001I call this meeting of the South Refford Board of Education together at 6:30. May you stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. >> Next item on the agenda is the roll call. Mr. Secretary, would you call the role, please? >> Yes. Anthony Johnson, >> present. >> Lorie Hicks, >> present. Amanda Flesher, >> present. >> Sheryl Flesher, >> present. >> Isaiah Early, >> present. >> Daniel Winston, present. Shirley Tower, >> present. The next item on the agenda is the approval of agenda. Are there any corrections to the agenda? There are none. The agenda will be as written. Next item on the agenda is superintendent communications. Mr.
002Bob. >> Thank you, Madam President. Special thanks are in order to Fiser Elementary School teacher, Mr. Michael Canda, for his continued annual efforts uh in partnering with the Knights of Columbus. And so, thanks to his efforts uh and this partnership, uh we once again will be providing winter jackets to South Rford students that are in need. And because of uh Mr. for Canada's continued efforts over the course of uh the past handful of years. Um we have provided over 500 winter jackets to South Redford students that are in need, which um also uh coincides well with today's weather. >> That's all right. >> Join us here this season. And with that, Madam President, that concludes my communication this evening. Next item on the agenda is the board communication. Are there any? I guess not. Next
003item on the agenda is comments from the audience. >> No related to the agenda. >> There are none. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Do I have a board member willing to adopt the consent agenda >> to the chair? >> Yes. >> I'd like to move the adoption of the following resolution, please. >> Do I have a support? >> It's been moved by Mrs. Flesher and supported by Mrs. Hicks. All in favor? >> I. Any naysay? Zero naysay. Seven eyes. Zero nazs. Resolution adopted. Next item on the agenda is accept financial audit request. Mr. >> Thank you, Madam President. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to our finance director, Miss Mickey Borie, to introduce uh our partner from Raymond. >> Good evening. Um, I would like to introduce Dan
004Merritt. He is with Raymond and he is here to go over the uh fiscal year end June 30th, 2025 financials. >> Good evening. Thanks, Mickey. Uh, members of the board of education, glad to be here to talk about the school district's 2025 audit report. Um, today I'll briefly run through uh the team members that work on the audit uh required board communications uh that we do each year as part of completing the audit. uh some brief discussion of financial results and then I'll close talking about exciting things like upcoming accounting pronouncements. If at any point you have any questions, I'm happy to take them throughout the presentation or at the end. Um as Mickey mentioned, I'm the signing principal on the engagement and my great team works closely with Mickey and Alicia and Kathy throughout
005the duration of the audit. Usually takes about 2 to 300 hours on our end to an to do an audit. I usually estimate that if it takes us two to 300 hours, it probably takes the district 5 to 600 hours to get ready. So, it's a good point at which to mention how much we appreciate the hard work and dedication of the district's finance staff in preparing for and completing the audit. Of course, uh me and my team are from Raymond. We're one of the largest public accounting firms in the state of Michigan. We're probably among the top four in terms of doing school district audits. Me and my team do about 10 in Southeast Michigan. I think we do about 25 and across the state we do approximately 50 to 51ish uh school district
006audits in the last numbers that I've seen. So we we do a lot of these. We also specialize in doing local government audits which means we do counties, cities, townships. Me and my team, all we do is Gazsby accounting all the time. So we do a fair bit of this board communications. So, if I do nothing else tonight, the most important thing that I need to communicate is that we've issued an unmodified opinion on the June 30th, 2025 financial statements. In the audit business, we call that a clean opinion. If you get a clean opinion from us, MBE keeps giving you funding. So, if I said nothing else up here the entire evening, that would be the most important thing that I need to communicate. It means that we think the financial statements you have
007in front of you are reliable, can be used to make good financial uh decisions, and are an accurate representation of the school district's financial position. Uh the district is required to announce new Gazsby pronouncements. That's the governmental accounting standards board for a mouthful. Uh and each year you have to the district has to adopt any new pronouncements are applicable to its operations. This year it had to adopt one on uh acrewing for compensated absences. If you'd like, I can explain how that works in detail, but mostly it's more work for a slightly different disclosure that has no impact on cash flow. So, we just say yes, there are 101 different Gazsby pronouncements that the district has to contend with in creating the financial statements. And uh we move on and I have to explain that
008more later if you have questions. Um third, we have to assess other accounting estimates. compensated absences is an accounting estimate. Also, how much of capital assets gets depreciated each year is an accounting estimate. So is any allowance for doubtful accounts. The point being that a finance department has to make certain estimates in creating financial information. It doesn't have hard and fast numbers on every single thing that goes into the financial statements. We assessed all of finance's estimates and deemed all of them appropriate and reasonable. Fourth, if your auditor ever tells you that they're having difficulties dealing with management during an audit, big red flag should be immediate problem. We don't want to see that. Uh we of course have had no difficulties dealing with management in the two years that we've been the appointed auditor
009for the school district. Uh all the questions that we ask get answered. All the support that we request does get provided. Um so we're happy to report no difficulties. Fifth, we're required to report on any uh uh uh uh findings or misstatements that we identified during the audit. Uh we did identify what's called a material misstatement, which means a rather large accounting adjustment. That adjustment was related to the reporting of capital assets. Again, I'm happy to go into detail on that if you want, but the most important thing that you need to know is that we identified it, it was resolved, and that the final financial statements include an accurate reporting of capital assets for the district during the year. The district also chose to pass on one immaterial adjustment which is related to the
010implementation of the lease standard which is called Gazsby 87. Uh basically said that the time and effort of doing the accounting for that lease was not worth the uh effort put into actually report it in the financial statements. We concurred. We agreed that it was immaterial and not necessary to report but we have to put that in our report to the board uh that we are officially passing on. Um and finally the Oh yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. >> What is the material asset that you determined was not of value? >> So the district in their financial information provided to us initially under reported some of the assets being constructed as part of the bond project and basically it was an issue of bucketing costs. The district correctly reported all of its expenditures, but some of
011those expenditures, they were focused just on those that were running through Barton Mallow, the general contractor, and not on the expenditures that were going directly to other contractors. So, they inappropriately excluded some of those costs when reporting capital assets. They reported all the correct expenditures at the fund level. They just didn't correctly capitalize all of the correct expenditures initially when they reported them to us. We identified that, we helped them correct it. It's been adjusted in the final financial statements. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Very good question. Um, moving on to discussion of the single audit. The single audit ever since 1984 when the first single audit act went into place, they called it A133, OM circular A133. You get one audit of all your federal money during the year if you would spend more
012than $750,000. This coming year, it'll be if you spend more than a million dollars. the school district generally gets I think it's somewhere between four and $6 million just depending on the year you're looking at. So South Redford almost always has a a single audit and has for the last decade or so. Um when we do uh finish uh the single audit for this year, we will be testing IDEIDA, which is your federal special education funding and title one grants, which is your additional funding for at risk students uh uh that is provided through the federal government. Now, I want to be clear, most years you would have a single audit done at the same time as the financial audit. This year, due to the federal government shutdown, the feds went away, didn't issue their
013rules for single audits in May when they were supposed to, didn't issue them in June, July, August, September, and then they went on hiatus. So now we are all stuck in a situation where we can't finish single audits and submit them to the state until they come back. So the state adjusted the school aid budget uh and said once they come back and issue the rules for doing single audits, every school district will then have 30 days to submit their report. We expect to be able to complete and finish that report in plenty of time once the federal uh government comes back from shutdown. And who knows, maybe it'll happen as soon as next week from what we're hearing in the news today. So all right, now we get into some brief discussion of financial
014results. Uh so this is just a very high level overview of the fund results for the different funds. So I'll start uh in the middle with the capital projects funds. So you have two capital projects funds that were funded by bonds issued by the school district. The 2021 capital projects fund only has about 1.2 1.3ish billion left in it and it's the school district's going to spend down the rest of that money pretty quickly here in 2012 26 on required expenditures. So that capital project in all intents and purposes at this point is finished. The 2024 capital projects fund, you can see that their net change in fund balance was big positive, right? Because governmental accounting says you got to record the big deposit in for the bond money coming to the school district and
015then you spent down about 2.7 million of that during the year which was basically because up until I think it was around February Marchish you were spending down 2021 money and then you started to spend down 2024 money near the end of the year. you only spent a smallish chunk of that and of course the district is continually doing improvements uh uh and constructing assets uh for on behalf of the students and the teachers and so the rest of that money will get spent over the next year and a half two years I guess profit timeline is um perhaps most importantly is the fund results of the general fund and so uh I can give some context on that here in a second but the general fund basically stayed flat so you see have a
016net loss in the general fund of 63,7 $754. If you take that as a percentage of total expenditures, it's something like 0.03% or less. And to me, that's basically a flat result in the general fund. So, I'll give some more context about that in just a minute. Um, on our next slide, you can kind of see the overall fund results of the district compared to last year's overall fund results. You think about what is fund balance in a fund. It's basically all your assets compared to all your liabilities. So, think about it like if your checking account was set against everything you owed on your credit cards. The net result of that after you collect all the money that people owed you and paid out all of the money that you owed to other people
017would be your fund balance. The district's fund balance across all of its governmental funds went up significantly this year. Why? Because you got a bunch of new capital projects money in. So the fluctuation around fund balance from a big picture perspective is really just you spent out a lot of the 2021 project bond money and you got in a lot of the 2024 capital project bond money for the most part. Other fund results were fairly consistent year-over-year and didn't show any significant variances. So general fund I promised I would say a little bit more about the fund results in the general fund. And uh so here you can see revenues versus expenditures over the last 3 years. And I stood up here last year and I said I think roughly we're kind of in orange
018light territory on the general fund that you want to be really careful about how much you're taking out of the general fund because you went for two years in a row taking out 3.1 and then $2.8 billion out of the general fund. And you can see my comments hopefully are b from the previous slide are borne out here where you can see how small oh my pointer is not working up there. You can see how small the change is in 2025 on profit loss for the general fund basically flat like revenues and expenditures were basically even I think in a year when you don't have the esser money coming in anymore to buoy your revenue and that they didn't have any increase to foundation allowance. Most years they have an increase in foundational allowance. We'll
019talk about what the 25 26 foundation allowance increase is in a slide or two. That's probably about as good a result as you can see. If you had seen a big negative in the general fund, that would mean that like other communities that have gotten themselves in unfortunately a bit of a mess. I'm not saying you're in a mess. I'm saying other communities have gotten themselves in a bit of a mess because they didn't get rid of the programs that they were funding with ESSER money or find new funding sources for them. So they would see this year still a big decline in fund balance because they weren't making careful decisions about well we had this one-time money that came for like three years in a row. I think maybe it was even four years
020in a row and now we have no more of it in this year 25 and 26. We're not going to have any more federal money coming in new. I think the best you can hope for from this administration is maybe that existing programs stay about the same. I don't think you're going to see any big increases to federal money. So I think overall I mean a neutral fund result is probably about the best you can hope for in 2425 and hopefully that means you're starting to turn the corner right on the taking out of fund balance and we'll move into a position where you're adding to fund balance again in FY2526. One more slide here to try to give perspective about the general fund coverage ratio. You can see in 2021 you had a 22%
021fund balance. That means as a percentage of expenditures during the year uh you had 22 you could cover 22% of your expenditures just out of fund balance. We're now down to about 9% and again holding at roughly exactly 9%. We'd like to see that percentage start to move up again next year as you make the turn in the corner around conservative budgeting. And what do we sort of hope for? We hope to see a sustainable fund balance somewhere between 10 and 15%. 10 and between 10 to 15% usually means you have about two months, right? If you break down 2 months out of 12 months, that's about like 12 13%. So staying in that 10 to 15% range on fund balance means that you could cover two months of expenditures with just what you had,
022let's call it, in the bank is my best way of putting that. That really reflects well for Michigan school districts because you have to go for two months without state aid every year. So if you want to minimize borrowing, keep your costs of borrowing down, you really have to be in that 10 to 15% range. Uh otherwise you're going to end up having state aid notes, which is not a bad thing. It just is costly to the district to borrow that money. Looking forward a little bit. So, thinking about 2526 and when I come back here next year to talk about the audit, we saw a good state aid budget passed. I don't think it's the best state aid budget that's ever been passed. I know they call it historic because it is $1.19 billion
023bigger than past state aid budgets were. But as a per school district basis, I think it's going to be a good modest increase. It's a good year for school districts in the state budget. It's not a fantastic one, nor is it a terrible one. You saw they kicked up foundation allowance by $442 a pupil to$10,50 per pupil, which was 50 bucks more than the governor was proposing per pupil. So that's good. We saw some weighted funding model increases across some of the categorical sections like at risk English learner. Uh continuing technical education ISDs are getting a little bit more money. Close near and dear to my heart. My mom's a special education teacher in Ann Arbor. I always like to see when they fund spe special education especially at the state level because so much
024of that is dependent on federal funding and which administration comes in and out. So when the state funds it you have a little bit more security. So I think you saw a lot of good increases. There were some changes in other budget line items. One of the bigger changes was to MIPERS. They took away some of the funding for retirement. Um, I I think that broadly speaking, funding for pensions and retirey health for teachers and other folks in the plan at the state level is getting better. In the last 10 years, Michigan has done a great job of focusing around making sure that those pension liabilities, those massive numbers that are in the financial statements for how underfunded the state's liability is have increased to the point in which retirey health is actually almost fully
025funded and pensions should get funded in the next 10 years. So if you're a school teacher, if you are someone in the mixer's defined benefit plan, you should feel really good about what school districts and what the state has done and trying to contribute money towards your pensions to make sure that you are going to be funded for the rest of your lifetime after you retire from a school district position. So that in my mind is a really good thing. The funding around that fluctuates a little bit year-over-year. I'd say MSBO is a great resource for telling you what's going to happen with Mixers and OS. And finally, upcoming accounting pronouncements. Uh we also call this more work for Mickey's team. Um unfortunately or fortunately, not a lot of excitement, Nikki, on the front for
026the next two years. Um neither of these uh uh county announcements are going to take a lot of hard work. We're going to help you figure out the reporting model changes. Those are kind of minor. And disclosure of capital assets can have very little effect on school districts. Though I have land banks that it's going to change a lot of things for. So more work for me, just not for you guys. So thank goodness after like three years of them putting out sta standards that made big changes for finance departments but very little useful information for boards, they finally calmed down on the new standards front. So hopefully we'll have a couple more years of that, too. So I think that brings me to the end of my prepared remarks for tonight, but I'm more
027than happy to take any questions that anyone might have. I guess there are none. >> Good hearing. None. Thank you very much for having me. >> Thank you very much. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next item on the agenda, discuss Thirstston High School mechanical project >> to the chair. We have a resolution to move >> to accept our audit report. >> And I'd like to move that resolution, please. >> Okay. >> Do I have a support? >> Support. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Flusher and supported by Mrs. Early. >> All in favor? >> I nays. Seven eyes, zero nays. Resolution adopted. Next item on the agenda is discuss Thirstston High School mechanical project part one. Mr. B. >> Thank you, Madam President. Speaking of the bond, we have reached uh the point
028in the bond schedule where the board will discuss the Thirstston High School mechanical project part one. We have several partners joining us here this evening uh from both Barton Malow as well as from TMP architecture. We have Kyra Copeland here from TMP architecture. Additionally, we also have Mr. Chris Schneider from Barton Mallow who will be joining us uh moving forward. We also have Mr. Brent Bowlinger here this evening as well. And uh to discuss with the board this evening, we have our very own Kelly Ferguson to talk with the board about the Thirsten High School upcoming mechanical project. Uh, we'll turn it over to Kelly. >> So, um, welcome. Hi everybody. Good evening. >> Um, yes, I do wish it was a little bit warmer in here, but we didn't say. Um, just so you
029guys know, this may be the last time I'm visiting in front of you today, but I've appreciated all the time and um, learning opportunities that I've experienced in this district. You guys are a very wonderful to work for. I always am greeted with a smile and I will definitely close it out with the curtsy and Chris will be taking over. Um we are coming to you today to present the recommendation for the Thirsten High School project. As our partner TMP explained a couple weeks ago or a couple board meetings ago I should say. The Thirstston High School project primarily is a mechanical upgrade project. We always want to make sure that the high school students are learning an environment that's nice and quiet, but also that the temperature is regulated, the school is nice and
030clean, the air is good, and all that kind of good stuff. So, that's why it's labeled a mechanical project. But this also includes um renovations to the corridor flooring, renovations, um upgrading, aesthetic upgrades throughout the hallways and throughout the classrooms, so that way the high school looks just as great as the rest of the buildings in the district and everybody feels good to go. Um this is part one of our recommendation. We are still going through the post bid review process with a a few other subcontractors as well as with our technology subcontractors too. So at the next board meeting on November 24th, we'll present the balance of this work. Um this did come in roughly right on budget. Um you'll notice there are a couple of different alternates that are listed and we are
031going through the process to determine which ones would be the best for the district. We'll make sure we keep you guys right in line. I'm happy to say that although we didn't have any specific Redford um contractors, 28% of the contractors presented today are within Wayne County. So, keeping it nice and local. Did you guys have any questions? >> Are there any [laughter] Please know I'll still be around because my niece is a proud Fisher Flyer president. Oh, >> on behalf of the Redford South Redford Board of Education and the Board of Education and the School District, you have been such a fantastic person and we have loved you and we just appreciated you so much. And guess what? >> Oh, that's you guys too because it's so sweet. So, we are presenting this to
032you and there is our Thank you so much. >> Does that make her an official eagle? >> Yes, it does. [applause] >> It was wonderful. >> I promise. [laughter] >> Okay. But I do want to present Chris. I want Chris a little information about yourself. Chris is a great [clears throat] happy to uh good evening. Thanks for uh entertaining myself Kelly um and everybody else in the team. Um I've been in the business for 30 plus years. Um number of different contractors now for close to four years. Um went to Michigan State a civil engineer out of Michigan State Green. All right. Excellent. Um, so I I look forward to the opportunity of working with Jason, staff, students, yourself, um, for the next couple years. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All righty. Next
033item on the agenda is discuss consider board policy service provider. Mr. >> Thank you, Madam President. The board currently utilizes Niola for its board policy services. At the regular board meeting on September the 9th, 2025, the board heard from representatives from Miller Johnson attorneys regarding its board policy services. At the regular board of education meeting on September 22nd, 2025, the board heard from representatives from Churn Law Firm regarding its board policy services. The board discussed the selection of Miller Johnson attorneys as the board's uh policy service provider at its October 27th, 2025 board meeting. Should the board choose to select Miller Johnson as its board policy service provider, it would also be my recommendation that the board also put Miller Johnson attorneys on a legal retainer until the board's organizational meeting in July when the
034district's legal firms are named. Madame President and members of the board of education, a resolution is attached for your consideration. a question. Yes. >> Yes. >> So I believe at the last meeting we kind of went with true correct or >> no. Okay. >> I see. Never mind. You answered my question already. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Are there any more questions? Do I have a board member willing to adopt the resolution >> to the chair? >> Yes. >> I'd like to move the adoption of the following resolution, please. support. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Flesher and supported by Mrs. Hicks. All in favor? >> All right. >> Are there any nays? Zero nays. Seven eyes. Resolution adopted. Miller Johnson will be our new policy retainer >> And provider. Right. Okay. Next item on
035the agenda is comments from the audience. Topics not related to the agenda. >> Got one. >> Yes. >> Miss Tory Cooper. >> Yeah. Point to vote. I have to read a quick spill before you get going. So, give me one second. The board welcomes comments from the public and values the input our stakeholders bring to the table. The president respectfully reminds all of us this is not a formal forum for debate. The board may choose to ask clarifying questions regarding and express concern but will not respond to the concern at the meeting. You can expect a timely response from the appropriate individual. Personal matters cannot and will not be discussed in this forum. So if you can please state your name, your affiliation um with the district. >> Good evening. My name is Tori Cooper.
036My son is currently a student at Pierce Middle School. He is in seventh grade. >> I'm sorry. Can you speak up? I'm having a hard time hearing. >> I'm sorry. My name is Tori Cooper. My son is currently a seventh grader at Pierce Middle School. Um, one of the topics that I wanted to discuss that I have an issue with is homework. There seems to not be any. Um, I do understand that at the beginning of the year, we have these opportunities to meet with the teachers and understand the objective of each classroom and what they will be covering for that year. when homework seems to come up, I often get the same remarks such as um they don't want to give too much to the kids and they want to make it easier on
037them also because of the resources that they may or may not have as far as home at home. Um, which I do understand, but also I feel like it is kind of a setup for failure because as these are young kids preparing to go into high school, they will have homework in all of their classes if you know, not some days every day. So, I feel like this is kind of a false pretense. Once I put my eight hours in, then I'm free. And I think we can all relate to just because we may not be at work or we're no longer on the clock, there are still things that need to be done in order to get things done and put our best foot forward to get ahead of the workload. Um, I did
038get this also last year. He was in sixth grade and I feel like I was more accepting of those remarks because it is an adjustment. Again, he's coming out of elementary going into middle school. So, it is an adjustment. you are coming from one classroom to going into six to seven to even eight sometimes different classrooms. So, I understand that. But now, seeing as though this is the second year and we're almost halfway through middle school, I don't see any changes and it's kind of like scaring me because that is no way to prepare a kid for what will be to come, which is a ton of work. And hopefully, if they decide to go further in college, you know, that's even more. And it also doesn't create good study habits. If I feel like
039um oh, once I'm done here, that's kind of it. And I do understand that some teachers tell me I do give them things and things and if they don't finish it in the classroom then they do they are expected to finish it at home but it still seems that most of the work is tailored just for inside the classroom. Um my second topic is tutoring. Um unbeknownst to me there really doesn't seem it doesn't seem to be offered that much. I think aside from his electives he has six core classes. only one of the teacher has been very vocal about tutoring which is his math. Thank God because that is one of the main things. Um but outside of that the tutoring that seems to be pushed the most are for students that are in
040the Eagles Honor Society which is a little backwards to me because these are kids that shown that they persevere and they really you know understand the work and they can get ahead or are ahead a little bit. But for the kids that are not there or may need that extra help, it doesn't seem the resources are there or talked about enough. >> Um, Mr. Bob, could you look into this matter for us? And Mrs. Cooper, uh, Mr. Bob will be back with you after he looks into this. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you, Sher. >> Can we also have Mr. Bob report back? Yes. >> And let us know. >> Thank you. >> You got it. >> Next item on the agenda, plus delta for improvement. >> Yes. What processes supported the board's work
041in its uh endeavors this evening? Does anyone have I have one? I think uh Raymond did a great job on presenting to us. Um I think I was able to understand it. Thank you Nikki too for your support. Anyone else? I liked um getting our board packet on time and knowing that there was another subsection coming from rain. um you know, but it was coming the next day and I get that that not everything is perfectly prepared at the time that we like our packets, but I appreciate the fact that it was followed up right away. opportunities for improvement. Well, I guess I guess there are well I can eat this. >> I can [laughter] no butter. If there's nothing that further that comes before this board of education, I adjourn this meeting at >>
04275 >> 7:05.