, we're just too far outside that window. And as we mentioned here before, this is going to be more expensive to do this project down the road. Um, we are trying we we were and I also heard about why don't developers pay. Um, we don't we don't have a seat at the table. We do not have the ability to negotiate with them and say we need you
124to pay us a million dollars a year or three million a year or whatever our annual debt state service would be. Um because that's you know we don't have the ability to negotiate with them with that. Why can't we take it to the news? Okay. Why can't we take it to the news? How about the citizens? So, um, Mr. Mrs. Walker is asking why can't we split it out? The reason for that is because this is a bond. We have to go to the market and they want a a reliable secure funding method meth mechanism. Um, because you anyone here can go out and invest in in a bond. You can go out and buy shares and you get annual interest payments. And and if we were to somehow split it up between a stable
125revenue source like a property tax that doesn't fund it 100%. Go to a less stable income tax that well first of all it's not legal. We can't even do that. There are combination bond and income taxes but that income tax is just for operating. So that's for keeping the lights on for staffing the buildings, for buying buses, and we're not asking for any additional operating money because we have been good stewards. We have been able to save money for the future for major capital projects. We are doing major roofing projects in this building. As mentioned before, we're not using any we weren't going to use any of the bond proceeds if we were successful on land purchasing. We already have that money set aside. So, a lot of this is just gets the complicated um
126nuances of our tax code, our tax law. Um our legislators in Columbus could they could potentially change things, but our bond market is national. You know, when we go, if we were susceptible, we get raided in Chicago and our bonds are sold in New York. So, anyone in the country could buy our bonds and that's why they don't mess with it. So yeah, we would love to be able to have other avenues of doing this that's more that be more creative, but unfortunately our hands are tied and wealthy, which we are always and I don't want to get into I don't want to get too much into the weeds here as well, but even if a wealthy benefactor were to show up, um, we running into issues of debt limitations. We can only legally borrow
127so much money without a vote from the people. So, I know, but we still need to get the authority to borrow that money even if they pay for it. So, this is what city says all the time. They have these bond issues on their ballot that's backed by the income tax. They don't actually levy the the bond. they don't actually levy the tax because um but they do have to get the authority from the voters to actually go out and borrow the money. So there's all this nuances that even if we did have that wealthy benefactor, we still have to be on the ballot to get the authority of the voters to even go forward with the project. So um again, there's a lot of nuance with that, but um if there's anyone out there
128willing to donate 7.6 million, we definitely won't say no. We'll definitely take it. Um and then f you know there it does open up more avenues of course but it's something that we we were being creative throughout this whole 18 month two month two-year process before asking the voters in May. Um you know plan is that we'll be back with another ask. Um the price you know how the actual plan's going to look in practice you know still to be cited but the cost there's very little room for it to change. The cost is the cost. So, just one metric that I can give on cost. Uh, Upper Arlington built a new high school in 2019, and if they were to build that same building today, it would cost them 80% more than it cost
129him in 2019. So, I know some of that's COVID sensitive, but as everyone knows, like, you know, inflation is supposedly down, but it's also cumulative, which means prices don't really go down. just rate of increase goes down. So I know that that number has been published in the dispatch that Upper Arlington School was built in 2019 and the cost is going to be 80% higher six years later. We've talked so many times or you guys have said so many times about as people come into the district it's going to lower our cost, right? So I know we have so many elderly people here. I would never vote them for the for anything. I I just wouldn't. But I really did struggle with it. So, is there any way for you guys to tell us? I
130mean, if we have what 4,000 more homes coming into the district, I don't really know the number, but whatever it was. 4,000. Okay. Sorry. If we have that many, oh, more than that, you're saying. Okay. So, I'm just saying is if if there's some way for you to tell us as these homes come in, what how is that going to um change the percentage of what we're each paying? Pay the same amount. Well, I thought they said that to the schools. So, go down. Yeah, the share of this bond would go down. Yeah, the share of the bond would go down. However, it would be very small. Sorry. Go ahead. You pay less if it goes down. You Yes. You're No, you would pay less. You would pay less for property tax. You would pay
131less for property taxes. Yes, sir. Okay. Well, I can't say what every other I can't say what other tax anybody else is going to levy, but your share your portion of this bond would go down 100%. Now to answer your qu to to speak directly to your question of can we give you some idea of what you might expect and the answer to that is it would be very irresponsible of us to ask our treasurer to give you to to make any sort of a commitment to you about what we would expect rates to do or property taxes to do because for all you know who knows what's going to happen if if water and sewer comes it could go a whole lot faster If water and sewer stops, it may be delayed for five
132years. We don't really know. And so I don't want to sell you a bond based on your property tax, your portion of property tax is decreasing and then that not come to fruition and then you come and hang this board because we told you that it was going to go down by this amount in this amount of time. Does that make sense? It it does. And I was just talking about, you know, everybody that lives here and I will probably soon be one of them within that 37 years for sure on a fixed income, you know, and they're trying to spread their money out. So, I was just thinking the idea of if as these people move in, the properties keep coming that it would spread those spread that cost out. Well, it absolutely will.
133The other thing to keep in mind is a lot of these new builds are very are more expensive than what we currently live in. They're they're going to pay based on the value of that property that they buy. And so they might pick up a greater share than what you're pay. So what we're saying is the 179 per 100,000 is the most it's the most it will not go up. It will only go down from there for 100,000. Um I was just going to say that there is a one of the very large developments that's just getting started the Dell web community. Um, I can imagine that the majority of that neighborhood will not be bringing students into the neighborhood since it is a 55 and up community. Um, so that kind of can help
134a little bit um, spread those dollars and also not bring students in. This is going back probably an hour ago at this point. But the example that you use with the study in county what was it the 2013 property compared to years before and all the way through what last year 2024 um in so many nuts and bolts and simplest way to communicate it as possible. Um, did you guys use any numbers or results from that study or could you use them, let's say, as soon as November to illustrate the fact that an 80% increase on a building that was built in a Columbus based school district six years ago, you know, 8% now compared to what it was six years ago, things like that. Obviously, everything is going up except in examples like your
135study where your share and your actual cost of tax has gone down. How many things in general in life since 2019 can you think of have gone anywhere but up? Regardless if it's groceries, gas, you name it. Everything's more expensive. And you have a study that proves actually this specific thing that we're voting on can go down. And it's a local study, right? Yes, it will go down. And it's not a study from California or wherever. It's a study from down the road. So anyway, as I'm rambling, I didn't know if you can use that as marketing and promotional material if you haven't rolled that into your campaigns already. That's a that's an excellent idea. Bill is incredibly geeked out about trying and I know Yeah, I'm an engineer. I I stereot Excel spreadsheets all
136day. So, um, but I sure made an excellent visual some way or another. And that's a great suggestion. Thank you for that. Yes. Well, and just as we talk, you know, I know the concept Some people's idea is let's wait. But if you think about So this is the 2002 bond was a $25 million bond. You guys know you remember everybody remember what you built for $25 million? Plane City Elementary, Jonathan Ols completely rebuilt Monroe Elementary. Almost completely rebuilt Canon Elementary, Plain City Elementary. Did all of that for $25 million. Today we're talking about 70.6 6 million to build a six through eight additions of four classroom addition at the high school. I'm sorry, eight at the high school, four at Kanan, renovations at some small renovations at Plane City Elementary and Monroe. So again,
137I think you misspoke. I think you said new junior high. You meant a new high school. Yes, you said new. You said new junior high. I'm sorry. I meant a new high school. Yes. Mard, can you add the village at that $25 million rate and explain where we're at now? Uh, it was it was 8 8.9 in 2002 and today it's 1.5. Dr. Miller, did you the question that I handed you had a part B to it? Did we address that during part? Adam had another question about how does the facilities and operations scope look? Is the equipment well maintained and a big burden to the finances facilities current facilities operations. So uh plane city elementary is our newest building and was uh students entered that building in the 2010 2011 school year. Everything else
138is over 20 years old. So, we're talking over 20-y old roofs, original HVAC systems. Uh, if you've been by this high school in the last uh week, you saw the Black Top project going on. All of our buildings and facilities need this type of work. Um, I don't want to get too much into the weeds, but about 10 15 years ago, Mr. Boto touch on this. The district was in a different financial state and I do believe that um the maintenance wasn't we we weren't able to maintenance the HVAC and the facilities the way they should have been. So Mr. Engles and and I are doing the best we can. We we brought in a new team. We brought in a new HVAC uh company. Um we're working with new water operators to help us
139get everything up to code and running and flowing. And what I'm hearing from staff is the buildings are pumping hot and cold air better than they have before. We're extending the life of this equipment and doing it at the most reasonable cost without replacing equipment. We're trying to extend it. But really at any time at any of these buildings where we will have to do roof repair, HVAC repair. Uh this building has a new black top all the way around. Um but just this uh just this evening I sent a picture to Mr. McCartney. That skylight out there, I learned, has been leaking for 15 years. So, if you come in, uh, staff and students come in on a rainy day, you're getting dripped on. Well, our students and our staff deserve better than that.
140And so, this board has put quite a bit of money into those types of repairs, and it's happening this summer. So, our students are going to come to a dry building here at the high school. That's how much they care about what type of environments our students are in. So, we're doing the best we can to extend all of uh the equipment over here. Mr. Leser, if you would raise your hand. We have a brand new operations and brand new maintenance team that I hired just this year. They're evaluating and assessing everything across the district. And I couldn't say enough about how we're elevating everything across the district. Every uh administrator in district office is a new administrator, part of our team in the past three years. Mrs. fires. She's going to elevate the technology
141department. I hired Mrs. Quick and Mrs. Crawl. They're going to elevate the teaching and learning and the special ed and the student services. Mr. Le is going to elevate the operations. So, I promise you, we're going to give the best that we can to all of our students, all of our staff, and all of our families. Yeah, I just wanted to touch on this quick. um get on the numbers guy and just kind of give you guys an idea of you know one thing we do hear a lot is you know where is the money going that's being raised for for the school district and again we're talking about operating dollars so I'm separating this from the bond and the capital project you know that's the purpose of this meeting 53% of all our expenses
142it goes to the classroom it goes to our teachers and our staff our supplies um anything that goes to what each kid needs to learn the next highest expense is our facility ities. Um, as you know, most of these facilities are 20 going on 25 years old. Plan City Elementary is our newest building. Most of the major components in a school building has useful life between 15 to 20 years. So, now we're running up into the end of that useful life. One of the benefits that we've had with the new team that's in place here um is that we're able to identify and get a replacement plan in place. we are able to identify um put aside money for these major projects. So when they do come up, we're not caught off guard. We can
143afford them. We don't have to scramble and try and find ways to, you know, find money for a new roof or new chillers HVAC system because we have a plan. And that's something that was new as of really this past year working with Dr. Miller and the operations team. Um, this is something that we're dedicated to because as you may notice in this plan that we're talking about tonight, all the all of our builtings will still be used in some fashion and we want to be able to extend those useful lives as far as we can. Um, so that's where we're spending our money making sure that we can have a safe, warm, safe, dry environment for our students. Uh, we're on the way there. Um, but I just wanted everyone to know that it
144is a main priority for us and then going forward if we are to build the 68 edition and have those additions to the other buildings. Um, part of the bonax is to upgrade our systems in those buildings again to extend the useful life of the of our current buildings to keep us off the ballot even longer. So, it is a major priority for us and we'll be happy to share any details. Maybe not in this setting, but we can answer your questions offline. I just want to reiterate that if there are any questions that come up about any factor in our district, please, every single person up here on this lower level floor is willing to entertain any of your questions from curriculum to busing to board issues. Um, and please show up at the
145board meetings. I mean, we'd love to have you all there. I really thank you all for coming tonight um for giving us an opportunity to listen to you. Um if you have any additional follow-up questions, please reach out to us. We're going to like I said, we have a meeting on June 24th and we'll probably have it here again in this space and um thank you. I think we're going to wrap it up, but thank you all for being Thank you so much. [Applause] Oh, I'm sorry. I have to u you can go. You don't have to be here. Can I get a motion to adjourn then January June 10th? Yes.