001All right. Good evening. I call this meeting to uh order here on May 12th at 700 p.m. Mr. Kosher, would you please take attendance? Olsson here. Felen here. Skelton here. Vosard here. Wine here. All present. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At this time, any visitors who wish to address the board may do so. We ask that you sign in when you enter the room and please list the topic. If you have not done so, please approach the podium and do. I ask that you refrain from listing any student by name or any personnel by name. Is there anyone who would like
002to address the board? As a reminder, no action will be taken this evening. Seeing none, I'll move on to visitors to be heard. Item A, tanager happenings. Uh we do not have any tonight. Great. Um next up here, we'll move to approve agenda and conflict disclosures. First item A is agenda changes. Uh Dr. Elvie, are there any agenda changes? No, just the published. Great. Thank you. I would take approval to um approve the agenda. So move first by Jacob. Second. Second by Carol. All in favor say I. I. I. The quote same sign. Motion passes. Next up here we have indication of conflict of interest per South Dakota codified law 3-23. This is Rachel and I have none. Carol, I have none. Jake and I have none. Mark and I have none. Mike, I have
003none. Great. Thank you. Moving on. Here we have our consent agenda. Um this evening we have approval of our minutes. Resignation new hires open enrollments and bills. Um we have minutes from our April 14th and May 17th meetings. Resignation Rachel Brady dance Olivia Kickpin sped. Alexa Hey Streamlad computers Whitman sped. New hires Zacharia Hostra sped. Mark Nitsky summer help. Yasmin Heisinger summer school. Paige Chapman summer school. Gretchen Skolick summer school. and Brooke Bchold, ESY. Todd Stefins, ESY. Mary Ashley's, ESY. Taylor Klein, ESY. Natasha Edwards, Drive Student, Anna Olsen, ESY. Destiny Love, ESY. You should have wrote this in a list for me, Mr. Dina Biggan, ESY. Tasia Rose, um, ESY. Robin Mandersmith, ESY. Tracy Gilkinson, ESY. Paige Krell, Es Marissa Mocker, project skills. Victoria Ranger, project skills. and Ethan Dannon, project skills and driver. That
004was a very long list. That's great to see some action tonight. Um, would you like anything pulled from the consent agenda? Seeing none, I would take a motion to approve. So moved. First by Mike and second by Mark. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. Um, looks like we are not in need of any unfinished business. So, moving on, we will head on to new business. Our first item here is approval of staff transfer requests. Um, looks like we have Natalie Natalie Frickle for title, Mindy Whistler for stream lab coordinator, and Melanie Mahold for middle school title. Any discussion? If you want to do all of these together, you certainly can or however you want. I think that's great to see some advancements um some of our staff, that'll be
005great. Yeah, they're going to do do really well. And now of course that'll open other vacancies which will start tomorrow filling. So yeah I just want to say that I really like that when our staff feel like they need a little change that they look within the district. I think that says good things about you know I hey there's something else I can do here. Yeah. Absolutely. So next up here we have um approval of the food service management contract renewal. Mr. Kosher. Uh yeah, if you recall last year at this time we were in the process of putting together a new contract with Lunchtime Solutions who was the winning bidder. Uh so this year we are just looking to do the renewal number one on that contract. Uh it is a 3.7% increase and
006it's as it's written in that contract. It's based on the CPI for the food uh category that that we use that's specified in that contract. So, 3.7% increase. Right. Any questions on the food service contract? All right. Next up here, we'll continue talking about food service about the pricing proposal for the 2526 school year meals. So, along with that, uh, our prices going up, the the price that the district is paying to lunchtime solutions going up. To keep pace with that, we are bringing forward a recommendation for price increases. We talked this through with the finance committee. Um we're in a spot right now that we've still got a healthy balance in our food service fund account, but we are working into reserves every year. Um if you recall, we had some large reimbursement rates
007that we had while we were on COVID programs. Um and just off of those um now the reimbursement rates have of course declined substantially as we've gotten back to our regular programs and they haven't quite climbed as quickly as we were originally thinking they might uh uh after that. So to keep pace with that, we are bringing forward a recommendation for a 15 cent increase for breakfasts and a 20 cent increase for lunches. That would help us to sort of curb the um negative uh impact of of the uh food service account uh as we move forward. I will note that u in having some conversations, we are certainly not the only ones looking at taking a little bit of a jump here. Um, and in fact, a lot of other school districts that we've
008spoken to are taking much larger jumps, uh, than that. So, u, we feel all right with where we're at. And I can just read off here a little bit. So, the breakfastes for JK to 12 would be $2 for breakfast. Um, lunches JK through 5th would be 325. Um, 6th through 8th grade would be $3.50 and lunch for 9 through 12 would be $355. Great. Thank you to the food service committee too for reviewing any comments, concerns. All right. Um is it safe to assume that the process for um applying for free or reduced lunches would remain the same? Yes, that is correct. Um, as we get through the process of um, looking at how we end the fiscal year with that food service account, we will uh, also had the conversation of um, the
009last two years we've as a district picked up the cost of the reduced priced and recognize them as if they uh, they were un freeeligible. Um, we'll have to look at that or maybe there are some other partnerships that make sense in our district. While we're talking food service, would you be able to remind us when the summer food program starts? Summer food program will start the day after Memorial Day. Uh I believe that's the 27th and it will be at the high school again this year for probably one more year. We'll have to uh discuss that at this point, but uh based on some work that might be happening at the kitchen at at the middle school elementary site, uh we're looking at the high school for one more year here. Just a reminder
010that when when we go uh out this fall, there'll be information that gets sent home to each households about lunches and free and reduced numbers. Those federally um formulated programs from the feds. Once we have those details, if families are concerned about whether they can qualify for one of the programs or not, they're just encouraged to come in and see us because we can we can run that and Mr. Kocher runs that for folks pretty regularly to find out if they qualify or not and and runs them through some formulas. So we'll be happy to do so if people are concerned about that. Wonderful. Thank you. U moving on here then to item D, approval of public hearing for the title six grant, our comprehensive plan. Mrs. Mrs. Oliffson. Uh yeah. So we applied for
011the easy grant again this year. Um, currently it looks like we're going to be awarded $16,675 which is up about two I think $2,300 something like that somewhere in that ballpark. Anyways, so that able um gave us the ability to raise the salary to 14,371. Um the rest of the items we kept the same. So the drummers we kept $1,000 um available for them. Student consumables, $500. Student related activities, $84 in professional development, $500. And then we go to the foundation or to USD for any other added things that we may need. USD will continue that grant again next year. So, Paisley will continue to work with them to um find activities and different things that the Native American kids can go to. Um we did improve our 506 forms in the fall. We went
012from 65 to 73 students identified, but Dr. Alvi and I were talking about that we're it's maybe about half of the students still. We're still not up up as high as we would like them to be. Um, so Paisley said she'll just continue to work with that. I think her emails that go out that have some of that native language in them has really helped um bring parents in and feel a little bit more comfortable attending those parent meetings and getting those going. And then we're continuing with the graduation ceremony that'll be on May 14th from 4 to 5 um at Apprentice Park this year. So, do you have any questions for me? A few years ago, the numbers in the 40s. Yeah. Something like that. It was a low years. Yes. Very low. Yeah.
013Jan did a great job getting us started and then Paisley kind of picked up and and kept going. So, unfortunately, we'll lose her in December. She's going to move to Minnesota um to a grad program. So, but we'll get her for one more semester. So, we'll we'll use her as much as we can. Any questions? No. Okay. All right. Thank you. Looks like there's quite a few items here. Yes, I'll walk you through them. Yeah, I'll walk you through them. um you got the uh abbreviated versions there along with their uh some of the publications, but I I um had sent you some of the really the guts and and the the cliff notes about what all those amendments mean. So I guess the very first one is just the schoolboard resolution on the first
014page you saw which just is a signed resolution each year that we will join the activities association. And so that's just an annual renewal. The second page on your um list of items there is a five-year term for a um small school group representation. There was only one person applying for that and that was Billy Clanton out of uh Harding County. So, we'll vote for Billy. Um the next one was the election ballot for a 5-year term for the uh East River atlarge representative of secondary schools or assistant principles. Uh lots of good folks on that list there. But uh we we we know uh Mr. Husk and I uh and our principles know Ryan Rollinger uh very well out of the Harrisburg School District. Uh he's a good uh good thinker and he he's
015been in South Dakota athletics as a coach and teacher and things for many years. So he's got a good perspective about what the high school activity association means to kids. So that would be our recommendation. similar to our division one representative on athletic directors. Um again, what we're voting for here is the activities association has parents, principles, superintendent, athletic directors as part of their broader board, similar to the school board and so they just happen to have quite a few vacancies this year. So they're filling of a term for athletic directors and we are uh proposing that Steve Moore um from Rapid excuse me from Sou Falls Roosevelt uh Steve is has been uh doing this for about 30 years in the state of South Dakota again educator coach uh administrator now AD in a
016large school so he kind of understands um the things about um everything the activity association does and stands for and understands all the amendments and rules that they do. So those would be the people that we'd suggest that you we recommend that you would follow through and vote for. The first amendment under number one uh for the activity association bylaws this year is a clarification between semester and trimester. Um there are a few schools in our state that run on a trimester schedule. All the rest of us run on a semester and once in a while there's a glitch with when somebody's transferring or there's language that says you can't do this until second semester and then that school that has a trimester says yeah but our student can't do it now till when? And
017so they've clarified the language. You see all the red that's in that amendment there. Um but we would support that amendment to clarify the language. Uh amendment number two is a continuation of clarification of the semester trimester language. Um it talks about four semesters six trimester rules for some of the um seventh and eighth grade contestants. They have even at the middle school these rules apply. As you know we have students that that run cross country, wrestle, play tennis for us as seventh graders, eighth graders and and on up. So we they had to make sure language was included in the middle school as well. Amendment number three is the clarify clarifying of the boundaries if a student moves uh within state tournament time. So this this example is if a student is if I'm
018playing at um here in Vermillion and then my parents move to Dakota Valley and they're in the state tournament. I am not eligible because I started the tournament in Vermillion. I played on the tournament team here. I cannot jump over there. Clearly, this has had to happen that this came up as a bylaw. So, this must be being um addressed someplace in the state that they felt that need to clarify that and they did so with the red in your language there. Amendment number four is a clarification of the wait time that a student um after they um transfer schools at the start of a semester. Uh so in this case some uh transfer students they have to wait uh either four weeks or 10 days or whatever the rule is in that uh area
019for that sport. Uh and this one clarified and there's like three places in here that it was the the language was sort of gray and so students and schools where a student was transferring was penalized because they were holding them too long. and then the neighboring school was administrating it slightly different and that kid was getting the chance to participate sooner. So this uh was an adoption to clean up the language uh in that amendment four. And then amendment number five is transfer students or schools must send the pending discipline records of students. That's pretty I I surprised they have to remind us of that but they did. Uh apparently not everybody was doing that. uh if if you're under a suspension in one particular school and you're transferring to a new school, they want
020to make sure that all records go, not just academic records, but maybe the student has a violation for an alcohol violation or or some other academic violation. Um apparently kids were going to new schools and not having to uh fulfill their entire suspension. So once again, another clarification of language there. So um pretty pretty good um amendments. We feel that they clarify things better for the activities association and that gives Jason and us at our school a chance that when we get put into a position we can read the bylaws and predict what kids are going to have to do to to u participate in the sports. So so those were all yeses on amendments and then the folks that I had recommended we would we would suggest those names. um whether you want to
021do that at the end or you could say those now. I I guess right now I've I've said the names and I've also told you yes amendments. I don't know how you want to if that's the way the motion would read at the end. We can read it with the motion. It's fine. Okay. Sure. Mr. Mr. Kosher has it in the notes but if anyway so okay I'll set this aside. I could say them again too when you get there. Okay. Um, all right. Next up here, um, item F is approval of engagement letters with ELO Professor LLC for the FY25 audit. Uh, we have not actually received our engagement letter quite yet. Um, I have no doubt that it will be coming for next month, but we will take a look to approve it
022at that time. We we already have our audit dates set for July uh, for the summer, but um, we'll just take a look at that one next month. All right. So, we will scratch item F. Thank you, Mr. Goer. Um, next up item G, we have um, which I believe is a second kind of reading, I guess, um, after review of the approval of the policy 102-.1 governing fingerprints based criminal history record information policy. And that was a clarification because last month Carol had had found out uh, that we our policy that we were adopting did not include the word substitute teachers, which we intended it to do. um because we do fingerprint all of our substitute teachers, but now it has been updated to include that into the official document. I think that was
023the only highlighted change, right? Yes. Yes. Yep. Thank you for letting us go to a second reading for that. Appreciate it. All right. Any questions on that? Next up then we'll go to item H, which is approval of the elementary school additional bathrooms and bids. Yes. Um I apologize. I forgot to send Daniel the um the picture that the board has in their in their packet. Um go put it up there. Yes, I could. Yeah. Daniel's going to grab it. How's it feel from that side? Hey, this feels pretty good. Yeah, it's much cooler down here. See if I can get this in the right spot. There we go. Okay, thank you guys. This is um a proposal for the building committee's been talking about this and the school board for some time. Um when
024we built our new elementary school, one of the things that once we had the design full in in full uh working mode and gear, we were noticing that the elementary bathrooms that are centered in the middle of the school were quite a distance from the um basically the lunchroom and the gymnasium. Um and so kids that need to use the restroom during lunch have to walk all the way down to the the middle of the building or to the nurses station to use the restroom. So we we saw that um potential when we were partially through the construction of the building, but for uh for us, we decided to hold off until we were in the building a year to address the issue for two reasons. One, um we wanted to make sure we got
025all the rest of the bugs of the building worked out. And then secondly, we wanted to make sure that we get the best pricing. Um when you're in the middle of a building project and you change anything, you're getting um a fee for every change order. So, everybody that would have been associated with this, from the ceiling guys to the light guys to the wiring guys to the plumbers to the tile guys to the sheetrock guys to the bathroom guys, everybody gets a piece of the pie added to the project. And we felt at the time that we would probably not get a very good bid for that and that we would try to solicit local bids uh when we get the opportunity um once we're in the building. So, this is the rendering that
026we have. We have six universal um stalls there. Uh and then we have a handicap accessible. And this would be located um if I was standing in the um in the long hallway that separates the auxiliary gym on my right and the middle main gym in the elementary on my left. And I was looking towards the middle school. This would be at the set of two section doors that enter the elementary into the middle school. So, there is a a corridor there that's right next to our um custodial closet and to and to our janitor's room where um all of our heat pumps and our water for the building are located. And so, this corridor lends itself perfectly to be a place to add these restrooms, universal accessible restrooms as well as a handicap accessible.
027In fact, the door that you see to the far right here, this goes right into the middle school. So this is our auxiliary or excuse me our main gym is right in this area and way over here this is where the kids are eating lunch is right in this area. So, perfect location for when we have kids that need to use the restroom or maybe not feeling well at lunch, you can get to access the restrooms, but also when we have these uh PTO carnival, soccer tournaments, and all these events where we where we use this space, they'll have a better accessibility to restrooms. And how this will look is these are just these are very similar to the restrooms that are are currently in the in the um um middle or excuse me, at
028the elementary now. Uh these are just some examples, but it'll be closest to this example here. It's basically an open corridor with six universal uh single stall restrooms here, and then the kids can come out or adults can come out here and and then be able to wash their hands and then go right back out here to the hallway. So, we uh designed this with TSP, the the guys who helped design our building, and then we went through and got the uh the specs written to include the exact same materials that are currently found in the building. And then we went out to bid and you'll see tonight that we have a winning proposal uh for you to approve. And this work would begin work um immediately this summer. and have uh everything goes well,
029we will have it ready for uh August 15th. Uh when everybody returns to school, we'll have a a new set of restrooms there. So, all right. Any questions? I'll gladly face some more. This project won't delay the start of school, right? It will not. Okay. And the kitchen at the in the middle school is going well. That won't delay the start of school either. No, the uh since it's all in the same zone. Yeah, that's true. Uh basically the middle school uh kitchen remodel is we have to tear up the floor to redo some piping there, but uh you know, all prospects are good. It's they're starting that immediately. As soon as school's out, they'll get working on that. Um it's going to be messy, but it's not anything that they feel will take us
030too long. Uh the only thing that we would be concerned about with the restroom is would the uh stalls because those are being specially fabricated out of state to come in. But even if the stalls weren't here, the toilets and the sinks would be there and we could coordinate that coordinate that off so that that it would uh couldn't be accessible or usable naturally, but it wouldn't delay the start of school like if we were missing, you know, the front doors to the school or something like that. So even if something happens to delay the project, it wouldn't cause us to have to delay school. I think when we talked before when you were saying the change order process, didn't we predict that would be almost around a half a million? So significant savings with
031this bid here that we're looking at today. We're, you know, we're just often surprised by how expensive everything is, but that that that vendors just tell us that the the the days where we used to be able to get some of that work done as cheaply as we used to is is probably behind us now. But uh so even though we have the the bid at this rate, we're we're glad compared to what we thought it was going to be with going through with the change orders. That would have been that would have been far far worse. So today we're looking at the Walker Con Walker Construction for a bid of $178,68255. Correct. As the winning bid. Uh Dr. Ali, quick question. Do we have anybody who has rented out or is planning to use
032the um middle school or the elementary gym whose summer program might be affected? Great question. Um no. Uh at this point anyway, nobody's come forward with us. All the activities for the basketball youth camps and things are scheduled at the high school. Not to say that that some of that wouldn't trickle down there, but our intent would be that we would be able to uh curtain off basically with uh construction plywood and plastic uh a corridor so you could still gain access between middle school, high school. Might be a little dusty there, but nothing that would forbid us from having activities there. All right, thanks. Just wanted to have that as a heads up to anybody who was thinking Yeah, there might be some dust there, but yeah. And these are all unisex bathrooms. Is
033that correct? It's a small. It's very nice. Any further questions on the bathrooms? Excellent. I'm excited for them because uh my my son was having basketball there and I was having a heck of a time and he said there's a secret bathroom. So found where that's at. So these will be welcome change. The one in between the gyms and the PE. Yep. How did you know that was there? Yeah, it is a half of a mile closer than the other ones. Right. Okay, great. Uh so next we'll move on to item I which is approval of an additional third grade teacher. Yes. Uh yes, we had this proposal last month um when our some of our staff had come to the district uh uh school board meeting and asked for the board to consider an
034additional third, fourth, and fifth grade teacher. Um from there the finance committee tasked with going back and looking at the finances um asked Mr. coach and I to look into the details of of where those dollars might arise. Um, unfortunately, there just isn't it's a lean year. Um, based on the 1.25% that we're getting from the state of South Dakota for an enrollment and and the declining enrollment gives us kind of a double double whammy to deal with. But, uh, Mr. coacher and I and and others with the principal's help uh worked with the finance committee to be able to pull together the fact that we should be able to uh we've got the ability to transfer dollars between a couple of our funds and freeze up some general fund dollars from capital outlay or
035we can recode some staff to different positions and use them differently. And both of those t uh types of things along with our principles just being frugal um are is going to allow us to be able to find a an instructor for this fall. So uh in talking with Mr. um Jacobs, the highest need seems to be in the lower grades moving up. So third grade would naturally be the first one that we'd consider um adding an additional um teacher to. So, it is our recommendation that we have been able to find those dollars this year and that uh we we would promote to the board that we would go forward with a an additional third grade teacher. Wonderful. Thank you to the committees that worked on that and to Mr. Kosher for doing work
036on that sharpening the pencil. Excellent. Any conversation? Nope. All right. Um moving on then to item J which is approval of 2526 tenative capital outlay budget plan. Uh this is another document that um some of our um food service people have seen over time because some of the food service um things come out of of work here. Our building committee has an opportunity to see this uh as well as finance uh because most of our large projects in the district are associated with our capital outlay fund in some way. Uh so I didn't highlight anything special there, but as the board looks through those uh several pages of capital outlay budget, uh if you compared it to last year or the year before or naturally the years before that, you're going to see a a
037specific trend. The trend is is that we always have dollars set aside for desks in every building. We always have money set aside for music equipment or science equipment, athletic equipment. Um dollars that are almost standardly uh applied every year to our facilities and grounds such as uh whether we need small uh motor things like vacuums, we have a budget for that. Larger items like uh scrubbers for 25 to $50,000, we have budgets for those. But then um we also have unique features that if you were to look year to year to year, you'd see things like, oh, the roof, it seems like roofs are on here every year. They are on here every year because when you have a massive campus like we have, there's always a section of roof that needs to be
038addressed. Uh but then there's special events that we put or special projects that we put in there, um such as the theater. Um, last year the board's direction was we wanted to do the backstage lighting of the theater to make sure that we had uh all the behind the stage behind the curtain updated. So that was a large project that we did last summer. This year we're moving in front of the curtain. So we're doing all the stage forward or backwards to the back of the house, the house lights, all the things. Sometimes if you've been in there and you've seen a flickering light, all of those things are going to be taken care of this summer. But that's a once in a lifetime, once in a 20 year project. Those come up once in
039every 20 years where roofs are every year. School vehicles we have budgeted. Um, but if we're looking at buses or things like that, that's that those are far and few in between. So, if you're looking at your budget, uh, you'll notice that we're in the same wheelhouse in terms of projects and prices, but we're going to be looking at spending about 3 uh2 million in our capital outlay budget. Um but with that we that's what's buying textbooks and technology for kids and working on the projects that are in each of the buildings or uh doing things that um sometimes are one-time projects like uh restroom additions at the elementary or sometimes it's things that come up more frequently. Um, and what you'll see on this for next year will be some of the same things
040and then changes such as parking lots or lights additions in other parts of the building. So, over the course of the last several years, we've done all the lights at at the middle school, all the lights at the high school, um, interior and exterior. We've done carpet, tile, ceilings. Um, so you can see we've put a a lot of dollars into our facility structure, uh, along with the big demand for technology and some of those other things. Um, so that's really a capital outlay budget in a nutshell. You'll hear a little more detail at the July budget hearing, of course. Any questions on our tenative capital outlife plan? Great. Um, moving on here, we have two more items left here. Item K, acknowledge the 2526 preliminary school district budget. Yeah. Uh, we have to by
041law present a preliminary budget to the school board in May. Um, just as Dr. Dr. said with the capital outlay plan, we'll go a little bit more in depth with this at the budget hearing in July, but some sort of highlevel highlights uh related to the budget that we've talked through here with the finance committee last week and have been working on for a little while. Um related to our general fund, if you recall back in January, we renewed our opt out for $880,000 per year. would be the uh third phase of opt out that would be at that same level. Um so that would be a major factor with our uh anticipated revenue along with the 1.225% increase from the state aid. Um unfortunately we're on the downswing as far as the enrollment trend.
042Um last year we budgeted for 1,385 students. This preliminary budget is based on 1,340 students, which is a reduction of 45 students there. Um, so if you look at some of the revenue uh numbers on the general fund side, uh there's a fairly substantial reduction in the combination of the state aid and the property taxes. Uh those are two main factors when it comes to our general fund for our revenue. Unfortunately, those are uh reduced numbers from last year's budget based on that declining enrollment. Um we also have a $300,000 transfer in into the general fund from capital outlay fund. That is uh one that you know as far as the longevity of that we we'll have to discuss that in a future year. But this at least is a short-term solution here. And part
043of why we're doing it is because uh for the last several years with the ESRE funds that we've brought in, we've had to uh really look at staying underneath that general fund fund balance limitation. So we have paid for a lot of items and I can calculate up to about $1.5 million that we have paid out of the general fund that would have otherwise been uh eligible expenses that could have been paid out of capital outlay as well. So over that span of time, we have saved those dollars in capital outlay at the expense of general fund. This essentially will just help reverse that by bringing some of those funds that are currently sitting in in capital outlay and bring them back over into the general fund. Uh in in doing so, we get ourselves
044to where we are about 3% uh expenditures over revenues, which is pretty close to where we want to be. Um, we've I've said this several times, but we we use uh we budget revenues to be fairly conservative, if not realistic point of view where our expenditures are uh all set at a number that we don't want to exceed. So, generally we're a little bit higher on the expenditure side and so to be within 3% is about where we want to be uh with that. As Dr. Ali went into more of the detail on the capital outlay. One of the things that I wanted to touch on there is on our revenues. Uh even though we had a new legislation that will was passed that will help limit uh future capital out or future property tax
045growth. Uh we're not going to we don't anticipate that it's going to have a major adverse effect to us. It'll just limit um maybe slow down the the growth in the ability to take property taxes into capital outlay, which as long as those numbers aren't going negative, which this shouldn't, um then then we'll be perfectly fine in that fund as well. for special education. We are going to be looking at some increased revenues based on our student counts and uh increases from state uh due to um spending down some of the excess fund balance that was in special education. And so the com combination of that and some reductions that we're going to see in some of our expenditures for special education have allowed us some flexibility to look at some of what some of
046our staff do and to see if we've got some flexibility for reclassification of staff um based on what we have uh as a little bit tighter on the general fund side right now. And do we have any um staff that that can um look to be reclassified or any uh any of the things that we purchase that that can be reclassified either to capital outlay or to special education fund. Uh the debt service fund. The one thing that we wanted to highlight here is this is the fund that we use to satisfy the the bond debt obligations for our new elementary school. Um, when the bond was passed, I know a lot of the discussion there as far as the tax impact was 1.6 uh a 1.6 levy. That's based on $1,000 per uh of
047valuation. And we are going to be looking at uh this being 1.3 uh is what we're down to. And that's reflective of the growth that's happened in the district over the span of those three and a half years. So that means every all the taxpayers pay pay a little bit less for that. uh debt obligation that we have. So that's good news. Uh capital projects fund, we are all done with that now that the capital project is completed and all those funds have been spent. So we will close that fund heading into this year. Uh food service fund, really not a lot to discuss there. Uh as as expenses grow like we've we are going to see with our 3.7% that we discussed with our contract. um we have to increase pricing and we hope
048that the federal reimbursement rates continue to uh keep pace with that as well so that u we can continue to operate um well out of that food service fund. And then the enterprise fund, this is where we have our driver's education program and our preschool program. So we rely on tuition payments to uh fund those two programs. Um that's really all I've got for an overview tonight. Again, a lot more information to come in in June and especially at the July hearing. Uh but if you've got any questions, just let me know. Any prelim questions? Now, we'll spend a whole 30 minutes prior to our regular meeting in July to go through it. Right. That's a good segue, though. Come to July. Um, finance committee does a great job at doing the overview. Um, next
049up here, item L, which is at the 2526 school district budget hearing date, time in place. So, it looks like that would be I'm missing a sheet on that one. So, I'm guessing it's the July meeting. Yes. Jul, which would be the reorganization meeting would be July 14th this year, as late as it can be. And we'd be looking for the budget hearing to be at 6:30 with the regular meeting starting at 7:00 held here 6:50. Excellent. So, just to recap that, that was July 14th at 6:30 followed in by a regular meeting at 7 p.m. Correct. You have 30 minutes. All right. So, looks like here we have finished our new business. Um, we can take and I can read off here the school board when we get to that or all the resolutions
050for the high school association, but we're looking through items A through E followed by G through L a motion and then I'm going to go ahead here and read off first the school board resolutions for the high school association and then we could take a motion for those items. So, um, first is that we're going to make a motion to approve the to be part of the high school association, followed by Billy Clayton, Hardington School District, followed by Ryan Woolinger, um, Steve Moore. Um, for amendment number one would be a yes regarding the semester trimester. Item number two is also a yes. And then item number three is also a yes for boundaries. Followed by item four is also a yes. And followed by item five on transfer students is also a yes. And that
051was it for those items. So looking for a motion for the high school association followed by A through E and G through L. So move first by Mark second by Jacob. All in favor say I. I. Both same sign. Motion passes. Thank you guys. That was a lengthy one for you guys. All right. So then next up here, um Dr. Elvie for your superintendent report. You bet. Um just again want to thank all of the uh people in our community, our students and our staff, our businesses, school board, uh all of the partners that we collaborate with uh for helping us uh with having a tremendous school year. You know, we had interns placed in different places. We've had Envision Ed judges. We've had uh visitors into our schools and you know the things that
052we're doing um are similar to a lot of schools in the state but we do a lot of unique things here and our staff and our community really work well together to bring unique uh and exciting experiences to kids which are different than they would get if they were in a neighboring school which we appreciate. Uh second thing is is obviously we got a lot of committee work coming up this summer. The policy committee will be working with KSB to talk about uh changes to policy. Um KSB will give us a list of things that they normally give us that are related to legislature and guide that. Uh we'll be talking a little bit about uh pricing of facilities, clarifying um Wednesday nights and Sunday morning routines where we where uh people sometimes want to
053use the facilities at those times. Finance Committee will be working on budgets um this summer uh well over the next month to make sure we're ready for the preliminary budget hearing ne in July and then of course the building committee will be taxed with continue to watch the progress of our restroom addition at the elementary school and then of course um getting into the summer here then um there may be some other needs from some of those committees but that's just a short list there. Uh just wanted to also congratulate Aaron Armstrong. Deputy Armstrong's um uh was our SRO at the at the high school. He was awarded the child advocate of the year award by the the community um for his work with kids and related committee committees in the community. Um Deputy Armstrong
054does an outstanding job uh with our kids and and most importantly of just being available to help kids or help staff, keep our building safe and just again one of those partners with the county that I was talking about uh earlier. they just they work well with us and we're blessed to have their their support as well and Aaron does a great job. Uh the outdoor learning spaces are being finalized. The principles have started to work with vendors to talk about what types of things that they're going to bring. Uh basically what that those designs will look like is it's become a kind of a collaboration of 12 different award winners, 12 different groups. So, you're going to see uh maybe the shade structure from this group and then maybe the flooring from this group
055and the the the book nook and housing from this one that might end up being put into our locations. But, uh this summer those things will be taking full shape and uh again, some of those things might have to be put off a little while because of the availability of something that we're ordering out of town or out of state, but uh they're they're in full swing. Once the kids are gone, our vendors are going to be starting to to do some work. So, you'll see things at the front of the high school where that will be the uh the first spot will be the the what we call the the uh the nook or the area between the around the library and the front of the elementary school. Uh that's one of their chosen
056locations for their outdoor learning space. And then on the south side of the gymnasium at the middle school and where their bike rack, you've seen that they've already kind of taken over the bike rack area. um they're starting to get the kids out of class and using those parts of those facilities. So, they've started to to find some things that they could place there. Now, we just have to get it to come come to fruition. Um and most of you probably knew or heard that we'd had two teachers and four students from Olu, Finland, spend the week with us last week. Um that was a continuation of our project with Envision Ed in Finland. Uh what a it was it was a delight to talk to uh the students and those teachers about how things
057are very similar in a lot of ways but yet very different in a lot of ways whether it's cultural differences or you know government um the way their government um does things with their districts versus how our government does and the different levels of of education um that they and the flexibility quite honestly of their kids. Uh their days are different. They they sometimes are there from 8:30 to 11:30 or 8 to 2:30 or rarely are they there from 8 to 3:30 like we are. So, it's just uh it was very fun to talk about it and we're putting a special twist with talking to them about their indigenous uh folks because Finland has uh an indigenous representation as well. It looks different than ours um but there are a lot of similarities. So, that
058is one of our goals to start to work towards that. And then a couple last things here just for heads up. Uh one of the things that came out of our surveys with staff was again um communication and meetings and things. So this last week I held the the final coffee and conversation for staff on May 5th. Uh it was a volunteer event for those who wanted to come. We discussed the staff December staff surveys. We talked about the end of the year plans, the outdoor learning spaces and staffing needs at the different buildings. That was the five topics we covered at that meeting. And then finally, just to get on the board's radar, it's it's u becoming our next meeting is in June and typically in late July, August, we start talking about retreat.
059So, uh maybe next month we'll come, but uh it depends on really what the board prefers. Would you like to do like we did this last year where we had a half a day retreat um with the staff uh with the principles before school started and one afterwards? Um or do you want you know four four hours let's say in late August or late July whichever you'd prefer. Our our principles are back on um about July 30th is about the date they start. So that very first week like the 4th or 6th we could probably get four hours together there um on August 4th or 6th and then wait a couple months and then get together for four more hours if that's what you prefer. But um I'll send out a little survey to you
060guys and see what you prefer. But it is that time of year to start setting goals again. So, uh, so that's all I had for tonight. Graduation Saturday. Graduation Saturday. Yes. 1:30. 1:30. Good. Yep. Got the Coyotes. Uh, San Coyote Sports Center. So, wonderful. Um, well, next up here is the school board reports. So, finance, you've been busy. Yep. Uh, covered a lot of the stuff that we covered uh today. Um, so the food service, we talked about that. Um, just kind of what the the budget looks like, the additional um, elementary teacher requests. So, talk through um, kind of that. And, uh, yeah, that's kind of the items that we hit. So, we already knocked out a lot of them. U just the the other thing that um Kevin didn't mention more publicly but
061um I think people will be happy to hear about um we mentioned that the financing on the the money that we had from the building construction um the interest that we earned on that the district earned was $1.3 million in interest um that it's extra money that we get that we don't have to get through tax revenue um and had to pay a little bit of that back but still over 1.2 2 million um that we were able to to see as a a benefit from the way that that and the timing that that all happened u and the decrease in the um levy uh per person. That's almost a 20% decrease uh for any homeowner in how much that levey's hitting you. So the timing of that worked well. You guys did all that
062before I got to the board really. So good job everybody else. personnel. Um, we're wrapping up our first set of negotiations followed by our second set here next week and we'll talk more in executive session about that. How did the booster club? I was unable to attend um due to a funeral. So, actually I'm interested in hearing I heard that it was a lovely event, but I would appreciate if you would share a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. I'll jump in real quick. Yeah, with Kirk Hogan and Gary Culver being um honored as the Hall of Fames, uh you couldn't have picked a better two group of guys to go in together. They've been their entire careers. They've just sort of been linked since their days of being in junior high together in Sous City and
063both landing here in Vermillion, but they both have a storied career and lots of uh great experiences with kids. But the stories that that that athletes and just people that were at the event shared were fun. Uh just it was just it was just a good event and everybody seemed to have a really good time. So I was enjoying the rain at soccer that night. So excellent. Any other reports? Uh public school foundation gave out uh over $10,000 in scholarships to Vermillion students this year. Um they're again helping us with the uh Envision Ed project. They've got $100,000 budgeted to help bring some of those things to life. So thank you to the Vermillion Public School Foundation. Um and um they're also doing things like our fourth graders are going on a field trip to
064the zoo this week. They're covering our uh transportation expenses to go to the zoo, things like that. So, thanks to them and their donors as well. Wonderful. Thank you. We'll move on then to um financial reports. Um item A, funds. Mr. Kosher. Yep. Um, as far as this month's report, I really don't have a lot to highlight, but uh, I can answer any questions you might have. We spent a lot of time on you today. That's right. Too much probably. So, all right. Any questions on the funds? Not. I would seek a motion to approve. First by Mark, second by Jacob. All those in favor say I. I. Post same sign. Motion passes. Do we have any future agenda items? Looks like uh Dr. Elby listed a few there in his report that we'll be
065working on here this summer. Any other items? Wonderful. Um our future board meetings here are July 9th followed by July 14th, which as a reminder will start at 6:30 for our budget hearing. We are in need of executive session tonight for South Dakota codified law 1-25-24 and South Dakota codified law 1-25-2-1s. I will make a motion to enter executive session here at 7:51. First by Carol, second by Mark. All those in favor say I. I. I. All same sign. We are now in executive session. Have a wonderful evening everyone. Thanks guys.