001I hereby call to order this committee of the whole meeting for Monday, March 16th, 2026. The time is 8:02 a.m. Will the clerk please call the role? Annart Kristen Castro here. Alison Pless here. Amy Paling here. Katy Hilton here. Judy Berlin here. Erin Stone. >> Thank you. I seek a motion to approve the minutes of the February 9th, 2026 Committee of the Whole and Executive Session meetings. >> I move to approve the minutes of the February 9th, 2026 Committee of the Whole and Executive Session meetings. >> May I have a second? >> Second. >> Will the clerk please call the role? >> Elson Pathless, >> yes. >> Kristen Dcastro, >> yes. >> Annne Hart, >> yes. >> Katie Hilton, >> yes. Judy Berling, >> yes. >> Amy Paling, >> yes. >> The motion carries. All
002right, we will start. Well, this morning, um, it appears we do not have any items for facility development committee. Is that correct? Correct. >> Okay. Um, then we will start with school finance, Mrs. Bailey. >> Great. And I will, uh, turn it over to Mr. Boltire for our audit reports and presentations. >> All right. So um two items this morning. One is D39's fiscal year 25 audit uh report and presentation. Same thing for Wixie. We have Anna Wizawati a senior manager at Baker Tilly to um present on the fiscal year 25 audit for both. Let me get get our slides uh ready to go. >> All right. I can start. Good morning. Everyone can hear me? Okay. Um, okay. Anna Zawati, senior manager from Baker Tilly. Um, I work closely with uh Nick Cav Cavalieri,
003the principal on the engagement. Um, we just provide I have a quick presentation, quick PowerPoint for everyone. We fiscal year 25 audit procedures are complete and our opinions and reports were issued on February 6th. Um, ideally, um, we would like to move up that timeline slightly, uh, with the SB's AFR deadline of October 15th. Um, I think Corey and I, uh, can probably have a discussion of moving up that timeline slightly. So, we are not here in February talking about the audit. Um, but overall, the audit went very well. Just to remind everyone of the scope of the audit, it's the annual comprehensive financial report, the Illinois State of Education, AFR, that's a regulatory basis, state form that is that is filed with with the state. Um consolidated year-end financial report, that's um a fairly
004new requirement and it has to do with grant reporting um as well as report on internal control over financial reporting and other matters. Um, as auditors, we call that the yellowbook opinion, and it's a requirement for every school district to to have that report filed um by the auditors. Um, district 39 was subject to the single audit um again this year and um we perform a compliance audit uh of the major federal program in accordance with the uniform guidance. In terms of the actual results, our opinions were unmodified and all of these deliverables that I just talked about, we provided an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. This is the highest level of assurance that you can receive from the auditor and it means that the financial statements are free from material misstatements and that
005they contain all required disclosures. We have also issued unmodified opinion um in relation to opinion um on the state AFR the cipher and the SIPA. I'm not going to go over to I'm not going to go into the fin you know the numbers the financials too much but I do want to bring up um the statement of revenues and expenditures and changes in fund balances. And the third line from the bottom is the net change in fund balance. Um the operating funds are on the left and the non-operating funds are on the right. Um the total change in fund balances that um was $745,000 249. The fund balances continue to remain healthy and um and overall um the requirement is that the fund balances are at least represent at least 40% of annual expenditure. So
006um in all of the operating funds the district meets that requirement or recommendation. In terms of the fund balance movement there were certain transfers that were approved by the board. The these are ongoing transfers that happen every year. This year the general fund transferred over a surplus of 1.5 million to the operations and maintenance fund. There was also a transfer of that surplus in addition with additional surplus from ON& and M to the capital projects fund to fund capital projects of 5,37320 um as well as a transfer from O andM to debt service to fund to fund the principed by the levy. Therefore, there is fund balance movement from the O andM fund to the death service fund. Next slide, Corey. Just one notable item from the AFR. The district continues to receive um the
007recognition status for their AFR U profile score that puts the district in the highest um category for financial health. And this is one way for ISB to measure, you know, districts um across the state and and look at the financial health and fund balances and so forth. district was subject to the single audit and again um we audited the special education cluster the idea program which represented $890,000 um of the 1.2 million of federal spend. Um we issued an unmodified opinion on on the major program and we had no findings, no compliance findings as this is a compliance audit. We look at different compliance requirements and the district um metal um requirements and we noted no findings for the single audit as well. So um the report on internal controllable financial reporting um it's a
008report that um every school district in Illinois is required to file with their single audit and um as we just to clarify this isn't an audit of internal controls. However, when we perform an audit of financial statements, if we come across any deficiencies that we feel are important um to communicate in writing, we would do so in in the report on internal control. Uh we noted no findings, no compliance matters, um no internal control related matters were noted in this report. Um similarly to for the joint special education agreement um there was an AFR issued um there with the joint agreement we do not issue a gap financial separate gap financials as as such the opinion is called out for that we issue an adverse opinion on the gap um and then we issue a
009modified opinion on the regulatory basis of accounting. We noted no um issues with internal control matters um as well and no findings, no instances of non-compliance. Okay. Does anyone have any questions? Board members, any questions? >> Yes, Mrs. Pathless. >> Hi. Uh thank you. I just had a quick question about single audit. How do you choose uh which program to audit? >> Okay. Well, um, we have to the district is so it starts with if the district is considered a low-risk oddity or a high-risisk audit. The district is considered a low-risk oddity. So, we have to test at least 20% of the federal expenditures with the idea being the program that you know gives us that coverage and we not noting any other risks with other programs we chose to test. So we perform our
010risk assessment and we we kind of evaluate what programs are risky or if if the certain programs received communication from the state that they you know maybe the state audited them therefore we would maybe pick a different program for testing but there were no other risk involved issues with other programs >> and does it change yeartoear typically? Um it's again it all the programs. So there's also like a type A type B threshold. I have to pull up the SIFA but I don't think the district has any type B programs. So we don't have to even evaluate them. If it had type B programs we would have to evaluate them and if we come to a conclusion that there are no risks. We would u move forward and you know pick the larger of the
011the largest of the programs. >> Thank you. other board members. >> Yes, Mrs. Hart. >> Um, yes, you just you mentioned um something about moving up the audit timeline. Can you um let us know what can you kind of elaborate on that? Let us know. Um >> yeah, I mean, whatever Corey's comfortable with. Um um I just brought that up because there are no extensions now for the AFR. You know, the deadline is October 15, although ESB doesn't. there's no repercussions in terms of you know late filings or anything like that. Um the audit fieldwork does not start until October, late October. Therefore, we issue so late. Um however um and I know Corey Corey prepares all of the approvals. He actually there's a lot of preparation that comes um for the audit. So I
012know he needs time to to get all that information compiled for us. But if if Corey feels that you know it would be beneficial to move up the audit and everything will be ready for the audit, we can move up the audit field work slightly, therefore move up the issuance date. >> Okay. >> All right. Well, um thank you and thank you to the team. I think although it's a 2025 audit, it uh results like this obviously reflect more than one year of work and it's really the you know consistent careful planning over time and the strong process over the years um that lead us to this point. So thank you all. >> Great. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> I just have one document to share with the board related to
013this. Um, pull it up. Okay. All right. So, each year once the audit has has been completed, we usually I've always shared with the board a like a one pager of like how did we do budget to actual. You see there at the top row, we we went in operating funds with a budgeted deficit of 2.8 million. And then as you scroll down towards the bottom, we finished with an actual surplus of just over 800,000 in the operating funds. I've listed out all the variances spread out amongst um you know quite a few areas. We tried to hit all the major kind of budget groups um across across all of our operating funds. Um you see salaries that was split amongst a lot of different um employee type areas. interest revenue was a really like
014strong year across the board um with almost a half million dollar positive variance. Uh we got special ed tuition that was 400 plus under. You know, when we set that budget, we kind of look at historically where have we been on the high water mark. It's one of those areas where especially when it comes to out placements, we don't necessarily control like the types of students that we have. So, kind of plan for maybe a little more on the worst case scenario. And then the the big one at the bottom, the transfer, that's uh funding our capital projects. So, um it's nice to see that we finished fiscal year 25 with a you know, positive variance and we're at 51.9%. So, we're we're in a strong position and as was Anna had mentioned like we
015had the highest rating for the AFR, continue to have that. I think we're 23 24 years in a row now for that. Um and then one of the other things that's always really important that is yes we want to have the numbers in the fin the audit be free of material in the statement but also like the controls that are in place which help prevent that. Um so for to have the outside audit firm be able to go through and and not be able to report that's always a goal for for our business office team. Um so anyway I just wanted to share those if anybody has any questions. Um, happy to answer that. Otherwise, um, it's all all we have for for both items. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, I just want to thank
016uh Anna for being here and for everyone at Baker Tilly and to Corey and your entire team for the stewardship and um, excellent presentation of all of these materials. We're very very grateful and recognize the amount of work that goes into all of this. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for having me and thank you Corey and the business office. I always forget to mention that. >> Thank you. >> Thanks Anna. >> Okay. Bye. >> Just to wrap up before we move on to the next item. Um so the at the board meeting then we won't be unless there's other questions that come up for board members. We won't have Baker Tilly come back. Um Corey will give just a brief summary and then the board will be asked to approve the >>
017the official audit at the board meeting. Um >> thank you. >> Sounds great. Okay, we are moving to strategy. Miss Stone is absent this morning. So I will turn it over to Dr. Kremcoli. >> Yes, thank you. I just wanted to give everyone a quick update that we are making good progress uh regarding our strategic planning. Um so far we have met with so many people across our stakeholder groups. Uh we're really grateful for teachers and support staff, parents and students alike taking time to join us in this important work and uh share their perspective of our of our celebrations as well as some opportunities for enhancement and continued growth. So, uh, so far I think we've met with, um, well, more than 600 participants so far in, uh, more than 50 different focus groups.
018So, some have been a little bit larger, others have been a little bit smaller. Um, but we're really just grateful for everyone contributing to this important work. Uh, our facilitator, Pat Greco from Student Education, has uh, been able to distill some of the themes. We have so many areas of celebration and we're eager to hear a little bit more about the areas where we might want to continue to invest in improvement efforts and um enhance the work that we're doing. So, we will be uh drafting a survey for our community um really targeting our parents and our staff members. That survey will be launched after spring break um midapprilish is what we're hoping. Um and that survey will really focus on refining those areas of priority work in these next five years. Um so we
019hope everyone will look for that opportunity. It will be a very quick survey. Um really just looking to prioritize um what areas we should really be focused on over the next several years. Um and then making sure that we didn't miss anything. So um we'll be inviting everyone to respond to that survey midapprilish. Um and we're well on target for um drafting our strategic plan and being able to present that officially to the board for approval in June. So again, grateful for everyone's uh support and contributions there and uh eager to continue this this refinement work. So >> any questions? >> No, no questions. And every board member had an opportunity to participate in a focus group. >> So great. >> You thank you board. And that that's >> that's all right. Fabulous. Um okay.
020So we are moving to public comments. This is an opportunity for the public to address the board on any topic. Are there any audience members that would like to speak at this time? Don't see any back there. Leo. Okay. Um seeing none, we will continue with the agenda. Old business. Is there any old business? Right. New business. Any new business this morning? All right. Um, then we need a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss collective negotiations, specific personnel and special education, individual student matters. >> I move to adjourn to executive session to discuss collective negotiations, specific employees, special education and individual student matters. >> May I have a second? >> Second. Motion having been made and seconded, will the clerk please call the role? >> Allison Paffles, >> yes. >> Amy Paling, >>
021yes. >> Katy Hilton, >> yes. >> Judy Berlin, >> yes. >> Ian Hart, >> yes. >> Kristen Cra, >> yes. >> Erin Stone, >> thank you. Motion carries. We are now adjourned to exe.