001Thank you for attending the June 9th, 2025 meeting of the Westerville City Schools Board of Education. This evening's agenda will be displayed on the screens in the front of the room. Printed agendas are available for our guests in the back or you may find the agenda on your mobile device by connecting to the district's website at www.wcsoh.org. Click on our district link, select board of education, and follow board docs link to the our current meeting agenda. There will be an opportunity for public comment this evening. There's a signup sheet located on the table in the back of the room. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the board and the timer will be shown on the screen. This portion of the meeting shall be limited to no more than 60 minutes. And with that,
002Miss Marshall, will you please call the role? Mrs. Alman, here. Mr. Hackleman is absent. Mrs. Valentine, here. Mrs. Mrs. Lean here. Mrs. Meyer here. Would you please join us in the pledge of allegiance? Pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next up, we have the exciting part of the evening. um district highlights and recognitions. Um 3.01, we are the Vil Sportsmanship Awards and welcome Miss Yanni. And then after you'll welcome up um Mr. Alfred. Thank you. Good evening. Tonight I'm excited to bring a meaningful recognition within our district, the We Are the Vil Sportsmanship Award. This honor, this award honors and celebrates qualities that extend beyond the playing field and into our
003daily lives. Sportsmanship, community, and positive attitude. It emphasizes that while success in athletics is important, the true measure of character lies in how we conduct ourselves, support others, and contri contribute positively to our community. Each season, this award recognizes one middle school student and one high school student whose integrity, respect, kindness, and leadership set an exceptional standard. Students are nominated by their coaches and then carefully reviewed by a panel of community leaders, committed to highlighting those who exemplify the district's values. Along with receiving a commemorative plaque, the recipients names will be added to a traveling trophy which will be displayed proudly within their respective schools. We are especially grateful to the Westerville Education Foundation for their generous grant which helps to make this recognition possible. Would Cameron and Jackson Childress, Coach Mike Mahoney, athletic director
004Tom Denny, and Principal Scott Gatis please join me. Mike Mahoney of Janoa basketball stated in his nomination that Cameron and Jackson Childress led by example with hard work and determination. They were sponges, listening and learning, but also working to improve their game. They were fantastic teammates, always staying positive and leading by example. They never talked trash, never argued with an official, and literally did exactly what the coaches asked all of the time. I know that there are many deserving students that student athletes for this award, which speaks volumes to the wonderful culture our leaders have passed down. I truly feel these two boys deserve to be recognized together. In some cases, two is better than one. Congratulations, Cameron and Jackson. And we would like to present the traveling trophy on behalf of Cameron and Jackson
005to Tom Denny, the athletic director, and Scott Gatis, the principal of Genanoa. Congratulations to Genanoa. Next up, if we could have Ethan Burns and athletic director Andy I of Westerville Central [Applause] Max Shaver, the varsity basketball coach at Westville Central, shared in his nomination, "Ethan Burns is the true definition of what it means to be a leader. He is led by his morals and high standards on a daily basis and stays true to who he is no matter the circumstances. We had a challenging start to the season, but Ethan continued to stay positive and encourage his teammates to the best of his ability. I believe his leadership was a huge reason for our su success towards the end of the season. He never gave up. Along with his leadership qualities, Ethan is also a 4.0
006plus student. This exemplifies his discipline and hardworking mindset to be able to maintain superior grades along with competing competing in two very demanding varsity sports. I believe Ethan is a perfect example of what it means to be a Westerville athlete both on and off the field. When things get tough or he's faced with adversity, he doesn't falter. He rises up to the occasion each and every time. Congratulations, Ethan. and Andy I, the athletic director from Central, please accept this traveling trophy on Ethan's behalf for you to display at Central. [Applause] And now, Wes, if you want to come on up to the podium. Thank you. Well, good evening, uh, Mrs. Hamburg and Mrs. Marshall and, uh, members of the board of education. Uh, I want to first start by congratulating these fine young men for,
007uh, winning these awards, and, uh, just thank you for representing Westerville so well in your athletic endeavors. Uh it is my pleasure to stand here with um Coach David Grants um as I read a resolution for endorsement to rename the wrestling room in the auxiliary gym at Westville North High School uh the Grant Wrestling Room. Uh so if you would, I'd like to read the resolution. Uh whereas for 21 seasons uh ending in 2024, the Westerville North High School wrestling program led by coach David Grant emerged as one of the best programs in central Ohio, producing state champions, student athletes who went on to compete and succeed at the collegiate level and numerous league, district, and individual state titles. Whereas coach Grant guided the Warriors to seven league championships, two top 10 state finishes, team
008finishes in 2008 and 2021, and six individual state champion wrestlers throughout his career at North. He has been named the Ohio Capital Conference Coach of the Year seven times. Whereas coach Grant led the Westerville North Warriors wrestling program team to numerous state qualifiers and state players placers and will be forever remembered as the most winning coach in wrestling uh history at Westerville North. He also began the school's first official girls wrestling program during the 2022 23 season. Therefore, be it resolved that the Westerville City Schools Board of Education and Superintendent uh recognize David Grant's legacy of excellence by proclaiming that the wrestling room in the auxiliary gym at North uh upon David's retirement from coaching be known as the Grant Wrestling Room. So, thank you again for uh allowing us to come and and and
009and make this endorsement. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Congratulations All right, let me give them a minute to file out. Um, congratulations again as you make your way out. Uh, and may I have a motion to approve the resolution for endorsement of the North High School Wrestling Room. So moved. Second, Miss Marshall, yes. Mrs. Lee Ban, yes. Mrs. Alman, yes. Mrs. Valentine, yes. Mrs. Meyer, yes. Next up, we Thank you. We have 4.01 our superintendent's comments. Miss Hamburg. Thank you. I'll be very brief this evening. Uh big congratulations to the folks that just left us on all of their achievements. Um I know we had a lot of spring athletes who did really well. Uh we'll probably have some kids that will be joining us hopefully at a future meeting. Um including we had a
010state champion in the 200 from Central Olivia. Um and I know Mr. Ree got to put a medal around her neck so he was very excited about that. So congratulations to all of our spring athletes on their success. Um school funding is still continuing to be a challenge. We have more um conversation that's coming this evening around that topic. But I did want to take just a moment during my comments to thank our board president Christy Meyer for testifying last week to the Senate Finance Committee. Um very appreciated. We've continued to try to have a presence down at the state house and just really appreciate the time that you did to do that took to do that. And then my last item is I just wanted to welcome Monica Asher who's here with us this
011evening. pending board approval will be our new executive director of secondary school. So, we're excited to have her here this evening and have her join the team. Pending board approval. So, welcome to Monica. And that's all I have this evening. Thank you. Um well, next up we have uh public comments. And just as a reminder, the board of education welcomes public comment on educational issues of interest to our school community. The board does not discriminate based on the identity or viewpoint of the speaker during our public participation. However, the board president may limit comments that are obscene, abusive, or harassing. In an attempt to protect the privacy interests of our students, the board asked that speakers not identify students by name during their comments. Persons having public complaints about district personnel programming or operations will
012be referred to the process set forth in B in board policy 9130. Finally, the board reminds speakers that their statement should be directed to the board as a whole and not to individual board me board members. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will be shown on the screens and Mr. Reeves will call time when three minutes has elapsed. So tonight our first speaker is um Mickey Bumpus. Did I say that right? Bumpus. Bumpus. Welcome. It's great to see all the student athletes and the recognition that they received. I'd like to say good evening. I'm Mickey Bumpus and I reside at 248 East College Avenue. I have two grandchildren who attend Mark Twain. One is in kindergarten and the other is in fourth grade. My kindergartenner experienced a wonderful year
013with David Walker and my fourth grader experienced an equally great year in Angie Lee's class. My family feels so fortunate to walk away from the 2024 school year with joy in our hearts and the excitement of experiencing the 2526 school year with the same enthusiastic teachers and warm climate that Mark Twain offers its families. But I understand that the future for several classrooms that will impact my granddaughter and many others looms in the unstable hands of our state legislators who feel that dismantling many programs that impact students is less important than the 600 million $600 million grant given to build a football stadium. And we all know what football football can do to brain as a board. You also have the daunting task of dismantling our five-star schools in hopes of balancing your budget as
014well as diminishing hope for our dedicated educators and students who count on our schools to provide so much needed services. I understand that due to the uncertainty of the state funding for schools and a number of other critical services that support students and families, you're proposing to eliminate a first and fourth grade classroom the next school year at Mark Twain. I have seen classroom numbers for the past two school years and I would like to see the projection information for the 2526 school year. If a teacher is moved from Mark Twain, that would put the class size at 30 students for two first grade classes. This is two students above the district class size cap. It also does not allow for moveins over the summer or during their during the school year. How do you
015propose to address exceeding the 28 student class size? I would like to see your proposed cuts and understand your rationale for the priority of services to students at the ground level. Does that mean you only have 30 seconds left? Um, I've been in your shoes before serving on a school board in another district. Many say it's a thankless job. I'd like to thank you for your time and effort. I know you're not in it for the thanks, but for what your expertise can offer to continue to make the Westerville public school system, the shining example of what happens when leadership makes the right decisions. When bu building leadership leads to make things better for their teachers, and when tough decisions are thoroughly examined and prior prioritized that makes the least educational impact. Can I have
016just 30 15 more seconds? Thanks. Thank you. Um Oh, yeah. Um Miss uh um Bumpus, if you wouldn't mind, if you want to leave it with Scott, we can read your the rest of your comments. Okay. And appreciate it. Thank you. With Mr. Reeves. Yeah. Right there. Um next up, and I apologize, I'm having a hard time reading this last name. So, um, is it Bethany Kungl? Yes, I am stepping in. So, Jen Arnold has hoped to speak, which is why I put the word. Oh, okay. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. Good evening and thank you for hearing our concerned voices at Mark Twain. My name is Bethany Kungle and I'm a parent of an incoming first grader. As you know, we remain concerned about class sizes next year in light of teacher transfers. I'm stepping
017in for Jen who had hoped to speak um and in her behalf I simply want to voice some questions that we continue to have. Uh the first one is similar to what um Mickey shared is is there a version of the enrollment numbers prepared for the 202526 school year? Um have these numbers accounted for kids moving to the magnet program? Um, we recognize that we might lose some to that program. Um, but we're unsure how many. Um, second or excuse me, I'm on the third point. Students who attended Mark Twain for kindergarten through open enrollment, we understand may not be allowed to continue at Mark Twain if we do lose that third first grade classroom. Um, and it stands to reason that this concept may also apply to the incoming fourth grade class. Um, our
018hope is that you would please consider giving Mark Twain an appropriate number of overflow students to enable those students to stay. Um, and similarly, do those numbers that were published account for students who may not be able to continue at Mark Twain? Um, excuse me while I take a second. Um, okay. If first grade usually has the most additions between kindergarten and first grade grade and usually late in the summer, particularly at Mark Twain, then why not keep three classes for this cohort of students through their first grade year to allow the class size to stabilize. Then if it remains small, consider reducing this cohort's future number of classrooms or allowing other students from the district to open enroll into Mark Twain if desired. Some buildings have class sizes in the low 20s um between
01921 and 24 students. How is it more beneficial for students to sit in classes of 30 or 28 rather than 19 to 21ish? Seems more inequitable to have large classes at Twain than to have Twain sitting low for a year or two. Enrollment numbers from this year show that as students move up, there are places like first grade and fourth grade that the class sizes would be 30 plus if there were only two teachers. Um, so again, please consider that um as we plan for next year. And lastly, the average class size number that is shown for each school only calculates for nonsp specialed students. When those numbers are taken into account, the average class sizes go up. Why is two the aotment for um for that? And aren't there actual numbers of current students
020on plans um that should be included in IEPs and 504s? Forgive me. Thank you for for reading through that with me. Um of course, let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. I I imagine if you could share your questions. I we caught some of them, but if you could share them with Mr. Reeves. Thanks. All right. Um, next up we have May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board of education meeting held on May 19th, 2025? So moved. Second. Any um comments or Okay. Will you take the vote? Mrs. Lee? Yes. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yes. And then 7.01 board member compensation. May I have um motion to approve the resolution to approve compensation for board members whose term begins on or after
021January 1st, 2025? So move. Second. Any questions, comments? Real quick, that should be 2026 six. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I just realized that when you said that. Okay. So, can we just restate it so we don't people aren't confused? May I? Huh? You would need to make an amendment. That's Yeah, that's fine. If you just want to restate the motion with the 2026, we can correct the agenda. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we need to. Okay. They didn't approve the agenda. So, may I have a motion to approve the resolution to approve compensation for board members whose term begins on or after January 1st, 2026. So, moved. Second. Okay. Thank you for catching that. Apologize for that. That was my mistake on the agenda. Okay. I sometimes write 1946. I can I is it okay
022if I talk about this? Yes. So, under Ohio law, uh, board member compensation, board members may be, uh, compensated up to $125 per schoolboard meeting, not to exceed $5,000 per year. So, anyone that thinks that school board members are in this for the money, that is not the case. Um, we currently have two board seats compensated at 125 and three compensated at $80 per meeting. uh the decision was made uh to move to that 125 amount uh prior to the last board of uh board elections and so we would like to have those compensations adjusted so that everyone's at the same compensation rate um and as we're having conversations about um you know people running for school board and all of those things. It's important to understand that you all can't vote on your own
023compensation and so we we want to set it for any future terms for schoolboard members, whoever may serve. Does that make sense? Um, and I just want to underscore that because I I've seen some things on social media about highly paid board members um that I had to just do a little correction on. Um, so that is all board members are paid is per meeting. I just want to make that clear. We are paid for the time that we sit up here in the meeting. Yes. I have had numerous records requests for for school board member salary amounts and I make sure people understand we don't pay you a salary. It's you're just compensated a per meeting rate. Um it's not very much. I'm sorry. That's what's allowed under law. And that's not the case
024for city council, for township uh trustees. Like it school board members are just in a league of their own in this space. And obviously there's a lot of time that goes in outside of the time you set up at the table, but just to be clear for that either. So obviously we're not we're not in it for the money. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're losing the appear service there. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for explaining all that. Are you ready for Yep. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Lean? Yes. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yes. And may I have a motion to approve the purchases in accordance with Ohio Revised Code 570541D1 in board policy 6320. So moved. Second. Miss Marshall, will you talk to us about these? Yes. Thank you. So these are
025what we affectionately called in and out purchase orders. This is where we have a purchase order that was opened after an invoice date or goods or services were ordered. Um so we have three on this board agenda. Uh we have one with buildings and grounds for break fire which is Silco fire and security. Um and so we had some past due invoices that had never been received by buildings and grounds or accounting. Uh these were budgeted for but we those purchase orders had long been closed. So um we'll need your approval for that because it does exceed that $3,000 uh threshold. And then food service. Uh we had one for food service for Imperial Dade uh for food service supplies and we had a purchase order but it wasn't enough to cover the full purchase
026amount and so we have to have that on here. And then teaching and learning had one with Columbus City Schools for the educational services and tuition for students. So, this is where we have a student who might be placed um in a facility in the Columbus City School District area and the Columbus City School District facilit facilitates the education of that student, but they reside in our district. Were responsible for that cost of education. Um and so we have to have that agreement with Columbus City Schools to be able to pay that. There were also purchase orders open, but it wasn't enough to cover. And we will have another one of these I know um coming in at a later date for the second I think this is for the first semester. We'll have a
027second semester. I was just going to add on that last one. Those are very hard to budget for. So we do have a purchase order but um anytime a kid has an extenduating circumstance. It's usually an emergency type situation and we don't know about it ahead of time. Yeah. And these are usually pretty big invoices too because it's the whole time that they're in and all the education educational services. I just want to make it clear that these aren't Columbus City School students that we're paying for. They're our students. Um they're just being educated by Yeah. Thank you. So when we say facilities, sometimes they're maybe in a hospital or something and located or might be in a detention center or something. Yeah. And they're located in the Columbus area. Thank you. Thanks for that.
028Okay. Yeah. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Mrs. Leean. Yes. Mrs. Alman. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. And may I take the personnel consent agenda as one? Okay. May I have a motion to approve the personal consent agenda 8.01 through 8.13? So move. Second. And welcome Mr. Cooper. Good evening, President Meyer, Vice President Lee Ban, members of the board, Miss Marshall and Miss Hamburg. Tonight's personnel consent agenda includes action items with regard to resignations, retirements, leaves of absence, contract status changes, change of assignments, one-time pays, and other employment related matters. I would like to recognize Elizabeth Wand as our sole retiree on tonight's agenda. Um, Elizabeth has uh 30 years of service in Westerville City Schools and we appreciate all of her efforts for our students, staff, and the community and certainly wish her the best in her years
029of retirement ahead. Within item 8.10, 10. I do want to call attention to the summer MTSS curriculum work being done. We know this is a major focus for our district as we continue to uh support all of our students with their instruction and learning. The majority of these training sessions are paid with title 2 funds which are federal dollars required to be used specifically for professional development. So, I just wanted to call that out. Um, lastly within item 8.13, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Monica Asher, who is being recommended to replace Ann Baldwin in the position of executive director of secondary schools. As you know, Ann is moving to the director of state and federal programs and enrollment services position, which has combined two of our administrator retirees positions into one role.
030Uh, Miss Asher has served in administrative roles for the last 16 years, including the past three as the principal of Tangi Orange High School. Prior to her work in Olan Tangi, she served as the principal at Chagrin Falls High School, assistant principal at Rocky River High School, assistant principal at Avon Lake High School, and as the athletic director of Hiron High School. Before her administrative experiences, Monica taught English at the high school level at Hiron. Uh, Miss Asher completed both her bachelor's degree and master's degree at Bowling Green State University. No Falcons out there? Okay, couple of them. Quiet Falcons. Um she was the 2022 23 Ohio Principal of the Year and is currently the president of the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators known as OASA. Um so with that said, we welcome Monica.
031And at this time, I can take any questions you may have. No questions, just uh congratulations to Beth and welcome to Monica. I wanted to say the same thing. So welcome Monica. We're happy to have you here. Congratulations Ann, on your new role. And um Beth Wine is math teacher superstar. All my all three of my kids had Beth amazing teachers. We have the best teachers. Sorry to see her retire, but um glad she's going to get to go have some fun and has changed the lives of so many kids. So, thanks. Ready for the vote? Yep. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Lee? Yes. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. All right. Moving along. Um to hold business. Can we take this as one, too? All right. May I have a motion to approve 9.01 through
0329.03? So moved. Second. Any questions, comments? All right. Ready to take the vote? Mrs. Lean? Yes. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. And up next is new business 10.01, first reading of policy 20 or 2260.02, single gender classes and activities. Welcome, Miss Baldwin. Thank you. Good evening. This policy reaffirms district's commitment to equal educational opportunities for all students and the updates in this policy outline the limited circumstances under which single gender classes or activities may be offered emphasizing compliance with Title 9 and any other related laws. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Um I just wanted to say I appreciated recently so choruses are in here. um you know about basing courses on vocal range that may uh result in a course or courses of one or predominantly
033one sex and I noticed at one of our high schools recently that um this is sort of ancillary to the policy but they were referring to not so much as men's course and women's chorus but as bass tenor soprano alto and that type of thing because there is a lot of crossover in voices um so just I saw that in the policy um and wanted to appreciate that our high schools are making it seems to be a change that way. Yes, that will be at all three high schools. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Great. Thank you. And next up, we have the first reading of policy 2370, educational opportunities. Welcome, Mr. Moline. Miss Meyer. Good evening, Miss Hamburg, Miss Marshall, members of the board. It is my absolute pleasure to present to you the
034first reading of revisions to board policy 2370 for educational options. This policy is recommended for language revisions due to changes and updates and district processes. Some of the revisions are just some general wording pieces, but these revisions do reflect current Ohio law and the recommendations are needed to make sure that we maintain accurate policies. If anyone has any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer those at this time. Any questions? Okay. Um, don't go far, right? Because you're here for the next one or student handbooks. Um, for first reading of student handbooks. Yes. Thank you, Miss uh Miss Meyer. It is my absolute honor and pleasure to present to you the elementary, middle school, and high school handbooks for the 2025 and 2026 school year. I know we're all excited. Just as a refresher,
035the handbooks every year go through a committee review and we look at different policies, different changes, and different updates we need to do throughout uh the course of the school year to get ready for the next school year. Um, this is a very um, uh, I guess you would say intensive and a very wide-ranging process and we have a lot of people that are involved with this and a lot of people that we need to thank for their time and for their efforts on this uh, committee. One of them is actually in the back of the room. Mr. Matt Davis, if you would please stand up and be recognized. Thank you for the work on the handbook covers. They look beautiful and we thank you for your efforts with that. Uh, Shannon Lancia is a
036member of our Westerville parent council and all the members of the Westerville parent council. uh they gave a lot of input and thoughts um with the handbook for this year and we thank them for their time and for their efforts with doing that. Uh WA President Kelly Modlook and the WA staff members um at the elementary school, middle school and high school levels. We had representation from all three levels and we appreciate them and their work on this handbook. Uh my secretary, Mrs. Bustard and uh her work and her key insights with this work as well. And our Westerville City Schools administrators from the elementary school, middle school, and high school levels. So, uh, once again, a very wide-ranging group that we had involved with this. And I would definitely, uh, would not like to,
037uh, forget this young man, but Mr. Alan Hunt from the Westerville City Schools transportation department, um, always has lots of great insights as we go through this process. So, definitely want to thank him for his time as well. Um, so it was a very, very wide ranging process. Included with the recommended handbook are the recommended changes. So, you kind of have a menu of what those changes are uh recommended and looking at there. And if anybody has any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer those questions at this time. Could I just take a moment to thank you? I really appreciate your leadership on this. Um I know the board members have the list of changes, but just the amount of changes in board policy that are the result of legal changes that you've
038had to incorporate into all the handbooks. Um I know that's a ton of work. And so, thank you for your leadership with that. I just I would just say thank you to everybody. These are I mean I took time to read through them. They're super long and I know that you guys probably were very critical and read every single word and spent a lot of time. Um so thank you to everybody that put so much time in. No questions. I also just wanted to thank you all for your hard work. And of course, I want to thank you all and I want to remind students that people put a lot of work into these so you should read every word and not just say you did read it. Yeah, that's true. Check the box. Thank
039you. Thank you. Okay. Um, next up we have the first reading of policy 5136, personal communication devices. Welcome, Mr. Stifler. Good evening. So, it is my absolute honor and pleasure to uh bring policy 5136, personal communications, in front of the board. Um, this policy brings our district policy for personal communication devices in line with Ohio House Bill 250. So, it places limits on student personal communication devices with exceptions for students who have IEP 504 or student health concerns. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys may have about the policy. Any questions? No questions or I guess I do have a question. What steps are we taking to kind of I guess inform families of the specific change so that coming into the new school year they know um of limitations to those
040personal devices? So the limitations that are outlined here are already in line with the district policy we had and our administrative guidelines. So there's really not much of a change. Obviously, they'll get an opportunity to see what we've talked about here and if there turns out to be more, we can discuss it with our communication team on appropriate ways to communicate it. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Next up, we have the first reading of elementary courses of study updates. Welcome, Miss Toma. Hello. Good evening, President Meyer, Vice President Leeban, members of the board, Miss Marshall, Miss Hamburg. I am so excited. Maybe not as excited as Nick and Tim, but um we have four courses of study that we're bringing to you. The first one is the preschool course of study. We're
041really excited about that. Um Suzanne Kyle and Jill Fogle have been an integral part as well as their teachers um in identifying which of the required um materials we were going to use. As as a reminder, this was part of um the approved curriculum list that we needed to come into compliance with. So there were some changes. The state kind of went back and forth and offered a free resource. And so we waited and did our due diligence to look at what they were offering and ended up going with that resource. So we're excited. It is not entirely free. So I do not want anybody to be confused there. There are portions that we will get and then we have to fold in some other resources with it. Um also very excited about our um
042elementary English learners K5 course of study. Jennifer Winters headed that work up along with the team of teachers. We started this work last year and so we're excited. It went really well this year using different resources. Um great partnership with the company as well just in terms of training and adaptability. So, it's it's been a really good year and a lot of hard work went into it. So, we're really excited about um those resources. And then, as promised, I've been working on this for a couple years with physical education and visual arts. So, those were the last two of the related arts course of studies that we've been working on and they were finalized over the course of this school year as well. So, I'm happy to take any questions. I just I know a
043lot of work goes into this too, right? a lot of time, a lot of feedback, a lot of training. So, just really appreciate the intentionality of everybody involved in making sure that this came together. Yeah, thank you so much. Um, and I guess I'm curious about um, professional development for teachers. Yeah, so both of these have a professional development component, but what we find sometimes is we also have a great team of our curriculum specialists. So, we tend to use pieces of both. Um, we might do some training with the company directly, but we find that when our curriculum specialists get their hands into it. I don't want to say westerbilize it, but it's it's, you know, they'll come out and do a packaged professional development, and that's a great starting point, but it's really
044our teachers here bringing it to life and adjusting and adapting, and then as we use it, we always get better and better. So, um, it's kind of twofold and that will continue. Thank you. And do you know what the timing for the PD will be relative to implementation? Yeah, so preschool will start this summer and continue ongoing um over the course of next school year with a heavy emphasis on PD and then you kind of spread it out. Um EL started this year and so they've had professional development and that will continue as well. Um but again that first year is that integral part of like we got to figure this out and and experience it and then adjust and adapt as we go. So, it'll start in the summer and then be offered at
045every weed day as well as staff meetings, things like that as well. Great. Thank you. Yep. I just have a follow-up question. So, as you guys are learning more and what's realizing it, um I'm assuming you are talking amongst each other and figuring out and training each other and saying this worked, this didn't. Those are happening regularly. Yeah. So, teacher feedback is a huge part of it. So, we try to kind of do it with fidelity when we first experience a new resource, but it is bringing it to life and adjusting it for the students that we serve in Westerville. And so, that teacher communication as well as going back and forth with the vendors we use. It's it's a huge partnership. Um, and I'm really proud of the work that we've done and some
046of the adjustments we've made in other areas. So, I'm pretty confident this will be no different in terms of let's use it. Let's figure out what works best for our students. Great. Thank you. I don't know. Your energy was pretty high in excitement. All right. Um uh we have our first reading of high school courses of study and material update. And you are not Miss Nap. Welcome, Miss Baldwin. Thank you. Good evening. I apologize. Dr. Nap was unexpectedly unable to attend this evening, so I'm filling in. Um, and I was able to be a part of curriculum council. So, I'm pretty familiar with all of these updates that are before you. And it's in alignment with our curriculum adoption process along with the College Board requirements for advanced placement or AP courses that we're bringing
047several courses of study updates for your review as well as some materials for advanced placement courses. um pre-calculus, honors, pre-calculus, American history, and honors American history were up as part of our curriculum adoption process. And teams of instructors met with our curriculum instruction specialist as well to review those courses of study and update them based on pacing and ODO standards. Three of our science courses, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Environmental Science, were updated to align with the uh College Board course updates that recently came out. And then three of our social studies courses, AP European History, AP US History, and AP Psychology, are due for textbook replacements. College Board asked that those materials be within 10 years, and we are at that mark. And so those courses uh will need new materials. They have
048been budgeted as part of our curriculum instruction process. And then I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I'll just say again, thank you. And this takes a lot of work too, right? So just thanks to everybody that has participated in this. Yeah, we appreciate our classroom instructors being a big part of this process. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much. Okay, next up we have recommended action and standing business 11.01. May I have a motion to approve um the resolution declaring impracticality of transportation. So moved. Second. Welcome Miss Dennis. Well, good evening President Meyer, Vice President Levan, members of the board. Ohio Revised Code allows for public schools to determine the impracticality of transportation after consideration of a number of factors including but not limited to the cost of providing transportation and
049the number of students to be transported. The Department of Purchasing and Logistics has evaluated each listed private non-public school student performance of section 3327.02 of the Ohio Revised Code and declared the 10 listed students impractical to transport. Approving this resolution will allow the district to offer payment in lie of transportation in the manner provided for per the Ohio Revised Code at the rate set by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. It is recommended that the board of education approved declaring the listed students impractical to transport and offering payment in lie of transportation and I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys might have. I do have a question. I'm sure I just thought of this so I'm you probably don't have it off the top of your head but how much on average
050like a year do we spend in in Lou? So I actually um calculated out this year based on the current list of payment L students you've approved for this year up to this point. Um there are currently 341 students on that list. Um they can be paid at the rate of $583.86 86 per student, which puts us in or around about $199,000. Um, understanding that in or around means uh we do verify attendance prior to paying that rate. Um, so that does play into that. So, it is and around that, right? Okay. I I thought that's what it was. So, I appreciate that. That's a lot. Um, all right. Any questions, comments? All right. Thank you, Mrs. Mrs. Alman, yes. Mrs. Leian, yes. Mrs. Valentine, yes. Mrs. Meyer, yes. And may I have a motion
051to approve out of state overnight field trips? Second. Welcome, Miss Baldwin. Good evening again. This request is for our south basketball girls team to attend a camp in northern Ohio for a couple of days and ending their trip at Cedar Point. And this is um 12 students that are attending and I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Do they actually get to ride their rides? They do after they play their games though. So they'll do that um after the games. And this is not a cost to the district. Correct. No cost to the district. Thank you. All right. Any other All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Lee. Yes. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yes. And good luck to them. Um, may I have a motion to approve the
0522026 annual tax budget for the Westerville Public Library? So moved. Second. Miss Marshall, please explain to us why we're approving this. Yes. Uh thank you, President Meyer, members of the board. So, we are uh the Westerville public the Westerville public library is a uh their school district, their not school district library, but their footprint is the same as our footprint. And under Ohio law, we are considered their taxing authority. And the board also approves members to their board of trustees. Um, and we also are required to approve their budget annually. Uh, other than that, we have nothing to do with the library. Their tax levies are separate from ours. Their budgets are separate from ours. Um, but you do appoint their board of trustees. So, and approve their budget every year. Yeah. Really? It's a
053thing in law. I don't know. Um, any questions or comments of the library? All right. Mrs. Leean, yes. Mrs. Alman, yes. Mrs. Valentine, yes. Mrs. Meyer, yes. And may I have a motion to approve the resolution to authorize change order number one to the owner contractor agreement with um Burn and Jones construction for the Walnut Springs Middle School track replacement project. So moved. Second. Welcome, Mr. Schwarz. Thank you. Good evening. So, I'm going to walk you through a couple different points here that may be new to some of you, so I apologize. So, first and foremost, this is change in number one, as we said, to Vernon Jones for the Walnut Springs Middle School track replacement project for unforeseen or unstable soil conditions. I'm going to walk you through what that is, but first, I'm
054going to start with why are you voting on this change order, and I've never seen one probably in the 30 months I've been here. Uh all the resolutions or most of the resolutions awarding contracts stipulate change orders can be approved by superintendent, treasurer, their designate up to and or equal to an amount or an aggregate amount of 10% of the original contract. In the case of this contract, it was originally for 422,426. This change order is presented to you tonight again is in the amount of $153,16 even again to Burn & Jones construction. Now why do we have this change order? Unstable or unforeseen soils. What does that mean? The original contract had us essentially removing the track surface. That part which you walk on kind of spongy has the court markings on it track
055markings. Also the 2 in of top asphalt base. Below there there's a remaining asphalt subbase, stone and soil. What we discovered after removing the the track and the 2 in of top asphalt is the remaining asphalt, stone, and soil had lost their structural integrity. They no longer would hold any type of weight. I can go into more detail what that means, but that's the short answer. they were no longer stable to be able to afford us the opportunity to put the asphalt back in, fill in any low spots, put the asphalt back in, and reinstall the track. As such, this dollar and this scope allows us to remove that poor asphalt, if you will, the part that's lost in Trevor, a little bit of stone, add some cementitious material to stabilize the stone, basically make
056it a giant slab, add the stone, we remove back in, add the asphalt back in, and put us back to contract where we would then add 2 in of asphalt in the track. So, essentially, it's removed what we did. What was rele what was left was unstable. We only have the only way to stabilize it is to remove it, add the cementitious material, put the material back in, and then we're back to base contract work and bring it back to a usable format. Uh there is no other path if you will. Right now the tracks are unusable as they exist. So I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions. I do have a question. What is the typical lifespan of these um of the track field? Good question. So typically it's 10 to 12.
057The this track in particular and the same is the case for the next resolution only got us to about eight or nine years total. Um again hindsight being what it is in terms of what we discovered. This is some of the reason we believe the integrity of this subbase for some reason was failing and hence that's why the cracks and the settling that were telegraphing from below or above down that we could see visually are causing us to repair it sooner. These will be dollars. I know it's a large dollar amount, but doing what we're doing to stabilize the base will actually ensure us to have less risk and costs in the future um and longer return on investment for this project actually. So, we're hoping to achieve closer to 12 13 years with this
058action. Thank you. You answered my second question as well. So, thank you. Um I'm just curious. Do you know were these done at the same time and by the same contractor in the past? It's just curious. They're both, you know, I do know they were designed by the same firm. I have to admit I have to do a little research to see if they're undertaken by the same contractor. Odds are they were. We tend to group them together. Yeah. In previous contracts, but I can get that to you if you need it. Yeah, I would just be interested to know. So, okay. Thank you. Do you know have there been changes in how the tracks should be constructed that have led to oh it was constructed you know well the first time but now there's
059just been new research new you know changes we need to implement or maybe there wasn't something that was quite 100% correct and how will we make sure that doesn't happen moving forward those good questions what was discovered so be before we started we always make sure we do some due diligence. So, we worked with the original architect firm that did the original replacement 8 years ago, Triad Architects. They served as a consultant on these as well. We also looked at the drawings that were done. Those drawings called out that we should have had a combined 3 to 3 and 1/2 in of asphalt below the track. What we discovered is in some cases we barely had two two and a half. That is some of the reason the remaining asphalt just didn't have enough thickness
060to have structural integrity. Um, I can go in the weeds a little bit more of something we did at Genanoa to try and salvage it because they were done a day apart to try and knowing we found that to try and save it and it still couldn't save and I'll discuss that when we get to Genanoa maybe. Um, but that was yes, there was there was a fault exercise. What was installed did not match first of all what was designed and without having too much of a fault, what was designed, even if it wasn't installed properly was less than industry standard. It should have been 4 in of asphalt. So that's actually what we're putting back. Okay. Um is what both the association the national association for tracks and the track company we're working with
061and TRA as well agree that's the better standard. So that's where we're going here now. Okay. And how are we ensuring that that's so so to ensure it what we're doing we've got tonnage. I don't have it spelled out here in front of you. We have tonnage of material both stone and asphalt that we're putting back in. And every truck that comes in we ask for a delivery ticket and it'll give us that weight and tonnage by material. and we compare that to what was designed and make sure we're within a reasonable percentage of uh acceptance what was anticipated. Okay? So we'll be able to check what we get against what we antic what we requested. Okay. And hypothetically speaking, sorry this is my last question. Hypothetically speaking, if we said we don't have the
062money for this and we're just not putting in a track at Genanoa or Walnut Springs, what would happen? So right now if you go out there, they both have a slight layer of asphalt. They're kind of a soupy mess cuz now without that integrity of that top, water and everything gets in it. So they're really not usable. So without proceeding in some fashion, they're they're of no use. Eventually in the summer, they could dry out and just be kind of a crusty mess. Um but they would not be usable by public, the PE class, anybody. And remember football, everybody has to walk over them. They wouldn't be unsafe uh for humans. They just wouldn't be usable for anything relative to the district's use. So essentially, we'd have to send the track teams somewhere else. Yes.
063To have their meets. And I would imagine that would be you'd have to bust them to the high schools or something like that. You would have extra wear and tear on those. It'd be a scheduling. You'd have to work all the scheduling in. Correct. We wanted to maintain the services and programs we had. They could not occur at the school in question. They'd have to be occur elsewhere. We'd have to work that out. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you. Louise asked a lot of some of the questions I had. I just had one additional question. We we check the tonnage, right? You had said as it comes in, is there ever like before we um after we put the asphalt down, do does anybody go out and look at it, inspect it before we um
064we have a testing agency um GCI on retainer and we can bring them in if and as needed to do that. that we've talked to them about this. They're in support of the process in terms of the cementicious material, proof rolling, checking the tickets, but we have them on retainer and can bring them in if and when needed. I'm assuming that um we're not using the same contractor as we did previous. No, we're not. This contractor is new to the district burning grounds. Okay. Thanks. Okay. I do I do just have one more. This is a financial question. So, um, is there anything that we had planned to do that we will not now be able to do because we have to spend the extra funds? Um, I'll answer it this way. There was only
06520,000 in this contract for contingency. So, and we were not carrying the delta and another contingency, if you will. So yes, there was some shifting of future projects um both PI which is how this is potentially paid for and even bond money uh that we still have retaining. Um has there been any project we've eliminated? No, our list is still active because we were carrying an aggregate of several hundred,000 across the board, but I not have a line item specific to to these tracks that could support these change orders. So as an aggregate whole as a district, we had enough contingency. So, I guess my answer would be no. We did not cancel any future projects at this time, but we have more projects than we're funding this year. I want to point that out.
066Correct. This is encumbered and anticipated projects within the available dollars. Correct. Meaning there are lots of other things we would like to do. Just to be clear, correct? Um there's always a long list, always more ways we could spend each dollar than Right. Right. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Is that Yeah. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Leean? Yes. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yes. And may I have a motion to approve the resolution change order number one to the owner contractor agreement with Burnon Jones construction for the Genanoa Middle School track replacement project. So moved. Second. And Mr. Schwarz, I know we talked a little bit about this already, but we did. So similar fact pattern again just to state publicly here the dollar difference uh for back to wall and I should have stated that's a
067six lane running track is an eight lane that is the difference both in base contracted work and change order work it's just a matter of scale and size is the difference the fact pattern is exactly the same unfortunately uh the contract amount originally here was 521,541 the change order here is being proposed in an amount of 192,000 489. Um there was one difference that occurred kind of in trying to remediate. Did Walnut first found that we had less asphalt than originally designed and originally recorded. Uh we we took 2 in off at walnut. We actually reduced it to an inch and a half at Genanoa the next day thinking we hopefully that inch or so remaining would have some structural integrity. While you walk on it, it looks better. It's thicker. As soon as you
068try to drive anything over it, it still does what's pumping. It just kind of collapses like a dry Oreo to be blunt. That's what it kind of looks like when you walk over it. So, it also has no structural integrity. And the best course of action is the same course of action. Remove the poor soils or the asphalt stone and a little bit of soil. Add the cementitious material. Put the stone back in. Put the base asphalt back in. And then we're back to contracted work. 2 in of asphalt track back in. And it's the same condition as before in terms of it's not usable. Um same fact pattern in terms of what was designed, same pack fact patterns in terms of the other answers. Just to share, I just have one additional question. Will
069these still be um completed by the time the school years start or the current schedule? Weather could be a factor, but assuming we don't have rain, we get a dry summer like last year, we should be fine. Um, but if if weather could be our only factor, but materials are available, the contractor is is available um and has said to the best of his ability, we should still be hitting that August 2nd completion date, which is a Friday in August. Okay. Thank you. In the off chance that we don't, will this mean that track might have to juggle some things at these two? It be more of a football issue. Yes, it's more of a football issue and making sure we have a way for them to get over the track to the field. I
070see. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any other? All right. We take the vote. Thank you. Mrs. Leean. Yes. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Alman? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yes. And may I have a motion to approve the resolution selecting Osborne Engineering for Design Professional Services for fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026. each vac uh projects. So moved. Second. Mr. SWS, talk to us about this. Thank you. So again, this is not awarding a contract for somebody. This may be new. Uh this is uh agreeing to a recommendation to proceed to contract with Osborne Engineering for essentially our next set of large HVAC projects. Again, Ohio Revised Code says we have to do a qualificationsbased selection process. So we issued an request for qualifications about 5 months ago. We received four responses from professional engineering firms. Those were
071scored by a committee made it myself and and two of our teammates, two of my team members within the facilities operations department. Uh after scoring it was deemed Osborne was being recommended as the most qualified. Again, there were no cost or contracts today. And with that, we made the recommendation as it says through the superintendent to move forward. So you're agreeing with our recommendation and ultimately authorizing superintendent treasur their designate to start negotiating a contract. That contract would still come back to this body just to remind you for approval. In which HAC are we looking at this? So I know the resolution talks about FY 25 and 26. Ultimately they're all 26, right? Uh, but it's money we're carrying over from 25 as well as money we've assigned um for for FY26. It's roughly $4
072million in projects at seven different schools and it's it's all prevented maintenance. So things that are beyond or near nearly beyond their useful life, air handling units, VAV boxes and classrooms. Um it's all very much the typical that we've done. It's not adding, if you will, a system to any school. simply replacing and maintaining what we have. Sure. Sure. I I guess can you just remind us for the public sake which ones are we looking at? Which schools do you know off the top of your head? I'm going to have to get the list back to you. I apologize. No worries. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you, Mrs. Alman. Yes. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Mrs. Lean. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. Thank you very much. Um, may I have a motion
073to approve a resolution to suspend Robert's rules of order? So moved. Second. Miss Marshall. Mrs. Alman. Yes. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Mrs. Lee. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. We are going to move into our work session now. I I did do a presentation. It's more slides than I anticipated. I apologize for that. I just want to level set for a second. um if that's okay. Uh so we're going to talk about uh school funding and um all the things. There's a lot going on right now, guys. A lot going on. And we asked Carrie Dennis and Scott Reef to join us as we talk about some of the um potential accounts that Nicole's going to discuss. So if you have any questions. Yeah. So, if um you remember, we had a conversation as part of the May
074forecast to talk about transfers um and to talk about levies and different things like that. So, uh I promised that I would bring back some more specific things. Um so, these are the more specific things. So, I'm going to ask you to take one and pass it down if you don't mind. Um, I'm going to go through this presentation before we go over this large spreadsheet here. Um, so I just want to remind everybody that the cost of education in Ohio is a shared responsibility between the state and the local community. Um, I actually interviewed with NBC4 today and I stressed uh that very fact and that we are just asking the state to do its part um in the cost of education. And so um when we look at our state share that percentage
075overall uh this is a heat map from the department of education and workforce uh that shows the change in the state share percentage from last fiscal year 24 to this fiscal year 2025. Um this is where we are right there in the middle. So we saw a decrease actually of 7%. So that's decrease of 5% or more. Um so last year this bianium budget we've seen the school funding formula keep what does the cost to educate a student what does that cost um the same for both years but it continues to update those local wealth capacities how how how wealthy is our local community uh what is that state and local share uh percentages and so we've seen our state share drop um but the cost stay the same so this year alone from last
076year. This year, we lost $4 million in state formula funding um even though we gained over a hundred students on the formula funding uh with the enrollment for the formula funding. So, um that's the conversation we continue to have with the state to make sure that they understand how their decisions are impacting us. Uh this is where we are in the state budget process. So, we have the executive budget. Uh that's the governor's version. We have the House's version and you know what we actually have the Senate's proposed version. Um they are expected to vote on that in on Wednesday I believe. Um we will see. So whatever right now we have their proposed budget. They had hearings last week in the Senate Finance Committee to go over that proposal. Thank you uh President Meyer
077for testifying. I apologize that I couldn't be there. um they were supposed to have amendments by Friday. Uh and so we should see something maybe tomorrow um for the whatever that final version is that would be introduced in the finance committee to be voted out of committee to go to the full house on Wednesday. Uh so then we're looking at this conference committee and this is where we have a lot of those closed door discussions. Those are already happening now I can tell you. Um so conference committee is where we'll have members of the house, members of the senate come together and reconcile the differences between the stud state's budget process uh to get it to the governor's desk by June 30th for signature so it can become law by July 1st uh to meet
078the state's operating uh budget needs for the beginning of the fiscal year. uh state funding for public. So this is statewide. Um during the dough decision, our uh school funding model was ruled unconstitutional. First in 1997 and three more times after that in the early 2000s. Um but during that first dough decision, the state was picking up about 42% of that cost statewide. Um today they're picking up about 38% of that cost. I have a quick question on that. So the so the dev decision the original came down in '97. It was ruled unconstitutional several times thereafter. Was there ever a school funding formula that was ruled constitutional? No. No. And when if you read the last um decision they this the legis the uh judges basically said um you need to fix your funding
079formula. we're not going to hear this anymore because it's the same thing over and over again. And it was ruled unconstitutional due to the over reliance on local property taxes and residual budgeting by the state. And when we talk about residual budgeting, we're talking about um the state is prioritizing funding and then schools get basically a dollar amount that's not based on any need. It's just what's left over. It's just what's left over essentially. Um, so that's that's where we've been. And I have a slide I didn't include here, um, but I have a couple of slides where I show all of the different iterations of school funding models that we've had um, since the '9s, since the DAL decision. And every two years, we go through the state budget process um, and have this
080conversation with state lawmakers. And, you know, I like to remind people that our lawmakers, they are not experts in school funding. They're not experts in property taxes, even though some of them like to think that they are. Um but there's a lot that they don't know and how a lot of these things have worked and even if they did work in school funding or worked in property taxes in some space uh prior to be to getting in the legislature a lot of things have changed over those over that same time period right so I view our role to just make sure that we are educating the legislators to un so that they can understand how their decisions will impact the 15,000 students that we educate here in Westerville. in our local community. And so that's
081why we continue to have these conversations every couple of years. So that's where we are. Um under the governor's proposal, uh he updated continued to update those local wealth calculations, did continue the fair school funding plan, um but kept that base cost the same at those 2022 amounts. So under the governor's proposal, we would have lost about 6.9 million over the bianium. Um this is an old slide. We've had that before. So our current state share is 23%. Um that's projected to be 11% by the end of the bianium. Uh based on our local wealth capacity um estimates. Uh the house's proposal, the house introduced this notion of a clawback or a cap on our general fund balance. And this only would apply to school districts. It doesn't apply to other local governments in the
082budget bill. um they introduced this clawback provision that would uh essentially claw back anything over 30% of our preceding year's expenses for our general fund balance. So under the house's version, we were looking at about $110 million um to lose over the fiscal year 26 and 27 because it would be for tax year 25. Can we go back one slide and just have one one question here? So when you look at the local wealth calculations, I just want to be super clear here for everyone. This is about property wealth, right? Property and income. Yeah. Property and income wealth. And there's a there's a I don't know what the formula is or you know how that's calculated. Um because I think one of the things that we hear a lot from folks is that you know
083I've lived in my house for 50 years. I can't afford this anymore. So there is a component of it that's looking at income but it's not doing that in any just it's obvious but it's not in any way shape or form on an individual basis really. No I mean it's just looking in in aggregate overall um for our entire school district footprint. What is our uh property wealth? So as property values increase we look wealthier as a community. Um, and you know, on the property value side, we look wealthier as a community, but all of our voted levies are subject to House Bill 920 reduction factors. So, we don't see growth on those new oned levies. And so, our only option is to go back to the community and ask them for another levy if
084we need growth in our revenue. And so, um, on the income side, so it's a 60/40 split in the calculations. So 40% for um personal income and then uh 60% for property wealth and but it also takes that and compares us to the other 600 plus traditional public schools and then it calculates based relative to the other 600 um plus public schools. And so at the end of the day I I want to make sure that it's very clear to our community and really everyone that that the cost of education is a shared responsibility. we are always going to have that local share. Um that's that's never going to go away regardless of the outcome of the state budget because that's how it's set in our constitution um in our state constitution. Uh but we
085have historically uh been underfunded um based on every formula that the states had. We've historically been a cap district. Um, and we've we've never been fully funded from the state for what their portion is. Um, for as far back as I have records to look at this. Um, but we're always going to have that state and local share split overall. Um yeah, but it doesn't take into account um cost of living being higher. So if you think about central Ohio, property values and incomes are higher, but so is the cost of living. So that's where we're not seeing the balance piece. And it is really it kind of treats all of us like we're the same, but it looks at our different student demographics for different funding pieces and things like that, but not the
086cost of living. You think of other parts of the state and what you would find the same property for. So that's why our percentage continues to drop. Yeah. Thank you for stepping back to walk through that just because I think um and I'm just speaking for me but as a board member when I hear that like I I absolutely understand but like we are only given so many tools to come up with our share. Yeah. You know and so we're sort of get backed into a corner where when the state is reducing their share we we do not have a lot of options. Yeah. So, I mean, our options, um, we can't charge for our services. We, um, you know, free appropriate public education, that's the rule. And, um, our options are if we can't
087have additional revenue that keeps up with inflation, then we have to make reductions to our programs and services to students. there's only um so many supplies and materials and things like that that you can reduce before you start impacting people and um services to students. So, um I mean that's that's the conversation that we have to continue to have as as we're not seeing our revenues keep up with um our inflationary increases and expenses and we're not allowed to decide not to spend money on students who choose not to attend our schools. There are things we have to provide for them like the payment in lie. Yes. Transportation. Yeah. There's a lot of uh we like like to call those unfunded mandates. Yes. Thank you. Uh so the house's proposal that's where we first heard
088about the clawback. Um so this was essentially the net effect of the house's proposed budget. So the house's uh proposal sunseted the fair school funding formula that we've had for the last two bianiums. um and basically just added an additional $20 per pupil in 26 and $30 per pupil in 27. So um about 687,000 over the banium for us. Um but that clawback piece, the state reimbures us for some old tax levies, voted levies prior to 2013 for homeowners. Um and losing those tax uh levies through that call back would also require would reduce the state reimbursements that we get. Um and it's all very complicated, but essentially that would be another $10 million loss uh that the state is currently paying for that they would not have to pay for in the future. Uh
089so the Senate's proposal, they kept the clawback provision. Did you have a question? I was just going to ask you if you could dig a little deeper on that just so people out in the audience might or that are watching when you when you mean like the 10 we lo so the so prior to um 2013 any levy voted in prior to 2013 the state paid for 10% of that for all um property owners at the 10% roll back and then there was an additional 2.5% owner occupancy credit. So 12% if you own your home, you live in your home, you occupy it, you saw a 12% reduction. Uh the state exempted that you from paying that. Um but then the state reimbures the schools for that lost revenue. Uh that went away on all
090new levies after tw in start beginning in November of 2013. And so, uh, if the state essentially passes a law that reduces our old voted levies and then we have to pass new levies, those new levies don't have that reimbursement attached to it. So, every new levy for a homeowner after 2013 was 12% more expensive. Um, and because the state was no longer picking up that tab. And I mean, call me cynical, but I feel like some of this might be a way for the state to get away from paying that portion of the local property taxes that they've been historically paying for. It comes up every budget cycle. Um, so I feel like maybe that might be a piece to this and what they're doing. Mike, uh, so the Senate's proposal that just came
091out would be um would require the county budget to commission to call back 50%. So instead of 30%, they bumped it up to 50%. Um, still conversations about that. I would love to see that go away um in all of the amendments that are coming at that came in on Friday. So we'll see what comes from the Senate side of things. Um, and then the state funding formula. Uh I don't have the detailed calculations between with their uh the the legislative services commission put out simulations for districts. Um but essentially what they put out in the simulations we would lose about $426,000 over the bianium. Um and with that call back we would also have that potential loss in state reimbursements as well along with the clawback. Um, and I do just want to point
092out this whole cash cap or clawback. Um, there are a lot of legislators right now that are referring to this as immediate tax relief for all Ohioans. Um, and that's just simply a misstatement. Um, because this wouldn't affect every school district. uh and the uh consequence, I guess the outcome of this means you you will see districts around the state that haven't been on the ballot in decades um that will need to immediately be on the ballot uh for new operating funds. And so, you know, uh regardless of what you think of Westerville and what our situation is, this is impacting um statewide. And we also have a lot of things uh that I think will have a lot of unintended consequences if something like this goes through which I I want to talk a
093little bit about. Were you going to say something? I was going to ask so they're touting this as property tax relief. Do we have any idea like districtto district if they do these clawbacks what the property owners are actually going to receive back? when they would receive it back because I can't imagine it's going to be a like you're not going to get a check for thousands of dollars. No. So, um there's been a few county auditors that have said that it would be a minimal amount that any property owner would actually see and it would be more they wouldn't collect the next year versus here's a refund check. Yeah. But our concern too is just the instability of so people are going to be very confused because they would have this very temporary reprieve
094and then it would go right back on and so you know concerns about people not understanding that and then we're trying to pass levies and they think we've just hit them with a new levy when it's really our levy we already had. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's also my understanding, so correct me if I'm wrong here, but they are saying essentially this is property tax relief, right? We'll have to actually go back to our property owners and say we actually need more money, but they look like the good guys. And then they're putting restrictions on us around levies, too. So essentially, I mean, they have all the great talking points and but they're squeezing school districts, public education across the state. Yeah. And I think um you know, we always talk about uh with the state's
095budget process, um there's always winners and losers, right? Uh you have some schools that are winners of a state budget process and some schools that are losers of the state budget process. And I like to remind our um legislators that our students are continually losers of the state's budget process. There is there hasn't been a state budget um in recent years that has uh where Westerville school students has been a winner on the winning end of whatever those calculations look like. And I mean we have continued to be underfunded. Um and they're applying. So we have districts around the state over 400 of them that are at that 20 mil floor. So there's a provision in state law that says House Bill 920 works for school districts to reduce that millillage until they get to
09620 mills. Um we're well above that. We're nowhere near that 20 mil floor. But for those 400 plus districts, if their values went up by 35%, the residents taxes went up by 35%. But that's not us. We don't. But they're treating us all like we're all in the same situation and we're not. And that's what we try to educate them that we are we're not um on the same when we say that we're being underfunded specifically with the fair school funding plan. That plan calculated the amount that it costs to educate a child ba based on actual costs of educating the child not well we only have this much money left over let's just divvy it up correct right so um in theory yes that's the idea behind the fair school funding formula uh when
097it was first implemented in 2022 so it was for the 2022 and 2023 um bianium. Uh those we were funded for both of those years based on what does it cost to educate a student in 2018. True. Uh so now we're in 24 and 25. And so the for this bianium we've been educated we've been uh compensated based on what does it cost to educate a student in 2022. Yeah. Uh but then on top of that we have all of those categorical add-ons. So, we're just talking about those base costs, 2022 cost sets. Um, the state has done studies for special education, for gifted education, for career tech education, uh, economically disadvantaged, all of those things. Um, they did those costs and studies in 2022. We're still waiting on the one for the disadvantaged pupils,
098the economically disadvantaged. Um, the state hasn't released that yet. We were supposed to have that in December of 24. uh still don't have that. Um but they have those cost studies from 2022 and they can see that those categoricals are severely underfunded. Um we've been focusing on special education. Um I have a slide to show that but the um so we have the those categorical haven't been updated. we're using old base cost inputs and then uh we're only funding a portion of the overall formula. So right now we're at 67% roughly. Yeah. Um and so it's uh we're underfunded on on several levels overall. So ideally the cost would be whatever it cost you know ideally this year to educate a child if not this year last year. Yeah. And the state has all that
099data. They we send our data to them weekly. Yeah. Um they have all of our and they'd be funding the formula at the 100% which was the plan. Yeah. For this bienium but they're kind of going back on that. It was meant to be phased in over six years. Okay. Um, if I could just on the underfunded piece, it's really just underscoring what the two of you were just talking about, which is that when we say that the state is underfunding, that is not us deciding how much we think we need to spend on students. You know, this is the complex calculations in the fair school funding formula and the state, it's a shared responsibility. So, we understand they're not going to fund 100% of when we say 100% that means 100% of their share,
100right? They're not going to fund 100% of educating every child, right? We have to do our part, but we should really be able to figure out what it should cost to educate a kid in Ohio. That's what the whole effort was for. Of course, if the cost inputs are updated and so on, everybody should know what a reasonable amount is to educate a child and you bring the categoricals in looking at your district. They worked with the American Institute for Research for those cost studies. They have reports on the Department of Education and Workforce website. Yep. Yeah. And so what we're seeing is the state does know, but when we say underfunding, it's really easy to gloss by that word. I'm glad you pulled it out. um they know how much it it should cost
101and they are in our case just deciding to pass it on to the local taxpayers. So just want to make that clear. We are not making those numbers up. Yeah. So Nicole, really quick, and not to belabor the point, but can you tell us how much we've been underfunded since 2020 or 2021? Yeah. So we had calculated that just over $29 million just since 2021. um which would have been the year before the fair school funding plan came into place and we were getting much closer to actually being funded at least what the formula calculates were not even funded what the formula calculates at this point because of that phase in process um and so you know when you hear conversations um from legislators about they don't want to fund empty desks or you know
102whatever that looks like I don't know how they can have that conversation about any school district in Ohio, even schools that have lost significant enrollment if they've not ever fully funded a formula um and updated all of the cost inputs and the categoricals and all that. So, I will say um that is something that the Senate had a lot of conversations about and the Senate's proposal does include continuing guaranteed amounts for school districts um but based on 2021 levels um which is net 2020 level 2021 levels but it's net of all of the deductions we had at that time for private and charter schools. So, it's um that's a whole another conversation that isn't really re relevant right now, but um it's uh I I think at the end of the day um we there
103was a lot of research that went into the fair school funding plan. I think it's important that we're able to maintain that formula. Um, I think that we can eventually get to a place to where uh our funding formula meets the state's responsibility. Um, we just need the legislature to um kind of see that vision. Um, when we talk about, you know, educating Ohio's children and what we want for the future of Ohio and we want every kid regardless of their zip code to have an honest opportunity at life. Um, I think that it's important that the legislators think about that and have those conversations. I I think it's also really important to remember that this was a bipartisan developed plan with um professionals in this field rather than just saying here's what we have
104left over. This doesn't work. We're just going to throw it out. So, the Senate's proposal does continue the fair school funding formula um continuing at those 2022 cost inputs uh and whatever other calculations. They also added something for performance. Um what they talk about funding for outcomes um for if you were a four or fivear district and also if you saw growth in um your uh progress measures and all of that on the report card there was some additional dollars for that. So we meet both of those. Um but somehow we're still being reduced over the bienium and I think it has to do because our state share is going to continue to be updated. Um and then there's a change with the disadvantaged people impact aid which is um the categorical funding for our
105economically disadvantaged students. Right now our students are counted based on free and reduced lunch applications that we do through food service and that's how they're coded in our student information system. Um the Senate's version is doing something about moving us to a direct certification from the county um which would reduce the overall economically disadvantaged number um which I think would reduce that disadvantaged pupil impact aid over the bianium for us. Again haven't seen any detailed calculations just reading the language of the five 5500 plus page. Is this also still assuming the 2022 cost inputs? Yes. Yeah, it still continues the 2022 cost inputs. I stopped working. It's not working. Jumper, my pointer works. It's a Google slide that might have further up. Thank you. Uh so just a reminder, the outer state introduced financial health
106indicators for school districts. um and talks about the uh the larger the reserve, the better the entity is able to absorb in the short impact short-term the impact of sudden revenue loss or significant increases in operating costs. Um and then cautionary outlook. So if our fund balance represents less than 6 months or 50% of current year revenues and so the Senate is proposing 50% of current year expenses, revenues and expenses aren't that far from each other. So um and that talks about a decline of the last three periods. So that's what's happening on the auditor's side. Uh the other piece that I'm trying to um stress to legislators. So this was a member brief that was um shared by standard importers which is a credit rating agency and it says potential for property tax reform.
107Property taxes are a foundational credit strength for Ohio schools given their relative stability as a source of revenue in response to double-digit appraisal increases. State legislators are exploring property tax reform legislation potentially leading to reduced property revenues for school districts which could materially affect our view of school districts institutional framework and revenue and expenditure balance. Um so what does this mean? Standard and pores Moody's is another rating agency that we work with. Um when if we go out to uh issue bonds they rate our credit essentially. Um, and so we are highly rated and continue to be highly rated because of the stability of our tax revenue because our bonds are backed by property taxes. And the conversation I've had conversations with folks at Moody's and Sandors um is that this whole conversation around property
108tax reform could devalue bonds for all of Ohio's entities, not just schools. um in the future if the state legislature is willing to make these very large changes that could impact the reliability of that revenue overall. Um so if our bonds are valued lower, that means we pay higher interest rates, which means our community pays higher interest rates overall. Um or if we're even able to sell the bonds um to be able to address the projects. And just a reminder, uh we've last issue bonds from the 2019 um ballot issue that we had um that helped uh renovate several schools. We added secure vestibules uh across our district at all of our schools. We opened Manurva France and Manurva Park. Um we updated a lot of the parking lots and playgrounds across the district. Uh
109that was $103 million bond issue. Um, we're part of the state's facilities program, the expedited local partnership program. Uh, we have built up over $25 million in credits with those projects that the state has not funded us for um yet because again, we're on a list with the other school districts and our turn is not up um for us to be funded for those projects. And so, um, anything that we would do, uh, facilities wise, we'll have to do with local resources until the state pays its share of those funds as well. And our percentage is 35%. Uh, the state is supposed to share 35% of every dollar that the cost of these projects are with us. And we don't have any semblance of an idea of when our our turn would be up. Oh,
110so um let me tell you, I started with the district in 2018 and um I worked with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission in my previous district. And so I reached out to the folks that I knew from there and I asked them, I was like, "Hey, when will Westerville?" And they're like, "Oh, you're probably about uh six or seven years out." And I was like, "Oh, okay." So then in 2020, I reached out to them and they said, "Oh, you're probably about six or seven years out." And uh this last year we reached out to them. What did they say? Probably about Yeah. So, so no, I I don't know. Um I do know that the state has um has been putting more money into help fund some of those uh projects and stuff, but
111again, Westerville Schools hasn't had that opportunity yet. So, we continue to Where does that money come from? Um it's from the state's appropriation budget, their capital budget. Okay. And are they just not funding that at an appropriate level? like why is it continuously 6 to seven years they fund uh so there's a couple of things all 600 plus districts are on a ranked list based on our per pupil valuation so as our property values go up compared to other schools and their property values um we'll move down the list a little bit farther so there's that um there's also with the capital appropriations uh the state will budget a portion for the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. And then school districts have 18 months to raise their local portion of that once they're once they're in
112that classroom facilities assistance program. And so some schools um might be able to raise their local portion if they pass their bond issue or whatever it is they're doing, however they're funding it. Um, and then some schools might not be successful and then they go back and they're and they have to keep recycling through until so until we get on until our turn comes up on that list. Um, I think they told us last time there was like 21 or 22 districts in front of us. Yeah. So, and they're funding I think about five districts a year. So, and depending on if they can get their funding, depending how much the state appropriates, it's about five districts a year out of 400 and some 600 plus. Yeah. Well, and a lot of districts have already
113been funded. like where I grew up um in Sciota County, uh my uh 8th grade year, I think it was, um we got a new high school and a new elementary school and they renovated the old high school into the middle school and that was part of the classroom facilities um program. So, uh that was also another um part of the DOL decision. The state started putting more money into capital funds for schools uh for that. Yeah. Okay, thanks. So, it's been going on for a while. So, I have a really good question. If I'm remembering correctly, and I I may not be right. Um, was private schools, are they able to get some of that funding now, too? Yeah. So, the state started appropriating some funds for private schools. So, maybe we're getting bumped,
114right? It's a possibility for some of these private schools, too. And and I know President Huffman told me that he was going to take $4 million and build some private schools with our public funding. And that's what he did. Yep. He sure did. Um, so just a reminder, we have a cash balance and reserve policy. Uh, we developed it with our district finance committee. Uh, requires 90-day unreserve cash for each year of the 5-year forecast period, and it triggers action by the board, superintendent, and treasure if that benchmark's not met. Um and you've seen these slides before. I just wanted to share them again just sort of level set. Uh so um we implemented a budget stabilization which is 5% of preceding year revenues and that's just a reserve in the fund that's still in
115our cash balance. It doesn't accumulate year-over-year. It's not accounted for separately. It's included in the five-year forecast. Um and you can see that budget stabilization reservation there. Um, so what we're talking about tonight, um, this is one of the funds, the special fund, the termination benefits fund. Sounds funny, um, but under Ohio law, uh, our collective bargaining agreements and board policy, we have, um, severance payments that we pay to employees upon retirement. Um, or, uh, pay out for vacation. And then, um, we have 26 pay periods a year. So we pay payroll bi-weekly. So every 10 years about because of the calendar shift, we end up having a 27th pay period in a fiscal year. Uh now we do spread out uh contract salaries over 27 pays instead of 26 pays to help account for
116that so that we're not overpaying people. Um but once every 10th year we have that irregular 27th pay. Um so that's what this fund is for. That's what this fund exists for is to help districts kind of plan for those um somewhat large expenses um in the future and build up reserves for that. Uh this fund uh can be rescended in whole or in part at any time. Um and I do have um some numbers on here that we'll go over in just a minute for that. And then uh the other special fund is the capital projects fund. Again, this is allowed under Ohio Revised Code and this will allow for us to accumulate resources for the acquisition, construction or improvement of fixed assets um including motor vehicles. Uh and this fund or the termination
117benefits fund is not included in the 5-year forecast. They are accounted for separately from the general fund. So um and then they must be obligated within 10 years and again the fund may be rescended in whole or in part if needed. Um just a reminder this is what we did as part of the bond issue last year. Uh we created a capital projects fund. We transferred $30 million. We had $170 million in need. um we were able to uh we would have been able to uh have bonds that would generated $140 million without additional millage from our community. And so um we put that with the uh bond issue um that we would have been able to address those projects. But since that bond issue failed with the operating levy back in November, the board
118rescended that capital projects fund. We've since moved that um money back to the general fund and that's where it sits today is in the general fund. Uh during the last um I think it was the forecast presentation might have been the pre might have been the board meeting before that I shared a video clip of representative Dave Thomas. Um he is a state rep that is out of the Ashtabula and Trumbull County area. Um he is spending a lot of time uh working on legislation for property tax reform and so uh he has been very vocal as have other um uh legislators and uh Senate President Rob McCaulay um held a press conference when they introduced the Senate's version of the budget with um Senate uh Finance Chair um Jerry Sero and they talked about
119how schools should be allocating and reserving those funds if they have a use for them um and that they shouldn't be sitting in the general fund. And so that's that's the conversation that we're having today. Uh just a reminder, we had a whole committee that met during calendar year 2024. It was the joint committee on property tax review and reform. So, a joint committee means that we that we had House members and Senate members that worked together. They met for hours and hours at a time um over calendar year 2024. And a lot of really just, you know, if you're really into this and want to learn about property taxes in Ohio, it's a great uh series of hearings to listen to. Um but and I appreciated the members on the committee. They asked a
120lot of thoughtful and intentional questions. Um, and they released their report, their final report on December 31st, 2024. There's, I think, 21 or 22 recommendations, about two and a half pages. Uh, nowhere in that document is a cash cap or clawback. Um, so I just want to make sure everybody's aware of that. They had a whole committee that met. Um, and that was nowhere in that report. So, um, I continue to remind our legislators of that as well. And I think that report is actually linked on this um graphic too if you want to click on it and look at it later. Um before we talk about levy types, let's talk real quick about the transfers. I think that's probably that would probably be a good conversation to have before we get into that. Uh
121so this rather large spreadsheet that you have in front of you and I apologize this was too big to include on a slide. Um I will ask um Jennifer to have this up on board doc so that um people can see this. But um if you start sort of like in the big list under capital projects fund down towards the bottom of the spreadsheet um all of those areas technology, business operations for professional and technical services, replacement equipment, contract repairs, um secondary curriculum uh for equipment, instructional software and textbooks, elementary curriculum for instructional software, music equipment and recorders. These are all things that are currently in our budget in our five-year forecast. They're currently being paid for and funded out of our general operating fund. Um, all of these things can be paid for out
122of a capital projects fund as long as they have a useful life cycle of five years or more. Um, they're they're considered they can be considered a fixed asset and uh be paid for out of that fund. And um then I've just totaled those by category. Bel below that. I it was helpful for me. I don't I don't know why I did that, but anyway, just so you you know what that is. Um and then above that is the termination benefits fund um for what we have projected to pay in severance. Um so you can see on average we pay about $1.3 million a year out in severance. Now that will change eb and flow um depending on retirements. changes in the retirement system, like all of those things. Uh we've seen a lot of
123changes to our retirement systems. So, uh those numbers will uh shift based on that. Uh but essentially what I've done is I've taken the first five years, so 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30. Uh totaled those up. Um and then I carried them up top to that. If you look at the termination benefits fund where it says general transfers out, that total is $6.6 million. Um, so that's what I'm proposing that we transfer out of the general fund from the from the balance uh to go into that termination benefits fund and then I'm proposing that we remove the expenses from the general fund and start paying the severance out of that fund over the next five years. Does that make sense? Okay. And then for the capital projects fund, now if you look at that
124big list down at the bottom, you can see that total for 2026 is 4.75 million that we're projected to spend out of the general fund. Um and then that total for the 10 years um that capital projects fund can be um held up to 10 years. Uh that total is 50.8 $8 million. I'm not proposing that we transfer that much out of the general fund. Um for now, uh we're looking at that 40.6 million um for the current year to transfer out and then we would begin paying those expenses out of the general fund beginning next year. I want to make it clear that we've already had folks do their budgets for next year. I don't uh I think what we'll look at just on the accounting side of coding those expenditures and not having
125everybody I just I feel like it's going to be really confusing for everyone to try to work through that. Did you want to talk about that? Yeah, I just want to emphasize it's really an accounting piece. So these are things that we're already paying for and it's legal to pay for them out of the general fund or out of a capital or severance fund. And so we're just looking at accounting it differently. It really won't look different on the user end whether it's with our leaders who are managing those funds or um our ultimate uh student use. Yeah. And so um and then looking at next year we may need to transfer additional funds to get to get us to that um amount. As you can see we're still a little bit we're under in
1262035 there. So we'll we'll continue to monitor that. but we may see ongoing transfers um if we're looking at maintaining that um cap or um cash balance. And I do think that we want to consider revisiting our cash balance policy when school gets back in and I start meeting with the finance committee again. Um we might want to consider having a conversation because we did talk about that as part of the finance committee. Um and the finance committee felt like that cap balance wasn't really necessary because of the nature of school funding and uh you know we continue to talk about how we're sort of on a bell curve. Sometimes we get money from the state, sometimes we don't get money from the state, right? But like eventually the funds we we go like this
127with funding. Um so, uh the committee had thought that a cap wasn't really necessary, but given the conversation we're having with we continue to have with the state about um cash balances and the cap and all of those things, I think it would be helpful if we updated our policy to reflect something that we're comfortable with. But I'd like to work with the committee on that, the finance committee, and just kind of get there because we did have that conversation and they didn't think that that was necessary. But I just want to follow back up I think this next school year and see about updating that policy. Um can I ask a question real quick just about that? Yes, please. Capital projects fund. Um it's a 10-year provision right on the capital projects fund. Yeah.
128So what it says is it must be obligated within 10 years. Obligated. Okay. Just didn't have the language in my head. Okay. Yeah. And and just just thinking through the mechanics, right, of that, right? So say we move 40 million over, that means that we have to use or obligate 40 million in the next 10 years. We can then add 7 million next year and it's like a rolling 10 years, right? Okay. Yeah. And we would account for it based basically on like a first in first out. First out. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Thanks. And not that we actually wouldn't need that money for capital improvement projects, but um if we were to need some of that money, we can pull it back out at any time. So, I mean, so we're moving the expenses with
129it. So, we are definitely going to use the funds. Um I think that if you know something happened and we wouldn't need to worry about that cash cap. I mean, it's really just moving the balance and the expenses out of the general fund and accounting for it in a separate separate fund. Overall, it doesn't change the financial picture of our district. These are the cash balance is um something that we have available to us now, but that will um deplete over time. This isn't an ongoing revenue source for us. And so I think that this probably adds complication and makes it seem like that might be an ongoing revenue source which just adds confusion to everything. Uh I think it was much more clear and in the forecast that you could see we have this
130cash balance now as our revenues and expenses aren't as our revenues aren't keeping up with our expenses that cash balance is going to decline over time. Um but eventually uh we'll if we transfer this money out, we'll continue to pay for those expenses out of the other fund as that balance is still there. But once that balance is gone, all of those expenses will either need to we'll have to adjust somehow um or they'll all come back to the general fund. And I don't think that there's a world where we cannot buy technology for a year or replacement equipment or contracted repairs. Um, I mean, textbooks and instructional materials, that's why we're here is to educate kids. So, um, I think that that would be difficult to completely eliminate those expenses because I love bad
131analogies with personal finance. Mhm. It's a little bit like deciding you're going to put open a savings account and you're going to pay your car payment and your mortgage out of it. Yeah. Right. Same money, same expense. You just moved it over here. Yeah. Right. So, it's not extra money. you're not hiding it. You still plan to use it. So, it's sort of like if you think about um while this is a large amount all at once, but you can think of it like uh the car payment piece. Maybe I have a certain amount taken out of my check and put into a savings account every two weeks, but my car payment only comes out once a month. So, I'm building up that amount to pay that payment. Um, and that's essentially what this is
132doing. And I think just to be blunt and call the elephant out in the room, we've always had this money in there with the intention of using it for these purposes, but our legislators don't trust that that's our purpose. So, we're just being making it crystal clear through accounting practices so that we don't have the resources that have already been provided by our taxpayers to pay for these things taken away. Yeah. So, that's this very large spreadsheet. Like I said, I'll post it later so that they have it on board docs. Um, so I I'd like to kind of shift gears to levy conversation. Um, before we go there, Nicole, so we're going to move this. Are we going to revisit this the next Oh, I'm sorry. We'll have a resolution on the 20 June
13323rd agenda. Thank you. Yeah, I apologize for that. Thank you for mentioning that. Excuse me. Uh so uh this slide was on our uh forecast presentation. Um just a reminder of the different levy types. So schools uh we have the ability to ask our community for property tax levies. There's various iterations of that. Um or income tax levies. Uh and again this is just for um income taxes. We can only ask for residents uh tax on the income of residents, but we aren't able to ask for like a city might be able to tax an income tax for people who work in their city. That's not the case for school district income tax. The school district income tax only applies to residents um of the school district and it would apply to all residents of
134the school district. And just to be clear, um we've never passed an income tax. Uh no, we have not passed an income tax. We have not had an an standalone income tax on the ballot in a few decades, I think. Um, at least a couple of decades. I'd have to pull that up. But, uh, the last time we had an income tax, I think was 2011. Um, and it was combined with a property tax um, at that time. And I think it's probably been a while since any school district has passed a new income tax, honestly. Uh and this is the conversation that the legislators are having. Um during there was a um what do they call it? Property tax relief act something house bill 335. So um some legislators have put together multiple bills
135in the name of property tax relief and they've combined a lot of those bills into the house bill 335. They had a press conference. It was about 33 minutes long that they held the other day. It was um uh House Ways and Means Chair uh House Representative Member Ror and uh Thomas is the vice chair. And uh they talked about wanting to provide um property tax relief and I believe it was Thomas that said we told schools six months ago that they needed to diversify their revenue. Um and they they are proposing um eliminating the inside millage that we receive. So for us you know on residential tax rates about 39 mills inside millage is about 38 of that 3.8 of that excuse me um less than 10% of that and um the that would
136go away. That's about a little over 16 million a year for us if that were to go through the way that it is. and that's set by the state constitution. So, um, lots of conversations to be had around that. But in the press conference and what I hear legislators continue to say is that schools should not continually go back for property taxes and that they should be asking their community for income tax levies. Um, and our we don't have the ability to ask for a sales tax um or anything like that. So, we can lobby the state for more funding through the school funding formula or we can ask our community uh for additional funding to keep pace with inflationary increases that we're seeing in the cost of educating children. Um those are really our
137options. I just want to point out in passing that the inside mills are the the only mills that House Bill 920 does not apply to. Yes. So they want to get rid of the millillage that where when property values go up, that's the only millillage where we get increased collections. Yes. And that's the part they want to get rid of. Yes. Just to be clear. Yes. So um just a reminder, property taxes are levied on all real estate located within the district's boundaries. It's not exempted. Um House Bill 920 limits growth on all voted tax levies. So as values go up, the county auditor reduces tax rates. So the revenue that the district receives remains generally the same on those voted levies. Uh and municipalities are also are able to limit or exempt growth on
138new construction. So that happens through economic development tools like tax incentive financing programs or community reinvestment areas through tax abatements. Um so and we continue to have lots of conversations about those uh for income taxes. Um, schools can ask their community uh for a tax levied on income of all residents. So that's anyone residing within the district boundaries. And I keep hearing that renters don't pay property taxes. I think they do through rent, but like um just a reminder that like even if you are renting, if you live in the district um and you're gainfully employed receiving an income, you would be subject to the school that your employer is required to withhold school district income tax. Um and it can be based only on earned income. Uh so there's a traditional income and then
139there's an earned income. And traditional is basically uh tax on all income. And earned income is just wages. Um it doesn't apply to retirement income, investment earnings or anything like that or unemployment income. And uh income taxes are subject to the eb and flow of the economy. So um if incomes go up, we would see growth in those revenues. If incomes go if incomes go down, we would see declines in those revenues. It's subject to that eb and flow. um property taxes because those amounts when we pass a property tax levy, the county certifies the amount that that levy will collect and it will continue to adjust the rates as values go up down so that we collect that same amount year-over-year. Um and then if values go down, tax rates will go up but
140only to the voted rate. So our last levy was 5.9 mills, operating levy was 5.9 mills. um it's probably collecting around three and a half mills today, probably lower than that with 2023 reappraisals, but um but if values went up, that might bump up a little bit, but it would never go above 5.9 mills. Um so that's just kind of how those that works. So just a note about those. Um and then I shared this also. This is from Legislative Service Commission. This was a member brief released February 4th, 2025. This just shows what school districts have income taxes. Um, and then it highlights county boundaries, too. Um, so just a note, and I wish I would have pointed us out. So, we are right there. Can you see us? That white. So, Big Walnut
141I think is this district up here. It's hard to get that straight from this far back. Um, so you can see where we are. Lots of schools have income taxes around the state. Um, sorry, quick question just to clarify on the earned income. Um, is it so it's it's earned but is it W2 income only or I mean what are the different sources of you know what I mean? Um, well it might be uh I it would probably be um B like business if you are in the district. Yeah, I think it would apply to that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Um the what was I gonna say about that? Oh, the timing. Um and I'll talk about that on this slide. Uh so when Oh, sorry. When we look at revenue generated, so income taxes
142versus property taxes. Uh so income taxes, we can only ask for increments of a quarter of a percent. Uh so a traditional income tax a quarter of a percent would generate about $10.4 million a year. Earned income would be about 8.7. So you can see those differences um with those different increments um down the table. And then property taxes a mill for us is about 4.3 million. That's based on our assessed values the county. Um and you can see what uh 2 mills 3 mills four mills 5 mills 6 mills. Nicole, for the estimates here on the income taxes, is that based on approximately what people in the district are making now, like this year? Yeah. So, um I got these numbers from the Department of Taxation. They give us they give us these estimates.
143Uh they said that they will be updating those income tables um sometime this month. Okay. And so that that may change in the future, but they acted like it wouldn't be a huge change. How often do they update them? once a year. Okay. So, annually. One thing to point out too is there is pending legislation that that would be capped at a 1% that we would be able to ask for. Yes, that is true. Um also, uh just a reminder the timing. So, a property taxes uh follow a tax year. So, if we were on the ballot in November for tax that would be for tax year 2025, we would start seeing collections in calendar year 2026. Um, which would mean we'd see a half year of collections in fiscal year 26 and then a
144full year beginning in 27. Uh, for an income tax, there is an 18month uh sort of phase in window. And so we wouldn't realize it would sort of be a little wonky um for those 18 until that 18month time period and they could we could realize full collections um going forward. So um just a note about that. I think this is my last slide. Yeah, it is. So, I want to turn it over to Carrie because I I just want to make sure that the board's aware and that our community is aware. Um, when we talk about capital projects, so this capital projects fund, we're essentially taking um things that we would already be paying for out of our general fund um just for general upkeep, anything that would be a fixed asset that we
145would normally pay for out of our general fund um to shift into that fund and to pay for that. Uh, but we have overall hundreds of millions of dollars of capital needs that we have no funding for. And so I want um Carrie to share some information with us about that. You sound great. They put us together. So the information in front of you is just put together some deferred project considerations um that we have on the operation side of the house. It includes in our IT world um a one-toone technology plan in which um there's been a lot of discussion and desire to have this opportunity for our students. Um it also includes continuing um the teaching wall upgrades at the six elementary school buildings remaining to be done. So um all of our
146secondary buildings have been completed um at the elementary level. The buildings that have been renovated have had this upgrade done. So, um, these are the six buildings that remain at the elementary schools, um, that currently have a setup very similar to to this. Uh, it also includes upgrades to our server, switch gear, infrastructure, security panel replacements. All these things are general um, preventative maintenance and or replacement cycles on equipment. So, we're going to need to do some of these things soon. um but we've deferred them um as we deal with available funding. We have what we have. Um additionally on here included are the numbers that were part of the bond project um that was not successful in November. So you have numbers on here um for Cherington Huber. Uh I apologize Huber's on here
147twice. One of those should say Robert Frost. My apologies. Um, so Cherton, Huber Ridge, Blendin, and Walnut Springs were the buildings that we discussed with the levy, but to remember that the facility master plan was originally um to include all six of those buildings plus uh Westerville North back in 2019 when the facility master plan was um adopted. So all of those numbers were provided by Elford um in their March of 2024 uh proposal for that work which is how we decided to move forward the six buildings that were on that ask. So you see those numbers there that those numbers do not include the inflationary rates we've seen since then either. So take that into consideration. You will see two numbers for Westerville North. It's a renovation um and partial replacement of the building
148andor full replacement of the building. and to understand with OFCC the expedited local partnership program that um Nicole mentioned earlier if a building hits twothirds rule and what that is is that the cost of renovation becomes twothirds of what the replacement value is they will recommend you replace the building so that's why both of those numbers are included that's not a decision that's been made but both of those numbers are included um we also talk about roofing projects oftentimes much like at home just because the shingles go have a 50-year life cycle when it becomes time to replace them, you can work with a roofing company to determine if now is the time or not. So, we do have some deferred roofing projects um that we are aware of. Our high school theater renovations um
149those were part of the ask in November. Um if anybody has spent any time in our three different high school um theaters, we know that it is time um to make some investment in some of them more so than others, but everybody needs um some attention. And that's the numbers you see there. Um, those spaces are as much used for our school events as they are for our community. Um, so we keep those on a rolling plan as we can address needs as they come along. Um, parking lot and playground resurfacing and preventative maintenance. Um, we've done a really good job with those bond funds of addressing some of our parking lots as we've been able to. Um, as everybody knows, there's a lot of asphalt in this district. We have nearly 30 buildings and
150lots of parking lots that surround them. Um, the other thing that we are seeing with a growing uh, special needs population in our schools, we need to address our playground surfaces as well and um, our access to the equipment along with the equipment that the playground equipment that's out there as well. Um, balcony enclosures at McVey Wilder and Heritage Middle School. We actually deferred that project this year as well. Um those we're looking at uh safety enclosures for those spaces along with helping with the sound. When those buildings were constructed, there are classrooms that face those open spaces. Um and so when you have lunch going on um or an assembly going on, uh it could be very disruptive for the rest of the building. That would help um at all three of those locations.
151Always plumbing and electrical infrastructure upgrades. Again, think about your home. Everything has to be addressed at some point. Um we do things as they become um urgent. Remember our goal is always warm, safe, and dry. Um building envelopes, preventative maintenance. So these are buildings that have to be cared for. So you're looking at um we've we've spent the board has approved the ceiling of some of our um split block out surface of our buildings. We've had some u envelopes the where the roof and the building meet that have had to be addressed. Um some masonry work things that need to be done. I believe it's Genanoa that's getting done this summer. We did central last. So um not fancy things but necessary to maintain um our buildings. And then we've identified so with the Westerville
152South project coming um getting wrapped up what was bid and presented to the community back in 2019. We've lived in it. Um the the students have attended, the teachers have worked through that. Um we're very grateful for that. But we've identified additional needs that that building has. It would be an additional project. Um so you'll see that number on there as well. So grand total for all of the things that I've gone through. um 365,195,424 if you renoed north. Those are some big numbers, but those are deferred projects. if you look at just um the project outside of the facility master plan. So everything else that I mentioned outside of the facility master plan um that's 27.5 million almost in projects of just deferred projects that we can do um if we had the funding
153to do so. So, I just want to remind everybody that in addition to these projects, we also have permanent improvement levies um and a fund that pays for ongoing building repairs and maintenance and school repairs. So, what um Doug presented us to us tonight with the tracks, that's being paid for out of our permanent improvement levy dollars. Um and that generates roughly a little over $9 million a year um through those lease. Those permanent improvement not only does some of the projects in which heard like track replacements um we will HVAC projects just depends on what the project needs are um urgent needs for that year. But we also pay for our buses and our Mayban replacements. Our buses are on a 14-year replacement cycle. Our my vans are on a seven custodial equipment replacement
154to keep the buildings clean. um our maintenance vehicles, AV upgrades, musical equipment replacement, it's also an important um thing that we do with our permanent improvement dollars. Um furniture replacement as well. So um we make those dollars go pretty far considering just for footage. And Carrie, just to put in perspective, when we talk about 9 million in PI funds roughly a year, um what do we typically have in HVAC a year and how many buildings does that cover? Just to kind of give the scope of that and and or maybe the roofing, just to kind of put some context to those numbers when we're talking about taking care of 30 different facilities across the district. So, you heard Doug mention that we have about $4 million in HVAC projects a year right now. It varies
155by building. It's hard to say like we do four or five buildings a year because it depends on the age of the unit and the time that it needs to replace it. Um so a building like South can have 10 units on the roof and they're not all going to need replaced at the same time. You have a smaller building like Emerson, you might have three or four um units that need to be replaced. So we probably have four to five projects a year and you spend about four million right now. and you think about the cost of that equipment and the inflationary rates and the what's coming in the near future potentially with our tariffs, those costs are only going to grow. Roofing, um about $1.5 million a year in roofing projects. Um also
156with parking lots as well. So probably over half of that money between roofing and HVAC just are regularly scheduled replacement cycles for all the buildings we have. Correct. So that money doesn't last long, I guess, is the point I wanted to make. So, as we look at um the other things that need done, we have to make a lot of choices. We do. We do. And I just want to note because I did ask um our logistics department about the cost of a school bus. Do you have that? Do you want to share that? I do. So, our cost of a school bus, um, let's 2020, five years ago, um, I'm sorry, 2022, it was 105,245. Um, FY26, we are planning for a standard school bus, so not one with a wheelchair lift, at $152,15,366.
157um our my vans when we started the program in 2018 we were spending $37,000 on my vans were um planning to spend I like numbers um not planning to spend what we're required to spend now it's costing us $75,000 a van that 37 was just one one per per vehicle. They basically doubled. They have doubled and those um those vehicles are paid for out of that PI fund. Um and there's like she said, we have the schedules that we have them on. So there's different amounts paid. Um how many did we buy this? Feel like I just signed off on like 12 or It was 12 and 25. Uh we have 16 being replaced this FY26. That's the the plan 16 buses each year and seven my vans. And I think you've mentioned this before,
158but that replacement cycle is really determined by maintenance costs and like hitting that sweet spot, right, of where we're spending more to fix things and it makes more sense at that point to replace. That really does come into play with the My Vans. We're able to maximize um a trade-in value um and get every bit of the warranty while we have it. Anything outside of that, you're looking at increased um mechanic costs as well as things that we have to send out for the warranty work to be or then what would have been warranty work to be completed. Everything else we can handle in house within that seven years on the my van um with our very talented and dedicated mechanics that we have over at transportation. Same with our buses. So, if I'm looking
159at this um correctly, so not not counting what we're already addressing with our PI funds on an annual basis, um which isn't really a ton, but um we still have over $300 million worth of just needs for our facilities that's been identified today. Yeah. And that includes our facility master plan. And how often do we like look at the facility master plan and update? Um so this last cycle was on a fiveyear. So as we approached the first five years um we started looking at the buildings that were identified and the second five years of facility master plan. That's also when we identified we needed to move out of a 10-year plan. um just the cost the inflationary rate of cost of construction and the renovations itself um had grown uh gosh was it 32%
160on average um so we knew we had to amend what we thought we were initially going to be able to do within a 10-year period. Our buildings will continue to age. There is a gap between the facility master plan identified buildings and the next set of buildings until they turn that um age 50 to 55 that we start to look at uh renovation. Um I think it's about 14 years that we really have a gap in there um before we had the buildings that were built in the 80s. So I think you know my point in wanting to have this conversation is to just share to make sure that everybody understands and I just want to make sure that it's open and transparent that our cash balance wouldn't be enough to address the needs that
161of the district that that we do have. Um we are using our cash balance to continue operations as best that we can. Um our revenues are not keeping pace with inflationary increases on any level. And so um I mean we are at a point to where we need to ask our community for more money. Um we need the state to fund its share of education. um or we need to make some really serious um significant cuts to our I'm I'm talking closing buildings and significantly reducing services overall um to our students. I'm Thanks Nicole, thanks Carrie and everyone. um thinking about all of this and what would you I mean what would you recommend? Um I think we need to uh have an understanding of what we're comfortable with. We're our revenues and expenses are
162upside down by over $20 million a year. Um we need to generate 20 mill $20 million a year at least um more year-over-year. I I think that if we asked for an income tax levy, I think we would probably be at about threequarters of a percent to be able to keep up, especially when you figure in that 18month window. And whether that's um in November or if that conversation happens in uh next year, in the spring, or in the fall, um we have to take that into account. Um, and then for property taxes, I mean, we probably need to be at around close to six mills, five to six mills depending on and if we So, if we went with an income tax, an earned income tax or an income tax, a traditional, would we
163be when do we need to um had like do we need to make a resolution next? Yeah. So, if we wanted to be on the ballot this November, we would have to have a resolution for property taxes by the June 23, the next board meeting, June 23rd. Um to be certified by the county and then we would come back with the second resolution uh in July. Uh and that has to be filed by the I think it's August 6th is the deadline. It's the same as um candidate petitions. Everything's due by that date. Uh for income taxes, um the resolution would have to be approved in July um and still have that same August 6 deadline. There's only the one resolution to the Department of Taxation. Uh so I guess I should clarify the threequarters
164of a percent would be if it were an earned income. Um, if we looked at a traditional income, I mean, because it's only quarter percent increment, it would I mean, I wouldn't go above half a percent, but that would be tight, I think, as we're looking at things moving forward. Um, and I think that we would if if we're on the ballot in November or whenever we're on the ballot again, I think we would need to have a very clear conversation with our community and with our board about uh what we would have to look at making where we would need to make reductions if it weren't successful. Um, I I know I mean we have to make some decisions, right? I I worry that I know we we don't know what's coming from the
165state whatsoever, but we can't wait around for that either. We have to move forward and I I think we have to be on the ballot in no in November. I guess for me that's just where I am. I'm trying to figure out which is a better avenue, right? And I do like I'm I do like this earned income idea because it doesn't harm the the poor. It doesn't harm people that maybe are living on a retirement um budget or you know maybe are um what's unemployed. I I do like that aspect of it. Um, regarding not knowing what we're going to get from the state, I think everybody understands how this works, but let's just be clear, it's not going to be better than the Senate version, but the House and Senate are going to
166conference. So, I think so it's not there's no magic in there. There's I'm I'm not aware of any magic that's left. But, um, so Senator Jerry Sereno is the chair for the House for the Senate Finance Committee. Uh, and during testimony with OASBO, um, Katie Johnson, the executive director of OASBO, uh, he said, "The Senate's version is the best version you get, and you better get on board with it." Yeah. So, so what I've shared with our legislators local and abroad um is that we uh our district will continue continue to thoughtfully plan um and try to make decisions that will have minimal impact on students as best that we can. Uh but at the end of the day, I think that it's up to our community and we have to remember that our schools
167are belong to our community. This is what does our community want for its school system. Uh you all represent our community um at this level. And so I think it's um you know ultimately where we think we need to be. So, from a timing standpoint, I think just quite bluntly, what it comes down to is we've talked before, we have cash. We're living off our savings account. Sorry. We can either spend it down more before we go on the ballot, but then if we don't pass, we're it's critical and we're cutting immediately a lot. Or we try now when we still have a little bit of runway, but people there's a confusion piece, right, where we have to try to educate. people don't always understand the difference between a deficit and what is in our
168cash balance and the fact that the cash balance is depleting and now that we're making transfers I think that is just going to be wholly confusing for everybody. Um so and I I want to make it very clear that these transfers will not impact any levy need. It's just shifting where we're stuff from. It's just accounting for things differently. Um it does not affect it does not affect our levy timing. our revenues are not keeping up with our expenses. So, we either need to increase our revenues or we need to reduce our expenses and there is no like that's just how that math works which that's not new. That's why we were on the ballot in the fall and we were obviously unsuccessful. So, fortunately at that point we did have a cash balance and
169so we have made some austerity measures but we're not at this like devastating cut level again the longer we wait to go back on. So the decision now is do we put something on in November? Do we wait until next calendar year? The longer we wait, the more if it doesn't pass, we're going to have to cut. So that's kind of the discussion and the the point that, you know, you all have to decide on. Well, in particular, if you're talking income tax with the 18month, you know, it we can't wait until next year and then have another 18 months. That puts us out a little bit. Yeah. It's a long ways out. The hard piece is, again, I'm just in a really candid mood tonight, is that the legislators and then the narrative that
170they've told around this budget puts us in a really difficult place of trying to secure additional revenue because they're trying to tell a story that we have money we don't need. I think we've demonstrated tonight we more than we need more than what we have, but that's not the narrative that they've been telling the public. So, we are combating that and that's going to be a difficult piece for us. Well, I I mean, I think we need to We've talked about this so much, right? We've continued to talk about it. I know pe like I could go back and watch all of these videos if I wanted to. I would hope that our community would watch, listen, share, and combat that. And I feel like the more people I'm talking to out in, you know,
171out and about, they're they're starting to actually really talk about these things, like they're listening. And so I I, you know, I feel that we just need to continue to do that. I guess my question is if we went with an earned income tax, we aren't able to collect for 18 months. Does that harm us? Do we have to make any cuts as a result of that or we're going to say we'll be we don't know what's happening at the state level and so you know like there's that precautionary so I think at the 3/4 of a percent and taking into account the 18month um window I think that we don't know what the state budget's going to do regardless of any school funding formula it's never going to be enough to make up the
17220 plus million dollar shortfall in revenue. Um, I think that we'll uh I think it it's just going to get harder the longer that we wait. Um, the property tax piece, like I said, that's always a year behind. So, the 25 collection and 26 um because of that tax year. So, it's really um what I guess makes sense for our community. And when you think about our community, we have a very large disparity in wealth in our community from property values to income. Um I don't know. I mean, I I wish I knew what made sense. I wish we had a reliable school funding formula. I wish that the state would do its part and we would know um what we have coming our way year over year. I wish I wish that we had
173a revenue source that would keep up with inflation increases, at least provide for some uh inflationary increases. I just um I mean I think I think the timing with the 18-month window I think we would be fine with the 3/4 of percent overall. But and as I've said that is going to eb and flow with the economy and those incomes. So if incomes go down that revenue will go down. If incomes go up that revenue will increase. So and I'm not saying if we pass an income tax levy we will never need another tax levy. I want to make that very clear. Um we are going to continue to have to go back to our voters in the future um if we see large increases in need without adequate funding um that we've seen historically
174or for example the inside millillage goes away inside that's another $16 million if that were to go away. Um, yep. The and you know when we have conversations about economic development and the tax abatements and the tiffs and all of those things like all of that has the ability to impact our our our potential for growth in revenue going forward. So, it's just a conversation we'll have to continue to have um over and over again in terms of um you know, so if if we were talking about an earned income tax in terms of you know what what rate um you know I think for me what is the July what meeting we would have to it's the only meeting we have in July. It's July the 9th I think. July 9th. Okay. So, I
175guess it doesn't really matter. I mean, the state will probably sign a budget June 30th. There have been a couple times when it's crept into July, which is why I was just want to make sure. Yeah. So, a couple beniums ago, they did a temporary measure for the first couple weeks in July. Yep. I mean, I don't know. They seem to be getting these past pretty quickly. It doesn't seem It doesn't seem like that's where we're going to end up. Doesn't seem like it. But for me, the question is, I mean, there is a pretty big difference between where the House is right now and where the Senate is. So, like if we knew we were going to be where the Senate is, I would say, "Okay, I'm thinking 34." But if we end up
176closer where the House is, the timing works out well for us to consider it might need to be higher than that. Yeah. So, we will know. That was the whole point in waiting. We will know. And then if we decide that it's the way I would lean is earned income, but where that rate needs to end, I need to see where we end up. And it fortunately works out. We can wait and see. Yeah. Yeah. And and these will be adjusted slightly too once the Department of Taxation gets their their numbers updated. Um he didn't give me any particular date on that. He said it should be sometime this month. Uh so before we'd have that If if we're looking at income taxes, we would have some updated numbers before the board would consider that
177resolution. Um, property taxes, like I said, if we want to be on for property taxes, we would have to have the first round of legislation by the 23rd, the next meeting. And just, this might be a dumb question, but the income tax, if we were to pass an earned income tax, that doesn't have like a sunset date. It's not like this will be an income tax for 15 years and then it goes away. We would do it continuing. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we had a 4.9 mil levy on the ballot in November because we needed it. It's not like those needs mysteriously disappeared. We've since made a lot of cuts. I mean, we have eliminated over 30 positions in the district. And I like to remind people that we didn't have 33 people sitting around
178doing nothing in this district. That means a lot of people are doing a lot more with less. Um I think that uh you know we've heard conversations about class sizes and all of those things, but I think if we're going to have to continue to make cuts if we don't see additional revenues in the future, the needs are all still there. Um, we did this, we talked about this in the fall and I think we did a good job today talking about, you know, projected projects, what we're spending overall, but could you remind us what the dollar amount is in terms of our expenditures on a day-to-day b basis districtwide, like per day, how much are we spending? Uh, we spend over $600,000 a day. So, that's a lot of money. And that's 365 day
179year. So, that's Mhm. not just the 180 days that schools open. Thank you. So, I kind of feel like we need to have an understanding of where we all are, right? Because our next meeting is the 23rd. I like Jen, I think it's per for me. I I've already said I'm leaning towards earned income. I do believe we need to be on the ballot in November. I do appreciate that we have that ability to say is it 75 or is it one knowing what we get back from the um general assembly but I'm just curious as to where you two are. I know we discussed this earlier in the week. I think I'm the type of person that like to weigh out the pros and cons. For me, I think from today to the end
180of the week, it'll be connecting with community members, really understanding, making sure that we're taking into account what their needs are, what, you know, how do they feel about this so that I can make a final judgment. But right now, I think I am definitely leaning towards the income um earned income um option. I I'm in the same spot. I mean, we needed the money last November. The reason we punted from May was so that we could, like you said, understand what's coming down the pike from the state legislative budget as well as if there are going to be any significant impacts federally. Um I I don't know that we have a good necessarily uh understanding of the federal piece quite yet, but we will at least know the state budget piece by the end
181of this month. I don't I don't foresee them taking longer than they need to. Um, I do think the income tax piece is interesting because one of the things that we do hear quite a bit, especially from older um, property owners, community members, is that they're being essentially taxed out of their homes um because it's all property taxes all the time. So the earned income piece would kind of alleviate that from those, you know, adults who prefer to age in place because this would not be taxing their retirement, you know, income. So that's an interesting um I think avenue to look at with this and it does give us the flexibility to understand what we do need to raise. I I would be shocked if there was a bunch of community members out there who
182were like, "No, please increase my property taxes, but you know, nobody wants to pay taxes, period, but services require money." So, [Music] so I'm sorry, are you both thinking November, too? Okay. Just want to add the last piece about property taxes is there's so much conversation and you know we see this about property tax reform and what is that really going to mean that I I take the advice to heart that we should try to diversify you know our revenue streams. So um I was here in 2011 when that uh ballot issue didn't pass. It was combined income um and operating. I think we're in a very different place. Um, and so I just I I appreciate again the way this lines up and that we have the time um to wait and watch and
183to to hear from folks. But um yeah, I think we've got to do something and we have to do it this fall. That's my opinion. Okay. So, I think we feel pretty comfortable with going forward in the fall with an earned income. I guess Ana, are you Yeah. Okay. And then and what we're not hearing though is you want us to bring something back next meeting about property tax. And that's the big piece we need to know right now. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll we'll know something by the end of this month as to what the state's going to do. We'll be able to make a more informed decision. Um, so but we will miss the timeline for the property taxes. I just want to make sure that's clear. Okay. Yeah. I' I mean, at least
184what I heard was we're interested in the earned income piece of it. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, that was Thank you. Thanks for a lot. I'm sorry. No, but it was all good information and I appreciate the people that actually stayed for all of that, too. Um, okay. So, do we need a motion to move back into Okay. Um, so board comments, who would like to start? Well, I can, I guess. Okay, nobody will. Um, I want to take a moment and really thank uh we have great partners in the Westerville um city school district and I want to thank the Westerville City Council for passing a resolution last Tuesday night in support of public education and support of us receiving our full funding. Um, I also want to thank Janet Davis in the Westerville
185Chamber of Commerce. she in the Westerville Chamber sent a letter to our legislators as well and and to the governor in support of um school funding. And I think that's really important to show that we have support from our local government. We also have support from our businesses. But also just thank you to all the community members, um families, students that have gone down to testify or reached out to our legislators. It's really important and I'd say keep please please please please keep doing so but thank you. I know it does take time but it has been really encouraging to be out in public and hear people talking about this. Um I really also want to extend a huge thank you to everyone that put so much time and effort into making sure that our
186graduations went off without a hitch. It takes a lot of staff and resources and time to nail that down perfectly. And wow, what a wonderful time it was. Um, and just congratulations again to the seniors. So, I'm all about gratitude tonight. Um, I also want to take a moment to to thank our teachers and staff for another really successful year. I know it's been rough. You know, I'm sure you feel like you're being attacked at all sides. um and we're not sure what's happening down at the state house, but it's because of you guys that maybe a student got curious or interested in something new, finished the year strong. Um my children as well, so thank you. Graduated, felt comforted, you know, smart and just so much more. And so, um it was fun to
187be out, as I had said, talking to families. And one of the I heard a lot from students about how much they love their teachers and staff. Um, and I also heard from one student who said, "No, I'm not happy that it's summer. I really want to be in school." Which I was shocked. I've never heard that before. But um I think what that really says uh um so I think that what it really says is that um they feel cared for, right, by all of you and they walk in that building and they feel seen. So, I simply just want to say thank you. I value all of you and really am a in awe of each of you and you walk into this district every day with all this outside noise and you
188put it aside and you focus in. So, just thank you. Um, and then with that, I just hope everyone has a great summer if you're having a summer. Um, I know that the students have these rituals for winter, right? What are they like? Put so many ice cubes in the toilet. could we maybe do some for some sun and warm weather? I very much appreciate that. But that is it for me. Just a lot of gratitude. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um I echo all of that. Really and truly congratulations to our 1,400 plus grads. That was really awesome to witness. But also congratulations again to our retirees. It's always wonderful when we come to these meetings and we see more sadly see people leave the workforce. but also just being in awe of
189what they've been able to contribute to this district. Um, and then to our athletes uh who were recognized today, that's awesome. So, congratulations to them as well. Um, I would say on my end, we went through a lot right now. I think Nico and Angie, I appreciate when we asked you guys, you know, in just three bullet points, what can we have the community members leave take away um from this um meeting today? But there will be a lot more questions after this meeting and so please reach out to me to everyone on this board. Um because this is a lot of information to digest in just one sitting. Um but I think I've been very proud of the advocacy and the leadership. I mean we're really killing it um as a school district and
190we're getting that feedback. So these clawbacks and these proposals are terrible on all fronts, but I think the work that we're doing is making some difference and um I think we can get bogged down with the negative, but also we really are doing a great job as a district. And so just want to encourage you guys to continue the advocacy because we do have some time until Wednesday um and beyond to apply pressure to Governor Dwine. I echo all of the congrats and thank yous and all of that. Um, graduation is a very long day for us, but there are so many wonderful moments throughout graduation and congratulations to all of the graduates because whether you're going on to college, getting a job, going to the military, it's a big deal. It's a big celebration.
191So, I hope they're all taking time to celebrate and reflect on um their journeys. Um, and thank you to all of the teachers, the administrators, everybody in this district who helps make that possible. Um, so thank you. I also wanted to thank our community in myriad different ways. They've been very helpful and especially our advocates who have been pushing the state legislators, the state senators, Governor Dwine. This comes down to choices. a lot of choices being made with the budget. There's a lot of talk from a lot of different legislators about protecting of our kids, giving them opportunities. But from what I see, a lot of a lot of times with public schools, they're making choices that actually go against those values. And there are reasons for that. you know, if they were to put
192the money that they're using on vouchers, yes, I will bring up the vouchers again towards public schools instead of putting that money into private coffers, we could fund the formula. That is real. That is absolutely real. Um, but there are many lawmakers who would rather move towards education privatization. That is what some of these lawmakers ultimately want. So K- through2 education becomes a monetized commodity instead of a public good. Different schools can charge different prices. Different schools teach kids different things. So it it's not it's not a good situation. Um these are choices that I hope our lawmakers end up seeing the value in choosing all of Ohio's kids and funding public schools. I don't know that we're going to get anywhere close to what we need, but if we can continue to apply that
193pressure so that we can get as best as we can this goround, um that's important. And I think that in even number election cycles, really helping educate folks who care about public education about who they're voting for for the state legislature because they hold a lot of power and they make a lot of choices and not all of them are great. So, so um all the same congratulations and thank you. But I want to just give you a I want to paint a picture for you just for a minute of graduation from a board member's point of view. Right? So you we stand there. Sit stand sit stand. And we get to hear wonderful speeches by students who take this they get chosen to have this opportunity to speak to that whole expo center full
194of people and their peers many of whom they'll never see again and their teachers many of whom they'll never see again. And we get to hear them decide what's the most important thing I can say today. We get to sit there and listen to it for all three high schools and then shake every single hand. I'm gonna tell you your right arm gets real sore. It does by the end of it. It's like man my shoulder is kill I need you know it's killing me by the end of the day but I cannot convey. So just imagine student after student name after name every one of them is an individual that public education has given an opportunity. Some of them come across crying. Some of them come across uh wanting to run off because frankly,
195you know, it's can be it's terrifying up there. Can be. Um some of them you see them just run up and they want to hug that teacher. Some of them choose a teacher who was their first grade teacher, right? Or their kindergarten teacher. And that person made such a difference in their life that when they got to be a senior and they thought, "Who my who's who's going to give me my diploma? It's going to be that one." They changed my life ever since they were my teacher. Um, and so to experience that day up there on the stage and see every single one of those students come across reminds us all why public a public education has to exist. And so, like everyone else, I am truly grateful for the people who have been
196advocating for public education. I want to especially thank um you know, Miss Marshall, Miss Hamburg, um President Meyer's been down there more times than I can count and take in students. Some of us have day jobs that don't allow that much flexibility. And you know what? Like for me, I I have to be okay with that because I have a day job, but I know that they're doing it for all of us. And so I find ways to advocate in other ways. Um but just think about every one of those kids. No, not kids when they come across the stage at graduation. every one of those young adults coming across there because this community and our state put money into their future. So when I hear people say things like, "I've never had any kids.
197Why should I have to pay for public education?" I want to say things like, "Do you ever want to hire an accountant? Do you ever want to fly in an airplane? Do you ever want to drive on a road? Do you ever want to go to the doctor? Do you ever want to go to a park and hear a great talk from a park ranger? That's why. That's why. So, thank you all who believe in it and continue to advocate. Thanks. With that, the board will meet in regular session on Monday, June 23rd at 6 PM at the Early Learning Center, 936 East Wind Drive, West of Ohio, which is here. And we are going to move into executive session. You're welcome to stay, but may I have a motion to enter into executive session
198for the purposes of discussing the employment and compensation of public employees? So moved. Second. All right. Vote. Yes. Sorry. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Mrs. Alman. Yes. Mrs. Lee. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. It's 8:52. It's 9:34 and we're back. May I have a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. You take the vote. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mrs. Lee? Yes. Mrs. Altman? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yep.