001education to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance 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 the do a short presentational It is. >> Nice to meet you. >> Thank you. I already see anything. That's right. Just personally, Hi everyone. Welcome to our demonstration of our songs. These are the Herby songsters. They are fifth grade students who meet after school and put music together. We are singing today and then we're singing for the Lug Nuts game on Saturday and then next Thursday we're going to sing a concert with sixth graders. We're going to do three of our pieces today. The first one is called Constellation. I am a voice one voice calling out across
002the divine. I am a heart teaching for the song. Seeking out the place I belong. You belong designed in communities. Together we will shine a constellation. We are a family of lights. We have a home compassion and care. We are a family of join us in the song. Welcome home and you belong. A brilliant bondship, a radic community together, a constellation. We are a family of waves of light in rays of sound. We are seen. We are a brilliant bond of friendship rad. A constellation. The constellation. We are a family of light. We are a family of light. How beauty seems to fill the air and floating there. Spring has come and days are fair. Won't you come along with me? Come and see the cherry. You're We come soon. He all is meaning you
003cherry. us seems to Falling down Great. All right, we have one more piece for you. It's going to feature several a couple small groups. It's from Snow White and it's called Good Things Grow. Look upon where maging will grow. A kingdom for the free and the fair. Deep wonders in the fields and the fruits that they just below the ground abundance we share in the golden sky. The kingom shines and we get to this land bounty will flow. Good things grow. Make a wish for all you want. You wish to see All I see is a mother, father, daughter. And the seed of someone who lead to the good things grow. Someone there. There you Open hearts and we live with open doors to protect and we always keep in mind yours be our one
004true mountain shines. Weather together we bless we know good things grow. Oh, good things grow. Thank you everyone. And if you come to our concert next week, this piece has choreography. We're not ready for you, but we're going to be ready next week. All right. Thank you all. We will see you later. Have a great evening. Good to go. All right, Rob. Sorry to do this to you again, but got a tough one to follow. >> Put you up here and then I knock you back down again. >> Here we go. Um, so run through the governor, uh, Senate, House proposals. All have been released. All been passed through committee. Uh, we did meet as a finance committee last week. So, I'm going to run through this pretty quick, but please, as you have questions,
005as I'm going through this, feel free to to ask them as we go through. So, governor's proposal you saw back in March, I think, is when it was presented for the first time in front of the board. So, I'll run through that real quickly, and then we'll see how the Senate House versions compare. You'll see they're very similar with a couple key differences. So with the governor's proposal, the governor did propose a $250 foundation allowance for all districts. The governor also proposed an increase in funding for both at risk and special ed categoricals. However, she has changed the formula for how it's calculated. So we really need to see how that formula plays out to see if there's going to be any actual increases for us as a district year-over-year. Um, but it is encouraging
006that there's some additional dollars being put into both at risk. Um, and special ed, although special ed really just allowing us to be fully funded. So, it's it's an estimate of what districts will be due next year is is that increase on the special ed side. Um, the next three bullet points deal with retirement categorical. So, um, kind of below the line amounts that flow to districts. The first is the UAL rate stabilization categorical that just by way of There are funds that districts receive and then we have to turn around and pay the retirement system the same amount. So there's no net impact on our bottom line, but we have to reflect both those revenues and those expenditures within our budget. The governor did propose and you'll see it's across all all proposals an
007elimination of the MERS employee healthcare categorical that was new in the 2526 year. Um I had speculated it was going to be onetime funds because our retirement rate was likely going to as we move into the 26 27 year. And they would use that kind of as an excuse to be able to eliminate that categorical. And you'll see looking at the bottom bullet point here that that is what happened is the retirement rate is dipped and that's allowing them to remove this categorical. Unfortunately, what you'll see when we get to the number side of things is the revenue lost is more than the reduction in the retirement rate. So we're kind of underwater in that comparison. And then the third bul point related to retirement is the M's cost offset categorical. Both the governor senate
008and house three did propose a reduction in that categorical. You'll see the fiscal impact of that in a couple slides. The next bullet point deals with a categorical we've had for three or four years now. It's the mental health and school safety categorical. Um unfortunately with the governor's proposal she's kept all those legal risks that many many districts hundreds of districts um had concerns with in the 2526 year. She basically rolled all the legislation language over as is. So 2526 near the 2627 language. So as it's currently written we opted out for this year. We likely would opt out for the 2627 year under the governor's proposal. Next two bullet points, uh we've had transportation categorical and free breakfast and lunch uh I believe for four years now. Um no changes proposed other than continue
009the funding for both of those as we roll into the 26 27 year. And then as I mentioned a reduction in that retirement rate from the prior year 256 year. So we look at the Senate proposal as I mentioned it looks very similar to what the governor proposed. The foundation increase of 250 is the same as what the governor proposed. The Senate did propose a funding increase for at risk and special ed with that change in calculations similar to what the governor did. Good news with the Senate proposal is they put even more dollars into at risk than what the governor did. So when we get to the numbers slide in a couple of slides from now, you'll see that there is some dollars under the Senate proposal built into our budget projections. I won't
010rehash the next three bullet points because those are all the retirement categoricals. Um, and there's no change with what the governor proposed, but I do want to focus in on what the Senate did with the mental health and school safety categorical. So, they eliminated really all of the troubling language that we saw in the 25 26 years. So, if the categorical went through with the language as proposed by the Senate, we would accept those dollars for the 26 27 years. So, we're really kind of keeping our fingers crossed, getting in front of our legislators as best we can to let them know that this is language that school districts um really would like. We'd like them to go maybe a little bit further, but this would at least allow us to accept those critical and
011much needed dollars for school safety and mental health. And then the next three bullet points, again, it's it mirrors what the governor proposed with transportation, free breakfast and lunch for all, and the reduction in the retirement rate. The bullet bottom bullet point is that's new under the Senate proposal. So, I've been saying for years now that as more and more I mean we're up to over a billion dollars of school aid fund dollars going to community colleges and higher ed. It kind of feels like we're getting kicked when we're down because we also then turn around and we have to pay community colleges and higher ed for dual enrollment costs. So, if one of our students takes a course at Lance Community College, we have to pay that tuition. This is kind of a step
012in the right direction. They're not going to reverse Ultimately, we'd love them to not spend a billion dollars plus out of the school a fund um for community college and higher ed, but if that's the trend that they're going to continue with, at least don't make us also have to pay those tuition costs. So, the Senate kind of cracked that door open. You see it in the governor and the house proposal, but they've limited it to who can get it. So, we wouldn't get any dollars under their proposals. The Senate has opened it up to all districts and have also funded it at a higher amount than the other districts. we would receive some dollars uh related to dual enrollment costs for schools. So that's that's kind of a positive. Again, ultimately would love not
013to fund school uh aid with community colleges, higher red uh but I think that's going to be our reality. Then finally with the house proposal, again, you're going to see it looks very similar with just a couple differences. $250 foundation allowance increase proposed. There is an increase in funding for at risk. They did not change the formula. They just additional dollars to at risk. Think that's going to allow us to to stay flat. Maybe we'll be up a little bit at risk dollars, but we for those that have been on the board for a while, we've taken some substantial hits in at risk, well over $200,000 over the last three to four years. So even kind of stabilizing of that feels like a win for us right now. If we can get a couple extra
014dollars, even better. The next three bullet points, again, it deals with retirement categoricals. Those are identical across all three proposals. mental health and school safety. I feel like the House went with hybrid. So, they soften the language from what the governor proposed. Didn't quite go as far as the Senate proposed. If this was the language that would make it through the budget process, we would want to just uh have conversations with our uh attorney and see if they would be comfortable with us accepting the funds with these criteria. My sense is that yes, but we would want to get a legal opinion on that before officially one way or the other. And then the last three bullet points again what we've seen with the governor and house transportation, breakfast and lunch and retirement rate dip.
015So what does that mean? Stacking up the governor, senate and house proposals. Uh so if nothing changed, we walk out the door on June 30th of our 2025 2026 fiscal year. Walk back in on July 1st. The budget that we have approved for 2526 becomes our starting point for 2627. So that's that,687,000 deficit. We are had a decrease of 23 students uh FPE year-over-year. The state does provide what's called an enrollment stabilization. So, it's not a one for one um kind of cost offset, but it does offset some of reductions for any district that has a loss enrollment year-over-year. When you net those two together, about $171,000 of lost revenue because of our student decline year-over-year. The $250 per people foundation increase is about a $772,000 increase to revenue for us. Uh the elimination of
016the retiry healthcare categorical is a $36,000 loss of revenue and the reduction in the mixer's offset categorical is a loss of about $65,000. The next two line items are things that are only tied to the Senate proposal. So the at risk categorical increase will about $54,000. in the dual enrollment categorical about $25,000 is my my best guess at this point. All the rest of the lines on this page and the next page now get the district specific amounts whether they be increases or decreases. So in the 2526 year we had offset payments for our staff, removing those out of the budget into 2627 as a $431,000 savings. uh wage adjustments, kind of an estimate of wage adjustments as of today, about $357,000 of additional cost. And then teacher steps, longevity and lateral pay increases is
017about $418,000 cost. Moving up our insurance, so our medical up to the hard caps allowed by the state as well as dental and vision adjustments is about $61,000 cost. And then that decrease for the retirement expense is about 263,000. As you see, we lost $36,000 of revenue. We're only seeing $263,000 in the expenditures. So again, there's there's kind of a underwater piece. Um, when you look at those two numbers together, we do, as of today, have six teacher retirements. Four of those positions will be replaced. There's a net savings uh when you take all that into account about $394,000. Uh, and then we're adding one FTP genet professional um to account for some programming changes that we're doing for next year. That's about a $28,000 cost. And then we're looking to be down one special
018ed professional year-over-year about $31,000 savings. So, as we take that subtotal, we're at about a million two on the governor and house, million123 on the senate. And then finishing up some of our our components of our budget, we do have a parttime tech assistant in the budget. We have posted for the position um never filled it. So proposing the elimination of that of $23,000 of savings and then an estimate for utility increase of $50,000. I do think that might be a little bit light, but we'll monitor that in the fall going into the fall. Good news, all of our buildings will be air conditioned. Um and so we're using kind of the projections of what we've seen as we've had air conditioning come online with our other buildings as we go into this this year.
019Um estimate for uh the increase in our property casualty insurance. We'll get our actual rates probably in the next two weeks and then I'll adjust up or down based upon what our true rates are if we get those in time. Also an increase in our sub costs about $13,000 going into next year. And then the next two bullet points are really the onetime costs that we have in the budget to get to structurally where we at. So removing those equalization expenditures and 11T expenditures of the governor and the house proposal. Right now we're staring at about $347,000 deficit. A little bit better with the Senate as we're at about $268,000 deficit. So take a quick pause there. That was a lot of information, but just to see if anyone has any questions on the financial
020side of things before we look at next steps. What's next? We're under a month now before board approves the budget. So, we're going to continue reviewing enrollment and staffing. We'll monitor that insurance legislation to see how that ends up playing out. Uh if the legislation ultimately has to go to the governor's desk for signature and it's signed that is about a3 to $500,000 additional expenditure that could hit our budget depending on where that goes. We also need to continue monitoring the litigation surrounding the school safety and mental health categorical um what next might be there if they're going to try to appeal to the next level statewide. And then we still have the federal um kind of legal piece that needs to play out as well. So watching that, see where that goes. The consensus
021revenue estimating conference is May 15th. So this Friday, that will be the the next opportunity for the legislature and the governor's office to get a look at revenue trends. last piece of information they're going to need to get the hopefully get the budget in place um for state and school a purposes. Uh so hopefully after May 15th it can move relatively quickly. U we'll work with cabinet uh as we look to finalize this. The schedule finance committee meeting likely at the very beginning of June to run through everything one last time and then approval will be on June 8th. Any other questions? Any questions for >> you? >> All right, we'll move on to public comment. It is the practice the board of education to permit persons to make statements concerning agenda items at this
022time. Just need to fill out a form. Do we have any move on to the high school board representative? So, we got the seniors last school uh last week of school this week and so they're finishing up. The wood chamber choir competed in states last week and they did really great. Prom went great at Eagle Eye and along with the after party at Zapone. Uh the choir had a trip to Canada for four days from the 23rd to around the 26th and everything went great there. We got a half day on Wednesday the 13th, which is also going to be the senior awards night. Got pops concert this weekend on Friday the 15th and Saturday the 16th. Both start at 700 p.m. Uh got school off for Memorial Day as usual on the 20th of
023May. Uh senior athletic day sign athletic signing day was May 3rd. um graduation rehearsal and senior breakfast is going to be Friday, May 29th at 7:45 a.m. and then all seniors have to attend that to be able to participate in graduation. Uh class of 2026 graduation ceremony is going to be Sunday, May 31st, going to start at 2 go to roughly 3:30 p.m. and then doors are going to open at 1:00 for families and anyone who wants to attend. Girls soccer is going to be playing in the Gold Cup this week. We got a student of the week breakfast. We do that at the end of each term. And then we're going to have this last one coming up soon. And then the final two days of school are going to be June 3rd and
0244th. And then both are going to be half day and exams going to be going on there. And then the last thing is that we have a proposal for senior parking spots to the administration and they're just considering all that right now. But depending on their approval, I might request a day to present that all to you because I'm actually the one who's right now. >> So what does that mean? >> Um it's a proposal to have some kind of parking spot for seniors. one that they can pay for and then we're still working out the details of what that's gonna include, if it's going to be decorated, just a spot that's um they'll just have that spot for the year. And then we're hoping also can turn into community events so that people can
025come together, have some fun, things like that. >> Sounds good. >> And that's all. >> Any questions? >> I like been a lot of high schools and it's it's really really I'm glad that it finally that we're at least talked about. >> We tried to get it approved when I was a senior here and we didn't get it. So I can't wait to hear what you do there. >> It was before your time. I don't blame you. >> All right. Thank you for the update. We appreciate it. Uh moving on. We have uh a couple of consent agenda. Recommendation from Superintendent Kevin Roitic that the board of education approve the following items for immediate implementation and appropriate action. Got the approval of minutes for a regular meeting on August I'm sorry on April 13th. We
026had a close session on April 13th as well. Those are being handed out right now. Minutes from our work session from April 27th and then the finance committee met on May 5th. Uh we also have the treasurer's reports and bills confirmation. payment for the month of April 2026. Treasured the checks, AC debits, and the purchase card for the month. Any questions? We have a motion support. >> Any questions? Discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed? It is approved. Next, we have a recommendation from Superintendent Kevin Robetic that the board of education establish the annual budget hearing take place on Monday, June 8th at 6 pm right here at the Dit Board of Education offices. The regular board of education meeting will follow that budget hearing. Have a motion. So, motion and support. Any discussion? >>
027All those in favor say I. opposed. Motion is approved. Moving on, we have a recommendation from Superintendent Kevin Robitic that the board of education approved the resolution supporting the Clinton County Resa general fund operating budget for the 2026 2027 school year as presented in your board packets. We have a motion support. Any questions about the budget? All those in favor please say I. >> Opposed. Motion is approved. >> We'll now move on to public communications for items not found on the agenda. Beautiful. >> Just a reminder, we got the form. Just comments are limited to three minutes. Dear board members, I I'm here to provide an update regarding the bus incident uh that I talked about last time. Um uh after requesting access on February 27th, our family was allowed to view the bus surveillance
028video on April 17th, which was 49 days after our request. The incident was actually significantly more um dramatic and prolonged than what the staff and administration described to us. Um what was described to us was pinching and hugging. Uh what we saw through the surveillance video was more than that. There was significant hair pulling and scratching on the scalp. Hair pulling that pulled my daughter's hair up to the ceiling to the ceiling and grabbing of my daughter with left arm around her shoulder and neck um by the other student. Um because of the significant gap between what was described to us and what happened, we were unable to care for our daughter the way that she needed emotionally. We also did not have the knowledge to assess all the injuries properly. Our problems with Other
029problems of communication and enforcement of rules were touched on in my former comment as well as the breakdown of communication that allowed the second and third contact to happen between the other student and my daughter. Despite everything, our daughter has shown extraordinary strength and resilience. She carried this experience quietly while even we her parents did not know the full truth of what she endured. Her courage and her strong heart is the reason I'm here. We met with the administration and bus staff. Um, however, some of the responses um are not totally satisfactory. There um is no formal policy for not notifying parents about bus in incidents and there was confusion about who was in charge of notifying parents and what details need to be disclosed to parents and as we experienced we did not get
030the full picture. The transportation department also does not maintain formal incident reports. So we have felt like part of the reason I'm here and part of the reason also went through police to get uh a police report is to feel like we we have to document it. We didn't feel like there there was um a lot of documentation going on through the school. Um and then finally, there's also no formal seating policy for the shady eron bus routes that combine kindergarters with the older students. And um It's kind of unclear whether um after discussions whether that's going to happen or not. Um while we accept apologies from the school administration in good faith uh you know the bus incidents extend beyond our family. uh as you know there was an prior incident last year and
031you know I really feel the community needs meaningful action and what I feel we need is you know stronger enforceable bus seating policies and if there is and um I would encourage to go through formal review policy process to review those Um, also critical is a clear and mandatory parent notification policy so that other parents are not put in our situations where we were not fully informed and we would really like formal um documentation and greater um accountability and transparency generally. So I I urge the board to take decisive action to review and strengthen these district policies and reporting Sanders and you know we came here because we you know love the school district and you know it had very high reputation. Um we care deeply about the school district. We want kids to be
032safe. We feel our daughter was put in an impossible situation. She was in three to a seat against the window and there was student twice her age sitting next to her. No oversight. She was completely at the will of this older student who um really traumatized her and injured her and it was just an incessant We just feel like we should not wait until another attack happens that we need to take decisive action. Thank you for your time. >> We'll close public comment, move on to the superintendent report. >> All right. Yes. Thank you. Just want to remind the board that we do have a signing day at the CC res tomorrow morning to 9:30. Um, as Josh mentioned, we have senior boards 6 p.m. at the high school. Um, at our next board meeting,
033there will be a brief presentation regarding a possible 26 proposal. 21 bond and share feedback gathered through our recent public forums. Um, all three board members have been participating in our steering committee. We value the input and perspective of the board. So we'll continue that discussion. And then I also just want wish all of our mothers a happy mother's day. Yesterday any questions for Kevin I just want to make a request. I know we're talking about um planning a policy committee meeting. >> Yes. Let's look at our parent notification policies. Those things as well that were were mentioned during public comment of just want to make sure that our policies are in place. I know for the school and it seems like there's a disconnect between school policy and the transportation just make sure that
034those are the policies correct. Anything else? Any announcements from board members? >> I do have one. Just want to let everybody know that there are uh the November 2026 ballot will include two positions uh for here on the public schools board of education. These are sixyear terms. There's a deadline to register as a candidate July 21st by 4 p.m. Um there's information I believe on our website and on the Clinton County website as well, but it's just kind of a regular practice that we know. All right, with that I will entertain a motion to support. Thank you.