001you ready should we know all right this being the appointed time and place and seeing a quorum present over it and call this meeting to order you could always rise and join me um one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you thank you Jamie would you please take the role Tony Arnett President Michael here Lori Collins here Diana John Tina Johnson here here the cube this brings us to the first part of the agenda for public input if they're a member of the presence of the public would like to address the board on any subject either virtually or physically able to be one here in the room do we have anyone online no all right then we will move to our budget hearing notice is hereby given to the qualified
002electors of the Watertown Unified School District that the budget hearing will be held at the Educational Service Center 111 Dodge Street Watertown Wisconsin on Monday the 24th of October 2022 at 5 30 pm so this evening is our annual formal budget presentation and it always feels weird that we're doing a budget in October for a year that started in July but that is the nature of the east in terms of reconciling State funding and property assessments and such so here we are I have a few top-line observations I'd like to offer about this year's budget number one is balanced number two the total Levy amount that we're asking for in terms of property taxes is less than last year less lower leverage than last year number three the millage rate is significantly less than last
003year what that means fortunately is that on average taxpayers will see a decline in their School portion of property taxes again they'll emphasize on average depending on how your property changed in value compared to your neighbors and the city overall there is room for difference but on the average the proposed budget that we will see this evening the lower Levy amount a lower millage rate and on average a lower property tax bill from the district for the taxpayers of the city and the district that's the end of my introductory comments I will now turn it over to Ms Jordan to go through the formal review of the presentation I mean that's pretty much listen that's in a nutshell um that really is the the essence of public budget um uh in a nutshell but I
004I will go through some some additional points uh about uh revenues expenditures of course and the actual budget itself and then spend uh the majority of any time really on the the points about the levy um as mentioned uh oh I didn't know I had that series okay so um okay so uh as as this is kind of the same thing as last year but you know that the budget is essentially a combination or a triangle or a pyramid of these three aspects revenues expenditures programming it really needs to be expenditures that would drive um you know programming and thus the mill rate that's really flipped in the last 20 years it's really revenues that end up driving programming at expenditures just based on the way the state's formula is set up so I started
005with formula I started with the revenues here since that is the the more important sides of the triangle and really the majority of our Revenue comes from a single source and that's really our Revenue limit um formula okay so nearly 85 of our revenues are tied up in your state aid or property taxes that's been on the left and on the right is that breakdown between state aid and property tax um we are more heavily stated we have more state aid than we do property taxes and that property tax number there in the green uh that number is down above five percent this year so we were at around 38 funded by property taxes last year due to uh greater state aid this year prop and part of the reason why property taxes are falling
006more stadium is less of that green portion um from our property taxes and that's a good thing on our stage and we maximize on a yearly basis as much as possible for those uh new to the show uh this is really the equation that drives that Revenue limit formula so you see for us we budgeted about 52 million in revenues this year uh and 40 almost 44 of that comes from the revenue limit formula itself and these are the predominant pieces of that membership our Revenue per um per number for the per student we get some non-recurring revenues those are things like our operational referendum for example um you can get a new decline enrollment exemption as part of that 8.7 million and then we've got our transfer of service which is a recurring transfer
007services a line item we took advantage of this year as you can see from past uh history that is when students move into our district and they need additional Services either through uh English learning or special education we're able to bring in some additional Revenue to help with that but even with that and we'll keep your rate and tax and taxes lower than last year so again good story there and that's in our base now forever um so even as if those students will leave or remove or hopefully graduate from uh within the district those dollars would be there forever built into our base formula um this is just a sports color from this far away but it is a how much of our Revenue limit form what our Revenue limit formula is comprised of
008so the big blue there is the state aid uh formula the orange there's property taxes um the gray that's great I believe um is our open enrollment exemptions so a couple things here that I just want to mention that gray that open enrollment exemptions are excuse me declining enrollment exemptions has been growing that's a number that once our revenue or excuse me once our membership flattens out that gray there is going to disappear okay so um we want it to disappear we don't want to be on that uh those that we don't want those exemptions but they will be something we have to deal with um so the important thing to note here is that even though our Revenue limit is higher than it has been you'll notice by the black dots that our bill
009rate is dropping and the reason that is is because you take out the blue that's really what our property taxes are doing and so again to see a dip there here in 2010-23 to see rep to see property taxes fall off is a positive thing for their community uh the two most important factors of the revenue limit formula and just some things to keep in mind is membership and per pupil amount all I want to say about this is uh the membership our membership is a three-year average and that three year average I'm going to get into a second because it's important to note um Trend that's happening there and that are per pupil amount the floor in the state is ten thousand ours is ten thousand fifteen basically because of some shifting in the
010formula uh but essentially we are at the floor as far as how many dollars we receive per student compared to uh the rest of the state so when you look ahead at biennial budgets from the state that you want to pay attention to is is the per pupil floor increasing that's increasing that's a good thing for Watertown um obviously with memberships driving so much of our Revenue limit here's um you know the historical at least what going back eight years or so what our membership has been doing uh the Orange is growth for Watertown the gray is growth for the state um you'll notice everything as far as growth is under zero so the state has not been growing Watertown has not been growing it's a theme everywhere but you can see what the effect
011of 2021 had an hour after East as you dropped that was really not in the forecast good studies a few few years ago now and so this is uh principles like this I can probably get requests for this tomorrow right Jason um principals like to see kind of what the numbers are what the traffic has been and we can project those out as well but obviously as you're looking at uh classes and how they're growing you're following the color lines right from from one year to the next you're not going straight down you're kind of going on that diagonal and really all that's happening here is that we have large classes falling off the 12th graders falling off and smaller classes coming up and thus the transition grades usually when you pick up some private
012school students or in families transitioning the design as large as they have that and so that's really that's really all we're seeing here um head counts actually isn't that large um you know compared to what was forecasted uh the cohort survival method actually showed a drop of more than 50 students and we didn't have that um so that's a really good thing I think overall there are only two brains that ended up falling ended up having less students everywhere else there was growth from from one grade to an act so good survival rates um you know that that are stabilizing after 2021. so hopefully further stabilization occurs and we get to see some of those exemptions disappear we start to see rather news then climb again we did see the same thing so in our
013FTE count uh when you talk about membership it's not just a head counts it's complex because everything has to be complex um it's not just counting kids you are looking at your residents you're looking at who's here from out of uh the district you know subtracting those out you're adding in residents who've had gone somewhere else it's a whole membership thing but the membership did drop a little more than we expected that's because if you recall from last month you did have open enrollment um out drop well hope enrollment out on residents that would count towards our membership so what that typically means is that those open enrollment out students either they moved out of Watertown and they went into the district that they're now attending when they went private school around or something that
014where they fell off of um you know watertown's radar from that regard so we did see a further drop in in FTE and but that did cause our and that caused our open enrollment exception on the revenue side to increase more but again it's something that we eventually have to turn around but you can see the significance of 1920 and that's going to be falling off the formula moving forward and so that's going to have repercussions from around these Pathways specifically next year finally on the revenue side we are seeing I mean this is like I guess a really nice way to say it we're seeing stabilizing declines but we still have so many plans but it's nice steep but most classes grew and the Fallout goes at the 1920 FTE that's gonna that was
015that big wonderful the big drop that's going to fall off the formula that means we're going to lose a lot of that open enrollment exemption Revenue membership this year it's been significantly decline next year um and we know that this is the last year the operating referendum on Revenue side we will have to dip into fund balance uh you know to eliminate deficits from being into next year depending upon where the 2325 biennium budget comes in and some other membership numbers as well but just be prepared for that for for next year but that's next year this year good news and um um let's move on to expenditures uh just real quickly I've only spent a ton of time on this side of things but everyone should know at least that we are obviously a
016very service industry uh service heavy majority of our expenditures are going to be in the salaries and benefits uh so that's what shows on the left and everything else that we spend our dollars on is in Orange and on the right it's just a further breakdown of where those salary benefits go um uh impactful expenditure items uh we continue to see that gap between where we had projected health insurance costs to go versus when they actually are and where they are now budgeted for this year um again that's a major reason as to why we've been able to to operate really well underneath this operating referendum these past five years that's a huge storyline the Esser expenditures uh we've had some questions by the public as far as why are your expenditures going up this
017year versus last year even on the tax level is falling well part of it is we have Astro dollars to spend and so um there's over two million dollars in Esther expenditures in the budget and that's including the drive up costs um voucher students is another reason why expenditures go up even though there's an offsetting Revenue there's almost 600 000 more in voucher student payments we saw the special education side of Belcher um payments increase more than double uh which is a was a really significant move and so when you're talking two million in expenditures an Esser five hundred thousand six hundred thousand on vouchers um those dollar amounts happen pretty quick at least why expenses are higher but we have the revenue on the other side of it and simply expenditure considerations moving forward
018we are capped this year for our health insurance cost at six percent um it would have been uh 15 increase uh so a huge you know major props on making sure we got those caps in there uh because that would have been a significant increase you just have to be aware that those caps are for 23 and again for 24 and then once the Caps get released the question is what will happen to rates and at that point um so you've got to be strategizing before uh that happens to minimize that impact as much as possible we know that CPI wages you know significantly higher than they have been absolute inflation you know where they're trending for next year so just be aware of those pieces as well and we still have a lot of
019us are funds to still spent and so we're going to see expenditures rise you know even more the next year because it's all going to be covered by uh this offsetting Revenue as well so we'll be prepared to answer hey why What expenses are being kind of going higher okay so just a quick breakdown then of what we see on both the revenue side and the expensive side um balanced out very nicely we've got some nice um capital projects put in there for the districts and service projects Construction Services um in there as well to be able to utilize these dollars as a good stewards we are for our public taxpayment quick question just on that slide yeah um when you just look at the salaries and the benefits do we have a I assume
020benefits include holiday vacation 401K Health Care uh FICO workcom whatever factors in there do we have a I'm going to say a Target or a uh industry standard as far as what that percentage is uh compared to what a individual actually takes home is a dollar in their pocket uh I.E we pay a dollar but it costs the district at Buck 40. um that that 9.5 is 43 of higher than the 21.8 million and I didn't know if there was uh anything that you look at to try to keep those in line with each other or that's just not something that's on your radar so we haven't done a deep dive into you know benchmarking benefits to end particular standard that we want to be at obviously we just got done with the salary study
021to know where that's Benchmark uh is which we're very favorable in on the benefit side uh we know from my standpoint I know that that are pension payments FICA long-term disability and life insurance are pegged to salary and so that's so that ratio would always stay right okay on the health and dental side we haven't gone into that people like to know I do know we have favorable benefits and they perform very well for our employees um but that's going to have to be study deeper as we get towards that 24 cap being lifted um Dental is not a major proportion of my budget but so it's really what you're really asking is how and what portion of Health the Benchmark thing I don't know thank you uh if you're wondering why this is here
022because it has to be uh we utilize funding which is a community service fund uh the community needs to know where those dollars could potentially go to these are all ideas that they have been used in the past how yellow being the ones that we utilize the most for fund 80. uh there is a fund balance there that is slowly growing uh we do serve as a pool for the community and so to have a fund balance there is appropriate uh the question is going to be at you know when you get to those repairs and things like that um funny we'll be able to handle that and you just have to decide if there's any other options you want to open up to funding in the future but as far as our financials go
023you typically need to get this sort of breakdown and what we've been what I mean and um you know that really could continue to fall if you there's a pool up there as well uh finally uh the good news of everything uh the mill rate uh is going to fall there's a lot of information on this particular slide I'm not going to go and read it to you and read it last year um if you're curious on how the mill rate works that's really what it is on the right you have evaluations of each of our municipalities and what share that they bring in from our property taxes so we have last year's share and this year's share so that movement you can see for example more of a share is going to go to
024the town of Watertown than last year how much is how the market figured out this past year okay so people are wondering it's a complex thing of you said it was 7 31 and I take my property and I take the thousands in it and I multiplied by 731 and I don't get that it's because there's some complexity behind the formula and how share is broken out between municipalities the only point on this particular slide is that um and as told you said at the beginning we are responsible for the school district portion of property taxes not the entire property tax bill and so when we look at it our property tax portion and this is a real property tax bill I believe in damage um is 33 percent and so the majority of the
025property taxes are elsewhere we're going to do our part this year and making sure our portion of the property taxes uh are down and some area comparisons and we don't have this here so this is only last year so um I spent a lot of time on this uh but this is where we stand with our uh individuals in the area so again reflecting last year's at the 890. it is important to note that this is the top 10 bottom 10 as far as membership goes and where we stand it's important to note that the majority of these districts had property valuations last year that increased either at the state average or higher we last year did not have property valuation that increased above the state average we were actually I think a third of
026what the average was last year and so we weren't able to take advantage of the Mill Way drop that many districts were able to take advantage of until this year so now this year we should be back in line and in a much more favorable position with 731 which either you're looking at top 10 bottom districts from membership wise or Watertown or even in the area okay that's again and our state increasing the beginning this year morning Summit area as well um again just a mill rate composition and we can look at that at your leisure we're trying to fall asleep through and finally for those who are writing an article in the newspaper these are the highlights um 7 30 a balanced budget and all those good things we've got with even with inflation
027we've got a balanced budget strong fund balance you know gives us time to consider any future Maneuvers that need to be made you've got a declining tax letting 731 is essentially the new 898 right when we if we had said 898 uh you can hear the referendum it would have been 898 this year taxes had gone up 225 dollars on average per person we're dropping them 68 per person on average across municipalities and so that's also 300 swing by making sure that we kept that mill rate nice and low we'll be able to pay off some debt if you so choose and really create some fiscal flexibility to move forward with a referendum falling off stating increasing Clayton a little bit extensions always things happen we have flexibility moving forward to keep that mill rate
028nice and stable and yet still we have our options open through the future all right thank you Mike again this portion of this meeting is our public hearing on the budget so for those individuals present in person or online who would like to kind of address the content that has just been presented I will now open up the public hearing physically to everyone online no all right and I will officially close the public hearing and we can go ahead and proceed to our regular agenda first preview of the agenda are there any changes the agenda for this evening no all right thank you next again another opportunity for public input but excuse me we just heard in terms of of the hearing I don't believe we have any so therefore we will move on to
029announcements and recognition slash communication superintendent Do you have a student or representative coming okay we're a few minutes early so it's fine I do have uh three acknowledgments um in order of thanks uh to give out to uh three businesses um State Bank of Reeseville um donated a thousand dollars to our skillsusa club uh crucial equipment donated one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars uh towards our skills USA club and Eaton Corporation donated five thousand dollars towards our skills USA club and I really want to thank them for the support of schools um it is you know imperative that you know we have Partners within our business and our community to help us with programs like these and so thank you very much for those businesses who have stepped up and donated to this cause
030we greatly appreciate it thank you I'm just going to hand these over we'll circulate them so you can take a look any other Communications to address at this time but again we do our would you expect a board representative student representative so when they're on or in then we'll return to them at this at that time okay with nothing else under that we will move on to strategic discussion so again returning to the presentation we just had and there's not a second version let's do it again [Laughter] so again I'll just I'll just highlight a couple things in a year in which everybody's feeling the inflation in which many households are fitting the pressure from a variety of places on their wallets and being making ends meet I am I'm glad that as a district
031we're able to come forward with a responsible budget is balanced but one that also delivers a lower tax having a lower millage rate and on average a lower tax bill for the district for our taxpayers I think that's a very very good thing one comment that I would like to make in terms of the particulars of the presentation the slide that spoke to the health insurance changes and just to make sure that everybody's queer that that graph went down this way into the up this way because of actions taken by the district so the first action we took approximately four years ago was to change our payments processor because of extra discounts they were able to negotiate with providers and more efficiency we chopped by my recall roughly about a million dollars off the annual
032bill that year and then the big change was moving from self-funded meaning we were the insurance company to fully funded continuous enforce Network as our insurance provider and it was that change even also brought in the negotiated multi-year contract that kept us at at lower rates for this year and for next year and for next year so those two things are actions the district took to move us away from what was escalating out of control health care cost curve and get us to a point where it's been stable here for a number of years and that's gonna again we know there's portions of that that's going to be challenged in about two years so we have to go and back out and see what the what the rates are but it's been very good for
033us uh thus far other board members with comments or questions about the presentation that you saw one of the colorful graph that he added of the um grade level um the cohorts that we've been continuously over the last several years dropping off our big classes yes last year was the last year that we dropped off our 300 plus head count senior class correct um with it that there is two things that come out of that is that to me I see that next year will be the year that we're going to flip this curve which we're not going to be declining and we're going to be increasing and a lot of kudos to what we're doing um that like we said there's only two of those cohorts that went down that means the rest of
034them all went up whatever it is 10 of them uh all went up which is kudos to everything we've been doing to continue to grow enrollment that's the real numbers of what we're going around with so other comments or questions on the presentation anyone nope okay so we'll take a step back and recognize our student representative and here what's going on at the high school I am Andrew Scheid uh here at the high school uh thank you for having me back uh so some happenings this month at whs we are halfway through the trimester making us one sixth of the way through the school year uh fall sports are starting to wrap up um the boys football and boys soccer teams played their last games and cross-country ran at their last meets the girls volleyball
035team celebrated a win at Slinger this Saturday making them Regional Champs also this month the German Honor Society hosted the first German American week where they held a guessing contest with lint chocolate balls and whoever gets the closest to come the whole jar they also hit Hannah the German bear and whoever found it got a special chocolate prize finally they host a daily German trivia over the announcements or daily winners got Gummy Bears and the overall winners of the week got root beer floats which is won by Frau Schneider the German teachers some dress up days that we have coming up uh today was flannel day um Tuesday is sweater weather Wednesday is pick out for breast cancer awareness and next Monday is Halloween which is costume day a few shout outs here um the
036AP Lit teacher Mrs suski for helping our seniors apply to colleges by walking them through the process and revising essays and the National Honor Society tutoring heads Emily Ryan and Michaela fessler for organizing and offering tutoring to any students during elt or extending learning time and after school on Wednesdays future events ahead um this Wednesday NHS is hosting trunk or treat at the high school where they are giving books and candy out to elementary school kids in our district uh rank Fest which is hosted by Inner interact is happening November 5th which is their biggest community service event of the Year going around breaking at uh people's Lawns Fall Fest is later in November also hosts by interact and then looking further into the future interact Chicago trip is coming up to visit museums we
037have Colin elf QB nice week and teacher appreciation week and that was all I have thank you guys a lot going on thank you very much all right we'll return to the normal flow and next up is reports starting with the superintendent report oh yeah so um October we have had a ton of recognitions that's why we've entitled the slide recognitions Galore there's National custodian day early in the month um of course the school board week that we had earlier in the month on October 5th was World Teachers Day uh the 10th through the 14th of school lunch week national school lunch week um 17th through the 21st was National bus safety week all month long we celebrate our building principles because it's October is National principal month and then um also I'd like to
038say a shout out to all of these uh wonderful people who are bringing a new opportunity or newer opportunity to the middle school and high school these people have engaged to train the trainer in restorative practices we talk a lot about changing the culture and climate and and discipline uh and and um bullying in our schools and this is a solid research-based way to look at how we're going to do that we'll be giving you a lot more information on restorative practices and what we mean because if you look them up I'll out there you might see some stuff that is favorable to you or not favorable to you we when we say restorative practices we mean something special within education and we want to make sure that you understand that so we will be
039bringing you some more information but I just wanted to put a shout out along with all that other information that you saw you know throughout the month of people that we are lifting High I want to lift these people high because this is a hard push that we're trying to change culture within our school buildings um also um one thing that I would like you to know before we get into important dates we do have an important update uh that is by uh between October 1st and December 1st we are required by law to submit our seclusion restraint data you already saw the data in July we gave you the presentation um by law we're required to do that and submit the information to the public Department of Public Instruction the reason I have this
040slide in here and the reason I give you this information is because we gave you the information back in July if somebody asks because they see something in the news at least you have frequently asked questions document that you can go back to or some other information about seclusion and restraint just to refresh your memory so that's that's why I have that information there for you and then lastly some important dates for you to know this week we have October 27th and 28th our non-student days with the staff development day being on October 27th uh Thanksgiving breaks coming up I wish we won't have any school on the 21st through the 25th uh and then those committee dates but lastly um the state convention is coming up in January it's January 18th through the 20th
041and we would really like board membership to help penitent you learn a lot about other school districts you meet a lot of other school board members and you can ask them what they're doing or what key things are happening in their school district and you'll be surprised to know that they're dealing with many of the safe issues that we are or that we want to take and look at and maybe they'll have some ideas for you so if you can please let Jamie know by November 15th if you're planning to attend that way we can get registration information in you don't even have to stay overnight or close enough if you want to drive into Milwaukee for just the day come in and join the activities for the day and go home um or if
042I on the contrary uh you're busy during the day but you want to come in the evenings there are plenty of activities that are in the evenings and ways for you to get to know and talk to other school board members so again it's it's a pretty open environment but let us know your intent that's all I have any questions Jamie please remind me did we put a delegate to that connection we do um yeah let me I'll just pull up the doctor definitely [Laughter] so one portion of that meeting is a representative formal delegate from each of the districts attends the actual formal convention hearing where the reviewing the resolutions that have been proposed so the organization as a whole and you vote thank you so you should receive an advanced generally by December
043they send out to all board members questions a list of the resolutions you have the opportunity to review those resolutions and I encourage you to do so and if you have specific feedback if not historically as a board review them instead or just if individual board members have specific feedback on particular resolutions then you forward it to our delegate I would and then the delegate if they hear a pattern but then we might bring some forward to the board but otherwise so it is an important feature of that convention are those votes on those resolutions all right thank you very much for that report okay committee reports starting with uh HR participals at first this past Wednesday but he was all there I love it as well as Dr uh birth myself and that's very
044pleasant about the supervisor I wasn't paying reports one big action item from there is bring forward fund 21 expendures a couple times we'll do that twice a year on the nation side an advantage report is the first very support of the Year we're one quarter in I just made a note that is a little difficult to compare last year this year we have one more payroll which works this year versus last year to see where the priorities fell but that we use that very support and fine-tune the budget for tonight we did have CJ Schmidt then give a pretty in-depth I think uh conversation or a presentation I should say about the different options we have for uh the air conditioning as you know right now we're out to bid on that Drew CG Schmidt
045and they will be bringing bids back to the finance committee on the 16th of November and um from there a resolution we brought forward to the board that last Monday November after Thanksgiving exploited for action and we made sure that CD Schmidt was going to provide us all the different reports that we needed and the questions about for example ongoing costs on another basis things like that that you should not be able to handle uh we did bring forward one twenty thousand dollar expuniture that made its way to a resolution tonight um we are waiting for some additional quotes on that but we would like to get it in um before the snowflies which is new playground mats and new wood chips and all the elementary schools so we are asking tonight then for a
046resolution for a not to exceed dollar amount and contingent upon uh Bill getting a couple other quotes and including all those emails so I can hold her out there and I know we're just waiting for the numbers to come back on that scan wood chips but something that surely needs to be done certainly yes Elementary uh we had a construction management conversation um given transition that's occurring um you know Dr Burke specifically asked about the relationship that we can have with the construction manager for the remainder of this year as far as major projects that we still need to get to this year knowing our buildings through this process for the EC just talking about what a potential transition can look like and making sure we have a nice relationship with their construction manager looking
047forward for this fiscal year and so it can be agreed uh you know with Dr Bergen and he's going to follow up with some potential options for us to consider and move forward construction management additional projects this year and then finally you saw really the presentation of what we've been talking about the last three months which is so the next meeting is before the Thanksgiving week a little earlier on the 16th um thank you any comments or questions sorry comments or questions on that report please so noticing the resolution there's a descriptive there's a difference so not to exceed alone you oh there's certainly not the intention I was just curious about oh you know so so the quote is for all this additional components of what they gave us like the swing components and
048replacement parts what I'm pulling out of this particular quote is the swing mats and the wood shape fiber so it's just that 13 1 and the 28 6 for a total of 41 7 is that what I put in there right any other comments or questions in that report very well HR yes we held our meeting we had all members present um the others present with us were Dr Burke Margaret Brady and um we also had the USI benefits consultant L Yeager um and so first we started off we reviewed our consent agenda um in which we have a resolution for that tonight for appointments resignations um retirement information um Mr Yeager gave us um a nice presentation as far as the health insurance performance report and renewal some of the things that Mike had
049alluded to as far as um the budgeted information and things like that um So currently we have the Court's health insurance plan um in our 2023 renewal includes the six percent premium increase because we have the contractual caps um without the Caps the estimated increase would have been 14.6 percent um and so through this Mr Jaeger emphasized the importance that you know once our once our cap falls off um you know we're going to really need to take a look as far as like Health Wellness consumer education for the planned subscribers how the health insurance is used um and um taking a look as far as the community discuss possible education ideas including sessions during PD days um the USI will help us and kind of pull some of the materials and things like that
050together Dr Burke suggested an employee committee that will work on the development and promotion of cost-saving ideas and strategies to work with the administration to be able to put something together for us then we went on to the employee satisfaction survey activity report and in this Brady presented an overview of activities and programs we have a nice breakdown as far as you know by school of the different things that they are taking a look at for to create positive culture and climate for staff and students um and then we discuss different aspects of school culture and various survey strategies to achieve the most meaningful results um so we took a look as far as like we talked about different information questions and things like that a design of the survey and so um Margaret will
051talk to Bill Foster from school perceptions who does the survey um as far as to be able to provide more information at an upcoming meeting we also talked about Shifting the survey timeline and design design discussion a little bit from March to like a February agenda to be able to give us a little bit more time in case there were changes that needed to be made to the process and um this Brady will arrange for the committee to hear more about restorative practices and responsive classrooms so that will be an upcoming education piece for one of our HR committee meetings our committee agenda planning we've talked about future items um and through that um we will be having at our HR committee meeting in November um Dr vitelli is going to be presenting educator Effectiveness
052system and so that helps us to take a look as far as um how are you know staff evaluated and things like that so we wanted to know more about those details um so that um that information will be coming forth at our next meeting on Monday November 14th 5 30 pm all right thank you comments or questions in that report moving on then to ed services uh yeah said Services uh had their meeting on October 11th all uh committee members are present um plus a couple of extra committee or board members as well as most of the uh principals the two major topics for Ready set go conferences as well as Extended Learning time uh presentations were given by the principles related to those and those who are well received by the board there
053were a couple of uh remaining outstanding questions and action items which Dr Vitale noted and we will Circle back in November otherwise I will then direct you to the tentative schedule that was sent out in July time period and next up uh for us to discuss in November is the program of studies preview proposal um as well as the state report card which we're all eagerly awaiting which probably a few people in the room already have but we're not allowed to see so every on baited breath uh waiting to find out what that looks like um and then standing uh action item is astral plan updates anything related to Educational Services that requires the expenditure of money in the near term we want to make sure that we're out in front of it so that
054we don't miss the deadline or have missed expectations regarding how long it takes to get something done and uh that for the most part is Educational Services in a nutshell um next meeting is on November 8th any comments Dr Vitale additional we'll just we'll be at the high school um and we'll note that the official remedies of the report card is actually November 15th I mean so we won't still get us yeah I want you to put something else on the agenda but there's no shortages yeah any other comments or questions on hearing none then policy review still to you sure um the meeting minutes uh that have been done October 12th uh all board members were present uh with a couple of others um for the most part A high level discussion at the
055front end and I want to direct your attention to Dr Burke's uh board update we are now going to be listing the policies that are going to be reviewed in that for you to consume and be aware of so when you know they're coming up uh that gives you the opportunity to attend it gives you the opportunity to comment just know that we only meet bimonthly we don't try to buy it off more than we can choose so we will be developing a backlog the other concept that we've floated out there was one of a sponsors so for example Mike if you really wanted to know why you know we have to serve chicken in the cafeteria and there's a policy about chicken in the cafeteria you can ask the question about chicken in the
056cafeteria and you've become the de facto sponsor of that that doesn't mean you have to do anything except for to come to a board meeting of a subcommittee meeting and then hopefully give some flavor you know to the discussion so that we understand it now with that that means uh Dr Burke will then take that work with an Affleck of the laws what was the recommendations are where we've been where we're going and then Circle back with probably some edits so this gets us out of board members don't have to edit policies but at the same time we're not trying to make the sausage with all five people in the room so it's going to be somewhat of an iterative process we're going to keep a backlog of those policies and uh put them out
057there on the on their board update along with all the other ones that uh Jamie may have minor revisions on so that once again everybody here is well informed about what policy is going to be talking about and we're going to try to get through not everyone possible but the ones that we have the bandwidth to do in a reasonable amount of time so um we don't want to be guessing at what another member may want in which case the best thing to do is then just email myself Jared or Jamie with anything that you have to comment on and then we'll make sure that that gets into the discussion and hopefully you can attend when you see that your policy that you're interested is on the agenda and that seemed to work pretty well
058and so that's a real real high level not so much about all the policies that we talked about which happen to be communicable diseases uh academic integrity and anti-bullying there was discussions on all those and I think a couple of them I'm not mistaken for implementation I'm sorry Transportation Transportation um did we get any into a first reading tonight where so a couple of those made it to First reading uh some of them got tabled and we'll Circle back and hit those at the next policy so there's more how we're going to run the meetings than what we talked about you can read that in the meeting minutes if you're interested or you can ask the questions now and then of course any other board member present uh feel free to comment if I missed
059something in that summary thank you comments or questions on that report hearing none and we'll move on to the consent agenda the consent agenda includes the board meeting minutes the board committee summaries changes in personnel and Staffing that includes both retirements designations as well as hirings the approval of bills the first reading of policies and the second reading of policies there are eight first reading of policies on the list for this evening do I hear a motion on resolution 9162 moved by Dave seconded by Craig comments or questions on the resolution hearing none roll call vote please Tony internet yes yes Maureen Collins yes Diana Johnson yes Dana Johnson yes David Trader yes Dave Smith yes Doug Wells yes Craig Portland yes and the motion carries moving on to our two action items for this
060evening the first is resolution 9163 which is the 2022-2023 District budget and tax levy do I hear a motion on 9163 thank you by Mike expected by Laurie comments or questions on the motion again I'll just reiterate in which everybody's feeling the pressure we're lowering the levy we're lowering the mill rate on an average we're lowering the school district part of the people's tax bill again that all depends on how much your house went up compared to everybody else's and I think again that's all the right thing to do for this year any other comments or questions on the motion please thank you Mike for you and your team uh our work get to this point all right roll call vote please Tony internet yes my kitten yes Corey Holland yes Diana Johnson yes Tina
061Johnson yes David trigger yes David Smith yes Craig Portland yes and the motion carries and we have Revolution 9164 installation of Matson wood chips though Elementary School Playgrounds do I hear emotional 9164 so move by Mike do I hear a second second by Tino comments or questions on the motion hearing none roll call vote please yes Mike Williams yes Laurie Holland yes Diana Johnson yes Tina Johnson yes David Trader yes Dave Smith yes Doug will yes Craig Warren yes and motion carries this brings us to support or online that would like to address the boards times please raise your hand physically or electronically to be recognized and when recognized give your name and address for the record you stand wherever you like uh Ken Berg I'm uh 201 Richard Avenue Watertown and I'm a Watertown
062resident I was on your school board 12 years for being helpful to the district like you are now I have tried to follow your budget I know you're doing a good job in a lot of ways I'm not here to be critical but I just want to make a comment that I did see in looking at your budget that state aid that you're receiving this year is over two million dollars more than the previous year and kudos for the Levee going down but again if it's offset by state aid and outside resources that are helping to make that that dollar amount for property tax bigger than Watertown lower it's got to at least be put in the context of that I looked at your budget your fun spend budget and again uh Michael you're um
063you've got a good man over there as far as your business manager and he's very Cooperative on providing information to people uh I'm like like so many people and I'm I'm bigger than I should be and I'm not giving it the attention I like but I'm a taxpayer and I'm somebody in Watertown trying to just give you sensitivity to the fact that our city our district is struggling in different ways that you look at as far as moving forward and taxes are a contributing factor in people when they make decisions on where they live so you have to always be sensitive to that as a as a as a board member and know that that's an important factor for people that pay the bill which is you guys and everybody else out there in our
064in our school district we want qualification we want to make sure that you're doing every everything you can to look at those dollars critically and you know when I was under this board it wasn't anything like this as far as the size I again I had two different documents that I got from uh from your business manager and one of them obviously did show a fun 10 uh type of budget on expenditure of 52 million dollars for this year and when you look at it uh versus the last year not on budget but on actual expenditures last year um you know the increase uh was about 6.9 percent for an increase that's a big number and that on the on the front end portion of that budget that shows if you are spending and all
065of it I'm sure a lot of it's got clear justification but just be sensitive to that dollar amount and and don't be misled by the fact that these outside sources of revenue are helping you do your job and give the perception of being fiscally responsible in a way that is true but to a point and I I need to just re-emphasize that because I am not you know here to be critical of Education I've increased a very very it's a big factor as far as a business so you're within that range of an increase in order to accommodate and offset the inflation Factor but I'm not one of these people that believe that you've always got to pay people top dollar in order to keep them here you've got to create a culture you got
066to create a place where people want to be here and a lot of people the history of Watertown we've had a lot of Administrators a lot of uh people that work in our cities and in our in our school districts that have been here for a long time because of the culture and the contribution they're making to their their uh their entity their government and and I I did public service for 30 years so I obviously felt good about trying to make my contribution and I'm trying to get across to you don't buy into that to a fault on why we have to keep moving these dollar amounts up to a point which is maybe not realistic with our district we're not we're not economowoc we're not Sun Prairie we don't have those issues in
067our favor we have to look at things critically we should still have to retain the right people we got to keep them here and that's important but I'm sure that the culture you create by the way you treat people and the way you do your education is going to be important fact when people make a decision of staying here versus going somewhere else and don't overly buy into that kind of logic because then you're always going to be spending to a fault and that's not necessarily uh I feel the right thing I have followed your Esser funds your 7.4 million I know you're doing things that are targeted one-time expenditures that are capital type of needs and you're addressing them because of our sellers who are getting from the federal government good job those are
068areas that we need to address because of those dollars but be thankful that's a one-time type of uh Revenue source and you and finally until they're gone and I know you got the committee looking at them on a continuing basis so I think the overall point that I wanted to make is is not to be misled by by a living degree so some of it is for all the right reason but I think you have some revenues that are that are important here and if they're not going to be recurring and you keep doing the spending and these outside sources all of a sudden dry up are not they're not there and you're going to have some big Levy increases at some point in time which you're going to have to deal with at board
069members so that's why you need to be on the side of the incredible of expenditures help justify them each time they come in front of you and look at them as a priority of your job Duty on that school board and as administrators because it is important to have a quality education but also to do it uh affordably thank you for your time is there anyone else online there is not okay then lastly under gender planning I did not hear anything brought up this evening that needed to be captured for possible inclusion on a future board meeting so again that'll be the purpose that item moving forward is to try and capture things as they're brought up during the course of a meeting so we love them and then handed them approximately appreci meetings and
070we'll keep that as a running list I did not hear anything from tonight's meeting that needs to be captured there so with no other business before the board I will hear a motion to adjourn by Mike second second by David all those in favor say goodbye by saying aye aye opposed we stand in charge what happened