001[music] >> Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. [music] Ooh. >> [music] [music] >> Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. >> [music] [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. >> [music] [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. >> [music] [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. [music] >> [music] >> Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. Ooh. >> [music] >> Ooh. >> Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. Oh. [music] Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >>
002[music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> Oh. >> [music] [music] >> Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. [music] Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. [music] Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >>
003[music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. [music] Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] >> Oh. Oh. >> [music] [music] >> Mhm. >> [music] [music] >> Oh. >> [music] >> Ooh. >> [music] [music] >> Ooh. >> [music] [music] >> I'd like to call the meeting to order with roll call. Brett White. >> Here. >> Morgan Brown. >> Here. >> Dusty Wear. >> Here. >> Brian Jones. >> Here. >> Becky Engel. >> Here. >> Christina Shark. >> Here. >> And Dave Wabner is here. Uh this is the first of two meetings tonight. The adoption of agenda and declaration of a quorum. >> Motion to adopt. >> Second. >> And a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in
004favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Now we go to the public hearing. Uh proposed property tax levy. I'll turn over to John. >> Thank you. This uh first meeting is is a special meeting. Uh it's a required step in the district certified budget process. We've been doing this for a couple of years now. Uh the district provided the maximum property tax levy being considered to the county auditor on March 5th. And that information was shared through a mailing to all property tax owners in the district's boundaries in mid-March. Notice Notice of this hearing was also published on district social media platforms, the district website, and printed in the Ottumwa Courier on March 21st. Um the purpose of it is to give any community member the opportunity to address the board to speak against or
005in favor of the proposed property tax levy. Uh the board would consider all feedback to be considered prior to the final hearing, which will be next board meeting, uh and final approval of the budget at that time. So, um that's kind of the opening statement. Um people can send written comments. I did not receive any. And then uh we can give an opportunity to receive oral comments if there are. And so, I didn't receive any notifications and um if anybody >> have anything either. >> So, if anybody wants to, they're welcome. >> Anyone? >> You can see behind me. >> Bueller? Um so, I don't have anything. So, I guess we will we will close this and with an adjournment of this meeting, I will need a motion. >> Make a motion to adjourn. >>
006Second. >> Motion is second. Further discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. Okay. That meeting is adjourned. Now, we'll start the more exciting meeting. >> [laughter] >> And we're going to go ahead and call this one to order, too, uh with roll call. Brett White? >> Here. >> Morgan Brown? >> Here. >> Dusty Ware? >> Here. >> Brian Jones? >> Here. >> Becky Ingle? >> Here. >> Christina Shark? >> Here. >> Dave Wabners here. The adoption of agenda and declaration of this quorum. >> Motion to adopt. >> Second. >> A motion and a second. Further discussion? If not, all those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Uh citizen speak. I don't have any green cards tonight, either. So, we will move right on to Dusty's big dog challenge. >> Thanks a lot,
007Dave. Appreciate it. Uh tonight uh it's going to be probably a little difficult be me uh emotionally to keep it together. So, I'll try to keep it together because um what really took place in our district was phenomenal, and it was it far exceeded my expectations as far as our fundraiser. And I think it it didn't renew, but it certainly solidified um why I tumble and why our district is a very special place. How everybody came together. Uh tonight we wanted to kind of celebrate uh the results. Uh the results are, again, far exceed my expectations. Um we will be sending a check tonight for $25,000 to Heartland. Um which IS EXCITING. YEAH. >> [applause] >> AND WE'RE REALLY EXCITED TO DO THAT. We're also some of our other goals that we were able to
008meet is um and again, it was just unbelievable what uh schools did to meet this goal. Is we wanted to raise enough food and supplies for a year for Heartland. And we feel like we did that. And that's amazing. If the amount of food that we delivered last week was just unbelievable. Um and so that's exciting, too, that we met that goal. It's going to help so many animals. Uh but then thirdly, one of our goals was we wanted to place as many animals as possible. Uh we project probably close to 140 animals were placed over the month period. And I can't just warms my heart that that many animals found, you know, needy animals found homes. Uh so, you know, when you look at the whole big picture of it, it was just an
009incredibly successful fundraiser. And tonight we wanted to take the time to really recognize the people that made this fundraiser successful. So, we want to first recognize and invite uh Maria's going to read off all the people that uh, volunteered in the buildings. We probably had two to three people in every building that volunteered uh, their time and a lot of time to make this fundraiser successful in the buildings. And what I discovered is if you put out uh, a request, uh, would you like to be part of a fundraiser like this, it was not hard to find people that wanted to be part of it. And we just found incredibly caring, dedicated people to this cause and they're they're a big part of the reason we were successful with this the fundraiser. Um, kind of
010an example today was um, I was at Liberty for a pep assembly and we had four staff members uh, cut their hair get their hair cut for the fundraiser. And then also uh, uh, which they did a great job lip sync too. There were several teachers that lip synced in celebration. So, um, uh, Cooper, you may want to show your Cooper was one that uh, >> [laughter] >> But it was a great celebration. Uh, the kids were so excited and um, it was just you know, we talked about all the things our kids got out of this fundraiser. You know, the compassion, the empathy, uh, um, really a focus on giving back to your community and being civic-minded. And it was just uh, again, it was it was a joy to see how excited these
011kids were. So, uh, with that I'll turn it over to Maria and we have a gift for each one of our volunteers as well. >> Yes, so when I call your name or if you know you if you are a part of the Dusty's Big Dog Challenge, if you want to kind of congregate over here. I'm going to call everybody's name, but when I call yours, if you could come up and accept your gift uh, from Superintendent McGrory and then you will come back up eventually and we'll take a group picture. All right, we have Allison Chichisola, Angie Griffiths, Caroline Sanchez Vargas, Cooper Smith, Courtney Brown, Elizabeth Smith, Heather Burgess, Heather Swanstrom, Jessica Neely, Jodie Hammon, Julie Shook, June Schneckloth, Katie Nauman, Kim Brisby, Kim Nauman, Kristen Carlson, Christy Basket, Lorena Evans Wooten, Lisa Lott,
012and Lisa Scott, >> [laughter] >> Lisa Waters, Meadow Ream, Megan Klein, Mia Calcaterra, Michelle Gritsalis, Quincy Cotchrow, Rebecca Hellwig, Sarah Hazelwood, Stephanie Anderson, Tammy Stevens, and Tiffany Stevens. Thank you so much, everybody. This You guys made this challenge so special. It's really fun to see what you did. >> [applause] [clears throat] >> Mhm. >> Gets their trophies. Their gift. >> Their gift as well. Yeah. Yep, I did. Thank you. Thank you again. If you and if you can stay around, we'd really appreciate it uh just for a few more minutes. Uh next we wanted to show we have a video that kind of illustrates and gives an overview of the fundraiser and some of the really neat aspects of it. Um and you'll see in this in this video all the different uh things schools
013uh really did to make this uh fundraiser successful. So, Jeremy? >> Don't view ourselves as a district and then a community. We view [music] our our district as part of the community. And this is our way of really showing that we [music] are part of the community and that we want to give back to the community as well. One of the [music] things we know that we're learning is compassion, empathy, uh really giving back [music] to their community. I encourage you to continue with that cause uh because you are making a difference and >> [music] >> you are changing your community and hopefully uh you can see that. >> So, it it kind of highlights, yeah. >> [applause] >> We next want to recognize our sponsors um as a lot of you know, Dusty was
014a sponsor uh for um this cause. Um Dusty was uh incredibly uh supportive but also really helped getting other sponsors, too. Um we Anthony Christinger was another one of our sponsors. Uh Jared Pierce from Pierce Fencing was another sponsor. And then um also Legacy. And the Legacy was very gracious also in donating uh to this cause as well. Um and then I was also one of the individuals that that uh donated as well. So, uh we wanted to take this opportunity to thank them for their generosity for supporting They get 140 animals adopted was amazing. I think when we first came out there there was probably about 180 total animals out there. So, to get 140 adopted is is huge. There's a lot that come in every day. So, it doesn't mean there's only 40
015out there, but there it still was amazing how big a difference it made. So, I want to personally thank all of our sponsors for all you know, being so gracious and and their willingness to help out. It made a big difference. Let's have a nice round of applause for them. >> [applause] >> And then lastly, we wanted to present the check to Heartland today. We've got I've always wanted to give a big check. So, we've got a big check to give to Heartland. But before we do that, we invite Heartland staff to come up and I know they wanted to say a few words before we presented the check. So, you're welcome to come up. >> Okay, first I just wanted to thank everybody that was involved. Everyone that donated or you know, their time.
016That was not an easy thing, I am sure. Um the donations that was I have never seen so many in my entire life. I was overwhelmed and honestly, that was a good problem. We were trying to figure out where to put things for 3 days. But we made it work. >> [laughter] >> We want to thank yeah, the sponsors. That was awesome. Mr. McGrory for that awesome idea. We did get a lot of dogs out and yet we still have a lot. You know, we're right back up to where we were. But 140 animals got good loving homes and they don't have to be with us anymore which is a nice thing. So now we'll just keep going. So we just wanted to thank everybody. >> [applause] >> And then if we could have also
017the individuals that helped out in the building we'd like you to come up as well and then Dusty if you want to join us as well too. We'd love that. >> [applause] [laughter] >> I like that. I have is um uh some of you may have noticed I I brought a we we were asked to shelter a puppy and uh it has a few health issues and we were more than happy to to kind of foster uh the puppy uh and it's probably my way of encouraging that they do have that need too at Heartland to find people that will foster animals as well before they can find homes. So, if you uh um are able to do that, I I hope you think about doing that because it makes a big difference for a
018lot of animals, too, before they get placed. So, Chloe's very special and I'm sure she'll get adopted pretty quickly. So, That's thanks a lot, Dave. >> Before we move on, if if you want to leave, we can allow you. >> [laughter] >> You're you're welcome to stay, but don't don't feel like you have the need to if you don't want. Okay. So, we'll move on to the consent agenda. >> Motion to adopt. >> Second. >> A motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor raise your right hand. Opposed, motion carries. Okay. Uh board priority to be the best, we will create a positive learning and working culture for our stakeholders and embrace our community partners through communication and transparency. We have uh three action items tonight. It looks like some bargaining
019settlements. >> John's going to uh Inbrader and some of our HR people [clears throat] are going to come up and join us to kind of go over the settlements with the board and then we'll open it up for any questions. We're going to make all of our HR people come up. >> They were fighting over who gets to come up, so. >> [laughter] >> Want to make sure they're on camera, so. >> Yeah, make sure they're on camera. Overall, I I want to thank all not only this group, but I also [clears throat] want to thank Brad. Did a great job. Uh and we're really happy with how our negotiations turned out with several of our groups, and I think they were really happy with the settlement. But, these people do the legwork on this,
020and we really appreciate that. So, I'll let you go over the settlements, and then we'll open it up for the board to ask questions. >> Yep. Sure. Thank you. So, yeah, we finished negotiation with four groups. We have three that are settled. One is still going to ratify, but I have been making good progress. And it takes several meetings. So, we thought we'd bring up some of the people that are part of those. This is the HR team, Sarah, Kristen, and McKenzie. And they they sat through many meetings that went on. Some of them short, some of them long. But, it's kind of a good team effort. And then, worked with the associations to come to some settlements that we think everybody walked away with feeling pretty good about. So, I'll go through all three
021of them, and then welcome any questions from the board. So, we met with the associate group. We're recommending or came to a total package increase of 4.24% with them. How that was achieved is that there were some existing updates. We did a lot of the associate pay updates last year where we did a dollar extra an hour and 50 cent an hour for certain positions. So, we brought those in. And then, we also gave a 42 cent hourly increase for all current staff, and we increased the base wage for new hires by the same amount. And we also increased the longevity pay tiers. So, and you'll see that common theme through most of the groups as they all kind of wanted to take a look at that, and we were all we're very happy to
022do so, because it's one of the ways that you can get a little extra for staff that are that stick around with you. So, we agreed to some of longevity pay increases, and that generated a 4 to 4.24% settlement. They've presented that to their membership and they have ratified that agreement. The next one we have is a secretary bargaining settlement. That group is a total package increase of 3%. We completed negotiations with them on March 5th and came to an agreement on a 50 cent hourly increase for all staff along with an additional 1% increase. Kind of like a cost of living bump. And also extended that 50 cent increase to all new hires. So incoming secretaries will get that. And they had some longevity pay increases for their that group as well. So that
023generated a 3%. They've presented it to their membership and ratified. And then the last one is the food service group. We settled with them on a total package increase of 3.58%. We finished with them on March 24th. They did a 3.25% increase for the to the hourly wages for all current staff. And we also increased the existing tiers by that same amount for new hires. And they had the same increases to longevity pay. So that group presented to their membership and they've ratified that as well. So those are the three. And and just as an update, we've finished negotiations with the custodians union, but they're going to meet to ratify and they couldn't do it before this meeting. So we'll bring that one back next meeting. And then we meet and start negotiations with the
024teachers group on Thursday of this week or Wednesday. It was supposed to be last Thursday, but the weather gods had something to say about that. So we rescheduled. So happy to answer any questions the group has. >> Maybe before we do that, John, if we could have our HR people introduce themselves. >> Please do. Oh, he's going to make you talk. >> Sarah Hopkins, HR manager. >> Kristen Mason, HR generalist. >> McKenzie Bond, senior HR generalist. >> And we're really fortunate to have these individuals in our HR department. They do a great job and we appreciate everything you did to help with negotiations, too, so Any questions from the board on the settlement? >> No one? If there's no questions um this is an action item, so we will need a motion to >> Approve.
025>> Motion to adopt. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Further discussion? If not, all those in favor raise your right hand. Opposed, motion carries. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Next board priority. Through the board's financial stewardship, we will provide operations technical curricular resources to staff, teachers, and administrators so that all students have consistent and sustained achievement. Um we do have some action items, but before the action item, we have informational uh presentation on the Tomah Park baseball softball project update. >> Thanks a lot, Dave. Um we're Brandon and I are really excited to update the board on uh our committee work uh on the baseball softball complex. Um just some of the highlights that I I want to uh through the process was that um one thing I was
026really proud of the committee is that um as most of you know, it uh it was a much more difficult it wasn't a difficult decision to want to move ahead with the project. The committee was completely on board with that. It became a little more difficult to decide do we want to go turf or grass? And I think the one thing I'm really proud of the committee is they vetted it at a high level. Um they had really tough discussions. They looked at the pros and cons both ways. Um I tell people now I've done enough research on turf and grass I could write a book on it. Um and uh I think our committee feels the same way. And they took their job very seriously. Um the the softball vote was uh uh it
027became pretty apparent that there was a lot of uniformity in what they wanted. Uh it was a 13 to 3 vote. Um and um they clearly wanted grass. Um and Brandon in a few minutes is going to talk about the reasons why they wanted grass over turf. Um and then uh the uh baseball uh the committee voted for a turf. And that was 9 to 7 vote. So, you can see it was a closer vote. I think there was more a lot more discussion about that um which way we should go. Um I don't want to give the illusion to the board that, you know, it was clear-cut. I think people both saw both sides of it, but at in the end uh I think they decided that turf was in the best interest of
028the baseball field. Um some things I I'd put in the back of the mind of the board is that uh you know, we had this committee was very diverse. It was large. They took what they uh the responsibilities very seriously. And I think if we're going to continue to have committees, uh I think it's important that we do empower them to make recommendations and support the recommendations. Um because I honestly, I can see arguments both ways, but um I was just proud to be on the committee because they took the responsibilities very seriously. Um also um I think uh the the vote uh Brandon's going to talk a little bit about um the turf field, what were some of the I think the key factors in the deciding that, and then we'll open it up
029to the board for questions. Uh one thing I would ask of the board is to really have that discussion tonight. It is a discussion item. We'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Um but uh the reason I I hope we have a good discussion is because um if there's a lot of apprehension about our recommendations, we don't want to move forward yet with it because we don't want to incur, I know this annoys Morgan, a lot of architectural fees if we're not going to go a certain direction. So, I really encourage the board to, you know, to say their thoughts tonight, what you think about the committee's recommendation, and I'll turn it over to Brandon. >> Yeah, so I'll start with softball. I think just just another note, we had experts on both sides
030come in, which I think was super valuable just to hear from both of them on on what it looked like. Like Mr. McRoy said, I think ultimately softball was pretty clear, and I think really comes down to maintenance, but also pre-game prep. And with softball, the size of the field and how fast that game is already uh really had an impact on them wanting to go wanting to go the natural way. Um not a game that that they necessarily want to speed up any more than it already is. Um on the baseball side, really kind of the the other end of the spectrum where the size of the field to maintain, but also to prep for games becomes a pretty pretty big factor. And the speed of the game isn't isn't as critical on that
031side. As we heard from from other folks and had discussions, I think, you know, another thing that came up that's valuable for us is just the multi-use factor for baseball. Um because of the size of that field, we have an opportunity to use it for other things as well potentially. And you really don't have that with softball. So, I think that was a lot of of the discussion we had, but I think um as Mr. McRoy said, we've talked to a lot of districts that are doing these projects, just finished them or or doing them, you know, here this fall, and and nobody's doing this. I mean, nobody's having a group like we had put together to to really have a thorough discussion and and take this decision seriously. So, um I think I think
032that's, you know, something I'm pretty proud of through this process as well. >> And before we open it up for questions, um I think one question the board would want to know is just financially, um uh where we're at. So, uh on this topic is that uh we do have uh $5 million set aside for this project. Uh the key question always there is will this impact any other projects? Uh we don't see that it will. Um we have the money available. Um it doesn't mean we have to spend the whole amount, uh but we have that much set aside. Um I think the board has seen that uh we take that uh fiduciary responsibility very seriously that we've come in under most projects under under cost. Um but I want to make sure the
033board knew that. Also, what we project so you have enough information for discussion is that they project probably a new turf field is about 1.5 million. Um if we were to redo the baseball field and and keep it as grass, you're probably looking at maybe 400,000. And these are, you know, these are are estimates. Uh so, it's not don't quote me on it. Um and then uh for uh the grass field for softball, we're probably projecting for four or $450,000 to put in a new softball field. Um one of our goals with softball would be to be able to play starting the following year. And one way you can do that is by putting in uh um sod. And the you know, so you can have that. If you If you probably don't put in
034sod, you're probably not going to have it that that upcoming year. And I think sod's the way to go anyway. Um so, those are the cost uh to the turf and grass. Uh before we open it up for questions, I'll let Christina and Dave, who were at all the meetings, that gave great input. So, if you have anything you'd like to add about the committee work. >> Um I would just want to add what you guys have kind of already said. I'm sitting here at making notes and I think we attended six meetings to talk about turf or grass. So, I really do feel like this was a pretty big group, probably 10 to 12 members that looked at every possible scenario. Um I agree with Mike. I know more about turf grass now than
035I ever thought I would before. Um in the end um turf was really what I would want to have seen for the baseball field. I think it's going to look the nicest. I think it's the maintenance is a lot easier and I think that's a real factor for us. Um as we're just wanting everything that we do to look top-notch and look the best. I think that um both would have looked great on year one, but I feel like turf was what was going to stand the test of time. And then also a deciding factor for me was um the multi-use um piece of it. So, we heard from an Iowa turf um company that just did a baseball field at Southeast Polk and they actually remarked their baseball outfield for football. So, in the
036fall when there's not as much baseball things happening, their football team uses that for practice and scrimmage. Um you can use it for the band can practice there when Shafer's busy. And then obviously soccer. Um Coach Yeager shared with our small subcommittee group last week that the markings that you can put out on those fields is all washable. So, that was really kind of all the factors that came um into play for me, but yeah, six meetings of 10 people at at least an hour a piece. There was definitely some time and research put into it. So, I felt like it was vetted well. >> Yeah, and I guess I would essentially echo all of the same things that have been said. Um you know, from walking we had meetings over at the you know,
037I guess it was the Babe Ruth field and we walked and and looked at what we currently have and what this will possibly look like. You know, there's multiple aspects to the project, you know, parking getting rid of one of the fields you know, will allow more parking things like that, but when it comes to just the turf versus grass yeah, I think it's you know, there's a a few things that I you know, at least I'm hopeful of as well especially for baseball. There's talk of you know, making the field smaller. Talked to a gentleman last week about moving home plate back. That will cut down on a lot of areas. We don't have a lot of empty areas that we have to turf. So I'm hopeful that making changes like that would probably
038lessen the cost of the turf. But I do think it was a I mean we we had you know, people working in the district. We also had people that aren't in our district that were at the meetings parents and supporters. So that was nice and in hearing all kinds of viewpoints all the way around the whole project. So it wasn't just about grass or turf. It was it was about the the complex in general. So I do agree and I think it was conducted you know, in a way that everyone felt that their input mattered and then obviously you know, voting on it. It was a you know, very democratic way for everybody to be able to get you know, feel like they have a say. You know, and I agree with Mike, you know,
039the community side or the community the committee side of things. I've been on committees before and I've also sat up here where I wasn't on a committee and you get recommendations and the people that put in all the work and and and really um you know, study what we're trying to do. It is nice to value you know, the work they put in. Otherwise, what's the point in having committees do this. Um and regardless [clears throat] of your turf or grass, you know, at least the way I feel is you know, the committee has kind of spoke and that's what they wanted. And so, like, you know, it was it was nice to see that. I was a little surprised. I will say that. Um not on the softball side. I was a little surprised
040on the baseball side that it was I thought it maybe it would be one way or the other a little bigger versus, you know, close, but either way, I think it it would be great. And um I won't [clears throat] name the individual I talked to, but he contacted me last week uh that 1,000% believes we should be doing turf. Um and so, I'll share that later. Um but anyway, so I do I thought it was a good process and and I agree with, you know, essentially all you said. >> And just as a side uh to what Dave and >> [clears throat] >> uh Christina are talking about, too, is that what we discovered we we contacted almost every school in Iowa that had turf. And um asked them, how did they come to
041that decision? And this is the reason I'm proud of our district and proud of the committee work is that they almost invariably said, well, we just we had set it aside 3 years ago. We never talked about it. We just thought turf was what everybody else was doing and and so, we should do it. And so, there wasn't really any analysis. There wasn't any discussion. Um so, no matter how it turns out, uh I can assure you we there was a lot of discussion and there wasn't a rock that wasn't uncovered. And uh and so, feel really good about the process we used. So, with that, uh we'll open it up uh to board members with questions or or comments. >> So, this is just informational tonight. So, but if you have any questions or
042comments or concerns or anything, now would be good time to voice those. >> I guess talking about like the multi-use part of it, you mentioned possibly like if the football and soccer and things like that, you think that's even a real option? I don't ever heard that issue before about lack of facilities, practice facilities for any of those teams. But I think if we go with turf, you know, I think we have to get more use out of it than baseball for that type of fluctuation in spending between the grass and turf. >> I think and I'll let Brandon also add to this. I we talked a we talked a lot about that breadth that we didn't want to oversell that aspect, but we do think it has a lot of value and where we
043see value is probably more our junior high and middle school needs. Uh one of our areas that would be great is a practice for our junior high football. Uh could be a very that's I think Southeast Polk does that right now. Um so, we do think it's very viable to use it for other things like soccer and so forth. Uh but we don't I don't want to in any way oversell it. That that will be something that will probably evolve and we'll have to figure out how we utilize it as well. So, Brandon, I don't know if you want to add. >> Yeah, I would just I would just kind of echo that piece. I think middle school's probably probably the angle there. Um you know, we definitely have a need I think with middle
044school football. Um probably probably soccer as well. Um and so, yeah, I think I think there's some merit to that being an option for sure. >> My comments are not Yeah, you know how I feel about this. I'm trying I don't want to be negative and I 100% agree with you that when we put committees together, we should respect their decision. I vehemently disagree with what the recommendation is going to be. Um I understand it's all going to look good on day one. We can completely tear it out and rebuild it every 3 years for less money if it looks bad after year three. Um the multi-use thing seems to me like we're reaching for justification, but um I don't I'll see the presentation and I'll remain positive. >> [laughter] >> I appreciate that word.
045Um I also, you know, is there anybody that can't live with that? Because like I said, our next step will be we will come back for board um action on this, but it'll be at a time where we'll probably start incurring architectural fees and things like that. So I wanted to make the board aware. Um if you do have a concern that you you can't live with the recommendation, we'd love to hear that now. So um we don't expend a lot of costs with this. So is anybody can't live with the the committee recommendation? >> I still have to be kind of sold on it to be honest with you. Um I'm not saying I just so like that 1.1 million difference with grass and turf. >> Mhm. >> If we decided not to go
046that way, I mean, I'm not saying not even we could use that for other things for that facili- facility too. I don't know what the batting cage situation is or anything like that over there. Um but I feel like we could still have a world-class grass field and be able to put more things into to other things. >> Yeah. Now wait, I I think the committee would agree that we can have a outstanding facility either way we go. There was I think it was just a matter of what the preference was and what made the most sense. So >> Brett, I'm kind of like I'm with you. That's this has been one of my hang-ups is for $400,000, I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying do that. That That would be Principal Park level
047grass over there. Plus, we've got another million dollars to do indoor throwing areas, indoor batting cages, more stuff that we don't have now rather than just moving two fields. And then even after we've moved two fields, we still just have two fields. So, that's one of my hang-ups. >> I think one thing that came up that maybe we won't have agreement on this is that that moved me somewhat towards turf was the cost the yearly cost of maintaining the field. And that is significantly more probably than people realize. Um but I also understand argument that at some point you have to replace the turf as well. So, I get that argument too. But But there is a yearly cost to it that is pretty significant to maintain a baseball field. I don't want to oversell
048it. I don't want to >> I'm all for to Morgan's point, you know, moving the softball complex and all that. Like I [clears throat] said, it sounds like everybody is, which is great. I think that was the the main crux of this when it all started. So, but just the the grass part of it it'd be like I said, I'm I'm probably against the turf as of now. >> Okay. Any other thoughts? >> I would ask >> Yeah, Dusty. >> I don't want to say I don't care, but I I uh I respect all the people that took the time on the committees and did all that, you know, I guess um I'm not saying with the I mean, I agree with these guys, but I also agree with the I mean, the the committee
049and you know, they're the ones that put in the time and effort and to uh sit up here and not agree with them. I should have been in the room with them, right? But um [clears throat] my question would be it's the same 16 people that voted for the softball and the baseball, the 13 to 3 and the 9 to 7. >> Yes. >> So, I guess just maybe to help everybody understand, you know, the the softball was pretty commanding, 13 to 3, very little pushback on on the baseball, there was I mean, that was a much closer race, 9 to 7. What were maybe maybe would help everybody understand a little more, what were some of the arguments or what made that race so tight compared to the softball one? I mean, what was
050the pushback the nine or the seven people that were against the turf? You know, what were what were what was your big pushback? >> And I'll I'll let Christine and Dave jump in on this, too, if they want, but uh I think the biggest consideration was cost. And that that like I think both Brad and Morgan brought up is um the difference in cost um between turf and grass. That was probably >> What's the lifespan on the like the turf system? >> Well, I mean, it depends on who you talk to. I mean, probably 12 years, you would take. >> And when you do go to replace it, you don't have to replace the whole thing. You just replace the sections that are worn out. You don't replace the entire field necessarily. One of the
051big discussions, Dusty, cuz that's a really good question, cuz I was kind of surprised at how different it was is softball's moving everything over to the park area. So, they're moving their concessions, their batting cages, their field, their um you know, all of the pieces that go to a complex, whereas baseball's already there. So, the district never really said we would split the 5 million like 50/50, but softball has more things they need to buy other than just a new field. And so, they kind of wanted to use their money a little bit differently and not put it all into a field, whereas baseball has the new ticketing booth, the new restrooms, and the new concrete pads for seating and a new fence recently. So, baseball felt like they just had the last piece of
052the baseball was really the field. So, baseball felt like they could put their money into the field, whereas softball was moving everything. And so, they didn't want to put all their money into the field cuz they needed everything else, too. >> Yeah, and I think to echo a little bit of that, softball was I mean, I would say very uh boisterous that they wanted grass. So, that was you know, honestly, I don't want anybody to think, "Oh, baseball's getting turf and softball's getting grass. Is softball, you know, are they getting a lesser field?" That wasn't really um from the from the softball you know, uh people that were really directly in softball were pretty adamant that they they wanted, you know, a grass outfield, dirt infield. Um >> I think the baseball people, Dusty, that
053wanted grass was just because they like just a more traditional look to the field, and I think we can all probably agree to that. The deciding factor between the two really just comes down to the maintenance. We had a really, really good um grass specialist come in and talk to us about how it's it's way more than just mowing. It's not a seasonal position. You're really looking at a 12-month specialty maintenance position that would have to maintain that well. Um so, that's kind of what Mike said about, "Yes, the initial cost is way different, but when you look at the additional maintenance cost of the grass over the course of the same 10-year period, by the time you get to the end of your 10-year, you're a lot closer than you are at the initial."
054The initial sticker price is pretty staggering. But over the course of 10 years, when you look at the maintenance between the two, you come a lot closer to the cost being the same. And so, I think there were just some more traditional baseball people that, you know, I mean, I I baseball. I love going to a nice grass field. But I think when you look at some of those, you're looking at resources, you know, like MLB or AAA, you know, going to the Iowa Cubs. They've got a lot different kinds of resources than what a school district has to offer as far as maintenance. So, I feel like we needed to go with what was more realistic for us to maintain and do it nicely over the course of that same period. >> And we
055have that those people within the district to maintain that grass softball field. >> Could you say that again? >> The we have like the the maintenance of the grass we have that we have that staff then to maintenance the grass the new grass field. >> If we if we >> standing is that the grass is more maintenance it takes more specialty people to do that. So, we have those people to do that. So, it's it's a year-round job. >> What we heard is um we would probably need if we go to three fields and they were all grass, we would probably need to add staff or your other option is that a lot of districts look at is they hire it out. Um the one um Albia does uh Oskaloosa does where they hire it
056out by Iowa Sports Turf. Um that's an option, too. But the one thing we heard over and over again is if you're going to go that option, those people have to be really trained at a high level uh to be able to do it. You can't just expect somebody to be able to take care of the those fields unless they unless they go to professional development. That that I thought came across loud and clear and I think the other thing that uh I I learned was I and I think this was a part of the reason they our softball people really wanted to go with the grass field is it just dramatically changes the game if you go with a turf softball field to a point where maybe even safety is a concern. And um
057what I didn't realize is that um I hope I'm saying this the right way is is at the college level you can't host post secondary games if your infield is turf. They don't even allow you to. So, I think that played a role in why so many people thought grass made total sense for for softball. >> Thank you. >> Your your annual depreciation value of a turf field is about $200,000 a year. >> Mhm. >> Cuz it's a million and a half to put it in. It's 2.25 to replace it. The 50% more cuz they got to tear it up and haul it away and dispose of it. So, $200,000 a year that's more than what it's going to cost to maintain a even the most expensive grass field. >> Yeah. No, I think that's
058>> Don't want I don't want to get that twisted like we put in a turf field and there's no cost cuz in 12 years it's needing replaced. >> And it's a significant cost in 12 years. Yeah. No, that's fair. >> I guess I would just say that >> [clears throat] >> I wasn't going to say anything, but I will I guess. Um travel around for Oh, it's been a couple years, but for 6 years with with my two kids that that played college both baseball and softball really love the whole aspect of the softball part of it. And you know, been to Arizona three times, Florida a couple times and where most of the stuff is turf baseball and softball there. Um but I do I I can live either way with or without it.
059I do agree on the softball part, but I I am with Brett and Morgan on on the baseball part. I like both ways. I've seen both ways at the college level traveling around the different states and seeing it at the college level. But I do I do agree with them their aspects of it, too. Softball hands down I do believe. But >> Absolutely. Now if they they ever moved baseball to the spring season or something this would be would be a totally different thing. You you don't think we really lose out on too many games baseball wise now. I mean occasionally what not, but you know, if it gets into the spring situation which that's not probably going to happen for a long time if it ever does in Iowa, but then it would be
060a totally different ballgame where we could use it year-round and things like that. >> Yeah, and [clears throat] I think that aspect Brad and then also that aspect that we saw some fields that went with turf because they do 190 events lower level. They have tournaments, they have you know, then it's it's pretty obvious you should go with turf probably, you know. I think just so I I know um does the board want to have this as a discussion item at the next board meeting and talk more about it or are you comfortable with us going ahead with starting to >> If if this is what the committee wants and that's what they've decided, I 100% will support the committee no matter how bad I think the decision is. [laughter] I'm not >> Then I
061don't want any more discussion. >> I'm not trying to derail things. Ready to move forward on the project cuz I think we've talked about it about as much as we possibly can. So I appreciate that. >> I'm willing to move forward, but >> Thanks Mark, and I appreciate that. >> I don't [laughter] know if this is the right way of thinking and I don't know if it's just being on the new board. Um you know, I guess I'd feel more comfortable if the committee was like 13 to three like um softball was. Um you know, I feel I I definitely respect the committee and I'm not selling this out by any means, but you know, we're also elected by a lot of people other people to be up here. Um and so I mean we
062still have to consider what other people in the you know, community that I've heard um and what not and more lean towards the grass and the cost from my understanding. Now the turf people want to reach out to me and talk to me about that, that'd be great, too. Um but I haven't really heard anything personally on that. >> So, we would I I think what I'm hearing is that um we could move forward with the architect design and so forth and come back with a timeline, come back with what first phase would look like. If you would like Brett, like I think what you're maybe asking if you would like uh somebody to to reach out, we can certainly set that up. That's not a problem at all. >> I'm sure just anybody in
063the community, that's fine. I mean, just if that's your people are wanting the turf, I'd be more than happy to hear why and and whatnot. But, I just I've heard more more grass personally. >> Yeah. >> Um and I trust me, I definitely respect what the committees went through to figure all that out. Like today even, Christina, your points, you guys probably never thought you'd know so much. So, you know way more than I ever would. So. >> Yeah, because when I first start to look at this, I would have uh I was thinking turf. And then I was after learning more, I was thinking grass. And then after learning more, I was thinking I I went back and forth. So, it wasn't an easy decision. It wasn't I don't think there's a clear-cut right
064decision on it. So. >> Just like officiating and stuff, there's there's never been a nice turf >> [laughter] >> any turf field I've been on, I'm always like, this is awesome. Like this is >> Right. >> it's great. I mean, it looks gorgeous. So, I totally get it. I mean, I think it would be it'd be a great visible use from the highway, you know, going off seeing that field. And I know it would get some good use, but it's got to make sure for that, you know, do due diligence with that kind of price difference. >> What was the recommendation on shortening up the baseball field? >> There There wasn't really right a recommendation. >> much, I guess, [clears throat] would it be asking? >> There wasn't a recommendation on doing that, and there
065wasn't a recommendation on how much to shore up. We thought we'd bring in some experts to say, you know, what should Right now, even take the the whole question of turf and and grass out of it. We think probably the baseball field is a size, you know, you have maybe one or two home runs a year that it would make it more interactive, more fun to bring in the fence. So, I think that's something we were considering anyway, but I think we'd let the experts determine like what should the foul line be and I think some other cost savings like Dave alluded to was probably uh we probably have a foul territory that's as bigger than most major league foul territory. You might be able to recoup or save some money there, too. So, we
066would look at all those aspects and how to make it maybe uh more exciting game there. >> We also have a bullpen on the field. So, we would put that outside of the turf area. >> Yeah. >> I don't think he'll care. I mentioned this earlier. Um unprovoked, I'm not sure why he texted me, but Rick Heller was who I was talking about earlier and he's done three fields like this and and he's the one and I didn't think about this of moving home plate back, which really have to anyway to get the angles right for the foul lines. But, it I mean, that significantly uh shortens the amount of turf that we will need. Um so, to answer your question how much defense will come in, I don't know. But, I'm going to I
067mean, it's 385 to center. I guess it's probably going to be 350. I mean, that's probably a guess. And then the lines 315, 320. Um I mean, that's a guestimate, but that's significantly smaller than what we currently have. Um >> [laughter] >> Um but that would and you know, as Christina said, the bullpens go outside the fence, so you don't have to have all that foul territory that So, there there would that would really cut down on the the amount of turf at least in that areas. >> So, I think we'll we'll move forward with uh planning it out. We'll come back with the timeline um and um also um what the first phase will look like uh for board approval then. If you and then board knows this if you have further questions that
068feel free to reach out to me and I'll I'll get answers for you. So and just let us know Brett if you would like we can set up that meeting for a turf person to come in and we've got some really good ones that could talk about that. So >> Sounds like it. >> What's up? >> Sounds like it. Like you guys have good turf people. >> Yeah, we do. We do. Thanks thank you. Thanks Brett. >> Okay, moving on. Now we have some action items and I guess we'll start John with the 27 budget presentation. >> All right. So if everybody wasn't hadn't had enough talking about numbers, I got a whole presentation full of them. So buckle in. But this is this is the annual budget presentation. I'll try to be respectful of
069board's time. But at any time if you have a question, you know, just kind of holler otherwise I left some time at the end. So we're just going to kind of go through. This is our first hearing. We'll have one more next board meeting to formally approve it. So I always go through and kind of hit on some positives about it. Our annual resources and our reserve balances are good to go for fiscal year 2027 without any budget related spending or staffing cuts. Kind of a different message and you hear it a lot of schools. And our property tax rates are projected to drop 50 cents in fiscal year 2027 providing some tax relief for Tumwater residents and businesses. Our unspent authorized budget representing the legal limit on general fund spending remains very strong and
070is sufficient for everything we've got planned. And we continue to receive strong support from local and regional sources to expand our existing and launch new targeted instructional programs. So this is things you'll hear a lot of special ed like the the TAP program or the SALT program. There's you know, there's grants behind that that come in to help fund it to get it off the ground and then we absorb the cost as it gets rolling in a couple years. So, that's a big help for us and as I talked to my peers, there's there's not a lot of schools that get the support we do. So, we're very appreciative of that. Uh some concerns. We've always got some concerns. Open enrollment out is is always a significant expenditure here. Um we continue to struggle with
071a stagnant tax base. Um the city has been had talked about the same thing during their hearings is it's just we don't have a real strong base there to uh collect the revenues for uh public services. Uh we are last in the state in taxable valuation per student and we have been for quite some time. Uh and legislation providing taxpayer funds to private schools has generated a significant and rapidly increasing expense in the state budget and it reduces overall revenues that are available for a public education. Um our SSA continue to still lag inflation rates. Uh so, you're kind of getting a gap there between expense increases and the resources that were being provided. And uh most of the property tax reforms that are being debated reduce revenues to school districts and create a a
072ton of unanswered questions about the future effects. So, there's they're still talking about that now. Um there's some that are very dramatic and some that are a little better. So, we're keeping a close eye on those. Uh now we'll get into some kind of graphs, kind of some representations. This is enrollment trend. Uh so, I've got three here. The top one is our certified count. That's everybody in the district. The orange one is the kids we actually serve uh K through 12 and then the green one includes our preschool. So, uh it's it's a general trend there and this last year we did have a decrease. We talked about that at the start of the school year. Uh we had a large outgoing class and the incoming class was not enough to support that. Uh
073but overall, we don't see uh dynamics that that's going to be the norm going forward. Uh we've also got open enrollment trend. So, I like to show this one and you kind of see as as we're going here uh the gap in fiscal year '27 between all the kids we get money for and then the kids that are open enrolled out is about $3.9 million. So, that money flows through that money flows through to us and then we've got to write a check to the districts where our students go. And we always prefer to have them educated here, but uh a couple points to highlight is, you know, during this window here, uh you can see that that gap was widening. You had a big uh kind of growth in open enrollment out. Uh there
074was a 6-year period between 2014 and 2019 where we lost 330 students overall. Um and then we shifted and kind of stopped. And you see both the lines on the top and the bottom kind of flattened out, so it stabilized. We still have a good chunk of students that are leaving, but the growth stopped. And during this 6-year period, uh we actually had new uh net open enrollment out of a decrease of three students. So, we went from a 6-year period 6-year period where we went up 330 to a 6-year period where we dropped three. So, it it stopped the open enrollment out, but there's still that stagnant number going out. So, uh just kind of some points to highlight there. Um >> [clears throat] >> 10-year uh growth just another trend document that shows
075uh you can kind of see in the earlier years that gap uh between certified enrollment and OE out and then kind of how it stabilized. So, just another representation that kind of shows uh we were losing a lot of kids on an annual basis. Um that exodus stopped, but we still have that static number uh that open enrolled out. Uh so, this shows our history. Uh try to give 10 years to show what our percent of growth was uh through the legislature. Uh so, you see the numbers on the side there. Um the the last column is a rolling 3-year average and we're at this point after another year 2% we're at a rolling 3-year average of 2.2. Um everybody knows expenses have gone up much more than 2.2%. So, it's it's a little tricky.
076Um I kind of did some totals on here. The last 10 years of SSA has increased 21% and if you look at inflation, there's a whole bunch of metrics. I looked at several. They're between 38 and 50%. So, you've got revenue growth from the state at 21% and cost increases of 38 to 50. So, it just creates a gap where the schools aren't able to keep up with inflation and and we've seen it with a lot of our major expenses. Transportation, it it hurts the district. You want to be able to give money to staff. We're staff heavy, but when you're getting 2% increases from the state, it just it becomes difficult. So, there is one metric there that's not represented here. In the last 4 years, the state is sending an additional $1.5 million
077of state resources to Ottumwa for education, but it's going to the non-public schools. So, that's one piece to note that we're kind of missing out on. Um the district new money versus state supplemental aid. This is a tract to show our history. SSA is the orange. Our new money is the blue. You can see the past several years our blue was much higher than the orange because we were growing. This last year, the blue is less and that just means we had a decrease in students, so we get put on the budget guarantee, which means we're allowed to grow 1%, but that's all we get. So, it's just something that that we've budgeted for and we've adjusted all adjusted all of our projections, but just a change from what we'd seen in the past couple
078years. Taxable valuation's history. This just kind of goes to give a context. Everything was kind of normal there until things woke up in fiscal year 2023. They they were stable and then 2023 was an equalization year and it was coming off of COVID, too. So, things were just weird. The state came in and actually adjusted some of the revenues based on sales data because you saw very rapid real estate inflation. So, property values went up. The next year, they came back down a little bit and then you've seen some uh some variances, uh big increases, some drops and And I'll go into a little bit more about how these are chained how these affect uh property tax rates and kind of some real numbers. So, uh even with this growth, we're still at that that
079bottom. So, if you take our valuations divided by the number of students in the school district, we produce the lowest number. So, our our tax levy rate when applied to the valuations just don't generate the same amount of money. So, um sometimes that can contribute to a higher tax rate. Uh we're we're stable here. So, uh don't anybody get nervous yet. Uh this is a graph I always put in there. Um school finance is complicated. Uh we get money from several sources on the left and they can service the things on the right. So, we just kind of draw a chart there to say uh that top one in the blue, state aid comes in, you can use that to go into the general fund, and you can use it for preschool. So, it kind
080of shows what each fund can be used for and just something I include in there for the board so they have a reference of it. Um [clears throat] levy worksheet. So, when we do the certified budget, I get a big uh it used to be a spreadsheet, now it's online, but it's a giant calculation document that goes through and and kind of fills in a lot of the numbers to start us with. Um that proposed budget is shared with the community through publication in the local newspaper, presented at the board meetings, and then uh we will finalize and approve at the next meeting. So, uh some of the concepts, a big one is spending authority. That represents our legal statutory limit. Uh basically, if you take our student counts and do the math, it'll generate
081a number the state says, "That's your annual spending authority." Uh it carries over year to year as unspent balance. Uh it's not cash, so when we talk about having unspent authority, it's not like we have that much in the bank, but it means we have the authority from the state to spend that much on education. Um our number for this next year for spending authority is calculated there. You see the first line, combined district cost. That is the input when I put in all of our weightings, uh all of our student counts, and times the per pupil amount, that's what we generate. Um of that number, just a tidbit is that is about uh about 10.7 million of that is funded through local property taxes. Uh the remaining 50 million comes from state aid. Uh
082so about 35% of our combined district cost comes from the local community, and the balance 65% is is picked up through state aid. And that varies uh dependent on how uh rich or poor property tax uh weightings are for a district. We add in a couple other sources of revenue uh and spending authority, the ISL, preschool, um SBRC for our at-risk, we request authority for that, uh miscellaneous income, that's those other grants, uh federal monies that come in, and then prior years unspent balance, we add that. So, we have maximum authority of 100 million. Um our proposed uh or our budget for this year is less than that. Um our current year's authority is about 7 70.6 million, so uh well within what we're at. So, just to kind of highlight that. Uh that miscellaneous
083income, uh this is just some information to kind of show where it comes from. It's it's uh tuition received locally, our earnings on investments, textbook revenues, uh Title 1 grants, uh and some miscellaneous things. And then here we start talking about property tax uh in the budget. So, we're one of several taxing entities that are included in the tax levy for the city of Ottumwa. Uh City of Ottumwa is the largest contributor, so when you get your tax rate, there's a combined total tax levy, and the city contributes to about and this is last year's numbers um cuz everything's still up in the air for this year, but last year the city contributed 46% of that. So, 46% of your tax dollars went to the city, 32% to the school, 17 to the county, three
084to the community college, and then 2% to other, and that makes up the gist of it. So, this just kind of to highlight that there's multiple entities, and we're just talking about the school today. They're all separate, so what the city does with their budget is different than what the school does with ours. This is the levy control. So, when you look at that levy rate, that red portion, the majority of it state-controlled, so it's formula-driven. It's the number of students, it's the waitings they apply. The board controls some through cash reserve, which is what we used to spend fund the special ed deficit, the regular pepple, the management levy, and the instruction support levy. And then the voters have approved the additional pepple levy for us back a couple years ago, and that's about
08510%. So, these are the numbers that make up the property tax levy. You see the dollars in that first column, and then the levy rate in the second. So, at the very bottom, our levy rate is 14.16439, and that's what we're proposing for next year. And this is this is the the makeup of that. Property tax history. We we highlight this every time. We want everybody to know that the school's rate is pretty consistent. We had several years where it hung out in that 1460s to 1474 rate, and I went back 10 years before that, and it was about a straight line. Then we dropped a little bit, and we come up, still not to that same level, and then we're back down at 14.16. So, this just always like to highlight that the school's
086rate remains fairly consistent, and it is below the historical average. And we that's intentional. We we understand we want to try to keep it that way. We do a comparison of similar-sized schools. This is last year's. We do five up and five down, and we kind of see where we're at. We are a little below the average, and we typically represent the median, so we fall right in the middle there. And that's been the story for a a lot of years. Every year I update this, and every year we stay about the same, so um we're very try to be very aware of this, and we definitely don't want to be at the top of this list. Um there's some worksheets um on here to kind of show the the calculations. I don't know if
087I can get a laser pointer here. Oh, I do. Um well, on the big one, but the highlighted section there shows the rate. Uh 1466 is last year's rate and 1416 is this year's rate. And then I go down and do the calculations. So, the the rollback is set by the state and that you take your property value times the rollback and that is how much is actually being taxed. So, if you have a $100,000 home, the rollback this year is 44.5% that means you're being taxed on $44,535. You apply that uh to the tax rate that the school submits and that is where you can calculate your rate. So, all things aside, if your property didn't experience any property tax increase this year based on the school's levy, your residential rate is going to
088go down 9.2 9.28%. Commercials less because um the rollback does not apply to the commercial. So, the business owners don't get that benefit. I'm sorry. Uh 3.38% though it's still a decline. And then I just wanted to do a couple real world examples. I'll flip through these fairly quick here. Um I just went and randomly picked some properties values in Etowah and I picked three different levels so you could kind of see. So, the first one here, it's backwards the the current value is the first column at 65,000. Last year that home was at 60,000. So, they had an actual assessed value increase of 7.8%. We have put those numbers into the calculator and and that home that's valued at 65,000 this year is only being taxed on 29,045 dollars because the rollback percentage came
089in uh and they're going to see a real dollar decrease of $9.41. Their property tax last year was 420, this year it's 411. And just kind of to highlight those, the actual actual taxable value is only an 1.2% increase and they're seeing a decrease in their actual dollars of 2.24%. So, um we always like to highlight this because nobody's home stays static. You get your property tax valuation every year. I wanted to pull some and show this year our rates dropping enough that it actually overcomes that increase. Um that and the rollback is a mechanism that the state puts in place so your property taxes don't wildly fluctuate year to year. They have a limitation in place. So, um we did a couple more. This is a house valued at 157 last year. This year
090it's 169. So, it went up quite a bit. Uh 7.6% and we put their calculations in. Uh their taxable value actually went up only goes up 1.1% and they're seeing a decrease of 2.36 or 25 bucks. It's not much, but it's a decrease and nothing goes down nowadays. So, we're happy to have it. Uh finally, we took a higher priced home. They were at 301. They went up to 323. Increase of 7.3%. Put them through the calculator. They're showing an actual actual taxable value increase of only 0.8% of value going up and their school tax decreases is as 2.64% or 55 bucks. So, just some real world example real world examples to kind of show um that it actually is real money. Keep in mind the levy rate of the school is decreasing, but other
091factors play a part in the taxable value. Uh overall increases in assessed property values as we've highlighted and other taxing entities including the city, Wapello County, and Indian Hills may contribute to increases or decreases. I know everybody is working on theirs. Um ours is pretty good pretty set in stone and once we approve it at this point, it's it's going to be what it is. So, um just to touch on real quick our long-term debt obligations. We have revenue bonds. None of these are funded through property taxes. This is our sales tax penny. Uh so, if any of you hear legislators talking about taking save money and redirecting it somewhere else, that's what's promised to to pay for these bonds. That's what's every every school district in the state has has done because they thought
092that those funds were going to remain stagnant through 2050. Uh if they mess with this, uh it creates some issues for us, uh but it's not a property tax issue. These are not funded through property taxes, so. Um and then these numbers just kind of show highlight I I won't go through all this, but this is what our budget looks like. Uh this will get published uh in the paper. It actually it'll get published tomorrow. And then the public hearing uh we'll put it up again on the 20th and vote on it. But it shows our actual for 2025, our re-estimate for this current year, and what we're looking at for 2027. And you've got your uh income there and your expenses, and that'll all get published in the paper showing the total rate. So,
093uh certified budget, that's what we're doing here. This is big picture stuff. These are, you know, we're taking a budget that's $70 million and condensing it down into a couple lines. Uh this just establishes our maximum uh kind of statutory authority to spend and shows an estimate of the maximum budgets. We will do a line item budget later in the year, and that's where we go through and assign a budget to all 3,000 lines in the general fund, and that's what we use as a budget management tool to monitor the ongoing uh financial health and modify any of our long-term projections. Timeline. Um we we've already we're up to April 6th. That's the first hearing. Uh the publication goes through tomorrow. April 20th is our next hearing, and April 30th is is when I file
094it with the county auditor and Department of Management. And so, after uh if there's any questions and discussion, after that our recommendation is to approve the proposed property tax levy of no more than 14.16439 and publish uh that budget in two uh for that public hearing to be held on April 20th. So. I don't know how I did on time. I was trying to keep it quick. So, uh please feel free to answer any ask any questions and if you don't have them today, you can send them at any time. Uh I understand it's a lot of information, so please feel free feel free to reach out whenever. Okay. >> Any questions? If not, we just need to actually I need to approve the John's presentation tonight. >> Uh motion to approve the presentation. >>
095Second. >> Motion and second. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor, raise your right hand. Opposed, motion carries. We'll move into the 25 audit report. >> Thank you and I'm so much I I'm so sorry I have to follow up with this. It's just that it got done a little earlier this year and we like to get it approved, so um the the audit is a attached to your agenda and I would I would please ask for you to review it if if you want to. It's a lengthy audit report, but it's a it's a good one. Uh we received an unmodified opinion, which just means uh our financial statements present fairly and in all material respects the financial position of the district. So, I just have a couple little notes or directions for
096you to review it and then I will let you do it on your own or uh ask any questions that you have. So, um in that report on page eight, you've get you get the management discussion and analysis and I prepare those reports uh to present our district financial highlights in kind of a bullet point format. Uh it also compares year-over-year comparison, so it's a good measurement tool to kind of look how the school did year-over-year. Page 21 uh starts a presentation of the district financial reports. Uh you'll see references there to governmental activities and business type activities. Uh audit reports attempt to summarize and present our financial information in a result that's easier to understand by non-governmental entities, such as the agencies that buy our bonds. Um they they compile it in a way
097that makes more sense to them. Governmental activities refer to our financial operations as a school district. Business type activities refer to areas where we charge for services and the operations are self-sustaining. Uh some examples of that would be your school nutrition fund, uh construction trades home, PTYC child care, and the Bulldog Spirit Store. Page 31 and 32 is uh statement of revenues, expenses, and fund balance. It reports just what it says. It shows um the change in fund balance and ending fund balance. Uh it helps to highlight changes occurring in district funds after a year operations. Uh for example, this year our general fund saw an increase of just over 1 million to a total fund balance of 9.62 million. Uh this increase is the result of increased funding received due to enrollment increases from
098the prior year cuz money is 2 years 2 years behind. Uh and the district returned to typical spending levels after years of higher spending that occurred during the COVID years. So, we had uh additional influx of funds and had higher spending. So, we're returning back to kind of our baseline. Uh general fund balance is projected to increase slightly and then stabilize returning to our targeted solvency reserve balances pending any unforeseen shifts in enrollment or school funding or legislation. Uh page 41 is the start of the notes to the financial statements. This uh additional information on accounting policies and the effect it has on our financials, as well as data points to take into consideration as it's reviewed. Uh page 69 presents supple supplemental information and more financial statements in case you hadn't had enough at
099that point. Um they'll expand on the financial information a little further and review it in different formats and summaries. Uh final section of the audit report contains our findings. Uh with a budget of our size, we fully expect to receive some minor findings that can be used to improve our financial reporting. Uh findings are typically placed into one of three categories: non-compliance with provisions of laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, uh deficiencies of internal controls, which help management or employees present prevent or detect and correct misstatements um or other findings which are statutory reporting. I'm happy to report that Tempe did not have any findings of noncompliance or findings from our multiple federal awards. And that's the big one. That's the one where you you use money like you're not supposed to. We do have
100some findings on deficiencies in internal controls and we use those to correct and update our policies to make sure that we fix them going forward. And all those findings we were able to make adjustments to our financial statements before they finished this audit that's audit report. So they were all able to be corrected but they still point them up and they they write us up basically to say, "Hey, fix this for next time." Included with your board packet is a list of those findings and kind of our action plan. So I always write them out, give a little further explanation as to what why they were, and then what the district is doing or has already done it to make corrections for those. So I will answer any board questions board has tonight and always
101am available if there is additional questions once you review review the report and those findings. Otherwise, we would just be looking to accept the the audit report um and go from there. >> Thanks, John. Motion to accept the audit report? >> Second. >> Motion is second. Any other discussion? All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you. >> And next it looks like we have a vehicle purchase, 2024 Ford Transit van. And Mike, thank you. >> So I think we are buying a vehicle or recommending to buy a vehicle and we continue to identify the need for special education related transportation during the day. And our proposal is to purchase a 2024 Ford Transit van, similar to the other ones we've purchased. And I'll let Mike kind of just explain how we're
102going to plan on using it. >> Yeah, it's a great problem to have. We have a lot of students in the town who are getting vocational experiences out in the community. And this is a way for us to make sure that we can get our students to different job sites for job shadowing and internships. That's been a big a big emphasis of us at the secondary level in special education. And through our work experience and tap program, we've got a lot more kids out in the community doing some work. So, that means that transportation has taken up a lot of resources with managing our vans in and out of the high school. So, this will solve a huge problem for us by being able to get kids back and forth to job sites. >> Okay.
103>> And we went out and got bids. We have to buy them used because of the state's goofy rules on 12 passenger vans. You can't buy a 15 passenger van or So, we we go out and find it and we found kind of find several dealers. We ask them what we're looking for. We've got a bid for 38,275 and that was the lowest we've received. So, happy to answer any other questions. >> If we don't have any questions, we need to take action on this. >> I move to approve. >> Second. >> Motion and second. Further discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Those motion carries. >> Thank you. Now, we're moving on to the automated logic service agreement. >> So, this one here is automated logic is a vendor that handles some
104of the building HVAC and control systems. So, we'll have Jared kind of just go through the basics of it and then see if there's any questions. >> Yeah, even and so, automated automated logic, we have automated automated logic controls hardware and software at OHS and at Liberty. Um, they're the original source supplier suppro- supplier for their products. Um, entering into this service agreement will um, end of the day it'll save the district money. Um, we get a price break on uh, their support. They're able to remote in our systems and um, give our craftsmen the tools that they need to make repairs and diagnostic um, evaluations of our current equipment. >> Yeah, and with the the agreements they kind of have a schedule that they'll follow. Uh, we get remote support and our guys will
105use that uh, frequently when they're trying to diagnose something on the systems. Uh, I'm generally not a big fan of these uh, but and I peppered uh, Jared and Don uh, a lot on these agreements. Um, but but we went a couple years without and incurred some expenses to repair some of the things and it would have been better to have the agreement in place. They kind of rack up the labor rate when you don't have one of their agreements. Uh, I'm not a huge fan of that but we've tried to try to find some alternatives and uh, since it is a specialized system with automated logic um, this is kind of the route that that most uh, districts will go. Um, so we're presenting it for OHS and Liberty and can answer any questions.
106>> Just not a system that like Winger works on? >> No, it's not. One other thing I'd like to add on this is something tangible that we're going to get out of this is is also the preventive maintenance schedules uh, that they'll be coming down uh, uh, twice a year and going through our systems on site with our craftsmen. So, we'll get some training there um, for our craftsmen but as well as that automated logic support in person scheduled maintenance which is a huge huge thing that the district's lacked in the past. >> So, Jared, as for the high school part of it, is this um cuz we have two or three systems at the high school, correct? Is this anyway um by doing this, combining any of those systems, or is this just one
107of the systems that we have up there? Cuz the votech has one. There's two or three up there if I'm not correct. >> No, Brian, you are correct. Um this will actually uh benefit us in the three-year five-year plan of getting all those systems to talk together. So >> So these guys can basically do all of them, is that correct? I guess. >> so. Yeah, when it comes to uh we may have to do some hardware updates um down the road to get all that uh all those systems talking to each other, but >> Yeah, eventually we'll have it all combined, basically, is what I'm getting at. That's the end state goal. All right, thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Motion to approve. >> Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Any
108further discussion? Not, all those in favor, raise your right hand. Opposed, motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to the Beach It Up contract renewal. >> Yep. Um yeah, I just I guess everything's for me today. You get a a lot of me. Um we negotiated uh we do every three years with the city on the beach contract. Uh we met with them. Um they the last contract it had an increase each year of 5%. Uh we basically negotiated a a that same thing for the next three years. Um we end up paying uh 56,000 for this next year. It goes up 5% to about 59,000. The year after that is just under 62,000. Um it's a lot of money. It's cheaper than us having a pool. Uh it's just what it comes down to. So,
109uh we went through we haven't had any problems with the agreement. We've got a good system going. Uh they give us some discounts on lap swim when some of the kids go and and do some other things. And we're going to explore other opportunities to uh expand that maybe uh to school activities or school staff if they could have that rate and kind of we're trying to the city's trying to find ways to get more people there and if they can partner with the school to kind of do something uh we said we're open to that. So, that may come later, but right now we're just looking to renew the agreement for the next 3 years and uh can answer any questions. >> If you don't have any questions, >> Motion to approve. >> Thank
110you. >> Second. >> Motion and a second. Further discussion? Not. All those in favor, raise your right hand. >> [clears throat] >> Those motion carries and final action item uh e-rate projects. >> Uh the district uh participates in the federal e-rate program, which is a competitive bidding process that gives us 85 to 90% off of contracts that we have with different vendors. And so, for the sake of time, I'm not going to go through all the items there, but the dollar amounts that you see will ultimately be either 85 or 90% off depending on eligibility. Um and you'll see through that list, we're really happy to see that we do have several local vendors um Winger, uh MCG, Esco, Mediacom, folks that have offices in Ottumwa that were awarded those bids. >> Yeah, and just
111on the number side is you know, Landon noted the the amount that we get we're receiving about $554,000 worth of technology infrastructure updates. Our cost is about 120,000. I think the money's for the e-rate comes on a charge on phone bills or something. Uh it's federal money's. Um we had budgeted 160,000 uh for this next year. We knew it was a big infrastructure year. Uh so far Landon's at about 121,000, but I'm sure he'll fill the bucket with some other stuff. Uh but right now these are within the budget we'd uh planned for e-rate expenditures for technology infrastructure. Questions? >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Thank you. Motion and second. Any further discussion? Not, all those in favor raise your right hand. Opposed, motion carries. Thanks, John. >> [clears throat] >> And move on
112to superintendent report. >> Thanks, Dave. Um first thing I have for the board and uh first I want to thank uh all the people have turned out for this discussion item. Uh really appreciate it. Uh Um doubly appreciate it for as long as the board meeting has been. Uh we appreciate sitting Yes. Yes. I maybe should have put this a different time of the agenda, but um as the board knows um that uh uh we did not get funding approved for shared through Shared Visions for 3-year-old preschool. And uh to say that was a disappointing is a a huge understatement. But uh I think when you're in these situations, um you know, you have to figure out a way to work your way out of it. And when we start to look at what our
113options were, you know, our first option was we tried I met with uh the head of the Department of Education um to see if you know, appeal was a possibility to see if um another thing I wanted to see was there was money uh that was unclear that uh wasn't designated for Shared Vision that maybe we could access. That was another thing I was thinking about. And and through my discussions, you know, I did I don't think I had a huge hope that uh we would have a lot of options, but I felt like it was something that I needed to explore. Um what I discovered really is that the the appeal process is more procedural. It's not substantive. So I don't think that's a viable option for us to appeal. You have 10 days,
114but the appeals are things such as did they meet the constricts of the statute and so forth. There isn't anything about whether you think you should have got awarded or not, those type of things substantive. Um, and also discovered that the money that wasn't designated for Shared Vision actually was designated funds for something else. So, there wasn't any money left. So, then we start to think about and I met with the the preschool staff is is how can we is there a way to fund three-year-old preschool because you know, and I mentioned this and discuss this with the preschool staff is that you know, really so much of our success as a district is really tied to early childhood development and if we don't find a way to fund free three-year-old with that is going
115to mean immediate concern is is that we won't have as many kids kindergarten ready. And it's so critical to have our kids kindergarten ready. One of the main reasons is is that you can really determine often often times students success K-12 and also post-secondary based on how they do up through third grade. So, by third grade there's a lot of variables that tell you whether students going to be successful and one is being kindergarten ready. And unfortunately, we know if we can offer free three-year-old preschool that a lot of our families won't be able to afford it. And so, we view this as just a critical need of our community and we also are so fortunate to have incredibly gifted educators leading our early childhood that have are doing amazing things for our kids and
116we're seeing those results. So, we start to look at how can we move forward with funding three-year-old preschool. So, John's going to talk about some funding streams we think are very viable and also what we're excited about are these funding streams that they could continue on that we don't have to year to year always talk about can we afford uh to fund free 3-year-old preschool. I think the one thing you want to keep in mind uh as a board is that part of the reason we're able to look at this in funding it is because uh the board has done an amazing job uh with our budget as far as we're in really good budget uh shape. Uh our general budget is really good shape and so it gives us some options that maybe we
117wouldn't have normally. But, we're really looking at this as being an avenue a funding stream avenue where it can continue on after not just next year, but uh into the future. So, I'll let John kind of talk about what the funding streams we've identified and then uh we'll open it up for questions the board may have. >> Yeah, thank you. As Mike mentioned um as soon as we found out what we weren't receiving a grant funds, we started to explore alternatives and we we kind of reached out and did some research and uh we've asked this question before um just in case, you know, so we kind of had a little bit of uh information already um and the main area we look at is is through at risk. Um this the school board and
118the local districts have the authority to um handle their at risk program as they as they see fit. They're they're able to define it because it varies so much from community to community and and we feel in a tumble here pretty clearly that the 3-year-olds um can be considered a large at risk group because you're getting a lot of new students, maybe new students to the area and as everybody knows once you get a you get them in earlier and they are more kindergarten ready. So, by incorporating the 3-year-olds into our at risk program, uh we we use at risk dollars to to supplement and fund that preschool operation. The other part that we get our our large chunk of funds for is special education. When you have a 3-year-old child identified as special education,
119we get full funding for those. So, there is a chunk of funding that comes through the counts and through the budgets like the board just looked at as special education funding when those 3-year-olds are placed on an IEP. So, between those funds and between the ability to use at-risk funds, we kind of developed a plan to continue running the operation using our at-risk dollars. Now, our at-risk is always strained. So, we are are clear that using some of the ongoing resources we can bring in flex funds. So, the flex fund account is where you take other monies that aren't allocated or haven't been used for their statutory purpose. So, some are carryover categorical funds. We've done that in the past where we've allocated some of those to expand the TLC program, things like that. You
120put those in the flex fund and then you allocate it through your at-risk program. So, what we're looking at is is putting some of those funds into the at-risk pool and then just using the existing at-risk resources and using them for our preschool program. So, there's already some allocated for the preschool PK4 and 5s that are in there because there's still at-risk students there. So, it's basically us expanding our our definition of at-risk to include that PK3 group. So, what we plan to do is the board just approved an at-risk plan a couple meetings ago cuz you have to do that annually. So, we will probably go through and review it and just make sure that it clearly defines the pre-K 3 or 3-year-olds in the preschool as an at-risk group and then that authorizes
121the district to use the at-risk dollars in combination with the special ed dollars to fund the ongoing operations of the program. So, >> Questions from the board. Are you expecting this to be a short-term gap to fill with or is this going to be an ongoing thing? >> We We We feel like Morgan it's it's and we feel like it's critical to be an ongoing thing because if we if we don't use this funding source, there aren't a lot of We don't expect Shared Visions is a five-year grant. So we can't apply for that again for five years. So we we felt the need to to get an have an ongoing >> Okay. And I don't imagine there was any unspent budget in at-risk last year. >> No. No, like like John was saying is
122that and it goes back to then equity we talk a lot about where our at-risk budget we're frozen at 2.5. We most a lot of districts are at five and one year they just picked a certain year [clears throat] to freeze it. And we are a district with our high level of at-risk kids, we should be at the five. And it's it's it is really unfair, but that's why we overspend right now. But what what we're talking about is that we already overspend it, but we know we can tap into a lot of resources by defining them as at-risk students that we currently don't access and I think the key question there is you if a board member I think you'd want to know is this won't impact other programs. >> That's going to be
123my question is we're already overspending, how are we redirecting that money? >> Right. >> And not cutting services somewhere else. >> Right. Yep. And here's here's a couple examples is one is we will look at putting into flex funds potentially like early intervention monies, Uh, which is I think 320,000 or so, something around there. >> Closer to four. A little closer to four this year. >> Yeah. >> 398, I think. >> And and right now, we don't we can use that for any type of uh funding activity. What we use it for right now, Morgan, is to we just use it because we don't have other needs. We use it to pay general fund uh personnel. We have a budget that's in good enough shape where we can easily not use it for that and
124use it for this purpose. So, those are the flex funds we're going to look at. Uh the one that's really viable for us is this like John said is the special ed funds. We not only get regular waiting for our our special ed funds kids at 3-year-old, we get weighted. So, um we have 21 students right now, I believe, uh with a very high waiting. I think it brings in about 380,000 or some close to that. So, we can we know we can use those funds as well. And then we have a couple other funds that we know we can So, it's it's funds that we aren't uh some of it's flex fund money that we aren't currently using. It's just overage in other accounts. And then some are the one that early intervention, we
125are using it right now, but we can afford to reallocate that. It won't impact staffing general ed staffing. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because I'm go I'm glad we're talking about that because I know that will be a question other buildings have is like, will this have [laughter] an impact? >> Are you pulling that rabbit out of the hat? >> Right. Right. Exactly. >> Right. No, I totally get it. >> And some of it comes down to just looking at other areas where we have incurred some savings. Uh you know, like the early retirement, things like that. Staff turnovers, we looked and we said, "Okay, here's a line item. This is what we're going to save." So, the budget will run a little bit of surplus. Uh so, we take those general fund dollars uh and
126are able to allocate them towards the program. So, it's it's it's not so much finding money, but it's finding uh areas where we've saved in other places and just reallocating it to this. And then some of those uh flex funds are we've housed them on the balance sheet for a little while. They get called restricted. So, they're they're there and we're fully funding the program and then we run a surplus, but you can't do anything with it. The flex fund gave us the opportunity to pull from there and put it in the flex fund and then allocate it elsewhere. And that's that's where part of it comes in and that's those those are more they would be limited. So, you can only take the program is generating surpluses, but we've got a couple programs that
127generate annual surplus meeting all the needs. So, we would continue to take and put them in a flex fund and utilize it for this program. So, it there's a there's several funding sources involved, but when we sat down and looked at everything, we were able to kind of fill the bucket back up after losing the shared vision funds. Thankfully. >> John, you said you said that the three-year-olds that are placed on IEP are fully funded. >> Yes. Yep, they get included in the special ed count. So, yep, we'll continue to get funding for those. >> Okay. >> Mhm. >> Do you have an idea current three-year-old class, what percentage of those are IEPs? >> Depending on the number of students, I want to say it was the the actual count was somewhere around 25 and
128I think the number of three-year-old students was 128. So, >> Okay. >> So, yeah. >> Yep. >> In the neighborhood of 20% is somewhere close to there, but >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Then just to confirm what we're looking at is keeping Pickwick where it's been. Like we're not going to be looking at any cuts. >> Right. >> The program not changing there at all, but just keeping it >> Not changing the program from what it is right now and not changing the number of students that are allowed to attend Pickwick. >> Yep. >> And I don't I understand where Morgan's coming from is that um um it's hard to you know, where is the money coming from and so forth and then it we feel there's very viable funding sources that we can utilize
129And that it won't impact other other things that we want to do as a district. >> And it will still look if, you know, 3 years or 5 years that Shared Visions open up, we're definitely going back in there for another bite at it. It was a great program and it's really a bummer we lost it, especially this close to the start of a new school year. So we was a little bit of a scramble, but um like I said, we kind of looked at it before years ago just to kind of see what the outcome would be. And so we we had some places to look to to kind of go to the well to find what we could use and I think we came up with a good plan. So >> Any other
130questions? If not, like John said, well we would look we'll look at what the board approved as far as the definition of at risk and we'll see if we need to come back to the board to expand on that. And if we do, we'll ask you to change the language of that. And if you do think of questions or have concerns, just let me know, too. Uh but we appreciate John. I appreciate John's work on this, too, because it took a long time to to figure out what are some options for us. And we appreciate coming out this evening, too, and all your support on this, too. I've got a couple other updates that you might enjoy. And since you're here already, you might as well. Yeah. But is the weather call on Thursday. I
131wanted to kind of speak to that a little bit is that um to me it was a really easy call. And that sounds like, you know, it's kind of surprising, probably. But we, you know, when we talked about it, I'm always going to put safety as the top priority. Um and if it's between safety and convenience, it's going to be safety. And we know we frustrated some people with what we did, but it was the safe thing to do. And if I can hang my hat on that, it's it's easy to defend. And um, I think one thing I appreciated about our community is is for the majority they saw the value of of going the safe route. And we had a lot of support for it. So, I also want to take this opportunity
132to really thank some individuals that put in a lot of work to make this happen. Um, I think part of my role in something like this usually is staying calm, you know, because if I'm [clears throat] freaking out, then other people freak out. Um, and I think we our people did an amazing job. I I think, you know, this was such an unusual situation. I think the only thing I can think of that I is synonymous to this that I dealt with was one time when I was teaching in Iowa City, we took 600 kids skiing and when we got back to school, an ice storm hit and they could not go home. They had to stay overnight in the gym, 600 middle school kids. And and I'm still getting therapy for that, but but
133uh but it uh it was the right thing to do. It was the safe thing to do. And that was this type of situation. It's a situation that doesn't happen very often. Uh, but the I think the way we responded to it uh and I give all the credit to my people, Landon Allen, Jeremy Weller. They did an amazing job with this, but also, yeah. >> [applause] >> Also, um, I want to give credit to our principals, our amazing staff as well. The flexibility our staff showed in dealing, you know, an extra hour, um, but an extra hour um in in lockdown, that's that's that's a that's that's like 10 hours. So, it feels like 10 hours. So, they did an incredible job uh being flexible, dealing with the situation. And uh I can't tell
134you how much I appreciate our staff at First so um I wanted to mention that. And then my last thing I have is I just wanted there was a comment made the other night at uh the city budget uh meeting and it talked about uh an individual talked about how they felt like uh teachers were overpaid. And and um you know it it really galled me that um you know that comment was made, but for probably two reasons. One is is that um first of all the budget for the city has no connection to our budget. So if becau- if teachers were overpaid it doesn't you can't do anything about your city budget with that. And so it does get frustrating at times where people cannot extrapolate both those budgets, but also that um they
135and I encourage people if I would love for anybody has a question about our general budget, our capital budget my uh door's always open. In fact, I I would embrace that. We're really proud of where we're at in both those areas. And I understand people have a desire or a need to try to find something wrong. And I I appreciate that. I I it makes me better. But at certain times uh I don't enjoy the process where they might be making things up to show that they're right. And I'm more than happy to give them accurate information if they want accurate information. Um but then really the second one is probably more important to me was um and [clears throat] this is uh for for me for teachers I think it's one of the most
136noble um occupations and one of the most impactful occupations we can have. And um I invite anybody that wants to spend a day or two days as a teacher. You can call me. I'll be glad to set it up. I would I'll walk you to the building. I'll set it up. Um but what they do on a daily basis, the demands, um the things that have changed in teaching, um it it's amazing. And I haven't met one teacher that does it for the money. And and they're not in it to get rich. They're in it to make a difference. And a difference in lives of kids. And so um I encourage anybody that wants to take that opportunity. We'd be glad to uh set up a tour if they'd like and set up a teaching
137day if they'd like. So uh you can spread that word and I I think I need to stop now, Dave. So >> [clears throat] >> Yes, I would agree with all of that, Mike. Um and just to you know, let you guys all know too cuz I've also heard that school board members get paid too much. >> [laughter] >> So, zero times anything is zero last I knew, but that's all right. Um anyway, we'll follow up board member topics. Anyone have anything? >> Um I'm going to toot my horn here for OCCP is doing their uh play this weekend. We have a lot of Otumo students in there. That's why I think I can say this here. Um it's called Myth Understood. Uh it's about Greek mythology and how wrong we are in what we've
138heard all these years. So, we invite everyone to come uh Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at Bridgeview. >> Anyone? Anything else? I'm proud of Mike for expressing his personal opinions. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> If nothing else, we're looking a motion to adjourn. >> Motion to adjourn. >> Second. >> Motion and second. Discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.