Business, Operations and Finance Comm. and Regular Board of Ed. Meeting - 3/4/2025 (5:00 p.m.)

001e e e all right scene as it's 5 o' I'm going to call the Tuesday March 4th 2025 business operations and finance committee meeting to order Mich can I have a roll call yes Greg Schneider present Brian Nichols here and Brian Anderson here all members are present thank you item one see approval of the agenda we've had that out any questions concerns otherwise I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda so moved second we got a motion by Mr Nicholls second by Mr Schneider any discussion all in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed he none that carries item 1D the minutes uh from our last meeting um those were included any alterations changes comments if not I would entertain a motion to approve those minutes so moved second motion by GRE caner

002seconded by Brian Nichols any discussion hearing none all in favor signified by say I I I I that carries we're going to move on to item 2A our January monthly financials and let's see here we're GNA have Miss lwood lead us through that [Music] don't okay sorry um tonight I'll be presenting the financial activity report for month ended January 31st 2025 um the documents were posted in board docs and made publicly available um attached to the report are some detailed notes that I had made um that hopefully answered any questions that you may have had but I will be going over some of the highlights tonight um uh first on the report is a monthly summary report um notice that in the report that the revenues um are far less than the expenditures for the

003month of January this is due to the timing of revenues and expenditures when they happen in the district so revenues in districts are um um our major revenues in the district happen in September December March and June for State Equalization Aid so in the month of January the revenues are very low um let see here in January um the previous year um um there was also um some a onetime uh tid payment last year that did not happen this year and there are no property taxes coded to the general fund for the month of January because in the month of January all the um property taxes are coded to Debt Service um another major reduction is due to the Esser funds that are recorded in January of 24 um Esser um was completed in December

004of 25 of 24 um there is also um a reduction in interest um the reduction in interest is due to um less cash on hand um and if we look at the um the detailed revenue report see if I can make this a little bit bigger overall um revenues compared to last year's revenues we're we're pretty close um to where we were last year with 32% this year and 30% last year are there any questions on the revenue side of things no seeing none move on to the expenditures so for the expenditures um one of the major differences between January of this year and January of last year um you'll notice that the um expenditures um look like they're like a third more than they were last year because this year in January there were

005three payrolls run in January versus two payrolls in January of last year and that's just a timing thing of when the payroll dates hit um another major item on the um expenditures is this um $1 million purchase order that was entered for the alridge Aldridge um roofing project this roofing project will take place in June July August of this year so part of the expenditures will be in 2425 and part of the expenditures will be in um and one other thing I wanted to point out was in um oops in total the expenditures compared to last year at this time are almost exactly the same so we're pretty close to comparison to budget where we were last year and then for 27 fund which is our special education fund it's pretty close to the same

006as well with 42% and 50 fund the major difference there is just a timing in when the invoices come in but if you look at the in total we're pretty close to 37 33% compared to last year um moving back to the financial report the cash and investment report is also on here um the major difference compared to last month's report is that I added in the PMA $6 million investment that we have there um the um purchase orders Linked In Here is a detail of the purchase order for the roofing project at Aldridge and and then the fund balance report um the major difference in the fund balance report is the um cash assets that we have on hand our loss we had last year um and I think that pretty much wraps up

007the high level is there any other questions any questions from anybody else in the committee just just one question it's a general one just you know we're through January um at least this is even though we're in March but um just an opinion you know how are we doing the budget your opinion year to date we got kind of kind of halfway is through the year yep and I can go back on here as compared to last year's budget we're pretty close to right on where we were last year um I think we're where's 10 here yeah I guess more so than just like where is it you know on the because the report's going to show year-over year but like you said there's timing things right so I guess more is it's more of

008a gut feeling of how are we doing to budget um and so we don't have any surprises at the end of the year yep and really good questions so in the next couple months are the timing things when we start looking at projecting out where our salaries and benefits are going to be for year end so in the next few months we'll be doing that okay all right if I don't have any other questions from the committee any questions from non-committee Members Mr henkins yes Miss Elwood thank you do you foresee anything coming up in the future that uh might be hanging out there besides the regular day-to-day month-to month expenses I guess I'm not understanding the question because well sometimes there are bills to come due that you know are coming but aren on

009our financials of being of January MAR I mean talking about March April May are there things coming down the pike oh for sure I mean in March we have our debt payments those are already scheduled and and and um put on the um records for March but um as far as things that we are not aware of happening I wouldn't not well not not aware of but things you are aware of but we aren't you know we're not listed here um I know I know that we're self-insured and some of those things go Carri forward Y and in June um June July August when we start closing the books there's a lot of calculations that we do and that's why I said mentioned to um Mr Anderson that in the next couple months we'll start

010doing some projections of year end and where we're at but yeah as far as the claims for the self-funded health insurance those are right now we're pretty um pretty good where we're at I haven't seen any like huge spikes in claims but you know the expected can always happen correct I'm not plan for I'm really not trying to dig into that I'm just saying there's nothing on the horizon that you see personally that we should probably know about coming forward no thank you not at this time okay there other questions I'd entertain a motion to move these financials to the full board for approval so moved second we got a motion by Mr Nichols second by Mr Schneider any discussion hearing none all in favor signified by saying I I I I and opposed that

011carries move on item 3A the Food Service DPI administrative review and let's see here I'll started Dr gearon you lead us off on that one yeah so um thank you so much for allowing this conversation to happen at this conversation support today um the Food Services review is something that we have to kind of do on a on a I didn't say on a fiveyear perspective but on a five on a fiveyear perspective however we're always looking at opportunities daytoday in our Food Services Program how how we can overall be better and so um Mrs Smith Don Smith um and um our team has put together with thepi this review um for the um for the business operation and finance committee um one of the things that we want to note is that everything that's

012in our review uh the our opportunities for us to make some corrections but they're not how can I say they're not um they're not all inclusive and what I mean by that is there's things that we can always be better at um this is what DPI was able to review on the time that they were here but for me it's always a continuous Improvement opportunity in everything that we do especially when it comes to how we serve how we're serving our Ser how how we are serving our students in the Food Services space and so I'm going turn it over to Mrs um Smith who can um kind of go over a little bit of the highlights on the report as well as some of the um action opportunities that the review is asking us

013to kind of take a look at sorry um so this is Sarah Warren and she is the director for Chartwells um Amy carrian is the DM for Chartwells and Holly Goodwin is the assistant director all of them play a wonderful role in our district um so the DPI mandates every five years I just want to one correction is this has actually been seven years because of the because of the covid year so um and I did send you the last um findings of the seven years um audit um and I just want to say that there's no fiscal action that's taken against the school district and never since I've been here have we ever had any kind of fiscal action for anything that um any findings that they had um so one of the recommendations

014is that Mr chady was the school Food Authority um they are asking to move me to that school Food Authority and so that Mr chady is not even though I will still report to him it's it's it's a little cleaner because then everything comes to me and to Sarah first and not necessarily going through that chain um so one of the one of the findings and I'm going to just go through the school district part of it so um the expenses were not correctly allocated by program expense so the FSA which is us um did not have adequate controls so what happened was we purchased food none of the food in the district is owned by the district it's owned by charwell so we bought food for a vending machine for this building out and

015they they they bought the food and we paid them back for the food but it needed to go through the uency factor so they actually made some some profit off of that um so they um so that had that was one of the corrective actions and the other part of that is the vending machine um which is owned by Fun 50 there is a credit card machine cost that goes with that so those those things had to be paid back to fund 50 um and then the executive director the Executive Director of Business Services which is Mr Chad's salary and benefits part of that I believe it's it's 8% was also charged to fund 50 which has been it was just something that they've done for years and years and years and you know it

016was just rolled over and so that his wages also have to come out of fund 50 and and just be repa paid there um I just will tell you that the vending machine Atek has been deactivated um we will most likely either try to maybe sell it to Athletics or we'll sell the machine itself um we actually bought it during Co when there wasn't any food and that was the whole purpose of it but any um profits from that machine did go back into Fun 50 um so I mean it just it got to the point where it was just candy bars and soda and things like that um but we are going to introduce a new program which would be a catered lunch box lunch that we would offer through our catering program through

017charwell um so and Stephanie Elwood will be taking care of that part of it um and then one of the other corrective action is that I had to you know just redo a course that I had taken once before um and so that was done um the Cil rights is there's there wasn't a procedure for handling any discrimination and so that's being taken care of um internally we're going to we have to post it somewhere um there there is one actually out there it's just not connected to Food Service um the local wellness policy we had to add the Civil Rights um statement at the end they needed the full statement there was only a partial statement on there and then we'll that'll come to to policy tomorrow and then um there's just another clause

018in there that all foods sold outside of the school meals program that was a statement that also has to be put in um the policy so that will be updated tomorrow as well um the tri-annual assessment needed to be taken needed to be done every three years we um W extension and rck County they received a grant they came and did an assessment for us but they still needed us to do the trian assessment so that's been that's been done and that's on the DPI it's I'm sorry on the school district website so you'll be able to see that assessment um so let's see and then the non-discrimination statement had to be had to be put in the family handbook I'm still waiting to find out who updates that now that we don't have anybody

019here for marketing and then the incorrect um civil rights statement was in policy 760 760 rule one and two so those have all been uploaded to the state and and that's that'll come tomorrow to the policy as well um smart snacks there were fundraisers at the high school that weren't being logged as smart snacks so there were kids that were selling candy bars to our Auditors during that lunch period so um I worked with um Miss pels and she did um do the corrective action herself she she did the tracking template for any exempt they can sell two exempt fundraisers a year for for each um each one of her um you know any kind of program that they have going there as long as it's tracked and then so we will then upload the

020tracker into DPI so they can see that they're not competing with the national school launch and the rest is kind of chart Wells so I'm going to let Sarah talk up to that okay good evening thank you for having us um going to um number 38 with Gaston elementary first of all I'd like to um give special recognition to Holly Holly Goodwin she was very instrumental in keeping this ship a right and um steering it in a way that um it made uh this this um review a lot more manageable she's been through several administrative reviews with Wisconsin DPI so she understands what uh the specifics are that uh Wisconsin is actually looking for so she did a phenomenal job and I'm very appreciative of all the hard work that she put into uh getting

021this audit ready um but with Gaston Gaston was um according to our reviewers an amazing program um they gave uh special recognition to the physical education teacher who was very active and involved in the uh cafeteria when it came to the students going through the line but what they did find was in one of our 5K classrooms while um the accountability was just a little bit off it needs to be tweaked and tweaked in a way that we need to make sure that the teachers and the principals have reviewed the um the offer versus serve training uh that is available on the DPI website so principal Lewis she has received that training from me and uh she has received the direction and we uh review it with the 5K teacher and that um that had

022this issue um also at Gaston for breakfast um we are required to offer two varieties of milk 1% and skim milk uh the breakfast carts while they did have have the both varieties uh at One cart uh at the very tail end of breakfast service they did run out of what we call the golden milk it's the skim milk it's in a gold gold half pint carton um so it only left that cart with one milk choice so moving forward we have uh alerted all of our staff members that we need to make sure that we have um skim they need to increase their par milk the excuse me in increase the skim milk par inventory so that all carts have ample um choices of the milk for breakfast time um incomplete breakfast and lunch

023production records during the week uh for Gaston Merill and uh booy me Memorial High School what these production records are it's of course it's an audible document it's uh how we are able to track our meals um um understand what the components are what the reimburse what the reimbursable meal is for the day um spoodles sizes portioning and uh one of the columns we did not have completed and that colum was uh that Wisconsin requires the um the ingredients in bulk so while we did have the ingredients uh filled out in pieces we didn't have the column in bulk meaning uh it was a case of chicken but we we had 150 pieces of chicken but we just didn't put the that full case down um so what we will need to do is we're

024going to have to uh provide production records for the week of February 24th through the 28th uh they only want one week of uh production records just to review to make sure that we are in compliance and we're filling out the production records according to uh Wisconsin DPI requirements um food safety and storage each site uh must have a food safety plan that includes standard operating procedures specific standard operating procedures um it must be site specific so Chartwells Encompass group has a huge food safety for schools binder um but DPI is requesting that it be site specific meaning that the satellite kitchens do not need um uh standard operating procedures for how to cook raw fish so uh what Holly is currently doing right now is she's modifying the um the binders so that each

025site has exactly what it is that will be will be needed because we know they're not reading that thousand page binder but they will be able to access um a much smaller condensed version something that will be a lot easier to manage and and to read um at Merill ele M meal counting and claiming um in one of in the special education room what was observed was that um the teacher was taking the students orders and then um the food was being delivered and not being returned so if a student had left at some point between the start of school and lunch that meal was uh was given out to another student or they were parting it out so what we are now doing is that the um the order for lunch is given to

026the kitchen in the morning and the lead is actually walking the meals to Mr Smith's classroom to hand those meals out so anything that is left over will come back into the kitchen let's see um once again at Merill we had an issue in the 3K classroom regarding um family style meal service the um the staff was not allowing not not not allowing but uh was not giving the students all of the components required for a a complete meal so our food service staff they needed to be retrained about meal accountability and card collection as well as um the staff in the 3K room needs to understand what uh the requirements are for that um that accountability so what we will do Holly and I will do is we're going to make sure to make

027surprise visits um into the school to ensure that the process is continuing so can I just interrupt for this for this age group at 3K it's actually family style so they serve it family style and a lot of school districts don't do that but DPI was thrilled that we were doing that with our 3ks so they can kind of pick and choose but you know it is something that we were really proud of that we were doing that other schools weren't um with baloy Memorial High School uh non-reimbursable meals were served during lunch service um under offer versus serve students must select three complete components of at least a half a cup of fruit vegetable or a combination of a reimbursable meal two students only two were observed during the lunch service in the deli

028that did not have the required components we did not um we did not charge those meals we did not um we did not um claim them claim those meals um but the correct of action is that uh we need to submit a statement that indicates the understanding of offer versus serve and in the statement explain how these errors will be corrected um what we have done so far is uh just just right before this meeting we conducted um an offer versus serve training with the entire staff of Chartwells at the school district of booy um actually in the deli um so we went over um about an hour of really good information that we hope they will be able to take back to their schools as well as to the deli and all of the

029other stations in the high school um so we will submit that training tracker um into into DPI um meal components and quantities so there was some confusion with the staff in the deli about portion sizes and standardized recipes um specifically the ounces of the meat that we were serving um 3 ounces of turkey provides 2 ounces of meat meat alternative it's all very technical and and numbers but at the end of the day what we need to do is make sure that that those staff members that are operating the deli understand um how to read the production records how to reference the recipes how to be able to utilize the scales and um continually Monitor and retrain um that those staff members um a what what we have found is a lot of them tend

030to be really set in their ways this is how we used to do it well because chart Wells is coming through with a whole different standard of recipes and production records you know it's it's just a training component and as long as we continue with the continuing education and the coaching and just keep on training um I am very confident in the skill set that our staff has and to be able that we can walk away and know that those reimbursable meals are in fact uh truly reimbursable with all the correct components and I think that there were only two students that actually didn't have the right portion and that pretty much goes into number 501 offer versus serve uh we did we just completed that training for all of our staff members um this

031afternoon so that they understand how to identify what a reimbursable meal is um and 1406 the most recent food safety inspection was not posted however it was posted just in the cat it was posted in the kitchen not outside of the cafeteria so we did correct that at the time of the inspection um and all Sites we're making sure that all Sites have the uh correct written sight specific food plan um that Holly is is working on taking care of any questions are you g to are there is there more to go through or do you want to save questions to the end or do you want to no this no this is it you're done okay um I got a couple questions okay um so is you know this obviously is intended to happen

032every five years it's been seven years is there some kind of a rating I mean is would you say this is a good audit yes and I say say this because um from the school districts that I have serviced I've been with Chartwells for 17 years so I've been through many administrative reviews in other states um while very intense all of the other administrative reviews Wisconsin was by far very detailed very detailed and it is of my opinion and Dawns that they were really looking hard to find something so to be able to present this and for I'm very proud with this of this report so to be able to present this with minimal findings I think our team did an amazing job so my industry is highly regulated and yes and the FED will

033come in and we you know we know there's consequences when when you don't pass things and so we hire a company to do an internal audit it because we'd rather find it ourselves than have you know the the actual inspector find it right and so um who whose responsibility is it in between this five and sevene period to make sure the people are trained to make sure that things are portioned correctly to make sure I mean have there been any checks at all and not just since we've had chart walls because that's been a fairly short period um but in the last five to seven years so there is an audit that I do twice a year but the audit the audit form that we use from DPI is very different than this audit so

034I'm looking more for you know are the kids taking a complete mail and it just happened to be that particular day that this was happening because I've been out there many many times and they'll either correct it right when I'm there and that's what I try to do so I can teach them um but yeah the audits are the audits are done and they were already done for this year um and then I'll do a second audit um but my findings are very minimal so are any of these things that they found surprises I mean some of these things like you said they're looking for things who maybe they're very technical right but I mean are we are we aware of it if I'm walking through I don't know if they're using a number 12

035Ladle or a number 10 right so I'm not going to know that they're getting three ounces of turkey meat instead of supposed to get two but would you would either of you or whoever is going to so that you know be spot checking M are you trained to notice that and yes so what we do we do spot check uh the Sono and and the deli bar uh we spot check we have um we're checking the spoodles um we're correcting the spoodles and with the associates specifically at the Sono line um you know if we see a sput that is the wrong size well we're going to the production records and and we're showing them no this is not correct this is what you need to do so it's not that I'm doing it I

036want them to be able to have that that information to be able to access and to know that there are people that are watching and paying attention Okay uh any other committee members with questions Mr Nichols okay several things first of all I don't recall how long have you guys been our food service vendor La let's see what this is their last this is their second year second year we're into the second year okay um so I noticed they only did three schools what's NE what what would they do next next in five years so um it depends on how many schools you have open so sometimes they do four schools sometimes they do three they did three because of how many we have in our District okay okay thank you um so I did

037not see the 7-year report that was the report that was done seven years I did you just send that today s um yeah okay so seven years ago what schools did they do if I may ask brusen Robinson and Converse okay okay so they only did two three three Fen Robinson oh F I'm Miss I'm sorry I missed that okay um the DPI needs to do a better job of of describing what the acronyms mean sure yes sir I feel like I'm I feel like I just walked into the arm yes so when I first started with Chartwells it was six months of trying to figure out the acronym okay so great well I don't feel so bad you're not alone um okay let's go to uh number 318 in three 318 so both of

038those corrective actions are 30 consecutive days have those started yes okay yes how far along are you in uh so we started uh February 5th okay and we'll go through March 19th okay on both of those is that on both both yes instances okay okay bear with with me so I just want to say that when the auditor was there for this particular School the child P gave the card to the teacher the teacher turned her back and the child picked up the meal and that's that's why we were sided there because the teacher didn't actually see the meal being taken to her to her seat yeah okay I think that's it I I just had a a couple opt a couple sure suggestions um I heard I heard your comment about the this these

039Auditors were looking for something that's their job yes I've worked with Auditors both financial and operational I've worked with City County and state inspectors in the great state of California and I use that term loosely so that's their job is to look at things and and they do and it costs in my in in my case it cost a lot some money to fix but uh so just keep that in mind that they're always going to find stuff that's that's what they do and you know hopefully it's minor and so just just keep that thought as you're going forward that yeah that they're going to look for stuff so thank you anyway thank you um I don't really have any questions um it took a long time to read through this report and the one

040from seven years ago sure um and again the acronyms made it difficult to understand sure very clearly what was being said but um while there were a lot of instances that were here they most of them seem awfully minor um being cited because you Chang the chip that you were serving with the meal grant that I understand why it changes some things but you know some of those things I can see happening simply because you can't get the one that you were supposed to get um so they're pretty minor but I'm really pleased with the amount of progress that you have made already to correct all of the situations that were found you have a plan to continue to move forward and and and a plan of action to to make sure we don't end

041up in this kind of a situation again in the future um that's the initiative that we really need to see and really encouraged by the amount of work and effort that you have already put in um to address these issues so thank thank you very much for for all of that thank you any questions from any non-committee members Mr henkins oh yes um no I'm not on the committee but I am a member of the board I'm not sure where we the district subcontracts to Chartwell I'm not sure where the division is I've been in the FNB service for 50 years I've been under the with three or four restaurants at the same time I understand the things you're talking about and getting inspected 7 years my goodness you guys are that's unbelievable we got

042inspected at least twice a year we knew what we had to do I'm aor that some of this stuff has been going on and I don't know how long yes it's great that you're addressing them but if we're Contracting a a service to do this for our district you Chartwell should have been doing it before this was notified to them I'm very dissatisfied is probably I mean low if we're Contracting a service the district is to whoever we are under the understanding that they are holding the utmost standards that are their state or DPI County City are to do and to be called on it after 7 years or two years chws into it you guys should have known spot checking let me see if you have any records of these spot checks I want

043to see some paper trail to that this is unacceptable these are our students it's not oh somebody turned their back and the kid got a bad piece some meat bull crap I know how to run a restaurant I know how to run a kitchen and I know what everybody's looking at and if you abide by these it's all safe Sue Safe Serve we've all been we should every one of yours should be through within the selfs serve what Serve Safe programs that are provided and not after the fact before the fact I'm appalled that we are Contracting this out and we're getting called on it I'm not looking any no it is what it is okay it's like a inspection that I got every six months a report but Chartwells as a professional service should

044know these things prior to them coming into your building or our buildings I'm not looking for explanations because it is there it's great that you're doing corrective actions but a lot of these should not have happened prior to the fact that's all I'll say thank you any any other questions all right all right and that's just a discussion item so there's no action to be taken um we will move on to item 4 a bmhs in Aldridge flooring Excuse excuse me I'm I'm going to need to interrupt I you're you're faster than you're faster than I thought you were going to be please do uh no I I believe this I believe this that this needs to be be moved to the full board um for for you know hearing um we're we're you know

045we're three of we're three of seven we've got Mr henkins here so we're four of seven and I think this needs to be taken under consideration by the whole board so I move that we move this to to the full board for the next the the uh last meeting for March okay we have a motion on the floor do we have a second I will second motion by Mr Nichols second by Mr Anderson any discussion just a small discussion we're moving us to the full board for this discussion or or we is there something that between now and the next conversation that the committee would like me and my team to bring forward I mean I just want to make sure we are prepared for that conversation again I I think because of the brevity

046of this this this this entire report is 23-page report that I think more than this group need needs to see it I think the whole Board needs to see it and so I think we we owe that to the rest of the board as as board members so and and the [Music] public okay any other discussion hearing none all in favor signify by seeing i i i i and opposed that carries and now we'll move on to item 4 a bmhs and ERS flooring needs Mr bicko all right bear with me here this is the first time I'm setting this up here by myself here what am I doing here here slideshow here we go all right good evening um so I'm here to talk about the uh flooring and carpeting projects um that have

047been slated for the summer of 2025 at both Bel Memorial High School and aldrige Middle School um prior before I jump into this slide I'll just refer I didn't include this because you all have probably seen that report more than you care to see the eua findor assessment report that I often refer to when I go about my Capital project requests um so again in the uh fall of 2023 eua andorf report um looking at both bmhs and Aldridge their interior section on that report scored a 2.5 on a a like Earth scale of one to five which indicates functional and in poor condition worn from use so uh looking to tackle some of these projects this summer uh I looked at the the high school um I don't know if a lot of you

048know but the carpeting on the ground floor was installed in 1994 during that referendum of the extension out towards the back of the river that carpeting has been in place since 1994 so uh it's definitely seen the better part of its days I'm sure miss pels would agree with that um so uh in in addition to the common spaces in the hallways throughout that ground floor there are also two classrooms on the ground level um that house our special needs students uh it's been reported to both my team and our HS staff as well uh maintaining those carpets have just become basically impossible over the course of 30 years uh including bodily fluid it's just been hard to keep sanitary uh and um Fresh Fire students so in addition to that the uh space over

049at Aldridge Auditorium it's about 3,000 ft of carpeting over there um we've had a few community members even reach out to me and uh indicated the unsafe trip hazards on some of those carpeting areas uh throughout the auditorium this next slide here uh shows more of what that ground floor um some of those spots look like uh along through the high school um we're looking to do a polished concrete uh design and refurbishment at the high school it be much easier to uh maintain over the years um rather than doing a full-on carpet replacement there this next slide shows the current state of Aldridge the auditorium there throughout the space you have multiple tears and rips uh transition points also proving to be a safety hazard for students community members and staff alike the uh

050request for rep the request for proposal the RP that went out on January 9th was made public uh for over a month and and um through that RFP which you all have access to to see the details there again just what we're looking to do at the high school was a died polished concrete design and then to replace the existing carpent in at Aldridge Middle School auditorium as part of our RFP and District policy I know um given the the threshold of that $25,000 or more uh bringing it to of course this committee and to a for uh to a full board for vote is necessary um with this particular RFP we had three contractors show up for the mandatory walkth through on site at the high school uh of those three two submitted bids

051um you know for whatever reason the third contractor that showed up for the walkthrough did not bid on the project for you know various reasons um but I would like to uh mention is my opinion that the administration my team we've done our due diligence we've posted the RFP it's been made public we had to compet of bids which the lowest bid um which is mako's commercial Interiors also formerly known as Halverson's um was the lowest that came in at 7,494 for both uh the high school and Aldridge and I believe that is the end of my presentation there so I'll open it up to questions any questions by committee members [Music] just just a comment that um I retired from bmhs in 2018 and the carpet was overdue for replacement at that point in

052time a number of years before that I had been at aldri um and had been in that Auditorium but it was in really bad shape at that point um so it is well way past due for both of those to be replaced um uh for safety factors uh so uh Mr bio just to confirm this is something that's in our current budget correct and would be covered in the current budget or would this also be something that might be you're not can lay this over no this good question Board of member Anderson this is in the current budget we would not straddle this over into FY 26 this would be covered in fy2 and would it would you do it wait till the summer to do it or yes okay we wait for the summer

053to do it um we know Aldridge of course with the roofing project going on that building is vacant so it's an opportune time to to get as much work uh as we can done there the uh summer school folks as we know the high school is going to be um used for our our summer school programming the summer but they're aware of the spaces that will be sort of off limits while we get the flooring on the ground floor taken care of any other questions any other questions from non-committee Members all right um hearing none um the recommended action is to move this to the full board for education I would entertain a motion to do that if someone would care to make it so move second with the uh recommendation for approval that that

054we would recommend to the full board to approve this as an item okay so we got a motion in a second any discussion all right here and none all in favor signify by saying I I I I and opposed that carries thank you uh move on to item 5A next meeting date uh the business operations of finance committee will meet Tuesday April 1st at 5:00 pm um and next item is adjournment I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second got a motion to Second any discussion all in favor signify by saying I I I I and oppose that carries so we are adjourned at 550 the Reg business meeting will begin promptly at e e e [Music] Mrs sh are you about ready okay good evening it is 6: PM this meeting of

055the regular board meeting Tuesday March 4th will come to order Mrs schope may we please have a roll call yes Megan Miller present tom henkins here Brian Anderson here Brian Nichols here Amy Levy here Greg Schneider present and tia Johnson present all members are present can we get an an approval of the agenda please I would um I would um move to approve but uh pull I'd like to pull 7g from the consent agenda for further uh further further uh research that I'm working on okay any other um changes um actually could we uh remove item 7f the minutes are incomplete and then also could we remove um the addresses for the participants who um for the public comment participants okay so an approval of the agenda with the removal of 7 g 7f f

056as in Frank and the addresses from the minutes is um is there a second second motion by uh Brian Nichols seconded by Greg Schneider all in favor actually I have my hand up for discussion oh I'm sorry um please go ahead no worries um just for clarification do you want the item removed so that we can discuss it board member Nicholls or are you saying no remove to move to the next board meeting okay thank you so much thank you for cl find any other discussion or questions hearing none all in favor I I I I I any oppose nay motion passes 621 tonight for the Pledge of Allegiance we have the members of the Girl Scout Troop from Todd Elementary who will be introduced by principal Sam currents all right so we have troop

0577632 um I did want to give a round of applause to the families that got him here on a rainy day so if we could give him a quick Round of Applause for [Applause] that so at Todd we have a lot of different um uses for our building we are community school and so um we had the girl Scots come in and and provide some information at a open house and so these young ladies here are here to do the pledge tonight but their families got together and said you know what we want to start a Girl Scout Troop at Todd and so I know maybe later I don't know if they're going to try to sell you some Girl Scout cookies but I have already bought my caral Delights for right now and I

058know I have to ration myself cuz I'm going to have to buy one from each student here but without further Ado I want to introduce troop 7632 they've been meeting every today is Tuesday every Monday for quite some time and I know that they've been working on some different projects so I thought that this would be a good project so I'm going to invite them to come do the Pledge of Allegiance I'm going to lower this here so girls y'all come around this way and we'll ask y'all to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance all right y'all come around cuz I'm going help y'all out a little bit cuz I do it every morning all right come on in here yeah yeah all right are we ready so we'll put our hand on our

059heart and I'll I'll start you guys off are you ready all right IED alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands one nation under God indivisible jce [Music] [Applause] she's doing our our paw announcement too so um they're going to put me out of business cuz I do the announcements and we do the pledge every morning so now I'm going to have to come pull y'all next week to help out with that all right we're going to pass it back on thank you thank thank you principal Kars and the girl Scout Troops we really appreciate [Applause] that tonight's uh board president report thank you for joining us tonight we appreciate your time and interest in the school district of booy I have received lots of positive feedback on

060the hacket school report that principal Ryan MC Reynolds presented at our last regular board meeting on February 18th having our principles update us on continuous Improvement plans and changes to address areas of concern helps us board members have a better understanding of each school's unique needs and helps families and the community to know how each building is making improvements in academics student behaviors and school spirit unfortunately we we will not have the Robinson presentation tonight due to a scheduling conflict to continue our focus on student achievement we will see more of these updates and reports in the future the winter map test report results are available and I have asked Dr Garrison to give us a report on this data soon Dr Garrison and I have spoken about the response to the school perception survey

061presented in January he is looking into getting a report from school perceptions as suggested it is important that we determine what to do with the data to best address the concerns of our employees we greatly appreciate the time the staff's time to fill out these surveys and the careful written responses um and dedication that they have to making improvements in the school district referendum presentations are being held at various locations with different Community organizations it's good to see the community enthusiasm and um curiosity and questions regarding our referendum Jim Simmons held a Johnny Watts presentation at first congregation this um last week the entire bmhs boys basketball team was present to learn about the incredible Feats of Johnny watts and other blit Memorial basketball Stars we were pleased to see Lamont re Weaver Kyle Weaver

062and Barbara Hickman at this in event it was a proud purple night moment shared by all thank you next on the agenda upcoming events and announcements Mr henkins thank you board President Johnson tonight's announcements and events good evening the announcements for tonight March 4th 2024 25 are as follows on Thursday March 6 6th 2025 Aldridge will be performing Beauty and the Beast the show begins at 7 p.m. there will be additional performance on Friday and Saturday at 7:00 p.m. at the school on Friday March 14th bmhs theater will begin its run of its original Musical Chicago at 7:30 p.m. it can also be seen on Saturday March 15th Friday March 21st Saturday March 22nd and a m on Sunday March 23rd at 2 p.m. there will be no School for students on Monday March 17th

063because it's Irish St Patrick's Day actually no it's because it's sta professional learning day referendum information sessions will be held on Thursday March 6th NAACP and concerned black citizens groups at The Bu Public Library at 6:30 p.m. Saturday March 8th at Piggly Wiggly at 2:30 p.m. there will be a Q&A session Sunday March 9th at Our Saviors Lutheran Church Dr Garrison will be addressing the congregation after the service Dr Harrison you know what time to service starts at I'm not supposed to be there at 8:30 um just wondering so I'm not supposed to be there at 8:30 but um I it's like a okay so I'm not 100% sure when the service start but I'll probably be there right from the beginning Monday March 10th at a PTO session at Aldridge in the IMC at

0645 Wednesday March 12th will be a session for u l l at 5:30 p.m. here at KAC Thursday March 13th at dasas on the west side at 11:30 a.m. for the community also on Thursday March 13th at the BL Historical Society at 5:30 p.m. for the community Monday March 17th at bmhs in the other tournament 5:00 p.m. will be a session for any Civic Theater member Papas members or ban booster member for other information please go to our district website and click on referendum 2025 there's an enormous amount of information on the district website and keep adding to it future board meeting dates include tomorrow night policy meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday March 18th at 5:00 p.m. is tle and people Services committee followed by a regular board meeting at 6:00 just a reminder April

0651 election day is for Council board member and the referendum thank you thank you Mr henkins next up we have our recognitions tonight we have recognition of winter sports Dr Garrison yes thank you so much and one of the things I wanted to say is to the athletes we know that School athletics are important because of a variety of different reasons and we're here to you know congratulate some of our student athletes and some of their accomplishments and in the fall and in our fall and winter sports Seasons uh we know that Athletics teaches more than just uh you know a sport life skills of course self- discipline um confidence leadership I can go on and on health right and so academics as well time management and again I can go on and on the

066goal of this conversation is again to congratulate our athletes on some of their accomplishments and I'm going to turn over to Mr grats and he'll go and take take us through that conversation thank you all for having me um I wanted to go through our uh high school state qualifiers uh state level award winners and major Milestones throughout not only the fall uh just hit on a few that we we missed earlier um but also um in the winter so what's interesting about sports is our voting so for example we have not voted yet for winter sports on All Conference All State all those things so we'll get to hear hopefully more of those later this year um but catching up on some of these fall ones that we missed at the all state level

067um in boys soccer um if by the way if you're here and I know some aren't we still had practices happening uh if you're here just stand up briefly uh for boy soccer Beckham du was named the Wisconsin soccer coaches association All State team as a goalie um Beckham also set the school record for career shutouts as a goalkeeper uh with 22 in football uh Tucker sherro Tucker stand up uh Tucker was named Tucker was named Wisconsin football coaches association all academic State team um just kind of wrapping up putting a bow on our fall we had in our in our combined Sports in the fall we had over 25 athletic and academic All Conference as well um and so there was a lot of positive things coming uh from our fall Sports um jumping

068to our winter sports um our boys basketball team Amar Herford uh broke the 1,000 point mark very early in the season that's a pretty huge milestone in an even larger Milestone is he set the all-time scoring record recently um with 1134 points excuse me the previous record was 1134 points um Amari is a junior and so that record will continue to be extended um and he'll be our all-time scoring leader likely for quite a while after this um he is still at practice as Beckham is um in boy swim we had two state qualifiers Aiden Greenley Aiden Aiden was a state qualifier in the 100 fly and broke a 45-year-old School record in that race um it was exciting to watch um so congratulations Aiden uh Charlie zimba Charlie was a four-time state qualifier this

069year uh qualifying in the uh 53 um in in girls basketball neither are here correct um lenia de boys scored her 1000 point this year um and then joshin tibits as well scored 1,00 Point her 1000 Point against Westosha Central um she also set the career um School record for threes made in a season and threes made in a single game um so exciting for our girls basketball program and then and um Owen West Owen qualified for uh State wrestling just competed this past weekend at 13 uh 132 pounds um as I said well there's definitely going to be more uh winter celebrations to be talked about um we meet tomorrow night for our All Conference those likely won't be released for a couple weeks um yet um and then obviously we still have our

070basketball team uh boys basketball team still playing um Friday night they'll be playing at Middleton if anybody would like to join that uh last piece I just because this is something that is is new over the last few months um and has been providing an incredible amount of value I wanted to celebrate our 16 student athletes that make up our bmhs student athlete leadership committee these individuals were nominated by their coaches and peers to this committee the group is tasked with being the voice of their peers to assist with shaping all activities excuse me Athletics clubs activities and extracurriculars directly pertaining to student athlete wellbeing as well as generally guiding our decisions out of the athletic department we take a lot of feedback a lot of things that they tell us in the meetings that

071they meet in weekly um to try to just make things as as as positive as we can make experiences as as positive as we can out of our office for basically anything that is after school uh that group has been instrumental in in quite a few changes is they meet during their flex period once a week um and they're led by two of our teachers Brian du um who is here um and Hen Henry Kremer um and those individuals are uh the student athletes are as follows Miguel agar by the way if you're here stand up just for brief recognition Miguel uh Marcus Allen neyar Brooks Ryland Clen Rodrigo Delgado Arthur Duffy James Ford Mari Herford Brooklyn Harford asharia cook Xavier McBride Adan Munos Mike Nora Jacob pop Camille Thomas and Owen West thank you

072so sorry go ahead Mrs Ley thank you so much I will be brief again congratulations to everyone who has recognized we are so proud of you um into our Athletics and activities director thank you for organizing a fan bus for Friday I love that that is happening and I would love to see more of that so our students can support support each other um at these Milestone events so thank you so much for that any other board members Dr Garrison I would just like to say you know to the all student athletes you know these recognitions um you know sometimes come when you expect them and sometimes they don't right and so hopefully this was an unexpected um accolate that you all receiv received today um I appreciate everything that you all do for the

073school district of bloy um from the bottom of my heart as a superintendent I think the work that you all do both on and off the court is very important to the success of our school district and so I want to say thank you thank you and of course to the parents you know let me just say this you know if your mom or father or Guardian is here I think we should clap for them as well parents it goes without saying that the work that you all put in with your kids is also very important to the school district of booy and I want to say thank you Mr henkins yes just a uh a comment to our new ad0 I am so impressed that with the uh you jumped into this new position

074position and uh with gusto and going to turn things not nothing disparaging about anything before but you're leading Us in the right direction and I applaud what your efforts thank you thank you any other board members uh athletic director Gratz thank you so much and again we are are pleased to have you here uh principal pels thank you so much and um we really appreciate everything you're doing um coach duu coach Michaels very impressive and to the students thank you so much you really you you help inspire us you help remind us why we're here and what we're doing and help keep us focused and I want you to know we're here for you what we're doing we're we're doing it for you to make the school district better and to try to keep our

075programming and keep these great Sports going and I I just really appreciate you guys coming out tonight and continuing to uh persevere in your dedication I really appreciate that it's purple proud thank [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] you our next agenda item public comment Mrs sh do we have any public comments tonight I have two in the room okay members of the public are welcome to attend all open meetings of the Board of Education individuals attending board meetings are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and courteous manner that models appropriate behavior for our students individuals wishing to comment are expected to comply with the Norms found on the back of your comment cards and in board policy 187 public public participation at board meetings we ask that each of you contribute to maintaining a respectful and

076orderly meeting and prevent discussing confidential matters in a public for by following these norms for public comments during board meetings thank you for your participation and courtesy Mrs SCH the first person I have is Juan hello my name is Juan Romero um I want to take this time to encourage a well-rounded discussion about the future of the abandoned middle schools uh the abandoned Middle School building on the West Side mcneel our District's face Financial challenges including a budget reduction of over 11 million in the 2425 school year which resulted which results Ed in unfilled teaching positions larger class sizes and few resources for students and families naturally selling the building may seem like a practical option to bring in immediate funds however I hope the board's taking the time to consider not just the potential

077short-term Financial relief but also whether the sale would make significant impact on our District's overall Financial deficit at the time repurposing at at the same time repurposing the building for Community use could could provide some long-term benefits adaptive reuse of vacant school buildings have shown the right Revis ize neighborhoods attract businesses and strengthen local economies in many cases reusing existing structures almost is also more costeffective than demolishing or constructing something new one possible repurposing idea is a student health and wellness center that could provide physical and mental health services school school-based health centers hbc's they've they've been shown to reduce absenteeism report improve academic performance and help students receive the care they might otherwise go without additionally long wait times for diagnos long wait times for diagnostic services often anywhere from 12 months to 3

078years um for conditions like autism for example from my personal experiences can delay crucial Early Intervention which is known to improve long-term outcomes if if if the board were to consider a use like this it could have a long-lasting impact on students and families in our community however I understand that repurposing also comes with challenges such as ongoing cost cost and finding the right Partnerships to sustain the project that's why I encourage the board to fully uh fully weigh both options whether selling the building will truly make meaningful in financial impact or repurposing could provide long longer greater term benefits I'm not here to advocate for one specific outcome or the other but rather to just ensure that all the options have been considered before final decision is made thank you thank you Miss SCH

079next I have James with Melissa yielding her time hello it's nice to see a lot of my students here doing their government meeting project make sure they get it done on time so making the audience larger uh my name is James Hoy and I'm co-president of the boy Education Association Along with Melissa rbec uh tonight I'd like to address the board and the community as a whole about the upcoming referendum as we all know we've a much needed referendum has been needed in the past and it's failed the community has spoken and made it clear that the focus needs to be on three things increasing student achievement enhancing student Behavior along with students and staff safety and supporting teachers the baa shares those goals Melissa and I are both parents in this district and we

080share those goals as well however achieving those goals requires more than just good intentions it requires action and that action is the passage of the upcoming School referendum the baa understands the concerns of many of our many people in our community you want to see a stronger more successful educational environment and we wholeheartedly agree the truth is that for Meaningful improvements to occur we need the necessary resources to support both our students and our dedicated Educators this referendum is our opportunity to make that happen here's why your support is crucial improving acade academic achievement to truly see academic progress we must ensure that our schools have the tools programs and staff to support diverse learning needs the funds from this referendum will will enable us to maintain what we are currently doing there have been

081improvements in academic achievement but without this referendum teachers will be cut class sizes will increase how is that going to support the goal of improving academic achievement in this District Two enhancing student Behavior the community says they want to see the code of conduct enforced and they want to make schools safer for students and teachers but without this referendum building L level student service Personnel will be cut social workers counselors psychologists those are the people on the front line of dealing with student Behavior especially in the elementary buildings assistant principles will be cut I know that there's some disagreement in this community of whether all schools need assistant principles but let me tell you they are on the front lines of student Behavior every single day if we have to we have to cut these

082student service service personnel and assistant principles who is going to support those teachers when they have students who are struggling with behavior how is this going to support the goal of enhancing student Behavior in school safety and three supporting our teachers our community says that it wants to support its teachers however many teachers feel underresourced and under supported the referendum will provide additional funding to keep class sizes where they currently are it will also provide funding for competitive salaries and help attract and retain high quality Educators the district has already not been able to give cost of living increases the past few years on top of that insurance costs have increased for employees which really results in a pay cut without this referendum the district has already said that it's most likely going to have

083to freeze pay for everybody and in increase Insurance costs how does any of this support the goal of supporting our teachers if this referendum fails the district will need to find another $6.2 million to cut next year followed by an additional 8.9 million the following year these Cuts will be on top of the millions of dollars already cut over the past few years there is nothing left to cut that will not have a major impact on students and staff I know that some people in the community believe that maybe not enough Cuts were made here at kak but we could cut all of kak and shut the building down and you're not going to cover the 6.2 million you need just for next year I've seen some opponents of the referendum say that well we

084should wait one more year because they're uncertain of how the school board election is going to going to shake out but if that is your stance can you really say that you support students and teachers if that is your stance you are saying that it's okay for students to have larger class exercises for one more year you are okay with having less staff available to handle student behavior issues you are okay with teachers receiving a pay cut for one more year we can't wait one more year for this referendum we ask you to consider the long-term benefits that this referendum will bring not just for today but for future Generations together we can support an educational environment that allows every student to reach their full potential and every teacher to succeed in their vital role

085thank you thank you Mrs shop were there any email okay thank you our next agenda item are reports to the board first up we have the teaching learning and equity and equity and pupil services update by chairperson Greg Schneider good evening during our last meeting on February 18th we had a presentation from Jessica Austin who is the director of early brain development at the Stateline Community Foundation on Literacy for Life a community organization that is helping build early brain development and literacy skills in for the Youth in beloy her PowerPoint presentation is available on board docs also Jeff Sten Rus director of CTE and alternative education shared information on a proposed new elective course for the middle schools called computer science for innovators and makers this class provides students the opportunity to develop pre-engineering skills

086and help them move into careers in the future Melissa beavers the executive director of pupil Services led a presentation on the recommended changes to the promotion policy on retention as required by state law we look forward to our next meeting which will be on Tuesday March 18th at 5 o'clock thank you thank you chairperson Schneider next up we have business operations and finance update by chairperson Anderson thank you board President Johnson so the business operation and finance committee met earlier tonight um we touched on the January monthly financials we did move to the full board tonight for consideration and you'll find that in the consent agenda also in the consent agenda was the finance committee's recommendation for the high school and Aldridge flooring needs so we'll touch on that um again in the consent agenda

087tonight um the last item was a review of The Food Service DPI administration review had a great discussion there and the committee also decided that um we're going to move that for discussion to the full board at um possibly at the 18th meeting of this later this month and our next meeting is Tuesday April 1st at 5: P pm thank you chairperson Anderson next up the legislative update board member Miller thank you so much um Dr Garrison can I trouble you to um I forwarded you an email at the PDF would you mind putting it up on the screen because there's just something I want to kind of demonstrate if that's okay sorry to Ambush you with that um while you're doing that I appreciate it I'll just start going through um so just a

088couple of things um I thank you that was really quick thank you okay so um on the bottom there you can see um there just some very very broad brush highlights I would encourage everybody um here and at home to take a thorough look at what the um proposed budget looks like that was uh revealed from um governor iers was I think it was like last week or the week before so sorry weeks are all running together in my head right now anyway so um Governor Tony iers proposed um that 2025 should be sort of dubbed the year of the kid and it is the most um aggressively pro-public education uh budget we've seen in a very long time and sadly despite of that like it still is like drops in the bucket for what

089Public Schools really need but it's a fabulous fabulous start so um just a few highlights because I know as soon as we start talking about school funding people have question questions about property taxes so I wanted to lead with the fact that um all of Governor I's proposals are coupled with property tax really for people who tend to be on um I'm just spaced on the word but on sorry like a limited income right so people like seniors veterans um other people who aren't going to like see big raises right in their in their income uh we see I think he's got like millions of dollars put in there for property tax relief I did if you want to get the PDF that Miss shop is is going to be kind enough to post for

090me and the end of the meeting where my uh where it says read more here um you can read much more detailed information from that article um but yeah just broad brush okay so 60% reimbursement is in there for special education in year one and year two of the budget um it is not the 90% that Dr uh Jill underly proposed the state superintendent of DPI but 60% does get to that original amount that was promised but never delivered um by uh govern Tommy Thompson back when they initially like froze Revenue limits so Dr Garrison if you want to just NOP you're good if you want to scroll back down to the that's okay I'm still kind of up there sorry I appreciate you but I promise there's a reason for it okay anyway um

091cool so there also included in the budget is a a proposed per people increase right now it's 325 um add in addition per student per year it would increase to 334 per student per year in year one of the budget if it were to pass with governor recommendations and 345 for a pupil in year two there's also an allocation of about $856 million to the W system which I wanted to highlight because many of our students can participate in um you know grant opportunities and scholarships it's important for us to have a very k16 mindset in public school and $3.4 billion overall to DPI uh of course there are other things in there that I wasn't able to delineate in a timely manner um now I just want to be really really clear before I

092get to the other fun stuff here these are uh the governor's proposal what's going to happen now is all of those proposals go to the Joint finance committee The Joint finance committee um contact information and a list of all of them are are like in this report further down we'll get there in a sec um they're going to basically like take this budget proposal tear it to shreds redo their own version of it and it's not going to look this positive for public education in all likelihood so if you feel strongly that we should get these things that the governor has proposed I would encourage you to contact uh members of The Joint finance committee um usually how this works is um these things are passed like in the middle of the night like on

093June 30th um out of the light of day so it's it's a it's a tough it's a tough sell it's not promised that we'll get these things but it would be amazing for not just boo School District but for all kids in Wisconsin if these proposals were to go through so um if anybody is interested I also linked the Wisconsin public education Network um statement on the proposed budget and I think they do a really nice job very concisely kind of giving an overview of really what this means and any students who are in the room I would encourage you to take a look at it it's very short and it's it's a really great way to help understand kind of some of this budget stuff so Dr Garrison thanks for humoring me um there's

094just a there's a list here of bills that pass the assembly a few things of interest have to do with like a cell phone uh ban in in public schools so anybody who feels strongly about that can read more about these I just have a bullet pointed down uh there's some stuff in there I think that's high interest to people including a cursive writing so these are things that haven't passed passed yet but they have passed the assembly and then there's a few bills circulating um that have to do with um other there some some high interest stuff so I'll let you kind of read through those on your own but what I really wanted to highlight and Dr Garrison I think had you were there a moment ago if you go down to the

095it's page five where it says day of action um just since we've just heard a public comment about the referendum just to highlight for you what the state of public education funding is right now on February 28th the Wisconsin public education Network held a day of action at the end of public schools week which is last week what we're about to scroll through is a list of school districts these are just the school districts that have had to go to referendum only since the last budget passed which was in 2023 so this is like two years so if you could slowly scroll down there um you see if you do you see that scroll in the picture I don't know if it's clear to see they they basically like wrote down all these School District

096names and like dropped them down on paper and it went too stories down from the capital retunda and reached forward Dr Garrison's doing a fabulous job of like slow scrolling through this giant list this is just since the last two years these are all of the school districts that have gone to their communities to say we don't have enough to give our kids what we need in the last two years so for context beloy is not alone in really needing to pass a referendum if you scroll down to that last one thank you so much Dr Garrison I really appreciate your cooperation there are some upcoming listening sessions if you would like to hear have your voice heard by lawmakers at the state level you should please plan to attend one of these events so

097I have to read on my own here so I can actually see okay so the next one there was actually one t or not tonight there was one last night there's one next Monday March 10th with Mark spritzer Ann row and Brienne Brown that's from 5:30 to 6:30 at the Jamesville library at Hedberg there's another one March uh Monday March 24th with Mark spritzer and Ann R and that's from 5:30 to 6:30 also at the Jamesville public library and then right after the election um on Thursday April 3rd they'll be one with uh representative Clinton Anderson I'm not sure if other people will be attending that one from 5:30 to 6:30 um and then lastly uh please don't forget to vote uh we are going to the polls April 1st not just for blade city

098council the school board and the referendum but there's also a state supreme court justice election for Wisconsin and there's also the election for State DPI superintendent so that concludes my legislative update does anybody have any questions are there any board questions Mr henkins thank you M Miller yeah the joint finance committee do they overlap with anybody in our district I mean representatives from us I understand we have to get to those people and I understand you gave us a nice place to go to to voice it but uh answer that question for me thank you that is a fabulous question I'm glad you asked that because if you know anybody that lives in any of their districts you should definitely like talk to those people because they're more likely to listen because sadly no none

099of our Representatives get to sit on the joint finance committee um and it's also well there's a lot of things that I could say that Joy fighting Comm even if it's not going to go there but um the list is there it's on page four of the update um and I that's a really good point I should list for future updates like all of their home districts or like cities I don't have that on there but there hyperlink so anybody who wants to play with this PDF later you can just click and it takes you to kind of their homepage and it gives you information about their District their contact information Etc so thank you is there nobody I mean I don't want an exhaust exhaustive uh uh read but there people that jump out

100I mean so people who are likely to I want to hear a name not look no sure okay so there's there's the list of the full committee I mean are you asking like which people would be likely to be sympath athetic to a pro public education budget for this for this area yes for this area I mean so like again none of our um none of our representatives are on there but people who have a reput I mean one person that that jumps out um or I guess there are two that jump out is being very um positive public education Advocates are Senator Rey and representative andraca um and that's not to say that others aren't or are but I just those are the ones that come to mind thank you so much no great

101questions thank you anybody else have any any other board members I I do have a a question you had mentioned April 1st is the day at the polls do you know when early um voting starts here in the city of Balo I sure don't but we'll find out in a moment and jump in if that's okay but if anybody ever wants to find that information you can go to myvote.wi.gov and if you put in like your name and your address not only does it tell you your polling location it tells you like what your ballot looks like it gives you like all the information you could possibly want or need so I'll look that up now and then I'll jump in go ahead thank you so much sure uh vice president Nichols don't take this

102to the bank or to the polls but I think early voting is done two weeks and you know that ends on Friday before the election is is O you know early voting and I did see that the absentee ballots are that are you the that want absentee ballots are mailed tomorrow so thank you that's all the information I have okay any other questions okay our next item is the sale of real property Dr Garrison will be presenting and the purpose of this is to request approval for the sale of the following properties the wri school the mcneel middle school and land located on Fourth Street the district is also considering leasing 14304 Street the operations building Dr Garrison yes thank you thank you so much one of the things that I wanted to just bring

103note to is that um due to a variety of different reasons we of course have these um opportunities before the board today um I want to bring attention to just a few things before we really kind of delve into any questions the board may have as that we could possibly answer as a School District administration one of the things that I want to bring um just attention to is that the buildings that we currently have uh for sale are are well as state for sale vacant are buildings that of course are near and dear to the the public in many different ways and I want to acknowledge that I think it's important that I start there because I think sometimes you know when we're talking about buildings and people and you know people spend their

104lives in naturally that that could you know bring up different types of um not just emotions but more of like a history there and so I understand that this is a conversation that we need to you know of course be very sensitive around but we also have to look at you know some of the future opportunities that our district has to to look at as pertains to these buildings and and and them being vacant secondly I would like to say um when we're thinking about the buildings that we currently have um that we're talking about today um this is not the first time the school district of booy has um had buildings up for um vacant you know some of us remember Morgan some of us remember Burge um some of us remember um Royce

105mlen again um Lincoln Junior High um Jun Waterman Elementary Waterman Elementary yeah Roosevelt also long as a old colak building um and again the one could argue the list could go on and on I just want to make sure that you know in this conversation today that I do want to recognize that again that these buildings do hold some significance um some value to our public um from a variety of different reasons especially people who have traveled through these conversations and over my time being here I've learned a few things um about these these spaces that we we've occupied um I've learned from board members I've learned from community members let me start the clock sorry um I learned from sorry I'm sorry for interrupting Dr Garrison I'm just noticing some droopy eyes out in

106the audience and I want to let the students know unless you are here for a class assignment you don't have to stay if you don't want to some of you look like you could use a little sleep okay I know we're not terribly exciting we try to be but you are you are excused can I go too oh no and so again thank you U Mr Johnson um that's pretty impressive it's okay no no it's okay it's okay and so as we kind of review some of these um conversations today again um we do have um three buildings that we're looking at that are definitely vacant and of course one building that's not vacant that we are you know want the board to consider as it pertains to the possibility of of leasing um and

107if you give me one quick second I can um kind of scroll there thank you so the first first building that we're looking at um that is vacant is the one3 Woodward Avenue bloy um and Round of Applause not a round if you can tell us what building that is anybody that is our what building that used to be that would be the right building correct um the right building is 1.93 Acres with a building size of 26 um. 77 I'm sorry 26 um Square 26,000 Square ft the next building that we have is our um 14 15 24 Frederick Street Building um and anyone knows what that building is that'll be our McNeil space um 27.94 Acres with a little over 1,400 114,000 Square ft of um vacant opportunities there um and in our

108conversations we've had um other conversations around land that we own um that is currently being of course you know serviced by our um school district and the facilities of Maintenance team um this land is a .9 um Acres located at the end of our of of our of this block here um adjacent to the um B Memorial High School and then the fourth space is the space that's located right next to the Burger King which is the um 1430 4th Street um building which is our business operations building which is a little over 27 um 100 square ft and a possible lease term of um 6 60 months and I wanted to just bring again attention to the to the the community again I've learned many different conversations around the importance of these spaces we

109don't take these conversations lightly I understand that you know um there's going to be different opinions around you know what we should do with these buildings um but our district is also looking at we we had to look at our declining enrollment over over time um of course with the declining enrollment some of these um spaces became not only available but um became vacant for the school dist scoy with that being stated um that is like my general snapshot Mrs Johnson board president uh and of course to the rest of the board members I am more than willing to you know answer any questions I also have here with me uh Mr U bill um I call him Mir sorry Mr MIRS um here with us today as well um from cwell banker and he

110can also speak to possibly questions around selling of commercial properties as well um with that being stated um I will take any conversations from the board um for for discussion Megan Miller has her hand up thank you so much uh real quick I will just I do have a question but um early voting does start March 18th and you can also vote in person on Sunday March 23rd from 11:00 to 3: but otherwise it's Monday through Friday until the Friday before the election so thanks okay so we had a public comment earlier that raised a really good question why can't the school district just sort of like spend spend some resources to repurpose these buildings because I know even on on just the board here you know we've had some really great discussions about possibilities

111for those spaces so Dr Garrison could you help kind of explain some context about why they have to be sold so you know naturally there's been a lot of conversations around what the what buildings could be used for um there's conversations around the possibility of of community centers there's possibilities around um the conversation around low income housing um there was conversations around um let's say leveling the leveling certain spaces and then of course opening it up to possibly even Farmland resale purposes and plots um there was conversations are there's been multiple conversations the one of the things I can say is all those conversations do come with a cost and unfortunately and I'm saying this very kindly unfortunately the school district of baloy is in a critical Financial perspect Financial State in which these costs

112alone would put us back into the conversation around what we can and can't afford um we've partnered we've had conversations around with other organizations Mrs Miller to be specific around you know the possibilities of could there's could there be any Partnerships but in the school district of booy there's also other competing factors as it pertains to um how people want to spend their money um and one of the things that we we do know is that um unfortunately a lot of there's been a lot of conversations but when it comes to you know actually putting offers on the table those hadn't come to fruition and we did we did open it up to anyone who wanted to come and have those conversations with us um of course these these buildings has been vacant for a

113little over a year now um and so I believe as a District administration I believe we at a point now where we do need to make a decision around what we want to do with the the the buildings um of course the the buildings do come with a cost as pertains to keeping the lights and water kind of running of course maintenance in the um you know cutting grass mowing um of course sometimes even um the plowing of certain spaces um due to the fact that we still own own the the land I do have Mr bicko here with me um Mr bicko has been very um what's the word I want to say accommodating to a lot of these conversations he's he's walked buildings with people he's um shared the spaces with um some

114of you know possible community members who may have shown interest um but all in all again when it comes to you know making an offer has been a lot of looking and a lot of possible discussion but again all of these opportunities cost money I would love to say as a district you know maybe even even if it was in a strategic plan we had you know $20 million sitting somewhere you know where we could possibly look into doing something different for these these buildings but we currently don't even have that in our fund balance and we're not meeting our fund balance based off of our um um um policy and so with that being stated Mrs Miller you know these are the conversations that we've had over the course of the year but nothing

115has necessarily come to fruition thank you so much for providing that context and I will just say like even in times when I've been a staff member here like I've seen stuff com and go I mean hopefully we can get ourselves financially in a good place and there's nothing precluding us from offering additional services for the community in the existing buildings that we have in the future as we're stable but I really truly appreciate you addressing that thank you any other board questions Mr henkins it's not really a question um a comment I think it'll all play out in the next hour or so about the selling of these real properties and the transparency that I think our public wants to see happen and uh I'm a firm believer that the BL taxpayers pay for

116these buildings I know that it's costing upward or close to $60,000 a year to maintain McNeil it is Mcneil as it is sits and so I I'm definitely in agreement with selling said properties what I what I'm having trouble with is Contracting with not Mr MIRS I'm not that's not uh why do we don't use boo Realtors to sell said property so at least whatever commissions are to be made stay in the District because our district people paid for those said properties and I would propose and not nothing against Mr mirers uh that we go back and reopen it back up and do rfps for local uh realators thank you thank you Mr henkins um and that that is a good and fair question question um we do have a few policies and perhaps um

117Dr Garrison can help shed some some light on on this um because I do know that it's it's been um a question and something people have have wondered you know um how this happened um policy 6722 um local purchasing it reads the school district blit shall purchase local when goods and or Services of equal quality are available from local suppliers at competitive prices however the Executive Director of Business human resources and operations or design should not feel bound to purchase any item or service locally that can be secured at a savings to the school district from outside sources nor shall they feel bound to purchase locally unless adequate service and delivery can be guaranteed by the local supplier um so I'm that's just the policy I don't know the history in in in in this

118decision making but then we also have the other policy the 6721 the purchase bidding requirements and this is where um it gets a little bit confusing to me so if somebody has um some better um experience expertise um I am um would would like to be be enlightened I would like to teach me please teach me because um when a building is put for sale we put a sale price out there the broker will get a percentage to my understanding um and and unless we know what that percentage is going to be until it's sold we don't know what that cost is is to us so Dr Garrison or Mr bricko if one of you could speak to um are we are we within our policies right now thank you board President Johnson um and

119Mr henkins so in fact I went back um Mr chady had reached out to uh Century 21 on February 7th um with the details that the district was ready to move forward on the listing of the properties that we're discussing here and that was addressed to Mike Marquette who is the president of Century 21 so in in the spirit of transparency and to Mr henin's point the district had pursued the local um option being as Century 21 I actually touched Bas with Mr Marquette this afternoon he had not responded to Mr chat's original email until today in he followed up in CC Dr Garrison on that one as well and they are ready to come forward and and um provide um a bid into this project as well provided that we provide the same detail

120so everything is Apples the apples that we did with Caldwell meaning the the appraisals and all the information that we provided to um to our friends at calwell Banker just again so everything is apples apples but in the spirit of transparency there was um that communication between um the district and Century 21 on February 7th Mrs Levy thank you um I'm uncomfortable with hearing that Mr chady reached out and said the district is ready to move forward with a sale if I understood what you just said correctly before the board has discussed this publicly and taken a vote now that being said um and at risk of putting the cart before the horse I am comfortable um with the recommended motion language except for um I think we need to pause before we consider selling

1211149 4th Street and that's the lot on the other side of the tennis courts because I would like to give more consideration thank you for pulling that up that was helpful to what restrictions we would put on that l land because it is located so physically close to bit Memorial and what type of purchaser we would entertain there are certain entities and businesses or even a a school that was not supported by this District that that I feel strongly would not be an appropriate placement that close to our children um so again at risk of putting the cart before the horse I am not interested in considering the sale of1 494th Street at this time thank you if I can uh board member leave we thank you for that just to clarify looking back at

122the original email thread um there was no specification as to what action would be taken it was just simply the district is now prepared to take action so meaning the board would be the final say so there was no specification in the original thread as to what action would be taken just that we're ready for action and so I can also add U to that Mrs Levy um just for clarification perspective as well at the business operation and finance committee conversation um the committee did give us the opportunity to go and look into um what this could look like and so that's probably what that also came from the February 7th um after the business operation and finance conversation we went to look for the possibilities in this space and so I just want to

123make sure we just noted that that part of the conversation as well and that's on um that's in our documents Mr hankin again no disrespect to Mr beers or anything that's gone on um I personally would like to at least a pause is what Mrs Ley said and I would certainly we need to the the the Board needs to look at this a little bit deeper um the repurposing of Mr Brio's building I'm sorry the the uh op building and leasing we have to have a little Grand planned in in place here and the selling of you know four Street lot I totally agree with what Mrs Ley said we got to make this all congruent in a long-term plan not shortterm we should come up with a plan the board should come up with

124a plan because the board's going to be here we're all blit City people we're going to live with the decisions that we make for our district and I would I would love to see pulling this off and going back to board going back to the business operations and finance and going back and doing a uh RFP and then revisiting the leasing of that space because I think we're moving way too fast and we don't know the future of this district and uh to to continue forward in this motion to me is unresponsible thank you irresponsible thank you thank you Mrs Levy did you have your hand up I did thank you for acknowledging that at the risk of being redundant I I'm also uncomfortable with with receiving direction from a committee that has three board

125members and and act and substituting that for the voice of the full board which is seven and thank you for the clarification Mr bicko for him to say we're ready to take action we're not ready to take action until the board votes to take action not a committee of the board um so I just that's it thank you Mrs Levy any other board members would like to questions or comments Mr Schneider you know we have known that these properties have been around for a long time and we've we've talked about it briefly at different times to wonder about what are we going to do with these properties not that we were doing anything to take a vote or anything else just as part of a discussion to do that but we are far far from

126the point of actually listing the properties at this point I mean at this point we don't know what what the recommended price to put them out would be um what would that cost be what's the time frame what's you know how is that all going to happen so we we have a lot of steps to get to before we get to the actual sale of that property I think we need to take the next steps and at least find out everything that we need so that we have a very clear picture of if we list these properties here's what we can expect to get from them um I also know that you know that to go and look at some of these properties especially you know mcneel um you know there's millions of dollars of

127repairs that need to go into that to be able to do anything with that building which is Way Beyond anything that the board or the district can afford to do at this time so you know the option would be if we don't sell it then we're going to continue to pay the maintenance on it it's going to continue to deteriorate meaning it's going to cost more to fix it um you know we've had some issues with break-ins so we're dealing with all of that it's just going to increase the cost on the district to maintain these buildings um over a period of time um I think we really need to get all of the information that we need to know exactly what these properties are worth and then that's when we can make a decision

128whether we want to go forward with the sale or maybe we want to delay or whatever but we don't have that information right now thank you Mr Schneider Mr Anderson yeah these are all good points and I think on one hand like board member Levy I agree I think there's businesses I wouldn't want at the end of the block here on for street um um but like board member Schneider said we've got to get to the point where we can let people know that we're entertaining offers and because until you say that you're not going to get any offers for example let's say someone said I'm going to give you a dollar for that lot and I'm going to build up a great daycare center and something that would be complimentary let's say to this

129school district or something that you know what maybe we entertain that and price isn't the issue whereas maybe they offer US $10 million for a purpose we don't like we don't have to sell that either so we still we still maintain all of our options and our discretion as to you know to a certain extent of um like we can't control once we sell it but we can control who we sell it to um with an understanding of what their their intentions are um so I think we've got to get to a spot where you know we're we're publicly announcing that we are entertaining offers and I think that's that's just the next step otherwise we can sit where we are right now forever you know and it just it won't it doesn't move forward

130until we take this next step Mr or vice president Nichols did you want to weigh in well I just wanted wanted to acknow I I looked back at the uh February 4th meeting and uh there was a discussion on the real property items in the business Ops finance committee meeting but it was it was TR strictly a discussion there was no there was no moving forward of anything and is my recollection correct chairperson Anderson yeah what we did is we looked for consensus to to give some direction to administ ation to to continue the process yeah and that's where we are today tonight Mrs Ley thank you I would love to hear from my colleagues on the board if there is um a desire to alter the recommended uh motion language to say move approval

131to explore the sale of real property because that doesn't commit us to selling um as it is stated in the and it's just recommended motion language I understand that um but it hopefully will allow us to Garner some of the information that it sounds like all of us are interested in at least hearing Mrs M M Miller thanks yeah um I I would support that I I fully agree um you know like with what the committee directed I guess by consensus the admin to do like let's find out about next steps um we don't want building we don't want to be sitting here in you know 2035 still having this discussion so um Miss Levy if I'm or Mrs Levy if I'm understanding correctly you would like a motion um let me just get the

132language so you would like something like move approval to explore or like gather like I guess I just want to be really clear like is explore specific enough or like what specific language would indicate the next steps that are needed and that are appropriate and I'd like to hear from maybe you know my colleagues on the board on that but I would fully support that idea thank you Miss Miller I have a couple thoughts um I love the idea of repurposing mcneel as either a youth center or a health health center for students mental health students uh lowincome housing those are all wonderful ideas um um housing for homeless students all wonderful wonderful incredible ideas we need money to pay our teachers and for as much as I would love to say let's take that

133on we're School District we need to focus on educating our students I would love to have wonderful beautiful buildings for all of our students but me personally as one it's so much more important to me to have high quality Educators in front of the classroom I personally would send my daughter my son to a shack with a high quality educator than a glass castle with poor Educators housing and um mental health needs physical health needs these are Community issues they fall in the La of school districts and if the funding doesn't follow it's not something we can even fancy um you know I yeah I would love to see that happen I have not won the lottery yet folks if I do believe me that it's the first thing that would probably happen but we're

134not there and I'm you know I don't buy a lottery tickets regularly enough to even even to even continue that daydream um I think it would be wise for us to continue um this discussion and give gar Dr Garrison some guidance um I I'd like it to be a little bit more specific than explore um we do have some um appraisals for these properties um perhaps a su succinct report on um the properties um price ranges and um perhaps ideas if we do want restrictions on any of the properties um I would be willing to that's I mean well obviously I'm willing to accept any motion but let's let's give him instead of a broad paintbrush give him something a little bit more specific to work with any other board um Mr henkins oh yes

135just back way back into Mr mirers and all the work he's done and not disrespect what he's done uh I think was just a little bit premature to uh and I do agree with everything that's been said we did give direction to Administration to go forward with this I think we still want to go forward just slow down and just a pointed question Mr mirers do you have a signed document that we are the district is uh I hate to use the word do we have a does dis okay so it's kind of a handshake or a you were helping us out type of thing okay that's good to know because in the end I think I would think as far as transparency goes an RFP for three to sell these said properties once we

136get the caveats or restrictions on especially I think for all three properties actually actually they can all be different but we should have limitations on what it can be used for what it can't be used for on all three uh so once this board gets that intact which will take a little bit of work then we move forward thank you Mrs Miss Miller thanks um just to clarify um Mrs Levy would you be okay with the outcome of a a passing motion being to list the properties but just to make it clear that we're not like that there are like other steps to take is that CU I want to just make sure I'm understanding cuz like I appreciate what you were saying like here go ahead thank you I guess my only question is

137and I don't know if you list a property for x amount and someone comes in at asking or maybe even above they want to make sure they really want to secure this property is there a penalty for saying you know what thanks but we're good no thank you so if if the answer is no then I'm fine with that because we can list it we can gather all the information and then we can decide if we want to move forward but I it like is that fraudulent to say hey I want to sell this for this amount and someone says here you go and we're like oh no thank you and and again I don't know would you like you is that okay folks would you go to go to the mic would you go

138to the microphone so we can hear you thank you there you go okay hi Bill MIRS uh you know that's a question that you really run by your your attorney but generally speaking you know you you don't have to accept an offer uh you have that opportunity to say yes or no uh and also I thought about on the deed restrictions like certainly on on any of those buildings or that that especially that vacant land you you can have indeed restrictions on what can and can't be there for an example uh sometimes we have uh sell up a property to say Burger King and we have the lot NE and the there's a lot vacant lot next door owned by the same person the Burger King can say well we'll buy it but we're going

139to put this these restrictions in in the deed you can't put another hamburger place there that follow that kind of that kind of logic U and just while I got the mic just for a quick second if I if I may is our office happens to be in Jamesville but we're we're not a we don't think of ourselves as a Jamesville company um we sold uh the Regal office building here recently we've sold the Strong building we work for Hendrick properties uh we're a we're a Jamesville boy company uh just so happens our offices there so uh just like C 21 sells houses uh they've got offices in Jamesville and boy where where're specialist we just do commercial real estate so we but at any rate we don't think of ourselves as a Jamesville company

140thank you Mr Meers uh Dr Garrison sure so you know and I think this has been a great discussion um one of the things that I've learned with with our board is you know these opportunities allow you know me to you know gather information and then kind of you know put together a different plan and so naturally I think right now I think it's okay the the administration is okay with pausing and seeking additional input through an RFP um process um to see if this is something that you know to gather more information about our buildings and spaces um and it's not to say that we don't want to move forward what the recommendation is but it's also hearing from the board around a full board around what you know what is it that I'm

141hearing and I'm kind of hearing that we're not prepared to say we want to move forward with the sale of the building and anyone can correct buildings and anyone can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm am hearing that we want to get more information around you know what this possibly could look like here in the in in the school district with these foret real properties and so I just want to put that out there um that you know the board would allow if you would like me to um move forward with looking into more rfps um for these properties um I can that'll gather more information about the real properties and then that'll give you all more information around you know what each will have to offer in a possible decision thank you Dr

142Garrison Megan Miller thank you so much um I guess I'm not hearing any downsides to just listing it sounds like what was just clarified is that we have wiggle remley way I think it's a gesture of fiscal responsibility to just like move forward on this um I used to live right behind Morgan school and I watched it just deteriorate it's very demoralizing like my kids used to go play on the playground there and it would just it was not great not a great situation and so I mean I think we also have to be conscious of like the Imp that we have on the community and you know honor the existing financial situation we have in the district so I mean personally I feel like my questions were just really clarified and answered thank you

143so much um I would be fine listing with the expectation that we're going to have like regular discussion and touch points I think to address the concerns um that at least that I understood that were were raised by my colleagues on the board any last thoughts uh Mrs Miller I mean I'm sorry Mrs ly thank you um so just to continue that thought uh the gentleman did instruct us that it may be a good idea to run this past our legal and I appreciate that um so I would be fine with moving forward with listing the properties as they are stated with the exception of 1149 4th Street I want to take some more time with that as long as there is no um penalty if we pull out um for some reason other than

144price or etc for some reason for other than what is listed and are you um suggesting then going with the calwell banker as the listing agent I am fine with that because it sounds like the the other entity had an opportunity and did not reply until today um so since the opportunity was provided I'm fine with that okay oh Mr henkins I totally disagree our our uh Finance director is not in place to say yes or no whether um Mr Marquette came through uh we're losing a little chain here and I do still believe that this should be sold by a Belo realtor uh and nothing against Mr Mayers nothing at all but I do think that our proceeds or the proceeds of said building should go back into our taxpayers hands nothing against Mr

145MERS I just the threat has gone since our our business director is not in place right now um and was reached that uh Mr Bri R found that thread and uh I'm glad that M our former director put out to it or the director put out to him uh I'm I'm not in any position to say why Miss Marquette did not and I wish I would like to open it back up to three booy Realtors thank you thank you Mr henkins I think everyone has had a chance to weigh in and um we have the issue of the sale of the properties with the leasing of the operations building and the issue of uh who will be the listing broker for these properties Dr Garrison so again I think a a motion if if if

146I may board um that could work in this space would be a motion to move approval of the um listing of the real properties um with with the exception to um an RFP process that will allow others to get in I mean get into the convers so I'm not sure how to how to really word that space But to just to note Mr henkins just because we we can put something out and and uh a company may not from booy put in you know and I think that's something that we need to know um C War banker has has sold buildings in the school district of bloy before correct so has Century 21 probably so cor so has whomever correct next next so the board will the board will in in the end make a

147final decision as it pertains to who we want to move forward with so I think a a motion could be move approval of the listing of real properties um and reopening the um RFP process as a suggestion not reopening or extending the RFP process um uh vice president Nichols my oh I'm sorry you're is I'm good U thank you Bo board President Johnson so let me let me clarify a couple things and you help me if I'm wrong but it okay so if Bill listed the job if Bill I mean yeah if Bill listed the the property the uh the agent in town could sell could sell the building if that but if the agent and the a the another agent in in the city could list the building and Bill could sell it so

148it's just keep that in mind you typically a a lot of time I I don't know what the percentage is but typically um especially in residential Mo a lot of people are listers and a lot of people are Sellers and I can't I can't speak to that in the commercial side but it's you know it's amazing how often somebody else sells the building that you've listed so um I I I experienced that when I was out west so uh so just keep that in mind and know whether we list it with Bill or U Associated or whatever any of the other realtors in the build in in the city are or the county you could you know quite frankly a realtor in Illinois could sell it too right a realtor in Illinois could also sell

149it right yeah you were out of you were of the room but my office happens to be in jville but we're a jville Bo company I just want to make sure you get a chance to hear that uh I've sold we soldal building we sold the Strong building we're very active in in commercial real estate we don't sell houses thank you vice president Nichols your explanation just explained a lot to me because I I was unclear how similar or dissimilar selling commercial property was compared to selling um residential property so thank you so much I appreciate that uh Clarity um Mr Anderson yeah just one final thing is we're trying to decide what action to take I think if the if if the action we are seeking is to list it but we don't know

150who we're going to list it with and I think that entire motion is premature we might as well wait and say we you know we're going to move to to approve it or to list it with this agent and otherwise we can we could say hey let's let's list it but you still can't take the action until we decide on who we're going to list it with so it's kind of it's kind of All or Nothing well that would also come with I'm just hearing from all board members in this space that also come with the possibility of us you know reopening or putting our back out to RFP and so once we get an RFP from others then we could you know see what those look like and bring that back to the board

151the board can then decide naturally which RFP we want to go with or our recommendation and then you know kind of go from there and then we'll move forward with a listing at the end of the day we have these buildings you know and we have vacant buildings and we also have a need in our district as it pertains to real Financial um dilemas and so the District administration is willing to move forward with whatever recommendation that comes from the board at this point Mr henkins and then let's wrap it up okay just one more Mr mirers I truly appreciate where you're coming from and I'm thank you for weighing back into that I've been on uh you wouldn't know me from Adam but I have dealt on with you on other matters but not

152you personally but anyway but anyways you've always I have nothing against what you represent um my point is and I think Brian Anderson went to the point is that uh we're kind of putting the cart before the horse and I I do believe we've given Credence we do need to sell these properties once we list it we list it with an agent I guess that's how it goes we just don't say we're listing it and then then find an agent so I think due diligence being served and I believe in selling this referendum or having people vote for the referendum people want to see transparent and if we sell these buildings we got to make it open and honest and I do believe for this board to do due diligence to open it back up

153to an RFP and uh not rather than uh saying uh Mr mir's company and I'm not again nothing against them or Jamesville or Madison or wherever but if uh if that's what the you know we we decide on one realtor and we go forward I don't think and we haven't done that yet so I think we we skipped a step somewhere along the line and uh I think in in helping our public see that we this board is moving in transparency on selling these real buildings that they bought and paid for and uh I think we'll do ourselves a good a good n thank you I am opening the floor up for uh motions um keeping in mind we've got the listing a agent to consider and the um listing of the properties we can

154either make this one motion or two and it's um it sounds like um we may want a little bit more information from Administration um Mr Schneider I move that we proceed with the process for the sale of real properties located at 1033 Woodward Avenue 1824 Frederick Street land at 1149 4th Street and the leasing of 1430 4th Street um and that the um Administration bring back to the board um within uh a month as to the process and where we're at for that in that to be ready to sell okay and just for clarification you do want the land at the 1149 for Street included in that yes okay Mrs Shope do you have that motion I just need clarification on the beginning it was to move approval of the sale or for the district

155to continue the process thank you for the sale of the property okay thank you and the leasing of the apps we have a motion by Greg Schneider is there a second may I ask a clarifying question before I have for a second Mr Schneider would that um does your language would that entail just like seeking a legal opinion that that wouldn't necessarily go right to listing is is your attempt to Encompass kind of the concerns that were raised to Encompass all of the concerns that we raised as well as finalizing who we would go for with a realtor or at least coming back with a good um you know recommendation for that and knowing what okay I think that the listing prices would be for those properties I really appreciate the clarifica uh sorry clarification

156yeah I'll second thank you we have a motion by Greg Schneider seconded by Megan Miller any discussion Mrs Levy thank you so I just wanted to make sure that I understand are when you say all of the concerns that were encompassed is does that mean going back out to RFP um yes okay um and and just so I understand so that would also include stipulations if we decided to have any for 1149 correct or for any of the properties oh I absolutely thank you all right thank you so much any other discussion hearing none all in favor I I I I I any oppose motion carries unanimously thank you everyone our next agenda item is the 2025 referendum up update Dr Garrison yes thank you um VOR and um give me one second to uh

157pull up the real quick um presentation that I want to share with everyone um so um as as we all are very keenly aware that we are in a referendum season here in the school district ofy and I would like to first start off by thanking thanking everyone who has allowed us to come into their spaces to share information about our referendum that as you all know that list of um um Community Partners and spaces and places that we have visited is online um we still have a lot more sessions to go a few more even yet this week and again I just want to thank all of the the Community Partners who have allowed us to come in and share um a little bit about our referendum with that being stated one of the

158things I wanted to do is of course um share kind of what I've been sharing in these spaces um with our um viewing Community tonight um it is my goal to be succinct in this conversation so I do have about 15 minutes some of this information the board um of course have heard before because you've been in a lot of my conversations already um but I this is what will allow us to kind of give us a snapshot around what kind of what we're looking at as a school district um we all know that we um have a need in a school district as it pertains to referendum that's why we went to referendum uh one of the things that I want to just bring note is that we do have celebrations here in the

159school district and for time sake and of course I've have shared this with the U public I'm not going to go over each of these opportunities but we do have celebrations in the school district of beloy and some of the things that even um um our co-chair of the vaa mentioned is in this conversation today as well um and so not to uh to reiterate some of the things that he's already shared um we have had some experiences where we've we've made grounds and we know that um there's opportunities for us to continue to make more grounds in the conversation around academics um um our goal is to keep getting better and better one of the things that I've mentioned most since I've been here you know of course academic success has been something that

160I we've I've I've always shared the second big Point service at the highest level and of course continuous Improvement and these themes I truly believe is being captured um over the time that we've of course come together as an Administration and so these celebrations are again far and few in between of course every school building also has a list of accomplishments that they've had that I'm going to share with the um um Board of course I'm also going to put that out on our um web page as well um there's a lot of great things that are happening in our school district and again these these does these opportunities don't capture all of the themes but it does let everyone know that we have had some um increases across um many different levels in our

161academics and for many different things here in our school district I want to start off again by saying that this referendum is about our students this referendum is about our students we need to be able to you know keep these conversations moving forward for our students follow closely around making sure that we have the adequate staff in order to provide these opportunities for our students and so we know that through conversations also through the legislative update that a lot of districts have went to referendum so Mrs U madis is also captured here in this slide um since 1990 86% have went to operational referendum 86% and the question that I didn't asked behind this question is you know how many do you think have passed an operational referendum which is the next sline which is

16277% so these conversations are happening in the state of Wisconsin and the school district of booy is not exempt from this conversation we are not exempt from this conversation with that being said we've had referendum conversations before as we all know our April 1st referendum is on the ballot um of course we've had other referendums in the state of in our school district should say and in our school district of course in 2023 we knew we had a need and in 2024 we also had that need and here we are again with the same need just because we have year-over-year cost um expenditures that we have to be able to keep up with CPI has not inflation has not kept up with the state aid it actually lags behind over $3,300 and so in this

163portion of the conversation typically I ask the question raise your hand if your bills have went up and typically one raises their hands and then the second question I ask is is raise your hand if your bills have went down and typically no one raises their hands and so we've had this conversation for you know many many years here in the school district and we are now in that same space this is the ballot question and again this is something that everyone has opportunities to review our three um priority buckets one could already we also have a fourth priority bucket but one of the things that we really want to do is make sure that we bring note to the staff compensation conversation and retention we cannot do this work without our teachers that's that's

164as simply as it could be put and I'm not only saying that from a district administration's perspective but School District around the state is saying the same thing because we also know that schools of educations aren't graduating high numbers of teachers and so now our teacher conversation becomes even more important because we don't want to continue to lose the current teachers that we currently have not being able to compete with other school districts right up the street and or down the road in any direction and so we have to be able to to stay in this conversation and this priority allows that to happen we do want to be able to compensate our staff to at least 5% now we also know that the the negotiation process is something that we have to look at

165and in the negotiation process it may get up to 4% it may go over to 5% but the conversation is that's we we built this into the convers ation the next priority is our academics and some of the same things that you see on these slides where there is increases in our um ear data whether it's three years of consecutive growth on our state report card whether it's gains in Acts our curriculums have provided those opportunities and so there's not teaching and learning without curriculums and I know some of the teachers in the room could could contest to that you have to have curriculums in order to do the work that we we want to do and not just any type of curriculum but how high quality curriculums that can provide opportunities for growth for

166all students and the reading and math conversations are are duly noted in this in this priority again I can go on and on but for take of time I want to just make sure I bring note to this to this space the next priority that we have is been very clear is in in our behavioral support conversation um as we've had numerous conversations with our community with our teachers with with even the administration we know that this priority is needed in our school district and we also know that this is something that we want to improve upon we do have a code of conduct we do have a code of conduct and we do want to uniformally enforce the code of conduct but just like I mentioned in previous conversations there's opportunities where students may

167get in trouble I hate to use the word trouble may get into a situation where we need to have some corrections built around it but then there's also opportunities where students may fall into an intervention and in that intervention space these opportunities are captured with the behavioral support positions bring back an assistant principal having more conversations around deans of students in the middle schools and then adding that added lateral support with six additional um par par par professional support positions being added to our district the next priority and then I just uh backtrack real quick the next part next overall we know that our our operational budget is is very tight right now and I shouldn't say tight it is is we at a point now where we have to we have to do some

168things differently and we have done some things differently but this this gives another clear shot around what's happening at the state level State funding has not kept up with the increase of costs and we know that not just based off of Mrs um Miller's conversation but just based off of what we know about the state of our state's conversation how we're funding schools and this is a ongoing conversation that we we have to have this next slide of course gives a snapshot of the the mill rate and our history you know we always talk about what we could have done in the past but we are here now of course at the 192 space and this is 192 but we also know that there was a tax credit attached to this conversation this year so

169the 192 is the number but we also know that that number was probably a little bit lower than that due to the um um School tax crat that was also given this year um natural the three years are rolling averages where they roll up from $9 million to $14 million to $16 million and the reason why we rolled this into the conversation was to keep a steady meal rate but it also allows us to capture our overall needs in our school district by just building in some of um the opport building in the opportunity to capture at least a 3% increase for things that we just don't we have yet to um to come into to come to fruition yet every year is different and so I I made that statement before right now let's

170just say you know the water bill is $10 next year let's say the water bill goes up to $15 that's a certain percentage increase and we have to be able to prepare ourselves for these opportunities and that fourth priority will capture a many different opportunities with that the tax impact is as follows um where we are looking at $100,000 $157,000 $157,000 and then $200,000 each of these opportun gives you a snapshot of what you paid or what the community could have paid this year as well as what with with a referendum support what it would look like um for each um category but we also know again that even this year yet there may be um some tax credits that comes so even with the 7 um 753 there could be different opportunities based off

171of um what what what opportunities we get through um the budget um conversation we've had to make reductions we have continued to make reductions since I've been here and and I think sometimes this gets overlooked because it's a conversation around what else instead of what should you know our goal is to have everything that we need for our kids and the more we reduce the more we reduce that absolutely means that the less we will have for our kids that's what that means and so I would implore um our community to to to not only come to the informational sessions but ask questions so we can bring better Clarity to any of these opportunities that you see here what's at risk and I and I want to spend just a little bit time on this

172space here because what's at risk in our school district is greater than what you see on this screen whether it be compensations um um salary freezes central office reductions again building level reductions again significant Contract Services reductions again Insurance costs possibly increasing again all of these things are things that we've done and we have to again bring these back to the table and when you start having those conversations over and over it really it really does hamper the culture of a school district and we have had this conversation now for the past three years okay and and and again as a school district we're doing everything we can to keep the high service for all of our students in in in space and in place but when we are having the reductions conversations year over-year

173it does make it that much harder I'm going to draw your attention to where it says programs and courses not aligned with graduation requirements will be subject to evaluation for continuation this is a real conversation that we need to have in our school district if this referendum is not successful I will have to look at reductions in programs in our school district which includes Athletics today we just had a conversation with Athletics coming into the convers coming into the room and they sharing how great our student athletes were which includes the Arts which includes 4K programming which includes DLI conversation which includes um um um um facilities conversations these are real tough conversations that we will have to have with this referendum not if this referendum is not successful there's no other way to say

174that and I think me publicly making sure that people are hearing this from me is just the realities in which we have to actually look at if this referendum is not successful because behind the 6.2 is the 8.9 okay behind the 6.2 is the 8.9 $8.9 Million worth of reductions that we would have to take a look at and that's again for 2026 there is not a referendum that we can go to again in 2025 April of this year is the referendum for that okay there is not a November election where we can go back to referendum the next opportunity that we will have is in April of 2026 and by then we will have to have conversations around not just the 6.2 but again with the 8.9 and those are very real conversations that

175not only does school district of booy will have to look at as an Administration but also as a community and these are very important um touch points that I want to bring note again we have a wonderful website that I would like to point everybody towards um please please feel free to just you know of course of course you see it on the screen but you can actually take a picture of this and you'll be able to see it um and it'll take you right to our website where you can find additional information um as to our referendum um I've had a I got a lot of practice that going over this presentation I wanted to keep it to 15 minutes board president um Johnson and allow uh for any board um conversation as it

176pertains to the referendum but again these are real conversations that we would have to take a look at and again I want to make sure that that also includes these programs and courses that we that are not aligned with graduation we will have to take a look at that also includes stuff like CTE you know um these are programs that are near and dear to our programming busing um but without funding these are the things that I would have to start looking at because we can't we cannot keep reducing staff with 5,000 students coming to our buildings every day we cannot and so although that is the largest part of pocket of money that we have we have to start looking at other things to offset the 6.2 and the 8.9 thank you for for

177your time and thank you Dr Garrison and all of the administrators who assisted in putting this presentation together I'll open the floor for questions or comments from the board Mrs U Megan Miller thank you um I had the privilege to attend the ad hoc committee meeting last Wednesday um it's the first one I've been able to get to it's some stuff canceled so I decid to come and um I listened to this discussion and the gravity and tone in in the room I mean I this is this is a mess honestly and as I was just sitting here listening to this is the first time I've heard like Dr Garrison deliver like this specific presentation with that information the first thing I thought of was how I came here to teach um I didn't have

178kids at the time and I decided to stay here for pretty much every one of the reasons that was on that list I stayed for 4K I just added a few notes on I stayed for DLI um I stayed for the quality of my colleagues who I'm worried we will not be able to retain with a pay freeze and increased cost of health insurance against other economic issues that are happening external to the district and I guess um you know depending on what happens in April I may or may not be a board member but I'm still going to be a parent and I'm still going to be a taxpayer and I would really like to see our district be able to focus on our excellence and not on our survival and I think that

179you've done a really nice job Dr Garrison really crystallizing that um a comment was made at the ad hoc committee about you know uh and I think you responded really well to it like hey we got to get all this information out there and you were kind of like well we don't want this to be like a scare tactic and I think one of the ad hoc committee's members responses was like you know and this this is truthtellah job putting this information together in a way that makes sense that appropriately transparently communicates like where we are and that other districts are right here with us as well this is not a Belo specific issue um so a lot of lot of big feelings and reactions from over here so thanks for for entertaining my thoughts

180and comments but really really nice job on the presentation vice president Nichols Dr Garrison good good presentation good detail uh except there's uh one one piece missing uh and that's District stability and daily operations could you address that that's quite a quite a large bucket and I think I think the public needs to know that thank you no problem and so in that bucket you know we have to look at a a variety of different opportunities one is we have to look at of course there's food services costs that of course will go up in that bucket and we will be able to capture that and I say Food Services that's meal programs food prep and of course kitchen equipment um there's administrative and District services that covers legal cost and all district and all

181District staff training including insurances that that comes with that special education services that which supports individualized education plan Services therapy assisted technology and of course Specialized Staffing that bucket will also Encompass the technology and Communications we know that even yet this year we're looking at the cost that will that it will take to for us to possibly even switch over from Apple to going back to PC so there's funds that that we have to look at in the technology and the communication realm that this bucket will also address software it support of course and increase in our parent information tools um student transportation naturally this is also can be captured in operational cost um student transportation is something that we have here in our in our school district um naturally those conversations will increase over

182time as pertains to how much it cost to move students from from their homes to our schools right and so student transportation is something that we will have to take a look at and that supports both morning and afternoon rights routes sorry fuel cost um vehicle maintenance um and specialized trans ation needs uh we also have to look at facilities and maintenance um we know that there's some critical things and critical needs in our school district right now that is on our eua report and on our eua report there's millions of dollars that we would have to take a look at as pertains to what is critical and this bucket could capture some of those opportunities as well that includes covering utilities cleaning repairs and security um as it pertains to just our facilities and

183maintenance upkeep there's also instructional cost that's captured in this conversation I know we have a bucket for that about $1.68 million on the on the priority um Mr um Nicholls um to the board not just Mr Nichols sorry um but we also know that there's um Labs lab materials um of course um fund balance that we we typically transfer from our fund from our fund 27 to our fund 10 um specialization C special education cost yearly to the tune of about $9.5 million and so this bucket could also help in that space now hopefully the the the um Governor's B anual budget will be successful but you all know that's not something that I can dictate at all um and so there's also employee benefits at in this conversation naturally we've built in at least

184a 3% but in case something happens in this pace as rains to covering Health this this bucket could also capture that and that includes long-term disability insurance State B State mandated retirement contributions payroll taxes worker compensation and again if these things increase over what's built into this bucket which is about 3% then this this this bucket could have actually help in that space and so that kind of gives you a snapshot of what this bucket could um provide I know it doesn't give the details of every single penny how it can be spent but it does allow you all to understand that running a school district is not just one thing it's multiple things that we have to take care of in order for this District to be successful and the list that I just

185kind of rambled off there um kind of gives you a snapshot of what can be captured in that in that bucket thank you and what is the value of that bucket the value of that bucket is a little over $20 million um Mr Nichols I believe how about 2349 how about 2344 million 23 million 49490 right to be exact yes sir thank you any other board member questions or comments Mr Schneider you know if I as I've talked with people in the community I always try to emphasize that we really don't pay for schools we invest in our future I mean how many adults have not taken time to invest in their own Futures I mean we've gone to school we've increased training uh we put money into a retirement fund businesses invest in the

186company to modernize and to grow the business you know we all spend a lot of time investing in our futures but when we invest in schools we invest in the future of booy because it's the students in the schools now that will be the Business Leaders in the future they're going to be leading the governments um both Community County State and so on um they'll be taken care of us when we get to the point that we need help um you know so we invest in our future um so what happens now is up to for our own personal future depends on what we do on the referendum this year thank you Mr Schneider anyone else um a couple questions or uh points that I've um had conversations with with uh constituents uh one of

187them being I guess concern over the um six behavioral support positions um everything from is that Ade quately uh or appropriately financed can we really um find people to come into that position with the qualifications we're hoping to to capture at that uh price tag and even if we do um is this um addressing the issues of adhering to the code of conduct um making improvements in the behaviors will this result in the outcomes we'd like to see um I guess the kind of the underlying question behind that is if we're not following the code of conduct now how is having more six more people in in the district that were funding and paying for going to change that I think it's I mean that's a great question I think one of the things that

188we do know is without anybody these behavioral opportunities could actually see even more of regression even in this year we've started to see that there's been an uptick in our behaviors um um uh just just that's what we've we've started to see um as pertains to any um promises that can be made one of the things I can say is that I do believe that these behavioral support positions um will help us in the intervention space as well as working with our students and staff um and around how can we better support our students when they're having these um situations that's why again it's stated as um behavioral support positions and so sometimes students do need um additional support and with these behavioral support positions with the adult in place we can provide additional layer

189of support to our teachers and that student and so I do believe that this bucket I'm sorry this priority does provide us with the opportunities to continue to work with our students in their various needs now is it a one-sized fitall and I guess that's the that's kind of what where I lean back and I have to say it's not it's not a one-size fitall it is not and I'll be the last to say to you as a district administrator that this will be a one-size fitall conversation our goal is to get better each day as it pertains to how we serviceing students and how we're working with them through um conversations as pertains to their behaviors um not all behaviors are right at 10 if that's a level let's just say one to five

190and not all behaviors are jumping straight to a five five being the worst sometimes there are situations where students are just simply not following instructions and need more to read Direction it leads to a referral we don't often times put it in that bucket but it is a referral and so I think sometimes we're talking about discipline with our students it's automatically is must be a five it must be one of those big five themes and that's not the case all the time and I think it's irresponsible of of an Administration to say that that's what's happening in every single situation as well as the the public to assume that everything is a five not everything is a five let's say five being the worst not everything is a five but we may have some

191fours we may have some threes we may have some twos right Mrs P and we may have some ones that we all still have to address and so again it's not a one siiz fit all conversation but I do believe this bucket provides us with the opportunity to better assist our teachers and and our staff I'm sorry our teachers staff and our students and and seeing some things um become a little better we will also report out on how these things are are working in our school district on a regular um if this referendum is successful thank you Dr Garrison Megan Miller thank you so much um I just wanted to like build off of that as I'm thinking about what you're saying and thinking about a previous referendum discussion that we had where we

192you know we were talking about the mill raate and how whether or not we pass a referendum that mill rate is likely to go up next year so is that that's correct that is correct right okay so here's as a parent this is how this lands to me we can pay to continue to do all the things that we're already doing that are getting us these really good academic outcomes and then get more help like right there in the classroom to support our teachers and our kids with additional needs or we can pay more money to have less of that support because I saw on that list like student services I saw like school counselors and school psychologist I send my kids to school because I believe that it is safe and it is somewhere

193that they can grow like academically and personally why would I pay more in property taxes next year knowing that I would have less and so I think when um I've fielded similar questions from community members who are like you know that's a lot of money and it's really ambiguous sure we've got the results you've got that really nice celebration slide there's more specific results that we can highlight in terms of where we are growing and what we need to sustain back in November when we had the discussion about what do we want to continue to do based on what our report card said and what needs to be changed um Miss morch brought back a whole presentation about like yep here are some Equity issues here's where we're not growing enough and this is where

194we need to Target right those resources and that attention so no one's beating around the bush there but just going back to Mr Nichols kind of what your question was what is that and I can't remember what you what it's called on the on the marketing piece there but just sort of Just The Keeping Up with the operations stuff um those dollars are allowing us to sustain what is working and to then the dollars on top of that to address what we know isn't so again we're paying more money anyway I'd rather pay more money and make sure that like our teachers and our kids have responsive staff and more grown-ups that they can form relationships with have places to go outside of a classroom so they're not distra disrupting learning from other kids versus

195Pay More For Less so I just wanted to throw that perspective in thanks thank you Miss Miller any other board members another question that I have um under the priority of academics we have the virtual SL inperson reading tutors at $180,000 I know that we have grant money that um we can use for um tutors um have you looked at shifting any of that grant money for covering the reading tutors so as it pertains to Grants in that space I I haven't necessarily looked at Shifting the the bucket of money from one Grant to the possible need in in our school district um the hardest part about is that of course they come with specifics that you have to follow naturally we have to follow that um in this space here where it talks about

196um virtual iners and or reading tutors um I believe we will be able to get our greatest bang for our book in both spaces and the grants may not necessarily cover the virtual space but they may cover the inperson space or vice versa so I haven't looked into the shifting of grants in this space um but that doesn't mean that we can't look at what that actually looks like in the future okay um me personally just speaking as Tia Johnson concerned taxpayer um one of the things that um I would like to see is perhaps a thorough um study on the effectiveness of our instructional coaches the number of instructional coaches the locations of our instructional coaches how much we're spending each year on instructional coaches and the feedback from our classroom teachers of the

197effectiveness of the instructional coaches I'm I personally think our money would be much wiser if we're using it on tutors working with students I understand instructional coaches do work with students um but that's not all they do vice president Nicholson yes we have reached the hour of 8 o'clock so I Mo make a motion that we extend the business meeting by 30 minutes second motion by vice president Nicholls seconded by board member Miller any discussion hearing none all in favor I I I I any opposed motion passes unanimously thank you Dr Garrison our next oh okay our next item is the referendum discussion and perfect leaden last meeting the um ad hoc committee presented us with a statement to the board with the four smart goals as they pertain to the April referendum and um

198this will also if if any board members have other considerations or suggestions any feedback they would like to give uh Dr Garrison and the um Administration um we can do that to refresh your memory of what the ad hoc smart goals were um the district must and I'm reading from the document that they presented last time at the bottom of the first page the district must assure that the community that they are working towards specific and measur measurable goals and that the district needs to embrace fre frequent monitoring and Reporting on progress the community wants assurances that the funding received will be well spent and will achieve desired outcomes we are recommending these priorities one increase student outcomes in measurable ways utilizing smart goals data shows that sdb students are not achieving on a Statewide

199and National measures as well as students in other districts in Wisconsin successful student outcomes will make our schools and Community attractive a better place to live for current and prospective bers uh to publicize positive things that are happening in the district laters need to be aware of the many successes that are occurring right now and demonstrate the return three demonstrate the return on investment that will result from passage of the referendum so Dr Garrison those are um suggestions for you and the administration to work on the smart goals smart goal one improve the efficacy of learning environments at schools and classrooms long-term by x% as measured by state report cards and other available assessment data by the time of the 2627 reports smart goal two improve the efficacy of the learning environment at schools and

200classroom annually by x% annually over the next 3 years as measured by an average of the following metrics attendance absenteeism discipline referrals teacher retention rates and school data reports three smart go 3 reduce turnover among teaching staff to between X and x% of below the state average by the start of the 2627 school year and smart goal 4 increased salaries for staff to be within x% of other school districts for the 25 26 school year do any of the board members have any uh thoughts they'd like to share regarding the ad hoc smart goals Mrs Levy thank you um just some clarification I I understand that you didn't author this so maybe you or no one in this room is able to provide clarification um I'm all for smart goals absolutely um is the ad

201hoc committee suggesting that we Implement these smart goals if the referendum passes or in general Implement these smart goals my understanding is if the referendum passes that these are things that they would like us to have as smart goals aligned with the referendum got it thank you for that um and I'm not a proponent for adding a meeting however I think a workshop would be appropriate so we can sit down with this as our singular Focus because again I'm all for smart goals but some portions of this seem vague to me um like assessment data um available assessment data um I mean that could pretty much be anything um in the second smart goal School data reports so I would be in favor of us having a workshop where this is our singular focus and

202we can really take this as a starting point um and hone in in a way that's appropriate for our district okay uh thank you Mrs Levy and in general I would um try to not add more meetings but we are we are neck deep in meetings anymore so hey one more what's what's up Mrs Miller or Miss Miller okay no no you're fine thanks yeah no it's okay as I was sharing with Brian before our meeting started I look forward to our meetings since you know it's stimulating conversation um all in favor of that so okay um love love this in general very similar to miss Mrs Levy's comments um I would actually hadn't thought about suggesting a specific Workshop but I think that would be a great idea and I guess like what what

203came to mind when I was reading this is a great continuation off of you know when we were talking about board goals and we were you know kind of hoping to get to that space where we could have a workshop and hear from Administration about like what makes sense in terms of like what you know exp percentages and everything to monitor um as well so I think since um none of us are School administrators or teachers in the school district of booy it would make sense to to sit down and um craft those statements that were suggested specifically in a way that is like realistic and that will produce the outcomes that I think are the intention right of the committee which is to measure and promote student achievement safety Etc so I'm all in

204favor of that I think this is fabulous work um I had a final thought and it totally just like flew out of my head so I'll just like stop talking for everybody else's benefit but no um I think this is great stuff so I'm all in for a workshop any other board members Mr Schneider I agree that this is important enough that we need to be able to take the time to really digest and to look at this and get advice from Administration um on on the reality of of what we're looking for uh because part of the smort goals means it has to be something that's actually achievable um and so we do need to take a look at that I think just having a stand onone time would be important thank you um

205Miss Miller okay I remember now I was just going to say sorry um you know nothing gets me excited like strategic plans and I know that we've spent a lot of time in energy and resources as we should you know working on developing the referendum question etc etc um hopefully everybody is going to be great and we're going to fully fund what we need to in April and then we can like it out of survival mode I think this is a fantastic jumping off off point because we will have likely some sort of interim time between when our current strategic plan expires which is fine like that's how it goes it's good to be planful and thoughtful I think this is fantastic a because it fits right in with our current strategic Plan B because

206there's this has been generated through input of community stakeholders see because like um Mr Schneider just said it's got to be measurable and achievable and make sure that we're producing the vision that the people who created these these statements in mind so I just wanted to put this into the context of we're going to need a new strategic plan so we can kind of keep up the good work this is a great Next Step vice president Nichols no I I think it's good yeah I I know we're up to our and and by the way neck for me is more than neck for you just so you know anyway no I I think this I think it's I think it's a great start and I you know yeah smart goals are are good are good

207used to do those so I think we should should get together yes thanks okay so we've got the um smart goals from the uh ad hoc committee which we really appreciate their dedication and diligence um were there any other uh considerations or feedback any board members H have received from constituents or would like to share at this time um the one that I have is um Dr Garrison if we could get specifics behind the I can't believe I'm going to say this the fourth bucket um uh the um one that vice president Nicholls was referring to if we could get specifics I think that would help the cause a lot um on the website and in our presentations um I understand your concern for you know needing to have some funds for okay things are

208going to go up and whatnot that's a large amount of money it's the the over 50% of the request with with not very many specifics behind that and that's very concerning and um I think it would help a lot if we could do that sure can I just ask certainly I think it's um and in my in the team and I have had conversations around this you know one of the things that this bucket does have is that built-in uncertainties and I think the public will that could be explained in that bucket too like there's built-in uncertainties that this also captured that the board you know of course you know agreed to as well um the things that I listed that I was sharing with um Mr Nichols when he asked you know similar question

209um the goal is probably to do like a pie chart with that information in it and you know although we won't made it necessarily account for well we could account for all $20 million but that doesn't mean that's how we're going to spend the $20 million based off of whatever needs come up you know let's just say with insurance hike you know we built in 3% but you know at the end of the year it could go to if a referendum is successful it go to 10% and this bucket will then that that number will be captured in that bucket but but if that's 10% in health that means that it's less percent somewhere else that makes sense and so I I agree with you I think that's I don't when we built this bucket

210was never to not you know not to have any information in it it was meant to be open-ended so that the people understand that running a school district is much more than just of of course dollars and cents it's a conglomerate of things and this bucket also captures some of that we also know that we have you know some fund balance cons concerns in our district when I say concerns the reality is we will not be able to cover our fund balance with a referendum not being successful in time and so these are real things and I think what you just mentioned is something that we can bring to the table I just don't want the board to hold you know the school district accountable for if something crazy happens and we have to use

211that those funding for something something else that's not listed in the conversation because this bucket is meant to be you know all encompassing to running a school district and and our needs are definitely there from a year-to-year perspective everything has continuously went up and that bucket helps us you know move our district forward so I will work on that um this week there will be something online so people can see um um that it's the goal um I've mentioned that before and we'll we'll we'll we'll work to get that accomplished thank you Miss Miller thank you so much uh totally agree with all of that and I guess just as I'm thinking about when you ask the question any other stakeholder um input I I will say in the context of exactly what you just

212said 100% support all the things I think as closely and as clearly as we can tie all of those those pieces to direct impact on classrooms the better so for example I heard you just now talking about fund balance and I immediately am like yeah there's that special education transfer that we need but I don't think that that's like exactly where everybody's mind goes when you hear fund balance and so I think like when we say like here's this pie chart here's all these categories I feel like we need to as much as is is is possible this directly affects services to kids in classes that's like money for that par educator that's mandated by that I AP right I mean that's not like we're just going to stash your tax dollars in our little

213savings account right like this this is stuff that directly goes to classrooms like you said earlier in your presentation it's like $9.5 million a year from fund balance directly to Student Services uh for kids of special needs that's just not where I think like everybody naturally goes so love everything that that the two of you just discussed I think just also kind of couching that in like this is clearly and specifically how this directly impacts like what our teachers and kids experience in classrooms would be great thank you Miss Miller I couldn't agree with that more and Dr gar again I appreciate what you're saying I I hear what you're saying that last bucket is more than 50% of the request we have to be specific if we we need we need to have stable

214funding for the school district of bloy and I'm have grave concerns if we leave that even as a pie chart I believe our constituents are able to grasp there might be an emergency there might be something else we have to spend the money on the the the request the what's written in the ballot the dollar amount that's done the we have wiggle room in what we're spending the money on and I think the more specific we are the more Trust and trans trust the more transparent we are with with what our intent is with over 50% of the referendum the more trust we will have the more respect we will have it's I I don't see having more specifics being a negative in this case um and if something does come up and we we

215have a catastrophic event if there's an emergency of if if we have incredibly High Insurance costs I have no problem going to our public and saying folks here's where we are something happened there's you know we we wanted to spend the money on this unfortunately we can't and I have no shame in that it's you know it's how I budget my household I don't I don't have 50% in a slush fund for what might come okay any anybody wonderful our next item then is the consent agenda typically there is no separate discussion of the items unless a board member so requests in which event the item or items will be removed from the general order of business and considered in their normal sequence on the agenda and we have already removed 7f and 7g um

216Mrs Levy thank you I'd like to remove Item B as in boy and J as in Jackson any other board members seeing and hearing none I will entertain an approval of the consent agenda with the exception of Item B and J so move second motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Megan Miller any discussion seeing and hearing none all in favor I I I I any oppose motion carries unanimously Mrs Levy uh Item B thank you so much um so late this afternoon I saw the email for the January financial report that it had been updated and replaced um so I'm just asking for a highlight of the things that have changed since I last reviewed that report thank you so much and I apologize that I didn't touch on this in the earlier meeting um

217I had changed the number for the general fund revenues and the fund 27 revenues because I had recorded a revenue in fund 10 that should have been in fund 27 and I'm sorry I don't have my computer up so I can't give you the exact dollar amount no that's okay I just I didn't have a chance to review the updated report so if there were any significant changes I just wanted to be made aware of that before we voted on it y it was just between 10 and 27 and it did not affect the totals at the bottom thank you so much yep um I'll is there a motion to approve the January 25th monthly financials so move second motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Greg Schneider any discussion hearing none all in favor I

218I I I any oppose motion carries uh unanimously and item J the memorial and Aldridge flouring needs again Mrs Le um thank you for including the information specifically the pricing summary sheet uh often in life you get what you pay for and so I'm wondering were there conversations between the administration team and Marco's commercial interior Inc and flooring Inspirations to kind of determine why for the same job there was a just over $61,000 difference in the quotes uh thank you board member ly for that question there were not any discussions um as spelled out in the RFP there was a um required walkthrough where all contractors were present so bids were Apples to Apples they all took the same measurements agreed on the same concept plans I've been told from my predecessors and other administrators

219who have held down capital projects that oftentimes these two contractors do bid very differently one being much higher than the other um and the makos is the former uh that was formerly known as Halverson's which the district is used quite often on I I believe they did this floor in here um but to answer your question long story short no there I that's I I do see the very big difference there but one just happens to be much lower so okay so I just wanted to make sure there are no red flags like one company uses a different product that is safer or more good nope Mannington flooring um they will be providing the materials and they were also part of the walkthroughs so both contractors that bid on the project are utilizing the same

220materials okay thank you so much yep any other questions for the flooring needs I will entertain a motion for approval of J blit Memorial uh and Aldridge flooing needs so MO D second motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Megan Miller any discussion hearing none all in favor I I I I any oppose motion carries unanimously next up we have the human resources and employee recommendations are there any open session questions on exhibit a Mrs Levy okay so this is my disclaimer it's an open question session that will let me know if we need to go into closed um I just had one quick question uh without divulging the content um the note in executive content is not aligned with the notes portion of exhibit a and I'm just wondering is that something as simple as

221a copy paste error or we need to go on the close to get clarification if I'm not mistaken I believe it was a carryover from a previous agenda Mrs sh then I don't have any questions thank you so much any other board members have any open session questions on exhibit are there any closed session questions on exhibit I will entertain a motion for approval of the HR uh employ me employment recommendations exhibit a so moved second motion by Megan Miller seconded by Amy Levy any discussion hearing none all in favor all I I I any oppose motion carries unanimously that brings us to the uh agenda item nine executive session a motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the Board of Education into close session pursuant to section 19.85% in need to

222read the exemption because we will not be discussing this in closed session that was resolved during Open session is there a motion to go into close session for the uh exemption that I just read so moved second motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Megan Miller any discussion seeing and hearing none Mrs sh may we get a roll call please yes Greg Schneider I Amy Levy I Brian Nichols I Brian Anderson I uh Megan Miller hi and tia Johnson I and Tom pin left the meeting motion carried unanimously the Board of Education May reconvene into public session in order to take any action if necessary on items discussed in closed session otherwise we will be adjourning from close session thank you everyone for coming have a good night and a wonderful week