001Okay. Good. Okay. You want to Sarah will take over now and she will lead us in this meeting. Okay. The first thing we have on the agenda then is our purchases over 20,000. And this month we don't have any one purchase over 20,000, but we do have um some renewals from the tech department that combined all together add up to more than $20,000. Um so it's one of these heads up. I don't really think that we have to have a resolution for this since it is um separate item, right? But we just wanted to make sure that everybody knew what it was about and then um the Blackstein was here to answer any questions if anyone has any questions about any of these. For those of us who are brand new, can you give us
002the cliff notes? Sure. So this is mainly for our internet connection and then our safety students. Um so no surprises there. So, and and as you can see with some of those documents, the um just because we wanted to give you the heads up, a couple of those are last years because we haven't gotten the invoice yet to renew for this year. It happens July, August. We try to get all our renewals done right away in July. Um Securely Flex, the top one you see there, that was another company and Securely bought them out last year. So now that added another one uh with our contract with securely um securely passes is the all pass uh monitoring system that we're using in the middle school and then the WISNET membership is us joining uh me
003or us joining WISNET which is who is we're paying all these contracts to um and by being a member we get a large discount. Okay. And Wiznet is the the cyber security. Wiznet is Wiznet is the um they provide most of the most of the internet um connections for most of the schools in the state schools including including W. Um so that's why it's called Wisnet Wisconsin Internet back in the day. Um so we have a membership with them so that we get discounted on our internet. We get discounted on any services we purchase through them. So securely being one of them with the multiacet of securely the filter, the pass and the flex. Is that bid? It was when we when we when we contracted it. The biggest one, the student safety filter, which
004is 18,000 that was. And that's uh we're on year three of a three-year contract. This will be our third. So after so about April, March, April, we'll go to um have discussions on whether we're going to continue the service, but we'll most likely go out there and and give Goardian and a couple of the other competitors the opportunity to wow because it's so ingrained in um the classroom, the securely classroom and classroom management. We'll definitely have quite a few stakeholders, you know, in that conversation. And and the bid process is is that a standard like a federal acquisition regulation uh process for, you know, smaller contracts, but still we won't go to RFP, but we'll probably reach out to at least three three. Yep. We Yeah, we do that with even smaller than that. Okay,
005good. You know, you know, we do that with $5,000 stuff. So, okay, that's excellent. That's good to know. Thank you. Thanks for asking the question because if you didn't, I would just to understand what all the different components of it were just for understanding. Yeah, I think that's Yeah, it helps. Y Well, that's not even going to have to be approved because of the increments of it. So, I guess we just go forward. Thank you. Well, thanks for clarifying. Yeah, no problem. Glad I was here. Okay, then the second thing we have on the agenda is our district liability insurance renewal. Um, we do this every year and there was a packet loaded in the um agenda and I thought that we could focus in on page three which is a summary of all the
006different Oh, it's under administrative content just because it hasn't been approved yet. So, if you're logged into board docs, you'll be able to see it. Oh, okay. Um, please get back. Yeah. So, on page three, I'll give you a minute to to log in and look, but there is a summary that shows the comparison of last year and this year and all of our different premiums that we have. Yeah. And it's funny, I'm logged in and it was there earlier today and for whatever reason it's not showing up. So I'm going to log back out and log back in. Sometimes if you just refresh it helps the new one. That was the old one. Actually, this is the old one. This the new one. Oh, it's going down. Why? Um, yeah. So while you're looking
007at that, I'll give you the highlights. So overall, so I should be going in here rather than Okay, our prop district property values increase just like pretty much everybody's property values. So well, if you look um the very first column on this page is last year and then the middle column is this year and then the last column is the difference. Um so line number two, those are total insured values and you see that those were increased by 6.2 2 million almost $6.3 million. Um that plus the fact that the rates went up just a little bit combined give us an increase in our property liability insurance of almost $23,000 for this year. And that's not unusual at all right now because property values are increasing all over. Um this did we did look at
008other companies. We didn't fully go out to market this year because we did last year on liability insurance, but um this this seems to be a reasonable rate and a reasonable increase considering where everybody else is at right now. Um we have a few little differences here and there if you look on the different insuranceances, small increases, small decreases, nothing big. And then when we get down to our work comp, um workers comp is driven by something called a mod factor. Melissa Lampy joined the meeting. That's based on how many claims that you've had and how much those claims cost. And so then they take three years and average those out. So one year is always falling off and a new year's coming on. And right now we're still hanging on to a high year
009that will fall off next year. So if we have a good year this year, we'll be looking better. So come from like injuries. Yes, for all different kinds of injuries that happen in the district. Um, all different things. Um, do we know what our track record is over time? Has it gone up? Has it gone down? Where are we? Well, right now we've been on a trajectory of going down. So, the last couple years we've been getting better. Um, we had one big year. It kind of it depends on the amount of the claim as well. And so, um, we had one really big claim about three years ago and that drove our mod factor up. So, anyway, our mod factor is still less than one, which is what they're aiming for um in the
010insurance company, which is good. We could be better, but that's good. And then the actual rate is a set rate by um I think it's the state that says that. And so it it's the same for everyone. That doesn't matter. And that went down this year. So that's why we see a savings this year of 16,000 even though our mod factor is still up a little bit. So bottom line with all of the different insuranceances, we're going to see a bottom line increase of $7,544. Well, with workman's comp, I'm sure you're aware that it doesn't make any difference where you get it from because that those rates are all controlled by the state of Wisconsin. But it's the it's the accident rate I was more concerned of. I I understand that. Yeah. We'd like to
011see a good safety program. Absolutely. And we did do um we did some additional training this year. So um Argent is our carrier and they came in and they did some safety training and we did safety training with the principles and so we have been seeing we've been seeing better um improvements in the in the amount of claims that we've had. Um but the claims range from all sorts of things. They can be student related, slips and falls, um just random injuries, all kinds of things. But the preventable ones we like to see. Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't think as a school board member we had much control to that. Well, it's it's it's good to have a good Well, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. No argument there. Same we were talking about wellness. Yeah. Sorry. Craig. So
012the property part of is this this isn't this is property and liability. Correct. Or is this just a lot? It's both. Yeah, it's all okay. So, when it comes to our buildings, I know we had a conversation several years ago about um adequate coverage. Um because I mean, we're sitting in a district that near that's nearby another district that could have suffered a a pretty catastrophic damage in the last tornado. Um did are we How are we looking at uh coverage with with our um property insurance on there? Yeah, that's a that's a great question. In the last three years, we've increased the amount of coverage every year because we've increased what the property values are worth. Sure. And then we have um a blanket amount of coverage. So, um, on page five, it shows
013that our blanket coverage for buildings is $225 million. So, that means instead of each building individually being insured for a certain amount, it's the district as a whole. So, if we had two buildings damaged in a tornado, that would be the amount that we would have as coverage. Okay? So, it it's not it's not really intended to be a catastrophic coverage, but it's it it'll make a tremendous dent if um you know, in that event. It is. And I remember I it was last year or the year before we looked at this and um we were looking at the map and I this committee was thinking that there would be almost no way that all seven of our buildings would be damaged in one um incident. And I mean I guess I would say if
014it was hail maybe it could be. I don't know that a tornado really would. Um but then again, who knows? The hail would likely affect the roofs most. And if you were to re- roof every building, it would come in way under 225 million if we're going to the right places. So that's very true. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions on that? We've been with RNR like we've been partnering with them for a number of years. And do they serve like as a broker to kind of shop other companies for us? Exactly. they're broker and um they did he I mean we met multiple times and we looked at all the different companies and what they were offering and um going with uh Liberty was the best option and then with the CIC we actually
015get like our cyber um insurance is included which is kind of a big deal because those policies can be up to $30,000 so it's a good deal. What does that cover? Um, it covers, let's see if we've got the detail in here. Um, [Music] Well, I'm not Oh, here we go. It's on page 17. It gives the whole rundown here. So, we've got a um million-doll limit for cyber and privacy liability. And then there's business interruption loss, cyber extortion loss, data recovery, reputation. That makes sense. Um, yeah. So, there's multiple different things and they all have different caps and deductibles and and we have comprehensive uh auto insurance on all our vehicles. I believe we do. Yes, we have a comprehensive auto insurance on a 1997 Ford. I know that's funny. It isn't. Why are
016we carrying comprehensive on our 1997? Comprehensive goes farther than just um you know just collision and uninsured motorist. Okay. Yeah, I know. That's why I'm asking if if you're if you're in an accident, you're under if you don't have that comprehensive coverage, then you know that might put you at risk of being self-insured on on uh if you're hit by an underinsured motorist. Um so that's just that doesn't make any sense. I know it doesn't, but yeah. No. Yeah. Is every vehicle covered then that we are trying to see if it shows the breakout of the rates of those on here because we don't pay their So the purpose of doing comprehensive on an old truck is liability coverage liability even though we have liability plus it's a it's a view that particular vehicle is
017a vehicle as I understand it is a very well utilized vehicle. in our district because of its its small uh tight compact ability. It's it's it's a snow plow. Okay. And it allows them to get in and out of their sidewalks a lot easier. Sure. Um so it Yeah. that could it be replaced maybe someday, you know, but it just doesn't seem to make sense to pay for comprehensive on an old vehicle that you could easily like I say, it comes down to the liability portion of that. That I understand, but that's why you have liability insurance. So, all right. I will Well, liability would cover if you if you injured somebody else, right? liability might not cover I mean it has something to do with um injury workers comp I'm sure with injury okay
018that makes more sense thank you right and I mean if you want more specifics on that vehicle I can also get them no it was it was kind of a general question I just use that as an example okay thank you any other questions No. All right, I'm good. You're good. All right. Uh, we need approval on that, right? So, that that's one thing. It looks like we have never brought this to resolution before. So, I don't really know if we need to or not. Um, it's certainly more than $20,000, but I'll leave that up to you. insurance contract is an insurance contract. I mean, it just kind of one of those things where um I don't think that's ever really come to us in the past for no um approval. We're not going to
019not approve having insurance. Well, right. And especially when you have a a broker that that shops it around and gives you the best gives you the best price on it anyway. All right. So, that'll be just for information only. Okay, next next topic, budget and referendum planning. And so we've been talking about this each month. This month I was trying to think about how best to um go about this discussion tonight. I put in here a copy of a presentation that I gave. Um it's been some months ago now and we have quite a few new board members. But this presentation explains how the coding works, how school district codes work. Um, this is the Wisconsin Uniform financial accounting requirements. So, all school districts use this and it can be helpful just to have this
020as a reference. I won't go through it all tonight unless you want me to, but this is a good reference if you're ever um wondering like when you're looking at the variance report what those all mean. Um, the other thing that I wanted to talk about tonight, um, is the budget in general. So, I updated our budget notes because we have had an update of the state budget and the federal budget. Um, none of these are final or approved yet, but we have a much better idea of where things are going. So, when we're looking at our planning nodes, again, I won't go through all of this because not everything has changed, but that allowable revenue limit of $325 a student is going to stay in the budget for now. There was a proposal to
021increase the low revenue ceiling from 11,000 to 12,000 and that is not included in the budget, so that's not going to happen. Um, there was a proposal to increase special education reimbursement from 33% to 60%. What ended up in the budget is changing it to 35% in year 1 and 37 and a half% in year two. And they're not changing the way that that's funded. So it's called a sum certain model. So basically in the beginning of this budget, they say this is how much money we have for special education reimbursement and when that runs out, it runs out. So, we really likely will not have 35%. Um, we were supposed to have 33 and we really get more like 27. So, it will be less than 35 and less than 37 and a half,
022but it will be hopefully at least a small increase, much less than what we were hoping for. Um, what else was included? Um, vouchers, private school vouchers for next year. There's still caps on those. the year after, as it stands right now, those caps are going to be lifted. Um, that will likely impact our district because we do have students that are on the waiting list already for vouchers. And then voucher increases are tied, they're indexed to whatever happens with the public school. So, they're going to increase by $325 as well. And then there's also going to be an additional 135 per student in year 1 and 127 in year two. um that will impact us and our tax levy. Does that mean that that much more is coming from public school funds to subsidize?
023Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Are the are the same it's the same principle though, right? they're they're offsetting the the levy by the the um dollar amount that uh that is being sent out for vouchers than Exactly. So really what happens is like we Watertown School District doesn't get any less funding. We they reduce our state aid by the amount of the vouchers which this year was $4.2 million and then that gets added back into the local pro levy. So really the only the way that it impacts us the most is that it makes our tax levy higher than what it really is for the public school because we're levying for those vouchers as well. That's the way it impacts us the most. It doesn't actually take funds from our district in that. So it takes
024funds from the property tax funds and then we get reimbursed for that. We we get no we don't get reimbursed. That's what that's what it sounded like. So I want to clarify it. So as a taxing authority the district is responsible for taxing those dollars, right? And then the state is basically in charge of um dispersing those funds. So, so we have to tax for it then the state is dis dispersing it and and that's what's causing um that offset but it's really our our local tax base is paying for that for those vouchers. Okay. You know those that level of education and it comes out of the district you know because we're the taxing authority that it falls under. Yeah. So they reduce our they reduce the state aid amount and then if you
025look at the revenue limit worksheet there's a line item for that. We get an actual bill for that at the end of the year. So we'll be getting bill for that here probably in the next couple of weeks for this year. So then we pay that and it comes out of fun 10. Okay. So it looks like our fund 10 is 4 $4.2 million higher than really what it is for our operating purposes. Okay. Thank you. Uh what else would I point out? Um, oh, the other thing was that there was no action taken to release the funds for that act 20 implementation. If no action is taken by the end of this month, those funds are going to go back into the general fund for the state and the budget is supposed to be
026done next month. So maybe we will know more next month. So, so if I understand correctly, I mean, because we we dedicated dollars towards um complying with Act 20 and the state isn't the state isn't issuing any type of reimbursement for that. That's right. They said they were going to give up to half reimbursement, but they're holding those funds, and the way that it's written, if they don't release them here in the next few days, we won't be getting anything. And it doesn't seem like there's any movement one way or another or they they're leaning towards not. It feels like they're leaning toward not right now. Okay. Um the other thing I was going to say is that the 325 on the revenue limit because there was no increase at all to state aid. That
027means that entire amount will also be on the property taxes. So, property taxes will, even though ours have been on the decline, our property taxes may very well go up next year. The mill rate may go up. What would the mill rate be? I don't know yet. It was 5.99 this year. Um, I'm not sure yet where it's going to be next year. We'll be we'll be um much closer to having a great idea by July. Okay. And then at the federal level, there was the um education proposal made there as well. And two things that were good was that they were going to continue title one and idea funding. And those are our two biggest federal pots of money aside from food service. Um title three is going to be eliminated and then a
028whole bunch of other federal um funding pots are going to be combined into one and then reduced overall. So, um, title 2, title 4, McKin Vento, and multiple other smaller things are all just going to come in as one one source. That's the way it is right now. Anyway, you have estimated impact. They haven't said that at all. They did give us our allocation for Title One though, and that was good. Good. Um, and then again, we've talked about this before, but next year we are anticipating an extra $1.2 $2 million in revenue because the TID is closing big four which is good for us. Uh our expenses are projected to be increasing. Employee wages, employee benefits, I know at HR and Monday they met and we're looking at about a 9 to 10% increase
029in health insurance for next year. Transportation will go up, vouchers we talked about and then um utilities and fuel are likely to go up. We have identified a million dollars in reductions for next year, which is more than what we were hoping. Originally, we were saying we were going to reduce by 500,000. So, we are reducing by a million for next year. And then as we are planning forward, when we're looking further out, I didn't increase or include the projections today, but we know that we had a budget deficit last year. We will have a budget deficit this year and we are projecting deficits into the future unless some action is taken. Um so for next year because declining enrollment correct it's because of multiple things actually I have some graphs down below we'll look
030at um but we're looking to for 202526 we've got our staffing plan we have our reductions identified and then we're we're looking to use fund balance to balance the budget again um our fund balance has been healthy historically I have a graph down below that shows what that is. However, if we're running at four to5 million deficits, it won't take long to exhaust the fund balance. Um, I included these pie charts again. They're the same as last time that just give a breakdown of what the expenses are and what the revenues are in um hopefully more understandable terms than the variance report. But tonight, I included um a fund 10 revenue limit history. So that's a table. Um, and what this shows is the two pieces of the revenue limit formula. So we've got equalization
031aid and we've got our property taxes. And those two things combined give us the vast majority of the revenue for the district. And so if we look into the far column of this and see the total for operations, you can see how it's changed over the last 10 years. And in 20145, the district had 37 million. And in 2024 25 the district had 39 million. So it's not it's not much of a change for 10 years but we know costs have been increasing quite a bit more than that. Um our expense history is below and we've got some percentage changes there but yes in expenses have been increasing. I included the CPI percentages just for some context. A lot of the things that we do as a school district are tied to CPI, including transportation
032and employee wages. Um, so those increases happen each year. Um, if anyone has any questions about that so far, bottom line, our expenses are going up and our revenue is staying stagnant or declining. And so it's not a formula that we can keep up. So to um I think I think part of uh part of what might be helpful is to try to go through what equalization aid is and I understand it's the the state's portion of the dollars that um they contribute to our public education and according to that particular the revenue model is this correct where the it has a lot to do with enrollment numbers. And based on the enrollment numbers, if it's on a three-year moving average, if the enrollment numbers go down, it might not indicate a, you know, a
033loss of equalization aid right right away. Um but you have to look at that formula to understand how that's affecting us. Right. I don't my computer is completely freaking out right now. I don't know why. Um sorry about that. I windows are just popping up like crazy. But you are exactly right. So equalization aid and property taxes are what the revenue limit formula is. So, the state says, "Here's this formula. It's based on our property values. What are our property values? What are our enrollment numbers? Based on a three-year average, and um a few other things. I wish I had it pulled up right now, but I don't. The theory behind equalization aid is the word equal. So, it's supposed to be ensuring that every school district in Wisconsin has a base level of funding
034for students regardless of what property values in the district are. So, if a district is property rich, they get a lot they get little maybe no aid. I worked in a district that actually had negative aid. It was called they gave back. If you're living in a district that has lower property values, you get more aid because we're all trying to make it to this low revenue ceiling of what was $11,000. Whatever the equalization aid amount is, the rest of the revenue limit is made up of property taxes. So, if you have low aid, your property taxes are in theory going to be higher and reversed. Either way, you don't get more money. It's just what is the makeup of the amount. Um, so because no more money was put into the equalization aid side,
035all of the difference is going to come on the property tax side for next year. That's why I was saying we will likely see our property taxes go up. Does that make sense? Y, thank you. So when you say that we would likely see our property taxes go up, it would be independent of the board moving to increase the mill rate. The mill rate would just automatically go up, right? Because of the vouchers and because of the $325 per student. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, if we look then at our mill rate history, you can see for a long time it was in the high eights. It was almost $9. And then this year we were down to $599. That is the lowest mill rate this district has ever had. As far back
036as the DPI has kept track, which was I think 1985. Well, What page are you on? Oh, there it is. And then below that we have a graph that just shows the um mill rate and then the portion of the mill rate that goes to pay for those vouchers. So that is increasing each year. You can see those voucher amounts get bigger every year and they get bigger every year because people are choosing to not choose WS but it's private. What we've what the data shows is that most people who take vouchers already are in the private schools. So either the private schools themselves have signed up to receive vouchers. Um the caps go up every year. That that makes a difference. And then the actual amount of the voucher goes up every year. But
037they live in the school district. If you hadn't chosen a private school, they would have gone to WSD. Well, yeah, that's correct. Because they they are school. their W USD residents. All right. Then underneath here, I put a fund balance change um graph or table just to show where we've been with fund balance. So over the last 10 years, the fund balance was increasing at a pretty good rate. And so we built up a really healthy fund balance, which is great. And that's why we've been able to run these deficits the last couple years. And again, we still right now in 2425, we still have a very healthy fund balance. It's still in good shape. But again, at $21 million, if we're running a deficit of $5 million, we're going to be at zero very
038fast. And there's the fund balance history as a graph underneath. So, as we're talking about moving toward the future, what we've been thinking about is for next year, we made our $1 million in reductions for 2026 27, we're likely going to have to make a bigger reduction. Um, what when I run projections, what we keep coming up with is about $4.5 million. Um, and that would be to get us to the point that if the board was willing to go to referendum again, we could ask for less than what we asked last time. Um, if a referendum were to fail again, we would definitely need to make another large reduction. Any questions to that point? And one more thing I want to really talk about. It's explained. Well, thank you. Then the last thing, we
039have a graph on here and this is what we got from Baird when we were um preparing for our referendum here last time in April of 25. And what this graph shows is in gray that's our debt service payments and then in blue was the proposed referendum amount. So we asked for $7 million in the last referendum and the impact to the mill rate for that would have been.7. The only reason that it was that low was because this debt payment shrunk so much. So we were going to go to one from 140 to 210.70. Without that, that $7 million would have been over $2. So, the reason I'm bringing this up again, and you can see how teeny tiny these debt service payments are in the next few years, what really likely will happen
040is that we will completely pay off the debt in this upcoming school year and we'll have no debt at all. But because we don't have those debt payments, when we do go to referendum and ask when we even go for $5 million instead of $7 million, the impact is going to be more like a $140. So that will be what we'll be communicating once we get to that point. If we get to that point, the impact on mill rate, the impact on the mill rate. So it's going to seem much bigger even though the overall mill rate will not be higher. That that that impact that feeling of that impact the change is going to seem much bigger. So, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that part because as we really start
041planning, if we are planning for a referendum, what we're going to see is we're going to have to ask for less and even at less, the mill rate impact is going to be significantly so to to try to clarify this because I think that's this is a confusing concept for people to to understand a little bit that when um whatever the district because the district is comprised of all of the different um areas of the well the district right so town of climate the town of conqueror part of the town of exonia sure that's the district proper we're talking about when the district pays off debt that automatically lowers the mill rate Okay. So, in this particular case, if we're paying off all of that debt, that's there's no reason to tax or or levy
042with the uh the district for those dollars. Okay. So, but yet the need is still there for that. Let's just say if if all else was the same $7 million referendum, then that's likely going to jump up to a $140 because we've already paid off that debt. Now my question to Sarah then is um if had the referendum had passed, this model is indicating lower debt service payments over the next what five, six, seven years. Um why would are we are we compelled or forced to pay off the debt? No, we're not compelled or forced. I mean, we have to make the minimum payment, which this next payment would be, I think, the last large payment. Okay. Um, and then we do still have some balance in fund 39, which can only be used for
043debt. So, we have to use that toward the debt, too. So, we have to defease debt from the 39 fund 39. Is that what you're saying? we have to um well we would we would levy for the actual debt payment whatever that debt service payment would be but we do have some balance still left in fund 39 that's just built up over the years and since we're at the very end of paying this debt we have to use those funds to pay the debt too and so between those two things we're going to be very close to paying the whole thing off okay so we we have funds set aside for debt service that we're obligated to use at some point, right? Um it so even if we can we still I don't know is
044there a lot that we can do when it comes to um reducing that mill rate increase? I mean trying to explain it to the board is a challenge enough. If we try to uh I don't I don't really it sounds weird but if you hang on to debt for the po purpose of um keeping the mill right at a reasonable level and defease that should um should the referendum pass. Is that even a possibility? Is it I think um we do have a few options here and as we get into planning like if we're moving full forward with planning for a referendum what I would do is work again with Barrett and we would work and see what the best option would be like what makes the most sense. Would it be best to pay
045it off so that we have then um at least a little bit of savings in the following year? Um I'm going to guess that's what they would say, but I don't know for sure. But I'll start working with them and we'll we'll um get the actual numbers and what that would mean for the mill rate. Well, yeah. Two things that that would be one of them. And then the other would be what is the you know before and after look like? I mean if if we don't pass the referendum um we're going to end up defusing debt right after the referendum. If there's a cost savings overall to the taxpayer, um, can we project that out too? Yes. Yes, absolutely. What are we looking at for debt right now? Oh, I just had that and
046now I'm not going to remember, but it's it's if it was our household, it would seem like a lot. For the district, it's minimal at this point. It was like I think it's less than $2 million. And then that whole the whole thing is paid off and that is well in advance of what we were originally scheduled which is kind of interest rate are you paying on that debt? Um I don't have that off the top of my head. I'd have to Okay. I think me and you are going to have to sit down and take a look at this. Yeah. I mean there's there's limited there are limited options at this point because we are so close to the end of it. But we will I will definitely work with them and see what
047the best option is. I think as we're as we're working together on this moving forward, I think the thing that we what the guidance I really need to start running real projections would be are we going to do a referendum? How long would we want the referendum to be for? And then what kind of comfort level are we with the mill rate increase? So 70 cents last time did not pass. Are we comfortable asking for $140? Um I I don't know. I don't know what how we feel. And so th those things are going to drive our projections and then also going to drive what kind of reductions we have to make. So when are we starting that conversation? Is that that's something we would start in this meeting? Correct. Yeah, it's on the agenda
048today. Yeah. Planning working on it already. No, no, no. It starts here. Yeah. And you're going to have to sit down and look at this real close. Yeah. So, I I mean I wanted to lay out a lot of the groundwork tonight and then next month maybe we can even dig in a little bit more if you have more questions and then really think like what what are we looking for? Do we want to go to recon? Do we want to ask for four years or five years or three years? Um I I think one of the biggest concerns that one of the biggest concerns that I heard was the that people were uh generally hesitant behind a kind of an open-ended referendum. Um they for some reason the public feels that that sort of
049thing should have a sunset to it. Um, I don't necessarily agree because I think that uh the school expenses are never going to go down, but um that that is a sticking point for our public and I understand that that rationale. Um, if we can we approach the public with a seven a seven-year uh referendum and then I mean I don't know how how long you can have a referendum before it has a sunset. I mean could you ask for a 10? Um maybe. But um as far as I know you can right now. I know there was some legislation proposed to say that we couldn't ask for more than four, but I'm not that hasn't passed yet. I don't know if it will. Sure. So, as of right now, I I believe you can
050ask for 10 or seven. Okay. Um it seems fairly common that districts ask for four or three. Um three is hard though because you're always always in planning. Yeah, it's really short. It really is. Yeah. Well, four seems a little short. I mean, given the fact that our expenses are likely never to be less, when you're asking for a referendum and you're always in that spot where you're you're trying to explain to the public after that referendum expires, um, like you saw last time around and the public uh, had this general belief that we spent all of that money. Well, like it's operation. It was meant to fill an operational hole. So, so yeah, money is spent within the district operations. That's what it was for. Um there was that shortfall when that shortfall when
051that referendum uh expires, there's still that need for spending and that, you know, there's still that shortfall that exists. So now from you go from potentially a a seven million ask to you project that out in the future when when there's inflation. Now that looks like a nine or 10 or 11 million, you know. So, so 7 years down the road, we ask for a referendum with the time value of money that's awfully going to look like we're asking for $12 million. When you interviewed me for the board, you asked me this question. Yeah. Right. And I told you it's about trust. Sure. Right. It's about trusting that we are being fiscally responsible. Yesterday I just talked to a retired teacher who told me who had worked well she's a she she was par she
052wasn't a teacher but she had worked in the district and she said the amount of waste on just little things is mindboggling. She said people just throw things away. Now that's not going to get us to $7 million. That's not even going to scratch the surface but people want to know that we're being responsible with the money before they give us more. So, and I think that we need to show them that. I agree with you. I I guess I push back and I'd like to know um uh examples of of where where those items are where those things are occurring. And if um if there's wides if that's happening on a widespread basis, we need to be able to um address that cultural culturally within our district. And this is really, you know, yes,
053it's important not to waste her and things like that, but there's a trust element here that affects the referendum. And if if we can show people that with something as trivial as paper, we're being responsible and we clearly lay out the case for a referendum with a limited amount of time, even though it's if it's an operational, which it looks to me like it's very necessary. I think people are reasonable enough to say, "Okay, you're saving everywhere you can save. You're doing a good job. You're being responsive to parents." Sure, we can go seven years with this. But I think we need to have those conversations even though it seems trivial in in um contrast to that great big number that is not going to be helped with saving paper. I I also I I
054I think I hear what you're saying. I'm looking at it from a lens perhaps maybe of more transparency. And and I feel I feel like if if we're able to show more of that story in a transparent fashion where where dollars are being spent and how it's being utilized effectively. Um I think that sets people at ease a little differently. um so that they're less likely to say to point the finger and make u make accusations that that that money isn't necessarily being spent um efficiently. Uh you you ask 10 different people if they would spend money in a particular way, you're going to receive 10 different answers. you know, the the district has to have um there's there's needs that that the district has and and the reason we have discussions as a board
055is so that we we have a understanding of where the priorities are. And administration will approach us with particular needs that sometimes might be challenging for other people to get behind. Um, that's that's just the nature of what we do. Jody, thank you. I think the other part of the conversation, too, is we keep saying referendum, recognizing it could be referendum if we're talking about long-term facilities as well. And so, you know, there are so many times that you continue to ask folks and go to the well when then they start to resent it, even if you are transparent. So I think the the most the the the best that we boil it down for people and I think part of that is is the kind of language that we use as a general rule
056mill rate isn't is a a not easily understandable concept to your point Craig you know and and so it's like okay what does this mean and do we as a do we as a board with the planning committee have differentiated messaging for different audiences because if you ask people I mean the general rule is when people say referendum my taxes are going to go up if you own a home and you're not paying those property taxes, does it affect you in the same way? It might indirectly if you have a landlord who raises your rent and things like that, but as a general rule to try and say if you're asking me as a homeowner, it might be different than you're asking someone who lives in a senior living facility or somebody who is living
057in an apartment. And we know that we have a lot of folks in in Watertown that fall in those areas as well, you know. So, so as it relates to to this conversation, yes, transparency would be great and building up that trust is important so that they know if we're asking them for money, it we're doing due diligence. And at the same time, we told them this last time around, we took five years and stretched it to seven. So, last time you gave us 5 years worth of funding, we made it last much longer and it wasn't a strong enough message. So, what are we missing? And part of that might come back to I know some of the new board members are talking about is a community listening sessions to say what are your
058concerns about the idea of going to referendum and how can we assuage those challenges you know for you so that you better understand what this means and what it would go toward. You know how are we engaging our teachers you know and staff you know it you know to just to just be present in those spaces and hear what the community members are saying. How can we engage our administrators to be present, our parents to be present? And truthfully, are we talking to the students? Carl, you said it when we were talking about dress code stuff. Like, what do what do the kids have to say about it? A lot of times we don't necessarily ask them and we can say they're not paying taxes but at the end of the day their educational experience
059will be affected by the decisions made outside of their We do have to we do have to be concerned about uh uh the uh the concern of leaning on kids to lean on their parents to pass the referendum. I think that's that crosses a line and and not to not to to sway them in either d in either direction but to say like what is your what is your understanding what are the things that mean the most to you as a student you know what has your been your experience is it a program is it you know a an extracurricular is it AP classes like so that way when we come to a point where if the referendum doesn't pass we're prioritizing what's most important to the educational experience I I agree in in the
060in the way that messaging has to come across. Unfortunately, with the best of intentions, it doesn't always happen that way. Be careful how you say that because because it, you know, it could be perceived as as being underhanded, right? Um, but uh yeah, finding finding what the community needs and wants to prioritize, that's that's really really important. Also, the way you explain militate, I I did a little deep dive this afternoon on milrate and um it's not that hard to understand. You just have to explain it well, right? You know, it was like, oh, that's all it is. You know, uh but people don't talk about it. Yeah, there's there's some very basic um We got a 12 coming in. You want to Oh, yeah. Tammy, did you have your hand raised? Uh yes, I
061just want to add that I agree with Lori on the sentiment about we want to be careful about involving the children in getting the referendum to pass. Um even with our best intentions when we were going through the referendums during the election cycle, I received correspondence from community members saying they were a little taken back by the children being approached about it. Um, so I would agree with Lori that including the kids in the discussion might be something where it's like a family day where the children are there with their parents and it's not something during class time like you think about the strategic the strategic planning session that many of us went through Tammy and I know that you were there too to be able to say okay you can you can show up
062and participate in the same way and there were there were parents who came with their children there so your point's well taken. No, I'm talking that during the referendum uh there was meetings with just like uh higher level or exceptional students at the high school that the super met with them to uh encourage them to go home and discuss the referendum. No leaning which way and the parents were really taken back by that approach. So, I'm just saying moving forward, maybe it should be like a family uh event instead of approaching the children during the school day about it. Yeah. Their perception backfired. Yeah. And like I like I say, I I believe the intention may have been to explain to the kids that, you know, um you know, the some of some of the
063shortfalls if the if a but if a referendum were not to pass, these are the types of things that can be affected. And it wasn't necessarily meant to be a threatening thing. It just, you know, kids in high school that are planning, you know, for their taking their AP classes and setting their their course guides should probably have an understanding that, you know, some of those courses may not be there in the future. So, I don't know how um I don't know how those conversations are supposed to come across uh come about with the kids with the students that are planning for their future yet still not come across as u trying to be underhanded in something. Well, I think you have to be very carefully worded. Yeah. Well, even even so, I think I
064think it's going to be taken the wrong way. And and I I think I I know because I've witnessed that because I I saw that the that the superintendent had good intentions to to um explain uh to students that, hey, you know, there are there are district level decisions that have to be made that may affect your education for a long period of time. and and here are those decisions and it has to do with the referendum. Um unfortunately it was taken taken the wrong way. Yeah, I think it was a that was a minor thing though one way or the other. It was a small bump in the road. I think it's enough to create some public perception. Yeah, but I think the the real issue was um the the presentation of the 20-year
065plan where we put everything in one in one campus or one couple of buildings and um which was hugely unpopular and it was presented close enough to the referendum to make it sound like well this is what we're going to do with your money. Um but also people thought it was a done deal and we had passed the plan and we were just going to run forward and do that. They didn't nobody realized that that this plan was not even approved by the board at that point. Um so I think we have to be careful and be responsive to the public about whatever plan we come up with um and and lay it out clearly to them. you know, this is you you want all your neighborhood schools. This is what it's going to cost.
066Is it worth it? Go ahead. You know, this is you need to lay this out to them. It it's not been done like that. We just kind of got these this jumbled message all together. And I think we need to really be more responsive to what people want. People will pay for what they want. They're not going to pay for a plan they don't like. Yeah. Sam has his hand raised as well. Sam, go ahead, Sam. Yeah, thanks, Carl. Thanks, Sarah. Um, thanks for everyone's uh input on this. I really do uh appreciate listening to it all. Um, I just wanted to echo the sentiment that was mentioned earlier about the potential discomfort that's caused when uh you approach someone's children uh outside of their presence or outside of their knowledge. I suppose I think
067that comes that can come across as very creepy and unnerving. Uh and I'd like to also reiterate uh some of the things that I've talked about at previous discussions that we've had about this and that's uh you know repeatedly one of the main concerns that I heard from people was that there was a continuing undercurrent within the district of promoting uh political ideologies that people in Watertown don't appreciate. And so as long as we do not remove those political ideology uh attempts from Watertown, we're going to keep on seeing this issue crop up. As much as I agree with what everyone's saying there, I think that that's a really important piece and if we ignore it, we're not going to we're not really going to see any change in in a big way. Thanks, Sam.
068I got something to say about this. I don't know how much you people pay taxes in this community. I know. But I bet you don't pay as much as I do. I have a little bitty house. Pardon? I have a little bitty house. And I'm the person you're going to have to convince. And I feel that the people that have to be convinced are the ones that really pay the majority of the taxes. And now who is our major tax base? It's our small businesses in town. They're the ones that are paying the huge amount of taxes. So, we got to get to those people. The people that are paying the taxes are the people we have to get to, not the people that rent. Because the people that rent think, "Oh, you raised my
069rent again. What'd you raise my rent for?" You know, I've been there. I have a lot of rental properties, so I understand all that. Go ahead. And and I and I guess I'm just and I appreciate you sharing that because as a small business owner I think about that too, but I think I think I don't know and and help me understand both as chair and Sarah in your role. Is that the intent of our conversation here because I think like I find myself going more to the planning component and less about the establishing the financial need for one or both referendum. And so here are we looking to just determine what our potential needs would be if we want to maintain more of a fund balance and time frame time boxing what it would
070be for operational and facilities potentially. So just seeking to understand like so that we're not muddying between the two committees and the right committees are addressing what they need to. Yeah. And to piggy back off of that, um, we we were planning a a P meeting later on in the month for, uh, building needs. So that particular referendum discussion is somewhat separate from this one, but they are related in in how how we approach um the community for for asking for dollars. Um so you're you're not wrong. Yeah. And I think for for this committee what what I'm trying to maybe get us going on not tonight necessarily tonight I wanted to just lay the groundwork but for maybe next month is really what kind of scenarios should I be running because we can run
071infinite scenarios but if we're saying we feel like we could you know ask for this on the mill rate and we're comfortable with this level of reductions because they're going to go hand in hand. If we ask for $4 million, our reduction is going to be higher. If we ask for $6 million, our reduction will be lower, but then the rate impact is going to be higher. So, those are the things that we need to start thinking about like what is our comfort level with those two things. Where do we want to go with it? And then, um, we don't necessarily have to determine how long yet. We I think we all agree we're not going to ask recurring again. This will be a non-recurring of some sort. um whether it's four years, whether it's
07210 years. Do we know what we're allowed to ask for? Like a five? Yeah, you can ask for a five. And there's different thinking behind it. So, right now we're at the very beginning of the new state budget. So, if we asked for four and passed it in 26, then we would land right in the middle of a budget and we would have kind of more of an idea of what happens the following year. So, sometimes districts will do that. Um or you could do that with six six years as well. But I think what we really need to do is start to think about what kind of scenarios that we want to run and then making plans around the operating referendum. As far as facilities, I think that there's still a long way to
073go with that. I don't know how close to any sort of decision. Um I think that's going to take some time. I I I think because there's that is a very contentious issue. Um and and it's there are going to be multiple meetings on that topic, right? Here's here's the here's the dilemma and this is why they're they're related is because we have expected you know part of part of the P projections are saying maintenance only maintenance only portion of that is $106 million if we do nothing over we were expected to pay for that. Yeah. over 20 years. Sure. Right. That means if we don't if we don't do anything, if we do status quo um and we have to replace a roof at the high school, we're going to a building referendum for
074that roof. Um for the rest of the other maintenance needs that we have, [Music] 7 million is not adequate. It is for maintenance needs for maintenance needs. Okay. But that's over 20 years and and no, we're asking for operational. Okay. So, but not maintenance included in operational. No. Okay. So, so if a you did a five-year referendum, what's the maintenance for five years that's projected? Yeah. We would be talking about routine maintenance. We're we're talking about capital maintenance two different right they are somewhat related right you know because okay and you have one air conditioning unit goes out you're not going to go for a referendum for that capital need you know it's going to covered in your operation so we can figure in maintenance in the five-year just just assuming we do a fiveyear
075um then we'd need maintenance for five years included in that as well as operation and potentially my understanding is that we've always had as a district two separate two separate pools. We haven't in included the maintenance components necessarily in the operational budget. Not to say that we probably couldn't consider. So we have a we have a maintenance budget. I mean that's how we're maintaining the buildings as they are. But what we would be talking about with P is the big work. So right um for that we would need to borrow money. We're not going to have those funds on hand. So we could ask for that in our we could roll that into the referendum. It would be two separate questions. You can't you can't combine them together. So there would be two separate questions.
076Um and people would vote on either one, you know. So one may pass, one may not pass. And so you can do both at the same time. You can only ask two questions in the calendar year. So if one or both failed, you could not go back again until the following year. So that is something to consider. And the other thing to consider is that um the mill rate impact would be, you know, well, pretty significant for both. I I guess I guess where where I was trying to drive at is the $7 million ask is not adequate to keep up with the deferred maintenance needs that we have as a district. That's what I've gathered with with TR and you know that sort of thing. Seven the $7 million operational referendum was to maintain
077the status quo. Right. Sarah, I think Tammy's hand is up. Carl, sorry. Tammy's hand is up. I couldn't find it again. Okay, go ahead, Tammy. Okay, so Sarah, I would just like some clarification to make sure I understand. Um, the projections by P started from 2025 is the start year of the 20-year plan, correct? I believe so. I don't have that open right now. Yep. So, when you do your projections for our budget, do you include the same maintenance expenses that they included in the maintenance only information that they provided to us? No. Our maintenance budget isn't even close to that. Um, it's typically been anywhere from $300 to $500,000 a year for all seven buildings for the entire district. And that's what's budgeted for it. Do and you go over it every year, you
078would say, or does it really depend on if something catastrophic happens? It would be catastrophic. We don't go over it every year. I mean, we we usually are very careful to stay inside of the budget, but it doesn't in that budget. We're trying to plan out. We have a 10-year maintenance plan that gets approved each year here at this committee. So, like this year, for example, this summer, we're redoing the track. We've done some concrete work around the district. So, we're trying to deal with things as they come, but we never have funds on hand to do something big. Like, we would not have the money to replace a roof. We would not have the money to um do some of these large things that have been identified in the P plan. And that's what
079the P maintenance only includes, like the projected 20 years now, we need a new roof. Exactly. And for all buildings. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much. We're required, just to clarify, we're required to have that to be a separate question and a separate amount because it's two different funding. So, an operational referendum would go on to the property taxes and and go into the general fund. Okay. A um facilities referendum is for a bond issues. So, it still ends up on the property taxes, but it it happens in a different way. It's a different bucket, right? Okay. Thank you. So that may that money then I assume is borrowed. It's borrowed and it can only be used for the debt. That's very good. Very good. But that's also to be used over a longer period
080of time or the payback period would be Yeah. at least 20 years. Yeah. Can we make them both for I think you said four years is optimal because it's right in the middle of the budget. Couldn't we make them both for a four year? No, because the bond issue would be dependent on what kind of what we could get what um it's actually pretty complicated. Can you explore that? I mean it would be period. The public wouldn't be able to afford like a let's say a $30 million facilities referendum or a period of four years. We have to it has to be over the course of that that 20 year period. Yeah. likely. I mean, yeah. So, you don't have to make them vote for four years. No, you don't even get to choose how
081long for the bond referendum. That's going to depend on what we can borrow. But if it was for Good question, though. Very reasonable ask. Yeah, it sounds reasonable. We we could start to have this conversation if you were to have that conversation all around every single kitchen table around the city and say, "Hey, um, these are the the needs of the district long term and the district and we need this right now for these kind of expenses. Great. but it's not it's not being conveyed to to the public that way. Go ahead. Thank you. I've heard us four, five, 710 scenario, Sarah, and then if we're looking at it from a dollar perspective, I know that you that on what you shared with us earlier, we're projected to be down 5.2 or 5.4 deficit this
082year. Um assuming all things equal, you know, and we're at running at a 5.3 to 5.4, for it might make sense to to do at minimum six per year in my mind just to cover what our our potential deficit could be, but I don't know if anyone else on the committee has a thought as to what are some other scenarios we'd like sir to run. Is it a 678? Is it a is it a you know a 7 811? I mean that we would potentially ask for. We just I think in order to help Sarah help us, it would it would be good if we could give her some guidance on dollar amounts in addition to time frame. And then when we come back next month, maybe we could review some of those and it
083would give us a better idea of, you know, what we would be looking at. I think that that's a great idea. I can even come in. I'll maybe I'll just start at the $6 million point and run a couple and then that will give us a baseline understanding of what kind of a mill rate impact we would be looking at. Do you have a feel for what we're shooting for? I think so. Um I think the the main thing to keep in mind, like I said before, is that the lower the referendum amount, the larger the reduction amount will need to be. the larger the like staff reductions potentially other budget reductions budget reductions generally. Yeah. Um the other thing I did want to just mention is I know at this committee we talked about
084adding a page to the website about finances and Melissa Lampy and I are going to work on this that this summer. Um and then we also are working on a communication that's going to go out to households and a big portion of it is going to be about um the financial state of the district and kind of where we are. Yeah. And we did put some terminology in there too hopefully to help people understand. Put the calculation for the mill rate in there. I I looked it up and I got all kinds of gobbley good and then I got the the calculation and I'm like that's all it is. Yeah. So, I mean, people throw that that term around and it sounds all complicated and then you're like, "Oh, that's just a simple formula." Yeah,
085that's really true. Yeah. Yes. So, those things are upcoming. That's that's the first thing I look at is the mill rate. That's the first on my tax bill. That's the first thing I look at is the mill rate. Thanks for working on that with Melissa Sarah. Appreciate it. I'm less as it I'm less uh excited about creating more reductions. Um personally uh that's a hard one to try to explain away to um to the to constituents in the district too. Like you have to make all of these cuts yet you're asking for more money. how that doesn't make sense, you know, um why aren't you asking for enough money to cover to cover the expenses that you have to to me I say if we could be closer to I mean in context if we're
086looking at this in context the need is a $9 million need right I mean between eight and $9 million when you project that out. Um, we've been we've made some reductions already, but the the brunt of those reject reductions are coming again coming in the future if things don't happen. In fact, um the administration has said that they're planning on counting million dollars regardless of going into the next budget cycle. I mean and I have not investigated it but I have heard from a number of people that we have all these programs. Do we really all need all these programs? These are taxpayers and and we really we really need to ask the questions and I think that's what he's doing when he's doing the redemptions is what do we want to keep? What is
087really frivolous to the taxpayers? And that's not that's not something I can look at from here. That's something, you know, the administration is going to have to spell out for us. Well, I I agree and and and maybe that's part of the journey that that we have to get our board to get behind at some point. Um, but a lot of people feel that that the programming that we have is needed. Um so and then there's really strong um perspectives on that. So I I for me to sit back and say, "Yeah, this program we don't need and that program we don't need and and that's frivolous or that's and that's also frivolous." I can't make those calls. We have to we have to sit down and say, "Okay, we've got XYZ programs, right? Um
088how valuable are they to us in the community?" And if they're all valuable, great. We have a case to fund all of them. But we really need to ask those questions and we haven't. Tammy Carl, I don't know if you want to recognize Tammy. Tammy, go ahead. Okay. I will add to Lor's um inquiry about programs. So, the way that the high school handles it, I can't speak for any other school, but the high school uh they have programs available that children schedule for, and if they don't meet the minimum requirement for enrollment in those uh classes in the next calendar year, then they drop those classes off of the next year's schedule and the children need to reschedule. So autumn was scheduled for, let's say, AP history, but there wasn't enough students in the
089district that wanted to take that class. So her counselor or the student services repro met with her and said, um, there wasn't enough students to do AP history. These are the class options available for you for that hour. So there is a possibility that we might be able to reach out to at least the high school level and see which classes normally don't get the enrollment necessary to be on the docket that semester and go from there. just a suggestion, but you're you're you're explaining a a variable cost type of item that if there's not enough students to run a particular class. And yes, we we crafted policy last year on this uh very thing that if you don't have at least 15 students um in attendance, then we're not going to necessarily offer that
090class unless it's an upper level AP class that that was the result of, you know, students planning for that the entire time in their like AP calculus versus because they and they started off planning for that as a freshman, you know, take those courses. So, so we we have put in place a lot of those policies and a lot of those procedures to reduce um th those particular needs. I I I didn't say I didn't say you haven't. I I'm saying we need to spell this out. We need to like like you spoke to transparency. It's not that we're hiding anything because we're not. But we're not we're not conveying the details of the different programs that we have and why we have them. Well, and part of that could stem from the work that
091Sarah, it sounds like Sarah and Melissa are doing around finance. And if we can I mean like Craig what you were speaking to if we know that perfect case scenario we'd be able to keep all of our programs if they're making if they make sense and if they're you know well attended all of those things. I heard Craig say he felt 9 million was an accurate number. Sarah say said that you'd start at six you know and and then to your point maybe that you know if we at least have those parameters we can take a look at what are some more of the details for the programs that we are looking at. What are the costs inclusive of, you know, advisor supplies, all of those things? I mean, what are we looking at from
092an AP overall budget, you know, each year? How much does that cost us from, you know, an teacher time and all of those things? So that way we can dig into more of those details later. It's just helpful to have like the guard rails like our best case scenario, our worst case scenario, and then a number of different time frames. So that way we can say, okay, if this is what we're looking to do as a team, this is how much we'll need. And Sarah's got the scenario to say, okay, boom, we got some ready to go. Planning can pick it up and run with it because this is what we want to do. I completely agree with you. And I also want to just say that this is a two-part process because we are
093planning referendum. We also are planning reductions of a large scale. Like what will that look like? And I mean, if we really reduce $4.5 million, that is going to be very impactful. People will absolutely notice that. that will change everything at all levels. So that would be huge. And if we had to make a second reduction of that size, that would be bigger. So as we're working through referendum planning, we are also thinking about the other side of that, like what would happen if we don't pass one. And those details we're going to start working on. Um well, we already have been working on, but we hopefully will have more to share in the fall. But yeah, looking at programming as part of that, definitely. I think I I I hear what charity is saying
094and I agree with it. Only my I believe that we should say one of the scenarios is that we ask for what we need which is 9 million. The next scenario might be that we ask for 7 million and show those those reductions. Right? And maybe the the next scenario would be that we ask for six million and see what those reductions look like. And we need to be having this conversation with the public well ahead of the referendum deadline so they understand what what we're asking them to do and and we understand what they want because that's really I think that's why the referendum failed the last time. No one asked us what we wanted um as taxpayers. Um they just told us this is how it's going to be. Vot referendum is Yeah.
095It's asking the public. Well, yeah, but it you didn't spell it out. You know, we got this this great big picture and we didn't Nobody asked us, well, what about this option? What about this option? Well, you know, keeping all the schools separate is going to cost more. Is that worth it to you? you know, nobody asked us and and that's what we were missing. What I'm hearing you say is if we get the community to help plan the fight, they won't fight the plan. So, how do we start talking with them about it and find out the things that are important and prioritize the things? So, we at least have that as another data point. We have a dollar data point that's not going to change for us. You know, we know how much
096our teachers cost. We know how much our programs cost and all of those things, but we don't what we don't know is what do you want to see as a community and what's most important to you. So, exactly. That's Thank you. Yeah. I think I think I have a good idea of what we're going to do next month. I'll bring um some scenarios and then we can really get an idea of what we're looking at um to continue planning. What about time frames? Do we nail that down? Like is it do we start with a a sevenyear on all of those or do we start with I mean I I I think I think the biggest concern that I heard was that there was no sunset. if they can if you communicate a sunset think
097people are more likely to be able to support that you know so if you're looking at four years I'd much rather have it be slightly longer than that and and part of the reason is six or seven well she didn't like seven because it it fell oh it's a well well you didn't recommend seven let's just put that because it it was something about the budget cycle the banial, right? Just trying to land in the middle of So, yeah. Is six better than seven that way. What What would What would be the If that's what we were trying to do, yes, six would work. But, okay. No, I I hear you. I I I want to do what's best. I I just think that going a lot shorter is just creating, you know, how much
098effort it takes just to even pass a referendum with a committee and it costs us money. The thing is, see, if you if you do what we've been talking about doing and we lay this out for people and we say, "You tell us what you want, right? It's their plan. It's not our plan, right? They can vote for whatever they feel comfortable with. We we get, you know, we get the feedback. We put whatever they're comfortable with on the referendum and it's much more likely to pass if they if they decided they were comfortable with it from day one and then six years down the road, you do it again. And so now you've got this rapport with the community where you've you've got a conversation that's two-way. And I think that builds trust. It's
099a both end. And I think the community input is is crucial. I also think our administration and as a board what what we think and what we feel are reasonable because if they say we want to keep all of our schools and we don't want to pay any more taxes, you know, like so I think there's a balance. But I your point's well heard. Well, every everyone understands, you know, budget choices, you know, especially in this day and age, everyone has to have a budget, you know, and and so we all speak that language already. And I think we just need to have that conversation. So, we've got some next steps, but thank you Sarah for guiding us. Yes. Thank you very much for the good explanations. All right. I guess we're on to monthly
100reports. Yeah. Y questions about any specifics here. We are these are the reports for May. So next year we'll get the or next year next month we'll get the last reports for this fiscal year. Um we should have a much better understanding here in the next couple weeks of exactly where this year is ending up. Um a whole bunch of large payments will start coming out in the next couple weeks. So we will get our um our basically our bill for open enrollment for um vouchers. We'll know what the transfer for special education is going to be. Those are three really big numbers. And then um just this week all the payrolls are being done for teachers for all the whole summer. So um next week we'll know what our final payroll numbers are. Um
101so next month we'll have a great idea of where we actually ended up for 2024 25. And then we have our future agenda planning. And on the calendar for next month is preliminary budget. And I know we we said that's going to be a standing um a standing topic. And then we'll have our fiscal year end summary. And then I will definitely bring some scenarios of potential referendum questions for next month as well. Thank you. I think that's it for right now. We might maybe have something for facilities next month. I'm not exactly sure yet, but um Are we really legit going to end in an hour and a half? It's legit. Well done. Are we Are we We're all done with the agenda. I think we're gonna Okay, I hear a motion to adjurnn.
102Second. Okay. All in favor? I All right. Here we go. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Very much. Yeah. Thank you, sir. And thanks to everybody who attended online. We're good.