001one. We'll get started. Uh the one thing before we get fully started, I do see on here that uh that Dave is still listed as as being on this committee, right? No, I deferred that to Fred. Fred took my spot. Okay. Thank you. I will fix that. Thank you. I'm here in a awareness and understanding capacity. So, uh what we will do is we'll jump right into the budget planning timeline. Okay. So, um we talked last month about putting together a timeline for the budget overall for the year. And so, that's what I did here. Um it's just a breakdown month by month of what the big things that we are working on for the budget. And this is every year. The only thing in here that would change is that in April, I have
002um what us discussing the impact of the operational referendum or passing or failing. Otherwise, it really would stay pretty much the same. Um so in January, we're usually working on that five-year forecast, and I did that a little bit early this year just because of the referendum planning. So, we looked at that last month. Um and then we'll look at staffing numbers and start to cost out what these potential wage increases are. The final CPI number just came out. So that is set for bargaining at 2.95% for next year. What was it again? 2.95. So actually quite a bit less than what it was running at the beginning of the year. Um we did the second student count in January. So we have those numbers. So we'll start enrollment projections and then bring that next
003month to uh the school and then the board. And then in March, um, we really get really get into like building out those budgets, the department budgets and the building level budgets. And then those will get sent out in April. And then they come back in May. Those are kind of highlights. And then we'll really start talking at this committee, especially probably in late spring and then through the summer about the budget. And in July, we'll have the preliminary budget. Actually, I always say July because in all my other districts, we always set the preliminary budget in July. Here, we actually do that in September, but I will still bring it in July so that um everybody has it well in advance. And then in September, it actually gets approved and in October is the
004final budget and we get all of those final numbers that we always talk about. That's the budget in a nutshell. Those are the high range things that we're looking at and the things that I'll be bringing to fiscal all through the year. So anformational no action required. I think so. Does anybody have any questions? All right. Seeing none, we will move on. Uh we'll talk about the referendum plan. So for referendum planning, I included three documents. The first one in there is a draft presentation that we're going to use as sort of the stump speech for the referendum. I shared the opposite way of how I should have shared for this meeting and so I can't open it up on here. Um unless I stop and try to fix it, but that um presentation is
005still in draft mode. We've still been tweaking it a little bit here and there. I actually changed it. If you had looked at it about a week ago when it first got posted, it's changed since then. We added some graphs. Um, we added the graph in that shows the gap between CPI and what the state has given for increases per pupil. And then there's a graph in there that shows our mill rate compared to the surrounding district's mill rate and then the average. So those two things got added in and we've been kind of kind of tweaking the language a little bit here and there trying to make it a little bit more understandable, but we're very very close to the final product on that and then we'll be using it to present all around.
006So that's one document. The other document I included is this allowed versus not allowed, which is really nice. It's not actually geared toward board members because board members have kind of a different set of standards, but this is what we're we're giving to employees and um everybody else who works for the district is covered under this. And the final one is that road map which we looked at last month. And the road map has all these key messages in here. And again, we've been trying to tweak those. We have made more changes to those. We're really trying to make it a little bit simpler. And once those key messages are set, which I think could potentially happen this week, that's what's going to be used in all the other communications. So, we'll take the key
007messages and just disperse them in different ways. And then this also has the ballot language and then a timeline for communications. And here we are in January and we have been doing some social media posts. Um we have events like um Dr. Brook's doing his B briefing next Monday. I think he's also talking to staff next Monday during PD. So we're doing some communicating out um with that slide deck that I shared. And then the fact sheet is we were working on that again yesterday. It is pretty much done. And I know that the Donovan group has been working on a video. So, they have a um like a script made out and they're going to start filming that here pretty soon. So, we're pretty much right on track. Oh, and the mailer. That's the
008other thing. We have a really nice mockup of a mailer. Melissa and a few other people have been just tweaking that a little bit too, but that is very close to being ready to go as well. So, we're on track. That's the um open enrollment. I think this open enrollment one. I think so. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't read mine yet either. We haven't put the other one out yet just because we were updating a few things on there. Again, trying to get rid of some words, you know, so it's not as wordy. Sometimes when you look at it, it's like the big paragraph of text. We're trying to get rid of those and just make it something people can read easily. So, that's what we've been working on. But, we really are on
009track. Um, again, the Donovan group is saying there's a lot of districts that are just setting ballot language here in the next week or two. So, we're doing really well communication wise, and once we have these key pieces put together, we'll be able to really get getting those communications out more and more. Got it. Um, so this is up for discussion. Once again, really no action items on this, but figured we'd have a discussion on it. that what kind of questions or concerns, thoughts um specifically about a $1.5 million um cut moving forward in the next year, I guess. Is that also included in this budget discussion? Yeah, we do have that in communications. That's a good point. So, I believe that's in the FAQ document. And the FAQ document is on the website right
010now. That's live. Okay. I don't think it includes the most recent updates we did yesterday. At least it didn't this morning unless it got updated sometime during the day, but that is in there. And what it says now, I I've changed it. It's 1.5 million in the next three years because what we committed to is 500,000 a year. Okay. Unless something changes. But that is in people thought that it was That was that rolling number that we had. That's a good question and I should have mentioned that too is that on the Watertown website there's a button on their referendum and you click on there and there's more information and that FAQ is on there now. But that is that I guess I'm missing that as part of the um the mailers. I don't know
011if it's on the mailer. on the mailer, the last version that I saw, there is a list of things that we've done to reduce the budget thus far, but I don't think it I can't remember if it said that we're reducing by 1.5. I don't remember off the top of my head if that I just I just find that that's valuable information for people to know that we're trying we're we're trying to uh make some sort of concession there, you know, and and it and it comes at some pain. Mhm. So, but it's not that it's not that this is an easy decision for the the board to ask for additional funds, but yet there's Yeah. Anyway, I just it's probably something we want to market. We're going to Yeah, I think that's a good
012point, Craig. Honestly, if it's not on this mailer, you know, we want to follow up, right? That could be a good thing where we do is if we're doing succeeding rounds of this is that you know we've got one message and then a followup messages, hey these are the things we're doing and we can have that in different stages we roll through this and it might be good to do that rather than hitting them with one message and repeating it for the next two months because there's there's a lot of impressions out there that if this passes then this stays. this way and uh that would be a misunderstanding then we don't want we don't want that we can make either. That's a good point and I I'll double check because I just don't remember
013off the top of my head everything that's on there and if it isn't on there um kind of like Fred said we are doing a second mailing so we can make sure that it gets on the second. Yeah, good points. Sam, you got anything? Uh, no. I'll I guess I'll reiterate what Craig said. Um, is that any once the mailer is out there, anybody can jump to conclusions, read between lines, and draw conclusions and misunderstand things. The very first comment I saw in Facebook was that recurring meant that we're going to raise it every single year $7 million a year. So that's the very first that in response to the very first Facebook article that hit that the district article that hit Facebook, it got re-shared and somebody said that means that in year one
014it's going to go up 125 per 100,000. Then in year two it's going to be 250. Then year three it's going to be 375 and then year four. And because recurring and and I brought this up and that's why you see the road map has some yellow from that comment from last Friday morning when I brought it up. I said we may even have to explain what the word recurring means. So So unfortunately I don't want to say simple is better but the word Smith that I just hope that Donovan is earning their keep. That's that's my takeaway. We're paying them. They better make sure that there's the the words they use are clear, concise, and and no gaps between lines and no jumps to conclusions and no assumptions because people will go there and
015and and we won't be there in their dining room or their, you know, to to to set the record straight and and so I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, Craig. It's it's more of a matter of how do we keep it such that and who's the expert? And I got to say, well, that's a Donovan group's supposed to do, so let's make sure they do their job. The recurring thing is a great point, and we did work. I mean, that took us a long time to come up with a good definition of that because it's so hard not to over complicate it. But I think that we did a great job. And again, I'm not sure that it's been updated yet on the website, but it will be shortly. So, you'll see what we
016ended up landing on there. So, hopefully helping with that. It does not double every year. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yes. This does not mean that and now you have more words and and this is this is the the the vicious, you know. But no, otherwise no comments, Mike. Um we'll just keep on paying attention to what they send out and then put on the most incredulous hat that we have when we look at the mailer and say, "What could this mean to somebody who hasn't been on the board for one to two to three to five years, right?" And and and try to look at it from that light. to make sure there's no confusion. Very good. Uh we will move on to the Albert Street property. Um that is the property I think everybody knows
017that was for sale and we had been leasing that out to a gentleman to farm prior to that sale. And then as part of that lease it was like if we have a pending sale then you don't get to do that and now it's back on the market and so it's available for use again. And so because he was sort of the person that like I don't he lost it for a minute, we are offering that to him again as a lease. Yes, he definitely wanted to and he wanted us to keep him in mind if that ever became available again. Um so I don't know if you have anything to add to that. Hey. Well, and after um when the the proposed development fell through, um we caught ourselves in a little bit of
018problem because we had not worked the field. The field uh threw its own wildlife and the uh city uh notified us that we were in violation of the Noxis weed policy. Um so we asked John to help us out with that. He came and disced it for us and took it down and and wanted to be a good steward of the land in the hope that he'd be able to impart it again. Sure. We were from the cemetery. Yeah, I've looked through this. I have no problems with this. And the one thing that I looked in the this was language in case we had another pending sale and I see that was in there that he has to work out with who we sell it to. I appreciate that. I just didn't want to have
019him get high and dry, got his crops, and then we decided to sell it again. Um, so I appreciate that. I have no problem with the language of it. Sam. Oh, I have no problem with that. Good. No, I mean he helped us out. Yeah, agreed. All right. Um, and really not an action item from my understanding or I don't know for sure. That's a very good question. I'm not sure if it has to be a resolution or not. Only $4,000. Yeah, that's a tough Yeah, I don't I don't think it's a contract. I don't Yeah, I don't think we'd have to Yeah, that's that's kind of where I was landing on it as well. Uh so, thanks for the clarification, everyone. Uh now, on to the Ford Transit van update. So, some time ago,
020you approved the purchase of another Ford Transit van. Those vans for school district purposes can only have 10 passengers. Ford no longer makes a 10 passenger van. and they only make a 12 passenger van. So to get in compliance with that, we have to do like an upfit to make it legally a 10 passenger van and that comes at a cost. So the total cost of this vehicle is going to be higher than what we brought to you before. And so we wanted to bring it back and make sure that you knew that and were okay with that before we proceeded. Um did I miss anything? No, it's um actually Ford is now no longer making 12 passenger vans in the upcoming year. So now we'll have to buy 15 passenger vans and up them
021if we choose to use or get a Mercedes, right? Yeah. Which so so it's not as simple as just removing a couple of seats? I mean, no, it was it you okay, you can do that and not let people in there, but to make it like legally correct, we're supposed to do this. A vehicle with more than 12 pet seats in it has to be licensed and titling it as a school bus. Oh, so cannot title the vehicle for us as a four passenger van. They can only title it if it's a 10 passenger van or if it's modified by an upfitter. So the vans that we have, we can remove them and make them not able to be used. But the dealership cannot legally sell us the van. Dumb question. Then why don't we
022just buy it and take seats out oursel once we run? Because then the title on it would be a school bus. We couldn't retitle it after we take seats out. No, it has to be permanently removed in order to become uh so basically what the upfit is the we and we actually ran into this. We have to you have to order a very specific package with the van because what they do is they take the rear seat anchors out and then fill them and cap them so that they can't be reused. So that even if we want you cannot permanently put a seat there unless you get a drill and tap and put them in your There's ways around things. Yes. But in the future, if there's a future need for passenger vans, are there
023other other manufacturers that are still going to uh I believe Nissan still makes an eight passenger van in their format or we would work through an outfitter. And I mean that's kind of what uh in worked with us at Grimald once we ran into this he found various outfitters that we could work with to do the work for us and Mobility Works was the cheapest one that would be what would do the outfit for us. So um there's there's two ways to go about you can work through that. We like working through the dealership because we get government pricing and we can procure the vehicle that late and then work with an outfitter um to modify the van. But we could also go out to the open market and you know buy one that way
024as well at the risk of not working with the local you know company. Yeah. Yeah. And and this was I mean this was when we started the sale. I mean I don't think Brit was even aware that this restriction was out there and now when we started entitling process it became an issue and they found it and brought it to our attention. So I mean I don't think this is also like some kind of under the hand shady you know we can get some extra money thing out of there. It was making sure that we don't have a teacher driving kids down the road getting pulled over and getting a huge ticket for not having a CEO. Yeah. Right. Well, I I don't know if that's I mean because doesn't the DOT allow something different
025though? Like does the DOT allow for 15 passengers? Not for schools. There's a separate there's actually a separate section of school of law that deals with transporting students in vehicles, I suppose. So, if it was just regular passengers, you'd be allowed to to do it. Not not under the I'm not under the school district umbrella. Okay. Wow. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a little over $6,000. Um looking for it to get approved. I'll come with you guys first. I don't think there's anything to do with this. This is, you know, airman is it can fier one of the two. You have to use their repairmen. No local guy will touch them. It has to be serviced by that specific uh person, you know, and then there's specific charges and stuff. You'd get this from
026other, you know, specific to warranty or authorization. Correct. Yeah. So, I I don't think there's a way around this other than saying we don't want the truck anymore and going up different way, but we want to do that. No, I don't think that's feasible at all. I mean, we can look at um other avenues if we need to purchase a different vehicle in San County or whatever in the future, but you know, at this point, we're we kind of already made the down the road to this one. And then we're losing two seats that we could have if we go that road too, which could impact, right? Um Sam, thoughts? No, a little bit outside of my depth to be frank. Sure. Sure. Uh Craig, any any additional thoughts? Uh so it says class S
027CDL. Uh I'm just just kind of throwing this out there because if if it's going to be coming up as an issue going forward in the future. Um does that also require a passenger endorsement or is it Yeah. So class S is your school bus driver license. So, so well I mean the reason I'm asking is is because I want to find out how how easy it is for a a a driver to get that license if this continues to be, you know, problem. I mean, right now this is a $6,000 to do an upfit, but when they go to a 15 passenger vehicle and we're ripping out five seats, you can imagine that this price is going to be considerably more. Yeah. Um, what's I mean, is there a cost to get a CDL?
028I I wouldn't know. Yeah, you got to have you got to pay to take your time to do the right test. So my thought is, okay, you say it's let's just say it's two grand for a CDL, right? And I got to get five teachers with this. Now we're 10 grand, you know, the refit. Then you don't have to worry about that. You know, there's that, too. Yeah. Or we got to pay a bus driver to drive, you know, a friendship team with six people, some bus, which defeats the whole purpose of having a van. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Good point, though. It's It's worth the thought on it. Yeah. But if we have to start getting CDLs for staff members, that's going to get pricey. We don't want to do that. I mean, there's
029going to be insurance implications for that, too. Yeah. And when they renew their license, it's extra. And I was just curious if it was few physicals. And Right. I mean, I thought maybe it would be, you know, less of a because it's a, you know, a class class um C vehicle, not a not a class B, you know. Anyway, yeah. No, I I definitely it's worth considering. Yeah. You know, but I like I said, outweighing the cost, the onetime cost for the the outfit on this. When was the last time we bought one of these? We'll look at Kevin. Yeah, I was gonna say it wasn't terrible. Yeah, I say three years ago the two this year that we purchased because we but one of those was paid for by scales though. Oh yeah, that
030one and they're going to have to update as well. So that was done. Okay. um the price the purchase price that came through and was approved by the committee by the board was higher than the amount of the van and I believe that's because they used the bill sheet and not the actual invoice. So it didn't reflect like the discounts that was received. So the amount that was allowed was more and then the difference came to like $1,000 when we paid that out of out of our fleet fund. So, that'll move forward. Does that have to be a resolution? If we're adjusting the cost, it was $60,000 to get a reapproval. We probably should just get a vote on it. Yeah, that's Thanks. That's Thank you. Okay. And this can wait till till the full
031board sees it, right? It's not something the So the ban is sitting in on the lot already. Um but like Andy said, he's like even if if the board decided that this was something they didn't want to go forward with, you know, he said it was part of our mistake, we would take it, put it on the lot, and sell it as a as a vehicle to open it into the district at all. Okay. All right. Financial audit report. Most expensive retail. They said that's probably one of the most expensive job. I know, right? No. Paperwork. Yes. They put on um the financial audit. I I put the um PDF version in the agenda. I do have hard copies if anybody wants one. And um I don't need to go over it in great detail
032tonight. We actually going to have a representative from Hawkins Ash at the board meeting this month. So she'll probably talk through it a little bit more than I will. But I wanted to hit just a couple highlights. Um one is we we thought we would end in a deficit last year and we did. We ended at a deficit of about $3.2 million which is on page 18. So that shows where we ended up for the year. And then um if you look at page 44, I just wanted to show that the the OPED liability for the district is decreasing steadily and it's getting like pretty low now, which is good news. So, um a lot of the old way of sort of paying out health insurance, those things are starting to fall off for the
033district and so that liability is decreasing each year. Going to point that out. And then um if you look at page 56, it shows that we did not have any material weaknesses identified which are the more serious um deficiencies that could be possible. And we only had for the district one finding which is on the very last page I believe which is that we have um basically we have the auditors prepare the financial statements and that's that's the finding. So we don't do that inhouse. That's not one that would be likely to go away. That's a recurring one. Don't they don't they find that every year since ' 07 they found that. So overall it was a very very strong audit. Um the one finding was really good. If you look, there's very few adjusting
034journal entries that were needed, which is a testament to Stacy and her good work. And the whole audit really, I think, um, shows the hard work of the the business office. Um, all of those ladies did a lot of work to get ready and it turned out really well. Make sure you too. [Music] I didn't really prepare anything else to say about that unless anybody has any questions. I'll let Hawk and Zash tell you more. Any questions from anybody? I know we're all kind of digging into this a little bit, but I'm not going to read through an audit. I'm just not going to do it. I'll read financial statements. I'm not going to read an audit. Right. Right. I hear you. Are you to tell me what I should name? Yeah. Greg or Sam,
035no question about the audit. No, fair enough. Um, so look forward to Hawkins Ash being in there on Monday. And this is going quicker than I thought. We're going to we're on record tonight, I think. So, uh, we'll move on to monthly reports. Uh, I didn't see any questions come in prior to the meeting tonight. Uh, but do you want to go through any highlights you'd like to point out? Um, I didn't really pull anything up. If you look at the variance report percentage- wise, we are very close to last year again. So, we're running right around the same percentages for expenditures. Um, for a minute we were a little bit higher because we were one payroll ahead of last year, but um, it looks it looks to be really on track for where we
036should be right now. Everything is looking good to me. So, I don't have any concerns on fun 27 or fun 10. And we really didn't have anything too close to 20,000. There was one purchase and now I'm blanking on what it is. We brought it here to let you know about it just because it was really close to 20,000 and that is on the bills this month and I can't think of what it is. You and I both discussed it too and I'm trying to remember what it was. I cannot remember. It's like $19,000. I don't know. I can't Oh, I almost had it. It came to like here and then it took a reverse. Um but anyways, it's under 20,000. Yeah, it's under 20,000 and we did discuss it probably two months ago. Yeah,
037that was really all I have for the monthly reports and ESSER is done. That's a bright spot. So, this is the first month that we are free. Does anybody sign off on those? Like, do they does the government still have a length of time that they can come back and audit your esser expenditures? So, we for sure will get audited at some point. Okay, that's okay. So, you said it's done. The expenditures are done. The the headache isn't done. Not quite. Okay. question. No great no questions, thoughts, comments. David, my answer is your answer. All right, that'll move forward as an action item as well. So, uh, future agenda planning. I wish I could bring my calendar up. So, on the calendar for February, we're looking at student enrollment projections, uh, the five-year financial projections,
038and then more referendum planning is what is kind of what we had on there. Uh, can you guys think of anything else to put on for February? We have any contracts that are up in the next three, four months that we want to get ahead of? Great question. That is a great question. I don't believe so. Any projects you're planning for the summer? Starting to get working on them now. Yes. Yeah. But I have not I don't have anything solicited yet for bids. We'll probably get some asphalt stuff out and then our track moving um out by the end of this month. Okay. So that might be on [Music] February's March. Um, so with that being said, we got, you know, if I'm understanding correctly, we only got the two action items on the on
039the transit van, uh, and then approving our our monthly reports, pay the bills, basically, right? Um, so let me can I ask a question on the calendar again, please? the um I see the referendum planning in March and April that I I'm assuming that's specific to the operating referendum or is that or Okay, I should probably write on there operational referendum. Yeah. Okay, I can change that. Um should we be putting some sort of referendum planning in the calendar for um you know that that ver that next phase or is it for just trying to cross one bridge at a time? A great question. So I mean like from my understanding I thought we were trying to get through this referendum and and upon completion we could move to the next. But it is there
040appetite to start discussing. Are you talking are you talking about the capital referendum? Yeah. I would want to know, part of me wonders though that depending on the outcome of the April referendum, we may have bigger fish probably in May, June that we'd have to deal with, right? Rather than that one because I don't know, are we still in and I don't know the answer to the question, but is the capital referendum going through if the operational referendum fails? I think what we had said is we would try operational again a year later, correct? if they had failed and then we wouldn't. Would we wait a full year or we have to we can't go up in November. Okay. And I'm not 100% sure what that rule is, but I was in a conversation with
041Ben Weim Meer, who's the former county administrator, now works here in Watertown, and he said, "You can't put it on November." I'm like, "Why can't I?" He's like, "Well, there's some weird rule that you can't put referendums on non presidential or on the odd year November, something goofy like that. I don't know what it is, but it's a state or federal law. I don't know. Yeah. There be some other election at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Um and and this is largely irrelevant except for of the as I think many of us may recall and roughly um remember the November um uh voting there was what 168 m visitors by 145 school districts and 108 of them passed in Wisconsin. Many of those were two-pronged, one operational, one capital. So, it's not
042unprecedented. And I only bring that up just because one does not preclude the other uh just in our in our thinking about it. So, pass or fail may not change. If if we know what we want to do from P and from the profer study and there's a clear plan, pass or fail on the operational, you may end up double, you know, pushing two pu pushing two different referendums forward at the same time. Other districts did attempt it. I can't tell you what their hit rates were. Fair can tell you. They'll have all those stats, but it's my understanding there were a few of them that went side by side. Um, I'm not advocating it. I'm just saying it's not unprecedented. Um, but Fred, to your point, yeah, if it fails this time, then Craig,
043the next time we get a bite of the apple is a year from now. Yeah. and and but for an operational or a capital from a fiscal perspective, you know, I think we could have that, but I don't know if it needs to be a standing calendar item so much as, you know, the calendar item is dealing with the result of the referendum, pass or fail, right, is going to the first thing we're going to have to look at. So perhaps can we put on like May um referendum review? That'd be a good one. That Yeah, that's a good that's a that's a must. Any other thoughts or comments? You guys are such an easy group this year. You didn't get us here early. Yeah, right. We should have five o'clock meetings all the time.
044So, our next meeting will be Wednesday, uh, February 19th, normal time. Uh, unless you guys like five o'clock, otherwise uh we are going to adjourn at 5:38. Thanks.