001It's just a big All right, please do the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for All right, we'll call the Mercer County School District 404 Board of Education TR taxation hearing to order. Roll call, please. >> Balmer >> here. >> Lower >> here. >> Mson, >> Nelson >> here. >> SM >> here. >> Brick and Yates >> here. turn before we entertain public comments. Give a little background on the tax levy >> and we'll do the comments after that. >> Okay. So, uh every December the school board votes to uh submit a levy and um and this of course is the the time of year to do that. Last year uh we had an EAB of $253 million. Um, the EAV
002is onethird of your property value. So, if you have a $100,000 home valued at $100,000, then your EAB would be $33,000. And so, the tax rate is applied to each $100 of value on your EAB. And uh that's how you can calculate simply uh what your your uh property tax is going to be. So, last year we were told uh that it was going to 250 million, not 253 million. And so the board tried to keep their tax rate at $483. And uh we just received our audit today or a few days ago. I just looked at it today. And so you can tell over here these these check marks. You can't see it of course, but it tells what we what our tax rate was for each of the past several years. And in
0032022, it was $4.84. 84. Uh, next year it was $483 and then last year it was $4.77. It went down 6 because the EAV went up after they voted on it. And so then that lowered the tax rate by 6 cents. And u I have checked and for a number of years before that it was also $4.83. And so Scott Petri I had a conversation with him. He said he each year he just tries to keep it at 483. And so, um, what my recommendation is tonight is though it went down to 477 last year, put it back to where it was, 483, and hopefully in the future it can just stay there at 483. So, what that means is that the assessor hasn't raised your assessed value. Um, and a lot of years they
004don't. A lot of times they'll do it once every three or four years. They'll they'll take a look at your property and see if they need to go up. And but if yours is one that didn't go up this year, if um if we kept it at that $483. Now, of course, last year went down 477, so putting it back up to 483, there'll be a slight increase, but it would be what it would have been last year if we had that accurate number. Um, and but if you put a new garage on or if you uh, you know, somehow renovated your house significantly or the assessor just it was your turn to for that assessor to look at your property and they decided to raise it. or it's new construction. Can be new construction.
005Someone builds a new house and the assessor says, "Well, it used to be ground and now it's going to go up because it has a structure on it." Um, you know, so there's a number of reasons why. Or another one is home sales. So if you uh bought your house, you know, in the 70s for $50,000 and now you just sold it for $200,000. Well, the assessor, they a lot of times don't raise it to 200,000, but they're certainly going to raise it to 150 175 or something. And so then that also causes the EAB to go up and uh so some people will re you know their taxes will go up not because the tax rates going up but because the assessed value is going up. So with that said as a little bit
006of background um the u what I'm the EAV is estimated to be 276 million this year. So last year it was 253 253 million. This year it's estimated to be 276 million and that includes Rock Island County and that includes uh Henderson County. Okay. And so then what I did was I applied a $483 tax rate to that number. Now so that we don't get the the number, you know, if the EAD goes up again this year after, you know, like in the spring, well then we'll be in the same boat as last year. The tax rate will go back down. Uh and so I uh I calcate what that difference was last year and it was 1.2%. So when it went from 250 to 253 it was 1.2%. So then I added 1.2% 2%
007to this year's uh EAV and then recalculated that $483 and but if but we have max tax rates and so if it doesn't go up then that money isn't realized because you can only have $2.70 in your ED fund. uh you can only have um uh 70 cents in your O andM fund and in your uh transportation fund is uh 20 cents. Working cash is a nickel. Fire uh uh the healthy safety is a nickel. The Fed uh tax rate can only go up to 4 cents and um lease can only go up to 5 cents. So those are max rates. So if they it doesn't go up the 1.2% they'll just they'll stay at that lower amount. And so, uh, that's kind of the background to, um, what my recommendation is. I guess we
008can open it up to comments. All right, Mario. >> Good evening, school board members, interim superintendent, and residents of our community. My name is Mario Paulie. I'm a taxpayer, local business owner. I serve as one of Alo City alderman. I stand before you tonight as a fellow elected official who took the same oath to serve the public interest. One that demands unwavering fiscal responsibility and complete transparency with the hardearned tax dollars of our residents. As a parent to three children in our school district, I want the very best for our schools. We want outstanding teachers, modern and safe facilities, and every opportunity for our students to excel. No one in this room would dispute that, I don't believe. But wanting the best of zombie increase will inflict on our on our families, many of whom
009are already struggling. The schools already receive 63.1% of our pro property tax money. If the 12% increase goes through, it will impact impact everyone's tax bill by increasing at least 7.5% in that range. if my calculations are correct. That is why I'm here tonight to seek answers, not just for myself, but for every taxpayer who feels this burden. So, a couple questions I have. Is the district's current budget truly balanced? If it is balanced, then what extraordinary unavoidable circumstances justify a double-digit tax increase? If it is not balanced, what aggressive steps have been taken to close the gap through internal efficiencies, reallocations, or reserves before turning to the taxpayers as the solution? Where's the evidence of meaningful spending cuts? Have we exhaustively reviewed administrative overhead for reduction? Have we made the tough choices to eliminate
010or scale back non-essential programs and redirect every possible dollar to the classrooms? Just roughly a year ago, a $20 million project was proposed and voted down. It was said that there would be no t no change to our tax rate if we move forward with that project. If that's the case, it seems like with this tax rate increase, that that statement would not have been true. So to close, I would like to ask this school board prove to us line by line, dollar by dollar, why a 12% increase is absolutely necessary. Show us the detailed breakdown of new expenses. Above all, demonstrate the hard data, not promises or projections, but how these additional millions will translate into measurable improvements in student achievement. As elected officials, we were not made to rubber stamp budgets or to
011raise taxes without relentless scrutiny. We were sent here to protect the public first, to make the difficult decisions, and to earn trust through unflinching honesty. A 12% tax levy increase is not a minor adjustment. It is a profound decision that will ripple through every household in this district for years to come. We owe our residents far more than vague assurances or appeals to emotion. We owe them facts, accountability, and the courage to say no when the numbers don't add up. I'm not opposing education. I am defending responsible governments and the families who cannot afford to pay more without sacrifice. I urge this board to provide the detailed transparent justification our community deserves before moving forward. Thank you for your attention and thank you for your service. Cter. I'm Eric Coulter. I'm from Joy. I'm not
012as eloquent as Mario nor prepared. I do think it's physically irresponsible as board trying to propose something like this after it was just defeated essentially on a ballot. It was truth and taxation hearing. I guess I'm kind of curious where things were. supposed to be publicly posted. Now, when you're doing your numbers, you and I have worked together before, you know, you're saying 1.2, then we come up with 12. You know, there's enough discrepancy. I think there should be more discussion. You know, everybody can say, "Oh, if you don't like it, you can run." A lot of us serve on other boards and there's only so many hours in the day. You know, I have to find that for the committees that I serve on also, you know, and we're all facing hardships, you know,
013look at our ambulance situation, look at our fire situations. You know, we're all trying to ask taxpayers a lot in this day and age. I I think there's a lot of different things can be had instead of this shotgun approach. I know you've been put in a difficult situation with some of your management. So, you pretty fortunate to have some people that can step in and help you. But I think you need to look at that assistance, you know, because this district had a really good floor plan when we consolidated and it is really went a direction that's not palatable for a lot of people and it's not, you know, there's no longevity to it at this at this trajectory. So I guess if you're doing these things and saying no, we're doing it for
014the we're doing for the district. I think you need to take a wider approach and you really need to start tapping into some of the talent that's out here. You've got people like Mario that are willing to interject. I mean, that's how we brought this school district together was with a lot of people working together, not agendas, not, you know, perceived plans. It was communication that was clear and effective. So, I think that's something we need to really have going forward. Otherwise, you're going to keep seeing the push back and the vitrol that's going to continue to increase. So, I guess you I would really think you should think real hard before you start going down this road tacking on 12%. So, you know, and you don't know what the EA is going to be.
015You know, with the other districts, you know, we pass our budgets and the EA comes out. That's how we're going to deise, not the other way around. This isn't a loan, you know, where I know the interest rate going forward. So, I thought >> you would entertain a motion to there second. All those in favor say I. I opposed. All right. Motion carries. 643. So now we'll call the regularly scheduled board meeting to order at 6:43. >> Balmer. >> Lower. here. >> Munson >> here. >> Nelson >> here. >> Rick >> Yates. >> Doesn't look like we have any public comments for regular board meeting. Is there anyone that wanted comments? Um, moving on to item four, student organization here. >> Oh, there she is. >> Thanks for inviting us here tonight. I wrote down
016some things I wanted to say about the kindness club. I was telling Emilyn, I said, "Boy, I can talk in front of kids all day long, but you put me in front of adults and it's like, oh, I get nervous and kind of glam on." Um, I want to thank you for inviting me here to speak tonight. I'm so happy to be able to talk about the kindness club. The kindness club was an idea that came to life late last school year. I had known for a long time that I wanted to start some sort of club at Apollo, but no ideas that I had ever felt quite right. I was doing some research for an online course that I was taking and came across a website called the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. As
017I was scrolling, I saw a tab marked how to start a kindness club at your school. And I knew immediately that was it. With the blessing of Mr. Robertson, we had our first meeting in March of last year. I had no idea what to expect at the first meeting. Ideally, I was hoping maybe 20 to 25 students. uh permission slip started coming in and when I walked into the first meeting we had 70 students. Couldn't believe it. We now average about 50 to 70 students at each meeting which is fantastic. Um at each meeting we typically open up by sharing ways that we've been kind the students then we do a lesson on kindness. Sometimes we focus on a specific word of the month like gratitude and sometimes we partner up to discuss what we
018would do in different scenarios. And then we end each meeting voting on a random act of kindness for the month. We've done things like paint kindness rocks and place them around the community. Um we hung up kindness posters in local businesses around town. We made kindness bingo cards last year. Um I'm sure most of you know the green brothers that were ill just uh recently. We made cards for them. Um we did smiles for miles where each student was sent home with a card to send to somebody that lives away just to kind of brighten up their day. Um we are doing right now the great snack basket swap. We filled up a snack basket and delivered it to um Genesis full of snacks and then their job when they were done was to fill
019it up and deliver it to another business around town to see how long we could keep that going. Um we had the very successful gobble up hunger food drive which brought in over 2,000 items for the food pantry in Mercer County which was incredible. And then this month, students were sent home with a kindness advent calendar to do some kind things. Um, so much of this would not be possible without the support of the community. It all began with an extremely generous donation from Reality for $1,000 to get the club started. It's been followed up by donations from community members, including Chris and Beth Whitneck, who just sponsored a pizza party for the class that brought in the most items for the food pantry. Um, I received a very generous donation from the Leo Exchange
020Club. We were the beneficiary of this year's community projects for Mercer County's annual golf outing. And most recently, a wonderful surprise from WQAD's Pay It Forward, where the kindness club was awarded $300. And that money is being used to adopt some senior citizens from Brookstone to make sure they have gifts to open under the tree on Christmas morning. It's not just about the money, though. The community's been so supportive from the start. There was such a high demand for kindness posters tagging businesses. We had to go into work and make extra. Um I always have people reaching out and asking how they can help. It's truly heartwarming. The recognition that the club has received has been incredible. Um I was invited couple invited a couple of months ago to speak at a meeting of the
021Alto Exchange Club. Um WQAD has came out a couple times now. They ran a piece on us for a back to school special they did in August and then they did the Pay It Forward award just recently which and then just to be invited here tonight was also an honor. Uh with all that being said, the part that I genuinely am the most proud of though is the kids. We wouldn't have a kindness club if it wasn't for the kids that not just show up at the meetings, but the kids that go out there every day and try to make the world a better place. I've loved getting to know new students that I never had in class, but I especially love when the students run up to me in the hallway and tell me
022how excited they are for the meetings. I've had students go out on their own and find ways to be kind. For example, last school year, I had a student make up gift bags all on her own for the custodians as a way to say thanks. Um, and our at our most recent meeting, we had to be relocated unexpectedly from our normal spot in the gym. And without being asked, August jumped right up and helped me grab my supplies and carry them to our new location. That is what the kindness club is all about. Our motto is to change the world with kindness and to show everyone that they matter and can make a difference. I believe that is truly what we are doing. I want to show the students at Apollo that no matter how
023big or small we are, everyone can make a difference. >> Then I invited a couple friends My name is Emily Nelson and I'm in second grade. She is my teacher and normally there's 50 or more kids at the kindness club and the kindness club started when I was in first grade. Normally when you come to your first kindness club meeting, you don't have this little tiny spark, but then when you keep going to the kindness club, it gets bigger and bigger. And then once it gets as big as um you want it to, you can do something really kind I'm a member of sometimes people like if I can help make them smile. I really like I like that It brings students together and we get to craft and activities as teams. I think it
024is important because we are learning ways to give back by gathering donations and crafts to give away. I think Mrs. Martin is the best because she helps us learn to be kind to others. She teaches us how to give back. I really hope Thank you. >> What's been your favorite activity that you've done so far? >> Do you have one or is it just every time you go? >> Thank you for coming tonight. You guys did a great job speaking in front of a bunch of adults. scared at all. >> Thank you. >> That's the highlight of the night. So, >> yeah. Number five, correspondence. There's a thank you from the Mercer County. Never forget that's going around. I think that was that was the only one. Right. >> On to item six, the consent
025agenda. Um, anyone have anything they would like removed from the consent agenda? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Yates motions to approve. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Frick seconds. Roll call, please. Lower. >> Yes. >> Mson, >> yes. >> Nelson, >> yes. >> Smok, >> yes. >> Brick, >> yes. >> Yates, >> yes. >> Balmer, >> yes. >> Motion carries 70. Number seven, the committee reports. Finance committee. See in there. Yeah. So, we went through the uh finance committee. We we met on Monday, reviewed the monthly bill list, treasures report, PECARD report, uh revenue report. We're sitting at 21.8 million. Uh it's our revenue budget. 15.4 million has come in. That's roughly 69.2% of the budget. We're about 41% uh 41.67% into the fiscal year. That's due to
026most of the property tax money comes in at the beginning of the year and then we have that to to live off of for the rest of the second half of the property tax >> federal monthly state. >> Yeah. >> Our expense report our so our monthly or our our yearly revenue budget is 21.8 million. Our Our expense report budget is 25.2 million. So we do have a deficit uh that we're trying to work through at this point in time. Uh 10.3 million has been spent. So it's about 41.75% of the budget that's been spent and we are 41.67% through the fiscal year. So, actually, that's a that's a good thing because typically we have some some bills that come due at the beginning of the year that we won't have to pay again. So,
027we're we should be kind of sitting slightly ahead of of target where we're at. Health insurance report. Um, not good. Uh, we had deposits into the account. We're self-insured. So, uh, we had deposits into the account of 189,000, but we spent 265,000 in uh payouts in November. And so our cash reserves at the end of November were 393,323 and in December we had $188,000 in deposits and we spent $280,000. So our self-insured cash reserves are sitting at $31,000 right now. And we are looking at some various ways to try to uh offer um cost effective health plan for our employees at this time. So then we went on to the levy discussion uh which we'll get into in a little bit more deeper context here in the action items. Uh discussed the the 10-year health
028life safety at the high school. The architect is working on it. Uh we talked about transferring money to the title one grant from title two. Correct. Uh then we also discussed the prek savings which we will also discuss that later. I >> welcome to discuss >> um 266,000 >> 266,000. So moving the elementary schools back to the or moving the prek back to the elementary schools saved us $263,000 66,000. Um and the majority of that is due to the savings of transportation costs that we'll have. Yeah. So um but the 134,000 of that is in uh transportation cost savings that we will be able to realize. Um Then let's see. Then we talked about deficit reduction plans. We started talking about things and Mr. Boucher, it's a little early in that process, but he's working
029on compiling a list of items um that we can hopefully choose from to get that budget back to uh where it should be under control. >> Yeah. Maybe a little context on the the health insurance for folks who don't fall on the health insurance costs. Uh I've been on the board just about five years been on the finance committee I think every year but when I began at the district that Blue Cross Blue Shield the amount of money we had to spend from was and I don't have the exact number in front of me but I I know from memory because we've talked about it over the course of of a few years there's been this gradual decline in balance we had available our expenses have a little ahead of our deposits. Uh but I
030I think when I got on the board in 21 that number was around $800,000 and today we're sitting around $300,000. So we in spite of you know all of our efforts to try and not lose money in that fund. It's you know it's about $100,000 a year. You know, just off the top of my head, there's been months where um our deposits have exceeded our our expenses, but I think the vast majority have not. And sometimes it's $10,000 or $20,000 and other ones like this where it's, you know, it's tens of thousands of dollars. Um our rates, you know, like we don't have a lot of say what our rates are. Those keep going up. It's not healthy. We're trying we're trying to figure out a way to sort of stop this because that's just
031one that's one hole we're trying to stick our finger in to stop leaving money >> and it would help the employees too because money coming out of their check less if we're able to find a suitable solution. I know just something else I thought of here. I I know for my my previous employment at the at the sheriff's office um there was no year that I worked for the sheriff's office where our insurance rates didn't go up. Sometimes we were lucky they went up in single digits but I know in the last few years I was there were 11 or 12% numbers that just seems to be the flavor of health insurance right now. I don't know where it stops. It's unsustainable for us. It's unsustainable for private businesses. It's unsustainable everywhere. It's difficult. It
032wasn't a pep talk, but that's what I can remember. Mr. Paul, I know you're talking about some real world examples. That's one off the top of my head is that that decline in our available to health insurance. board members have comments to answer questions. >> All right, moving on to item eight, information discussion items, 8.1 foyer requests. We had two in our uh in our packet. One is from academy research group just looking for um employees names, hire dates, phone numbers. So basically all of the um information that's readily available on our looking for that. And then we had a court case. Those were the two foyers that we had. Any questions? 8.2 updates from the joint annual conference. Jason, you want to go first? >> I'd love to go first. >> Okay. Provide students
033there. I apologize. That's fine. >> That's all right. >> It's nobody's fault with mine, but >> that's all right. >> Excuses. >> I attended a few different u breakout sessions. Um one was on uh openings and so just talked about some ways that you can um handle that situation and prepare for those situations a little bit better. Um that's probably the best one I I went to. There were a couple other on some facilities and how they ran their referendums and things like that, but overall pretty good experience and learned some good things that we're going to start implementing when it comes to the open meetings act. 8.3 academic improvement planning update. Okay, so on January 5th, we're going to have a teacher institute. the teachers come back before the students do on the 6th
034and we have a a full day for them. We're going to start it at 8:15 with a welcome back message from me. And then we're going to um have a district uh multi-tiered systems of support plan presentation from the administrators. And then we're going to have an AI presentation by Cheyenne McCann, the principal down uh at New Boston. And then we're going to have esteemed speaker which uh you know science, technology, engineering, art, math. Speaker Sam McCullen is going to be coming from Davport and doing some hands-on activities with uh the staff uh on how they can implement steam strategies into their lessons and um that's going to be a lot of fun uh and it's going to be hopefully very instructive for the staff. And then in the afternoon they're going to return to
035their buildings and the principal will develop the afternoon schedule for the things that are different buildings. >> All right. Thank you for that. Um 8.4 the FY25 audit. >> Each year we have the audit u and this year is no exception. They usually start gathering things in August and uh they analyze them and then they have reports usually in October. This year they were kind of running behind schedule so they didn't send it to us until a few days ago. We do now have the the final audited information and they look at all different kinds of things and basically is to make sure that we're doing our bookkeeping correctly. Uh making sure there's no malfeasants going on. They have all kinds of tests that they apply to our books to make sure that everything is
036the way it's supposed to be. Sometimes they make suggestions for maybe we could, you know, code this this expense a little differently, put in a different category, whatever. But, uh, for the most part, our staff is on the ball and so, uh, they they got a good report. They really nothing that they they didn't have any major findings. they just have the one that they always have for small school districts and that uh is a limited number of key employees have the prior primary responsibility for performing most of the accounting and financial duties. Uh and so the segregation of dut so if you're the one who writes the checks, you're not supposed to be the person who balances the checkbook. And if you're the person uh who uh finds out what the tax identification numbers
037are, you're not supposed to be one who writes checks. And so they've got dozens, if not hundreds of of uh checks and balances that an organization is supposed to do to make sure that things are are done correctly. Well, we're just a small school district. We only have four people in the unit office. And usually you have to have about nine or 10 in order to do all of those uh checks and balances. So what they do is they just do an extra close uh scan of all that we are doing to make sure that everything is being done correctly. And that's the only finding is that It's been a finding I say here uh since 2011. So, and it will be for the next 20 years as well. The only ones who can really
038do something about it are the big districts like M. have that kind of staffing. And uh at the beginning of the audit, they pointed out that we ended the year last year 998,000 in the red in the ED fund. Um uh then in the transportation fund, we ended the year 216,000 in the red. Um And then the other funds were either um were either positive or uh there's an asterisk because we paid bills to have the elementary uh built. And so when you pay those bills, even though they're anticipated and they were there uh well in advance, it still makes the budget look bad. So the on&m looks like it's 2.5 million in the black, but when you take out those construction costs, it's actually a little bit in the black. Did I say that
039right? And uh so that's kind of an overview of the audit. I think it's good that they didn't have any findings on that segregation that happens every year, >> right? Which it happens every year. >> Any questions on the on the next? >> Yes. Yes. All right. 8.5 risk management plan revision. >> Okay. One of the ways that we can address our budget woes is to transfer some of the money from the uh education fund and the operations and maintenance fund and to put those expenses into the tort fund. Now the the tort fund is designed to be something that you use when you uh are trying to protect the district from a torturous act and which is basically get sued. And so if you have um If you have a sidewalk that has a
040giant crack in it, that's a big tripping hazard and you pay someone to fix it, you can pay for it with torque money. And so, as you can imagine, the school district has endless number of uh of risks, you know, and that's why we we put a an adult on the playground during recess because we know that bad things happen on the playgrounds. So, that person is there to to watch over the students and to intervene when necessary. So, you can pay for that person's playground salary uh out of tor etc etc. And so um I think that can really help our budget if we transfer those funds not add funds just transfer them from the ed and the on and m into the torque fund and if we do that I have uh all
041kinds of u ways we can do that and uh at the finance committee we went over some of those and uh it's basically everything in here that's yellow. So you can kind of see there's yellow here and there and then toward the end it gets really yellow. And uh basically it's justifying why we how why we can switch those to the torque fund and also what percentages. One of the things that I did was uh looked at other school districts to see what they were doing with uh their tort expenditures and then I made a chart and that charts here. So, we had I found eight other school districts and what percentages are they using for their staff members and then I averaged them out and then I made recommendations in the final column to
042the board of what uh what those uh recommendations are and there are they are reflected in this uh um risk management plan and it's in in the drive already. So if you want to know what those are, just go ahead and look at the drive and then I was hoping next month that you after I also revise it a little more that you would consider it and we approve it. Now here's the thing. Um you it's basically you can pay up too. So like I put down uh for teachers, you know, 5% of their time is spent, you know, supervising kids in a way that keeps us, you know, from getting a lawsuit. And so um that doesn't mean you have to acted. So in other words, if if the tort money that's coming in
043can't cover all these expenses, well then you can just, you know, only do the ones that you can, the rest will just lieow and then maybe if the tort money comes in, there's more of it that comes in the future, then you can add those other ones. So this is a, you know, basically not worst case scenario, but I guess the max max case scenario and uh that's something to think about. I don't you guys have any questions or >> I had um I think that the this plan risk management plan went to the top when I put it in there. >> Yeah. >> So by moving that money to it still cost what it costs. It's just tor money. Yeah, you can ask for more torque money, but if you want to keep that
044483, then you you know, you wouldn't. But you um uh but as the EAB goes up, you know, then that 483 will bring in a little more for the torque fund. You see, it's technically it's unlawful to end the year in the red. And so if you do end the year in the red, you have to do what's called a deficit reduction plan, which we had to do this year. And uh and so they what they want is in three years, what are you going to do to get back to being black again in your in your budget? And um and so one of the things we could do is, you know, we probably could only do it once, but we can move some of those expenses into the TOR fund so that the ED
045fund and the on andm fund are more likely to be black, but then we'll also have to do cuts and other things um to to finish that job. >> Oh, and and it's not just staff. We pay for snow removal with the tort fund. We uh pay for all of our insuranceances with the tort fund. We pay for um our legal fees u come out of the tort fund. Uh a lot of our architectural fees come out of the torque fund. Um so there's there are a lot of of you know programs that we we do that come out of the tort fund. It's not just >> the the torque fund just it builds up still with tax dollars. It's not like free money we get. Right. Some other >> Right. So, it's like it's
046like what you're trying to do is have a balance where where not everything is in the ED fund. You know, the ED fund is usually your biggest fun. This just kind of like divides them up a little more equally, you know, is what basically >> I'm asking I know the answer to the questions. I'm asking. So, everybody else understands that. >> So, it's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. So, you're still going to sink, but you uh you know, you can rearrange the deck chairs. >> Mr. I just everybody to understand that that money is not just somebody that comes in the back door and hands the pile of money. Now we can start diverting those expenses somewhere else. The total amount of money that we get is the total amount of money
047that we get. Some buckets we can choose certain buckets for certain things and there's other buckets that we can't get into for certain things. >> Yeah. Yeah. So some of our buckets are overflowing and so we're taking some of the water and putting it in the empty buckets but it's still the same amount of water. water we got is all we got. >> So, yeah, >> the tor is roughly 5143. >> Okay. Any other questions about the risk management? >> I don't think this is okay. I'll put it on. >> Okay. No. Uh, that was set in 2017. Okay. Scott, >> we did. >> Yes, we did. So maybe he used ours because >> I just I've heard this before. >> Yeah. >> No, I don't think he used a Titanic reference. >> All right.
0488.6. Uh, school resource officer. I had I know we talked about this last month, but I had a couple of board members asked me if we could put it back on the discussion items list. So last month I we had told Mr. Boucher not to pursue this resource officer for Apollo Apollo Junior High Junior High. So I know that we had a couple board members that were interested in pursuing that. So I was that I understand we're in a budget issue but the safety of the kids had resource officer before I don't understand why consistent across our our schools in general we have them at other campuses a little confused why we pursue at least a shared resource officer the junior high we don't have one because they had to remove that to go back
049to duty my understanding or else we would just have one and we wouldn't be having this conversation >> right up until a few months ago the sheriff's office was deputy was assigned here um and he had been for a long time uh they had staff choices with the sheriff's office that was was measured in Sheriff probably made a difficult decision to to have Deputy Brenle come out of here. I think it's a matter of staffing and the sheriff could obtain sufficient staffing to cover patrol and have somebody sign here all along that would still be here. We just as a board we got to decide what's important because we didn't used to have a nurse in every building. We didn't have we didn't used to have there's I can 40 positions that we didn't used
050to have that we do now. And that's part of the reason why our budget where it's at is because we to do what we want, how we want, and as long as the money's there, we can have the Cadillac, you know, uh situation. But at some point, like you said, you either got to choose to have parents be upset because we don't have a resource officer or pay the extra money. I mean, that's as simple as that. We have How many nurses now? We didn't we used we actually way back when when you started we had like one one or two >> and now we got five. We had uh I mean there's just all kinds of stuff that we just keep getting more and more of to make things better. And I'm saying none
051of them didn't make things better, but it made things more expensive. And some of the times was uh we had some monies that during co that helped pay for things and we had Mark Barry pay for resource officers for a few years to get us started hoping that that would stay and so all these things but that money goes away eventually he's uh was putting up I want to say $200,000 250 for four years and then then when that money goes away then we got to come up with that money if we want to keep that Um, so that's that's where we're at. I mean, those are the kind of things that you're asking about. Uh, the teachers uh, you know, they were here with uh, uh, asking for more and more this year. There
052was a big uprising that we're going to maybe strike all this stuff. Uh, we had to we increased the contract by quite a lot. So, there's that's just another thing when we were already deficit spending the year before by a million dollars and now another million just in the ed fund again this year. And so that's where all that money is going to. And that's I mean I don't know what else that's just some examples of things that we're doing that we didn't used to do. >> Yeah, I understand that. But I don't want to compromise student security. >> I'm just there. We didn't have any. >> No, I understand. That's a fact. >> So if that's if that's more I I understand it's not important to me. I'm saying as a group if that's
053more important to us than a certain math class, well then that's what's more important to us. We we have to pick what's most important. >> I'm not saying it's more important than >> I'm just giving an example. >> As a district, we should be consistent with our choice. We have SRO's at our other campuses. >> This isn't a new position. This isn't an added position. We don't we don't have one. >> It wasn't one time. It was it was at one time. I'm just saying it was. >> Sure. There's lots of these positions that were when we consolidated Mr. Cer was complaining you know about hey you know what was all this going when we consolidated we had a plan and it's about >> okay >> listen I mean I just >> No I just
054literally said Jason retired there's one >> yeah and you just So you just keep everybody, you know, for their department, they say, "Well, we we need to have this. We need to have this sensory room. We need to have this thing. We need to have that thing." And we're just we just keep going. Okay. Okay. Okay. And they're all important. Everything that we do is important, but we got to figure out what is the most important because uh you know, we all want to go out to eat certain nights of the week or we want to go see a movie or whatever, but sometimes that's just not possible. So we got to decide what it is we want. And I ain't saying I I ain't picking out anything. we need to get rid of or
055keep. I'm just saying as a group, we got to figure that out because there's all kinds of places we can cut, but nobody's going to be happy about any of >> Did Brendle cover both your buildings for the most part. Well, he's been in a situation where he was housing my building before and he's cover four months across our five buildings or five buildings. So, like he's been housing my building around >> the way the conversation going. Well, >> I I saw him when I came the other day and so I was and I was surprised to see him, but is he kind of part time? >> I have no idea. He's been in our building. >> Yeah, I know. And >> I don't know what that agreement is with I've never signed that. That's
056a conversation to have with sheriff because I don't work there anymore. But I I know when he left this building, he went to day shift and so I would expect that you you know he would be available at least some of the hours today. >> But he would come to your building if you needed him call. >> I remember we had officer Howard. >> Oh, he was your own, right? >> Yes. use officer for our threat assessment director when every time we have a threat assessment either one of the training we don't have anybody else when it comes to high school and having someone for that >> can I ask a question >> okay so when we have these SRO it's my understand We have one in New Boston and the SO in New Boston
057is the New Boston Police. Correct. >> Correct. >> So his jurisdiction is only in New Boston. >> Is that correct or no? >> Yeah. I mean, unless there's some kind of >> Okay. So then the Alo at the high school has who? >> Alo police department. >> Yes. >> Jurisdiction only in Alto. So that person cannot cover outside either. So you've isolated New Boston with one, Alto with one, and if there's a problem in the perimeters, you don't have anybody with jurisdiction. >> Well, not a school resource officer. It would still just fall on whoever was, you know, on patrol. >> So they would just call patrol to cover. Like if somebody needed a house visit, so you wouldn't be lacking coverage there. >> That's a good That's a good way to put it. So
058let's say Officer Evans gets a, you know, complaint that there's going on at a house that you know the kids go to Boston school but they live out in rural Boston. Yes, >> deputy or officer Evans might go out there to try and do that, but if he's unable to make contact with family or whatever, he's going to fall back on the county. Not a school resource officer, but somebody is going to go follow up on a complaint however they can, >> but there would be coverage >> there. There would be somebody who would get sent to that call. Now, unlike a dedicated school resource officer whose sole purpose is to take out the the handle the complaints that originate in the school that may go out of the county, if the deputy that's working
059day shift is that a traffic crash, he's not going to cause the traffic crash. The complaint that originated in Boston, but is actually out in the county. And same thing, >> which is a complaint, it's not an emergency. >> It just depends on what Yeah, sure. It just depends on what it is, you know, and the nature of nature of the complaint. So, you know, the the sheriff's office is sort of the safety net for any insufficient coverage from city officers assigned to schools. >> Okay. I I was just trying to be clear that we wasn't leaving spaces that was empty without support. >> Yeah. The sheriff's office is the main support. It just there's there's all sorts of things that go into that as far as what sort of coverage there is during the
060day and where that coverage is assigned. So, I'll check into status to find out. >> Yeah. Is it because when Dusty talked to me, I thought it was he was looking at and I was under >> No, Jh. We'll check in. That's come time. That's right. You said that last. >> Yeah. I was under the same impression you were that it's not that was thinking about it was someone else >> and I guess my I completely appreciate everything you brought up. I guess we're I don't want to air on the side of saying no to an SRO and then have something devastating happen. And like I just said, I'm not even I'm not even saying I'm just saying as a group, whatever we we need to decide something to do. And I don't care whatever
061the group decides. I don't care. No officers officers everywhere. No. I mean, I don't >> right. Well, he has a lead. >> I'm I'm perfectly okay. Whatever the group wants to do, but we we have to make some changes. Uh I don't think we can feasibly on with everything we're doing in every way is all I'm saying. >> I think working on an allocard option for us to make those changes >> to make my my opinion that school resource officer is important enough that needs to be >> right and that's that's all we got to decide now. Do we not want a a counselor in every building? Do we not want a nurse in every building? Do we not want so many uh you know uh aids? Well, we got to figure out what we're
062doing. And there's going to be opposition to I don't care what it is that that we want to cut. Somebody's going to say, "Well, us and dandy. How come my spot or or my, you know, help or whatever the case may be, there's going to be somebody that thinks whatever it is we're going to try to cut is is desperately needed. I can tell you that. Nobody's going to go a couple extra people. Go ahead. Take them out of here. That's not understand. So I think based off I think there's at least four people that want >> Okay. So I'll contact Dusty and say follow up on that he has >> yeah if that person is still interested I can bring it back >> with some dollar amounts. Yeah. So we can make you know
063>> Yeah. Right. Right. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. Uh 8.7 the board agreements. So, we made some change or changes to our board agreements. Um, the changes are in yellow. Uh, Lori added a few. Lor's are in orange. And so, if no one has any issues with the wording of any of that stuff, um, I would we can vote on it next month. If anybody has any problems with any of the wording or would like something changed, just bring it up now. Otherwise, we'll move it to a vote for next month. two of those. >> Probably take your computer >> should be just one one. >> If you scroll down, um, if you see yellow and yellow >> and orange, okay, then that's the right one. That's the right one. >> The yellow
064ones are the ones we came up with at the training when the representative from the IASP came and helped us with the training and then Lori had some ideas to kind of clean up some language. So >> all right, no further discussion on that. We'll move on to item nine, action items. 9.1 is approval of the FY25 annual fiscal report. What's the accident? I don't see it either, but I think I think that that can be skipped because I don't think we have to approve that. >> Well, over from last year, >> but I think it's it's the form that we send to the state budget form. that we don't have done yet. Okay. So, that we'll move that one. No action on that item. We'll table that towards next until next month. >> 9.1
065um 9.2. >> Oh, yeah. >> All right. Jason Mson. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. >> All right. Motion carries. All right. 9.2 approval of 2026 school tax. We spent some time talking about this already. Is there any other discussion? >> Well, it's my recommendation that you do the second column on the right. The one that says 1.2% hedge. >> Y. >> It's that column. the 13,491,193. Correct. I would entertain motion to approve the school tax levy as presented for the 13,491,19320. Second. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Nelson, >> no. >> Smok. >> Yes. >> Frick. >> Yes. >> Gates. >> No. >> Bulmer. >> Yes. >> Lower. >> Yes. >> Mson. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. 52. press policies. Last month, we reviewed the press policy semianual update. Um, those
066policies will then be put into the big binder at the district office. Actually, they're filed online now, aren't they? So, I would entertain a motion to approve the press policies as presented. Yates. >> Sorry. >> Nelson second. >> Sorry. This is a first reading. >> No, this the first reading was last month. >> Okay. It says first reading. >> Yeah. Is this the second reading or first reading? >> I thought it was first. >> Well, usually first reading it would still be discussion items. There are no substantial changes. You're allowed Yeah. >> Where did I see those? Were they in the pack? >> All right. There's nothing that's pressing. So we can table. >> So >> we'll make a motion to table. >> Okay. So brick moves to table. There second >> private >> lower
067seconds. All those in favor say I. I. >> Opposed. All right. Motion carries. We will table that for next month. And then uh administrative reports here. >> I'll go first. >> All right. >> Um I'm going to prefer to be on the Olympic. I was looking up the sisterhip of the Titanic of the Olympic. It lasted a long time. So we're going to say we're on the Olympic. Yeah. So anyways, that being said, uh we had staff members go to the racing student achievement uh conference. It's mainly dealt with technology. Um there's little AI in there. Some MTSS um topics were discussed that's up in Chicago. Um so we have we have Miss Sessie, Miss Staker, Miss Thornon, and Miss Estus. Um I'm hoping they're going to be able to report to the rest of
068the staff on that January 5th afternoon time as to what they learned and what we can utilize uh from what they learned those sessions that they did. Um I'm in depth engulfed into in the uh learning how to do the accommodations for the ACT and the pre ACT 89 ACT and this is the second year of using the ACT I believe um or that format instead of the SAT that was previous for about 10 15 years 12 years. Um we have we have two students high school students graduating early um that were already approved. Just kind of reiterating that. Uh winter sports wise, I'd like to kind of give a little bit of word sport wise update. Girls are playing up in Jania right now. They're online in the chess. Uh they're nine and one
069right now. Um had a good game against uh Oliver last night. They won. Uh the boys I believe were 5-2 correct against Rock Ridge on Friday. And uh Scholastic School is going to be starting up in mid January. Uh wrestling big big big night tomorrow night. We have the community event. Um I believe it starts at 5:30 uh for junior high and high school. They both do the the uh wrestling meets matches um there in the high school gym. Um and it's community night trying to get a lot of people there. Um I did there's a link on the principal report for my section in regards to the new changes. This is the ISA. December is when they vote when when the schools vote and the ISA approves or goes over what all the schools
070in Illinois high school wise uh what to change to the ISA policies. Um if you want a paper copy of what how we voted um that I do have that um here also some of the changes that do affect us um in regards to softball is going to start earlier, a week earlier. Um we actually made no to that and due due to sorry due to the lack of inside space uh to because then you would have to start practice a week earlier and then it runs into also our multiport athletes uh have to figure out the end of the season for basketball and then going into softball. Um football right now coach Murray Mr. is meeting with the rest of the track uh ads in regards to they bumped up the they got rid
071of the zero week where you could do that practice game and now you're actually they're allowing more people more more schools into the playoffs. Um there was a scenario where we we would actually make the playoffs at two and seven. Um I know there's some controversy with competitiveness and that things like that were brought up. Um but this is in hopes that we have so in other words you have your first four your your first eight would actually have a buy when it touch rankings and then the rest of them would play that first week nine in essence actually week 10 and then they would they would finish off the playoffs. Um and then wrestling also girls wrestling would move up two weeks but that doesn't start till next year. The softball actually starts this
072year and then football would be of course next year. A couple other things. Winter concerts went very well. Um was very well attended. Thoroughly impressed with the artillies of our students and our teachers in regards to how they perform the art. We had uh a couple students that Emilyn Miller and Holly Brown received awards at the Festival of Trees High School Art Exhibit up in the Quad Cities. Uh that was pretty big accomplishment. A couple couple last things. FFA banquet was has been moved to Thursday, March 12th at 5:00. I think that had something to do with there was another FFA event on the original scheduled date I believe the week before. Um and then lastly, we are going through course cataloges for next year and in hopes to um get that all hashed out
073to as to what we want to teach next year and cover and learn. So that's all I have. Any questions for me? >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you for the for the junior high. I just wanted to highlight we uh when I submitted the report the band and winter concert were on Monday after But that was really well attended. We had that split on Monday. Uh 5:30 for our sixth grade band and choir and then our seventh and eighth grade was at 7:00 for our choir and just like the progress of Mr. Cornoff, Mr. Rles and choir like might be one of our best performances that we had in our building. It was really top what they were doing. So kids were pretty happy. I was definitely proud. >> Thank you. >> I don't
074have much else to add. Just if you want to take a look at our district and community relations, we've done quite a bit with that uh the past month. Um we had our winter music concert as well. Um thanks to the high school for letting us use their auditorium. We filled that place up six times. We have six different concerts, one for each each grade level. But it fills up each time and it's it's great to see the community there to support that. Huge thanks to Mrs. Reef and the students for their hard work. They actually learn to play instruments for that. Uh Mrs. Olsen, Kathy Olsson was recognized as WRJ teacher of the month. So I just want a huge shout out to her and WRJ for doing that. I think that's kind of
075a new thing this year and it's it's really really cool that they presented I think it was a scooters gift card or something. I can't remember what the prize was, but her kids all came up and gave her a hug. It was pretty neat to see. So, that was cool. Uh, Mrs. Norton already talked about our kindness club. Over 2,000 items. We know how certain families are hurting right now. Over 2,000 items. The food pantry was great. Took the community support to do that. People just bring stuff. We had an event donuts with grown-ups. We had over like between 400 and 500 people there um in the morning. So, it was neat to see that as well. just um I'm thankful for for the community support. It's great for our kids to be connected to
076the community and vice versa. We like have visitors in our building. That being said, it's two days till Christmas break. So, if you want to see Chaos and Crazy at an elementary building, come on over. We'll invite you in at any elementary building. But no, I don't have much else. I'm just like I said, uh real thankful for for all the community support that we get at the >> Forgot to say you got to ran out of donuts. You get more. Thanks for that. >> Zach threw me under the bus for running on. Uh well, I appreciate it. Thank you guys for the update. Um so item 11 is close session. We just have a couple of personnel items to discuss and that's it. Um so we have nothing else. I'd entertain a motion to
077go into close second. Is there a second? Gates. Uh, roll call, please. >> Smok. >> Yes. >> Frick. >> Yes. >> Gates. >> Yes. >> Bulmer. >> Yes. >> Lower. >> Yes. >> Mson. >> Yes. >> Nelson. >> Yes. >> All right. It's 7:42. We'll come back at uh let's see5. Enough time. All right.