001Good evening. It's 6 o'clock. This is the Wash City School Board of Education meeting, Monday, December 1st, 2025. Roll call. Uh Joan Foster is absent. >> Okay. Quum will call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [snorts] [clears throat] Wash city schools provides a relevant and rigorous education founded upon relationships to ensure each student is college and career ready for success in a global community. Welcome. Uh we have no recognitions tonight. or revisions. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to comment on an agenda item? Okay. Thank you. >> On to the consent agenda. We have minutes from November 17th,
0022025. There's some claims, no donations and no financials tonight. I'll accept a motion to accept the consent agenda. >> So move. >> All those in favor of accept of the consent agenda say I. >> I. Those opposed. >> Motion passes. The next regular scheduled board meeting will be Monday, December 15, 2025 here at city hall uh at 6 p.m. There are some items of communication. No old business, new business. [laughter] Um we will hold the first preliminary determination hearing on proposed upcoming projects. Do you a motion to open that up? Uh, >> we got a motion to open up the hearing. >> I second. Okay. Um, the next item on the agenda is is for the board to hold a preliminary hearing on the proposed project. If you are interested in speaking at the hearing,
003please make sure you have signed the sign-in sheet, which should include your name and address. After presentation by the administration and its adviserss, there will be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the project. At the hearing, we will ask that each person limit their comments to three minutes and that the topic be limited to the proposed project under consideration. The notice of this preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required. At this time, I will ask that our bond council, ICE Miller, explain the purpose of this hearing. >> Evening. Under Indiana law, before a school corporation enters into a project above a certain amount, it must first hold two hearings. These hearings are truly to set forth the maximums of the project, which means we could always do less than you authorize,
004but we can never do more. Again, this is just the very beginning um of the legal process. This is the first hearing. We'll have another one in a few weeks. Um, again, this is to set forth the maximums and there are no resolutions tonight. This is solely to hear from the public. Pursuant to Indiana code 6-11 Oh, okay. I'm sorry. We will now hear from our superintendent about the process of determining and communicating the project to the community and the needs for the project. So, we have used bonds as a vehicle for funding operational expenses for many years. Um, as do many other school districts across the state. In late 2024, we did issue bonds which allowed us to replace our boilers at the middle school and high school. Um, make repairs to the HVAC
005at OJ. Um, we made upgrades to a few sections of the roof at the middle school and high school. um also did some ADA accessibility upgrades in several of our parking lots and buildings. So, in meeting with Mr. Nickham, um our head of maintenance, we still have roofing work and HVAC upgrades that need to be done at the middle school and high school as well as OJ. Um this bond issue will allow us to touch all of our buildings and do necessary repairs and upgrades throughout the district. We will now hear from our underwriters, Stifel Nicholas Company Incorporated about how the proposed project will be financed as well as information about the effect of the typical property taxpayer. >> Hi, good evening server for the school corporation. The the slides in front of you tonight
006really to show how we did potentially later on this bond issue within the uh school corporation's current debt service uh levies. So when you start on the first page debt service payments you see all the school corporation outstanding debt um whenever we start with the bond 2024 we knew that that would not have to be the only need that the school corporation has as Dr. Simply mentioned that there's ongoing needs that are typically funded from bond issues. So whenever we structure that we made sure to leave the cliff beginning a couple years later. So you'll see the drop off in payments from 26 to 27 again 28 again a little bit 29 as some prior debt retires. If you flip to the next page, this is the current estimated debt service levy which really follows
007the footprint of those debt service payments. The only difference is it factors in some of the cash that you have on hand miscellaneous revenue that you receive into the debt service fund. But ultimately it is being passed uh to your taxpayers the dollar amount to pay the bond issue. If you flip to the next page is how this potential bond is being laid into your existing debt service. So again in gray is what we just showed on the previous page in blue would be 8 million bonds and you'll see the goal here is to maintain your 2026 debt service levy. Uh, and then right now we're showing all of this as issuing all 8 million at once. I think it's likely that this gets broken up into multiple issuances. So, kind of look at this
008as more of a worst case scenario if we are able to break this up a little bit, not pay interest on the full 8 million. Um, so that's going to make this scenario look a little bit better. We can pay off some of those. But again where your estimated 20 cents on the next page what makes up that $800 we conservatively put in 500,000 for cost of issuance. Again that's that's just in case there are multiple issuances uh that gives you the ability to hopefully be conservative there. Any additional dollars flow into the project fund. So of that 8 million about 7.5 million will go into the project fund. that's likely going to be pretty conservative. Uh but given that this is the first step in the legal process, we do try to set these
009maximum be conservative early on. On the next page is the maximum parameters. Uh as Chris Mclo mentioned, there's no resolution being passed tonight, but these are maximum uh parameters that will be set forth in the resolution at the December 15th meeting. So the first row, the par amount of the bonds is $8 million. In the next two rows, what we just covered on the previous page of cost of issuance of 500,000, leaving about $7.5 million for hard project costs. Estimated interest rates of 2 to 7% if we sold the bonds today would be around 4%. Uh the estimated term of bonds would be 20 years. the estimated total interest cost of 6,644,875 based on a 5% interest rate. The maximum annual payment that you can make in any given year on this specific project would
010be 2.4 million. Not that we're going to make 2.4 million of annual payments over 20 years, but the max that you can make in in any given year uh would be that amount. If you simply divide that by uh your net assessed value, you get a maximum tax rate impact of 6819. But that does not account for any debt that is falling off that we show in the prior slides. When you do factor that in again, that's what we show on the the prior slides. The net impact to the debt service fund levy is zero. There's a couple other ratios down there at the bottom, which is just the school corporation maximum annual payments as a percentage of your net assessed value, which is 6850. And then the direct and overlapping debt as a [laughter]
011percentage of your net assessed value. That's 18.88. And really what that is is just uh all of the other municipalities property tax back debt. So your county, your city, your your town, your township, library, and the school corporations divided by your net assessed value. Uh so you'll again you'll see these numbers in the resolutions on the 15th. Um, so just wanted to put there put those out there in case anyone has any questions uh or wants to discuss at all. We will now open the public hearing. Remember, if you would like to speak, please sign in on the sheet which is located with Mr. Stone. As I mentioned earlier, we ask that you state your name and address, limit your comments to the proposed project and financing. Keep any comments to three minutes, and avoid
012being repetitive if possible. Um, >> nobody missed my opportunity. [laughter] >> Thank you to all who participated in the hearing. We appreciate your time and interest in the project and the future of our community. Please note that this is just the first step in the legal process. No board action is legally required at this hearing. Rather, this hearing is solely to hear public comment. The board will continue to work with the administration and its professionals to look for efficiencies to conserve tax dollars while meeting our educational needs. The board will hold a second public hearing in this room on December 15th, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. >> Thank you everyone. >> Thank you all. Take care. >> Bye. >> Motion close. [clears throat] Motion to close the public meeting. >> I second it. >> Okay, the
013public hearing is closed. Item C, approve the transfer of Amanda Stewart from OJ PLTW teacher to OJ music teacher. >> So moved. >> I second. >> Discussion. U Miss Stewart has requested to transfer to the music position. She has a degree in music and is currently working on a transition to teaching program. We're pleased to be able to recommend this transfer and look forward to seeing what Miss Stewart does with our OJ music uh program. We will have a substitute teacher cover the PLTW position for the remainder of this year and Mrs. Philippy and I um have already started a conversation of how we might cover this next year. >> Okay. Was there a question? >> Nope. I just know that she used to help out with uh Miss Denny in the previous programs and
014I know that she has that degree and she'll do really well on it. >> Okay. All those in favor of approving the transfer say I. >> I. Those opposed? Motion passes. Item D, to approve the resignation of Ashley Thomas as sixth grade language arts teacher effective December 19th, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Discussion. Uh we would like to thank Mrs. Thomas for her time and service to Waw Bash City Schools and wish her good luck in the future. We do have um a long-term sub in that position. Um so at the next board meeting, we will most likely be looking to extend that um that coverage. All those in favor of approving the resignation say I. >> I. Those opposed. >> Motion passes. Item E, board to approve Sha Harley as wait room
015coordinator. So >> second discussion >> sheay uh is one of our ex- studentents and uh she has extensive training in uh weight training and Mr. Carmichael and Mr. Wright actually are the ones who interviewed her since I was out and uh they're very excited about her stepping in. We haven't had anybody for the first uh nine weeks. So uh they're excited about her stepping in there. She'll she'll run that program every Tuesday and Thursday after school for any athlete, including ones in season, but mostly it's for ones out of season. >> Is this a paid position? >> It is a paid position. Yes. >> We don't have to approve for pay. It's just >> No, because it's in the contract. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All those in favor of approving the hire say I.
016I. >> I. Those opposed? Motion passes. Item F, board to approve Sarah Mast as volunteer coach for girls wrestling. So moved >> second >> discussion. >> Um she uh is coach's daughter and uh has has has graciously donated some stuff to our wrestling program and decided that it was more important to be more involved and so she's helped coach before uh at another school at Southwood and um >> so she's going to come in and help. We um we currently have six or seven girls in our girls wrestling program. We have 20 boys, so we've had to split them up and we The girls are actually practicing in the balcony in Kman and uh so they have their own space to practice. So, >> it's our second year. >> It's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's
017Yeah, it's girls wrestling's kind of taking off. Yeah, >> that's good. >> All those in favor of approving, um Sarah say I. I. >> Those opposed? Motion passes. Items from superintendent. Um well, welcome to winter. Uh now that we're in the winter season, it came a little bit earlier this year. I want to remind our families that delay and closing information is shared via parent square. We also get the information out on our Facebook page, our web page, local radio station, and TV. Um also want to remind those of us that live within the city, if you have a sidewalk, get out there and shovel that off so our kiddos have a place to walk and they don't have to get out in the street. Um, we have many holiday events starting to kick off
018this week. Um, a few this week and next include OJ's Santa Fest on Wednesday, December 3rd. LH will have Cookies with Santa reading night on December 10th and 11th. One is for preschool, one is for kindergarten. And I look forward to getting uh to as many of these events as possible. And I'd also like to say welcome back, Mr. Stone. >> Thank you. >> Okay, items from CO. Good to be back. >> Good to have you back. Um, we have no administrators here tonight. Items from visitors. You have anything, Brian? >> Thank you. >> How about you? Do you have anything? [laughter] >> Um, items for board members. We'll start with Connie. Well, I was just looking at the reading night and writing down the date so I can go and see what's going on.
019And I wonder um the new music teacher at OJ, she will take care of the Christmas program then. >> Actually, um I believe Mr. Ireland has been going over on his prep and help. >> So, he is making sure that we're still going to have our Christmas program. He's he's going beyond. >> Okay. >> Is Mr. Ireland getting burned out? [laughter] >> No, he loves it. >> I know. I think that >> No, that is great. And you know, it does my heart good to see so many W bash kids coming up back. I remember I had Aaron Hartley as a student and I had Shane. I'm trying to remember her maid name because I had her as a parent, I think. Yeah, I had her dad as a student as well. And so all
020these names are coming back, you know, and that kind of thing. And that that is so gratifying. [snorts] >> Okay. >> Um I just wanted to say thanks to Mrs. Thomas for her uh work at Wash City. Uh I know that my son had her and really enjoyed having her in class and so I know she'll be missed. Um and I just wanted to shout out to the Unified Robotics Club. They just went out. It was November 22nd, I think. They got third place at their competition. So, I think that was really cool just to see how see them get together and uh do really well in that competition. I think you go there every year. It's a tailor. So, um that's all I have for tonight. >> Okay. Okay. I have nothing else to
021add. Nothing else. And I don't have anything else either. So, with that, we'll adjourn. Thank you. He also