001Everyone, let's get this show on the road. It is 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 17th. Happy St. Patrick's Day. I got a little bit of green with the Hulk here. So, let's start with the pledge of allegiance, please. Here we go. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Wonderful. Um, welcome everyone. I realized something very uh cool the other day, which is we are not the only ones that have to read that have to read the mission statement. We can pass it around. And so today, Mr. Kver is nice enough. He's going to read the mission statement for us and I'm hoping to include everyone that comes kind of get a turn at
002some point in life. The mission of Poly Public Schools is to bring together students, parents, staff, and community to provide a quality education with an emphasis on developing the full potential of the individual. Thank you, Mr. Clver. All right. Uh let's see here. Now, we're going to talk about the the agenda. Uh we do have a tabletop item on the agenda today which is the calendar committee got their work in. We are not going to have for anyone that did not see the the meeting on Wednesday with the calendar is now cancelled. We're going to add it into the agenda tonight. Um where should that be added? Dr. Perry is it consent or is it its own item? I think we should have it as a form item. Perhaps we'll say it's number nine and
003move everything else from there down. How does that sound? All right. And then the only other thing is on the consent agenda, we will be removing Corey W from there for now uh as per Dr. Kerry's recommendation. So those are the only two uh adjustments to the agenda that I know of. Oh, there's one more. Oh, and we'll be adding in a uh this is to the consent, correct? We will be adding in a junior high track and field coach Trent Robertson into the consent agenda which you all would have. It's it's on the backside here and I always I always think oh I'm looking here and then I miss the back side. So please check that. Um that those are the only changes I am aware of of the agenda. Oh, you know you're
004supposed to do the open form before the agenda. I apologize. So keep those agenda items in mind. I have one person. Uh in that case, we will move on to approval of agenda which uh I noted the changes thereof and when you're ready, I'll take a motion to approve. So I'm going to ask that instead of approving the agenda, we take number 10 off until we are all able to read what we are given. Are you making a motion? I'm going to make a motion to take number 10 off. Until we are able to read what we are given. All right. There is a motion. Uh, do I have a second at all? I'm all for the first amendment. I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on the
005motion? Hearing none, we will have a vote then, please uh vote. If you are in favor of removing number 10, please say I. I. I. All opposed. Nay. Uh let's just get a hand count there to make sure we got everybody. Uh leap in favors. Please raise your hand. There four in favor and against was three. The motion does pass tonight. We will be removing number 10 from the agenda, please. All right. Any other changes to the agenda uh at the moment? or I will take a motion then to approve the the amended agenda. I'll make a motion to approve. There is a motion to approve the amended agenda. All in favor? Excuse me. I need a second. Is there a second to approve the amended agenda? Yes. Oh, there is a second from Sharon
006to uh approve the amended agenda. All in favor, please say I. I oppose. Was that a There's an A to All right. Motion does pass. Thank you everyone. Uh in that case, we will now move on to uh honoring our recently retired members. We have two recently retired members. uh one who could not be here tonight, Becky Howard. So, we'll we'll start with her. Uh and Stephanie is going to say a few words about Becky tonight. Um yes, I just want to take the opportunity to um thank Becky for her years of service on the board. Um I know it's not easy work by any means. I know she was on for several terms. Um I wish she could be here tonight with us um to say a few words herself, but she was not
007able to. So, I just want to say thank you to Becky Howard. Thank you. And uh you'll see what we have for Becky here in a moment because we also have it for our other retired member, Ken Anderson, who's in the front row there. Ken, if you want to stand up and we'll acknowledge you. I won't say how long was on the board, but I think it was several presidential administrations. Uh and we have here a a bell which says his name fully school board and the dates. Um like many people in this room of course I had uh the pleasure of having Ken as an instructor and then I had the extra pleasure then of serving with Ken. And uh it's probably the very obvious thing to say that Ken has dedicated his life's
008work to the betterment of Foley public schools both in the classroom announcing at games and then his work on the board for many years. And um I know he doesn't look a day at it. Um but I I will say on a on a personal level when I had Ken I was junior in high school which was one of the absolute worst years of my life personally. Um, and I think you everyone has bad years when they're teenagers, but um, I was I was taking classes that I had no idea what was going on in. Um, and so Ken's class for me was kind of an oasis of sanity and and um, Ken was always a very kind person. Um, and I really always appreciated that personally. So um, and I was still learning from
009Ken all these years later with my time on the board. Ken has never stopped being an educator. And I think you would be hardressed if you went to anything in the state of Minnesota where educators gathered that you would mention Ken's name. He's one of the most respected educators in the entire state of Minnesota and probably beyond. So Ken, thank you very much for your years of service and on behalf of the school board and the school, I would like to present you with this bell commemorating your time with us. Thank you. [Applause] Ken, you want to say anything? I would love to say a few words. I thought you might. Um, I came here 56 years ago. And actually, when I came here, we had found out from somebody going to church in Cambridge
010and somebody would talk to us. We're looking for a job. We had been offered a few jobs that we weren't interested in and they said there's some openings in Poland. So I called up and checked out and they said, "Yeah, we need a homemade teacher and we need a history teacher." So we came in for the interview and uh I later found out we both kept the job. In fact, I got the job because of her. They said social studies teachers are dying a dozen. So we need a home teacher really bad. They hired three new home teachers that year. Anyway, I came in. I didn't know what had happened the year before, but apparently it was a real problem. We had 30 new teachers come in in 1969 and at the end of the
011year previously a whole bunch of them resigned at the last minute. So they were really scrambling. So we came in 30 new people came in and the thing is a lot of those people stayed until they retired. So they stayed right with the whole program but uh it came on and so there's a lot of new people. We all in together, but there was a group of teachers between those that stayed and those new teachers that really changed things here. We had a social studies department that was together for 25 years which is an amazing amazing thing. Bill Raspersonson all the way to Lauren Weinberg. Uh that was quite a department and I was particularly proud of one thing about Julie. My goal in teaching was to give the holy kids a world class education.
012And we had a chance in the 1970s and I shared that with con not too long ago is that we set up we sat down with the social department. We said okay what the kids want to learn and we said we ran a quarter system and we set up a whole bunch of classes that are unbelievable. There was ancient history, medieval history, world history, world wars, modern problems, anthropology, I forget, you got the list of them. And we had Oh, we taught black history, black experience, winning of the West. Uh, it was all in there and the kids loved it. We we went with the we had a system um where they would go down and uh deflect ballot system down in the uh in in the gym and they pick classes and we get
01330 kids in there and we always filled out our classes because the kids really enjoyed what we were doing. But I was always worried about the fact how do we compare to other schools? Are we as good or are we doing better? And I talked to Mr. was real counselor and he said, "You know," I said, "Aren't the top our top kids are as good as anybody else's." So, I started looking when the scores came out and I found that was true, but nobody nobody seemed to know it. So, I said, "You know what we're going to do? We're going to get our kids involved in knowledge." And so, we compete against these other schools to see how well we can perform. And uh so, the first time there was a meeting in St. crowd
014and there was uh I put the top four seniors and top four juniors and we went to play. We've never played before. They went to play and there were 17 teams. We came in 16 and 17 out of school. So I said, "Okay, there's problems here though." We had never coached. We never did anything. So I started a program. We started competing against other schools. And pretty soon we started filling We have a trophy. We had a trophy case up by the library and we started filling that with trophy case with trophies that we were winning and our kids would start loving and telling me we got to do this every weekend. We don't we don't want to do anything else. And even had kids that were in a wrestling program and said I'd rather
015go to uh knowledge bowl but we also we were on TV on channel 5. It's called the high school bowl. We were on the radio in St. Cloud. We're on television in St. and we're competing against the recordings and Apollos and text and we're doing very well and so I was very proud of that fact and in fact sometimes the teacher other teachers would tell me how do your kids know these things that's part of our curriculum that's what we're teaching so when I left as a teacher back in 2000 I was very proud of what we had done and my concern was can we keep this going and that's why I went on the board and I've been very proud of the fact that I went on the board in 2000 and I'm very
016proud of the fact that even before I was a teacher, I was involved in the hiring of a lot of super principles and so forth. They always ask me to be on the committees and uh I found for you particularly three superintendents that I recruited that applied one place else. One of them was Fred Nor. We stole him out as chairman. We stole him out of Eden Valley. uh Aaron Strael who was here for a number of years and then finally the last super we hired I recruited him he was a little town in northern Minnesota got great reports the only thing that worried me I was going to be gone during the whole interview process but he came through and I think he impressed enough so I'm very proud of the work that I
017did with the school district my goal when I got on the board was to have the school district grow and I said before I believe I have 2,000 kids. We're at 1992 right now. But on some of the reports from the state, the count is over 2,000 because of what I know that it's like 2025. So we've crossed the 2,00 pardon are adjusted. The adjusted grow. So we're crossing 20,000. I'm very proud. I'm ready to leave and I appreciate everything you've done for me and everything that I've been able to do. I uh uh recently Joe Schmidt I I met him not too long ago sports cast um and he said what you got to do and and I've read the book because you read the book is you got to have your own Mount
018Rushmore who's given you things that have changed your life. So I have four things on Mount Rushmore. One is support community because that's really made a difference in my life. two is Fred Holland as superintendent. Three is resource training and solutions and four is Sandy Cord who was on resource training. Those two organizations or those four things have changed my life. So thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you Ken for all you have done for us. Um, we are now going to have our approval of routine business items including the consent agenda and the uh meeting minutes and board bills. So, I will take a motion at any time to approve the consent agenda, please. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion by Pamela. Do I have a second? Second by Nathan.
019All right. All in favor, please say I. I. Opposed. Thank you very much, everyone. Next is our resolution for accepting gifts. We have a lot of gifts today, which is always a good position to be in for us. Uh we have CH Rob Travis donating 8250 for girls basketball. Mr. James donating $75 for seventh grade uh Washington DC trip. Grand Champion Neat Blue Ribbon Cafe $290 for that same trip. Verdict $94.91 value beverages for the sixth grade I love to read celebration. The uh Holy American Legion, two cases of scrambled eggs, which is probably about a million dollars for the child nutrition department. The Mike Fnet or FDA, I'm sorry if I mispronounce that. uh trust, which is uh $720 value for shell for the fully trap team. Fully American Legion, again, $3,650 for the
020senior wisdom retreat. Jack and Jim, $345 for the Washington DC trip. Foley Family Restaurant, $180 for the trip. Good Fellas, $320 for the trip. uh the Thunderstrom of Independence Electric uh which is $759.7 for the Unified Club. And finally, the Lion Club of Bully with $300 for the books for second grade. Wow, what a great position. Thank you to our community. I will take a motion to accept the gifts, please. Motion to accept the gifts. Motion by Sharon. Do I have a second? Second by Wayne. All in favor, please say I. I opposed. Fantastic. And again, thank you to our wonderful community for all they're doing for us. Um, all right. We now have the director of buildings and grounds. We have a contract here, a new director of buildings and grounds, which is Paul
021Jacobs, starting today. What's that? And uh, Dr. Perry, I'll let you take it away from here. Actually, do you would you prefer to do the motion first before I introduce so that it's official? Sure, we'll do the motion first. Uh, so I need a motion to approve this contract, please. I make a motion to approve. Motion by Pamela. Second, please. Second. Second by Stephanie. All in favor, please say I. I. Oppose. All right. Now, Dr. Um, I'd like to invite Mr. Jacobs to the front or comfortable coming here. Um Paul Jacobs will be our new director of buildings and grounds and I'm really excited for him to join public schools and most recently um Paul has served as a maintenance operations coordinator at Oglev Public Schools and when I talked to his references he had
022been in the police for nine years and I think he had done um some subbing as well. I believe it was in that and Um he can fix anything. Um is a problem solver, very easy to work with. Um you'll find that he is very friendly. So I I feel that he is going to be a great addition to um to replace Darwin Fleck in in um in Darwin's position. And one of the other really selling points for us is that he has experience with a pool. and we hear that that is very rare. He also shared a significant pool um story with us during his interview and um prior to Oel um he also was the director of home delivery for the Minnesota Star Tribune and he also worked at the Minnesota Zoo too.
023So welcome all. We're excited to have you. Um is there anything else that you'd like to say to the board of Seection. Yeah. Let's let's do a quick introduction and a minute here. Well, this is Yeah. Hi, Sharon Kipka. Hi, William Wilson. And I'm Patrick Leandowski. And I got to say, if you work at a zoo, you're probably going to do great school right now. Well, the whole joke was cuz I was in meetings at the zoo and I started there when I was 16 more lawns while I went to college cuz you have to be and two things animals do get loose and you know I've got stories and then the big thing with us as custodians and maintenance was oh you work with the animals. Yep. The ones on two hind legs. So
024so I I spent 20 years with the state of Minnesota at the zoo. I grew up in Apple Valley. So that's back when Apple Valley you could still motorcycle on the trails and there was no zoo and the cops would yell at us for motorcycleycling on state land and this is going to be a zoo someday. So but um uh and I know you're too serious but what I was going to say is a heroist longevity. I'll be 100 years old if that happens. So I will not be here for and I my big to lighten the mood my big joke. So Darwin, everybody I call I call a real estate agent and they're like, "Oh, Darwin salted the earth." You know, it's like there was not anybody who just did not know Darwin. And
025my big joke was a few years ago, Darwin's been talking about retiring since I've known him. And so one year there's a motivational motivational speaker at one of our St. Cloud meetings, conventions, and the motivational speaker's like, "How many years have you been in this business?" And I think the guy thought Darwin was lying. He's the only one with his hand up after 40. after 40 years still. So my point is I have a lot of respect for Darwin. I have a lot of respect for his staff and just I had a prepared statement about an allegory that the building is my child. The building never sleeps. My child never sleeps. You know I have a bunch of people visit my child. I have you know and you kind of get the gist. And so
026instead of reading the prepared statement and just if you were like what does this guy think of a building? Building is the first thing everybody sees. They don't see a person first they see the building. And so my my thing about making everything work for people and my relationship with the teachers at Oly and you'll hear it and and if you ever want to call a teacher at OG they know me because of the interaction of knowing their needs based on their students their goal. My goal is to get to be known as the person that listen to everybody. Didn't mean to have the answer to it all but the point is is to try to do that. So if you're wondering who I am cuz I know you guys are like put blink who's
027this guy you don't know him from Adam. So but yeah again if you ever want to hear about the zoo that was let's put it this way when I got a real job at the starting as an executive my kids went now I have a boring job. So that's that's me just ask me anything go from there. Welcome to our team. Thank you so much. All right. Now, we've got our we've got our tabletop item, which is the district calendar. Um Dr. Perry, this is you again. Yes. Um we met last week and we were able to um find a nice compromise with the district calendar. And um what we were able to do in the past, we had conferences the first week in November and we moved conferences to um the third week and
028third full week in October. Um, and for anyone watching later curious like if it feels kind of late for our calendar, we might be a hair late, but we are of the mind that it was more important to make sure we got a good calendar that people were in favor of. And we we said we'd rather be late and good than on time and and unhappy. So, I want to say thank you uh to everyone that was part of the calendar committee, everyone that contributed. Um, I I really hope that we found a good compromise and everything and and like I said, we we'd rather give time for that sort of thing than not. So, and this is the recommendation from the committee. This is the recommendation from the committee. I love that. Um, are
029there any questions from the board about the proposed calendar? Any discussion? Otherwise, if there's not, I'll take a motion. But if anyone has any questions, please speak. The committee was represented by all schools. I hope every but everybody will care. Uh any other questions, comments, concerns? If not, I'll take a motion when you got one. I'll second. All right. Motion by Wayne, second by Nathan. Thank you guys. Uh any other further discussion? All right. Well, I'll have a vote then. All in favor, please say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you very much, everyone. Next up, we have Mr. Todd Netski and he's got our uh budget planning presentation if I'm not mistaken. Actually, that's me. Oh, it is you. I'm sorry. I saw budget. I saw Todd. I made the the assumption. All right.
030But let's go to Dr. Perry again. Um what what I wanted to be able to do is u introduce our budget planning again for 2526 if you want to be great kind of to start just with our mission and we we've read that already this evening but again to focus on what our core values are of achievement kindness respect and support. We've got that real big up there for anyone who's um and again our purpose for this particular presentation is to speak about the current reality that's facing our budget um as well as the process and then our our timeline. And as you can see, um, this may be some similar information just reiterating from our audit that was completed in January of, uh, January 27th, I believe, was the date. Our local property taxes
031make up about $1.9 million of our revenue. And you can see that the majority of our revenue comes from the state at about 22 million, close to. And then our other source of um, revenue is from our federal government at about 1.6. And I also talked to our district advisory committee as well. And this is the number that we really do need to watch. Um we're not sure what's going to happen with the Department of Education from the federal level. And so this could impact that number. And it seems like it's touch and go each day. But some of those funds that do come from the federal government would be special education would be your title funding, um, food service funding, um, e- rates. So, there's a lot of different things that are tied to
032the federal government. And I I think Todd mention a few more of those things and talk about what that impact could potentially be. Our expenditures, as you heard from the audit, things didn't change how much from 23 to 24. the majority of our um costs come from labor in our school and that that is normal. If you look across on the state of Minnesota um our average daily membership you can see that we're declining in enrollment and those the top graph that shows just the residents. So those that are just in the Foley public school district. Now, if you look on the bottom graph, you'll notice that um we have our adjusted. And so, when Ken was talking about the 2000, that's where the adjusted is because we look at weights is different. So, a
033secondary student in grades 7 through 12 is weighted differently than a K through six student. And as I mentioned in our committee meeting, those of us that have been around for a while can remember when a kindergarten student was a.5 and wasn't a 1.0. Oh, and we were using like compensatory funds to help support all day every day kindergarten. Uh, some things that I have heard or come across that I want to make sure that I speak to is we've had some community members come and talk about how we should close open enrollment. That would be an endangerment to the district financially aid. And you can see um our non-resident gain is over 400 students and our resident loss is 200. So we are in the open enrollment positive gainer. So it's really important that
034we keep um the doors open um so that we can keep attracting students into into the district since our funding is based on our enrollment. Okay. So I'm going to just rephrase that make sure I understand it correctly in case anyone else is not sure. So basically because we get paid per student in our school, the fact that we have open enrollment means you're basically getting money for those people and it's because and it's offsetting not just the students who are leaving our district for whatever reason and open enrolling or wherever somewhere else but it's not just offsetting that but it's actually a positive financially for us. We're getting the the formula so we're looking at the aid. Um, and and Patrick, you bring up a great point is that the students that are leaving,
035they could be going to maybe in the school district, it may be online, it may be homeschooling. There's a number of different reasons because there's a lot of different options that students have now parents have for their children. Um, as you know, Todd will share um report about our enrollment. We we watch this very closely every month. Um we've talked at length about we have a conservative approach to um our enrollment our projections. We projected um 1839 to the start of the year. We're about right on um and we don't want to over project and you see that we started with about 1860 in the beginning of the school year and we lose about 30 students on on average as we go through the year. And if we overestimate and we're drawing more of that
036funding in, we have to pay that funding back. So, it's really important that we are as close as we possibly can be. And our administrative assistants in the offices, they do a great job of watching enrollment. And I know if I asked any of them where kids are going, they wouldn't be able to tell me immediately what's happening with enrollment. So, they do a great job for us. And there is nothing unusual about the students loss any particular year, right? very typical. Typical. Okay. Um a quick glance at at our funding and um our funding has not kept up with inflation. You'll see that graph in about 22 seconds. Um our cross subsidy does not cover the increased cost of our special education services. And as you know that is mandated. If we lose federal
037funding, that will cause um some that'll cause a financial um situation for the district. To give you an idea, um, our subsidy is a little over 800,000 around that amount and our costs are about 5 million. Um, our staffing costs have increased just with wages and benefits. Health insurance is a driving factor in costs. Uh, we've declined in our enrollment and we don't have an operating levy. We've talked about that extensively as well. So, let me ask just questions about this. There are some things that's like every district is experiencing this on this list. Correct. That is everyone is experiencing this and even those um that may have an operating levy depending on what their levy amount is. And and I shared with staff and I don't have the number in front of me able
038to help me. And even if we had $250, I think that would generate over like $300,000 extra coming in. How does what is an operating levy for anyone who maybe is not familiar with that term since we do not have that? How does that work? So, it's a voter approved um it's voter approved and there's two there's learning levies are for learning and bonds are for building. That's how to keep it separate. Okay. So the voters, so we tried, we would a levy means we are going to the voters of our district and we say we would like to levy an additional $250 and that would pass property taxes. And so we would say and then the voters would say yes or no to paying, you know, the situation. Um, you know, so we might
039say, "Oh, we had like $250, we want $150, whatever it is." But ultimately, it'd be up to voters if we asked for that to decide yes, we're going to add that to the school. Correct. All right. Thank you. And this is just a a graphical representation of um inflation. So you can see the blue line um is what the cost is to educate on average a student. And you can see where we're at um at the state that dashed orange line you can see that gap is widening. So that is definitely why we have not been able to keep up with inflation. And as you know um our percent increase on on the general um e general education aid the formula allowance um 2024 we are at 4% and then at 2% but remember that
040that can be deceiving because that doesn't mean that we see because there's a lot of different funding that's coming in from different areas. It doesn't mean that that funding in those areas and like a levy amount doesn't impact that. That's just on the formula. So when you're declining you may see an increase in in the formula amount of money, but you're getting less revenue coming in because there's fewer students. There's less to get revenue from. And and you can see that um you can anticipate, we know that the state is in a budget deficit this year. So you can see on average it's about two 2%. It's not enough to cover what the costs our increased costs are because and that's something that will apply to every district right there in the whole state. And
041and you have to remember um you know our our costs our water costs increase our electricity increase the cost of toilet paper, the cost of food, all those things increase for a school district as well just like they do in your own um personal home budget. Compensatory funding um this will be significant for us um in in the governor's bill. um compensatory funding. What the discussion is now is um moving towards this direct certified and so that's looking at um county and so our old educational benefits and what we're hoping for is because a lot of districts will um will be hurt by this. We're hoping that um we are held harmless so we'll be able to maintain that same money that you see from 2425. Um our general fund operations, we talked about this
042as well. Um last year originally with the finance committee, we talked about reductions of 1.2 million. We reduced by 921,000. at the audit time we were right on that mark of $881,000 and then our unrestricted fund balance. Um we spent a significant time talking about this. Todd will also speak to this um this evening. You can see we're we're in the blue and that green beigy color is the state. I think it's reverse state blue state and did I say that? Okay. Sorry. I apologize. Um so the blue is the state our district is the sagey color and you can see that um in 2020 we are at 22% of our unrestricted fund balance and then 14.5%. And those that is your remediate fund. So if something goes wrong that's the money that you use
043to be able to fix it those unforeseen challenges that you may have. Okay. So correct me if I'm wrong so we're all everyone understand if we deficit sped it cuts into our green bar. That is correct. Okay. And as a district we also have a policy about this. Correct Sharon about what our fund balance is supposed to be. That's correct. Right. We were told it's 10.2. Well our policy is 12%. I always go to Sharon because she's kind of my numbers guru. about 5% in the board can they can step with that policy what that number is. Thank you. But wasn't it in our last like in our booklet that we got when the lady came in and talked wasn't it 10% the fund policy in our audit in our audit% um policy 12 policy
044is 12 but we ended up with but we ended up it was 10%. Yes. So, how did it get from 10 to 14? Um, Todd, we can we hold that question. Yep. Todd will be able to answer that. Um, we talked about the revised budget and again we know that construction fun because of our indoor air quality project and that we'll see that go down when that project when the project is complete. And then what we are recommending is our custom payment of $430,000. And if we are not reducing our budget, the 430,000 we would have to take out of our general fund and deficit spend. Well, we take it out of our reserves. A reserve. Yeah. That's I mean so we'd have to defend. Okay. And then unrestricted. Yes. Thank you. And as we've
045talked about with staff that behind every line item, we know that there's a human story. We honor um those that we honor team members, their privacy. Um we communicate personally with people that are impacted. Um and of course we always work cooperatively cooperatively with our union leaders to make sure that we are following um our our bargains. And then I do have just one other document that I want to share very quickly that's a little bit more detailed in the next step so people understand as we move through. So again just some of the key dates that I want to review one more time in January and February 27th. Hopefully I have all the 2025s correct. Um we did um have an audit presentation by Bergen PDB and you accepted that audit on the 27th.
046You also um directed administration through a resolution to make recommendations for reductions in programs and that is always a normal step at that time of year even if reductions are not needed. Always do that. Yep. Um our first or our finance committee following that meeting was on February 10th. finance committee under the direction of the director of finance had recommended we adjust our budget by $430,000. Um February 18th I was presenting to staff um this presentation so staff understood what the reality that was facing our district. Uh March 12th we met um as a finance committee to review um administrative recommendations regarding the budget reduction recommendations. On March 12th, we had um a lengthy board work session. They gave a few updates on the board regarding what those um reductions would be, the impact of
047those reductions. Uh tonight um you removed from the agenda the resolution discontinuing reducing educational programs. And so, you know, just so you know, this puts everything back now um with with people when we're talking about people. And then um mid-Marchch we tend to at this time we're talking with staff about those that are potentially could be impacted and we do that early so that those that are impacted by this that they have time if they're going to um if they're going to be non-renew they have time to look for another position. So we back lot of that. Now do all do all districts follow kind of the similar calendar? Yeah. month behind we will be I mean it's out of it's out of respect that you do that for those people um and then mid
048to late May if there's any other nonlicensed people those are the people that we're talking to at that point and then in June we finalize the budget um I I broke this down as a proposed budget reduction um overview again um so that people could see the amounts And um one thing that I I did want to mention regarding those concerned with SLPs and how that data um also that's a contract and that's not a contract that we don't have right now and the contract is it a person in our building is it is not a person in the building um we are recommending strangely is in the end it would be um two FTEEs but note that we the board it's the will of the board um the will of the board can decide
049what to do um if you want to continue to deficit spend or we're going to have to find $150,000 elsewhere so then so can I just clarify what that means so the contract so are we changing our number of current employees outside that contract for SLP the death plan no okay so none of our people Oh, there still need space. Okay. Now, FTE, what is that? For anyone who's watching this later, what does FTE stand for? Your full-time equivalent. So, 1.0 full-time equivalent. Okay. And these positions that you're tenur people, are they probationary people? What What is Can you say it? Probationary due to the seniority in probation what just in case anyone's watching later. They're non tenure. non-tenure. So in the tenure process just again I'm doing this for anyone that watches the video
050later and I know we have a lot of teachers here they they get it but I want I'm glad that when I look over at the teachers are nodding so we can do well but I want to explain to anyone that watches later just to make sure everyone understands. So what is the probation notion how does tenure work for our team? It will depend. We have like a generic like if it's after their third after a teacher's been teaching for three years after their third contract continuing contract, right? Okay. Right. Okay. So, basically what we're talking about is people who have not met that standard of time at the very least yet. Okay. So, that's that's why I want again because we have our video and stuff. I want to make sure if anyone watches
051later. Can I ask a question in regards to the SLPs and the lighthouse speech contract that we have? Is that a yearly contract or is that a by student contract or how does that work? Because I looked on the website today again to see what positions we have open and we've been using them for a full year or more last year for a year for this year. Okay. and then even for hiring. So, do we have to use them for a full year or is it something that we could have had them on our as maybe hiring a graduate from that graduates in December or you know something like that? Is is it something that we just chose not to look for somebody to fill that spot since our lighthouse is way more expensive because
052we're contracting them out. So tell the story. So that's what I'd like to know. Like Sure. We we had posted for an SLP last year and we didn't have any applicants. Okay. So we had to move to use telealth speech and so it is a year contract. Okay. And actually when you you look um did it cost us more? Yes, it did. Um but we were able to I think dismiss quite a few students as well using the service. But typically when you hire an SLP that's an expensive staff member as well because it's a a master level typically with experience as well. So did it cost a little bit more? did, but it wasn't that it cost $80,000. But looking at the service that you're getting from an in-house, somebody that's our own staff
053compared to an online service, we're going to get much better service from somebody who is in our building working for us than online. I know from previous experience with my own son having an online service, you do not get the same service as you do with somebody sitting right in front of them working with them. So that's that's what I'm saying is like yes maybe even in eighth grade or seventh grade it you know or a senior in high school knowing that I'm just saying that if we have a position that's open and we're paying for a contract we should still have that position on our HR that we're hiring for that position because we should always be looking for somebody to fill that even if we're contracting it out to fill like that would
054be the best option. to have our own staff here. Then we would both contracts we lighthouse for this year, right? But you're not going to find anybody until that spot if we don't have somebody to hire. I think I think out of clarity, we're locked in for this year with white house. So if we found somebody in December twice. Yeah. So I think what what I'm understanding though if we went ahead with the proposal for lighthouse speech for instance there's nothing that says if we find ourselves needing SLP services beyond what our team could do we could not there's no reason why we couldn't go back find services with them or but we have to hire for another year we have to sign a contract with them for a year Right. But we would look
055at per student. Okay. Is that what we did now? Like is that we had 60 spots I believe for um for the play house and then we kept our own case loads smaller here. So typically you would have a smaller case load for elementary early childhood. your secondary would have a higher case. So at your point, we should have filled the case loads of each artist SLPs internally here first and not use lighthouse as much as we did. Yeah. Which is what So you're in agreeance with increasing increasing. But that's what you're saying with the pipeline. I'm asking with the contract. We'll we'll look at the data. We'll look at the data and we'll have to have more discussion on that more discussion. Yes. Um and we are planning hopefully to have a work session
056next week. We could add it to the work session um agenda to have more talk about it. is is it better versus first speech language services but remember it's not all right I think I think we got a lot of good answers and questions and explanations on this proposal timelines have to be adjusted obviously but um I think we're really working on due diligence uh making sure everyone understands where we need to be and all that stuff. Anything else? Thank you very much. Um that was the budget presentation and discussion. There is no action needed. We are striking intent with the resolution. Um and now the policies requiring review. Um this is the third and final reading for these. This uh which means we'll need to have A motion to approve. We have policy 534,
057our school meals policy, and we have 799, post issuance compliance policy. So unless there's any discussion or anything about those, I'll happily take a motion to approve them. I'll make a motion to approve policies. Thank you, Wayne. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. A second by Stephanie. Thank you. All in favor, please say I. I oppose. All right. Now, Todd, thank you for holding on with us. Uh, Mr. Todd Netsky, uh, who is doing our, uh, financial position currently, uh, thank you after, uh, the wonderful Aaron was with us. So, uh, you got you got big shoes to fill, but I know you can do it. All right, I'm going to try. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Um, I will start with sharing my screen here. So, we have it up for Yeah,
058we got it. Which Well, I was going to Okay. Well, I was just just going to clarify the um the 12% and 10% real quick and show you that calculation. But yeah, um the 10.25% is our unassigned fund balance divided into total expend expenditures, total general fund expenditures. The 12% is calculated if you divide our unassigned fund balance into just our unassigned expenditures. So that number is reduced because we're pulling out all the restricted expenditures. So I think that's the difference. So the 10.25 is probably what showed up in the audit as our ending fund balance because that's the way the auditors calculate that. The other calculation is often referred to as the SOB calculation. So that's that. Um, so which reports do you have pulled up? Is it the budget updates? No, I have
059a enrollment tracking. Okay. Um, I apologize. I don't have that one up. Any chance you can help me talk through that? Otherwise, I do have another enrollment. T, why don't you just go ahead and share your screen and we'll we'll adapt on our end. You go ahead. Okay. Still learning the the process. Sorry. It's fine. It's all right. Okay. So, this is the enrollment I have. And there might be some additional information on what you were sharing that isn't here, but as Trish was saying, we are at 1839. Um, this number here is 1854 because it includes our early childhood ADMs. Um, but K through 12, we're at 1839 and that's the number that I'm currently using in our in this tool. I'm also doing a 5-year projection. So, um, so just point that out.
060Um from an adjusted pupil unit standpoint, we are down one from last year. So relatively stable this year. Uh but as we can see projecting forward um because of our lower incoming kindergarten that's being projected currently um at 100 for next year and we've assume that that will be the the number going forward. As of now, um we would decline to potentially 1858 adjusted pupil units by 2030. So that's about 70 kids or so down. I did my rough 167 students down. Trish, do you want to add any comments to that? I think Todd for Caner right now if we have 100 we would be very fortunate. We're thinking more 92 about the number. What was that number? 92. 92. Um I think we're at what like 88 right now or something? I think 86
061or 87. Okay. So Okay. And so if we have to lower that, that's going to be even um more of a negative impact on our projected budget. So So Todd, um last week you're at the work session with us, which I really appreciate it, but because we're talking about, you know, reduction and budget and all that, you shared kind of a five-year produ projection of our numbers about how the enrollment really ties to where our our stuff is. Could you show that to everyone? Make uh I really want to make sure that it's explained. Sure. So, this is the 5-year plan executive summary report. Um I need to update our fund balance goal. um 12% of their goal. Update that. Okay. So what we're showing here is our projected enrollment. We have ADMs um ADM
062at 1854 for the current budget and then declining by a total of 176 ADMs. And when you wait those that's a reduction over the 5 years of 167. Um we're showing the formula allowance that the state um at a minimum is 2%. We can see for FY26 it jumped up to 2.74. Got a little rounding going on there. So it's showing 2.73. That was roughly an additional $55 per pupil unit that we're going to generate because the CPI index came in higher. So bumped it up next year. And that's potential as of now legislation doesn't exist for the future as well. But we're budgeting at the conservative known minimum of 2%. You see we have no voter approved referendum in here. If you'd like, we can quickly simulate what if we did pass a certain
063dollar amount for people unit. Let's do it without yet because I just want to show reality of where we're at because we've never done the the operational referendum levy. So I want to show what life is what we're looking at as our potential reality. Sure. So what we have in this section is we have two years of history. We have our revenues here, two years of history, our current budget, and then we have our projections forward. And you can see projections forward are pretty conservative. U many of our revenues don't change year-over-year. Federal and local um like gifts and interest revenue are pretty flat. Um property taxes can change with our enrollment. A lot of those revenues are driven by students. Um and then of course you know our state aid is is uh primarily
064driven by students. Um even special ed is impacted by that. As our population goes down our special ed student population potentially goes down and um hopefully our costs go down which drives our revenue down. Um so then we have our expenditures. We have broken out two different ways here. We have by what's called object series. So salaries, benefits, purchase services and so on. Then we also have the same expenditures sorted by um what's called program like site admin, district admin and so on. So looking back the spending variance there's our total general fund revenues less our expenditures and we had a deficit spend in FY23 of 11,438 a def deficit spend last year of [Music] 825,106 we're budgeted to deficit spend 430,548 and we are back in the black in FY26. A big part of
065this though is 600,000 in additional long-term facility maintenance revenue which can only be used to maintain our facilities. Um so just note that without that we would be up 300,000. Um from a fund balance standpoint just real quickly. So the projections you can see is this says factor in the reduction of 505,000 or so um for FY27. That's the total number. I can't remember if that was all general fund Trish. Um so that I think was community ad for a position. Um so it factors in the general fund portion of that and then we start the deficit spending and that uh multiplies or magnifies as we move forward with expenses increasing at 3% a year in FY 278 and so on. And for this initial projection, we just did the 3% across the board on
066all expenses just to get a rough projection of um our main concern is the unassigned fund balance. And you can see we we dropped again in FY25 by potentially 320,000 or 420,000 uh to 2.2 million. That would be a unassigned fund balance percentage of 8.56%. And that math is again taking this divided into our total expenditures like they do in the audit. And next year we would bump up a bit by about from a percentage standpoint 1.3%. Are we achieving our fund balance goal? No, we're not. Um the amount of adjustments needed to achieve our fund balance goal on FY26 would be an additional reduction of 555,939. And then here's the SOD calculation. For anyone that's not unfamiliar, can you explain what SOD means? That is statutory operating debt. So once our our SOD percentage
067basically is our unassigned fund balance divided into our unassigned expenditures. If that becomes not sure how you want to say it, greater than -2.5%. until we get to 2.51%. We're in statutory operating debt. The state requires us to do additional planning and actually submit a three-year plan um showing how we're going to get out of SOB in 3 years. And if you don't achieve it, you just continue to update your three-year plan until you're successful getting out and getting I mean, so are we looking at this? When we say getting out, I mean, we're talking cuts thing. I mean, it just becomes out of our hands, right? To an extent. Yeah. I I heard the voter approve referendum mentioned earlier. I feel like we're really at a point where that needs to strongly be considered
068or we're just going to be cutting year after year. You can see we technically to achieve our fund balance goal, we should be cutting an additional 555,000 for next year. If we don't do that, which that's not the plan, um we need to cut 1.1 million in FY27 to achieve our fund balance goal by the end of FY27. And these aren't cumulative numbers, just updates. What's what's the reduction needed in 2028 would be 2.4 million. So what year would would SOD occur if we keep on the current path? I think that's what we want to hear. Yep. from the current path that occurs in apply 2029. So we have basically four fiscal years. Am I reading that correctly? Correct. So folks, I I I don't want to be an alarmist, but we have some numbers
069and obviously it's projections, but Todd is very good at what he does. And we are going to have to really get together as a as a team here on the board, here at the school, here in the community, and we're going to have to decide some things. I mean, we're, you know, cuts are going to have to keep happening unless we work together to figure out what a referendum operating levy looks like we can do for our town, what we're what we're willing to work for together. And so, I don't know, we have we have four years to get that figured out as a as a group, what we think we can do and work very hard together. here. So, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm asking for everyone in this room, everyone
070that's watching to really do some soularching and hopefully um answer the call when it's made. Thank you, Todd. Anything else on that? No, that's it. Unless you want me to do anything different with this. I think that's probably a future meeting, though. Any other questions, comments from the rest of my team on the board here? All right. I guess in that case, we'll move on. Thank you so much, Todd. You're welcome. Um, I guess in that case, we're ready for administrator information and reports. Uh, does anyone have anything else to add tonight? We'll go to We'll go from Mr. English down. How's that sound tonight? Uh just not a whole lot to throw in different than those in my report. Just want to know spring uh activities are underway. Uh we started girls and boys
071golf today to go along with softball baseball and boys and girls track. Boys tennis will start next week. The spring play is up and running. Speech is getting ready to finish up their portion of the season. We host the Granite Ridge Conference meet uh in Foley on Thursday for speech. Um, and then one uh additional point that uh that I want to just reiterate was if you had the opportunity uh to be at our unified basketball game during the school day uh last week, it was something that was truly special, truly remarkable. Um just a really heartwarming event. Uh and just want to make sure that I get a second thank you to Miss Jennass for all the work that she does with our unified club and and making sure that that's an opportunity that
072we provide for our students here because like I said, it is really a incredible incredible thing. Miss Stewart tonight, anything to add? Uh, just congratulations to the returns for all their years of service from Kent Anderson, Becky Howard, and then Miss Karen will be dearly missed and guilty and will be a very hard face to fill. She's been great in that program and has done a great job. So, Mr. Clover, anything to add tonight? Nothing to add tonight. All right. Well, you did a great job on the mission statement. Mr. Beerman tonight. Nothing to add. All right, Mr. Poss. So, I'm just gonna add one more comment about the unified game. One of the people in attendance was retired principal from the OIO school district and he commended our students and our community for putting
073it on and just the support from our students for that, but also the support from the community. Um, if you were there, you noticed we had some short basketball hoops for students in wheelchairs. We didn't have those until about two weeks ago. and we put out one call to the community and a donator a donor gave those to us. Wonderful. That's awesome. Our community I always say our community always steps up when we need them and they also know that we don't ask uh lightly when we ask for things either. So I think we we have a trust with that and our community responds. Uh Dr. Perry, anything to add on your end? I just have a couple different things. Um, I just want to acknowledge that it was National School Breakfast Week and um,
074since the last time that we met and we had quite a few volunteers that came and helped serve breakfast. So, thank you to those volunteers and we know that our kitchen staff just really does a tremendous job not only serving breakfast but for lunch as well. Um, and I'd also like to echo Mr. English and Mr. boss and the unified basketball game against Malaca and also thank Malaca for being willing to um share in that experience. Not only do they allow their students to come to our facility, but we also go to Malaca as well. And um our student body just was excellent. It didn't matter if the kids were from Malaca or from Foley. Everyone um cheered for anyone that made a basket, didn't make a basket. It just did not matter. I don't
075think anyone so so many times I think in sports we're wrapped up on the score and who wins and it didn't matter on that day. Um everyone was a winner and there were smiles and they was dancing and thank you to Janelle Hesh who um led our band. Um we had concessions. Jenny Grass for acknowledging the so many staff members that help um not only um for that day but they do a lot of neat programming within unified There's a lot of adults that come and help. So, thank you to all those people. And Jen um was also recognized as educator of um the month. I don't remember the radio station off hand, but um really did a great job of representing Holy Public Schools. So, Michelle would be very proud of the different work
076that's happening not only in the high school, but all in the buildings. Fantastic. All right. Then, uh we'll move on then to meeting events and notices. Uh there was one listed here, a special board meeting from the calendar this week. We do not need that because we took care of it. So that meeting is cancelled once again. Uh and a thank you to our calendar committee and we might make sure we uh we had a meeting scheduled just in case needed more time. So thank you for getting that done. Uh we are going to have a regular board meeting here at 5:30 on the 14th of April. Not an April Fool's thing. So uh get your seat reserved now, I guess. Um that's it for the regular meetings. We'll have committee reports. Uh was anyone
077at DAX recently would like to share or anything? Well, there was um they talked about standard based grading. Um Joel gave a very good um explanation on the career and college fair. Um Trish talked about youth um front cheers. Um gave a lot of information. We talked about unified basketball and the game and a lot of the parents that were there were very happy that their ninth grade boys came home and talked more than they've ever talked the whole year. They said um in regards to that and I have I can say my 10th grader came home and he told many stories and who got threes and who got this and who got that. So I did hear all about it. Um we also went over the financial presentation um at the Thank you. I
078was unable to attend, so I'm glad you made it. Thank you very much. Uh wellness committee, anything our wellness team? Athletic boosters, anything this time to share? Oh, uh Mr. Ken Anderson was there. Are we okay with letting him give her a quick report on athletic boosters? No, that's not Oh, Ben Sterns. Oh, okay. Um I thought you were raising athletic. Well, then we'll go to Ben Sterns. Mr. Anderson is still uh helping us out and he's still on the Ben Sterns board. And Stephanie, you are also serving on that, correct? Yeah, I'm now on that board. Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. So, are you a representative? Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Yeah. Uh yeah, go ahead. Um ju just to follow up, um what we still are struggling with is finding space. um for facility.
079Okay. And so we have another presentation. We're always kind of behind. On Wednesday, we have another meeting and so that's a significant part of the agenda. All right. Mr. Anderson is the board member of the Betton Sterns Educational District. Is there anything you'd like to add since you're front and center? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um let's see. Finance. We've had a lot of finance stuff today. Is there anything else to be added to finance? All right. Well, area foundation is one of our committees. Does anyone have anything to report there? I had a meeting on Wednesday last week, but correct there wasn't a quorum meeting and so we're in the process of scheduling since I think three of us were four of us the stewards that two and they were all here. Um they are
080rescheduling that meeting. So, if you haven't responded to the April, please respond to her so she can get another meeting date. All right. The health and safety committee, was there anything going on there? Yes. Um, we had a meeting last week and we're doing really well with working comp claims. They're down. Um, so that was a real positive from the insurance point of view. And I think that was really think that was did is just looking at our our claims and then putting another meeting date and then we also um finished scheduling our um lockdown drills and then tornado drill as well. Uh the insurance committee is there anything from there yet? And then of course the MSBA is anyone can report from that. Um the only thing that I would encourage is that if
081you haven't done your phase one training to complete that but then also there's some really great coming up about budget planning. I would encourage you to watch that. Um if you if you don't have don't register because everything is recorded, but the budget will probably be a very good one. Anything from the Minnesota State High School League policy we heard from. All right. And then tenure and contract negotiations. No. So thank you everyone for your committee work this time. Uh, at this point, well, in that case, we'll go to the board members. We'll start with Nathan tonight. Miss Vizner, thank you to Ken and Becky for their service. I think that's all I definitely um I had the opportunity to go to the unified game and it was amazing. Like if you ever get the
082opportunity to go to the cabin, it um I was like emotional. It was so great. and I have some that attend. So, and Jennif does such a great job. She is such a great teacher and oh, just so much for kids and congratulations. Alyssa. Um, I just want to make a shout out to all of our students. They're working hard. We're nearing the nice weather and just they're getting excited to be done and still putting in all the efforts and hard work. Um, I also just want to um just our athletics in general. Those kids are also working hard. I know our youth wrestling did really well. Um, and they're all moving on to the state tournaments. Um, and then also our archery team. Our archers work in a very small area of the school
083because there's not a lot of facility space. But we were in Zimmerman over this last weekend and we had eight archers who shot perfect 50s and 47 of those archers shot their personal best. That's in 3D and bullseye. Um in the 3D high school and middle school placed top 10. Middle school was third place. High school is seventh. Um we've had a few individual placings. Um so it's team and individual in the bullseye. Um high school took second, middle school took first, elementary took fourth. Um again, multiple podiums that night. Um it's really cool to see. This is one of the bigger tournaments as is the tournament next weekend and the next weekend. So just if you know a nurtor congratulate them because they are all working very hard and improving very much through the
084season. Fantastic. Thank you. Sharon, anything tonight? Um congratulations to Karen Erin um for her many years of service. She has brought so much positive to our little learners and I want to thank each and every one of you for coming tonight. Right, Mr. Wilson. No comment today. Thanks. All right, I got to pull up my notes here because um speech was mentioned. The conference meeting is this week and um uh Maria Zimi is our coach and she's actually really optimistic because our conference is kind of a smaller group of schools and our team is doing uh very strongly this year. Um, I got to have the pleasure of going to judge a meet a few weeks ago and I'm hoping to do so soon again, but I want to say that the meet I got
085to judge was uh one of the largest meets in our area. Like normally a couple schools come and whatnot. There are 500 students competing at this meet. um the the meat was so big. So there's always like a finals round for some of the categories. They broke it up finals almost made finals and even a couple of them kind of third. So like you had up to 24 students who were getting awarded outside of like their normal rounds. So it was amazing. So, they kind of give you an idea of how competitive it was. And um and I'm going to make sure I got the name right here before I I I say something. Max Better took second in the humorous category at that meet and that that part is not broken up by school
086size or anything. So, he was second overall in his category that meet, which is amazing. Eli Nick brought home an honorable mention in her category. Fantastic. I mean, the kind and again I I can't stress enough. There's a lot of schools. There's a lot of kids. Foley in the small school uh category took second. So um it is amazing to watch and it's very exciting. So I want to say congratulations to all of them and I want to say that Maria Zita is doing an amazing job. She also did the junior high I think I mentioned last time you know kind of say wow we got a lot of success program is is definitely building up. It's really cool to see. Um, spring play as mentioned, please go see a show. And we are hitting
087that magical time of year where there's gonna be a lot of cool cool things to see, right? Uh, especially as the seniors are kind of having their uh, victory lab. We're going to have, I believe, the prison concert coming up in May, which is really like a school talent show. Highly encourage everyone go see that. It's awesome. There's going to be concerts, there's going to be plays, there's going to be awesome athletic events. Uh there's no reason for you to be bored on any given night in this town. So that's all I have to say tonight. Anything else? I think we're good. So sadly, I will take a motion to adjourn. Motion to motion by Sharon. Is there a second? Second by Alyssa. I didn't think there was going to be a second. All right.
088All in favor? I oppose. All right. We are injured.