001Did you [Laughter] call the meeting to order. Please rise and join us for the pledge of allegiance. 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. Thank you. I love a full crowd of the pledge of allegiance. It just sounds much better than it's just us saying it. Welcome to our meeting. Um we are going to start with the good news report. Good evening. Tonight we have two good news reports because it's getting to be that time of the year, right? We're trying to get a lot of things in. There's uh a lot of things happening in the district and we're here to highlight some of the best of the best tonight. So,
002first up, we are paying tribute to a long-standing partnership we have with Levo Credit Union and its members. Levo demonstrates a strong commitment to supporting schools and teachers throughout their work in our community. In 2017, the Souf Falls Storm teamed up with Levo to launch Operation Hope and Caring. It's an annual fundraiser to support Title One schools without PTAs and PTO's. There was a time in 2017 where we looked around and recognized that many of our Title One schools did not have the benefit of parents being able to participate in uh typical fundraising activities. and our community came alongside of us and uh we're so grateful for that because they've helped raise money for schools uh to support things such as field trips, playground equipment, uh winter weather gear, school supplies, um washers and dryers,
003just all kinds of things. And Levo has been at the ready um often and every year since. Um, on President's Day this past February, that was a no school day for kids. Um, and Levo teamed up with Air Madness Trampoline Park and Kelland TV, and they hosted an event that was simply one of the best we've seen yet as far as turnouts go. So, children and family, uh, they were able to come to Air Madness and spend some quality time together, maybe burn off a little energy in the process, um, to benefit our schools. And, um, students were able to jump all day. They could use a credit then over at Union Social, which has some arcade type gaming, and um, have a little fun there. And it was a huge hit. So, um, Levo
004is here tonight to, uh, share with us their total amount, which is larger than I had on my paper. Wow, that's really great. Um, so we're going to invite Levo's president and CEO, France Somerfeld, uh, to come forward. We also have Preston Molen from Levo, who is here with us, and Jack Craig from Kell TV. Um, so come on, say a few words. Thank you. I don't know that I have anything to add to all of that. That's awesome. Thank you. We are just honored to be here. So, thank you for having us. Um, on behalf of Levo Credit Union and our over 36,000 members. We're just so grateful to be able to partner with with the school district to try and level that playing field for those kids that need it. It was kind
005of a brainchild in 2017 when we got together and sort of co-founded this operation hope and carrying along with Kelland the Sou Falls Storm and Air Madness and we couldn't do that without them for sure. But since that time we have raised and donated over $127,800 to help these kids get the things that we sometimes take for granted. So again, thank you for being here. We we're just super proud to be able to be part of this. So thank you. So, we're going to do the presentation of the check at this moment. to our school board members as well. Wow. [Applause] 18,86121 cents. Why not 21 cents? Um, we also want to say a huge um, thank you to Levo. They support our teachers in a variety of ways. Um, they give grants to $500
006grants to teachers who are nominated. Um, they did a winter weather gear fundraiser this year and actually physically brought uh, things to us. In addition, um they've done a detergent, a laundry detergent drive. They've done school supplies. Um seriously, one of the one of the strong strong partners in our community who um you know goes out and listens to what kind of needs there might be and then jumps into action right away. And so they certainly have demonstrated that community partnership. So thank you all very much for for that. [Applause] And up next, our friend Denise Kennedy, senior director of special education services, is here to have another celebration with you. Thank you, Dan. Each year, the Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs invites families of students receiving special education services to nominate
007a special education staff member who has made an outstanding contribution to the education of their child. The tradition began in 2012 when a parent wrote an email to the DOE describing the tremendous impact her child's special education teacher had on her child and the ways that relationship affected the school and the community. Since that time, the DOE's Office of Special Programs has invited parents and guardians of special education students to nominate a special education staff member who made a positive impact on their child's education. This year the department received 60 nominations. Eight of those were from the Sou Falls School District. I am so proud of the work that all of these professionals do and they deserve this recognition tonight for going above and beyond. Will the eight nominees please stand when I call their
008name. Amanda Bor Hickeyi, special education teacher. John Harris Elementary. Bruce Alers Bradfeld, school psychologist. Roosevelt High School. Sonia Sodtoayor Elementary. Carol Neil, early childhood special education. Laura B. Anderson. Elise Clarenbeek, special education teacher, Axel Park High School. Grant Dunar, special education teacher, structured teach at Axel Park. Jolene Kckler, school psychologist, Whittier Middle School and John Harris Elementary. Kristen, I'm sorry, Kirsten Bean, special education teacher, Robert Frost Elementary, and Mary Lawrence Thompson, speech language pathologist, Washington High School and Hawthorne Elementary. Thank you all for all the wonderful work you do. I invite the school board just to help me congratulate these people on all the wonderful work they do every day for our kids. And like every other good news report, I assume you are all good if they follow me out and yes, but give
009us a minute. Does anybody have any comments that they would like to make? I'm going to kind of roll both good news reports into one and just say that what a caring community we come from. And thank you to all the businesses that stood up and helped our families and our kids that are less fortunate. You're rock stars. And then of course to our staff. Wow, this is pretty awesome. We cannot replace what you do for our kids every day. So I thank you very much. Yeah. I would just add as you all know the um the number of students that we have in special ed grows every year and so does the complexities of what they what their needs are and what your skills need to be. And so I I echo Gail and
010say thank you so much for the love and care that you give to our students every day um to ensure that they're learning and able to really operate at their optimum their their best for themselves uh makes a really big difference to um that the student itself but their families too and trusting you every day um to care for the person that they love. So thank you all very much and congratulations on this welldeserved honor. And then to our Levo friends, I just wanted to say that I love when local businesses are able to help out because your employees and your staff can see the direct impact that they're making to their own community. It could be their child's classmate that they're impacting or their child's school. And so just thank you so much for
011really investing back. There's a lot of things that you could invest in. Um and when you're investing in kids, you're investing in the future of our community. So I really appreciate that. Thank you. And yes, if you'd like to file out, we will not we will make no judgments. Thanks again. All right, we will continue on with the agenda. Can I get a motion and a second for approval of the minutes of the meeting held on March 24th and March 26th and April 2nd, please? Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. Those minutes are approved. We have one person wishing to address the school board on a non-aggenda item. Uh so you have five minutes. Uh Chad, if you'd like to come
012up and give your remarks. Good evening. My name is Chad Bishop and I live at 7405 South Valencia Drive here in Sou Falls. I would like to take this opportunity to once again request that you make George Orwell's 1984 an animal farm required reading across the district for all juniors and seniors. I'm here tonight to speak plainly about the word inclusivity and how it has been used in ways that are both deceptive and dangerous. There was a time when inclusivity meant ensuring that every student, regardless of background, could participate fully in public education. That was a worthy goal. But the word has changed, the policy has shifted, and the public has noticed. Today, inclusivity often means something else entirely. In Illinois, it means that girls can be made to address in front of biological males
013by administrators. It means that parental concerns are treated as hostility. It means that safety and dignity of children, especially daughters, are negotiable or worse, irrelevant. And dare I say, the use of the word inclusive in this context is a bit Orwellian. We're watching language be bent into euphemism and contradiction. Inclusivity now means excluding the rights of girls. It means enforcing silence and punishing disscent. It means elevating ideology over biology and bureaucracy over common sense. Let me give you two examples. The one I already mentioned. Just last month in Deerfield, Illinois, a mother named Nicole Georgees testified at a school board meeting that her 13-year-old daughter was compelled by school administrators to change clothes in front of a biological male in a girl's locker room. When the girl objected, she was told that she had to
014comply or face disciplinary action. A police report was filed. A federal complaint submitted. And yet the school district's response was to deny any wrongdoing. Insisting they complied with the state law inclusive bathroom policy. Insisting that private changing areas are available. But they wouldn't say is what they wouldn't say is whether the girls were ever told that or why they were made to feel like they were the ones who were out of line. That's what inclusivity looks like now. And we've seen this before in Lowden County, Virginia. A non-binary male student sexually assaulted a female student in a girl's restroom. That student was quietly transferred to another school where he assaulted again. The superintendent told the public there had been no restroom assaults, then later admitted he'd lied. The victim's father, Scott Smith, unfortunately lost composure
015at a schoolboard meeting and was arrested while publicly demanding answers. Years later, he was pardoned by the governor, but his daughter still carries the trauma. And so does the community that trusted the system to protect their kids. And if you don't know the origin of this story, this is what led to the NSBA and the Biden administration in classifying parents who come to schoolboard meetings as domestic terrorists. Let me say this clearly. If your policy results in the fear or humiliation or violation of even one girl, then it's not inclusive. It's abusive. You may be protecting one student's identity, but you are sacrificing another student's dignity to do so. What are you willing to sacrifice in the name of inclusivity? and who decided that girls would be the ones who always have to give ground.
016I have three daughters that I have entrusted to the Sou Falls School District. I spent 11 years volunteering at All City Elementary as a parent during commitment time, week after week, year after year, showing up because I believed in supporting our public schools. One of my regular tasks was to be a bathroom monitor. But because even even elementary boys need a little accountability. Whether it was before or after lunch, before or after specials or at recess, the teachers and administration trusted me to make sure everything was okay. But let me be clear. The dangerous behavior, the fights, the bullying, recorded confrontations that happen in middle school and high school bathrooms. Everyone knows this. Kids know it. Parents know it. Teachers know it. Our own district knows it. And yet, in a recent meeting, our superintendent
017dismissed concerns about bathroom safety with a smug remark. I did it for free for over a decade. No paycheck, no agenda, just caring for kids, helping teachers and administrators. If our highest paid leaders can't acknowledge the reality of what happens in school bathrooms and can't affirm that girls deserve private spaces, then we don't have a policy problem, we have a leadership problem. Perhaps that's why the legislature felt the need to step in and pass HB1259 this past session and why the governor signed it into law. There are those who have layered ideology and bureaucratic jargon over a simple truth. Girls should have the right to dignity. Full stop. That should not be controversial. And when it is, when officials deflect and hide behind words like gender affirming or inclusive, you've shown that ideology matters more
018than honesty. Inclusivity as it is currently practiced has become a euphemism for coercion and we are forcing children many of whom are too young to fully understand what is happening to carry the burden of adult political experiments. This is not a call for clear cruelty. It is a call for clarity. You can support every student in this district without compromising truth, without denying biology, and without crushing parental trust. But first, you must stop pretending that words don't have consequences. Thank you for your time. Can I get a motion and a second for approval of the agenda, please? So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. The agenda is approved. No conflicts today. Can I get a motion and a second
019for approval of the consent agenda 9 A through D E, sorry, 9 through A through E. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. That consent agenda is approved. And now I have the supplemental consent agenda A1 and two. A motion and a second, please. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. That is passed with one absention from myself. And now on to the reports of the superintendent. Yeah, we have two things tonight. The first is the ever popular school district calendar. Thank you. So the uh 2627 calendar is up for review and adoption tonight. Hard to believe that we're already looking ahead that far.
020And then uh after that we'll have the public hearing as an agenda item. Good evening and this evening I bring to you the proposal for the 2627 school calendar and I'll go through and share some of that information with you. Uh the priority area here is the community engagement and again this is the recommendation coming from the committee and we'll talk a little more about that. First of all, the uh the guidance that we adhere to that was established approximately nine years ago now is we start the school year with a two-day week, a 4-day week, and a 4-day week. Not necessarily because of those days in the week, but because we plan that out prior to Labor Day, and that allows for then a 4-day Labor Day weekend. That was part of the compromise
021that we had made uh eight years ago, nine years ago now, uh when we established this calendar. And since then we have followed this as far as the starting day for each school year calendar. So we begin that with a two-day week, then there's four day and then the four day weekend for for Labor Day and then we start with another 4-day week and it begins the school year. So the calendar committee uh maintained that and we also worked with that starting date and the end date being Memorial Day weekend. And so we try to make sure that we fit all the days in within those time periods and we were able to do that again this year. And it's actually one of the easier calendars we had that rotates around. Next year's calendar was
022one of the harder ones, but this one is for 2627. So as you look at this, these were some of the recommendations that came through the committee. Uh the no student attendance days on Native American Day and Martin Luther King Day. And so we did honor that. We also had teachers in corresponding nine-month not be in attendance on those two days as well. We had the compensatory day for parent teacher conferences was on April 19th. We moved that into April. So out of March and it allowed us to have at least one day that that went from March 30th to the final end of the school year. Otherwise, we would not have um so we added that day in as April 19th and moved it to there. And then March 1st will be a full
023day inservice that allows our AM uh inservice to occur. And then in the PM of that, the elementary schools are able to do parent teacher conferences if they desire. If they have class sizes to where they need to include that afternoon to utilize that for parent teacher conferences, it goes that afternoon into the evening. All the other levels just have it in the two evening nights. One of the other parts you'll see on there is these significant dates that we went through. August 27th would be that first student day that allows us to do the two-day, 4-day, 4 day. Uh we have no school on Native American day. As we stated, there's also going to be, this year is really unique in that to get the days to fit in there through the calendar year.
024Uh the calendar committee agreed that we'd have school on that 22nd and 23rd, but we'll do a early dismissal on the 23rd. That will be for the holiday break. The end of the first semester will be January 14th, and then again, no school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And then we have the compensatory day in April 19th. That allowed us one day between that March 30th and the end of the year. May 23rd is graduation. And then the last student day is May 26th. As you can see, we have a committee of approximately 30 individuals. There are parent representatives on there and then representatives of each of our bargaining groups and other individuals that also provide us feedback and information from CLC uh schoolboard members. Obviously, two schoolboard members on there as well. The
025committee this year did vote 25 to zero uh to approve this calendar and to move it forward to the school board for ratification. You can see on the final page there of the document there is the school calendar that is listed. We currently have that as as the tenative calendar with all the dates involved. Uh but I do at this time uh make the administrative recommendation that we approve the 2627 school year calendar based on the calendar committee's work as detailed in the attached. So I'd stand by for any questions. Dan, are you taking notes? This all right. This might be part of your responsibility. Just remember 224 Um, go ahead. Oh, I just I think u this is a system that has worked and it's a now a welloiled machine which is great. Um,
026our community can kind of have an expectation. Um, and I know that there's always people reaching out, you know, asking, do you know what the calendar is? You know what the calendar is? And so um typically what happens just as aformational is that once it gets approved today it will be posted shortly after that um on the website for people to look at in case they wanted to plan anything they would know what days are already off the so this one in 2627 so you are correct we try to wait till the end of this year and then we post that one out there so they don't see three at one time. Sure. And so we do right at the conclusion of this year we'll post 2627. So then you'll see two years at a
027time 2526 and 2627 because people do plan two years out in advance. Yeah. And if anybody wants to see a closer vision of that they can always look at the board report that we'll be post. So thank you again for the work of your team. It's nice to have feedback from all the different groups because everyone has different ideas about time off and what makes the most sense and so it's nice to have that that group effort and especially when they can all agree at the end. them is the final product. So, thank you. Can I get a motion and a second for approval of the adoption of the school calendar for 2627? Move. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. That calendar
028is approved. Thank you. Thank you. I took detailed notes for Mr. Conrad. He can't mess this up. Perfect. And now we will move to our public hearing. And while Mr. Vek is there, may I say just a few words to summarize kind of where I think we are tonight is the board um potentially adopts the tenative budget. So I just I want to review a little bit that um we have an extensive process and we've been through that process. Um, I know for the general public and for people who aren't always tuning in, um, this year looks a little different and there are cuts being made this year and those reductions have been anticipated over the last at least three years since we got those ESR dollars. And as we said at the last meeting,
029some of those departments kind of have been chopping those off along the way where they can trim. um like our art department. Some have been happening piece by piece over a few years. Uh some cuts were even attempted and failed by a judge's order. So those efforts have been ongoing. The board um has developed a good plan for making the reductions that are going to be necessary now over the next few years. And what we're really doing is returning to that precoid budget reality. Each year also has its own factors. depends on your enrollment, depends on what the expenses look like, what unexpected expenses uh happen and for some districts there may even be catastrophic events that come up. Fortunately, we haven't had that reality. But the Esser dollars really allowed districts to put things
030in place that impacted student achievement. That was the intent of those dollars. And once those things are put in place, they're hard to eliminate. But we knew that would be a reality. But the goal was to try to make reductions furthest away from the classroom and preserving those things that we knew to be effective for as long as possible. And that still is, and you've done a good job with that. We also have the reality this year of a 1.25% increase from the state legislature. And that's far below the last several years of state aid allocations, which of course was disappointing across the state. There's a difference in anticipated reductions and real reductions. And now we're at that juncture of those two things converging. So as those reductions become real, it's not because they were
031unexpected or unanticipated, but they are now a reality. So that said, I think the board and our staff have done a good job of developing a solid budget with a good plan over time um even for the next 10 years. And that's if those assumptions that we make as part of this budget hold true. If any of those assumptions change, the budget also has to change. And that's a yearly endeavor. That's the reason why staff and the board of ed work works together to develop, review, and pass a budget annually. And that's the reality of any given year when those factors are part of this process. So with that, um Todd will give us a final overview and then we'll leave it to the board to um make a motion on that proposed tentative budget
032with a final vote coming most likely around July, August. Thank you. So, yeah, we started this budget process in November when uh you met and gave us our instructions and our timeline to follow. Uh we had we had 19 budget committees, subcommittees work on work on budgets. They had over hundreds of well over hundred people involved in preparing those budgets. Uh and they they did and they we rolled them up and the budget review committee which has a couple of board members on it, many of the people over there on it, teachers from all levels and special ed met on March 13th to develop those budget recommendations and brought to the school board at work sessions. We went over them on March 26th and then did a review on April 2nd. So all in all,
033our budget this year has come in with a 32.3 million in revenue and $235.5 million in expenses. That's uh so we're going to dip into the fund balance by about $3.2 million. As Dr. Staven talked about, we did make some cuts. We've been talking about those for and this is the fourth year now I think or this is the third year we've been talking about needing to make some cuts in our budget to get in line with our expected revenues and we we went part of the way this year with $3.1 million in cuts. Now, ironically, as Dr. Staven pointed out, we were we were expecting a 3% increase in the state aid formula because that's what the statute calls for. Many times the legislature will go above that or below that number. They don't
034always follow it, but the if they don't make a pass a bill that actually changes it, we were looking at a 3% cut. Now that's $3.1 million. So we uh that's it's a coincidence. I guess it's not it wasn't a number we were shooting for. We're shooting for a five-year plan, but we we uh did cuts compared to a status quo budget equaling $3.1 million. And one of those was actually like a $13 $13,000 increase. But we went over those in great detail in the past. So those are up there and they're they're still out there on the on the website. You can go go look at those if you want to go through some of those. I just want to jump ahead. A big document. So this is our this is our taxup supported
035re this is our taxup supported budget and these tax supported funds are are the funds that that where we have property taxes for they're the general fund the special ed fund the capital alllay fund and the bond redemption fund. There's more than that on here because we split the general fund into unrestricted, which is by far the largest part of it, and then restricted, which is mostly federal federal grants, which means if we cut those activities of those federal grants, the money goes away. So, you can't cut those to pay for the lights or the heat or or or whatever. You have to do what the federal government says in those. So, you can see our total budget in expenditures. you don't count the transfers in and out of different funds is about 342.8 million
036million dollars talked about this too, but I just want to go over some things on the on the general fund budget. Um you can we had an ongoing expense in 2025 and federal co money of was over $8.2 million we kind of had to absorb into our budget. That's what Dr. Stam talked about earlier. You can see um some of the items here but but the big part is that we have a 10.1% fund balance projected at the end of this year. We project that to drop to 8.6% 6% next year and down to 8.2% the year after. And then we expect it to to bounce back if if we follow these items we put in here. And we had a roughly a one and a half% cut this year and we're budgeting a one
037and a half% cut next year and a 1% the year after that. Like we talked about these were planned three years ago. We we really didn't do a lot of cutting in the first two years. So this this is what we're looking at going forward. Um, and then that would yield an actually upward trend at the end, which will probably when it gets down to it, we'll be more evening out right around eight. We'll probably won't cut as much or we won't do some other things with the revenues, but that that's where our five-year plan stands right now. So, it looks healthy out in the future. We we've kind of brided that gap. Then uh always like we always like to discuss uh because we take this we take it seriously about um not only
038looking at what's good for students and what's good for staff and what's good for the community. But as part of that, what's good for the taxpayers? And we always take that very seriously. So this year, this year we're actually on on the house we've been following since 2000. We're actually projecting a 3.3% decrease in taxes as I know values went up the last two two or three years, but uh this year that there's a slight decrease in in the value and our proper and our our uh levy dropped 17 cents. So we're we're showing a 3.3% decrease next year. That's projected. And this year it was a 3.1% decrease for that house. So over the last 26 years, the school property taxes on that house have gone up 70% or 71%. That seems seems like
039a big number, but that's over 26 years. So it's averaged about 2 and a half%. Which we're we're pretty proud of. Um and then I won't talk about the I won't talk about the state uh what the state sales tax does, but it goes up at a lot greater rate than that. I'll just it goes up over a 26 year period. It's gone up 4.7% per capita per year. So, um we're almost half that. We're a little over half, but almost twice as as slow growth. And then, uh we always compare ourselves to our neighbors, those other 10 other districts that actually touch our borders somewhere. And uh we try to be in that bottom fourth of that. And this year in 2025, we ranked 10th out of 11th or so so we're the second
040lowest rate at 7:30. So we do we do take everything seriously um including looking at our property taxpayers and trying to make sure that we spend their money wisely. Now there's a ton of more detail in the budget. we've gone over over two sessions. So, I'm not going to repeat all that tonight. But, uh I would just ask that uh we are the administrative recommendation of the school board is acknowledge the public hearing which we will have in a second here and uh then tenatively approve the FY26 district budget. And I'd stand by for questions. Do you want to do the hearing part first and then might as well just hang out right there? Uh, okay. So, I'm opening the public hearing if there's anybody here that would like to make any comments on the
041budget at all. And I'm closing the public hearing as there was no comments to be made. Does anybody have any additional questions or comments? I I have a comment just in general that you know we're we're using taxpayer dollars and I can't think of a better place for tax dollars to go than public education. Um we we educate probably 90% of the work for the future workforce here in Sou Falls. Um and that is absolutely essential to the growth and development of our community. When you think about it, we need the clean water. Bridges, roads are all essential just like our public education is essential. We are supplying the future workforce of the area. And beyond that, it's a quality of life piece. Um, if we want Sou Falls to be a top-notch place to
042live, work, and raise a family, funding public education, quality public education is essential building block to this community. Um Todd, you and your committee have done an outstanding job um using wisely the resources that we are uh responsible for and ultimately looking at what's the return on investment for every dollar and looking over programming that we want to push us in the right direction for our outcomes. Um we've kept our class sizes to the 23.4 four to one have small class sizes given the what we have to deal with with the budget constraints this year. Um number two we've added behavioral and academic interventionists. Uh number three we've um expanded our youth by reading program due to the outstanding um outcomes it's produced. So yeah, the it's, you know, nobody wants to make cuts. Um,
043but we've done an outstanding job at looking at every dollar and wisely using it. Um, but again, it's just our public education is essential to to to Sou Falls and what we're about and who we are. Anybody else have any? Um I think the only thing that I would um like to uh just add is that you know we had a couple different or we had our presentation with partnerships um today with the community and I and I just can't we all know how important those are and and I feel very strongly that SBI has been a very good partner of ours and um so I guess the only uh motion I would like to make would be to amend and have that um the er allocation dollar amount that's listed as 106,000 on that
044um initial sheet. If we could do a half and half for the half of the one year and half of it the next year in order to again be a good partner and um allow them to make some adjustments in their hiring um and attrition and things of that nature. So there's any discussion on that? Can I make a motion? Sure. I agree. I would make a motion that we do that for SBI for the next. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any other discussion? Yeah, I I would just and I'm fine for it this year, but I think we also need to just be really um prudent going forward with um what we choose to keep and what our priorities are within that. SBI certainly priority in getting kids, but when we
045also know that um that we've been planning for this and that that that the committee made that recommendation for that to to be a cut. Um that we're sticking with that number one, but I get the point of putting it carrying it over over two years. So, it's a win-win. It's a I've been the one that's been against it, but I will vote for it tonight. I do think that uh in the scheme of our budget, you know, it's not it's a huge amount of money to me, but it's not a huge amount of money in the scheme of our budget. But I think they were well aware this is coming, but I can bow to the argument of being good neighbors and good partners. So, I'll vote for it. Thank you. Uh so, we
046have a motion and a second for that amendment. Um, all in favor signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. That passes. Any other conversation? Or can I get a motion to tenatively adopt the budget for the FY 26 fiscal year? So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. That is tentatively adopted. Thank you. And I would just echo what uh board member Kelly said about how what a great job our committees do and having been um part of that budget committee. It really is a team effort and people are able to come and share and and really look at um things in a different way. And so I just appreciate that um committee perspective and getting as many people involved.
047And I would just say, as you mentioned, we're going to do another um potentially one and a half percent next year, starting the budget committee again in November. And so if there are staff members who are out there that feel strongly about certain things and how they're being used, I wouldn't wait until it's too late to ask those questions. I would ask those questions up front. And at least research can be done to be able to either prove or disprove um what that might be or the impact is. Um, I really do think that impact or that feedback is is necessary and required as part of this process. And so if you have ideas, um, I would encourage you to leave lift those up to your administrators as well so that can be carried on.
048Thank you, Todd. Thank you. Um, anything else before we adjourn? Can I get a motion and a second for adjournment, please? So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. same sign. We are ajourned. Thank you.