January 20, 2026, STSD Board Meeting

001Tuesday, January 20th, Township. Please stand for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisibley and justice for all. Thank you. Uh note that all all president except one Dr. Marino, she's not here. Had an executive session, personnel and student matter. Next up is our guest presentation. I won't try. >> Okay. How are you? >> Fine. How are you? >> I'm good. Thanks for having me this evening. My name is Matt Wilderson. I'm a principal with Ber and Ritter. We do your external financial statement audit. Uh I have a quick presentation for you here this evening. I know you have a busy agenda. Just very quickly on why I'm here, why I do what I do, why you guys hire me

002to do what I do. Uh you you have an annual external financial statement audit. It's about uh 100 pages and 90 pages in length. Um it it there's several interested parties in this document. Um first of all, the Department of Education requires you the organization have an annual external financial statement audit. Uh it's required to be filed with your annual financial report. Additionally, you have about you have $40 million of bonds outstanding. Um so you have bond holders, rating agencies um that are interested in the financial well-being of the organization. Thirdly, you have the federal government. They give you about $4.3 million a year, whether it be uh your school lunch program, your idea, your title one or your title programs. They're giving you funding throughout the year. So, they're going to want to make

003sure that their funds are being spent well. But that's a little background on why we're here. A little bit of uh idea about the overall scope of the audit. The scope um includes uh everything basically under under your organizational control whether it's the you know the general fund, the capital project, capital reserve funds, student activity funds, food service funds, you have a trust and scholarship funds. Some of the things that would be excluded might be, you know, the booster clubs, those external organizations that you're not uh setting budgets for or necessarily controlling. Of course, there's a governmentwide financial statement that's also in these financial statements that kind of keeps track of your long-term debt and your pension obligations. Uh, but that's what's would be included in the scope of the audit. A little bit about

004the the process. uh we come out typically um you know after the June 30th mark uh we'll come out with uh Brad and Kathy and uh we'll look at the various processes that the organization has how you bring money into the organization and how you spend money uh whether it be through teacher salary and benefits retirement payments you know bond payments repairs and maintenance on the buildings um taking care of the grounds transport transportation of the students etc. But we'll look at those processes and make sure there are internal controls in place so that the money is safeguarded as it's coming in as it's being accounted for and then as it goes out. But after we understand those internal controls, we evaluate you know your financial statements and we look and say hey we'll work

005at things go wrong and we plan an audit around that. Um and then we come out you know later after after they have closed their books they call it in the in the accounting terms. Um and uh we come out and we perform an audit of your revenues, expenses, you know the assets that you hold, the cash that you have in the bank and investment facilities. Um the debt that you have outstanding and we perform a basically an audit of all those areas. um talking to verifying things with third parties so that we can look at this document and say um whether or not in our opinion uh we uh feel comfortable with the financial statements that are being presented and that those statements go to you and to the public uh to the bond

006rating agencies to the federal government and to the uh department of education. So uh this the first document we look at we basically have three different audit reports. One is the independent auditor's report and I'll quickly talk about that and what that means what we try to con convey here is whether or not you know in Ber and Ritter's opinion as a as a result of our audits we're giving you a clean opinion on your financial statements basically saying that they're consistent with generally accepted accounting principles for for governments. You get a clean opinion here. Um so that's the that's the first uh good piece of news here this evening. Um, so congratulations to your to your finance team. It uh takes a lot of work every single day to get this right. Um, and

007if things are out of whack, then they have to go back and figure out where things uh went wrong and get it right going forward. And they have um [clears throat] the one thing I have in there's a change in accounting principle. There is a the adoption of an accounting standard this year. Um, so there's a paragraph in there on that. We had to do a um it was we called it a prior period adjustment, a prior period restatement. Um not because anybody did anything wrong, but that's what the uh the government accounting standards people told us that we had to do. We had to restate the end of last year and we had to reme-measure the [snorts] uh the the the value of the what we call compensated absences. Those are the personal and

008the sick days and the leave days for the employees of the district and we had to follow a different methodology that they found to be uh preferable. So they [snorts] they got to make that choice and we had to implement it. We worked with uh Brad and his team to get it get to get it done. And uh so we're here at the same time as we uh always are in the beginning of January or the middle of January uh to present to you here. So it the they the the changeover went well. But for the first report uh you get a you get a clean bill of health and a clean opinion. [clears throat] The second report has to do with the internal controls over financial reporting. This is where we report as to

009whether or not there are any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in the internal controls of the district. Uh there are none that have to be reported. pleased to report that Kathy and Brad and be before Kathy Oz, you know, they had all worked to make sure the organization had good internal controls. But if there was something that came out that um you know that that you had material weaknesses or significant deficiencies, this is where it would be reported. So, congratulations to you on a uh clean report there here this evening. Uh the the third and final report that we look at is the uh expenditure and the utilization of federal awards. Um you have um the the one program we had to look at this year was your uh school lunch program or your child

010nutrition uh subsidies. So we performed that audit this year. looked at the eligibility of uh the program and un you know understanding the program that you're in and how you guys spend your money making sure you're um checking all the boxes uh crossing all the tees and dotting all the eyes and we have to form an opinion on the compliance as well as the substructure or the internal controls that are in place within the organization to make sure things are going well. But uh once again you have a clean uh clean bill of health with regard to that. Um but your your school lunch program has uh approximately $2.6 million of federal uh subsidies coming in for that. So um and uh so you get a clean opinion on on on on compliance as well

011as internal controls over compliance. So there's two other letters um that are included in your packet. One has a uh one's a required communication letter. The other is a management letter. Management letter just very briefly talks on um some changes that are coming down the road in financial reporting. Some changes to the management discussion and analysis. Um and then there's also some changes in the compliance audits that will be happening uh coming down the road. This year threshold to have a single audit or a compliance audit is $750,000. Next year it's going to a million dollars. Um, so it'll change the way the audits, you know, occur a little bit, not a lot. Uh, the required communication letter, uh, briefly touches on a couple different very important areas that as board members, it's important that

012you understand. Um and we we talk about you know if in this letter we would have to disclose if if we had disagreements with management uh whether if we had difficulties you know encountered that you know during the audit as we're trying to get our work done those things would have to be disclosed in this letter. if we were making significant adjustments, uh, that would also be disclosed in this letter. But I think in this letter, we just point out that while there's some modifications that we have to make along the way, there's nothing in there that, um, that gives us the sense that there are significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in the financial reporting processes that the district is following to give you regular financial information. And that's kind of our that's our focus

013as we're uh, going through our audit. But that's the uh that's that's the overview of the letters and uh over of the three areas of focus in our uh financial statement audit. Are there any questions? >> Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. um a copy. I know you've given all of the board members a copy full report. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I need to read it. But this is also available to the public if anyone would like to see the full audit report. >> Um is that typically right on you put that out on your on your website? Yep. Yep. And it's also available on the federal clearing house sites with your single audit reporting as well. >> Absolutely. >> You want to ask him a question? >> A lot of

014hard work. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh reports any updates on legislation? >> We have another [laughter] >> smiling. >> I would confer my report to >> right there. >> Just the gentleman gentleman representing [laughter] represent Yeah. I don't know how I missed that show. I knew you were here. I was looking for it, man. >> Good evening, everyone. Um, I just >> give you two minutes. >> Okay. All right. Well, >> sorry. Maybe I'll back up. I'll back up. >> Um, so I just wanted to say thank you. This is uh a little bit delayed as was our budget, unfortunately. Um, so as you all know, we finally got a fiscal year budget passed in November. And uh so what I've been doing uh for the last couple of years anyway

015is when we when we pass our budget um I present to the the two public school districts that uh are represented in my district, Suspena Township and Central Dolphin School District. And I like to make a public presentation around just the top lines of um our budget uh the the state budget and then the education portion uh that is specific to each school district. So, uh, and I'm happy to take questions, and I'm just going to I'm going to keep it as brief as possible, but there are, um, every year we do significant things both budgetarily, um, to invest in education, public education across the Commonwealth, but also from a policy standpoint in the public school code. So, we're going to we're going to talk about, uh, a couple of those things today. So, the

016top line, back in November, we we passed a total state general fund budget of $50.09 09 billion. It's a $2.27 billion increase over uh the 24-25 fiscal year budget. Uh importantly, that increase was made without raising uh income taxes or dipping into well, we we dipped a little bit into the um the budget stabilization fund or the rainy day fund. However, we still have $7.5 billion on hand in the in the uh rainy day fund. Uh and we still have funding available on the states on the Commonwealth balance sheet because we have uh our our revenues have exceeded our expenditures the last couple of years, which means we're in a good fiscal position uh on on the Commonwealth side. Uh a couple of things uh in terms of K12 education. Uh it fully funds this

017budget fully funded the second installment the second installment of adequacy funding uh at $565 million increase. Um it it just a a quick refresher uh back in 2023 I believe uh the Commonwealth Court ruled that uh the the Commonwealth had not um had not fully funded education uh in a in a uh in meeting with their constitutional uh duty of a fair and equitable uh education spend. Uh and so we have sought the the legislature has sought to correct that. And so this is the second uh this is the second installment of adequacy fund payments. And the adequacy funding is meant to do a couple of things. Number one, it is meant to um it is meant to drive up the number of state dollars uh that go to school districts that are over reliant

018on property taxes. Uh, and Susuana Township, as you know, is one of those. I believe uh when I spoke to Dr. Willis about it a couple of years ago, I believe 80% of of our revenues are from taxpayers essentially. Um, either either, you know, property owners or business owners. That is the lion share of our funding. And the adequacy funding seeks to equalize that by giving more state dollars to those who are overrelying on property taxes uh to fund their school districts. And so and then what so that's that's the first purpose. The second purpose is it's meant to kind of slow down or halt or reduce um the the amount of tax increases that uh that school boards uh propose and that school boards pass because if there are more dollars coming from the

019state um then the then the thinking is you won't need that that revenue from local sources if you're getting more of it from the state. So, um there was a uh this will be of interest as well, the student teacher stipen which I know um the governor was here a few weeks ago and there was a clip of one of the student one of the teachers in the high school um talking to Governor Shapiro and thanking him for the student teacher stipend uh which enabled her to actually you know not go broke as a student teacher while she was trying to apply her trade. um that was level funded at $30 million. So, uh that's a program that will continue. And a point of personal privilege, we also got $10 million in the budget for

020uh structured literacy, uh which I am very very proud of. I am a big believer in structured literacy and believe that uh the ability to teach our children how to read, read well and not only that uh assess those children at the earliest grade levels who do not read well um and get them the intervention that they need is uh incredibly important. So, so those are that's the overall. Um, on a more specific level, I'm really really pleased to report that Susuana Township in its uh in its funding uh levels received a 21.2% increase uh in funding from the state this year. Um modest increases in the uh basic education funding at 2.2% 2% a modest increase in special education funding at 6.2% 2%. But the big big increase came in that ready tolearn block

021grant, the adequacy funding. Uh 121% increase in the adequacy funding. And I'll tell you why that's so u critical because the the fiscal year 2425 funding for for the the adequacy funding was 1 basically 1.55 million for Susuana Township. That number jumps to 3.4 4 million uh in in this next fiscal year. Why that's so important is because that 3.4 million will represent the base. So if we are able to uh put through another round of adequacy funding, that $3.4 million will become the base of funding. So that stays with the district moving forward. And so any increase will then be built off that $3.4 4 million in funding as we help as we help to uh to lift up and not not have the district be so reliant on local sources of funding. Um

022so we also passed cybercharter tuition reform um which will what we did was um basically we're we're we're returning some of the cyber charter tuition funding back to uh local school districts uh for a variety of reasons. um you know, most of which uh most of which are around the fact that um you know, some of the cyber charter schools are using that funding for um purposes that really aren't allowable for public schools. Things like advertising, um things like recruitment of families. I mean, public school districts don't engage in those sorts of activities. So, um, and so that's going to that's going to be another 4141,000 uh almost $142,000 that the the um district will see from cyber tuition reform. And then um on the policy side, so I'm I'm not going to go through

023everything here, but uh and you have a uh you have a sheet that I've shared with you. We um passed a a public school code uh that makes a couple of changes uh and in policy and I just want to go over uh a few of those here. Um the underlying bill that we uh passed the u the um education public education code uh bill through was uh career and technical uh education equipment grants. And so it's now codified that that data will use to calculate the needs for equipment grants for our career and techn career and technology centers. Um and that is going to be calculated and fixed as of June 1st. That's the underlying bill that was that was part of the public school code bill. Um uh again the the public school

024code drove out the $565 million in adequ fund adequacy funding reforms the cyber charter tuition rate which is going to save school districts $178 million. Um hundred million in uh school safety and mental health grants that were passed once more. Um, and we increased the EITC cap by $50 million. Um, for why that's important for public schools like ours is because our 501c3, the Hannah education foundation is EITC eligible. So, anyone who wants to contribute, any business owner who wants to contribute uh to that cause and get a tax credit um is is welcome to do so. And then there was one other thing that talked about cyber charter reform and everything else I think is in the higher ed space. Yeah. So I think that's uh that's pretty much it in terms of uh

025the policy changes. Um, you know, we did other things. I mentioned structured literacy, truency transfer. Um, uh, cash is now required at school events again. Um, if if that's if that's something that, uh, if that's something that people are accustomed to using. Um, but that was that was passed. Um that was an amendment in the bill that you know to to try and provide uh equity and fairness in terms of like attending school events. So uh are there any questions for me? I I know we talked about one earlier. Board member >> Lamel [clears throat] I have a question. This is a little bit bigger and probably a bigger deeper conversation. So in here we're helping our residents where the tax burden for the schools but for our school district you know we we're facing

026trying to fill the building >> and so how do we I don't know as a board as a school district just in general start the conversation with the state and maybe even the feds like hey we are never going to be as big as >> Valley sure we just don't have the land >> right >> so we're always going when you talk about being fair and equitable yeah >> like we're never going to have that tax space right >> and So, we're limited on how we can grab money to build. >> Yeah. >> And so, >> it's like if we're never going to be able to do that, like when do when does the state or the feds come in and say, "Hey, [clears throat] for infrastructure, we get a lot construction, right?" And things

027for infrastructure. >> Well, and I I I will say this. I think there is a lot more and we had conversations this year about what we do about um you know, physical plans in terms of capital capital needs for school districts. uh as far as like you know rehab of existing buildings or new builds, right? Um I personally would create a program uh a low interest loan program. I would bond it. Uh I would get I would get a 10 12 20 billion bond um because the state can handle that. Our our bond rating is good. Um and I would I would do grants and low interest loans to help school districts do that. Now, it's been part of the conversation. Um, that's ultimately one thing that we couldn't get over the finish line. Um,

028but I'm hopeful this year, um, this next budget year, we'll move that forward. What? So back in 2016, the general assembly enacted legislation called Plan Con, which was supposedly a fix for to or or or legislation designed to meet the capital needs of school districts, especially districts like ours that are, you know, sort of undersized and really, you know, uh the adequacy funding is a is a it's a lifeline for us. Um, I am hopeful that we can continue it. So, they enacted Plan Con, went through, passed legislation, it was signed into law by Governor Wolf. The general assembly never funded it. So, they went [clears throat] through all the time and effort of passing a bill that they never funded, which makes very little sense. So, we actually have we do have Plan Con.

029Um, now we'll probably have to, that was, like I said, that was passed in 2016. That's 10 years ago. Um, but but we have some tools in the toolbox to to try and help with that. Um, so we could we could look at that obviously with some reforms. Um, you know, and and there are other I I investigated uh redevelopment and capital assistance program funding. The problem is that that's not it's for economic development. It's not for schools. But a RACKP type program for school districts, RACKP is a great program for economic development. Um, it's it's basically a 50% match program. So, you know, whatever you want to build, the Commonwealth will match that 50% as long as you have the capital. Uh, that's a great program and I think that would be if if

030we could do like a redevelopment and capital assistance program for our school districts, I think that would be wonderful. But those things are still, you know, they're they're still just ideas at this point. Um we haven't brought them fully to fruition, but um please continue to advocate through the school boards association um you know, through the through the educational groups, through the uh through PASA um and and the different P groupoups. I mean, those are things that we need to hear um and we need to hear that from you specifically. So um that's an excellent question and and still work in progress. Anybody else? >> I have a question. >> Representative doing >> um I have a question about the equipment grants for career technical education. >> Is that for students like tool boxes that

031kind of thing or something? >> No, it's for um it's grants for the equipment like say someone's studying dental hygiene. It would be equipment like the chair, like a a dental chair, like the tools that um that you know you would use to work on something. uh someone's a welder, hey or we need a new welding machine. We need the latest welding machine so that when they get out in the real world, they know they're working on the equipment in school that they'd be working on out in the field, things like that. So, uh yeah, those it's it's those kinds of things like like you know large large equipment purchases um that that the CTC would need to be able to teach and train their students. And there's also [clears throat] and forgive me I

032don't know the actual house bill number but there was one about um uh notification to state department of education in Japan when there is weapons involved. >> Yes 34 44 >> what are your co-sponsor >> I don't I I honestly can't remember I'm a co-sponsor on like 350 pieces of legislation. Um but but I know that was passed and I know that notification went out and I thank you for that and I thank you for reminding me about this. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Um last year um in my first term I was able to get a bill passed uh to notify parents and guardians of the signs of type 1 diabetes um because the the um my daughter is a type 1 diabetic. she attends this district. Um,

033and so I wanted to thank nurse Hal Fund and the entire nursing staff. I saw that uh email go out uh earlier this year. I think it was in October and like I almost cried tears of joy because it's, you know, that was something that we had to get done legislatively um to the point where we even had support from uh the Catholic Conference and private schools that want to make the notification as well. So, um, you know, just a just a quick word on that. I mean, the the prevalence of of type 1 diabetes is most common between the ages of six and 16. So, it just made a lot of sense to have our schools do that notification. Um, and I go back to my my daughter was actually learning asynchronously when she

034got diagnosed. and I go back to um you know her her diagnosis date of June 11, 2020 and just her mother and I having no idea what was wrong with her. Um so uh I I really from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate that. It was just it meant so much coming from the homeschool district and um the place I call home. Uh so I really do appreciate that and I appreciate your notification of of the weapons >> policy too. >> Just any question? No question. Okay. Just one question I asked. >> Yes, Mr. N. >> The vote. [clears throat] >> I me you mentioned about that. Is it possible if you think about the vocational schools most time one county as one and sometime two counties come together to make it takes I

035think that we have to pay I'm going to check I think it average about $3 million a year. >> Yes. >> Yeah. if because I know you you guys down there really that would be a bill I think that you can get through that the state would take care of fund all [clears throat] technical students now most of the monies they get to buy equipment comes out of the Perkins grant >> right right yes >> so that yeah >> that takes away the I don't know where the Perkins money come from I don't know [laughter] I think it's federal >> it's federal yeah the Perkins grants >> you don't have to pay for that Yeah, >> if you could take that burden >> off the districts, that would be a big plus. Yeah. >> And

036we talking >> uh each most districts uh Dolphin Tech usually run about a $20 million budget. >> Right. Right. Yeah. >> I can take that off the the burden of the district and I think that you could sell that. I I I think that would be a little bit of a challenge really to have well to have the Commonwealth fully fund every CTC. Um >> unless they have fun. >> Yeah. I mean I think there's I think there are ways to there are definitely things that we could look at. Um you know the the the challenge there is right we have funding mechanisms and funding streams for our publiclix right you have you set a tax rate they have taxing authority the the CTC's do not they are solely rellyant on funding they get from

037the federal government any funding from the state government and then the home districts that per the per student cost that it takes to >> um did I do something >> okay [laughter] the the per student cost that that you know each each um each district that pays into or that that that flows into that school pays for their students to attend. So I think there's you know there's certainly there could be something there. Let me let me look into it. >> Check that out. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, >> that's the only place that's question. >> I thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this and the time. Thank you for your your leadership and your advocacy. I really appreciate you all. >> Hey, next up is reforms. Uh I just uh

038wanted to note uh that uh a little birdie from Department of State told me that there are some student uh students from the district participating on Friday round table uh downtown the uh Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of uh elections commissions. So just uh commending those students. I hope they enjoy the uh experience opportunity to engage be engaging with the deputy secretary uh of elections and secretary but will be opportunity. I believe it's it's discussion around student co-workers working in general. Uh so for uh folks that may not understand uh in Pennsylvania you as long as you're eligible as long as you're eligible the eligible age you can uh [snorts] be a a pole worker even while still in high school with you. Um, and what many folks don't probably recognize is that long as

039you are 18, um, before election day, you also are eligible. So, you can, as long as you're eligible to vote, register that are eligible. She may not be aware there's a severe dirt of eligible pole workers in the Commonwealth. The vast majority of pole workers I believe are the age of 55. So that's a it's a huge population that is soon going to be up to and there's not been a real push. several years to to replenish those those folks. It's a it's a vital necessary part of our civic process. by necessary part [clears throat] um you know for those students that are attending I hope they participate participate fully and then for those that may um may be eligible I would encourage you to uh seek out more information you do that through Pennsylvania

040the state or uh you can reach out uh to your teacher find out Thank you. Uh student we don't have anything rep. We have our January 20th report. Slack Colony Bu Slack Colony builders participated in the Highark Caring Place annual caring team for grieving students poster contest. Top three posters were chosen within the school for prizes and all were submitted to the Hannah to the sorry to the Highark caring place. A six-w week after school art nook program has started at Slendimoot. Students received all supplies needed for weekly projects to exercise creativity and growth. The art nook program will conclude with an art show for students and families. Holtzman had their fine arts winter showcase in which the band, orchestra, and choir performed. Thank you to all the teachers that have made this possible. Holtzman

041is also partnering partnering with the American Heart Association. This year their theme is join the KHC Lifesavers League which will continue until President's Day. Rotary educator for the month of November is Miss Kayla Duke and Rotary students of the month for November and December are Kalia Moore and Kayla Williams. STMS had their sore day. 15th the 15th celebrating academics and success. STS choir also performed at the PA Farm Show with the national anthem celebrating America's 250th anniversary. >> Thank you. >> Um I just wanted to jump off something that Mr. Johnson said. So the students that are actually going to the capital this Friday are all a part of the swim team. our coach um Lan Heatherton um she is the person who reaches out to our students. We get four students that are able

042to go help the polls and I think that's something that all sports in the district should have the opportunity to do. So I would recommend reaching out to your kids sports and to their coaches to allow them these opportunities as well. Uh, next up, uh, county techn Oh, no. D County Tax Collector. We don't have anything. Um, D County Technical School. >> Uh, yes, Mr. President. I have a report. Uh, the report I have is from December. um not the most recent report, but uh I'll talk to you guys about a lot of outstanding kids, you know, have gone through DC Tech and a lot of great things that they've done. Um but I'd like to report on one thing that's that's that caught my eye and that was really important. Um I've shown a

043lot of outstanding students, but this one seemed to uh stand out the most to me. Um, you could play the uh video. >> I wish we could count as Scott Perry. He voted to gut Medicaid, which would take away health [music] care from thousands of Pennians, >> including veterans. I wish Congressman Perry would stand with us. >> Tonight, [clears throat] a Dolphin County teen is being credited with saving his father's life using CPR he just learned weeks earlier in a high school health class. Fox 43's Tyler Poglish spoke with the family about the moment when everything changed. It was a day that started like any other for the step family. >> I was a dead man and I'm alive and it's all because of my boy >> until a normal afternoon turned into a fight

044for life. >> We were bringing a fireplace in and when we got inside and we put the heater down. He just collapsed on top of it and all it just happened. >> On November 25th, Jeremiah Stepp's father, Michael Steppp, collapsed in his home suffering a heart attack. While most teenagers may panic, his son Jeremiah did something different. >> I just wiped away all the the sadness and stuff. Just focused on trying to save my dad and it he's here. >> Jeremiah had only just learned CPR in his health class at Dolphin County Technical School. The lessons that felt routine in the classroom became the difference between life and death. While his mother called 911, Jeremiah kept his father's heart beating until paramedics arrived. >> I The last thing I remember was down here and next

045thing I know I was in ICU. I mean, that's it was just that quick. >> Michael will go on to have a double bypass surgery and today he's home recovering. >> You are my Christmas miracle. >> Michael says his son's quick thinking gave him a second chance and a new outlook to life. And there's nothing I can give him to repay him for what he's given me. All I can do is give him my love. And he's such a good boy. I know that that'll be enough for him. >> And Jeremiah says he wasn't thinking about being brave. Just about his father. >> I mean, I don't feel like it's a big role cuz I would do anything for my father. >> A teenage student, a health class lesson, and a life saved right at

046home. >> What does it mean to you to be sitting next to your father right now? >> Means the whole world to me. Like I love my dad so much. >> The American Red Cross says bystander CPR can double or even triple a person's chances of survival. Something the step family knows firsthand. >> Self-explanatory. Um you know this this young man went fashion. He didn't hesitate. He did what he had to do and he learned those skills at DC Tech. But not only that he learned them there, he reacted without panicking. and he knew what to do right right away. So, you know, these are things these kids are learning over at DCT Tech. These are the type of uh individuals we have young young people that we have uh walking through those hallways. Um

047and it's it's incredible. I thought that was wonderful. Um but getting on to my next slide. um not quite uh we had three students of the month um in December and all three were students of Susana Township 9th, 10th and 11th grade uh since I've been looking you know and being part of the JC I've never seen all three also come from the same district um in terms of you know being students of the month but all three of these students have aspirations uh above and beyond. They're they're just outstanding kids. Uh, also we finished some new construction over at DCT Tech above the cafeteria. There was a new amphitheater built. Um, there were also some refurbishing done to different parts of the cafeteria and a new snack bar and cafeteria area uh that was

048made and they are dedicating and putting a plaque in with all the JLC members um names on them that's going to be mounted. I'm not sure where yet uh where they're putting it, but I think it's somewhere near where the cafeteria is, right outside because the amphitheater is above. Uh if you want any more information regarding DCTech and all the great things these kids are doing, um it's on the agenda and which you can go to board docs and pull it up and their newsletter will be on there every month. That's my report, Mr. President. >> Those are the new members. And these are the JLC members for 2026. >> So we did that right on time there and and the representative is in here. I know he'll take that back to the house and

049say, "Man, oh man, both tech kids are doing some wonderful job. Where's the money?" [laughter] >> We knew you was coming, so we save. [laughter] Oh, >> okay. Uh, Capital Intermediate Unit. >> Yes, I have something to say. Um, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the Capital Area Intermediate Unit, the 19 board directors and staff for serving with me for the past two years as board director. While serving, I was able to represent Susuana Township School District and the voting as a board director while building long lasting relationships. I also served um I also was serving on the board of champion for children assisting in the program for children but this is my last month to serve on that and I honorally pass the torch to board director vice president Tama

050Hatcher which we'll be voting on later. Thank you. report board of commission. Uh superintendent report uh Mr. uh can you actually go to the uh third slide? Actually, no. Go to the first one. Yeah. Nope. That's good. Yep. Right there. All right. So, um as you all may know, January is school board uh appreciation month. And so I'm gonna just come down here to give this portion of my presentation and not let you fall down here. So >> last meeting um we as a part of my uh presentation a part of what I was going to share uh was that this is in fact uh schoolboard appreciation and if you've had a chance to visit our social media uh we have recognized schoolboard members on our social media but this evening we want to actually

051recognize you all for the work that you do. Um this is not an easy job. The pay is terrible. And um while it may seem like an easy job uh from out here, once you're actually sitting on that day, you realize it is very difficult. And although some of our decisions or some of your decisions, they seem very black and white. The majority of them are very much gray. And so we want to just recognize the board members uh you all not just for running but also for staying right. Um I am happy to say that this board is still in place. This is a board that we had even before the election cycle and you all returned uh willingly returned. And so what we are giving you this evening is just a very small

052token of the gratitude that we have for you all continuing to show up and continuing to do the work. Um it is thankless work. Uh but you still come, you give your all, you give your time and most people only see you in this meeting. They don't know that you come to committee meetings. They don't know that there are executive sessions outside of this. I mean, we announce it, but they don't know the phone calls that you receive, the emails that you receive, and the work that is actually done outside of this room. So, we just want to say thank you this evening. So, I'm going to call your name, and when I do, I'm going to give you a um a certificate, and the certificate says honoring school board director. It is a It

053is certificate of appreciation. This just happens to be uh Mr. Johnson, yours, Steven Johnson, for your dedicated commitment to public education in service of the Suscoin Township community for the 2526 school year. And it says with gratitude, not yet because there's more. There's more. Okay. Um nothing that you do uh is typically um recognized or appreciated. And I promise you that someone will actually complain that we're doing this tonight. However, I feel it's obl it's my obligation to recognize that without nine people volunteering their time and having thick skin in the face of much adversity, we can't do our jobs as an administration. We can't. We need you to vote on contracts. We need you to do all the things that allow us to operate as a district. So, we are doing this for you

054this evening. Now, these are typically blankets that we reserve for families who are being celebrated. However, Miss Hill, these are limited edition blankets that have school board director on them, so yours will be distinguished from everyone else's. All right, just so you know. So, this is limited limited edition. All right, so we'll start with Mr. Johnson and we're going to ask you to come up because we do want a picture with your blankets and your certificates please at the end. So we'll need you to stay and Ann Marie is going to so Mr. Steven Johnson you can give him applause. I think he might have earned it over there and Miss Lamount. >> Yes. One group shot all together. Mrs. kill this hatcher. >> Okay, they always do. Uh Dr. Mareno is not here. Uh

055we will ask for Mr. Folks. Mr. K. Johnson, Mr. Hedinberg. One picture you all don't have to move to the corner to take. Can actually be a part of it. Oh, you're good. All right. And last but not least, uh, a board member who has been with the district in this capacity because he just keeps coming back for 16 years. We're President, Mr. Jesse RWS. Yes. So, you want to organize them however you would like. That's great. >> You can shift it. Okay. Mr. Ros, this is yours. You are welcome. >> You're going have to squeeze together. >> Yes. Please do. Please do. Yeah. Turn to the side if everybody just turns this way. >> There you go. >> That looks good. >> All right, we'll do a couple. >> One, two, three. Okay. [laughter]

056down there. >> All right. Ready? >> Thank you. All right. >> Hope you don't mind. We will certainly post all the things on uh the district website. >> All right. All right. So, Miss Hill, when you're at the football games, you can have your blanket out there. >> So, the entire month of January is recognition. And because we did not have time last time, I just want to make sure that you all know we did not forget about you. It is the 20th, but we've um we wanted to just give you that well-deserved shout out. I'll finish my presentation. Um the high school kitchen. Uh again, this is something that we wanted to announce at our last meeting because that was the day our kitchen uh opened. We are so pleased that we were able

057to serve over 200 breakfasts the first day and breakfast uh had been down because of course we weren't serving the high items uh because of our equipment in the kitchen and so it was it was in need of a very much in need of an upgrade. But I'm also proud to say that we served over 500 lunches. That was just opening day. Um, we have been able to add lots of fresh produce, more hearthealthy items and selections and also we reduced the level of processing in our foods and that was something that was near and dear to my heart. Um, I want to thank Jackie Mcichael. You can go to the next slide please. I want to thank um Jackie Mcichael who is our director of food services and the whole food services team. Um

058a little while ago I went to her and I said look we serve a population that has chronic health issues at higher rates than most and we want to make sure that our cafeteria is setting them up for healthy eating habits long term. And so she took the charge and with the renovation she's able to do so much more of that not just in the high school but across the district. So, I do want to um personally thank her. Um, also before um I uh close, I do want to say Mr. Johnson, speaking of CPR, um Amari was actually were you there too, Suha, today? Okay. So, all right. So, we work with the American Heart Association and um today we actually uh provided hands-free uh CPR training for almost 200 students, I would say,

059maybe more in um the high school. And so, we were pleased. We had a cardiologist from Penn State uh who came and we had representatives from the American Heart Association and they all performed. You'll see it. it'll be a there will be a post on our social media page. But one of the reasons we've done that as well is because we want to promote um heart health. If you go on our district website, there is a whole page that is devoted to American Heart Association um resources. It also talks about that hands-free CPR. We share it with our students as well. It may be it's it's interesting that you you share this tonight because what we actually said to them today was you could save your parents' lives. You could save some, you could save

060a teammate's life. This is something that you might be afraid to do, but you need to know how to do it. Know how to even if you don't do it perfectly, just know that you gave that person a better opportunity to live. So, this was very timely and I'm glad our students were here to hear that um because it confirmed everything that we did today. So, thank you for sharing that as well. And that concludes my report. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Well, it's also a gateway >> because a lot of these kids end up becoming nurses. >> Yes. >> You know, CNAs and some MDs, you know, so you never know. >> Okay. Next up, it's u to approve the agenda. It's January 20th. Can I get a motion? >> Motion to amend the

061agenda. >> Second. Can I get a second? >> Amend to approve. Oh. >> Oh, I'm making before we approve the agenda, I'm making a motion. >> Johnson, >> what you going What's your amendment to? >> Oh, you want me to Oh, really? Okay. Uh motion to amend the agenda to move agenda item to be to read B. So you want to >> Okay, move move member comments to three. Okay, [snorts] there we go. We got a second Johnson second to move and second that we modify the agenda uh to move 2B to 3B. Any discussion? Uh just wanted to uh follow up that this is a matter that has come up for both previous week where we had uh stated that our board member comments would be found at the section 3 following our hearing

062and u we had um unanimous uh board approval that we would do that. So somehow the agenda just uh adjusted shift this time and so I just wanted to move for that correction. discussion. We'll get a roll call on this. >> We understand what we're doing, right? [clears throat] >> Yes. We have a motion to amend the agenda to move ite to item 3B. >> Yes. >> Miss Lamel, >> yes. >> Mr. Yes. >> Mr. S. Johnson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kodson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rose. No passes to one. >> So now let's have a motion to approve the agenda to amend the agenda. Can I get a motion please? Johnson moves. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I oppose. Okay, now next up is hand of the public >> the board provides an

063opportunity to hear from the public during this section of the meeting. any district resident or taxpayer may address the board on matters of concern. Official action or deliberation which are or may be before the board. The purpose of this section of the meeting is to be heard as such the board will not engage in a dialogue but will listen to your concerns and follow up directly or through assigned administrative personnel as appropriate. Please begin your public comment by stating your full name. Each member of the public may speak for a maximum of three minutes. At the end of the three minutes, your time will expire. No participant may speak more than once on the same topic unless all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard and only with permission from the

064presiding office. Any comments to the board must be directed to the board president and not individual board members or administrators. Concerns related to specific buildings should first be addressed at the school building level and follow the chain of command before coming to the board. Any comments that are considered disruptive, obscene, abusive, slanders, or defamatory will either be interrupted or terminated. No complaints may be made against specific employees, committee members, or board members. Private information related to any student is prohibited. >> All right. Um, caller first. network. >> I would like to allow the young men to speak before me just because they're on they're on the >> I thought I thought she called him. No, these were these were >> guys. You want to come up first start? I'm going to introduce myself. >> Speak

065loud where we can hear you. >> Okay. Before you start, how many people signed up for the group? Four. Four. Now, uh, y'all going to talk about the same thing or different things? Different things. Okay. >> Um, my name is Abenezer Muse. Um, I'm a student at uh, DCTS and a member of the varsity soccer team and the varsity track team. Um, I wanted to start talking about um, the same reason why on why I was here last time. Um um whenever we had our our workouts, our indoor workouts with coach Dong, he led them. It was all his idea. Um we had around 16 16 of the varsity of the team pull up to those uh workouts. Um and Coach George announced his firing that number dropped to five and five only. And then

066>> I really I can't hear you. >> Can y'all hear him? >> If you can just speak up just a little bit more. >> Maybe lean up more than >> Thank you. >> My bad. Um >> we had a a workout that was led by Coach Don. Um whenever that was led, um we had around 16 people uh show up to that. And when Coach George announced his firing, that number only dropped to five. Um, another thing, um, I had led around seven people to, um, write a letter to Coach George stating that won't be playing under his leadership. Um, he wished us all the best. And I want to point out that, um, se seven of those people all played on the varsity team and two of those were um, were going to be

067uh, expected varsity captains. Um, if I were put under his role, I would have at least set up a meeting, ask why. Um, and and just to just discuss it even more. I'll pass it on to whoever wants to speak. [clears throat] >> Yeah, that's me. >> Yeah, just announce your name. >> All right. My name is Ari Musi. Um, his brother. Good evening, everyone. I'm speaking today because many of us are upset about the decision coach George Coach George made to remove our assistant coach Dominic [snorts] Shiano. It happened suddenly and without any clear explanation and it has affected the team in a negative way. Coach Dominic brought energy and consistency to the program. He comm communicated well with players and helped create a positive environment. Since he was removed, morale has dropped and

068many of us feel uncertain about the direction of the team. Many players, including both the team captains, believe coach Dom should be leading this program. He he earned our trust and helped us improve as a team. It's everything for me. >> Thank you for your time. [clears throat] >> Um, good evening. Uh, my name is Rashar Gurun. Um, I wanted to talk more about how um, Coach Dom like he went um, up and above like as a coach like he lives in like the the Redland district, right? So he lives like 30 40 minutes away, but he would come here and back every time to help us with workouts or to train us and whatnot. And um, what else? Um, I also think that like as students and athletes, we should like like we're expected

069to like um strive and like like strive for success and like and like show positive attributes, right? But I think coach George like once our season ended, he was talking about how like um what's it called? He wanted um uh coach Dom and coach Carl to be on the same team as us, right? But then later on he fired them for like basically no reason. But what I heard was that it was because um coach Dom was being too much of a head coach and I feel like that was just like like sort of incompetent, I guess. Yeah, that's it. >> Hey, [clears throat] you speaking? >> Okay. Good evening. My name is Cis Guron and I actually want to talk about something coach George said a long while back from one of our players.

070We heard that he uh disrespectfully talked about how uh um it was about joining the season and how he he said something in the in the lines of uh >> well I I don't want you to look listen you can't come here and talk negative about approach. Now, >> you can say you can say what you want to say, but >> most of the time we're [clears throat] the judge and the jury, and I don't need to hear all the negatives you're saying if we going to do anything. But uh you can't >> I'm not talking negatively about Coach George. I'm just saying he um disrespect disrespected us and that it wasn't wrong. It wasn't right of him for him to say that about us because we're also students that want to play for so

071soccer team. But he also did something that wasn't right for Coach Diamond and Coach Garland. Cuz >> I tell you what you do. best thing for you to do. I appreciate you guys coming. We're the school board and sometime we have the final say, but take it to the athletic director and talk to the athletic director. And I know you guys are saying about the coach was fired and this and that, but I don't know how much you watch football or anything or watch any sports, but head coaches get fired all the time. That's just part of the game. And you as students going to have to understand that during your lifetime, you may have many coaches if you're going to play this game and you may lack your head coaching that fire. But I

072I appreciate you guys showing up, but take it to the athletic director, talk to the athletic director, and he'll follow the channels. And it's a personnel matter that we cannot discuss publicly. It's like we can't discuss students problem publicly. So, it's a personnel matter. So, you can take it to the athletic director. I appreciate you coming, but you have to take it to the athletic director. Okay. Do you know Mr. Dean, Lance Dean, the athletic director? >> Yeah. sit down with him and [clears throat] if you don't get your results from him then you come to the talk to the superintendent or assistant superintendent. Okay. And then they'll come to us. Okay. That's how it that's how it works. Okay. Thank you for coming. >> Excuse me. >> That's enough. >> You can give your

073name and then and thank you. >> Question. >> Yeah. Um my question is that uh it's not you you you spoke already. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I will get you question. Thank Mr. President. >> Okay. Uh so when we have students when we have students providing public comments >> when we have adults providing comment not allow them to provide the names of students. Uh and we have students commenting. Is there um is there perhaps a procedure that needs to be put in place that uh their uh provides them to provide a first name only if if >> well they can say coach >> I'm not talking about when identifying themselves. If they couldn't be identified by another person, I don't know that they should be identifying themselves fully in

074the same respect that we are trying to protect them as >> what I think should have happened in a situation like this. I know we can't stop student or people from coming up but when they when they dealing with coaches I think we have to go to another channel because kids going to come with their opinion about coaches that say thing because they're kids that's what they did I mean and I think that I don't know but I think they should talk to the athletic director and then if they don't then the athletic director come talk to us talker administration. I think that's how we should handle. >> I believe that we we gave some instructions to students about what their process and procedures were and the young man had a question. >> He already

075spoke and I would let him speak. >> I understand that >> that's the way it's going to be. >> And he he had a question and probably he had a question about procedural next steps. >> Mr. De will tell him that >> for him about how to do that perhaps. We didn't even hear the question of what it was. So, we don't know whether he was going to ask us um is there an email address for Mr. Dean? Is there a phone number or something? We don't know what he was going to say. We just immediately shut down this question because he had already spoken without knowing what he was going. >> Miss uh Miss Hatchet, we're going to uh board comments. When we get the board comments, then you can talk. >> That's all.

076Anybody? What's the next? >> Yes. Good evening. [snorts] >> Clifton Edwards is my name. I didn't realize it was board appreciation, but thinking about that, I thought I just mentioned that Linda Butler served on the board for 38 years. And maybe it's time that the board recognized Linda Butler's service to this district for 38 years of service. >> [clears throat] >> You could do that by naming the boardroom or the board table after Linda Butler or the new boardroom at Oz Anderson Center after Linda Butler. But as you all sit here for your time, Linda Butler sat there for 38 years. Just throwing that out. I really came just to talk about what I'm always been talking about, the objective performing standards. There's a contract that has a bunch of pages that says, "This is

077what I want. Benefits, pay." The other side says, "This is what we want. This is what we want for giving you that." And I'm told the solicitor says, "We don't need to put that in there." Two Januaries ago, there were four new board members on the board. I came before them and I told them the two greatest mistakes I had. I accepted the solicitor's recommendation to accept the resignation of the superintendent. Regretted it till this day. I accepted the interim superintendent suggesting that we expel a boy for weapons for a year. Regretted it until this day. You represent the community, the public. This is what I want. Five pages almost of what I want. this is what the community expects for what we give you. The solicitor tells us we don't need to put that

078in there. We need to put it somewhere. It's not on the website. We have no objective performance standards. We have none. You all are the stewards. Four board members were new two years ago. It's time to mark what you expect by the time your four years are up. Or you'll end up regretting the distance you traveled in four years. It could be how much money did we have in the bank savings when I got on the board. How much do we have now? How much debt were we in? [clears throat] How many schools were low achieving? It's time. These are things that say this is how far we've come. If you have no objective performance standards, you have no way of charting. When you're done, two years from now, however many of you that I'm

079not supposed to address, when you're done, you won't know how far we've come. So, I'm asking you again as you represent our community, identify the objective performance standards that you want to be met in the five years of the contract that you awarded. I know these guys. They should have got the football team. >> See the ones who they can't speak. >> I know. I know. The three minutes because it's the minutes, not the message. [snorts] That's what this is. >> Is anybody else? >> Yeah. >> Anybody else help speaking? >> I'm saying this to help you guys. Yeah, you heard me right away. You got it. >> We always hear you, Mr. Mr. Edwards. We always hear you. >> I I know you do. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. >> Hello. Good

080evening. Happy New Year. if I didn't say it to you last time I was up here. Um, Willie Harmon, as we all know and I want to talk about the school board appreciation month. I want to congratulate each and every one of the eight of you that are here of this nine person board. That was not said in sarcasm. And I will say in playing my visualization of what I've been seeing for the last six or seven meetings that I've been into, there's eight of our nine board members here. Unfortunately, because of a glitch on Facebook, I wasn't able to address when I saw the posts online. Otherwise, I really might not have spoken tonight. But my thing is this, we hear that people are excused by the president um when they're not here at

081a meeting. problem is is these meetings are a matter of public record. And I think the boards now make when one of their board members is absent a matter of public record in regards to why they're being excused. Are they being excused? No offense. Um because there was a death in the family. Maybe there is a health problem that is ongoing. Cuz when you're not here for 95% of these meetings, it's like you're not here at all. No matter what you do out out of sight, this is where you're seen. And this is where the public has a right to know why are you always absent from a meeting. So I get it. I'm a person, too. I I was on a in a public public capacity that I'm going to speak to if I

082get enough time to, but that's needs to start happening for at least for transparency so that voters can know why the their members are vis or [clears throat] constantly absent or when they're absent. Um, so like I said, I want to also I'm touch on something else that Mr. Johnson was speaking on with uh student pole workers. I don't know if you guys noticed, but I was once the uh judge of elections in Pinbrook 4. Uh I think it was I vacated I think in [clears throat] uh 2024 I think uh or 2004. And during that time period, ISP helped implement that uh program where we would got students from Harrisburg High to come down and uh help volunteer at the post. That is something that when I talked with my old contacts down at

083the uh downtown, they said, "Well, that person isn't here no more. We kind of do it." And you know, if you guys want to help with that, I'll gladly volunteer to how I got it set up. And if all we need is the the school district's uh student council, we or even just people who are interested in in public and going into public service and politics to do it. Um, and because I got 2 seconds left, the board knows it to investigate this these students that showed up twice. That's all. Thank you for your time. Um, I know that's an administrative issue, but now they came here twice. Give them at least the due diligence of saying, "Hey, they should be coming up. We're going to look down that we they you know, all good

084news." >> Thank you, my thanks for your comments. [clears throat] Now we go to uh move to [clears throat] >> uh board comments. Comments. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh just wanted to recognize that uh today is January 20th, but yesterday we celebrated the Martin Luther King holiday and Dr. King would have been 97 years old, born in 1929. Um the climate that we're finding ourselves in with many of our um civil liberties uh eroding and you know with our civil rights act um being enacted 62 years ago was within many of our lifetime or stone throw away of our lifetime. So uh with that it is um so it's uh encouraging to me I wanted to congratulate and I wish that they would have remained our soccer team because I just wanted to them to

085hear uh from their board at least for me as a board member to tell them that I appreciate them coming out. I appreciate their civic engagement. I appreciate their participation in the process. and while they're young and while they may not understand all of the ins and outs of parliamentary procedure or the difference between you know personnel matters and and what's allowable I believe that that is where we as the adults in the room the board members we help to guide them um simple matter of stating that hey um certain things are personnel matter that we can't discuss referring them back to our statement at the beginning that you know we're not allowed to discuss um individual members or or names, but just to hear them out. And I believe that we do our students

086a disservice when we we rush them off, when we don't hear them out completely, when we don't encourage them to engage in the civic process and at least just state their voice. It takes nothing from us. It doesn't um you know disturb the peace here at all for us to simply answer their questions about process and procedure. They too are citizens of the public and I believe that they probably you know came here thinking that well the club stops with us as a board and they they wanted to be heard. And so while our soccer team may not have the voice and the presence of the football team or the basketball team or the level of public support or backing that one of our larger athletic teams do. Um those young men who stood up

087here they represent the very want you to put one team against the other team. >> That's not that's not at all. If I may please make my board statement, >> not putting any of our teams against the other. Simply making the statement of fact that soccer team is a it's a smaller team. It doesn't have any as many members. It's not not as popular in the public. In addition, as I said it, um our students are u of diverse backgrounds. We always tout that diversity is our strength and with that said, we want to support those students who may not have the voice that a Cole or an Amari or other students might have. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Thank you on CPR. I know for a fact

088that this community offers a 4minut community care team. So, if anybody's interested in learning CPR and also being equipped with an a AED to respond to your within the mouth of your home to help um increase the risk of somebody increase the chances of somebody surviving a cardiac arrest, please look into it. I would encourage anybody to look into it if they're willing to step up the plate and serve the community that way. Um, as far as the education, that's a question, not in question. It may be a more of a concern. So, I believe two or three meetings ago, Mr. Dane came in and asked that we or just let us know that they were going to drop the requirements for the credits for P down to the level PIAA. >> And then the

089last meeting, Dr. Archer said we're considering dropping the credit requirements for graduation because they're higher than what's required by the state. So my concern is now is that we are lowering the bar when our students haven't been able to graduate before the standards are set. And if that is going to be the way the administration wants to move, then I would ask for a very compelling reason why we would keep lowering the standards here. Next is the um with the state now requiring that it's an evidencebased reading program in the school. I just like to ask and it doesn't have to be answered tonight but like where we stand with that. Are there going to be changes in the curriculum? Are we going to stick to what we're doing with that new requirement from state?

090That's it. I just like to piggy back on what you said about the PIAA and um at one time uh most school district had a 7point scale. Some school district and other school district didn't. would say that a sevenpoint scale meaning that a a 77 was a C instead of seven 70 and um I took up and I called the NCAA and I asked them what do they prefer you know what the answer is 70 whatever the school district said that's what they will accept cuz why I said that is that the inner city of Harris was paying $1.7 for bottle water and you were paying a dollar. That's how I calculated out and that's how it was because if you really think about it so you put a [clears throat] strain on other than

091what the PIAA say it it is a conflict and it's not fair to the other kids that are have to be at the 70 and I got to be at the 77. So I think at one time we said that we needed but back in the day was what 20 credits. >> We used to have 28 credits >> 28 >> as a graduation requirement. PA school code requires 21 and um lowering that number doesn't address rigor of the 21 credits that you have. So it's not lowering the bar. It is simply not requiring our students to have as many credits in order to graduate. But you're speaking of rigor. So we are actually higher than other school districts like Cumberland Valley. So it's not about the number. It's really about the rigor of the courses

092that you do offer. That is that's the bar that we need to that we're we're seeking to meet, not the number itself. >> Yeah, I understand both. My as far as the sporting I just feel like we are a school first. Our goal is to educate our children. Academic athletics comes second. And I don't understand why we're just like, well, let's just make it easier for him to get on the field. Well, >> especially when we're dealing with the public who is looking at our performance and it seems like, well, you're not living up to what you're >> have on the books now. >> I got I understand. I know most people look at it that way, but and and overall that I find that the kids that participate in sports, they do well in

093academically wise because they're in a routine that they go through. And when my experience, when they wasn't participating, that's when their grades dropped. But when they were participating, they stayed up this level because they had to be at that level. And I always saw that. And the other thing that I want to make comment on, I understand what some of your board members says about teaching the young people how the process work, but the process worked this way. The first step should have been with the athletic director. athletic director say this is what this is what we're going to do how we do it but think about it now when someone come to us they just enlighten us on there's a problem now we already knew there was a problem we hear them out because

094there's a personnel matter and we listen to them but them coming and talking about what's going on and sometime we have to let them know that's that's not the proper way to do things and that's not the proper way to do things. The proper way to do things is actually go to the principal first. They wanted to do something because the principal is in charge of the building there and he he will say go talk to the athletic director and when they come to us what can we do? We can say to Dr. Willis or that athletic director will say to Dr. Willis, can you find out the problem and you come back to us with I think that's the way it works and we stay in our lane and they stay in their lane.

095>> Well, to Miss Hatcher's point, wasn't that her whole point to direct them to how they do the process correctly? >> Well, apparently they did, but they didn't listen. That's what happened. They didn't listen and we we engaged with them to come. Maybe we should have not let them speak the first time to tell them go back to the AD. That's what was happening. >> All right, that's my last comment. >> Can I make one comment with that comment? >> Miss Miss Hill when you said like that. Yes, you allowed to make >> Okay. I think when they came to us last time, I think >> to not have them come back a second time, maybe we know their names. Maybe the school should maybe educate them and not us have to educate them at

096a board meeting. They they they do know >> they they track >> well they I'm saying that we that we have them go through the process meet I know um Dr. Martin said something about meeting with them but something's not getting through to these young men. They've not understanding because they're back here a second time. >> We did not get the answer they wanted. That's basically it. They've gone through the whole channel. >> But we can't give them the answer. We cannot give them the answer. Do you think we can give them the answer? >> I wasn't saying give them the answer, but we were trying to give them the process. >> We We did, but they know the process. >> They've actually gone through it. They've actually gone through >> and I'm not going

097to engage with them anymore about it because that's not our job. Now, we're listening to them. They came and they have to do the proper thing. And we can't we can't do anything about that. So of the day presentation finance All right. Okay, good evening uh board. Uh tonight's finance committee report is actually uh December's report. So you'll notice that there is a year-to- date uh budget from November and that is why uh we had some weather delay on December 3rd, I think. Um and then the January report was pushed today. So tonight um my first presentation will review the year-to- date budget and the reason why we do this is just to keep the board a breast as to where we are with budget performance. So we take the opportunity to look at the

098current budget, what we've received in revenues and what we've expended in expenditures and compare that to the prior year at the same time. And there are a couple reasons why we do that. One, we want to monitor cash flow and we had a late state budget. So, we wanted to ensure that we had uh sufficient cash to provide uh to pay our um obligations. Representative Fleming gave most of my uh update on the state budget. Um but I'll touch on a couple pieces uh on that as well and then provide the public and the board an update on transportation. Okay. So with respect to the year to date again this is just comparing this November 30th from July 1st to November 30th of 25 to July 1st to November 30th of 24. And you'll notice

099that our revenues to date uh we were at 64% so 63.95% received in revenues compared to last year this period we were at 70. Uh two main reasons for that one there was a delay in the state budget but you'll also notice that in other revenue services there is a $1.3 million um transaction recorded. Uh that is due to our lease. So we lease our computers uh onetoone devices um and that has not yet been recorded at this time. However uh looking at some highlights on the revenue side I wanted to report that for real estate collections currently at this period uh we were at 96% collection last year we were at 92%. EIT, which is our second greatest uh revenue stream in local sources. Um we were at 25% collected versus 24 the prior

100year. For occupation and uh per capita, we at we were at 77% and 79% collected this year compared to 76 and 78%. On the state side, uh the budget was passed 138 days late. Um and so our first payment came in um right after the budget adoption and that happened on November 18th. Federal funds started coming in uh in December. So December 2nd to be exact. Any questions on the revenue side? Moving on to expenditures. So there are two different ways that we can view expenditures. We can view them by function which outline what program that is or we view them by object. Um and historically we have viewed them by object and object is just uh goods and services that we procure. And so as always uh you'll notice that there is an increase

101from budget to budget in the realm of salary and benefits. and that has to do with not only our contractual obligations um but also we had several new positions that were approved in that budget. There are a couple items that I'd like to uh point out. Um you'll notice in other finances financing uses u which is the last item uh right above total expenditure. Last year we had a one a $1 million recorded versus this year $3 million recorded and that was just due to timing. So we are all caught up um in that. Overall our expenditures I would say are at the same pace as we were last year at this time. Any questions on the expenditures? Can you just explain other financing like what does that mean? >> So those are debt payments

102and uh debt issuances. So our interest payments and principal payments and also our lease payments. Any other questions? Okay. This is just a visual view of what we just reviewed. The next slide is the 2526 state budget. As I mentioned um and Mr. uh Representative Fleming mentioned the budget was slightly late this year um 138 days late and um texted Dr. Willis and I'm like oh I'm following his presentation so he's covered most of what I [laughter] what I've outlined. um he gave a high overview and you'll see some numbers attached to those um areas. But overall, the K12 budget item is the second largest um line item in the state budget. First comes um health services and then education. Um and then there are five areas that really impact Sescana Township directly. That's basic

103education, uh, special education, cyber charter reform, the school facilities grant, school and safety, and mental health. And so we'll be reviewing some of those items today. These are statewide numbers. The next slide is going to show our numbers. So with respect to us um the basic education funding line item um was 82 $8.2 billion as a whole. Um our share is $6.7 million. So, we saw an increase of $143,000 um or a 2.17% increase over the 2425 school year. Special education um this is an aotment for uh students with special needs and we received an increase of $3,414 or.16%. that total line item in the state budget is 1.4 million. Then we have adequacy funds or adequacy supplement um which is lumped into what was already established as ready to learn. And so there are

104two pieces of ready to learn um adequacy supplement started in 2425 and as Mr. Uh, Representative Fleming mentioned, um, this was as a direct result of a lawsuit in the state of Pennsylvania. Uh, several school districts uh sued the Commonwealth uh stating that they had not met their obligation to funding uh public schools adequately. And so in uh Governor Shapiro's first budget address, he challenged both the House um and the Senate to fulfill their commitment. At that time, they identified a funding gap of over $4 billion for over 500 school districts across the Commonwealth. Suscoana Township's estimated allotment was 17 million. So to date, we have received 3.4 of what they've initially stated is our funding gap and that increase is 21.16%. So total increase in state monies is $2 million uh or 19.80%. Um

105and overall that is what we received in the 2526 budget. >> 17 just that 17 million 17 million or is that 17? So they so they took a snapshot of our revenues and expenditures and our cost per pupil off of the 2122 school year. And so depending on that and the analysis they did did across the state. So they picked their highest performing schools um the highest diverse schools with respect not only to our type of diversity but also in student learning and academics um and determined what that per pupil target would be and that target was 14,000 and at 2122 we were at 10,000 and so over time it's an aggregate number. >> So they identified the gap. >> They identified the gap. >> Yeah. >> That doesn't mean that that gap gets cut.

106>> No. >> And it's not sustainable. proceed. >> So based off of the connections that uh we have um we believe that the governor will make um another charge to the um to the house and senate and challenge them to fund it again. long term. I don't know. >> Hopefully patient think throughout. >> Yes. Is that okay? >> I mean I I didn't want them to interrupt you. >> Oh, okay. So overall um in June the board is required to pass a budget and we do that regardless of whether or not we have a state budget. Right? Our deadline is June 30th. And so we did um and you'll notice what our revenues and expenditures were and what our projected deficit um was at that time when we allocated the state monies. uh you'll notice

107that our projected deficit did go down. Now I also want to mention because I know there was um some confusion as to you know why did we use this money to cover the deficit and not um and not at you know push it towards program but we did. And so, you know, as the school district budgets and we start our budget 18 months in advance and a lot of that information is unknown and we'll go through some of that today because we have the revenues uh to look at for 2627. But as we're communicating with our state organizations um and associations and um talk to our representatives, we're given information that um so that we can work towards. And so, as Governor Shapiro mentioned in his um in his press conference here in the district,

108we actually put that money towards several new positions, instructional coaches, uh towards our cadet program. And so, we're continuing to make sure that those dollars are directly impacting kids. And we have to prove that because we don't only just receive this money. We actually have to provide the state as to how we're spending that money. Okay. Any questions on that? Yes. >> Why? Um how come we were planning to run in deficit? What what's the the economic or financial reason for why we work with a plan deficit? Um well several reasons. Um I know that uh not having sat in the position and um only hearing it from uh the gallery. Um we didn't increase taxes to the index, we chose to do that below uh because we were pursuing EIT referendum and we wanted

109to show the community um our commitment to reducing the real estate tax um allocation or increases. Um, but also there are instructional needs uh within our district. And so one of the things that you'll you'll see throughout budget presentations in the upcoming uh months is that we have underfunded and unfunded mandates and those go up every single year. So there are economic challenges just as we as private citizens experience um that school districts experience. So that could be increases in goods and services and sometimes that will exceed the amount that we're allowed to increase taxes by. >> Uh last part of this uh presentation is our transportation update. So um we know that we have been working towards a solution to ensure that we are fully uh staffed with uh bus drivers and that our

110bus fleet um is uh up and running for the 2520 school6 school year. So, at the start of the 2526 school year, we were down or we had 11 unfilled buses. And to address that, um, we contracted, the board approved a contra a contract with Christ transportation. And their goal this year was just to supplement Aurora Bus Company. And so, we had a plan that we worked with with Christ. Um we identified 10 runs which equated to five buses that we wanted to transfer from Roar Bus to Christ Transportation. And so that happened in November and December. And as of December 31st, uh all of those 10 runs are fully staffed by Christ Transportation. Um and then our rural buses are still fully staffed and so we've had no issues since then. Um so right

111now what ChristI is doing is working on developing the 26 27 school year. So we are actively recruiting. You may have seen um some advertisements locally um on the TV stations. You'll notice um some radio announcements of our advertisements. Um and so we're hoping that um in April that we have a full complement for 2627. That's our goal. So, I'll pause there to see if there are any questions on transportation. So, five for Christ. Um, and we continue to hire substitute drivers drivers for ROAR. I'm not sure of that number, but I can get back to you. >> How many drivers do we need? How many runs do we have in addition? So we have over 56 runs um between full size buses and vans. >> So that mean we that run don't mean that

112each driver we need 50 some drivers. >> No. >> so a run is an AM or a PM. [snorts] >> Oh so 25 driver. >> Well it's so we have uh 28 buses. Um, and 24 bands. So that's how many drivers we would need. >> I don't know if the board members have noticed that you see Susana Township on some of us. >> The ones that you see Susana Township on Chris. >> Yeah. So those are the ones that you see that you know that's a change. >> Any other questions? Yeah, I just I just that we supplement we didn't just we didn't actually have >> did not have the capacity to provide [clears throat] contract >> right >> so we have to go out and uh mitigate the lack of drivers and we found

113a stop gap >> right So my question is, has been given given any indication they inability to find drivers between September of last year and February, I'm sorry, January of this year. Is [snorts] there any indication that Roy is in a different position than what they were? I don't know if that they're they're in a 100% uh different position than they were. Uh certainly there still remains to be a school bus driver shortage across the Commonwealth. Um but they have made some efforts. Uh they have had job fairs. They have increase their hourly rates. Um, but historically in the last several years, we have had to either split or double up on runs. So, this is not a one-year occurrence. Um, it happened over time. >> Yes. So in our contract with Christ transportation, we

114have a liquidation clause uh to protect the district. And so um obviously we've learned from our experiences and so we wanted to make sure that our contract supported the need that we have in the district. We are not We're using that money to pay Christ transportation. >> Uh my next uh presentation um I again apologize this is was this was set for January 5th. This is our first look at our 26 27 uh revenues. It won't be our last uh just our first one to tell let you know where we are. So we kicked off the 2627 budget development back in September when PDE rolls out the act one timeline and the act one index um and we start receiving information as to the milestones that we have to meet. So, one of the things

115that you'll continue to hear me uh state in all of my presentations is that the budget is fluid and it's a work in progress. Um, nothing is finalized until we make a recommendation for final budget adoption in June. At this point, there are many unknowns. Uh, the governor will make his budget address on February 3rd. Um and even after that we won't know until actual budget negotiations start. There are several things that we use to develop uh both revenues and expenditures. Uh we look at prior year actuals um historical trends and economic conditions. So tonight um again our focus is on uh revenues. Uh and there are four major sources of revenue. Um, we're going to talk about three, but I just wanted to list all four. Um, and you noticed them in the committee

116report. Local, state, federal, and other financial source sources. Um, overall, our preliminary revenues in have increased so far by 5.55% over the 2526 school year. Local revenues continue to be the district's primary source source of revenues. state subsidies and federal uh subsidies remain at 2526 levels and we'll look at that more deeper um as the slides go on. So this is a pie chart to show what that breakdown looks like. And in short summary, what you can take away from this chart is that uh 71 cents of every local revenue dollar comes from the community members and 27 cents comes from the state. Okay. So the reliance here at Sescoana Township is heavy on local taxpayers. And Kathy, if I could just throw this analogy out because we talked about this on the beginning. For

117every child that comes to the district, if you think about um paying for that child education, making sure that child um receives an education, they come with 27 cents, you would say. >> All right. So, they come with about 27 cents from the state and federal government combined. the remainder of that dollar that we need to spend for that child comes from our local revenue sources. And so, um, Representative Fleming was here earlier. I've spoken to him over the years about how our district is so over reliant on local revenue. Um, and that's one of the things that I I'm grateful that he has pushed for because that is actually above average. Like that's that's not the average. a lot most districts are not relying on local revenue the way that our district is. And

118so it's a different um scenario here, but that's how I quantify it. For every dollar we spend to educate a child, 70% of that comes directly from our um constituents. Yes. Um the next slide shows a sideby-side comparison um in terms of numbers. You'll I just want to make a point that the 2526 is the approved budget. So what we just reviewed in the committee report with the state funding um amounts that is not included in that amount because that was not the approved budget. Um however in the 2627 preliminary budget we have factored in those increases in basic special education and ready to learn and those are going to be our base numbers for 20 uh 2627. This is just a visual chart um of what that looks like. So as we dig a

119little deeper into uh each of the revenue sources um as I mentioned 71% of total revenue district revenues comes from local community and out of that 76% is from real estate taxes. It is our largest uh driving revenue source in local sources with EIT to follow. Um the assessed values did increase slightly. Um and we have a slide later on to show you some historical trends. Um and you'll notice that even before you apply the tax the act one index you'll see that there is an increase in revenues just from that growth in assessed values. We have factored in um or assumed a 4.4% 4% uh increase um and that is to the act one adjusted index that we have been given that generates 1.7 million in revenues. We're assuming that our collection rate is

120at 97% is actually slightly below 98% and that is where we have been um historically and we continue to have good collection rates. Fortunately, I wanted to ask you here. >> I was trying to see here the $265. Is it $265 we get from uh personal tax? >> $270. >> 270. No, this is just real estate taxes. >> Oh, this is the real Oh, okay. This is just real something. Yeah. Um, >> is that on here? >> It'll be in the next slide after this one. Uh for delinquent tax increase um we assumed a 297 $296,000 increase or 19.51% and that is just because our historically our trends have um been that we have collected more than we budgeted and so we've adjusted that. Uh delinquent per capita tax collections assume a decrease of 280

121and we'll see a more detailed view in the next slide. And then our miscellaneous revenues, we've assumed a decrease, but this is one area that we continue to investigate as I learn more about what's budgeted and what's received in that area. So this this slide is a detailed view and you get to see each of the line items. um what was budgeted in 24 or what was actual in 2425, what was budgeted in 2526, and then our preliminary numbers for 2627. And you'll notice right under uh earned income tax, we have occupation tax. Um and that uh our historical trends continue to show that that is at a $2 million uh collection. Any questions on local revenues? The next slide shows the assessed value history. I wanted to make a couple points here. Um I've

122highlighted some some things. Residential properties um comprised of 60% of our assessed values. So total assessed values is 60% is residential properties. 30% come from commercial properties. One of the things that impacts us negatively and impacts not only our revenues but also impacts residential property owners um is assessment appeals. So every time a commercial property wins an assessment of heels, we lose revenue. But and then that also hurts taxpayers because it's going to take that much more of us increasing taxes to gain the exact revenue amount that we need to generate. >> Well, that's the part that I don't think that the residents understand. They don't see that part of when they reassess property. how much money we lose over a period of time. And then when if they understand that when someone come in

123to reassess their property, the amount of money we lose and that's that go on. I don't just end is the duration that that they get a reassessment of something. I think that I don't know how I don't know how do we get the public to understand that part. It's difficult because I mean we don't have a whole lot of control over that. We can challenge assessment appeals but those decisions are made outside of this room um initially um and then you know we we have to challenge them. But you'll notice that just as an example, um in 23 our assessed values dipped. Um and that's mostly due to commercial uh assessment appeals. They rebound. Um but you'll see that it impacts us historically. Most school districts across the Commonwealth are seeing um an annual increase

124in their assessed values before they apply a tax increase between a half a percent to a percent on an annual basis. We've only seen a half a percent in the last 5 years because of the impact. One of the other things that I want to mention, and I we mentioned this during the EIT um town halls, is that our new properties that are being built now are not assessed at today's dollars. They're assessed at $2,01. Uh because that is the last time the county did a countywide reassessment. And so properties are applied a common level ratio to to come up with what that building would have cost back in 2001. >> Uh good question. >> I know this is going out on on the internet that that families can read and look to understand. they

125knew everything that we knew as a board members. I wonder would it make a difference because [snorts] I think they only think about we sitting here and raise their taxes but they ask the u the appeals that we get that's public knowledge right so [snorts] why don't we can we all the appeals that we get we put on on our website these they won't be and how much it affect us. If people if the residents understood that the people that make all this money and build all these build, how often they come in and ask for an appeal just like we we give an appeal to a company of $750,000. Now, no taxpayers in here. And the people said it didn't understand that that we had to cut a check for $750,000 at one time

126to give somebody back because they wanted their appeal. And then where do we get that $750,000? We have to turn around and raise real estate taxes. And they don't understand that part. And that's why we was fighting so hard with the earned income tax to do that. But we got some people saying it's wrong. don't do it. But now it's going to come down to what I see up here, 5.5%. Are we looking for an increase? And then what are the taxpayers going to do? Come in here and beat us down and not understand the big picture. And I uh I I don't know. I'm finished. Right on. >> I mean, we start making a hit list other side. Those who are coming in for tax decreases for businesses, then are we going to do

127the same for individuals? And then how much time are we taking away from what we're supposed to be doing to attack the people who are in this community, whether it's the business or individual who live here? >> No, I'm just saying put it on the website. That's all. >> It's public. >> Yes. Glad to have um how much how much information do you have on the on the not just the I'm not talking about uh commercial property owners that file appeal but do we have do we have baseline statistics on how many commercial businesses are actual local [clears throat and snorts] how many local businesses are >> like their corporate offices are outside >> corporate >> owned and those types of >> I'd have to talk to uh Miss Montoya and Mr. Anderson. >> I

128I'm just curious if that's something that we statistic. I'm just curious if you've ever looked at a a global picture of like what the makeup I mean [clears throat] it's easy it's easy to say that residential residential property you can differentiate relatively easy a residential property owner is a a resident of the commonwealth versus uh an invest an investment on property that is uh that individual or that corporation is not based. We do the same thing with like an idea of who's actually hidden township. >> Yeah, I mean certainly I can go back and and talk to u Mr. Anderson. Um but I think one of the things that we're doing uh to combat some of this is um actually on the agenda for tonight for first read um and that is the district initiated

129assessment appeals um so that will hopefully help us um in this. So looking ahead um I put a slide in uh that shows our real estate tax history. Um you'll notice that the yellow mark is the uh or the yellow line is the act one base index. The green is the adjusted index and then the red is the rate that we increase taxes by. So up until 2223 um we did not qualify for the adjusted index. Um, so we were only able to increase taxes by the base index. And so what allows us to consider a tax increase to the act one adjusted index is our market value, personal income, aid ratio. And so our market value is our tax base. Personal income is just that um and that is compared to the state. So

130an aid ratio is determined when those two factors are compared to the other 500 school districts across the state. And so when our aid ratio is above 0.4 four. Then the state gives us a multiplier that says use this multiplier to come up for your adjusted act one index to determine what your maximum increase is um and you can tax more which seems uh counter inuitive because what our aid ratio is actually saying that our tax base isn't increasing. And so it can't grow till tax people born. That's what that's what it's saying. So in comparison uh to Dolphin County Schools, uh we are essentially in the middle when it comes to um the real estate uh tax percentage increases. So you'll see the history from 1516 to 2526. So we're not the highest and

131we're not the lowest we did there. that also doesn't and this also factor in >> so >> just looking at that one line item >> so there a way to present this information adjusted but that is there a way to present this normalized to actually show what our tax rate is adjusted with PIT that uh that that adjusted for PIT and non uh act more accurately reflecting districts like central. [clears throat] Middletown also has an EIT to what what their revenues what their percentages look like and what their um tax rates [clears throat] look like when you normalize. don't know that this tells us I don't know that this tells folks this is just a bunch of numbers if it does if not normalized across all of those variations. It just looks like when yes

132it looks like when you pull it back doesn't actually >> collect what we collect compared to what those collect because >> they have one mainstream they're tapping into, right? And it looks like looks like we're in the middle of that. But in terms of what that means for the resources available to the students, we're not in the middle of that because they have a whole funding stream that we're not talking. >> So I could just real estate >> I mean you have a your point this is just real estate tax. This is just the military. So are you asking you know the department to add EIT if they collect it or you know personal like if they collected all the other streams that they would have. >> Yeah I because I think because I think

133the conversation that we're having right now we are in the middle of the pack but we >> just on real estate. Yeah, I think I think I clarified. See what what happens here with the millillage >> right >> now. Give you an idea. Central Dolphin, they probably collect on $2 billion. We only do $1.7 billion. So if they're doing two to three billion dollars because all of their real estate on the right road. >> Well, they also have more taxpayers. >> Right. Got the tax. So if you notice >> second population >> exactly >> and they're natural growth >> and they do earn income. Well, that's what I'm I'm guess what I'm saying trying to politely say is millage means nothing anymore if you're not [clears throat] if you're not capturing it contextually within all

134of the revenue that's being captured because it doesn't accurately reflect how effective your your vehicle for um revenue is because you're you're leaving out it's like putting in half of the equation and leaving out you I think what I hear you saying, what what I hear you saying is >> because they have a lower millage rate. In other words, no, they they can have a lower millage rate because they have a higher EIT potentially. >> So, they're still being funded at a higher rate than we are. >> Well, yeah. And without without getting into this minutia of defining what a millage rate is for the average person so that they know that it doesn't really doesn't really reflect anything other than a unit of measurement. Sure. Understanding that that end of the measurement is just

135one piece of the puzzle to what you're actually capturing makes more sense when we're presenting these numbers because this this leads to the the lack of understanding generally about how we set our tax rate, why we set our tax rate, what we're intending to do versus what we actually accomplish because um we don't have the same tools available that other issues. >> I think what what this is saying though is it's answering the question around our real estate taxes being the highest in the area. This is simply saying that is not true. >> That is correct. >> So I think that's the apples to apples that that this is demonstrating. We do not have the highest real estate tax in the area. Our real is not the highest. So that is just a singular statement

136on real estate by comparison. Now, I agree with the other pieces. We're talking about looking at the whole funding picture. >> So, maybe I should have started with how do how do you account for Susana having a 3.5 increase uh having a military 22 and a district like Central Dolphin with a 4.75 increase or upper Dawan with a 5.4% increase still having lower trades. Maybe I should have started with that question. >> We would have to look at their history, right? So depending on what the objective is because we can apply that method to just about every revenue line item that we have, including basic ed, special education, and comparing ourselves to what other districts are are receiving. I think the goal here was exactly what Dr. Willis stated was to show that we're not,

137you know, the the highest in the county. Um and and we have shown what in previous um in EIT town hall those differences right with our military compared to EIT and the growth of their assessed values versus our assessed values. Um so yes, while this is just one um marker in all of um the pieces, I think that it just represents just that one piece is the real estate military. Moving on to state revenues. Um this was designed to show you um just how the state revenue is uh broken down. Um out of the 20 million that we received, you'll notice that 33% um is for basic ed. So our top three state revenue uh streams are basic ed, pension, and ready to learn. and ready to learn has only reached the top because of

138the adequacy supplement. So overall state revenues and we're le uh almost ending uh the presentation but um our assumptions for the 2627 school year is that we're flatfunded at the 2526 allocations for basic ed, special ed, and ready to learn. And so the amounts that you saw on the previous slides um in the committee report are included in the 2627 the property tax relief money which is the homestead farmstead uh exclusion that we receive in our tax bills. Um we assume that that will be the same as 2526 until we get that final number in May. Um we don't have any grant information as of yet. Um, but as that information is rolled out for 2627, we'll update uh that information. I did want to touch on pension and social security reimbursement because those two

139line items really depend on our total liability on the expense side. And so we get 50% or at least 50% of our total expenditures for retirement contributions and social security payments. And so that has been factored in. So this is a detailed view um of the state revenues. Last one is federal revenues and federal revenues really come down to uh the title program. So title one 2 4 and then medical access. and we assumed uh that the allocations that we received for um for the 2627 school year. You'll notice that those amounts are different. Um and that is because those funding announcements don't come in until after the district passes their budget. And so the only thing that we can assume is the prior year's allocation. So, as far as next steps, uh the governor

140is going to make his budget address on February 3rd. Um the administration is still working through the expenditure piece of the budget. Um so, we are going to present a four full full expenditure budget. Sorry, it's getting late. um a review of personnel requests and then we'll start to begin to meet with our benefit consultants regarding medical costs. >> Any questions? >> I will ask you all >> I think >> yes. >> Do you know anything? >> Not that I've heard. So, I have a question because the the budget just passed for uh this year and now he's going into budget talks like in a couple of weeks. Do you think that that's going to affect what we're able to ask for in terms of money? Like do you think that and I you you

141probably can't answer this like speak to what their mindset is, but it almost feels like well we just gave you all of this money and we were just counting like this uh increase this adequacy increase. So now as we're looking at budget which needs to be approved or should be approved by June 30th and we're in talks now in February about what would be do you think that we might kind of get short shifted a little bit because they just gave this you know monumental increase just just a >> yeah I I I truly don't know but I think it's never a bad thing to advocate for education um and our legislators know and understand that it there is a funding gap and we put them in their positions and so um talking to them,

142reminding them of the challenges that we have specifically here at Sescu Hannah Township um is always important and so any advocacy that you can do um is help because they they do listen to their constituents but they also face the same budgetary constraints that we do here locally. We have questions. >> Thank you. >> The minutes December 4th. Can I get a motion to move minutes to December 4th? Motion to approve. Second move and second. All in favor that would be 70 uh programs uh course catalog. Uh we we talked about that in a session. Can I get a motion? Edber second. move and second. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? I have it. Personnel is anything in personnel y'all won't pull out. We can go A through I. I take all these action A

143through K for second. and move in second. All in favor? I >> oppose eyes. I think [clears throat] everything in finance A through H is any discussion on anything or anything pulled out? K in >> Jes. Yes. >> Is everything okay? >> Yeah. >> Right. I'm good. >> Okay. Any other discussion? All in favor? All right. These are binding motion. >> Did I get a motion? >> Oh, I didn't get a move. I thought >> I have a motion. >> Votes move. Second move in second. Any discussion? >> Just clarifying president moving A through H. >> Which one? >> A section A5. Yeah. 8 through8. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I oppose that contract. Think everything here. Anybody want to pull out his uh A through O? Get a motion. >> Johnson moves uh

144a room. >> Oh, >> second. >> L second it. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I >> oppose. policy first >> read action action. >> Okay. >> Any any discussion on the part? Can I get a motion? >> Motion to approve um policy 628. This is district initiated tax assessment appearance. [snorts] >> Second. [clears throat] >> Been moved and second. >> Enderberg's made a motion. She seconded. Uh Patrick. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Oppose. Have it. other we we we talked about that this >> uh I think I think all these are action items. >> Yeah, I think and uh Miss Hatchet I think you in here. >> Uh Mr. First, I would ask that we move uh items A through C. >> Okay. A through B. A through C. I'm sorry. >>

145A C. >> A through C. Okay. Can I get a second? >> Okay. Been moved we approve items and others A through C. Any discussion? All in favor? [clears throat] >> Oppose? I have it. Okay, I see. Then we'll take the school calendar. We'll take it by itself because I I think maybe I want to discuss that. Although I asked for a motion for that. Uh is anything changed since the last letter? There is one change. We are now off for deer hunting. First day of hunting. Well, actually that's not the first day. The first day is Saturday, but we off the following Monday. >> So, we have kept the Monday in. I think about uh is that motion on the floor? Motion to approve this school calendar item D. >> Ed second the movement

146second. Any discussion? >> All in favor? Mr. Johnson having discussion. >> Okay. Um [clears throat] Yeah. Okay. >> Board of Commission. I would take that one. Uh Mr. Folks who are representative board of commissions. Uh can I is that is that for a year or twoear term? I don't know. Do >> we have to really vote on that? >> There is no material. It's just >> just so we don't really have to vote on that. I don't think is that just like a committee. But I know you have to do >> and you have to do ID. >> Yeah. Well, but we'll do it. But I don't think we really have to. >> What? >> So, we'll just go through the motion. Okay. But I don't think we have to. >> There's a Well, we'll

147find out. We'll find out. If we did, it's okay. And if we don't have to, then we'll know next time. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, all in favor? Oh, yeah. I thought I had a motion. Oh, I was talking. >> Johnson moves items 11 E and 11. >> Johnson second. >> Been moved and second. All in favor? >> Opposed? >> Next up is now this one. We really have to do this. >> We already did it. Yeah, we're >> put them together. >> Yeah. >> Yes, he did. >> No, I didn't hear that. >> Since I didn't hear it, then we have to do it over again. So, we're good. [laughter] >> I did not. I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. But that's good. All right. Now, >> uh next up, a German. Can

148I get a motion? Johnson move second. >> You know, I think >> Johnson I've been looking at some I don't think that [clears throat] >> All in favor oppos.