001moved into the air. We just moved into the area and I wanted to tell you that if you have any transportation needs that you need to get filled, we have extra drivers and extra buses and extra vans and we'd be more than happy to help you. So, I'll leave my card with Dr. Collins and I'll leave it with the gentleman there and if you guys need us, just give us a call. Thank you. >> All right. Do we have anybody else that wanted to speak to public comments in the audience today? Um, superintendent update. >> Yeah, it is officially the day when I jumped in the pool. So, we are back. I've had on today. Um, we're excited to see kids next week. We saw all of our new staff in this uh on Monday
002and Tuesday and we'll see all of our staff back on Monday next week. So, the first thing I want to do is just talk through kind of where the construction is at this point and then September we'll do a comprehensive meeting. They look amazing. So, we're excited to show them off. The playgrounds look incredible. And if you've had a chance to drive by them, I know right now we're trying to keep them still off of them. So, um yeah, just as much as possible so they can actually finish the work. Sometimes they they look like they're done, but they're not quite. But, um at this point, they will be all wrapped up in the next couple of days here. >> So, we're excited. I know has got an event scheduled actually I think on Sundays
003in the park. All right. So that'll be fun. Emerson walk through Emerson this morning. They're going through the punch list items. Teachers are starting to move back into their spaces. I had a chance to talk to some of our sixth grade science teachers. And if you remember the sixth grade teachers at Emerson for science did not have what you would science lab. So now they have prep. They have gas lines and they have all these things that they can do. So, it'll be cool to see what that what that does for their curriculum and then what they can do for the kids as they kind of bring things to life. Washington and Lincoln are both in good shape. Um, actually in both schools they held events there today as they start to get spaces back
004and open them up. I think you're going to be shocked when you see Lincoln some cases just because that school has been gutted all the way down and a lot of it has been rebuilt. So that'll be that'll be wonderful. Washington looks fantastic about it. of all of our schools still has the most work to do. Um, it's also the one that was just a little bit tricky at the front end because we kept finding stuff, same thing in Washington, that we had to think we needed to. So, we took every opportunity we possibly could to go in there and do that. There were a couple of situations where it was like, you don't fine, but you are going to work because We'll talk more about that in September once we have a better chance
005to get our brothers on all of those things. So, fuel will be ready to go. It's just a couple of days. The big items that are still missing, something's always going to go a certain way lockers. So, we're still hoping for lockers here in a few weeks, not a month, but they'll come before and then at field in particular, there's just a few other items that are back, excuse me, which are actually super important because they also screen. So, we have a good plan B in place for something that they can use. And then right now, Few weeks from now we'll have some doors too. So they'll be planning that work around when they can get in when the building overall with a project the size of where it's at especially with the buildings of
006where they're at. That's pretty gosh darn. So, very happy about that. Um, there's a lot of people that I need to thank. Construction is just important for everybody to remember this. It's always on top of the dom a big deal. So there's there's a lot of a lot of things that kind of build up when you're talking about a classroom. It's tremendous. Chris has done a great job of continuously updating the community, the website, a lot of questions with his current, you know, people fantastic at that. Um I think he's got a lot of ideas in the works how we can show off the polished better shape. Our construction workers have actually been doing the work. These people who typically work a lot of different sites. Um they have worked in some really hot conditions
007this summer. We just recently hats off to them because at the end of the day that is going to want to say thank you to all of our teams that are working on that architects there are construction workers potentially in the school right now there's a lot of lot of people doing a lot of stuff to make sure we're up [Music] as I was walking the buildings this morning every one of them they would instantly apologize like I'm sorry I know it doesn't the way you want it to look and everything. And it's just like the care and concern they have and pride that they take in their work. So that schools open, everyone's like, "Wow, this is a really great." They also know that they're getting up the second. So they are working very
008hard. I think my At this point, we're going to share this with teachers because I think it's important for them to remember by the time students start there for us to make sure and that's that's really significant. So anytime anybody of you see people as you're going into school children all the great work that they do inside the schools outside the schools all places but the project itself is very also technology our technology team has just been backfilling when they get a projectors up to figure out if there's electrical issues. They have to figure out other Wi-Fi problems and things like that. And they're in the same boat, too. So, both of those groups have just been doing a ton of stuff. Our principles have been thousands of emails and questions at this point. It's
009a busy time of year for them and stressful time of year once they say the school that my kids supposed to go to. I mean they get all kinds of questions at this point and I know that they are always doing it with a smile and patience and remembering that these children are these parents possession of the world that first especially parents going into this big next Um, so I want to say hats off and thank you to all of our principles, our leaders who are doing that, our teachers who are in the class, many teachers who are able to get in early. They're working really hard in the room because they just care so much. I want to thank his team had to be in a lot of the buildings to kind of backfill
010some of the conversations and discussions around make sense of some of the plans and maybe make some adjustments. So, hats off to Matt for all you done. It's a lot making sure that's up and running. I also in particular want to say a huge thank you to our new director facilities. He's been unbelievable like unbelievable. So, um, without missing, he's basically worked here for a decade. Like, seriously, like without missing a beat, he knows the school's already like the back of his head. He knows where everything is. Um, he has literally been in places at all times. Every time that there's an issue that arises that I might, you know, hear about, he's already got here's here's plan A, here's plan B. If this doesn't happen, then we're gonna do this. We got it. I'm
011like, cool. ton of work for Mike and just like those mainten weekends and so we see that acknowledge that and know that you're making a huge difference here and we're just really happy that you said yes to us and you're here. So, um, and excited to see like what you do now that you're kind of hitting. So, I've just heard nothing but praise and particular principles. Thank you. And then also to Brian too for all the work that he's had to do kind of the same thing like coming in with Mike and taking over in those meetings and Brian's doing more of the interfacing with executive teams and some of the decisions that they're making quite a bit. So, it's a learning curve for sure. You know, we're going through a lot of these processes.
012There's a lot of stuff that's very specific. So, there's many administrators who would never know it unless they've actually gone through it. Definitely an element of being a really fast So yeah, that's a long when you think about the amount of hours that add up to the first day of school in a normal year. multiply that by literally there's going to be some pat knowing what the schools were looking like in May and like for years they're in way better shape right and they'll be incredible to show off once we get to those community. So, we're excited to um have more of a comprehensive report September and they start to walk you'll be um in terms of so that's what the September meeting will go to and then you know we've got a meeting at
013Lincoln Washington because at that point we'll have everything turned over there and all the renovations the third floor I mean it's so much better. So it was so when you think about what it was before it was because now that you see what it could be you just have a completely different mind frame of you know people are just so normalized prior. So you know thank you again to the community for supporting these projects. I think they're going to help us out a lot in the long run in terms of our financial stability. I mean even when you walk into the of time. That's my report. >> All right. Thank you. Uh board committee, I think policy committ. >> Yeah. So, we've met twice. We met um today at 5:30 and then last Monday, which
014was August, I believe. Um so, with that, there'll be some policies for us to vote on tonight. Um so I'll go over them in terms of two ways. One were a set of policies that were part of our press updates um which are recommended changes um to the press to our policies based on changes that have happened. So they really circle around two different um laws. One that is about federal laws that reverted back to the old title standards um And so that that means that gender is no longer a protected class under our language about what title Niges of genderes faculty handbook or policies but this is just so that its law Um the second one was policy updates. Um you'll see this in several different policies because for both of these they touch
015different areas in our policies. Um but it was a law regarding um in the state of Illinois for pregnant students and students who are victims of domestic violence. So those are what all the updates in issues 1178 and 119 were other than like really small um kind of wording changes. Any questions about those before I go to the So then um the other one is about looking reooking at our transportation policy which is policy 410 and we made a change to that the previous board did in the spring to update and um the the language to go with what the press language was which made it really clear in black and white about who transportation was provided to. Um, in doing that, what we did was we reviewed language that said we were providing transportation
016to daycarees. Um, which was not specified about who that was for, what that was, where that was. Um, and that put our district in some situations where we were providing transportation to a lot of different places, a lot of different days. Um, a lot of places that weren't child care, but therapeutic in nature. Um, And so we changed it to narrow it be like really clear. In doing that we made, you know, we left out a group of preschool students that really need transportation to be able to access their services from district 64. And so our preschool program is about two and a half three hours long and not a whole day um with parents mostly being working parents households. It's really hard if you're not able to provide transportation for that student to somewhere
017before or after like the morning after for your student to receive those specialized services in their district. And so we went back to look at it um to make sure that our policy would allow for us to only transport preschool students because they have no full day option to a child care or you know center um before or after the school day um or both depending if they qualify for specialized transportation that the childare center could be an additional location still needs to be the same place every day. So that can be starting at home and then going to the childare center or childare center back to childare center or childare center then school then home but that would stay the same right so you wouldn't have all those things that I just said on
018Tuesday that choice for all five days um and the reason for us bringing that back to you from the policy committee is just again to make sure that our youngest learners um can have access to their services in district 64 and not be missing those services because they can't get here or they don't have anywhere to go after somewhere to um so I'm going to request that we pull it from the consent agenda um and ask that and for the reason of us seeing if people be comfortable waving a first reading tonight um so that we can adopt that polic change tonight because if we wait till the September board meeting, we have families who would not be able to attend and receive services that policy any questions or thoughts or Monica anything I missed
019there. So we're pulling the first reading both transportation just the policy for 110 the others we can do a first and second reading because there's not a and I really think like normally you know a first and second reading is like really good for good due diligence and making sure if we have questions on something to the attorney but I do think there's like a sense of urgency to make sure our students are able to receive the minutes that they're qualified for us so that they want to adopt to wave the reading. >> I move to remove the first reading of the policy for 110 transportation from the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Ranken. Yes. Kemple. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Yes. >> I move to adopt policy 410 transportation as written.
020>> Second. >> Do we and it's available to the public. >> But it basically contains everything that we discussed. And there is actually before we vote on it, there's one piece that I did miss discussing that it also contains and it's something we've talked about and I apologize for that. It's um the piece about the same place before would not that piece does not just apply to our preschool students. It would apply to everybody. Um and so that means like the same res but it means that like on Mondays you're not picked up in a different school. What do we doamilies have children the parents and then to clarify if a child qualifies for transportation within their IEP they can go to and from child care they can go to and from therapy Okay. The
021intention of the policy is to be able to receive their provided service district when they get there. There's a lot of other things in terms of what qualifies as a childare center. So, we weren't able to lure that we wanted to because we put ourselves at risk of not receiving transportation reimbursement from which we even the language specifically says childare um and the other transportation outside of that would have to be determined by an statement please correct me if I get it a student and they in their IEP um receive transportation services and they have one consistent place that they're going to. It doesn't have to be the stipulated child care center in the morning and home in the evening or vice versa. Then we will provide services for that preschool student who is receiving
022transportation services. Please come up and correct us. I think the only thing to clarify is that the deterine special transportation yes or no stipulates through IDA it's doortodoor um and that it's it's from door home to door school it's a little different than what that states wanted to make that clarification on what the Any other discussion? >> Ranken. Yes. Jacus. Yes. Kemple. >> Yes. >> Milligan. Yes. Double. >> On. Super. I think the most important thing that I have to do in my job is figure out how we can improve the academic achievement of the students and all of our students. that can happen of ways, but um it's it's always going to be my number one and I'm gonna have to figure out what that means for me as I enter into this third
023year and I've learned more about how this position can impact change for positive ways and sometimes how it's more on the support side. We're still kind of figuring out what that looks like and how to support the team with everybody as well and support the large organization. Biggest thing for me is trying to make sure that we're all going towards very clear goals and we're going the same direction alignment all the work that we're doing. Um so to that end and you're going to hear more about this um in particular from the student achievement section of next month's board meeting does her presentation we had a good year for student academic performance and our hope is that we can start to get going. So last year the goal was for 60% of all our elementary
024students to meet their macro targets and 50% of all our middle school students to do that and middle school students did a great job with that so well that we're gonna we're going to bump them up to all 60% across the district. Um and then relating to that where each building's going to complete what is the cycle of inquiry. So this is a improvement model. If any of you have done some other type of improvement processes the Probably the most popular is do act. It's a four stage model. Um it's pretty self-explanatory for the verbs, but this one is um one that all of us had training on. We still have another training process coming up. And I would say uh it was really great to sit in a room in July with all the
025principles and hear them talk about the ways that they would start to move their work forward in the building. This gives us a systematized process where it's pretty explicit for the steps that you go through and the things that would happen. The reason I think this is important to work towards is because it builds consistency in how we support our teams. So it helps the district office figure out where we need to provide support resources. It helps us also articulate exactly what we're moving towards and exactly how things are changing and improving. a lot of the criticism actually says I think this year we're going to work on this partic Not very specific. When I put the scatter options, one of the categories are actually evidence-based decisions. They help things that we are not working
026that we decide to stop working. So I love tools. I think they're very important for teamwork and for everything else that we're doing. Doesn't mean that we can't modify this simplify whatever have you. It's new for our team. at the end of you all heard me say this at the end of the year when I was kind of capitulating for my goals and saying we're kind of trying to figure out what our workout is going to be right this is not a this is not a hey I just want to get I just want to get healthy I just want to lose weight right people say that all the time so what's your plan for doing that oh you know I'm just gonna eat better I'm gonna exercise and um yeah I'm just gonna stop
027doing a couple of other things okay no chance it's gonna happen right that's Honestly, that's kind of what it looks like in most districts when you're talking about improvement. You know, we're gonna like teach better and we're going to have our kids, they're gonna because of that, they're going to learn better. And I'm being facitious, but a little bit that's kind. Therefore, we're going to make sure all of our teachers understand and know exactly what that thing is. We're going to give them the support they need their instructional cycles. We'll start to focus on that more specific teachers are working with students who have gathered the And I still think we have a ton of work to do but that also overlaps with it just because we have to get better at the process itself.
028You know someone told me once the most important thing about getting healthy when you're actually going to say I want to get healthy I would just ask how many times That alone is probably so there's that. The last one is the middle school instructional model training that Samantha's going to be working on and leading with Tessa and Dave. Um that also gives us an opportunity to really rethink what learning could and should look like at the middle school level now that we've got time some of the other things that moving towards Matt has also made some work with some of our technology CT teachers and I think that's going to be a big source of uh conversation in the coming years at this point a lot of our kids are using AI for a lot
029of different things we have Gemini now for all of our leaders which is just trying to get more of that figure. So there's a lot moving in that regard too. We can move some of that stuff into the September presentation especially with Samantha being a little bit further along in the training just we can talk about kind of models we look at how that would be I think shared a metaphor with the team two weeks ago it feels like now it was a week ago where I said you know some of our work example just because you're remodeling a kitchen doesn't mean it's going to taste Right. And so we're going to do all this work for middle school instructional model. We want to make sure that it's not just the exact same that we're
030still there aspects working. We want to find out what those are down. So how that stuff gets supported there's still sitting in my mind kind of being worked out. There's a lot of time that we have involved with our team across the board. I think Samantha's presentation follows and then in terms of the strategic planning process is going to be really But I think also really it has been fascinating with organizations talking to some of my colleagues. I've watched a lot of board presentations on this work as well. To just kind of get right to the point, I think you heard me say this before. We've got a mission in our school district that has four words in it that we often throw out as a model that I think we can all get behind.
031We've got a vision that is weak and doesn't help us at all. And I think now is the time to really seize the day. And so we did some visioning work with our leaders and not only the overall vision but just work across all of our goal areas recently. It was just our first draft of probably once we get in process that'll be really important to guide that. So we talk about for instance our community engagement. did an example of what we really think the vision for community engagement would be in our school districts and then what what are those things that we think are the most important things how do we take measurement's of those things to understand how we're doing right now you hear my community engagement report there's some data that I've
032added there but I don't know if it's necessarily the most effective use of my time sometimes I most effective use of the commun that we have or the work that is doing other partnerships that'll be a lot of things to explore with our values statement like Samantha was doing all she had quite a few times but it wasn't like the next kind of missing component are the things that we's a lot lot of follow to do there at the education meeting. We are going to bring a partner for education on September 11th that will hopefully then come and talk and they would help work with us on the strategic planning process and then for the next what kind of measures are we those coming in here saying each one of those goal areas to follow
033in the schools for each department as well. We had some good examples of the conference that we were at July of all over the country that had done this protocols talked about their payroll about something. So we want to want to find ways to just improve and measure and these are the goal. Sorry about that. The first one is student and we'll be looking at here's what the strategic planning process if everything went great in January 2025 we all met with the cabinet team on that Saturday it's helped us at least frame some of our conversations a little bit even though I wouldn't say we've really hire a partner at the September. So there's a lot of potential focus groups that we could do. There's survey work that we can do. There's also a lot
034of internal study that needs to happen always and at the conference we were at the person speaking she was like I don't hear a bunch of doctors go out and ask everybody please tell me what do you think we should say how did you feel when you left the hospital think sometimes ask the wrong questions of the people that it serves and it doesn't honor the people. How do we know there's probably a good way to balance that communicate both sides the board will have a huge role in that we'll have a lot of conversation about that still I strategy number one. Taking care of tax dollars that we have given to us. We built a 30-year capital maint do best we can balance your partic the period contract. You know, I've got all these
035on here as if they're equal. That's clearly the piece on there in terms of time. It's also the largest part of our budget. So, figure out how that works once we get to the financial piece of that. And then probably we're going to do that. Our goal would be at some point January to eliminate our timeline. future. Can I ask a question? Um, I think we've talked about kind of refreshing longterm financial projections. I know I see the like updated 30-year capital about next year. I think there's probably two ways we can approach like longterm financial predictions. one is to try to tackle it as part of everything else because it's all interconnected. Another way is to punt it until we actually go through the strategic plan because we kind of need that to help
036direct you know what the direction I don't know if you put any thought which I don't see >> my thought would be we need to do some type of financial projection this year because of contract negotiations We're gonna have to lab. >> Yeah, I imagine I'm making much But I order next year. So maybe it's just maybe This was a slide that I used for all of our leaders in terms of these are my best representation of the year on the left negotiations and they'll be optimistic and we would hope that we would wrap that up by January construction in earnest in January when really excited to show you some of that. It's a good set for the work. So process work. starting with student service action plan. So at some point it's going all
037I think we're gonna have a great school year but I am really excited particular There's just a lot of everybody knows what they're doing. I think the good part about that is there's a lot of good discussion that we're having that's forcing some things that we haven't talked about yet or need at the end of the day. >> It's going to be ongoing all year. I think some of these will be things that take place over the course of a longer period of time oriented to go throughcess I think you're study over the course of something I would say on the best part of it process that's kind of that's why why this is intriguing to us there's a lot of training that I don't But we did a training together. There's an action item
038associated with present. I move that the board of education approve the superintendent goals as presented tonight and agreed upon. Milligan. Yes. George, >> yes. Klein, yes. Day, >> yes. >> Ranken, yes. Kemple. >> All right, the fun part. Budget meeting. Um, as Brian and Phoebe are are coming up, I I did want to introduce Phoebe Wood to the board. She is our new director of finances, and she has been awesome in the couple of weeks that she's been with us so far. Uh, and, uh, I think her the elevation of her position and the work that in her background and the work that she does in her experience, even just some of our conversations already, it's going to impact this budget presentation. It's going to impact a lot of the things that we're doing. So,
039we're excited for her to join the team and look forward to her being here. And Brian, who has been with us for six weeks at this point, jumped right in. Uh, they'll have a lot to explain here. This is a different budget presentation from a style perspective what the board has seen before and I think really wanted to do that. They wanted to kind of jump into, you know, the preliminary budget for that we're now think >> first off, thank for the opportunity to be here tonight and the opportunity to be here in District 64. wonderful weeks for many many years here. Um I before we get started too, there's also some other people I want to thank before we dive into the budget. Um I'd be remiss not to thank Adam and Larry. They
040did a ton of work on this in last year other positions, but they really did put it in a good spot for us coming in. Um we worked hard the last six weeks to get up to speed and I think there's a lot of people sitting behind me here and other people in the district that also contribute to this budget process. It's not just a two person job. Um there's a lot of collaboration that goes into a school budget and you're going to see later on just kind of how long that process takes and really it's a never ending process if you do it correctly. You're always making revisions looking at it trying to analyze how to improve things. So, um just want to provide just a little bit of my action button is working
041down. >> That's a sign of luck. I've heard >> all right this is the only slide I have actions. I promise. So, I want to provide a presentation over of how we're going to structure this because this is a little bit different than what you've seen before. Um, and really the first thing we want to do is we know in addition to us being new, there's some new members on the board as well. So, we want to just take you through kind of the next year of what that looks like for school finance and really specifically just the budget and levy. So, tonight we are um talking about the budget, but we want to take you kind of just through that general timeline of the levy. We're going to talk more in depth about the
042levy later on. Um, you'll see that the timeline. So, we're not going to go in depth in that tonight. Um, and then after that, we want to talk about kind of the current reality. what what were the preliminary results of last year? Um it hasn't been audited yet, so they're not official results, but we have some general ideas and some trends and things that we want to look at. Uh and then talk about kind of the short-term future, which would be our 2526 budget. And then really um even in the last six weeks, we've identified some things that we want to improve. Um it'll take a deeper look at maybe that we don't know everything about yet because we're just coming in. So we want to talk about um the future planning. So um that's
043kind of where the presentation is going to go. So without further ado, I'll kind of dive right into that that timeline that I put together for you here. So right now we are on the left. I tried to color coat this the best I could um to kind of go along with the main kind of three phases. And right now we're kind of in the middle of one so it looks a little strange, but we are in August where we are completing that tenative budget review. It's going to be placed on display for 30 days. We're going to put up on the website tomorrow morning. They'll publish notice of the the public hearing in the paper as soon as we can. And then in September, I think September 18th is the next board meeting, way
044back here for the formal budget hearing and the budget approval. And after that, we will file that with the ISB and then also post on the website for the public to see within 30 days. And then in October, um we will start prepping for the levy. So the levy is when we kind of establish what we are looking for in terms of tax revenue. Our tax our tax revenue is about 85% our local tax revenue. So it is a big deal for us to do that and do it well. Um we hear more about that a little bit here as we go on. But we then present the levy in November, the preliminary presentation, much like we're doing tonight with the budget. Kind of set that date for that hearing again in December. That's when
045the levy hearing takes place. Board approves it and then we file by the end of December. And then really um the process for the budget you're hearing about today started last January. Those of you that are not new on the board remember that. There's a board resolution that gets passed in January that officially kicks off budget season. It's a very exciting time. Um, and then really for five months, that's kind of the the main collaboration period where we're reaching out to everybody trying to figure out what we need to support our students and our community the way that uh that we want to and the things the ways that the things that align with the strategic plan or the goals of the district as well. That and then um June and July we're really looking
046forward to next year because we really didn't have that this year. Um, but that's the time we can really presentation and get things ready and start taking a look clos. >> So I'm going to do the look back, right? I want to talk some about what happened in fiscal year 25 or school year 25 depending on which you want to look at. Um, so one thing Brian mentioned it, but I want to remind these are united numbers that auditors are scheduled to be here the week of August 25th. So they will be here in just a week and I can't believe it's good news. The good news is the um balance for the operating funds did increase this year by more than $2.1 million. So that's that's important because as the superintendent mentioned, we need
047to continue to increase those fund balances so that we are ready for a rainy day. Um now this slide shows a summary of all of our funds. Really here we're looking at fund balances. So you've got it shows the beginning balance revenues and expenditures for 25 transfers we had and the ending balance. Now as you can see on this slide because it includes all the revenues the increase is drastic right we're going up 48 to $99 million. Now that is really primarily due if you look at the capital projects line primarily due to that capital project you see the beginning fund balance in capital projects that $10 million was really mostly due to the $10 million working cash bond from fiscal year 24. Um then we sold bonds earlier in the year. um that's where
048that large revenue figure comes from. And the $21 million in expenditures, obviously that's not normal. That doesn't happen in your average year, but that's all of the great work that's happening and the school buildings. Um and you'll see then the ending balance is almost 57 million. Now, sort of remember that for later because that 50 million 57 million fund balance um we're going to obviously this year. Right. So, our expenses for 26 are going to be more than our revenues in that fund. >> Um, >> before we go to the next slide really quick, I forgot to mention we did do some updates to our presentation this afternoon. So, if you need to refresh some of these tables, they look a little different. We did find something that we wanted to change. We had some
049funds included in the operating funds that we should have pulled out for the operating funds. We adjusted those tables so they are accurate. Nothing's changed in the overall projections or all the fund balances. Just wanted to point that out in case you We still have to slide just includes our operating funds and operating funds are really more of what represent what we use on to run the normal business of the district. Um as you can see though here this shows if you look at the total fund balance that increase of more than $2.1 million in fund balance and Just reminder, this does not include the referendum. Um, this increase, I'm going to talk a little bit about how important this increase is. So, the board policy indicates we need to have a fund balance of
05030% of our normal expenditures. Um, and that's about 110 days. As you can see, we have made a nice big increase this year um from the help of both the referendum and from that additional $2.1 million in um in the operating funds. But this is really important because of property taxes and that we don't know often when those are going to come in. So, we need to be able to continue operating if property tax bills go out late like we believe they will this year. I'm gonna hand it back over to Brian to start talking about the budget. >> Yes, we're talk about 2526 budget and I know there's a question about the bonds that is of course revenue that we are expecting this year for the next issuance of bonds. We'll get to that
051in a second. Um but there are some considerations we need to think about and um the first is just this you probably heard about if you've been on the board before the CPPRT. If you have not been um subject to school finance, you probably have no idea what this this is, which is okay. Um essentially, it's a tax that was they used to tax corporate personal property back in the 70s. They took that away. Some of that money used to go to schools. They essentially did not want to take all the money from schools that was going from that tax. So, they implemented this corporate personal property tax uh replacement tax to offer to schools as well. So, that money is is technically issued by the state, but it flows through our local sources. counts
052as local. Um, and just to give you an idea, uh, in fiscal year 24 that was $3.8 million. Um, and and in fiscal year 25 the actual was 1.6 million. So that went down and that was expected to go down. Um, I'm going to talk more about that in a little bit, but essentially um, we have gotten less than we were projected to get every year the projections come out the last three years. So I'll I'll hit that kind of too in our summary. We also have limitations of the tax cap. So we are in because of the property tax extension limitation law, we are a tax cap district, meaning we cannot tax or increase sorry increase our taxes by um are levy by CPI or 5% whichever is lower. So for this year it
053was 3.4% that comes out in January. This year it's a 2.9% that's going to be on there. So that opportunity and revenue is something that has been going down the last few years. anticipate we'll get that trend there's an uncertainty in the level of transportation reimbursement from the state um I looked I just filed our transportation claim yesterday for this year it's due tomorrow so one of the many things we had to learn but it looks like last year we only received 84% of what we claimed it used to be in the upwards upper 90s just a few years ago I was at a conference the other day with some other CSPOS who are more connected in this than I am right now and they were anticipating it could be mid to lower 60% of
054your playing this year so that's to consider. So, um, and again, um, there's a calculator that you can fill out to to calculate that and I filled it out and this year anticipated claims about 1.3 million. Then there's a disclaimer on the bottom that says they won't have the actual number until December. So, what's driving the state? So, actually, uh, the state froze the transportation the bucket for transportation is frozen and transportation costs are going up. So, as a result, um, there's just less money So actually learn that from we've been working with Rob Gy as well on this budget. He's kind of Brian some insight on he's one of those guys that's very connected helping us with some questions that um there's also some federal graph funding uncertainty um just with the nature of
055kind of way grants are being frozen and unfrozen seem seemingly unpredictable. So we want to account for that and also I think it's important to note that we have been receiving interest revenue from the referendum bond. So there was those that original 62.5 roughly million dollars of bonds. Those have been earning revenue for us. So we anticipate that's going to be over $3 million in revenue just in interest earnings which is great but those eventually are spending those. So that's going to be less and interest rates are probably going to go down. They are trending down now. So um when looking at the projected operating fund revenues for fiscal year 26 um you look at last year around 92 million. We're predicting 96 million right now. Uh that's a that would be kind of a
056$4 million change in revenues from year over year. And then when you look at u sorry >> could you talk a little bit about the property taxes and what you why you think it's accounting for the increase? >> We still need to dive into that a little bit more. Um I know what the the bonds kind of pull out of this. Um, you know, that was one thing we had. We just got some feedback from Rob. We're gonna circle up from tomorrow to see if that's accurate. Any other conclusions when you looked at the data? >> No. Um, I will say these were um the revenue estimates were received. Luckily, Adam and Larry took care of those for us before we got here, but we're we're diving into the data and trying to figure out
057where some of those came from and whether or not we need to do any adjustments before the final draft in September. Can you give us 30 seconds on evidence-based funding and what it is? >> That's the state funding level that we get from the state every year. So, they come um and kind of they calculate out. Uh we're a tier four district, so we we receive very little of that evidence based funding because we have such a supportive tax base here that can support us. So, there are school districts where that makes up a really high percentage of their funding. We are not in that situation. They did just come out with that projection and it's very close to what that is there right now. Yeah, there's four tiers. Tier four is the highest percent
058GSA GSA. And so everybody thought that was fair because >> it's like a bundle of state aid that used And it's based amount that's not good and I'll I'll touch on that too at the very end. There's a slide and I've got some more data on the state's evidence based funding this year and the kind of the increases that we've seen over the years this year. Any other questions on this? So this is the all fund revenue and what's really different here is you look in that column for other financing sources. So that's $65 million of other financing revenues that was the bond issue last year. So that includes um there's a a premium that goes on it when they issue that. So that is actually it does cost more than what what the bond
059is uh sold for. So we have $30 million budgeted in there for that other bond issuance that do in February this year. We're hoping we'll be working on that. Um we got our first meeting here uh in a few weeks to start working on the planning for that kind of make sure that we're on to that on time to get that revenue. So if you see that decrease in the bottom right corner though that is a planned total revenue decrease. because that's sorry. So just a visual where we get our revenue 85% of that is local taxes. So we rely heavily on that and right now you guys probably have noticed but you have not gotten your tax bill yet unless you got it. I did not. Um but the state is behind and they're
060anticipating until school receive that this year. So that's why getting that cash on hand is super important for us. >> Um so I'm going to talk about some of the major considerations that um took into account when doing this budget. Um the first is that the district went through an in the spring to really reduce some supply budgets in order to redirect funds to support capital. Um we know that you know the community has invested in this district. We've got a massive building project and we need to longterm be able to support that project so that we're maintaining these buildings um after they are improved and that costs money to do it. So we're really trying to redirect those funds to provide a long-term capital uh solution for building maintenance. Um in addition, the district
061talked about a special ed students um some of our special ed students in house rather than contracting out to other districts and other companies. Um so while the overall budget will be a slight decrease for that we will see some increases in salaries and benefits um but a decrease in the tuition and services that we're paying to other districts. Um obviously we're seeing this huge expenditure increase for capital projects. We also have run into higher levels of statement than we anticipated. So we are continuing to work on that and we may change in draft two of the budget um based on some estimates that we get over the next couple of weeks. Um obviously then we going to have debt service payments. We have a debt service uh schedule for the next 30 years. You
062know that shows exactly what we need to be paying in princip. Um, we also like every other organization see a continum so capital fund or the debt service. Um, if you notice the very bottom, our total expenditures are projected to increase about 3%. If you look at the top line salaries, those are projected to increase about 3.6%. Teachers raise this year for contractual raise for this year was 3%. Um, and then we're figuring some additional staffing especially to support the special ed program. Um, as a whole though, the increase is about 3%. You will see some of the other objects are um declining other in this slide it's they are dues and fees and like tuition to outside districts. They also include uh principal and interest payments on the debt. So you don't see that
063in this slide because those are in another fund. Um but you will see them in the next one. But so we anticipate a decline though in dues and fees and tuition for outside districts. It's so the actual >> are unodited numbers. If we look at the prior year the expenses were approximately $650,000. Um so we are not certain yet. That is one of the things that we are exploring why the figure in 25 is low. >> That was one of the questions we were anticipating that we answer for yet that we had as well. >> So we are we are looking into that and trying to figure out because it was budgeted lower last year too. Um it looks like so we want to look into why that was last year there was like an
064abnormality with a payment was made when due to this next slide is the same information that for all funds. Um so you can see again this drastic increase in spending but it is other than the small increase the 3% increase on the last slide these are all due to the referendum. Um the referendum payment the dues and fees the principal and interest payment that's all in the um other objects. If you look capital increase in purchase services and capital are all for the um for the referendum project services are things like architect fees contract management fees as best. So while that's why it's not all listed in capital, some of those are split out in purchase services to increase that. >> So those are the principal and debt pay uh debt service payment. So that's
065what that's what that increase is. >> The first payment was June 1st that we And then this is a comparison of operating and all funds expenditures. Um if you look at the left hand side the operating budget we spend about 81% of the budget on salaries and benefits which is so when we when we have negotiations when we do salary increases obviously that impact that has a big impact on the budget. Um the all funds expenditures since we are including the referendum those those uh big expenses in slide obviously shift more towards you see the big increase in capital and in other expenses in this one. >> All right. Now we're going to tie it all together. We talked about revenues and expenditures kind of separately. You want to put them side by side. I
066think overall the key point is we anticipate it's going to be a balanced budget where we are going to continue to grow our operating fund balance. We know we're going to have to increase expenditures because of the referendum projects and a lot of the payments actually that we for work we started last year really started getting paid in July which is this fiscal year. So we're still paying those bills from this summer this fiscal year. Um when you look at the overall um operating fund balance you can see here I think right now this is probably an optimistic projection um our projected uh bending fund balance right now is 43,586,891. We do have some refining we need to do with the budget to kind of get that a little bit more accurate. Um and we
067need to look at those revenues and some of those expenditures in the operating funds. We know we're going to have some increased costs. For example, the asbestous Pho already mentioned that's one thing that we need to look at. Um and then we also want to take a look at um our benefits a little bit closer the next month. We have other teachers and things like that and staff members that are still getting hired right now. And the way we do our budget is position budget where we look at each individual person. Um and just an example of where that might fluctuate is just in the last couple weeks we've had students who then need one to one TA services provided. So we have to go out and hire those and that increases our our FT
068our teaching assistance. So just something to think about. So really when we come in in September I heard it should be much more firmed up and we'll have better projections for a lot of these numbers. for the transportation line. The transportation revenue I'm guessing is state reimbursements, federal reimbursements for students with any fees for some students. >> Yeah, we charge and then the paid writers also as well. So net we actually have a is that correct to read that like we have a net profit from our transportation net line >> based upon projected revenues. Yes. I would say that our expenditures were lower last year than we anticipated. I would say we need to probably watch our transportation expenditures this year and kind of see what happens over the course of coming months. Yes, it
069looks like right now based upon what that revenue projection is, but there is uncertainty with that. >> Go ahead. >> Just uh I'm seeing the numbers, but it's not computing with my uh understanding of where I think transportation costs are. So, I don't know what the question is, but >> Okay, we'll take a look at it before. >> No, I'm not doubting the numbers. It just um It feels like if we know if we know transportation costs are getting higher and we know that reimbursement at the state level is shrinking in terms of percentages and federal reimbursement is going lower and paid small percentage. All of that together tells me our revenue shouldn't be covering expenditures. There's for me feels like we should just do a double click. >> Yeah, we definitely will. We're definitely
070this is definitely a tenative budget and those are things that we're going to look at a lot deeper. >> Yes, thank you for synthesizing. >> I guess going I have a similar question because it looks like it's $300,000 more in revenue for transportation this year than last year. Um I went back to school on that. Is that 4.7? I know there's been different estimates the state says they'll give us and then what they actually give us. So is that 4.7 million based on what it says they'll give us or is it based on like what? >> I could check that as well if you're referencing the previous one. They're not matching because I did make some changes to these and I could have >> Oh no, it shouldn't match. This is fiscal year 26. It
071just looks like we're going to receive more money this year. which was surprising to me given the decrease in state funding for transportation. >> Yeah, I don't have to go back and look at because well, one thing I I mentioned I just filed the claim yesterday. I they made this projection for transportation revenue back in the early spring um before a lot of this came out and we did not I did not go in since yesterday and adjust this because this presentation was largely done. That's something that we need to do. And I honestly just filled out the transportation projection worksheet about 11 o'clock last night and made that projection kind of where we were at the data for you. So, um that is something that we're definitely going to look at more to come.
072More to come more to come uh overall fund balance. Um if you look at the overall total fund balance again this is all due to the um the spending that we are having the projects going down from 99 million overall to 64 million in the total all fund balances. And then there will be some spending that's going to occur. A lot of those projects that are happening next summer, a lot of that spending will happen actually the next fiscal year because we'll be paying for that work most likely July, August, September. There is a payment schedule with actually about that too. to make sure I know like as these projects are are scheduling like I know we have a meeting next week with one of our vendors to talk about final pay. Yes, we will.
073We have to check the because >> this slide doesn't include transfers because we do make transfers between funds usually at the end of the year future planning. Um just some things to consider. So we mentioned that CPI continues to trend down. Ironically, three days ago, the state of Illinois said that it's actually going to be 2% up, but I have I am cautiously optimistic with that and we kept our projection going down >> just because what was that? producer price today. >> I did not increase every day. >> Expenditures CPI continues to go down. The CPPRT or has gone down something that we have monitor regularly. The interest rates for investments I mentioned before are going down. State funding uh the EVF um the state every year since 2020 has increased EVF by a flat
074number of 350 million. That is up until this year where they are only increasing at 307 million. So um again that's that number that percent increase is likely to go down especially for us as a as a tier four school. Um there is no increase for state reimbursement for transportation. led early childhood education state for this year and really the overall uncertainty of the federal funding for schools as well. I think just some local factors to think about that we kind of talked about a lot of these so I'll kind of go through them quickly but uh the ongoing capital projects do the referendums we know the return on investments is going to decrease as we start spending those funds we do have the upcoming bond issuance though 2026 for that there are upcoming negotiations
075with pri I know we talked about the the financial projections earlier and we actually got some data that the that contract one of the reasons that we want to be so careful that it is with the salaries and benefits that's about $53 million of our operating budget which is about 58 and a half% of our total operating budget. So that's just something to think about that we need to be cautious of or aware of as we go into negotiations. Um and then Ben already mentioned an expiration kindergarten tuition setting figure out what we're going to do to offset those things. I think these are just some questions that we've come up with and really a lot of this work has happened the last few weeks when Phoebe came on board. We buckled down and looked
076at this budget and we have many questions we still want to and we look forward to next year when we're have a much firmer understanding of the certain projections that were made. But we want to know like where is our return on the investment the best in our budget. Those are questions that we're always asking. How does it align with the strategic plan and how will it change with the new strategic plan? Um how do we continue to support that $4 million allocated the 30-year um capital maintenance plan? And based on our multi-year budget trends, are there areas where we can budget more efficiently and accurately? And one of those areas that we've already identified is benefits. Um I mentioned before the hiring of additional teaching assistants recently, but just to give some data behind
077that. Um I forgot to write down here, but we have our our benefits were um off by I got another sheet. Give me one second. Last year we budgeted 12.4 million. We spent 13.7. we've identified as a target area for us to figure out that more. So those are just some questions and kind of the the direction we want to take in moving forward. Obviously we know we have some questions that we need to answer before the next presentation in the next for the public hearing. >> Any other questions? >> Ryan, I may have missed this but if you could just refresh my memory or repeat it. Um yeah, >> when we looked at our projected fall revenues for 26, the federal revenues, which I know we expect to go down, what line items or
078which was that based on is it based on things that we already know about or is that based on predictions? >> I think it's based on things that think are going to happen. Those are projections also that were made before we we arrived, but those are things that we are anticipating um could It could be higher is higher potentially happening special education and I'll have to go back and look too to see if that I don't know where that how much money I didn't look back last year in this district or not a little bit title one >> a huge bucket. >> Yeah, we could I think budget just for us to have different scenarios of like what are our federal buckets? Which ones do we already know have been spoken about about being cut
079in terms of certain state is not going to receive and then will not distribute. Um and then which ones are we consider you know thinking that we'll most likely lose And I know that's not under our control, but just knowing what levers have and then what impacts it resources in terms of materials like what are some of those things that we would be able to make up in other parts of our budget or some of those things? Another comic does come into the school districts. >> There's still a lot of uncertainty around that. Another reimbursement. So lots of ts I think I saw that we said that we I don't know if it's a policy or a goal% increase it goal or Yeah. So that that would be something right now would be one of
080your measures. I would say some type of targeted by school districts. How much% you can't just read it It's like your 75% I think having a target for that would be good. So it's just a flexibility. work on those questions. We had resolution. >> I move The board adopt resolution number 1,347 to approve fiscal year 25 tenative budget and establish the public hearing date >> let me try that I move that the board adopt resolution number 1 1368 to approve the fiscal year 26 tenative budget and establish the public hearing date >> rank yes double >> yes >> milligle Yes, >> that's next. >> Yeah. Next. So, next we have the uh the natural gas contract. So, um just a quick summary, our natural gas contract was um expired back in May. Uh was not
081renewed. Uh we are looking to renew that and kind of set the rate. We do use a co-op to go out and bid that for us. We had three biders as of a couple days ago. It looks like one had dropped out as of a few hours ago. They come out every day and those rates change. Um previously we did a fiveyear um kind of set rate. This year the person that we are using to help negotiate those rates recommended a one year and that's basically because of all the work that we're having. They base it upon your usage the previous year with our new equipment that we're going in thinks we will get a much better rate next year. If we just wait till next year to do a long-term rate do a oneyear
082natural gas agreement set that so we have some fixed pricing the winter. I move that the board approve the contract with the lowest responsible vendor on Friday morning for natural gas service at all district buildings for the period of September 1st, 2025 to August 31st, 2026. Do we need to say which Friday morning >> friendly amendment for August 15th? I move that the board approve the contract with the lowest responsible vendor on Friday, August 15th, morning of for natural gas service at all district buildings for the period of September 1st, 2025 to August 31st, 2026. >> Double Day, >> yes. >> Kemple, >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Um agenda there is other than the transportation policy discuss >> I don't want to pull out anything but I have one question about the approved transportation policy.
083Um, is there a communication plan to get that out to the families affected now that it's been adjusted and it will affect people in the next couple weeks? >> So, right now it only affect >> that sounds like a good plan. The principal knows there's otheries that would be >> I move that the board approve the consent agenda for August 14th, 2025 as presented. >> Any discussion? >> Ranken. Yes. Temple. >> Yes. >> Jacus, >> yes. Klein, yes. >> Yes. >> Anybody have any new business? >> All right. motion. >> I move that we recess into second >> everyone. We'll take a break.