001call to order of the Carne School District Board of Education regular meeting. Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the for it stands for >> roll call please >> here. >> Jason Clint >> here. >> Christina Lindsay >> here. Here >> we have a quorum. Next, adopt amend the agenda. >> Move to adopt the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? Opposed. Thank you. We have no public comment tonight, so we'll go right into the superintendence report. So this August we kicked off our back to silk school engagements with um a meeting uh the Cardi chamber um on August 6. It was a good opportunity. We were the um hosts at Carne Junior High um and it gave us a good opportunity to
002celebrate our student successes as well as give them an overview of operations of the school district. Resource fair was held on uh August 7th and 8th and that is such a meaningful event. um 285 students benefited um by receiving resources. We had 24 community agencies come out and help and over 30 volunteers also participated. August 11th through the 15th teachers returned and I want to thank um Dr. Utek and Ally Stewart really great job on um the professional learning for the week. Um, I also want to um mention the monumental effort that took place um preparing three of our buildings. Uh, New Kirk Novak, our operations team, custodians, maintenance, grounds, technology, our principles, our teachers um in order that was a full team effort in order to get our buildings ready um for openhouse. And
003you you would not have known all the work that happened that over summer. Uh open house was on Thursday night and then we closed the week with our uh annual convocation uh where we recognize teachers for their years of service and we're really appreciative of the um education foundation. They recognize our new to teaching uh teachers and we have new uh nine new to um the profession and they give them $250 grants. So we're very appreciative of that. This week is the first week of school and I'll tell you it was just um wonderful to be out in schools and just see the excitement of parents and children as they entered the classrooms and welcome their teachers. It's really been a great two first two days. This week we're already looking at athletics. So Friday
004um is at six o'clock is the jamboree uh football jamberee with Raytown and Raymore peculiar and Monday girls volleyball jamberee at 5:00. Um, I do want to mention that our very own Ray Wel has been hard at work on our new district website and school sites and uh launching Parent Square. That's really done a nice job and really streamlining our communication platform. Uh, we really feel strongly that we're reaching about 100% of our our patrons through that um new platform. And I also want to share that this Saturday um Carney High School will be hosting Academy Day. Um, so that's really kind of a unique opportunity for us um to recognize um give students the opportunity to hear about the it's a pretty complicated process to get more information to apply for an academy. So
005we're very glad to be hosting that and I will conclude my comments. >> Thank you. Next we have the consent agenda. >> Move that the consent agenda be approved as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? Opposed? Thank you. Next, we have information items. First, the bond project update. >> Hello. Again, kind of tagging on to what you said. I mean, a lot has happened over the last two weeks. Um, we've had some ups and downs. We've had some oopsies, but um, we got there. And as you can see by the photos uh here, um it turned out great. Um I don't know if you guys have been able to get into the classrooms, but I highly recommend that you do because um September of last year to where we are now is it's it's
006pretty amazing what has been accomplished over the past several months. So, it's pretty cool. Um Hawthorne right there. I think that's one of the collab areas at Hawthorne Elementary. They're kind of similar colors, style. So, um, this is one of the resource rooms I think at Hawthorne as well. Carne Elementary, new front entrance. That's a wow factor right there. That's totally different than what we had. Um, new signage, new metal panels. Pretty cool. This is uh I think one of the existing collab spaces um at Carne Elementary and I believe this is one of the existing or the new collab areas in the new addition. Um pretty cool area. Um Dogwood Elementary um the new media center. Very very neat space. And another one of the areas kind of the resource rooms at Dogwood with
007the operable partition that rooms can be divided. Um, so kind of as you kind of just look at these photos, um, you can see the the completed schools and just wanted to take a moment to express sincere gratitude for everyone who made the project possible. Um, from the district leadership to the principles, um, Mitch at Carne Elementary, Chanty at Hawthorne, Kathleen at Dogwood, um, to the teachers, the staff, the city, um, David and and Kevin at the city with with all the work that we did with inspections and kind of the ups and downs what we had with city inspectors. um to Jeff Fort at the at the fire department um for all the trust, collaboration, and support through everybody. It was it's been it was pretty cool. Want to give a special thanks to
008Dr. Miller um Eric and Jeremy. Um and again to each of the board members who championed this initiative. It was pretty exciting. Um I'd also like to give a heartfelt um thank you to our design partner DLR. Um Megan was kind of our lead architect on the project and her vision, leadership, and guidance were instrumental in bringing these tools to life. Um, and we couldn't have done it without the new Kirk team, Zack Carter, um, superintendent at Carney Elementary. He started, um, Hawthorne, um, Justin Burko ended up coming over and Jack and Justin kind of finished that. Um, Justin Cunningham, superintendent at Dogwood, Elizabeth, our project manager. I mean, these guys worked flawlessly together with with each other and with with everybody else. And it's it uh it showed in in a project that we
009could all look back and be proud of. Um we had two project engineers, Louise and and Colby, who helped um Zach and Elizabeth and and the two Justin to not carry the heavy load. And uh it uh it all worked together. Um it was a good a good group of guys. Their dedication, teamwork, professionalism were instrumental in delivering the final product for you guys. Um, so thank you for this and we look forward to um more. We look forward to the relationships we've developed along the way and thank you. >> Anybody have any questions? >> It looks amazing. Hold >> on. Toured and >> we knew you would do it, but boy, you came a long way in four weeks. >> We did. >> No furniture. >> I don't think we saw much furniture anywhere.
010and uh all the flooring that had to go down. And I know I live right here in town and drive by Carne Elementary probably six times a day in Athorne and yeah, >> there were people there late Saturday night or >> there was a lot of hours spent over the last three weeks. Um some late nights and so yeah, but >> all worth it. So >> it was it was awesome. So and um I know Bri and I were part of this when it when we decided to pivot and Nick was just coming on. >> That's right. And uh so that was that was a big big decision and a big leap of faith. And um appreciate Dr. Miller's leadership on that. And um Eric, your work has been I don't want to see all
011your lists. Do do you keep an archive of all your lists or do you throw them away? [Laughter] But no, it it truly um was, you know, a unique situation to pivot like we did and to uh completely abandon building another elementary school. And I know that I'm just really excited about being able to touch so many more students with all the work that we did by making this move than if we would have done the other. And I just think we did the right thing and I'm really proud of how it's turned out. And I can't wait. I'm going to go back and see all the furniture at the schools because I have not been able to do that yet. So, I'll be going the next week or so. Is it okay if I
012go to the school? >> Thanks again and we look forward to more opportunities. >> Thank you. >> Financials. >> Good evening. Uh you'll see the reports I posted. Probably the one I was going to bring to the most attention is uh the the fund uh racial repo r ratio report. Um I did things a little differently than what Ginger did and you might have noticed that the ending balance uh projection for the end of the year has also changed as a result. Um, I did some trend analysis and I just felt like um, Ginger was very conservative and as a finance person I can appreciate that because you always want to uh, underpromise and overd deliver and so she was very conservative and if you studied her numbers like I have you'll see usually that
013number starts to creep up towards the end of the year and so I felt like expenditures were probably a little on the high side uh, for what we're going to see this year. So I did back them down. So, if you compare what the the number was in the budget report uh or the budget message back in June, it was more like 17%. I feel that number is going to come in closer to 20. I'm actually hoping for a little more than that, but for today, I'm going to say 20, just over 20%. So, um, is there any other questions regarding any I I did also, uh, I didn't have time to get all my my mind around all the numbers and fund four, so I did do kind of a year-end number plug. Um,
014and I will get that fine-tuned for next month as far as the month-to-month details on that. But, uh, you're pretty much aware of all the money that's being spent on the bond projects right now, and monthtomonth doesn't matter nearly as much as the very end. So, um, with that, I'm happy to entertain any questions you might have this evening. >> Doug, two questions for me. The first is that have we received all the state and federal revenue that we should at this point, or is there anything outstanding that we're waiting for? >> Um, no, nothing outstanding. I I know there's the concern with the federal hiring or the federal freezes on funds and stuff. Uh, the ones that apply to us have pretty much been lifted. Um, we are going to get less in federal
015funding this year than we did last year to the tune of about $17,000. 17,000 isn't going to make or break us since we're so very little dependent on federal funds. So, statewise, I know the first payment um the calculation for SAT uh was at 6,900, but it's projected to go to 71.45. Um, and my understanding is that should get adjusted by the end of the year. So, it's not like we're losing. Maybe the money's a little bit delayed, but we're not losing anything. It'll it'll get caught up by the end. So, we're hoping that 7145 is a solid number. >> Good. And my second question is, if I read it correctly, it looks like we spend about five or $600,000 more than we have for revenue in funds one and funds two. And so I'm
016my question is is that again a part of the conservative nature of kind of looking at worst case scenario or is that where you think it ends up or is that um or does it point to a structural problem with the budget? >> Yeah. Um deficit uh budget spending is not unique. I went back and looked um at the last six budget cycles and everyone uh had expenditures higher than revenue out of the gate with the uh the June budget message. Um actually this year if you go back to June minutes and look at the report uh it actually exceeded by the tune of about $2 million uh expenditures over revenue. and I back that number down to to 500,000 which is why we're at 20% not at 17. Um I think that's going to
017be a more realistic outcome. Um but uh I will say I think expenditures are still a little on the high side and I think revenue um is going to be pretty close to coming what's in but as I looked at trend usually revenue was underestimated as well and four out of the last six year four out of the last six years revenue actually came in higher than what we showed in the budget. So, I'm hoping that's the case this year, but I'm going to be conservative and say, let's just hope it comes in where we predicted back in June. And if so, we should be fine. >> Good questions. Anything else? >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Hey, we have a uh program evaluation for operations that's written. Any questions on that? And
018then we have a program evaluation for facilities from Mr. Nolan. >> Good evening everyone. Uh be presenting uh operations program evaluation for the 202425 school year. And when we say operations, we're talking or when we're talking about facilities, u custodial, grounds, and maintenance departments make up our facilities team. So besides myself on our leadership team, we have Jerry Stinger in charge of custodial, Drew Schwitzer in charge of uh grounds, and Jeremy McQuary in charge of the maintenance team. So, just a kind of an appropriate time just to mention those three and their teams. Dr. Miller mentioned them already, Joe mentioned them. They they did a a kind of behind the scenes, you know, where the the construction team is is making the the buildings, but in order to make that push to start those, those
019three guys and their teams did a lot of work in preparation. And um at the end when they were completed, as they were completing, those three guys and their teams made it happen to get everything ready for day one. and and uh would that be open house on Thursday of last week. So just Drew is here tonight and just want to recognize those three for their uh extra efforts through the summer. So uh we have 32 custodial employees uh five in grounds and six in maintenance. They oversee just under uh 800,000 square feet of building space and uh around 227 u acres of district property. Uh tying these to this program to strategic goals. Anytime you hear uh creating safe and secure environments for our uh students and staff, that ties right into uh our
020facilities and the part about utilizing resources in a physically responsible manner. Uh we we we try to that kind of guides us in our in our operations. So, we have a mission that um to provide comprehensive buildings and grounds maintenance programs that improve and extend the life of facilities and ensure that they are attractive, comfortable, energy efficient, functional, and safe. And that's what that's what we're employed to do. So, to make that happen, we have u monthly meetings with our leadership team where we review upcoming and active projects, work orders, budgets, and personnel. uh annually um within our facilities administrators. We meet with the building principles, walk and talk through the building needs and and that's kind of where our ideas start when we we start to form our um plans. We keep an ongoing
021three-year plan and that's what the communication tool is when we start working with administrators to try to um let them know when and where they can expect to see improvements in the future. uh facilities department manages three budget categories um to meet our building and grounds needs. Uh we have an operational budget which is approximately $750,000. That budget um accounts for our repairs and maintenance of existing infrastructure uh the custodial supplies that we need uh and the numerous service contracts that we have out there which are um seems like they get more by every every year but it you know everything from code required inspections to pest control. Second category of funds would be a district capital project um budget often referred to as fund four. It's usually um used to support the long range
022capital plans and um fiscal year 25 was approximately $180,000. It would be used to support things like HVAC, mechanical, roofing, paving projects. And then our third fund would be bond funds, which our most recent one was the 2022 Prop B fund or bond issue. And at the end of physical year 25, it was 59% um either spent or encumbered. So if we go back to that uh district capital project budget fund 4, uh it lists $180,000 for this past year. Uh the prior year to that it had been 1.2 million and the prior year before that was just under a million to um take care of those big projects. The reason it is down to $180,000 is we were able to take those things that would normally be on the capital project fund 4 budget
023and we've rolled them into the 2022 bond project and instead of utilizing the fund for capital project fund, they were now rolled into the bond. And you can see that we accomp and these these projects are either done or will be completed this fall. And it is everything from roofs, HVAC, expansion joints, um epoxy flooring, playground upgrades, carpet, middle school, uh north and west wall upgrade, gym, um elementary gym basketball goals, exterior trim, painted a couple schools, support services foundation, and roof ladders at the high school. So that that's kind of the discrepancy in that fund. I just wanted to to point that out where those have changed. Um our expenses, there is a five-year chart of custodial, maintenance, grounds, uh totals. These expenses include salary and benefits, uh materials and supplies, rentals, repairs, uh
024all of our utilities, trash, and our insurance fees. So last year we had three goals that um are up here on the on the projector um which would say all of our projects were going to be done on time and under budget and that was kind of a moving goal as we've changed our um intent and so can't say that we are done yet. So, we're going to we keep backing up our completion date and so our intent is to have um all of our bond projects finished by this time next year and and that that is going to be our goal. So, as of now we are under budget as well. Second goal was hire and retaining full custodial staff grounds and maintenance and um at the end of the year at the end
025of fiscal year we had three vacancies and 84% retention. Our goal was to be 100% retention within that year. Did not meet that. And then we had a goal to have our safety and security measures completed efficiently. And so within this past year, we had exterior door access control projects, uh contact sensors to ex exterior doors, safety film project, and rekeying Hawthorne um door locks and those are complete. So, so going forward have three goals as well. This first one would be to develop and manage a 10-year long-range capital projects plan. And that is um our our goal would be to basically take our three-year plan and expand it for 10 years and that we feel like that is our next step to be better at planning and projecting what those needs are going to
026be. So, we'll work for that. Second one is um an extension of what we had on there before because we aren't done. We I'd like to make sure that we manage the budget and schedule and make sure that we get done with these projects by the end of next summer and under budget of course. And then um stayed with the same goal for program goal number three is we want to fill 100% of our vacancies and keep 90% of those retained every year. questions. >> Any questions? >> Thank you for getting that done in addition to everything else you've been working on the last month. >> Not a problem. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we have action items. PAT salary schedule. Move to approve the 2025 2026 PAT salary schedule as presented. >> Second.
027>> Any questions regarding the salary schedule? Um we've moved from a hourly rate to a flat rate. The reason we've done that uh that offers a little bit more consistency when we're paying our parents as teachers. Uh we have traditionally um had them, like I said, paid at an hourly rate where they would clock in and clock out remotely on like a cell phone. We were having some issues with that. Um, we've kind of f followed suit with a lot of our uh competing districts. A lot of them have flat rates. We're adhering to the Desi guidelines as far as pay. This will just make it a little bit easier on our payroll system and also our employees going back to the flat rate. So, when they complete a t an activity, they they check
028the box, they get that payment. So, we'll just monitor that instead of the hourly rate. >> How will the system affect what they've been paid previously? Will they see a big difference? >> Great question. Uh, it doesn't uh it doesn't increase our expenditures. The rates are uh based on, you know, our our two or three bottom tiers on our on our uh excuse me, we really step one, two, three, and four on our current hourly rate. So, we're really pretty close to what we've already paid. It's just it just comes at a flat rate instead of an hourly. >> So, an employee won't necessarily see an enormous decrease either. >> An employee will not see a a decrease. >> Okay. >> No, no current employees will see a decrease. >> Okay. Great question. >> Good.
029Yeah. You're moving it out of the classified salary schedule. >> Correct. >> And for what kind of what does that why the change and what fund does it hit now? >> So it'll still be in a classified it'll still be a classified employee category. It just has its own salary schedule because of the uniqueness of parents as teachers and that employee because of the travel they do. They go all over all over our district. And what we found is uh so you're supposed to take 90 minutes to do a visit, but sometimes that visit might take two and a half, three hours depending on the travel distance or maybe the family's more, you know, it became a real issue and trying to make consistent with what what our expectations were for a parents' teacher visit.
030So adopting a lot of the other strategies that some of other districts have used going to a flat rate. We originally had a flat rate um my first year here and we changed to an hourly and we found that wasn't effective. So, we're really going back to what we've done before. >> Did that answer your question? >> It's a fund one expense. >> Sorry. >> Yeah. It's still operation funds. Yeah. It's Yeah. And it was previously. >> Correct. It It's just how they're paid. >> It's just the schedule that they're being paid on. >> That's the only change. >> Any other questions? Okay. All in favor? Opposed? Thank you. Approval of the date to conduct tax rate hearing. >> Move to conduct the tax rate hearing in conjunction with the regular board meeting on September
03124th, 2025. >> Second. >> Questions. >> Generally, we move this date a week later. It gives the counties um a little extra time to submit their assessed valuations and allows Doug a little extra time to get that calculation completed. So, our board meeting next month is the fourth Wednesday instead of the third Wednesday. >> All right, ready to vote. All in favor? Opposed? Thank you. Tuition rate for 2526. Move to approve the tuition rate for the 2025 2026 school year as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? Post. Thank you. Purchase from Cable Dmer over 50,000. >> Move to approve the purchase of two vans from Cabled Dmer as presented. >> Second. >> Mr. Nolan, do you want to give some explanation? So, in the past, um, we have we we currently own two minivans,
032uh, 2012, 2017. Those have typically been used for smaller groups of students to go on, um, trips, field trips, sporting events, and things like that. Over the past few years, the demand for those has been so high that we have leased a third and a fourth some years and sometimes some specific parts of the year. So when these two vans are starting to age, one of them specifically, um, we wanted to, I guess, explore different options where we feel like our leasing, the dollars that we're spending on the leases could be better spent in owning vans, which would then allow us when those two current vans age out and need to be replaced, we have um two vans ready to go and the need for them is um we we have a need for four
033at most of the year spring and fall sports seasons. We definitely have a need for four. In addition to that, we have the need for we know that these two aren't going to last forever and we feel like this is a one. It gets our needs met. we aren't paying the lease payment for them. And when we do come to that point where we need to have retired one or two of these vans that we currently own, we at least have two ready to go. And the intent would be these new ones would be what we would take for u longer trips out of town trips and the the two older ones we would and the intent would be to keep them around for um local trips. >> So that's some background. >> Do you
034want to share the expense for leasing the van for last year? >> Sure. We we spent 13665 with Enterprise for a lease of one van for a majority of the school year >> and that stuff's not going down. Car rentals and van rentals is >> And you say we released two vans at some point? >> We did. We did not last year, but in the years past, uh, we did. >> So leasing two vans is almost the cost of one van to own it. Yes, >> I I'm struggling with this a little bit um because I'm trying to understand the rationale. I'm a little bit behind on the rationale. So, you want four vans. It sounds like you need four vans. Like, it's not a So, the question is is whether you should lease them
035or buy it, right? And the way to look at it would be how much does it save versus own? So, it's just your typical rent to own versus your payback time period. So, if it's 13665, is that right? >> And the van was $36,000. >> 379. >> Okay. So, it's three years on the payback, right? >> I think it's not a trick question. I think that that is >> I'm checking my math. >> And the reason I paused was I was figuring it against two vans, but yes. >> Okay. So, you're the So, over three years, you will have made back the amount of money. There's probably other expenses, gas and whatnot, insurance that put in there, but it's close enough on three years. But then won't you after two years still need to go
036buy two more? >> Well, I don't know that there's a definitive year that you have to go buy two more. >> You'll try and make them last as long as they can by keeping them. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because that point in dream world, you would purchase one and then purchase, you know, one later on if you could do it. Supposed to have them do both every time. you switch over and just use the new ones predominantly and the older ones only when necessary to preserve mileage. >> That's that's how it would work. The right that they would put people in if there was just a need for two on they say a certain day I'm sure it would be the two new ones and then on the local >> Yeah. >> from
037the local trips we would then put our miles on those older ones. Yeah. So, we have our special education students that use the vans to to go to fulfillment house. You know, keep it in town, keep it in a safe local distance. Um, less risk. >> I think three years is good for a payback. I mean, if if he had said 10 years, then I would say I'm not sure that makes as much sense, but three years for a payback, you'll realize some savings from that. >> Well, assuming the cost of the lease is just going to go up, too. So, >> well, we have one under 13 years old, right? >> Anyway, hoping hoping it's available. We'll know. >> Okay. Other questions? Right. Ready to vote? All in favor? >> Post. Thank you. >>
038Board member comments. >> I I wanted to echo Dr. Miller's statement earlier that was tonight and also all of the statements that have been made this evening around the work that the schools did to get prepared and ready especially for open house. So I know it took a lot of work and effort from all of the staff um and all of the teams that we have and I just want to thank everyone for that because it was not easy but from a parents perspective walking in an open house you would never have known and so thank you for that. I wanted to congratulate the young man in the back who's on his way to being an Eagle Scout for making it through this meeting. Um, not all of us can do that, but congratulations and
039keep going. >> I also want to say specific to open house, yes, the buildings look wonderful, but we have a fantastic staff. Like, they're just so welcoming and kind and excited to see everybody. And yes, the building is great, but it's that combination of I'm so glad you're here. like that feeling of I've been planning for you and I'm ready for you to be here. I think it really sets the tone for an incredible school year. And so I want to thank all the teachers for doing that. I know it can be a long week. I'm sure some of that excitement is we're just happy to see kids not be in a meeting but at the same time it is genuine and uh we're that's something we need to be uh grateful for. >> Yes.
040If the teachers were scrambling it was not noticed at all. No from a parent level. >> No, it was great. any of the buildings. I guess I just went to two this year, which is different, but >> I was in four. >> No, I think it I mean the work that was done over the summer from Eric to the um maintenance crews, I mean the grounds crews and everything because studial I know it was a huge huge effort. Um Dr. Miller, you guys, you pieced it all together. Everyone, every person that had their hands on um did a great job. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, important dates. Um, Labor Day, we already get a day off of school. Geez. >> Uh, then September 4th, the MSBA fall regional meeting and then our
041next board meeting is September 24th and a lot of other activities in between. I know with sports teams getting ready to roll and our athletic hall of fame is the weekend of Labor Day as well. The athletic hall of fame induction is that Saturday, whatever date that is. >> 30th. I think it's the 30th. So, >> um, miscellaneous action for close session to immediately proceed the regular meeting in September, including any any record or vote to discuss items and issues allowable under section 610-021 of the Missouri Sunshine Law. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Matt Baker, >> yes. Jason Clint >> I >> Jacob Smith >> yes >> Christianity >> yes >> you're adjourned thank you for coming