001Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hello. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hello. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. like to call the meeting to order. Start with roll call. Brett White >> here. >> Morgan Brown >> here. Dusty wear >> here. >> Christina Shark >> here. >> Becky Engel >> here. >> Brian Jones >> here. >> Dave Werner is here. Adoption of agenda and declaration of a quorum. >> Motion to adopt. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Further discussion. All in
002favor raise your right hand. Opposed. Motion carries. Uh citizens speak. I don't have anything in front of me for that tonight. So, we'll move on to employee recognition. >> Thanks, Dave. Um, Kate, our director of communications, is going to come up and we're going to recognize our employees of the month. I want to also welcome, we've got a great turnout of people supporting our employees of the month and we appreciate coming out and and I also want to congratulate them as well on this honor. So, >> our employee of the month recipients are selected from nominations submitted through an online form. Each month, a committee chooses up to five recipients to include those who meet the criteria of continuously demonstrating going above and beyond for students, staff, and parents. We welcome you to submit your
003nomination through our form titled employee nomination form found on the quick links on our website. First up, we have Angie Coker. she's unable to join us tonight. Angie's a custodian at a Tumbl High School and has been employed by the district for 15 years. She was nominated by a colleague. Angie consistently demonstrates reliability, hard work, and a positive attitude. She's a leader on the night shift, setting the standard for others through her strong work ethic and commitment to maintaining a clean and safe learning environment for students and staff. Her attention to detail, willingness to go above and beyond, and steady dependability make her an invaluable member of the district, and we are grateful for Angie's contributions. Next, we have Lisa Collier. Lisa is a school counselor at Evans Junior High and has been employed by
004the district for four years. She was nominated by a parent. Lisa is an outstanding role model who truly carries her role in her heart. She builds strong connections with students by listening to their concerns and thoughtfully sharing ideas and resources to support them. Lisa not only helps students better understand the local resources available to them, but also ensures they feel informed and genuinely cared for. Her positive influence extends beyond students to everyone she interacts with. Congratulations Next we have Lindsay Harsh. Mrs. Harsh is a teacher at James Elementary and has been employed by the district for 16 years. She was nominated by a student and a parent. Mrs. Harsh has truly changed my life. She is one of the best teachers I have ever had as and is incredibly kind and supportive to all students.
005She makes every student feel welcomed and safe. Because of Mrs. Harsh, I feel comfortable coming to school every day and I'm grateful for her support and encouragement. She has made a lasting and meaningful impact on my life. Congratulations. Next, we have Aaron Heinb. She's unable to join us tonight. Aaron is an atrisisk family services coordinator in the district serving at the elementary level and has been employed by the district for four years. She was nominated by a colleague. Aaron consistently demonstrates exceptional commitment to our students and families. During the holiday season alongside Megan Logan, they coordinated multiple food distribution events including the holiday food box initiative and the bulldog giving tree project among her day-to-day tasks of caring for our families. We extend our sincere gratitude to Aaron for her contributions. Next, we have Megan
006Logan. Megan is an atrisisk family services coordinator in the district serving at the secondary level and has been employed by the district for three years. She was nominated by a parent and a colleague. Megan consistently goes above and beyond for our students, families, and our community every day by the way she cares for and advocates for everyone she meets. This is particularly evident during the holiday season when she coordinated multiple food distribution events and led the Bulldog giving tree project among other initiatives. Megan is also involved in the community through committees and boards outside of her school office. Thank you, Megan, for everything you do. Lastly, we have Jessica Thomas. Jessica is an associate and runs the district's print shop located at Evans Junior High. She has been employed by the district for nine years
007and was nominated by a colleague. Jessica provides essential support to staff through the district. Her responsibilities include managing, printing, laminated jobs for teachers and staff, and she consistently completes these tasks in a timely and professional manner, ensuring that our classrooms and offices receive the materials they need to operate smoothly. Her dedication makes an invaluable asset to our district. Thank you. >> Pictures look good. I know a lot of you came for the employee recognition. Feel free if you unless you want to stay for the meeting, that's okay, too. But Okay, moving on to the consent agenda. >> Motion to adopt. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on the consent agenda? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. Post. Motion carries. Okay, let's move down here. Uh
008next board priority we will promote and monitor growth in student achievement and all students will be challenged with high expectations that will meet or exceed measurable targets. We have a coupleformational art uh items tonight and we'll start with the FFA A center expansion. >> We got a special presentation from our A students. Um we're excited for that. Um Miranda, our A teacher, unfortunately had another commitment. She's at a professional development activity in Ankenany. But we're excited to have you here and um we will turn it over to you for your presentation. >> I'm Josie Aljett and I'm the president of our FFA chapter. I'm Ally Perry and I'm Sentinel of our FFA chapter. Good evening everyone. My name is Haley Wear and I'm currently serving as the chapter secretary for this year. >> Uh I'm
009Corbin Burgess and I'm currently serving as the treasurer. >> I'm Riley Ray and I'm serving as the chapter reporter. >> So this is just a Oh, okay. This is us at the greenhouse that we currently have. We're just doing our monthly plants before plant sales. This is how we used the greenhouse before. So as part of our open enrollment in 2020, we had uh no a program. So some students were going to EBF for their a program or Davis County. And um has a lot of major a employers like John Deere and JBS and we have a lot of rural farm families. And so our FA program began just three years ago in 2022. And our program started off with only 12 FFA members. So me and Corbin were one of the two original members.
010And then we have grown our program to 95 members. So our class sizes have increased to our m near maximum capacity. We have a lot of kids in our classes now. It used to be just a few. And when our program began, it was only for 9th through 12th graders. And now we start in the seventh grade level and go to 12th grade. And then in 2023, the school district purchased its first a center for us, which is located near the Atma airport. It's kind of known as like the Tenco greenhouse. Um, and it has a large classroom space and four green houses and six acres. And there we currently have, that's the greenhouse. We have a pig that was um, someone just let it loose, so we took the pig in. His name is
011Pete. And then we have three rabbits and then a chicken coop full of chickens. So over three4s of our A students now live in town, including me. And half of our students would like to own an animal or show an animal but are not able to because they don't have the land or space to own one. We have one of the biggest chapters around but the least amount of students showing at county and state fair which is something that we want to work on as a chapter and the barn would give us that opportunity. Okay. So, I would like to start off with um I myself am able to have animals at my house as I live outside of the city of course and I feel like it's been one of the greatest responsibilities that
012I've ever learned and I had to do my chores every day and I feel like the barn um can benefit the people around me in my classmates and kind of teach them something that just going to school every day cannot. Um I feel like I was blessed to be able to learn all of these things. Um in addition to this um the barn would support agriculture obviously FFA science programs and this would also build said responsibility and help these students advance in their workforce. Um this would also expand student participation in livestock projects like such as the um showing at county fair. Um and also for our SAEs that we have to have every year. um these animals could help provide an SAPE every year. Um I myself I grew a garden this year with
013the land that I had. Um and I think the barn would be a good opportunity for all of our students. Student impact. So with this barn, kids would be more interested to join our club or not our club but our chapter because a lot of kids think of agg and they think of animals and they want to do animals and like show them at our county fair and that's what catches people's eye, not just the science behind it, plants or anything like that. So having our barn would help us have kids bring their animals in and keep them there and give them uh the animal care experience that they can have. And then having the barn can also what build up on to our careers there. So currently Miss Johnson teaches vette out there. But
014she can only do so much with vette. She has to use a plush horse to show shots and how to bandage them, how to take care of them in general. But if we have that barn space, we were able to have animals and we can do live on like handson activities with them, not just a plushed animal. Um >> to be clear, we are not testing on the animals. >> It's just to demonstrate like where we would give the vaccines, etc. So, um activities in the barn. Uh so, we would do um livestock management uh projects. So, um just working with like animals and whatnot, how to uh take care of them properly. And um then of course the animal science labs like the vette and having hands-on demonstration of how to take care of
015animals again. Um and then maybe in the future having FFA competitions and then um it'd be nice for it so we can do um some community outreach and egg literacy events. >> Some of the responsibilities of our students that they'd have in the barn. So to start off, we would if the TM of FA chapter would not purchase an animal for a student, but the barn would just be a place for them to house. So a student would purchase their animal to show they'd purchase the feed. They'd have to take care of it. We'd have them what's called like a barn mom. And every week or every day, they'll go in and make sure the animals are being taken care of just that or like they'll have to the student will have to text them
016barn mom of the week that they've done their chores for the animal twice that day and made sure everything's ready. And then that will get checked out by Miss Johnson and the barn mom to make sure everything's okay. So just to start off with students will purchase their own animal. So this barn will also like further push our a education obviously bringing more students in in general and this will provide better housing for other animals. So currently I ha live in town and I show rabbits and I also show chickens but we know that you can only have so many chickens in the city and you can not have roosters and I'm not sure if you can even have ducks but we do have ducks in our basement and I do have rabbits in my
017basement but I feel they're not in the best place they can be. I feel if they were out with other animals and in a barn or a sanctuary that's a lot safer for them and this would be a good place for them. And plus, I don't have to worry about the air quality in my house anymore. And then um we could probably add more a programs too. More students would be more interested in different ones. We're going to add floor culture next year. And because a lot of students are interested in it, it's not all kids are interested in animals or just teaching in general. Like I'm interested in a education. A lot of kids want the floric culture and stuff like that. So having just a bigger area to do all those things. So
018this barn is a long-term investment for our chapter. It's something that kids can use years in advance. I want to like this for me. I'm a senior. So, I'm really looking forward to looking back like looking not looking back looking forward and in my future seeing how the barn is being used and how the students are appreciating because I feel like there's something really big I get to help our chapter get and I'm really happy for all the students that we do have that will be able to use this because it really does enhance our education and it helps our students feel more involved because there are some kids they feel like oh I can't join a because I don't have land I don't live on a farm I can't have an animal and but
019I want to do that well this gives them such a great opportunity to do that and I'm really happy that we get to have this long-term investment in our chapter to help us succeed. So, this is the kind of plan we've drawn out of the barn. So, we had so the greenhouse had four bays to begin with. So, the two white things and we have they've already started construction out there. They tore down those two greenhouse bays. So, now we only have two, which that's all we need. It's a huge space and we had we had so much space we didn't know what to do with this. So, we have two bays now. That's where we'll have our plant sale. That's where we have the greenhouse and grow our plants. And then kind of next
020to that is what we'd have the barn kind of idea is what we had. And then land for that. And then we have the solar panels. And then the um dirt is what we would like to grow crops on next year in the future. And what Riley just passed out to you is kind of the um blueprint for the barn. At first, we just thought about having just one species to start off with for students or just a few small species like goats and sheep and then we could have our rabbits and our and other well no I guess we have a hutch for our rabbits like a big like shed hutch but we just have like goats and sheep to start off with something small and then when we get more students wanting to
021have animals I guess really for far in the future we could think about having like cattle and we'd Yeah. So, we'd have goats and sheep and pigs to start off with is what we kind of have in our barn. >> Yeah. I just want to give the students a big shout out. Uh there were several of them that aren't here tonight that presented at the Legacy Foundation. They presented at Farm Bureau. They presented to the Cargill Care Group. Um and they just did an outstanding job of representing our school and their chapter. Um and just the community in general. they could not have done a better job to um help bring this project to life. Um we presented the what you have in front of you um is the next rendition of what we presented
022last week to their um booster group and they had some good input and feedback for us and we've adapted the um design a little bit from from that. Uh so what you can see it's a 96x 48. It's actually enclosed. So the the drawings you saw on the slides were kind of our first rendition of that. And since then, uh, thanks to the the partnership and the, uh, funding that we've received that we'll, um, share here in a minute, uh, we are going to build an even bigger, um, barn and completely enclosed. Uh, and again, we made some, um, adaptations based on the feedback that the the students gave us last week and the parent group. Um, they're going to go visit some facilities around the state to get ideas on how to outfit the
023inside. Um, and we're really excited about this next phase of the um, a center project. But again, this could not have been possible without the students. They did such an outstanding job. um and they're going to go get some great ideas and bring that back to us um to bring this thing to life. It really is exciting to see what what they can do and the ideas that they've had and we're really excited to see what they come back to us with because uh it's going to be impressive. It's going to be an awesome opportunity for our our students and for years to come uh because of the efforts that these um student leaders have have put forth. So with that, I think they're um going to have some big announcements here for everybody. So,
024we'd like to thank the Toma Legacy Foundation for giving us $200,000 for our barn and then also Cargo Cares for um giving us 20,000 and I think we have we have plaques for them. If you guys have any questions, we are happy to answer them. Thank you. >> I don't have any questions, Dave. So, I just want to say how proud of I am of this program, how far it's came in the last couple years and and the work that, you know, behind the scenes. So many parents, I've been to a couple of the meetings and the parents and stuff are so involved in this. Um, as a kid that grew up most of my life in in this city, um, recently bought a property outside because my kids were always involved in sports and
025never had that opportunity. And as I move through life and have grandkids, which I have one three-year-old now, and now we have 40 chickens and four goats. um when she shows up every morning at 7:30, her job is to go down there and take care of them chickens and she does a very good job. But um by not living in the city, your guys' barns about a year late for me, I wouldn't have to buy a property in the country. But I'm never so glad I moved out there. But I'm so proud of this program and what you guys have done with it and what our school districts have done with it. It's a great great program and it's just done nothing but grow. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> I want I want
026to just add a couple things. first I had the honor of uh going with to present with uh this group and they just blow you away every time you get a chance to spend time with them. They're incredibly talented uh individuals and they advocate for their uh program and we're really proud of you and to raise $220,000 for your project. That's amazing. And um with that um I also want to recognize some other people that have had made this possible. I want to write Brad and Landon, Don, Brandon, and Shelly as well. They all really helped tremendously as far as making this into a reality. Uh, kind of timeline wise, I'm sure some people are wondering what the timeline. We hope to start this project uh this uh a little bit later this uh winter
027and get it started. And we we probably hope that it will be completed probably by the end of the school year. So, it's a pretty aggressive timeline, but uh we're confident we can get that done and and it's really all to because you care so much about what you do and we really appreciate you. Thank you. Okay, that's a tough act to follow. But, uh, the next item is the Pwick Early Childhood Center update. Got it. Good evening. I'm Mrs. Ledger. I am the building principal at Pwick and I have several staff members with me today. Uh just to give you a quick overview of some of the data and celebrations that we're um enjoying this school year. One of the things that we focus on across the building and across the district is our
028school improvement goals and we have tied our school improvement goal into the HRS um highly reliable schools data that the whole district is focusing on. So this year um at the elementary level we're all focusing on elements 2.1 2.3 and 3.5 and those are stated there with you. You'll also notice if you have access to the PowerPoint, the blue words are the actual scales that we use to review. That scales is something that we're also um working on districtwide at all levels, including preschool. So, I've presented some data that we um have our building leadership team use those scales to analyze how we as a building are growing towards those elements. So, that's last year's data. And then the beginning of this year's data, you'll see a little bit of difference. Um, we had been
029gathering the data and doing the scales each quarter, but since elementary is on um, trimesters, we chose to to do that at the end of each trimester. So, at the end of last year, we had rated ourselves a three, two, and two in quarter 4 in the various elements. And as we started the school year this year, we maintained the three for um element 2.1, grew a little bit in 2.3 and maintained that two in 3.5. So as our building leadership team is looking at these elements and what the scales read, we also then try to think about um what is a quick little action plan that we can do? Where are the areas of improvement that we look for? and Miss Odell, our instructional coach and behavior strategist, does uh benchmarks of quality uh
030several times through the year. And so we also look at that and look for those quick wins um and see what we can do to keep continuing to grow on those elements. Another piece of data that we wanted to highlight for you was our office referral. Um, we have the ability in Power School analytics to pull up this very colorful graph that shows three different years worth of data. So, this is showing the number of office referrals over the last three years all overlaid on each other week by week by week. Um and so just a short little synopsis up there in the right corner is when we started following um and collecting this data more routinely throughout the weeks of 1 through 19 because that's when I did the PowerPoint uh we had 170
031office referrals in 2324 school year in 2425 we were we reduced it to 152 and this year we have a remarkable decrease to only 38 during those first 19 weeks And so you might ask yourself like why? How did you do that? Um and that's a good question. One of the things is um our building wide expectations for positive behavior interventions and supports. It's those expectations. What do we expect of students on the playground, in the hallway, in the cafeteria? And we explicitly teach that behavior and expectations at the beginning of the school year. But we also highlight each one of those environments each week in the in our weekly bulletin for staff to go back and focus on just that area. Sometimes we can pull this data and say that the playground or the
032cafeteria is a problem spot or a time of day is a problem spot. Well, then we're troubleshooting that and we're going back to the explicit instruction and and working with individuals who might have more than one office referral in a certain area. Again, Miss Odell works a lot with that. Um, but our general teachers are doing that as well. The other component that we'd like to add, uh, you'll see a little bit more um, about Character Strong, our new curriculum across the district for social emotional development. And at Pwick, that is our number one goal, social emotional growth. And we believe that the character strong elements that students are getting in those classroom guidance lessons along with the work that the teachers are doing with that character strong um is helping reduce those office referrals.
033And that's what this next slide about is about. Hi, I'm Stephanie Welch, the assistant principal at Pwick Early Childhood Center. And so on this slide, we just wanted to highlight for you one of the things that we are doing and our guidance counselor and Mrs. Odell and and the rest of the leadership team have been working really strongly on is awarding and recognizing those students um more for the individual things that they are doing related to the curriculum that we are now implementing. So this is just literal screenshots of the process and the way it is and the areas that we celebrate each month. So each month um each teacher andor administrator or staff member can nominate two different students and in September you can see we focused on respect October responsibility so on and
034so forth. Um, and then what our guidance counselor does is each of the students get a certificate and they get their picture taken and we post them for the stu the the students, the other students to see and the staff and then parents um up front and that's what those pictures up at the top are. Um, just celebrating uh all those different wonderful things each month. She transitions out the the kiddos and their pictures there. So everybody gets a chance to see that and gets their certificate. Then they get a pick from the sticker store. They get little celebrations. They love it. So it's great. We really feel like that has made a big impact and and help decrease those numbers um as well for those office referrals, focusing on that positive there. Um this
035is uh just something that we wanted to highlight. We found out we were following the A team and we said we better throw some some kids in here and some cute things. So, um we are just highlighting some of our fall things that we did um that are really successful. So, we had the trunk or treat that, um the whole school, uh and their families comes it seems like and participates. We had a great turnout for that. Um our book fair went really well. We also some of the other pictures over there with the kids. One of the things that we do um with our curriculum in CKLA is they focus on nursery rhymes. And so our kindergarten team does a nursery rhyme Olympics. And so here you see some pictures. One of the things
036that they do is the Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars. They're painting stars on the thing there. And then um uh they talk about Kurds and way and um all that. And so they're trying different things there in that other one. And then they have their races down there in the bottom. So they do a great job with that. And here's another one that is so fun. >> Um, our fall pumpkin contest um was something that we did by classroom. Each classroom got to decorate a pumpkin and then they were put on display and our students voted on their favorites. Um, we also put it out to the community. I don't know if any of you saw it go through I think the school's web page did it um or our Facebook page and then parents also
037got to pick their favorites. And so awards were given to the classrooms um that won in each hallway. So we had a red, blue, green, and then our orange hallways each had winners for our pumpkin contest. And you can see the kids really really got into it. They each got to go vote. Um and so kind of showed them a little bit of that process that how you vote and you're not always going to win. Um but yeah, they had a lot of fun doing that. >> Yeah, even Mr. Mcgory came and got a toss a vote, too. >> Yep. >> All right. And our next um these are some of the goals that we work on as a building. Um letter sounds are a really big indicator of reading later on in life. And
038so that is one of the goals that we have built as a school um at at Pwick. So, our each of the things listed there, our three-year-olds, their goal for being able to produce and identify sounds by the end of the year is three. Um, our four-year-olds, we do 10. Our junior kindergarten is 17 and then kindergarten follows along with CKLA and that goal is 31 sounds. And then this shows last year's data along with this year's. Um, and again, those goals are end of the year. So, we don't have a moving target. Um so you will see um we are making a lot of progress and by the end of the year a lot of our students do get there. Um for someone outside of early childhood and outside of kindergarten it those numbers
039do look a little scary right now but those students are just now being introduced to all of those letter sounds. So they will pick them up and it's incredible how much they just soak up as they're being introduced. Um, and then these are also some of our goals that we use with our early childhood in the preschool. Um, we have areas of social, emotional, cognitive, literacy, and math. Um, and each of those we pull a couple different essential objectives out of our teaching strategies gold. And those are our focus areas and things that we as a building have decided that we're going to hold fast to. And those are areas that um all of our students who are in our program should master and we're going to work for um till the end of the
040school year. So this is um a start of the data that we have so far this year for the math. It's called I Ready. That's our curriculum that we do and the and the screener and the assessments. And so um I we went ahead and divided that out for junior kindergarten and kindergarten here. And you can see the beginning of the year in the fall, we started at 33% in junior kindergarten. And I know that, you know, junior kindergarten is a newer program and that kind of stuff, but you can already see winter of 2026. They just assessed an up to 73% have gotten in our meeting at or above that benchmark goal for the end of the year. And so that growth of 40%, we were super excited to see that. our kindergarteners um
041were at 47% on that math I already diagnostics and we jumped up to 68% so far and again a growth a good growth of 21% there meeting or at or above the benchmark. Um this one uh is our literacy diagnostic information. And so we looked at points for um our junior kindergarten on this one. And I just as I was going through and analyzing the data, just wanted to emphasize I know we expect all students to grade growth and and we actually met that goal. Sometimes we're often whole hard on ourselves when we don't but 100% of the students in the kindergarten made growth in their scores on uh this dibble diagnostic. Um and then this is the dibbles diagnostic for the kindergarten um in our class and just we did a little comparison of
042of our growth um at Pwick and how we were doing and um where the kids are considered proficient. So we in the fall we're at 21%. We just took it we just and we're still kind of working on finishing it up. some of those kids that were absent and that kind of stuff, but um of the ones that we've tested already, uh we've jumped up to 38% being proficient with that growth of 17%. And here is another fun one. And we have one of our lovely ladies is part of a we have a teacher here, Karen Jana. >> Hello. Yeah. So, um, one of our committees is the positive vibes club and, um, what we want to do is bring positivity to the building. And one of the things that we implemented this year was
043the pickwick weekly shoutouts. And it's really, I think, worked. I mean every they can nominate somebody every week and so then we choose from the list and every Thursday we go around we find that staff and we take a picture of them we give them treats and then we share this virtual it's almost like our character strong for teachers right I just realized that um and so yeah and we also organize the birthday celebrations and secret friends and it's fun and we're meeting soon because we have new ideas that we want to implement and just to continue bringing the positivity to our building and also we had the opportunity to go to the fall institute. It was so much fun. We got to spend the whole day learning and uh I've done that a couple
044of years now and it's it's a great experience. >> And then you were going to talk about >> Yeah. The last little thing on there is that we did have um sorry, we did have the honor of our Miss Small, a teacher, kindergarten teacher, getting the Darling Dental favorite teacher award. And so they came in and and Miss uh Kate Henderson came over and highlighted that for us and talked about that. So a student nominated her. So that's pretty awesome. And this is the last one. It's just the employees of the month. >> Yep. So, we just have highlighted um various uh staff members who have had the honor of being nominated and awarded the employee of the month. And that concludes our little presentation. So, we're happy that you were here to celebrate some
045of our successes and we're happy to answer questions if you have any or suggestions. If not, we'll conclude. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, moving on. 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 transparency. Uh starting with anformational financial review with Mike and John. Thanks a lot, Dave. Good evening, everyone. Tonight, John and I will provide you with an overview of our long-term budget projections for both the general and the capital funds. Our goal is really to provide you with a clear picture of where we're at financially, not just today, but in the future. The key takeaway I hope that you have from this presentation is that both our general and capital budgets are
046in very strong positions now and in the long term. I also want to emphasize that our projections are are intentionally conservative. We believe strongly in not overpromising. Even using very conservative assumptions, both funds remain in excellent shape. That should give the board confidence that our financial stability is not built on optimistic forecasting like throwing darts or more careful planning and discipline stewardship. Sound proactive budgeting practices don't happen by accident. They're essential if a district wants to remain fiscally healthy, particularly in these type of budgetary climates, while still moving forward. Because of that approach, our district has had the financial capacity over the past five years to invest nearly $60 million in capital improvements while also adding significant staff and programs that directly benefit students. That balance maintaining stability while advancing the district has led our
047district to a transformation. I want to also express take this time to express my gratitude for the opportunity to work alongside John as our school business officer. His financial expertise is exceptional and we challenge each other's thinking in a way that ultimately leads to stronger financial decisions for this district. This partnership has been a major factor in my mind of the progress because of the progress we've made. And then finally, we want this to be an interactive conversation. Feel free to ask any questions during the presentation because really our goal is to ensure that you have a clear understanding and full confidence in the district's financial direction. So I'll turn it over to John. >> Thanks, Mike. Uh so when Mike uh explained that we were going to do this presentation, uh I'm always excited
048to share financial information. Uh but he did tell me I couldn't just put spreadsheets up on the screen. So we very much limited that. Um but but just know that there's a lot of data behind this. We use a lot of different tools and forecast documents. Uh but we try to summarize it as best we can to kind of give the overview. Uh and then welcome any questions. So the two that we're going to focus on really strongly here are the general fund and the capital funds which are uh PPE and the the save fund. Uh the reason for that is that these are the two major funds that uh have the most variables. Uh we've got 14 funds. Um but most of those are more single source revenue and just a couple expenses like
049the management levy is funded through a small portion of property taxes and then we pay our insurance and our early retirement from it. Uh school nutrition that's self-contained. It just contain uh includes the nutrition fund. So these have a lot more variables going on. So we just wanted to spend a little time to go through it. So, um, first off, our general revenue fund composition. Uh, our annual budget for this current year in the general fund is just under $71 million. And it's always helpful to see where that comes from. Uh, because this varies a lot through the state. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions about where the money does come from. So, in in a Toma, uh, almost 73% of our annual revenue comes from the state. uh local property taxes makes
050up 16% and then the balance which is just a little over 11% is made up of federal uh the income tax and miscellaneous funds so like grants and onetime only funds. Um this varies widely throughout the state. So um I looked at a couple data points to share is there's um one of the things that makes it so most of our aid comes from the state is that the property tax valuations in ATAMA are are fairly low on a per pupil basis. um we're actually the lowest in the state and that's something uh that has been the case for many years. But to give an illustration of what that does and what that means is um you take a district like Okaboji and that is the other extreme. They got a lot of high valuation
051properties up there. So Okaboji has let's see here um their tax rate is $9.25. Uh Automos is $14.66. Our 1466 is very stable and very in line with the averages. Okabojis is one of the lowest in the state. Um they have 1,027 students in their school district. So with their $925 tax rate, they generate 11.8 million of property tax revenue. We generate 11.4. Our district is 5,000 plus students and the tax rate is $5 higher because their valuations are so strong. They have uh property tax valuations of $1.9 million per pupil and a tumlas is $187,000 per pupil. So there there's a wide variation in the state. Um but thankfully the state has a funding formula that takes this into consideration. So in other states where those disparities exist, the atumbas would get very little
052monies and the okabojis would be flushed with cash. In Iowa, the formula formula makes up for this with state aid. So the state aid in our case is $51 million or 73% of our budget in Okaboji. They get 850 grand and about 6% of their budget is is state aid. So so it balances out. So even though you'll see this very different between school districts, in the end it's meant to be fairly equitable. So um it's one of the few funding formulas in the country that hasn't been challenged, but this is what it generates for us. long-term forecasting. So, the forecasts that we use are only as good as the data used to generate them. So, we figured we'd touch on some of the pieces that we take into consideration as we do this. So,
053obviously the biggest one is student enrollment. That's the the largest driver and um drives our forecast. In our case, we'll talk a little bit more about what what we use for that, but we've actually reduced our projections. We used to assume about a 1% increase, which is very conservative, and we had been doing better than that. But with this year, we had a a student enrollment decrease. Uh we think most of that's attributed to the the graduating class being a bubble class that graduated and then our incoming class wasn't enough to overcome that. So, we don't expect that large of a decrease, but we changed our projections on the fly because we want to be more realistic. uh state supplemental amount, that's the legislative amount of growth they give us every year. That's uh taken
054into consideration. Our taxable valuations, we get updates from the assessor's office every year. Our special ed student count, that has a large factor in our funding. Uh English language learner population is another major piece in ATMA. And then we also look at our open enrollment. So open enrollment in or out is a big factor. For many years in ATAMA, open enrollment out was growing rapidly. and this funnels money out of the district. Um, thankfully that has slowed down, but we always look at that and keep projections uh in line with what we're actually seeing. Grants and donations. Um, Atom is fantastic at grants. We we just heard of one tonight for the agricultural center. Um, Legacy Foundation's been extremely supportive of the district and those grants really help get a lot of the new programs
055off the ground, but then we have to make sure we recognize those funds go away. uh they're only for a period of time. So when we do get funds to start the alternative school, uh we received a large donation from Legacy there. We know that in a couple years that trails off and we have to pick up the cost. So that gets built into the projections. Uh staffing updates, same thing. That's the 75% of our budget is staffing. So we've got to pay attention to that. Uh salary negotiations, we've got to be cognizant of what monies we have available. Um so we put that into the projections. And then inflation and expense increases. Obviously, the cost of everything right now is going up. Um, that tends to be the the norm. Uh, it's got some
056big peaks and valleys, but we we adjust our forecast to take all of that in into consideration. To give the board some idea of the student enrollment across the state, almost 78% of districts right now are losing student enrollment, public schools. At the same time, private schools are dramatically increasing their numbers. Um, you also have this issue of uh budget guarantee. You're going to see a huge number of districts this year do budget guarantee because they're losing student enrollment. And what that will mean and and this is something you you know we want to emphasize to our legislators is what that'll mean is that 1% will go property tax, increase property tax across the state. They they access that through property tax. So, it's going to have a big impact on that. So, we're advocating
057that it would be better off for the the state to give us probably 3%. They'd save money and it wouldn't be such a tax burden on on the local. So, that it there's definitely things changing um enrollment wise across and I think a lot of districts are fearful that that's going to continue. what you've seen as board members, I'm sure, is um some things like uh Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, but you're going to see a lot more of those with financial issues. And the reason is a lot of people will say it's one-time money. They use their Esser money for one-time money. That's part of it, but it's only part of it. The other reasons they've run into trouble is because they either kick the can the problem down the road and I think you'll see
058through our presentation is that we're constantly analyzing our budget. We're constantly changing things. We're constantly seeing how we can save money ongoing so we don't have that big issue coming up. And then the other thing is is just the loss of students. So Cedar Rapids has lost s I think 450 to 500 students. Uh, Vloo is going to lose about 400. Uh, De Moines is going to lose 6 to 700 students. Those those things aren't sustainable. Uh, Cedar Rapids is at the lowest uh enrollment since uh I think it's 30 years ago or maybe their lowest ever. So, you're just seeing a lot of trends that are are very concerning for us right now. >> Bless you. Um, forecasting principles and benefits. So it's these are some of the goals that we try to uh
059keep in focus as we work on the projections and then kind of review them is uh we're trying to predict create a predictable financial environment and we want to avoid surprises. The you know surprise you've got to make a million dollars in cuts is never a good conversation starter. So we're always trying to adapt our financial projections to not put us in that position. Um we utilize as much information as possible to create a realistic forecast uh that can paint an accurate picture of our future resources. Uh we're avoiding reliance on one-time funds for ongoing operations. And the the ESSER is just the most recent one, but uh years before that, this this pops up whenever there's kind of a financial crisis is you've get you get an influx of funds. Uh Esser's the most
060recent one. Um and then single-year grants. Like I said, we Atumbama does a fantastic job of supporting their schools through charitable organizations and legacy. Um, but we have to uh when we get one-time funds like that or a limited a two or threeyear program, we got to know they're going to end. And we always uh right from the get-go start planning on how we're going to pick up the costs when those grant funds uh are depleted. So, um but if you don't, it kind of creates that fiscal cliff. And you'll you'll hear that a lot coming up in the future. You already hear it now from some schools talking about it. Continuously reviewing the projections and updating with new information and priorities. So, um, we're constantly getting new updates right now with the legislative session.
061Uh, we're watching very closely because a lot of information, uh, there a lot of talk in there. So, we're watching that and and as soon as we get definitive information, we update the projections so we know kind of what that looks like. Um, financial stability and healthy reserve funds, uh, they allow us to retain staff and programs even during years that SSA is insufficient. So without that balance, uh, if you were at a school district that's running, you know, under 5%, and I've seen that, they get into a situation where they have an enrollment decline and they have to immediately make cuts because they have no reserves to to sustain a year, a bump. Um, so that targeted solveny that we've aimed for between 10 and 15% uh provides the district and the board options
062rather than forcing a reaction and instant changes and cuts. So if you uh want to go a year and believe like uh you've got a decrease but you expect it to bounce back or you expect open enrollment to stabilize things like that you can having some reserves allows you to run a year or two where it's a little slim and then it kicks back. So it's just just gives a cushion um just gives us options. So we talked about kind of adjusting as needed. So there's always a purposeful focus on student education and building staff level. So when we staffing 75%. So obviously if you need to make changes that's where you look and we want to keep that as far away from the classroom as possible. So we just kind of did um you
063know we've had a lot of changes in the past several years. We looked at our staffing FTEES and that stands for full-time equivalent back in 2021. And so you see certified was 327 positions. Uh associates u and one note about the associates and food service. the I put a number up there that's FTEES, but those positions are a lot of them are part-time. So even though it says 150 associates, we actually had that year we had 203 employees, but they all worked like a 75 FTE job. So that's where those kind of variances come from. Uh custodians and maintenance staff, we had 39. Uh food service, we had 21 FTEEs and district administration, we had 12. Fast forward to this year and um certified staff, we've actually seen growth. We're at 370. It's 13% up.
064Associates, our FTE number is up 22% to 183. Custodians and maintenance staff is at 48. That's a 23% increase. Uh food service is up to 37 FTEEs. That's a 76% increase. And then district administration is actually down three positions, 25%. So, this is kind of that effort to keep changes away from um the school and and in our case, we needed increases. Um several years ago we identified that we had funds available and we needed more classroom support staff. Uh we needed more special education staff, food service. Uh we've expanded. We've added more production kitchens. Uh we've increased the hours of some of those positions. And we've done free lunch for everybody. So we've got more kids eating. So we had a higher need. So, um, >> and one one thing I'd like to point
065out on this is that when you look at these numbers, um, I want to emphasize that I I put us up against any district the last 5 years, there isn't another district that has increased staffing in the magnitude that we have. And like John said, also certified staffing. We've dramatically increased the amount of certified staff that we have over the last five years and still maintained a really solid budget. So, we're utilizing the money to provide those resources. We've added dramatically a lot more programs uh as well as um opportunities for our students. So, uh you can see that we're spending the money and like John talked about when you start looking at you know what do you have for solveny ratio, you want to stay between 10 and 15%. You get above 15% then
066you're using it as a bank and you're not doing what's best for kids. So when we project, we're always looking at we want to be in that range, but we don't want to be at 20 25%. >> So as we move ahead here, this is my one graph I get to have. So um the I put a couple of the the kind of the key financial indicators here. So there's three on here and I'll I'll kind of each one uh unspent authorized budget. uh what that is, they call it spending authority or UAB and it is a number that represents um how much spending authority we have above and beyond our current budget basically. So this kind of is money that's come forward from years in the past. Uh the state uh pays a lot
067of attention to this. If we had that uh lower than our actual cash reserves, we couldn't spend. Uh so it is in very good shape with that and that number uh does not represent our money in the bank but it just represents the authority above and beyond our current year budget that we have. So uh it's it's very healthy. It's it's almost getting towards the peak and uh but the only way you really reduce that is by reducing spending and we're just not in that position yet. Uh we don't need to. Um the next one is that unassigned fund balance. So this is the monies we have left over in the general fund, our reserve after everything that's committed and spent. So what we project to end this year at is that 11.2 million. Um
068and the solveny ratio is a representation of our ability uh or our reserves. So uh what Mike had talked about and I've mentioned before, we we target 10 to 15%. uh years past, we've looked at that data before where we uh we were in that 10 to 15% range and then we popped up during the the er years because we we received a big influx of cash. So, we were up into the 20s and I think our highest was 23%. We had no intention of staying there. So, we uh the federal funds turned off and we made adjustments and and that came back down. Uh this current year or the year we finished fiscal year 25, we were at about 12%. And we are bringing that back up to around 16% this year. here. And
069that was always kind of the idea is that it is going to kind of follow a curve where we have the spike, we come back down, and then we level off right where we want to be. And that's a kind of the representation we're showing here. Um, even though that solveny ratio, the black line, it moves from 15.9% up into the 17s and then trails off at the end 15 14. I don't put a whole lot of stock in those five and sixyear because a lot some things will change between now and then. But the overall idea was to show that we're still within our targets uh with all the assumptions we're making right now. Uh same thing with the fund balance at 11 11.2 um 10.8 is the lowest it is on there and
070that that's a healthy reserve fund for a tumbla and and well within our targets. Um, one additional note there in when you look at that reserve fund is uh when you hold that much money in reserve which is like I said in the targets uh it's still a significant amount of money and we can make interest earnings on it. Um I looked back and I I looked when I first came was back in 2017 late 2017 and the interest rate environment was horrible then banks were paying hardly anything and that year we earned just under $37,000 in interest in the general fund. Uh fast forward to last year uh and we earned 414,000. So uh more than 10 times increase. Um most of that is due to the interest rates going up. But the other
071part is that we're fairly aggressive when we talk uh to the banks. Uh we we use outside resources. Um we had uh interest rates had started going up and uh some of the banks that we had our funds in had not automatically adjusted that. So, we we reminded them that the interest rate environment had improved and and set some meetings and talked and and we got that moved pretty quick. And since then, we've had that uh number matched to kind of a uh I guess you'd call it the Fed funds rate. Some of the one of the rates that is um moves and is much more representative of a fair uh interest rate. So, we most of our funds are sitting between 3 and 3 and a half%. Uh, and we've actually got certificates of
072deposit uh that go up to 4%. Uh, which right now is pretty good. I don't think any of us could get 4% if we went to the bank. So, um, we've been thankful with our local banks that they have been able to be competitive. Uh, we spread it around a little bit, but uh, because it makes a difference. You know, going from less than 40 grand to 400,000, that's you're talking several teaching positions, uh, associate positions. So, it it matters. So we we try to stay aggressive with that too, knowing that we want to be responsible with with the reserves we're holding. So, okay, drivers of long-term health. So, this uh just kind of gives some of the pieces that are built in. Uh state aid reliability. These are some of the assumptions. We assume
073a steady SSA of 2%. Uh that has been the lowest that we've got for several years. Uh that's a very conservative number and and that's kind of where we feel the minimum the floor should be. Uh that allows consistent salary increases for staff. It helps helps offset inflationary increases and it's it represents a conservative rate of growth. Um that allows us to deliver exceptional education. Uh if we start getting less than that, it creates some issues and we'd have to make adjustments. uh you'd be hardressed to convince anybody that costs have not gone up more than 2% in any given year, especially here recently. So, uh and we're coming off a couple years where inflation for almost everything was 8 to 10%. And we still got 2% 2 and a.5% SSA. So, uh 2%'s kind
074of the minimum. Um and our budgets are built on that. We feel that's conservative. So, if we get more than that, that's fantastic. If we get less, we have to look at adjustments. enrollment trends. Uh we're assuming a 0% growth rate. So we've we've used um higher rates. Uh our historical averages, our three and fiveyear averages, as well as the state projections that they release, all have us going up more than that. They have us between uh half a percent and and a percent and a half every year. Uh we've chosen to reduce ours to zero just until we verify that this last year's drop is not a trend. uh we don't want to be projecting a percent increase um coming off a year where we decline and then have continue to decline further. So
075we adjust that to zero but we strongly feel um that that we're going to come back just based on the numbers we see in our co cohorts. Um so but conservative is I I we're trying to avoid surprises. So and then operational efficiency. So, uh, constantly reviewing, uh, student enrollment class data. Um, we assume a general 2 and a half% increase of expenses each year, trying to sufficiently, uh, plan for that. And that drives our staffing levels and support resources in district operations. And I know um, we can talk a little bit about just the review of staffing. Uh, Mike, if you wanted to chime in on that. Yeah. >> Yeah. We what we do every year is we're we're trying to be proactive with our budget. So, like John said, we don't hit this
076cliff. So, every time we have a position open, we analyze it. We analyze um if we need that position, if we need it full-time, whatever it is, and we're constantly looking at that rather than waiting and reacting to when you all of a sudden kick that, like I said before, kicking it down the road and then you have this big budget uh reduction. And we're able to do it through attrition. we're nobody's losing their position, nobody's, you know, so it's a really for for me I learned that basically that uh because of going through when I was a principal and many districts that were experiencing budget problems every year uh and as we probably six years in a row we had budget reductions. So when you go through that you learn the impact budget reductions
077have on your culture of of a district. It's huge. And the thing we're trying to avoid is we're trying to avoid that happening here in the Tumbl. And it's really become a challenge because of all the things we've talked about going on at the state level across the state. But like John said, the the 2% that we hope to get. We we're budgeting at a at a high enough level that we can absorb the the inflation above that through our budget. And not many districts can do that. A lot of districts are really struggling with doing that as well. Yep. And so, you know, like Mr. Regory says, we we definitely are aware every time a position comes open to analyze it. It's just not automatic. But as you could see from that slide a
078couple of slides ago is we've we've gone up in staff. So, um we're still adding programs. We're still expanding. But that doesn't mean that automatically we just kind of go on autopilot and just let the staffing and a lot of I've seen a lot of districts let that get out of control, especially in special education. if you just go on autopilot sometimes you you just don't you step back and and before you know it you're running huge deficits and the state starts knocking on your door. So we just want to avoid being in that position and be intentional with all that as as we go. So now we're going to shift to the capital funds. Um so this is our primary source for facility projects, equipment and technology hardware. So funding for capital projects uh
079and capital improvements we comes from mainly two sources two funds. We've got the physical plant and equipment levy. Uh that's capital project fund for the purchase and improvement of grounds, purchase, construction and remodeling of buildings, equipment purchases, um and rental and land of equipment, excuse me. Uh Pebble's funded by property taxes and it's uh collected by the school, yeah, school district. Part of our property tax levy. Uh save funds or we call these like 12 different things, but it's the secure and advanced vision for education is the official name of it. Uh it's a sales tax penny. So it's funded through that 1 cent on the the sales tax. It gets sent to the state and they distribute it on a per pupil basis uh to districts across the state. The makeup of our capital
080funds about 77.5% comes from that save pool. Uh just under 19% comes from the physical plant and equipment levy. Um we actually in the tumb here we passed the voted approved voter approved PPE in 2021 and that made a big difference for us. So right now you see the blue chunk shows just under $1.7 million in PPE funds. Uh the voted at the voter approved PPE is 1.3 million of that. So, um, before that, we were only getting, um, but several years ago, it was just it was under $300,000, um, in total from PPE. That was meant to support, uh, all our district buildings, and it was nowhere near enough. So, um, the voters approved that back in 2021 by a pretty good margin, and we were extremely thankful for it because it's made a
081world of difference in our facilities as you can see. Um, and then to round it out, 3.7% as interest earnings, and then some miscellaneous grants or reimbursements round out those funds. And what's helped us as far as uh having a really solid um capital budget is the fact that uh when you look at our save money, it's gone up dramatically because of our increase in enrollment. Uh that's helped a lot. Um and we're up to I think John now what is it 7.5 million in sales tax? >> It's right around seven. >> Yeah, right around seven. >> Yep. >> So it's huge for us as far as the the amount yearly we get and and save. Y um so uh long range project planning. So we maintain uh capital plan and it's it's obviously much
082more detailed than this but we've I've summarized it quite a bit just to try to show uh the different pieces. Uh it projects our revenues based on property tax valuations and certified enrollments. Uh it tracks our planned projects, repairs and maintenance and equipment purchases. and it's meant to be stable um or grow the fund grow the fund balances and make sure we're taking all taking care of all the the needs we have. So over the course of the next uh couple years here um we have the revenue the top section kind of shows our fund balance and our revenues. Um the save growth uh just as an example uh Mike mentioned we're just about $7 million annually. Um six years ago that that's a per student basis. Six years ago, we were getting $1,59 per
083student. And it's great having it tied to students when you have increasing enrollment because that that has kept up. Uh but in 2026, the most recent year, that per student amount has gone up to $1,357. Uh that's $298 per student or 28% increase in six years. Um, crazy enough, uh, when you're in an inflationary environment, it's actually helpful for this, uh, because obviously everything costs more and there's more sales tax. So, an indirect or direct benefit that helps us a little bit is when, uh, spending goes up, uh, in dollar amounts, we get more on the sales tax fund. So, um, over the life of this though, the lowest our fund reserves go is $4 million. And as I'll talk a little bit more on one of the next slides, is we're we're funding everything
084we can think of right now. So, >> and I think a fair question on this that uh with with me leaving is people want to know, hey, we've spent a lot of money on physical plan improvements across our district. How are we as far as our capital budget moving forward? And what this is showing you, this this includes everything that we're looking at doing that's projected in there. So, yeah, our baseball softball complex, $5 million. Our windows that you approved last time, uh, that's all projected in there, and we still have a surplus uh, moving forward, a significant surplus. So, we feel like we're in very good shape moving forward as far as having capital funds. Um, even though we've been able to spend a lot on capital. >> Y. So, just to kind of
085summarize some of that, the I said revenue projections over the next six years, we're averaging about $9.3 million annually. Um, that provides sufficient resources to complete all the current projects. So, you know, we're in the middle of a couple things. We're finishing up the renovations at AMA High School. Uh, we opened up the athletic center this year. We've got our classroom remodels at James Elementary. Uh, secure entrance at Eisenhower. Uh, finishing up on those projects. We've got preliminary budget estimates of 5 million for the Toma Park Baseball and Softball Complex. And I know that's still ongoing, but we we put it in the the projections right now. So, we know, hey, if everybody keeps moving forward on this, can we afford it? And we want to make sure that's the case. Uh $1 million for
086the window replacements at the elementary schools. And then in addition to that, we're annually allocating between $ 1.5 and $2 million for ongoing maintenance and and upgrades, roof repairs and replacements. So, vehicles and equipment needs are they're on a cycle, they need to be replaced. The roofs on all the buildings need to be replaced. Um, and then just additional projects that we're aware of. So, >> and technology. Yeah. >> Yep. Yeah. Annual payments for the district technology, infrastructure, and devices. Uh, all our operational software, like I said, those vehicle and equipment replacements, and then the debt service on the existing revenue bonds are AC adequ adequately provided for over the next 10 years. So, all the one-on-one devices, um, we know that they're on a cycle. The technology department's done a great job of going
087uh three, four, five year windows and we build that in so we know what we're going to have to buy every every couple years. Um so during the next six years, our capital project fund reserves are expected to range between 4 million and 10 million. The 4 million is the low point. Uh 10 million is actually out at year six. Um so it it kind of grows and that's after all our current and planned projects are fully funded uh along with those other annual allocations to support the district operations. So, um, that level of resources we feel provides, uh, the resources for unexpected capital needs and then along with additional projects and especially when you get out there and you're talking about a $10 million reserve balance, you want to start looking to see if
088there's anything else that needs to be done. So, uh, bonds, we mentioned bonds. So, debt service and bonds. Uh, like we said, a lot of the ways that we're able to to do some of these larger projects, obviously, if we're only receiving 9 million a year, how do we do a 20 million or $30 million project is we we use bonds. So, uh, sales tax revenue bonds, it's a common method for Iowa school districts to fund large capital projects. Uh, principal and interest payments on the bonds are funded through future sales tax revenues. So, um, with this option, schools can receive revenue upfront for projects without the need to al to levy additional property taxes. Uh, 83% of school districts have issued bonds to provide funding for capital improvements, equipment, or technology. Of those, or
089part of those bonds, about 54% of school districts have had to issue general obligation bonds. And those are bonds which are uh funded through a property tax levy. Uh, TMO does not have any of those. uh t 100% of our bonds are financed with sales tax revenues uh or that local option sales tax. So debt service for those are are con completely contained in the capital projects fund and paid for with the future sales tax reserves and they have no effect on property tax rates and we that's intentional. Uh we know that awa has been a a historically high property tax city. That is not all the school's fault and I just want to point that out. Ours has been pretty pretty steady. Um, but just combined there's a lot of entities that that need
090money and and we're all dealing with the same thing where low valuations just don't generate high dollars. We're not an Okaboji. Um, so and that's one of the things we're really proud of as a district is that we've been able to do everything we've done in the last five to six years without putting a burden on our taxpayers. And as a board, you should feel really proud of that because that's uh that's not the norm. And uh as you can see a lot of people are going to general obligation bonds and so >> um that that's really great for a to loan. >> Yeah, absolutely. So uh with debt service coverage ratios and I will explain what that means. Um significantly above the minimum levels, we maintain the ability for future revenue bond issuances. So,
091um, we obviously analyze and we work with financial consultants to help make sure that the bond payment schedules are are tiered right so that we're not locked in and can't do anything else. And so, we are in the position where there is the ability for future revenue bond issuances in a couple years here. Um, although based on our current project schedule, there's not any immediate need for that. Like I said, looking at where we're at and all the allocations in year six, we've got a $10 million reserve fund. So, it's so far so good and that that looks to continue. >> And I think a lot of people ask a district, how do we do certain things we're doing in our district where we offer free breakfast, free lunch or we offer free and hardly
092any districts are doing this free three-year-old and four-year-old preschool. And the way we're able to do that is just getting really creative, but also looking at all of our budgets that we have available. And our food service budget is in excellent shape and allows us to do that out of our food service budget and still keep a great uh uh budget in there. And we try to do things where we project out five to seven years. I didn't want to offer free lunch and pre-re and we could only afford to do it one year. Same way with uh preschool. Uh that is largely through a a major grant. Um, so we're like John said, we're really active trying to get those grants because it makes a huge difference for our for our uh district. Um,
093so continuing the capital projects fund there, uh, I mentioned it, the estimated debt service coverage ratio. So, um, that's something that always comes up when you go for a bond issuance. So, the ratings agencies and the the people who buy our bonds pay attention to this. And it's a a measurement of the district's ability to service bond debt. So the minimum that is typically allowed is 1.2 which means the gener the district would generate revenue equal to 120% of the amount needed to service bond payments. So to put that in some dollar amounts if we had $4 million in debt service obligations which are the payments uh we would have to collect 120% of that or 4.8 million through our sales tax reserves in order to qualify to issue bonds. And that's the minimum and
094we we like to be a little above that. So if we assume uh that sales tax collections remain fixed, so we take a point in time right now and say they're never going to increase from this point forward over the life of our bonds, our average ratio is 1.46. So it means that we're collecting 146% of the revenue each year um to to service those bonds. So we have uh extra money avail $4 million worth of bond payments, we're collecting 5.8. So every year we have $1.8 $8 million above and beyond what we need to service our debt that we can use for those annual roof replacements, vehicle replacements, and so on using a conservative growth estimate for the save revenues. So, as I talked about on the last one, over the last six years,
095it went up 28% which is almost 5% per year. If we assume they're going to continue at 1.5% per year, the average ratio climbs to 1.68. So that means that if you have $4 million in debt payments, we're collecting $6.7 million annually or $2.7 million above. So these are all things that go into uh the consideration when we go out for bonds because nobody would buy our bonds if we didn't think we were going to pay them back. Uh so these go out on the financial markets. We get uh ratings. They're they're they're structured in a way so that they maintain they're consistent for us. So our bond payment schedule is fairly consistent. When some drop off, other ones pick up a little more. So they they balance that out. And I am not the
096financial mastermind that puts together the payment schedules, but I work with uh financial adviserss that help structure those bonds to do that and we make sure that it fits in our budget. So that's a piece that we work on. >> And I know we're getting in the weeds somewhat and we're coming dangerously close to losing everybody during this presentation, but this is this is really important stuff. And it it indicates that um by borrowing against the sales tax and what we're doing, we're still in great shape as far as um and you'll see in a moment uh like our bond rating is so forth because of the way we do it. So we're not overleveraged. We're in great shape uh on our sales tax and for all the reasons John's citing there. >> Yeah. And
097so uh the one other positive is we don't have this built in, but we're looking at a declining interest rate environment. You know, they've been coming down. There's a lot of pressure on the Fed to lower rates. Um, as anyone with a savings account, they're a little bummed about that, but carrying bonds as a school district, we watch that. So, in the next three to five years, we expect rates to come down. It'll open up some refinance oper opportunities and that would further uh benefit our capital projects fund so we get a more favorable terms and lower those debt payments. And and as Mike mentioned, oops, uh we did our last uh S&P Global rated us in 2024 when we had our last bond rating. They gave us A+. It's stable. Um that's been the
098same for a while. Uh they've reaffirmed it. They for a while there when we refinanced a couple bonds and we were doing them to do the big projects, we were getting reviewed every time. So they kept getting our updated information. They they look at our financial projections. We have to share those with them. So um you don't have to just take our word for it. Uh we do have the outside rating to to help with that. So um kind of wrapping it up here. So the just overall financial position uh we feel the general fund resilient. Uh it's stable over the long term. We've got a solveny ratio that's in our 10 to 15% target. It's actually above that for a couple years, but I'm certain that people will find ways to spend money. So
099I think we'll be we'll bring that down a little bit. Uh conservative forecasting, we're using 0% enrollment growth, even though we see some that looks a little higher than that. Uh 2% SSA and 2 and a half% uh expense growth kind of protects us from some volatility. uh capital project outlook remains robust. We've got full funding for our priorities uh as we've gone over those a baseball softball complex things that are going on uh annual repairs and renovations and technology. And then uh those reserves are healthy uh between 4 and 10 million through 2031. 100% of the bonds are through sales tax revenues, so we're not touching property tax rates. and S&P Globals uh reaffirmed the district's strong rating uh and gave us a stable outlook. Um so before we kind of wrap it up
100uh we want to just talk a little bit about current events obviously legislative updates. There's >> a lot of things pending and uh Mr. to kind of touch on those >> and and the these are so important um because if any one of those first three happen, it's going to have a dramatic impact on our district, but it will be catastrophic. And I I'm not one to exaggerate. I'm not one to overreact, but this would be catastrophic on districts um if the first three happen. So reallocating 50% of save monies and right now as as the board knows big focus is on property tax reform. So the proposal is you take that save money because it's a huge pot of money. You take 50% of that save money is is the Senate bill right now
101and you move that to property tax reform. Well that sounds great but it would devastate schools. Just devastate. I don't even know logistically how it would work because like John showed 83% of the districts have borrowed against their sales tax. So I don't even know how that would work. But then reducing the second one there reducing that pebble levy like John showed uh from 134 to 33 again we'd be go back to $300,000 a year for our summer projects. Um that's that would devastate school districts. Um, and then the last one, they're limiting manage management fund reserves is huge, too. All districts are asking to give more flexibility in their management fund reserves to be able to be more flexible budgeting wise. That's how, for example, as the board approved last uh board meeting with
102our rollover savings um through retirements and so forth, that comes out of management, but it also saves the district $650,000. So, it's huge. Uh, the only one I like on there is the last one, eliminating res for anybody over 65. I love that, Morgan. That makes a lot of sense to me. So, I I advocate for that one. But I would appreciate um the the board, if you have the opportunity. I spent an hour and a half with some legislators uh Friday um just advocating that this can happen because um and if you get the opportunity, I really encourage you to because districts are if they're just reeling that this might happen and and the reason I think some people think that it's viable that it could happen is that um there's such a focus
103on property tax reform and there aren't a lot of pots of money that are that big to help with property tax reform. So >> I got a question on my fact before I forget. >> So that if they pass that bill on the relo reallocating that's that's not a choice, right? You have to do that even if you don't even if you don't need the money there, I guess, is what I'm saying. >> You have to do it, right? You have to transfer 50% of that money. >> Well, they just would not send it. >> They wouldn't send it. Yeah. So right now where we're collecting $7 million annually, if you take 50% next year we'd get 3.5. And so as Mike mentioned, most districts have a debt reserve and they borrowed and they've got
104you you couldn't uh take half the monies away that a good chunk of schools would default um on those payments. So I think there's there if there's any um advocacy um all our groups, you know, SAI and Asbo and ISF, they're they're all out there on the floor trying to educate legislators that, you know, some of these ideas are very very bad ideas um and have very large consequences and and there's ways to do what you want to do. Uh but you've got to be careful because you can really hurt cities and schools and governments um if you just take away half the revenues for you know something that had been projected and and very stable. So uh they listen to the public a lot more than they listen to us because of course we're
105going to tell them that hey these are bad. Um so civilian elected board members are wonderful uh that legislators love to talk to you. So, by all means, if you have questions and all of these things uh have effects, we're more than happy to answer any questions and know that the organizations that we work with are definitely lobbying out there to try to at least educate uh the legislators so they know the consequences of the things we're proposing. So, >> so John, going to a 1% SSA, >> I guess how long would we if they did that for two years in a row, how long before that would start affecting us or would it immediately bins? We have the reserves. I mean, it it immediately I'm assuming at some point >> it it affects right
106away. Um, and obviously the cutting in half their growth. Um, it would change. You know, you'd look at that solveny ratio. instead of going up a percent a year, it it start going down a percent a year or two. It's not dramatic. Um like because we're at that 15% level. If we were at four or five, it's a lot more urgent, >> which a lot of districts are. >> Yeah. So, so it it buys us some time. It it basically just kind of takes away the growth and you start running a deficit and you start coming down. But we always try to maint you know, I like to hedge. Um so we have other other things we would look at to try to you know look at some different grant funds or look at ways
107to raise monies through through something else but but in the end um if you eliminate state aid and in a tumbla that's 73% of our budget only 16% is uh provided by property taxes and we we have a lower valuation to start with that's the logical place that it goes if the school wants to maintain the programs and give raises to staff which are 75% of our expense it's hard to do when the state uh starts giving you 1%. And nobody wants a 1% rate. I mean, in an inflationary environment like today. So, it's it's tough. It would be tough and we'd feel it right away, but it doesn't create a an emergency just because of the position we're in. >> And kind of in closing, because I know we've taken a lot of your
108time, but uh I encourage any board member, staff member, community member to reach out to us if you have budget questions. You can see we love talking about the I could John and I would I I love because this is so important to be able to enable us to do all the other things we've been able to do and I love talking with John about it because we we come up with things like half the time John will say no I don't think we can do that and they'll start thinking about and and that's what it takes right now to be nimble in this type of budgetary environment and uh so we encourage anybody if you have questions we're an open book we're transpar parent and we would love to talk to you about any
109budget questions you have. >> Yeah, if you have you want to talk finances, just set aside four hours, stop on uh but at this point we we welcome any questions or discussion the board wants to have and and if you don't have anything now, absolutely reach out in the future. I won't take up any more time for this discussion, but it does in 2019 when they extended the save to 2050 was to allow districts to be able to build school buildings, do things like that. And for them to think, oh, six years later, we might take half of that away. >> I don't how I don't know how they think that that's going to last and schools are going to be Yeah. catastrophic is exactly what that's gonna be. >> Yeah. Yep. That's >> Yep.
110>> Yeah. And that's why that's why we talked about Brian like it would be you'd be better off the state would be better off to give us two or 3%. >> Uh so you didn't have all these districts doing budget guarantee and they'd save a lot of money locally on property tax do that rather than give 1%. You could do things like that that I think make sense. >> Any other questions on this topic? If not, we do have a couple of action items. Uh, I guess we'll just leave it to Mike and John, starting with the education support personnel salary supplemental plan, and then we have board policy update. Thanks, Dave. This evening, I want to recommend to the board that we approve a one-time bonus payment for our staff. The bonus payment is
111really in recognition of the vital work they do each and every day to support our students, our staff, and the overall success of our district. You know, quite simply, without their dedication and efforts, our district could not be the best. This bonus has been made possible through state funding specifically designated for hourly educational support staff. And I'm really grateful that we can use these funds to directly honor the people who make such a difference in our school. If approved tonight, our ally staff members will receive a single payment of approximately $230 on their March 20th paycheck. This bonus is really meant to be a sincere, tangible way to thank these extraordinary, hardworking individuals. I know I'll now open it up to any questions you might have. >> I think we I'm going to let's vote
112on these separate. Um so if you don't have any questions, this is an action item to approve. >> Make a motion to approve. Second. Sorry. >> Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Uh board policy update. >> Thanks, Dave. Um with the board policy update, we don't have there weren't any changes from the original. So, I'm asking the board to approve it. Uh the second and final reading. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Hey, thanks. I like that. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. Opposed? Motion carries. and move right into superintendent report. Mike, while you're hot. >> Yep. Um, I first want to uh invite uh board members in our community to uh this
113will be a great event. Everyone to the Hall of Fame uh induction of our former OS basketball player and coach Jim Doc Courtourtney on February 3rd during halftime of the boys game uh vers Lincoln. Uh we hope to get a great crowd. He's incredibly deserving of this honor and we're happy to do it. Um the next is uh I wanted to share with the board uh I've sent the board some information on this but uh um we're looking at uh the Alta Vista project and um we're looking at working with Indian Hills to look at potentially getting three lots a piece where we built a total of six together. Um we've kind of done that in the past. to give the board some idea of how many homes we've built. Um, we have built eight
114homes in the last four years. Uh, when I and you think, well, how did you get to eight homes? Well, one was a forplex. So, there's four three-bedroom uh, units there. So, we've built four homes ourself and then and then Indian Hills with us has also built a couple homes for a total of 10. And again, I've mentioned this before to the board. It, you know, we're proud to be the largest uh contractor and developer in a tunnel, but we don't want to be that. And with this Alta Vista project, we really see it as moving forward where a lot of people can get involved in and building up our our our wonderful community. So, um I wanted to see if there was any questions or concerns you have about that moving forward with that.
115Okay. And then uh the last thing I have is John's going to give you a little update. As the board knows, one of our focuses is how we can improve um our par turnover, our culture with our paras. And we have some uh we we're measuring it every month and we have some exciting news for some updates. >> Thanks, Mike. So um as we talked about we're trying to collect data on the uh associate employee group to just see how it's going as we've started a lot of things there. We tried to improve the onboarding uh additional training uh we done the mentorships. So all things kind of designed to make sure that the individuals we hire and we're being a little scrutinizing that a little closer making sure we get the right people for
116the right fit. Um and we wanted to see how it's going so far. So, so through um the start of the school year and then through December, uh I took a look at the current year. We've had um 17 resignations in that group, resignations or terminations. Uh out of 248 total associates employed at any point. So, we're at a 6.9% turnover rate. For comparison, last year through the same time period, uh we had 29 resignations out of a 262 uh employee group. So, 11.1%. So, we've gone from 11.1 to 6.9. It's a 3.8% 8% drop, which is 38% year-over-year. So, um, we're encouraged to see that number. Uh, we'd like to see it lower. Um, or we'd like to see it hold at that 6.9%. But, uh, we do know that coming off the holiday,
117we lose some and then towards the end of the year, um, it just it happens, but it could change. But so far, uh, we're pretty happy with it. Uh, seeing a drop and 7% turnover, we can work with that. Um, that's much better. Uh, last year we ended at 20 plus. So, uh, we're on the right track. We're hoping that continues. And then just kind of a another measure as we look at that, uh, turnover, we we dialed it down just to new staff. So, how is it going with our new staff? So, uh, we've had a total of 48 hires, uh, through the first semester. We've had four of those new hires resign, which is 8.3%. Last year, in the same time period, we had 59 hires, and 10 of them had resigned, so
11816.9%. So, we've gone from 16.9 to 8.3% turnover with new employees. Uh 51% drop. So, everything seems to be on the right track. At least we're seeing some improvements because that turnover is extremely disruptive. Uh it was it was really rough last year and we ended. So, we're we're glad to see some of the things uh paying benefits. The other piece is when we've gone out uh the HR department and McKenzie's gone out and and kind of done listening sessions is uh we're trying to address the questions and the issues that come up and we're we're getting fewer every time. Uh so they're getting a listening post. uh we're trying to react as best we can and we're seeing some de uh definite improvements in that pool as far as keeping staff and retaining them
119which is a big deal because the more they're here the more they learn the structure and the system and the kids and uh and it's definitely pays a big dividend for us. So, just wanted to share a little update on that. >> And I just want to give a quick shout out to McKenzie um and also uh Kate. Um they've done a phenomenal job um keeping this as the focus throughout the year and really uh dedicated to making sure we're getting accurate data and really dedicated to finding out what the needs of our pairs are. So, they've done an outstanding job and we really appreciate that. And that's all I have. They >> Thank you. Uh board member topics. Anyone have anything? If not, we'll move to adjournment. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Got a
120motion. Christina second. >> Second. >> Any further discussion on German? If not, all those in favor raise your right hand. We're adjourned.