001Will we stand for the Lord's Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, please? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. President, Mr. Persing. >> Here. Vice President, Mr. Krieger. Here. Secretary, Mr. Anderson. Here. Treasurer, Mr. Cook. Here. Mr. Griffith. >> Here. Mr. Cashner. >> Here.
002Mrs. Miller. Here. Mrs. Rhodes. Here. Mr. Shewy. Here. Uh meeting announcement, the next meeting of the Board of Directors is scheduled for June 23rd, 2026, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in this room. Uh no student accomplishments. Uh any citizens comments? Tony, you good? Okay. Uh work session. Okay, tonight we have our budget presentation by Mrs. Colangelo, our business manager, so I will turn it over to her at this time. Well, welcome everyone. Um we're going to discuss about our proposed budget for the 2026-2027 school year. All right, now we're going to take a look at some of the numbers that we've had experienced over the past few years. The dark purple bars are actual dollar figures and then when you get into some light lilac and gray, those are proposed budget figures. You can see from
0031920 to 2024 to 2025, pretty much the left side is the revenue and the right side is the expenditure that we've come very close to what we have predicted. Here is actual revenue. We have three sources of revenue. We have local, state, and then the federal. So, the three bars above each school year, the first bar is your local, your state, and then your federal. You can see that based upon this, our local has a tendency just to increase by a little bit. Our state has been increasing more towards the most recent years and our federal increased as we're going to 2022-2023 and then it started to decrease. And the reason for that is because we had a lot of SR funding due to COVID. So, the next thing what we're doing is if you
004look at this graph from the 25 the five years before and 25-26 and 26-27 budget years, you would notice that we have some spikes. So, you can see the salaries are spiking, the benefits are spiking, and then if you go a little further over, there's something called purchased services. So, those are the three components in which these tend to grow in more so throughout our budgets. Here is our general fund trend and this thing you're going to have to go up and down on this line timeline. In 1819, we had a balance of 2.2 million, then we dropped about 100,000 in 1920, then we went back up another 100,000 in 2021, then we dropped about 200,000 and then we made some gain in 2022-2023 with about 600,000 and then we just hitched up that, maybe
005$30,000 more in '23 '24. And then in '24 '25, we had about a million. And then going into the '25 '26 start of the year, we had an additional like 2.2 million. Those past 2 years with the million 2.2 million are basically a result of state funding due to the adequacy and supplemental funds. Our expenditures in our budget really are the cyber charter tuition, our special ed costs, our payroll benefits, our debt, infrastructure, grounds, and supplies. Two of our big areas is our charter cyber tuition. This chart you can see as the steps go up how our costs annually have increased. If you look at the last two steps all the way to the right, you can see 3.2 million in '23 '24, and then major jump to 4.3, almost 4.4 million in '24 '25.
006Over that span of time, we have paid $25,567,000.30. So, almost $26 million has been spent on tuition for the charter cyber. Another growing cost for us is our special education. We have a population about 25% of our students receive special services. So, that's about one out of every four children. In '23 '24, our cost was 8.2 million. And if you just jump down two boxes, you'll see '24 '25 was jumped to 9.3. So, in 1 year, we had a $1.1 million increase. Part of that funds in '23 '24, $1.9 million was for charter cyber schools. And then in '24 '25, that 1.9 jumped to 2.7 for special education tuition to our cyber schools. Other costs that we really have no control over So, our health care is increasing by 7 half 7 and a half
007percent and then our retirement. Our retirement though, as you can see towards the last few years have held steady around the 34%. And what that means is that for every dollar in salary, we're paying out an additional 34 cents. However, I do want to note that the state budget does pass and subsidizes with more than 50% of that cost. Here's a chart with expenditures, but here is where we take it down. So, if you look here again, you can see salaries, benefits, and purchased services are our two growing areas. When we go to this next one, this one I took those and I made them into percentages. So, earlier when you saw salaries and benefits, you saw the spike, but now when we look at as percentage of the budget, they're kind of about the
008same percentage. However, that purchased service is growing. At one time, our salaries and benefits was about 70% of our budget. It has now dropped to about 65% because of the purchased service areas. The purchased service areas is our tuitions. In that 9.2 million dollars, we have about 1.4 million dollars for transportation. Then we have about $400,000 in covers, communications like phone, insurances, advertising, which then leaves us with tuition costs at 7.4 million. That 7.4 million breaks down to about 4.8 to our cyber schools that we have budget, which leaves about 2.6, which is $720,000 to our career technology center, and then 1.8 million for our special education services and some alt ed tuitions. The purchased services, salary related expenditures continue to represent our largest growing expenditures. So, now we will look at sources of revenue.
009Here are two charts and you can see when you compare 25-26 with 26-27, you can see it's much the locals at little box. And then when we go to the following year, previous year, it's about the same. Our state though, you can see we are receiving additional funds through the state. And our federal, if you look really close, you see it dropped down a little bit. And then when you look at the percentage of the budget for our local, state, and federal, you'll see that our local is pretty much about the same amount every year we receive. Our state, the light purple, is going to pass it just a little bit. And our federal right now we have like a little decrease because there's a lot of unknown information to predict for this upcoming school
010year. Now, how are we going to fund the total expenditures? Well, currently going into this school year, our general fund balance was $5.6 million. When we add that $5.6 million to the revenue that we just discussed, that'll take us up to revenue sources of $47.7 million. Part of that revenue is our assessment value for our real estate. Right now, our county assessment has dropped. And due to that decrease, we're going to be probably losing some funds. However, due to the fact that we have decided to increase our millage to the Act 1 index, which would take us to 45.99, that interpret is $4.60 on every $100 of your assessed value. Now, that's a little confusing. So, we have a chart here. And on this chart, for example, our current millage is 43.64. In the white
011to the left is your assessed value of your property. So, last year your bill at 43.64 was those dollar amounts. Then, if we increase it to the Act 1 index, your in the green is what your bill is going to increase to. And then all the way off to the right, that is the difference. Our homestead-farmstead shows that the median value of assessed values is 8300. So, you can see that if you have something around 8300, you're talking about maybe $19.20 increase for the whole entire year. Now, we just talked about the homestead farmstead. So, sometimes we wonder, do all our citizens realize what the state property tax relief is for homestead exclusions? For Smethport Area School District, we were awarded $604,169. We have right now 4,121 homesteads that qualify for this discount and 20
012farmsteads. Based upon the dollar amount, if you your exclusion assessment is going to be 3,193, which equates which equates to a tax relief of $146.85. At that assessed amount, 3,193, there is 136 approved properties that will have a zero net base owed to us. Now, if you're wondering how do you go about and apply for the homestead farmstead, you really need to reach out to the Northumberland County Assessment Office. They would have the applications for you. You need to have the property must be your primary residency, and if it's a farmstead exclusion, you have to have 10 or more continuing acres of agricultural production. The application is due no later than March 1, but if you do put it in after March 1, they'll accept it for the following school year. Um also, in other
013important notes all the way to the right, once approved, homeowners generally do not need to reapply annually. And this slide uh presentation will be on the webpage, so you're able to access that and just click on that little blue and it'll take you right to their webpage. So, in summary, we have an expenditure of 46 million 849,983 dollars. We have projected revenues at about 42 million. We combine it with our general fund balance, so we have about 47 million 722,000, which is more than the expenditures. So, that brings us to about fund balance of 872,000, but as always, in that was a budgetary reserve, so if we don't spend all the budgetary reserve, that money could be added on to the 872,000, which was that 1.7, so we may come out at the end of
014the year about 2.5 million left in the general fund. Um as always, the budget reflects our effort to responsibly to be responsible to our tax-taxpayers, but we want to maintain our educational programs, our staffing stability, and services to support them. And as always, the proposed budget will be available to the public. It'll be in the business office a hard copy for you to sit down and review, and also be uploaded to our webpage. And it'll be on review for 30 days. Thank you. Karen, just to clarify about homestead farmstead. Mhm. You don't You know, there's two different things. It's homestead and farmstead that the 10 acre applies to the farmstead and the primary residency applies to the You are correct, yes. >> Okay, so So, there's confusion there. You don't need to have 10 acres
015of land to to to qualify for the homestead farmstead. It's two separate >> to be the primary residence for the homestead. >> I can clear to all the to the people that may be taking advantage of that. Okay, thank you, Karen. Any questions, Karen? >> [snorts] >> Okay. >> [clears throat] >> Old business. Need a motion to approve the board meeting minutes. Motion. Second. On the question. All those in favor? All those opposed? Passes. Uh need a motion to accept the treasurer's report. Motion. Second. On the question. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes. Need a motion to authorize the payment of the bills. Motion. Second. On the question. Roll call, please. Mr. Kreider. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Pursang. >> Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr.
016Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. We need a motion to approve uh the new business 701 at student or staff accomplishments. Motion. Second. On the question. All those in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes. Uh 702. We need a motion to adapt a 2026-2027 general fund budget. And this is Do you want me to read this or Okay. No, we have it. You don't have to read it? We're good? Yep. Okay. Everybody has it? Okay, so I need a motion to approve the tentative budget. Motion. Second. On the question. Yeah, I'd like to make a few comments. Go ahead. Um So, I love this school district. I graduated from the school district. My wife graduated from here. My son will graduate next year. Um I want the best for our district.
017I want the best for our students. And in order to provide the best and provide great facilities and great opportunities, we need to unfortunately raise taxes. Nobody Nobody likes to pay more, but it's something we have to do. I I believe in improving our district and in taking those opportunities. This past year we hired two police officers. Those police officers cost money and it made our school safer. They've They've made multiple impacts throughout the year, multiple arrests and multiple occasions where they were used. So making our school safer costs money and it's it's a great thing to do. The other thing is increased wages. We're currently in talks with the teachers to agree on their contracts and in order to attract good teachers for our students and to to keep teachers, we have to increase
018their salary over time just as every everyone's salary increases over time. So I think that's a worthwhile endeavor to ensure that we have the most qualified teachers here in our school and to retain the most qualified teachers. So unfortunately, like I said, we have to raise taxes, but there's a lot of good things happening within our district that cost money. And the other thing is the homestead exclusion that she spoke of. I did a little asking questions on my tax bill. My tax bill will go up $20. I currently do not have a homestead exclusion, but I am qualified for one. I I own my own home. So my tax bill will go down $140 after a $20. So I'll actually be making $120 more next year. So I would encourage everyone out there that
019owns a home to do the same. And this increase will have no impact on them. Okay. Thank you. >> to switch. In the words of my grandmother, this really jars my pickles. Um every year we sit here and have to talk about raising taxes. Okay? 26 million over what, 13 years we've paid for cyber school. 26 million. That could stay here. Okay? I don't know if anybody's aware, but Lewisburg um Commonwealth Charter Academy just bought property up in Lewisburg. Um where Geisinger's building their new building. They're going to be with Geisinger. They paid 2.8 million for the land. And the building is going to cost around 21 million. So, we basically paid for their new building over the year over the years, which we could have paid here. Uh representative from charter school, they did
020they didn't respond to this request. Neither did one of the township supervisors. But, the one supervisor did, and he said this would be another nonprofit entity in the township and he hopes we can get a fair payment in lieu of taxes. In other words, sounds like some kind of deal was cut there. They're going to get a pretty good we'll say donation to Lewisburg. Um the average teacher salary at Commonwealth Charter is $67,583. Uh 26 No, we wouldn't have to negotiate. We give raises to our staff. Um the executive compensation the top president CEO is earning 268,889,000. And the one guy who whenever I'm sure maybe he'll probably respond to this is this Keller guy. You can't find what his salary is. There's no information. So, we can only imagine what we're paying him. Um
021There's 14 state approved cyber schools. Commonwealth Charter has 30,000 students, would make it the second largest public school in Pennsylvania. They lag behind a brick and mortar school in testing. So, these people that say they're sending these kids to cyber school for one-on-one and better education, that's not true. Cuz when they come here, and I've sat in the cases in court where kids are home-schooled or cyber-schooled, they don't log on, and they get ordered to come back here, and then it's our problem. Include This was like the third auditor that found all these these problems. So, this is how long this is going on, and still our representatives don't do nothing. You know, I I think when you get elected, you go to Harrisburg, you become a zombie. You're good going to do for your
022constituents until you get down there, and then you just walk around do whatever the party wants or lobbyists. Like the biggest thing down there in Iowa is, should the PIAA have two classes, private and public? Um then this one I'm sure keeps them up late at night. Should the first day of hunting be on Saturday or Monday? And then you have Sten who's a real disappointment because he was a school director. So, you think he would be an advocate. Well, what he is doing is he's given having a seminar on turning in your old license plate that if it's smudged or whatever. They're sending free ones out. They're replacing them. What he should What these people should do is maybe because I wasn't aware of this farm stead act or homestead act. Have a seminar
023at the libraries and inform people how many people could be taking advantage. And how many took advantage of it? >> 4,141 took advantage. Out of all the homes. >> the tax rolls are Now, this this really gets And what they should do, okay, and they can write a letter to the editor. I'm sure it's going to be coming. I'm here the fourth Thursday of every month, so save your letters, come here, we'll talk about it. Better yet, I think what we should do is they should all sit with all the superintendents because every school district in the area, Mount Carmel, Southern, Line Mountain, Milton, all had to raise their taxes. We're the Indians. We can have We can call it a powwow. They can come here and sit down with all the local superintendents and
024we can find out what their deal is, what their stance is because they're not doing nothing for the taxpayer. Um Included in the audit was 21 physical properties that they bought. 22 million for employee bonuses. 26 million we could have to give our employees bonuses, okay? Um more than a million dollars for a fleet of vehicles. Here's the cyber. I don't you know So, my question is now if this school opens up in Lewisburg, what if I was Lewisburg school district, I'd be really concerned about this. Would we have to bus kids from here to Lewisburg if they wanted to go to Commonwealth cyber? If it's 10 miles within the border, so we'd have to do the distance, but we have to take them pretty far. Maybe not the whole way. And they also had
025they spent $70,000 for a family fun fest. I mean I This is what's killing us. 26 million and every year we have to sit here and talk about raising taxes and we have these people that we elect and not just our three all of them that get down there and get This is the third auditor that and I I believe isn't Schlegel isn't she the head of the committee now? Education. Because I think I read in the paper her like her first meeting she was like, "Oh my god, I can't believe that" and then nothing, crickets. Nothing. I mean it's we get dumped on because we're the ones locally that have to make this decision to raise taxes and it's basically out of our hands. I mean 26 million over 13 years at least that
026sent out of here that could have went in toward our kids, our teachers and our employees. You know, that's all. So what we're saying is thank your neighbor who home school or has their kids in cyber school for your taxing raise. Or maybe instead of replacing license plates that are already getting replaced have a seminar and inform the the constituents on this farmstead act. Because And we we're on a school board and I had no idea I probably am eligible, too. How many elderly people are probably eligible for this and don't know it. Exactly. And we have no option. No, we have no option. It's dumped. Sign the school if if we don't pay it, the state annexes on our Something. But I'm sure I'll hear something from Mr. Keller and maybe Mrs. Stare in
027a letter again. Like I said, here the third or fourth Thursday of every month. Don't be a coward, don't write a letter, show up. I'm here. I I just want to piggyback on what Will said about um uh there's uh through education we all grow. And you know, we have to raise taxes, unfortunately, because, you know, we we want to have a good district. We want to have the good teacher. We want to have all those things. So, some people ask and they're they're elderly, "Why do I have to pay taxes? I have no kids in school. I don't have, you know, I don't have a an interest in school anymore." Well, again, that's the homestead farmstead is all about, also, to apply for that if you're if you're eligible to help abate that tax
028burden you have. So, I, you know, again, I think we're all saying this, please, you know, if you're eligible, please apply for a homestead farmstead act because it will help you subsidize your your tax burden you have. But, you know, again, through education we all grow. It makes us a better district. Makes us a better community. So. You know, the other thing I missed is also Attorney General DeFoor also said that their fund balance increased by 144% from 2020 to 2023. We had a fund balance, but they got got it Well, that got gutted with cyber school, so everything we can't do, they can't do. There's no accountability. There's no transparency. I mean None. Exactly. We just have to pay for it. Is that the building being built right next to the guys you were
029up there? That's it. I was wondering what that was. Okay. That's it. It's kind of went kind of unnoticed. Yeah, it went up quick, too. The guys you were building took a long time just to build the one up there. Paying for a 26 million. Cost 21. Steve? Yes, sir. Listen, let's get the meeting up. I mean, Steve stay and then let's get the meeting. We have a section in the here for board members report, so you can all talk. Steve, I had >> All right. I just wanted to say that I was I was in favor of a more moderate increase um and the only reason is because I don't think the problem is necessarily the local funding. The problem that we face is everything that we can't control. And the things that we
030can't control and the major problem is the state funding because they take out the charter money from us. I even suggested why don't we not pay them and we'll put that in reserve and if we litigate maybe we'll we'll win out of that. But you can't do that because they're already taking it out of what they give you. So the state funding even though Karen showed us the state funding is increasing a lot of that has to come out for cyber cyber. Okay? So also federal federal funding if you if you saw the chart we're not getting much federal funding. So we're not getting a lot of help from the federal government. So you know it's it's something that we face every year like Ed said and I agree with everything that Ed said the
031charter schools are out of control and somebody has got to fight the battle for us. I mean we're we're trying what we can do but we need help. And we're not the only one. This is a this is a problem across the state so um you know I feel bad for the taxpayers um and hopefully you know even if you took if even if we took 5% of the cyber money and they said we'll give you 95% that would basically give us 700 if I my numbers may be a little off but approximately almost $800,000 extra. You know that would solve our problem right now or go a long way to solve the problem. So you know just to give you an idea how much that affects us. So, that's uh that's all I have
032to say about >> there's simple solutions for all of Yeah. All right. >> to go to cyber school? You pay for it. We need a I need a roll Let's go. I need a roll call on uh uh the tentative general budget. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. I need a motion to adopt a homestead farmstead exclusion resolution. Second. On a question. Roll call. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Okay, 7.4. Uh we need a motion to elect Steve Cook to serve his second year as uh treasurer for Smoker School District. So moved.
033Second. On a question. Roll call, please. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. You abstain. Abstain. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. >> Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Uh I need a motion to extend the work year for counselors. Motion. Second. On a [clears throat] question. Roll call. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Griffi- >> [clears throat] >> Krieger. Yes. Sorry. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. I need a motion to acknowledge the review of policy number 249. Motion. Second. On the question, roll call. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. I need a
034motion to approve agreements uh for student services. Sir, Mr. Motion. Second. On the question, roll call, please. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. I need a mo- I need a motion to approve or disapprove transportation services and waive charges. Motion. To approve? To approve. Second. The second part to that, was it there? And waive charges. Yeah. And waive I did say that. And waive charges. Right? We have a first and a second, right, Diana? Yes. On the question, Roll call to approve and waive charges. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. >> [laughter] >>
035Griffiths saying yes. I'm just thinking of where are you going to go with this? I need a motion to approve 7.09. >> [laughter] >> Come on, you need say Need a motion to approve the curriculum. curriculum Got it. That passes. motion >> [laughter] >> second On a question, roll call, please. Mr. Cashner Yes. Mr. Kreider Yes. Mrs. Miller Yes. Mr. Prusin He says that in all the time. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes Yes. Mr. Shewy Yes. Mr. Anderson Yes. Mr. Cook Yes. Mr. Griffiths Yes. I need a motion to approve the proposals for printing the tax bills. motion second On a question, roll call. Mr. Kreider Yes. Mrs. Miller Yes. Mr. Prusin Yes. Mrs. Rhodes Yes. Mr. Shewy Yes. Mr. Anderson Yes. Mr. Cook >> Yes. Mr. Griffiths Yes. Mr. Cashner Yes. I need a motion to
036approve the CSIU Keystone Purchasing Network fuel, oil, and gasoline bid. motion second On a question, roll call. Mrs. Miller Yes. Mr. Prusin Yes. Mrs. Rhodes Yes. Mr. Shewy Yes. Mr. Anderson Yes. Mr. Cook Yes. Mr. Griffiths Yes. Mr. Cashner Yes. Mr. Kreider Yes. I need a motion to approve the veterans exemption request. >> motion second On a question, roll call. Mr. Prusin Yes. Mrs. Rhodes Yes. Mr. Shewy Yes. Mr. Anderson Yes. Mr. Cook Yes. Mr. Griffiths Yes. Mr. Cashner Yes. Mr. Kreider Yes. Mrs. Miller Yes. We need a motion to approve the exoneration request. Motion. Second. On a question? Roll Roll call. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Abstain. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just saying something. Mr. Persing.
037Yes. I need a motion to approve the school plan. Motion. Second. On a question? All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes. I need a motion to approve the law enforcement MOU. Motion. Second. On a question? Roll call. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. >> Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. I need a motion to approve the amended lease agreement. Motion. Second. On a question? Roll call. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffiths. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Krieger. Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Persing. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Okay, well, we're going to personnel agenda. I need a motion to approve all personnel items and motions 8.01 through 8.10 as listed. On a question? Roll
038call, please. Mr. Cook. Yes. Mr. Griffith. Yes. Mr. Cashner. Yes. Mr. Kriger. Yes to all but 8.06. Is a no? Yes. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Prusinski. Yes. Mrs. Rhodes. Yes. Mr. Shewy. Yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes to all except 8.06. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. I'll start board members reports tonight. I have a prepared statement to read on behalf of the school district. First, I want to thank our business manager Karen for the presentation of the proposed budget for the upcoming school year. On behalf of the board of directors, I want to acknowledge the amount of time, planning, analysis that goes into developing a school budget. This proposed budget reflects the district's continued commitment to providing high-quality educational opportunities for our students. I received several questions from board members, community members on the status of the
039contract negotiations with the teachers association. As part of tonight's presentation, you may have noticed the budget increase in wages for teachers. It is higher than in past years. It is important to understand that the number in the proposed budget includes funding for a $5,000 salary increase for each teacher in the district for the 26-27 school year. This equates to a gross salary increase to the district totaling approximately $795,000 or approximately 7.7% raise. The increased and and the proposed increase in the subs- subsequent subsequent years show a dedication of the board to increase wages to address recruiting and retention of its professional employees. To this date, our proposed wage increase has been rejected by the union. The board values our teachers and appreciates the work that they do every day to support and educate our students.
040Thank you again to all of our staff for their hard work and dedication in preparing this proposal. Uh any other board comments? I would just like to say that you read that on behalf of the board and and I've never seen that statement before. So, that was not read on my behalf. Okay. Um I want to um address the Morp dance this year. It was outstanding. I came out here the night of the dance and the time and effort our teachers put into it, um the teachers' parents who came out and helped decorate for it, they put in so much time and effort and it it was amazing, totally amazing. They did such a wonderful job and I want to thank Mara Hashuga, who is the teacher who spearheads this. Um also Marissa Yoder, who
041is my daughter, who helped out. Tara's um Mara's parents, I'm sorry. I'm saying Tara's. Um Mara's parents came out and helped. Her brothers came out and helped and they did a phenomenal job in there and the kids all had a really great time. I agree. They did. Excellent job. Anybody else? Um I wanted thank Mrs. Biddlespach for the campus community clean up. I saw that in the newspaper. That's great having our kids go out in the community and and just making it a better place, putting in some work. Um I really appreciate starting that program because that didn't exist. Well, wasn't something that was here and she started it and has been doing a lot of really good work. Um also the um great prom opening and the Morp. I heard good things about about
042the Morp. I know the the prom opening, the promenade was was beautiful um as always and um the carnival. A a lot of I had a lot of good feedback about the carnival this year. Um so that that was something we should be proud of. Um and then finally our symphonic band um getting excellent rating in Music in the Parks in Sandusky, Ohio. That's really really impressive that our symphonic band goes to other states to perform and wins awards there. That's great. Anybody else? All right. We we do have a lot of great things that happen here. Yes, we do. >> And we do. We rarely do. Oh, I want to tell everybody something. My Kenna Hood came home today. >> about your truck. It's not about your truck. Oh, you're welcome. Happy to welcome
043her back home and she's walking, talking miracle. So she's got a long road ahead of her, but she's home and she's doing well. Thanks. How long is that? Over a month. Wow. Okay. An executive session was held for personnel issues on Thursday, May 21st, 2026 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:32 p.m. prior to the rescheduled monthly board meeting. We had no citizens comments at this time. I'll need a motion for adjournment. Motion. Second. Second. We're adjourned. I have I have the whole presentation. You want me to do it now? Thank you. 8:20 p.m. 8:22? 8:22. You got her.