001One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> First order of business is to approve the agenda. If I can get a motion. >> I so move >> with the agenda. >> I so move with the addendum. >> I'll second it. >> Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed, same sign. uh scheduled and unscheduled audience. We'll move on to school reports and fanfare with the Creek Side Chess Club. >> I'm going to guess you guys did not expect to come up turn. So, I know Nathan asked me to talk a lot tonight and keep this going. Uh, one of the things that we wanted to do and when how we came about this idea was for one, talk to you guys about something at Creekide that possibly
002you haven't heard about. Uh, and we're trying to create some different opportunities at Creekide for our students. Um, some of these students back here might tell you that maybe math, science, and English weren't always the reason that they were sitting in school and the reason they were there, right? Or was it? So, we want to create some different opportunities. And so, one of the things that Mr. Esme came to me about this year was creating a chess club at Creekide. Uh, and he will get to talk a little bit about that, followed by the experts in the room that get to do that. Thank you for having us. Uh, I was probably making Mr. Summers worried. I actually had to run from the chess club that I run at the library up to here and
003then back. So, running a few minutes later than he probably wanted. Uh I started the chess club uh because I really I one I enjoy the game myself but two I think for kids it builds in them the idea of stopping to think about what the what's going to happen if I do something. Uh two it builds a nice community of students where they can like kind of relax with each other and focus on one thing. Um, another thing with running a chess club with students is it really helps them to like critically think about how pieces move together, but also how do I work with an opponent and which leads kind of my final thing with students is I want them to be good sportsman sport or have good sportsmanship. And so what do
004you do when you lose? How do you act? Like you sh before the game you shake hands. when the game's done, you shake hands, whatever the outcome is. Um, how should you, what's your character going to be? And so those are really the things that I kind of focus on in chess club other than the actual game play, right? Um, so I asked these guys, what were the questions, Jonas? >> Um, why did you join chess club? What do you like about chess club? And what are you looking forward to? And one thing that some of the students that I don't know if these two will say it are looking forward to is a tournament. And I had told them I was going to try to get a tournament going in December. It probably won't
005happen until January. Uh but we'll run a run a tournament at the school. But I'll let these guys speak to those questions. Who wants to go first? Uh the reason I joined chess club is that I love playing chess. I start when I did like summer kids club at the school and they kind of taught me how to play chess and I just have loved playing it ever since. I joined chess club so I could get better at chess and have fun. I like the new challenges Trust Club offers and hope to continue improving so one day I can beat my big brother. >> Everybody has somebody in their family they want to beat. Uh and I hope to help them in on that journey. So thank you for having us. Do you guys have
006any questions? >> Are you aware that Belfoo has a chess club? >> I am aware of the chess club that I started in Belfoo. >> Never mind that. >> When I was a teacher there. Yes, until last year. And I actually just took a previous student with me Saturday to a to a tournament uh in Rapid City. And um I'll probably put out the word to these guys in the future in the other schools to the other principles that in April the state scholastic chess tournament um that usually we have between 100 and 125 uh students participate in across the state. This year it is in Rapid City and so you can go and there are team awards um for school awards if if schools have enough participants the top four players from a school
007if they do well enough they actually bring home a trophy for their school. Uh so Belfoo has been bringing home the middle school trophy for the past three years. >> When do you guys meet or how often? >> Uh we meet twice a month. So, I meet on at Creekide the first and third Mondays of each month right after school until 4:30. Um, and that's because on the second and fourth Monday of each month, I meet at the city library because I had had some people reach out to me and talked with uh Amber Wild at the library about becoming a volunteer there and helping start one up. So, I started one up there a couple years ago. >> How many students participate in chess? Uh, so far it's been ranging from 25 to 35
008at Creekide. So I think it'll probably settle around 25 to 30. Usually initially there's a lot of interest and then it kind of scales back and then each year it kind of jumps a little bit, but I would guess there it'll be 25 to 30 pretty regularly. >> Does Mr. Summoners volunteer to play any of the kids? >> Not yet. >> I did have uh I'm gonna have to teach you first. I did have our SRO playing. I have a board, a wall board on my door, my classroom door, and I did have our SRO playing against a couple of students on that. >> Excellent. >> So, that's kind of fun. >> Get different teachers and people involved. >> Awesome. >> Thank you for having us. >> Yeah. One of the thing he didn't say
009is the first time we did this, he calls me afterward and says, "We have a problem." Which is always what every principal wants to hear, right? and he had 35 students show up and so we rearranged all kinds of stuff so that we could make room and now they're doing it in the gym because their numbers are get fairly big at times. It's not ideal but we're going to make it work. >> My classroom is a little small. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving on. Uh there's no conflicts of interest waivers, so we'll move on toformational items with our superintendent update. >> All right. Uh board members, you have this sheet at your desk there. I apologize. I'm going to read some of this, but uh I'll add live some of it as well, but
010uh back on November 25th, there was an article in the Black Hills Pioneer on the property tax task force uh where it said that K12 public school spending increased by 39.8% between 20 and 2024. While numerically correct, it's highly misleading and unfairly suggests that property taxes are high due to an due to the increase in spending. A close look at the funding sources reveals that the surge in overall spending is primarily driven by temporary nonpropy tax funds and a substantial increase in capital projects. So number one there, the increase is driven by temporary federal funds. So back in 2020, we had ESSER or I'm sorry, COVID hit and we got an influx of federal uh uh funding roughly about 94% across the state. About 120 million 94% increase almost 100% increase in federal funds. Federal
011funds are uh were meant to spend. If we didn't spend them, we had to revert them back to the state. And so why wouldn't we take advantage of that uh and spend those funds? So, not property tax related and I think doing our local property taxpayers uh a justice I guess if you will by utilizing that uh over our local property tax uh revenue. Next one is enterprise funds uh is also included in this figure. Uh enterprise funds are our food service and our driver's ed. This is not property taxes. This is parents uh paying for their students lunch or driver's ed. Also during that time again due to COVID the federal uh USDA federal funding said that all meals were going to be free for kids to kids uh for a couple of years.
012So we got the federal reimbursement price which is far larger than what we charge parents. So we built a little bit of a fund balance based on that and then the state turns around and tells us we have to spend that down because we can only carry a certain percentage. So again, that spike in additional revenue and then being forced to spend it of course drove up the spending. Capital projects account uh that accounts for the largest increase that single largest driver of the 39.8% increase was capital projects funds which saw a dramatic increase of 60.7. Again we saw a huge influx of federal dollars and it was used for projects. We use 2 million actually 2 and a.5 million for our CTE building. So uh the thing about this again while it's not incorrect
013to say that that we spent $15 million on our CTE building, we didn't in that given year per se because we did 12 million capital outlay certificates. So we didn't we we have that debt service over the next 20 years, but we didn't actually spend that out of our out of our budget per se. So it's a misrepresentation in my mind that we had this uh influx of federal money. We used again 2.5 million of the 15 million. We used 1 million in our fund balance. We used 12 million in uh uh cap outlay certificates. So again, you can see how that that increases uh that percentage closer to that 40% as the article suggests. Um actual property tax supported expenditure expenditures are significantly lower. When looking at the funds primarily supported by local property
014taxes, the actual increases are much smaller than reported than the reported 39.8%. General fund expenditures are 20.4, capital outlay expenditures are 25.8 and special education is 23.9. Now also remember on general fund the revenue comes from state aid, county aortionments, uh federal dollars and of course property taxes. Our capital outlay is solely on revenue for property taxes. And then special education is revenue from state aid, federal and property taxes. So again to attribute say that property taxes have went up because of uh the increase in revenue. It's not all in property taxes. It's all uh there's other sources of revenue there. So in summary, the articles uh 39.8% figure is a metric primarily inflated by $120 million of one-time federal payment esser and nonpropy tax supported increases. The actual spending increases in the key funds
015supported by the local property taxes range from 20.4 to 25.8, making the 39.8 increase a misrepresentation of the true K12 public school spending reality for local taxpayers. So I just again if somebody reads that article and they say, "Yep, my property taxes are high because K12 public school funding or spending went up by 40%." Yeah, we had a lot of federal money and I think there's a misrepresentation with the capital projects fund. Next thing I want to talk a little bit about is the governor's budget address. Uh he proposed a 0% increase uh for K12 public schools. And while if we were not declining enrollment, it would still be uh a concern. The other concern is is that we still have rising utility costs to pay, rising property and uh liability uh insurance premiums and
016then just the cost of goods and services. So while that might be 0% uh we're going backwards. So it's it's a negative it's a decrease for us. What's frustrating is that state workers while proposed that they're getting a 0% increase, their uh their health insurance uh increases are going to be covered by the state. We're seeing nothing on our end. And along with that, the public universities are receiving 1 million uh to offset their increased utility costs. Again, we are seeing nothing. So, we are going backwards. Is that a million per public university or >> I think total I think it's a million total but again they have the diversity of revenue where they can increase fees or tuition or whatever to offset. We do not have that diversity. The blue blue ribbon task force
017uh back when that was passed you know they uh increased sales tax from 4% to 4.5%. It was either a year or two years at the most. Later after that they reduced it from 4.5 to 4.2%. That.3% accounts for one point or $105 million. Now imagine if we had that now what we could be doing what we could could be paying teachers that average teacher salary could be quite higher. So uh it's frustrating that they rolled that back after a year or two. Uh but we also gave things up during that time. We put uh put limits on our growth in capital outlay. Uh we could no longer um levy at the max of three mills. It was uh 3% or CPI whichever is greater and plus the growth of uh new valuation. Uh so
018there is uh limits there. Eliminated the pension fund which was quite a bit for us. uh equalize the other revenue. And then if you put all of that together, since the Blue Room task force, the last 10 years, the Spearfish School District has foregone $32 million. So to say that the increase in valuations or the new growth and stuff, uh that property taxes haven't been reduced to some degree would be false because if everything remained the same, we would have 32 million more dollars. So um and and that was accomplished through the reduced general fund levy and again the state sets that the legislature uh growth restriction on capital outlay reduced levy and special education we did that we reduced that by 20 uh 20 cents and then elimination of the pension fund. So again,
019um just it's it's really frustrating that we're looking at a 0%. There was a mechanism in place. The the additional half penny sales tax. The legislature after a year rolled that back. Um they had the resources to continue to fund public education and they chose to roll it back. So that's all I have. I think it might also be important to point out that going back to your comments on the uh the property tax article. So if our spending did range from 20% to 25% thereabouts, the cumulative rate of inflation um for those four years was just over 21%. Which kind of matches with the spending increase that we saw as well. So I think that further kind of justifies the actions that we took. So >> in state aid increase over the last these
020last 10 years have been roughly around 25.5%. The governor in his state of the budget address uh talked about 29% increase but that takes into account the the one-time money and we've taken advantage of some of that the CTE the workforce development grants the equipment grants and things like that. So, it's not just the ongoing revenue that he is pointing out. It is uh all of the one-time stuff as well. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Uh moving on to the consent agenda, uh we can with the addendum, we can uh approve it all with one motion or you're welcome to pull something off for suffer debate. Um but if I can get a motion to approve. Move to approve. >> Second. Any discussion, comments? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I.
021>> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Uh, moving on to the discussion items. Uh, first is the policy committee report and recommendations. Okay, bear with me on these, Zach. This is going to take about a half hour. Are you ready for that? Okay. So, uh let's just go through each of these policies and I'll try to make it as quick and painless as possible. So, 8110 uh was revised and you can see the new uh the new portion of that. But also in part of that is uh we included 8120. So, we're uh requesting to repeal 8120 as it is now part of 8110. So it was newly labeled the uh role of the board of education and that uh expanded the definitions if you will of uh the the role and then also
022like I said the per uh 8120. Next one is communications. If you look at just this that's in black there where it says all correspondence directed to the school board and so on. That's what we had prior. So, uh, the new red portion of this is expands on that a little bit. It talks about staff communication to the board and then communication to the staff. And it's recommended that it flows through the superintendent, but it's not mandated. Again, if uh you want to talk to a staff member, you're certainly welcome to. and a staff member wants to talk to you, you're certainly welcome to, but by and large, most of the communication should roll through the the superintendent. All right, next one. Board standing committees. You can see that in the red there uh added
023the functions of the committees ordinarily be factf finding, deliberative, and advisory. And the reports be will be made to the board for discussion and action. And then uh all committee appointments will be for no longer the necessary to discharge the completion of their assignment. And then at the bottom there we will still have ad hoc committees can be appointed by the board as deemed necessary. Let's see what was struck through. Board meetings 8210. Uh we rolled in the notice of board meetings. So 8220 we'll look at being repealed. But then it also talked about special board meetings. Uh we added that language in and then uh added in the verbiage about uh every official meeting a period for public comment. Uh we expanded on that definition a little bit and then any official meeting including
024executive session may be conducted by teleconference. Again we have done that to a certain degree. Maybe not necessarily teleconference but certainly during co uh we did it virtually. uh we've had board members zoom in individually or uh via a phone call. So talked about that and then it added number six on executive session uh discussion uh discussing information pertaining to the protection of public or private property or any person or on or within public or private property specific to and again this usually has to do with sec safety and security. uh and then it includes the new uh new items that are contained in law that the conducting the public's business in public brochure published by the South Dakota attorney general and then any other material pertaining to open meeting laws. So it talks about
025shall annually distribute to board members. So, we did that this year at our annual meeting. Again, 8220 looking at repealing that. Uh 8230, the agenda, we just struck through the C2800.1 AR as that does not exist. The minutes were updated to again to coincide with South Dakota codified law and the changes in such. And so, you can see they were greatly expanded upon. 8260 was the quorum and just simply states a majority of the schoolboard membership constitutes the quorum for the transaction of school business. 8310 development, adoption and amended policies. uh it just talks about again a little bit better explains how uh a policy revision can come about or ordinary review but then a parent, a student, a school district patron, an employee, a member of the board, the superintendent and consultant or a
026local civic group may uh ask for a an amendment to a policy. And then it talks about the board may approve the new policy or amendment, amend a new policy, reject new policy or amendment or defer action on a new policy. Board member education. Again, made this a little bit more des uh descriptive, but it used to say orientation of a board member elect. Uh this is simply board member education and it just talks about uh each board member shall receive instruction on board member roles and responsibilities. Conflict just goes through all the list of things. And this will be at the superintendent and possibly the board president's uh conducting that training. uh remuneration and reimbursement. We just added in board members may receive a seller uh per meeting actually attended. And what we did
027we added in was whether in person or virtually. Again, it's about your time towards a board meeting whether it's here or whether you're remoting in from a outside location. 8700 board member code of ethics. It was just easier to strike through all the existing ones. the there was 18 and uh add in the 27 that associated school boards uh had in their uh sample policy. The other change we made to this, it used to say, I will remember that my first and greatest concern is the educational welfare of all students attending the district schools. We changed that to read each board member shall remember that his or her first and greatest concern. So, it just made it read a little bit better. All right. Then we move on to what I'm going to call the
0289000 series. It was the 9000 series. We're looking at getting rid of that series and just bringing the the few policies that are in that into the 8000. And so, the number and members of term of office, the only thing with that is we're changing the code or the number to an 8000 series. So, it's now 8810. vacancies. Same thing. Same thing. It was in the 9,000 series. We're going to re code that to 8820. It says when the vacancy occurs and so on. Just kind of goes through a descriptive way of how we will fill that position and the reasons why it may be vacated. Uh the next one uh is our officers. Uh these all used to be separate. Uh we could put them all into one. So we have again it was
0299,000 series now it's 8830. So but we have the duties of the president the vice president and then duties of the business manager. And then our only new policy is uh the policy on school district employee social media use. Uh the intent behind this policy is twofold. First of all, with the probably increase in uh social media presence that the school district will engage in after this is approved, uh we needed to have something in place to manage or to provide guidelines for our own use of uh social media in the district. Uh the other side of it is is just laying out the parameters or some some of the guidelines or thoughts if you will uh for uh staff private social media use and what is protected uh under the first amendment and what
030is not. And then there is a form that goes along with that that uh for a school district uh professional account if you will uh form to be filled out uh with the district with the building administrator or immediate supervisor I should say. Questions, thoughts on any of those? I went through them pretty fast with the social media um with the new policy there. Is that something that that you would go over with um staff like at the beginning of the year or >> Yeah. And I think we had talked about making this part of the the staff sign off at the beginning of the year. There's certain policies like sexual harassment or title n policy and ethical use of u technology use and so on. So there's talk about this becoming one of those
031that they'd sign off on. certainly would talk about it at the back to school. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions? >> I don't see anything in the social media policy that talks about a Facebook page for a board member. I have >> not allowed. >> Okay, great. I'll close it then when I make life easier. Um, >> I think that would just fall under it would fall on if you're going to if you're going to kind of the name image likeness of the Spearfish School District Clayton School District U board member, >> then we would expect you to follow these. >> Sure. And the only reason I only reason I bring it up, I don't think anything that I posted on there would would violate any of this, but it seems though that might fall
032under needing to get approval from you. I don't It's It's a weird >> for the comments. Uh, no. But for like in here, it says if you're going to have an official uh school affiliated social media account, staff has to obtain written approval from their supervising administrator prior to creating publishing anything like that. And I just I just want to make sure that there isn't a there couldn't ever be a situation where somebody could come back and say, "Hey, this board member has a social media account that has, you know, the Spartan logo says school district school district 40-2 and then is violating something or they didn't get approval and it might be good to flush out at least something in policy to help if that situation were to happen." >> Yeah. In all the
033discussion that we had on this in the policy committee, it never was really brought up about a board member. Certainly about >> didn't ask the right questions. >> That was me. >> Sorry. >> So again, if it falls under this umbrella, one of the things you'll see in here and that comments are turned off >> um without express permission from me or the superintendent. So, um I I don't know if in in your role if you would be looking for comments for people to, you know, if you'd be putting things out and wanting people to comment back on it. So, yeah, we'd have to flush that out a little bit. >> Sure. And and generally, no. With something like that, if I wanted feedback on something, like if we were talking about the middle school
034track and I wanted information, I'd ask people to email me uh instead because I think it's better to have those one-on-one conversations instead of Sure. on Facebook. But that's the only the only question I had about the whole thing in there. >> Okay. All for policies. >> Yep. >> Exciting stuff, right students? >> Yes. Yes. >> Hopefully you've all learned not to wait until the end of the semester to come. >> Uh, next discussion item is the middle school track and field. So following our last meeting uh board meeting, I contacted Mammoth and just essentially told them that the the sticker shock was uh fairly significant and that we needed to uh rethink how we were going to move forward. And when I say rethink that, it was maybe myself and the board and the
035the team that's been looking at this and that uh maybe we get the plans from them and we submitted out for uh RFPs from other companies. They claimed they'd never had that happen before. That that was a first. And uh they said, "Well, Kirk, we'd like to relook at this how we could do it and and maybe come up with a plan." So we had a meeting with them, a virtual meeting on Friday and they came up with a new plan. It changes the scope to some degree. The biggest thing uh is that the Dzones, the the the half circles, if you will, at the end of the football field between that and the track. Uh in the prior plan, they had that all track surface. So it' be the asphalt with the track surface
036down. Now they are saying that on one end it would be all turf, the other end there would be a rectangular or a square uh cutout or would be track surface but then around that would be artificial turf and by doing that they you know they reduce the track cost uh significantly and they claim it's all do with the over excavation. They have to go down four feet to get rid of that u soil that's there and bring in engineered fill. So that was a part of it and uh it was the largest part is what they were saying. So I'm just going to run through and you can see them but for the sake of the people in here and the people online the middle school track here are our options. We do a
037simple 2-in overlay approximately 340,000 with approximately 50,000 in engineering. So we need somebody like Jason from Bros Engineering or somebody to oversee it. And again that was a year ago or a year and a half ago when we got that estimate. So it could be a little bit more today or this summer. So, I'm going to say somewhere between 400 and 450 to to have that done. If we wanted to have a rubberized coating with striping, that would be approximately another 260,000 over the top of that. So, we're looking roughly between 6 and 700,000 if we were to do it that way. Crowning of the field with installation of sod would be approximately 260,000. Now, this does not include any drainage or any new irrigation. If you remember, the irrigation system in there isn't the
038best. And when Josh has to dig down to address something, it's usually down four feet, and it's quite extensive for him to to fix that. However, if we were to completely uh uh put in a completely new track to include long jump pits, home bleacher pad, perimeter sidewalk, and perimeter fence, it would be approximately uh 1,528 or 521,000. It was 1.85. So, we're down roughly 330,000. Uh, everything named above plus new artificial turf would be approximately 2.742. It was almost 3.1 million. So, again, roughly down that 330,000. There was talk about if we wanted to wait on the field turf, uh, they said we can realistically expect a two and a half% increase annually on the cost. So each year that would compound a little bit but uh 2 and a half%. Um along with
039that you know with the initial cost of putting in a track and the turf both uh there's some consideration that has to be given to the uh maintenance of such. So uh it's roughly $4500 5,000 a year for annual maintenance. However, Mammoth said if we're willing to put their logo on the field that they may be willing to throw that in for five years or four or five years, but as you can see there, there's other things to consider with that um to replace the turf. And I think that's uh somewhere I don't know probably a 10 between between a 10 15 year uh look when we need to do it. But the replacement cost uh today is 500,000 and then you add 3% year in escalation. So by then it would be probably closer
040to 600,000 or 650,000. Track surfacing maintenance year five respray and re restripe u is in the $100,000 range. Year 10 total demo and resurface of the rubberized coating the track and restriping 250,000 range. And year 17 to 20 reming of the asphalt and resurfacing roughly 500,000. Again, you have that probably two and a half to 3% escalation in costs. And then I just have some thoughts. I asked them about fundraising if we were to sell some type of advertisement on the field. Uh so if we're 7 by10 off field and what do they mean by that is in again the D zone around the outside we could put advertising and each one of those costs roughly 7,000 per logo and then a 15 by 15 on the field that you know would be reserved for
041bigger sponsors uh would be somewhere between 10 and 12,000 per logo. >> Was was that the cost or that's what we would charge? show that was the cost to put we'd want to charge more obviously rather okay I go back to go back to the fact that if the board is considering just a track or track in the field to put it to put a dollar amount on it you know last time I recommended if it was the track it was 1.7 million if it was the track and the field putting a cap at 2.5 five. Um, can't say there was a scientific reason on how I picked those numbers other than I looked at what their costs were and I brought them down a little bit and I shared those with Mammoth and I
042have speculating that's part of the reason they sharpen their pencil and come down a little bit. But I can't I don't know that for sure. Again, whether it's 1.7 or 2.5, if you're saying, "Yep, we're willing to do it, but it's for this cost and then we have to go out and fund raise." that's what we do. Or if you say, you know what, we have bigger fish to fry. Um, we're just going to do the overlay. I mean, I would, however, recommend, and I've said this before, that if we're looking at community use, I'm not sure how much just attract does. Certainly become people coming walking on it or running on it or whatever. Where the community might get its most use is going to be the field. And again, whether that's Rams football,
043youth soccer, even if we do spray paint the lines for softball or baseball or whatever, there might be some youth that would play on it. BH would probably have their BH uh some of their summer football, high school football camp over there. Um could be fundraiser, Relay for Life, or you know, just different fundraisers or whatever that might be able to utilize the field a bit more than just a track if we're looking for a community use. don't need a decision tonight, but we'll have it on the January board agenda. That is the for them to put us on a calendar. We need to know or need to make a decision on in January. So, I guess I would encourage the board to come in and talk to me or talk to whomever about whatever
044additional information you need to make a decision. Have you talked and I know we're still we've been discussing this. So, have you kind of put feelers out at all on potential sponsorships, donations, anything at all at this point or just kind of brainstorming? >> I have I haven't I mean, I kind of want to know what dollar amount that would we would need to look to do. You know, there's some I don't know if you want to call it inind if you if you look you guys go like this. You guys don't have a copy of it, but there's an interactive spreadsheet. So if somebody were to haul off the spoils or the soils, I guess, if you will, there's a savings. It went down from 113,000 to 78,000. But if the city wanted that
045soil for the the rubble site out there, and they were willing to have their dump trucks come in and haul it off, there's a savings of 78,000. And for the the turf, there was another 40 or $50,000 savings. So there's some savings there that could go be a part of it as well. And then uh certainly donations or contributions. I mean I have ideas of who I would go talk to about uh about sponsorship. Like in my mind I'm thinking in a perfect world we get that say we do it all in project at 2.7 if we if we could bring that to a flat two and with some donations or you know in kind exchanges or whatnot I mean that would that would probably be the most perfect storm that we could ask for
046but even getting it below 2.5 it would you know obviously sit better from from my standpoint anyway. Um, I kind of landed on the same numbers personally, like just kind of looking through it, like 2.5 seems substantial, but when you look at what we're looking at for increases year-over-year, similar to CT conversations, no better time than now because it's only going to get more expensive as we wait, >> you know, and there I I will say that there's certainly been talks about do we have our own stadium, per say uh whether we find property for it. I don't think we have enough land where we're where we're looking at now to do that to have a larger stadium. So we would we would have to find property somewhere then you know you have the expense
047of that and because it's not beside the school you have not only restrooms and a concession stand but you also have locker rooms and stuff like that and certainly larger uh bleacher seating for compet high school competition. So this that and I think there's going to be a certain segment of our population saying you know what the L hair stadium has worked for years it will continue to work for your uh for your competitions now practicing just because of the the competitive nature of trying to get on the track and field at BH is becoming more and more difficult to have that have our own space for whether it be track and field practices, football practices, maybe soccer, but those those entities or activities that want to get on artificial turf prior to going to
048play a playoff game in in Sou Falls or Rapid or whatever it may be. And then certainly middle school games, high school subarsity games, uh things like that. I I think the to be quite honest, I think the field will probably get more used than the track to some degree. You just got to let me know if there's other information that I need to to get to you. >> Is that interactive? Is that something you can email to us? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yep. I I do have that. >> Okay. All right. Uh next uh last last item for discussion was the June 2nd uh 2026 board school board election. >> Okay. So, school districts really need to make a decision whether they were going to have their uh their annual election in the
049primary in June or the general election in November. Back at our annual meeting in July, we said June 2nd of 2026 is our election date. So, in the primary, state law says you need to do it by December. And since we did it back in July, we thought we needed to put it on the agenda again to bring it to everybody's attention. Uh so it's on the forefront. It will go in the paper um in December here. There'll be two notices in the paper about a schoolboard vacancy. Uh and it will talk about the petitions can be taken out in early February and returned in in late March. So that's another change with this is it used to just be primarily the month of February. Now it's pretty much all of February and all of
050March for somebody to take out a petition, get it filled out, and get it returned. So, we're just bringing this back to people's attention more or less. >> Is this is the city partnering or are they doing did they select a different election time? >> They um I heard from the county we're going to be with the county of course. Um I heard from them that the city had changed and they're at June 2nd now, but I >> So maybe everybody essentially right now for sure. >> I do not think they have any city council people election. I don't so I don't think they're real big player >> this year. >> Something to think about in the future. I mean, do we want to wait till December? I mean, I think it makes sense. It's
051on the annual calendar or the annual agenda, meeting agenda, and we just do it then. But we can certainly take that off in the future and uh add uh and have it on the December agenda. But June seems to fit with our like rather than throw a new person in in the middle of the school year for some reason it seems to fit better. >> But annually we have to approve when that's going to be. And again, do we do it in July like we did this year? Do we do it in December next year? I don't know. I think it fits in July when we're naming everything else. >> Yeah, I think that would I would agree. >> An easy switch. Okay. Uh, moving on to the minutes. I'm considering the regular meeting minutes
052for the November 10th meeting and the special meeting that's November 17th. If I can get a motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> I'll second it. >> Discussion. All those in favor say I. >> I. Post same sign. >> Uh, financial reports and bills. If I can get a motion to approve. So moved. Second. >> Third. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those oppose, same sign. >> Uh, last item is uh to go into executive session. If I can get a motion. >> Okay. I have to do something here. I can't remember what to do. >> You can you can either read the whole thing or you can >> with the um I so move. to go into executive session for the
053South Dakota qualified law 252-4 um prepared for contract negotiations or negotiating with employees or employee representatives and also for um South Dakota codified law 12521 discussion of qualified uh qualifications, competence, performance, character or fitness of any public office or employee or respective public officer or employee. The term employee does not include any independent contractor. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> close the same sign. We're >> going into executive session.