001[laughter] All right, good evening. We will go ahead and get this special meeting called ordered. Roll call, please. >> Carol Barnes, >> here. >> Paul Kaufman, >> here. >> Dan Garrison >> here. >> Ruth Johnson >> here. >> Janet Jones >> here. >> Diana Olsen >> here. >> Patty Phillips is absent. >> All right. Uh, is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> Some move. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? >> All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. On to our action items. Dr. Slegel. >> Yes. Thank you, members of the board. appreciate uh you having this special meeting with us tonight uh on January the 26th. Uh as you know, we are toward the to the end of many months over a year's worth of work on a
002potential bond election. Tonight, we're calling a special meeting for you to make a final decision on that, whether or not you would like to put a bond election before the voters uh for the April 7th election uh just a few months away. We're going to go through some detailed information tonight. Once again, you've seen this before, but I really want to hit it again one more time. See if you have any final questions and then we will uh let's see what you would like to do regarding a bond election for April. So, tonight uh we have a couple of things we want to talk about. First of all, I want to make sure we understand kind of the decision tonight that that the board needs to make uh as we move forward. briefly review the
003process timeline, some of the estimates and the prioritization of projects, uh some of the survey results that we've had recently, as well as discuss some of the externalities that are going to make this for an interesting election. Uh talk about future election dates and a timeline for April 2026 election. Um you've seen this at at our work session a couple weeks ago, so I'm going to give the 30,000 foot view as we go through it. Uh stop me at any time that you have questions or need further clarification. First of all, tonight uh you will do one of three things. You will not proceed with a bond election. Uh you will proceed with a bond election for April 2026. Or you will tell us that you would like to proceed with the bond election at
004a later date. So one of those three things you will need to decide this evening. As you know, this process started in earnest about well over a year ago. So, we're about close to almost to two years into this process of surveying our community, um surveying our students, surveying our staff, um going through a iterative process, sending out another survey. All in all, we've had a very strong public participation process in honing down these projects that you see before you later tonight. Uh for this this year, we've uh went through August, September with some a work session items, reviewed cost data, uh reviewed our feedback from our coaches and our sponsors, uh hired a financial services provider who talked us through the financial side of this that we can bring to our voters a no
005tax rate increase bond election. So brings us to here tonight, the special meeting on January 26 where you're going to decide on its next steps. If board, if you should decide to go forward with a bond election tonight, that marks a 12-week information campaign that we would engage our community with to make sure they are well informed when they go to the polls on April the 7th. We uh went through a variety of of prioritization and review estimates of projects. Uh we appears that all identified projects could be completed within the $45 million uh package that we're looking at. Uh again, that $45 million bond package is a no tax rate increase bond proposal to our community. I think the biggest thing here is that uh the shared understanding tonight is that we believe that
006this bond approach is acceptable and responsible uh should you rep uh want to go with a bond election tonight. But we're dealing with projects that may be four and five years out. So there could be tremendous cost swings over that time, not knowing world events, not knowing what could be down the road that we don't know yet. So this is the agreement we're we want to make between administration and staff that if we have to prioritize projects, it would be in this priority uh where the upper projects getting the the first uh strong consideration to the dollars and uh a little less so as we move forward over time and over project scope. Do we have any questions about those projects? >> I will sorry >> what we >> what negative feedback have you received
007if any? >> Paul will show a survey here in a moment from our community. We've had very little um I would say in the way of negative feedback. We haven't gone through a campaign yet. So we haven't um garnered that level of detail yet. But on first blush, you'll see the survey tonight was overwhelmingly supported by the voting community here in the Ray Peek School District. And so we feel confident about this district. >> And how how do we plan to educate the community on what we're doing? >> Excellent question. Um, starting this week, if you vote to go with a bond election, we will have communication being sent out across our district uh about this, what this bond election is and what it does for kids. the great opportunities that it's going to hold
008for our students, the safety aspects of what we're trying to accomplish and really bringing us up into a more competitive advantage when it comes to when people make location decisions in in amongst the area that we have a lot of the same um offerings for our kids that other school districts do. We'll start on that campaign over the next 12 weeks. We will meet with school district uh communities. We will be at Rotary clubs. We will be out in the community. Uh in addition, I do believe there will be a parent group that has been formed that will also try to get the information out as well. >> Do you think the April date is we have enough time to get that information out by then? >> Absolutely. That's 12 weeks. That's more than enough
009time for an information campaign. Uh we feel good about u this time frame. >> To kind of follow up with um Paul None of what's going to be included in the information is any different than all the surveys and all the information that we've been working on over the past year and a half. >> That's correct. In fact, those surveys and information is what honed us into these projects. So, there's not a project on this list that at some point in the time had been suggested or asked for by this community. >> Okay. Excellent questions. Thank you. the survey results that I was alluding to u overall support for the full facilities plan is very strong 87.2%. Even some of the lower ranking projects on that list were still in the 70s to you know
010mid 80s. So we feel good about this uh bond package. We really feel good about the potential support. There are some externalities we're going to talk about here in a moment. Uh but on its face, this is a very strong offering to our community and our latest survey would suggest that it's uh very wellreceived at this point. The externalities I want to talk about, uh first of all, Senate Bill 3. This is something that um our community is needs to be watching very carefully. So, with our communication, it'll be primarily focused on our bond, but we're also going to make some mention of Senate Bill 3. Senate Bill 3 is a a tax credit uh to all residents in a county if they should vote for Senate. This aspect of Senate Bill 3. It was
011kind of born out of the whole chiefs uh keep royals keeping them in Missouri kind of strategy. Uh that ultimately did not work for the Chiefs. Um but nevertheless in uh part of Senate Bill three was that 22 counties in the state of Missouri had to have a vote in April whether or not they were going to uh freeze property taxes at 2024 levels. So that is an issue again if when the bond passes if you should choose to put it on the ballot uh we will not sell any bond proceeds until we know how Senate Bill 3 has been solved. So, I want to assure you and our community, we will proceed very carefully with this um and watch both sides of the fence to make sure we are doing the right thing for
012our for our community. So, it is out there. It is an issue. I wouldn't say it should be your determining issue one way or the other, but it is something to be aware of and that's something we will try to navigate through as best as we can. We also do know that uh Harrisonville and Belton school districts close by are running bond elections and that South Metro Fire Department uh is rumored to have a levy election as well. I have not seen have confirmation of that yet, but I'm fairly certain that will happen as well. Um what with those externalities what does Harrisonville and Belton having a bond how does that impact us just knowledge or are there positives negatives of three schools having bonds? >> I think it's a positive. I think when you
013get uh all school districts kind of rowing towards that outcome that it just builds um almost that community entire community feel not only for us but uh for the other districts as well that it's not out of the ordinary to do this at the same time Senate Bill 3 is occurring as well. >> Okay. >> Senate Bill 3 is the new kid on the block. It's not the bond elections. So that's what we're trying to navigate on that. So, if you do not um proceed to the bond election tonight, you have some other options. August of 2026, November 2026, or a year from now uh in April of 2027. All of them have their pros and cons. We talked about the pros and cons a few weeks ago in the uh work session. We believe
014that April 2026 is probably your [clears throat] best opportunity. The survey data is fresh. The survey data is very strong. And I believe the community has participated with us over the last year and a half in getting us a bond package that I think they should feel very good about because it's exactly what they've asked for. So election timeline critical points. Uh the critical decision deadline is tonight. Tomorrow uh this election has to be certified. And even though I just want to assure the board, even though we have put a lot of work into this as an administration, as a community, as a team, if you choose tonight not to proceed, you are not going to hurt our feelings. This is your decision. Our job is to bring you the information uh to provide you
015with the assurance and the confidence that we can get this through. But if you feel that more time is needed, you are not going to offend us whatsoever. So I want want you to be aware of that. Uh the ballot language is legal constrained. We have gone through our uh colleagues at uh Gilmore and Bell to make sure they have given us the language that we need that's uh legally uh permissible. And also the campaign conduct rules are strict as we've talked about that a couple weeks ago as to what we can and cannot do when it comes to actual uh information that we'll be sending out on behalf of the district. It requires a 47th majority vote. So uh it's not a simple majority. It's a 57.14% uh to pass. And if you uh
016the voters do approve the bond, the bonds can't be issued until at least 30 days after the election. You did ask a question at the work session that night. If we pass the bond or when we pass the bond election, how long do we have before we have to sell the bonds? It's indefinite. The community has given you permission. Now, most communities don't hold on that very long, but if you because of Senate Bill 3, if it was working its way through the system and you had to wait uh a year or two, Lord forbid three years, you could do that and still have the full authority three years down the road. So, there is no time limit to sell. Once you sell, you need to use 90% of the proceeds within three years. Okay?
017And just for clarification, the way that we looked at the projects, it would be a staggered. We're not going to go sell all 45 million. We're going to it would be a staggered sell. Um, and so at any point, if we get the first whatever, we sell and then we get through some and then we need to hold, we can do that. >> That's correct. So I I think in the uh financial strategy provided to us by Piper Sandler uh the strategy is to sell 25 for the first part of the projects and 20 later. That does a couple things for you as a board. First of all, you're not paying any undue interest on that other 20 million that you may not be using until down the road. And secondly, it allows you to
018be in a better cash flow position because down the road you will have a larger school district with a larger uh tax base that could spread those payments out. important with analysis that's done uh through Piper Sandler, uh a $45 million bond is financially feasible with no tax rate increase. But I do want to preface this. This assumes current property tax law. So board, if we get into this in a year or two years down the road, property tax law has changed in the state of Missouri as to how it's assessed. uh the roll backs that are given whatever it is uh I believe that your promise is on ba now is based on different constraints then and so a future board would have to deal with that accordingly but given what we know now
019we can safely say that this $45 million bond election can be a no tax rate increase bond election so this is the ballot language tonight um again this has been vetted by uh Gilmore Well, our our legal providers in this um this is something that we can take to the election office tomorrow and certify if you pass it tonight. Uh the administrative recommendation is for you to uh approve the motion recall calling a resolution for this bond election. But again, I want to assure you uh we have worked hard together. We have a trust relationship. Trust me when I say it doesn't matter to us which way you go on this. I just want this decision to be yours and we will carry it up. I'll be happy to answer any questions. >> We had
020a lot of conversations um what two weeks ago about on this. Um I've had lots of opportunities over the last couple weeks in the community at the sporting events. Everyone at the sporting events has come up and asked when are we doing are we doing the bond? What are we doing? All of that. So I still I feel that we have the support for the bond. Uh we were concerned about Senate Bill 3 and what what does that do to us? We were trying to wait for if it went through the legal system and got an answer before that. I feel at this point um after having time to think on it, I I'm in support of moving forward with the the bond. I think we have the support of the community plus with the
021plans that we've talked about of we can wait to sell them um until we see what is going on. And that way then we're not we're no we're no long worse than we were before. >> Correct. I would just reiterate I feel uh that we have definitely done our due diligence and the conversations amongst ourselves, amongst the staff, amongst the community to feel like that we have done our research and uh done what we need to be doing to look into it, >> especially since there's no >> increase in property tax, you know, at this time. I think that would, you know, that's huge to the our constituents that they know that we're not taking more of their money to improve things. >> You know, if you look at a lot of these plans, we
022are definitely making making wise use of the facilities that we already do have [clears throat] and the space that we already have. You know, we're we're looking to fit more onto the high school campus. We're not buying more property. We're utilizing literally every square inch it feels like of the property that we existing we have >> and with with the growth we're experiencing it's obviously needed >> I'm comfortable as well I've been in favor of it since day one going with so well then at the Apologies. Um, at this time it would be prudent to entertain a motion from a board member. >> I move to proceed with a bond election in April 2026. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any more discussion, comments, questions? All right. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion
023passes unanimously. Thank you guys. And thank you to you and your team for all of the work that you guys have done over the last 18 to 24 months to get us to this point and all the information that you've given us and all the discussions that we've had amongst many different board meetings and work sessions along this way. >> Uh thank you, Madam President. This is a strong partnership that we have. So we've kind of brought you all along information as we've kind of learned from our community and kind of honed it down. So I think this is an exciting time of of moving forward. I appreciate the confidence and let's go out and win this bond. Thank you. All right. And with that we are adjourned. Thank you.