001All right. We have 7:00 on devices. I'm going to go ahead and call us to order. Uh welcome to the Monday, April 13th, uh regular meeting of the Columbus School District. Um before I start, I just want to say congratulations to our two board members who uh recently retained their seat through our local election and Board of Canvassers confirmed their um ongoing service to the board. So, thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Um Adam, if you would uh do our roll call. Kutschenreuter. Present. O'Brien. >> Here. Olson-Rattunde. Here. Pearson. Here. Pulvermacher. Rule. Here. Smith. Here. All present and accounted for. We have a quorum. Andrea, were properly noticed? Yes. Thank you. So, reminder to ground our work, the mission of the Columbus School District ensures each student is prepared for future success. I
002would take a motion to adopt our agenda. I have no adjustments to what I've been advised of. So moved. Second. I have a first from John Pearson and a second from Corey Olson-Rattunde. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor with an aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. First item up for board business this evening is uh our discussion remaining regarding the uh remaining capital referendum funds. Jake, I'll let you guys take it away and get started. Yeah. Uh couple of things here. Just to recap where we were at the last meeting. Just a high level. I won't go into as much depth. Um if you recall, we are coming up on the 5-year mark of the 2021 uh the 5-year mark uh kind of being uh uh a benchmark that you want to spend
003the money or do something with the money by. Uh so, this kind of facilitates some of the conversations. Rewinding back, uh we've looked over the last 5 years at at least 16 sites at a high level, uh three at a little bit more uh uh more level and and analysis. And we've ran into obstacles. Uh power lines, flood plains, utilities. Um and in the end, a land deal is not likely by mid-May. Uh so, this led to the conversation of what are the different options that we can do with the remaining referendum funds. Uh as I mentioned, we have about $1 million in referendum funds remaining. Uh you know, take or give uh some money just because we set it aside. Uh Eric Kast is here and we're going to have him take it away
004uh in a little bit and be able to answer some questions that the board may have. Uh really, when it comes down to it, the 5-year mark not necessarily law, uh but really uh it's a it's an area where the IRS starts to get more concerns if there's remaining funds. In the end, we identify really there's four different options. One, we can buy land. That's not likely an option. Uh we could determine that [clears throat] the project is completed and we could defease uh money. And we could defease all the money or we could defease part of the money. Uh or we could implement a strategy where we complete some projects in the scope of the question. Uh and obviously, you could do a combination of the two. Uh so, Eric has ran some projections
005for us. But I think from a starting point, we want to be sure that everybody was at the same place with our remaining million dollars. And just recap the last meeting. I know it was a board meeting and it's on film. Uh but are there any questions with where we've been uh from the board? With that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Eric just for his introduction. Uh Eric's going to introduce himself, his title, and then the role that his company plays, and then he'll take it away. Do you want me to go over here? Yeah, sure. That's good. Good evening, everyone. Um as Jake said, my name is Eric Kast. I'm a director of public finance for PMA Securities. We've been engaged by the school district for quite a few years
006now, kind of leading on the financial uh borrowing side for the the referendum. And kind of we've been in communication with Beth and now Jake in terms of this 5-year mark, what are some of the options, and look forward to kind of the discussion. And hopefully, we can add some value and answer any questions you may have this evening about your options. Great. Uh thank you, Eric. Appreciate you coming tonight. And uh we appreciate your expertise. Um So, you know, basically, I think it comes down to we have two areas of dialogue tonight. Um and you know, we've asked Eric through conversation to come and help be um our expert from PMA to to make sure we kind of understand some of those options. So, the two areas of of dialogue that I think we
007have tonight that we need to take forward to our next meeting to make uh you know, a final motion and decision on. One is that million dollars of funds and what to do with it, whether it's uh defeasance, uh expenditure on project, or some combination thereof. And I think the other second piece of dialogue that we want to keep in mind um to make a decision on is if we want to direct, you know, if we spend that money on qualifying projects, uh is the board directing administration to budget for the replacement of that money into fund 46 for future land purchase. You know, there's been some conversation of um do we want to direct administration to um figure out a way to replace those funds over probably several years. So, those are kind of
008the two questions that um as Jake and I kind of rattled down to tonight that we need to get to the bottom of. So, um I'm going to let Eric kind of take over and talk a little bit about the defeasance projections that he worked up for us and and kind of answer some of the questions that were posed as part of that. Do you want to give background on the amounts? Yeah. Uh so, we have four different options uh and we're going to go in sequential order. And before we go over each option, and please remember that uh this is a preliminary analysis. Uh so, high level. Uh those of you that have been on the board that have seen these forms before, they can change over time. Uh but this first one that
009Eric's presenting is just simply uh the full million, the full remaining funds. So, Eric, I'll let you take it away. And it is on the screen uh behind Eric as well. Yes, I'll just kind of run through it from a structure standpoint real quick. I'm not going to do this on every single one. But what we look at here is your longest-term debt. Now, one thing that I will highlight is the school district issued the um $30 million in a very low interest rate environment. So, you're already very low. You can see that 2% coupons are your high water mark all the way up to 2040. But if you've been on the board for multiple years, we've done the same exact strategy in '23, '24, and '25. Where we really target the longest-term um principal
010amount. And you can see that as we get over here to the right side, it's reduced down to 515,000. But if you scroll down a little bit, um on the lower right, what we calculate is almost a quarter of a million dollars of interest savings. Now, unfortunately, that does not come back to the general fund. I just always like to highlight that. That is purely property tax relief. And it and it manifests itself in the reduction of the required levy on an annual basis by about $20,000, 19,600. Then you'll see the significant reduction of 990,000 by utilizing a million dollars to pay down debt early. That would come by shortening the amortization, almost eliminating 2039-40. Um the last thing I'll highlight is we've already shortened the amortization by 1 year. So, this would kind of
011like I said, continue that strategy. Just to clarify, that shortening of the amortization happened with the other 3 years with these that we've already um put in place. >> Move forward, yeah. Thank you. And uh Mike, if you can scroll down to the second. So, the second option is around uh $736,000. So, figuring uh in this type of scenario, we would be {quote} {unquote} spending a quarter uh of the remaining funds and defeasing about three quarters of the remaining funds. Uh the reason that this amount is being projected is simply because uh we are confident that we can recode um items or projects that were already completed in this fiscal year. And it would amount uh pretty much to around this amount. Uh so, I'll turn that over to you uh Eric as well. Similar
012story. Story, obviously less applied to pay down debt early is going to save less. So, it's about $173,000, 14,200 per year. And you see the largest amount down there in 2039-40. Instead of um about 500,000 remaining, it's about 785,000 remaining. So, as we step through all of these, you're going to see savings go down as the dollar amount goes down. So, it's kind of a a strategy on the use of equity for projects like you've already talked about and highlighted at the start of the meeting versus paying down debt early or a mixture of both. Mike, if you can scroll. Uh the third option being presented, and obviously, all these sheets look the same, is about 655,000. Uh so, the way to equate that is we spend uh as a district on qualifying projects a
013third, and then uh we defease we defease about two thirds of that. And the way that we got to this uh this figure was we would recode that same amount that was uh in the 736,000 analysis. But then, there's also a couple of projects that we have going uh or we're planning yet this year that we could also recode in the future yet this fiscal year. Again, similar. Drops the savings down to 150,000, 12,600 a year. And then your largest amount is again in 2039-40 as we drop that to 855,000 outstanding. Then Mike, if you keep going down, and this one should be Last minute. 250. Uh $250,000. So, in this scenario, uh we would be spending about 3/4 qualifying projects and then defeating 1/4 of the remaining funds. Uh in this scenario, it's a
014little bit different. Uh this would extend over projects in the capital plan over future fiscal years. Uh so, no longer are we talking just this current fiscal year. Uh you know, there's plenty of projects uh that are worthwhile to do, uh but this would go and extend out uh where we would be spending more on qualifying projects and then defeating us. Yeah, um some elaborate or expanded comments on this one. Obviously, the savings is much lower, but when we get into an amount like 250, which certainly is an option, we were asked to do the analysis, we may recommend looking at other options like simply transferring it into fund 39 to use for future debt payments to manage your levy. The reason I say that is the defeasance has fees of $17,000. And when we
015start getting down to the 250 or below range, it really becomes is it economically the right choice to make by executing a defeasance with fees of 17 to 20,000 for that small of a dollar amount. So, just highlighting that if we go to that direction this evening, the conversation gets to like 300,000 or less, I just wanted to plant that seed that we might be recommending another option of simply transferring the residual balance to fund 39 for future debt payments and not doing a defeasance and and consuming the fees associated with that. On that, Mark, is that a possibility for the entire million dollars? It is, yeah. Okay. You are limited in terms of the amount of equity you can carry in your debt service payment reserve by the IRS. It's 1/12 of your next
016year's principal and interest payment. So, it's just something to be aware of. That's why we normally, when we get down to that amount, 300,000, you're right in range for that 1/12. Um certainly clients have done it, but technically speaking, the IRS does not like um school districts. It's their rules that you're not supposed to have more than 1/12, so required to tell you that, but you're not the only school district to carry over more than 1/12. I would also tell you that. And then there's the one analysis if uh we would defeat nothing, which means we would be spending that all of the qualifying projects. I just want to make sure I'm understanding something that was just said. So, for this last option you just reviewed, I actually was going to ask the same thing,
017Julie, of how much could we transfer into fund 39? So, you're saying this is kind of our threshold of the maximum that would be recommended? Is that Am I understanding that correctly? Of what the IR The IRS wants us to carry in that? Basically, yeah, you're right in that range of about a million, right around there. Okay. Thank you. One other question of clarification. Each of these defeasance projections, in the bottom right-hand corner, there is a box about uh 2025-26 tertiary aid one-time increase. Can you explain that a little bit, what that means, and what the impacts of that are? Sure. So, I mean, it's very negligible at this point. Historically speaking, for the school district, it was way more impactful. But when you execute a defeasance or an early payment of debts, that's considered
018what's shared cost. So, under the eyes of the state, you are spending more in that year because you're paying down debt early. And when you do that and you're what's called positively aided in the state formula, you're able to receive a reimbursement the following year above and beyond what you would have gotten without that additional payment of debt. So, for you, unfortunately, using where you were situated last year, it's 1.07%. So, it's fairly low for most of these. You've been in the 10 to 15% range, so prior defeasance, if you were to go back and look at the analysis provided, it was a much more meaningful number, but it is a one-year kind of rebate from the state for that additional spending in the form of state aid, which again is not new revenue. It
019simply decreases the burden on the local property taxes to pay for the general fund and debt service levy. Would using Would using the this for capital projects also count as spending in the eyes of the state? It would not. Eric, could I ask you um some variations of this in your experience? Do you have other examples of what people have done? I mean, has anybody been like us that didn't couldn't find a piece of property and had extra money? Um I think I've had one client that has actually executed a plan to transition what we call bond proceeds or the proceeds from the issuance of the debt into their debt service repayment fund and executed an early payoff of debt. So, it is not a a very popular approach. Couple of reasons for that. Number
020one, every story is a little bit different, right? I understand that you guys have a unique scenario with the land purchase and the inability for all of the reasons Jake highlighted at the outset of the meeting. But a lot of times, referendums are um they don't come around all that often, so very strategic thinking by most of the clients that we've worked with to um identify projects that meet the spirit and intent of the original question approved by the community because it's really sometimes one of your only chances to to utilize those funds for those projects that were approved. Thank you. One of the questions that we had, I think most of us know the answer to. Um Does any of the choices before us impact our operational referendum that is currently in play? I
021cannot think of any scenario. >> No positive or negative impacts. I mean, we talked about the debts could have a small aid benefit back to the district, which could lower the tax burden overall of the entire levy, but it's very negligible. Um again, that doesn't occur if you spend them on capital projects that were under the scope of the initial question because that's not an aidable expense. But other than that, there's really nothing I can think of. What other questions do we have for Eric? I'm not sure if it's for Eric or maybe for Jake, but um if we were trying to set aside some of the funds for a future land purchase, um in that fund 46 that would have to be like replenished, is there any way to like earmark or set those
022aside, or could a future board decide to use that money for something else? Like if we're trying to save it for a land purchase, is there really a way to denote that? I I don't I mean, I don't know what the legal answer is, but as far as 46, in my experience is it would have to be in the capital improvement plan. Anything that's in the capital improvement plan, that money could be utilized for. Conversely though, a future board could approve a change to the capital improvement plan. Yes. Future administration could bring it in. Future board could I mean, I'm just devil's advocate to that is Right. Yeah. If we didn't use um part of our 1 million for the projects that we've done this year, the 25-26, I think it's like 250,000 or whatever,
023would that just come from that million that we currently have in 46? Can you ask that again? There's that There's like the projected 25-26 projects that I think we've done already that would fit the scope. Yep, the 250. If we don't use the 1 million for that, is that just coming out of our regular Yeah, that's all of fund 10. >> That's all of fund 10. Or fund 10? Yep. They were budgeted out of fund 10. Okay. So, it would just be like helping to essentially use these funds because it would open up other projects. Correct. Okay. Other questions? That's good. Okay. So, I think that brings us kind of then down to the next parts of our conversation, right? Those ultimate decisions. So, I think um the first one is uh what we as
024a board can come to a consensus that we should utilize or how we should utilize approximately 1 million dollars of remaining referendum funds. My thought on this is that regardless of what we do, there's not going to be any noticeable tax relief immediately, correct? We're not going to see really anything until 2040. Correct. Um So, to me, it seems logical to do some of the long-term projects with that money. And um and then of course, then when we can start tapping into fund 46, maybe we wouldn't use as much of that. Those projects are going to have to be done anyway, regardless of where we get the money. We have this money. To me, it's it seems like a a prudent way to use it. Like I said, you know, some of us might not
025even be here in 2040. I need to get my get my money back. But I just I just think that we're not I don't from what the list I saw, I mean, admin didn't go up and and pull some great projects that they want frivolous projects. I mean, they're all really projects that have to be done. And to my way of thinking, since there's no immediate relief for anybody, probably the most immediate relief would be to do those now rather than later. And we've done we've done the visas in the past. We've already provided pretty good tax savings for Mhm. 2039. Like we've future future Columbus district is already we've done them well. Um meanwhile, the referendum was to help us was to was pretty much the voters approved us to help improve the schools.
026Help improve the schools. You know, and the other thing, if we were to ever get to a point where we had to borrow money for a project, we're never going to be able to borrow money at 1.45 or 2% in the foreseeable future. I mean, this is this is cheap money. That's my opinion. I'll go first. Um I I agree I think really with what John has said as I've been reflecting on this as we're talking about all these options. Um it feels to me that the the best use is the like you said the most immediate positive impact we can have with this. Um and it is I think in keeping with what with the language of the referendum was. And so I think in doing that we're you know, we're providing to the
027stakeholders what we what was intended for this money. Although it might be slightly different than what we had hoped for in some ways. Um Yeah, and I think there are a lot of really important projects that could be taken care of. So. I agree. I think um the little tax benefit that there is even with um the state aid in the next fiscal year, I don't I don't think it's enough to take away from the projects that still need to be done. Um and the community expects us to our schools. [clears throat] So I would agree with that. Uh my gut feeling is I wish that we could keep some of it for a future land purchase. Like I wish we could take 250 you know, or 200,000 and and have that be a kind
028of like seed money for the future because I do feel like we will need um new facilities like a new footprint at some point. Um but I don't know the mechanism for doing that really effectively. I guess based on kind of how the whole process is going. Um and I do agree that the capital projects would be the best way to spend the bulk of the money. And along the same lines, like a new footprint, maybe not on land, but a new footprint on the land we already own, that's not within the length of time we have for this money. Um it's quite a ways out even if we started today. So um and it's hard to ensure that money gets put there in the future when nobody can tell you what the future's going
029to be. So I think we should I think it's best to approve what we have. I feel the projects are the best alternative. Like I've said in the previous, I'd love to have a piece of property. And to be honest with you, I'd love to have a piece of property for an athletic complex. >> Mhm. Uh but I just don't see that's happening right now. Eric, if we utilize all um of the $1 million towards projects that fit within the scope of the original referendum fund, um a couple of things. Jake had commented that that would have to happen over more than one fiscal year. Did I understand you correctly? The replacement would be The replacement. >> over one fiscal year. But we can effectively utilize that strategy within the time frame that we have
030available uh of our 5-year mark if we utilized all of the $1 million uh projects. I think I don't know all the projects if you can spend that by May 17th. But also I want to take a small step back. It's not as though some wizard comes in and takes your money if you're a day after 5 years, right? There's flexibility in there, especially if you have board action and intent to execute a plan to utilize those funds. Now I also would say on the other end, that's not to say that you can just wait 18 months to execute that plan, right? There probably needs to be some near-term action to show that the funds are moving towards those projects. But I think you guys are in an okay spot if you were to move
031the direction of the $1 million and say it maybe takes three to four months to do roofing projects or whatever they might be, right? You know, you can't snap your fingers and do some of those things. So. Okay. But we how does that work with the completed projects? It's like is that already something we could just make up accounting and Mhm. I think that would be a quarter of that. Yep. Yeah. And a quarter of that I think to Jake's point you definitely want to do that in this fiscal year since you would have executed it for your to make [clears throat] it clean for your audit. And Eric, do we want to is it is it best to whatever can get done in this fiscal year to do it in this fiscal year? >>
032bond proceeds, fiscal year probably matter less than they do for like the general fund that you're reimbursing yourself for so you have clean books, right? Because they're already isolated. But I I think just getting moving on that sooner than later is probably a good thing. If you can get them done before June 30th, that's a perfect world. But I also don't want you to feel like you're backed into a corner that you can't cross over the fiscal year with some school >> But we have a pretty good list, Eric. Yeah. We have some ideas. >> [clears throat] >> And along those lines, just thinking about trying to make sure that we're thinking about all of the consequences, the benefits, sometimes unintended consequences, we do if we if we do choose to expend the full $1
033million and have to look at how we replenish that over more than one fiscal year, there could potentially be impacts to our fund balance over the next couple of years. Is that correct? I mean, we're going to see a drop in our fund balance in order to pull these $1 million to expend them. Yeah, whether it be fund balance or our budget. Right. It has to be one or the other. So there's going to have to be some juggling and do we think that will have significant consequences? Will that have any programming impacts that are significant? I can't give you a 100% answer, though. Okay. I think any any money that you didn't plan on spending. Now, the budgeted projects, especially if we would have time over years, but I think on the other hand,
034the question is so you build up that $1 million over three, four years incrementally, A, I don't know what it really does, but I think the other thing that we've learned even in the four years that I've been here or three years or third or fourth year, um price of land has changed as well. And in five years, you're not sure how far a million would go as well. And you're really just speaking towards replacing that $1 million if we earmark it. And I'm more so looking [clears throat] at from the picture of right here now today. We have this $1 million in our general fund. If we go out and spend that $1 million in the next three months on these projects, can we anticipate any issues with other aspects of the budget or
035any impacts to any other programming? No. Okay. But we wouldn't want that unintended consequence, right? Like, hey, okay, now we got to pull this $1 million to do all these because that's what the board voted on and suddenly there's a shortfall here or there or this other programming area for our current student fiscal, you know, programming. No, I can't picture that. That's a good question. I get what you're asking. Sorry, it wasn't clear that that's what I was getting at. But I I just wanted you know, you think about those like, oh, well, we actually pulled that money, so here's the flip side of that. Yeah, we're no longer teaching math. No. >> [laughter] >> No. Like the music program, sorry about it. Like that's not what we Right? [laughter] Oh, I didn't tell you
036that's what was going to go away. Eric, we're not cutting math. >> [laughter] >> To clarify, is that $1 million reflected in our fund balance? Or is that a separate account? It is in fund 49, though, not in your like general fund balance. >> Right. Right. So it would be in our fund balance. It would be reflected in It would be a separate fund for the proceeds of the debt issuance, yeah. Yeah. So what I am hearing consensus-wise is that the board would support um a final motion for our next meeting of expending the $1 million of remaining funds from the referenda um towards uh projects that support uh that are supported by the original question. Is that an accurate assessment of Mhm. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. And I would anticipate that you guys will probably
037work Jake together to help us with the wording for that so that that's a appropriate um when we uh do that board action. And I guess the other piece then so our second question unless there's other comments or questions about that piece of it. Okay. So then the second question that we pose is as Jake was alluding to a minute ago and Mark I kind of had some questions toward do we have um interest in the district replacing if you will that million dollars in fund 46 over the next several fiscal years so that there is theoretically earmarked portion from this board to reserve for a future land purchase. I guess I'd like to hear thoughts, questions, and opinions about that. Well, I think we discussed it a little bit. I I you know, it
038would be nice to have some money there, but we have no control over future boards or future administrations. Martha's pondering. I guess I feel if we could replenish the funds um but I guess thinking along the lines of Julie's last question, not at the expense of you know, I mean we're we're running so tight with needing an operational referendum. Um I don't want to like try to put us in a worse spot just to save money for a future land purchase, but you know, maybe we try to replenish half of it or I don't know exactly how this >> Yeah, because the other thing to think about you know, we've got 3 years left on with this referendum money and then we're going to be back in the same place we were last year. With
039the operational referendum you're referring to. Right. So if if we require or encourage administration to try to save even a quarter of a million dollars a year that that's um That's a quarter million dollars that's not going to be used in the general budget. >> Yeah. And then we're going to have to go to another referendum to ask I just Yeah. I do I struggle with the I mean I I hear exactly what you're saying. >> I agree with you. It's not the original intent, but it's But I think that money could be used for anything once it's in that fund. I mean, we're saying if we're as a group wanting to set aside money for the future land purchase, we can't force that to be what the money spent on. Right? I mean They
040could use it for capital projects. It has to be used for projects, right? Right. They would have to be used for capital projects, right? Right. As opposed to it being used to potentially keeping our district whole. In the capital improvement budget. Right. >> 46 or whatever. Or giving them a a formula to say you have to move X number of dollars per year and now suddenly we're going to decrease our fund balance to move funds to fund 46 to meet that obligation. >> our fund balance goes down and then we do short-term borrowing again. >> Right. Right. I mean it's a So in fund 46 right now I think we said we have around a million. About a million. So that's where we keep our money for the projects. So this would be supplementing that
041or using that for a land purchase instead of is I guess the Yeah, we have about question. Last week we had about a million. And here's one of my thoughts is if if we're in a situation in the future in which we're considering a land purchase I would expect that there is likely a bigger project at play, right? I mean Oh, of course. So we're still talking about there's no way we're doing that without a referendum in the future. And so you know, at that point if you're looking at some sort of referendum that would be additional facilities then putting a land portion into a referendum ask is it would likely be a very small part of that project down the road. Now, small part is I don't mean to diminish what the cost of
042land is, but in the reality if you're going to build a new high school for 75 million dollars and part of your referendum is 3 million dollars for land purchase, >> [cough] >> that's a very small portion of a bigger project that would have to go to referendum anyway. I I like to say something that probably won't be too popular here, but do we also have to be thinking down the road that maybe we'd be adding on to schools in some way, shape, or form and not need property. And I'm not trying to say that's what I want. But I think we have to be looking at if we're ever going to be talking about that, our options. And is Columbus school district growing or where we at? Uh as we see in the paper
043last week, I think there's become a challenge to referendum. Yeah. Mhm. And I I guess I just [clears throat] I'd love to finish this topic of what we're talking to Erica about and then maybe be thinking down the road should we be putting money aside for for property. And believe me I'd want to put aside something. Don't ever get nervous. I think even if we're talking about an an add-on rather than a new purchase or a new building that probably is still a referendum involved. It might be a it might be a 20 million referendum instead of 75 but it's still something that's going to have to go to the voters. And in that case I think that Julie's point still stands and that that we're still going to have to go to like we're
044still going to have to do that and if there is a land purchase involved we can still incorporate that into the referendum. So in that case I think it still holds. Yeah, and I think if we say well we put this money aside, right? We're going to replenish this and then those funds get used elsewhere and then we have to go to referendum again, we're facing a community that we said we were doing this with the money a different board did something else with the money and now we're asking for land money again. I think that's where we're in I don't think we can do that, really. Right. So like I think that's just a a not in the great eye in the public view, right? So if we just for the public perspective, right?
045If we're going to ever add any more building of any kind in an addition or another building, we are going to have to go to referendum. We are going to have to face the question we already paid for land, where did that money go? So that might be something we would have to address. Will be something we have to address now regardless of what we choose. Um So to collect it twice if you will and then to try and explain that again. Right. To collect it twice without you know, without if so if we go to put it in a fund and say we're saving it and then it's not saved next time we're in a a worse spot than if we said we put it toward this instead. So next time when we go
046to ref if we go to referendum we will ask for land funds. You know, it's just kind of saving face a little bit. Um putting some trust in our in our community. Okay. If because we've taken a lot of potential projects off our plate and just letting them know we might might not be executing just from a timing standpoint. And I mean it it's probably not going to happen, but I want to be sure cuz I don't want something to happen in the next 3 weeks. If land would suddenly come available is it my understanding that yes, still pursue it? I mean it would be a weird quick turnaround um because we're not taking board action till the next meeting and as you guys know I've tried to keep you updated as much as possible.
047I'm not expecting it happening but if it would do we look at the land or now is it we're just done? If a land owner pursues me. Uh so it's >> I think we should still try to buy the land. That was the first intention. That's partly why I think we should If something would just all of the sudden fall in your lap The land fairy shows up tomorrow. >> [laughter] >> And I'm telling you it could happen. Yes, I think the board would want to hear about the land. Okay. I I just I mean it's below it's below 0.001% but If the signing day is here for these funds on May 21st and you get a phone call on the way into the meeting to say hey Jake, I might have a lead, we
048probably would need to execute the deal and and then evaluate that opportunity. >> to be sure. I want to be sure. I thought I knew the answer. Yeah. So you know, a little a little less clear so I just want to clarify what I'm kind of hearing on a consensus for the question of do we replenish the million dollars over several fiscal years to earmark for land fund if possible. What I'm hearing is in general everybody's wanting to say yes, I'd love to say to do that, but the reality is no, I don't think that we should do that. Am I hearing that correctly? Yeah. I think the only way that we can do that is if the land purchase was on the improvement plan and we uh decided as a board to put the
049money towards that. Yeah. I would feel better about doing that if we weren't in the middle of an operational referendum. Yeah. I completely agree. Yeah. I think it's really hard to say hey, we're going to save some money for this, but either way, yeah, I I I very much struggle with that. >> state funding is all over, you know, who knows where that's going to end up. >> Yeah, I Yeah. Okay. So, the two things then that will come before us at the final meeting, um assuming, and I use that word carefully, that the land fairy does not appear, >> [laughter] >> is that we uh will would like to see a motion to expend the $1 million uh uh that was originally intended towards the project on uh some projects that fall within that
050scope. Um and that we would not be expecting um administration to be replacing or earmarking funds for that. So, I think on that second point, there probably doesn't need to be any board action. There only needs to be board action if we were pursuing it. Is that agreed? Questions, comments, final thoughts, anything I'm overlooking that we should discuss related to this topic? Do we need to let the community know what projects we're looking at? I think I would reserve that to our administration. Um to decide if or how or what. I mean, I think one of them is the roof, you know, another section of of what, 15 sections of roof at the high school, so that's pretty non-exciting, but >> [laughter] >> But it's something >> Maybe we could take a Facebook post of
051the roofing project there. I think we at least have to note that this is land isn't happening, so we are doing this with your money instead. Yeah, that's a good point as to how to how with that message it >> in the district email or something. Or in the newsletter, the monthly newsletter. And and usually something like that, I might even just do uh if you recall what I was kind of talking into the camera, Hm. sometimes it was up, sometimes it was down. >> [laughter] >> No stairs. I but I No, we'll uh I still have the sand somewhere. Um I think that might need a message like that that that has just a different feel for it. I'm itching to make another video again. >> [laughter] >> Andrea Andrea and the walls shared
052with me doesn't want to hear it because >> [laughter] >> you don't you don't want to know how many takes it took of each one. Personal thing. I think it's a really good point though because I think communicating clearly, we've talked about that from the beginning of this conversation. It's like making sure that our community members do understand, you know, the lengths that we're going to to to look for land, Yeah. the position that we're in with this money, and that, you know, we all have really put a great deal of thought into this into being the most responsible we can with with what we frankly told them. Probably in the long run, hopefully we'll save them some money. Right. And I will reference the board meetings that discussion has taken place. Yeah. Okay. Great.
053Thank you. >> Eric, we very much appreciate you having us. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right. Next up on our board business, uh let's see, committee update. All right. Buckle up, everybody. >> [laughter] >> It's been a busy month. I keep getting these busy months. Um So, the first the first thing to note is that there is a special session happening tomorrow, um that Governor Evers called to for them to hopefully reach an agreement, hopefully um I have Senate budget surplus that we've been hearing about for a while. They're not releasing a lot about um how much the Senate has been involved in any of the negotiating. Um So, we really don't know a lot, I guess really, about what's going to happen aside from that. There's $2.5 billion and there's been
054ongoing negotiations on how to spend that through property tax relief, school funding, how much will be provided through what mechanisms, will these rebates or credits happen? Um yeah. So, >> [clears throat] >> here's a full breakdown of where things last stood that I won't go too far into the weeds on. Um but the governor proposed a total of $1.3 billion to go towards um school and school funding. And then the GOP proposed um a different breakdown. It's really lengthy. If you want more information, I recommend um looking into that on the WASB legislative update page. Um so, we'll see what happens. Uh recent election last week, there were 75 referendums on the ballot on ballots and 60% of them passed, which was 46 of them, so um I think lower than the last time around.
055Typical. Hm? It was about it's about the same for spring elections. >> Was it? Okay. Um Another area of interest is that the president did release his federal budget request, which included some large cuts to the Department of Education discretionary funding, um I be honest, the language here confused me a bit because it said that was decreased by 2.3 billion, but then overall cuts of roughly 6.5 billion, but they didn't specify the where the rest of those cuts were taking place very clearly that I could tell, so a lot of cuts. Um Title 1 funding would remain the same as well as IDEA funding to be increased. And then he proposed a new $2 billion block grant called Make Education Great Again, MEGA, to grant flexible funding to states. Um this would eliminate migrant education,
056English language acquisition, special programs for migrant students, and teacher quality partnership program. Um But also, it's good to remember that the appropriations that were requested last year looked really different from what he um or what was what was initially requested by him looked different than where it ended up. So, that's not like the final that will be up to Congress. All right. Then we signed a good handful of bills. Um Act 185 for including DPI including any license holders who are being investigated investigated by DPI, the outcomes of those investigations if they had to surrender a license. Act 186 prohibiting employers from entering into confidentiality agreements that would um cover like any immoral conduct of an employee. Um Act 189 bans operating drones over schools without the express authorization of the school board or designee.
057Just designee, I think it said. SB 391 um to allow audio-visual recording devices to be used on buses as long as it's um as long as there is policy adopted by the school board to authorize that use and what it looks like. Is that referring to the schools' operating AV equipment? Um I believe it was district equipment, but I would have to look to be sure. But specifically through the district on buses. Yeah, the school board can adopt a policy for authorizing, I think, our own recording devices. And it would all be confidential and um only to be used for like specific uses. >> So, it wasn't mandating that it has to happen, No. No, it's allowing it to Yeah. Okay. I would say we already have a policy on that. Okay. Thank you. Sorry.
058Yeah. No, no worries. I I there's kind of Cliff's Notes here. Yep, that's our >> [laughter] >> It's a lot of notes. Yeah. Um Act 95 creates and funds a pilot program for professional development for science teacher teachers, um and requiring DPI to implement that uh in collaboration with nonprofits that will be available this and next school year, I think it said. And Act 101 changed the criteria for absence notes to being written from nurses, which is using quotes, to advanced practice registered nurses, which is aligning with changes to regulations that were already made earlier in the session. Those were all the bills that were signed. Um I have a pretty lengthy list of vetoed bills. Do we want a run down of those things? There's quite a few of them. Anything significant that we
059anticipate impacts from? Um well, one SB 389, he vetoed the the bill that would have eliminated the 400-year veto, so that's nice. Um There was a veto to expand eligibility in state choice programs, which would have basically just allowed siblings whose Individuals whose siblings were already in a school choice program wouldn't have to meet all of the designations or criteria, they'd just be like allowed in, so they vetoed that. >> And that was vetoed. Correct. Um A dual enrollment council was trying to be passed to like work with the Department of Workforce Development, which was not funded and didn't really provide a clear path on how they'd work together, so he vetoed that. Um designating teams as um male, female, coed, mixed sex based on the biological sex of participating students defined as the sex
060determined at birth and reflected on the birth participant's birth certificate was vetoed. Um requiring a notarized parental sign-off before a student can change name or pronoun pronouns within the school was vetoed. Sorry, there's a lot here. Um The vetoed um teacher bill of rights was kind of the term that was being used, which was meant to regulate student discipline practices. That was vetoed. I I think I think those are the main ones that I would highlight. Adam, did I miss anything? Um not in terms of I I did want to touch on the statistics with the referendum passages. I did want to Yeah, I did want to point out I think there was a little uh like discomfort. There was some a lot of a lot of people calling out that the 61% approval rate
061like that's down, but that is like I said, that's consistent over the last few years. That's about where it's been and I've also noticed it holds up what we've seen from the last couple years and this may be pertinent to the last agenda item's conversation that capital referenda are consistently more successful than operating referenda, which doesn't set which sounds weird because it is such a big much bigger ask, but um nine out of 12 capital referenda passed, which was 75% approval. Operational referenda we had a much lower percentage. That may be what I was thinking cuz I I had thought I recalled 75%, so I must have been thinking of that. >> that's capital, so like pretty much pretty much everyone in Fair Haven and Southington and Wallingford passed this this cycle. Okay. Thank you
062for that update. Takes us into the superintendent's report. Yeah, I was going to announce that it's Kristen Wilkinson. Uh if you look at the HR report, well, I hope after the B1 that she [laughter] that intense conversation on money and she's still with us. We're making the recommendation uh for her filling the business manager position uh starting July 1. Um she is currently a math teacher in our district with experience. Uh checked all the boxes that we were looking for administratively. Uh excellent um reference checks, especially as a team player and uh willing to learn. So, we are excited. Uh we are excited and hopefully she gets approved uh and then uh and then we would work on onboarding her in that role. Awesome. Uh welcome. Welcome. With that being said, I'll turn it over
063to uh Becky uh for uh elementary math textbook and resource adoption. All right. Hopefully this can be pretty short and sweet, but you have a couple um just uploads in your board document um coming here tonight. Currently the elementary school uses a a curricular tool for math called Bridges and we currently have the second edition. That is our approved tool. Um and we have it in 4K through grade five for second edition. Um this school year all of the DCS classrooms and then all of grade one and grade five have been piloting the third edition of Bridges and things have gone really well with that and we're bringing it in tonight um so that hopefully we can take it to you guys for a vote the second meeting um because to be really honest, we
064would like to get it approved and purchase said upgrade tools under this year's budget yet so that, you know, maybe our other classrooms can explore a little bit with it for their last unit and um at worst, in case things are delivered late, our teachers can have it for summer to have more time with it getting ready for next year and for certain for early summer training and stuff like that. But overall, things have gone really well with the pilot with the pilot classroom teachers. We did one evening session where the teachers, if they were able to join us, were able to come in and give feedback um on kind of the typed document you saw, kind of their feedback of like pros and concerns. Um for the staff who weren't able to come in
065that night, um we did like a Google document with the same questions where they had that opportunity to provide feedback. Um Beth and Mark had the tools out in the elementary office in case any parents wanted to come in and review and provide feedback. Kind of true to form, maybe I don't know if parents took a look at anything, but we did not receive any feedback. However, the opportunity was there um for there, but um things went really well and this is a very reasonable upgrade, probably the cheapest adoption I'll ever ask you to do for all of those grade levels. >> [laughter] >> Um So, you see a couple different quotes because one of the quotes, and I think it's the seven-ish thousand dollar one, just to explain what you're looking at. Um the
066seven thousand dollar 20 seven thousand 20 dollar quote in there, that is specifically for our classrooms who were not part of the pilot at all. And so, you'll notice it's like kindergarten, second, third, and fourth. Um you'll also see another quote in there that is kind of like random quantities and that's like uh one kindergarten, one first, one second, one third, and one fifth. What that quote is for is when we did the pilot, um what Math Learning Center did is they gave us those kits as part of the pilot to use and if we weren't doing this adoption, we would have just sent them back. And so, we're instead paying for them so we keep them. The other classrooms that we did the pilot for, we paid up front because we felt pretty confident
067this was going to go well. But these are the kits that we were given for the pilot that we don't currently own. And then the third quote that you have in here is really something that is not going under this year's budget. It's more what the student workbooks are going to cost us for next year, but it's just a look at what that actually does cost. And so, we had it and so, I threw it in here for what third edition is is really going to be >> [clears throat] >> you know, does cost and that's really more things that are student fees, but it's third edition stuff, so I wanted you to be able to see that. So. Does anybody have any questions? What's the big difference? I know I see the list of
068things that they say are going well and what you consider, but what's the big difference between edition two and edition three? What's the point of the upgrade? They the teachers believed um a little more user-friendly in some cases. Um more culturally responsive um and it could be from it's not Johnny in the story anymore, it's, you know, a different name that might be a little more appropriate. Um Trying to think of some other things that they mentioned. I think they felt that like some of the organization in the third edition made more sense for the time of year Okay. that some of the concepts were being taught. Um You know, it's just the little things that they talked about how like different assessments were maybe like pre-assessments were now screeners and you know, they still
069have little gripes about the online website. You know, it's one of those things where like not everything is perfect, but they're figuring out workarounds with that, but I think they felt that this was a little bit more culturally responsive. They definitely felt like things were aligned. They felt like just some of the unit topics that the the language and things um the presentation that they weren't like grandly fond of in second edition, they much prefer in the way third edition presents itself. They like second edition. They just overall like third edition better. So, it's not really a content change. It's it's not curriculum change. It's just the presentation material and organization and the Got it. >> It's just an upgrade. You know, when we talked about it, I presented like to the pilot teachers, I
070essentially said to them, you know, recommendation would it be to adopt third edition, keep second edition, or like look for something totally different. And that was kind of the way and one teacher said, let's go for something totally outside of Bridges." And everybody else across the board was third edition. And that was just the strong feeling. How many school years have we utilized the second edition now? We adopted back We made the transition in 2020. Mhm. >> Okay. And you know, we did it when we were 5 years in. Yeah. Well, the the district had Bridges like before me like in this role. And so, we you know, then did Everyday Math for a while and then back to Bridges, but So, the last 5 years consistently have been second edition. Yeah. And were there
071any um contracted pieces of second edition like online licenses or such where we had a time frame on that that we will be like leaving early or are there any that are going to be carried over? Do you know what I'm saying? Like I know sometimes we have online licenses that have a contracted period or such. So, there won't be any loss if you will of of revenue on the program um with changing from second to third edition. Okay. And Bridges is like different than a lot of things because there's not like a student online license. Yeah, I don't see any in the quotes. It's all Yeah. Okay. Other [snorts] questions? Thoughts? Okay. And so, we'll see that on the next agenda then for >> [clears throat] >> um consideration for approval. Okay. Great. Thank
072you, Beth. Thank you. All right. Anyone signed up for public comment this evening? Andrea. All right. And in a rare move, we have no no donations tonight. All right. Um so, at Time's over. Yeah, right. [laughter] Yeah. We did well last time. >> Tax is tax time this week. All right. It's at the end of the month. Yeah. And um so, at this time um I would ask the board uh for us to consider adjournment to close session. Um adjourn to close session pursuant to Wisconsin Statute 19.851 subset C for the purpose of considering and taking action as appropriate employment, promotion, compensation, or performance evaluation data of public employees over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility specifically related to the employment of certified staff members. I would ask Adam to do a
073roll call vote and remind you that your answer is yes to proceed to close session or no. We don't need a motion ahead of that. I don't know if I'm just going to Oh, we do. I'll motion to move to close session. Second. I have a first from Karen Smith, a second from Martha Rule. Thank you, Adam, for keeping me on track that way. Um roll call vote. Pudloski? Yes. O'Brien? Yes. Olson-Rafferty? Yes. Pearson? Yes. Holger? Yes. Rule? Yes. Smith? Yes. All right. Uh we are moving close session at 8:02 p.m. All right. I will take a motion to close adjourned session and reconvene in open session. >> So moved. Second. I have a first from John Pearson, a second from Karen Smith. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor with an eye? Aye.
074Any opposed? Motion carries. We are back in open session at 9:23 p.m. Um next up on our agenda is the superintendent's consent agenda including our human resources report tonight. I would take a motion for its approval. So moved. Second. I have a first from Martha Rule, a second from Mike O'Brien. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor with an eye? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next up is our board consent agenda which has our March 23rd board meeting minutes on it. I'd take a motion for its approval. Motion to approve March 23rd board meeting minutes. Second. I have a first from Karen Smith, a second from Corey Olson-Rafferty. Uh any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor with an eye? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh just a reminder for our next date that
075we meet on April 27th. Uh the Governance Committee is going to convene at 6:00 p.m. here in this location. I ask the rest of the board to be present uh by 6:45 p.m. We're just going to update our board picture uh for the next year. Um and then we will meet as usual at 7:00 p.m. um for our board meeting. Sport coat and tie? Yeah. If you so choose, Mike. Absolutely. Oh, you did say Governance Committee. >> [laughter] >> I lost track. I'm sorry. I'm like Did I forget I thought I forgot to put it on. Thank you. You're good. Um opportunity to debrief. I would say that I feel very briefed. I feel that we spent more than 50% of our time on kids. That's one of our goals. Yeah, that's a good thing.
076Yeah. All right. Um that being said, uh that is the balance of our agenda. I would take a motion for our adjournment. So moved. Second. I have a first from John Pearson, a second from Martha Rule. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor with an eye? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We are adjourned at 9:25 p.m. Thank you all so much.