001and okay thank you for coming this evening i've kind of rearranged the agenda a little bit to start the meeting with a board president report instead of end it that way um it's become clear that there's been some confusion we're still getting a lot of questions about critical race theory in the school district so we wanted we thought it was important as a learning committee who have been reviewing our curriculums and our policies to just kind of set the record straight and come and clarify some things for you that hopefully if you have any other further questions you can ask us but i'm hoping that this clears it up so we have a learning committee that is full of or made of three board members that we have been reviewing our curriculum since last spring
002and through the summer we've had other board members join us in those meetings to specifically do our due diligence and looking at our curriculums and our teaching styles um and if critical race theory is at all present in mukwonago area school district i am encouraged and happy to tell you that we do not teach through a lens of critical race theory or any of its names or teach the topic itself we have one small exception in our sociology class which is for juniors or seniors and it is an optional class and i think this was touched on briefly last meeting i was not here but did get a chance to listen to it so it is listed in our textbook in a list of other conflict theories and it is defined in about a sentence
003and that is as far as it goes um that information is necessary if they take the college prep test for that class that it is simply part of the list and we as a as a committee thought the definition of it being listed there was fine i also think it's important for you to know that our administration has come to us in these meetings multiple times that have said listen we do not believe that critical race theory is appropriate in a k-12 learning environment it's just not age-appropriate so i think that's important for everyone to know and to hear that the board and the administration were on the same page and that we don't believe it to be appropriate for k-12 they have indicated and we've talked about at best it's a graduate level kind
004of curriculum and discussion and theory to have so we do not have critical race theory in our curriculums outside of that small exception in our sociology textbook and we do not teach through the lens of critical race theory or any of its other names i do however want to bring up a policy that we have it's policy 2240 and it's called controversial issues in the classroom so if you want to look it up you can read the thing and hold the policy completely i'm just going to touch on it briefly because um even within some of our discussions and trying to clarify where we stand on critical race theory we've had some requests for a policy we want a policy we want it written solid that says we don't teach this so we have had
005discussions on what policies are for what those look like for the board and how our policies really are something very broad that show the values and the direction of the board and the community and it's there to guide our administration our community as well as protect us so we do not have policies that are very specific down to each and individual curriculum topic however i want you to be aware of we do have a controversial issue in the classroom policy i feel very confident in saying that our learning committee has completely agreed and has reiterated to our administration that we believe that critical race theory in all of its names and forms is very controversial and we have not approved it at all in our classrooms there is if you look at the policy an
006instance for controversial issues to be incorporated into our schooling so i want you to know that there is a policy out here we do not consider critical race theory one of those things approved to follow this so for example if you have middle schoolers and they're going through human growth and development you will probably and should have at some point i know i've gotten it you get a letter home from the teacher saying hey this unit is coming up this is what we're talking about if you'd like to see the materials you can if you'd like to opt out you can things like that so that's what this policy lays out that it's not um we don't use controversial topics as a form of indoctrination our teachers are not teaching out of a place of
007personal opinion they are not allowed to share personal opinion in these controversial areas but that we have sometimes in our curriculums and in our schools we do approve some controversial things so we have this policy because we keep it broad because years ago we had a controversial topic that we needed to discuss is this going to be allowed this year at crt another couple years on the road it might be something else so we do have a policy that allows for us to bring controversial topics into our curriculums approved by administration and by the board critical race theory is not one of them so i just wanted to set the record straight that we do have a plan put in place if we were to so choose to bring in something controversial but i feel
008confident on behalf of the learning committee and other board members that were there that this is not one of them we have done our due diligence in looking at our curriculums and we will continue to do so as we move forward if the board feels as though i have explained that clearly yes we will move on to citizens comments so if i answered your question if you were going to have a citizen comment along those lines and you no longer want to speak just let me know otherwise oh okay all right okay i would like to ask um bill lawler you can come up first and then i will read some emailed citizens comments that we have as well hello hi bill welcome back bill i feel like i'm all a mukwonago here most of
009the time anyhow last week i participated in one of your meetings and it was very small group of people okay um sorry bill i forgot to tell you you have three minutes oh okay all right we'll make it quick it is real quick okay oh my my point is is that the role and responsibilities of the school board is a lot bigger than i thought it was and a lot more powerful and that being said you guys need to be brought into line or at least the public needs to know what's going on here and the sad thing is is that the public doesn't show up and i'm wondering are they invited to if if uh there's a kid that goes to school is there a flyer that goes out and says hey this is
010what we're looking at for this year um what's important to you and what's not and um the reason being is because sitting back last week and just listening um it was basically about who got the vaccine and who didn't and the thing was it was very smug and and i wish it would have been taped so you guys could all listen to it but it was to me very demeaning in the way you talked about parents and and um teachers if they didn't get the vaccine or whatever and the thing is that the story is still not out on what's the truth about the vaccines okay so in my estimation the people that haven't taken the vaccine are really the educated ones and when i say that it's because i do other forms of media
011other than just the local stuff but anyhow school board members are locally elected public officials entrusted with governing a community's public school the role of the school board is to ensure that the school district are responsible to the values beliefs and priorities of their community so if if you guys are making the calls and you're not soliciting the community and in my estimation i've been here now for last seven meetings um i don't i don't see any community involvement so how can you guys run a school board when you you know i mean i don't know what a source you guys use to get what the community is thinking but when i'm sitting in here it's certainly not what i'm thinking and um and i just hope that i can get more people interested to
012come into these things and find out what's going on that's it thanks thank you i will read an email from matthew dos mcginn and family to whom it may concern we all know how heated the debate has become as to what measures should or should not be taken regarding the pandemic we've heard arguments at the global national state county and district levels at the end of the day most people feel very passionately about the topic regardless of their personal feelings on the issue that being said our family feels that any decisions on this matter should be based off the guidance of the actual authorities on the subject cdc guidelines should outweigh angry parents opinion on what may or may not encroach on their personal freedoms this has never been an issue in the past when
013children were expected to follow certain dress codes or to obtain certain vaccinations before attending masd it has only become an issue now that this particular disease has become a political benchmark for both sides we aren't asking that anything be done beyond nor contrary to the recommendations of the cdc and other independent authorities on the subject which will likely evolve as more and more information comes to light we don't know exactly when or how this whole awful saga will become a conclusion but we implore those on with the power to make these decisions to make them based off of science and the empirical data we have at any given time and not to make them based off personal feelings political pressure or any other reason that has even the slightest chance of putting away putting anyone
014in harm's way if choosing unwisely in this scenario harms even one person whether a student parent relative or friend one would hope that it would be enough deterrent to make the right choice matthew does megan and family i will have david hoffman come next uh just a few things on it's kind of interesting past week um american exceptionalism it's a pretty amazing thing and all this is just distractions we're not focusing on teaching our kids that um and ask yourself why 200 000 people would be coming to this country over our southern border monthly and people would be hanging on airplanes to get here um just teach our kids our complete history so they understand the bad all the i mean there's a lot of good there's a lot of bad you learn from the
015bad teach them to be tough and power through things not let one little thing affect everything we're doing like maybe a virus i mean who knows just give everyone the facts let them be people let them just understand and this critical race theory by definition it's racism it's the prejudice of low expectations it's telling someone they cannot do something unless the government steps in for it um i don't know i just think you guys have an incredible responsibility like he said and it's way deeper than us as citizens understand i do agree hey a little friendly reminder you guys send out emails all the time hey school board meeting coming up we'd love to see you there because i have to say if i didn't have it in my calendar i'd forget about it every
016month you know things happen um i just encourage you guys to step up you know be trailblazers um i think you can do that i think if you want to and then look left and right and if people aren't aligning with where this school district should go it's time to get rid of them so thank you thank you i have another email that says hello my daughters go to masd please read my comment at the monday's meeting in districts that have already gone back to school the covid delta variant has already caused multiple schools to be closed due to quarantined staff and students masks have been proven to decrease covey transmission in indoor settings i strongly urge the school board to bring back last year's safety measures including mandatory masks in our schools these measures
017worked very well last year and our children and employees deserve to be as safe as possible thank you derrick westfall i'm gonna read one more and then love mark come members of the board and superintendent i've drafted this email more times than i can count so i don't come up so that i don't come across as an overly concerned and emotional mother but in all reality when it comes to the health and safety of my children that's what i am i've followed the science and it's downright scary i have two children who attend preview that are too young yet to receive the covered vaccine i'm asking you to help keep my children safe while they're in the district's care the following is a direct quote off the district's website quote the safety of students and
018staff is our top priority in the mukwonago area school district masd remains diligent in our efforts to keep our children safe through a variety of practices and ongoing plans end quote is this merely lip service the cdc the wisconsin dhs dpi and aap are recommending students and staff wear masks while in school are we suddenly not trusting the doctors who we entrust with our children's health otherwise are we choosing not to follow the recommendations of institutions whose job it is to guide us in the right direction last year my children attended the virtual option for the first two trimesters my husband and i were so impressed with the mitigation measures and low numbers of infection at the schools we decided to send them back to in-person learning please enact these same measures once again or
019a virtual option why is the high school offering a virtual option when they are able to be vaccinated but there is no option for elementary or middle school students who can't receive the vaccine last year you all spoke of how proud you were that the schools were able to remain open due to the mitigation measures in place and this year we're just going to throw caution to the wind surrounding school districts are requiring masks and are giving options for virtual why can't mukwonago do the same we cannot continue to wear blinders look to the south and how it's running rampant as of today's date numerous schools have already shut down after only a few days of being in session i'm disheartened that i feel that i have to beg to help keep our children safe
020i implore you to make a decision based on science and not politics please make masks and mitigation measures mandatory or give folks a virtual option keep our children and our community safe as you have promised thank you for your consideration best regards kate bell and then mark if you can make sure you speak directly into the microphone good evening everyone first i want to say thank you for explaining the crt that gives me you know a very good feeling that we're going in the right direction we do not want that in our schools and i really appreciate the work you all have put into this that you've done that review and you're keeping that away because it is the definition of racism a few things comments on um that email that you read the cdc
021guidelines are guidelines okay who really believes any of that science scientists right well there are just as many scientists disproving it but they're censored we look at controlling our own community it is our responsibility as parents to care for our children and make the right decisions for our children including medical not the school boards not the district not the cdc and definitely not the federal government surrounding school districts are not reenacting masks plenty of them are just like us they are not reenacting them that mandate did we look at liability concerns i i'm willing to bet that's gone through uh a review did anybody look at the liability concerns for being sued for enacting illegal mandates by forcing medical decisions on students and taking that away from parents no i don't think anybody really has
022i for one will be seeking legal counsel if things change we as parents make those decisions for our kids nobody else does okay vaccines i don't consider what they can call a covet vaccine a vaccine is an experimental drug there's nothing vaccine about it they've been keeping the science of that at bay okay vaccine exceptions exemptions i'm sorry one of those emails had stated something about mandatory vaccines this is not mandatory my kids have never had a vaccine i take the exemption every year my kids will not be pumped full of drugs it's up to us as parents to make those decisions and it's up to the school board to listen to the parents not just parents that say oh we want to give up our freedoms we have rights as protected by the constitution
023of the united states of america plain and simple i'm not giving up my rights i don't think anybody else should either those that feel that they want to hey it's a free country so far is what i'm understanding even though our rights seem to be taken away it's our right to say no and that's where non-compliance comes in and the masks on the buses i hope that gets talked about tonight because that's a mandate but we've got a bus company under contract private contract so there's no liability how is it how would we have liability for that i don't think we would because we have a private contract that is not public transportation even though we say it's a public bus it is a private contract with a service provider to the school we get
024to say not a federal mandate we get to say so thank you for listening to me tonight and again thank you for clearing up the crt thing i really appreciate that thank you i have one more email to read from tiffany bronk it says i'm writing in for the school board meeting tonight that i cannot personally attend um due to disability would appreciate my voice to be heard on the matter of cove mitigations in our schools my son is seven and returning to mukwonago this year after a year away at e-achieve unfortunately he needs far more instruction that only in-person instruction can provide and virtual is no longer an option for him i'm asking you to uphold your mission to keep our kids their families and our own staff safer by reinstating the universal masking
025policy in our schools this is the recommendation the cdc wisconsin department of instruction and the american academy of pediatrics the american medical hospital and nursing association's uphold my child's doctor as well as countless others these recommendations are based on overwhelming evidence-based peer-reviewed research the safety of our children and their families is far more important than the politics and opinions of parents and school board members who are not experts in virology we need to listen to the experts who have the education experience in their fields to guide our decisions there is zero evidence that masks harm anyone there is however rampant coveted misinformation and conspiracy theories that have been disproven why would such a simple mitigation measure such as masks be optional why is the health and safety of my family optional schools across the country
026have opened for the current school year without recommended mitigations and have already had to reverse their decisions and even close entire districts i think it's safe to say that we can all agree that schools need to remain open however remaining open carries an obligation to protect our most vulnerable who are the unvaccinated and children under 12 who are unable to be vaccinated there are also families and children in this district who are immunocompromised this means that even if they are able to receive the vaccine it will not be as effective the previous decisions to make masks optional will certainly contribute to the spread of the delta variant beyond just our children it will very likely force us into an inconsistent cycle of quarantines and closures which is the complete opposite of the normal the board
027is currently seeking think of our children with food allergies all children are in our schools are expected to follow mitigation strategies like separate lunch tables and classroom snack policies to keep everyone safe why in a worldwide pandemic almost two years later does this need to be said protecting our children should not be optional it is the very core our job as parents educators and community to keep them safe tiffany brunk stephanie did you change your mind or would you still like to come perfect all right then we are going to move on ahead to our consent agenda i'm looking for the approval of board minutes for july 26 2021 the approval of voucher numbers one three three nine eight zero two one three four one four three and the amount of 1.17 million in change
028and receipts for july 2021 totaling 742 000 in change as well as the mhs dance team trip to florida in 2022. do i have any questions or concerns hearing none it is approved by consent so now we will step into our committee updates and i will start with student learning committee at student learning committee we discussed the um the see it the ca is about the trip the crt which was addressed by erica we discussed the virtual school and um we had two parents come and share with us how the virtual school had been a real positive experience for them and that this year they are unable to participate in those experiences because because of the lack of mitigation we had a discussion on the valedictory and soliditarian early graduation policy that we have and
029after some considerable consideration we decided to pass it on to the whole board to keep it as it is right now which means that if you graduate early you may not be a valedictorian or solitarian in addition to that motion including rather included in that motion is that we are going to be looking at um doing some research on the current valedictorian soliditarian model and possibly moving to a different one but rather than have to change it twice we would like to continue with the one we have for right now so that's in a motion that we have the other thing we discussed was the 712 social studies materials we went through in detail the process and it was determined that the book we had selected for u.s history for 2021-22 will not be used
030because of some concerns with chapter 28 in that book and so we will go back just to start looking over again we approved the dance trip and do you have anything to add i do not any questions for student learning committee okay then we'll go to personnel committee update you want me to cover please if you're able so we talked about some neola policies but sean did we recommend two of them to the full board for changes so they're both related to harassment and we said no changes no changes okay thank you we discussed sean asked to approve an assistant for stephanie and that passed the entire personnel committee recommended to the full board for consideration and we talked about teacher compensation um i think that's about it right sean right well the teacher compensation
031and the coordinator for student learning elementary education those are both action items we did get some clarification on mitigation measures for staff members and so we talked about plastic dividers at the conferring table and at their desk that option and then also we touched base on critical race theory and whether or not there needed to be some language in the staff handbook but the committee said no based upon the policy that you covered earlier tonight erica that's about it i think yeah i think that's it okay sounds good thank you and do we have we do not have a finance committee update we didn't have a finance committee this month okay so then we will move right ahead into action items we have appointments resignations and retirements so steven's here and uh he has that
032list of of hires and resignations for us tonight hi stephen how's it going we're all good real good thank you month two month two boy all right thank you um this month we had two resignations megan klein fifth grade teacher at clarendon avenue elementary and courtney stole kindergarten teacher at clarendon elementary in terms of appointments we have catherine buchan that is a big bend higher full time cheryl dufack interventionist at big bend that's a halftime position amanda edwards 5th grade elementary teacher at rolling hills that's full time rachel friesema full-time academic interventionist at prairie view elementary lynne marie hackbarth kindergarten this is a 1.0 fte full-time limited term to this one year sarah schmidt has been hired as title 1 teacher at rolling hills part time amanda turka title one teacher and they were hired
033she was hired at .44 of a full-time position and finally cassandra wessner was selected as a part-time teacher for sixth grade at prairie view elementary school and then in one last update the job fair for support staff went really quite well and probably would have had better turnout had it been a better day in terms of weather but we were uh from three to seven uh we were able to do that and i believe that was a tuesday last yeah it was last tuesday and so we had between 10 to 12 that we're looking to be hiring um with an instructional and special ed aids food services some resource monitors as well as custodial this was for a total cost of less than 400 and so for the for the posting it in the in
034the paper but heavy use of social media as well as the food pantry in the chamber of commerce put put this notice out through their channels as well so real positive to start wonderful i would like to make motion we approve the appointments and hires yeah so you want to do the appointments and resonations together okay i have a motion i have a second veto um any other questions discussion comments i just have a question about the the two resignations uh in terms of replacement plan were these a surprise and we were close to school starting so how are we filling any gaps we're we're going to be able to fill these positions there they're ones and at least one of them that we were able to predict would occur and with them being full-time
035positions fifth grade in kindergarten those tend to be positions that are easier to fill okay so we'll we'll have an applicant pool okay thanks of course thank you great so i have a motion and second any other questions okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay motion carries moving on to the court sorry i was just going to add one thing with the late resignation so if you notice that one of those resignations was cleared in kindergarten and we've already replaced that position if you look down on the bottom half of them i wasn't sure if that was a one for one okay that's a one for one there great and we're confident we'll have a fifth grade uh teacher soon as well great thanks sean okay then we will move on
036to the coordinator of elementary education position proposal sure and so if you look at at your packet i have an explanation for that position and we discussed in length at the personnel committee last week about the need for that position and as you noticed in the memo on board docs i included a link to the wisconsin policy forum and the masd expenditures and so i didn't know if you wanted me to go into that if you look in your folder tonight i printed out a couple of slides from that presentation so if you'd like me to go into more depth on the explanation anytime you add an administrative position people tend to get a little nervous and i wanted to make sure that you knew that we are not top heavy in this district uh
037quite the opposite as a matter of fact and so if you look in your folder you can see from the wisconsin policy forum how we are spending the tax dollars and what areas that we spend those tax dollars in and so they divided up into instruction people services general administration building administration transportation and central services no surprise we do spend a significant amount of money on transportation for example and we are above the state average so some of those uh slides show an orange line that that's the state average transportation happens to be one of the few areas that were above the state average and that's because we have such a large geographical district 90 square miles but you can also see where we are with administration central office services and general administration that's the
038district office administration you can see that we are significantly significantly below the state average barely registering on the graph and then if you compare to the i also included a couple of slides comparing how we spend according to other waukesha county school districts and you can see we are dead last in the county with general administration that's district office administrators and also central services those are services that are provided at at the district office ocean second okay i have a motion and second any other question or discussion i guess i'd like to know how this would affect stephanie's current what she's doing now hopefully it would lighten that a little bit so do you want me to answer that are you looking for stuff in an answer sure so if you take a look at
039the memo actually um what what we're trying to do is most districts when you take a look at the student learning department they have a director of student learning and that's stephanie then they have a coordinator of secondary and a coordinator of elementary education that's that's very common we don't have that set up and we probably will never have that set up after all we are a low revenue district and so what we hope with this situation is that stephanie she'll still remain the director of student learning but she'll focus her efforts more on the secondary 7 through 12 and then the new person will focus their efforts on the elementary in the meantime as you know ben currently has the title of elementary coordinator of education but there's simply no way he can do
040justice to that position because he's also our coordinator of data coordinator of assessments communication director i did read that in the memo i apologize i didn't read that no no am i answering your question yep okay and and certainly if stephanie wants to weigh in she's welcome to do so i really see myself working together with this person to make sure that we're covering all of the duties that need to happen around instruction for our students um and not drop any balls as long as we can get you the help you need so we do have a motion and second any other questions for sean or stephanie okay so all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries the next policy up for action item is just simply because we officially moved our
041middle school to uh the block schedule which is an eight period day so our policy had read seven periods schedule student learning did take a look at that but we're bringing it forth now to make sure that it goes into policy okay so we have a motion so this is for the policy review of policy 5200 defining a full-time student okay cherry i think it's a second andy has a motion any discussion or questions great all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay motion carries preliminary approval of the 2122 budget so the reason we didn't have a finance and facilities committee this month was because tom was concerned that the entire board and a larger audience would not be able to see these two presentations and hear them so this is a much
042uh better audience for tom's presentations tom is this both are you rolling the tax the budget into the tax levy are you looking at both of these yeah both things but we'll take separate motions and that's why it's written that way here so i'll briefly go through this i i don't want to be harassed more than i have to it's already started from sean thanks sean but uh here we go so i'm going to walk through the the budget and tax levy proposal it's just a proposal at this point with your permission we'll take this forward and we'll present this to the community in september at the annual hearing and annual meeting and budget hearing so first off we're just going to talk about how we get our revenues okay so we're going to talk
043about this here on the quick as our first part of the presentation and the second part is the budget and how we will spend that revenue so how we receive our revenue and this revenue limit calculation really defines about 85 percent of all of our dollars so by and large this is the lifeblood of our school district financially speaking step one is state government will tell us how much money they're going to contribute towards our masd cause this year and we'll find this out on september 15th step two is we'll calculate our revenue limit the amount of revenue we can collect is limited by state law so we collect ten thousand dollars per member in our district so we'll do that math second and when we know that state equalization aid plus property taxes is
044going to equal the revenue limit once we know step one and we know step two we can back into step three and ultimately land at what the property tax levy will be in this district so in step one in calculating our equalization aid 52 million point five uh 52.5 million dollars in shared costs those are costs that state government will share with our district will lead to 23 almost 0.3 million dollars in equalization aid in the current school year that we're in right now there's just a couple of other smaller almost 25 000 and almost 60 thousand dollars in other state sources of support when we add it all up we're looking at 23.383 million dollars so that's step one we have that part figured out the total pot of money what would that equal
045we'll do that next so this uh revenue limit calculation we take our three year full-time equivalent average we multiply it by our per member revenue limit which is 10 000 per student we add in a few adjustments and that equals our revenue limit so our per member revenue limit is different by district across the uh in the entire state here's a snapshot of us versus waukesha county and you can see that our number for the last school year was ten thousand for the next uh for this current school year and next school year we're all we'll all be frozen at those amounts so we'll still be at ten thousand dollars if we grow by 50 students our three-year average will be 4 661. in the bottom there you'll see that's a 35 the three year
046average will decrease by 35 students okay so the assumption here is that we grow by 50 students from last year into this year so as we do our basic math 4661 fte full-time equivalent students times 10 000 equals 46.61 million we add a 350 000 hold harmless exemption this math right here that i'm pointing to is our base revenue if this base revenue this year is less than last year's base revenue we get a one-time exemption and that's what this hold harmless is so we will get at least last year's amount of base revenue question two in the april 2016 referendum gave us another 350 thousand dollars to support our utility costs with our expanded square footage at mukwonago high school and then since we are losing 35 students in our three year average and
047again that's an assumption at this time but then we would get a one-time exemption for that these exemptions don't go from year to year there's a a small one-time adjustment of eleven thousand dollars and then we have our voucher tax levy which we'll talk about more in a graph coming up here but that'll be 800 and hundred and six thousand dollar tax levy and the total revenue limit totals forty eight million point four seven seven million dollars so that's step two so we can back into this number right here right now we'll go to step three um and here we go so that number is 25 million dollars in change all right so when we take a look at our mathematics here of our state aid 48 of our basic revenue and the revenue limit
048will come from state aid 52 will come from our property taxes so when you think of that ten thousand dollars per student we get about fifty two hundred dollars from our local folks and forty eight percent of that forty eight hundred dollars of that from the state so we take the entire amount of equalization aid and we put that into our general fund that's fund 10 and then the school board has the tax living authority to take the tax levy amount and push it into either funds 10 38 or 41. as a reminder fund 38 is non-referendum debt the school board can re take out debts and repay up to a million dollars a year but there are no debts on the school board for fund 38 so there will be no need to put
049money in there so right now what we have proposing we've talked about this previously is that we'll take 800 000 and we push this into fund 41 to to continue to fund a portion of our district's maintenance needs our roofs our boilers our things that keep our our buildings good and strong the remaining the remaining amount will go to fund our classrooms and that tax levy will go to the general fund okay so those are funds those three funds that you see on the screen are governed by revenue limits the school board how much money you can put in those three funds is limited to 10 000 per member there are two tax levies that occur outside of the revenue limit fund 39 is for referendum debt the community gave permission to the school board
050to take out loans and the amount to 49.5 million dollars to renovate mukwonago high school we'll be paying those back for 19 years total and we're actually working ahead to settle those debts earlier but the community gave permission for this tax levy to occur so we're looking to levy 5.854 million and then 150 000 to the community service fund and in that is the main amount of that is our school resource officers in a small amount for our community education program so when we add this all up the total tax levy is 31 million and 98 thousand dollars it's a 2.2 percent decrease and the mill rate drops seven dollars and 71 cents so as we take a look at our historic mill rate we kind of drop back down to where we were oops
051sorry from uh two years ago so this is assuming our property values will rise 3.5 percent and i just got word today that our property values are going to be up about 5.4 percent district-wide so houses continue to sell values are good so the mill rate will come down even more uh just a quick slide here on the wisconsin parental choice program these are voucher students and as we take a look at the last four years uh four years ago we had a 27 000 tax levy the next year 151 000 then 224 then 435 which is almost a 93 percent increase from one year to the next so the wisconsin parental choice program allows for his families to send their students to private voucher schools there's income limits in how you can qualify for
052that program but those income limits become more and more relaxed and the ultimate number of students eligible for this program goes up every year so in other words more and more families are eligible for this program so without this program you know last year at 435 000 this tax levy never would have would have existed so as we hadn't you know it's could this amount double from year to year yeah it basically did from 1920 to 2021 so in this year's levy we have about eight hundred thousand dollars that we're projecting will be for our levy this year we're assuming those numbers will continue to go up okay so that discusses our major revenues i have one more quick slide here just to summarize all of our revenues we spent the majority of that time
053talking about the top two numbers there property taxes and equalization aid okay as we take a look at these other revenues this represents 98 of all of our dollars so we have just over 5 million dollars in open enroll in tuition we've received 740 dollars per pupil from the state government that's called per pupil categorical aid we receive about six hundred thousand dollars in student fees 160 thousand dollars that's dedicated towards our library program and then 145 000 dollars in reimbursement for our transportation aides just looking at those right there that's the budget that's 98 of all of our dollars so just a few notes on our expenditures and there's a lot of details in the information that was posted online so there's a line by line uh budget there that you can see but
054i'm just going to summarize that here right now currently we have uh in the fund and fund 10 in our general fund we have a surplus of 1 million 80 000 so before we spend that money we're we're looking ahead one year knowing that our revenues will be stagnant in this year and next year as we anticipate wage increase as we anticipate health insurance increases just those two line items right there of salaries and health insurance if those go up anywhere from you know three percent to 10 percent which health insurance goes up quite a bit from year to year right now we're positioning ourselves to deal with that so you know we're not completely done with teacher hires at this point there's still a couple that are outstanding so we'll talk between now and
055october when the budget goes final as to how we like to allocate this but we definitely have left ourselves some breathing room there are some options i'll present to the board you can increase your levy into fund 41 and stay balanced than 10 you could dedicate this surplus as a transfer at the end of the school year to fund 46 and set that money aside for future billing projects if we decide to go self-insured for our health insurance we could set some of this money aside and plant it as a as a holding account so we can pre-fund those liabilities we can upgrade classroom technologies or consider perhaps facility plans as we can continue to work through our facility projects with the finance and facilities committee when the whole school board will take action and
056adopt a plan of sorts here early in next calendar year hopefully we can establish some short-term goals and long-term goals and if we are motivated to attack those short-term goals and we can fund those internally then this money could be used for that as well or any other ideas you might have so as we take a look at our actual salaries that we paid last year we just closed our books last week just about where we're wrapping up our audits and we look at this year's budgeted salaries we're virtually not moving uh the needle at all in salaries in the general fund in fund 10 but we are increasing our investment in our special education fund by 168 000 so we are investing our funds that we spent in virtual teachers last year and we're
057reinvesting that into our existing staff in the current school year so we have the percentage there 4.10 for teachers which is tentative and not final we have budgeted four percent for our support staff which is again also tentative and then three percent for professional staff and administrators we decreased our employee benefits budget by 320 000 majority of that really coming through our health insurance savings and as we look at last year's actual expenditures to this year's budget expenditures were down 90 000 in fund 27 fund 27 is our special education fund that's a break-even budget fund 27 is we just segregate our expenses there so we can track specifically how much we spend on special education because that comes under a lens and a lot of consideration is paid there fun 38 is our non-referendum
058debt as i said no debt exists there fund 39 is our referendum debt we owe 3.276 million dollars um in the next calendar year so what we levy in october is what we'll use for the upcoming calendar year the actual levy proposal is 5.854 million dollars the over levy will be used and allocated to pay pre-pay future debts so if we have a 20-year debt schedule will settle that much more earlier we've already shaved one year off so we're down to 19 years in total and hopefully we can take that down to 18 or 17 or 16 years and keep attacking and pre-paying debts avoiding future interest costs ultimately is what we're doing here so the over at levy will in fund 39 will be allocated for future debt prepayments and the board will take
059action on that in the springtime we'll continue to talk about that and study that but that will require action by the board which we'll look to do this spring fund 41 we're looking at revenues of 800 000 but expenditures of 1.53 million we approve every year the billions and grounds budget in march as we kind of give andy wagner and his staff enough time to plan their their maintenance schedules you can see the parking lot here at claridin was one of the projects that we did and a lot of other projects at rolling hills so we got to get those projects done and plan for in advance so that's why we do the billings and grounds budget uh in the springtime but we had anticipated that there will be some years where we put more
060in and take less out in some years we put less in and take more out so this happens to be one of those years our other funds here so in fund 73 we're going to budget a 632 000 contribution this past year was 679 we kicked that up by about 200 or three hundred thousand dollars over where we were previously just to get back to that fully funded status but we're in outstanding shape there for our employee trust fund and then finally the community service fund we have a hundred fifty thousand dollar tax levy to pay for a hundred thirty thousand in our two school resource officers and twenty thousand for our community education so real quick the timeline for the budget is right now uh the preliminary budget is being presented to you and
061with your permission tonight to pass this i'll take this and publish this in the paper uh we will take our third friday accounts on september 20th on september 27th we'll have our budget hearing and annual meeting anybody who comes can listen to this presentation one more time if you're so interested and then october 15th in the month of october is where we finalize this we'll find out what our actual equalization aid is on october 15th and october 25th is when we'll take action to adopt the final budget in the final tax levy are there any questions i can answer oh applause i like it somebody write that down tom's first applause for a budget presentation what's that all right yeah i could go back and do it all over one more time all right so
062we will take two separate motions and i will make a motion for the preliminary approval of the 21 22 budget jill has a second any other questions or discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay motion carries and i will also make the motion for the preliminary approval of the 2122 tax levy and we have a second from joel any other question or discussion okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay motion carries thank you tom and then we'll move into unfinished business and the superintendent's report sure real quick and first and foremost i i do want to make sure people that are in the audience tonight and those that are watching on live stream the annual meeting is on monday september 27th so that's the next full board
063meeting but on that evening at seven o'clock we'll have our budget hearing and all kidding aside tom does a fantastic job sharing that information so seven o'clock budget hearing 7 30 is the actual annual meeting when our electors our residents approve the levy and the budget for next year so that's an opportunity for our residents to participate in this process and then at eight o'clock or shortly after eight o'clock following the annual meeting that's when we have our regular school board meeting for september as far as advertising our board meetings i'll admit in in the summer sometimes we don't have quite as effective communication but typically during the school year especially every thursday with key news for families we send an email home to all of our families and in that email key news for
064families that there is information about the committee meetings and the school board meetings when when they are going to take place that the nights uh the times and the location a challenge that we do face is how do we reach those uh people that live in the district that don't have kids in our schools so we can certainly work on that i heard that suggestion tonight more than likely the best way to get that done would be social media on our website uh facebook and and twitter so we'll we'll look to improve that then in your folder i want to make sure that you see our school board policy on elementary class size you've received some emails from some parents expressing some concerns about grade six class size at big bend and uh there is
065no doubt that they're a little high there are two sections of sixth grade slated for two sections this year and uh they are at 29 students and 30 students so once they reach the 27 threshold or 28 then they qualified for a halftime teacher so we're in the process right now of looking for a half-time instructor that instructor more than likely would be there in the mornings the class that grade level would be split up into three classes for the mornings mainly for reading writing and also some mathematics instruction they need one more student to hit the threshold to add a full-time third full-time teacher and and those aren't numbers that i make up those are right in the school board policy and so that's why i included that in your folder tonight and i
066think that's all i have okay thank you do we have any board member questions about anything before we head into executive session so there is no student rep report tonight any other questions ocean move into executive session i have a motion to move into executive session and a second cherry if you could roll call us out yeah yes joel frederick yep andy minky yep r schneider yes yes yeah here warner here so we're going to head into a closed session meeting we want to thank you guys all for coming if you want to stick around until we come back out you can but you would just have to do it outside unless can we move to the conference room or do we need to stay in here how many of you want to stay that's
067a question okay so that's what we'll be discussing in executive session so you could stick around because we will come back into open session to make those votes if we have a motion to yes we are just talking tonight in the executive session on the plus we've already made a decision on the mass since school it's optional do you guys have any other questions do you want to stay because we'll move no okay all right then thanks so much for coming if you want to stick around you can wait out in the hall or