7.21.25 BOE Meeting

001Did the title of that change to Marathon County Children with Disabilities Education Board, like since our last half. I didn't notice that last time, but the name of it on the top says, marathon County Children with Disabilities Education Board. Mm-hmm. Anyway, that, that report is in our packet. Does anybody have any comments or questions? Set, acknowledged? Oh, public comment. I'm sorry, I skipped it. Do we have any public comment? No public comment. Okay. All right. And then we are gonna move to the finance Facilities and Operations committee agenda item. So, um, this evening was the first meeting of a committee of the whole, uh, which is called the Finance Facilities and Operations Committee. We met at four to 4 45, which will be consistent every, um, evening of the board meeting and this evening, um,

002myself and Kat represented the board, and Andrea and Beth were here. Typically, um, John hire will also join. Steve will join, and Becky will join. But there were people who couldn't make the meetings. So, um, some of the things that we talked about were, um, just like the policies around that type of a committee. So a highlight from that was the committee is to provide strategic support to this board and is not to take action on anything, but it's to bring information back to our school board for the school board to take action on. Um, so the three things that we really talked well, the, the main thing we talked about tonight was facilities and operations. And we looked at that master facilities and capital improvement plan, um, from CS A and, um, watch through

003some of the expenses that were on there within the, for next couple years that the district can take care of internally, um, with our existing resources. So there was a handful of those types of things. And then, um, we talked about how there's $40,000 for the upcoming year, um, in the budget already for deferred maintenance. So that works out to about 15,000 per school. And, uh, we were able to look at what those items were that were, um, potentially going to fall within at 15,000, mainly around student, student and staff safety. Those are kind of the priorities. Did I miss anything Kat? The only other thing is just like what things, the team you mentioned, but that we can take care of internally without any additional funding. So I think they met, um, like, um,

004and John is like evaluating with his new team, like what, it's quite a lot of items, actually what they can take care of and with internal capacity with not, um, a lot of, with very small expenditures. So there's actually quite a lot of items on that list. Anything else, Andrew, that summarizing? Alright, so that, um, was what we talked about tonight. Any questions from the board? Okay. Right. So we'll move on to the administrator's report. So we have, uh, superintendent's report today at least Just to acknowledge. Um, it is the month of July and our campus administrators, uh, typically this time of year on vacation, so you don't see them present tonight, nor will you find a report in your packet from them. However, um, I have the opportunity to share with you some updates,

005uh, from the superintendent's office. So first and foremost, um, I wanna focus in as we've been discussing, uh, for the last several months around improving communication, uh, both internally and externally. So I've grounded this in family and community engagement in particular, and action step called consistent communication. So I'm gonna share with the board in our community some of the things that I, our members of my team are going to be improving or enhancing in the upcoming months. Um, the first is draw attention to we continue to, um, enhance and add to our district website. So in the past year, uh, working closely with, uh, Becky Bli and other members of our team, um, we love to make it more user friendly, if you will. And, um, on our landing page is an area called about

006us, and we're adding some additional features in there. In particular, um, you just heard from President Sy around our finance facilities operations committee. That'll be a standalone item as well under the board, um, resources. So as our community is, um, following along with the things that we're discussing in that area, you'd be able to find it on our website. So again, wanting to communicate, we continue to enhance our website to make it more, uh, user friendly. Um, the other things that we are doing, um, we've been trying to be very diligent. Um, we post, and I'm sure many of you follow along on our social media posts, um, we try our best to post, uh, daily. But what we started to recognize is, and um, I'm learning about social media, um, the more you post

007the things that start at the beginning of the day, kind of get pushed down or kind of rotate through. So there's very important information. Um, for example, uh, most recently, um, the community hosted, um, a food bank. We wanted that to be prevalent. And so our community knew that was coming and we were posting it, but as well intended on the leaders in the district we're putting things on social media kept kind of get pushing down. So we were afraid that how it got lost, uh, in translation, if you will. So we're gonna start a schedule where on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the district office will essentially gonna open the posts. So things that are most important out of any of our central office departments will be posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then we give

008the latitude to our, uh, school campuses the other five days out of the week to post everything, uh, that they want to honor and celebrate and or communicate out. So it's just a little bit of a change in practice so that we make sure, um, all that important information is given out into our community. Um, in addition, um, you may see, um, about every four to six weeks in the record review. And I'd love to thank Casey Kramer who is here tonight. Um, superintendents, um, in our area have the opportunity to, uh, write and share really great information about our school districts. Um, this is the beginning of the second year of that process and appreciate that opportunity. Very much so. Written communication. Also in the record review. Um, in the beginning this fall, I'm

009gonna collaborate with our campus administrators and have a superintendent connection area in our school, uh, newsletters each month. So upcoming information, uh, that might be shared with the board or in the community. We'll also be shared through that newsletter process. And I've enjoyed, um, being out in the community, attending different chamber of commerce and community events and having those conversations to build those relationships with our community members. So, um, just wanted to share some things that, um, I'm doing or again, members of the team around communication. The other area I'd like to focus in on this evening is facilities and operations, in particular action step facilities improvements. The second part of my report tonight, um, is a general overview of different discussions and topics of conversation at the board level that are going to occur

010in the next approximately six months. Um, it's a standalone document. It's from page two of my report, also in the board of packet. Um, as I survey indicated tonight was the first night that the finance facilities operations committee, the whole began a meeting, um, next month to forecast ahead at that meeting in particular, um, our guest from, um, Baird will be joining us and we'll be starting to have a conversation around OLA policy and draft 62 35, which is fund balance. That's something we've talked about at the board level in the last several months. So the timing is appropriate. Then we'll start those conversations and bring that to the full board. So just to give kind of a flavor of upcoming agenda items for that, uh, committee of above, below. And then other things, um,

011that'll be discussed. Um, as we forecast ahead again next month at the August 18th board meeting, um, our Baird, um, partners will be back for, um, what we are calling budget forecasting, referendum planning phase two or presentation number two, adding to the information that they've shared with you in June. Um, we forecast ahead to September when we'll host our annual meeting and budget hearing. Um, we will be extending, um, a community survey at this fall to gather feedback, um, that we will value and that will help to inform our decisions as a board and a community moving forward, um, with the potential then to establish a community referendum advisory committee towards the end of the year, early next year, depending on the timing of upcoming referendum and referendums. Um, and then we are in the

012year four of our four year strategic plan, which means that in spring we'll be coming back together, um, to forecast ahead another four to five year strategic plan. Um, not only with the board, but our community as well. So I love wonder things happening and just wanted to, uh, forecast in, um, things, um, that are ahead of us tonight. Now we have the opportunity invited back, John and Lindsay from season 10. They were here with us in May. Um, this is their presentation number two to go a little bit deeper into, um, the season 10 facility audit and assessment that they presented. So, welcome back Lindsay and John. We're glad you're here. Thank You. Good. Okay. So Lily. All right. Um, yeah, as, as Andrea was saying, thank you for having us back tonight. Um,

013we're gonna take a little bit deeper dive, um, into some of the facility improvement measures and kind of what, um, what our recommendations are Before we get too far into the, the actual audit itself. I wanted to make sure, uh, everyone better understood the criteria that we used and looking at priorities. Uh, the, the first item that we looked at is project cost. And when we do these audits, we put a higher priority on the lower cost items. And the, the rationale for that is you could do a lot more things or knock off a lot of improvements at those lower costs. Typically, you don't need to invest as much time in design planning, uh, those other administrative functions that happen before you actually, um, trigger or, or move forward with making the implementation. So

014that, that's the first prioritization criteria that we use because of Yeah. Yep. And, and you can take that and do exactly what you guys are doing, and that's mocking some of those things off the list. So both of our ears perked up. We're like, yes, that's exactly what you Should do. Yeah. The other piece to understand is we're using a, a general scope when we look at those measures. So there's a lot of things that could either be added or taken away from the actual project. 'cause we've defined the general scope. And then lastly, the cost that we've identified are hard construction costs. They don't have all of the other, uh, design fees and, uh, administrative fees and cost of capital. Those things are not included in that cost. It's just raw construction costs. The

015second area that we look at, it's environmental health and safety. Um, I always compare this to like Maslow's Pyramid. The first thing you want to cover is, you know, taking care of the health feature before you move up. So health is typically indoor air quality, your H-V-V-A-C systems. Um, those, those type of impacts that would, uh, either affect the students, the teachers, or the visitors in the building. The next level would be safety. So we're, we're suggesting and putting a higher prioritization on safety and health than we are some of the other improvements that you might see, um, identified in that listing or that audit. The next next criteria, uh, this one's kind of the no brainer functional condition. You know, does it work? Does it work properly? Um, or in some cases we also

016identify decommission things. They're not working, they're not being used or they're not being applied. So we want to put a criteria prioritization, uh, factor on functional condition. And the next one, return on investment. Uh, return on investment are those few things that we come across that can actually save either energy, uh, possibly product, you know, productivity efficiencies. Um, those things that may give you a payback for actually applying. Um, LED lights is the, the go-to example. You put in LED lights and you're gonna typically have, uh, depending on the control feature, somewhere between four to eight years and it'll pay itself back and that system will last 10 years. So if you can come up with a capital, it'll typically pay for itself over time. Can I ask a question? We were talking about this

017in the facilities meeting, so I feel like this is a great example. This is the one I was asking about. I was like, how can this not pay for itself? Um, when you look at payback, like the return on investment in your estimates, are you like putting things like focus on energy incentives or other state grants into that? Or would those This is just like pure numbers. It's pure, Yeah. Without, without those grants. 'cause I was wondering, 'cause like focus on energy for some of these is pretty much guaranteed. Not that it's a lot of money. I just went look 'cause I was overly hopeful. Um, yeah. But it is, I mean, it is, you know, thousands of dollars, which is meaningful, So Absolutely. And we, we don't include those because they change yeah. So

018frequently. And we, we don't always know what they are and we don't have what they're gonna be for 2026 yet. So it's not something we would feel comfortable putting in. But yes, those are definitely things that we Thank you, love to utilize. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Great question. Yeah. And, and the clarity of those costs or those savings, we, we really believe that that should come through in your bidding process. Mm-hmm. So as you're receiving your bids, you're going to be able to identify other payback options. And then when you make your award, you can consider that factor as a financial factor in, in moving forward with the measure. But it's, yeah, it's critical that those things all be considered. Great question. Does anybody else have any questions? No. Please feel free to stop us at

019any time. Yes, questions are much appreciated. Uh, looking at the high school and middle school, this is really just a roll up or a summary. I don't know how much time you've had, um, to look at the audit, but we're really looking at breaking down, uh, that 3.1 million into a one to two year category. These are the items that we feel, um, need to be taken care of sooner than later. Uh, the total for the, the entire building came up to 694,000, uh, three to five years. That would be kind of your next step. Um, those are quite often items that are gonna require a little bit more planning and a little bit more design, typically a little more costly type items. And then lastly, your five to 10 year items. Uh, those things

020that you can wait on, but you should be fully aware of, especially looking at the 10 year plan that you're working with. You definitely want to take note of those items. The additional improvement measures, those are other items that you wouldn't necessarily have to move forward with. But there are things that we picked up during our audit or going through the interviews that you should consider if you're moving forward on any of those larger, more costly type projects. Um, and again, the total, the total amount at the bottom is seven years. I think we've got another slide that'll break this out a little bit better too. Mm-hmm. So if we could go, this is a running list of some of those highlighted measures. Um, for an example, the one that's at the top is your

021switch gear for your electrical system. It's a costly item, something that you've been aware of, I think for some time. But it, it needs to be addressed at some point. Um, some of these items, switch gears is a great example. The lead time of just ordering the right size switch gear is gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of seven to maybe 15 months. So it, it becomes kind of critical when we're involved in some of the rush projects that that come up. Um, we'll sometimes order that switch gear before we're completely done with planning the project, just so we know we can get it sooner than later. Um, and that, that's happened, uh, multiple times. Some of the other components that you may run into, or we may be suggesting, or you may be bidding

022on you, you're gonna find some delays that five years, eight years ago weren't, weren't that common. And it's something that we, we definitely need to consider as we're looking at some of these larger items. Switch gears is a perfect example of that. Are there any, any specific questions on these list items? Or do we want to come back to them at the end? Um, the, these are the measures that we recommend you pull out. Do just what you talked about at your committee earlier. I think, uh, figure out what you can do internally. Uh, you'll find that a lot of those items are readily identified because they're, they're low cost items. Uh, most of the, uh, items that are under really $5,000 are, are targets. Primary targets you maybe do in house. Are these a

023local contractor to take care of? Some of the other bigger items are the ones that you want to be very careful with and make sure that you're looking at, uh, measures that might be associated with those types of repairs or might be in the same part of the building. So you knock something out and let's say this space lighting, if there's four or five other things that you can add on, take care of that project all at one, even though it's multiple, uh, d different things that are being done, it might show you some of the efficiencies in cost and definitely in time. Let's go to next. Uh, again, the three to five year, uh, items. Roofing is always gonna show up. Uh, it's something that we recommend. You have a very rigorous schedule, um,

024that you're identifying what that pricing change might be based on your total roof component. Um, not just individual sections or the one that you think is going bad, but really manage that as a, as a whole piece. Uh, asphalt and hardscape is very similar to that. It's easy to, um, sequence and develop the schedule when you need to actually do the work. Um, the having the money behind it makes sense. The more maintenance that you do on those areas over time, the longer life you're gonna get out, out of those systems. So, uh, we've been very happy with some of the schedules different districts have put together where they've actually mapped things out with like a 20 year replacement plan and they've been able to push it to 30 or 35 years because they've done

025some additional preventive maintenance in between. And, and again, it's, um, it's big dollar projects that can really make a difference on your overall schedule of cost. Uh, there's more roofing, more sections to be done. Uh, again, I I would want to definitely put a priority on those items. Um, you've got some other, um, renovation type projects in this list that you, you probably have considered or, or want to consider sometime over the next six to 10 years. When it comes to the, the different categories too, of the one to two, the three to five and the six to 10, you may see, um, you know, different doors for instance are on there. Um, a few different times. It might make more sense to just do all of the doors pricing wise. Um, so even if

026it's, um, in a six to 10 year and a one to two year, that doesn't mean you should necessarily wait six to 10 years, you know, but, um, it's a good, it's a good thing to get those options out there. So whether you're doing an RFP or you know, that kind of thing, see, see what the cost difference is. 'cause you might get a, a better price to just do them all. Here's a few of the additional items that we looked at there. There were multiple comments on needing additional gym space. Uh, there was encroachment in the cafeteria area for different activities. So one of the things that we placed as an example was in a, to add an additional gym or multipurpose space. Uh, again, we found that gym was probably the easiest to

027consider first. And then we also identified the cafeteria space as another expansion item. Uh, again, depending on what you're doing whole from a whole district perspective, this may play into that as well. Yeah. And things like the, the gym space for instance, I mean, that would give you your, you know, your basic, um, gym that you would already have that can spaces like that increase significantly depending on, on what you want. Elementary school, it's the same format. Uh, I don't know, again, how much you want me to go into detail, but again, ask questions. Um, it's laid out the same way. We've got those totals rolled up. The, um, the additional improvements that we've identified. Um, there's a lot of work to be done in that elementary school. So some of these items are really

028on the front end of, of keeping it in place for a long-term use. It's, um, another item that we'll talk about is we get further into the presentation, but a again, identifying what those categories of costs are in maintaining your, your deferred maintenance, and then just your ongoing depreciation. You, you've got three sites. So all three sites have to be considered in that, um, deployment of what funds you have for facilities. Can I ask a, sorry, this is like a big question, so you can just be like, we'll talk about that later. So I know there's this background like theme of like, if we were to just make one campus, if we were like, I know that was not part of your evaluation, but is there like a, do we know what that look like?

029I know that obviously is a big question, but do we have like, any monetary idea about what something like that would look like? 'cause it seems like hard to open that can of worms, of like, okay, are we gonna turn this into one campus? Like, or even look at those numbers. It's like, you Know, there, there's such a wide breadth of what you could do or not do. Right. It's very difficult for us to pinpoint that. The one thing that we can do is we can show you what you're going to be spending if you wouldn't do that. So if it's a matter of do I invest it here or do I invest it there, either way it's gonna get spent. Yeah. So there's no money maker that's gonna Generate, or like districts who have

030had those things come in similar. Yeah. Because I feel like we've got a lot of experience with that Recently. That's because that's the, I think that's like the big question here. I mean, we were having this conversation before, but it's a big, like our community tends to be very conservative with money. And so, uh, as you can see, um, maybe too conservative. Um, but I think one of the things is like being like, I think it's an easy sell to be like, okay, we're gonna spend, if we're gonna spend 2.5 million fixing an old building or 2.5, like the same amount of money, that's a very different thing, um, in this type of community than being like anything that looks like bells and whistles. And so I'm trying to get my head a little bit

031around that. Yeah, we, we cover the whole state. Yeah. So we have the opportunity of seeing many, many districts and as you're well aware, they're all made up different. Yeah. And again, five, maybe eight years ago it was keeping up with the Joneses. You know, they got a feel about, I want field house. They had somebody donate something. We can't, we get the community to keep up with the Joneses. I mean, it was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Um, about two or three years ago that started to change and you're now seeing a lot of consolidation internally in those districts. There's a lower student count, there's less revenues, there's a lot of things driving. Um, one of the things, and again, we talked briefly about the criteria that we use for selection. One of the

032things with consolidation that is really identified is the perishable expense and the productivity. When you split your staff four or five different directions, four or five different buildings, you've got all kinds of things that happen. You don't have, uh, internal relief. Wow. You know, just, I can get by with that teacher without that teacher for affidavit. 'cause I've got three other teachers in the building. I only got one teacher. I'm, you know, I'm gonna have to cover some amount transportation costs, uh, the movement of special students, you know, where I gotta renovate the elementary because now they're gonna go to the middle school. Now I gotta make accommodations there and now I have to do it again to the high school. And then all of that stuff is happening. And I think it's driving a

033lot of school districts, especially those declining enrollment, to think about how can I get more efficient? How can I close the box? Our piece is a facilities piece. It's very easy to see. If I've got one large parking lot, it's way easier to take care of than three or four small ones. Just, just on a snow day. It's a big deal. You know, you might as well say, I'm not doing anything but moving snow today. Mm-hmm. So any of that internal stuff you wanted to take care of, it's not being done. 'cause we're, we're moving snow today. We got three, three places we have to go to. Um, it's just more common, you know. And again, I, I think as a board, it's a real advantage for the district to be thinking forward and thinking

034ahead about it. It doesn't have to be the plan, but at least identify the contingencies and how you're, you're gonna operate, you know, know your district within the constraints that you Have. Um, Seems a lot of constraints. Yeah. A little bit later on in the presentation, we'll go through the spend forecast where you can kind of see a little bit more of the dollar amount of, of what that could look like. Um, but as John was saying, you know, a good resource. 'cause it, it is definitely, in our opinion, something that you should consider. Um, but we, you know, we don't have all of the avenues of information, but Baird is also a really great resource and they can help you with the financial and the operational aspect of it. Um, and then kind of

035put all the pieces together. Again, I, I don't have much to do on these pages other than just read through and ask you if you've got any, uh, definition questions or asking questions on all these different items. We've listed, Given questions like, why, why did you put, add this on? You know, anything and everything. Uh, again, the report has even more detail. Um, I think this, this report will be of value to John, probably more than anybody. Um, it's like, it's a great checklist for him, him to work with. Uh, and it sounds like you are. So that's, that's really good news. Really good news. You know, the, the kitchens, the kitchens are a concern. They're, they're kind of grandfathered in. So as today would be a new kitchen, there's a lot of compliance issues.

036There's some infrastructure questions. Um, again, this falls right into that conversation. We started just a few minutes ago. What, you know, what is a compliant kitchen? And do you want to have a compliant kitchen? And if you do, you wanna have to do that in three different places. So, um, that's kind of how this, this whole story unfolds itself. Um, Again, chipping away in and making improvements are, it's pretty easy to identify what you need to do. And you don't have to go crazy. To go back to, um, the LED example, um, just the controls of LED lighting. Uh, you know, if you look at a clean room or a, a healthcare setting and all the things you can do with con with controls and lighting, it's all there. Does the school district need all

037that? No. Do they need more than you have just to switch on and off? Yes. You know, you do need some D capabilities. You do need some color temperature changes for some of your special education needs, but you don't need, you don't need at all. So again, you have to be strategic and just grab those pieces. Same, same thing with what you're doing, um, for internal workflow, a place like a production kitchen, there's a lot of things to think about as you're putting that design and plan together to, to do the improvements that are now needed. Air conditioning, that's always a big question. You didn't want air, don't you want air? Um, again, not that long ago, it was like, oh, we're never gonna air condition. Now I walk around the state and everything's air

038conditioning or they're trying to figure out a way to do it. So things change. Uh, again, it's been, it's been a lot warmer out there. So that's, that's a big push too. Uh, the charter school, maple Grove, uh, really all in all, for the age of that building, the way it's put together, it's in pretty good shape. You know, if I had to say 1, 2, 3, how do you rate these facilities? I would say that the charter school is probably in the, in the best condition, considering, you know what it is, but it's also the smallest, at least complicated. I would put this, this site second, and I would put elementary bottom, uh, just to look at a general score of what do you feel the condition is of your various buildings. So the,

039the charter school, I think there's been a lot of investment or there's been some extra time spent there, you know, in comparison to maybe the other, you guys would know more than me. So again, not a big price. They've got a big, had a big bubble they're going through this year with their playground upgrade and that, that price is in here. So that'll be a nice one to have taken care of. There It is. Playground person, personal bus. There it is. But yeah, any questions there? Secure entry, again, it's an older building. It's kind of difficult. Um, the additional, the reason the additional roofs show is because the roofs we have right now should be lasting more than 10 years. So they're gonna come up off of the 10 year schedule. So it shows up

040as an additional, even though it's an ongoing maintenance need. This is kind of a rollup or summary of all of the sites and each of the various priority, uh, categories per timeline. Just to give you a comparative list. Um, again, those additional improvement measures are those that would be foreseen beyond the 10 year period or an an added activity or space allowance that, um, you have a need for construction costs. Again, that's, that's the hard construction cost only. So labor materials, the equipment based on a general scope that we've identified for each of those measures. Um, yeah, this is the, the fun one. Yeah, this is the fun one. It's a, it's not as complicated as it looked and believe, believe it or not, there's about eight, well, that'd be three, three per year. So

041there's probably, um, 18 or or more columns that you can't see in this actual calculation. But let me just take you across one of the lines. If we could go down under the, well, let's, I'll start at the top. Um, the value replacement value that's identified for your buildings is $400 per square foot. So that number may go up and down. Uh, typically we'll use 400 because it's a good average for the state of Wisconsin. You might have, um, exceedingly high values or lower values for some reason. But it, it gives you a benchmark of what you're operating for your, your facilities and, and then ultimately your facilities management plan behind that. Uh, the inflation factor that's applied is 3% might be higher, some years lower, some years that typically averages out still pretty close

042to 3%, uh, expected life. We put a 50 year life on your building. So your it is, it's not like, uh, the bank on the corner. It's not like your home. We're actually building and trying to maintain the building for 50 years. The advantage in your cost projection is you're only looking at reinvesting 2% per year, if that makes sense. Somebody says, well, how much does it cost for me to maintain that $400, uh, per square foot lease, uh, per square foot value asset value, it's about 2%. It's a very conservative number. So you're, you're gonna see, uh, spends much higher than that in a lot of cases. Um, and 2% replacements in there, which is, which is really a, um, variable driven by how many year building you're, you're looking at. Uh, I've seen

043some districts go as far as a hundred years. I've seen some districts go as low as 35 years. So I can compare with that however you'd like. When we get to the, to the, uh, actual headings going across the top, uh, the sites I've just identified those three schools that you currently have for square footage, that's the, the, um, gross square footage of the buildings. There is impact on grounds. If you had some excessive wild ground situation, but you don't really have that, you're, you're pretty, pretty conservative there. Got some nice, nice facilities. The asset value, again, it's the square footage times the $400 per square foot. Nothing to elaborate there. The audit, deferred maintenance, that's the list of items that we identified in our audit. So that's where that number comes from. The annual

044operational maintenance, that's that reinvestment of 2% every year back into your building. So you do nothing for 10 years. You're 20% behind the, behind the game. Uh, and then the year one would be an expenditure looking at a five year deferred maintenance. So you're gonna try to eliminate your deferred maintenance in five years. That first year one is taking away five years or, or or 20% of your deferred maintenance and then reinvesting back into the building that additional 2%. So as you carry that out, you'll see those amounts are at a higher level than if you went to a 10 year or a 15 year type program. But when you get to your sixth year, you'll notice that that total amount drops off because you've now eliminated. That's a, that's the highlighted sell. That's way

045over to the right. You've eliminated your deferred maintenance. So you've had to cough up, you know, a couple million dollars a year, um, for the high school. Let's just do the, you do the whole total a little over $3 million a year for five years. You've eliminated your deferred maintenance. Now, your spend, if, if you keep doing your reinvestment, there's only 1.6. Does that make sense? Um, again, it's, it's easy to do the schedule for longer periods of time. It's hard to put that schedule on a screen 'cause it gets, gets to be so long. The other example is a three year, and this three year, you know, is kind of like a referendum or you've got some benefactor or some other access to cash. So you're saying, I wanna get rid of my deferred

046maintenance quicker and I've got this extra funding. How would I do that? Uh, again, you're spending, um, over $4 million a year for three years. You get to your fourth year, you're, you've eliminated your deferred maintenance and you only have to spend a million dollars a year thereafter. Nope. Nope. You gotta be questioned. So I like this argument for trying to present this to people in a concise way for a referendum when you talk about us. 'cause I think what is complicated from a taxpayer standpoint, I'm just getting information from you right now. I know this isn't your job, but, um, from a taxpayer standpoint, people just see we've already, I mean we talked about this with their already, but they just see their property tax number. Um, and there's the mill rate and then

047there's a referendum. And so we have a large educational campaign. But I feel like, again, the argument is like, you're going to pay it down the line is a strong argument like this, you know, we are going to have to do something at some point. Um, and costs go up. That's a pretty strong argument when we talk about reinvesting that money. How do you like flip this into like, we borrowed the money and you're actually just paying a percentage of this. 'cause I did feel like that is confusing for people. That's a little confusing for me. Like, we're not, I mean, we're paying the 4 million, but we're not paying the 4 million. We're paying, you know, like Right. We're borrowing the money and you're gonna see this impact on your property taxes. You know?

048So I feel like, do you have a way of concisely explaining that? Like changing cha like taking this like, okay, we're paying for things up front, but then ultimately how that translates simply into what a taxpayer can expect from that kind of investment. The Percentage increase. That percentage increase. Like, like I know you don't have to use a real number, but like trying to translate that into a single talking point. I I understand the confusion. Yeah. The difficulty I'm having, yeah. Is I'm looking at the cost factor to maintain your facility. I know. So It's like, um, managing your bank account, I've got this set of numbers and this, this work, I can spend it, I can bring it in, I can make more money and, you know, whatever the facilities are gonna have that

049cost regardless. So if you don't do anything and you want to just go deeper into deferred maintenance, you'll spend less. But to get out of that hole, you're gonna spend way more. And during that time, you're gonna have inefficiencies of operation, health concerns, safety concerns, Whatever I'm sold on this. I'm just, I just feel like saying, but trying to figure out how to explain that. Like trying to explain. So I think we can say, okay, we're just kicking the can, which we have been doing. We are in this position 'cause we've been kicking the can for too long already. So that's why we're already in this position. We don't wanna kick the can further. But in terms of like someone understanding what they're paying for, I think we can say, okay, you can look at

050this kind of break even point where any building would be maintained at this amount. But then translating that into a discussion about what that means financially is the part that I have a hard time explaining in a simple Way. And these numbers are so big. Mm-hmm. Yes. Compared to what you're operating budget, your revenues are so small. Yep. Right. It, it makes it very difficult to manage it in a short period of time. So I don't know how long you guys plan on being board members, but, But for you to live, you know, through 10 years of this and see what you've done and been able to accomplish, there's not, there's not very many board members that can say that. Mm-hmm. That's the other thing that this sheet does, is it, it actually benchmarks what

051you're doing. So, you know, does the community want to have a safe and healthy school? Yeah. Okay. Do they want to have some of these other community activities? Okay. So as you add that in, that tells you what your costs are gonna be. Now if you don't do anything with your building, 'cause it's an asset, it's going to depreciate and you're gonna have to come bring it back to reality one way or another. You know, you let it go. Which you would Think that would be common sense for everybody to understand. Right. It's a certain point. It kind of is. But if you look at like, our community is filled with farms where people have been doing like, why do we have a dairy crisis? It's, it's deferred maintenance. Right? Like people aren't getting enough

052cash inflow, they can't have a referendum 'cause it's a private business. So a lot of people, the idea of not putting on a roof and not being insured is just what you do. You take like, and so I mean obviously we don't want to do that. Right? But I think that's the hard thing is like, you think it would be common sense. Makes Sense. Do you guys, you said you had worked, you worked statewide. Do you guys have these numbers for surrounding communities our size? Like is this, is this typical, is this atypical? Are we, are we somewhere way different from the ballpark of surrounding communities or districts? Or is this what everybody's looking at? Yeah, unfortunately this is more the norm than not. Um, especially with rural districts because as far as funding goes,

053there just isn't what there needs to be. And so districts don't really have a choice. The first thing to get deferred is gonna be the maintenance items. Right? Right. So, um, are you looking for numbers as far as what their deferred maintenance looks like? Or like what their Sure. Like that's a good starting point. Like what do our, what do our five year subtotals look like compared to other schools? Similar in size, I mean, and build two, we're a three campus district, which obviously all schools are made up differently, but, um, Well let's break this down. Sure. Okay. The annual operational maintenance, that 2%, that's the same for everybody, right? Yeah. Okay. So you're accumulated deferred maintenance. That's the number that goes up and down. Um, I would say your, your behind maybe the average.

054Okay. But the whole state has went behind, you know, so Do you, can I ask, can I interrupt you and then ask a question? Do you have examples of schools that have done a really good job with this, uh, that are like, in like size? Like I don't actually know, I don't know. Like Spencer is in a, for instance, like they've leveraged federal money. I actually don't know. Like, I'm using them as an example of no actual information over their budget, but they have ridiculous facilities, um, and had a referendum, but yet their property taxes didn't go up 'cause of federal grants, which is a dream. But like, are there districts that are a model for us to show to people to be like, Hey look, it actually works. Yeah. It's even better if it's

055in central Wisconsin. 'cause the people have heard of it, right? Yeah. But just be like, Hey, this is a, you know, like this, we can say this is what we need to do. This is where we're at. We're kind of at this crossroads where we make, we need to make big decisions. But then it would be awesome if there was like, Hey, there's some districts where you can see that they put through these big infrastructural investments in the last five years or seven years and you can, and we can look at their budget. We have a statement from their superintendent or their school board that could show like, because I feel like that's helpful being like for in those numbers to talk to people is being like, this is public record. These are districts that

056have done this and where it's turned out really well and this is what the impact actually looked like on taxpayers. Like in their own district. Like where we can just like, you know, because people, a lot of what people have is like hearsay and they're like an Edgar like not based on what actual, the actual numbers. So Yeah. So the possibly, yes. Okay. Great. The unfortunate part is after we do these things mm-hmm. Um, if, if we are not involved, or even if we are involved with the, the, you know, next steps Yeah. Once those are complete, right. If they go back to the same old bad habits Right. That we don't really have that criteria. But I do have two in mind that, um, I have good faith that they have kept It Okay.

057Kept it up. So possibly. Okay. Um, to get back to the messaging, what we typically have done previously, um, is we would do a presentation and we would pull B in at this point to help with the presentation. And so it would be a community presentation, a community meeting. Um, and we put all of this information in with all of their information. Um, we don't typically do the spend forecast as part of the facility audit. Um, but in conversation with Andrea, we thought that she thought this was a really good idea. And so that's, that's what we did. So it's not something that we typically would like advertise at least in this format. Mm-hmm. Um, I would wanna get Baird's. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. In order to do that. But, um, yeah, it, it is

058really, and the hard part is you, you have these community meetings and you have all this marketing material, but if you're not reaching everybody, um, you know, and there's, there's no good way to reach everybody. I mean, we try everything we can, but we, at the end of the day, I can hear we just gave you a whole bunch of money. Yeah. Now you want more. Yep. Yeah. We were in the hole. We get out of the hole. We don't want go back. I think it speaks to, like we talked about in our budget for this upcoming year at least. Uh, I mean, it's not approved yet. Like we've looked at the preliminary budget. We have $40,000 to address it for maintenance. I mean, that is right. I mean that's like, I mean, it's something,

059but it is, you know, it's not going to go very far. Right. So That's, that's key in the messaging though too, is showing everything that you guys have done with what you have. Um, that speaks volumes with communities. You know, they've literally done everything they possibly can and now they are left with a whole bunch of maintenance items and no way to get those completed. So I'll, uh, I'll step into it. I'm gonna use, uh, river Valley just as a, as an example. And one of the things, if we, if we do our job right, we work ourselves out of a job, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. You know, this, this situation tells us that you need some help to get some stuff done. If this is followed, you guys are doing your thing. You're

060able to talk to the community and get them behind, which, you know what you need. Everybody's gotta be on the same page. River Valley is a district down in the spring green, I don't know if you're familiar with that area at all, but not that many years ago, they had a elementary and arena. They had an elementary in plain. They had an elementary and bone rock. If you look through their history, there's like 19 schools that had been in their geography. They're down to an elementary, a middle school, and a high school. They're on the same campus site, but they're all in separate buildings yet. Um, the last turn that we had, uh, would've been 20 17, 20 18, they put early childhood out in their plain elementary, and now that's full. It's all being

061folded in to their elementary. You know, it was a, I don't know, seven miles from spring Green. Um, they've had to do this full, full, full, full, full time. And, and it's kept, it's kept them, you know, above water and they've been able to update, they did do some wild, they did put in a synthetic curve football field. It was primarily done by donation. They had a bad field to begin with. So they had 600, $750,000 worth of expense they needed to take care of. They were able to, you know, donate in on top of it. But as they went through this, their size decreased, their transportation costs went down. Their efficiencies of having all the staff close together improved. And they were able to make, um, pretty good goal of what was kind of

062similar to what I think I see here. You know, some elementary schools, you just didn't have time to, to get to everything or you didn't have money to get, you know, cover everything. And that's what happens. I I liken it to, um, districts where we do this audit. The facility guy, the, the, um, facilities committee, the board let 'em have added, they take this as a checklist in five years from now. They've got most of it done. Not all of it. 'cause it's, it's money that you have to come up with somewhere. They'll invite us back and have us redo the list, you know, for the, give you another list. I know we can't put the new gym in. We haven't got somebody donating, you know, a field house or some something crazy, but we're

063ready for another list. So again, it's a matter of how much do you have and how do you wanna manage it. One thing that is always shocking to me is when we have community meetings and we take 'em on tour, and if we can get people to attend, how surprised they are. 'cause they've never been in this building. Mm-hmm. They drive by it. They have thoughts, they hear, hear about stuff. Mm-hmm. They have no clue what's inside your building. Yeah. Um, it's an eyeopener. It's an eyeopener. Yeah. But just to have 'em come through. Yeah. Um, it, they, they may have a whole different opinion if you're able to take 'em in and show how you've had to, you know, operate because of the limited funding and the amount of, amount of items that you're

064expected to deliver. Um, it's, I I think it's always a surprise to the majority of the people that come on those tours and get inside the door and actually walk around and see what you, what you have. Back to this, this, again, this is a, a benchmarking opportunity where if you had that money to spend two years from now, or three years from now, you keep track of what you were spending and watch your deferred maintenance number go down or do nothing and watch your deferred maintenance under go up. And you'll, you'll be able to forecast that out and show to at least yourselves that you're making, you're making a gain or you're, or you're losing even more ground to manage it. But I, I think the internal benchmarking is better than trying to match

065yourself up with someone out a district, another district. Um, they're also different. They're just so different. That is true. I mean, yeah, we Can, I, I'll do a little digging and see if we can come up with something similar. Um, but they're all the same in that they don't get the funding they need. But yeah, there's always some hiccup. Yeah. And the closest one, so like for right now that we have done you've done this with would be wasaw. And obviously that's not gonna be tied, not Wasaw. Well close to you guys. They took, took it upon themselves. So get out in front of what they needed to do with their elementary. So they started community meetings, I don't know, a couple years ago. Yeah. And it, it, it took up until just recently where

066they've identified that they're gonna close three or four buildings. Um, another district that we're working with that's a little further away, kind of somewhere in size, they haven't done anything. And we've got about a $400 million price tag on them having to do something because they absolutely refuse. That's almost Better. Don't give us a good example. Give us these example A little bit better. They refuse to get out of buildings that are half full and there's sections of building that they can't use and they're still keeping those schools. Well the hard part with that too is you, you do have to, you know, get the community input and that's the biggest question is what are you gonna do with the building? Then you have an empty building sitting there. So there's so much more that

067goes into it. Um, but yeah, getting the community involved definitely in those conversations is huge. Yeah. And let 'em see it too. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of rumors out there that aren't Yeah. Sound. I bring 'em into the boiler rooms, into the basements. I love to see everything. Yeah, that's a great Idea. What else? Walk around the track. Yeah. Run, have, run, have a run. Yeah. See, No, I don't think that was on the list. Any other comments or questions or things from John and Lindsay that you wanted to add? Do don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions. This is very overwhelming information, so thank you. You Absolutely. Thank you Jen. Coming. It's okay. I'll just wrap up and go back to, um, objective timeline of what we'll be

068coming next. Um, so in August, our very partner last with a second presentation similar to Lindsey. This for a second presentation, recognizing that this is a lot of information. Um, so wanted to give that on mayor board, but our community time to reflect about things. All the information at the time going be put together to gather, um, all the information necessary to determine the next steps as we move forward towards referendum or referendum. Thank you. Thanks again, Lindsay and gentlemen. Of course. All right. Now we'll move on to the information and discussion items. And we have first the technology department device purchases. Um, been introduced, uh, Sam Kana, um, our school district technology consultant. Um, Sam was with us approximately a year ago, so in July of 2024. I'm rolling out a multiple year plan

069for the technology department. He's back again this evening, um, to talk about upcoming, um, necessary purchases. Is this, uh, yes. Estimate things, the process that we follow for, uh, devices. So he has a brief presentation, um, and then we'll conclude with some recommendations. Recommendation for device purchases. Yes. All right. So we started, um, last year. We kick started our device one, one replacement list, um, with purchasing grades six, seven or six through 12 I believe it was. Um, and then the goal, um, every year is to rotate. Goal was rotate two device levels down to the elementary schools and replaced two devices our two grade levels, um, a year. Um, we were really on a time crunch last year. We bought Dell computers. It was really late in the year. There's a lot of inventory

070shortages. Um, those Dells have not held up how we thought they would. Um, so we're, we've abandon up sending back or having to fix, have 'em fix up 10% of the fleet that we purchased. Um, which is a usually a pretty high number. Um, so what we're, a lot of those issues came along with, um, students just being in the hands and going out in cold weather and stuff like that. A lot of those device failures, Dell didn't fix all of those for us. Um, those weren't student breakages. Those were just hardware failures. Um, nothing that we can forecast or do anything really about. Um, the concern that we have is that we're still trying to get another three years out of some of those devices, or most, almost all of 'em, if they're in

071elementary, if they're most likely not gonna have as many issues. Um, 'cause they're not as abused. They're not, they're not taken home nearly as often. Um, we are looking to purchase another three grades this year to hopefully stem that issue. Um, three grades would be sixth, seventh, and eighth. And those would be rotated down to the elementaries. Then whatever is, um, good to help us alleviate some of those issues. Um, those three grade levels, as of when I wrote that was 98 students. I never like to buy exact numbers 'cause they want me to do that. Then you need five more. Um, so there'd be roughly 12 extra devices there and then we are looking at purchasing 15 devices out of homeschool funds, which is, uh, library funds to use as student checkouts. Um, that's

072been a real critical piece of what we've been doing, is that the library has been funding. So when we have these issues, we can send 'em back to Dell, but we still need a device. So the libraries have been filling that in. Um, so that's what I'm asking for student devices and that quote was in there as well. Um, we can look at, and that would be total of 41,375. Um, 15 of those though would be, um, purchase out of common school defense out of district, um, for staff devices. Um, we, our goals last year, I believe, was to replace all of the high school devices. Um, when we started getting in new staff and seeing the devices that we were giving out to new staff members, we kind of pivoted that and gave out

073some of the newer devices to the new staff members coming in. So these staff retention we have, you know, you're not getting a 4-year-old PC with a broken hand on, you're getting a nice new device. Um, those really appreciated by the staff. So, um, we have 29 devices, 28 devices left, um, to do place. And that spans the elementary school and the high school. Um, just mixed teachers in there. Um, the 29th device is for our new librarian that is starting, and that would be per common school plans for her. That's why that one is locked out. Um, the other, um, devices that we need are custodial staff. Um, these would be our main custodian at each building, what they use on a daily basis to clock in to research parts, to do other things.

074Um, those devices are, uh, not supported anymore. They haven't gotten updates probably a couple years now. Um, but we're looking at replacing those with three 15 inch Chromebooks. Um, right now they have desk desktop, but that way they can be mobile, they can take them out if they need to. And that would be a total of 1455 for those three. Um, at the end of this, then we should have replaced from what we can know what's in the classrooms and everything like that. So that's not taken away. Uh, all computers that are five years old and older. Um, so I gets us on a very good rotation, um, where we don't have to purchase genetic purchasing staff devices in next school year. I think I'll have it on my next slide actually. Um, and the

075staff devices are also based on Midwestern higher education on state contract. Um, so those are pre-bid and embedded in pre-bid, um, state. Um, so those are two big, the platoon purchases we're asking for later. We give you guys to approve. Um, just want to give you some updates of what we've been doing with, uh, this technology in the schools. Um, kind of broke it down in a couple categories for wifi. Uh, that was, um, a need that we identified last year was to start the process of upgrading those. Uh, we got really good pricing this year. Um, we have a process called E-Rate, um, which goes out for state funding, federal funding actually for technology related things such as wifi, internet connections. And we have so much pooled money that Athens is allowed to use.

076Um, what we thought we were gonna get for equipment purchases was just gonna cover a s or Maple grow, but it ended up being half the cost. So we're, we had, there's a five year rotation of money there, and if you don't use it, you lose it. We're year five, so this was the end of year to, to use all of it. So we actually replacing, um, both a ES and Maple Grove. Uh, with that we only have to pay, I wanna say it's at 30, 30%, 30 that say 30 30% of the total cost Of that, 70% of that is funded by federal dollars. Um, the high school wifi then is looking to be replaced next summer as our new round of money comes in for the next five years. Um, our switching infrastructure,

077which is what all those wifi, um, access points plug into, is in pretty, um, good shape. Uh, we would look to replace that, start replacing those slowly in 2028, um, or later if those are, um, still working in order. Um, our firewall, which gives us our internet connection, um, that was installed 2018. Um, it's still supported. Um, and we're, as long as the support, we're still planning on replacing that in 2027. It just continued earlier, but I don't foresee that happening. Uh, that would also, switches and firewall are both E-Rate eligible as well. So as long as we standard cup pool of money, those should be 70% off whenever we do. Um, as for our servers, we installed our one server, uh, last summer. And then we have a backup server that's currently at a

078ES, um, that is scheduled to be installed in a few weeks. And then, um, we have a camera server that powers all the cameras that was purchased in 2021. Um, so a five year on that would be 2026. Um, that can go longer if the support contracts, but that would be a good time to really start looking at, you know, updating. And then also correspond with our cameras software as well. You know, what do, what can't we do? What do we want to do? Does the police department have access? All those different kinds of things. We can start looking at that. So looking ahead, um, we did interactive boards. I kind of put that out to be, uh, five a year to purchase to kind of get on a rotation so that way we're not

079spending a lot of money in one year on, on just that. And we can kind of prioritize, well this one's, you know, ports have broken on it, it's end of life. Um, we just purchased five of them this year to be replaced and those will be going in, um, the high school, uh, again, two student grades hopefully then to get onto that, um, rotation for student Chromebooks, um, servers and then the wifi, um, upgrade at the high school looking, uh, I believe at next summer is when our print lease is also up. So we'll be, um, looking and going out for bid for that. Um, at that time, uh, and I just forecasted out till summer of 2029, which a lot of that is the same. We would start device upgrades again for staff in

0802028. Um, just, uh, that would be four years from 2024. So, um, some things that which are awesome upgrades, phone system upgrades, and a cam, the actual camera replacement schedules, both physical cameras. Um, we have about 20 of them that are next year be year five, which is the end of support for them for hardware replacement. So if they die from anything, our vendor will no longer replace them. You can buy a new one. Um, so it's just one of those things that you can let them go until they die and, but then you, you're doing that for maintenance again. So it's nice to replace, you know, have 'em in the budget for five or 10, you know, five to 10 a year between the buildings. So that way, you know, we can take a

081look and say these are the ones we need. Um, the phone system and the paging system are just two ones that the audits showed up. Um, the paging system here at the high school is in more desperate need of, of a full replacement. Um, which doesn't, it sounds costly, but it can't, cannot be costly if we want it to be. Um, we make it really simple where the page, the whole school, you know, and we don't need to be able to say, look, this room and this room and this room, just a aging system in that system, you know, like need to be, uh, modular. You go that route here, you spending four or five times the amount of money then. Um, so those are things that are not in our current budget or forecasting

082for it. It is just they're on our, um, building list. And so it's, if we want to talk to those whenever, you know, we can do that. It's not like we need to be replaced right now, but it is something to be aware of. That was, is there any questions? I'm open this thing. Yes, you can Waiting, but those paging are pretty in our too. It say pa, It says pi, pa that All right, we've got, thanks. Okay. So do I just read 'em if You want to. Yes, I fine. Okay. So we have a quote from CDWG for the Chromebook. Um, these are like the three Chromebooks, So that'd be the staff. Uh, the custodial, Chromebook Custodial. And that grand total was 1004 55 on the, I think last time you just passed them

083around from what I remember last year. And then Dell Technologies, um, this is for the 29. These are the students. So that's the Staff laptops. The staff laptops. Okay. And that came in at um, 31,900. Yep. That's the Custodial. And this is the staff. And then, um, this is from CDWG. Um, the 125 student, um, Chromebooks came to 41,375. And these are the top quotes from each category. Yep. Um, the Dell ones are on the state contract. The Acer ones via get Dell State contract. Um, the, uh, the Acer ones we've got down to lower three hundreds, their original list price, um, on website's about $400. So we, uh, the a hundred, the a hundred quantity is our breaker point for asking for discounts. So I usually try to get it around that a hundred

084quantity. 'cause you can know saving almost 80 to hundred dollars device. Um, Can I ask you a PA question while we're passing these around? Sure. So we have this in the, like I'm in this plan, so it's a good bell letter maybe for me to understand the difference between what they have. Yep. Do you think their number there is for a more conservative or do you know what their number is? Like 30,000? Yeah. Do you think that, is that for a more conservative or a more deluxe system? I'd be more conservative system. Okay. I was just wondering what they put put in there. I was like, well, I'm hoping it's gonna be six, right? Yeah. For a Del system that's more of the system you were talking about when you were like, it'll just page

085everyone Page basic. Yep. Got it. No fancy lights or whistle blocks on 'em. You're just got it system, but it's functioning and easy To use. Yep. Great. Can I just ask a budget question? Sure. Um, could either for you or for Beth, is this within the budget that we have set aside for this current year as far as like the technology upgrades go? Yes. Okay. Good. Be is good. We're like At or under budget, so that, that's always a good thing. And if I could add just a couple of bit, but this first and foremost, thanks to Sam and the Trevor who's also part of our technology department, this was our goal a year ago to start to forecast out our regular routine maintenance process when it comes to technology associated with, this was one

086of our goals in our referendum. We communicated to our public that we wanted to invest and needed to invest in our technology, but to do it not only in a routine manner but also in a conservative manner. So I appreciate the time, um, that both Sam and Trevor put into this. And it has now developed a plan that is going to keep us, um, moving forward with the devices that our students and staff need, um, that do work. And, um, in addition to some of the other areas that are very integral in technology. So thank you for doing that. And I just want the community to know that is how we've invested some of our money as we get indicated through that process. Mm-hmm. No problem. Any other questions for Sam? Thank you. Thank you.

087Thank you. And this is gonna be an action item this time later. Hopefully you don't need me to vote. I lying to that. No, we're not doing action until a little bit later. So we're gonna move to the 25, 26 academic standards. I'll speak to this, um, agenda item. Um, in your board packet you have, um, an example of the academic standards that I'm asking the board to consider approving this evening, um, was causing academic standards. Um, specifically identify what students need to know and be able to do per grade level. Um, and it is, um, something that the DPI requires that boys take action each year to adopt standards. The standards provide our teachers that guidance they need to identify what it is that they are teaching in their specific either grade level or

088content area. Um, it's also part of our guaranteed and viable curriculum. So in Athens now we have two elementary schools, so we can guarantee based on the standards and by the first grader at Maple Grove and a first grader, hypothetically ENS Elementary, they would be taught the same type of content throughout that first grade year. So it's important, um, not only in kind of document, but it's important information for our teachers and our, um, principals to know and to be able to communicate that out, not only in the teaching and running that happens in the classroom, but to her parents problem. So I'm asking the board to take action on that this evening. Any questions are all linked there. And I believe the, the year in parentheses was the year that they are updated by

089DPI. Is that Correct? That is correct. Okay. Any questions? Next we have the human resources report. Sure. Thank you. Um, so, um, tonight I'm asking the board, um, to approve the resignation and she was our administrative assistant and go charter her school. She has, uh, found another opportunity. So she has left us and will actively be looking to replace, um, her in that position prior to the start of the school year. Um, working with Sam Kana and Trevor Raki recognizing the amount of work that will, uh, continue to occur in the technology department between now and the start of the school year. It is their recommendation, which is important and I would ask the board to do the same. We'd like to provide some additional lower calling district technology department, seasonal home power to Danielle.

090She had a middle high school library media stint. Um, she definitely has the skills and she has an interest and with her help that we'll be ready and prepare for the year to start. So asking you to, um, approve that this evening. Um, and then we had a resignation, um, in needing to, um, replace um, fifth grade teacher. And we both go charter school, um, through a process that included, um, the principal and teachers and governance board members. Um, that team is recommending Christine Zarins, um, be approved as the new grade five teacher in Grove Charter School. C questions. All right, then we have the, um, 24 25 budget amendments. Yes. So in your board packet you have the amendments and in the first column it's the original board approved budget. That was back in

091October. And this is now when all is said and done, our budget was a plan and here's where we ended. Do know that there could be changes as we go through our audit. If there were any changes, that would definitely come back to the board. So, um, the audit is scheduled to conclude in December. First of all, we are adding an additional $154,000 to our general fund balance. So to end 24, 25, that would put the district at approximately that 13% of expenditures. So not long ago we were almost negative 10%. That's a good, good, good feeling. Mm-hmm. Um, just real high level of some of the things, um, some of the variables that played a part in the budget, um, amendments is we did offer minimal summer school courses this year. So we did

092save on some expenses that way. Um, the district was awarded an, uh, implementation zone grant, um, in midyear. So that was added for revenue as well as expenses. Um, we did budget, um, heavily for our substitute teachers and that came in at the end of the year. We saved about 23,000. Um, a big difference from last year to this year is our HRA, our retirement account that we have for certified staff that retired from the district. Last year we spent 54,000. This year it came in at 138,000. So something that we continue to watch and monitor and retirees are, are leaving the district. Um, but also good news is interest that we've paid to borrow from last year to this year. Last year we paid $152,000 in interest. This year we paid $60,000 in interest.

093Wow. So as you anticipate, that will continue to, um, improve as we build our fund balance and hopefully get, um, some cash flow needs under control. Um, another area I would like to highlight is fund 50. So that as our food service fund back in October, we were projecting to have to transfer approximately 40,000 from our general fund to our fund 50. Um, at the end of this year, due to keeping expenses under control as well as bringing in those revenues, we ended the year with a $40,000 transfer. I celebrate that because during the year we also did replace the freezer, which was $13,000. So that was originally going to be, um, tapping into our fundamentals, which didn't have to happen. So yeah. Are there any questions you have for me on the budget amendments?

094Doesn't look like it. All right. Next is the nutrition services meal price increase, which is in your packet. Yes. Is that you? Yep, that's me. Um, so the nutrition services is a team effort with Heather Krieger, Tammy Shriner, myself, um, building principals. But the district does participate in the national school food programs, which does give some reimbursement to the school districts as well as, um, some options for free or reduced lunches to families and students. In the first page, you'll see a table, I'm asking the board to approve an increase for our meal prices by 10 cents. Um, we would carry that through for the milk prices as well. It's been 35 cents for an extra milk for many years. Um, but to be consistent with that 10 cent increase will increase our milk as

095well. Um, below that, I did put, I did put some information on how did we get here, like what helps us decide if we need to increase our meal prices or not. So we do use a paid lunch equity tool that is provided to us from, um, DPI and it takes an average of all the meals that we have, um, served in the last year and it gives us a benchmark of where we should be. So we are limited to increase meal prices by 10 cents. So we're a little below where we need to be, but we're reaching as much as we can. Do, you know off the top of your head that what our current like defaulted lunch balance is? Yep. That's the last page. So we'll come to that in just a minute.

096Um, I do want the board to know as well that we are currently analyzing our, analyzing our raw costs for our extras, our entrees. So those prices have not been increased. Um, and they are not governed by the, um, national school food programs, but we're going to narrow down and have to increase those prices as well. So we plan to communicate that out to families as soon as we have that information. And then to Jessica's question, we do have the negative lunch balance is a table on the last page. Um, just a little write down. We do celebrate the last time the board had um, been updated on the balance. We have cut that down by $1,700. So all improvements in addition to that box. Do you know, like I you see the number of

097families in reduced accounts. Do you like the difference from year over year? Like are as the district, are we increasing and by what percentage? I was curious. Uh, I do have that not off the top of my head. Okay, that's fine. In 24.5 we were as a whole district, 36.7%. Pretty reduced. Okay. It is increasing, but I do think that probably in part two, the COVID era of, and everyone was on free lunch for that short time. So there has been a slight increase. Okay. Since then, if that makes sense. Where does our, Our price fall, is it less than the actual cost more than the actual cost? Or is it exact? Like are we, are we making money on that? Are we losing money So we're not able to make money on the national

098school lunch program? So our, our reimbursable meals, that's where it fits the DPI standards of you have to have so many servings with sodium intake, all that. Where we can help offset costs is with the extra entree prices, the smart snack prices, um, all of those things that fall outside of that. It's like a milk probably cost less than 45 cents. Uh, no, that's pretty much right. Mm-hmm. Which is why we typically end up kind. Sure. Makes sense. That question, do you know how many, I don't know, maybe you do know this, but like how many of the higher range account balance, like, so you have 13 that are above a hundred dollars, um, number of accounts. How many of those are people that are also in free reduced lunch? Because that seems like a

099really, like for our district looking forward, which is separate than like running this program. It seems like a significant question because if, let's say if half or if, if a lot of those students already have food and reduced lunch and then this is just like the way they're getting more of their food and it seems like a different approach rather than asking for money would be like something for us to think about. Yes. Like or some way to pipeline those students. Like if you're in free and reduced lunch and you have large lunch balances, it's probably your food access is probably not great. So like That's a Good question. It's like a front of Mm-hmm. And we do, we do have that data. Of course it can change year over year. Yeah. Um, I would

100say a part of 'em are just right over that 100 mark. Okay. A lot of them will, it's summer, they'll come in and fall and they'll pay that. We do know, like who would be on free reduced. We do communicate to the families, like we have our robo calls, but we do have our personal contacts and calling them and sending letters in the mail and um, if they are free reduced lunch, those are our priorities of where we would put those 20 funds towards to help them get caught up again. 'cause it also be helpful for like the pantry, Initial pantry. And then I know in WASA at some of their schools where they have a higher percentage of students, like much higher percentage of students with free reduced lunch compared to other schools they

101have like the weekend backpacks where they send home food. So it does seem like if we're doing food pantry work, if we're separately doing other work. Right. Um, but like it might be a place for that type of a collaboration. Right. I mean we are planning to send out, in August we're planning to send out the free reduced launch applications. We'll do that multiple times. We do the direct certification that's through the state. So they already qualify for benefits. It automatically comes to the district. Um, in that we are going to include the prices for some of the extras and not price. 'cause free reduced, um, accounts still do have to pay for that extra. That has been a challenge to educate because you're on free lunch, those extras or if you don't take the,

102the full meal that milk you are charged for and responsible for. So we have been really looking into the communications that we use and trying to just really educate families on multiple times throughout the year to catch that. Mm-hmm. And my role in this process, um, I work very closely with both Beth and Tammy and, uh, two of her families who find themselves in financial situations. I've been communicating with them routinely, um, and we're working together to find a plan and to pay off some of their debt. So we wanna be good partners. We recognize that life sometimes is very challenging. Um, and we're going to do what we can to help. So that's, um, supporting as well thank Cuba. And then the Neo a policy updates. Um, so this agenda item is in alignment

103with, um, the work that the board does. Typically two to three times a year where you review a bulk of policies. This one's coming independent. And that's because, um, in the past year, worked very closely with members of, um, our central office team, which includes, uh, Beth and Tammy from the business office, um, as well as the principals, as well as Jamie Hki when he was here. Um, our school psychologist, our nurse, our health aide, we've reviewed each of the current active and approved board policies to then design and develop what we call an administrative guideline. So the policy, um, provides the guidance of, um, how we operate in the district. And then the practice is now outlined in an administrative guideline. This policy, uh, 1230 0.01 into development of administrative guidelines. I'm asking the

104board to take action on this evening so that then we can send all of our administrative guidelines, which are in draft to ola. Um, and then they will process 'em and then they will be available online as part of our suite. Um, there's one option at the end of this policy, which, um, I've checked and the board approves, um, a copy of these administrative guidelines in manual and each handbook. So we have parent student handbooks once for facility or school as well as an employee handbook. So we have four would be part of the board's reference materials maintained in our district office. So Becky vin's office. We would have hard copies of the handbooks as well as our administrative guidelines. Um, so we felt that was an important to part of this policy to include

105if the board agrees. So I'm asking the board to take action this evening. If you approve this policy, it will go forward. It'll be part of our suite of, uh, prudent policies and then we'll start to give those administrative comments posted and available Questions. All right. So we're gonna go into action items. So the first one is approval of payments and cash receipts. Any questions on those? So that's the check transaction list in the packet. And what we would be looking for would be any questions or discussion for Beth to clarify. And if not, then a motion to approve. I will make a motion to approve. I'll second it Tucker. And, and then do we need a roll call vote. Okay. Can you do that though? Um, Jessica? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Cat? Yes.

106Ca? Yes. Alright. And then the next item is the approval of the revenue and expense reports. I would like to make one note on the revenue and expense reports is it's June and these are not the revenue, they're not cashing the bank. Same with the expenses. Those are just being reported As of June 30th. So some of them are booked as receivables. Okay. So we, for any questions or clarifications or motion to approve Votes, I make motion to approve. Okay. I'll second it. We get a roll call, please. Jess? Yes. Andy? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kat? Yes. Cam? Yes. Okay. And the next item is the technology department device purchases as presented by Sam. I'll make a motion to approve. Um, April, get down 74,000. Seven 30. Okay, I'll second. And then we will do a

107roll call since it's May. Jessica cup? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Yes. Kim? Yes. All right. Um, the next item is the 25 26 academic standards for approval. I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. I'll second. And we will just do a voice vote on this one. Um, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay. All right. Okay. Human resources report. I will make a motion to approve. Okay. I Jess. Um, okay. Can we, can we do a roll call please? Jess? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kat? Yes. Kim? Yes. Okay. Thank you. And then the next one is the 24 25 budget amendments. I'll make a motion to approve Pam. I'll second. Okay. And we will do a roll call on that one as well. Jessica? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Cant

108Yes Cam? Yes. And nutrition services meal price increase Omni demotion to approve. Perfect. Okay, I'll second. Can we also do a roll call? Jessica? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kat? Yes. Kim? Yes. Okay. And the last item is the NEA policy. 1230 0.01. Development of administrative guidelines. Make a Motion to approve. I'll second. Okay. And then we're gonna do a voice vote on that one. So all in favor say aye. Aye. I will. Opposed nay. All Right. Motion. The last thing is we will look for a motion to adjourn. I motion. I'll second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay. All right. We are adjourned. Say at 6:34 PM Oh 6 35. Thank you. Do we have close session? Nope. No. Closed session tonight. Yeah, that's it. That's all that she

109wrote. I know it. Okay. I Was like, could be, could be.