4/7/26 School Board Meeting

001All right. >> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, April 7th committee, the whole meeting for the Penn Manor School District. Uh before I move on to any of the uh other announcements, may I have a motion to approve Mr. Charlie Risinger as our secretary for tonight only? >> So move. >> Oh goodness, that was quick. >> I'll I'll I'll try to be on point. >> All those in favor? >> Uh nine affirmative votes. Say, okay, I can do this. All right, there. Thank you for the practice run. >> Motion carries. The next scheduled meeting of the Pen Manor School Board will be held on Monday, April 20th, 2026 at 700 p.m. in the large group instruction room of Penmanor High School. An exe an executive session was held

002prior to the committee of the whole meeting for the purpose of discussing a student matter and personnel as detailed above. Mr. Risinger. May we have roll call, please? >> Yes, absolutely. Mr. Beaks, >> here. >> Mr. Her >> here. >> Mrs. Hope >> here. >> Mrs. Kek >> here. >> Mr. Lombardo >> here. >> Mr. Warfl >> here. >> Ms. Wart >> here. >> Mrs. Napsiger >> here. >> Dr. Fullerton >> here. >> Nine board members present. >> Present. Yes. Nine board members. Thank you. >> Good assist. I have No, I have not done this before. For those of you playing along in the audience, >> oh, we're going to have fun with this. All right. >> I help you. >> Live without a net. >> Yeah. Yeah. How many YouTube watchers tonight, Keith? >>

003700. >> Eight so far. >> Okay. >> There'll be more. May I have a motion to approve the minutes from our March 23rd committee of the whole meeting? >> So, moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. Second. Not quite as gustful as the motion for Mr. Risinger to be secretary. >> That's right. >> Any further comment or question? >> All those in favor? >> Nine affirmative votes. >> At this time, do we have any board development opportunities and reports? >> Any board reports? >> Yes, Dr. Fullerton. The uh Lancaster County Academy JC met last Wednesday, April 1st. I sent out a draft of the minutes yesterday. Hopefully, you had a chance to look them over. Just to point out a couple of the highlights and uh a little bit of additional information. He is

004officially a member at this point and so we're real excited about that and they will be a part of the West Campus up at Crossroads in Mount Joy. And concerning uh that facility, in the last few years that we've been there, we have not been charged to use that facility, but we've given them a $2,000 a year donation just to go towards internet and cleaning and whatnot. But they are looking for additional revenue at this point. So, they've come to us and asked if we would start paying $1,150 a month for the nine months, September through um June. So, we're working on that. There has not been an agreement signed at this point. They would also like us to pay for snow removal in the days that we're there. Uh we are pushing for a

005three-year agreement so that we don't have to address this every year and that we can maintain whatever the monthly agreement becomes. So, as I said in the budget that we'll be looking at in a in a little bit here, uh we do have that built into that. Um, I don't want it to sound negative because that's still a wonderful bargain and we have a very good relationship with Crossroads. It's been a a real positive experience for the West campus for us. Uh, additionally, we got a grant through the Kais Foundation of $1,000. We're going to put that towards the student library and also we keep a bank of clothing uh that the students can use for interviews. So, we're going to put it towards that also. Additionally, um I think it's interesting. Well, let me

006point this out. We do we did sign out a field placement agreement with Grand Canyon University. Two of our our teachers are going for their masters there. And now, uh we have an agreement that they can do their field placement right at the academy, which will be very convenient for them and helpful for us. One additional thing I'd like to let you know is if a student wants to go into the academy but does not test at the ninth grade level rather than rejecting them. We do allow the district to go send the student but we charge the district for two slots because it's going to require extra teaching to get that student up to par. But I think it's an excellent way to give the student an opportunity. Uh but it will cost the

007district two slots in order to do that. Finally, if you'll mark your calendars, graduation will be the Saturday after Memorial Day weekend, the last Saturday of May. It uh the 30th, and that's at 10:30, and it will be held at our Crossroads campus, our West Campus at Crossroads Church. >> Any questions for Mrs. Wart? >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Any other board reports? >> Yeah, just a quick report from CTC. Um, right now 93% of the programs are filled. Um, 15,600 out of 1,700 seats are are occupied. Um, which is u exciting. Um, they also started they're going to start a new program next year. Um it it's a building maintenance program up at Mount Joy. Um and that provided 20 additional seats and there's right around 290 seats that are where students are

008on weight list. So so things are good. It's um yeah new administration's in and doing a lot of good things. >> Wonderful. It's good news. >> Good news. >> Mrs. NAVSAR board opportunities. >> Sure. So, we have a board breakfast on Wednesday, April 15th at Lort. Um, and then several new opportunities. The first one being on Friday, May 1st, um, the alumni distinguished wall of honor assembly here at the high school at 10:30 followed by a lunchon. I would ask Mrs. Rhodess, but instead I'll ask Mr. Risinger. Do we need to RSVP to that? Do you know Mr. Risinger or Dr. Gail? Yeah, if you can just let Mrs. Rhodess know. Okay. Thank you. >> We're gonna I'm gonna email Mr. Risinger right now about it. So, yeah, I would say she would helpful. >>

009Sure. So, if you if you plan on attending that on May 1st, please uh let Mrs. Roads know as soon as possible. >> Um also, um at your places, you receive an invitation tonight to the PMEF retiree breakfast at 8:30 a.m. on May 6th, uh here in the LGI. Um, and then I think that's it for new opportunities. So, but we have a very busy May. Um, oh, to note our breakfast that was scheduled for May 6th is now May 7th at Pekway. Just to update your calendars. Um, but we have a we have a busy last marking period as school board directors. Uh, there goes those two meetings a month, friends. >> It's always exciting the last two months of school. >> Yeah. >> Lots of events, lots of good things. And that's a

010great segue into our student recognition tonight. I see some distinguished guests in our presence and it seems that they have some hardware around their neck. So, Mr. Tossi, I see you walking up to the podium. So, um I'll turn it over to you and Dr. Gail. >> All right. Well, thank you again for having me here. Uh this winter we had a pretty good season with a number of our sports. Our girls basketball team made it to districts again this year. Unfortunately, I think two years in a row now they hit the district champions first round which is always tough but uh they had a really good season. Just missed out making the league playoffs as well. Uh we had two wrestlers win league championships this year, Chase Harish and Mattie Fzado. So nice to

011add them to our uh wrestling list of league champions over the years. Um and then our boys wrestling team was voted by all the officials as the overall sportsmanship award winners for wrestling for all the teams in the league. And then within section one, our boys basketball and girls basketball both won the award as well. So nice to see our teams being recognized in that way as well. Um, but there's a couple individ one one individual in particular and a team I just really want to highlight from the winner. First, unfortunately, she could not be here tonight. I got a message from her mom that she is very sick and unfortunately was not able to make it. And that's Drew Landis. And if any of you have been following Drew's career, I mean, it's just

012been phenomenal since she's been here at Penn Manor. She's only a junior, but has tons of hardware to already show it. Uh this year alone she was a four-time league medalist and two-time league champion. She was a league champion in the 200 free and 500 freestyle. Um then she also won two medals with our relay teams as well. She was a two-time district medalist. Uh was second in the 200 free and fourth in the 200 IM. So as you can tell she swims a lot of different events. You never know what she's going to swim. Um, and then really what highlighted her year, um, anyone again that follows Drew knows she's a national level swimmer. She swam her personal best ever in the 200 freestyle to finish third in the state championship. So really just

013had a phenomenal race and was ecstatic with that accomplishment. This year alone, she set three school records in the 100 back. As I said, she does a lot of different events, the 200 freestyle and the 400 freestyle. in her career. When you look at what she's done, it's just really phenomenal. And again, she still has one more year left. She's a 12-time league medalist, winning four gold medals, six time district medalist with two gold medals and a two-time state medalist. At her freshman year, she was also seventh in the state. Now, this year, she added the bronze with the third place finish. So, the other thing that's just great about Drew, she's just an outstanding young woman as well. off out of the water as well. Just good student, good citizen. Really enjoy talking to

014her. She's just the type of leader and the student athlete that we can be really proud of here at Penn Manor. So, unfortunately, she can't be here, but definitely we're really proud of what she's accomplished this season and throughout her career and really look forward to see what she gets done next year. So, now our highlighted team this year, um, a couple years ago, I came in front of the board and tried to pitch. not tried, I did pitch. Adding unified botchi as our newest varsity sport. So now in our third year, just had a phenomenal year this year. And really want to just thank the leadership of Kyle Lenov, Sarah Stover, and Jen Crosen who have just done a phenomenal job with that program. We started out with one team, now we're up to

015two teams and they're just having amazing success both again when you look at it on the court and with what they're doing off the court with these um students. I'm going to introduce and bring up Sarah Stove to talk a little bit about the team and then let the players come up and introduce themselves. >> Thank you for taking the time to recognize our unified botchi team for their incredible season. Um, team two finished the season winning five out of their eight games. Team one finished the season winning seven out of their eight games and continued on to playoffs. They did win gold in their league playoff round and then came in fourth for regionals. This program is about much more than competition. It brings together students of all abilities to make connections and build

016friendships. As coaches, we are so proud of what our two teams were able to accomplish this year and how they consistently demonstrated teamwork and genuine support of one another on and off the court. I know Jen, Crows, and Wishy could have made it this evening to celebrate again with such an amazing group of student athletes. So, at this point, I'm going to turn it over to them to introduce themselves. Hi, my name is Bella and I'm in 12th grade. Hi, I'm Abby. I'm in 12th grade. >> Marky, please. >> What? What? What about about 12th grade. >> Yes. To 12th grade. >> 12th grade. >> Why? >> I'm Ally Weber and I'm in 10th grade. >> Hi, my name and I'm in 10th grade. I am and I am in 10th grade. Hi, I'm Sam

017Leander and I'm in 11th grade. My name is My name is Gavin Donaldson and I'm in 12th grade. >> Hi, I'm Morgan Millis and I'm in 10th grade. >> Hi, I'm Cara Gil and I'm in 10th grade. We did have a couple other athletes who are unable to join us, but um thank you so much for having us stop in and recognize the team. So, I would just like to thank uh Mr. Tacsi, uh Miss Lanehoff, Miss Stove, and of course, Dr. Rosen uh for your efforts this past season uh with our students and to our students who competed and Representative Pen Manor, thank you very much for the way you did that. I will say one of the uh probably more spirited events that we had was when we sent off the botchi teams

018to was that regionals or was that that was leagues, right? Where we had the walk through the halls. Uh so it was great to see everybody supporting you and that you went home or that you went off and and did well that day. So congratulations and thank you so much for being here tonight but then also representing uh Pen Manor in the way that you have. >> Can I put a little plug in for track? >> Yes, most certainly. That's right. >> Yes. So uh unified track is underway. We have 36 athletes. Our home meet will be April 23rd. Central and Valley. >> Great. >> 3:45 senior awards. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Lanehoff as well. >> All right. Well, thanks very much. And you guys don't have to stay. You're more than welcome

019to. We have some really uh fascinating presentations later, but uh if I were you, I would go home. >> Thank you again. I don't know. It's beautiful. >> Where did our audience go? >> I was going to say the audience significantly dim. >> Jeez, Dr. Gail, you know how to clear a room, >> right? >> I'm surprised board members didn't get up when you said you could leave. >> Um, >> crossed my mind. Well, I don't know about anybody else, but that was, you know, the best part of my day today, and I had a pretty pretty good day. Um, that's what we're here for. But we're going to move on to item two. And and we're welcoming Mrs. Stato here. And Mrs. Stato, I just don't understand it. I I don't understand why Dr.

020Gail and Mr. Fory dislike you so much that a they put you behind that and B, they told everybody they could leave before you they heard what you had to say. >> Happens to me a lot. Every district I go to, I get to follow things like that, which um >> is pretty cool, actually. I get to see a lot of cool programs that are happening across the state, but man, it's tough tough act to follow, >> right? So, let's let's talk school bonds. Oh, >> fascinating, riveting. So, good evening everyone. It's a pleasure to see you all again. Uh Ken and I were last out here right about three months ago um early in the new year to give you a bit of an update on few different factors, interest rates, your potential refinancings

021coming up and some of your longer term capital borrowing plans. And the plan was always to kind of come back this spring with um a recommendation, get maybe prepared to do some legal documents and update you on interest rates. Well, a lot has happened in our market over the last three months and really more specifically over the last, you know, month and a half or so. So, think it'll be a good discussion tonight. Again, I'm going to spout a lot of information at you. If at any point you want to stop, clarify, ask questions, please feel free to do so. So, the format is very similar to what we took you through in January, uh, but just updated with the latest and greatest information. So, first page review of your existing debt. As you recall,

022you have three bond issues with upcoming call dates whereby we are permitted to call those bonds away from investors and if interest rates are lower, issue them at new rates, lower rates, save the district some money. So the 2018, 2019A, and 2019b bonds are all callable uh with the first series being later this year in 2026 and the 2019 bonds callable in 2027. So, the thought was since we're going to need to pass a resolution for the first piece, which would be the 2018s, that we would just pass one authorizing resolution to cover all three because more than likely we'll be back in front of you again about a year from now to get going on that second refinancing. Saves you a little bit of money with the filing fees with DCD and with the

023advertising fees with the paper. So, that's where we stand right now. Page number three is just then nets out the reimbursement that you receive from the state through the plan con subsidy because several of your projects have run through the plan procon program in the past. The state actually chips in um anywhere from nine to nearly 10 cents on the dollar on your um current outstanding obligations. But anything new that you do going forward, you will pay 100% of the debt service because the plan con program is in moratorium and the state is no longer funding any portion or any major portion of school construction outside of um some small kind of grant programs that they have going on right now. So this is our starting place. Um and were you to do nothing else,

024you'd pay net of that state subsidy about 8 to 8.2 $2 million a year in debt service out through 2038 with a drop off in 2039. So that's where we stand currently. Updating you as well on interest rates. Uh we plot on here as always where we got, you know, fortunate in where we were able to finance the prior bond issues. Rates have gone up since then. Uh but early in late 2025, early 2026, rates were in a nice downward trend. Um but then we hit the uh events of late February where the US and Israeli um attacks on uh Iran caused some major market turmoil for us and we highlight that in a couple pages. So we'll get into that shortly. But we put in here page number five because um a lot of

025One more slide forward please. There we go. Thank you. So page number five talks a little bit about the movement of the Fed in the interest rate markets and what that has done to the overall interest rates that you can you know go out and obtain in the marketplace. The Fed, as we've discussed in the past, really only controls the overnight lending rate or the shortest period of interest rates that are available out there. So what we're showing on this chart is going back to 2022 is when the Fed began their interest rate hike program. So any of those vertical green lines that you see are highlighting the moments in time when the Fed increased interest rates. Conversely, then in the red, you have some periods then beginning in late 2024 when the Fed kind

026of said, "Hey, mission accomplished on inflation and began cutting interest rates." So, all of this to be said is for one, obviously predicting market movement is extremely difficult. But most importantly and I think as we discuss the best path forward of when do we borrow, how much do we borrow and when is it prudent to move on a debt refinancing is when we look at kind of post Fed rate cut programs which are that those first set of uh vertical red lines towards the right side. And if you look, the Fed has cut about 1 and 3/4% since October of 2024. But the dark blue line, if we kind of trace straight across, really hasn't moved over that period of time. So that shows you that while the Fed can cut short-term interest rates, long-term

027interest rates might not be affected to the same magnitude. What it really has done is it's gotten us back into a more normally shaped yield curve where shorter term interest rates are lower than longer term borrowing rates that you can achieve in the market. So that's kind of a little bit of history here of what's been happening with the Fed versus longer term borrowing rates over this time horizon. But on page six, I wanted to get into a little bit um a very much unforeseen circumstance in the market whereby in you know late February the attacks on Iran happened and interest rates spiked significantly and typically when we see periods of global unrest that's c that causes what's referred to as a flight to quality and what that means is people take their money out

028of the stock market. Stock markets tend to fall and they move to safer investments like US treasuries which usually causes interest rates to go down. However, with the ge geographical location of this conflict and what it's doing to the prices of oil internationally is putting us into some inflationary concerns. And when people are worried about inflation, interest rates tend to go up. And so in the immediacy, the next several weeks after that conflict began, we saw interest rates kind of across the board on the borrowing side jump nearly 65 basis points or so. We've gotten back about 10 to 15 basis points or or so, give or take, from there. But we're still about 50 basis points higher than we were at the end of February. So all that to be said is we can

029do our best to plan, put good practices into place, but there are oftentimes unforeseen forces that are going to move the market considerably. And while the general thought was that throughout 2026, long-term borrowing rates will continue to come down, that hasn't been the case so far. If things normalize in that region relatively soon, we could see kind of a revert to the norm of where we were maybe mid to late February, but that's obviously very much in the air right now. So, given all of that, we've updated the refinancing charts to show you the effect of that shift. You may recall that on the 2018 bonds on page seven back when we were here in early January, we were ballparking the interest rate savings on the 2018 bonds alone to be just north of $4

030million. With the interest rate movements that we've seen, we're now in that bottom right hand box total cash flow savings just north of $3 million. So that interest rate movement alone over the last month and a half has cost us nearly 1.1 million or so in savings. So extremely interest rate sensitive on this. Uh but to the extent that rates continue to normalize as they have over the last week or so that number should hopefully continue to grow. But again if there's further escalation we may see rates go the other way as well. Also showing you then on the 2019 A and B bonds. These do not generate nor did they previously as much savings as this first trunch. But when I was here three months ago, the estimate was around $1.5 million of total

031cash flow savings. Now we're down to just north of 500,000. So the recommendation from all of that would to still be to put all of the resolutions in place because once they're in place, they're there until we need them. Um, and it allows us the most flexibility to get all the documents put together, go through the rating process when we see fit so that we're able to act accordingly, knowing that the soonest that we could be selling bonds on that 2018 series would be late April, early May, assuming that interest rates hang in there to a level that produces meaningful savings to you all. The 2019 A and B bonds will sit on that until we get to next year because we cannot refinance those bonds until summer of 2027, but the authorization will be

032in place such that if interest rates are still cooperative, we'll move on that refinancing at that point in time. So, that's the update there. I wanted to then hit on something I think we've talked about before, but as we continue to think about capital project planning, you're getting into budget season. Serious consideration needs to be put towards what kind of budget do we need to build around potential future capital projects. And so framing that discussion is looking at what is the history of the act one index. What is it expected to do based on our best guesses over the next several years? Understanding that pen manner does get an adjustment over the base index. But that adjustment is also never guaranteed to the extent that your ratios change and you move into a different economic

033demographic. That number may also evaporate. But an important consideration that you know long-term takeaway is that if the act one index continues to come down as it is expected to the benefit of putting something in place in these earlier years if you can afford to will pay dividends in the future when that act one index is tighter and you're forced to build your budget around potentially a smaller index. So the next page goes into that same borrowing study that we looked at back in January, updated with current interest rates, which means actually that we had about a 50 basis point contingency built in these numbers last time around. So we're running these numbers based on current market interest rates. Uh to the extent they continue to come down, these numbers look better. If interest rates

034go up, they look a little worse, but we're pretty close to the average of interest rates for the last 25 years. So pretty good baseline I think number to be running these from. As we discussed last time, the thought is potentially around layering in a $15 million kind of seed money borrowing in fiscal year 2026. Assuming interest rates continue to cooperate and that refinancing makes sense to go ahead and pursue, you're going to be in the market getting a credit rating, going through the process, putting all the docs together. It may make sense to borrow the first trunch of money alongside of that. For one, you're paying the cost of issuance already to do the refinance. So there's some sort of economies of scale by combining the two. But additionally, it just helps you to

035hedge yourself against future either interest rate increases, moves more things into that known column, as I like to refer it. The more knowns that you have in your budget going forward, the easier it is to do your jobs. So, the resolution that will appear before you, um, we have it tonight attached to the agenda, but will appear before you at the meeting on the 20th for potential adoption contemplates the refinancing of the 2018 bonds, the refinancing of the 2019 A and B bonds, and $15 million capital project financing towards what we're calling a new middle school. But it's written in such a way that while it names that, it can be used for any capital project of the district. The resolution does not behold you to doing any of that. Simply is a filing that

036allows the financing team to continue to work with the administration developing all the documents necessary to move on a bond issue when it makes the most sense. So, any questions related to these numbers? I can run real quick through the last page. Um just a general timeline for uh assuming that we want to continue to move forward on this plan. We would be back to the April 20th meeting to review that resolution and to have the board act on that. We'd then be working with your administration over April and May to work on that credit rating, get the all the preliminary official statement documents put together, work with bond counsel and your solicitor to develop all the other necessary documentation so that by early May we can be locking in interest rates, selling bonds to

037the market, and settling in June, which is the earliest that we could act on that debt refinance. We will obviously be in constant touch with your administration to update them on interest rates and if things move significantly against us, we'll be back to tell you about a revised plan. But given that on that 2018 bonds, you're still saving north of 8% of the refunded par. We typically like to see two to 3%. So, while that $4 million number was really exciting to see in January, there was nothing we could do then to lock that in. The earliest possible time we can be selling bonds for that is May. So, everything we're going to do over the next couple weeks is to position ourselves to move forward if it makes sense. But I'll pause there, turn

038it back over for any questions that the board may have. >> Questions for Mrs. Stole? I have two >> on page 10. Interest rate assumption is current. >> Does that have a number? >> Beg your pardon? >> What is the number there where it says interest rate or it says rate assumption >> current? >> Just above is the separate interest rate assumptions for all of those scenarios. So approximately 3.88% 88% for this first piece and then anywhere from 4 to 475 or so for the remainders. >> So the just this is not really the second question just to clarify the 3.88 >> is what you would expect the average rate today to be on that first issuance even though we can't do that until after June 30th. Yeah, we are three to four weeks away

039from being able to lock that in. So, um my Yeah, I'm not going to make a statement that says in 3 to four weeks from now, 3.88 is the number, but if we could do it today, that would be our number. We do what we don't know is what's going to happen over the next three to four weeks. The volatility has been such that prediction is uh it was never a perfect art nor science. It's even more difficult now. Okay. So, this chart says 150. The resolution says 105 because I believe the purple would be not inside of this resolution. The purple columns on the right, but I think section 11 says a maximum rate of 5.5%. So, we're writing a we're writing a resolution that would authorize the refi of a bond that's at

0403% today and two bonds that are at 2.5% or below into something as high as 5.5 more than well I guess a year and a half from today. >> Couple things I want to clarify. So on page 10, the only thing the only column from this study that is authorized from this resolution is the first blue column, column number three that's related to the new middle school project for 15 million. The remainder of that $105 million resolution is for the refinancing of 2018, 2019A, and 2019b bonds. We have to put a stated maximum interest rate in the resolution per the uh the local government unit debt act that governs how school districts borrow money. Uh but what 95% of schools do in the Commonwealth is they file these maximum par parameters resolutions to give the

041financing team the the ability to enter the market at a date that is the most convenient and most advantageous to the district. Prior to 2006, we really didn't use this mechanism. Instead, we would sell bonds on an advertised board meeting day, which meant that because you have to advertise your meeting, you have to advertise a bond issue and let investors know when it's going to come to market. Well, if the market that day wasn't cooperative and the US attacked Iran the night before and interest rates went like this, you probably weren't going to sell your bonds that day. But you were sort of locked in because you had to sell bonds on a an advertised schoolboard meeting night. The industry kind of figured out about 25 years ago that that wasn't really a efficient way

042to do things because a lot of times it makes sense to sell bonds on a date that you don't have an advertised meeting. So we develop this mechanism called a parameters resolution which passes muster with DCD lets us get everything filed and then we come back to them and let them know the final terms the final numbers I can guarantee you the bonds won't be issued at 5 and a half% because there wouldn't we wouldn't produce any economic savings on the refinancing if we executed it at that level. So it's purely a filing and we have to put a number in there. We could make it 10%. Uh we could make it but if we set it too low, we get into territory where on the new money especially that 5% 5 and a half%

043is right around the coupon level that the bonds are sold at. So if we set it too low, we may box out most investors because they want a coupon um a premium coupon of five to five and a half percent that yields something much lower, something like a 3.88%. But the stated rate on the bonds might be closer to 5%. So we want to make sure we set that maximum at something that accommodates investor appetite and still allows us to move forward with your financing plan and not have to come back to you again with another authorizing resolution which pushes out the timeline and maybe we miss another opportunity. And so while you bring up another good point related to the existing debt, those bonds, if you scroll back to page two or page three,

044either one, you can see in the arbitrage yield row, the actual yield on the bonds when they were sold. So three and a quarter, two and a half, but the coupon rate below is what investors bought them at. But they paid more than 100 cents on the dollar. and we're getting really far into the weeds, but the coupon rate is what drives the cash flow on your debt service repayment. And so if we can do better than that 4.97 or 4.19 or 3.56 that you see listed in the average coupon row, that's what creates the savings. But they were issued at an at a yield that's significantly lower than that because of that premium coupon structure. And that's how 95% probably more in today's interest rate markets of municipal bonds in Pennsylvania are sold right

045now. Buyers like an additional um coupon protection they call it. So they're willing to pay more than 100 cents on the dollar on their investment up front for the coupon protection, the interest payments that are coming in, which ultimately lowers your yield. >> And that also is a market driven transaction. >> It is. Yeah. >> So, the rest of that to just circle back, the rest of that borrowing plan will continue to evolve and update over time as you get bids in, as you get a better handle on what the construction draw schedule looks like. We'd like to try to marry those kind of items together over time. So unfortunately or unfortunately, you're probably going to see a lot of me over the next several years as we continue to as markets move, as we

046have more and more information about the cost of the project and the timing of everything. I can pretty much guarantee this plan will change, but this is at least a road map. As you think about your future budgets and what you can afford to put in this year's budget with all the other unknowns of act one, project costs, contracts that may be or may not be coming, putting something aside in fiscal 2627 as you did in fiscal 2526. More you can put in now, the lesser the burden in those out years in column number 11. Any other questions? >> Any other questions? I think I learned more about bond financing, refinancing, coupons, and everything else. And that >> there will be a test to follow. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Just for some clarification because I

047know there was some questions after the last time you were here, just conversationally amongst the board regarding why we should borrow the 15 million today, give or take. And so, I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. There's a there's a cost savings to that. Correct. Um because we're already going out to reissue the other bonds. I heard you say that this evening. >> But is there any um attachment to our rating to that? Like is does that kind of hedge our bets with the ratings or help us with our ratings if we go out for smaller pieces at a time? >> I would say not in any significant manner. A $15 million borrowing on a budget of your size is not a credit negative and doing a debt refinancing is considered prudent fiscal

048management. So that's certainly a credit positive. Um, so borrowing the additional 15, uh, what the rating agencies really like to see when you have major capital plans is is a plan is, you know, something like this. And they understand that you're going to make decisions based upon your budget, based upon your expected cash flow, and based upon the market in general. And when we see that interest rates are at a somewhat favorable level, not as favorable as they were a few months ago, but historically still pretty good. A 3.88% I think if you know you were in the market for an or mortgage right now, you'd jump all over that. Um, so historically still pretty good time to be borrowing. The rating agencies understand that these plans are going to continue to change over time.

049But what they want to see is trends, prudent fiscal management, that you're funding your obligations appropriately, and were you to borrow 15 million towards your project, understanding that you don't need to spend the money yet, you're still in a position where that money is going to be able to be invested, earn a a level of interest that's probably pretty close to that that bond yield. Um, so you're in a you're in a position where you're you're hedging future risk and you know getting more of those things into the known column versus the unknown. But it's a great question and um something that Mr. Fory has gone through many times on the credit rating side of the house and and handles with uh with a plum. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, Mr. Beaks. I saw you

050had your hand up. >> Nope. You asked question I was going to ask. So >> great minds think alike. be afraid. >> Yeah, >> we should all be afraid. >> Yes, we should. >> If there are no further questions and certainly um the resolution is attached as you peruse it, Mr. Fory, can we send questions to you and Dr. Gail? >> And Mrs. will be here as well on the 20th. So that she she's the one that's put together the legal portions along with the Raymond James team on the financial portions. She'll be here that night as well to speak to uh any particular um as I've worked with her in the past, she'll give you a very high level of all those pages. Um if someone would like to see more than that, then

051please let me know and we could arrange for that ahead of time. >> Thank you. So, I would uh look for a motion to approve the placement of the resolution on our April 20th, 2026 board voting agenda. >> So, moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any further comment or question? >> All those in favor? >> Nine affirmative votes. >> Thank you very much. And Mrs. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> As always, it is a pleasure. >> Thank you. >> So, we'll move on to item three. Dr. Gail, Miss Work, the proposed budget for the Lancaster County Academy. >> Yeah, I'd like to just uh thank Miss Work for her continued service on the Lancaster Academy County Academy board. Uh again, as we heard earlier tonight, uh this is a

052program that many of our students take advantage of, which is a good thing, a bad thing, but a good thing. >> Uh because it does mean that they we're not being successful here, but they are still continuing on. And uh this is one of the programs that we do continue to use heavily. Uh if not all of our spots are filled, they're very close to being filled. And I think with the um changes and improvements uh and the addition of the second campus at uh Park City, uh things have really progressed as well as uh I think the leadership of Mrs. Griffith. So we appreciate that. And in terms of the budget, uh it is attached there, but I'll let Miss Wart talk about some of the highlights. Uh it's not a significant increase or

053anything. So this work, >> right? And in light of what you just said there, we have 15 slots as a district. At this point, we're hopeful that we're going to have 12 graduates uh in in May. Uh three have already met the requirements. So that's pretty exciting. So we'll see how the next few weeks go. So you saw the little page there of highlights. I'll just say that basically it's a 4% increase with a 2.5 increase for the for the wages for the staff. So, uh, as Dr. or Dr. Gail said, nothing significant, but I would like to add that, uh, we have voted to continue Dr. Axe as our superintendent of record. He gets a $5,000 a year stipen and he requested that we do not increase that this year. So, we're we're delighted

054with his leadership. He has a passion for the students and it's a really good fit for him and the academy. So, I just would like to point that out. So, what we basically need is uh approval to put it on the next month's next meeting's agenda. >> Okay. Before I ask for that motion, any questions for Mrs. Wart? >> Mrs. Bert, the the increase per student, is that in addition to the increase you you told us in your report, just general expenses, staff increases, any other major changes? >> No. Okay. No. No. >> I I mean, not that I'm complaining. I'm just curious. >> No. And so the slots, as is indicated on the budget there, the slots will go from 5500 $5,57 to $5,727. Yeah. Okay. which is still a really good bang for

055the buck. It is. Yeah, >> no question. Uh on one hand, you you wish that uh schools like this didn't exist, but >> you're also very thankful that we have these opportunities uh to continue students education. So with that, I would respectfully ask for a motion to place the Lancaster County proposed budget for 2026 27 on our April 20th board voting agenda. >> I will move that. >> Thank you. And a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any further comment or question? >> All those in favor? >> Nine. Affirmative. Thank you very much. We'll move on to item four. Mr. Ford, let's talk third quarter budget update. >> Excellent. Right. Pull that up. >> So, one of the things you'll notice um I think we introduced last meeting uh a new format in these slides

056and I will give a shout out to Mr. Johnston cuz tomorrow he'll watch this and then call me and so he'll see that they look different than many of his presentations in the past but I'm sure he'll be pleased with the presentation. So as we continue to look at right as we look at our mission as we are trying to help students you know succeed and achieve their goals obviously we're getting to the time where now we're looking at fiscally how do we do that? Um, and tonight we'll take an overview of how the first nine months have gone and and what that means to the future. So, one of the things that we thought it was important to is to step back and say, how do we get to a budget, right? What all

057comes into play? And and I think uh this graph that Charlie put together the other day, I think really helps to sort of draw those things. and and we're at the fourth check box over there on the side, but it really starts with the current year's budget and and the last couple years, it's not only what you all have passed as a budget, but what did the state fund? So, we need to get that firmed up. Um then in the fall, we finished the audit of the previous year. Uh where are we at, how did things end, what was budget actual. Then we spent the last couple months, and I think Dr. Gail has shared, we've been meeting monthly uh as a leadership team sort of looking at different areas where our expenses are at.

058Uh we've looked at programs like bringing back the autistic support classes. We looked at the staff associated with that. We've talked to some of the I've talked to some of the uh department coordinators and what things are. So like those reviews coming along, you know, what are we planning uh is in there. And tonight we're going to take a look at where is the budget been for the first three quarters of this year and and what does that mean and how does that impact and then obviously starting next meeting we'll have four meetings where we'll have discussions we'll have presentations and ultimately get to uh June 22nd where we will finalize the budget. So that's sort of where we're going. That's what we're going to look at and talk about this evening. So, we start

059with a budget comparison and and we look at the first nine months of last year to the first nine months of this year. Um, and and really it's critical in sort of understanding, hey, how good was the budget we set? How good were the uh assumptions we made? And then then how do we then roll forward? You know, do are they valid? Do we need to refocus? Do we need to adjust? How does that come together? And so we're going to look at expenses and revenues as we do that. So we'll start off with the expenses as said the same two nine-month comparisons. Um and so as we look at it, we're going to look at nine months. At this point in time, 63% of the expenses have been achieved. Um same point last year,

060we're at 67. So we're a little bit uh further behind, which is a a good thing. Means we're following in a good spot to to be on budget. Um, you can see that we have about 20 or excuse me, 72.4 million expenditures so far on our $115.3 million budget. Um, and so we're going to look at four areas in particular in the expense side that had the most significant changes from expenditures in the previous nine-month period. So, we'll look at those this evening and uh the next couple slides. So, the first one we want to start off is tuition. And so when you look at the grouping in the budget, it groups all tuition. So it it groups cyber charter, it groups the IU, it groups some other outside placements, but for this portion particularly,

061we want to look as we've talked about it previously, particularly the area of the IU contracted tuition. And so at this point, we have spent 95% of the current budget. Uh so the actual spending is about 7.1 million versus a budget of 7.5. Um and you can see that last year as we talked previously uh we spent 18.4 on a budget of 6.7. You'll see in each of the slides that we start to look at here, we look at where we are um and then we'll look at the costs and the implication the next two blocks the implications of what it means with 2627. So, um, as we've talked as we talked through our autistic support, uh, programming, some of Dr. Gail's, uh, goal updates, we have seen that the number of students enrolled, um,

062in special education programming has increased. Additionally, the cost of those placements have increased. And then the third point is we started from a deficit because we know last year we were behind budget. So that's we started in a hole that we needed to sort of recover in this current year because we have more students in placements than we had last year in placement. So we're not going to go down in that spending. So what does that mean for 2627? At this point I expect us to finish about $9.1 million in this area. Um currently I have budgeted 9.7 and we are planning on bringing those two classes back from the IU. Now, you may say, "Hold on, you're going to spend 9.1 and now you're going to spend 9.7." Well, the reality is is that

063what we're trying to do is we are lowering the rate of growth. Um, if you'll see in the note on the bottom in um the last four years, we've gone from $6.2 million in annual spend to 9.1, which is expected. So, we have about 150% growth in this area. Another 150% growth in the next four years means 15 million. So what can we do to slow that down to to defer that and to move that ahead? So that's why uh we we're looking at those things at this point. The second area which is related but different. Um so the contracted services are those students of the IU is educating for us. We also have an area that we look and we call unique special needs. And so this really looks at the specific needs of

064students um that we may know, we may not know, they come into the system. Um and so trying to to adjust some of those things. So um we're actually over spent the budget here. Um interestingly enough, in 2425, uh we actually underspent the budget of 400,000. And so I thought, well, it makes sense to adjust it. And probably shouldn't have adjusted it, but we look at it. So what does this mean? Where are the costs coming from? So, uh, if you remember, we had a a speech teacher that was out um that was not able to be filled with a long-term substitute. Uh, there's not a lot of speech teachers around in the first place, much ones that will say, "Oh, yes, I'd like to work without a contract." Um, so we ended up with

065contracted speech and we had to continue some of that on because of the growth of enrollment and the need that we had to meet our requirements there. We've had some additional nursing services for student care above and beyond the building nurse. Um, we also had some programming resources that had to be um, made up for. So if you see here, we had uh I've adjusted in this point in the budget I have at about 355,000. I think that that's close. Interestingly enough, you can look at the note at the bottom. In the last four years, this expenditure has been from 122,000 to 605,000. And that's really when we talk about those unique special needs. we don't know until the child is enrolled to what the programming is required to what assistance may happen. Um and

066so trying to find a good place um in the middle so that we're not significantly over budgeting but also not over budgeting. And you can see this category has supplemental speech, could be bilingual evaluations, nursing services, um and and the supplies to help in the special ed department. So that comes there. The next one is a good news, right? The last couple years, this operations and maintenance has been a challenge. Uh we have um been over budget. At this point in time, we're at 80% of the budget. And if you remember, a lot of those expenditures happened that the summer starting the year, the purchase of supplies and things to get started. So, I think we're in a good spot where we should definitely be close to the budget this year. Um, when I went

067over this presentation with the team today, um, it's always very nervous to say some of the things that I'm going to say because there are still three months left in the year. >> Then don't say it. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> So, you know, I haven't >> you can see things that have helped us. We'll just not talk about those happening in the next few months. Um I have taken uh and and as I look at developing in the 2627 budget some of those escalating inflationary pressures are there. I think we're in a spot where our budget and our budget growth in these areas will sustain the aging uh buildings and the needs that we have. Um and and here it's really trying to predict what's that what's that average where's that known and and

068budgeting for that. So I I think we're getting closer and we won't talk about anything else. So this is almost as dangerous a slide. Um but it's a number we need to talk about. Healthcare you can see we are at 62% of the budget. Um why is that? I think that we have seen some lower trends in the last since last year. Um, I get health care bills every two weeks. And so you start to look at a month by month. Our month-to-month costs have been pretty consistent this year. Last year we had a couple really bad months. And one bad month starts to challenge things. Um, we've also had fewer high dollar claims. And so, you know, what does that look like? Um, first we'll look at what we'll have in the 2728 or

069excuse me, 2627 budget. Um, I'm budgeting 8.3 million there, which is about a 6% increase. Um, but looking at industry standard, I think that if you talk to most companies or organizations of our size, they are probably looking at a 10 to 12% year-over-year increase in in healthcare. Um, I think we've been relatively flat and and I think it's makes sense if we can to put a little cushion in there this year. Um, how does it work? You see the lower comments. We are um a blended self-funded, right? So, we are self-funded for each individual that we cover up to $225,000. So anything up to 225 we pay that from 225 to two $450,000 we are part of a pool mostly Lancaster Lebanon but I think we're uh upwards of 30 to 35 schools that

070now participate in us and we reinsure each other so we pay an annual uh fee into that. They use that annual fee to cover those in between and then as a group we've purchased reinsurance over that $450,000. So that's where how that makeup comes into place. Um I think it has worked well for us. It has worked well for the pool. Um but you see that we I went back and looked over the last 10 years. Um we went from 5.9 to our highest of 7.6. And so if you look at that year-over-year um it's about a 2% increase, which is very good across the industry. Um, and I put a little bit more in next year's budget just because the last two years we had been over the budget. So, where's our ups and

071downs? Where do we make sure that we uh we have the coverage to to meet that? So, those were the expenses. We'll take a look at the revenues. Similar manner. We're looking at nine months. Uh, a little bit of a different story and this is is true every year. Um because so many of our revenues come locally in that August time frame, uh revenue always comes in faster than expenditures do. So we are at 80% of budget. Um you'll notice that that's a little bit lower than last year. We were at 83%. Uh so we have 92 million in versus the budget of 114.5. Um and and so in the same way we're going to look at three areas of interest on the revenue side uh the most dynamic the the changes that are occurring

072and I think it helps to see what the picture looks like. So the first area is intim uh taxes and so uh we are at 135% uh meaning we've already achieved our uh budget there uh by more than $104,000. Um, I expect us to continue uh to grow there. Uh, this was interesting because really the last number of years we've been underbudgeted in this area. Uh, we really had a three-year decline from 22 to 25. Um, and we're seeing that turnaround. Um, at this point in time, I expect in the in the, you know, 26 27 box, I expect us to end uh probably at least $340,000. And then because of the growth we're seeing, I'm projecting 5% growth in the next year. Um, what makes this up? You see in the lower uh the

073the lower box, the interim taxes come from new construction or renovations that are happening between our July 1, July 1 tax cycles, right? And so anytime someone pulls a building permit, when you close the building permit out, the county assesses that and then we get a bill based upon that change and assessment. And so what does this mean? This means that we are seeing new construction. We are seeing renovations. And interestingly enough, we're seeing growth in all of our municipalities right now with that. Um so all of them are above where they were last year, not just in one over the other. transfer taxes sort of works in parallel, but this really now is is due to that sale. And we'll look at that as we go along. We're at 90% of the budget. Uh

074but interestingly enough, last year we were only at 68% of the budget. Um and still were achieved the budget in this area. A lot of this comes in in that fourth quarter. Um, when you look at it from the county's standpoint, right, they they have done their spring collections, they know that they want to get things current to us before the end of the fiscal year. And so, we expect to see a lot coming in here. I believe that that we're probably uh, you know, going to hit 1.3 million, um, which is definitely up from the low that we were down in 886,000 a few years ago. um this we are seeing growth I am planning on growth into next year's budget and so where does this come from and I think some people have

075some uh misconceptions if uh if you are in habit of reading the Sunday paper and the deed transfers you'll notice that many times properties get transferred for a dollar okay that's fine we don't care why because the transfer tax is based on the higher of two things. The actual sale value or the assessed value times the common level ratio which means take the assessed value get it to where real value is. So even when it's a dollar transfer we get the transfer taxes based upon the higher of those two things. So they do that from you know maybe a reorganization and maybe a family member but the transfer tax and we get a half a percent is based on that actual value. Um, this was really interesting in my previous district. If you've been up

076283, uh, when you go past RES, there are a large number of, uh, warehouse facilities up there. Um, on an annual basis, one hedge fund would sell it to another hedge fund uh, for multiple millions of dollars and the transfer tax would come in. Um, sometimes they wanted it as a write-off, sometimes that it didn't really make sense, but every time that $30 million sale happened, half a percent of that came back through to the district. So, >> clearly with what we know is happening. The transfer taxes and the interim taxes are definitely going to be a watch area the next few years. Um, I will expect to see them continue to grow. I I'm not growing them too much for 26 27. I think we'll get more information as we see it and where

077that goes moving forward. So then the other side of the story, interest earnings and interest earnings is sort of a mix. Um I think it's higher than where I thought we were going to be, but it's definitely down from its peak. So at this point in time, uh 79% of the budget is actually in. Um we have $1.2 2 million in interest earnings uh versus the 1.5 total budget. Um I think that we you know when you look at the revenue side clearly the delays in the state and federal uh budgets getting passed and getting funded um even more this year just because it was later and the funds flowed slower um was more impactful than even the year before. Uh the Fed rate um is lower and it is impacting our earnings. Um I

078still expect us to be overbudget. So right now we're budgeted for 1.5. I think we're going to come in close to 1.7. Um and then for 26 27 the Fed rate I think you know and and who knows, right? Um I think it's going to go slower than I thought it was going to go six months ago. I think we all see that. At least even the Fed says that. Um, and so I'm holding it at a flat bud budget. Um, at 1.5. I I I think there is going to be downward pressure here. Um, it'll be interesting as we borrow money and so therefore we're going to have more money to invest for periods of time. Maybe it maybe it stays flat even if rates go down. Uh, we'll see where that um it's

079it's really remarkable and Mr. Johnson and I talked about this when I came in here. Um, if you'll see down below, in 2021, the district earned $31,000 in interest for the entire year. In 2324, the district earned $2.3 million for the year. I think we are a long long long way from seeing 32 again. Um, but I think that we probably are, you know, definitely in that million to million and a half as we and hopefully in a nice slow spot. I put this one on state and federal funds. Um, and you can see even though money is flowing, we are still definitely behind where we were last year. Um, and that obviously impacts the previous one. Um the good news is that the $2.7 million increase to rate to learn was approved by the

080state. Um a very small increase to basic ed was approved. A very small increase to special ed particularly with the growth of special ed costs. Um at this point in time, the governor's budget has another $2.7 million increase to ready to learn. um an even smaller increase to basic ed um and a small increase to to special education funding. Um from coming from my conference two weeks ago, we're in a pretty good spot compared to some others because of our aid ratios. There are a number of districts across the state who really have no expected increase in state funding next year. Zero. Um, and so that really puts a challenge there. Um, I think you all were with one of our legislators, many of you, the other day. um everything that I've heard from my

081conference that I've heard from talking to the legislators and this couple that spoke. I I think that yes, there's a lot of things up in the air with the 26 27 state budget, but I think everybody is still weighing the law fair funding lawsuit and I think most anticipate that the school funding will probably come through. Now, they have a structural deficit they have to figure out, but I think there's other areas that are more likely to be challenged than what we are. So, I think we're safe um in in moving forward with that. Uh federal funding, there's a lot happening. One of the things though is we receive $1.4 million in federal funding. Um the title two that went away, we hadn't received any of that. Um it looks like even if the department

082of education goes away, the title one and other funding stays just goes to another department. So I think in all likelihood we just stay flat there. Um I don't expect any increase. Uh but at the same time, I don't expect a lot to go away. And and if you think about it at $1.4 4 million. Even if for some incredibly crazy reason we got cut in half, that's still not a huge portion of our budget. We're definitely in a good spot there compared to others that that lost some of those revenues. So, I think that's where we're at with state and federal. Uh, I think that it's a little clearer, um, although nowhere near resolved, a little safer to use the governor's budget proposal for next year than we were last year. And everything came

083through as it was last year. So, that's what we talked about. That's what we look tonight. Obviously, we'll look in more detail in two weeks of, hey, what's the rest of the budget? Where are things at? What all has been put in there? Um, and then we'll answer questions as we go back and forth uh through the next couple meetings. Um, obviously at this point it's about a $122 million budget. We will not go over every individual line item um because Dr. Gail wouldn't give me that much time, nor would Dr. Fitton. Um, but if you have questions, if there's particular areas, particularly for some of you that are new, like, hey, can we get together, help me understand a little bit more, um, please reach out to me on that and, uh, and we'll

084do that. But we'll hit some highlights. We'll look at where things are at and look at the processes the next couple weeks. Questions on what we covered this evening? Um, when you were at your conference or meeting a few weeks ago, there's some renewed interest in funding schools prior to the final budget being able to just pass that. Is that Have you heard much about that or is that just kind of fanfare right now? >> I I think that the the bigger focus and challenge is they're trying to resolve the budget deficit. And so I think they while it sounds good and and obviously there's some discussion about hey if basic ed and special ed are hold harmless and can't go down as I think Mrs. Nasser talked about some other industries >> like could

085you do that? I I think that until they figure out how they're going to close the deficit that's going to sort of sit on the the back burner. There is a bill in the House that's gotten no movement, but I do have a meeting with our senator at the end of the month to have further discussion. >> Yeah. Okay. I just wasn't sure if it was just more sound bites or if there's some >> All the the budget hearings are all done, right? And so now it's, you know, where where do things come together? What does it look like? I think most believe that um probably it's not going to be June, >> right? >> But hopefully it's sometime in July. It was interesting. Two of the keynote speakers of the conference were the minority

086leader in the House, so an R and the minority leader in the Senate, AD, and they've talked about like what does it look like from the major minority side? how do they try and build consensus and and work together and so that was I I think you know one it was a very good discussion and I think there's really a desire and understand that going into November is not it's not good for anyone >> and what did that cost us in interest roughly I mean >> probably $150,000 >> right thank you >> and and this year was unique compar and this is a question that Mr. Snapsinger asked earlier which is a great question because in the past like we don't start to receive our state monies until October October November December and so forth.

087So even two years ago when it wasn't passed until late August September we still were able to receive those monies but like Mr. Fory mentioned tonight there is still some of our ready tolearn money that hasn't been released. We didn't start to receive that money until January. So the the common sense of it all, again, we're applying logic to an illogical situation, is that what I think we're we're all talking about here tonight is that give us the money that we know we are going to get and then if anything on top of that would come, >> then that comes at a later time, right? But it is because of how late it was this year and until the money started to flow was even later, it did have a significant impact on us. >>

088Yeah. And we're not the only district. Thankfully, we're a district that didn't have to borrow money, >> right, >> to continue to run. So, there are a lot of implications for the late budget as such. >> Yeah, without a doubt. Thank you. >> Just and for the record, um our senator was the only one of our elected officials that represents this district except for uh Representative Miller that responded to several emails I've sent on this topic. So, if any of you want to reach out to your own, maybe if more than one person explains to them the detriment of their actions, they'll respond. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. >> Don't forget to talk into the microphone. >> All right. I'm just curious the significant increase in special education for Penn Manor. Is that a few

089more significant cases that need higher level intervention? Is it more accurate diagnosis that we have an increase? Is it students moving in because of what they see as a good program? just specific disabilities such as ES and autism and increase and or all of the above. >> So, I think it's a combination of all the above. I'll I'll look at Mrs. Galen and if I say something wrong, she'll hit me from across the room. So, a couple things. If you remember when we looked at bringing back the autistic support classes, it wasn't that many years ago that we had 13 students in outside autistic support. Then it went to 24. Then it went to 36. And right now we're over 60. and and we will be over 60 next year. So that number has grown

090significantly. I think that the um D and I were just talking. You want to talk a little bit about the ES growth? >> I was just going to say also um early intervention. I was looking at our early intervention numbers. These are the students coming in from like preschool programs. Um I looked back at our um like from 2020 to now. uh we were in like the 40s and then it creeped into the 50s. We're now 80 plus. So the numbers are greater also. Um and and the needs. So the answer to your question is all the above. >> Yeah. >> So it's not like I said in the slide, it's it's not only the number of students, but it's the cost, >> complexity of needs. Are we still seeing an increase in our English

091as a second language population? I know that was something we heard a lot about last year. >> Seems to have leveled up. >> Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Fory? >> Great. This topic was for information only. No action needed. And we'll move right into item number five. And Miss Dr. Gail, you have three minutes to keep us on track. You think you can make that happen? >> I I do. >> Okay, great. >> Uh tonight, I'm asking the board that we place on our next agenda of an item to not do lead testing this year. Uh this is a requirement that came into effect uh eight years ago. Uh where schools have to do lead testing. Uh but once you do it and there if there are no if there is no lead in

092your water testing uh then you do not have to continue this. Um we did our last testing in 2021 and there was nothing that was found. But also in in the majority of our schools our water systems have continued to upgrade. So in this case if there wasn't that at 5 years ago there is even less likelihood that there is now. However, I will say this that this opportunity for us to not do testing, which is very expensive. I don't have the exact cost, but it is it is several thousands of dollars because we would have we would have to do testing in all of our buildings. Um, we only have this exception until October 31st of 2027. And under that priv under that uh deadline after that then we will begin to be informed

093of what schools we will have to do testing in on an annual basis. So it won't be all of our schools like we would be required to now. But post October 31st 2027 we will be notified of which our elementary schools will need to be tested and then also our secondary schools. The main focus is on elementary schools, but the secondary schools also have a have a requirement that there will be uh testing and then of course if there is any type of lead that would be found then we would have to upgrade our um filtration filters and you know systems of things like that. So uh for this coming year I am making the recommendation and the request that the board uh that we do not u have any testing done. I >> I

094have two questions. What would the requirements be based on >> in terms of >> which schools will require it and which will schools don't? >> So, uh the federal requirement for testing it will be by our community water systems and that is per the environmental protection ay's final lead and copper rule improvements regulations. At that point, schools selected for testing by their CWS, their community water systems, may no longer opt out of testing process. Under this regulation, our water systems will notify the elementary schools that they are eligible for lead sampling and provide a proposed schedule for the water system to be tested. >> All right. So, how many of our schools are on wells and how many get public water? Uh we are on Wells in all but uh Manor, Ashelman High School, >>

095Hamite, >> Hambrite, >> Letor >> and Leort. Yeah, the other ones are all Wells. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Any other questions for Dr. G? So, okay, >> we are not going to test for lead in our other schools that are not served by public water systems and we're taking an exception to do that, which is a recommendation by the federal government. Well, the the the federal government provides us with the opportunity to take that exception, but starting in 2027, >> they're going to take it away. >> They'll take that away and then they'll notify us kind of on a rotating basis of what of what schools will need to be tested and when. >> I expect that it as it says in the language, they're looking at old systems. So, let's say that you

096had a district, a city served by a very, very old water system that has significant lead piping in the system, that's probably the likely of the schools that will be forced to be tested. Our if common sense and logic would prevail, we shouldn't have any that are directed for testing. But we'll see when they actually come out based upon the aging of our infrastructure in this community. >> Okay. >> Followup question on that. So if they say the school needs to be tested and comes out fine, is there a length of time then again or are you kind of up for the whatever the lottery of who they say? >> It's up for the lottery. Yeah. >> And there's no documentation we can provide that that has been remediated. It's it is what it is.

097>> You mean if if we were to test and there is I'm sure we would have to. I don't have that information, but I'm sure there would have to be. >> Any other questions? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the let the recommendation on the April 20th, 2026 board voting agenda? >> So moved >> and a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any further comment or question? All those in favor? >> Nine affirmative votes. >> Okay. Anything else for the committee as a whole? Seeing none, I'll adjourn the committee of the whole and I'll call to order the Tuesday, April 7th, Pen Banner, Bless You School District's uh board voting agenda meeting. If you would please join me in a moment of silence and the flag salute. >> Thank you. I pledge

098algiance 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. >> The next scheduled meeting of the Pen Manor School Board will be held on Monday, April 20th, 2026. Following the committee of the whole meeting, an executive session was held prior to the committee of the whole meeting for the purpose of discussing a student matter and personnel is detailed on the committee of the whole agenda. Mr. Risinger, may we have a roll call, please? >> Sure. Mr. Beaks >> here. >> Mr. Her >> here. >> Mrs. Hil >> here. >> Mrs. Kek >> here. >> Mr. Lombardo, >> right here. Charlie. >> Mr. Wle >> here. >> Ms. Wart >> here. >> Mrs. Napsiger >> here >>

099and Dr. Fullerton >> here. >> Nine board members. >> Yes. Sorry, I was thinking about the approval of the man's board. This is like >> got to be on this. >> Nine board members present. Yes. >> Mr. Lombardo threw you for a >> I'm so easily flustered. >> You know you did that to Charlie. I want you to do that when Mrs. Rhodess is back. Right here. >> That was good. Got it. >> Where I've been for the last two hours. >> Right. At each of our meetings, we offer our citizens two opportunities to make comment. We've arrived at our first opportunity. This is a comment period on action items on the board voting agenda. Do we have any citizens comments? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the minutes of our board

100voting agenda for March 23rd, 2026. So move. >> Thank you. And a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any further comment or question? All those in favor? >> Nine. Affirmative votes. >> Thank you very much. We'll move right into the superintendent report. Dr. Gail. >> Thank you, Dr. Foron. Uh tonight, in addition to hearing from Mr. Tasi. Uh, under the superintendent report, there is a link to our winter sports summary uh for those of you who would like to take a little bit deeper dive into how our sports teams did in the winter. Uh, and uh I do also want to pass along two pieces of information uh regarding new legislation that was passed and what's its impact has been. Uh, act 47 was passed uh when the state budget was was uh approved. And

101what this calls for is that twice a year uh cyber charters do a proof of residence verification. Uh and it is to happen in November and March. Well, since the budget was passed after the November 1st deadline, the first one that was done uh was a March 1st deadline. And what happened was that cyber schools had to send out to all of their enrolled students, parents of the enrolled students, a form that they had to then provide them with documentation that their residence was listed, they were living in the residence that was listed in their enrollments. And then that information was then to be passed on to the district so that we could then verify that those students who are saying they are a Penman student living in Penmanor attending a virtual school cyber charter

102school we could then uh approve that. As of March 1st the deadline came it went uh we have 160 total cyber charter students and we received out we received 87 verification forms. So we're just over 50% of those students that we are still waiting for notification that they are living in the district. Uh it's not like it didn't come from one cyber charter school. It's repres that those missing those 80some that we are missing are from six of the different cyber charters. So it's not like one school did it and they got them all but there's missing things that are taking place. So this is the first time that it was done. So kind of the expectation across the state amongst superintendents was that we wouldn't even get that high of a return. But uh

103in the future what we will then be able to do is if we do not receive notification or verification uh then we can can challenge the the residency of that student. We also can challenge the residency off of a student who we do receive verification for. And we did do that. of the 87 that we received, we challenged two and they were not living in our district. So, we saved some monies from that. >> Great. >> So, that's just kind of an update of implementation of one of the acts that was put into place uh this year. Along with that, uh in the board information folder, I uploaded a document that comes from the IU. And if this is for just your knowledge, it's the IU13 state mandates. So these are all the mandates that

104we as a school district have to comply with. Many of them are unfunded mandates. For example, the lead testing that I referenced that is listed in this document. So if at any point um you're not able to sleep or you just have a burning desire to find out what are we required to do, all of the mandates that we are expected to to follow through with are listed in this document. This is just piece of information for you. Sometimes it is helpful. I use it as a resource to go back and think all right what do we what are we supposed to do with terms of you know whatever it might be how do we care for a student who has diabetes like that's one of the one of the mandates so just different aspects

105different pieces of information for you it's in the board folder >> um Dr. G question. It's been several years since I perused this. Does it notate whether it is funded or unfunded? Do you remember? I'm looking. >> That's That's a good question. I don't know if it specifically states it or not. >> Okay. >> I was just curious. >> I I don't believe it does. >> Okay. >> But it's it's a great reference. um just of some of the different things that we are to to provide with. >> That's all I have. Dr. Ford, thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Gail. Any questions for Dr. Gail? >> Bless you. >> It's always a highlight of mine to get a copy of this >> 16page document. >> I I think it's funny 10 pages is just

106a table of contents, but anyway. Um >> right. Um going back to the uh cyber charter, >> the 80 whatever plus or minus students that have not been are we able to challenge them and and not provide funding until they >> or is that not >> that little giggle tells me I think >> so that that was that was a direction that uh did gain some momentum in the fall when the state budget was not passed that that districts would not pay because we get those monthly bills. I don't recommend that we do that because in the end what happens is then it's just pulled directly from our subsidies that we receive from the state and then we have to balance everything by getting the monthly bills from each of the cyber schools. We do

107have that opportunity to make a verification each month. So Dan and then also our registar Bria Val cleave they do look at that. uh at this point we don't have reason to but I think if the same people would show up in in November of next year and that's a baseline for us to really go and to to pursue this >> and we'd be able to go back on and receive reimbursements for that tuition money paid. >> We would be able to we would be able to put an end to the the payments if there is verification that they don't live in the district. >> Okay. >> So >> just put an end to it or also get reimbursement. I don't think we would be able to get reimbursement, but we would to get reimbursed

108for what we had already paid. I don't believe so. >> Okay. >> Would be nice. What? >> Yeah. I mean, that's a we don't pay it. Then they just go to PTE and say they owe me and then it gets pulled out and then you got it like it. >> Yeah. >> Fair enough. >> All right. So, let's review our agenda. Item two, A and B. >> I'd like to pull 2B. >> 2B. Okay. Any other comments or questions? Item three, A through F. Any comments or questions? And item four, A through F. Comments or questions? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve item 2 A? >> So move. >> Second. >> Thank you. And thank you. Any further comment or question? All those in favor? >> Nine. Affirmative. Okay. May I have

109a motion to approve item 2B? >> So move. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any further comment or question? >> I'd just like to make a comment on my perspective. I believe that both of these positions ought to include language that the individuals are CPI trained and respons part of the job responsibility is crisis intervention and deescalation. I also think in the qualifications they both should be not geared towards a Pennsylvania teacher certification but rather special ed. I personally would like to see those two changes. Um and I'm prepared to vote no because they're not in there and I don't understand why. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comments or questions? >> Would it be prudent? Did you re the email that you sent? Um would it be prudent to

110table it until we have that discussion around proper or certifications that we can I'd be I'd be willing to table it until we can have an understanding of the certifications needed or warranted or requested or >> so If I'm hearing correctly, and I read the email correctly, you're looking for someone with a Pennsylvania special education certificate to be one of these positions as opposed to just a >> I think specifically that belongs in the ASC job description rather than just a teacher certificate. That's my personal view and I um don't understand why that's not one of the qualification requirements. The second thing that I mentioned was crisis intervention and deescalation is not mentioned as a role or responsibility in either of these job descriptions and I believe that should be put in writing personally. >>

111Okay. A follow-up question. Do we know so essentially these roles are mimicking what's currently in our building but employed by a third party the IU? Are these in line with their current job descriptions? Do we know? >> They are in line with >> Okay. >> They may be >> Subtle differences, but they are in line with >> Okay. Thank you. are the current individuals that are in the providing the services through the IU in the school that um are they do they have the certifications that Eric has requested to look at or are they teacher certified and not special ed certified or crisis or um because I know we have to offer them the position position first, but moving forward would that be >> that's for the classroom teachers. >> But the classroom teachers get

112off of those positions. These are two new positions, correct? >> Yes. Correct. >> And I just may not understand it. >> Jerry, correct me if I'm wrong. You don't need to be a certified teacher to be either one of these positions. Correct. >> I'm trying to think of of my own BCBAS. and they don't have they're not certified as a teacher. So by putting that in the job description, you're actually raising the level >> raising it compared to your school. >> That's well that's that's any school. I'm not certain that a BCBA at any school district >> this is kind of this is kind of a safeguard. >> Sure. Even even at the Chester County IU, I I don't necessarily know I don't want to speak to that, but I don't necessarily know that they

113have a >> that is correct. >> A certified teaching degree to be in this position. >> This this provides the opportunity that if the teacher is helped, they could potentially fill in. Um if we are um in a situation where we need a substitute they we have an option for that. >> Um I used I used this previously >> so I didn't >> I pulled that from my >> previous experience. >> So you're saying you're making the standard a little bit higher than what it needs to be. >> Uh yes. >> Okay. But in light of that, if they were to fill in for the teacher, it might be a good idea that they would have the CPI. >> I would say that that's an assumed responsibility. I mean, our our job descriptions have to

114be broad enough that >> we're not we're encompassing as much as we can, but also at the same time, we're not going to make such a fine fine job description of every responsibility because the job description would be >> pages and pages, right? I agree >> like these are that that's a certificate and I agree with you like we should have that person and they will be certified in that and we will provide that or if they don't if they don't already have that certification the the board certified behavioral analysis so that's the BCBA that to be in that position to be considered for that position the board certified that isn't implied that you have additional certifications in that like for example right now in our district we have a behavioral consultant but that person

115is different than what a BCBA is able to do. >> And I understand that it's implied. I think it ought to be part of the qualifications formally. My personal opinion, it's akin to the definition of an accountant versus a CPA. to me as a par as a parallel kind of illustration. >> So, >> do you have >> I just want to I just want to explain to the taxpayers why uh it seems like the will of the board is to push this forward and we'll go forward together. I'm explaining my no vote. >> Okay. Do you um just so I'm clear, you would want the candidate to already have that or could the candidate come in and earn the CPI after after being hired? I think those should be qualifications for the position and I

116think they should be stated as part of the job responsibility. I hear this stuff some of it is implied and I hear that is everybody's responsibility. I would like to see it included in the job description in writing. Okay. >> Personally, okay. Thank you. >> As a as a add-on to CPI training, that is part of our annual training provided by the school district. We have a trainer here um for modable um teachers and positions. So, every every fall we offer CPI train and retrain because it's a >> is it every two years you have to be reertified, I believe. So >> we have to keep that going for a number of positions. So we do provide that >> um annually. >> Is is that required for every position in every teacher position in the

117school? >> No, but there are many many people any teacher can ask to have it also >> An administrator. Yes. >> Do we is that a standard practice for anybody that's working within the special ed >> realm? any um teacher who is working with students with um behaviors of concern. >> Okay. It is already it's a in our procedure. Yes. Okay. >> In writing in our procedure somewhere. >> No, it's a practice. >> It's a practice. >> Okay. I'm just making sure we're all in the same. But it's also it's also in order to meet some of the the federal guidelines and the state guidelines like with restraints or what are we calling them now? >> Correct. So any any classroom that is involved in situations like that. >> Okay. >> That's a guideline. That's

118a state requirement. >> State requirement is that someone has to be CPI trained in that in that room. >> Yes. >> Okay. And that is a requirement at my school for everybody, all employees, even me. So, we have a motion. We have a second. And we certainly have Mr. Orul's comments to consider. I would ask us all those in favor. >> Six. Affirm. Affirmative >> and opposed. >> Three opposed. >> Thank you. Motion carries. Item three, A through F. May I have a motion? >> So move. >> And a second. >> Second. >> Any further comment or question? >> Pick one. >> You look confused, Charlie. >> Okay. Just thinking. >> Yeah. All those in favor. >> Nine affirmative votes. You all keep trying to throw me off rhythm here. >> And item four, A

119through F. >> So move >> and a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any further comment or question? All those in favor? >> Nine. Affirmative. At this time, we have reached the second opportunity for our citizens to make comments on anything district related. Do we have any citizens comments this evening? Seeing none, anything for the good of the board? Seeing none, thank you everyone. Hope everybody had a nice weekend and let's hope this is the start of the great weather. Have a nice Have a nice two less than two weeks. 13 days.