001Mhm. >> We had Mayor Ten Haken's last state of the city address. I know Don Marie is on her way. Um, but we'll go ahead and get started and she will be here momentarily. So, I'm going to call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance 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. Uh, before we begin tonight, I just want to pause and recognize the loss of one of our students. Um, this is heartbreaking for the entire Sioux Falls community. Our thoughts are with the the students' family, friends, um, teachers, uh, classmates who supported and loved the student. Um, definitely moments like this remind us how connected we all are
002and how important it is that we support one another, um, especially the life of the young person. Um, we also want families to know that we have support in all of the students, uh, for those that uh, just want a little extra comfort, uh, during this time. So, if you'd please just join me for a moment of silence. Thank you. Um, after that, um, it's kind of a unique transition in that there's a good news report, but we do know that there's so much goodness in the world, uh, despite these times of processing that are complicated. Yes, indeed. Well, as you just noted, and uh, member Johnson is going to be joining us, uh, from Mayor Paul Ten Haken's final state of the city address. That wrapped up just a bit ago, um, but did
003you actually know that sixth graders were running the city of Sioux Falls last week? Don't tell the mayor that. Uh, but they were indeed 11 and 12-year-old students from Memorial Middle School are participating in a new immersive experience called BizTown thanks to our partnership with Junior Achievement. And Kimberly Poppenga Smith is our middle school curriculum coordinator, and she's going to share a little bit more about this experience and why it's so valuable for students who aren't even old enough to hold a job to really understand the way the world works. So, please welcome Kimberly. Good evening. Early evening. So, our sixth grade students at Memorial Middle School participated in Junior Achievement BizTown for the first time this school year. What JA BizTown is is there are four lessons that our teachers taught our sixth grade
004students on financial literacy. And the very final experience, they call it a simulation, students went and participated as community members in a simulated town. So, our students were CEOs, they were bankers, they addressed the entire city, which were their peers, as they took different, uh, pieces, like political pieces as far as political positions, like mayor, councilman, [clears throat] business owners, all of those types of things, and they worked through the simulation for a day. And the simulation was a pop-up simulation at the USD Discovery Center. So, this was the first year that any sixth graders have gotten this type of Junior Achievement in the Sioux Falls School District. And next year, all of our middle school sixth graders will get the same experience. Currently, our eighth graders get a simulation experience as well, and their
005focus is on jobs and careers. They go to different booths and participate in different types of career paths. They meet with different occupations in the community and professions in the community. And that's our eighth graders. They've been doing that for a couple of years. Our seventh graders, this was the first year where all of our seventh graders also have a financial literacy piece in their curriculum, and they participate in JA Finance Park. So, that simulation, each kid is given a persona, and they have to work through their day with the persona they are given. Some of them are married, some of them are not. They have to pay daycare, they have to pay for furniture, buy insurance, and work through that. So, adding sixth grade to this JA financial literacy piece will ensure that all
006of our Sioux Falls School District Middle School students get a financial literacy piece as they work through middle school. And it's a very exciting to us, and the kids love it. So. Any questions? Finance Park is going to be coming as far as the simulation days. So, if you're interested in going and observing any of that, let me know, and I can tell you the dates and the times of that simulation. Well, the mayor may have covered that today. I left when he was on 2024, but he may have brought that up. Um, about what I'm curious, did you have anybody that was a school board member? I don't know about that. >> [laughter] >> If if they were, I will find out and I'll get them in touch with you. >> [laughter] >> Okay.
007Thank you. Yeah. It was great. Thank you. >> It was, uh, I I stopped out there for a while, uh, just to watch some of the proceedings, and it was incredible. The, first of all, the volunteers, they gave up their time to come out there and work with the students. Uh, talked to several of them, and they thoroughly enjoyed, or at least they said they did, uh, working with the students at that point time. I'm sure they did. And the students going around were really engaged in the process of that. So, it was a it was a great experience to watch out there and see the kids taking part in that. So, yeah, it was a good experience. Fantastic. Thank you. Can I please get an approval of the minutes of the meeting held on
0083 9 2026? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? I do not think we have anybody wishing to address the school board this evening. Shall we say no? So, we will go on to agenda item number seven, the approval of the agenda for tonight's meeting. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? Conflicts of interest? Seeing none, we'll go on to approval of the consent agenda items. Items A through D, no, E, F and G. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Discussion. Yes, I have a question. Gail. I'm going to direct my question to Mr. Kreider. Um Mr. Kreider, under nine uh C seven and eight, you have vendors for replacing floor coverings and vendors for painting and wall coverings.
009This is for bids? I noticed that there was only one company that bid that submitted a bid. Can you tell me why you think only one person one company did? Well, it's hard to know. I think uh these two companies have been our low bidders for several years now, and they usually undercut most everybody that's bid in the past, and uh so some of the vendors have waned to submit bids. Um what we do is we send out notifications, emails to every commercial floor covering, painting company that we have on file. And uh every year when we get get these put out, we we now offer them email form, they can download plans, they can pick up the plans. Um we send them to plan houses in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, across the Midwest, trying
010to solicit bids for those projects. And uh so I it's it's hard to know why we only get bids to that to that level. Very I mean, we've always had issues with floor covering and painting over the years. Um we're just one year we didn't even have a bid under painting. Um but one good news is they're significantly under our our estimated budget that we have in the budget, so um that's why I'm a little more comfortable with awarding it to them. And so, we move forward. Thank you. That was going to be my follow-up, so. Okay. All good. Anybody's listening and has interest in finding out more information, can they just contact your department? Yep. >> Mr. Kreider. Okay. You know, so sometimes these smaller companies a lot of painting companies in the in
011the in the city, but they're not able to get the insurance and bonds that we require by state law to have. Um so, they they usually shy away from a bigger project like that. So. Thank you. Yep. Okay. All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? We approve the consent agenda items. We'll move on to reports of the president. Dr. Knoll. Thank you. And our first report that we have this evening is child nutrition services, and as we go through and look at child nutrition services, a lot of good things happened through the legislative process on that, and and most of you are aware of that, and and that'll be discussed a little bit, but truly when you look at it, the services that we provide in the Sioux Falls School District, and and Ms. Anderson
012and and her staff were feeding over 15,000 kids lunch every single day, and and well over 5,000 kids breakfast every single day. And so, the importance of what we do on a school day, day in and day out, plus when you couple that with with the snacks and the food that they receive, especially if they're part of the CLC programming after school, it's a significant factor and impact on our community. And so, a lot of work that they do is with a smile, and it's a great thing. And even with our city county schools, every meal we've had there has been the same meals that our kids have, and it's been good food that we're able to eat, and and also for our kids. So, Gay Anderson will present that board report this evening. Okay,
013thank you. So, I'm just going to update you on all the different things happening in the world of child nutrition services, pointing out that a priority area still remains our priority areas are providing healthy affordable meals for our students' families, maintaining all regulatory compliance with constant focus on quality of meals, managing our unpaid meal charges while assisting families with free and reduced meal applications, and then planning appropriately to make the necessary changes regarding the updated updated coming dietary guidelines for Americans with a strong focus on financial sustainability. So, starting out with a little bit about what we do, and as Dr. Knoll just mentioned some of the the numbers we have, I've got these in bigger numbers. I like to put it there and um show that, but we continue to monitor our meal participation
014on a regular basis, comments and costs regarding all meals. We use a formula to calculate those meal equivalents served, and we turn that into based it basing it off of what goes into the preparation of a lunch is really what it comes down to. So, that's what meal equivalents are. And through the end of February, it demonstrates that we had over 2,200,000 plus meal equivalents served within the district up to that point. Our average daily breakfast participation is up by 1.38% this year. And lunch daily averages right now are basically stable about equal to where we were last year at this point in time. We continue to work hard with multiple hands involved within the school district completing our free and reduced meal applications. Our current free and reduced percentage stands at 48.15%. And we
015have 11,824 students whose meals are free based on the free and reduced qualifications. And the district has covered the cost for the reduced students over the last few years. Highlighting another area in providing free meals for students though is the work with community members at Hungry Hearts. There is 408 students currently whose meals are being covered by our generous community partners. And the students who qualify for this are those whose parents have completed an application, but they were denied. And then based on the federal poverty guidelines, they fall within the 186 to 210% of um federal poverty guidelines. We're projecting that total this year along with other families receiving Angel Funds to probably be around the $210,000 mark where that stands. And um on top of that, unpaid meal balances have become more meal more
016manageable. Two, three years ago, we were going up by $3,000 a day. And with the chart up here are the what's on the screen, it shows that we've barely moved that needle, which is really nice to be able to report on. We will continue to work on keeping those balances in line by communicating with those who are negative through daily emails, phone calls, and letters. Um we've recently heard about House Bill 1082. And this is a bill that passed our state legislature. We're just waiting one more significant piece to happen, and I hope that's happening here any day soon, obviously. The bill will have the state of South Dakota cover the cost of meals for all students who are qualified for reduced meals within the state, and those are with on reduced meal status. It's
017a big win for all students within the state, and also within the Sioux Falls School District. This will help child nutrition in the future by putting the cost of meals presently covered by the district into future food and equipment needs for the for the program. And summer's coming quickly. We're deep in the throes of the planning stages there. There are going to be six open meal sites for the public to attend. Dates for summer meals are going to be May 28th through August 7th. We have four other sites that will be considered closed locations. Those are locations that CLC is also operating out of. And then we have a lot of various two and three week programs that pop up throughout the summer involving high schools, middle schools, and early childhood. Along with that, this
018year we're providing meals for the Boys and Girls Club at George McGovern Middle School. So, they will be receiving breakfast and lunch from the school lunch program. And then child nutrition is actually going to contract and send food to George McGovern um and the Boys and Girls Club for their snack and evening meal operating under a different federal program, cuz you can only have so many meals put out each day by a certain program. Um financial sustainability is a really critical piece uh in operating our program. We monitor our revenues and expenses closely. And the cost of food alone is a significant piece in our management. Currently, the average cost of a meal for breakfast is $1.88. That's just the raw food cost. The federal reimbursement for a free meal is $2.94. This equates to
019about 64% of raw food cost. Then we jump to a lunch, and our average lunch food costs total $2.56 in food with our federal reimbursement rate of $4.70. That's over 54% raw food cost. So, I'm happy to say that over the last few years, we've fully implemented district-wide into our elementary schools the offer versus serve program and that has had a significant impact on what our overall food costs are. And it is kind of important to note that when you look at that, the above-mentioned costs are when a student takes everything on the tray. And so, this offered to them for that full meal, they take every single thing there, but when you have offer versus serve involved, you've got about a 25% savings. And that's a significant piece there. The students have to have
020three full food components of what we offer. We offer five food components each lunch. One must be fruit or vegetable. No ifs, ands, or buts. This significantly, though, does reduce the food waste and cost to our program. And so, the average standard for school's percentage of cost in the past, um it used to be you could say, "Okay, we've got about 42% food cost. We've got around 43% labor and benefits, and then the remaining 15% will cover all the rest of our costs within our program." Um as you can see on this chart, it's kind of a little bit different and what I've just shared with you because we also have multiple roles, services, and expenses that are all part of covering the costs of our program. So, it is a healthy program. Um the
021USDA and Health and Human Services are working together now to determine the new standards for school meals based on recently updated dietary guidelines for Americans. An announcement was made in early January by Secretaries Rollins and Kennedy uh that there's going to be changes coming and we've been hearing a lot about these. First out, they talked about um the food pyramid, which was used prior to 2010. The food pyramid is back for us instead of what we see on the screen as being a black upright pyramid, now they have reversed the food pyramid and putting a larger priority on um increased proteins, dairy, while looking at further reducing added sugars in school meals. The other significant change is a focus on whole foods. Now, there isn't a strong definition right now about what whole foods are
022and what this means for schools, although there are strong indicators leaning towards talking about more speed scratch cooking or scratch cooking altogether. The term also, ultra-processed foods, is a term that we're hearing a lot about with no clear definition and the impact for child nutrition programs with that's going to mean. So, one significantly known cost will be a we are going to be offering more protein somewhere along the way and that is typically the most expensive part of the tray. Uh I was recently in Washington, D.C. the first part of March and had the opportunity to meet with Senator Kennedy's senior advisor. His name is Callie Means with fellow School Nutrition Association board members. We do support most of the changes uh as what we're hearing, but we're asking for a lot of time. We
023need time for the manufacturers to prepare food, uh to have time for research and development, along with um making the necessary changes to their product lines. These foods are really specific only to the K-12 segment. You don't find them in the grocery stores, a lot of what we we purchase. The other major area of concern is additional funding so it can help out the programs operate as mandated. The proposed changes have a target announcement for April with required comment period, which I'll be asking people to help us out with our comments on. The USDA and Health and Human Services has made it known that they're looking for a fast turnaround with implementation time. Once that new meal pattern requirements are documented, they want to really push forward on that fast. So, what does this mean
024for us? I've been brainstorming trying to think different considerations we have. We need to look at and one of the things, especially when we met with um Callie Means in D.C. a couple weeks ago, they're talking we've got to get more proteins into breakfast. That's something we've advocated for years uh because protein is not part of breakfast necessarily. Looking at less sugar, increased proteins, but maybe hot breakfast options. We're not set up right now in our elementary schools for that type of setting. What's the cost of added proteins? We know that that's going to be significant there. Um freshly prepared food increases labor costs. So, we've got things to look at with that. Working towards a speed scratch or scratch set up process for all food preparation is going to be something that we're we're
025trying to start baby steps out with cuz we do a lot more that's not uh scratch. Most of it is um freezer to oven or speed scratch in that way. And then training, what am I going to do? What do we do about training? And I'm been thinking potentially hiring a chef or working with a consultant who's familiar with school nutrition programs to work with our cooks and staff to figure out ways to do things efficiently. That will mean we have some equipment upgrade needs. Um money is always a factor there when you're looking at that. And then most importantly in the end, we have to figure out what's that food safety piece going to look like so we can ensure healthy and safe meals continue for our students. So, implementation costs with food and
026equipment are pending based upon USDA's announcement following those DGAs, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Um I am we are considering looking at adding a position as I mentioned, potentially a chef or, you know, working some other options around. And then equipment. Preliminarily, I'm looking at about $350,000 to $400,000 just upgrade our elementary schools and what we would be doing with equipment and all that sort of stuff. Um potentially also uh setting up a uh student or parent advisory group to get some ideas on some different things with menu options. And then in summary, um we continue to provide a vital role in education. Uh we have the ability for students to be ready to learn with our meals that we provide. We commit to compliance with USDA regulations and focus continuously on improving meals while
027remaining financially sound. And I would ask that you would acknowledge the overview of the work done by child nutrition. You'll likely have some questions. First, going to get a motion. Can I get a motion, please, to acknowledge the Nutrition Services update? So moved. Second. Discussion. So, I have a question about the scratch grill. So, are we talking like a black iron? I mean preparing the food like What is scratch cooking? >> uh yeah. Um >> I'm no culinary guy. So, with that uh it it all falls into place with what happens with what they define whole foods and highly ultra-processed foods being. I would see that we we purchase pre-cooked beef crumbles for safety so we aren't working with raw food product. If we're going to be purchasing things with um like chicken and all
028that, that would be the same type of thing. Having something that is already already at least the the danger part of the food safety piece is handled. And or scratch cooking would also mean instead of maybe buying a pre-made spaghetti sauce or chili, um we would actually prepare it from a recipe, the old-fashioned way. Well, thank you, Gay, for everything. I got to listen in on your testimony at the state legislature and you were incredible. You were definitely relied on to answer very valuable questions. So, thank you for being there and um having that opportunity for all of us to learn. Um I also want to add my two 12-year-olds continue to say that lunch is bussin. I know I said that earlier in the year, but like bussin means good if you don't know
029that, but they always talk about how bussin lunch is. Um for people that don't know, and I only learned this because of um running after-school programs, but what is the reimbursement standards? You know how you have to have so many grains, so many fruits. What's the current standard for lunch? I only ask because people I've read get upset saying, "Oh, lunches need to be better. Why do you feed them this?" Well, it's required, but some people don't know that. So, for the average person, could you describe what the federally mandated requirements are? Okay, so first starts off with five food components. We have to offer protein, or we call it meat meat alternative in the child nutrition world, um whole grains uh for our breads, and then fruit, vegetable, and milk. Milk is dairy, but
030milk is the only thing that we call dairy in child nutrition. Again, strange kind of concept. And then with that, we look at um the it's broken down by calories and sodium and fats by age grade group. So, typically we look at our K through um fifth grade a certain calorie range, then we've got a sixth through eighth calorie range, and then ninth through 12th. And so, one size doesn't necessarily fit all. And when we're looking at, you know, an average meal maybe like 750 calories to 850 calories for a high schooler, that may not sound like a lot to some people. If they take everything, it can be a feel filling meal, uh especially if you're getting your fruits and veggies in, but there's a lot of different things that factor into that. I'm
031not sure if that fully answered your question, but it's kind of there's all kinds of puzzles that we work with on that. Yeah, I think that does though, just that you are thinking it through more than the average person recognizes how much time it takes to research the proper amount that's reimbursable, to make sure we're maintaining the dollars to keep the flow, to make sure we have enough food for everybody. Like there's more to it than just we decided to have this food even if the kids don't like it. That's never a part of this. So, I just wanted to debunk that really quick. And then um the last thing I was going to ask, and you probably don't know, but just wondering if with the new standards coming in April, if there's any hearsay
032of them increasing the reimbursement rates, or is that still up in the air? When we met with Kelly Means at the White House a couple weeks ago, we were told there's no funding planned at this point in time. Oh, cool. >> Um, so it'll be kind of creative on how our part how we'll be managing that. Wow, we're in the business of creativity and penny-pinching, aren't we? I think that's why I put pennies count on this last previous slide. >> Yes. Well, you're certainly doing it. Thank you for everything. And last before I left for the state of city, that's why I was late, I apologize. Um, there was rumored that he might sign the bill on Friday. So, I got the last day coming in hot, but that was the chatter I was hearing
033at state of the city. So, fingers crossed. I might have missed it, but could you please explain the elementary upgrades again? So, what I'm looking at potentially, um, with our elementary schools, the their setup is we send breakfast out the day before. And those are ultra-processed foods. I'm sure that that's going to hit that definition. And so, with that, we're looking at how what can we do to do differently in changing those menus to have something where we could potentially even offer them something hot, cuz we aren't we're unable right now to provide hot meals for breakfast in the elementary schools. So, I'm thinking I've been looking at some half-size kitchen um, stoved or cooktops where you can uh, bake food on that, uh, and you could provide maybe where where we could have omelets,
034or we could have some breakfast pizza, those types of things. Looking at that. So, it would just be some of those upgrades there and with equipment. That sounds great. Thank you. You're good. I know you probably don't know this cuz it's not um, no one's decided this yet, but is there just whole foods and ultra-processed foods, or how many things are are in between there, or do we not know yet? I'll start with answering that. There's nine states right now that have their own definitions of ultra-processed foods and whole foods, and that's the scary part for us because we'd really like to have one standard for the K-12 people who are preparing or providing food for us that hey, we know we can go in and this is going to cover all of them. And
035so, those standards are back and forth. Um, and maybe not totally answering this properly, but just in our meeting, we had to educate, um, Kelly Means. We said, "No, we don't have deep fryers in schools. We haven't had deep fryers since I started in 2003." And they're talking about some of the things that they're concerned with that they there's all these fallacies that they think that we still are doing everything to the term has been used poison kids. Right. And I I remember having a conversation with you about like you were saying, a lot of the things served, um, served in schools, you can't just buy off the shelf somewhere because there are very particular standards, and a lot of those things are made with whole grains where you can buy them not with whole
036grains in a store, or they're packed with sugar in a store, but they're reduced sugar, um, for for you. Is there anything else like that that that you would point out? So, I can start with like breakfast cereals. Most of the breakfast cereals in the grocery store, we have a whole different line that is prepared just for us. Um, when it comes to all of our breads and stuff that we serve, again, those those are a white whole grain that we serve. You you could find them in the grocery store potentially, but, um, it's not a big seller. And then like any of the the um, pizzas, meats, anything that we have with kind of breading or uh, combined food combination foods like that, again, it has to be whole grain in there. You don't
037see that in the grocery store. All the a la carte items that we sell, and I shouldn't be picking out a Pop-Tart cuz that could be a negative, but we do have Pop-Tarts, but they're a whole grain Pop-Tart, lower in sugar. You can't find that in the grocery store. Yeah. It just it's it's really interesting, it's really complex, and it's something I don't think people, you know, people just think about what they're making in their own household and the food choices they're making, but when you're making you know, over 20,000 meals a day, and you have to factor in all these all these different components, uh, you know, we're definitely not trying to poison kids. We're we're trying to, uh, feed them, feed them all, feed them well, and feed them affordably. Uh, so I
038think you're doing a great job. Thank you. Yeah. I have a comment. Uh, Dr. Nold mentioned that uh, we are eating school lunch at our city county schools meetings, and just the feedback I've gotten from people from other entities that I've sat by, they just think our meals are great, and it's fun that we eat on school lunch trays. So, I think that's a great touch. So, thanks. I think that was Dr. Nold eating on the lunch trays. >> [laughter] >> No, I I love that, so. No, congratulations. >> insisted on it, so. Thank you for accommodating us. Just a couple things. First, the kids going through the line, it is uh, they're so polite with the thumbs. So, the thumbs is means they want whatever on their plate, the thumbs down, and it's just
039such a smooth process. So, it's they're they're so polite with that. Um, any other pieces, we'll just be thinking of you as you go through literally having your pyramid turned upside down, uh, with the new guidelines and the the comment period that the SDA will give to you and the extra work I know that you'll have to put into it in giving some feedback, and um, we'll you'll be in our thoughts here. All right, thank you. Thank you. On. Anybody else? Okay. All in favor? I. >> I. Opposed? That is passed. Our second report this evening is the legislative wrap-up, and and Todd Meek will give that report. Uh, as you know, we ended other than the veto day, our exciting legislative session. Uh, yeah. And so, as we go through that, uh, one of
040the times of the years that you obviously put a lot of time and effort in and sent out a lot of information, and you hope that things uh, obviously go the way that you would like them to, and a lot of things did. And so, Todd will give that report and highlight some of the things that were key bills for us. Thank you, Dr. Nold. Yeah, the main run is over. Veto day is a week from today, I think. So, they'll be back for one more day. Uh, as we've done all year, uh, all legislative session, if you're interested in our positions, there's a QR code. You can go look them up. Um, we're not going to go through the bills specifically like we have uh, earlier on. So, we'll just kind of summarize some
041things. Uh, we tracked 104 bills this year. Last year, we tracked 73. So, that that's quite an increase in interest in education bills at the legislature. Um, we uh, supported 10 that passed, and two of those were key bills that we identified as key bills. We supported 14 that failed, and one of those was a key bill. And if a bill didn't get out of the first committee, and we had it as key, we struck it as key because because uh, they turn key as they move their way through the session. So, um, we opposed four bills as all that passed, and none of those were key. We uh, opposed 41 bills that failed, and six of those were key. We were neutral or amend where we never really changed our position on 10 that
042passed, and 35 that failed. And uh, yeah, so overall, it was pretty good year as well as as far as the volume of the bills we supported passing relative to those we opposed not passing. So, into the some of the big items, state aid increase, uh, kind of made up of of a package of bills. House Bill 1051, it funded the big three. That's the one that started out at 0% and the governor said he was going to go to uh, 1%, and the legislature ended up at 1.4%. percent, and uh, the state aid in law increase coming into the session was 2.54, roughly. So, so, got more than zero, but still didn't get to that 2.4 number. And last year, it was 3% cuz inflation was over three last year, but it has a
0433% max on it, and uh, we got 1.25. So, we've lagged behind for the last couple of years. Before I get into the others other bills, I want to talk a little bit about this big three myth. Um, we just looked from 2008 to 2026. You could basically take any year you want to. We we uh, every other year or so, we show this to our local legislators that uh, that [snorts] uh, we we compare well, here's the big three, and here's what's really going on since 2008. So, state aid since 2008, up 52.2%. State employees, salaries and benefits per FTE, up 85.6%. Community support providers, and we get our information because we are one. We're a very tiny little program out at schools provide the education services at psychiatric residential treatment facilities. It's the
044responsibility of the school that it's located in. So, we get a rate we get a Medicaid rate for that. And that's up 76.38%. But, uh last year, we didn't do it this year, but we showed this last year and uh we we had a one legislator after the meeting said, "Your rate is way low on on the community support providers. You got to look at the Medicaid providers." Well, we don't we're not experts in reading the Medicaid regs and so we use what we could. Um [snorts] So, just before I get into this last question here of do all community support providers receive the same? I just want to show you this is we don't just give them that summary data. This is what we give them, which is year-by-year the increase and what the
045state aid increase is due to teacher salary increases and then a look at our neighbors on the bottom here. So, I don't want to get to go through this, but I just want to show it's a lot more detailed than what I just read read off to So, lo and behold, a year later after I heard that from that legislator, um in this year's budget address on in December 2025, the governor showed the budget growth by categories main categories that they and it's been four it's not just this governor this it's been four governors at least that have always talked about the big three and we're going to fund them all the same. But, in his deal, you can see Medicaid growth is at 90% and in his speech it said, "Medicaid has grown faster
046than any other area of the budget about half of it, $180 million is increases in the rates that we pay to providers." And that's since 20 That's since 2020. So, to me half of 90 is 45. So, the uh the increase in that time has been 45% since 2020. Um So, if we adjust that slide I just showed you a couple back and drop in the the the healthcare providers into the into the mix here, they're up 45 plus percent from 2020 through 2027 and to get state aid righted with that, uh we're up 26.5 since that time. So, again, um real no gain on on any of these that they don't change and and it's something that everybody feels good. Hey, we gave all three of the big three got all the same. No,
047it's it's never it's never the same and and it really isn't even close. Uh one more look at that slide. I just thought of this was interesting. Um So, you look at those you look at these items, Medicaid big big numbers, K through 12 another big number. It's a big part of the budget. There are we educate over 130,000 kids and and uh yeah, it's a it is a it is a big expense and that's why we're also the the biggest property tax uh entity, but it's because there's so many kids that get educated in in the border regions they have about 30,000 FTEs or or so. I mean, it's even less than that. But, uh so we're next and then you see all those others that are way down really low. If you look
048at the actual numbers above them, Medicaid's up 90, we knew that, we talked about that. K-12 is up 29 and that also includes uh change in students and whatever. The number I give is the per student amount. Higher ed is up 41%. Taking care of people is up 41 and protecting the public is up 55. So, not only do we lag behind the big three, we lag behind everything else except for the all other, which is I think those are agencies that really bill back the other agencies and so they don't have much of a general fund budget. That's what typically that would be. So, not not only do we we've lagged behind the big three, we lagged behind every other in increase. So, on to the bills that aren't about the budget, if I
049can turn my page here. And we talked about this already, so I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it. HB 1082 was Representative Whitman's bill. It uh it funded it it got the it passed, it got the funding to make the reduced kids uh get get free meals. Uh it's a testament to her tenacity. It's the fourth time she introduced that bill this year and uh she had an amazing coalition of 62 supporters and had a massive bipartisan group of 25 sponsors on HB 1082. It was quite impressive. Um It shows what perseverance can do. Property tax relief, that's a series of three bills. There's a county option for the half-cent sales tax to reduce owner-occupied taxes. That's that that passed. Uh we supported that. It creates the owner opera owner-occupied property
050tax reduction fund and dedicates 3 cents sales tax in the future to fund it or point three point three cents sales tax in the future to fund it. And then House Bill 1051 actually reduced the owner-occupied state aid general fund formula levies from 252 per thousand to 67 cents. That's quite a that's quite a decrease. So, that's not the whole the total part of your property tax bill, but it's the state aid general fund portion of it and that that is actually a massive reduction. Opt-outs, uh speaking of perseverance, there was uh there was four attempts to to make to uh to make opt-outs either automatically voted on or easier to vote on. There was Senate Bills 85, 223, 1241, and 1323. We've kind of went over those as we've gone through this through the
051deal. House Bill 1323 was the last one to survive and that was a bill that came out of the house and it actually had a pretty uh reasonable I think if you want to call it a compromise where [clears throat] it was going to be 30 you get 30 days to to pass a petition, but it applied to things other than just opt-outs. It applied to all city ordinances, county um resolutions, and and and certain school districts, ones that are referable to it. So, some of the uh some of the other entities that uh didn't face the gauntlet of the first three kind of opposed it mainly on that part about it's going to take longer for our what we passed to become to get into action and uh some of that they didn't want
052that length of time. Uh it got it got amended in the Senate, they called it hog house, it got totally changed and it went back over with with uh another um attempt to to uh make it ea- much easier to opt out for two school districts in the state and we were one of them. And uh so, that bill failed on the house side. As did all of the other three. Failed on the house side. Um capital O yeah, there was a capital outlay bill that uh it came up during discussion of the opt-out bills. There was a it was an issue with a school district up north and they didn't like the way they were splitting up their their bonds into several capital outlay certificates and that made them so they were weren't referable
053and they put in a bill that originally said anything over $50,000 you have to go to a vote on. I mean, jeez, that bill would have been relevant probably 50 years ago or maybe 100 years ago. Um It eventually became you can do 20 years you can do bonds capital outlay bonds for 20 years. It eventually became 10. Now, to me that's like looking at the 2008 mortgage crisis and saying, "Well, we're going to we're going to limit all mortgages to 15 years and that's going to solve it." I mean, this was not a solution. It was just a kind of a fly-by-night bill that came out of that meeting and that that failed. And then there was a charter schools bill and all these are key bills, by the way. There was a charter
054schools bill that would have established charter schools that are not accountable for many rules required to be following that the public schools have to follow, but they get public money and that doesn't make sense to us and that bill didn't really go very far, either. So, that's kind of the the wrap-up of the main bills we watched and kind of a summary of all the bills we watched. So, the recommended action is to just acknowledge the 2026 legislative wrap-up and I would stand by in case there's any questions. Thanks. Can I get a motion to acknowledge the legislative wrap-up? So moved. Second. Discussion? Questions? Thoughts? Reflections? Likely said all we wanted to say at our last last meeting we we talked extensively, but I'm free to go now. Yeah. Go ahead. >> So, I was
055just going to say to Mr. Veek, this is probably your last legislative wrap-up for us since you are entering the world of the retireds after the school year. So, I just want to thank you for all your work for keeping us updated on all the legislative happenings and all of the the history and the understanding that you have of the workings in Pierre has been very valuable to our district. So, I just want to thank you for that. Yeah, thank you. There's, you know, a lot of people going into writing up the the positions on those bills and Shelly takes it all together and makes sure sure gets into something everybody can look at. So, there's a lot of work by a lot of people that go into that. But, thank you. Yeah, you can
056still just say thank you, too. You would deserve it. >> [laughter] >> You did a lot of work. Um I'll just make a comment, gentle comment. Um the last time we all spoke, we shared some of our thoughts, well, Mark and I specifically, and I was just browsing some of the additional comments underneath um some of the articles, and the amount of misinformation that's going around about opt-outs and property taxes and um all things surrounding where people's money goes is um it's tough to read how easily people have been buying into a narrative that doesn't support public education. So, um we we me, I don't know, Dr. Nold, you can chime in whenever, but um I have sent in some of the comments that I've been seeing regularly to Mr. Veek and Dr. Nold because
057I think there's a through line um of a shared misinformation myth that we need to combat and get ahead of, especially as we're looking at capital improvement plans and opt-outs and bonds, all things. Um so, I will pause on that, but know that we are coming together collectively to combat those um the misinformation that continues to spread. Yeah, I think we kicked the year off, the legislative session, we did things differently this year, didn't we? Instead of having a breakfast and inviting the legislators just to come for 45 minutes, we did things much differently, and that took a lot of time from our senior staff, our teachers, our building principals, and that is we invited legislators into our school, and it made a difference. And I really want to recognize those legislators that did take
058the time to answer our welcome, and they came. And things could have gone much differently in Pierre had we not taken a real proactive stance early on to invite legislators into our school. So, a thank you to those that extended the or heard our welcome and came and listened. Um I can think several that were excellent allies in promoting public education. Well, I also want to recognize it wasn't perfect. We still have work to do, and we're going to stay persistent. Why? Because we believe in the power in the mission of public education and what that means for Sioux Falls and South Dakota. We have an excellent teaching force, administration, and that should be the light for the rest of South Dakota, and frankly, the nation. We know how to do things in Sioux Falls.
059We know how to do things in South Dakota. We can be better. But, it starts by continuing to put out there the information on the work that happens day in and day out. Um so, I think we did some really good work in doing things differently, um and that's not to say we don't still have work to do, but I think it we would we would not be looking at the truth and not acknowledging some of the support and the gains that we have been able to make. I see a lot of nods, and I also think that was evidenced in the the work around the the lunch bill. Uh that is [clears throat] uh there's that effort affects all kids in South Dakota. That is not just one party's um priority or the other,
060but we found a way to work together. And I see a lot of smiles, and we're going to continue to work together because at the end of the day, it benefits the future of South Dakota. That's our children, and we know the direct connection to our children are teachers and our staff and our administrators. So, Here, here. Okay. All in favor? I. Opposed? Okay, thank you. Well, can I call for a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Opposed? We are adjourned. Please know we have a legislative or it's not legislative, we have a school work board session this Wednesday. Um so, just wanted to put that out there for anybody listening. 3:00, right here.