001Good evening. Welcome to the St. Brain Valley Schools Board of Education special meeting. It is currently 6 p.m. on December 3rd, 2025. For the record, my name is Karen Ragland and I am the president of this meeting. This meeting is being recorded and is available on our website. This meeting is being translated into Spanish and headsets are available for anyone that would like them. The meeting will now come to order and we will conduct the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Christy, would you please call roll? Sure. Mrs. Babs? Present. Mr. Berthold? Present. Mrs. Gilligan? Here. Mrs. Horanek? Here. Mr. LeChuga absent. Mrs. Ragland? Here. Mrs. Weiss?
002Here. Are you aware of any changes to the agenda? No, I'm not. May I have a motion to approve this meeting agenda? So moved. Second. Thank you. By Jim and Meosha. And Christy, would you please call roll? Oh, just for the vote? Or do we need to? For approving the agenda? Yeah, for the- So we need to call roll for approving the agenda? You need to have the vote on the agenda, yes. Okay. Mrs. Babs? Yes. Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mrs. Gilligan? Yes. Mrs. Horanek? Yes. Mr. LeChuga absent. Mrs. Ragland? Aye. Mrs. Weiss? Yes. Thank you. We do not have any visitors tonight. And do we have anybody in our audience that would like to address the board? Signed up or in our attendance? Okay. Then next I'll turn it over to Dr. Capuchin for the
003superintendent's report. Thank you. So I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break. We're back and we have a very busy three weeks before our next holiday break. So we're excited for a lot of the things that are going to be going on in the next three weeks. I would like to, is Tony Jo still here? I don't think she is. I would like to recognize Tony Jo Nicolai. She is our principal at New Meridian High School, as well as our career in TechEd Center. And she was recently named the Colorado Principal of the Year for the state of Colorado. We're very, very proud of her. She really embodies what leadership looks like at the school level. And she has such a heart for children and for students. And we're just so very proud to celebrate
004her. And we'll do lots and lots of that in the coming year. Also, I look forward to attending the Colorado Association of School Boards Conference next week in Colorado Springs with both our students and our Board of Education and engaging with our board, doing some work with our board, as well as having our students interact with our board. And then also, I would like to recognize the tremendous effort of our operations team. Brian Lamer, Brian Zwissler, our transportation department, Carrie McDermott, who all support those early morning decisions related to inclement weather. It's always a bit of a no-win decision, but they work incredibly hard to get it right. And they track on weather forecasts. They make multiple phone calls, drive roads at 2 a.m., manage snow removal crews over 60 locations, and so many other
005unseen things that go into supporting a system on these difficult days. So thank you so very much, Brian, to you and your team. And also, thank you to the transportation team. These days are a little nerve-racking for our bus drivers. And they somehow manage to every day get our students to school safely and get them back home safely. And so we should never underestimate what it takes to manage our system on days like this. And it's a lot of quiet heroes out there in the very early morning hours in the cold that are getting the work done. So I also want to take a moment to thank Brandon Schaefer. He has been organizing our legislative meetings between our legislative representatives and our Board of Education. We're having two evening meetings this week, and they're really
006important conversations before the new legislative session begins. And I appreciate the Board's investment of time into those important conversations. So thank you all. And that's all I have for now. Great, thank you. Next up, we have reports. We have our CFO, Tony, for the Fiscal Year 26 first quarter financial statements. Greetings, President Raglin and members of the Board. Dr. Capuchin, I am pleased to present to the Board and our community the district's monthly financial statements for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, which is the months of July through September of 2025. These financial statements can be found in the Board packet tonight, and alongside all of our other 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
007Board study session that occurred earlier tonight, just before this meeting at 5.15. In addition, these financial statements will be presented to our Finance and Audit Committee next Monday. The district maintains an executive summary dashboard and a green, yellow, red to highlight any major concerns. And we are happily, excuse me, we are happily currently all greens for this quarterly financial report. To recap some of the things that we talked about, we discussed our heightened cash and investment balances compared to this time last year and the accelerated equalization revenue due to the one-time cap reserve transfer pause. We touched on changes in benefits expenses in the general fund and corresponding increases in our self-insurance fund and how those increases were born entirely by the district rather than increases in employee contributions. Finally, we spent some time talking
008about our nutrition services fund, its spend down of reserves, and the limitations on its revenue due to the prescribed amounts per meal that we can receive reimbursement for from both the federal and state governments. The National School Lunch Program and the state's Healthy School Meals for All program. Aside from that, again, we were able to go through each of the funds that we talked about on the dashboard tonight and we were able to answer some questions, especially Ms. Batch were able to ask. So aside from that, that's all I have for this evening unless you have any questions, thank you. Thank you so much, Tony. Next up we have consent items. Would any board members like to pull any consent items? Then I would ask for a motion to approve all consent items as listed
009in our agenda. So moved. Second. Jim and Meosha. Mrs. Babs. Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mrs. Gilligan. Yes. Mrs. Horanek. Yes. Mr. LeChuga absent. Mrs. Ragland. Aye. Mrs. Weiss. Yes. Thanks, Christy. Next up we have action items. We'll start with 8.1 recommendation certification of 2025 mill levies. Justin. Thank you, President Ragland, members of the board and Dr. Capuchin. Good evening. So action item 8.1 that we have for you tonight, the board is asked to certify the 2025 mill levy rates to the counties of Boulder, Weld, Larimer and the city and county of Broomfield. So just as a quick reminder on the timeline, in August of each year, the counties are required to provide to all districts and taxing entities a preliminary assessment of our valuations. And then by December 10th, we are required to certify the, they're
010required to provide the final certification of assessed values back to the district. And then we perform kind of the calculations to determine the mill levies based on that. And then on December 15th is our statutory deadline to provide a certification of the mill levies back to the counties so that they can collect it on our behalf. So you might notice a little bit of a structural issue in the timing here because we're on December 3rd and the counties still have a little bit of time through next week to certify the values for us. And in fact, this is a good time to mention you might have noticed a change in the packet that relates to the mill levy certification that the county of Broomfield or Broomfield County, I'm sorry, Boulder County, excuse me, provided their
011final assessment just before the Thanksgiving break. And then they changed it yesterday. So we kind of did some quick work to adjust those values and provide renewed values for you and support for the board documents. It wasn't a significant change, but we did want to get that correct. Again, they have until the 10th, so I just wanted to mention, I think these changes are very unusual. It's not typical that we would have a change from when they provide final values. But if it were to happen, we would be required to have a special meeting if that changed the mill levies that we were asking the board to certify. But that would be highly unlikely. All right, so as we look now at the assessed valuation comparison year over year, and again, the valuations are really
012what drive our property tax revenues. Compared to the prior year, our net assessed values increased 9.1% to 5.8 billion. So just for some context, this is a reassessment year. So in a normal reassessment year, we would expect a couple of components. We would expect market rate adjustments that are issued by our counties, and we would also expect adjustments for new construction or development. This year, there's a third component where you might have recalled a lot of discussion around property tax legislation, and the state kind of changed some of the assessment rates. And so that caused a slight increase because the residential assessment rates were increased. That's dictated by the state, but it caused a slight increase in assessed value, all contributing to that 9.1% increase. Just a couple of additional notes. I think what you'll
013see here is that we've talked a lot in the past about oil and gas, and that has kind of, we saw that really large spike in about 22, 23, and then it kind of came back down to normal, and so we've kind of wandered away from the kind of chaos and movements of that. So this is probably a little more normal, if you will. And then also just of note, the Broomfield and Larimer, they represent a very small percentage, so there's just some very nominal changes. Weld County and Boulder County are our primary drivers. This is just a nice visual snapshot of the net assessed valuation over time. And I think really just what this demonstrates is that, for one, in that 2024 year, you can see that really big spike, and then it comes
014back down. And so that's kind of that anomaly that we've wandered away from. But other than that, I think what you see is really, really just over a 10-year period, just strong and continuous foundational growth in our assessed values, which any entity, taxing entity, would be happy to have. So now, as we actually look at the mill levies that are being asked for you to approve, if we just kind of take them one by one, we have four levies, and that's not changed. Our total program levy is really dictated by the state. It's been set at 27 mills for a few years, and that is basically an amount that we generate, and then the state determines total program, which is our total main revenue source, and then the state backfills the rest, regardless of how
015much this mill levy generates in revenue. The second mill levy is our mill levy override, which our voters approved in 2008 and 2012. And I believe Tony discussed this with the group at the study session on October 22nd, but this is a very slight increase to return it to kind of where it had been historically. As you might recall, a couple of years ago, we were required to lower that levy because we actually hit a 25% statutory limit, 25% of our total program revenue. So we were kind of forced to lower that back down. And really all this does is to bring it back up to those historical levels. The third levy that we have is the abatement levy. This one is determined basically for us by the county. So as I think you would
016be aware, property owners can kind of contest and contest with the counties to argue that they might have a lower assessed value. And sometimes the counties agree to that or the state might weigh in on an appeals process. And just to kind of tie this together, you might remember at the end of last year in either study session or some of you in finance and audit committee, we had some slightly lower collection rates near the end of the year and they stayed a bit low. And really that was the abatements. And this is kind of the catch up for that. And so what you're seeing year over year is a slight increase in the abatements, but that was, or I'm sorry, the abatement levy, which will be revenue for next year. But that's related to
017some of those abatements that were granted by the counties last year. That makes sense. And the final levy is the debt service levy. And this is basically restricted mill levy to repay debt service for voter approved bonds, which again remains unchanged. And this levy will be sufficient to meet our debt obligations in the coming year. And just overall, I think what we're seeing is just a very slight increase in total mills, which we like to keep as kind of consistent and constant as possible. So those were the details I was hoping to share. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have at this time. A quick question. So I know when we went for the bond program, we did advertise there was no mill increase. And this is an increase from that last, I
018won't say decision, but the last report that we had, this is a small increase in that. I think it was 0.352, right? Yeah, sorry, let me go back just so we can see it. Yeah, so last year, or when we had the voters approved in November, when the voters approved the ballot measure, in that following month in December, we absolutely had no increase. We actually had a decrease because of that abatement levy. So again, the abatement levy, we don't really control. And the mill levy override levy that was slightly increased back to the original is unrelated to the debt service levy, but is just related to the mill levy override. Okay. Does that answer your question? Yes, and the reason I'm asking is when, if a voter then hears the mill levy increase, then they're
019probably gonna go back to say, in 2024, just a year ago now, I guess, gosh, that's crazy, that we said there was no increase, but now they're seeing an increase. But because we're seeing this increase, it's a different year, and it's not really related to what was last year. So I just wanna make that clear, that's all. Is it okay if I add a little bit of context? Thank you for pointing that out. I think that's a very important distinction to make, Ms. Babs. The item here that we're talking, the distinction we're making here, is you can see that fourth item on your screen, which is the debt service levy. That's 16.7 to eight mills. That is what the voters approved us to continue for the authorization of the bond last year. And that number
020is the one that we're not increasing. You can see it's flat at this stage. So it's continually 16.7 to eight this year, and 16.7 to eight last year. And so that is not going up. What's happening is you're seeing in some of our other mill levy categories that are unrelated to debt service, those did go up a little bit. And as Justin mentioned, the mill levy override is only returning to historical levels as approved by the voters. So what we're doing here is, as we talked about at our study session, is returning that to the will of the voters to be able to provide resources for their students in this community. And that happens through that mill levy override. And then the abatement levy, again, is a mechanism that is provided for us by the
021state to recoup previous year abatements on which we had based our budget. So that debt service levy is the one, thank you for putting that back up. The debt service levy is the one that we said would not increase. So that's the distinction. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, any questions or comments from the rest of the board? Thank you so much, Justin. I would entertain a motion to approve 8.1. So moved. Second? Mrs. Babs? Yes. Mr. Bertholdt? Yes. Mrs. Gilligan? Yes. Mrs. Horanek? Yes. Mr. LeChuga absent? Mrs. Ragland? Aye. Mrs. Weiss? Yes. Thank you so much, Christy. And before we go to the next very exciting action item 8.2, I wanted to invite Dr. Capuchin to say a few words. Yes, and then I'll invite also the rest of the
022board if they would like to say anything as well. So this is your last board meeting, President Ragland. And I would like to thank you for eight incredible years of service and leadership. To serve on a school board is a selfless act. There is little to no personal recognition. There is no pay for the endless hours of meetings, responding to phone calls and emails, reading board packets, and educating yourself about the complexity of managing a school district and attending numerous school and district events. The payoff is all altruistic. The very best board members care deeply about the success of all children, love their communities, and have a strong desire to see public education flourish. Thank you, Karen, for bringing all of these attributes to your service in St. Rain. I appreciate the care and support
023that you provided to me during my transition into this role and our team will continue to work hard on behalf of our students to make you proud of St. Rain. We will carry your personal investment forward in all that we do. So thank you. Thank you, Jackie. You're welcome, and I invite the rest of the board if anybody else would like to make comments. All right, I'd like to, as Vice President, I have the unacquivocated privilege of serving with you for my six years, and the two years before when you were on when I was just attending meetings, and I have seen a remarkable, dedicated, intelligent, compassionate person to follow and an example for the rest of the board members, which is important to be able to keep it all in the family, so to
024speak, and let us go forward as inspired by you, and so thank you very much. I was gonna just say, short and simple, thanks for your leadership. We'll miss you at CASB. I wanna say thank you so much. Over these last four years, I know when I first came on, you openly invited me onto the board, and you took it over, and you said, these are the things that I wanna do for this district, and you've done those things, so thank you so much for all of your time, your efforts, and most importantly, your service to our community and our students, thank you. Well, I will echo what everyone else has said. One of the things I did not grasp when I got here was leadership. I'm gonna miss you. You're a friend, and you
025exemplify what leadership is. I appreciate that, and who you are, and the example you've set for eight years in this room and outside of it, thank you. Karen, you've been an absolute force on this board. Your dedication to the mission of St. Vrain has led your time on the board, and every action you've taken as president. Those who succeed you are grateful for your mentorship and guidance more than you'll know. You've also set an incredible example of how to bring seven different people with different backgrounds, values, and careers to an understanding of one purpose, which is to serve our students the best way we can. You've spent countless hours and time and energy and taken immense care in leading the board, and we'll be forever grateful for the way that you've fulfilled the role of
026president, and while we know you're, quote, psyched for us, we'll miss you more than we could be on measure. Thank you all so much. It's so humbling. True to form, I've written down some thoughts as well. Success like happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue as the unintended side effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Those words from Victor Frankel have stayed with me throughout the last eight years. Serving the children and families of this community has been an easy honor, and one I will always carry with pride. Eight years is a long time. It goes fast, though. It has demanded selflessness and unwavering patience in support of my incredible husband and family. Honestly, though, the journey's been selfish, too, because it's given me far more than I ever gave. To borrow
027from Madeleine Langell, this work has let me be every age I've ever been. I've kept a child's sense of wonder and joy while learning day by day what it truly means to be a grownup. I've had the privilege of working alongside the most dedicated and accomplished professionals in public education, people whose passion and expertise have taught me more than any lesson. I've sat through hundreds of conversations with parents, students, community members, and even when we disagreed, I walked away grateful for the gift of healthy, civil discourse in a time when it feels increasingly rare. Many of my fellow board members have become confidants, trusted advisors, and friends for life. Those relationships are treasures I will carry forever. The superintendent transition was one of the most challenging and ultimately most rewarding experiences of my service. I
028grew professionally and personally in ways I never expected. Dr. Haddad was a tireless leader whose contributions to our district and to public education have resonated deeply. I'm forever grateful for him and for the many, many people that loyally served alongside of him. I could not be more proud and at peace leaving this district with this phenomenal board in the steady wise, principled, and extraordinarily capable hands of Dr. Jackie Capuchin and her team of deeply passionate, renowned leaders whose contributions to public education will echo through St. Vrain and beyond for generations. To everyone who supported me, challenged me, taught me, believed in me over these last eight years, thank you. This chapter is closing, but my love for this community, public education, and children is lifelong. Thank you. Okay, 8.2, recommendation approval of new district directors
029and oath of office for new board members. At this time, we'll administer the oath of office to our newly elected board members, so if you would all mind coming down to the podium, we'll take it from there. Do I need it, can you hear me? Maybe, I think you can hear. Maybe we'll do it like this, so. We will begin with Director of District B, so that would be Hadley, and do we have the Bible here? You watching me? Okay. Please raise your right hand and place your left hand on the Bible, and please repeat after me. I, Hadley Solomon. I, Hadley Solomon. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. And of the state of Colorado.
030And of the state of Colorado. And the laws made pursuant thereto. And the laws made pursuant thereto. And faithfully perform the duties. And faithfully perform the duties. Of the Office of School Director. Of the Office of School Director. Of the St. Vrain Valley School District. Of the St. Vrain Valley School District. Of Director District B. Of Director District B. Upon which I am about to enter. Upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you. And Hadley, would you sign, please? Okay, next up we'll do Director, District D, Miyosha Babs. Please raise your right hand and place your left hand on the Bible. And please repeat after me. I, Miyosha Babs, do solemnly swear, that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the State of Colorado, and the laws made pursuant thereto,
031and faithfully perform the duties, of the Office of School Director, of the St. Rain Valley School District, of the St. Rain Valley School District, of Director, District D, of Director, District D, upon which I am about to enter, upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you. Okay, Jocelyn. Please raise your right hand and place your left hand on the Bible. And please repeat after me. I, Jocelyn Gilligan, I, Jocelyn Gilligan, do solemnly swear, that I will support the Constitution of the United States, that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and of the State of Colorado, and of the State of Colorado, and the laws made pursuant thereto, and the laws made pursuant thereto, and faithfully perform the duties, and faithfully perform the duties, of the Office of School Director, of
032the Office of School Director, of the St. Rain Valley School District, of the St. Rain Valley School District, of Director, District E, of Director, District E, which I am about to enter okay please raise your right hand and place your left hand on the Bible please repeat after me I Sarah Horanek I Sarah Horanek do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Colorado and of the state of Colorado and the laws made pursuant there too and the laws made pursuant there too and faithfully perform the duties and faithfully perform the duties of the office of school director of the office of school director of the st. frame Valley school district of the
033st. frame Valley school district of director district F of director district F upon which I'm about to enter upon which I am about to enter new board members are welcome to take seat at the dais I now present the new board of the st. frame Valley schools Board of Education correct you can just move into the actions okay great so at this time we'll move to 8.3 recommendation approval of board officer election of board president we will now hold the school board officer elections for the purpose of selecting officers of the board to fulfill requirements of Colorado law as the incumbent board president my duty is to preside over the election of the new board president according to CRS 22 32 104 1 and board policy BDA therefore we will now begin the process for
034election of officers for the next school for the school board nominations are now in order for the office of president may I have a nomination for the board president for the 2025 to 2027 term yeah yes this is Jim Berthold vice president I would like to nominate Jocelyn as our candidate for president I think that her experience has been on the treasurer and on the advisory economic advisory committee and participating and regular constantly everything we do here is a reason to give her longevity and continuation for several years having been that she was appointed two years ago and has run this year for the first term of her running has another term to run for and I'll leave it at that thank you thank you Jim Jocelyn Gilligan is nominated are there any further nominations
035for the office of president seeing none nominations for the office of president are now closed the nominee for the office of president is Jocelyn Gilligan we will now hold the election for the office of president by a secret ballot Jocelyn has received the majority of the votes great thank you Christy congratulations Jocelyn I will let you take the meeting from here thank you I feel incredibly honored and also like I have some big shoes to fill so thank you Karen so I we now just continue the agenda from here so next up we have a point for recommendation approval of board officer election for board vice president I don't know if I should wait I would like to nominate oh hang on just a second we will now begin the process for the election of
036vice president nominations are now in order for the office of vice president may I have a nomination for the board vice president for the 2025 2027 term yes thank you I would like to nominate mr. Berthold as he has done a wonderful job in this seat currently and I'd love to see it the rest of your term Jim Berthold is nominated are there any further nominations for the office of vice president seeing none nominations for the office of vice president are now closed Jim Berthold is a nominee and we will now hold the election for the office of vice president by secret ballot mr. Berthold has received the majority of the votes okay next is 8.5 recommendation approval of appointment of secretary of the board may I have a nomination for the board secretary for
037the 2025 2027 term I would like to nominate Sarah for secretary she's done a great job and seeing as she has four years to serve I'd like to see that job be continued I don't think we have any other do it need to ask for other nominees for this one Tim you can ask for other nominees okay are there any other nominees for the board secretary for the 2025 2027 term seeing none we will proceed with a roll call vote mrs. Babs yes mr. Berthold yes mrs. Gilligan yes mrs. Horanek mr. Lechuga absent mrs. Solomon mrs. Weiss yes okay 8.6 recommendation approval of appointment of treasurer of the board may I have a nomination for board treasurer for the 2025 2027 term I would like to nominate mrs. Weiss as our treasurer to fill your
038shoes do we have any other nominees for treasurer seeing none we will proceed with a roll call vote mrs. Babs yes mr. Berthold yes mrs. Gilligan yes mrs. Horanek mr. Lechuga absent mrs. Solomon yes mrs. Weiss yes okay 8.7 recommendation approval of assistant secretary of the board may I have a nomination for the assistant board secretary for the 2025 2027 term I'd like to nominate Gino Lechuga and Gino indicated that he would be willing to serve in this role even though he is not here this evening so are there any other nominees for the assistant secretary to the board seeing none we will proceed with a roll call vote mrs. Babs yes mr. Berthold yes mrs. Gilligan yes mrs. Horanek mr. Lechuga absent mrs. Solomon yes mrs. Weiss okay 8.8 recommendation approval of appointment of
039assistant treasurer to the board historically this position has been held by our district CFO so therefore with that with his permission I nominate Tony Whiteley as the assistant board treasurer for the 2025 2027 term I think we do this by roll call as well mrs. Babs yes mr. Berthold yes mrs. Gilligan yes mrs. Horanek yes mr. Lechuga absent mrs. Solomon yes mrs. Weiss yes okay 8.9 recommendation approval of appointment of secretary to the board historically this position has been held by our district's board secretaries therefore with their permission I nominate Diane Hargash and Christy Jonasson as the secretaries of the board for the 2025 2027 term also by roll call mrs. Babs yes mr. Berthold yes mrs. Gilligan yes mrs. Horanek mr. Lechuga absent mrs. Solomon yes mrs. Weiss yes okay and then discussion items
0409.1 board members signing of the code of ethics and confidentiality affidavit you have one more action item 8.0 sorry and that's okay oh yes 8.10 recommendation adoption of resolution for signature authorization may I have a motion to the resolution authorizing the use of fact I don't know why I can't say this word facsimile signatures of the board president and board treasurer so moved second by Jim and Jackie mrs. Babs yes mr. Berthold yes mrs. Gilligan yes mrs. Horanek yes mr. Lechuga absent mrs. Solomon yes mrs. Weiss yes okay now we're on to discussion items 9.1 board members signing of the code of ethics and confidentiality affidavit I believe these are in our folders that are in front of us is the third and the only remaining item is 9.2 board reports does anybody would anybody
041like to share anything this evening well first I would like to welcome Hadley who we are so lucky to have serving with us on this board I see some family members here thank you for joining us tonight thank you for letting us borrow your amazing wife and mom and borrowing her time here her institutional knowledge of st. Vrain is vast and we are so lucky to have someone joining us who is going to be quite possibly the easiest to onboard ever and then to echo dr. Kaputian sentiments our first legislative dinner was last night and it was a productive conversation and I thought went well and we are all looking forward to spending time together at CASB and especially excited to see our student leaders there thank you okay if nothing else welcome Hadley I'm
042really excited too I'm excited to get to know you and thank you to everyone and I think oh Karen is still in the audience and thank you Karen yes I think that's it so our next board meeting is Wednesday December 17th followed we have another one in January we will all be at CASB next week and I'm really looking forward to spending some time together and learning from all of the opportunities we get there so yeah and also seeing our student leaders which is really fun so with that I think this concludes the board organizational meeting may I have a motion to adjourn second all in favor all right