001I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stand indivisible. >> Mrs. Banny Shaw >> here. >> Dr. Bumary >> here. >> Mrs. Bush Mrs. Hooker here, >> Mrs. Rinstein here, >> Mr. Bankis >> here, >> Mrs. Veski >> here, and Mr. Wood >> here. Uh, there was an executive exec session prior to the committee meeting for personnel reasons. There'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the April 27th committee meeting as presented. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve April 27th voting meeting as presented. Uh are we doing the reports? >> Uh under budget, finance and transportation, there'll be a motion to regular voting agenda to approve the financial report for the month of April 26 as presented. There'll be
002a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the following dispersements and credit card statements for the month of April 2026 as listed. There'll be a motion on Baker Tilly US LLP to audit the basic financial statements and prepare a single audit for the year ending uh this June 2026 June 30th. We have a motion on regular voting agenda to approve the general budget for in amount of 39,42,468 and established the 2627 real estate tax rates as follows. Center County is 65.12 Perth County at 734. It's a bid option on four bid option on five being the general fund and 39,33,388 established 26.7 as county 64 58 county 72.44 Are there any questions? >> Mr. Are you going to be presenting more? >> Yeah, I'm going to come in a presentation before meeting that question.
003We'll ask that. >> Y >> are you doing that during committee or voting meeting? >> Do that during voting. >> Any tax discussion before voting meeting? I think during this presentation might be the best time. >> Yes. >> If anyone else that the most relevant time. >> Yeah, that would be a motion on a regular voting agenda established capital tax or income real estate transfer rates as set in prior years. There be a motion on regular voting to approve a capital reserve budget in the amount of $425,000. A motion on the regular voting agenda approve a food service budget 2627 school year amount of 1,497,795. Motion on the regular voting agenda to change the homestead farmstead allowance based on new dollar amounts available for distribution and set by the Pennsylvania Department of A. There'll be
004a motion on a regular voting agenda to renew the food service management contract with Mets area management for 26 27 school year as presented. And there'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to continue the PO school district participation in the community eligibility program for for free breakfast and lunches for all district students. There'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the cafeteria prices as listed. Adults 305 for breakfast. Adult one to 505. A motion on regular voting agenda approve a contract with the government software services to generate the male real estate and per capita duplicates for Rush Township and Wilpsburg for 26 27 school year as presented. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the tax assessment appeal settlement approvement for the Cornell companies as
005presented. Tom, can you just highlight quickly the difference of what we have to pay back? >> Yeah. So, this is for um the property that goes located at. Again, there was an assessment appeal on that. um two appraisals that were done, one by um one by the lease holder there and then one by the district and we're able to come to a settlement and the settlement agreement again is will be a refund of about 135,000 and then for next year we're looking at about $190,000 in reduction in real estate tax revenue collected. >> So a refund that we must pay them for 2526 and then we'll lose $190,000 per year. Correct. Thank you. We a motion on a regular voting agenda to approve the all access package, membership with PSBA which includes full board training,
006comprehensive subscription package, travel accident, upgraded 247 coverage, Pennsylvania School Safety Institute, policy maintenance, keystone agenda, and administrative regulations. As presented, there'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to terminate services with diligent board doc services effective June 30th, 22nd. We have a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the first amendment to the grant of access and utility easement between PO school district and the CE black and Shannon Ozie LLC as presented and this concerns the power access around Memorial Hill. There'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the following agreements for PO school district as presented service agreements for all four buildings. There'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to accept the Melbour method for approving the 2627 general fund budget for Pristo County Career and Tech
007Center as presented. Now, their budget, our our piece is higher that we must pay in this year. >> Yes, it's slightly higher. Um, but again, I think that the amount is right around $900 some,000 that has to go in. It was a slight increase >> because our student enrollment, >> it's based on student enrollment and then our percentage of that and then their total budget. So, the total budget went up a little bit, but then our portion of that share is based on the student population. The motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the 262.7 general fund budget for the Clearfield County Care and Technology Center as presented. There'll be a motion honoring voting agenda to approve the booster club report for boys basketball for unified boti and for the uh wrestling boosters. All
008three of those will be on the for approval. >> Curriculum and instruction. >> We have a tenative graduation list for the 25 26 school year. That would be graduation this Friday. Correct. Graduation seniors. You have a motion to approve a education pilot agreement between PO and the HM education company for grade seven and eight. Is that a pilot program they're they're implementing at the middle school? >> Yes. >> It's a continuation of our software. Mr. P, can you speak to that real quick? >> Yeah. HMH is the company that um we use K to8 for math and it's basically it's been called go math and it's just it's just upgrading to something called into math. It's like 2.0. >> So it's just the new version coming out that we're I think the elementary's already >>
009you're still go math. We're going into we're using in math. Sixth grade pilot it this year. Next year seventh and eighth grade are going to pilot it. And we're looking to approve flexible instruction days for a three-year period beginning 26 27 school year. Are there really any big changes to this compared to what we currently have or >> No, it's just updating the dates. >> Yep. We have a motion to use Vista ESL textbooks and workbooks for the middle school and high school ESL classes and reach textbooks and workbooks for the elementary ESL classes for the 26 27 school year and dispose of some old textbooks. Dispose of outdated unused and damage elementary library books and there be a motion to approve field trips for the remainder of this school year 2526. >> Thank you.
010Motion roll committee. Motion on the regular voting agenda to approve an agreement between the school district and the United Steel Paper and Forestry Rubber Manufacturing Energy Allied Industrial and Service Workers Union effective July 1 of this year through June 30th 2019. Motion to approve the compensation and benefit plan for the act 93 certified administrators as presented. Motion to approve the compensation of benefit plan for the act 93 administrators non certified administrators. Motion to approve the compensation and benefit plan for the occupational therapist. Motion to post two driver's ed positions for the summer effective May 14th. Motion to approve the following extended school year positions as listed. Call time out on that. I'm occupational therapist. We're going to list Morgan Everman to do extended school for you. >> I'm sorry. Motion to approve the following title
011one K through five reading program positions for the summer. Motion to approve the following summer school positions for this summer. Motion to post a school psychologist position for the school district at the beginning of the school year. The posting effective May 11. Motion to post two special ed teaching positions posting effective May 11th for the 2627 school year. One in the high school and one interest. Motion to accept the resignation of Carrie Sather, a 5.75 hour special ed instructional assistant at the high school effective May 22nd. Motion to accept the resignation of Britney Slather. COD for the height for the school district effective May 29th. Motion to post the quota position effective May 28th. Motion to accept the resignation of Ken Linder as a 5-hour districtwide custodian at elementary effective May 29th. Motion to accept
012the resignation of Jeffrey Linderman as a 5-hour districtwide custodian at the high school May 17th effective. Motion to post 5.0 Our districtwide custodial positions effective May 11th, two at Oola, one at the middle school and high school. Motion to accept the resignation of Ezekiel Shaver as a 5-hour districtwide custodian at the high school effective May 22nd. Motion to post the 5-hour custodian position at the high school effective May 28th. Motion to accept the resignation of Michael Silko as school police officer at the Oakland Elementary School effective June 30th. Motion to post the school officer position at the Mills Elementary School effective May 28th. Motion to approve Style as a homeown instructor for elementary student. And then a motion to approve nine requests for unpaid days. Thank you. under student affairs extracurricular. >> There will be
013a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve a special education services agreement between school district school year. There'll be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the transportation services agreement between school district and the CI10. I'm sorry that one difference. >> Okay. There'll be a motion on regular voting agenda to approve an alternative education for disruptive youth program agreement between Ksburg Oil area school district and learning services for the 2627 school year. As premitted, I'll be a motion on the regular line agenda to approve a contract for services between the area school district and secular child services for Folksburg Middle School for the 2627 school year as presented. There will be a motion on the regular vending agenda to approve a cooperative agreement between hopes for Gossilla Area School District and Muray
014Pennsylvania. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve an educational services agreement between Isola area school district and new school DOI for the 26th 27th school year as presented. A motion on the regular voting agenda to approve an educational services agreement in Holsburg area school district and the new school state college Pennsylvania for the 20167 school year 7. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to extend virtual hours for the school psychologists to complete evaluations that are due prior to August 22nd, 2026. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to extend in-person contracted hours for the school psychologists to complete evaluations that are due between August 22nd, 2026 and September 19th, 2026. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the
015special needs consulting and services agreement between the Psburgil area school district and Commonwealth Charter Academy Charter School as presented. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve the following position volunteers for the 2526 school year as presented. Real quick, I'm just I want to interrupt on the one prior the number 10, the special needs consulting services agreement. Um we want to amend that to say um with approval from the school solicitor uh pending approval from the school solicitor uh to that month. In other words, we expect to have it back as early as tomorrow, but um with our one one meeting a month, we have it on for approval. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to the following extracurricular position for the 2526 school year. There will
016be a motion on the regular voting agenda to post the president senior class advisor position for the 26 27th school year posting effective May 5th to 26. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to close the yearbook senior high advisor position for the 2627 school year posting effective May 5th, 2026. There will be a motion on the regular ordering agenda to close the following being manager position for the 26 27 school year 28, 2026. There will be a motion on the regular voting agenda to approve Tyrone Anderson as possible diversity coach for the727 school year at the salary of $6,8349 a motion on the regular to approve random as the head girls varsity basketball 2627 school year of the salary of $6,834. $441. There will be a motion on the regular voting
017agenda to include Mary's and the head varsity cheerleing coach for the school year at the $5,16 cents. There will be a motion on the regard voting agenda to approve Mary Slagoski as the hype competitive cheerleading coach for the 2016 school year and a salary of $2,96161. There will be a motion on the regular event agenda to approve Caroline Davidson, a second varsity volleyball coach for the 2026 27 school year at the salary of $5,92322. There will be a motion on the reward voting agenda just by the head wrestling coach for the 2627 school year at the salary of $6,8349. There will be a motion voting agenda to approve the following circular curricular positions for the 2627 school year as presented. A motion on the regular opening agenda to approve a facility use agreement between school
018district and Greg Whitehead for county and baseball as consented. there will be a motion on their voting agenda to approve a facility use agreement between Folksburg area school district and JJ White for Legion baseball presented. There will be a motion on the regular ving agenda to approve the facility use agreement for the lesser member football. There'll be regular learning agenda for the facility use agreement between Pulpsburg School District and Justin Psburg wrestling and wrestling with the outdoors as presented. Anything else? >> We're gonna have a change on number seven for personnel. >> Um, under teachers, one of the Oil Mills elementary teachers will go from the teacher to the substitute and then the substitute will move up to the teacher spot. >> So, person >> number seven, >> title one. Ashley will move to substitute.
019Sarah McCauley will move up to teacher. >> And then we have number 21. Just to clarify, it is a middle school student, not an elementary student. Yes. >> Casey help instruction. >> Yes. six minutes. Anything else? Any other changes? >> We're going to start the voting meeting until 7 minutes to make a motion. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. All in favor? Thank you. Wednesday. We have a roll call, please. >> Mrs. Danny Shaw >> here. Dr. Mary >> here. >> Mrs. Bush. >> Mrs. Clicker here. >> Mrs. Rinstein here. >> Mr. Venus >> here. >> Mrs. Vesneski here. And Mr. here. >> No, would just like to share that um tonight neither is it neither were able to be here tonight. We're from the professional staff. Uh we have Tyler Good that it was
020recommended uh to be to present the award to tonight. Um the teacher award this award has been established to recognize PO's outstanding educators for their dedication, excellence in instruction and professionalism. Uh I can definitely attest and I know everyone that's in our room Tyler does an excellent job for us and definitely worthy of the award tonight. So uh we will get that award and certificate on to him. Uh our Mounty Pride staff member award goes to Devin Panabaker who's a custodian at our high school. This award has been established to recognize PO's outstanding staff members for their dedication, excellence in their positions, and professionalism. And uh Devon does a great job at the high school like many so many of our other support staff and uh we're proud to recognize him tonight. Also, these will
021be passed along to them. >> Thank you. >> Uh let's go to administrative reports. >> Good evening. Last night we had awards night at the high school. It was very well attended and the students really made out great. We had a total of 50 students receive awards and graduating seniors were presented with 87 different monetary scholarships. I just want to take a minute to give a special thanks to Dr. Bary for his kind donations of three $1,000 scholarships. The students were very very appreciative. So again, uh we had Balariat last week or on the 17th. There were more than 30 graduating seniors with their family and friends there. It was very well attended and it was a great opportunity for some celebration and reflection before graduation which is Friday night. We also recently had on
022Tuesday the 19th Triumph Music Honor Society hosted our 12th annual student showcase. It was completely run and organized by the students. They handled um preparing for the event. They handled the sound. They were the masters of ceremonies. They did all of the work on their own. Um they also held a fundraiser and the money that they collected from the event as well as the fundraiser which was a coin coin coin war um they collected $1,200 which they intend to donate to two students who are currently battling cancer. So >> thank you Good evening. Uh it's Peele Middle School. Today we celebrated field day. We had the whole school outside. Beautiful weather. Uh I was out in the back of the school today and it brought back memories of North Lincoln Hill and the old Olympics
023we used to have. And it's just it's nice to see kids just out there running around playing uh throwing the ball around. We also had a nice um tree dedication ceremony today for former employee Chris Kelly. Uh it's been two years since he left us and his family was able to attend. I'd like to thank Terry Irwin um for preparing the the spot. We have a nice beautiful red maple tree. Um if you if you go up and just take a left in the front of the school, you'll see it up by there's old silver bell and it just looks so nice and it's it's a really nice tribute to a great great employee. Um last week we had a lot of field trips. We sent sixth grade to the Altuna curve. We sent seventh
024and eighth grade to Canobyl. And I don't know, Mr. Wood, maybe you can remember or so. I don't know if we've ever sent, maybe we have, not since I've been here. Two grades. We sent 250 kids and about 30 staff and everybody went down and had a great time and everybody came back. So, it was su uh a success. And um next year, uh a curricular change or an instructional change. We're going to be increasing our math and ELA times instructional times to 60 minutes. We looked at everything and and decided that the the instructional time that the kids are getting in elementary with ELA and math in particular when it comes to sixth grade it's it's a big drop off and we felt that the instructional extra instructional time is going to benefit our
025kids. So we we felt we didn't have to do 80 minutes or 90 minutes but we felt 60 was appropriate. So oh last thing today is it's not on my notes but Mrs. Groves had um a group of of students volunteer. They're part of their field day and they they assembled 200 care packages for soldiers uh that are overseas. It's called a solders's hand. It's based out of State College. It's a nonprofit uh group, but she had the students um assemble these care packages and they're going to be sent over 200. So, you know, kudos to them for dedicating their time for a great cause. That's all I have. Good evening everybody. Um at PE we have some end of the year events going on as well. This morning we had our talent show. We
026had almost 30 acts. Um whether it was playing the piano to dancing to singing. Um there's a lot of talent going on. It was amazing to see all the kids uh show what the what they have been practicing, what they are really good at. Um we had our fifth grade walk this afternoon. So, we have all the fifth graders walk down our sidewalk. The whole school lines the sidewalk. Parents come in. Uh the kids get to pick a walk out song and they walk down the sidewalk and they really enjoyed it. And the weather, as as Mr. Pela said, was really beautiful today to have that. Um reading goals. So, one of our reading goals every year um with our title program is to have at least 90% of our students either read on grade
027level or make a year's growth in reading. This year, we had 93% of our students do that. That was great to see that. You know, ultimately we'd love to see 100%. So, we're going to keep working to to so we can get to 100% one of these times. Um throughout the year, I've shared about our ECAN spell grant. So, I just wanted to put some information for you to see um what all is entailed into the spell grant um and who we work with and how we utilize it uh within the building for the kids. Uh before I talk about our little shout out that we do, I do want to share and last week our fifth grade student council at both PE and OM went out to Rustic Ridge Farm. Uh they went out
028and spent the day cleaning up some of the trails helping clean up out there and then they had a afternoon of being able to participate in the obstacle course, seeing some of the animals out there. Um, we're really trying to work together with Russ at Ridge Farm to make more of a connection between our district and what they have to offer. And it's beautiful out there. So, it was a good start for us getting the elementary schools to to have the students involved in what goes on out there. And just the last thing, I want to wish uh Beth Wardo and Vanessa Myers. There are two teachers that are retiring from PE this year. I just want to wish them the best of luck. They both put a lot of time into our district. Um,
029I know Vanessa told me today she has I think 30 point 33.4 or 30.4 years in the district. Um, so she spent a lot of time there and they they're both going to be really missed. They've done a lot of great things for our students and our community and our school district. So I just want to thank them for everything they've done. >> All right, just a couple things from Oola Mills Elementary. Um, we're very fortunate to have Mr. for Caslo in our community. Um so he comes and visits our fourth grade classes. Um he gives a presentation about the history of Oola Mills. He brings in artifacts from the museum that is down by the library. Um and then when students move into fifth grade, he actually takes them on a walking tour through
030the town. Um I did bring the book that he uses. I don't know if if anyone has ever attended this. You did. It's really cool. Um but the book does go through like all the stops they make. So if anyone wants to take a peek at it, it's we're very lucky to have him. He gets the kids excited about history and and the little community that we live in. Um celebrations. Today was our kindergarten celebration. The students do a alphabet fashion show. Um and they sing songs and do some nursery rhymes. It was adorable today. The parents really enjoyed coming in for that. Tomorrow is our fifth grade graduation. Um it's a huge celebration at Oolman and fifth grade teachers do an awesome job recognizing our students. And in April, a new law passed about
031cursive writing. So, um, third through fifth grade students at both buildings are starting it by an introduction at the end of this year and then next year it'll be embedded into our curriculum. Um, with each grade level responsible for a different component of cursive writing. >> Hello. In the world of student services, our counselors finished up with PSSAs in the elementary and middle schools that ended in early May. Philipsburg Elementary was lucky enough to have some visitors from the state to monitor them and they passed with flying colors. So, that's a great job. Um, at the high school, Keystone AP testing ended. And they brought up the eighth graders and did a trial run through the schedules for next year for a move up day. And the middle school welcomed the fifth graders for some
032tours so that they could get acclimated to the new building and help reduce the stress for next year of the change. Our nurses were very busy. They did a reertification on our inservice day for CPR for themselves. They welcomed Pent Highlands who came in and did physicals for our K 6 and 11th graders who needed them and who signed up. They finished up their screenings. And if you know the month of May is filled with many, many field trips. So they planned and helped facilitate all of those with medication. It's a busy month. All right, sports. Uh, we have a winding down. We have one team uh left playing for spring sports baseball. Um, we have a district championship game tomorrow um against Tyrone at 6 PM in Altuna at the Vet Stadium. So, uh,
033we've had some nice weather. Um, so it's been great. put some team leaders they have are hitting Connor Gau Fisher White um pitching wins Archer Bachmann had six Nick the Simons at four um the JB team finished the season three and nine uh softball they're finished the season 18 and three they had a great season um nothing to hang their heads about it's definitely a heartbreaking loss um to Westmont Hilltop at home the other night but um some season highlights Macy Bush uh reached 100 stri strikeouts. Emily Gusky reached 100 career hit milestone. Um so it was uh they made districts. Um so unfortunate but uh they had a great great team bonding. Um the season went very well. Um track and field we had eight qualifiers, district qualifiers. Uh we have Robert Mlanahan in
034the long jump triple jump and he set our school record for the long jump. So, we'll get his name on our uh placard in the awards and trophy case. We'll update that. Uh Aaron Davis in the 4x00, Drew Gino 400 and Jane Jones, they all competed together. Uh Chapman, Coleman Chapman competed in the shot and the javelin, Ryan Mccclure in the discus and Javelin, Connor Law, the javelin, and Aiden Harrison Pvolt. Um, junior high baseball uh was a season filled with growth and competitive and exciting moments on the field. Um, the team finished eight and eight. The A team an overall record of 12 19 to1 between the A and the B teams. Um, so they had some ups and downs, but they showed tremendous effort and resilience and improvement throughout the season. Um, our
035softball team, junior high softball team, our A and B teams finished a combined 195 and one with some key wins over some Holidaysburg and State College, Belmont, Holiday West Branch. Um, so those are some big wins for us. Um, track and field, I know last time I shared we had some student athletes going to the middle school championship at Mansion Park. Um, so we had some students Logan Flynn uh ran the 3200. Jackson Hunt in the pool vault, Aan Reed and Javelin, Sarah Cronitter in the 3200, AA Smith in the 100 meter hurdles, long jump. Um, and Bel Walk placed eighth in high jump and three in and in the 300 hurdles. So there some impressive personal records were set that day. Um, and there are over a thousand athletes over there. Um, we're already
036getting ready for fall. Uh we had uh physicals last week with Penn Highlands. Tyrone came in. We had over 100 athletes get physicals during the school day last Friday. So um that's exciting to get them in. The PIAA allows us to have after a May 1 date now. So kind of nice to try to get some of those in while kids are here in school. But yep. So if you're available, I' head Delta tomorrow for the game at 6. Thank you. special education. I just highlighted some things that are going on in each of the buildings. The PE and our autistic support classrooms and our life skills classroom went together and we did a joint field trip to Rustic Ridge Farm. Um they got to interact with the chickens and the goats. They got to
037see the cows. They um did a painting activity. They did a planting stage activity. So the the tractors and the chickens were definitely the highlight of the day. Um it took a lot of effort because a lot of these students are students who um require a high level of support. So it took a lot of cooperation, but we had three parents who went with us. We had a lot of pair of professionals and service providers. So really appreciate all of their support to make this happen for the students and they they loved it. It was a really great day. Um the middle school, the autistic support and life skills classroom at the middle school has opened the summit shop which is like a studentrun coffee shop. They are starting to take orders and fill orders.
038The students are working on so the goal of this from the teacher was to bridge the classroom skills to real life skills. Um so they are working on respectful and professional communication. They're learning how to talk to people on the phone, how to write down orders. They're learning teamwork and collaboration and adaptability and problem solving. Um, they've only been running for a short time, but it's been a wonderful program. And you can see one of their student cashiers there and one of their happy customers um in the pictures. the high school. Um, every year the schools that are associated with the CIU, they come together and they plan um a daytime prom alternative for some of our self-contained classrooms. This year it was hosted at Kerwinsville. Um, this is open to students in 9 through
03912 who participate in our high school autistic support or life skills classrooms. Their theme this year was Once Upon a Time and it included Thrones and Cinderella's carriage. Um, it was a very positive and fun experience for them. They got to These are students who may or may not be able to experience a prom, which is kind of a, you know, a milestone experience for high school students, and they were able to experience that in a safe and supportive environment. Thank you. Anybody else? First, we'll give you the floor. So, I'm going to go over the 2627 general fund budget. the total for the final budget 39.4 million 39.4 4 million tax mill center 65.12 which would be a.92% increase after the rebalance clearfield 73.04 2.98%. Total between the two 138.16 2% the act one
040index which is the maximum that you can increase this year was 5%. So that was the max amount that we could have went. It was 2% is what we're looking at in this this final budget. And again, this just gives a breakdown of the local revenue, state revenue, federal revenue. One thing I want to point out again, if you look at the local revenue that's coming in, it's all pretty much tax related funds that are coming in. You know, real estate tax is 10.7 million of the 14 million that's coming through. And then the earned income tax and real estate transfer tax. Again, about $2 million are going to be what drives that. When I talk in some of these slides, we're going to talk about we're going to look at like the assessed value
041that we have here. We're going to look at schools around us and see what kind of growth we have here compared to other districts too, which kind of helps us understand when we look again real estate tax, what we're doing there, you know, what's kind of driving that. These are the expenditures, the 39.4 4 million and kind of where they're broken down. So again, majorities at the instructional level about 55% or about 22 million supports 12.4 million our student activities which would be our athletic programs and fine arts programs 1.14 million or 2.9%. Debt service payments for next year 2.5 million. We have a budgetary reserve built into this budget $836,000 and then we have transfers of 560,000 500 grand to the capital because again we have basically under $100,000 in our capital reserve right
042now. Again you look at a lot of districts around us they have a lot of capital reserve in place. So again that cap reserve will be used to fix a lot of equipment to fix buildings. And again, this is looking at last year's budget to this year's budget. Total revenues about a $500,000 increase, about 300 grand locally, about 310 grand at the state level. The big change you can see on the expenditure side is in our salaries and benefits. You're looking at about a $2 million decrease from last year's budget to this year's budget. Typical budget, we're going to have $500 to $600,000 increase in salaries and benefits. So we're $2 million less where we typically would have been five or 600,000. One area that again we're seeing increased costs in our other purchase services,
0436.2 million in last year's budget, 6.9 million this year. So transportation services fall under there. And all of our tuition, so our out outside placements are in there. Um 1.9 million next year just for special ed outside placements. >> Mr. Martin. >> Yeah. Um, when you said for salaries, are we you said like five or 600 a year? What would we kind of be expecting >> between salaries and benefits? When you look at the increase that you're going to typically have, you're looking at about a $500 or $600,000 increase. So again, on the benefit side, you're looking at almost 40% between the retirement for peace and for social security contribution that we have to make. And um if you look like I said so if you look at a typical increase in salary say it's
044400,000 you're looking at another 150 $200,000 in that benefit side plus what health insurance and again we look at the health insurance slides statewide they're just look I went to a health insurance uh symposium and they're basically looking at 10% increases across the board. So depending on what your number there so those are kind of the driving factors. So again, like like I was saying, typical $500 $600,000 increase, we had $2 million decrease. So we're actually about $2.6 million to the good. >> But that's but that number you that would be something to expect almost every year. >> Yes. Year to year. >> Yeah. And so that's when we look at like where our increased costs are going to be coming from. Salaries and benefits are going to be the main main place. And then
045the other main place again that we're looking at is these other purchase services and they're the hardest things to predict. Again on the benefit side, the health insurance is hard to predict and then these other purchase services um it's hard to tell what they're going to be. So again you can see on here last year we had a transfer of 135,000. This year 560,000 500 of that going into capital the capital reserve. This is assessed value and this is just showing growth before we have to do anything with real estate taxes. And what you would hope to see in here is that you would have growth. In other words, you would see housing developments going in. You would see commercial properties going in. That's where you get a lot of value assessed values for commercial
046properties. So, um, just think of stores going in, think of retail places going in, think of hotels going in. And in turn, when you have that growth, it also helps you on your earned income tax side because when you're so so for instance, when you're building houses and you're putting jobs here, you have people earning income here. So now you're going to bring in more earned income. So again, if you look here, you can see in Clearfield County back in like 15, 16, 17, 18, 18, 19, 19, 20, there was growth there on the assessed value side. You can see in the last five years or so, there's been growth on the center county side. Now, the growth on the center county side is more the KOZ properties that are up the road that are
047coming on to the uh to the ROSS now that where basically they didn't have to pay taxes uh until they got started up. So, you're seeing that come on down. But if you look across the board even till last year cumulative over that period from 201516 to 2526 only 3.1% increase in assessed values. And this year obviously we just talked about we had a large decrease in Clearfield County. So we went from 87 million assessed values down to 84 3 and a half% decrease there. Again center went up 1%. total 2.18%. But again, each percent that we bring in brings in about $100,000. You know, a lot of other places they might be getting a percent a year. So that number where you're seeing 2% might be 10 or 12% that they're picking up, which
048would be an additional 1.2 million that we will be generating that we don't generate right now. Again, we talked about this, but again, I want to just talk about the rebalancing. So this rebalancing as we look at that information there we see the growth in center county what basically happens if you are district and you have you multicount in other words your your schools are in two different counties or more basically what happens is it's basically that the state PD is going in and basically rebalanceing that or basically shifting the tax burden from one county to the other and it's an outdated system. There is legislation right now uh that was enacted in February by Representative Paul Freel to basically allow districts in multi counties the ability to be able to set the rates without
049having these rebalancing. So one thing that I would encourage you and even when you talk to your constituents out there have them talk with their state reps talk with people to be able to back this because again we don't have that ability. So when we go into this year right off the bat, 2.3% increase in center county before we start anything and I don't have the ability to do anything to reduce that amount down. We have to give back tax dollars because it's already adjusted in and this year because of the fact that we had what we had going on in Clarefield County, we had that large increase but typically it would have caused you to increase center even more. And so again, we want the ability to be able to set it equally if
050we wanted to. If we would, if you guys would come in a board and say we want to do a 2% increase, you could do a 2% increase to center, 2% increase to clear coat. We don't have the ability to do that right now. We also don't have the ability with this system to go the full index. So in other words, where it says 5%, I can't get to 5%. I could get it to maybe 4.9% in one district or one county, maybe 4.7 in another county. So again, I would just communicate that with your constituents when you talk with them. Again, as you can see here over time with this rebalance, it's been about equaled out about 4.3 in center, about 4.2 in Clearfield. But you can see back here there were larger balances.
051So Clearfield, for instance, got rebalanced 1.7% back in 1718. What was happening on during that time a lot of times was they were giving tax dollars back and reducing that dollar amount down. So this would have been a new amount from that 114 down to 113. And you can see on the center side they went from 5197 down to 50.65. So again large rebalance two years ago this rebalance 2526 which impacts is now 2.3%. So, just to clarify, without any type of board action county, >> if you're a center county resident, you're you would see a 2.3% increase in your tax without any type of board action. >> Right. Right. And again, it's it's basically saying we're shifting more of the tax burden from over to center because there's more value, more market value, more
052wealth there than there is on the Clearfield side. So, Clearfield doesn't have to pay as much. Center needs to pay more. And again, you see, can you see this 2.3 here? I talked with some other fellow business managers. There's some schools 10%, 12%, 13% rebalance before they even start plus that. And again, it there's a lot of different data there, but that's where again when you're what you're seeing is you're just seeing an increased portion of that saying more of this is going to be in center, less in clear field. Do we want to in order to do anything to change that you have to look at your local representatives and >> they need to change basically they have to change the law to be able to allow multi-county districts and that's what that Paul
053Freel has in place to basically allow us to be able to go in and be able to set those without having because right now we go in and put a dollar amount in as a as a board and as a district and say we want this amount of money and then it calculates out how much of that percentage is center and how much is Clearfield and then it counts to mills in a single in a single county school district. You said the mills. >> And to be clear with this, there is absolutely nothing that we can do to change this rebalancing. No. >> No. The only way to reduce that number down is to give tax dollars back. >> Okay. >> Which you don't want to do. >> Yeah. Which if you say status quo,
054there's no ability to change. >> Right. Right. So this year we collected a little more than what we had budgeted. We collected 10.52. I think we budgeted 10.49. So again um more people paid their their taxes on time. 2627 um 10.7 would be what we would collect about a $212,000 increase. Again, when we look at the tax rates for this year, we have to take into account, like I said, the lost tax assessment value that we have in in um Clearfield, which again was $190,000 decreases. Now, again, this is really important. 10-year history, 2011, 2012 to 2020, 2021, the average increase of all the schools around us in Critical was almost 8%. Center County 14.4. 4%. We were 71 basically by.14. So I want you to think of it like this. Think about your own
055personal income. You go into 2011 2012 and you talk to your spouse and you say I got a job and I'm making this much money but oh by the way over the next 10 years I'm going to take a decrease six of those 10 years and at the end of 10 years I'm going to be back to where we started. Going to be no increase. And now you flip to 2021 and now the cost of everything has changed over that 10 year period. That's basically what happened. So when you do this for a year or two or three is one thing. When you do this for a 10y year period that's a lot of lost wealth. And again what you have to think about is every year you have that ability to change that index
056and increase it up. But you can't go back in time. There's no mulligan to go back and say, "Oh, it was a 4% index last year. This year it's five or this year is three. We want to go back and do seven now. We want to take part." You can't. It's It's done. And again, like I I showed on here, 3/4 of a percent increase every year. Just a 3/4% increase would have brought in $6 million more that we would have had. Now, fast forward to the last five years. So I came here in 21 22 you can see the increases the average increase 12% in um Clearfield in that 5year period 12% in in center in that 5year period. So the 10-year period prior to that the percentage increases weren't as much as what
057they were here in this 5year period. Again, Philsburg 16% in center. You go down, I'm sorry, 16% in Clearfield and then 18% in in center. We still weren't the highest ones. If you look at West Branch, for instance, 20% in that 5year period. Tyrone down there 22%. Bald Eagle at 5%. If you flip back to the last slide, Bald Eagle in that 10year period about 26% increase. Tyrone 18.8%. West Branch 11.3. These are schools that are similar to us. Clearfield 8.8 there plus another 1089. These aid ratios are important too because these aid ratios the higher that number is the more state aid you get. The lower that number is the wealthier you are in less state aid. So if we look at the extreme example in center county state college 18.43% so they hardly
058get any state aid but then if you flip it if you look down there in center we have the highest state aid ratio but we did nothing on the local side to try to generate anything. Okay. And then you're basically counting on the state to come through for you. And again, we'll talk about this in future slides, but the way the state funding system set up right now, we're not getting a lot from the state and so we don't have those funds coming. So there's nobody coming to save us and we have all these increased costs that are coming. And so your local side is where you're able to do that. You have areas, for instance, like Belfont there where it's 47.67. If I pulled up their assess value growth and you saw that there,
059that number, it'd be huge. So that's where they don't have to go for as much because they're already getting a percent and a half, two percent increase in assessed value because we have all these new retail things going in all the residential things and then it's helping their earned income. And so we have to operate efficiently, which is why again you see the $2 million decrease in the salaries and benefits. We're doing everything on our end to try to put ourselves in good positions there. But this is where it gets back to the local side and then looking at that. But again, this slide here, that 10 year period, you can't go back and undo that. And similar to like a job, now you're trying to make up as much as you can to get
060because you're that much farther behind your peers that got raises all those years, but you didn't. And now you're trying to catch up. We never went indexed in any of these years. So, we tried to do a balanced approach where we did increase it up, but we didn't go index. And again, some of the other schools around this West Branch went index one or two years like and that's the reality. And again, when I talk with my peers, almost everybody that was going into a budget this time had a had a large deficit and they're trying to figure out how are we going to figure out that we don't have a fund balance. We can't have a deficit. They have a fund balance because of that 10-year period where they raised money up and they
061have those funds available. We don't Again, if you look right now at so somebody comes in and says right now what we're proposing change in mill that we're doing after the rebalance would be 0.59 in center and 2.11 in clear field which is 91% 2.97 in clear field 1.99 a little under 2%. With the rebalance included in there it's right around 3%. increase in dollars around 200,000. If you look at the dollars per one mill, so what does one mill generate us? One mil generates about $90,000 in center county 67 in clearfield total about 156,000. What does 1% get us? Which percent increase gets us about 103,569? The max index that we could have went again was five. We're going two. So yeah, >> quick question. Um, we go back to like our 10-year period
062where we didn't where we just stayed flat. >> Um, to put you on the spot, I'm sorry to do this. We didn't make any big like infrastructure investments or anything at that point. I don't think correct. I think we didn't really aside from the football field, we didn't do anything. when he built the middle school here and he did that in 2013 2014 and again a lot of that was there was there was a cash transaction there of a couple million to do that but then there was also the debt service that you took on I think more of the issue is is that you don't do anything in that 10-year period there and in the meantime >> just more like just obviously we see this and this is like not necessarily tied in but
063I will ask a question about this later Um, do you know like this middle school football field, there wasn't any um, investment put into any of our older buildings at that point? >> No, I I think I think there were like boilers replaced at the high school. I think there was a boiler replaced at the at those buildings and everything. >> So just generally not a lot of infrastructure investment during that period. Okay. >> No. And then and then again like again we look at preventive maintenance. So again you go out and you look at the parking lot. This parking lot hasn't been resilled since it was put in in 2013 to my knowledge. And so those are the kind of things that again if you don't raise those taxes over that 10 year, you
064don't have the funds to be able to invest in. Fast forward, we come in, there's no fund balance, there's needs, and you got all these. And again, the year prior to me getting here was a million and a half deficit. Year before that was $800,000 deficits. So those are real deficits. So again, this proposal right now, again, as we look at Homestead Farmstead, last year people got a credit of $388 if they qualified for Homestead Farmstead. This year, that amount changed to $394. So $6 increase. I took the average because we I had a report with median um the median assessed value in center and clear field. I got the average which is a little bit of a higher number. And if we look at center county last year the average $272 clear $1,591 $2139
065this year$639 in Clearfield. So about $67 increase in center 47 in Clearfield. With the credit you're looking at $60.97 and $40.97. Now the um we also have again you're going to see like I said we have two motions on on there. Again the this is the first motion and this would be the impact of that. The second motion with the lower rates which is closer to what we had on the proposed budget would generate about $15. It' be about $15 less of an increase on the center side. So you'd be looking around 43 $44. And again on on the um clearfield side, you go from like $40 to $25, $26. And again, this is annually. So if you divide that by a month, even with that um and you're looking at like $5 a month
066now, depending on your situation. So again, you're paying $4,000 in taxes, double that amount. So it be 120. So highlights from this budget. Again, it's a balanced budget. No deficit, no furlows, no elimination of programs or services for students. Transfer 500k into the capital project fund which has less than 100 grand in it right now. Reduction of salaries and benefits of 2 million compared to 2526 budget. We have a budgetary reserve return 30,000. And our increase in revenue is about 1.5% of our total budget. Again, we talked about in future years maybe looking at what the inflation index is and trying to match that. So, um inflation index before everything went down in Iran was about 2.4%. Okay. So, you know, when you're looking at two, if we were in that 24 range and everything,
067you're looking at generating, you know, 8 to $900,000 increase. And again, we don't know what the state's going to do. And again TPA, medical pharmacy network change have stabilized our increases in our rate of 26 27. Now impact areas pop all these up. So we have a lot of unfunded state mandates. There's a lot of things where they come the state will come in and say you need to do this, you need to do this. And you know Wayne's world has all these different things in special ed. you have to do this and there's no funding for it. And so that becomes a problem. Um when we look at special education, when I first got here um five years ago, we had about 320 students that were identified with special education. That number is like
068406 right now. Over 25% of our enrollment. So one in four kids right now special education IEP. The local share like our cost of special education for 2627 is 4.1 million. We get about 1.9 million in this budget from the state for special education. We get IDA pass through money that um is passed through by CI10 and it's about $400,000 and then we are involved in the access program which is a lot of work and we get about $200,000 toward doing that. The remainder of the special education budget which is 6 million plus has to be covered locally. So it's $4.1 million. So again this is not we are not unique. If you talk to any other school district, every school district you talk to, this is an increased cost. And again, the state's kind
069of basically like, h, we just throw a little bit towards special education and they're just not throwing money there to be able to help that. So, the local shares just going up dramatically. Health insurance trends, again, 10% increase in re in rates expected statewide. I went down to a symposium held by Pasbo. There were 10 other school districts there. Um they said we saw maybe 20% increase for the next year. Um they brought up GLP1 for weight loss. Most of the other schools that are down there, they don't they have basically they don't offer that. They've negotiated that out. They don't offer those GLP ones for diabetes. Not an issue. They had experts in the health insurance field down there basically saying like this is a train that's coming down the tracks our we have
070data now to be able to look at that for us and everything and even on our end and everything like it's the percentage cost of our total spend I think it may have been like five or six or 7% of our total cost and everything of our pharmacy it may have been 10%. Like so that's an area that again we're one of one of the few schools that were down there that still have that in there. So, it's just something to kind of put on the radar there. Um, state budget, again, talked about this areas not being funded right now, they're running deficits with the education budget and with the state budget in in totality. There's a lot of adequacy funding that's going so the majority of the increase is going towards an adequacy funding
071settlement, which a lot of schools don't get. We're only getting $270,000. So again, think of it like this. Six, seven, $800 million being spent, most of it being spent on that adequacy going to a handful of schools. States looking at like we're funding education, we're doing all this. A better option would be that money to go to special education to go into that funding, but that's not going to happen. So that's part of the issue. So, you have a situation now where, you know, you're going to have bipartisan stuff happening down there where they're basically going to be like, "Okay, what I've heard is this budget should pass hopefully closely on time. I don't think it's going to be before the end of June, but they'll we'll get a state budget pass for 2627, but
072basically for 2728 to buckle up. So, and with the federal budget changes that are happening now, too, what you're seeing is more costs are being pushed down to the state level, too. So, they're going to have to look at all of that. So, again, they can't continue to keep spending at the rate that they're spending because the there's there's not enough revenue coming in for the expenditures coming out. And right now, even with what's coming out, it's not it's not helping a lot of the school districts. A lot of the the school district around us are not being funded the way they should be. And again, like I said, they're not coming to save us. So I think for this year's budget, you know, what they were giving us was like 380 390,000. We get
073an increase if our wages go up. We get an increase on the um on the P serves and on the social security might be another 150,000 a little bit on the transportation side, but again it's not enough to offset like you you had asked like what's the salaries and benefits and everything. The state portion is not even going to cover that. So that and that's not even getting into special education and all these other things that we're looking at. And then we have the district's future capital needs kind of what you talked about was what about some of these buildings and things need to happen in roofs and heating units and preventive maintenance implementation. So these are the things that we kind of have to look at. So again our Moody's rating was downgraded because
074of the fund balance going down. you know, they're like, you got to rebuild this back up. Initial projections for 2526 is looking like we're going to have a surplus to be able to add to that. So, that's good. So, that's a good first step. This budget is another good step. And it's just this balance of again, nobody nobody wants to raise real estate taxes, but it's understanding that the local share has to start to kind of has to come up too and how we go about that. If we had more growth, then you as a board wouldn't have to try to increase rates as much to be able to offset it. But again, I worked for the county for like 17 years prior to coming to here. We never had to raise taxes, but we
075do fees for services. You don't have that here. You don't provide a service. So, they had all this fee revenue would come in. Think about it like you go to the sheriff's office to get a service done. You go to the um DJ's office and people are paying fines there for tickets that they got. You know, you go across, you go to treasury's office to go get a license. All these different things reporting a deed. All those things generate fees. We don't have anything that generates fees here. The only fee revenue that's coming in is the price of admission to go into a sporting event. Somebody uses the building for building use, but there's really nothing coming in. So, it's on it's on that side. And again, funding wise, if we start to build up
076our funds, I'm able to invest that money and we're able to earn and then that increased our local share, too. So, like last year, we earned 200,000 plus in investment income. When I first got here, the rates were so low, we didn't even earn $1,000. But imagine if we would had 6 million more dollars in that bank account at 3% interest. That's another 200 grand that we could earn. So, this is all where this is at. So again, our job in administration is to find solutions to the problems and to bring them to the board and that's kind of what we've been trying to do. >> Kind of on that he explored the option of a consultant that would look at all this stuff really wasn't received all that well. We never really fully continued.
077Is that kind of what happened to Mr. East or >> So in regard to Mr. step. We brought in a retired superintendent, as a consultant who had done some work in other uh districts there. I think it was early on as a board, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, that we decided we we a we needed um short-term answers and long-term answers. Uh some of the proposals would be whether we would restructure buildings which would be maybe a several year process which was not going to help us in this budget year. Um it at the end of the day we decided we were not going to go the route of booking in buildings from an from an enrollment standpoint the classical decision like one of the questions we had to ask was what
078are we doing with and and the answer was we're doing nothing with me. >> Now I guess the one big question obviously we shut that down really quick. There are a lot of districts out there very similar to us have a lot more money than us. One I've come across it's all eagle. Um I think they call it a feasibility study. Um where they go they off they outside consultation they kind of you know give projections on long-term enrollment where they see this going and then you know from there they'll offer I think solutions things like that. I think in October though you kind of did that on one of your reports and we all >> we spoke about enrollment >> right >> and I think what came so coming back to feasibility on our
079locally what we decided or looked at was um we would have to look at adding on to a building and at this point in time the cash flow was not it wasn't something that we were looking to entertain was to take on debt to solve that problem. But that's in other words, we did not have enough capacity just to move a building of enrollment of students into another one. But to that point, um you you could look at firms. It's just what the what the end goal or our goals of the board would be long term. I think a lot of other districts are looking looking at things like this and whether it's feasible. I mean, just looking for this coming year, Bald Eagle's not doing anything, but it sounds like they're going to have
080a plan here in the coming years and they're in a much better financial situation already than we are. Well, I think the thing too on our end, things that we're continuing to do is again looking at trying to avoid costs down the road. So again, we continue to keep looking at things on the health insurance side. So again, that's why you see that on the slide that looking at those things which are difficult decisions that you have to make, but that's where we look at it and say, "Okay, we aren't a company. We don't sell a product. we're offering these ELP1s and it costs the district x amount of money and then having those conversations on is this something that we want to talk about and again continuing to look at all different things like
081Wayne and I getting together and trying to really find like how can we provide for those services but the most efficient ways that we can do that. So again that 500 level looking at those increases like everything like looking at that and saying like what can we do there to get better there and even like I said on the health insurance side wellness programs all these different things on our end to be as efficient as we can be on our end to be able to be ahead of all this because again we made adjustments last year during our budget to 2526 you know and Dr. Nick was able to identify, okay, we're not going to be a we're not going to fill these particular positions and everything and we did certain things that put us
082in a good spot and then we did the same thing here. It's no small task to have retirement incentive like that to have 10 people take it to have no furloss with where we were. I think my my thing you know just presentations looking at our infrastructure everything reason I asked during the 10 you know during that period of time we're at a point where we really need to invest in infrastructure or else things are going to start failing and not necessarily in a small way roofs are leaking track systems or breakings and now I think after this year great job on everyone's part we're very running efficiently. I would say at this point, which is great, but looking longterm, I don't see something has to give. >> Well, at some point, otherwise, we're just
083going to continue down this this path where we're going to have to you're going to have a heck of a job every year to figure out where we're going to find money. Well, and I think I think what we have to look at too is again we've not issued any major debt in a long time again because of our cash flow situation and obviously so what we're trying to do is imagine a scenario here where we are able to build up that capital reserve a little bit but then maybe take some of those funds that were going to capital reserve and now we allocate them to debt service. But a piece of this too is getting your rating back up right because you want to get the best rate that you can get when you
084go out to issue debt to be able to do that. So I think again identifying where the issues are, what things need to be able to be corrected. And again, that's what we're trying to do even right now. It's like the facility improvement grant try to basically say 25% match. we can get that 75% funds. we can get all the roof fixed and then be able again like you said systematically go through and say like these infrastructure things need to be tackled and to be able to do it you're going to have to do it every day >> and and again just figuring that out though how you can work that out and again that's where having smart people that you're working with we you know have PFM financial advisories working with us to be
085able to figure those kind of things out and um ultimately if you look at any school we're in a good spot debtwise like if you look at our overall debt the total amount amount of debt that we have. It's just that we have two large issues that are all now fully getting paid. And that's why it's the majority of that 2.5 million that you're seeing right there. We will have a little bit dropping off. And that's where I say like if we continue to keep maneuvering the way we're maneuvering, we can put ourselves in a situation to be able to build that into our budget to be a because again, you're not going to have millions of dollars in fund balance to be able to throw to that nor would you want to. And just
086to be like having debt, you know, people look at debt as a very bad thing, but terms like this where it's managed debt, it's not a bad thing. It helps you achieve goals that otherwise aren't sustain or can't do. Is that kind of what we're >> Well, and in the borrowing rates that a school is able to get because of their status and everything is much better than anybody else. And again, this is where I keep going back into you want those moody ratings, those credit ratings to be good and everything, but you know, even some of these issues that we've had in the past and everything, 2% 3%, you know, and so and it's the only way you can as a school. I mean, you got people, you got schools now like a Belfon,
087I don't know what that cost of that building was, 45 to60 million putting that building up there. And so what they do is, you know, they they raise so much on the capital side, they go out and do a capital campaign with the community to try to raise some money that way and then they'll issue debt. But you have to issue debt out over a long period of time, 20, 30 years. And there different ways you can kind of go about doing that. But there's no way to be able to do it without being able to issue those kind of. So again, we have a lot of borrowing capacity. It's just you have to pay the bill and then that's what you kind of have to look at. So, we're in a good spot that
088way. Where when I first got here, I think we had about 306 $38 million, but that we're down to like million. It's just everything we're paying now is the max amount. So, that's where we're at. >> We go on the board. I suggest that we create get through this budget and create a fiveyear plan was the number I threw out there as a board. So we know what we're going to do, what we got to replace. It was shot down at the time. I'll resuggest that again. Do this budget spearhead with you know a committee to get a fiveyear plan. Now five years is the right number. I don't know so we know where we're going and what we have to do. >> I think we just need to look at infrastructure how we do
089it. However many years it is something that's I think gonna be staring at her in the face real soon. Right. >> Yeah. Our high school was 1959. >> That one's about the same. Not quite. 1996 we put the addition on which would be the new part and tore the elementary part down. We went into the gymnasium to the left. That's part of the old junior high school back in your family, right? But the >> well of uh Philburg Elementary, the new school is 22 years old. Just for the group, you know, the motions that are on here again, you have number four and number five. And so what will need to happen is both those will need to be pulled. One of them will need to have five votes to pass. Okay. So number four
090again, 39.4 million. Center County 65.12 65.12 mills. Clearfield County 73.04. And so >> roughly what are those percentages? Do you want to know after the >> everything? So 3.25% increase in center county, 2.97% in Clearfield County, total of 3.1%. The average, again, the average resident in Center would be about $61. The average resident in Clearfield would be about $41. Okay? and it would generate about again an additional $200,000 in tax revenue over what we had the prior year. The second motion number five 39.3 million with the 64.58 in center and 22.44 440 Clearfield would be a 2.39% increase in center and be a 2.13% increase in Clearfield. Total increase of around 2.3. The average resident in center would be $43 a year. The average resident in Clearfield would be about 2750 for the year. So
091again, about about this $156 difference in Center County for the year and about $13 increase in the first motion to the second >> and then keep in mind the center was like 2.37 >> 2.39. So basically >> or no the um the rebalance >> the rebalance is 2.3%. So So again, the second motion's basically keeping center flat. >> Okay. And then the first one would be less than it's like.9% of an increase in center like it's under 1%. >> Yeah. From the board. >> There were a lot of just numbers. I know you see people that just trying to get it out so they know exactly percentage wise what's what. Um I mean all this stuff mills and stuff that fries my brain a little bit. Um you don't look at this stuff when you
092hear numbers. You don't know what exactly is what. Just trying to lay it out that way everyone kind of has a general idea of what's happening no matter what action comes >> and again have them talk with their state reps about the multi-county because that's a real problem because there's 88 schools that have this issue going on and we're trying to get traction down there. They've been bringing it up for years and that it this rebalance causes I don't like it when I see the rebalance like I'll know here by the end of June what the number is for next year. So usually like every other year. So I'm hoping that the assess that the market value didn't change much because it makes my job more difficult. >> So if you have >> sometimes you'll
093see this a lot of budgets of different school districts when they raise taxes. So if you have an assessed value of your house is like $100,000, >> right? >> What does that how that how does that raise your does that raise your taxes on? Well, number four, it just again the these assessed values that are in here and what I would tell you is like they're not even close to what the real value of the of the houses are. But like if you look in like Center County, like they have an they have an assessed value here of 50,000. Okay. And then a market of a 100 in center. You're basically saying that the total increase after the homestead farmstead deduction would be about 70 bucks for the year. You had a $100,000 assessed $200,000
094market value, you'd be looking at $144 after the homestead farmed for the year or about $12 a month. And again, that's part of the deal is if you look at your assessed value and you look at your market value on there, it's not even close to what your market value is. And the deal is that no commissioner is going to want to do a reassessment because they won't get reelected. >> No. And I asked Tom about a week or two ago and I use $3,000, right? If I pay $3,000 in taxes right now, >> y >> under number four, >> you'd be looking at about $100 a year. >> A little less than $100 a year, >> right? >> And that would divide it by 12, right? >> Yeah. >> $8 a month, >> right?
095>> Roughly, >> right? >> Just throw it out in my district. I don't know anyone that pays less than 5500, right? In like general neighborhood, right? I there's a couple other outlying areas I'm not 100% sure on but >> numbers like that multiply a little bit when you get in different areas especially in my >> well what I would say too again when you look at that 10-year period where there were reductions and it got back to flat now what you're seeing too with your constituents is over the last five years they're going to have they're going to feel those increases that they've had to have to try to you know so again like you saw in that scenario there 18% increase so they're seeing bad on there. The other thing too because not new
096reassessments are happening when new houses are being built they're being assessed high. So what ends up happen that that's where reassessment if that came in your bill might change to the good but do you see I mean there's a lot of houses that are under assessed but when new houses are coming in I saw this all the time at the county they're coming in and getting assessed much higher. It's crazy enough. Good. All right. Go that way. This way. >> What's that? All right, sounds good. Hey, I'm going to transition before we go into the voting section of the agenda. Just going to go over uh superintendent annual summary report. Uh has to deal with objective performance standards that are posted to the website. And uh so let's get into it. Here we have four
097objective performance standards. Um, basically the superintendent will lead a committee tasked with exploring and recommending options for restructuring educational services. Superintendent will lead a committee responsible for evaluating proposing strategies to ensure district's long-term financial sustainability. Superintendent will oversee the implementation of parent square software, the admin team. Superintendent will oversee the process of identifying and implementing goals related to the IU curriculum. So items one and two, you're we're going to relive the last 12 months a little bit and I'm hoping to get through it rather quickly. Um but we all know that we had uh committee meetings back as early as August 13th, August 25th and to that point, just to recap from last year, remember our statement was a third, a third, a third when we looked at our deficit in in this year's going
098into this year's budget. And so, uh, part of that was going to be through a tax increase, part through reduction in, uh, staffing, and then part with, uh, running a negative basically balance pulling from fund balance, uh, for that last third. Uh, and what we said was, let's do a bridge budget that would get us into this year that we're in right now, 2526, and then soon as July comes, we're going to go right into the budgeting process for where we are tonight. And so basically we did that beginning in August, August 13th, the 25th, September 22nd, and then we of course had the October 27th that Mr. Bankis uh alluded to there a little bit ago, presentation to the community, and then we had an update in January. Superintendent, uh just to that first
099one, some of the things we were looking at was, you know, do we look at uh primary going to a primary and intermediate buildings like a K2 and a 35? our committees looked uh or our meetings. We looked through enrollment. We looked at teacher load. Um we looked at whether we bring fifth grade back to the middle school. Uh ultimately we sort of settled on that staffing size versus student enrollment looking at the various departments throughout the district. Uh this is going to be also tied to the second one with the financial which we're going to talk about that Mr. Martin already talked about. Uh the outcome at the end of the day was we had 10 retirements that resulted in the shuffling of positions uh throughout our district that aren't off field. And so
100a couple things with tonight's budget uh presentation, we were able to pick up or have that 2,000 or $2 million um difference. But one thing that this group right here is tasked with that we haven't we won't know till next year is not filling those 10 positions. We have a plan of how that's going to look. I have a feeling it's going to hurt a little bit more come next year when there are things that we are used to having right now. Not things positions people that we're used to having right now that we're not going to and we're already starting to work through some of those pains of what that looks like for planning. So, but the 10 retirements was the resulting. If you look at the second part for the district's long-term financial
101sustainability, same thing. We had the same meetings one after another. We had our presentation to the community or in our January update. We also had on this one was our February 2026 community budget and tax survey where we had roughly around I believe 400 responses throughout the district. Um, we had our budget process. We had a presentation from Tom on February 23rd, March 23rd. We had a preliminary budget in April. And tonight, we're here with the final two options for a final budget going into the 2627 school year. This uh is going to be re reiterated over and over with the retirement center. The reason that is brought up is if we did not uh have leadership within the teachers union partnering with us pretty much throughout the school year. And when I say partnering,
102basically providing both admin and through the association working for a common good of how do we get uh to a better place in our district and and how do they look out for their members? how do we look out for our our long-term finances? That conversation and meetings um and working through those is very huge and I give a lot of credit to the association leadership and the association overall who voted uh in favor of it. So we we had 10 positions. You can see them there from a first grade, a third grade, a fifth grade, a sixth grade here to middle school, a middle school art, middle school guidance counselor, high school English, library, driver's ed, and high school science. What I want the any members of the general public to realize and anyone
103throughout the district, that doesn't mean that we lost those programs. What it meant was we lost or we had a retirement in that section which we had a reshuffleling then to fill in certain areas. Another thing to note with the asterisk in the past 12 months meaning before last year's budget was approved uh or the budget for this year was approved we had n we have had 19 positions that were not filled when someone left those positions. We have an additional six positions that included cost-saving measures. So, we're at 25 positions that look different 12 months later. 19 have been removed. Another six look different. All right. Another uh part that played a key role in in our budget proposal tonight uh that Mr. Mark presented was just um working again with associations both working
104with the uh teachers, working with the support staff, having conversations with the steel workers, uh ultimately the admin team that would have the result of whatever the teachers union voted for. But changing our third party administrator essentially our district health healthcare from high mark from the network of high marks blue shield to manitane health um played an important role. We Tom and I went out those dates in February the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th to each building. We called it the road show and and basically Tom went out to present and myself just to share what we wanted them to consider uh reviewing and and considering looking at and at the end of the day they voted to accept it. Um and of course the board approved it in April uh last month. Just the
105outcomes. These were some of the notes that are going to mirror what Tom presented with balanced budget with the budgetary reserve, no elimination of programs or services, transfer from the general fund to the capital project fund, uh a decrease in salaries and benefits compared to the 2526 school year. What I want to if we just go through memory uh of the last 12 months the objective performance standards read that it strategies to ensure the district's long-term financial sustainability. What I will say is that sort of morphed as a at a board level and uh admin level from hey we have committees to look at what we want to do long term to hey let's look at some options of what we what we have to do for this budget cycle and so what I would
106say is administratively even the team all of us in the in the room here administratively and working with I think we did a pretty good job of meeting the uh no furlows, being able to get the budget to where it is and to be sitting tonight where we're not having to put people out of positions involuntarily. In other words, where people are losing their positions that we did a pretty good job at a district level. We couldn't be any more happier tonight. Um, but that sort of morphed once, if we just think back, I think we had intentions at the beginning of end of last summer, beginning of the fall. I'm not so sure once the pressure of the community and the pressure of different areas, I don't know that we fully got to the
107long-term financial uh sustainability. I think the decisions that were made throughout the spring and the outcomes sets us up well for the next year or two. Um I think there's still some things that you're going to hear Mr. Martin, myself and and the potentially the admin team of when we have openings. I think the foreseeable mantra of where we're at right now is we're not going to probably be able to fill or we're going to be looking at different ways to not fill positions. That is still going to be an ongoing theme when we talk about the subsidy that Tom just presented and the lack of help from the state versus what our needs are from year to year. So, couple takeaways. Um, I think when it shrunk from more of a long-term to a
108this fiscal year, I think we did we all collectively through the board, uh, through the admin and through the even all the staff, I think we did a pretty good job and and we were able to get through just the third one was with the parent square software. We had administrative meetings. Uh Chad was a key component DJ uh and the team also from the IT of trying to maneuver us uh into the parent square uh software. We had meetings in July, September, October administratively and with parent square in my August 2025 back to school letter. We mentioned uh what was coming here after the first nine weeks. In October 2025, there was a school me basically a message a memo that would have went out to the community that we were going from school
109messenger to parent square uh on November 1st and that's when we were able to implement parent square. I think overall once we got through some hurdles of permissions and what is able to view we were able to uh from the time we had the conversations in August we were able to come up with a community link where you didn't necessarily have to be tied to a student but you could still get notifications and so we provided some avenues to communicate out to the public. Um, everything's a little bit of a work in progress, but right now we were able to to implement parent square and I think we're in a better place districtwide for communication. Last one, superintendent will oversee the process of identifying, implementing goals related to the curriculum audit. We focused on two
110areas. Uh, professional learning, focus on engagement, differentiation, and small group instruction. And then we also began the conversation to focus on math instruction and achievement. And so for the first one in professional learning um administratively we chose a a uh organization called teaching works. The heart of the teaching works strategy is to ensure that all teachers have the training necessary for responsible teaching. We f focus on a core set of fundamental capabilities that we call high lever practices. So we take that um Dr. Reese, Mrs. Selfridge, uh, began to have trainings with our staff, whether it was on inservice or whether it was on our monthly faculty meetings and and began to have those trainings. And so, in semester one, there was uh for our high leverage practices that was building respectful relationships, setting up
111and managing small group work. uh administratively in addition to the IU curriculum audit we have our comprehensive plan and um some of these are also going to help us in that area and so we did a three-year plan uh with these high leverage practices. So for the 2526 school year, those were the two for semester 1 and two. In 2627, we've identified setting learning goals and checking student understanding. And 2728, selecting and designing assessments, providing feedback to students. Um, one of the things that when you look at a a fancy term that says high leverage practices, one of the things we acknowledge that it's just solid, it's just solid core teaching uh, strategies and having that opportunity to come in have conversations from presenters such as Dr. Reese and Mrs. developers, but also with the
112building principles to begin to have the conversation of what it looks like for effective instruction and how that relates to today's kiddos and how that relates to maybe when I went through my prep classes 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 25 years ago, what's similar and what may be a little bit different. And so it provides an opportunity there. We also began to look at our math instruction and achievement. Uh it's no secret for those who've had, you know, personal conversations with me throughout the last couple months, we want to increase our math um as far as assessment scores throughout the district, but specifically focusing uh at the middle school. That is one area. If you when I was with another school district prior to coming here, there was a dip in the middle school
113um scores, student scores that we were uh creating a plan to address. And so we're not that uncommon in districts up to other districts. But one of the things that we want to start to have the conversation um tonight we've been here in this meeting what a little over an hour, hour and 20 minutes. We've spoke or we've communicated discussed for an hour and 20 minutes about finances because finances drive about everything we do. But what I really want to have begin to have the conversation is not just about finances but what is it about academic achievement and uh for our students as we look to go forward. I want that to be just as much of part of the conversation as our finances. And so we began to have meetings myself and the building
114principal whether it was Mr. Repela, Mrs. hockey began to sat down with the middle school teachers, began to talk about student assessment, student performance, what are some some of the reactions of why that is or why that may be um at the middle school and if we made some tweaks or changes, what does that look like at the middle school? How does it affect the high school? How does it better prepare students? Mr. Pel alluded tonight in his report that we're looking to increase ELA and math. That was one of the things that come out of our conversation when we would begin to look at uh scores at the elementary level and we began to have conversations with Mrs. Mason and Mr. B. Um just comparing time available to work on math at the elementary
115levels. when we had those conversations it was 60 70 minutes I think one of them was up around 80 85 minutes just by the way the schedule worked to then they come here to the middle school and we drop that down to 42 43 minutes >> 41 minutes and so you take you you take 20 to 40 minutes a day times 180 days that's a big difference which would also impact um you know whichever subject area that is in this case it was math and So spoke with the middle school teachers. There were some current concerns from the math uh teachers at the high school. Mrs. Hockey and I had the opportunity there. And so overall, I think they were good conversations. They led to some some initiatives here that we're going to take a
116look at for the 26 27 school year. Um, one of the things we're going to do, and throughout our conversation, I believe just like many other school districts, we had a path forward and we had a plan of what we were looking to accomplish as a school district. What we've never my assessment of of talking with math teachers and even also with our administrators um is we've never fully recovered from CO like what we had in place what we did and what got changed over CO we were never we've never been able to get back to that to to where we were prior to CO and so we have starting next year we're going to have our math department chair Justin Bush we're going to give him uh time in his schedule. We're going to
117deem it the math improvement specialist is what uh his term will be during his schedule. Uh that part of the schedule and he's going to assist teachers and principles. We're going to begin to look at K12 math from a K12 standpoint. I think right now there's a lot of discussions of well that's what they do at the elementary and they can do what they want at the elementary and the middle school does what the middle school and then the high school is going to do what the high school wants to do. And our goal is to start to form to look at this of from a system standpoint when you go to PO and you come through our K12 system here's what math looks like and so uh having us PD map to our PA
118standards and then improve with the ultimate goal to improve student performance on standardized testing. So that is one of the focus areas that came out of this IE curriculum a lot of that we that we focused in on this year. And then let me just go back to this once. So just as a recap, that's where we are looking to go for math. We will re-evaluate this time next year of what the following year will look like, the 2829 school year, 2728 school year, I should say. Um, and this is being looked at as a pilot that we're probably going to mirror in other subject areas. So ELA is probably going to be looked at next and then as we move into science after that. So it gives us a little bit of an idea
119there uh preluding the next year. Just to recap, we had our four objective performance standards. I did our budget. We had of course those retirements. We had the healthcare net uh the network change for our healthcare. We have money to as part of our budget. There is a system in place to grow our fund balance which is part of our downgrade in our credit rating. And we also have transfer to capital reserve that we haven't had. And I'll be honest with you, uh two years ago, two and a half years ago when I was looking to come here, one of the questions I had is how much do we have in cap reserve? And so we have a 38 $39 million budget. We have 100,000 in cap reserve. Super super low. And so try and
120do anything from a capital expenditure standpoint. Um, and that's something that we're we're looking to change going forward as a board. And of course, this year, one of the other accomplishments this spring, we approved our we're able to negotiate uh and have a contract on time for July 1 with our steel workers. They had their negotiations and we have a three-year contract in place there. Of course, we did rack 93s um and whatnot, too. So that's sort of the recap for the year, recap of those objective performance standards. Some draft ideas going into next year that we'll have more conversation about in future board meeting, but uh continue looking at focusing in on the K12 math instruction and student performance as being one of them. And then uh forming a district-wide parent and community advisory
121group. Uh I've had the opportunity to do some check-ins with our board members here over the last month. And one of the things that come out of those conversations was the opportunity to partner. uh we have one board member right now and uh before it's all said and done we may have more than one that would want to take part is we start to form and create an avenue um to to have that stakeholder group and whether that is monthly quarterly and what that looks like is to be determined yet but those are one of the I should say two of the draft objective performance standards for next year. What I would say to the board is if you have some ideas that you might want us all to consider, um, we'll be looking at
122this probably at the end of June for what it looks like going into next year. That being the case, questions. All right, that's sort of a recap for the year, right? Thank you. We've been through the agenda. consent agenda and we go through if you want something push start with C and we will pull number four and five >> are there M are there any other ones and five that would be affected in that >> yeah I put it I put it all >> right all right so four and five are together but then I'm talking like federal reserve. >> What I what I did what I did this year was um we put the general fund >> budget amount and the millillage together. >> Okay. So, >> how did we go down further? >>
123Four passes. Does that change anything with >> anything else versus five or they all the same? >> No, it just be four and five and like I said six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. None of that will get impacted. >> Okay. Y four and five. >> Four and five. Anything on F, G, and I? I'll pull number 22. >> I pull six and seven. >> Pardon? >> I six and I seven. >> I six and seven. >> Yeah. >> 6 722 and I >> Yeah. Anything else? Items first. Let's go to C four. The motion to approve the general fund budget for the 2627 school year about $39,42,468 established the 26.7 real estate taxes as follows. Center County 65.12 kind 73.04 04. Have a motion, please. >> We have a motion. >> Second. Have
124a second. Do we have a roll call, please? >> Mrs. Vanny Shaw, >> yes. >> Dr. Bary, >> no. >> Mrs. Bush, >> Mrs. Clipperly, >> yes. >> Mrs. Rhinstein, no. >> Mr. Vancis, >> yes. >> Mrs. No, >> Mr. Wood. >> Yes. >> Four to three. Motion carried. >> Oh, it doesn't carry. We need five. >> Yep. >> Motion is we'll go to number five. A motion to approve the general fund budget for 2627 school year amount of 39,3,388. Establish the 2627 real estate tax rates as follows. Center count is 6458, purple 72.4. Could I have a motion? >> Have a motion. Second. >> I have a second. Motion second. Can I have a roll call, please? >> Dr. Bary. >> No. >> Mrs. Bush. Mrs. Clicker. >> Uh, what? No. >> Mrs. Rhinstein?
125>> No. >> Mr. Bankis? >> No. >> Mrs. Vesneski? >> No. >> Mr. Wood? >> No. >> Mrs. Bainy Shaw? >> No. Let's >> let's go with the rest of them. In the meantime, we're going to look at how how often or how quickly we have to get back around the table. >> Let's go to the uh G6 >> I'm sorry I 672 Motion to approve collaborating agreement between school district All right, let's go. Motion to approve educational service agreement between the PO school district news story school D boys Pennsylvania 26.7 as presented. >> Second. We have a motion and a second. We have a roll call, please. >> Mrs. Bush, Mrs. Quickerly, abstain. Mrs. Rinstein, Mr. Venus. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Vesneski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Wood. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Batty Shaw. >>
126Yes. >> Dr. Baryi. >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> A motion to approve the educational service agreement between the school district and the new story school state college of Pennsylvania 2627 school year is presented. Could I have a motion please? Motion. Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Cookerly, obstain. >> Mrs. Rhinstein, >> yes. >> Mr. Vantis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Vesnoski, >> yes. >> Mr. Wood, >> yes. >> Mrs. By Shaw, >> yes. >> Dr. McMary, >> yes. >> Mrs. Bush. Motion carried. Wrestling >> 22 22 is extracurricular positions. 21 is Mr. P is arresting. >> We'll do 22 for the extracurricular positions and earnestly back on this page also. >> Extracurricular positions for the 2627 school year. Motion please. >> Motion >> second. We have a motion and second roll call, please. >>
127Mr. Vancis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Vesneski, >> yes. Mr. Wood >> Mrs. Batty Shaw. >> Yes. >> Dr. Mary. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Bush. >> Mrs. Clickerly. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rinstein. Motion carried. >> We have uh nothing approved. Either one. Maybe one was approved C4 or five. >> All right. So, jump back into conversation here. Um, we're going to need some direction. We be Mr. Martin and myself. All right. So, first one got voted down. Uh, they both got voted down. Are we saying because of even if we got it to zero um because of the is it the rebalancing you want us to adjust for or what is the what can we do to bring back a budget that you would say yes for as a board that we can get through. So
128from a feedback standpoint the first one had two different tax increases. Do we have a speaker who would want to speak to what we can bring back for that would get you five votes? You have to ask. >> I I feel like a bunch of us said no to five because we said yes to four. >> In that case, I would make a motion to reconsider it. >> Yeah. >> I just think we need to build that fund balance and we have to start somewhere. It's going to sting, but it has to start somewhere or eventually it's really going to sting down the road. I don't foresee there being a situation, granted it takes five votes, whichever route we end up with. I don't in the short term foresee a situation where we cannot increase
129revenue through taxes in addition to other items that we won't be in a situation that's far worse than what we dealt with in the last year. I think it also uh the first motion it might prevent, you know, a furlow or something down in the future. We don't know what the future's going to hold. It's going to generate basically another $100,000. We can sit here next year and say you got to fur somebody for sure. My problem with budgets, and this is my stance since I've been here, is it's always year to year to year to year to year. Just survive till next year, survive till next year, survive till next year. I'm not a fan of that plan. I want something longterm. I'm not about to pass a until I know that we have
130a plan. I'm not just like taxes on people until I know that we have something. That's where my stance has been last two years, where I'm at again. So just administratively the challenge that we all face on that is the state will not give us a number for this year let alone next year the year after the year. >> That's not I'm talking not necessarily budget. I think budget has been great. I think it's more board vision moving forward. I I don't I don't see how we're going to break the cycle just to get to next year without some sort of forward direction on our part. That's that's where I stand and it's not you know there's a time and I understand numbers I understand numbers where the money has to come from somewhere prices
131of everything go up but this is the kind of stuff that >> you say more direction. We have to we have to figure out how we can fe study something cutting program. Do we look at our infrastructure beyond >> we don't have a long-term plan >> because we don't have funds like >> but that's my I mean we had consultants we talked to consultants the pressure from the community you know that we just kind of gave up on long-term vision I don't think we were head strong enough and that's where I stand I think I've had been I think I stood clear on that since I've been >> I don't think you've wavered. >> I have not and I'm not going to waver until we see something. >> And I think that will come. I
132think we make need to make positive steps to make ourselves in better shape because even if you decided to any builder if that was one of your >> I'm not I I am a dentist. That is where I am. And I'm There are people out there that know way more than me. They have other districts dealing with the same things that we do. They're not closing buildings, but they have a general idea what they can do moving forward. And like I said, I'm not going to sit here and say we have to close this building or that building because that's not what I But I numbers are something that I understand. That's where I'm at. >> Yeah. Your consultant, Mr. East, basically, tell me if I'm wrong, he had two big options. Either close building
133and cut staff or vote to get back to worries. >> I mean, in my I had a thing, my little campaign thing, and I was looking at our numbers three years ago whenever I started it. I looked at our numbers and everything. I said there's no way this is sustainable. And it doesn't take I I'm not a magician or anything, but if you would look at the numbers, you would see we find ourselves where we are. >> so my question is between four and five there's about a $100,000 difference, >> right? So if if we vote yes to number four and that puts us $100,000 ahead, right? Then are we setting ourselves up to be in a more sustainable position five years down the road? >> Well, what you're doing when you're when you're getting
134those increases, you're building your base. So think of it like this. So again, if it's 100,000 more and it's going to bring in 10.7 million instead of 10.6 six. If nothing changes next year with any assessed values, you're going to at least get 10.7 million next year. And that's where you're building that base and then adding on. So that's where again over that 10year period where you didn't do that, you're you're not building that base and then when you try to do a percentage increase, you're going off to the lower number. >> So that's really what what you're basically doing. Like you're getting you're getting that >> case in point. I think our overall revenue um if we think everything's went up 3% whatever cost of living CPI index we're at 1.55 1.55 you know
135and again we've tried to be mindful of we've knocked on index across the board even >> I think budget three years ago I think was like correct we were in like hasn't been that long but we were like 33 34 35 and we find ourselves at 39. I don't see anything that's not going to continue to creep and creep and creep and creep. We just made a huge >> Yeah. But next year we're coming back up and up and up and up and up. I This is I don't see long-term sustain. That's where I am. Now you talk about increasing prices. But have your prices increased? >> No. I haven't raised my prices in two years. Before that, >> we had raised the prior to my >> I'm not trying to be wise. I'm just
136saying everything is going up in price. Sure. Going up price is going up are going up in price. in my district. We're going to issue a project as well that's going to be paid on the taxpayers. >> I can't say I don't know any district anywhere that's not raising taxes. They are healthier than we are and they have plans or are making efforts to make plans, >> right? They're still raising. I don't know. >> I don't know if talking to me will be the way because I'm not going to waiver in this. I have not will not. >> I don't know that I'm saying anything that's new. Um I mean >> firm in your stats. >> I am and I won't change funds which we don't have anymore. Nobody had five years ago made plans
137for the what's going to happen when they're gone and we're dealing with it and there may be other people around the table that might be able to offer more. So, what would a long-term plan to your point though? What would a long-term plan? >> My long-term plan, we need to look at our infrastructure if we're going to dump money into into buildings. Are we dumping money to patch and get to year five? But what are we going to do in year five? Do we have to take on debt? We Mr. Martin described if we have to increase taxes to get to that point. Like I said, this not raising taxes doesn't make sense. what they did in the 2010s doesn't make sense. But if we don't have a plan where if we're going to do
138this, this money is going to go to pay for a study to get us to figure out our long-term feasibility, whatever you want to say, in our buildings to know that in 20 years, you know, are we going to still be carrying four buildings on a district that is needed? If you look, if you ask Bald Eagle and all, they're looking at that and like they're a little bit wealthier than we are. They have a little bit healthier fund balance than we do and I don't think their buildings will ever be replaced. >> I think that ties back into mentioning earlier together with the right people to guide us >> upon we had we were correction. I think as a board we decided to veer from anything longterm sustainability but I'm like I said that
139is what see so I you know I don't I understand tax money but I want taxation with purpose rather than do a year and then say hey we're going to do this great committee and let's do it a little bit of public pressure and then boom we're done we scrap it till next year. It's just it's going to continue to happen. It's happened for 15 years here and that's why we're here. I mean, Mr. Martinet, the I love all the numbers he does, how we got here. It's I just like I said, it's a board level thing and he only does what we know. >> Would any uh like to revote number four and five? So, whoever would be as part of the um prevailing side. So, whoever voted no for either of them can
140make a motion to reconsider either of them. That would need to be seconded and then the board can vote on whether or not to reconsider. It >> has to be for one of the negative votes. >> Correct. >> Three on is just we have to have another meeting before we do that though. Just >> one of us that voted no on five it correct >> you can make a motion. I think we have to at least give five or not. Motion to revote on C5. Second. >> What do we have to have? >> Your final budget needs to be approved by June 30th. Again, depending on what changes you may need to what amounts of changes you may need to have a um meeting sooner than that in order to meet the posting requirements. So,
141that's where I think it would be helpful for your administration to have direct direction on what changes you want so we can get an idea of the timing requirements. back there. Mr. Dr. Bary again. >> Yes. >> Would your And I'm just saying your vote will >> here's what I'll tell you. If one of these two gets us something money set aside for feasibility study, as long as we have something from the board, I will vote for number five. >> That has to be it. I'll have to provide. We have to we have to what that means that we have to have something set in motion as a board that we are going to go down the direction and we have to look at everything infrastructure wise and with that I think that that will
142be my only my only >> because that won't >> I mean we have to set a inside. If someone from the public comes and starts ripping us a new one because they don't like something that comes out of it, if we start the waiver then and that's where that's where I think things is start waiver and then say, you know what, let's just go easy route, get to the end of this year, revisit next year. If it's going to turn into that every single year, I don't know what I'm doing here. >> But you know what? But here's what I would say. We have a board member that's not in attendance. >> I don't know that you know I would have to see something for >> you have one for sure. >> All right. So,
143what's every what's everyone's scheduled as well? Readvertise. Um, before we pick a date, does anyone else want to speak up tonight from the rest of the board? Got a couple. Anyone else want to because let's let's just play that out a second. If say we would bring something back, do you have four other people that are going to agree in theory with that idea? is if not it's it's still we're going to do that work. It's still not going to get through. Like is there any conversation to that? >> I I don't personally I don't think you can say we're going to have a feasibility study and that comes in and says it was going to cost you $300,000 and we don't have $300,000 right now. So when we we did have somebody come and
144they told us how long everything was going to last and at what period of time it was going to need replaced. We had that. >> I've heard it. Vick's heard it. I don't know if anybody else here's heard it, but I mean the two of us have. Linda would have >> like we had that >> we go back to reports. I mean we've had >> we've had reports previously that told us we were going to be here. prior to my time being on and nothing. So there's it's just a systemic year to year to year. Get to the end of the year. Get to the end of the year. Get to the end of the year. >> I mean, we did do stuff with that. There's been stuff that's been done because of that. >>
145Like we had to study the resulting decisions from that. >> Yeah. There was things that have been repaired, taken care of, roofing. the thing was taken down because we knew it wasn't going to last. >> So, we pivoted. I think that's part of the problem is is that when things happen and then people change those things don't get like I think when you have that person come and they tell you this is going to last 5 years or whatever we then need that threeyear followup that fiveyear followup that said this person came told told us this wasn't going to last five years we need to look at that in the threeear mark and say in the next two years this has to be in our budget because it's not going to So that's the followup
146that we're missing from when people like I don't remember his name Kane went through literally every building roofs boilers etc on how long they were going to last and what year they were put in. >> So we can research and get that and I mean it has to exist. We heard it disseminated then out to the board >> as a starting point of that conversation. >> Yeah. >> I know there's been work done because of what that said. Did you want to say something to Amber? >> Yeah. So, the consultant came and he suggested that we eliminate their that we cut our number of votings. Was that his recommendation? >> Was that one of his >> I think when Mr. Eastep was here, one of the conversations was um he did talk to a like
147you could have a full-on architect come in if you're truly looking at buildings, that type of thing. um within some of the conversations um like from an outsider coming in if if he was in my chair he he would have been looking at whether or not he could go to say two buildings um as a district didn't mean it could happen didn't mean the public would accept it didn't mean there would be five votes from the board uh but like different things of setting setting the district I mean, I will agree with Alex on that and I feel like we haven't really done anything with his recommendations. I mean, >> they weren't official like where where it came down to was um we were sort of working through the process in August and September, right?
148We were trying to get our footing knowing we had eight or nine months to get to make a decision at the Tonight. Uh one of the things that come out of it was we can do it locally. We have the data. We have what class sizes there are. Um we are good from this point on and and we basically decided that we were going to handle both of sort of an immediate fix, temporary immediate fix. We weren't in a position to put up a an addition building >> and that was part of the conversation of long-term versus short-term short term for three years, three budget cycles. So then if they did the feasibility study and they said this is our recommendation that you close this building or you downsize in some way. we would at
149the same time need to have the money or we would need to borrow to make that happen to maybe add on to one of our current buildings or >> I think part of the feasibility when they would look at that they would be like status quo would cost you this. These options all come with a cost and in from a from one scenario could be your best bets to remain with what you have. Um, another bet would, you know, another the bottom lines option would be you could do this and this would be your long-term savings knowing where your facilities are at. I don't we I've not been here since I'm guessing we're saying Peter from Eids, the admin team is sharing from the chairs. Um, so a good place to start would be to
150pull that paperwork and then at that point you have taxation with a purpose where people can say, "All right, this is what we're building to and people can see something. I don't know what people see right now. People just see their property taxes go up, school taxes go up, and school's still in a mess and we don't know what we're doing next year. >> I And I just want to say as a new board member, I have no idea what, you know, the high school has, you know, like upkeep for that um or the plans in the future. And then, you know, we did the survey. I don't I don't know that I can say, you know, like I think the majority of people were not in agreeance with raising taxes and then here we
151are. We we had 10 retirements or resignations and then we're still going to raise taxes to about the same amount that was discussed back in October. you know, it's a little bit lower, maybe not three or 4%, but I just think we should have a plan or at least as a board an idea of what if like, you know, like what is left in place, what is left over, like just a a game plan so that we can just be on the same page with the community members that are paying taxes and where that money is going to. >> Yep. So like even just to recap too for the uh survey that went out um I think we were proposing back in like January February if we uh have I think 12 positions if that
152number think back to that 12 positions or a 4 and a.5% tax increase what that would look like um tax that survey went out um there was not support for the say 4 and a.5% there was even uh from that standpoint on some sort of increment al uh increase that wasn't at the high end. So when we come back tonight outside of the or even with the rebalance at three, I'm not so sure that's too far out of line um from the survey, but you're also you were talking of 12 positions or a tax increase like that that was part of it that was playing into it. Um, so there >> I won't use the word support, but I'll I'll it was more favorable responses towards some sort of tax increase, just not a heavy
153one. >> What I would say too, option five that's on there, like even the increase you're seeing on the clear side, it is in response to the decrease in assess value. Okay. >> So that two point whatever that you're seeing in there is a response just to make up what we had on that. And basically we're keeping this coming flat like we didn't do anything on it. It's going to bring an additional 100 grand in revenue, but it would really like again typically that would bring in a lot more decrease in excess value and I said option four again less than 1% increase better um and again most of that clear both sides in response to that success. >> So and I mean make progress because even if you hadn't had those 10 retirees lived
154in worse shape. Two million. So we have made progress. >> You had 10 people retiring. >> You said 2 million save. Are you doing that? >> No. >> So that's progress >> because even if we meet later like I'm not going to really be able to come back with anything different than the option five that's on there where it's pretty much a flat. So, it's either like I said, you have the ability tonight to put that through or like you said with you look at that four and you say, "Okay, that's going to give us 100 grand." Then you could have that motion on you to put the four on or as a as a group again, anybody that pulled no on the five, then we put then you put that through. But either way,
155like we can push this out, but I'm going to come back pretty like >> it's it's more of a principal thing for like you said and I get that. So, but >> we I wouldn't want to wait till June 22nd.