001Welcome everyone. Thank you for being present. If you are wishing to address the board, please um feel free to grab a piece of paper on the back counter as you enter in and fill that out for us, please. and you can present it to Sarah here at the end of the table. At this time, we will do pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Sarah, will you please conduct a roll call? Miss Hamilton, Mrs. Simonetti, Mr. Ready, Miss Sharp, here. Mr. Doby's here. Miss Actton here. Miss Hunt present. Thank you, Sarah. At this time, I would ask that we have a motion to approve the agenda. or move to approve the agenda. We have a motion and a second. Any deliberation on the approval of the agenda? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Any
002opposed? Hearing no opposition, the agenda has been approved. Agenda item number five, superintendence report. Jeremy Patterson. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to introduce Nick. He's gonna come up with a audit report for Jackson Public Schools. So, thank you for being here with us this evening. There is a person there. There you go. Thank you. Perfect. Thanks so much for having me here tonight. Yeah. Oh, it sounds good. While we wait for the PowerPoint to get uploaded, I'll just kind of get started. So, uh, my name is Nick West. I'm a CPA at Manor Coster. Going to go over your fiscal year 2025 audit for you. Um, just wanted to let you know right off the bat, the audit went very well this year. I met with the finance committee uh about two weeks
003ago or so. We had a really good in-depth discussion about the audit and the financial statements. Tonight, I'm going to keep it a bit more high level for you and kind of just show some graphs and kind of some summarize uh as well of the information. So, um, but I did want to just start off while we're waiting. You have a lot of reports in front of you. Uh, and so I'll explain kind of what you got in front of you this year. So, typically we have a financial statement combined with your single audit all in one document. This year we had to split those out because the federal government issues something called a compliance supplement which tells us how we're supposed to audit your federal funds. Unfortunately, they haven't issued that yet. They typically
004do this in April or May. Uh so we're a bit behind this year on issuing that. And because of that, we had to get your audit done by the end of this month so you could submit that to the state on time. So we split them out. And so that's why you have two reports. You also have a governance letter along with you as well. So that's why it looks like there's so much paper this year. Perfect. All right. [Music] Is there a button I have to press to? Oh, there we go. All right. Straight up. Perfect. Yeah, that works. So, very briefly, who we are, Manor Coster. We're CPA firm in Lansing and Grand Rapids. Got about 200 staff. About a quarter of us work on education audits. Uh, we do over 120 in
005the state of Michigan. And I myself work with around 10 to 11 districts each year. See if this there we go. So uh first thing you'll find in your financial statements is our auditor's report. In there we issued an unmodified or a clean audit opinion. That's the highest opinion that we can provide you as your independent auditors. Also consistent with opinions you've received in years past as well. So kudos on a good clean audit this year. Next, talking about internal controls over financial reporting, we had no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies this year. If you remember last year, we did have a material weakness due to having to restate. Uh, and so none of that this year. Very clean audit. Next, the single audit. We tested your child nutrition as well as your Title One
006funds. Happy to tell you no issues with either of those. Those are spent according to how the government says you can spend them. Uh, no issues with internal controls on those as well. And then finally, we did issue a governance letter to the board. In there, we talk about anything outside of the scope of the financial statement audit that we thought we need to bring to your attention. Happy to tell you none of that as well. No disagreements with management, uncorrected misstatements, anything like that. Jumping into some numbers. This is your statement of net position, your governmentwide. So, this includes your capital assets, long-term debt. So, a little different than the fund level you're used to seeing. Just a couple highlights. You did have some significant changes in the pension and OPED numbers this year.
007Reminder, those come from the state of Michigan. So, you have no control over that asset and liability. Uh, but you do have an OPED asset that the state says for Jackson at the end of last year was $12.1 million. Your pension liability proportionate share was $68.8 million. So, and those are the liabilities significantly down from last year and the assets up. Uh, we did have a restatement due to Gazsby 101 this year. That's compensated absences. Essentially, you used to record a liability based on what you're going to pay out your employees when they retired or left the district. Now, Gazsby says you have to record a liability that also includes what they've earned at the end of the year. So, uh for all districts this year did cause a big increase in that liability uh
008at the governmentwide level. No fund level impact. And then finally, you did increase net position about 18.2 million. So end of the year about $10.5 million deficit. About 97 98% of districts in the state of Michigan have a negative net position because of that net pension liability that you have to record. Jumping into the fund level ended the year uh using up about $3.2 million of fund balance in the general fund which left you about $16.5 million about 21% or so of expenditures. Uh the 2018 bond fund had about $1.3 million left as of June 30. And then there was a new fund this year for the electric bus uh that increase you'll see there. So I did want to give you some indicators, some KPIs over fund balance. So last year statewide average was
009about 24.7%. So you're about spot on last year with the average. Uh if we look at some comparables, Battle Creek, Kazoo, Lancing, and Grand Rapids, you'll see just about average or kind of right in the middle compared to all of those districts as well. Uh decrease this year to 21.26. I would anticipate you're probably going to be around average, I would think, as well. A lot of my districts have been using up fund balance this year. All those ESSER and COVID funds are gone. And so depending on how you spent them, you might still have the expenditures still there. you hired new staff, you developed new programs, and so that's why you see a large increase in or decrease, excuse me, in fund balance for a lot of districts this year. Looking at your uh
010general fund revenues, spend about 72%, excuse me, you get 72% from the state, about 18% from property taxes, which work hand inand together. So really about 90% of your revenues are really tied up at the state level at the budget. That's why that budget was such a big thing waiting to come back because really you have no control over any of those revenues. Oh, one forward. See if I can go back. There we Oh, no. I'm going forward. All right. Well, uh, what I was going to show was a three-year revenue trend. Pretty consistent, pretty flat over the last couple years. You would have saw a decrease due to the COVID funds in 2025. Uh and then you can see on the expenditure side pretty consistent as well. So you know going forward fiscal year
01126 and beyond anticipate probably fairly flat revenue streams from the state from the federal government and it's really going to be on districts. How do we control these expenditures? How do we manage the you know flat revenues with increasing costs? Um because well you guys still have a very healthy fund balance. You know run $3 million deficits for another couple years. You'll be back to where you were before the co funds came in. Two more slides for you. This one, notes of the financial statements. We do issue uh an opinion and we audit your capital projects funds according to how the voters approved those in the bond. Happy to tell you no issues of non-compliance. Everything was spent according to how the voters said they should be spent. And I did want to highlight some
012debt millage rates for you as well going into the bond vote. Uh most districts I work with are in the 7 to 12 mil range. Uh some comparables here. I did include syncing fund millages in there because a lot of those districts do have a syncing fund which typically complements their bond funds. Uh so if you include those, you guys are the second lowest out of those comparables there. So overall a pretty low millage rate especially given a district of your size. And then finally the budget to actual uh started the year $4.1 million deficit, ended the year about 3.8 8 million and had a positive variance about 631,000 this year. I did really want to highlight if you look at that expenditure line on the far right column the variance $3500 variance on a
013$77.8 million budget. Really, really great budgeting by the business office this year. I want to highlight, compliment Marcus, Matt, all the team. You know, really what that tells you from the board, the information you're getting from the business office, it's accurate. It's correct. you can rely upon that to make the decisions that you need. And with that, I just wanted to say thank you so much for having me here tonight. Thank you for having us as your auditors. And really appreciate again Marcus, Matt, everybody in the team for their help with a great audit this year. And I'd be more than happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you for detail report. Any questions from the board? All right, thanks for coming down to the finance committee and explaining at depth. I think we
014asked a lot of questions there as well, so that was helpful. And again, another shout out to our finance office for the great work that they've done. Thanks, Nick. Thank you. At this time, I would like to recognize Debbie Stair. She is here from MASB to talk about a potential opportunity, a strategic plan for Jackson Public Schools. Thanks for being here tonight. Did we get the pointer back? Oh, we got it. There we go. Try the person there until it lights up red. There you Okay. Sorry about that. It's been Yep, I got it. Um, it's a pleasure to be here again this evening. It's been a little while since I've seen you. The last time I came, you were transitioning and trying to decide your next steps in a superintendent search. So, now here
015we are. You have Jeremy in that position and ready to start thinking about uh planning for the future in a comprehensive way. And that's really um what we're here to talk about tonight is a strategic plan. Okay, it's on. There we go. So really, you know, I wanted to start with just a little bit of background as far as why should we even consider a strategic plan? And in essence, there was a a lot of um research that happened in the early 2000s around what school board school board members should do if they really wanted to have a great impact on student achievement. Um there hadn't been much research until those 2000s on school board service. Lots on teachers and principles and superintendents, but never on boards. And so they distilled down that information into
016the key works. And you'll notice that one of those five areas that they came up with was vision. That a board is um almost compelled, if you will, to set a vision for the district. Now, that doesn't mean that you do it um all alone in a room by yourselves. It means that you ensure that one is here um and that everyone is working towards that vision. Now, what we're going to talk about tonight is a highly inclusive process that is going to reach out into all parts of your community to help set that vision. So once you have a vision in place, the whole idea is that everybody works on it. So if you're at the board level, any kind of improvement that you would be considering for yourselves would be about that board
017vision. how do we support the work of the district? Um, the same thing with the superintendent. You're all familiar with your evaluation process and the mandatory requirement in that process around uh progress towards district-wide goals. And in districts where there's a strategic plan in place, those goals in the strategic plan become the superintendent's evaluation goals. It doesn't mean you might not have maybe one other one that you want the superintendent personally working on a very specific project, but what you want them to do is focus and narrow their focus on the goals that will come out of the strategic plan. And then it filters down through the district. Everyone has a role to play in a strategic plan. So whether you're a classroom teacher, a bus driver, a board member, an administrator, there is a
018role to play. And honestly, that's where the synergy comes. That's why strategic plans allow organizations to do some pretty incredible things that they wouldn't normally do because everybody's working in the same direction to achieve the same vision. [Music] So if you think about it, strategic planning is kind of like a road map for a trip. You set your destination in a strategic plan. It's your vision and then you put steps in place to get there. If we were leaving on a trip tomorrow, which actually I'm headed to Traverse City for annual leadership conference, and there are plans that you put in place for that. It might be a budget. It might be stops along the way. It might be um scenic routes, whatever. But ultimately, you know where you're headed, and you put the plan
019in place on how you're going to get there. And that's really what strategic planning is all about. Where do we want to go? How are we going to get there? We often get questions about why should a district consider using an outside facilitator and I think there's a number of district uh a number of reasons why. The first one is it allows all of your staff to participate fully. So if you were to have an internal facilitator take one of your administrators and take them out of the mix of participation so that they can actually facilitate the process. They lose their voice in the process because a good facilitator stays neutral. They use their knowledge about process to move the group forward. They do have some understanding of things to look for, opportunities and barriers
020and those kinds of things, but they don't interject their ideas into the process. And you hired your staff for their ideas, for their expertise. And so you want them to be an active participant in the process. Because we do so many plans each year, we do recognize barriers and some opportunities that we might see in the process as we're working with various groups and we share those when we notice those things. Um, it also respects the time demands on your staff. I have yet to meet a district where staff members have all kinds of extra time to say, "Oh yeah, let's add that to my plate." I have plenty of time to do that, too. They don't. We all know that. I was a board member for 15 years. They have more than they can
021handle on any given day as it is already. So to take them out of that work that you hired them for to have them facilitate meetings really just doesn't make a lot of sense, right? Keep their expertise where it needs to be. And last but not least, we're a neutral third party. Now that may sound sound a little weird, but when we start asking for feedback from your community, from your staff, they will tell us things that they would never tell an internal person, right? They they might fear retribution. They might just not feel comfortable sharing it in a large group with anyone who might know who they are. Um, but we don't know who they are, right? They're anonymous in our process and so they tell us how they really feel and that's what
022you want. You want to get good, accurate feedback so that the plan is built on a really sturdy base. Now, I'm going to talk to you about how we're going to collect that input, but know also that as part of that, we'll have an online survey. Those responses, those individual responses will come to MASB, not to the district. and we're going to analyze it and put it in a useful manner for you, but those individual comments will not be foyable because you won't ever actually have them. Um, and that again allows people to feel very comfortable in telling us what they feel. Okay, so here's what the process looks like. Highle overview. You can see that there's five different um stages, if you will, and I'm going to go through each of those stages. So,
023the first one is where we are now, pre-planning, right? So, we're discussing the process. We're going to take a look at any previous work that you've done once your facilitator is assigned and and working with the district. um and really sort of digging in to learn about the district, start working with the superintendent to choose some reference districts, and I'll tell you more about that in a minute, and to start also working um to secure a date for the retreat, which is going to be your bigger community event in which we will expect or hope that all of you will take part in that retreat. So, that's all part of that pre-planning phase. a lot of work behind the scenes that you won't ever actually um really see happening but know that it's going on.
024The next phase is probably the one that actually takes the longest. This is where we start collecting information. So, we're going to collect two kinds of data, quantitative and qualitative. And you want both types because they give you different information about the district. So the qualitative is how people feel. We're going to hold input sessions face toface. Um it sends a message to your community that this is an important project and that they should participate. We'll also hold a virtual session just kind of as a catchall at the end to make sure anybody who still wanted to talk to us can do that. And then as I mentioned we'll have that electronic survey going on in the background. Regardless of the choice people make to participate, they'll be the same questions. They'll answer questions about
025the strengths, areas for improvement, what they see as the vision. And the one question that I think is um really important because we all have lots of good ideas, right? But how do you prioritize those ideas? So, one of the questions is if you could do only one thing, what would it be? that really gets people thinking hard about what should be a priority. So, we're going to hold those face-to-face input sessions. We typically hold a couple for community members, a couple for staff. We'll hold several for students, and that includes a group at the middle school level who was a great accident one time when I went to a district. We were only using high school students, but there was a miscommunication. I walked in and I had 18 middle schoolers. And I panicked
026for just a second. And then as we got started, what I found out is they had their they knew the district like they were close enough to their elementary years, they had lots of opinions about everything, right, that they had experienced and as middle schoolers do, they are always looking forward. So they had already made a lot of opinions, you know, about what was coming too. So, the great part about it was not only did they have all this great information to share with us, but no one had taught them yet to have a filter. By the time students get to high school, they learn filters and they learn to be cautious about what they share. Middle schoolers, not so. So, we made that a permanent part of our process just because we got such
027good information. And they're usually right on target. they are not that different in their comments than the rest of the community is, which I thought was pretty insightful. So, that's all that qualitative stuff. If there's another group you'd like us to meet with, if you had a district parent council or some other group in the community that you specifically wanted to carve out time for, we'll meet with those groups as well. In the background, I mentioned those five districts that we're going to select to see comparison data. We're going to look at things like um how are they most similar to us? Areas like special ed population, free and reduced lunch numbers, all sorts of things, right? Your foundation grant, the size of your district, the number of your buildings. And we're going to look
028at who we think is most like you. And then we're also going to take a look at districts where there might be student movement, right? Either you're losing students to or you're gaining students from. And from all of that, we're going to determine a list of five districts and we're going to get data from them as well as yourself and we'll get them in areas like demographics, student achievement, personnel, and finance. Um, and then all of that data, both types, is going to be put together by your facilitator. and as I said is a really usable format and we'll put that um in front of you and other members of your community at a retreat. Now we'll work with the superintendent to determine who's going to be at that retreat. It's typically a group of
029around 40 individuals um and we're looking for a broad variety of folks. I did mention the entire board, but then the rest of it will be a broad m uh mix of administrators, staff, community, parents, students. It's always great to have students in the room. Um, and so your facilitator will work closely with your superintendent to determine who those folks are just so we make sure that all the hats are represented, but we'll look to you to suggest names of individuals that you think might be um, you know, important to have in that meeting. We've had mayors, um, newspaper editors, state board members. I mean, it's every community has their own unique makeup as to who are the people who should be in the room to really help determine the future of the district. Throughout
030that day, it'll be a Saturday in most instances because that's when you can get all of your volunteers to come in, right? Um, and it'll be an eight-hour day full of work. You will go home exhausted, but you also go home exhilarated by the work of the day. And it's a great opportunity for you all to engage with your staff and your community in an appropriate role of governance in having those conversations that day. Um, we'll do lots of activities throughout the day to get us there, an environmental scan, and we'll take a look at mission, vision, and beliefs. um by the end of the day. Um even if you have some of those components in place now, we would take a look at those and see if they move forward. And then you'll also
031have your goal statements at the end of the day. Lots of work. It's a it's called a retreat for a reason. People used to go away for a couple days to do this work and we've condensed it down to really try and fit it into a full day. uh because you just can't get commitments from people any longer, you know, for the two days. So, it's it'll be a lot of work, but it will be enjoyable work and you'll feel really good about it at the end of the day. In some instances, that's where strategic plans end. The facilitator turns those components back over to you, which you'll approve ultimately, mission, vision, beliefs, and goals, and they say, "Good luck with that." What we found is that doesn't necessarily work in school districts. People are
032moving throughout districts much more rapidly these days. They may or may not have ever participated in a strategic plan before. They may or may not understand their role in moving it forward. And so we come back and we do an implementation meeting with um some select staff. Again, the facilitator will work with your superintendent to identify who's going to be in that room. It's usually those folks who are going to be most likely charged with being responsible for areas of the plan and moving it forward. Um, sometimes there's some teachers in the room depending upon their role in the district. Um, might be department heads or uh a union leader or something along those uh that fashion. But again, facilitator and superintendent work that out. And usually we're looking for around 12 to 18 people
033in that respect. We come back, we work, it's usually a five-hour day with a working lunch in there. And by the end of that time together, we will have identified what your first year objectives will be under each of those goal statements, and we will have helped that group take a big plan, this crazy big thing that they have to accomplish and start breaking it down into pieces. So, here's what we're going to do the first year to address those goals. And then we're actually going to break it down by quarter and show them how to calendar it out and balance it. And then we're actually going to do some action planning uh samples around how you even move those quarters forward. So, what we want to do is make it more manageable so that
034when we do finally step away, everyone in the room feels like, "Oh, I see how this can be done now." Yes, it's still more work that there's, you know, can't get away from that. But now I see how we can make it um so that it's manageable for everybody. This is also the meeting where we're going to take your my kip plan, right, your school improvement process, and marry it to the strategic plan. We don't want the district to have two different plans they're working on, which may or may not correlate. We want one plan so that everybody's moving it forward. So once we get done with that, we'll talk to that group about board monitoring options and communication and the importance of that. We'll put together all the final documentation and paperwork and come
035back to you. And at that point, we're going to be asking you to approve four things. Mission, vision, beliefs, and goal statements. You will see the work of the implementation team. you will not approve that because you approve what we want the district to be, not how we're going to do it. Right? So that portion of the information we provide to you is just that it is information only. You're only going to approve those four things. Um, we will talk to you about monitoring progress as well because honestly, you know, you'll have your input session, you'll participate in the retreat, but your most important role in this plan will be monitoring progress because what we know is that what gets monitored gets done. And so we'll talk to you about ways to make that um
036useful for everybody and how you put together um a process around how often you're going to hear updates and and just the various options. And then you'll work with your superintendent to determine what works best for this team because every team's a little bit different. And then we'll mention um annual renewals. not important at this point, but getting that implementation team back together on an annual basis, either with or without our help, is important to keep the process moving forward. And that's what we want. We don't want something that stalls and becomes just a project that sits on a bookshelf somewhere, right? We want this to be a living, breathing process that is constantly moving forward and adapting because plans do that. It's not everything is going to go exactly as we think when we
037first identify strategies. Um, and so being able to talk about what things went well and what didn't go so well and then making a plan for year two on those objectives and strategies um is going to keep the plan moving. Okay. So, here's what a sample timeline might look like. Um so here we are this evening having this conversation. I understand this is an informationononly evening. Um and so um you'll approve the process at another meeting um in the future and then we would start relatively quickly with um the background work with the superintendent to start setting up dates for input sessions. It's really hard. I'm going to just be honest with you between now and the holidays, right? Because in Michigan, we have lots of holidays right now. So, we think we just have
038Halloween and Thanksgiving and then the winter break, but you know, we're Michigan, so there's hunting, too. And believe it or not, it makes a difference on the volunteers you can get to come to the to the meeting. So most of December would probably be a lot of that background work with the real heavy work of input sessions and that in January is what I would be thinking. That data collection is going to be going on in the background. Um in January, as I said, we would continue that work. February is likely when we have um a date for our planning retreat um and potentially the implementation workshop. That's usually held a couple of weeks after the retreat. And so in an ideal world, if all things fit together very nicely and dates got set without
039too much trouble, you could potentially have your plan coming back for your approval by March. It could be April. It just depends on calendars and that sort of thing, but it's typically about a fourmonth plan once we get started. Uh along the way there's going to be things again you're not going to really see so much but templates for press releases, invitations. Um we will provide meeting updates. So as you're continuing to do your regular work and you're kind of wondering, gosh, what's going on? We had our input session, but we haven't heard anything too much. So, we're going to give you updates so that you know how many people are participating um and so that we can also double efforts where we need to do that. So, you play an important part in the
040process obviously the first one being approving moving forward with the process that sends a message to your community. Even in districts where the superintendent has the authority to do it, I always ask them to have the board make a formal approval of moving forward with the process. Um, you're going to have your own input session. Yours will likely be the very first one so that you get a sense of what it looks like and feels like because you aren't invited to any of the others and neither is the superintendent because again just the sheer fact of you sitting in the room changes the conversation. And so we'll offer the superintendent an opportunity to come in and bring greetings, but then they would leave as we hold those other input sessions. Um, you're going to encourage
041participation. You all have your various constituencies. And so we're going to look to you to really ask people to participate in some way of providing that feedback. And then you're going to suggest participants knowing that ultimately that final decision of who's in the room that day will be up to the superintendent and the facilitator. And then again, as I said, we hope that all of you will be able to participate in the retreat because it's good to know how the sausage was made and how we got to where we did. Um, and then your most important two pieces will be actually adopting the work of the group and honoring that work. and then monitoring progress. So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Um, I will say that I already have a facilitator in
042mind. I've talked to Shelanda about that facilitator. Um, her name is Kimberly May. She is not only a board member, but she's also a school administrator, which I think gives her sort of a really unique perspective. Um, I only have two of those in my stable of of facilitators and I sort of look at them as unicorns. To be able to have both of those viewpoints really gives them a great um, opportunity to work with the district and it's it's a wonderful uh, resource for you. Um, she couldn't be here this evening um, but um, she is ready to go when you all decide that um, the time is right. Um, and I think that's all I had. So, with that, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you, Debbie.
043Lots of good information. I'm excited. Looking forward to Yeah, we've been talking about it for quite a while, you and I. Yes. So, let's hear from the board. Uh, go ahead, Marilyn. What's the cost to the district for this? So, I believe you have the proposal that you you've seen it. Is that accurate? I sent it back in July. Um it's if I can I can send it again tomorrow morning if if you have not seen that. Um it is just slightly over $10,000 all inclusive. So all the expenses um all the visits to the district. I will tell you that a lot of those meetings will be stacked so that we're making less vis you know less visits to the district keeping your costs down. We're very mindful of keeping dollars in the classroom.
044And so, you know, as a member district, it's it's slightly over 10. Are you done? Yes. Okay. Simetti. Oh, and I see Elena SH I was just curious how many face-toface sessions you anticipate with the stakeholders, face to face input sessions and then just along those same lines, how will you encourage a variety of participants as opposed to just kind of our our normal participants but getting a true um true cross-section of our stakeholders. Yeah. So, we're going to work closely with the superintendent and determining how we're going to get messaging out. Again, I mentioned we'll have those templates so that you can put them in your newsletters and on your building signs and all those kinds of things. Um, we we know what's successful in other districts we've worked in and how to go
045about drumming up um interest. And so I would expect probably in the neighbor Remind me how many students you have just about five about 5,000. Yeah. So I would probably figure that you're going to get in the neighborhood of around five to 600 participants. Now I'm guessing, you know, every every group is a little different, but that's that would be my my estimate. um that includes staff, community um and so we'll like I said we'll hold the number of input sessions that you want us to what we have found works is that you know that we're offering at least a couple for our community members to come in usually held in the evening but if you have a contingency that you know is available during the day and you know those folks regularly volunteer and
046that we'll hold one during the day as well um we'll hold those ones for students. Um, typically two, maybe three for staff. Depends on how you tar your timing in the district, what we determine is necessary. We'll hold a specific one for your administrative team. And then we'll hold the one for you, Missetti. Hi. Thanks, Dub. That was very um informative and I will say I think the time frame was very impressive. That was one thing I was curious about. Um if we can do that by March, I think that would be awesome. I I was impressed by the time frame. Um I I was questioning about the facilitator, how we get to a facilitator, it being assigned or whatever. You kind of explained some of that. Um but like do we get their CV
047or anything to Oh, I certainly can give you that. Absolutely. Um, I I will say that a lot goes into my decisions about who the right facilitator is. And honestly, because I felt she was the right one for this district, she has not been assigned somewhere else. I have purposely held her to to do yours. Um, should you move forward because I I put a lot into that thought. who who has the right experience set um and and just knowledge of areas and all those sorts of things. And but I did notice her phone number. She from the Detroit area. She is uh a resident of Westland, Wayne Westland. Okay. Um and then one other thing, and it's really not that um critical, but in in my experience and looking at strategic plans, it's always
048uh mission, vision, value. So when it's the same thing, it it is the same to me, too. But was there a point in time where those terms changed? Uh, you know, it's really kind of a cultural thing. There are some districts that like to call them beliefs, some call them values. They're interchangeable in my world. Um, you know, that's we'll we'll call them if if Yeah, it doesn't really matter. Um the other thing I would say too for a facilitator is let's say that you know I gave you you know information about the facilitator and you said well that's great but we'd probably refer someone else for whatever reason that could change your timeline right because I've assigned others to other districts and so we'd have to wait none of them ever do more than
049two plans at a time because I want them to be intimately aware of your district And so, um, that could change. We definitely want to have it wrapped up by the end of April because you start losing people's interest, right? And, you know, when they're paying attention and wanting to participate, those things matter. Timing is is a big deal in that process. So, that's why if we lay it out and we get started right away, we can reach that timeline. Mr. Delis. Thank you, Madam President. Uh excited to engage in this work particularly with um MASB who has experience in doing this with other uh school districts. Um and excited to work with uh Kimberly as well. Uh just having uh existed in this space and gone through strategic planning and and doing one now
050with one of the nonprofits. I manage um and recently going through a RFP process. I mean the the cost ranges and what we were looking at was like $50 to $80,000. So um sounds like a great deal for 10. And um I I think what's important is um what we found important there is finding someone who is able to operate or has operated in strategic plans within the same sector industry. Um so um look forward to working with MASB. Um thank you. And and that really is true. You know a lot of people say oh schools are a business just you can use anybody for this kind of process. There are business components to a school district, but a school district is a very unique organization and I do strategic plans for nonprofits as well.
051Are there some similarities? Absolutely. But are there some very specific pieces to the process that this one is designed for school districts specifically? Absolutely. there are things in this that I don't use with my nonprofits and vice versa because they are unique and people have to understand that and I don't think a lot of people do. So I appreciate the comments dear Debbie. Thank you for being here this evening. Um, I love the vision and I love that our community is asking for this that they can come alongside of us with understanding these plans. As I'm doing a lot of bond presentation about facilities and buildings, they equally want to have discussions about curriculum and instruction and moving the needles there. Um, I've participated in quite a few strategic plans. I believe we're in one
052now that is a partnership agreement. And so we'll know more about the end or the transition with that which we've been involved with for over 36 months. And so that's why I kind of brought it to the board and said this would be a natural transition should we exit that plan and continue to create another one. And I have been a part of those three-day retreats. But you walk away at the end knowing who you are and where you're going. And I especially like where you identified like what's that one thing? You can have 10 goals all you want, but if you're overcommitted and 10 pe different people shooting in different directions, but when people really understand this is where we're going, then I get I think you get the return on investment. Support support.
053We don't just give you the plan and say good luck. That's essential to any success of a plan. I would only question like the timeline because we're kind of at the beginning of a bond potentially today. And this is my understanding about a good plan and and maybe just help my thinking here. Nobody's going to do a lot of work in December. In my opinion, if we started in January, February, March, I agree, April and May get busy. But when I've done data retreat plans before and you end the year with a plan that everybody knows what's going to happen when we come back, it's harder to implement a plan in March when people feel like I need spring break to get here. And if you left knowing that this is where we're going for
05426 27, that was only something that I was pondering that I would just share out loud that now people are like we're ready for summer break. We leave, but we know what's happening when we come back and we're all in and everybody starts at the same page versus everything we've been doing this year with a partnership agreement or what have you with the bond program, what have you. And it's harder to implement a plan in March and say we got it done in March. Here we go. Beginning of third trimester ready. So that's my only wondering about the timeline process in my experience. And so when we come back and work on that implementation session, we can determine and set it up for when you want your first quarter to start. And so absolutely like
055we can adjust that accordingly to the desire of the group. Perfect. And then one final note, is this is this like a continuous thing that you would come back and do annually or is this more like a three to five year strategic plan? So it's a three to five year plan with the overarching components, mission, vision, beliefs, and and the goals, but on an annual basis, it's our recommendation that you do what's called a renewal. Okay? where you bring either back the same implementation team. You don't bring you don't have to bring back the whole retreat team, just the implementation team because we already still have all of the retreat team pieces, but you would you would do that on an annual basis. And then you can choose at that point. The proposal doesn't cover
056a cost for an outside facilitator for those, but you can choose whether or not after that first one, do we feel like we're in a place where we can lead our own next one, would we like someone to come and help us once and kind of reinforce it and make sure or, you know, can we do we need the help each time? What I have found in most instances is that um either they feel pretty comfortable moving it forward after the initial implementation meeting or they bring us out for one time and after that they've got a good handle on it because there's a lot of training in it in addition to the work product. So we want to leave you with as many skills to move it forward as possible. So part of the
057design of that work is teaching you how to do it. So you can do it with or without us. I appreciate that. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your presentation. And if there's nothing further, uh, safe travels to Traverse City. Thank you. It's going to be an early morning. I understand I'm going to see a couple of you up there. Um, maybe next year when we're back in Lancing, we'll be able to see more of you at annual conference. But again, thanks for having us in. We hope to be your partner in this. Um, but we certainly hope that you'll move forward one way or another with the planning process. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you, Deb. I will be in touch. Oh, sure. Yeah, go right ahead. Okay. I want to uh
058give everyone a brief update on where we are with the bond program uh as far so I can conclude the superintendence report. So these past couple weeks we've been super busy engaging with our staff, families, community partners to build awareness of the upcoming bond. Vote yes for JPS on November 4th. So October 8th we present it to our food services. October 9th, legacy assisted living. October 10th, Envirro Clean presentation. October 13th, Jackson host Lions Club. So, it's been really important that we're out in the community generating the positive energy and it just keeps building from here. October 14th was a busy day. Breakfast Rotarians at Steve Ranch. Uh Mrs. Baker was at Dibble Elementary. We conducted a bond presentation at Hunt Elementary and SCMV. All on October 14th. Uh the bond informational session that was
059at Parkside was very well attended. Uh we had a couple board members there and we've been having rich dialogue along the way. So that's been the highlight of all these sessions. It's not just sharing information, but it's listening and and getting information back. And it was noted how how much improved the conversation and the discussion was the last time than it had been in all the previous events. So I think we're just getting better as we go along. So much to we added anotherformational meeting tomorrow night. We'll be right here at Jackson High School in this space at 6 o'clock p.m. as an additional opportunity because we've been getting so much good feedback. October 15th, uh, JTV Cascades host Lions and all administrators here at Jackson High. October 16th, JAMAMA, Jaxo was a huge opportunity
060to network with the Chamber of Commerce and others in the community, Monasuri staff and NAACP Jackson that evening, all jammed into one day, October 16th. Cascades Elementary staff the 17th, October 19th, uh this weekend was City of Jackson Youth Council and we have one of our shining stars here who does so much as a young person in our community. We're very proud of her and her work as well as her peers. And October 20th was Blackman Township. So, we go everywhere they'll have us. Uh and there is a uh October 21st, that was today, this morning, at Northeast Elementary School. We have a strong bond advocacy committee. And it's not just the efforts of folks that you see in this room, but these are community members that are coming alongside of us. They are putting
061signage in everybody's yard when we get this long list and people go to the QR code and request signage. We're on 105.3. the community and private donations are donating uh funds to continue to fund these efforts with I see a lot of buttons in the audience with the flyers, the billboards and the commercials to bring public awareness. We have teams going doortodoor sometimes sideways rain but every day even those Saturdays and Sundays leading right up till November 4th. So, I appreciate all the positive energy, all the collaboration, the feedback because it does take a village to do something as monumental as $126 million mill for 0% tax increase. So, thank you again for the community. There's a lot of one minute testimonials going on so people can tell the story of what this means for
062Jackson Public Schools and being allin. social media efforts have been tremendous and it just continues to build um positive momentum. So to close out, I want to thank the board of education for your continued support. Um, this is an opportunity to really change the face of Jackson public schools and I think of the community of Jackson right now and the Chamber of Commerce is trying to drive Jackson forward and one way that you can significantly do that is to improve the education system within that community. So, we talked about the highlights of infrastructure, hands-on learning opportunities, career readiness, uh, safety is always going to be at the forefront. And again, I just wanted to uh publicly state that we have a big day coming up for Jackson Public Schools on November 4th. Um, is this
063the time where we're going to look at some of the images? Okay, I'll just jump right in now since we have a presentation coming up. So, one of the things we learned throughout the discussion, a lot of rich feedback back and forth was uh the folks said it's hard to kind of vote on that box that you have here. Can you give us a little bit more of the story? So, we started to tell the story of what the students were asking for with hands-on learning. We started telling the story of what those career opportunities are and where Jackson High School and Jackson Public Schools is thriving in those particular spaces. We've shared the story. We learned the history. Chris has the whole thing down on the history of Reynolds Hall where it is right
064now. But one thing we learned at the last session was how can we continue to respect that legacy moving forward. And so I think the next slide, this is kind of new material. So um yeah, right here. So you take some elements of Reynolds Hall and you know, we're talking about different names. We'd love to incorporate Reynolds into the new um innovation center. So there was a brick fireplace that currently exists. So, we're looking at since Reynolds Hall has been renovated so much, what are some of those elements that are special that we could pull over and be a part of the new innovation center? You see a beautiful new innovation that will be attractive for JPS, which is part of that strategic plan moving forward. We talk about accessibility for people to come in
065and safe and secure entryways. But if you notice to the far left, people said to, you know, they just wanted a brick from the building. So, we have some of the brick foundations there. what the um fireplace library looks like. I think there's a couple more images. These are just renderings, so that's not exactly what it looks like, but it's not a box anymore because of the feedback that we receive. So, uh there's a couple more innovations. We talked about audiovisisual, digital media, the trades, entrepreneurship, and another thing that I want to add is financial literacy. Everybody is asking for it, and this is a tremendous opportunity to incorporate that into this space. I hope my favorite picture is up there. Let's see if Chris Oh, she texted it out. There's there's a picture where
066we talk about the safety and secure entryway. That is uh it's an exact picture of the library at Reynolds Hall. And this one's close, but it's it's not my favorite, but my favorite hasn't made the slideshow presentation, but we're g it will tomorrow. So, if you're back here tomorrow, it's gonna make the cut because I think it it really just captures uh a little bit of everything. So, more of a visual highlight from what the community has been asking for and what we're trying to listen and respond so folks can make educated decisions for the future of JPS. So, if there's any questions about the update on the bond, I'll take those questions at the time or this concludes the superintendent's report. Thank you, Jeremy. Any questions? Any questions? Awesome. All right, we'll move to
067the next agenda item number six, the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda as written. We have a motion and a support. Any deliberation on the consent agenda? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? No opposition. The motion carries. At this time, citizens wishing to address the board, I have not received any requests. Mr. Hastings, thank you. Just a second, guys. Hello. Good evening, board. Um, I'd like to bring my comments um by just um briefly relating um a a very positive experience I had with one of your staff members about 10 days ago. Um I had noticed um some homeless families downtown that uh both of whom had uh young kids who were obviously of school age, you know, like 10, 11 year old kids. I noticed this kind of
068during the course of that week and on Friday um I called and left a message with Kelly Crumb. To be clear, this was one of the days, it was a half day at JPS. I called after hours. Um, at the beginning of the next school day, uh, Kelly, hi Kelly, not only called me first thing in the morning, she, uh, had already forwarded, uh, my my inquiry and my information to a gentleman named Maris Boyd, who's the homeless, uh, coordinator at the JCISD. Um, we had I got a chance to talk with him later that morning. He was very helpful, very accommodating, and now I have him as a contact for the future. very a good man, good guy. Um so thank you. I I mean lightning fast and very helpful and I appreciate that.
069Um so to move on to um to the bond. So um item in tonight's agenda uh the subject is extra duty pay. And just a a couple points I'd like to that that sort of caught my eye. The first is u Mr. Marcus Leon's name is misspelled. I'm very sorry to see that see that sir. Um the second is so it's it's discussing the issue of extra duty pay for people who are involved in the bond issue and it stipulates that the extra duty compensation would come to about 0.15% of the original bond issue. So the current bond we're talking about is about $120 million. So that would pencil out to $180,000 in extra duty pay. Um, and I would just ask that the specifics of who is being, it's sort of laid out what
070some of that thing is for, but I think it should be maybe stipulated in a more specific manner like who's going to be getting what for which duties. Like I get a good big picture from reading this of sort of how that money is being spent, but I just think it should be specified a little bit more. Um, so I got to attend um the latest uh bond meeting that was hosted by the superintendent at Sharp Park and um I do think that uh Mr. Patterson is a very good uh spokesman for JPS and he's a he's he's a very good advocate for the bond. But one issue that's was was kind of like stirring around um in the discussion around the new bond and concerning the innovation center and innovation occupational training is sort
071of the suggestion that um because due to that there's just let me put this way there's been some discussion that that maybe some of the programs that currently exist at the Jackson area career center um for instance it was brought up uh welding there's not enough welding slots for JPS kids. That was an example that was given. Another example is given there are some kids from JPS who are interested in going to the career center but they're don't feel comfortable going there maybe because they don't like being around 25 year olds. And the thing is I get the idea of the innovation center and I think to the degree you are offering here and building something that will sponsor things like robotics like audiovisisual training that are unique to JPS. I support that. Okay. We
072have school of choice through Jackson County. You're trying to make yourself and this has been going on for a while now. It precedes Mr. Patterson. You want to make this a destination. Come here. But I just want to say to the board, I would strongly reconsider um trying to recreate any programs that are already exist and are specific to the Jackson area career center here. that is making a major commitment from here and in the future for new programs, new equipment, new staff, and so on. And this district just went through a very painful period at the beginning of this year having to deal with, you know, when you guys got hit right between, you know, you know, right in the forehead with massive health health insurance increases and you had to lay off a
073bunch of people. So, all I'm saying is um I get the idea of the innovation center. I get the and what you're trying to do there, but I think it's very important that you not overly commit by trying to recreate in this building or in JPS programs that exist. If if there's not enough slots for welding, for instance, g get JST on the phone, work with them, see what can be done. But I'd be careful not to overcommit. And that's my thought for tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. Anyone else wishing to address the board? Agenda item number eight, discussion item 25-26-28, bond extra duty contracts. Marcus, please. Good evening. Um, so just to give a little background, during the 2018 bond program, the district, the board had authorized a superintendent to award extra
074duty contracts to staff for additional duties such as um, you know, putting together this whole program. um putting out bids for construction managers all the way through the bond work of approving change orders, meeting with architects, meeting with construction companies and trades and so on so forth just to give a little bit of some of the duties. Um we did briefly talk about the subject a couple of weeks ago at the finance committee. Um you know just laying out that there will be and has been additional work involved in creating and managing a bond program. um couple of other details or um numbers. So the last bond, the 2018 bond program, the extra duty compensation came to about 0.15% of the total bond issue, the $87 million. Um this work can also be done by
075third party groups. I think we've talked about that before. their average cost is about a half a percent or about three times what the district paid um for the same services last time. Um I have included a sample template of the contract that was used the last time around um which we would use the same one going forward and a little bit of um some other numbers on the other attachment. Again, this is just for information tonight. No wish to ask the board to approve it. We want to obviously have a successful bond vote first and should that happen, we'll be back next month to ask for approval for this extra duty contract work. Thank you, Marcus. Any any questions? I I got a couple questions. U Marcus, um I know I know you did
076mention percentage last time. How much was it? It was approximately 0.15% so about a tenth of a percent of the original bond issue $87 million I think the district paid out over the course of almost seven years $128,000 give or take. Okay. And how much um if we were plann to go outside, how much it would cost us now? For this current bond proposal to the voters in a couple of weeks, a half a percent comes out to about $630,000. Um you know, I also looked at if the district had used an owner's rep last time around, it would have cost about $430,000. So, the district wound up saving over $300,000 by having the work performed in house. Um, that figure we would look to save about $360,000 this time around if we move forward
077with the same program. Thank you. The reason I asked those questions, I want everybody to get those numbers right. Thank you, Miss Emmanetti. Marcus, can you just on this second attachment, can you tell me what we're looking at? Sure. So, got to clean it up a little bit. I'm not sure which version you're looking at, but at the top I have this the history of what was paid out for the 2018 bond for everyone that received an extra duty contract. There seems like there's a lot of people on there, but we had some people come and go. For example, I took over from my predecessor, John Redell, so where his payment stopped, mine started. So there's not really an overlap in people. It's by it was by position. And then the bottom portion shows um
078the positions that would initially receive an extra duty contract, what their current salaries are and projected salaries. Obviously, a lot of that stuff is unknown. We just use history to come to those numbers and apply the recommended uh proposal percentages to those. If this next bond goes six years, which is what I base this on, that's what we would spend. If it's less, we would obviously spend less. Um, I went with the six-year number only because we have met with one owner's rep, and that's a soft quote that they gave us was based on a 72-month timeline. So, I wanted to compare apples to apples. And you said the money, the whatever the percentage is for six years term. Yes, they gave me their number based on a 72-month uh timeline. Sorry that I think
079it came up in the finance committee, but this um money cannot be paid out of bond funds. Where does that money come from? Correct. Salary and benefits cannot is not an allowable bond expense. So, it would uh be paid from the general fund as was the 2018 extra duty contracts. They're also paid out of the general fund. Um, an owner's rep, I believe, could be paid out of the bond, but at over $600,000, that's that much less work that we'd be able to complete. Where are you getting the number 0.21%. So, if I take everybody that I propose or believe would receive an extra duty contract and I project out what their extra duty pay would be over the next 72 months, that total figure, the $266,000 divided by the $126 million bond issue, that's
080where you get that. Thank you. Yep, Marcus. for all of these individuals that are listed here currently in any of the contracts. Um, bond work is not included. Correct. Correct. Because you never know when you might have something like this come up. So, it wouldn't be in in anyone's regular work contract. And I only bring that up because of some of the individuals are still here and they were present for the 2018 bond. Correct. Okay. All right. So, that was simply a discussion item for this month. It will come back for uh consideration and approval next month. With the passing of the bond, that's correct. Agenda item number nine, action item 25-26-29 2024-2025 audit report. Marcus, will you please present? All right. So, as you know, every year we are required by law to have
081an independent audit of the district's finances. Uh the audit for the year ending June 30th, 2025 was completed. You heard from uh Nick from our audit firm both tonight and at the finance committee a couple of weeks ago the results of the audit and then you also have copies of the financial statements and the report in this attached to this agenda item here. So at this time we would recommend the board approve the audit reports as presented. Madam President, move approval of the audit reports as presented. Support. Motion and support. Any deliberation? Madam President? Yes. I'd just like to thank Marcus and his team um having a clean audit report with no uh material weaknesses or significant deficiencies um with the strong financial position that we're in um comparative to other schools is a a
082great place to be financially. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Motion and a second deliberation. All those in favor of approving the audit report say I. I. Any oppose? Hear no opposition. Motion carries. Agenda item number 10, board comments. Miss Simonetti. So, I too would like to thank Marcus and Matt and the whole team for the excellent audit report. I can't remember a time where they weren't at least giving us one recommendation. So, um it's pretty awesome that it was as clean as it was. Um and kudos to you, Kelly. I know that was just part of your job every day and you didn't think anything of it, but it's nice to be recognized and uh appreciate that. Any other board comments? Yes, it is good. Mr. Ready. He said, you okay? No, no,
083I mean I just I just Yeah, we're not done. Like like uh Cheryl said, Kelly, awesome, Marcus. That's amazing. I mean, I'm a finance major from MSU. So, when I saw the financial report, what you forecasted versus actuals, that's a pretty damn good. Um, thank you, Matt, everybody. Yep. Thanks. And uh one final thing, I know um we are all working so hard um especially all the volunteers uh going doortodoor putting yard signs and and being on the social media 24 by7. So let's uh let's let's make this bond pass. You know uh we have a chance to do something meaningful on November 4th. Uh that is a chance to say yes to our kids and a chance to say yes to our schools and a chance to say yes to the future of Jackson
084School District. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you, Mr. Ready, Miss Sharp. I would like to say a special thank you to Miss Julie Baker, Mr. Jeremy Patterson, Miss Kelly Crumb, Miss Destiny Davis, and Miss Monica Pierce for taking time out of your busy schedules to chat with some future educators that are in my care. I continue to be impressed and amazed at y'all's enthusiasm, your insights, your wisdom, your generosity of spirit. um this has been a really special place to be and uh you shared some really amazing things with those students and I know for again for all of you it's just another day but it meant a lot so thank you. Um I want to echo sentiments from uh trusty ready about the message that we can send to our students
085on November 4th. I see the work that our staff does daily and students know that they are supported by staff. It's time for us as a community to tell them the same and we can do that with a yes vote. So, I would just encourage any of you who have questions, reach out. They will be answered. Um, and let's show our students that we're investing in their futures. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Sharp. Mr. Dobies. Uh, I guess I can't say it any better than Suba um for my night comment. Um, but uh there's there's two weeks to go here. I know everyone is working incredibly hard and proud of the team uh that has been out there pounding the pavement uh putting up yard signs, knocking on doors, and having conversations about the future
086of our district and the importance of this bond uh not only to the district uh but to uh future students that will be uh future Vikings. So excited about the opportunity. I look forward to uh voting for it and I hope that uh everyone can uh get out and vote on a uh 0% uh increase. I think that is important. I saw uh some comments about uh that across social media. I think that is important that uh people won't see uh their millillage increase and that this is a continuation of our commitment to providing uh quality services, quality buildings and quality uh educational environment for our current students and future students. So, thank you. So, I'm very excited about this bond. we're gonna keep this legacy going of Jackson Public Schools. So, I'm all in.
087And I just wanted to read um the legacy of this school district on the south tower of Jackson High School. There's an inscription. It's kind of hard to read. Um but it says, "Faith without credul." Credul means being gullible. Faith without being gullible. conviction without bigotry, intolerance, charity without condescension, self-respect without vanity, meekness with power. So, I just am all in for Jackson High or Jackson Public Schools and um vote yes on November 4th. Thank you, Miss Actton. I too am all in for JPS. Um vote yes on November 4th for the bond. This is an opportunity for us to see a brighter future for our students and I agree the incredible hard work and effort from everyone that has been put into this. We are very optimistic that um we will receive a victory
088on November 4th. So again, even for those of you that have had some questions about the bond and the renovations, you've come out to the input sessions. Jeremy, thank you for that clarification that you've been um providing. Chris Gianetti for giving the history on Reynolds specifically to kind of buffer some of that and um provide understanding to our constituents. So again, thank you all for being present tonight for the board meeting. Vote yes for JPS bond November 4th. Thank you. Before you getting ready to dismiss us with the calendar, I just want to say welcome to our Spring Arbor uh university students, I see you here today. We have a strong partnership with Spring Arbor. A lot of their students spent hours in our classrooms throughout Jackson Public listening and learning like uh Trusty Sharp
089is doing out there with their young minds. So, we need those future educators. We're glad you're here. I think you uh joined a great board meeting to see the business of the district and I look forward to seeing you all in future endeavors. You're always welcome here at JPS. Thank you and welcome spring. We appreciate that. Agenda item 11, calendar of events. October 22nd, tomorrow, 2025, we will have another bond live stream and in-person opportunity to get additional information here at JPS at J Jackson High School in the media center at 6 p.m. And again, you also have an opportunity to join the YouTube channel live stream. November 4th, vote JPS, yes for the bond. November 18th is our next regularly scheduled monthly meeting here, same location, media center at 6:00 p.m. At this time,
090I support we have a Wait, I just had something to tell you guys before you leave. So, I know a couple of you have signed up to go to walk with us and and if anybody's in the audience, there's a way to sign up for walking and um you don't have to go at the specific times that we've said. We have sheets and an app that you can go with at your own pace. So, I encourage you all to walk in. Just Derek and Marilyn have done their one minute testimonials. So, just waiting on the rest of you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I know. All right. So we have a motion and a support for to adjurnn. All those in favor? Any oppose? Motion is adjourned at 720. Thank you.