001We don't Okay, I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. If you could all please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Welcome to all of you to tonight's meeting. Thank you for coming and for those of you watching online. We will go ahead and start with Dr. Semary. Thank you, Miss Sigma. Good evening. We have a great I mean, this is like a standing room only crowd almost. This is awesome. Welcome to tonight's board of education meeting. We are glad you have joined us. And if I could just personally do a quick shout out. My son Jackson's 25 today. >> Can you believe I know I don't look
002that old. I know. So, Jackson's not watching, but happy birthday to Jackson. I want to thank our SCSC community for your support in voting down the proposed top our team in Tuesday's election. And if I say SCSC community, I mean also our St. Charles community. We have other uh friends of the family and also family with us tonight that are from our other school districts as well. Collectively, I'm just now I'm just going off script, but collectively uh in the county, we showed that we are public school strong, and I'm very proud of that. So your support is greatly needed in order for the SCST to continue to be allin as we move ahead with our CEUP goals. While we celebrate these local victories, we must keep a close eye on Jefferson City. I am
003not a politician, but I just want to make sure you know this. The current legislative session includes several harmful bills to public education that can impact our schools. We need to stay informed, ready, and advocate for our students and our public schools to help stop these measures. and we will continue to do so as a board of education and also as an admin team. So again, congratulations to our community and we're very very excited about moving forward. And I say this is a victory and we say it's exciting, but it pretty much just puts us back to kind of status quo. We got to keep moving forward. So and I could probably go on and on and I probably shouldn't, but um congratulations our community. Congratulations also to Miss Lori Gibson, Charlie Daniels and Car
004Karen O'Harn. You can clap for them. for winning the three open board seats. We're excited to continue to work with Lori and Karen and we welcome Charlie today uh to the board of education. Thank you to all four of our board candidates for running. We appreciate your dedication and your willingness to serve and lead our community. We're in the middle of April and that means the end of school is a little more than how teachers were at days. Do we know? 31. 31. Our Fresno is 31. It's hard to believe that we're down to the last stretch of the school year. It's getting pretty exciting as we progress towards the end. Remember, graduation is on May 17th, which is just right around the corner. We have several school events, activities taking place throughout the district
005to the rest of the year. This is a very busy but a fun time in the SCSD. Speaking of spring activities and sports, the new spring season is in full swing. Get out and root our students on. And just to highlight, St. Charles High uh um track team is amazing. I mean, they're just we we got a great track team over at West, but St. Charles High is doing some things. Uh and I know our golf team's pretty darn good over at St. Charles West, too. Would you would you say that, Dr. Vogle? Standardized testing will also take place soon. Kudos to our staff for preparing our students to do their absolute best. Although we don't believe standardized tests are the true or entire picture of students ability, it is important that each student does
006their best. These tests are a snapshot of our students abilities and are used to evaluate our school district's effectiveness in meeting students learning needs. Our annual performance rate, which is our APR, which was at 90% last year, is basically based highly on these tests. So, let's all focus and finish the year strong. Let's show the state what the SCST is made of. Tonight, we have a great meeting. We're gonna have a great presentation, aren't we, Miss? Yes, we are. We have a student update speaker from St. Charles West with us tonight. We're excited about that. We have a meet and confer agreement to vote on from our awesome transportation department, the transportation press is back there. Uh certification of election results. We're going to have a board organizational meeting. We're going to have consent agenda
007items. We're going to designate MSBA delegate and also an alternate. That's always very exciting. We're going to have a preliminary tax rate policy changes and then the parents as teachers preview review program review that just that's going to be the highlight of the night and then uh financial planning investment of surplus funds program review followed by the financial report. I do want to thank our treasuration department um for a great um negotiations. We we we shout out our SCA and our CESSA last month, but I want to give our give ource a shout out. All three organizations did a great job of uh as I say, come to the table. But it just it's a team effort, collaboration. Uh Lisa, I want to give you a shout out. Lisa Blaha, thanks for all that you
008do as well. You can clap for that. I just I I just really really proud of the work we do together and make sure that the SCSD is a safe and also just a great place for our our staff to come work and do everything they can for our kids. So we're in the midst of a very productive 2526 school year. Want to encourage all of us to continue to be safe, respectful, and responsible as we continue to be all in together. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Secret. Um next is item 3.04. There are no board communications. So we will move on to audience comments. A public participation at board meetings. All regular and special meetings of the board shall be open to the public. Since the board desires to be a good listener
009and be responsive to the community, persons desiring to address the board may do so during the time so allotted on the agenda and according to established procedures. During the audience portion of each board meeting, patrons are invited by the president to speak for or against any proposal on the tenative agenda or on any other school concern. The individual is asked to identify him or herself, limit comments to a few minutes and avoid discussing personalities. The president reserves the right to limit the number of presentations and or length of comments. At the discretion of the president, patrons may be recognized at other times during the board meeting. The board is very interested in audience comments. According to board policy, members cannot respond during the actual meeting. The board will listen to audience comments and if necessary,
010additional followup will occur through district administrators. So, we will have our first audience comment tonight by Kayla Gilmore. if you can the little person icon. Good. Yeah. Hi, good evening. Some of you I've seen a little more recently than I would like to, but thank you guys. Uh, I'm speaking on behalf of our MSTA staff here in St. Charles, and we just want to thank you guys for your continued support. That's pretty much all I got today. Other than that, our members said they basically were very grateful for all the all the information that you guys had put out there about Prop RT. They said it was really fantastic to know for voters to know how this was going to affect us, our students and our schools. They said that was fantastic for our members
011and our our voters. Um, and then just welcome to any new uh board members and thank you to outgoing ones. So yeah, we're just thankful for you guys and thanks for all you do for our staff and students. >> Thank you, Kayla. Next, I'll invite Steve Meyer to come up with Good evening members of the board and patrons. My name is Steven Grettomire and I am the current president of the St. Charles Transportation Educational Association. Um I am here to report that the master agreement that was currently negotiated between the union and the district ratified amongst our membership. Uh we ask that you guys do the same tonight by approving the agreement for the 26 through 2028 school years. I'd like to thank my team, Vice President Rodney O'Neal and Secretary Janna Utlot for their
012time and dedication to this process. Also like to thank Dr. Seaffort, Dr. Lewis, Mr. Shields, Miss O'Harn, Mr. Fowler, and Miss Murray for their time and dedication to the negotiations process. We believe that we had a very healthy discussion um and that the administration listened to our concerns. We look forward to meeting with the administration monthly to discuss and make sure that this is the best district to work in and for the students to learn at. Thank you guys. >> Thank you, Steve. >> And next, Brendan Karns. Good evening, central office staff, members of the board in St. Charles community. I'm Brendan Karns. I'm the president of the St. Charles Education Association, the exclusive representation organization for certified staff and nurses here in the district. Um, want to thank the community at large for great
013turnout on Prop RT and voting that down really shows the public school um, commitment here in our community and throughout the county. um would like to extend a warm kind of rewelcome to Lori and Karen back on the board and a welcome to Charlie and also thank Brian for his time and service here to the board. He did a great job with our cell phone work here in the district and limiting that with students as well as asking great discerning questions to central office staff. Uh so thank you Brian for your service and good luck in your future endeavors. Um we have a lot going on to finish the end of the year force. Uh we had three tuition grant winners uh who are members here in the district. That would be Lauren Kumer and
014uh Casey McKenna as well as Natalie Uton. Uh next week is a busy one for us. We are going down to visit the capitol for our second capital action day. Also myself and Katie May are bringing some students from success campus to meet with our local legislators and see the legislature in action. Um we also have our spring representative assembly coming up. uh the weekend after that and we have six members from our organization and two from CESA going for that. Um we're just hoping to finish the year strong and wishing teachers all the best as we go into EOCC season. Thank you. >> Thank you Brendan. We will move on to item 3.06 which is our high school student update from Ariana. if you want to come up. Hi, I'm Ariana Tena. Um, I
015would like to thank you for this opportunity of allowing me to talk here. Um, I will be talking about the importance of just some school safety measures and things that I think could be implemented and why I believe they're so important. So on September 4th, 2024, I learned the importance of school safety because the high school my mom graduated from Appalache and the cousin and the school my cousin went to had a school shooting. And from that day on, it truly changed my life. Um, school shooting pandemic was no longer just a headline for me. It became something very personal for my family. So I was able to have an understanding of I want to know more about what goes on in my school. and what goes on in other schools. So, I looked into
016one of the safest schools in America, um, Southwestern High School in Shelbyville, Indiana. They have realtime law enforcement monitor cameras, bulletproof doors, deadbolt locks on every door, and there are smoke can canisters that come out of the ceiling that turn on in the hallways from the cameras that have motion detectors for intruders. and the teachers wear panic buttons around their neck that have live recordings and immediately send law enforcement calls. Now, these are costly measures and I am not asking of this and I do understand I'm very grateful for what we already have implemented such as the bulletproof glass doors and the coverings that keep them protected as well as our safe defend boxes that we have in each classroom. However, there are some things I would also like to consider such as ensuring that
017every teacher makes sure their door is locked or having a deadbolt locks on doors or instant locking doors in all the classrooms. This is to protect teachers and students better. The average response for law enforcement is three minutes. Having a good locking door can save lives and lessen injuries. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Ariana. Thank you again. Item 3.07. I make a motion we adopt the agenda as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I opposed. That carries. Under old business is item 4.01. I make a motion we approve the regular open session minutes from our March 12th meeting as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I. That passes. Item 4.02 is approval of the school reconfiguration meeting minutes from our March 31st meeting. I make a motion
018we approve the minutes from that meeting as presented. Is there a second? All in favor? >> I. And item 4.03. I make a motion to approve approve the transportation meet and confer agreement for the 26 to 27 school year as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I that passes. At this time we are going to take a break. Um but before breaking we want to definitely celebrate uh Brian Omar and his service and uh years of dedication to our district and helping on the school board as well. So thank you Brian for >> I'd like to say Brian, thank you. I thought um Brennan said it perfectly too. You did a great job with our you did a lot of neat things, but one that you really did get the the ball
019rolling even before the state did was the the cell phone policy. So kudos to you for that and thank you for your three years of service. We really appreciate it. Can we give Brid a hand, please? We will take a couple minute break and resume back in just a couple minutes if anybody wants to feel free. >> It's up to you. Thank you. I need you. >> Right. You came Sorry. >> Let me see if I'll put a note to That's why I didn't know I know. Transport. Oh, I'm already All right. >> Thank you. So I'm 5.01 and 5.02 then you take over the Okay, we will move on in the agenda. Item 5.01 is the certification of the April 7th, 2026 election results. The election authority has certified the results from the April
0207th election as official resort results. The board is asked to certify these elections results as presented. So I make a motion to approve the certification of the election results as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I. That passes. Item 5.02 is the disillusion of the 2526 school board. law requires the board of education to elect new officers each year in April. Board officers elected during the reorganization portion of tonight's meeting will serve until April of 2027. To accomplish this, the board will adjourn after allowing the currently seated board members to complete all scheduled old business. This will ensure that new board members are not asked to vote on issues for which they have not been fully prepared. By adjourning or without de currently exists will be adjourned for the last time. During
021this adjournment, newly elected board members will be administered the oath of office by the current board secretary, thereby excusing retiring board members. A new president of the board of education as well as other board officers must then be elected. While adjourning, the secretary of the board or his appointee will chair the first portion of the meeting. The chair will take nominations for the office of president. All nominations will then be voted on in the received. Should any nominee receive votes from a majority of the board, the election process will cease and that person will be seated as president. The person elected president will then continue the organizational meeting and the remaining officers will be elected. After all officers have been elected, the new board will reconvene the regular meeting and begin scheduling business. Although this
022new process may require a little additional time to implement, this procedure will provide for an orderly transition between the existing and newly elected boards of education. I make a motion to dissolve the 2526 school board in order to reorganize. Is there a second? All those in favor? I. That passes now. Kelly, our board secretary will take over for the organization. >> Okay. If uh the three elected board members would stand, we will do the oath of office and you just repeat after me. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the state of Missouri >> and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of school director >> and and for the St. Charles R six school district >> county of St. Charles
023state of Missouri to the best of my ability according to the law. Thank you. >> Come up. >> Come on up. >> Welcome to the table. Welcome Charlie. >> Okay, now we will continue with the election uh for the president. So first election this evening is for office of president of the school board. Nominations are now open for the president. >> I nominate Ellen Zair. Ellen Zair is nominated. Are there any other nominations? Okay, with no other nominations, we will proceed to the election. The candidate for president is Ellen Zer. The election will be conducted by roll call. We will first uh vote on Ellen's. Um so I will take a roll call vote. See here. Gibson. Sigma >> yes >> O'Harn >> Daniels Zair McGreles >> The results of the vote are unanimous. Ellen
024Zair has received a majority of the votes and is elected as schoolboard president. Um well, I I'll take nominations. Uh nominations for uh vice president um is now open. And I would like to nominate Karen O'Harn. Any other nominations for board vice president? >> Hearing none. Um, uh, the vote can take place and be a roll call. >> Roll call. >> Gibson. >> Sigma. >> Yes. >> Oh, >> yes. Daniels Sar. >> Yes. >> Emrellis. >> Um and Kelly, are we going to um take nominations for um MSBA or is that after? >> Yes, that's after. Yes. >> Okay. Okay. Um for efficiency, the school board use utilizes a consent agenda. items placed on the consent agenda are routine in nature or are among the many decisions that the board has already determined are in
025the domain of the administration. Um item 7.01 um I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second And is this a it's a show of hands, right? >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All those in favor of the approving the consent agenda as presented uh signify by raising your hand and saying I. >> I. I. >> Okay. Now we need to Um okay. All right. Um and I would like to Oh, uh designate um MSBA delegate and um I would like to nominate uh Karen O'Harn for MSBA delegate. Are there any more nominations in this BA delegate? She's going to do a fantastic job. Um, so, uh, I move to elect, uh, Karen O'Harn as the MSBA delegate for the 2026 2027 school year. All those in favor say I. opposed. All right,
026that motion carries and um Oh. Um move to elect just nominate somebody. >> Okay. motion to uh nominate Charlie Daniels as the alternate delegate. Are there any more nominations for the alternate delegate? Hearing none, um we'll take a vote, I move we elect, um Charlie Daniels as the MSBA delegate, alternate delegate for the 2026 2027. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Okay. Um that passes. Uh the preliminary tax rate hearing. Um who's Jeremy? Thank you so much. Um so this is the preliminary tax rate hearing. Uh if you guys remember this is not uh anything that we are held to with the decision. Uh but we use the updated information from the assessor's office to try to inform the taxpayers of what they could expect uh by December tax season of
027uh 2026. So this is also what we will loosely use to set our budget. And u so what we're looking at this year is a uh is 3,000 of a percent gain in assessed valuation. Uh so that would that would leave our tax rate the exact same as this season. So, if you guys remember the Hancock amendment, which is a taxpayer protection, uh that 3000 of a percent as of right now with this is all we will be able to grow our revenue from local tax dollars. Uh to put that in context, that's about a $2,000 revenue gain um by our taxpayers for our district. That does not include new construction. New construction uh was about $3 million. projecting right now that that's a lot of money obviously uh but for the district that's about
028$135,000. So we're doing 3% raises. What we found with this based on our local revenue we will have about 135,000 and some change in new revenue. That's not going to come close to cover those salary increases as you can imagine. So what we will be doing in budget season is looking at um where we can cut and reduce cost uh from our operational spend just to give you a heads up on that. So uh this is the lowest assessed growth uh in a in a reassessment year uh since the great recession and the last three years are the lowest in reassessment and nonassessment uh that we've had since the great uh recession. So, we're certainly seeing that uh those economic factors changing. Um we u last year we were able to to grow a little
029over 2%. We're probably about 2.5 2.6% uh to follow that inflationary gain. This year we will not keep up with inflation just like we did not keep up with inflation during the um uh during the uh record growth that we had after the pandemic. So um so that's that's uh that's the great news that we have so far. U so it will stay right now we're proposing with preliminary tax rate to stay the exact same and what that will be is 4.4741 and that includes the 75 cent debt service. So um that's what I'm I'm asking for uh your approval this evening. >> Are there any questions or comments discussion? Okay. I move that we approve the preliminary tax rate presentation. Um all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Okay motion carries.
030Um item 9.04 policy update. We have um many many policies and I read through them this afternoon. Uh are there any disc is there any discussion about the policies um that some of them are are being rescended and some of them are brand new. Okay. Um, I move that we uh approve uh all the policies listed in the agenda. >> Is there a second? >> Okay. All those who approve say I >> I. >> That motion carries. Then we come to my favorite parents as teachers program review. >> Good evening to our school board and central office team. This is an exciting night. Congratulations. This is very exciting. So we picked a good night to do this. Uh my name is Sarah Sherwood. I am the parents' teachers coordinator. I am also your assistant principal
031over at the early childhood center. And I am here today to present the wonderful parents as teachers program and I am joined by my wonderful team who I'll introduce in a moment as well as Dr. Westbrook and it truly is an honor to present on such a wonderful program. So tonight we are here to talk about our parents as teachers program. So tonight I have our parents as teachers team. They have been so wonderful to join every time we have presented. I have Annie who's joining in and Sherry, Cindy, Tracy, Linda and Caitlyn as well as Dr. Westbrook and Miss Ashley Jones who oversees our program. >> This is a great team. Every time I go in there, of course, early childhood center is just a wonderful place to be, but there's two, three, four.
032Now, the only thing I can say negative about these people is their area is so hot. It's so warm in there. Sherry's always got a coat on and it's 80 degrees. But I I I don't mean but I just Sarah's fantastic, too. But man, we got great people in our parents teachers program. I just had to say that. Okay, >> you're absolutely right. Jump in anytime. He's absolutely right. And I wanted to start tonight with uh thanking you for your support. The celebration I would like to celebrate some of the contributions of Most of these are just from this year alone. I could the list would be endless if I went back the last five years. So having a strong support from our school board and central office team is truly wonderful. Not only are
033you supportive of our program, you actually understand it. You understand what we offer families. You're sending families our way. Karen, just this week a family came our way. Thank you. Um we have a very active advisory board. Our advisory board meets twice a year and it's a very collaborative board. We have parents, we have members, we have teachers, everybody here. It's it's very collaborative. We go over how to make our program the best that it can be. And tonight, we're very lucky. We have four people here that Miss Ellen is there, Miss Ashley Jones, Mickey, Dr. Westbrook, and Dr. Secret. He is regularly coming to our group connections and popping into our staff meetings. We love when he's there. So, thank you. Having that active advisory board really speaks to the health of the program
034and we're l In this room alone, we have four people. And if you're interested, anyone is welcome. And then thank you for supporting a midyear hire. We had a wonderful parent educator, Caitlyn, join us midyear. This is very exciting. She came in with wonderful knowledge and experience and reduced our weight list to zero and especially our evening visits. So that is a very important time that families uh have they just need I understand as a full-time working mom evenings work best and so she was able to come in and serve those families as well as the other ladies. Not to leave you off you also work evenings too. And then access to professional development through community partnerships. We've been able to partner with curriculum and instruction and have an opportunity for lit a literacy program
035this summer for our littlest learners. And so, as you know, just to go over what our parents as teachers program is for our community that's joining in, we are governed by four essential components. So, we have home visiting. All families are able to come and receive home visits by a certified home visitor. It can be monthly. It can be every other month or it can be whenever that works best for the family. We have the capability now to tailor that to family's needs. Screenings. We offer all families developmental screening starting at three months of age. And this goes through And this is developmental screenings, vision, dental, and hearing. We have resource connections. So all families are connected to a minimum of one resource connection each program year. And this is individualized to that family and
036what they may need. So this could be our clinic, crisis nursery, our library systems, park and w. There's a huge resource that we have in St. Charles. We're very very lucky in St. Charles. We are resource rich. And then group connections. All families can attend group connections. We do extend extend this to our preschool families in many different like our CPR night um safe sleep. So we try to include our preschool families when when it's appropriate. And then we host a variety of parent child interactions as well as parent education nights. And then for those that are new to our St. Charles area. Well, really not new to the area, but new to this program. We used to be a Blue Ribbon affiliate, and we have moved to a Missouri curriculum partner in the last
037three years. And we moved to expand our programming. We serve all families that request this service. It's that's what the program is designed to do. And as a school district program, we recognize the importance of building relationships between families and their school district because often we are the first person that they meet from our school district. And we take that really seriously. You want them to feel supported and cared for. And these ladies do an amazing job with that. And then these are families. They're so sweet. And then some program highlights from this year. We still are in our program year. We end in May. So these numbers we anticipate to change. In fact, we just enrolled, I think, seven families this week. So they're continuing to come in, which is really wonderful. So far,
038we have served 248 families. We have provided 596 home visits. We have zero families on our weight list. We have provided 245 developmental screenings. We've identified 124 children with potential delays and referred for further services for 86 students. So, as you know, the power of early intervention is awesome. It was awesome. And then from our family satisfaction survey, 100% of our families strongly agreed or agreed that they've been satisfied with our program. 100% of our families strongly agreed or agreed that they have a better understanding for their child's development. We hired a new parent educator to join our team. We have partnered with Washington University and Johns Hopkins for a study to support prenatal parents in their heart health. And then curriculum instruction has partnered with us for a literacy opportunity. Awesome. And then we
039are we have four main program goals. The first is strengthening family partnership and school readiness. We want to build a strong relationship with families. We want to support student needs through our home visits and our developmental screenings. This enhances early learning, early intervention. It helps with the transition to kindergarten or to ECC and just having being very collaborative and supportive. increase enrollment in family engagement. We are always looking to expand our participation in parents as teachers and developmental screenings to promote services through schools at our community partners and targeted communication efforts. Mickey has been instrumental in getting parents as teachers out there. She has really made it very accessible and easy to find on our websites. So, her partnership has truly helped our enrollment members expand community connections and resources. We are strengthening and growing
040our partnerships in local organizations. We want to connect family resources, enrichment opportunities, and programs for their overall well-being. And then finally, maintaining program quality and state alignment. As you know, there's a lot of change that's happening state level. And so, we are always ensuring that we're providing highquality services that align to our Missouri guidelines. We have a program just we want to make sure we're maintaining program fidelity and supporting ongoing staff training and professional development. These women are very professional. They're so wonderful. They're staying up on top of all the things that are being recommended and toy recalls and just really what is best practice in our early childhood. And then program growth opportunity. We have primarily this came out of our advisory board as well as just the work that we do within our
041program. And so we came with four really important opportunities that we would really like to continue to focus on. We want to increase our partnership with daycarees and preschools. We recogize that all children are able or or attend ECC. We have great numbers, but unfortunately the building doesn't grow. So, uh we want to make sure that we are partnering with those daycarees and screening those little ones in case they need any early intervention, but also just to support healthy development. So, our goal is to uh expand our services to include area screenings for those that live within our school boundaries. We will continue to partner with those daycare providers and preschools to make sure that there are resources available to them. We would like to increase our partners with the elementary schools. We'd like to
042reach out to counselors and social workers just to make sure that they are um well informed that we are a resource for families especially when they have prenatal through prek children in their homes. And then we would like to increase our group participation in our group connections, our parent education nights. We will continue to provide high quality group connections and increase our communication to promote more engagement. And then we would like to expand our community resources to support families. There are resources popping up all the time. So we just make sure that we are well informed on what is available and want to continue to just serve families to the best of our ability and connect them to those resources. So thank you. Do you have any questions for me? I love the preschool teacher.
043So, >> okay. Um, I move uh we approve the parents as teachers program review as presented. Is there a second? Um all those in favor say I. I opposed. Okay, that motion carries. 10.02 financial planning and investment of surplus funds review program. >> All right. This is uh an annual uh policy review uh for the board. Uh and all it says is I mean to break it down is we will follow the Missouri state treasur's guidance on investments uh which we do through approved agencies MOSIP and Moat. Mo being the primary one that we use. Uh so that's really it. That's the two investment partners that we would have outside of our depository bank. Uh and that's that's who we are using. If you look at those reports, um you'll see right now that we
044have a a respectful amount of money in there uh to invest due to tax taxes rolling in in December and January. So, um that's essentially all the policy guides us on. >> Are there any questions? Um I move that we approve the program review of financial planning and investment of surplus funds presented. Is there a second? All those in favor I opposed that motion carries and it's time for the financial report financial report it's it's showing the same uh results uh after uh March as what we've been tren how we've been trending increase in salaries is something that we've been trending and we're stay maintaining that uh currently employee benefits. We're just slightly we're taking a little bit ahead on that right now. Remember, insurance is not in that. It's a separate fund. We have
045it separated out right now. Um and we've been doing that for several years now just to ensure the accuracy of reporting uh with that that money. Um purchase services and supplies is where we're ticking uh ticking up in comparison to previous years. There's a lot of factors that have created that. We should see that slowing down in April and May and even June as we've requested people to pull back on their spending. So, uh, which we've been doing the last few years as well. So, still monitoring that area obviously using that to make predictions and to follow trends as we set our budget that we'll bring to you all in June. Um, a couple of things to share with you. Obviously with Prop RT U not being passed, there are some still some concerns uh
046financially for our district uh primarily with state revenue which we we've discussed previously. Uh Dr. Seedford has been uh on on several meetings where they've discussed the formula and how it's how it's funding school districts. You may hear that 50% of our student of the students in the state of Missouri right now are in districts whose property is valued well below the 90% threshold. Uh so they are receiving more state money. Our assessor does what is constitution constitutional follows the law. He keeps it at that 90% value. Uh so uh we're hoping that if we can get that if that formula changes not we're doing it if that formula changes our will receive more state aid as state funding than what we previously received. Dr. Sever shared with us a nice report from Ed Plus,
047I believe it was, and out of 50 school districts in this region, we are one of the least uh funded by student out of 50 school districts. Clayton's in there a little bit ahead of us. Brentwood is as well, but we're right there. >> There's a lot of conversation Jeremy said some meetings also some special committees are looking at funding but we believe we believe if there is a different formula used we knock on wood we don't think it's going to be worse for us at this point so we're open to see what what they come up with what we're seeing right now because they have a new membership count um that they're slowly phasing in and so far that has benefited us so we are seeing a higher uh state revenue than what we've
048previously seen uh because it's project it has our membership count at 4,882 students. Well, that's been higher than what we've typically seen uh of the state reporting. Um and there's a few reasons uh behind that, but um when you're only receiving a tick over 1500 per student, uh that's that's not what the state will say that how they fund it. And uh and regionally, everyone's lower uh than that state aid. So in in addition to that, we know It's not coming to me the name of it, but the uh what they'll call the send tax, right? Lottery gaming, cigarette taxes, um that's coming in under state expectations. Prop C money is coming in under state expectations and then um uh they're saying transportation will not be fully funded moving forward uh because of those losses.
049So all in all um not great news from the state level. So it's we are monitoring. We're have to keep our our the hand on the pulse quite a bit as we're trying to trying to predict what our budget's going to look like next year. Um in that same report that Dr. Se had shared with me, if all things considered and looking at projections from the state, the state will be half a billion dollars in a shortfall to to education if they were to continue and not make any any changes. So, they're dealing with their own uh issues as well that could impact um all school districts moving forward. Good good news right now though, insurance is trending very well, which means we are having a healthier uh our staff experiencing some healthier seasons. Uh
050medical claims, great report, great data on that. Um as we ended 2025, great report from prescription and then another incredible report from our employee clinic, the bridge, which is led by Premise Health. really good report on that. So, um that's that was really good news. It was fantastic to sit on all three of those and just get really really good numbers on those items. >> I have a question. I'm just when they number of students in the district, is that based on average attendance or is that enrollment? >> They're doing a combination of attendance and September membership now. and and there are there will be some factors that are going to be in play based on free and reduce launch and um >> so it's multivariate they're doing a lot of okay >> and you
051know it's very difficult to use the formula to make a prediction there was a few of the financial experts that have said >> uh we don't really know how to do this yet so if they can figure it out then I will >> be able to probably figure it out but we will underestimate state revenue we're going to do our very best to underestimate because what we budgeting with this is we try to underestimate revenue by 2% and overestimate uh uh spending by 2% and then we hope that uh we have that that that pretty much figured out for those surprises. >> A better attendance gives us more accurate numbers. Right. >> Absolutely. >> Any more questions? >> I just have a comment. I just wanted to thank Jeremy because I totally nerded out on
052my spring break and asked him to spend some time with me um going over the Hancock amendment and the ASBR and all of that and he spent quite a bit of time with me to do that. So, I just wanted to thank you. >> Absolutely. >> To that point, we are we're very lucky blessed to have somebody like Mr. that not only knows finances but can talk to it as well and and be an educator first and then know finance. You don't see a lot of people that in that specific seat that has both and we're really really blessed to have shield position. >> Yeah. I'm going to put a shout out to Mr. Shield since we're doing that right now awkward right now >> on the on the no on prop RT committees that
053I worked on. Boy did we use your stuff >> and you, you know, one of the first ones to come out of the gate and we really appreciate it and and it influenced other people. It really did. It made a difference. So, thank both of >> you. >> Okay, >> we're coming to item 12.0. Um and we need to recess to close session. So um Oh, okay. Thank you. Um uh I move that we approve the financial report as presented. Okay. Um I motion carries. Thank you. And so um we will reconvene to open session but we're not going to so if we need to leave the room or you need to leave the room whichever way >> we need to motion to recess to close session first. >> Yeah. Okay. Um I move we
054recess close session. Do I have a second? Um, all those in favor It's awesome. You guys