001Welcome to the St. Rain Valley Schools Board of Education meeting of May 27th, 2026 Please stand if you are able and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Thank you Christie, would you please call the roll? Yes, mrs. Babs present. Mr. Berthold president mrs. Gilligan present mrs. Horanik Mr. Lechuga here. Mrs. Solomon here. Mrs. Weiss here Thank you. And are you aware of any changes to the agenda this evening? Yes We will have one item the nutrition services kitchen manager recognition will be rescheduled for a later date. Thank you This meeting is being streamed on our website or a recording will also be available If our live audience would please be sure device notifications are silenced We would greatly appreciate it The meeting is being translated into Spanish and headsets are available for anyone in
002our audience that would like them I'll begin tonight's meeting with our district's mission statement to educate each student in a safe learning environment So that they may develop to their highest potential and become contributing citizens This mission provides clarity of our purpose and our focus leaders make all decisions within its context First up we have visitors this evening We're gonna start with our artificial intelligence leadership team recognition Joe Thank You president Gilligan members of the board. Dr. Kaputian The whole world is familiar with artificial intelligence We use it we consume it But something different is happening in St. Vrain at the Innovation Center Our students are actually the architects of artificial intelligence. They're the creators of it and that's very special the students are amazing and you're going to meet some of them in just
003a moment and Equally important is the visionary leadership of my voo their leader and She is a very humble leader. So she won't tell you this but I will brag on her behalf She was she placed first in the state of Colorado in the recent presidential AI challenge and her students have placed For the last four years in a row first second third and most recently won the design challenge Against the entire world that is unprecedented Nobody in the world runs a program like we do in St. Vrain by my voo and her students. They're very amazing So it's my honor to introduce my voo Program manager of artificial intelligence at the Innovation Center my good evening. Thank you to the members of the board and For your continued support for innovation teaching and most
004importantly to our students my students back here and to also mr McBrain and mr. Wright seg For your continued support in the field of AI Teaching is a craft. It is both a responsibility and an honor because as educators We are shaping the future every single day in my AI class and project team I challenge students not only to learn technology for to use artificial intelligence to solve real-world problems And that matters to people and they have responded in an extraordinary way Many of those students are here tonight and we'd like to introduce and highlight some of their work tonight One team recognized the need for the human humane society to develop an AI system to better match dogs with future owners their project fetch a friend who was selected by more than 74,000 submission
005worldwide And they won the world AI youth competition and earned the design challenge award design challenge excellence award I believe Rachel pochette is here and Brooklyn Pierce is here tonight representing the team Zaley's Lawrence and Isabella shoe were unable to attend Another team created a project called remind. It is an AI tool designed to support senior citizens with early onset dementia For these students this project was deeply personal two team members have grandparents affected by this disease an illness that currently has no cure Later this fall you'll hear from Victor Asmayan Who will plan to request from the board's permission to waive the district's IP rights? So you can take a gap year to fully develop this project I will talk more about that in our future meetings with him, but here to represent the
006team Hannah Garcia Osborne and Peyton Pierce are here tonight and Victor and Owen cannot attend One student Schaefer Pierce all developed an AI sales a assistant to help teenagers navigate skin care concerns She recognized that while there is an abundance of information designed for adults. There are very few resources for teenagers She also entered the contest out of 32,000 applicants worldwide. She took second place And finally we went to space Our students build servers designed specifically for space and create an AI assistant intended to support astronauts on future missions to Mars Believe it or not. There are currently no service operating in space yet I don't know if Misha is here, but Misha and also Irvi Dench who is here Worked on the project and they had the opportunity to present their project down in
007the final competition in Houston, Texas We're also developing a summer camp connected to the presidential AI challenge titled My best friend is an algorithm a tool and not a buddy Michelle Marina who is here Tonight was part of that. We're developing that curriculum as we speak. I also like to highlight Grayson Hubble who's been a mentor to our team with all these projects Lastly as we think about the future of AI my philosophy is simple Humans must always remain in the loop That belief is reflected in the heart shape on our team polos that you see here and the reminder to always put humans first And that is a st. Lorraine advantage Thank you very much. Thank you. Do board members have questions or comments Students if you're comfortable coming up and sharing just a
008little bit about Yourselves and what inspired you to get involved with the team? We would love to hear more from you. Hi I'm Brooklyn Pierce. I'm a I just finished my junior year at an Iowa high school so I've been on the team for about a year and Miss VU asked me to join the team after I took a class with her at the Innovation Center And I think it's been really rewarding to see all the real world uses AI uses of AI and how it can affect like my own learning but also my community around me and Just as it grows how important it is in my life My name is Peyton Pierce, I'm actually her sister and I joined the team because of her I heard nothing but incredible things about Miss VU
009and the AI team and as soon as I joined it's been honestly life-changing I've gotten incredible opportunities like Some internships and I've just met so many incredible people. So that's a really big plus for me My name is Rachel Pichette. I actually joined the team about two years ago through a class with Miss VU She recruited me which I'm very grateful for one of the main reasons why I even thought of it, especially two years ago when AI hadn't really been a developed thing was because first of all I've always had an interest in technology and specifically technology that could have a real-world impact and then I realized AI is such a quick changing and sort of Undiscovered path so I definitely took an interest in it and I've learned so many leadership skills and
010also So many technical skills that I don't think I would have learned without it. Thank you Hi, my name is Hannah Garcia Osborne. I just joined this year This AI team is like a real good opportunity It's an excellent opportunity something I would have never like gotten to do if I was in another school district, and I'm really grateful for it AI has been something that's like really prevalent in our society today and it's a great opportunity to be here today Hi, my name is Shafir Pearsall I am coming up on my fourth year on the team and I joined this team because I thought it would be a really great Opportunity and would you look at it? It really was and it's really shaped my future trajectory especially seeing how machine learning it and
011artificial intelligence is becoming more prevalent in our future and having the tools to and Knowledge to really utilize it is what's really important to me and why I'm grateful to be on the team Hi, my name is Michelle Marino, and I only recently I only recently joined the AI team this year But I've already gone to learn so much about AI usage in the real world And I think it's incredible that the team is able to bring AI awareness and implement it into education Hi, my name is Irvi Dains. I tried to join this team in eighth grade, but apparently I was too young So I ended up joining this year and it's sort of been an introductory year for me But I've really seen a lot of experiences and I've met a lot of
012incredible and talented people and I'm really excited to continue Thank you so much Can we get a picture with the students and the team? Okay, next up we have art and budget teams recognition Tony Good evening President Gilligan members of the board. Dr. Caputian It's my pleasure tonight to Recognize the art and budget teams and I have apology to make because I didn't realize until cabinet yesterday That I used an acronym and I did not define that acronym which is a practice that we try to do And I use an acronym ART which stands for accounting and reporting team and so it looks a little confusing It says art and budget and it's not the art team with regard to performing or visual arts It's actually art as in accounting and reporting so I wanted
013to make sure that was clear This is a finance related recognition and I wanted to preface that before I start I Present a lot to the board for study sessions and for various action items And so I end up end up being sort of the face of the finance department, but I need to make sure that You the public everyone recognizes There's a lot of people that work really hard at ensuring that we are protecting the assets of the district that we are providing fiscal accountability Transparency and doing right by our community and our students with our resources And so this is the opportunity that we have to recognize a portion of My team in finance and so I want to talk about two of them for just a moment The first is the budget
014team headed by Justin Patrone who's our executive director of budget and finance They prepare a biannual or a Semiannual depending on how you're counting twice a year Budget document their superintendents adopted and amended budget the information in that budget has some very Low bar requirements that must be in it regarding statute however We as an as an option have decided to adopt a higher standard for content again to provide for that Additional level of transparency and accountability to the public We want to make sure that we can answer all the questions and be able to show a full picture of our our budgeted resources And so we've adopted the standards that allow us to qualify the budget team has allowed us to qualify for what's called the meritorious budget award with the Association of school
015business officials an external organization And I'm really pleased to announce that our budget team has won that award now five years in a row And so I wanted to give them a chance to give Justin a chance to speak to that and speak to his team and the great Work that they're doing towards that after Justin. I'm going to Give the time over to Jane Frederick our comptroller She's in charge of the arts team or the accounting and reporting team in the finance office. They also Adopted that same higher standard but for actually two external organizations the first being the aforementioned Association of school business officials as well as a second organization the government finance and officers association and they have a similarly high standard For reporting for for our act for our count or
016excuse me our annual comprehensive financial report. It's called a certificate of excellence and Jane and her team have qualified for both of those awards with those organizations for 22 straight years now This is incredible and something to be lauded and something that I'm incredibly proud to to Depraise that team and make sure they give they're given due credit for that. And so again I'd like to give Justin some time to talk speak to him and his team and after that we'll Bring Jane up and let her speak to her team as well. So Justin The floor is yours. Thank you I'll be brief, but thank you Tony and thank you members of the board It is my absolute pleasure to recognize the Saint Rain Valley School District budget department led by our budget director Tara
017Cowans Right here with us tonight and also Justin Newman who could not attend this evening Our team is indeed small, but it is mighty I assure you and this really speaks to the nature of the work Which cannot be done without the efforts of so many others around the district including human resources planning Records accounting and reporting who we have tonight Department directors and district leadership and that's really what makes the work of our budget department so valuable It's not enough to simply have a deep understanding of the complicated state formula rules on our funding Or the nuance of our staffing formulas It requires our budget team to collaborate with so many throughout the district to first quantify the available resources And then balance those resources with meeting the needs of students and staff around
018the district And finally to compile that complex information in a way that both supports district decision-making and also provide a clear and Transparent view of the district's finances to our community So our budget team and Tara Cowans in particular does this exceptionally well? And I appreciate them both and the opportunity to recognize their important work this evening. So thank you Tara Thank you board Turn it over to chain Frederick Good evening President Gilligan members of the board and dr Caputian it is my delight and my pleasure to recognize the members of the accounting and reporting team affectionately referred to as art I've said this many times this award is not possible without the Involvement of many people as Justin had just indicated with the budget it's the same thing for the annual comprehensive financial report
019or the AK for and We can't really know where we're going until we know where we've been and that's part of the function of what accounting and reporting Does we tell the story through our numbers through our statements our schedules our? Narratives our tables our pictures. We don't do a lot of graphics in that 200 page document, but that could change but we also do our due diligence to ensure the accuracy the completeness the compliance Timeliness and transparency of that story So together I thought this was an interesting side note that I discovered this morning Our team our accounting and reporting team collectively has contributed 75 years of service to st. Frayne So it's pretty cool. So I would like to take this moment to introduce each of the members and I promised I wouldn't
020make them speak but I'm gonna make him at least wave so you know who they are So I'd like to start first with Mimi Livermore Mimi is our assistant comptroller and she's actually been at st Frayne the least amount of time of the team, but she has been in school finance for over two decades She also serves the realm of public school finance in other capacities too and currently serves as The board president of Colorado ASBO, so that's quite of honor, and I'm so grateful. She's so involved in that capacity Mimi also contributes not just to the day-to-day ins and outs of of our transactional data But she also contributes to the audit and our audit report Through the compilation of the Charter School financial data the pension and OPEBs and lease and Subbittas among
021other things So thank you Mimi for your work Next up is Kirk Youngman Kirk could had planned to be here tonight, but he is unable to make it. He's on standby at a possible rained out baseball game for his son But Kirk serves as our senior accounting manager. He's been at st. Vrain for almost 14 years and While Kirk was hired on in a different role initially he comes with a very strong corporate background Accounting or I'm sorry car corporate accounting background, and I really appreciate his Perspective that he brings to the table because he helps me Think a little more outside the box because it's really hard for me to think outside that box Kirk has also been part of public school finance by being part of the Colorado Department of Education Financial policies
022and procedures subcommittee looking at our chart of accounts he's one of the primary gatekeepers of that chart of accounts and He helps to ensure some of that language. That's very obsolete and archaic Is now getting updated in the mainstream So I really appreciate his work and not only is he contributing on the day-to-day functions But he's also very involved in the audit and audit report process through capital assets statistical tables analyses and he helped immensely with the implementation of GASB 101 which is the government accounting standards board Statement number 101 Compensated absences. So Kirk, thank you for your work Next is Lauren Spencer Lauren serves as our senior grants analyst. She's been with st. Vrain for 15 years and prior to Serving here at st. Vrain. She served as a grant accountant at CU Boulder
023So I am so grateful for that experience that she brings to st. Vrain her primary contributions to the audit of course involve the single audit, which is a Report issued at the end of the year as well as our schedule of expenditures of federal awards And of course, I consider her our primary compliance officer To ensure that our federal and state and local grants are spent in accordance to those grant agreements The next two members are a little more behind the scenes I'll start with Stacey Witt Thank you Stacey is our accounting technician She's been with st. Vrain for almost five years and prior to this She managed business and accounting functions for almost 15 years or approximately 15 years in two different departments at CU Boulder she supports day-to-day functions and supports grants and
024assists with reviews and reconciliations and reporting Whether it be CTE career technical education our CDE 40 report related to transportation or verifying the numbers by the office of the state auditors related to our fiscal health and Finally Janice Kramer who is unable to attend tonight is our accounting specialist and she's been with st. Vrain for 15 years She has prior Extensive bookkeeping experience for most of her career and she supports those day-to-day functions over-the-counter deposits she assists with reviews and reconciliations and she also Co-administers the purchasing card system so you can see they do a lot of different things But they're all very instrumental and again, it's not just the accounting and reporting team that deserve the accolades But I'm grateful that I get to stand here with them and Celebrate this honor with them.
025So thank you any questions Justin do you board members have any questions? I just have a quick comment. Go ahead skill again I just want to thank this team so very much I will tell you that your expertise around very complicated Financing systems for public taxpayer dollars is second to none And I appreciate how much work you all do behind the scenes to support this really great district You know an organization cannot operate without resources and the management of those resources is a really really important thing I appreciate that you hold high standards for our employees and for the school district and I Appreciate that you operate with the utmost integrity around the use of taxpayer dollars. So thank you for your work We would like you to come up. We have a coin for
026you and we would like to take a picture with all of you So come on Okay, thank you finance team Next up we have audience participation I believe we have two people signed up this evening to speak Let's see What's that we have a third a third signed up, okay Thank you for joining us this evening the Board of Education greatly values feedback from our and perspectives from our community We will hear up to 30 minutes of non-agenda topics and up to 30 minutes of agenda topics per meeting And each speaker will be limited to three minutes of speaking time It is long-standing practice that the board does not address or respond during the public comment section of the agenda But please know that we are actively listening Far first speaker would please step up
027to the podium and state your name and address for the record Hello, everyone. My name is Joshua Schnabel. I am a parent of a student at Lyons Middle High School I am at 214 Ewald Avenue in Lyons, Colorado Thank you. First of all everyone for the opportunity to speak tonight For all the great work you do for our students here in the district This thing which you may recognize is both a state-of-the-art learning device and also a device capable of immense harm to my kids learning The level of distraction possible on these devices is impacting students ability to succeed We're basically keeping kids tethered to the internet while they're in the classroom and it's causing problems Earlier this year our school saw how the use of email by a group of students during class time
028Created a distraction at a scale that extended across grade levels and involved students at multiple schools within the district The episode showed how pervasive digital distraction is in our district and what a massive threat It is to our students education And it's more than just unhealthy screen habits or bad choices Recent studies demonstrate that reading comprehension collapses when students read text on screens It's called screen inferiority effect and it's well documented I've noticed this Relying on the tablet has affected my son's motivation toward learning in general and interfered with his basic executive functioning simple note-taking skills remembering assignments and task management Using the screen means less focused attention on his tasks and adapting shortcuts instead gaming the system But when he does assignments on paper He just sits and reads a book and the difference
029is so obvious He spends more time with the task. He leans into the challenge and he's clearly able to absorb the information Learning becomes a journey rather than a game and I fear that his journey is being threatened by an overreliance on tablet-based learning and All the distraction that this brings we don't need to be anti-tech in our schools, but we should at least be tech intentional We should reduce the amount of classroom time on these devices Other districts are already doing this and they are directly confronting the issue last December MacPherson Middle School in Kansas, which has 470 students in grades 6 through 8 ended its policy of one-to-one school issued Chromebooks a Policy that was in place for 10 years next year Baltimore students in kindergarten through second grade will have stream time
030limits of just 15 to 20 minutes per day in class and Just last month Los Angeles Unified School District which serves over half a million students Sets limits now on the loose on the use of laptops and tablets in class Their policy calls for guidelines for each grade and bars students in first grade or younger from using devices If these districts can do it, I think we can too Please take this issue seriously and do what's right for our kids. Thank you Thank you so much Hi everyone, my name is Jessica Newman I live at 76 75 35th Street I come to this podium as a former Denver Public Schools teacher and administrator and so I have great respect for the work that this board does and I Hold dear the the many priorities and
031and objectives you all are juggling I'm also a mom of a rising third and sixth grade boy here in the in two two boys in this and we chose st Vrain actually over both BVSD because of the amazing AI And tech forward programming that st. Vrain so proudly prides itself on But I do like the gentleman before me Want to want to say that we can be tech forward and provide excellent STEM education without having cell phones during schools and my hope is this as that as the July 1st deadline for declaring what our cell phone policy is that we consider carefully the distinction between banning cell phones during class time and banning cell phones bell to bell and Understand that there is a real rising swell of research and opinion crossing this country right
032now that supports a bell-to-bell ban on cell phones This is a simple equalizer that it's not about who has phones or who's allowed to have phones Let's just ban them bell to bell and hold sacred the school day which should be focused on reading writing and arithmetic I Think about the liability that the district could rid itself of if we're not worried about the accidental exposure to Inappropriate content whether it's intentional or unintentional that can happen during passing periods or at lunch I personally do not want my boys to be exposed to pornography or predators on roadblocks While at recess it breaks my heart to think that there are kids sitting on screens during lunch instead of connecting with each other and making Friends so it is for all of those reasons that I really
033hope that as that July 1st deadline approaches that we can be Forward-thinking just as our neighbors BVSD and even today. I believe the Colorado the Children's Health Children's Children's Hospital of Colorado declared that a ban a bell-to-bell ban is really Best practice and what we should all be considering for our kids. So thank you so much for listening Thank you. Hey, I'm Angie paddock and I live at 7136 stable drive and I want And my son is a third grader in Iowa elementary and I'm basically here to advocate for a similar thing Which is a bell-to-bell phone free policy? I am definitely not in tech or education or policy but what I do on a daily basis as a doctor is look at data and Determine the next best step and so I think as
034members of the school board I'm sure you're aware of the immense amount of data that's coming out about the negative Consequences associated with screen time and devices in general and more specifically in school I don't need to regurgitate the specifics. We have a compilation of information if you need it But the data objectively shows that kids in districts with bell-to-bell phone free policies have better mental health stronger social relationships Less bullying and higher test scores, which I think everybody wants Our government just came out with a surgeon general warning a strongly bipartisan statement about the dangers of devices for our kids It states that the data is clear and objective That increased screen time affects social physical emotional and educational outcomes all in a negative way If our government and the state it's in currently
035is able to agree on this It seems like we should be able to come to the same conclusion As a board member if you see this information and you still adopt a policy that data shows is categorically worse for our kids I have to believe it's because you're willfully deciding not to enact a plan that data shows it's better for the kids Districts from Grand Junction to Gunnison to Boulder Valley are all adopting bell-to-bell phone-free policies Ready Colorado, the Colorado Education Association both support a bell-to-bell policy St. Varenne is on a losing path. I think it's going to happen one way or another and I think we should be ahead of the curve Thank you Next up, do we have any other members that would like to address the board this evening? Next up, we
036have our superintendent's report. Dr. Jackie Capugin. Thank you Thank you well Graduations sure were beautiful Beautiful and honoring events. I want to thank a team of about 50 of Our staff members who helped support all of those graduations last week and last weekend We have operations and maintenance teams who work on our grounds and all of our stages and all of the setup of the Ordering of all of the chairs. We also have our communications team who supports all of the audio and all the live streaming our area assistant soups are right on the hips of our Our high school principals who are managing so much on those those days and on those mornings and then we also Have our high school principals and our communications team who do so very much Around those events.
037I want to thank all of you for being there It matters a lot to our schools to have all of you there and to have all of the support from our Our team here and they were just we we just keep lucking out with the weather I know our day is coming, but it didn't come this year. So we're going to take that as a win It's just such a beautiful day And it's a great way to always end a school year to see all of those kids walk across the stage and get those diplomas So thank you all for your support of that event Also this morning we had leadership council Which is a meeting where we bring all of our high school print all of our principals Not just high school But all
038of our principals in as well as all of our central admin team. We recognized our principals who are retiring Again this morning as well as those who are leaving for we have a couple of principals who are leaving their positions for various reasons So it was nice to celebrate with all of them and to thank them for their hard work and then Um, I will tell you that those that are leaving will live in the fabric of our district for a really long time They'll live in our hearts and their work and their impact lives in the fabric of our district. So we're just um We're sad to see people leave but Really really excited that they get to enjoy their next journey and get a little bit of rest And then finally we are
039beginning to do a lot of our planning for our opening Year events, it's so interesting to try to shut a year down while you're still beginning while you're beginning to plan the next School year i'm going to have christy add all of those beginning of the year events to your calendars It um, I know life is busy for all of you I remember when I was a mom and the busiest time for my kids was also the busiest time for me at work And so I get it But we are going to start putting all of that on your calendar just so you you have it on there and then You can decide on each day what you you can attend So we look forward to seeing all of you at the start of the
040school year as we get those events Planned and then the last thing is We are also getting our heads around any new legislation That impacts public education. So Tim and brandon and a team of folks really dig in deep with the The last legislative session we look at all of the bills that have Impact on public education and then we make sure that we're updating our policies and that Our practices follow what the intent of those new laws are So we'll do an update for the board as well in the fall There are some new things you all need to know about and we'll make sure that we update you early in the fall around those Those legalities and that's all I have. Thank you Thanks jackie and thanks for a wonderful year Next up
041we have reports first is 6.1 fiscal year 26 april district financial statements tony Hello again So tonight i'm pleased to present to the board and our community the district's monthly financial statements for april of 2026 These financial statements can be found in the board packet tonight And alongside all of our periodic financial statements will be available online at svvst.org We had the opportunity to go through these financial statements a little more in depth At the board study session earlier tonight at 5 15 In addition, these financial statements were presented to our finance and audit committee yesterday The district maintains an executive summary dashboard with a green yellow red Color scheme to highlight any major concerns and with the exception of the nutrition services fund that we've been keeping a closer eye on this year We
042have all greens To summarize the discussion points that we spoke about earlier We discussed our change in our cash and investment balances in the general fund compared to this time last year As a result of some heightened one-time amounts that occurred last year that didn't occur this year alongside our increased budgeted spend down of reserves We touched on some other year-over-year variances as a result of a change in assessed valuation Some increases in compensation our cte audit and some amounts related to a few of our charter schools We checked in on the excellent progress that the nutrition services team has made in right sizing their budget to ensure Solvency and to ensure next year's budget is balanced And then finally I give an update regarding the second issuance of the 2024 bond Authorization with a
043planned bond sale this year this fall in the amount of 265 million To ensure we maintain adequate cash flow for our voter approved construction projects I'd like to thank our top-notch accounting and reporting team for the preparation of this report Which again is available in the board packet tonight and will also be available at svvst.org in the coming days I'm happy to answer any questions at this time Thank you, tony. Do board members have any questions? No Thank you so much and thanks for all the time you spend sharing this information with all of us in our community Appreciate it. Thank you Next up we have 6.2 introduction of the superintendent's budget all funds for fiscal year 2027 justin Welcome back Thank you very much Moment to set up usually works Fantastic. Thank you again.
044Um, good evening board members I am happy to present to you this evening the superintendent's proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 This budget is a comprehensive plan to account for all resources and spending across all funds of the district Um, and as been discussed this evening, this is truly a collaborative effort So, um, I would like to thank the finance and audit committee first, which includes two of our board members as well as community members Human resources plays a significant role school and department leaders and of course, dr. Capuchin But most importantly, though, she's not here. I'd like to thank our budget team led by the aforementioned tera callens the next slide Displays our meritorious budget award that tony spoke to earlier And as he mentioned, this is the fifth year in total in the
045third year for the full award Which we're very proud of but I want to be clear that this is not really just a plaque tony alluded to this But this award really represents a testament to the district's commitment to transparency and to providing our community with a comprehensive view Of the district's finances and in a format that aligns with industry best practices So again, it's something that we're incredibly proud of as a group So next we'll do a quick timeline of the reminder We have a lot of statutory requirements in the budget process We're required to present the budget to the board of education by the end of may And have the board approve that by the end of june. So we're here on the presentation tonight And in addition this begins the public comment
046period And then on june 10th, we will have a hold a public hearing with the board And then fully ask for that approval at the june 24th meeting And then as consistent with past practices as as Additional information and estimates become more clear. We would expect to have an amended budget to bring to you in january of 2027 All right. So at this point in the process, which again is before the year starts We like to think about kind of what we know and what we have to use at our disposal So what are the inputs to this budget? There's a lot of assumptions around projected enrollment numbers legislative Um progress which has been sort of challenging over the last a couple of months We have estimations about net assessed value And also the programmatic
047needs of the district This entire process in my opinion is very impressive and collaborative Begins back in february with enrollment projections by school And we go through a very systematic process where we allocate staffing to schools based on that projected enrollment We leverage formulas, but they don't really control us. We still make incremental decisions based on the needs of each school And then as those legislative factors or those legislation becomes clear and a lot of the other factors become more clear We get a better picture of the revenue and then we move on to the cost estimates And so we can then address things like compensation and addressing the remaining needs throughout the district But at this time there remain a lot of unknowns And so accordingly we have built the budget on conservative estimates
048And just finally as a note this budget was reviewed in greater detail with the finance and audit committee last night tuesday evening And so tonight we'll start with a brief overview of the general fund So as we begin to discuss fiscal year 27, we always like to frame it in the context of the current year budget and the reason is because most Expenditures and hopefully most revenues are considered ongoing and so when we make decisions about spending And obtain revenues we expect those to kind of continue on into future years. So that current year or the prior year Is the best starting point as we think about the upcoming budget So the fiscal year 26 amended budget reflects a 28.6 million dollars spend down or use of beginning fund balance But as a reminder that
049we always provide our budgets are by design conservative And at the current moment the fiscal year 26 is projected to outperform the budget by about 16 million dollars So an actual spend down of closer to 12 million Due to some cost savings and higher than anticipated revenues By comparison the 27 budget that is before you tonight includes a spend down of 24.9 million dollars Which reflects increased revenues of 5.1 and increased expenditures of 1.4 million dollars and we'll get into the details of those But I would ask you to consider I know this Um seems like maybe a small number but the incremental change from a spend down of 28.6 million dollars to 24.9 Reflects a very intentional Improvement in that spend down As you know in recent years and in the current year, we've
050leveraged reserves To weather a softening revenue landscape. Unfortunately, we've had the revenue to do that or the reserves to do that While continuing to provide the most competitive salary increases and benefits possible to our employees So Now what we're seeing is an intentional kind of reduction on the reliance of those reserves kind of turning the ship and steering it In a slightly different direction with intent And hopefully that's what we're seeing here All right. So as we get into revenues again thinking about changes from the current year fiscal year 26 to the fy 27 So the first two bullets relate both to our total program funding which as you know is driven by the state of colorado Um, and it's represents over 70 percent of our total revenues in the simplest form It is a
051dollar amount per student as determined by the state So the first bullet reflects an expected 9.2 million dollar increase in per pupil revenue Where the state is increasing our per pupil amount by three hundred and fourteen dollars to eleven thousand four hundred and thirty nine dollars and that Accommodates a cola increase of 2.4 as determined by the state a statewide average And further implementation of the new school finance act or the new funding formula that we've discussed before But this this number assumes that there are no changes in funded pupil count. So it kind of assumes flat enrollment So the next bullet refers to a 2.8 million dollar projected decrease Associated with a decrease in funded pupil count and as a reminder funded pupil count does not equal enrollment But and in fact the large
052majority of this decline is related to state changes and how the the mechanism of declining enrollment averaging is calculated and implemented in the state and then in addition There is a slight expected decrease in projected enrollment of about a hundred students and across our entire system I think most would agree that that's fairly flat pretty pretty neutral very slight decline So other changes in revenues include reductions in projected interest rates. I believe tony referred to that earlier And reductions in medicaid and e-rate reimbursements In addition, there are changes in the capital reserve allocation, which was as approved by the board of education on may 13th Which is effectively a waiver of policy db Noticeably missing here is any changes to our ml o revenue This is a non-reassessment year. So we're expecting basically flat enrollment.
053There might be a little bit of Construction type growth, but that's likely to be offset by changes in the assessment rates in legislation So in the aggregate when we kind of pull it all together It goes back to that net increase of 5.1 million dollars in revenue going into fiscal year 27 So as we move to the expenditure side No surprise, but staff are our most important resource and compensation drives our expenditures So the fiscal year 27 adopted budget or proposed budget I should say Includes 12 a 12 million dollar increase in compensation, which is the result of successful negotiations with the st. Vrain valley education association That number encompasses a lot of things. There's an 800 increase to the base to get us to 65,300 which is very impressive And then it also includes
054steps for certified employees Increases in the district's contribution to health and dental benefits As well as all of the associated pair and medicare costs along with salaries This figure also includes a 2.32 percent increase for classified professional technical and administrative salaries And or personnel I should say with the exception of cabinet the cabinet level members are receiving a 1.5 percent increase Also included in our expenditure projections is a reversal of one-time expenditures of 4.3 million dollars Most of these we have discussed before but this is really related to timing differences and sometimes accounting adjustments And a natural sunset of one-time decisions where we made a decision for one to two to three years And then additionally, there's a a 5.5 million dollar Change in departmental and central administration savings So in light of that softening
055revenue landscape that I referred to earlier The districts under the leadership of dr. Capuchin went through a really comprehensive process to identify efficiencies and cost-saving opportunities throughout our All departments and at the central level and the goal was really to minimize any impacts to students in our classrooms Virtually every department was able to successfully identify efficiencies and opportunities Um, it is a very long list. I'm not going to go through them all but just to give some highlights or some things to consider there were instances where there were Personnel retiring and we elected to not fulfill those or rehire those positions We identified some technology and software redundancy savings As well as adjusting the scope and level of certain summer programming where we could focus on the most meaningful Opportunities and sometimes even increase those
056and then curb others So these efforts truly did help to allow for these meaningful compensation adjustments as well as that improvement in the spend down of our reserves So on the whole it was incredibly difficult work, but work that I was really proud to be a part of So when we take into consideration all of the revenue and expenditure changes We always like to do it into the in the context of those reserves. And so when we think about that Um the projected Fiscal year 2026 ending fund balance. I think tony alluded to this is approximately 162 million dollars after that outperformance Which results in a projected june 30 20 27 fund balance of about 137 million dollars And of course that's before any level of outperformance that we might expect All right. This is
057a tried and true graphic. I think you're all familiar with I love when I do this and I see some smiles Um, but this is our beloved Senki chart But it really is an excellent visual representation of the inflows and outflows of the district So very simply on the left side. These are all of our resources starting at the bottom You have beginning fund balance that we've talked about And then the biggest pieces of that pie are going to be the total program revenue, which is property taxes State equalization and a little bit of specific ownership tax and then there's another healthy component in mill levy override revenue On the right side kind of dollar for dollar. You can see where those resources go And so not surprisingly most of that salaries and benefits Um
058a pretty good chunk for charter out charter school allocations, excuse me And then you can see the residual ending fund balance projection at the bottom And so this next slide is simply a reminder that the entire budget is comprised of not just the general fund But all 11 funds and while we focus a lot of our time on the general fund The budget includes revenues expenditures and projected fund balance for all those funds And we do monitor them all regularly and go through very similar rigorous processes, but they're all very self-contained in their own way So we don't talk about them as much But we do that work. The two that I would point out and I believe tony alluded to these already But is the building fund where we anticipate issuing the second issuance
059of bonds as approved in the november 2024 election And that's why you see this large increase in fund balance as well as the bond redemption fund Where at that same time we will take advantage of an opportunity to Refund existing debt the 2026 series debt. So about 10 years ago And the goal of which is to take advantage of lower interest rates and realize some taxpayer savings effectively And we'll use some of our existing resources in that fund as well as some new bonds at a lower coupon rate so Finally, we present the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget appropriation And as a reminder the appropriation includes all funds and available resources So it's not what we necessarily expect to expend but it's the beginning projected fund balance and all revenues at our disposal This fiscal
060year 27 proposed budget will be posted online in the morning And printed copies made available And at this time it would be my pleasure to answer any questions you may have Thank you, justin and congrats on the meritorious budget award I also just wanted to add how much I appreciate how much time you spent this year helping us try to interpret What might happen at the state level? As they balance their budget. I appreciate the level Excuse me of commitment and transparency and providing as much information as you can to us as things kind of evolve and change but Appreciate your team and thanks for providing this information. Do board members have any questions? No Okay. Thank you justin. Thank you all Okay, before we move on to consent items, we have a couple of
061new hires Amanda, would you like to introduce them? Good evening president gilligan members of the board and dr. Caputian It's my pleasure to introduce you to two administrative hires for the upcoming school year First we have miss justina carney And i'll share some background about her Justina graduated from the university of wisconsin and continued her education At the university of denver where she earned a master of science degree in educational leadership and policy studies She brings over 20 years of experience in the education field Early in her career She taught at a bilingual elementary school in milwaukee and as well as in frazier elementary in the small community of frazier She began her journey in school administration as an assistant principal in denver public schools And then later served as principal in adams 12 school
062district before moving to spain where she worked as an instructional designer Upon returning to the united states. She became a program coordinator for the northwest boses This evening justina's husband joins her in support as well. And it's my pleasure to welcome miss carney up to say a few words Good evening. Um, I just want to begin by specifically thanking dr. Caputian and board president gilligan for this opportunity and um as well as the rest of the board but specifically just for Giving just trusting me to lead centennial elementary. I'm very excited and I think it's an incredible opportunity When I returned to colorado from spain, I was very intentional about the next steps in my career The landscape In education in colorado and nationally has changed dramatically And I really wanted to be a part
063of a district that not only recognized this but had a vision on how to navigate that change Saint brain was at the top of my list for this reason but also because of its mission proactive leadership and inspiring vision I also knew that I wanted to join a school where community Who is truly at the heart of everything and I definitely found that in centennial tenfold Thanks to dr. Caputian. I was able to spend a few days connecting with leadership staff and students at centennial And i'm beyond excited about what is to come In his welcome email to me douglas said that he thought I just saw him That same frame that insane frame. I would find a place where I could do my very best work And every step of this process has led
064me to believe that this is true I know that I am really where i'm supposed to be here at same frame and i'm profoundly to Profoundly grateful to join such an incredible district. So thank you very much And next it's my pleasure to introduce you to miss stephanie meyer as the assistant principal of soaring heights pre-k eight starting next school year Stephanie graduated with a background in health information management and also has a background in elementary education from sterling college And furthered her education to earn a master's degree in school leadership She also brings over 20 years of experience in education And has grown at soaring heights pre-k eight in st. Vrain starting as a fifth grade teacher And then dean of students and is currently at what she is currently in Prior to that
065she has experienced teaching locally And out of state and elementary and the secondary levels Serving as a literacy coach and also as assistant professor Of education in kansas, so she brings a nice well-rounded background and stephanie's family joins her this evening as well And please come on up miss meyer to say a few words and stephanie's family you want to wave from right? Yes. There we go Good evening Thank you president gilligan members of the board of education doctor capuchin and the leadership team Thank you for trusting me for your trust and confidence in selecting me as the next Assistant principal at soaring heights. I am truly honored and incredibly excited to step into this role Soaring heights is more than just a place where I work. It is a community that has become home
066Over the past several years. I've had the privilege of building relationships with students staff and families while supporting systems That help our school thrive I know this building. I know our people and I know the incredible commitment to featuring For future leaders in our country as I step into this role I do so with strength Prepared to lead My experiences as an educator an instructional leader a professor and dean of students have shaped me Into a leader who values strong systems meaningful relationships and continuous growth I'm committed to supporting our staff Helping strengthen instruction refining systems and helping ensure that every student feels safe supported challenged and successful I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to continue serving this school community in a new capacity And I look forward to partnering with our incoming leadership team
067our incredible staff and families as we continue building a strong foundation That makes soaring heights such a special place Thank you again for this opportunity I'm honored Excited and ready to serve. Thank you Thank you so much and congratulations on your new roles um Next up we have consent items Would any board members like to pull any of our consent items? No, then I will ask for a motion to approve all consent items as listed in our agenda. So moved by gino Second and hadley Mrs. Babs. Yes, mr. Berthold. Yes, mrs. Gilligan. Yes, mrs. Horanek. Yes, mr. Lechuga. Yes Mrs. Solomon. Yes, mrs. Weiss. Yes Okay Next up is action items 8.1 recommendation approval of 2026 2027 negotiated agreement with the st. Rain valley education association amanda Welcome back Thank you and good evening again,
068and I welcome the small would have to join me Good evening again president gilligan members of the board and dr. Capuchin Tonight we bring forth a recommendation to approve the changes to the 2026 2027 negotiated agreement between st. Rain valley schools and the st. Rain valley education association We appreciate the opportunity to share highlights of the changes with you Kara will share in a moment about the ratification process including that we met for nine sessions This this season A special thank you to the association and the st. Rain negotiations teams for their time conversation and collaboration We do appreciate the partnership between s v vea And the district with their ability to come together to discuss difficult topics for the betterment of our students staff and district Without compromising our standards of excellence President karis
069mallwood, and I offer our appreciation to our respective teams teachers mr. Whiteley and the entire finance team Dr. Capuchin and all of you Board of education. Thank you for your support We're fortunate to have a strong collaborative team focused on providing continued excellence in academics Activities and providing many other opportunities for our students In terms of highlights of the changes to the negotiated agreement as you heard earlier We're pleased to share that our base starting salary is going from 64,500 to 65 300 which keeps st. Rain valley schools among the highest starting teacher pay in the state And this includes experience steps and the ability to for teachers to progress also vertically on the schedule with Continued education advancement Outside of the negotiations process, but you also heard this evening the respective increases to the
070other employee groups as well Also important to note regarding benefits the district will continue To contribute to health insurance and dental premiums for the next school year commensurate with the terms in the agreement In the area of annual leave hours Will be adding An additional day of annual leave for all teachers during their first three years of employment beginning with this next school year And in terms of leave payout at retirement those retiring under para Who have unused accrued sick leave will be able to we've added 28 additional hours to that opportunity to pay out of their unused leave In the area of lateral moves Which is a process that allows for teachers to move horizontally on the pay schedule with additional professional development or formal education We eliminated the requirement and the barrier of
071having a pre-approval process so that it's much easier for our teachers to submit for a lateral move advancement And then added some clarity and language around specificity of coursework and training and we shifted newly added appeals process And the entire lateral moves process To our human resources department to allow for ease in submission In the area of workload class size and hours, we organized reorganized and clarified some existing language And so that's easier for those to understand and also added language around maintaining a balanced approach for introducing and implementing new initiatives and priorities that would align in Their meetings and professional learning opportunities in the building and late start times and and so forth We shifted language and clarified language in the area of cooperating teachers and mentor teachers and student teachers to include apprentices
072since we are working on a teacher degree or the tdap program and added language around different ways that teachers can serve as cooperating teachers how that gets paid and The number of times that a teacher can host a student teacher We added some additional language around career technical education and salary placement and movement on the salary schedule for those that are in cte positions better defining credit hours the training and coursework that can count for these individuals Which will assist in recruitment and retention of these very highly specialized positions That support our students such as in the area of auto tech and some in our future programs that we're building now We added language We we modified i'm sorry about that modified and aligned language with the law around non-renewal processes And allowed opportunities for
073teachers to have a reason they can ask for a reason in writing from human resources for non-renewal and then Again aligning with the law and then last we have a memorandums of understandings that we review annually And we have updated the dates to include this coming school year for the area of workload caseload targeted ranges and staffing guidelines for specialized service providers and special education around our association vice president release time Around our fine arts stipends that are extended into the next school year and then the terms of the master agreement as well And upcoming we have a new mou so that we have the ability to further study the impact of recognition of initial degrees upon hire and those currently who are in our system And we'll bring forward that data before our next
074negotiation season with our teams Again, we thank you for your support And we want to express our sincere gratitude to all of our district teachers our staff and administration For their continued hard work and unwavering commitment to our students parents and community And care i'd love to give you an opportunity Yeah, so you asked last year so I wanted to make sure that I have the data Um, we had 526 members who voted. Um, we're really close to about 1500 members. So it's about a third Um 93.54 percent of those voted. Yes to ratify the agreement Thank you for your partnership cara and This concludes our summary regarding this action item and we're available if you have any questions Thank you so much. And thanks for the work that went into the negotiation process. I
075appreciate it. Do board members have any questions or comments I just wanted to um compliment everyone on another year of successful negotiations and I think Um That teachers especially those coming to our district with experience notice all of these changes And it is really a Important tool for recruitment and retention. We talk a lot about the base, but all of these things matter So thank you for being such a good team Thank you Okay Last item is board reports I think we need to vote. I'm sorry. I forget the vote sometimes but we need to vote But can I get a motion? To approve 8.1 recommendation approval of 2026 2027 negotiated agreement with the st. Rain Valley education association By me osha and sarah Mrs. Babs. Yes. Mr. Berthold. Yes, mrs. Gilligan. Yes Mrs. Horanek.
076Yes, mr. Lechuga. Yes, mrs. Solomon. Yes, mrs. Weiss. Yes Okay, my apologies for getting ahead of myself Um, finally we have board reports may is always really busy a busy time of year and I wouldn't change it. It's a lot of great things that's gone on. So in the last couple weeks I wasn't here last wednesday because of one of those things that I went to my eighth grader Continued on to high school. So for ems I attended their their ems eerie middle school I attended their continuation and award ceremony lots of the great things that the students are doing there and It is amazing to see these young people go from being sixth graders in a very different world in middle school to where they're now going to be in high school and some
077of them you've seen a lot of them you've seen the the growth in not only their physical but also their Emotional and their social when I say social them just thriving as students and their social ability. So that was very It was heartfelt for me to be there as a mom, but also for all the other students And then in addition to that, I was able to attend three four graduate well three graduations and The lsa's completion ceremony, which is I always hold near and dear to my heart I think this is my fifth year doing that or fourth or fifth year doing that and um The students there one young man after I after I finished and we gave I gave my speech He says I really love your speech and he says i'm
078gonna cry i'm gonna cry I'm gonna cry when when my turn comes up and I thought I told him I said well I'm here and I will make sure that I stand there with you and we cry we cry together But we're gonna cry tears of joy. So he was really excited about that. So that one's always near and dear to my heart Attended the boces graduation as well and that graduation is all is that was my first time attending that but that was a near and dear to my heart as well because a lot of the students there have overcome so many obstacles and That is great to see that they continued on through all the struggles and everything that they had to do and the challenges They had to deal with so those
079two are near and dear to my heart Launched was so amazing as well. And then of course my uh, Home graduation e hs or erie high school. It was a beautiful day last saturday I mean this I have a picture the sky looks like a Uh, like something of professional photographer took or something like that. It was so beautiful But that was an amazing graduation with 436 students. I think that was erie's largest graduation class and so The students I i'm just so proud of everyone who um have made it this far And I know that they'll do great things in their in their future. So I can't wait to see what comes to that and then last but not least Just actually yesterday I attended the erie ura you kind of heard a little
080bit about that and how that works into our finances Uh, lots of new businesses, um opening in Old town erie. So those iga's are going to be really important in that respect So we look forward forward to seeing some of that those dollars come to our district from that the uh tiffs in the ura Is it? Thanks, misha Anyone else? Yeah Go ahead. Um, yeah graduations were amazing, but I wanted to highlight something else um I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget anything. One of the biggest blessings and highlights of being on the board is celebrating achievements graduations And it's the exceptional work of students um educators and employees Last week, dr. Capuchin and I along with betsy ball were able to deliver a coin And say a little something about ava dumler at
081mead elementary school Miss dumler is who I think about when we talk about the st. Rain advantage and I could go on and on about her tonight However, it was really special to highlight her gifts and talents as an educator at the school in front of her class They even surprised me with the loudest applause that erupted after I said a few words about her It was a really special moment for an amazing educator and I really uh Dr. Capuchin appreciate all the support in Recognizing all layers of the disk that make up our district. It's amazing and something i'll never forget And appreciate doing for her. Thank you, sarah Yeah, I just would add the graduations were amazing. Um I'd also like to recognize our communications team that spends a lot of time at
082these graduations and events the graduation walks and really capture some Really heartwarming moments of rites of passage. I think they do an exceptional job of displaying you know the pinnacle of Of graduation and and you know a student's education, um, at least as far as we get to take them. So Thank you to our communications team for capturing those moments and to everybody that Helps gather all everything that you know is put into putting on the graduations. I know principals were out Wiping chairs to you know that were wet from the rain the night before and even though the day was beautiful Um, I know there was so much work that goes unseen that went into those. So thank you so much Um, it's such a pleasure to participate in those even though my kids
083haven't graduated yet, but It's so fun to be a part of those moments and see families and so anyway, thank you to everyone that contributes to those events and Passing on our students to the next chapter of their lives. So That's it. I don't think I have anything else. Does anybody else have anything? Okay Our next meeting is wednesday june 10th, which is a regular board meeting followed by a study session on june 17th Um with that i'll ask for a motion to adjourn So moved hey hallie second and gino all in favor. Aye