001[Music] Adam had something come up, so he's not able to make it. And Trevor Yeah. All right. Are you okay if I start, Trevor, or you would you like? Okay. We recognize that the Hogan Administrative Center occupies the land of the Ho Chunk people. Please take a moment to celebrate and honor this ancestral Ho Chunk land and the sacred lands of all indigenous peoples. Will the secretary please call the role? Mr. Alberts here. Mr. Pneski here. Miss Burkidol excused. Dr. Garcia here. Dr. Gimenez here. Mr. Banka excused. Mr. Dr. Newmeister here. Dr. Sprag here. Miss Sucla here. A quorum of the board of education is present. So the regularly scheduled meeting of April 21st, 2025 is called to order. We'll now have the pledge of allegiance. Please stand and face the American flag. I pledge
002allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Tonight's agenda has been distributed to the board and I would entertain a motion and a second at this time to approve the agenda as submitted. Second moved by Mr. Magnuski, seconded by Mr. Newmeister to approve the agenda as presented. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed. That motion has carried. And we do not have any public speakers for this evening. So we will move on to the consent agenda. So the consent agenda is a mechanism that is used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that members want to
003remove from the superintendent's consent agenda? I'd like to remove the uh central uh renovation bid. Is there any other ones hearing? None. If I can have a motion and a second to approve the superintendent's consent agenda except the high school central renovation bid. I'll move to approve the items on the superintendent's consent agenda with the exception of the high school central renovation bid. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Moved by Dr. Sprag, second by Mr. Ragnooki to approve the superintendent's consent agenda except for uh the high school central renovation bid. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion has carried and we will discuss the uh bid for the high school and turn over to Missuka for her questions. Um so the bid that's being recommended is the lowest
004bid which is nearly $1.5 million. As I recall, the discussion at this table was it would cost us originally the email said it would be a low cost and then the discussion was a million dollars. So, um, help me understand the budget for this. Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, and, uh, Joe Ladina has some answers and we can talk about it further. Yeah. So, uh, thank you for bringing that up. So, uh, just a couple things as it relates to this. Number one, as we were looking at bids, one of the things that came out from the three generals that they talked to was they were really having trouble getting some bids from the subcontractors, if you will. There's a lot of work going on. And so the numbers went up a little bit
005there. But just to kind of break it out a little bit more uh to give you some costs that in that 1.5 million uh to do the roughly to do add the foundation offices where we're adding a floor kind of in the um air in the uh if you will the entryway of the Travis Street. So we're putting an floor there for the foundation office. That's about 130,000 for that. uh we have to move an air handler, move it up onto the roof, which uh gives us additional space. That was about $400,000 to do that. And then when you look at the breakout, uh we're renovating 8,700 square ft. It comes out to be about 13 $183 a square foot. So it's a little bit higher. uh when you look at that cost per square
006foot what we had anticipate u but those are the reasons why when we look at that the it's 50% higher than the original bid and I'm just wondering is this an indication of costs going up that significantly and is this does this mean we need to revisit our funds for our building projects and perhaps change those two things that um I've thought about I was trying to like the bids also were off to me just kind of our our initial thought where things would be. Our architect thought it might be in excess of $2 million. So, I feel like this is better than that. Um, but um just since 2020, construction costs, the inflation has been 40%. So, what I thought of as a project, you know, just a few years ago is substantially higher
007than it is now. And so, I think my internal calculus is a little off and others might be as well. If you're thinking about building today or doing a a construction project, tariffs, uncertainty, some of those things have impacted. They're hedging their bets on on construction material costs and some of those things, particularly steel. And uh um it does have us a little nervous about our other projects uh for the the elementary schools. Now, these costs aren't captured in in those. However, um interest rates also have stayed steady at a higher rate. The Fed hasn't brought those down because they're still trying to mitigate inflation. And what that means is the money that we have in the bank to invest in the meantime, we'll have a higher return. And while under better circumstances, that money
008that we would earn in interest we might use to augment the project or make it better, I suspect now we'll be using it to pay for inflation and contingencies. Um, and you know, that might be around a million dollars that we'll be able to use to to mitigate the impact. Fortunately, the architect in the in the um in the elementary projects also incorporated a fair amount of inflation into the the estimated cost. So, we still feel confident that will come in on budget. Um, as we get into the value engineering piece, we might just have to scale back a couple of things along the way. Dr. spring break. What would be, if you have any sense, um the opportunity cost of not moving the air handler? Yeah, I I would tell you that we could
009do that, but it wouldn't make sense to me if we're going to do this to do it right at the beginning. It will just cost more money down the road. It's space that is really uh I think important when it comes to the office area. It creates a conference room and it creates a if you remember the what we showed in February, I think it was, it creates a conference room, creates a mail room, it creates space uh that's used by the whole district staff. So, I think that it it makes sense to do that. And is it also the case that not moving the air handler wouldn't recoup the entire $400,000 cost? It would still need to be It would be close about 400,000. We have HVAC costs in this of about $450,000. Okay.
010Mr. Newmeister, thank you. It was brought up that you felt that it would be uh close to budget. You're hoping. What is budget then? Because originally it was 500,000. Um now it's significantly higher. And have we considered maybe this isn't the best thing? I mean, we could buy a building and renovate it and probably get all the bells and whistles you're hoping with enough parking that would uh I would think that would more than cover this and maybe a little more uh central, you know, to the city. I I just at this point I was all for it before. I mean, it seemed like a a no-brainer, even a short-term fix, but boy, we're getting up there now, and I hate to see it uh start to affect our school, you know, and our other
011uh ways of doing business. I think it's a significant increase, which is scary to me. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I will tell you that I I think from a perspective of 1.5 million, looking at what the cost per square footage, uh, buying another building, uh, renovating another space, I don't think you could do it for less than 1.5 million. Yeah. I mean, it's 8,000 square feet that we're looking at. So, I mean, a building of that size is over a million dollars right out the gate in Lacrosse. And then on top of that, the the renovation costs of that just to make it suitable for a school with entrances and and other things or not a school but a district office. I I I maybe you have a better idea of what's out
012there for real estate, but you know 8,000 square feet in the city that that would be a pretty pricey venture. Well, and yeah, I agree. And I question 8,000 square feet. Do we need 8,000 square feet or is it just because it's available it would be nice to have the extra room? I guess my question is and we're we're even taking like you out of you're not even going to be there. Correct. Correct. Yes, that's correct. I mean, so we're moving people out of here as well. What's the square footage of this building, Joe? Yeah, about 43,000 square ft. And then we're moving into a portion of the old office area central, too. So, we're going from 43,000 square ft to about 13,000 square ft. And so, that's that's how we're downsizing. So, if we
013were to get everybody into that building, it would be about 13,000 square feet. I think we'd also have to consider the the longer term costs because I I share your concern of this eating into the the main project, if you will. But if we if we purchase a building, let's say it's our ideal building, we're still adding the operation and overhead cost of an entirely new property. That would likely outstrip what we're adding in terms of occupancy costs to Central. Right. And I'm not expert in that, but that would be my supposition. What is the cost going to be as far as moving buildings and grounds to the office building down at Bloom? Uh there'll be minimal cost. There'll be basically no cost because right now what we're looking at doing is moving into a
014location just moving our desk, not creating any office space, if you will, into an open room. But there's still technology connections and so on. Yeah. and we have technology at that location. We're also looking at possibly going to Logan High School into a classroom, an empty classroom there. We're also looking at um could we go into another location um that doesn't require us to do anything. So, we're not planning on spending any money on us on buildings and grounds. Uh we're not going to build any walls. We're not doing any of that. We're just moving into a location. But there's still the energy cost on a yearly basis going to another building. Let's say it's at a bloom. We have to pay for the lights and heat and yeah, we have we have five staff
015members down there now. Our grounds crew is down there as well as our carpenter. I think the biggest thing when we look at this uh and look at the cost and there might be a little bit of a sticker uh shock there. Uh we were hoping to be about $150 a square foot. We're out of $183 per square foot. It's really the time frame. Uh we need to be out of this building to um build on this site. we need to be out of this building by November. And so that also plays into it. But I will tell you, whatever options the board decides to do, we won't get any better pricing than we will at uh the price that I'm bringing forward with the the bids today. Can I ask one follow-up question? What
016is our average uh cost to operate this building? Oh, I I know it's a pig, so I'm assuming a lot. I could look that up. I I want to give you a right number, so I'll have to look that up and give that to you. Um, but utility wise, we're probably at about $60,000 roughly annually. I'm estimating that. I could give you the exact number. I I round. That's close enough. I just, you know, I just that's one thing that popped in my head. I mean, to operate this is expensive. So, yeah. Our 5-year average, this was three years ago, was 121,000 a year to operate this site. Yep. That includes heat, electric, water, sewer, fire, snow removal, pest control, supplies, basic repairs. And we're sitting on about $5 million of repairs in this building
017right now. And any day the boiler could go if we fire that thing back up, which would be a half a million dollar project in and of itself. Um, you know, th those are funds that we will save every year by not being in this in this building. Not that you think of it in those terms, but you know, it'll pay itself off in 12 years. We will not see any increase in utility costs at central by us being there because all the spaces are being used uh now. So, we won't see an increase in cost by us moving there. That helps. Thanks. I mean, I I've heard talk at this table about the the costs have increased a little bit, but we were originally told this was going to be a low cost to
018move to Central. Now, we're looking at a million and a half and we're looking at a tight time frame. So, I feel like I'm we're between a rock and a hard place here. And as a board, we're kind of wedged into a corner to spend a whole lot of money we didn't know we're going to spend. And it makes me extremely nervous. were wondering how the other two projects are going to come out moneywise. I'm very concerned. I is there even like again I I think this is too late to even be considering but is there even rental space in this community that we could rent until we again we are going to have some empty buildings once we get this torn down and this built and I'm just trying to figure out like are
019there other are there even other options for us? What were we paying for rent over at the village, Patty? Do you remember what it was? Like 30,000 a year and that was a size of about this Hogan administrative center. For the amount of space we would need, we probably it would be five or six times that $15 $200,000 a year in rental cost. Not cheap. And in the parking lot that we lease down um at Polytenic is about $6,700 a year for that space. I I will say that's one of the reasons when we shared everything in February to show you what we were kind of looking at, we kind of knew the costs were going to be a little bit higher than we expected. Um did not know what they would exactly be. Um
020but we knew that that was going to happen. That was one of the purposes that we wanted to show you that in February, what we were looking at. To Dr. Sprag's earlier point. I think the air handler move to create some space um was not a cost that I was initially thinking about, but as we started to design out the space, making that move make sense within the c long term, you know, uh suitability of that space, you know, that's $400,000 that would have put the close cost much closer to about a million that we had in initially kind of projected. But as we started to fill out the space with the people that would be there, it was clear that, you know, that space will be needed um in order to just have a
021meeting with folks in a in a conference space or to um distribute mail, you know, basic functions that an office needs. I think I would want to point out um a comment that Mr. Lavina made and make sure that we are clear that to remember that costs will only go up the longer we delay. And so I think it's important that yes, this is a higher number than we expected. Yes, there's a lot going on at the federal level and internationally that is causing a lot of these costs to go up. We're doing the best we can given the situation we're in. And I'm sure that the administration will be judicious in ensuring that we use the funds as best as possible and stretch them as far as we can to ensure that our project
022goes as successfully as it can. Our intent is still to restructure our budget, you know, within the funds that we have available in order to make this um affordable within our existing budget um to the best of our ability. Okay. And maybe I I need to explain this as far as this is these are capital improvement funds. Yeah, this is not coming out of referendum. We have capital improvement funds that Joe comes to every year and explains all the the projects, right? It's $2.7 million of allocated funds of capital improvements. So if this project cost a bit more than we had intended, it just means that other projects that we have uh budgeted in the capital improvements are going to be maybe delayed. So if that helps, it's not taken out of operation funds uh
023for the year. It's your capital improvements. uh and and Joe of course will go through that in May with you as far as how those funds are being allocated and this uh part of central renovation is will be part of that for 2526. I have my third question if I could. So, I think it might be helpful to know what is going to be postponed because of this because obviously it affects the schools that are currently operating and you know there there was some big ticket items that we had planned on doing a roof. Uh I know the bleach is already in the works at Logan, but there's a there's a lot of things we were talking about and I just wonder what's going to be put off if if it's possible to even tell
024that yet. Yeah, I can share that with you. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but I could show you the projects that we have planned. May 5th is when I do share that. And so, um, right now we have the greenhouse that we're working on. We have the roofs at Logan Middle. Um, we have the le breacher bleacher project at, uh, Logan High School. Those are the the big ticket items that we have along with the these here. Um, we'll have some roofing that I'll be bringing forward uh, at Longfellow. We have track replacements that I'll be bringing forward. All of those things are going to happen. Uh they'll still be within the budget. Um we're upgrading and I'll go into further detail when we when we meet. Uh the EBD
025rooms, special ed rooms, we're upgrading both of those at both high schools. Those will still be in the budget. And so those will be the things we'll be addressing along with the central move. I just want to be clear the projects that you named like the bleachers that are in progress now that's all part of the same fiscal year's budget that 2.7 that was last year's fiscal year that we're still working through and so the project done this summer the greenhouse done this summer uh Logan middle uh roofs that you guys you have approved all those bids they'll be done this next year I think you had a question it was more just about I can't remember but some of the buildings that are obviously closing were there any capital improvements that were scheduled for
026those that No, we took all those off the books and you'll see that when I when I bring that forward to you. We put them under no time frame just assuming that they'll be every all those projects will be gone. Kind of what we did with the Lincoln in the capital improvement book. They still are there so we know those things need to be done. Uh but we put them under no time frame assuming that the board would not want to do any of those projects. So I moved those down which which helped tremendously quite frankly when you look at the cost there of those schools the Hogan you are correct all those projects came off the books so anything that we had anticipated at Henchin or Emerson or Spence we do not have to
027do now I I guess time is of the essence but it seems like we're asked to make a decision now but we don't know I mean we're being told there's a report going to come to us in two weeks I I don't feel like I can make a decision today without that report in front of me and I would prefer to to approve this project in two weeks when we get that report rather than tonight. And if uh I don't know the proper protocol to table this but and I understand two weeks is two weeks and it's important but I I feel we have an important job as well. Can I bring up one more thing? It's good. What's good? I'm sure it is. Um the the one thing I've realized being I mean you
028get sticker shock no matter what. I I mean we're we're building a shelter at a park and the bids came in at $800,000 and we got it all the way down to five something. To me that still seems absolutely crazy. But I it never ceases to amaze me the cost of of doing business especially if you're an entity of either city or state or you know so you know in that aspect you know I I understand it a little more knowing that everything seems to be a little higher when we do business this way. Um but yeah I I just think we're concerned more than anything and we don't want we don't want it to affect anything else that you know is is for the kids. No rightfully so. Joe and I talked for a
029long time on Friday. I'm concerned also. Yeah. I also see what's going on in the world and people give you the bids they give you. You know, there's there's not a lot of haggling with construction companies. Oh, no. Not now. Especially they're hedging their bets both on labor costs and on um uh uh material costs. You know, labor has dried up in some ways. There's folks that are scared to step out of their house and work that might have historically done so, you know, and so there's just lots of reasons why um folks are prices are creeping up faster than we anticipated. And I know I brought this up and you're sick and tired of hearing it, but still, I mean, I don't believe we're looking longterm at these projects. I mean, we just talked
030about $400,000 on Logan Middle. Logan Middle's population, Logan High School's population, Longfellow Central, their populations are going down. They certainly could be combined and we'd close two of the I don't know, middle schools that are aged and cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars year in and year out. And so, if we took a whole look at the entire district, I think we could make some different decisions. hearing the conversation kind of die out. Is there a motion? Can I ask one? Well, kind of put a point out there. Sorry. And to to Miss Sucla's point, I I would want to think about these two weeks in terms of the costs of going either way. And like what what further information are we expecting to be able to act on in two weeks that is
031that is meaningfully different from the information we have now. There's not going to be a different slate of options in front of us in two weeks, right? Well, we may know what's all going to be cut as he brought up. I guess that's one thing. Sure. Yeah. I mean, just throwing that out there, he said he could probably get that to us in a couple weeks. I will I will say this is I had a placeholder in the budget of 1.7 and so I I did not knowing exactly what would happen. And if and so I had that placeholder so the projects I was planning on doing with it are still there. It allowed us to do a couple more. Now I say I just use that as a placeholder. I saw where prices pricing
032was going and so to plan ahead I didn't want to wait till this last minute and so that's why I did that. So, for example, if you looked at the CMI book, somebody had mentioned that. Um, there's 323,000 for Hinchin Elementary, that would come off the books. 375,000 for Spence, that would come off the books. 149,000 for State Road, any of those costs will be incorporated in this new project and not need to be spent there. 93,000 for Emerson, 155,000 for Hogan Administrative Center. So quick math 100 grand 423 plus 375 is 800,000 plus state road is 950 minus the Hogan administrative center uh 1.1 $1.2 $2 million would come off the books just for all of those projects that because the referendum passed and because we're leaving Hogan, they would not need to be
033done. And so the impact of this is relatively light all things considered, light on the capital maintenance budget. Correct. Am I am I misunderstanding though that you're you're counting those things that were already slated to be off the books? This this isn't these are listed in our capital maintenance improvements for next year not under the no timeline like he was they will now go to no timeline. So these projects that were budgeted for last year will no longer need to be done. So they'll go to no timeline and so that frees up the room in order to do a project like this. Dr. Garcia had her hand up. Sorry. Joe, is there a deadline on this bid or is there an expiration date on the bid? we've been given for the improvements. What typically happens
034is we time them for board approval. So we time this one for board approval at this this meet. So we when we put out the bids and we do that for a purpose. So then we start once you approve it then we start the contract. So we start dealing with a contract with the with the general contractor in this case. And so once he gets our contract, then he goes and gets a contract for every one of his subs. And so he starts that process. And then the first thing they do is start ordering equipment once all the all the contracts are in place. And so that's the process. That's what I plan for when we do the timeline. Um we were very aggressive in um designing this building. We did it fairly quickly. We
035did it right, but we did it fairly quickly. And so based off that timeline, so this would delay work because the contracts couldn't be issued by two weeks. But I promise if it would have to go to bid again if a twoe delay. Yeah. And I would say I don't know that we would want to put it out for bid again. We lose all credibility if we rebid something once we've done that. And so I would uh we we could do some, you know, re-engineering, but we wouldn't want to set it out for a bid. Um but it would put us two weeks behind. Can um I'm getting stuck on these numbers. So, initially we were told in an email it would be a low cost. Then we were told in the meeting it'd be
036a million dollars. Now you're saying you really budgeted 1.7 million and it comes in at 1.5 million. These numbers are moving around kind of fast and furious and I'm getting mixed up. No. No. So I put a placeholder in my budget so I could plan on other projects that needed to be done. And I was conservative, very conservative in that number so that I could plan for the other projects, okay, the ones that I mentioned. So we need to resurface some tracks. We need the our special ed rooms to be updated. So I I used a conservative number so I could go and start planning for the other projects that needed to be done knowing full well that I that it probably wasn't going to be there, but I didn't want to start from scratch.
037so I could start planning because everything we do, we're planning 18 months ahead. So, I don't want to give you the impression that I thought it was going to come in at 1.7 million. I just use that as a placeholder so I could start planning for everything else. And I thought it would be easier in my planning to add projects to it if they came in under than to reduce projects if it came over. Okay? So, that's that's when I say a placeholder, that's what I meant by that. In other words, you are using good budgeting in order to ensure that we have the projects that we can do and not have to make somebody unhappy because you have to remove a project because we didn't do some good budgeting on the front end. Correct.
038And knowing that I need to bring you those projects in two weeks on May 5th. So, I wanted to be prepared. I start preparing for that presentation for you to the board. And I'm just clarifying, I think you've already said this, that that's why all of the projects that we approved are still approved and still happening because the placeholder you put in place was cautious enough to make sure that those would not be impacted. Yes. So projects that will be impacted would be things that we approve the next time you bring the next fiscal year's projects to us, which we haven't looked at yet. You haven't looked at yet, but I kind of mentioned those because there's a lot of big ticket tip ticket items in there. Yeah, I meant it in a good way.
039It's like it's not up on our calendar yet to see it and then we'll see it and we'll approve it. Yeah. Right. The one quick thing I was going to say before was was just that my concern would be obviously that something something critical and large happens unexpectedly, right? And that it seems like that more than the additional cost which is significant, right? um is what would potentially take some some wish list not even wish list items but important but not mission critical items off the table. Well, one of the things and that's a great comment. Um Miss Frank would be able to tell you that but when every year when we when we close out capital improvements money goes into a fund and for the sale of the building. So we've sold Roosevelt, we
040sold Jefferson, and so that money is sitting in account for emergency purposes, and so it's always been sitting there in case something went wrong, we wouldn't have to use necessarily use capital improvement dollars for it. Now, it would depend on what that cost would be. Um, but we plan for that. And so we have that emergency funding, if you would, in when we return those capital improvement dollars in. And so we have that. I will tell you when we pass the referendum and right sizing and I just told a group this last week the great thing about passing that referendum number one we're right sizing our district number two is now we can invest in buildings that we have and we'll be able to do more with those capital improvement dollars. So um but we
041do have money available for emergency purposes that are designated just for uh buildings. Is there a lot of history of those funds being dipped into that we could maybe predict a little bit the floods that for instance insurance paid for that but um no um we haven't had a lot of history very fortunate that we haven't had that this building scares me to death if we were to stay in here any longer that would be one of the I would be really concerned about but it really helps taking some of our older buildings offline Emerson Spence Mr. Uh I don't know. I don't believe we've talked yet what what we're going to do with Emerson Engine and Spence. Well, at this point, the the item is just about the central renovation and the budgeted bid.
042So, we need to keep it focused on that conversation. Those will certainly come up over the course of this next year. Can I just say you'd brought up that you lose all kinds of um bringing it out to bids again. You think you you lose a lot of uh or cloud or whatever you want to call it, but it it happens all the time. I mean, the city does it all the time. If something comes in over budget, they bring it out for another round. Now, the one thing that we don't have on our side is time, right? Because we have to be out of here. But I I hope that you know that down the line it you don't lose credibility. I mean it's it's normal for you know any city and state entity
043to if something comes in way over budget let's set it out for another round. But I understand this one, you know, I I do uh just because of the timeline. But I I'd hope as we move forward that if something comes in, you know, that that doesn't hold us back thinking we're going to lose credibility with anyone because ultimately they want our business. And if they don't do it, somebody else will. But I'm just bringing that up. Well, I think that's absolutely the case. If it it's way out of bounds and we have to redo scope and essentially put out a different bid package, totally makes sense to to go back out to bid. And I think the city's done that before. I've done that in other projects in the past. You have to rethink
044what you're doing if you get the the numbers off. But if you send things out with um not knowing that I will tell you about talking to contractors in my years of experience, one of the things that's critical is that if you do do a project and send that out without acting upon it in some way, there has to be a really good purpose. I will tell you that um down the line people will not they put a lot of effort into these bids. Um, when we look at the new school and when we look at the additions and and even this project for 1.5, uh, those contractors put a lot of time and effort into the last two weeks in preparing for this. How many bids did we get? Three. Good. Well, I'm glad
045it wasn't one. I am glad. So am I. Yes. Well, at this point, I think um, we have talked over these topics. I think we've kind of repeated ourselves in the comments that we've said. So, I think I'd like to move to a motion on this topic. I'd like to approve the I I'll move to approve the bid recommendation as presented. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Moved by Dr. Spring, second by Dr. Garcia to approve the high school central bid renovation uh document on the consent agenda. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed? Opposed? Opposed? Me? I I Okay, so that's four to three. And so that does pass. And we will move on to the board consent agenda. If I could just swing back
046around to the existing agenda, we didn't talk about it specifically, but I did want to highlight that um grants and contributions uh to the school district totaled $116,000 uh for March 2025. It is incredible how generous a community we have to provide grants and opportunities for our teachers to do uh great and amazing things. Um Lacrosse Public Education Foundation donated a ton of money which is incredible. Longfellow middle school PTO, Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, um individuals uh the St. John's United Church of Christ, Lacrosse Tribune, uh Toyota of Lacrosse. It is awesome to see all the different partners that we have that give money to the school district who value public education. So, I just wanted to highlight that real quick. Thank you. Moving on to the approval of the board consent agenda. Is
047there a motion to approve the item on the board consent agenda? I'll move to approve the item on the board consent agenda as presented. Is there a second? I'll second. Move by Dr. Sprag, second by Mr. Newmeister to approve the item on the board consent agenda. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion is carrying. We'll move on to the matters reserved for board action. The first one being the operational expectation monitoring report OE1 global operation expectation. Uh at this time, the administration does not have any recommended changes to the monitoring report template. Uh do the board members have any hearing? None. Then without objection, we will approve the operational expectation monitoring report as uh presented. Since it has no changes, it'll just stay the same. Is there any
048objection to just moving on and moving to our next item on the agenda? Hearing none, then let's move on to linkage summaries. And so, uh this was a linkage with the Lacrosse Polytechnic High School students. Uh, is there any discussion on this item? Mr. Which one? I'm sorry. Polytech. I I can I um attending this I found it uh quite eye opening to to say the least. What a great group of kids. And and I'll be honest with you, I wasn't sure that this type of school was needed when we first uh brought this on, but talking to the kids and and uh there's a place for everyone and I think they found their their place and I was very impressed um with the group of kids and the teachers. In fact, yes, it's a
049different type of learning. It's a diff different atmosphere, but boy, I think they flourish in it. I I think obviously be we have one on our board that is highly intelligent and very helpful to us. So I I I'm proud that we have that school and and I'm very thankful for everyone that made it happen and the teachers and obviously the other staff in there. It was a pleasure being part of that. Mr. Breakfast. Um yeah, I would agree with everyone things Scott said. This is my second time around with those students and instructors. Uh there was a question as far as is there a limit? I mean could we expand that school if more students were interested? I thought there indicated that yeah there are other people that would like to be here but
050I thought I got the impression that there's a cap on it or and we're so are we thinking about expansion possibly or fire code limits the occupancy of the building to about 120 and so that's the max number of kids that we could have in that space. Um, noticed that the building Kitty Corner, the bank's for sale, so we can maybe build a skywalk and expand over there, uh, if we were interested in property acquisition. But, uh, otherwise, uh, for now, we're kind of limited to that. Um, you know, right now it's a 612. Theoretically down the road, if it continues to flourish and there's interest, do you find another site for the middle school or, you know, is there a high school and a middle school? You know, the different ways that we could
051approach it. Um, I think one of the advantages of some of our charter schools is the size though. Also, it creates an intimate atmosphere, which I'm sure um, Mr. Newmeister, you heard from the students that were there. When you get, you know, to 300, 400 kids, it loses some of the the specialness that they're able to accomplish because of their size. Now, there's staffing challenges and variations in class composition that can sometimes crop up that cause its own challenges, but um for right now, what we're hearing is, you know, we want to fill it out to 120 and make that available, but that might also be a good size. And then there was a comment that they don't have access as much access as they maybe could use. Uh problems with communication in regard to
052counselor. Is there some way a counselor could be more assigned to there so they get their classes and different activities that they might want to be involved in and they don't maybe hear about it but it's a little too late or whatever. Yeah. Um we try and provide um you know um school counseling services at the the national kind of uh recommendations and the the goal that we have in our district which we generally hit is about 1 to 250 students. Uh and so at about 100 120 students, they have a half-time person and you know that person is there half the time. And so sometimes it might feel like they don't have access um to a school counselor, but you know, it's also us trying to be efficient with our resources and provide adequate
053coverage, but also be be thoughtful to our bottom line. Yeah. And I I agree with everything you said, but those are still comments. Totally. No, I get it. There's also concerns about access to AP courses or career tech options, you know, and family consumer science or welding or these other things. Part of choosing PY is there are barriers to some of the traditional school. You give up some traditional school when you choose the the charter school. And so that's a a bargain that those kids kind of know getting into it. And if the traditional school becomes what they need and prefer, they can always transfer back, you know. So the benefit is you get project-based learning, an intimate environment, a downtown experience, great youth opport youth apprenticeship opportunities, but you give up access to some
054of those traditional things. And so, you know, every every unique school has its pros and cons. A question I would have just because of my own personal experience with a charter school. Um has there ever been a thought of and please nobody in the audience think that I'm saying we should do this. Um but potentially starting that school earlier than your other two high schools in order and then having some of those specials at towards the end of the day where they could potentially be busted to their home school in order to be able to experience some of those career teched and other fine arts types of experiences. Yeah, they currently start their day a little bit later than traditional schools. It'll come into alignment now with our movement of the middle and high school
055uh schedules. So they and and we do work with students, you know, to get them over to um uh one of our traditional schools, you know, to try and provide those opportunities, but sometimes timing doesn't work out or logistics can present something of a challenge. You we can't have an, you know, a shuttle bus going back every 45 minutes. That would be very expensive uh and um largely unnecessary. Um so we do work with kids. We do try and find opportunities. students do attend ourmies, the engineering academy, health sciences academy, culinary academy, and others. And so they have access to to the things that are districtwide, but and we've figured out how to find athletic and extracurricular opportunities for kids as well, you know. So we we're we're figuring it all out, but um uh
056like I said, there's there's pros and cons to going you get something, but you might lose something. Correct. And that's a real life problem that we all face. I appreciate that. Um, what about like recruiting? Because they said they used to when a few of the seniors talked about when they were younger there was like recruiting days where you know kids got to come and see what Polytech was about. They said those kind of disappeared during the pandemic some things kind of fell off. Miss Tigerwald, did you have something? I just received a parent square I want to say last week or the week before. So, parent square is our um like networking our message center that parents receive and so we just received information on open house for Polly. That said, we want to
057provide an opportunity um probably in late January, early February in advance of our intra district transfer window and the open enrollment window so that families have a chance to see not only Polytenic but also Soda 2 and Soda 1 and Kulie Monasauri and even our traditional schools. And so we're um um Miss Severson and Miss Churyl are looking into um reestablishing an open house that we maybe once upon a time had but kind of faded away through the pandemic to provide that opportunity to folks get in the building, check it out, see if it's a good fit. Didn't they also go to schools? Is that true? I thought Oliver had brought up that when he was recruited like when he was young and he fell in they seemed so excited about the school. He said
058he fell in love with it right away and knew he wanted to go there. I think they actually came to his school at that time with some of the kids when LDI was at Longfellow. It was very easy to create that connection in particular with the Longfellow students. Uh it was harder or didn't happen at Logan Middle and Lincoln. Uh, and so we've, um, uh, Miss Cheryl and Miss Severson have done a really good job of trying to create equal experiences for our fifth graders transitioning into middle school and sixth grade and for our eighth graders going off to high school to make sure that no kid feels left out, they have equal access. Some of those tours and experiences took up multiple days. And we also want to educate kids and and continue on
059with those things. And so it's a delicate balance between providing the opportunity at the right time to the right kids um without being too ownorous in terms of time. So I I think those everything that folks have mentioned are things that we also agree are things that we need to continue to refine and address and uh I feel confident that next year will be better than this year. Any other comments? If not, is there a motion? Just Oh, that seems to be the I know that's a separate building, but maybe we could have some linkages with some of the other uh cohorts. I don't know, core is not the right word, but groups of students, whether it's instruction or whatever, so we could interact with those groups of students also that are um like from
060the differentmies. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that that'll be a good conversation for the next board, you know, after your reorganization meeting to talk about like what are your what are your linkages? What do you want to do? How do we want to adjust them given that this is the last board meeting of this act, you know, this grouping? Trying my hardest. When I if I if you' brought up linkages when I first started, I'd have said, "What are you talking about?" I mean, so there's a little difference after having been in it for a year. the value or lack of. Yeah, I think it's a great idea to connect with different groups of students in different ways. Any other comments? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the linkage summary as presented? So
061moved. Is there a second? Second. Moved by Mr. Newmeister, seconded by Dr. Garcia to approve the linkage summary as presented. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion has carried and we will move on to the next item which is a closed session. So the Lacrosse Board of Education will consider a motion to move into close session pursuant to Wisconsin statute section 19.85 sub1 subc for the purpose of considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility and Wisconsin statute section 19.85 85 sub1 sub for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchase of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require closed session to
062with the sale of Lincoln Middle School property, professional staff employment/resignation/pre, excuse me, preliminary notice of contract non-renewal pursu to a Wisconsin statute 118.22 and administrator contracts. Still moved. It only took me a while to get through that. Apologies. So, moved by Dr. Sprag, seconded by Dr. Garcia to uh move into close session. Could I get a roll call, ple uh vote, please? Miss Stigerwald. Mr. Alberts. Hi. Mr. Beeski. Hi, Dr. Garcia. Hi, Mr. Newmeister. Hi, Dr. Sprag. Hi, Miss Suclla. Hi, Dr. Gimenez. I So, we will move upstairs and we will be back as soon as the close session is done. Great stuff. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Just need to
063make a motion to reconvene it. Thank you. All right. Uh, can I have a motion for uh us to reconvene in open session? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right. Moved by Dr. Spra, seconded by Mr. Alberts to reconvene in open session. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion has carried and we will move on to our next item, the information portion which is the quarterly budget report and I will assume Miss Spring will take us through this. So this is uh for the third quarter already uh in this fiscal year. the end of March, every month you receive the financials and every quarter we try to go over them and see if you have any questions. Um, if you if you've looked at it, you
064can tell that uh March of this year is very comparable to March of last year, meaning that we are on the same track. Um, however, we our revenues are still less than our expenditures at this point, meaning that we use fund balance for those uh dollars that we're spending, but just for cash flow purposes, we'll redeem those later. Correct. Correct. Okay. And so then um as far as revenue uh the last month in March uh we do not receive any tax payments from our municipalities in March but we do receive the special ed categorical aid installment, the state equalization aid installment and the annual per pupil categorical aid payment which is over four $4 million. Um so those are very helpful. Uh the expenditure that there is nothing that is of concern in uh expenditures
065and then the fund balance uh because of those aids and that per per pupil categorical aid payment our fund balance has uh risen uh from 25.5% in February to 30.47% in March. So if you uh have any questions as far as the detail of the operating revenues and expenditures. Does anybody have any questions from the board? Any questions what they've observed? The charts are always a great way of of compar uh comparing yeartoyear. Uh the cash flow again shows that the expenditures are more than the revenues at this time of year. Our operating revenues uh this is always uh a good indicator that we are on track as of um from year to year as far as what categories we've received uh dollars in. Uh pretty much the same from year to year. And then
066the uh expenditures pretty much the same as far as how we've spent the money uh up to this point from year to year on the operating expenditures. I have a question. Yes. On the revenues actually the uh fees, admissions, rentals, and sales. We exceeded the budget already and and quite a bit higher than last last year's numbers. Is that a category that to your knowledge we have routinely underbudgeted? No, this is a this is a special um revenue. So we had our refresh for our computers this year, but then we have a buyback. So those said the sale of the uh computers or laptops that we turned in to offset um other technology expenditures. And I will point out that we did not um use all of those revenues for technology this year. So the
067proposal for next year, you're going to see is going to be using some of those uh revenues from technology sales. We're going to use those in the next fiscal year. So what once we get closer to that, I'll point that out to you. Again, the only question I have for you, Miss Spring, is that now that the Supreme Court has ruled that $325 for the next 400 years is coming our way, um, how are you feeling about the bienium budget that is upcoming? Well, we're hoping that they'll make a quicker uh decision, you know, and maybe have a budget in place by July 1, as they should um instead of it being extended out. That's our hope, but it's it's very helpful to know that. Yeah, we I mean 325 still isn't inflation, so I
068don't know that the state legislature will move on their revenue limit increases. perhaps something on uh per pupil aid, you know, which is a flat amount to all school districts, maybe something there. And then special education aid has certainly been top of mind for people advocating at the state capital. The proposal by the governor was 60%. We're currently at 30%. It would represent a significant increase in in funds to schools. Given that the 325 is now a 400year ruling, I don't know how willing the legislature will be to move on some of these other items as a result. So, we'll see. Any other questions? So, this is maybe a dumb question, but so if the legislature, obviously the governor would veto it, but um can a legislature like say like 400 years like can we
069just kind the legislature change that or this is just into perpetuity and 400 years from now we'll be talking about how great this was or it's only as you're going to be around. I won't. It's only as good as the next bianium. And like you said, it's obvious that the the governor may veto things. What I I'll be curious about is, you know, this the the the Supreme Court's ruling that you can, you know, you can't pick letters, but you can pick numbers and dashes and whole words. it. The legislature is going to spend a lot of time very carefully crafting their legislation and that in and of itself because they're going to have to have like a opposing team that goes through it and like game plans the whole thing. It's going to take
070them a lot longer if if this is the new state of affairs to figure out what to do with the budget. and they're likely going to be more conservative in how they approach it. So they're like I would be scared to address the 325 for 400 years because maybe the governor changes something and now it's $4,000 for 600 years, you know? So like any number in there is going to create a quandry for for any legislature um if they feel like they can't bargain in good faith with the governor. And so I think we're at a really sticky situation right now where there's not a lot of trust and that in and of itself could delay things and I'm nervous about how helpful anyone's going to want to feel to be. We just hope that
071they more likely to come together on some single number rather than come to an extreme one way or the other. And I think unfortunately the way this played out, the legislature felt like they had bargained in good faith with the governor on the last bianium. It didn't work out because the governor chose to veto things the way he did. And so now there's a lot of distrust amongst the legislature and the governor on this issue. And so I think it's it's just a a tough moment right now. And I don't think it'll be resolved for a few years. 400. I think we've had those. Yeah. 400. 398. Oh, yeah. Halfway there. Yeah. Any other questions or comments on the quarterly budget report? Hearing none. Thank you, Miss Spring. We will move on to our announcements.
072And uh our student representatives are not here obviously because school is out. But um as this will be my last time to be able to thank them for their service, I will thank them for their service. Uh they have been phenomenal. They've been in my opinion the best um student representatives on the board that we've had in a long time. Lots of great ideas and discussion and input that they have provided us and so I really appreciate them. Um I know the board members will still have an opportunity uh to thank them at their last board meeting which I think is May 5th. Correct. I was going to ask that question. So uh we'll move on to uh Mr. Bagneski in the CISA 4 board of control meeting. Any anything to bring up there? Well,
073uh, Paul Fischer ran the meeting as usual and we spent quite a bit of time where he went through all kinds of revisions to title nine and the revisions amounted to two years ago we had this wordage then the year later some of the wordage was changed now it's back the original wordage I mean so don't read too much into that uh we also then talked quite a bit as far as how at this time at least self-insured which they were unsure of doing but now they're into their second year being self-insured and they feel pretty good about it their moneywise they're doing what they expected and then the other thing uh we spent a considered amount of time is we talked about Paul Fischer's new contract and what was kind of interesting to me
074on the new contract is he gave a list of what all the other CISA members are getting paid, the size of them, whether they had an assistant or not, and what kind of increase they got. And then he proposed what he thought he should be getting. So, it was all laid out there. We didn't have to say, "What do you want?" He told us what he wanted. And then we had to vote yay or nay. And we voted. We thought his was right in line with the other people. And so, we voted for him to get the contract that he had proposed. It was It was well done. I mean, I just think overall good. But that was it. So, if you have any questions, I can. All right. Hearing none, I do not have
075any announcements and I'll turn over to Dr. Engel. Um, first off, uh, April 20th through 26th is National Environmental Education Week, and so it is fitting that we have a ribbon cutting for a solar project at Summit Elementary Environmental School uh, tomorrow uh, from 5 to 6 at 5:00. If you get a chance to get out there, it'll be kind of cool. Uh, cut the ribbon on a cool new outdoor learning environment with solar panels. uh help um uh cut down the cost of electricity uh and create a sustainable future there. So that's very uh we've got a whole shelter. Okay. May need it. Yeah. He didn't want to get his hair wet. I thought you said you knew a guy on this. So we're uh excited for that. Uh and then April 22nd is
076National School Bus Driver Appreciation Day. We're thankful for our partners over at Go Rightway. Driving a bus is tough. You might have 60, 70 kids behind you while you're driving a vehicle down the road. No teacher would sign up for that. So, our bus drivers truly are heroes. Uh, and we're thankful for what they do and getting our kids to school safely every single day. And lastly, it is the final board meeting for Dr. Jimenez, and I want to thank him for his service. We've got a clock for your desk and a certificate thanking you for your six years. And as an outgoing president, a little gavvel uh so that you can bang this when you're at home, too. Um memories. So, uh I thank you for your um uh wisdom over the last six
077years. We've uh gone through a few things in the last five years that I've been here. Uh, and so, uh, your leadership and contributions to the board member has been greatly appreciated by me. Uh, I've definitely enjoyed getting to know you more as the board president. We've got to spend an hour a week together and so that has been great. Uh, and so, uh, you will be missed. Thank you very much. I would uh, you weren't able to be at our last meeting where where we also got to say very nice things about Katie as well, uh, who's already missed tonight. and also just wanted to extend my thanks and appreciation. I felt like I learned a lot from you over the three years that we've been on the board together. I know we will
078miss your dedication and your focus and your attempts at sometimes keeping us in in line. Uh but sad to see you go, but thankful for your dedication to the board, to the district, to the community. I appreciate that. your thorough knowledge of Robert's rules, your incomparable knowledge, but no, I um I appreciate everything you've done to help new board members sort of acclimate to the whole system. I have just learned an incredible amount from you. So, thank you so much for being such a great example. I appreciate it. Yeah. For helping us along with this. It's great. Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm hoping that you leave a list of those Robert rules of order. I think there's a book. I was gonna say I'll drop off the book. I've got the book right here. I
079was gonna say, Laura, we usually refer to him as Bobby's rules. So, I'll thank you for I I appreciate uh I I think anybody that joins any board, you're obviously not doing it for the money. Um, but I I appreciate your efforts and while we didn't always agree, I I I do I appreciate the hard work you put into it. You obviously care about the Lacrosse School District and Lacrosse in general. So, I do appreciate that and thank you for all you've done for the Lacrosse School District, the community and most of all the children and the staff of course. But, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. And I just I just want to say um we all see um at each meeting how fiercely passionate u Dr. Manis is about public education, but what
080we don't see is a lot of things that he has to do behind the scenes as board president. and I was um I worked with him on one particular sensitive uh u confidential issue and the thoughtful kind way that he dealt with it isn't always the what we see at this table because of the fierceness that he brings to the table and I mean that in a positive way. Um and I it's just nice to know and nice to see how uh sensitively he handles these issues um and things that we don't always know about and I just want to say thank you for all that. Thank you. I didn't say anything. I him and I got to talk a little bit before the the uh meeting started, but just as a new school board
081member in the first year, I I really appreciated the amount of explaining why we're doing things. Um, you know, it it it was we were lost for like the first six months and I feel like I'm in a good place now moving into the second year. So, I just like to thank you for that. Thank you. I think the only thing I would say is I my hope is that you all will also mentor the new people, right? Because they'll need help. Uh they'll need your support. And so, um you know, my my hope is that the school district is better than it was when I started. And that's because of the dedicated people who sit across this table, uh for the last six years that I've been here. Not only school board members, but
082administrators, faculty, students, uh support staff, every employee of the school district is amazing. And so, thank you all for your kind words, but really um thank you to everybody who's involved with the Lacrosse School District. Uh so, with with board debriefing, I'll turn it over to Mr. Magnus. Sorry, I don't hear board debriefing. You're on for board debriefing. Briefing. Um I'm sorry. There's many things and I hope something is done about it, but I just don't always hear what's said and that's my fault. I understand. But, you know, if you're in a individual, if you have an IEP, I'd probably need one. You're not, you wouldn't be alone. I would be there, too. I need some support because and my and my wife absolutely gets frustrated with me how many times I say, "What?" or,
083"Huh?" So anyhow, um I thought tonight was was a good meeting. I mean, I thought we had some good discussions over different issues and sometimes uh at least being, as Tim said, a one-year first year board member, uh the question why for me is not always asked. Somebody says, I want this and then we vote on it, and I'm not sure why people voted yes or no. And so a lot of those why questions, um, I know people are going to probably walk out of here a little upset with this statement, but at the same time, I said a number of times that I really think our middle schools need to have something done to them. And some people roll their eyes or whatever, but I never hear back why. I mean, and if we're
084going to become a a functioning board, I think we need to have those open discussions. Okay, you're voting no. Why is that? I mean, I think that why back and forth helps everyone along the way, and I'd like to see more of that. Wonderful. Amen. I support you on the middle schools, Jim. You know that. All right. Well, with that, um, there's nothing else, then we will adjourn this meeting and we'll move into a workshop. Does anybody need a break beforehand? No. Okay. Then let us adjourn this meeting and we will move right into the workshop on the board self- assessment. [Music]