001President and never your friend. >> So we stand for our pledge. I >> aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Well, hello and good evening and welcome to our MSD Pike Township School Board regular meeting tonight, March 12th, 2026. First up is a good of the cause. If there's anyone that want to share, please come step forward three minutes and state your name and only for the good of the cause. We don't have any good of a call. We move on to spotlight on Pike Sir Doris. >> Good evening. It's wonderful to see you all. We have had a lot of amazing things going on in Pike um today and since the last
002time we met, as always, um our Eel Creek Elementary School choir recently performed at a Pacers game. New Augustus South invited several of their families in on a weekend and they wrote words of encouragement to their students who were preparing to take a standardized test. Um we thought that that was just such a a creative and great way to get our families engaged and also encourage our students. Today, um, several, probably hundreds of our junior and senior student athletes had the opportunity to learn about the importance of mental health from, um, the perspective of a student athlete and the challenges that go along with that. We hosted our annual mental health fair, which this year had 63 vendors and that was organized by Pike High School's brain change to mind club. Um, those students are
003amazing. I got to sit in in a bit of the student panel and just to hear them talk about um the importance of mental health, what they hope or wished adults would know, the challenges that they're facing, and even see that one of the panelists was a Pike grad that's currently enrolled in college who finds it so valuable that he came back was certainly heartwarming. And I do want to acknowledge um our district social worker, Mrs. Tanya Met and one of our department chairs, Amber McKenna, who are our bring change to mind sponsors and do a lot of work um on that event and the various events that we have to support mental health. Our Pike High School Red Devil dancers placed fourth in jazz and first in hiphop at their regional competition, advancing to
004compete at the state competition, which will be at the state fairgrounds this Saturday. Their jazz performance is scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. and their hip-hop performance is at 5:00 p. them. So, we are extremely excited for them and wish them the best of luck. Um, as you may have seen, our boys swimming team celebrated their best performance ever at state. They actually broke their own records, our school records, I think three times in one occasion. So, they were phenomenal and we are so proud of them. Our Pike High School boys basketball team will play in the regional final at Southport this Saturday at 4 p.m. Coach Teague and junior Isaiah Hill were voted Maring County Player and Coach of the Year respectively, so we would like to congratulate them as well. Um, and
005if yes, I also don't know if you follow Coach Holland on um social media, but it is a full-time job trying to keep up with the number of individual player recognitions our uh girls basketball players are receiving. And then today, they actually received a team recognition for their academic achievements. So, we're extremely proud of them. Our Pike High School performing arts department will host their annual winter showcase on Monday, March 16th at 6:30 p.m. Generally, that performance or that program takes place in the gym over at the high school, but this year it will be at the Pike Performing Arts Center. It's free admission and you get to see several of our amazing Pike High School performing arts groups in action. Um, we want to congratulate our Gy Creek Elementary School robotics team who qualified
006for their state competition. So, we look forward to sharing more about that and wish them the best of luck. Um, we want to publicly acknowledge the generous donations listed on this evening's agenda, which include an anonymous donation of $15, a $25 donation from Natalie Jackson, a $50 donation from Summer A. Furnace Lodge number 61, and a $500 from Claire Wllo on behalf of New Augusta South to our red double our red zone food pantry. um grants totaling $5,556 to support classroom projects at Eastbrook, Deer Run, Central, and College Park elementary schools, a donation of $1,400 for supplies for students at Snacks Crossing Elementary School from One Fellowship Church, and a $5,000 donation from Apex Benefits to support this year's teacher celebration event. We're so grateful to all of our donors for their support. And last
007but not least, we have some special guests from the Indiana Members Credit Union with us tonight for a check presentation. Um, thanks to an initiative that you all approved, uh, the community now has an opportunity to show their Pike pride while supporting the MSD of Pike Township with a Pike debit card. Um, and that's already paying dividends. And so we would like to invite them forward for a check presentation. Um, it's Miss Lindsay Co, Tanner Sightinger, and Batana Dominguez. >> Board, we can come forward. We going to take a picture here, too. The entire board. >> Okay. Take a picture since it's the credit. Do a couple guys. Okay. Mr. Tanner, this might be a better picture. You might have to share it. Ready? One, two, three. Perfect. Thank you so much. >> Thank you.
008>> Exactly. Thank you. >> Oh my god. >> Lord help. >> That was nice. >> All right, we're on to reports to the board. Um, policy analytics. This is Gray and Parkinson. >> Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, and Dr. Young. At this time, I'd like to introduce Mr. Matt Parkinson from Policy Analytics, who is here tonight to present an analysis of the property tax trends, including SEA1 2025, and how these factors may impact the MSD of Pike Township. MSD Pike Township has been working with policy analytics since 2025. Policy Analytics works with more than 100 Indiana school districts providing revenue forecast, taxbased analysis, and financial modeling. Mr. Parkinson ser currently serves as the project director with the firm and previously served as CFO for MSE Warren Township as well as CFO for
009Danville Community Schools. He also served as the deputy commissioner at the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance and is a certified public accountant. Mr. Parkinson, thank Park Parkinson, thank you for being here today. And at this time, I will turn it over to you. Board members, there is a copy of the presentation in your packets if you'd like to follow along. >> Good evening, everyone. >> Good evening. >> Privilege to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Uh, I'm going to go off script for just a moment if you're willing to indulge me. Mr. Jacob is in the room. He doesn't know. I'm going to give him a special shout out. Mr. Jacob was the dean at Lel Elementary School in Warren Township when I was a a fifth grade student. Don't feel anyway about
010that. >> Wow. He became legend in my family. Um, I have a younger brother that uh got a little squirly on the school bus one morning and got called into the dean's office uh and was set straight. And I'm pretty sure he never misbehaved again. So, Mr. Jacob's nicest man in the world, but you know, also took care of my brother that evening. >> Thank you for the invitation to be here. I really appreciate it. Um, we're going to talk about Senate Enrolled Act One from 2025 and property tax reform and what it means for MSD Pike, um, and for Indianapolis and Indiana school districts in general. I'll try to move, you know, reasonably quickly through it. There's a lot of technical material. Welcome questions at any point if there's anything that we want to
011discuss in more depth. So just in terms of our methodology, what policy analytics does, that's that's kind of our differentiator is our analysis goes down to the parcel level, which means when we're looking at property tax reform and property tax policies, we simulate individual tax bills and then sum it up to understand what the impact is for Pike and for all the other school districts that we work with around the state. So I am going to go through this slide because I think it's an important one despite the fact that it's kind of heavy on text. Um, Senate ruled act one is really the most fundamental reform we've had in property taxes um, since the implementation of circuit breaker or tax caps nearly 20 years ago. Um, so among the changes that that we're going
012to see um, homestead deductions are going to increase um, over the next 5 years. Um, so we just nomenclature wise when we refer to a a deduction on a homestead that's an owneroccupied property. An owner occupied property has a gross assessed value. Um, so if we have a $300,000 house, for instance, um, today before that, uh, the tax rates applied on that bill, there's a deduction that's in the neighborhood of 40% applied on that bill, by the time SEA1's fully phased in in 2031, that'll be a twothirds deduction. So that $300,000 house will be taxed on $100,000 of its value. Um, in the same way, we've got new deductions for the first time on 2% properties. So 2% properties are rental homes, um apartment complexes, farmland. Um those properties historically haven't had deductions. We're going
013to see a phased in um approach where we get to a 33% deduction 5 years from now. Um the third one and the one that's most impactful immediately is the implementation of a new homestead credit. So, all Homestead taxpayers starting in 2026 are eligible for a credit of 10% of their bill up to a maximum of $300. Um, that's an unfunded credit. Um, so it's to the benefit of the taxpayer. Um, but but it results in a revenue reduction for um, school districts and other types of local governments. Um, the next two are are really kind of closely related, but they're significant, especially for um, a community like Pike. Um, business personal property is subject to property tax. That's machinery, equipment, essentially non-fixed items um within a business environment. Um, historically or or in recent
014years, up to $80,000 of business personal property has been exempt from taxation. Um, starting in 2027, so on next year's tax bills, that goes from $80,000 to 2 million. So essentially, small businesses will be exempt from um property tax on their personal property. And then for larger enterprises, and there's a number of them here in this community, of course, for larger enterprises, for equipment put in place in 2026 and beyond, they'll be able to over the long term depreciate that property further for property tax purposes. Um, so really there's both a short-term and a long-term move on reducing um property taxes for business personal property. And then finally, some changes a little bit less significant in the Indianapolis area in terms of farmland and some of the other credits. But really what the the overall
015kind of theme here is the general assembly was was looking to provide property tax relief and in many ways they did. Um but it's going to shift the way that that school districts you know manage their property tax funds moving forward. So we'll take a look at some of the revenue impacts and what PI can expect. Um this is I think this is kind of a neat map. Um this is all 290 or so school districts around the state. Um those that are in blue saw revenue growth all the Marian County excuse me assessed value growth for 2026. All of the Marian County school districts did. Um really the theme is um communities in urban areas and suburban areas generally saw growth. Where we see the red and the orange is where communities saw declines
016in net assessed value this year. Those are typically communities that are heavy in farmland. Having said that, we're going to look at a slide in just a moment. We expect that most school districts around the state are going to see declines in net assessed value each year from now through the remainder of the implementation of um Senate Enrolled Act One. So again, that's just going to change the way that we think about property taxes for school districts. Um this is a chart showing the composition of um the taxing districts um within the school district boundaries. A taxing district is a unique set of taxing units. So the county government, city government, township, in your case, it's single township, of course. And really 98% of your tax base, 97% of your tax base is within one
017taxing district, which is the the chart on the far left. Um in teal is the school district's tax rate. Um board, as you're all aware, it's a $1 tax rate um for the the community. Uh and then we've got the overlapping tax rates, but again, the county and the township. You know, one item that's noteworthy for the three um township school districts on the west side of Marian County is with fire service still um sitting at the township government level as opposed to the consolidated city level. Um the township tax rates in Pike, Wayne, and Decatur, not for the school district, but for the township government itself, are somewhat higher than they are in the rest of the county. You do pay a little bit less um toward the city's property tax rate um because
018you're not paying into fire for the city. Um but on the whole that the the township's fire rate is a little bit higher than the cities would be. So it's just a unique element to the west side um school districts. There's a little bit more property tax liability for fire services. U this chart takes a look at a five-year history. And again the the the one on the left is almost all of the tax base um here within MSD Pike. Um five-year history. Um, your school district has has kept a level tax rate um, by design, I'm certain, um, for the last few years with really the only change being after passage of the the operating referendum um, implementation of that 24 cent rate. Um, that's been a a common strategy and I think a
019strategy that's easy for taxpayers to understand when they look at their tax bill. Um, I do have probably the unfortunate duty to share. It's going to be challenging for anybody to maintain that strategy moving forward. Um that's a that's a function again of Senate Rule Act one. So again we expect assessed values to decline over the next five years. And the fraction for the tax rate is the levy in the numerator and the assessed value in denominator. So even in a school district that holds levies stable as those assessed values decline we expect to see tax rates go up. Um that's not necessarily an indication of what's going to mean for a taxpayer. Um, but it's just a function of those new deductions coming into place. So, we're going to project what your tax rates
020could look like, but that's really kind of the significance of of that piece of the reform is tax rates are going up and it's just going to be a different kind of message for for taxpayers around the state. >> Can I ask a question at that point? >> Sure. >> So, if I'm what what I hear you saying is so while what they're paying in taxes would not necessarily change, the tax rate would go up just because it's the because the assessed value has gone down. That's right. In some cases, tax bills will go down as a function of their deductions increasing >> and then that 10% credit. And in fact, we expect your typical taxpayer to pay a lower tax bill in 2026 than they did in 2025. >> Okay? >> But even in
021future years as it starts to rebound a little bit, that tax rate increase isn't necessarily correlated with a tax bill increase. >> Okay? >> They'll have a lower tax base on their tax bill and then a higher tax rate. >> Okay. >> May I also ask a question? So the 26 will be probably the best year for uh for us >> in terms of the taxpayer. Yes, >> we do anticipate 2026 will be the best year and it'll start to bounce back in 2027 and their tax bills probably in that year will look pretty close to what they looked like in 2025. >> Okay, thank you sir. >> You're welcome. >> So to kind of put this in a nutshell, the pie is going to get a lot smaller when it comes to how the
022tax base is divided up uh for the school district, obviously for the fire department, for the government. >> That's exactly right. By 2031, we expect we'll be at our lowest point in terms of the overall tax base, you know, in the foreseeable future. And then from that point, assuming the law stands as it is right now, deductions will be fully phased in, we would expect it to start growing from there. But we probably won't get back to 2026 or 2025 net assessed values for, you know, close to a decade. >> Yeah. Like interest rates never be 3.5%. >> Well, that's true, too. That is true, too. That's very true. So, it's just an interesting way the property tax reform played out. the the general assembly um you know reduced reduced tax base quite a bit.
023Um I do have some better news and it's not all bad news. Um you know in a relative sense for MSD PI you know as you're aware you've got a a nice balanced property tax base here in the community. good mix of homestead properties which are capped at 1%, rental properties, apartment complexes capped at 2%. Um, and then a really nice business presence which makes a big difference in terms of your overall property tax base. So on this chart, we're taking a look at your peers around the state in terms of enrollment. Um, so the five districts right above, five districts right below Pike in terms of number of students who attend the school district and then we we take that divided by total or CSS value divided by that count. And you're on the
024the end of this chart that I think you'd want to be on. you've got a little bit more assessed value base to work with per student than some of your peers do. That's especially relevant for an operating referendum fund because it means you can have a lower tax rate and you do have a pretty modest referendum tax rate. You can have a lower tax rate and generate, you know, some more dollars to work with in a district that's on the opposite end of this uh of this chart range. Um, looking at it within the county. Um, so as Miss Gray mentioned, I was fortunate to serve as as CFO at MSD Warren for four and a half years. I was jealous at the time of um MSD Pike and MSD Washington um for this chart
025here. It's again really healthy business presence um makes a big difference in your overall tax base. And I should say in terms of the tax reform, the one group that's really not going to see a lot is real property, commercial property. So that's, you know, physical buildings and land for business, which is a big portion of your tax base. Um and so, you know, the loss the loss in your community, you're going to feel it. maybe not as much if if reform is targeted toward that group. Uh there tends to be an inverse relationship between assessed values and tax rates. As assessed values go up, tax rates typically go down. Um that's true among your peers. You've got a relatively lower tax rate compared to many of your peers. And that correlates with the the
026higher tax base. Um and then within Marian County, and this is one that um I think you can take a lot of pride in, you you have the lowest um property tax rate among the 11 school districts in Marian County. And that's even with the operating referendum. Um you're at just over a dollar this year. Um so I think that's a signal of you know disciplined fiscal management. Um some really intentional planning um around property taxes. Um so that's again credit to you and it's to the benefit of your taxpayers. Um this is a scatter plot showing all the school districts in the state. Across the x-axis going horizontal is that assessed value per student metric. The y-axis is tax rate. Um, you can picture a sort of downward sloping line. Assess value increases, tax
027rates go down. MSD Pike is right where you'd expect to be. You're not an outlier, high or low. You're where you'd expect to be with the um assessed value level that you have. And again, this is looking at it within your peer districts by enrollment. And then within Marian County, the low tax rate, relatively healthy assessed value per student. So, I'm going to start getting into a few sort of revenue figures, but happy to answer any questions about assessed value if anybody has any. Okay, I guess I do. So, the what? So, when property tax feeds into our operational fund, right? That's okay. So, when we're saying assessed value per student, that's not necessarily when we're doing the ADM counts and that stuff. That's for the other. This is just to let us know. Okay.
028That's right. Just making sure I'm tracking >> of your four. You have four major funds. Um, education and that one's not property tax funded, right? That's your largest. You that benefits from state funding. Yeah. >> And then you have three property tax funds. Operations, um, debt service and operating referendum. So, those are the funds that are impacted by property tax reform. >> Yeah. >> So, um, what we're looking at in this chart, um, in the Navy is assessed value growth over the last decade. And, you know, we've all seen it in in home values. um you know assessed values have risen in recent years and that's what general assembly reacted to them um in the teal um we see the declines in assessed values that we're expecting through 2031 as those deductions phase in and
029especially in 2027 as we look at um business personal property being partially exempted. Um, so again, as as board as you go through setting your tax rate, um, adopting your budget this fall, my probably for you and almost everybody, the conversation is just going to feel a little bit different. Um, that $1 strategy, you could do it. You'd have to forego revenue to make that happen. Um, most districts, I suspect, are going to allow their tax rates to rise as just as a function of what's happened with tax reform. Um, this slide is an important one. Um, relatively technical. Um when Senate enrolled act one passed um the debt service fund was not protected from the impact of the 10% credit. So that's that new credit on the end of the property tax bill. So
030as Senate ruled act one passed school districts can apply that credit to both their debt service fund and the operations fund. That's different from circuit breaker and you've navigated circuit breaker for years. Circuit breaker by and large only impacts the operations fund. Um, starting in 2027, because of legislative action this year, that'll be the case for the 10% credit this year as well. This year, the district has the option to spread that credit between debt service and operations. Um, and you know, we've already talked to Miss Gray with Dr. Young about this. I encourage you to talk to your bond council, um, your your municipal adviser. >> Um, I think most districts will choose to do that. It safeguards the operations fund for one more year. Um, again, this one's a little bit text heavy,
031but I do want to hit just a couple things on this. Um, so moving down kind of toward the bottom of this underneath the column that says or the the rows that say net levy. Now, I want to point out one area where property tax reform really did deliver property tax relief for taxpayers, but to the challenge of school districts is on an operating referendum fund. Um, so as your assessed values decline between now and 2031, we would expect your operating referendum to decline with it. And again, that's going to be true of almost everybody in the state with a referendum fund. Um, so much so that 2026 is probably the peak year of operating referendum revenue for the duration of your referendum um until you go out to run it again. Um, again, that's
032true of almost everybody. This is as assessed values decline multiplied by that fixed tax rate, revenue for the referendum fund will go with it. Um, I want to point out too, we've got tax rates forecasted here, your tax rate this year is was a dollar. Um, if we hold the debt service levy stable and let the operations fund grow just by the the, you know, kind of standard maximum levy growth quotion it can every year, um, we'd expect your tax rate potentially to go to a$16 next year to a$110 in the year after that. And that's not a function of anybody doing anything wrong. It's just again as that denominator shrinks, that's the way the fraction works. Um, I do think that's going to be a messaging factor for taxpayers. um taxpayers are going to
033see higher rates and in fairness mo most folks, you know, don't know what exactly goes into it understandably. Um so I do think it's going to be a messaging factor for members of the community. The final piece I want to point out, >> can I slow you down there? Sorry, another question. Um >> so when we look at the rates that are going to affect the property tax though, we are only one portion of it, right? So if what we decide to do then the fire department, you know, the township government, each of those other buckets, what they decide to do is going to have an impact on that rate. It >> it will. That's exactly right. Um and you have a lot you have taxpayers who are at their their tax caps, their circuit
034breaker limit, >> which means, you know, >> the way that those dollars are distributed is proportionate to the tax rate. So if the school district has 50% of the tax rate, >> you receive 50% of that taxpayers's dollars. >> Just theoretically, if the district were to choose not to raise its rate and the other local governments did, >> but that taxpayer was already at their cap, they're still paying the same amount they ever did, but the distribution is going to go proportionately more toward the township government and the city government. >> Okay. >> Um, so from a planning perspective, I think it would be prudent to expect that your overlapping units taxing rates are probably going to go up as well. Um and and you protect your piece of the pie to a certain extent,
035you know, if you let that happen with yours as well, >> Mr. Parkinson. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh the referendum piece. >> So when when these numbers begin to go down, the referendum will shrink. >> We expect so. That's right. >> We expect it to shrink. So say you're at 20 million a year. >> Yes. >> Um it the peak year would be 26 as you say, >> right? 27 of us start going down. >> Yes. >> And we don't know what that where that will land the first year. >> Well, so so we've estimated it on here. We we assume the degree of >> I saw the estimation, but I was wonder. >> Yeah. I mean, there's there's no way to know for sure at this point. We assume the degree of of growth
036and gross assess value somewhere around 3 or 4%. >> Um, but the pace of deductions will will outpace that. They'll they'll grow larger than gross assess value, we believe. And that'll be true, we think, each year, which is why we had that declining net assessed value. So, yeah, I I will concede. These are estimates and it's hard to say for sure. That's what the number is. >> But I do think the trend of that revenue going down is probably pretty reliable. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Um I do want to point out one other piece that just I think messaging wise is important for the Marian County School Districts. And like when I was in Warren, I I spoke to our legislators about this a lot. That's on that middle line with charter share. Um so
037you're aware of this. you're sharing charter, you're sharing referendum dollars today with um with charter schools to a really limited extent. You're sharing operations fund dollars. Um part of what happened with SEA1 is through a policy that you know the state enacted that takes off in a major way um on the operations fund starting in 2028 and phasing in through 2031. So that by 2031 essentially a student who resides within MSD Pike boundaries but whose family opts for a charter school um the dollars from property taxes from the operations fund would flow to that school in proportion to their kind of piece of the tax base. Um that's a real shift in property tax policy in the sense those districts or those charter schools have historically received no or very little property tax dollars. um
038for Pike and for every Marian County district that that's another limit on the way the operations fund dollars are going to grow through 2031 and then it'll stabilize but you know short of a legislative change that's that's a part of the equation moving forward. So I just I think for for Indianapolis districts that's an important piece to understand is they're already funded by the state through you know state tuition support. Um property taxes are going to be a piece of it moving forward as well. Um, this is just an estimate of what it's going to look like for the median taxpayer. So, good news for the taxpayer, I think, in 2026. We expect for the average homeowner or the median homeowner that their tax bill will be lower in 2026 than it was in 2025.
039And really, the the bulk of that is because of the very last line, right above net liability, um, which is that 10% credit. We expect that the median taxpayer will have a credit of a little over $250 on their bill. It's unfunded um meaning that limits revenue for the school district and local governments but it is to the benefit of the taxpayer um in 2026 we expect it to rebound um and then kind of steady growth from there at a slightly slower clip than we've seen in recent years. Um I think one thing we have to keep in mind with these charts though and like you keep saying unless there's additional legislation. >> So at any point in the future they could look at this and say oh it's 20 not even that far in
040the future 2029 we don't like this going up. We're going to make another rule that >> Right. >> Okay. >> Yeah. That that certainly could happen. >> Yeah. >> You know one one piece of it especially is this mechanism's in place on this postcircuit breaker credit. Now, that 10% credit, to be clear, no, I've never heard these numbers, but just theoretically, there's no reason it couldn't be a 15% credit or it couldn't be capped at $500 instead of $300. I mean, the mechanism is there now. So, if the state wants to control property taxes in that way, that's how they could do it. >> Yeah. So, I I mainly wanted that clear. You know, we're in election year this year and then every two years for anybody who may be watching this and considering how
041they're going to vote, the impact this is having on the township. So, thank you. Uh so just looking at at revenue, these two lines are really close to each other for Pike. But what we've got the blue line is for your operations fund, what we would expect as it passed in Senate World Act One. The orange line is with that one technical change where all of the 10% credit has to flow to the operations fund. So, while the gap is really small between these, assuming you choose to spread your credits to operations and debt service in 2026, we would expect you'll be on the blue line and then jump down to the orange line in 2027. But really, the broader message here is um very limited growth in the operations fund over the next few
042years. Certainly slower than the pace of cost increases from the last few years, you know. So what that really requires of any school district, not not just bike, but any school district is um we have to be really disciplined about the things we can control within operations to the extent we can. If there's measures we can take to lower utility costs, um being mindful of the fuel we're putting into school buses, staffing, um some of those hard decisions are are realistic now that we look at at you know this revenue picture moving forward. >> Wow. Do you have a similar graph to this that overlays and I know all of these are projections but rates of inflation like where that hits with it because that that's what kind of matters in this too, right? We
043we see up so that's fine but if the inflation up is at a steep steeper angle >> that that kind of paints another story for us >> so and for the community. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So we don't right now but I'd be happy to provide something like that and send it over to Miss Gray so she could supply it to you. Another issue uh Miss Graves, if I might ask, um the top line, uh that m Mr. Parkinson is talking about um are we going to do our best to make that get the best out of that top line while we can in 26 before we move over into 27? >> Yes. Um >> do you have any any do you have any idea how you're going to work that? If you don't
044if it's not a bad question to ask. >> No, actually it's a great question. Uh Dr. Young and I have been speaking with our adviserss at Baker Tilly as well as policy analytics to see how we can pivot now that we know um the impact we see the the modeling um and he mentioned uh kind of changing our strategy from a tax rate neutral strategy to a levy neutral strategy just to make sure we protect those funds. So we are in talks right now um we haven't prepared that budget yet. We'll be doing that this summer, but we'll absolutely have discussion with the board and administration on how we're going to move forward. >> Thank you so much. >> Yes. >> One thing with u picking back off what Steve said, uh when you put
045together uh a report to come back to us uh about inflation, uh can we get like a worst case scenario? And what I mean by worst case scenario, you know, things that going outside that directly affect our economy like the war, uh, you know, cost of materials going up, uh, because that's going to have a direct effect like we mentioned we have to be mindful how much gas that we put in buses, but you know, when the well diesel fuel we put in buses, but when the price of the barrel goes up, you know, that directly affects so if we can get a a worst case scenario, say maybe 15%, you know, uh, defect. You know how far I know that's pretty stretched. If we if we have to go 15% below what we got
046now, everyone's in trouble. Sure. But just kind of have that mindset what we're looking at. So that I think it hits harder to keep us on track with. We really be need to be mindful of good stewardship with our finances. >> Yeah, we're we're happy to do that. You know, even outside of this, one thing that, you know, we're fortunate to work with your team on is some kind of cash flow modeling. Um and we've got different cost assumptions in there. Um, and it's it'd be, you know, straightforward for us to to make sort of different assumptions around what those things could be. And we're happy to do that and help model it out and share it and, you know, just take a look at what those would look like. >> Mr. Mr. Parkinson, is
047there any way that u uh you could create a package or create a strategy, a structure uh that could be communityfriendly? um not only community friendly but board friendly for people to be able to look at what's really happening and um be able to to monitor what's going on with our school district. >> Does that make sense? >> It it does. But yeah, absolutely. We can help you with that. You know, we have I want to be mindful of respecting, you know, roles and so on. I think we could do a really straightforward job of supplying data and helping to get it into a way that's consumable. We'd probably lean on, you know, Dr. Young and Miss Gray to make sure that it says what, you know, what Pike needs to say in terms of,
048you know, the specific measures to the school district. But absolutely, we'd be more than happy to help you with that. >> Yeah. Because education is becoming tremendously difficult to finance based on legislation, >> right? And and and I think um um um people need to know, you know, people really need to know what's happening with their tax dollars as it relates to their child's education and and and the burden that these cuts, I use the word cut, going to take place and how it's going to to weaken some areas in our system, whether we realize it or not. You know, we talk about how strong we are, but if you don't have the dollars, you you you you you become weak. And and and we want I think we ought to have the community to
049know the processes that are taking place in our school district so um they won't be caught by surprise. >> Sure. >> That's just how I feel. >> Yeah. We we'll be happy to help with that sort of thing. Absolutely. You got it. Um, so what we've got here, I've just got a few slides left to go. We've got here is a display again of your peer districts in terms of enrollment around the state. Net levy per student. Um, you're a little bit above the state average largely thanks to the operating referendum fund. Um, many school districts around the state don't have the benefit of that. Um, um, fortunately here at Pike, you do. Um, so you're a little bit above the state average, but you're really not an outlier in the slightest in terms of
050your peers on enrollment. Um here within the county it's it's similar um somewhat on the higher end in terms of um dollars available per student and that really goes back to you know even with all the challenges that we're discussing this evening healthy property tax base disciplined um tax rate management from you know from the school board from the school administration you know in recent years. Um, so you know, we are in a place fortunately where Pike's able to raise, you know, some degree of dollars above Marian County peers, you know, to pour into your programs. Uh, and then just isolating it to the operations and the operating referendum funds. Again, this is on an enrollment basis. Um, you're toward the end of this chart where you'd like to be. Um, a little bit higher
051dollar amount to work with per kid. Um, and then finally within Marian County, again, you're you're toward the portion of this chart where you'd prefer to be, I would imagine. And it's really it's the operating referendum fund that's a key differentiator. Um that's why I prepared. I do have just kind of one thing I want to I'm kind of thinking about um Mr. Hoofer your question about the the various funds even as the education fund isn't impacted by this. You know the district transfers dollars from education operations. So, as there's pressure on those property tax funds, even that can have an impact on classroom expenditures via, you know, increased need or pressure to transfer dollars to the operations fund. >> Right. Yeah, that's what I was going to say because if we do that, then
052that's taking it out of Yeah, that fund is getting hit at state level also. So, >> right. Yeah. That it hasn't been a robust year in terms of growth either. >> Um, so those are the materials we prepared. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Uh are you hearing anything about uh referendums uh the shape that it might take now? >> Well, so um referendum legislation was reformed um as you're probably aware. >> Yes. >> Um it has to be run in even years um in the fall election. So 2026, 2028, 2030. Our sense is that there's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or so school districts around the state. >> 44. >> Yeah. So similar numbers that that choose to run one this fall. >> Yeah. Um, we'll see what what
053passage rates are. It's hard to say. Um, yeah, it strikes me as plausible that a lot of districts passing, a lot of districts not passing could have an impact on further legislative changes. Um, there was there weren't modifications to it um this year. So, I guess we'll see what comes in future years. >> Also, Mr. Mr. Parkinson with the cuts that we see are the reductions that we see, however you want to say it as an accountant and as >> sure >> a mathematician, I call it a cut. Um, do you perceive uh in the education arena that more people now will start doing referendums more often than none? >> Uh, I do. I do. And and the evidence we have for that is this year, you know, I don't that I can quantify it,
054but we have a number of school districts around the state who have not run a referendum in the past that are choosing to do so this fall. And then we also have districts that are not at the end of their referendum cycle, um, but who are going to go ahead and run it early. Um, and in those cases, many cases, as much as we've talked about challenging numbers here, and they are challenging, there are other communities where it's arguably even more so, if they have a lot of farmland or depending upon if they don't have as much business property presence. And so, they're looking at meaningful reductions in existing operating referendum revenue, and some districts are choosing to run at a higher rate this year. So, yes, I think the answer to your question is
055that I think the calculus around referenda probably has changed. >> Mr. And you did mention that someone is in a referendum now and they begin put themselves in a position to apply early before that referendum is up. Um, in your lens, would you look at going to the end of the referendum, then applying or having a referendum like some other districts have done and then apply for another referendum? >> Well, I mean, it's certainly a community based decision. And I think one strategy that to me makes a lot of sense is um the cycle before it would be your last shot. Yeah. >> To me it it makes sense to run one then. >> Um so yours passed in 2024 I believe. So you'd be due to run it in 2032. Believe me, I'm not
056telling you what to do. That's certainly a local decision. I think there could be merit in choosing to do one in 2030. >> Um or by 2030 >> or before just in case it doesn't go well. also have an opportunity to kind of see what happens between now and then with some of the other referenda. >> Sure. >> That are going uh also to see what >> what the trend is and what what our our friends down at state house do. >> Right. I >> I think in many cases, Dr. Young, when we talk about referendums, this is, you know, I don't know much, but I'm just happy to be here. Um uh when we talk about referendums, I think it's the attitude that we create in the community uh that uh uh uh people
057buy into the referendums and go to uh uh the voting uh box uh to make the sacrifice for the referendum. And uh I think it's how we manage the referendum inside and outside. Uh to to to help people to understand that we're great stewards of a referendum and when we come back um uh we we we we hope that you would look at our track record uh as a district handling the referendum. I think does that do you think that plays a role in that? >> Yeah, I think that's well said. You know, >> thank you so much. One one thing that I think is really important to do is remain in constant communication with the community about the way the referendum dollars are being spent, being invested into your your people, into your kids
058and into your programs. So that way it's it's a familiar conversation um when you get back to election time. Um I think if you know if we if we were to approach the community and they kind of forgot about it because it was eight years ago and we have to have this tax conversation again, that's that's a tougher that's a tougher avenue. >> Yeah. Thank you so much, Mr. >> Welcome. Thank you. So the this type of analysis that you do personally is this or do you do this primarily for urban schools or are you doing this for some of the rural schools that are in the >> it's all the above. Um we are fortunate to work I think with all 11 school districts in the county. Um and you know we Lake County
059and so on but yes we also work with rural districts >> and I would assume the numbers for the rural districts are looking a lot like this or even like you said worse because of the farmland. >> Yeah I mean it's it's different factors. The farmland makes a big difference in rural communities. um their home values oftentimes are somewhat lower so that impacts not as much. >> Okay. >> Um but then every story's every district's got their own story. Again, I think in Pike I think the charter school sharing is it's just a noteworthy element. Um >> where I'm going with that, I I agree with the the messaging to the community and and all of those things. I also don't see this getting better if we don't make changes at the state house. And
060it is generally not the reps from our district >> that are doing this to us. And so I just I I I've kind of been banging this drum in a lot of our meetings that I I really think we need to be working with other school districts around the state to get the messaging out that this has to change because it's not just hurting school districts like ours. It is hurting the rural school districts. It is is hurting all of them. And until those voting practices change to stop that from happening, it's only going to get worse. I I don't I don't see a world where we stay on this chart that you've laid out because of the people downtown. They're going to continue to shift it to to be harder. So that that's why
061I was asking that >> and and to add on to what he's basically saying, and I don't know if you when we talk about the rural um the rural communities never saw it coming. >> Yeah. because the Indiana legislators have always done their best to to to hamper Marian County. >> And so now it's it's spilling out into the rural areas uh with their hospitals, their daycarees and all of that. But their main objective was to bruise to womb Marian County. We just might as well be frank about it. But now it's hitting these rural areas and some of these schools are going to have to do more consolidation than what they've been doing in the past. >> Yeah. I think there's going to be farreaching impacts and really it's phased in over five years.
062So, >> you know, we're going to feel a certain way in 2026 and probably the challenge grows for a few years. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Thank you, sir. >> Hey, thank you so much. >> Sorry to hold you. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Gray and u Mr. Parkinson for your presentation tonight. Great. >> We move on to uh first reading uh Dr. Maggie Bishop. >> Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, and Dr. Young. Um this evening, I bring to you policy 9500, which was discussed during your work session for your review. um upon our return at our next board meeting, I will be bringing this policy back with um any feedback or any revisions um that you would like um for approval. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Mish. Action items.
063First up is our minutes of the board of education regular meeting February 26, 2026. Motion to approve. >> So move. Second move and second that we approve our minutes from February 26 regular board meeting. All in no discussion. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. >> Okay. Thank you. We are on to HR report. Dr. Hunter. >> Mr. President, members of the board, Dr. Young, I request your approval of HR report as presented. >> So move. >> Second. >> Moved and second that we accept our HR report as presented. Due to the nature of our HR report, no discussion at this time. Move on to vote. All in favor say I. I. >> Opposed. Action item C, supplemental board report. Dr. Hunter. >> Mr. President, members of the board, Dr. Young. I request your approval
064of the supplemental report as presented. >> So move. >> Move. >> Second. >> Been moved and second that we get our accept our supplemental board report as presented. Again, no discussion. We're on to vote. All in favor say I. >> I opposed. Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> Action item D. Um, Mrs. Harding. >> Good evening, board president, members of the board. Dr. Young, I am requesting your approval to apply for the attached build grant on behalf of Guyian Creek Elementary. I make a motion we approve the apply for the build grant for Gian Creek Elementary School. Second move and second that we accept action item D as presented. Are there any questions? >> Yes. U >> the the grant is that the Frog Street? >> Uh Frog Street is actually the preschool curriculum
065is a contract. So that's right. That's something I was just looking. Okay, that's no problem. Okay, we'll get to that one. >> Sure. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you, President. >> You're welcome. All All in favor say I. >> I oppose. >> Thank you, >> Mrs. Hartman. We have action items E, F, and G. Mr. Chad Hecman. >> Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, and Dr. Young. I request approval of action items E, F, and G as presented. >> I move that we approve action items E, F, and G as um presented. >> Second. >> We moved and second that we approve actions item E, F, and G as presented. Are there any questions on action items E, F, or G? >> Yes, Mr. President. >> Uh Dr. more >> uh the
066uh the uh contract uh that you have with the 5G BPS. >> Yeah. >> Uh that's a 36-month contract totaling 52,000 >> for the um internet services action item. Yes. >> But then you say during the process of time there might be an option to go to 10, >> right? >> Okay. Um the um if you did the 10 that would be over uh 70,000 for the 10 um that would be$,950 a month. My question is um how soon do you think you will get to that movement from the 52,0002 to the 70,0002? How soon do you think that will happen? So, how we handle these bids for internet services and and also as a reminder, these are um -ate funded. So, this doesn't impact our budget a lot. It does impact our budget, but
067-ate funds about 90% of these costs. So, um, but we typically will re-evaluate at that 5-year point and decide, is this worth putting it out for bid again or or do we want to exercise our option to extend this contract? >> Well, if you're going with the uh 1450 contract, you would not be looking at five years. You'd be looking at the end of three years, right? >> Yeah. Let me pull it up. I I think that is correct. So at the end of that at that point, whichever option that we're going with, that's when we'll decide, do we want to exercise our option to continue or do we want to rebid this? And sometimes um it's in our best interest to continue on the contract that we've already negotiated. We do that a lot
068with our um wide area network, which actually is on our contracts tonight. We were asking for to exercise our option to extend that contract and not rebid it because what what we look at is if prices are going up on these services, it's in our best interest to not rebid and to keep the price locked in where we were before. >> You you and I had an opportunity to work together with the computer. >> Yeah. >> And I asked you about the speed of it. >> Yeah. >> And you told me you weren't interested in that at that particular time. You had other things you were concerned about, but I'm still worried about the speed of of the movement of our computers in our system. >> Sure. >> Uh what are you doing to improve
069that? >> So, we're on a replacement cycle for those computers and we will as they hit the end of their life, we um we replace those devices, but we certainly are concerned about the speed of our network of our network and our computers that are on the network. We want to make sure that they perform their functions. >> Yeah. Okay. I was just curious the fivey year. Why didn't you look at the fiveyear which was 81,000 um if you're going to do the 10? >> So we could like and so the way that bid works is we can exercise any of those either one of the yes that would be 81,000 if you did for 60 months. Okay. I was just looking at that and see you know I was just interested in it. >>
070Sure. Absolutely. uh because it's money and uh we just heard uh the situation that we got coming in the near future. Is that right, Miss Graves? >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Absolutely. >> Mr. I had a couple questions. So, one the um the networking equipment um is that something that we're replacing like existing like you were mentioning before coming to end of life equipment or >> Yeah. So, that's our district core equipment. Um that's where those are the big switches that the internet comes into at our data center which is housed at the freshman center. Um and those have reached the end of their useful life. So it's time to swap them out so that we're um up to up to speed actually impact the speed issues.
071Dr. Okay. And then the other one I had was the metronet whenever I was looking them up. >> They seem like a their business model is to actually bring their fiber >> Yeah. to the the organization is that baked in the cost of them bringing their fiber that's baked in 1450 a month. >> It's part of the contract part of the contract and we're very fortunate or Metronut's also very fortunate their fiber runs right right along Scienceville Road. So the run is not very long. They just have to get it >> into the data center. >> I think I I like the idea that all of the equipment is paid for. All of the connection is paid for and all we have to do is uh whichever contract you go with whether it's the 36month
072or whether you go with the 60-month. >> Yeah. >> Um we just have to pay that bill. >> Um and not have to pay for the equipment nor putting fiber optic in. There is a cost >> to put fiber optic in. Thanks for helping Mr. Heck out tonight. >> Absolutely. >> Are there any other questions on EF or G? If not, we're on to vote. All in favor say I. I. Oppos. >> Thank you, Mr. Heck. >> Thank you. Um, action item H, Mr. Clayton. >> Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board. Dr. Young, I'm seeking your approval of action item H to seek bids for the Early Learning Center expansion project as presented. I make a motion that we approve the request to seek bids for the Nathaniel Jones Early Learning Center expansion
073project. >> Second move and second that we accept action item H as presented. Are there any questions? >> Question Dr. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Mr. Gruber. >> Um 18 bids, 18 different bids. >> Uh you have Core Construction who's been in Indiana for 13 years. Mhm. >> Uh which is a company's been 89 years old. My my question to you is um they're going to oversee the bidding. Are they going to get a I've seen their work, looked at the website and did some research on it. Are they going to do any of the construction work that Okay. They're just going to handle the bidding. >> Yeah. We we opted Dr. Young and I had this conversation before we even started this project and we decided to move forward with the construction management
074company as advisor. Okay. Okay. >> So, they do not self-perform any of the work. >> Okay. That's what I wanted to be clear. >> Okay. All right. You have a question? >> Yeah, I've got a question. And I don't want this to come across wrong because obviously I want us to get this building built. I want to bring all of our kiddos back up there for this and other construction things that we're looking at. Are we estimating in with the factors we we add a building that's going to add electricity that's going to add like you know there there there are ongoing costs that that go up after we we've added the building. I'm I'm assuming we're doing and maybe we can see at some point that analysis of how those extra charges are going
075to fit into the operations knowing that our operations budget is going to go down. It just again I want this is a great thing to do. We need to have more of our kids in early learning. I wish we could have all, you know, wish the other stuff with early learning hadn't happened. I just also don't want us to back ourselves into a corner where all of a sudden then we have to reverse on something because we we added ongoing expenses knowing how how these rates are going. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. If I may, so we as a school district very very fortunate many years ago, like 20 25 years ago, there was a real push to bring energy managers to all of the local school districts. There were grant opportunities, different
076funding sources. In fact, that's how we got Rob Jordan 25 years ago to become our energy manager. >> Well, he's now sat in that seat for 25 years, and he is exceptional at what he does. So most school districts, if they want to look at any type of an energy savings program, they have to contract out a company to come in and do an assessment of all of their facilities, all of their HVAC equipment, their capacitor banks at the building to determine how we can save money. >> Rob does that for us. >> Okay, >> it's already baked into a salary. He does retro commmissioning for us on an annual basis. looking at our night set back, looking at our programming lines, looking at our capacitor banks, our power factor, all of the things that
077go into our electricity bills, our water bills, and he analyzes them on on a monthly basis. So, every time that we get a bill, it gets uploaded into a system called Energy Cap, a software that he uses, and he analyzes where we're leaking, and he can see very, very quickly, hey, there's a there's an uptick at Guy Creek Elementary School. Let's find out why. and then we're able to cut that off. We've had companies come in and try to sell us those serviceses and and you know what they tell us? They said, "We can't save you any more money. The margins aren't there for us to make any profit and for you to save money." So, we are trying to be very cognizant of what we're doing. And I think we're also positioned really well
078with your concern particularly on the electricity side. We are just a little bit behind some of our other school districts with LED lighting. So there is another cost savings there that we haven't even tapped into yet that we can that will almost completely offset the additions that we're looking at. >> Okay, that that helps that just knowing those factors because again we're hearing everything with the money and we're voting to you know expand something else. Also want the community to hear that that okay these are >> the u >> with that said Mr. Mr. Rubert the the idea of inflation uh is has been figured will be figured in into the bids I hope are or am I out of line with that >> what do you mean they'll be factor >> for instance say
079this year uh say we start in July >> Uhhuh. And um let's say uh still uh for the building was uh 750,000 by the end of November it could be 950,000. Do we have those those factors going to be uh in the bid? Uh because we don't want to get into a lot of change orders. Am I right? >> Sure. And and a lot of that um that is in incumbent on the contractor to figure that out on their own. point. >> Um, we have actually seen some f very favorable bids in in local um, bid packages just recently. Uh, I know there's been a steep increase over the last year, but if you shorten that up and look at maybe the last 3 to four months, there's actually been a slight decrease. And I
080think a lot of that has to do with there's there's less big projects going on or projects are coming to a close. So contractors are looking to load up their docket with some some projects. And I believe this is a really favorable project because they don't have to overcommit a bunch of labor resources because it's not a full high school. It's not a, you know, a big hospital. It's a smaller project that kind of fills the gap. So, I think this is a very attractive project to the contractors in the area. I'm I'm very optimistic with the bids that'll be coming in. My my next question is I'm going to always ask this uh because we live in a diverse world uh no matter uh uh what people and what laws have been passed and
081what has been taken away from our society. Uh are we uh planning to have minorities uh work on this project? >> Yeah. And and I think we'll actually see more minority owned companies bid on this. Um, I've shared this with the board many times before, but the difference with this project and some of the other projects we've done is the other projects we do it as a general contractor and then they sub everything out. And the only thing we have control on at that moment in time is the GC, that prime contractor. In this situation, we have essentially 18 prime contractors. So, you know, if you look out into the construction world, there's only a few major firms that are minority owned right now. >> Understand? But there's a bunch of smaller contractors that do
082very specific work in the industry that are minorityowned. And once again, it's something that Core Construction is committed to. That was something that was brought up in our interview process. And and I think we're going to see a lot of minority owned companies come to the table. >> If I'm not out of order, Mr. President, would it be uh uh um conducive for us to to make sure we have a line or a paragraph in there making sure uh in this contract that that these contracts when they come in that we could say something from uh our perspective that we take into consideration minority contract? >> I don't know. We may want to speak with legal. >> Okay. >> I'm not sure that we can especially now. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And and and I
083might add uh Mr. Guber stated Dr. Moore that um >> that he's been asked that that he's he's explained this more than once because before you come on that was always my my number one question and concern is what what opportunities is minority getting uh on bids and contracts in our community because we want to be equitable and fair and all of our uh dealings. And so that is a concern, but I but I but I do think that it'd be prudent upon us to maybe check legal to see if see if we can do that. >> And when we talk about minorities, Mr. President, we're not just talking about afroamericans. We're talking about Latinos, Asians. We talking about the whole gamut. Let's not let's not get hung up on that. >> Yeah. >> When
084we we talk we want to see everybody >> if possible be a part of what we're doing >> here in Pike, >> right? So who who will monitor um when you in the bidding um just from previous what I know that once they get the bid who monitors to make sure that the material is not subpar material to get that bid. >> Yeah. And and that's why we're going with the construction management firm on this because >> we need somebody. So once all the bids come in >> we have to we will look at the lowest what they call responsive and responsible bidder. >> Okay. So then what happens is core construction will sit down with their team and they will go through the entire bid package and make sure they hit every line item.
085>> Okay. >> So we call out specific um cost unit costs. We look at the specifications. Are they matching exactly what we're calling out in in the bid spec in the project specifications? And they have to assess that and analyze it. So you may have company A and they had the lowest bid, but when Core Construction goes through and they do the assessment, they may say, "Oh, they're missing this. they're going to they're going to furnish us with a a subgrade piece of steel >> or they're calling for a different air handler unit. They would come back to us and say, "Hey, Mr. Gruber, this is what this bid said." So, yeah, it's $100,000 lower, but they're putting in equipment that you don't want or that we didn't call for and then we could look
086at the next uh responsible and responsive bidder. >> Did we do that with the the high school gym? >> No, the the the high school gym floor was purchased on a state purchasing agreement. >> Yeah. Okay, >> couple questions real quick. Um, Core Construction, who chose them for to manage the project? >> Uh, we did. Pike did. I mean, we had a committee. >> They had a committee. Okay. Um, and then you talked about the interview process. Uh, 3.1 client references and 3.2 subcontract subcontractor vendor references. Uh, will they not ask the question because they got a zero out of 10 and five out of 10? Were they just would they just not ask those questions? It's going to be in the contracts that we're going to vote on next with uh Miss Gray. Uh
087during in the interview, sorry, with the interview results, I just noticed that um and what that means is 3.1 positive feedback from previous clients, particularly uh K through2 school corporations or other public entities regarding the firm's performance as CMA, ability to meet deadlines, manage budgets, and resolve conflicts effectively. So the possible score could have been a 10, but I see that it was a 0.0 on that. >> Oh, sorry. So all of those were zero because those were references that we then I I I failed to put those in there. I apologize. Those weren't brought to us at the time we did this portion of the evaluation. This evaluation um was what we did after the interviews. the committee came together and this was the the the score of the evaluations and then we have
088all the references that we called all of these subcontractors uh and other people that have done business with them and I can get you that information but I I apologize I I missed that. Okay, I didn't update this document before I I put it in there. >> So So that leads me to go to because looks like they got a total of 74 well 75 out of 100. Um >> so sorry core >> well if the the total down uh at the total of the yeah core >> yeah core got a 79.6 >> oh cuz you you don't have the the two the 3.1 3.2 cuz on the contract that we're about to vote on here it says 74.9 if I got this correct >> core is the green line >> is it the green
089line? Yeah. Core is just the green. Yeah. >> Yeah. The average. So, yeah. So, what it's showing they were the average was 74.9 across all of the firms that we interviewed. >> Okay. >> So, their 79.6 shows how much higher above the average that they were. >> So, and have we worked with them before on any project management? >> In my time here, we have not had a construction management company at all. >> Okay. So, if you could um if you could just get those those references Yeah. the reference number the reference scores out to us. Uh, I know you won't be able to do it before we vote next year, but if you can so just for our records that that way we'll know. >> Yeah. >> And I'm I'm sure that you've done
090some of your research, but I I would I would note that Core Construction is the number one K12 builder in the country. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Not not just here in Indianapolis, but >> all over >> in the in the country. >> Yeah. I think it's eight areas that they're in and um K K through 12 is has been uh their most effective piece. >> Mhm. Uh so I'm not going to say let's table this until you get those numbers to us. Uh I think president will handle that uh the right way. >> I'll absolutely get it to you though. >> Yeah. >> Is that that fine? >> All right. Are there any other questions or concerns? Okay. No questions or concern. We're on to vote. All in favor say I. >> I opposed. >>
091Thank you Mr. Gruber. >> Thank you. >> We're on to I NJ Mrs. Monet Gray. >> Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, and Dr. Young. I request your approval of action items I and J as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved and second that we accept action items I and J as presented. Are there any questions on action item I or J? No question. We're on the vote. All in favor say I. >> I oppose. >> Thank you, Mrs. Gray. We're on to board member items. Dr. Moore. >> Well, um I've talked quite a bit today. Thank you all for listening. >> Um um we wish the young men tomorrow >> a great victory Saturday. Mhm. >> Um the ladies who wear red and white had to pack it in for
092the year. But I'm excited about uh what we see going on. And uh hopefully our athletic department will u begin to surge uh much higher than what it is doing right now. >> That's all I have to say. >> Thank you, Dr. Moore. Mrs. Wilson. >> Um, just Mr. Person, that was a great um presentation and Mr. Bubber, thank you for answering our questions because you guys both got drilled today. So, um I think that we got we all got um some some really good information. I learned a lot just listening to the questions that my board members asked. So, I appreciate that. Um we are going to be traveling. Um most of us are going to be going actually tomorrow morning about 6:30 in the morning heading to Louisville for what we need to
093do is get some training. I need some training on some things and I'm hoping that when I get there I'll learn a lot uh for the national training and um we just have a safe trip there. And thanks to Mr. uh Steve. He's gonna be doing the show for us. >> All right. >> The pilot. >> That's yours, >> Brown. Miss Daisy, >> Mr. Daisy. >> All right. I'm not going to get myself in trouble. All right. So, we uh I wanted to thank u Mrs. Blandon and Mr. McKini. I went on a couple of school visits uh over the last couple of weeks and uh just really appreciate their time uh answering questions, chatting with me, showing me around the schools. We have um you know that's just a microcosm. We have amazing things
094going on at those schools. I know that is the case across the board at Pike, but just really appreciate them and um I'm always, you know, Guyian is is kind of the first introduction of mine really seriously to volunteering and doing anything like that with uh with Pike and so it's always home and so it's nice to see the refresh looks again still incredible and uh just awesome to get to be there. Am looking forward to the conference this weekend. And um I I promise I will show up heavily caffeinated and uh we'll be uh ready for the uh for the trip. So you may may have to bear with me, give me a little forgiveness, but I will be on uh we will be ready to go and uh get down there. Looking forward
095to to learning and and to continuing to grow as board members. And then I just want to finally thank um everyone that had anything to do with putting on the mental health fair. Uh fabulous. I it was awesome last year and then even bigger this year. So just um major kudos to everybody involved. Really appreciate that for again for our Pike community. >> Thank you, Mr. Mr. Anderson. >> Uh congratulations to our girls basketball team and also uh well wishes to our boys basketball team and our robotics uh team for their accomplishment as moving forward. Um also thank you Mr. Gruber. Uh your presentations are always very very informative and thank you for answering our questions the way that you do. and also to the uh to Mr. Parkinson and his presentation. Uh and this
096is not for the people. I know this is the choir here, but for when people come back and reference this meeting um that is the reason why that we have to pay attention to who we vote for. Can't be emotional voters. We have to be informed voters. Uh that's all I would say. >> Thank you, M. And to Miss Barnes, >> um want to start off by saying thank you for all those Mrs. all those who put together the annual mental health fair. Sorry, I'm a little tired. I just got to get some sleep, but um it was wonderful, outstanding. I love the fact that it grew so much in just one year. Um I love our attitude as a district toward mental health. I think um we're front runners in that space, making that
097a priority, saying that we care about our children, that we care about our families, we care about um the adults who work in our district as well, and we show it by the way that we treat one another. So, I'm really happy to have been a part of that. Um I look forward to learning as well at our conference starting tomorrow and Mr. for giving us a ride in the uh in the van there. So, I look forward to a nice road trip with my fellow board members and learning alongside them and coming back to serve you even better. >> If I can jump in because I failed in this. Um, thank you to Dr. Young and everybody on the maintenance crew who at the last minute had to get the van ready for us
098because our uh initial form of transportation we were going to take my Jeep decided to uh not participate. So, uh, really really appreciate it. Not mean to cause a sudden urgency for anybody, but really appreciate them doing that. So, sorry about that. >> See, I suggested that a couple weeks ago, but you wouldn't. >> I was trying not to be a bomber and became a bigger one. So, you know, >> that's why we that's why we have it. >> All right. Um, glad to be in the number this evening. Um, had an opportunity last Saturday to participate in treasures. looking forward to hearing the numbers >> of how much was actually raised and then got the report that last year we were able to give out $80,000 worth of scholarships and that's not even including
099the classroom projects we were able to help fund. So, I'm hoping we um beat that and meet that at least meet it, but if not beat it this year. The mental health fair, as was stated, was awesome to see. Um the space that it's taking up this year from compared to last year, the number of um outside vendors that we're partnering with that are coming in. U Mr. Jacob, I applaud you and your team on that and again leading the charge with mental health in our district for all of those, not just um our students, but even those that are just in our community, the coaches and athletes that are have been recognized this year. We we salute you. Looking forward to hearing how the sectional game is the sectionals this week. Regionals regionals how
100regionals >> are gonna go this weekend and having to get the updates on the score while we're on the road. But still we'll be >> reaching back to get those updates. So anybody that's there just drop us a message so we know what's going on. Um, again looking forward to some time not just of learning but to refresh and even to get to know my the fellow board members that are going get to know them better and again coming back being able to serve our community even better. >> Thank you, Miss Kelly. Dr. Young, >> u real quick. Go ahead, Miss >> I'm sorry. This is what happens when you always the first second. But I just wanted to take time to This is Gossip. I did um went to reading and because they took
101the time, >> I just wanted to make sure you recognized they took the time to send this to me >> and I thought that um >> Thank you. >> And I just wanted you guys to see that they all signed it. all the second graders signed it and that this is my second time going to this particular class. She keeps she asked for me and then I just thought I wanted them hopefully they told me they were going to watch one of the video. So I'm hoping that they are watching so that they can see that I did recogn loud so people can hear it at home. Okay. It says >> if you can't see it I'll read it for you. You want to read it? >> Yes. It says March 6, 2026. Dear Mrs.
102Wilson, thank you for being our guest reader for our AfricanAmerican Read in Day. We love the book I Have a Superpower. We hope you can come back soon, Miss Guyder's class. >> We all signed it. >> Mr. President, President, let's not forget uh the young man that Mr. uh gave a report tonight. I can't remember his name. I want to thank him uh for listening uh to our friend uh the last 40 or 50 years that he's been around doing what he's doing. Uh he's >> Mr. Jacob saw one of his fifth graders in action today. So that's amazing. But you don't look a day over 70, man. >> Dr. Dr. Honey, I'm sorry. Dr. Young. >> All right. Well, um I you know, I'm gonna follow that up by thanking um Mr. Jacob. I
103think the athletic mental health summit today was outstanding. The children did a great job of of posing great questions. The content I thought was phenomenal. So, I think that was u just an awesome event. I I do want to recognize that we have Mrs. Hoofer who is a member of the Pike Township Educational Foundation. I think my job now is to drive up bids because I never win. If I bid on something, someone always wants to out bid me. So, I did my part. But we had a lot of fun and thank you to the educational foundation for an awesome evening, but also thank you for what you do for us all year long in support of our students and our staff and good luck to our young men on Saturday. Thank you. >> Thank
104you, Dr. Young. Uh I just want to wish all of our travelers tomorrow safe travel and uh hope you again enjoy your time and learn and come back, share. I want to appreciate our board for uh their continued development and uh seeking to develop and I like what Miss Kelly said in terms of serving and coming back and serving our community. We take our positions serious. Um we love what we do and it's um sometimes a thankless job. So I thank you all for uh your your service to our community. Thank our entire administration for for your service and what you do to for our community and we just have a desire to to uh work together and uh do uh a better job. Want to do an update on our um assistant ad that
105will be on our board report agenda for the next board meeting. So I want others to know that. So um that has not been a forgotten item. All right. Uh, nothing else like to entertain a motion to adjourn. >> So move Mr. President >> meeting ajourn trials. for me.