001Start to the flag of the United States of America to the standy andice for all. Mr. Pierce Mr. >> Mrs. >> Mr. No additions or deletions hearing of patron. Good evening patron. Thank you. Presentations and recognition. >> Good evening. It's my honor to stand before you tonight to talk about an outstanding educator amongst us. On Friday, November 21st, 2025, I was fortunate enough to travel to Indianapolis with Mrs. Watkins, principal at Manchester Elementary, and Mrs. Janei, corporation curriculum director to the fourth annual Indiana education excellence awards da in downtown Indianapolis. Uh, this recognizes schools and individuals who have displayed excellence in their approach to teaching and inspire to inspire a hunger for learning in their students. This year, only two STEM teachers were recognized in the state of Indiana and we're extremely excited to be
002honored by one of those teachers tonight or to honor one of those teachers tonight. So at this time I would like to ask Mrs. Janei to come up and please share uh some information about Mr. Joel. I'm going to read to you just an excerpt from the nomination narrative. Good morning scientists greets Mr. energetically as students enter his room with excitement and curious anticipation of what's to come. And what's to come in Mr. Iikenower's class never disappoints. Joel embraces the mindset that sometimes you just need to poke the world and see what happens. He shares this inquisitive thinking with his students by asking them probing questions such as what do you notice? What do you wonder? Joel has created a school atmosphere where every student believes they are a scientist. constructed an organic curriculum rooted
003in conceptual understanding and rich in hands-on sensory based inquiry. Joel thrives in building opportunities for children to do STEM and extend those activities into home and outside school learning. Where is Mr. Iikenau's classroom? It's anywhere, everywhere. During the first week of school, Joel takesu his students outside to introduce them to the wonders of the world around them. He talks about developing one's senses to become a better observer. Listen for the birds, feel the texture of the soil, smell the scent of a flower. He asks students to ponder designs in nature and to think about how those designs have influenced engineers tasked with coming up with solutions to solve real world problems. From tadpoles to pumpkins to rocks to cars and ramps to tuning forks and more, there was always something It's messy. It's challenging. It's
004labor intensive. And it's wonderful. And as I said to Joel before, uh you really are the poster child for STEM excellence. You not only teach STEM, you live it every day. There's no one more genuinely suited to represent STEM excellence in Indiana than you. At this time, let's please watch a video that was shared with this teacher's family, colleagues, and student body on Tuesday, November 25th during a celebration in his honor. I think my favorite is his greeting of his students. Hello, scientist. He sets the stage for learning and exploring. He always greets them at the door with something for them to observe as they walk into his room. He's building excitement before they even sit down. Joel is a phenomenal educator who goes above and beyond to make sure students feel heard, important, loved,
005and gain a deep love for science. STEM is always a favorite for my students. My students love going outside and being immersed in learning. John is the prime example of enthusiastic teacher. He keeps the kids engaged in his lessons as well as outside of his special. He takes their curiosity and uses it to drive his instruction. As a teacher, Joel finds ways to constantly be teaching and engaging the student in one way or another. He has a way of grabbing the students attention and keeping it for the entire 50 minutes. As a colleague, I have enjoyed and appreciated the way he pops into my classroom to add a tidbit of STEM related to whatever I am teaching. I admire his enthusiasm, his energy, how he gets engaged and involved always with a smile on his
006face. I don't think I have ever seen him having a bad day and he probably has some. I also love how he has his classroom full of real things, plants, insects, frogs or one of my greatest pleasure work with students, especially outdoors. The little ones at NES around eager to learn excited about finding bugs, flowers, and trees. It is These students engaged enthusiasm curious when you look outside of elementary school you will notice the work of Mr. during STEM flowers and planted during STEM classes by students. New trees planted with third grade students, a solar waterfall, the hoop house and bird feeders attracting birds for students to observe through their classroom windows. Mr. instills in all of our students at NES a love for learning, a curiosity about how things work and grow, and the
007ability to observe the world around them. Joel has cultivated a spirit of inquiry, curiosity, and collaboration to our building here at Manchester Elementary School. becomes many of our students favorite times of the week. And that's all thanks to Joel's excitement and dedication. At this time, I'd like to invite the 2025 Indiana Excellence in STEM Education Award winner, Mr. hour to come up. On behalf of the school board of trustees, the entire school community, and all the students who you impact on a daily basis, like to present you with this token of our appreciation, and invite you to say a few words. It's hard to be brief. something you're passionate about so much is this. Um, teaching has been in my blood for a long time. Um, and I've had only a few people try to
008steer me otherwise. I thought about this and shared with very few people. I think Sue knows this after my graduation speech for being at Wish High School. Thought of people shake my hands in the audience and a prominent businessman said to me, "What are you thinking about doing with your life?" said, "I'm going to Manchester College and I'm going to major in elementary education." Saturday goes, "I thought you'd choose something more challenging than that." And those words have stuck with me to this day. >> So, never underestimate the power of what someone in your position, school board members or anyone else has when they speak those words to someone young with ideas and aspirations in life. So, I determined then I was going to be the best at whatever I could do. And um I
009am thankful to have landed at Manchester Community Schools because this place has given me the freedom to be creative and original and to follow those passions to not take the cookie cutter and have to do it as it was taught 10 or 50 years ago to be able to innovate to be able to take my finger on the pulse of my clientele my students and figure out how to make learning relevant and important to them. I've talked with Sue about this and We found a way to transcend 3:00. Kids go home and play and repeat and do STEM lessons and students send things. I hear all the time from parents. I get parents square messages. I meet people in the grocery store. They tell me about their kids replicating or seeing and I see it
010too. They bring things in through the doorway. They share with me stories of what they noticed. Just on Saturday, a very struggling academic student. I get this message from his parent a picture of this icicle hanging from the plants at another house. Never had communication with his parent before, but she reached out to me and said, "Gabe wanted you to see this picture." And I replied back and forth and engaged with that parent. But that's a way to draw people in is to where do they fit in this world? Where do they fit in the world around us? And why are they important? And why why is everything we learn about important? Why is reading? Why is math important? It's truly so we can learn more about our own lives and scientist. So, thank you.
011Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for letting me be who I am. And thank you, Sue, for not only nominating me, but also having the dream eight, nine years ago, but to create this program eight years ago because um a lot of other schools have followed education has been one of the hottest topics and it's nice to be recognized and it's nice to be awarded. So, thank you on behalf of Manchester schools. I appreciate it very much. These are the type of recognition we need because our prosecutor there is on your staff, there's a lot of other ones out and we need to find ways to appreciate other people and recognize other people. Um because the one makes you want to work harder and do more. And um that's one thing we never run
012out of in life is appreciation and good words to say to other people. It actually builds it feeds that positive enthusiasm. And so if there can be some way that we can take moments and times to recognize other people and lift other people up in small ways or big ways, um I I think that that goes a long way. for the students, for the staff, and for everybody around. So, so thank you for the recognition. Let's keep looking at ways to make Manchester Community Schools a stronger and even better place in the future. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Financial report, Dr. Good evening. >> Yes, sir. >> So, the numbers for November in education are both reports. better than what I had originally projected and again last meeting I reminded you that in November we're
013going to make lumpsum payment for salary recognitions also I did not expect this in December I told you the state would withhold because of our declining enrollment they would do a catch up in November or in December they actually took part of it in November and part of it in December so uh with that being said if you look at the top cash flow uh we were down 13,000 in our revenue and total expenses we were 20,000 more than what we projected. So the revenue number includes the shortfall from the state for half of our ADM shortfall in our count in October. So that number is not near as drastic as I thought it be. Coming on down and the revenue numbers you can see salaries um we are high that 69,000 again that was
014because back that we completed negotiations and then the benefits we were plus uh 34 claims uh we were in better shape than actual and so overall for the month expenses were down 20. When you add in our short revenue for the month we were 33 below what we expected. So we ended the month at 2 million 378 positive in education fund. Going on to operations. The top that number is where you'll start again that is overall. So you look at total revenue we're up 33,000 when we rejected our expenses were 5,000. We say 5,000 look at that way. You look at the revenue side and then at the total expense side. So for the months we are anticipating being down 89,000. We're actually down 50. So variance is 38,000. So again negative numbers because we
015will get our tax draw for the December payment any time now hopefully before we leave for Christmas. So that will turn that into a positive and then the balance then for December will be a cash flow balance starting in January. Any questions on on that information? All right. I have three resolutions for you. Um the first one you already passed. We did this as part of the budget adoption is the resolution for tax anticipation warrant. The reason I'm bringing it back is because the language that I used uh was not quite what the attorney wanted. So this is a cut and paste from what the attorney said I needed to have. Uh basically this is authorizing us to use the Indiana bond bank for operation loan. We did this in 25 was doing in 26.
016U we can't tell you what the interest is because we don't know that until the loan passes. We also can't tell you the amount because we won't know that until we get a budget order. So this is simply giving us permission to use the bond bank for an operation loan. We will take out 80% of our total levy for 26. We paid half of it back after our first distribution in June and a balance of it and our distribution December. So you have a resolution file that I need you to approve. So basically by vote and I would like to do these independent of each other by next year. Second one is additional appropriation. And when I do budget, I told you before numerous times for those who have been around. When I do budget,
017I anticipate or I use low numbers on revenue, high numbers on expenses. That is this method that I use to make sure that we are looking at things very carefully as we get into later parts of the month. So when I did our budget for 25, I underestimated revenue and operations by 729,729 729 729. I was I really want to get those two numbers still. But so the resolution is simply allowing us back up a second. So when you get a budget order 1782 notice, it basically says this is how much money. It doesn't much get by the levy and then you have other This is how much you're allowed to spend. So I underestimated our spendure by 729,000. We have the money. I just don't have authority to spend it. So what this does,
018this says, okay, we're balancing the books. We have this much money coming in. We are allowed to spend that much. My goal is not to spend that much, but it simply gives us flexibility and then we can roll it into 26. The third resolution is the same thing for the education fund. And again, I underestimated our revenue by $2,200. So, it is simply saying we took this money in. We can now appropriate it. We have to spend. And obviously, as you saw in the report, our role, our anticipation is to roll that money into 26. But it just gives us the ability to balance expenditures. If we need to have stuff, we take out 25 and we expenses 26. So, those are three resolutions. Any questions on those? >> Well, let's let's start with the
019tax warrant. >> Motion to approve. >> Mr. Ramer, a second. Mr. Penrod. Discussion. >> Why Indiana bond bank? >> Because they pay all the upfront costs. >> Okay. Sure. >> So, attorney fees, all that is paid for by the bond bank. Who's whose attorney recommended that you reward the uh the motion? >> Okay. >> Mr. Tim Shel, >> not and this is not an uncommon procedure that in business corporations borrow money overnight, >> you know, to cover cash flow. So, >> and and in my career, I've done that on a weekend to cover cash flow. So, you borrow on Monday or borrow on Friday and you back on Monday. >> This just keeps us from having to do that repeatedly through the year. >> Call for the question. >> All in favor? >> I >>
020Okay, moving to the resolution, the additional preparation resolution for operation fund $729,729. How do you do A motion to approve >> Mrs. Tobias a second Mr. discussion. >> So we could bend or save, right? Yes. To be proper. >> So looking, you know, rainy day fun, >> nothing spent going forward. >> No, the appropriation died December 31st. But if it's not spend all in favor >> 6 Randy and thirdly the additional appropriation resolution for the education fund in the amount of $2 million $2,200 motion to approve Mr. Rymer second Mr. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Thank you. And I'll be back after a while. Thank you. It claims minutes. got a couple, one resignation and two retirements. One resignation, Tracy Eubank, MIS custodian, uh, a retirement after 42 years. Joe Kerr, Manchester Junior Senior
021High School, currently athletic secretary and also assist with the counseling over the counselor department. Uh and then um after 39 years and a lot of coaching and and a lot of hats uh Mr. Jack groupley for community schools head of maintenance. Thank you for your service. Wow. Grant no grants this uh this month. donations. Someone want to read donations. >> Thank you. >> There was a $50 donation to the Manchester Junior Senior High School girls basketball program by Randall and Rand. 500 donation to Manchester Junior Senior High School eight physics trip west from an anonymous donor. $100 donation to Manchester Junior Senior High School girls basketball program by Brian and Brenda Lman. $100 donation to and a load of fireworks for fourth grade pioneer day um by Genie NF services LLC and $100 donation to
022MIS for the fourth grade student activities by anonymous donor total $850 >> thank you motion for approval of 10 items >> that Mr. Raver discussion all in favor. >> Okay. Approval for employee arranges for those outside of collective bargaining agreement. >> Yes. So as you know last month we approved the collective bargaining agreement as Dr. Stevens said in in the education uh report tonight that money was back paid. This recommendation addresses everybody who falls outside of the collective bargaining agreement, which would be basically all all the rest of the employees. Um 3% uh as Dr. Stevens and I have worked numbers. We're very comfortable with that number. Recommendation that we give a 3% increase to all employees that fall outside of the collective agreement. Okay. Motion to approve. Mr. Ramer, a second. Mrs. Tobias. Discussion.
023>> Is this going to follow the same as the CDA where there's this year and nothing next year? >> No, it is not. Um, this is about half of what the teacher increase was this year. So what we would look at an increase this year and then we would reevaluate next year and then look at next year teachers this year were six 6.6 in there 6.6% up front. So >> and that included teachers not in the teacher those >> all all certified teachers the CBA covers all certified teachers. So, so why we're going on a two-year cycle with teachers, but only an annual on an annual basis with with non represented, >> correct? >> Why the difference? >> Um, financially it's it's the responsible thing to do. Um, also sometimes in some of those positions
024there are changes um that occur. So we feel comfortable with half now and I don't know if you want to address more of that what we discussed but Yeah. Sort of like cash flow, right? Further discussion >> and this the typical annual raise request though it's not like we did two years in the past >> typical request that's one of the differences too is the CBA was a two-year agreement whereas everybody that falls outside of that CBA does not operate always on that two-year agreement. And you know from a school point remember how much of our money goes to salary and benefits and so like they're staying competitive but there's also you know there is cash flow and there you know and as as you look as we you know this whole thing on the
025education fund and the transfer over to operations and then whose salaries in which one you know the the other thing is you know I hope I'm just going to say you know I hope people appreciate these races, right, and the conditions that we face as well. But we have, you know, we have to stay competitive. We've got external pressure to raise teacher like and I'm not against that, right? I don't think, you know, there's certain people in our society that don't make enough in my book. So, I mean, it's a balance that we're trying to do here. All would try to keep the t, you know, our tax rate around a buck, right? trying to keep flexible so each board has room to work in and not, you know, stack on things and and especially
026not burden our taxpayers any more than they are. So, you know, that's that's sort of why the 3% and that also gives flexibility going into next year, right? You know, one thing I've learned about being on a school board is you don't know what's next, you know, so >> and 3%'s a competitive increase. I've saw other government entities that are 1% or 2%. So 3%'s I think a reasonable bump. >> Well, if we if we bump everybody up like 6.6%, we don't at least go halfway, right? That's you know, you're trying to keep some balance here as well. So all in favor >> I 6 employment employment uh positions are all extracurricular positions. Um, at MIS you have Jen Burch, Heather Turfinger, and Chrissy Schuler, admiral soccer coaches. At the junior senior high, you have
027Haley Bakus, assistant FFA sponsor. Raquel Tuttle, uh, MJHS winter color guard, Talon Celich, volunteer wrestling coach at the junior senior high. Sean Ree, high school track assistant at the high school, and Madison Party girls wrestling coach at the junior senior high school. alumni motion to approve employment. Mr. Espr any discussion welcome aboard all in favor. and then athletic secretary recommendation Joe. >> Athletic secretary recommendation. Um, so Joe Kurt is retiring but doesn't want to be gone gone. So she would like to re she would wants to just work with Mr. Sovius and and her athletic responsibilities which has a lot to do with maintaining contracts for sporting events uh ensuring fiscals are proper and in place officials garnering workers for events. Um it's my recommendation that we retain her at no more than 20 hours.
028So, she cannot exceed 20 hours a week. Right now, she's full-time, but she will not be doing the counselor portion of her job. Um, so my recommendation would be to retain her um at her current rate of pay for no more than 20 hours per week to be a secretary. >> Get a motion to approve Mr. Penrod. A second, Mr. Ramer. discussion. >> So that's switching quite soon. She's on a salary now or is she on a little bit? >> Still hourly and no more than 20 hours. And so it gives her some flexibility in her retirement. Uh if it's in between a sports season and things slow down a little bit and she's only needed two days that week for a couple of hours, it gives her that flexibility to do that and yet
029still assist all of our student athletes and and Mr. Sylvius with athletics. Is this a new part-time position? >> It is not new. It's really a >> reduction of her current role. >> Will there be a new position? >> Well, you're going to have to split it, right? Is are you going to >> Well, we have we have a 30hour a week person in that position. Um, we're determining how to move forward with that. If that position would then become the full-time um which currently we have 70 hours between those two positions. If that position were moved to full-time, we would have 60 hours between those two positions. So, we're actually recognizing a little bit of a savings in that in that move, but we've not had that discussion yet regarding the counselor secretary responsibilities
030that's currently in that role. >> This an ECA or ECA position or is it >> It's an employee. >> Yeah, it's an employee position. So currently prior prior to her retire she's done retirement is effective effective at the end of this month end of December. So currently we have a we have her who is fulltime and she's split between athletics and assisting in the counselor's office transcripts scholarship information etc. We also have a part-time 30 hour 28.75 hours a week um guidance person that helps in the guidance in the counselor department. So Mrs. Kurr is requesting to Mr. just told me is to go down to no more than 20 hours a week after her retirement with the flexibility to there's a day that takes seven hours. It takes seven hours but at the end
031of the week she cannot be over 20 hours a week and currently she's 40. >> Okay. So not a new position. It's half of her current position. So is there an independent job description for what she's going to do? Is there an independent job description for what this other person's going to do? Because in our hiring policy, number one, there's got to be like an open position for you to hire people, which she's retired, so that you know, that's opening. But do you have I mean, and I, you know, I'm not against what you're doing. I'm just just follow policy. I guess on the position, just create a job description. I'd say that would be basic. I can certainly trade it from the jobs she's been doing for the last 41 years. Easy to easy
032to pull out together. >> Further discussion >> and this this is more than just a semester. >> I think she was looking she wanted to still be doing something. Wanted to retire. Still wanted to be doing something. And this meets Mr. Mr. Sylvia's needs in the athletic department and keeping with somebody who's very competent at that position she's done it for a long time. Um but it also relieves her from some of that responsibility that she was having with guidance department. So she's just maintaining the athletic side of of the additional work. And then this will be in which fund operations? Uh that is out of Ed, right? Secretaries in the high school. >> All in favor? >> Thank you. Then approval and Motion Mr. Ramer second Mrs. Any discussion keep you in line. All
033in favor >> 501 Randy and then approval of 2026 pool board meeting date. If you see the uh proposed dates they run comparable to our existing current calendar second Tuesday of each month. Anybody any problem there? I would just ask a question. Is Tuesday the best day the best time? Tuesday works because you have more to kind of gather yourself. Why Tuesday? >> There are less school events on Monday. >> I mean, those are every I don't stir up anything. >> No, honestly, Rick, I think just because that's the way it's always been done, right? Tuesdays at six o'clock, but you know, we could always look at that though. >> Yeah. So, first of all, approval on the schedule. Did we do that already? >> Yes. Can we have a motion before we go on
034discussion? Mr. Can we have a second? Thank you, Mr. Or now we can discuss it. But no, no, it's kind of like the questioning, but and certainly certainly you could move to approve the January 13th date because you have to do reorganization before the 15th every year. And then if we want to have a work session to discuss the calendar and the dates that the board meets, we certainly could do that. Or you could you can accept it as presented. You know, either way, you can you could table it. Make a motion to table it. And what would your motion, Brian? I don't know. on a table for the new year, >> right? We can always bring a shirt up, right? >> And Mr. or do you still second that motion? The second part Brian
035to to seek further discussion after the first of the year based on that >> there Um I if this is a time for discussion my my only item is I've rearranged other commitments based on the second Tuesday meeting. So I don't have a problem if if it's if that's an issue for other members. We need to accommodate that and talk. So, so I'll I'll stay with my second, but let's take care of January and then all in >> favor 6. >> Hey, Dr. Steven, you're back up. >> Just Okay. >> I don't have to say really brief. We're cooking pretty good tonight. >> How do you keep up with it all? Okay. Um, over the last few weeks, for a couple months, we've been looking at Senate Bill One, which is the rewrite that the
036Senate did on school funding, especially on the operation side. So, this is to give you of kind of what that bill says, some of the impact of that and some of the things that we can decide down the road if you want to try to address the shortfalls that we're going to be experiencing. So again, this is the financial landscape as of today. These are topics I'm going to hit. So why are we doing this? What the off look like? A referendum obligation, first mortgage, hybrid, how and then my recommendation how I think would be the most the best way of proceeding forward. Why? So I want to go back to the eser dollars. So starting in about 20 21 co hit and the feds came out and dropped a whole bunch of money in
037three different pots. So they did for one, two, and three. 3 ended in about 2022 is when the class last money arrived and then there was a thing called funding cliff and basically 23 that said thou shall spend all of the money that you've received or it goes back to the feds. So the reason I use this is because this was all the revenue that came in. Okay, so this was our general fund, education fund, kind of an upward slope, then all this new cash hit and then after all disappeared, these still kind of started where we left off and kept going forward. Okay, so that was the dollars. So this flex dollars that came in, had to be spent over three years and disappeared. This is what's going to happen on the operations side.
038So in operations over the over the years you've got some growth which is called the growth portion. The state has said each year allow your operation funds increase by this amount. It's been about 4%. So you take what you're currently receiving multiply by 04 and that's how you get in historically. What this legislation did in 25 bill said oh by the way we're going to starting off revenue streams for you. So the first one is property tax cap. So when Governor Daniels was in office, they put in these things that are called caps. So in residential is 1%, for farms is 2% and businesses was 3%. So you could not exceed 3% of your assess value for taxes. 2% for farms 1%. Legislature sites that number wasn't accurate enough or wasn't grand enough. So they
039ended up increasing the caps for the first year for residential. So instead of.1% it actually drops second year in 27 the same thing happens and right now there's no growth. So whatever we're getting in 26 is what we get in 27 with additional people. So if I'm, let's say this year my house is $90,000 and I go to 110,000 on assessment, I'm now capped at about 95,000. So we've lost about $15,000 of revenue growth because of the cap. And in 28, the bottom drops out. And nobody can tell us what that looks like because in 28 there's a $2 million personal um personal inventory, personal property tax that comes off. So if I have a plant or business that has $2 million in personal property, I can write that off. The question nobody can answer
040yet is let's say I have $10 million in personal property. Can I somehow split that out and create five entities and each entity can write off $2 million? If I can and I have five entities in my in this district that have $20 million of assessed value in personal property, I'm now losing $100,000 and that's off that's assessment. That's gone. So the reason I don't I don't have any numbers out 28 is because even our actials can't tell us what that looked like because we also lose it. Now there's discussion that low income tax may be put back in as some allowance by the legislature. What I'm hearing the most is that we can ask a county government, local government to release some of their lower dollars back to us. I don't think that's going
041to happen relatively or readily. I may be wrong, but because local business or local municipalities are going to be losing money, I don't think they're going to give up a revenue stream to support other governmental units. So, here's our historical funding floor for operations. It's going to take these drops and you'll notice that even after the drop, there's not much growth. So the money that you're getting in 26 may be a high water mark in operations for some time to come. >> The one component you don't have factored in here is the local tip looks like on expansion and improvement. >> Well, we don't have much tip right now and if it is it's residential. So if and yeah that was one of the questions that came up because we don't have much tiff and
042what we do have again is is pretty marginal. It's not going to Now, if you have a factory that comes in that is heavy industrial and they take a tip, that has a whole lot of sequences. The first of which is how long that tip district and I can spend a lot of time talking about tips because we had one of the biggest tip districts in the state for a long time. But yeah, so t's not in here at all, but again, we don't have that much involved in tips at this point. So this is what this is today. So if we do nothing, this is what it looks like going forward. So right now, and again, this kind of goes back to our cash flow that you saw before, we're anticipating in the education
043fund ending the year about $2,83,000 in the black. In 26, we anticipate that number going down to about 1482 and 27 going down to 536. operations. We'll end the year this year at about 203. We'll be negative next year at 223 and the following year will be negative 676,000 if we do nothing. So offsets. So how do we fix this short term so that we don't end in these bad numbers? What I'm proposing if we If we do do anything else again, you'll see that we're stemming end of the year the same. The $3 million tip or first mortgage that we took out last year, we have about $1.7 million of that left. So, we did bunch of projects this summer, as you know. If I leverage those dollars in that first mortgage, and I
044start moving expenses out of education operations and taking those dollars up out of the first mortgage, then we can do this over the next two years. So, we can lose leave next year at about 6.8 mil and following year about just short of a million dollars. This is where it really catches up to us because if I do the offsets in 25 again, same number you saw before, instead of being negative in 26 and 27, I can leverage this so that we're positive those two years. The problem is I can't do year three. We'll have no revenue. So in by 28 this number will be negative and in all likelihood this number will be closer to 500,000 cash balance year. All right. How what other options do we have besides offsets? We can do a
045referendum. If we did a referendum, we targeted November 26 as a date. You can do it a year. You'd be about 33 cents as an ask. You wouldn't have to go that high, but you ask for whatever amount and then each year you can set how much money you want or how much tax levy you want to apply to that. So let's say you you are authorized to raise 33 cents and that would generate $2 million a year that can be used for any operational expense, salaries, benefits, anything else. But let's say uh in 27, so we approve this in 26 and 27, we only want that number to be 15 cents. You can do that. The next year you may want 18 cents, the next year 11 cents. So over eight years each year
046you can determine how much you want to apply towards your referendum to be used for any expense and it can be adjusted annually as I just said. The next one is the general obligation bond. So these are all taxable because taxable gives us the most flexibility to do what we need to do. So for tax you can use it for all this stuff and more importantly for these and salaries and benefits and operations. How we get the tax is we go back through we have done this for the last. So you have to go back to all your old expenses that were from your team building fund for those of you who don't remember. what is now operations used to be called the key building fund. Then it went to the capital projects fund and
047now it's the operations fund and we also had transportation fund in there and a bus replacement. So you have to go back to all those old records and see what was paid by the corporation and you can use those as ways of getting to a taxable bond. So basically if I bought a million dollar worth of buses out of transportation operations I can now offset a million dollars into a taxable G money that can be used for salaries benefits and everything else. So this general obligation is a calculation based on your assess value then it takes off how much you already have committed. So at the end of this year, we'll make our payments on the current bonding and we have a geo bond that goes out to about 2023 for the connector. Right now
048we can raise $2,41,000 in a geo. If we waited until our June payment, which would be actually June payment, it shows up in July. We're going to raise $2,151,000. Again, I'm talking about it'll be a two-year bond, million dollar a year. Take it out, pay it off in two years, and we terminate December 28th. First mortgage. Now, this is looks similar to the first mortgage we took out now almost two years ago. So, this would be size around 18 cents. It would run for three or four years. would generate $3 million initial payment trans into the you know corporation accounts. Then we would annually spend about a million dollars a year. Again because it's a taxable we can use it for equipment salaries and benefits. Now the problem not a problem but the diffult of
049using a first mortgage is it cannot be for any movable equipment. You cannot offset a first mortgage for buses. You can't use that as an offset. Computers printers, anything that can be moved from point to point, you can't use as a mortgage, if you will, or into a taxable first. So, all has to be just u like we can go back and look at all of the energy savings that we've generated over the years. Okay? So, every pul that we replaced, if we use corporation funds, we can use that as an offset for doing a first mortgage. But we can't use a bus. And this the issue with doing this right now is we have to go back and look at things that were under a holding court from 2012 in 2013. In meantime, we
050have changed the county systems. So, we used to use the thing called control. We now use voice. So trying to go back and resurrect 12 year old purchase orders that we can now allocate against the first mortgage is time consuming because we have to go back to each we in some of these we have to go back to the original purchase order to see where it was paid and what building it went into hybrid. So what this would It's a combination of first mortgage and go. So we would take out a 10year max of $10 million. Now what that does is it says okay for 10 years the board has authority of raising up to $10 million. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to raise the dime. You can raise $2 million
051this year and skip two or three years and raise $2 million down the road. But this gives you the authority in statutes to make this adjustment. >> What do you mean? We could raise >> Okay. So, you have the authority of saying, "Okay, over 10 years, you reached $10 million." Okay. We could do a geo bond under this, just like the bond I talk about before, and say you're going to do a $2 million geo bond this year under the language that would be generated through this. Okay. What could happen is right now we're we have about $8 million of write offs that we could prepare to get it passible. Okay. So you could use you could do four geo bonds two year two year two year and generate $8 million and we can we
052match that with bus purchases and copers and all that other stuff. Okay. Or we can say, "Okay, we're going to start with a two-year go and then in two years we'll take out a three or four year first mortgage, but all the language and all the legal work is done to do it now. >> Right now my issue is nobody knows the future trying to project out to 2028 for any business or even your own your personal is going to be sketchy, >> but we have to make some accommodation for 2028 and beyond. If we don't do that, we're not being responsible. >> And my concern is this all deals with language that's in statute today. >> Exactly. >> That would change in April. >> And that would be grandfather. >> Yes. We start early.
053Yeah. As long as we start before the session ends. Good questions though. All right. If we do this, if we do the hybrid again, we start here. This is education fund, we would end next year at about the same point and the following year much better position than what other screens I've shown you. In operations, everything's in the black. And I told Mr. Castle, as you get out to these outline years, pick a number and say, "Okay, we're going to roll $300,000 forward to balance those during day because at some point all this is going to end and you're going to have to have reserve someplace so you can operate two or three years in the unknown. >> But the issue has always been the shortfall in operation operations fund, not in the education. >>
054Correct. >> So that's probably a good thing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because in this case, we're not transferring $750,000 a year from Med. We will still transfer some. We'll transfer 400,000, but you're saving a lot of money. Not a lot of money, you're saving revenue that can go into any day to protect down the road under this scenario. Okay. How how how does this work? This is your historical tax rate. And I'll tell you, until I put this together, I didn't I should have known this because I've been here long enough, but I didn't. So, we've gone from 93 to$15 to 88 to dollar one to 92 to a dollar. Our tax rate in this district has done this every year. My thought when I last year and I told you is to try to set
055everything so it's a dollar. Honestly, I'm anticipating our tax rate this year is going to be around 87 cents. I did a terrible job of anticipating the difference between here and here. We had a 10% assessed valuation growth. Had that nowhere in my plan. Great news, but I didn't plan on it. We also have about half million dollars falling off of mortgage rates that we have that we have debt coming off. I thought I captured enough of that when I when we suggested doing the bus replacement to bond bank. Well, I obviously we should have bought four buses instead of two. So, that's how we do this. So, again, what I'm trying to get to is a a $1.99 one rate that is consistent going forward. So, we don't this. We just have this. So,
056yeah, it's going to be a tax rate. No matter what we do, if we do anything, it's going to be a tax rate increase. We don't have a choice. We don't have we can't make money any other way. I I don't have a printing press that will allow me to use. >> So, like this whole So, number one, you got a pretty crappy process, right? So, so variance in your results is not unknown. And I have no problem with that thing varying year to year. That means we're doing due diligence and and so this, you know, when we use the term revenue, that's kind of foreign to me, right? Because this money is coming out of everybody's pockets. >> You're going to have a tax rate increase no matter what we do. >> And and
057so, you know, if we're looking at like that $1. So, so looking at like 10 years on this hybrid thing you're coming up with now, right? What's the difference between what we're doing, right? Going two and two and four years out like like rate you on issuance cost >> just from the redundancy. >> Where are rates going? >> Anybody want to answer that? >> So that would be my concern on like a 10ear >> you're not going to be able to do a 10 year. You don't have the capacity to do it. >> So >> that that's why if you do a go, you're going to do a two-year go. You'll be paid off. you do another two-year go or you throw first mortgage in there somewhere. You're not borrowing 10 years. You're simply giving
058the board this board and the future board capacity to borrow up to $10 million over 10 years and avoid some additional cost down. >> Okay. So, the only thing gaining going 10 years versus doing it, you know, the way we've been kind of looking at is you're not getting, you know, you're not getting price for that transaction again. >> Yep. the potential running risk of interest rates go down. >> Yeah. But it's two years your your rates. >> So you just redo this deal. This is just like a clearance basically for a float of $10 million over 10 years. >> Yep. You're just going to take it into $2 million chunks. >> But that bond is paid off years. >> Correct. >> So you're rolling over. >> So tell me why we wouldn't do this.
059give me some reason. >> Okay. So, thank you because I was trying to figure out how to do this. And I will tell you, Tony and I talked and he said, "Do it this way." I think that's exactly what you need to do. I think you need to do the hybrid. I think you need to do a 10 year look out and do the language do the follow the paperwork that says gives the board the flexibility of doing up to $10 million over 10 years and each board can decide if they want to do $2 million or do mortgage. They'll start with the 2 million because we can just buy that just by buses that we bought and then in two years we come back and say okay we have $3 million passive. We can
060do a first mortgage. So you do a two year and year that's out five then you do a two or whatever. I really think out of everything this is your best bet because on the long term it's cheaper than anything else. If you don't want to do a hybrid for 10 then the next option is you do a two-year go and then in two years the board can decide we're going to continue this. it to 28. That's not a great year to go back to the public and say, "Gee, we're going to renew a go." Because nobody knows what's going to happen in 28. We can do a first mortgage. The problem with the first mortgage is we have a lot of work to do to try to get the first mortgage to a early
061enough 26 day to have an impact because we have to go back and pull a whole bunch of data that we don't have. We have to go back to the bond holder bank from 2012 2013 and get the abstracts before we do anything else. The last thing I think we need to consider the referendum. In my personal opinion, I know districts that have done this, win or lose, the district loses. You have the the animosity is created. Unless you win at a 90% rate or higher, you are going to have people who are just absolutely insense that you do whether you win or lose. Just a word is enough to cause people to have heartache. >> Could we go back to the tax rate in real dollars? What is that going to mean for the
062the average property tax? >> Here's here's a formula. So you can run this whatever you want. So you take an assessed value. Let's say uh you have an assessed value that is a million dollars. You divide it by 100. Now you take the tax rate and multiply it by that number and that's that's the rate. That's the level. >> But what okay I can go home and I can play with these numbers and figure that out. I mean I would vote for more consistency. I think that's I'd be in favor of more going to a dollar or somewhere about a dollar. >> Well, what I do is I try to protect the taxpayers a little bit. What are we spending the money on? You know, >> benefits, >> right? >> Well, we do spend money
063on that's what I mean. you know, at some point there, you know, we this, you know, there's also sometimes there's right sizing, you know, and things as well besides one more. I don't, you know, I don't have any problem with this, you know, with the thing basically the GEO and the I mean, this what we've been kind of doing along here, right, geod stuff. All we're doing here is like going out and saying, okay, we're going to look 10 years and we're going to do paperwork that proves this for 10 years >> and then we're still I mean it's still going to be the flexibility >> and that's the key but it also gives us stability stability and control over what's what may happen in >> you have control over how the money spent. So
064when you do right that's so you know again on this board for six years and I've been through some stuff that's not going to happen at this school board again. So when you look at extended money that's even more important if we're looking at right where we're spending that money that's just the point I'm trying to make here what the goal is to stop transferring so much money from education the bottom line that's what we're trying to accomplish >> because that's not sustainable right now for basically for 25 we're going to transfer 900,000 which is roughly 9% even it out You go up to 15%. By statute, they say they you can go higher than that, but they want you to try to focus no more than 15%. You can't pay 15% of our education
065fund and move to operations every year. >> And some school systems are doing that. >> They're right up against that 15%. So, so we've been pretty responsible. But again, going back to this hybrid, we're not saying we're going to take any of that money. >> One dollar just gives us it's just like a business going out and getting a line a business line credit. >> That's it. >> Exactly. That doesn't mean just just helps helps you sleep at night. >> As a homeowner, you're simply taking that loan. You may not use it, but you have the line of credit there. You want to use it for something >> in every dollar has to be approved by this >> tax increase. So it goes money would be coming in. You pay it out through debt over
066a two-year period. >> It's a revolving line of credit. that the board can decide to renew on a semianual basis. >> Does the hybrid model allow for us to still do new projects in our capital project that's outside >> which I think that's very important to keep up on that. We cannot get behind and playing catch up >> at that point. I don't like you know because it's going to use up some of the money that we set aside for projects is going to go to claims. I don't like that. It's not what we said. That's not what we're raising money for. But if we don't do anything else, I've got to do that to make sure we're on the I don't like it. Don't want to do it. But if the board says we're
067not doing anything, that's my only stop. >> Well, I think you guys are nailing, you know, here's what our story is, you know, in the education arena right now. People have this survive as kind of a thought like we need to thrive. And so when we're looking at all these budgets and stuff like is our budget rock right sized in operations is my major question right as a school board member because we do do a lot of transfer from education into operations. So but this is this is mainly what we're doing. We're just going out like 10 years right and we're writing paper for 10 years versus what we usually write for 10 years. And I've used this example before. It's a terrible example, but I'll do it again. My the district that I retired
068from that I was at for 40 years is almost a perfect copy of this district. Okay. You built two buildings junior senior high school enrollment. The difference is that district industrial and their operations fund is more than double what you get here. What you you are so condensed on your operations fund and even even within that you have two three entities that are not paying at all a property tax which hurts you even worse or even more. So you are very strict, very contingent, very very limited on your operations simply because you have very little. That's not your fault. It's not the community's fault. It's just where the community lies physically. You have no rail. You don't have you don't have great road work. You know, you have 13, but you don't have state highways.
069My district, my old district had two federal highways and at one time had more river crossings in my community than all but two counties in the state. It just school district. So >> well then you got the thing that makes no sense to me still. We still have district boundaries within the county and that's how the NBA is basically split up. So you got the school port corporation with a lot amount a large amount and then you got two corporations with small amounts which there to me there are no district boundaries anymore. I don't understand why that isn't split in thirds, >> right, for this county or and then if you run the risk of another school starting up whatever that you know there is potential you know some equity and there is no equity
070in operation right what we have that's why we all have to work together right >> okay What's the timing >> further because again you have the legislature will be in session shortly that all this could change. I would recommend if if you have a direction that we start the process in January. If we did we would have revenue coming in March or April and then if you do it hybrid you're locked in for 10 years and your grandfather. There's nothing to be done to you at that point. >> Yes. Make a motion that we adopt the hybrid. Second motion >> say things this next legislative session improves in school but the situation even with this we don't have to move forward with plan as is. It's just that back stop that we can't >> change
071whatever you want to do. JF >> further discussion. >> I just really appreciate you guys going through. So tonight if you if you approve the hybrid we'll start having language and processor in January further discussion this I will this in the future like like you know when we're changing things like this I think you better pop this on us a little quicker this is one I'd really you know discuss on this >> not kind of the hybrid option but all in favor >> I have tons of backup data if anybody wants to see it I'll be happy to sit down with you and go through anything that you have questions about we'll get process and you'll start seeing some paperwork January. >> Have your attorney review the the language the first time around? >> Well,
072again, like I don't think it's a locking mechanism on any future boards, right? That would be my >> even for the first round. >> Yeah. Even in the first even if you approve the January meeting you have you have special meetings in February until you actually authorize the issuance of bonds which will be in March nothing happens you're not locked you're not locked into anything >> we wouldn't have to borrow $1 >> gives us the flexibility and predictability and stability stability >> correct >> $1 I can borrow Thank you. >> Where are we at? >> Mr. I I just have two very brief items. They have something called count day. See how I've learned? Um but but something we may not realize, we have 83 students from Manchester Community Schools that are attending Heartland and
073learning down there. So this is a huge part of it. The the other point I'd like to make is we have seen the number of uh people and and companies in this area step up and make donations. Same things happened at Heartland. Uh somebody donated welding rods. I wouldn't know a welding rod if I saw one. Pretty expensive. >> Former alums that are are out there working now know that that students need this and go ahead and donate it. So, a lot of good things going on down there and a number of our students are participating. redistricting right now in special session. So, um that's got a lot of eyes down there early. And as far as the regular session will start January 5th, I believe the bill filing deadline is January 8th. So there's
074a lot of conversations happening on which representatives want to take up certain issues and initiatives. Um so I think this might be more eventful than what other kind of in between sessions will be just the fact of kind of a will there be a rebound from last year what clean up work. So it'll be a fun session nonetheless they'll have more probably January and February when they actually start bills are started congressional map. >> I'll just say this like you know legislator legislator and that's not that's not an easy job either but you know I think some of the things that come out of our county don't help us at times right so I don't know people it's American speak you know speak freely I guess but superintendent comment obviously a lot going on schoolwise
075um all the winter sports are in full effect concerts going on matter of fact there's a concert going on right now >> um other than that honestly the last probably month six weeks Dr. Stevens and I spend we've spent a lot of whole days sitting in his office discussing exactly what we discussed tonight discussing Senate Bill one it impact Shelley Liper and I went down to to an Aasmo presentation uh last week on Thursday to discuss Senate Bill one probably 300 superintendent business people in attendance just not a great picture painted a lot of boards are having this very discussion that we're having right or that we had tonight. Um, accountability model, new accountability model. They're going back to letter grades for the first time in eight years. Supposed to be released in December. They
076have now delayed that until January because there was a glitch in the public commenting uh link that they had so the public could give input. So, they link. That's now moved to January. uh but probably had a two-hour discussion today with uh with Su Janei and Brad Clark just talking about the accountability model course offerings etc. Um, so it's it's been a busy month. A lot going on. Senate, you know, Senate Bill one has been a a hot topic in about every superintendent meeting I've been in November at the state convention. It was pointing a convention at this meeting and in a whole lot of email uh and superintendent study council meetings. You know, it's kind of a topic of discussion. So the good news is in my opinion, we got to start tonight with
077shine on one of our teachers and I agree with him. We need to do it more. He's outstanding teacher from an outstanding school community and school corporation that's doing a lot of great things for kids. So that's my superintendent report. >> Did you say A+ is that? >> They haven't done them yet. >> Oh, okay. >> But I did tell you I think in November that they're they haven't rolled the model out. It's supposed to be approved now in January, but they are granting us on the 2526 school year on an accountability model that they haven't released yet. So, >> tonight we're put our best foot on it. Thank everybody who's kind of managed around the community with the bridges. Um, Ry's been sending out some messaging. Um, you know, it's kind of a mess,
078but I think just changing patterns of people and it's working out okay. So, the South Market Street Bridge is stop closed this week and full closure next week. But if it's a good winter, I think maybe this can come to an end sooner than what we had anticipated, but I'm not give any dates out right now. So, it's just >> I saw every like that little line, I saw everybody waving at everybody and saying hi and everything. >> Okay. Anybody else? >> Hey, I just from the forward just with you know we have these meetings at the start of the month and we're going to miss Christmas. So wishing everybody a merry Christmas all the people at the school you know our taxpayers and especially all the students hoping that they'd have you know an
079enjoyable Christmas and time with their family you know those that have family and hope everybody Other than that, >> Tony, you uh are superintendent. Have you shared that with everybody? Your graduation. >> Well, I know you guys know that I that I >> wanted grades, right? >> What's my grade? I think it was it was a 97.8, I believe. But I can double check. >> 97.8 in my >> I did start a program through university to study lean six sigma lean manufacturing green belt and lean manufacturing black belt but really see some applications where I can apply some things within school and run some processes to to make us even more efficient especially you know in light of when you talk about things like Senate Bill one and its impact and and you're looking how
080to to operate lean and and operate efficiently and cost efficiently but I did pass my green belt so I got that official uh uh you know official certificate and kind of hanging up in my office. I'm proud of it. It's I call Mike every once in a while and say, "Man, I don't know what I signed up for when I signed up for this at Purdue because this 50 year mine dealing with some of the algebra and the the math computations, but it's been good. It's been very good. I see some real practical applications and I'm excited moving forward." So, >> bring your certificate. >> How many companies in our area in our county use in their operations a lot. Anybody know the tech right so you know our largest employers do you know right
081Davidson went through so our largest employers but hopefully you know that whole that whole arena continuous improvement that You know, I see a big gain, right, in public education that and it's simple, right? Getting people to look for ways, right? Doing things, you know, in a better manner and more capable. But I'm telling you, like what I'd really love is run a run a project on like student counters and we started on like on real knowledge attainment. I really want to know what that yals f ofx is. Like we all know like what we're born with up here has a large effect in that, you know, but like what else? environmental impacts on these kids. Lena knows, right? We used to not, you know, they used to say, "Hey, we can't make sure they're fed,"
082but we sure do now. So, what are the other things like we can do for these kids? And some of these things should be done at home, but again, if they're not, right, we got a perfect opportunity to to set them up for success and and what Joel said, I love, right? It's all about having purpose. So, merry Christmas to everyone. Motion to adjourn. Thanks for coming.