001I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Welcome everyone. All right, we'll start tonight's meeting with a motion and a second to accept the agenda that's before us. I'll make a motion to accept the We have a motion. We have a second. I'll second. I have a motion. Second. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes. We have no one sign up for open form. Correct. Correct. Correct. Okay. Then we will move directly to truth and taxation. Robin. So exciting. I am. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board and public. This is the one time I get to direct you as well. Direct to you as well. So tonight is our lights truth
002and taxation public hearing. Turn on turning it on could help. Look at that. There you go. Look at that. All right. So the requirements for this meeting obviously as a public meeting needs to be between November 25th and December 28th after 6 p.m. which we are doing part of a regular scheduled meeting which we are also doing. It may be part of that. We're going to allow for public comment at the end. Um and then the school board may adopt that final levy at the end of this meeting which is also on the agenda. We're going to discuss the current year budget and then the proposed property tax levy. So, our agenda agenda includes background information on school funding, our district's budget for the current year, the school district's proposed tax levy, and then time
003at the end again for public comment. The Minnesota Constitution assigns the legislature the responsibility to set funding. And so, as a result of that legislation, our funding system is highly regulated. Uh the state sets formulas which determine the revenue which most of it is based on student count um and a few others are are based on the building age and then some actual dollars that are spent. Our district property tax system is very complicated. We have 39 pages of calculations with 40 different levy categories, two property tax bases, four different funds and two different taxation categories. Um, so tax levies are based on state determined formulas and some of those increases are revenue neutral and they're offset by a decrease in stating and I'll talk about that a little bit later too. But a change
004in levy doesn't always mean a change in the budget. This is a visual of our property tax timeline. You can see the legislative session ran from January through actually through June this year. Um then August through December, cities, counties, townships, and school districts we walk through our last tax levy decisions. Tax levies are collected during the 2026 calendar year. But the difference you see is a school district is on a different budget year, which you all know. Uh so we're levying now. We won't recognize that levy revenue until next year. Um but cities, counties, and townships will all recognize that in the calendar. The difference between levies and budgets are that preliminary levy is set in September. The final levy is set tonight in December. The school district's budget is approved in June for the
005fiscal year. And so what I'm presenting again is the 25k26 levy, which is revenue for the 2627 school year or next year. So one of the requirements of truth and taxation is to to discuss the current year budget. The Chicago Lake school district has five different funds. Three of those funds has tax revenue in it. The general fund, community service, and debt service. The levies that we're discussing tonight are for fiscal year 27. And that uh complete budget will not be presented to the school board until June of 2026. So, what we're going to review tonight is the budget for 26. Here you can see that budget that was adopted by the school board in June of 2025. Um, we're looking at about $59.4 million in revenue and $60 million in expenses for for the
006preliminary budget, which we'll look at a revised budget again this winter at some point once we have some more actual numbers in. This chart shows that the majority of our revenue revenue is generated in the general fund. So almost 81% and that's the reason that we talk about the general fund as much as we do. On the flip side, nearly 82% of our expenses are also in the general fund. So the majority of all of our funds run in and out of that general fund. Shifting to property tax levy. We're going to talk about the levy process comparisons from 25 to 26 and the reasons for changes in levies and those impacts on taxpayers. I see one sorry. Um so the state sets funding formulas which determine our revenue. They set tax policy for the
007school district. They set that maximum authorized property tax levy for us as well. And then the state authorizes the school board to submit submit referendum referendums for operating capital needs for voter. Again, you can tell by the slide we're highly regulated and the state sets most of our for policies. This shows our levy process and you can see in the gold there, we're at number six tonight with the truth and taxation hearing and the school board adopting that final levy. After that, it then goes back to the county auditor to determine that school tax levy for each property. This is the timeline again, just another way to look at it, the six-month levy process. So, it does we start in July and now we finally need to finish it up tonight. So, you've got the
008December 11th date there as well. I know this is really tiny, but I did hand this out to you so you can actually look at it as well. Um, these are the numbers that are calculated for the current year and then we adjust them to actual for prior years. In the general fund, you can see we're actually our levy's going down about $140,000 for the year. Most of it most everything in the general fund is based on um APU adjusted people units. Some of it's based on our building ages and then some of it's built are based on estimated cost which we um move to actual cost in the future years. I do have a fun fact our according to our levy our average building age is 31.1 years. It doesn't really sound right does
009it? Four of our buildings are over 50 years but they cap it at 50 years. Nothing. So, the high school will turn, it'll have its 50th birthday this year. The high school will be 50 years old. This is the only building we have that is under 50 years, but nothing goes over 50 in our levy process. A fun fact. Thank you for that. I thought it was a fun fact, especially with everything we're talking about with our levy as well or our bond. Um, and then on the flip side there, our change in state aid with our levy going down $140,000 in our general fund, our state aid is also going down. So, it's not covering it there. Um, by about $101,000 in those levy categories just because mainly our population is going down. Our
010enrollment is going down. Um, in community ed, the it's more based on the population of our entire district, which is 22,87 people. So, that's the basic community education, early childhood, family ed, and home visiting. They are based on our the kids that we have under five. We have 1,480 kids under five in our district at least that's what's based on here. Um and then our school age care that those are based on estimates and estimates that we start with and then they're move we move them to actual and you can see in FY25 we had a much smaller number because we had a negative adjustment in there for that year. This year we have a positive adjustment. So there's a pretty big swing in that program but they are based on actual expenses when we
011get to that. And these are for students at need or at risk. So great question that you ask me today actually. He just wants two boards. Um and then the debt service fund of course that's our our mortgage payment. So we're paying off our bonds in that. Um there's a swing there too. We last year we had a reduction in excess fund balance. That mean we had an excess amount sitting in there and so they showed it as an excess that would go back to our taxpayers. This year there isn't one. So there's that swing there. Any questions on any of these levies before I go on? I did that really quickly. Okay, again the changes why the categories change are due to enrollment, building age, prior levy, moving them to actual. So everything we
012start with as estimates and we end up changing them to actual um changes in legislation and then changes in that debt service schedule payment. So our bond payments that we have every year. So this chart shows the levy amount for the past five years. We're going from 11.535 million in pay 25 to 11.6 million in pay 26. Pretty steady chart right across there. And then in this one we showed that percent change from year to year over the past five years. The average is approximately 1.3% change over those years. Um but this year we have a much smaller than average increase of a.57% for page 26. So that's our increase this year. So, how can this affect a taxpayer's property taxes? There are many factors that can cause that. A change in your individual property
013tax, a change in the total value of all the property in the district, and then the increases and decreases um that I just talked about. Um and here, each property tax owner pays a portion of our pie. you uh your property values do not change uniformally across that property and the burden of that levy shifts from taxpayers with lower increases to those with higher increases. And I do have a couple examples here. If you had two properties in the district, both houses are valued at $100,000. Now, I know these are just simple numbers at $100,000 and the total levy would be $500. Each property then would pay $250. They're the same. It's equal across it. Then when you see some changes in that valuation, if the gold house, their value increased by 10%, but the
014greenhouse value increased by 25%. The school district still gets $500. There's no change to our levy. It just changes on how it's spread. So that gold house would pay less and the greenhouse would pay more. Very simple examples there. And then I always like to share that there is a Minnesota property tax refund if anyone is listening that they are available and consult with your tax professional to see if there's more information to see if you're eligible. You can get a refund if your taxes go up. So what are our next steps? Um the board accepts the public comments on the proposed levy if there are any public comments or if you guys have any questions as well. And then hopefully you'll certify that uh 25 page 25 property test. Anyone have any questions? Any
015questions for I did that really fast, but quite effective. Thank you. You're welcome. It's really not much different than it was last year. Our levy really did not change a whole lot. No questions for Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll vote on Yes. The uh later in the week. Yep. The actual levies later in the agenda to vote on. Sounds good. All right. So, we have someone here from to um go over our audit request. John. Yeah. Nice to see you, John. Thanks for having me. We'll just let you proceed when you're ready. Let's go full screen. Are we opening our links in order? Are we doing the annual financial? I just want to open up the presentation. The presentation. Yeah. The other ones are just there for your Sure. Okay. Google. Sorry about
016that. Okay. So, we run off Microsoft. Okay. So, sorry about that. I have to present this way if that's all right. But like Lori mentioned, my name is John John Statchel. I'm a supervisor with the district's audit firm, ABNDO. This is my fourth year, I believe, on the district's audits. I'll be presenting the fiscal year 2025 financial statement audit for the district. Before I forget, I'd like to extend a thank you to Robin and also to Lauren and everyone else in the district staff who helped us get to this point. And um yeah, so in this presentation I'll be covering the audit opinion and responsibility. So the audit results, some general fund results, also other governmental fund results, so the food service and the community service. And then a few key performance indicator slides. So
017to begin with the audit results, we did issue the district an unmodified opinion or you might think of that as a clean audit opinion, which is what the district's looking for. To arrive at that opinion, perform her audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and governmental account governmental auditing standards. This included obtaining and understanding district's internal controls, assessing risk, um performing procedures to test financial transactions, um certain account balances and disclosures. We also do perform testing on certain Minnesota VA compliance statutes. In our testing, we found no instances of non-compliance. Considering the district has federal expenditures over $750,000, that's what trigger triggers a single audit. We also issued an unmodified opinion on our single audit test on the child nutrition cluster program. So all in all it was a clean audit opinion from the
018district. Moving on to the first graph here. This is the average daily membership for the district for the past five years. So total student enrollment for the past five years. biggest takeaway that has remained relatively consistent for the past five fiscal years with enrollment dropping roughly 49 students from fiscal year 2024 to 2025. Here's an important tab. This is the general fund balances. So you'll note on the first orange line across the top, this represents the general fund budget expenditures for each year. over the past five years dating back to 2021. These range from 39.9 million in 2021 to about 45.2 million in 2025. Second, the yellow line shows the total general fund balance um expresses a percentage of those general fund expenditures. This percentage decreases from about 22% to around 16 to 20% and
019then increases to about 27% at the end of fiscal year 2025. Third, the green line. This shows the unassigned general fund balance also shown as a percentage of the expenditures. This increased gradually. This has increased gradually over the five-year period and moving from about 5% to just over 7%. And then finally, a key point to touch on is that gray band, which represents the board, the district's policy range of 7 to 10% to remain within 7 to 10% um of the general fund expenses. The key takeaway here is at the end of fiscal year 2025, the district is at or is within their um district policy of 7 10% at that 7 06% right there. Can I say something? That's huge and that's awesome that you worked so hard. I mean, I commend you guys
020for helping with that and we got to that 7%. We just need to keep moving on that. I do want to say that and I I think I talked about this on Tuesday, too. We budgeted to go up about $89,000 in that fund balance and we actually went up $172,000. So, it's it's not huge, but it was enough to get us to that 7.76%. Would you like to do a cheater? Little bit. I know. No, I get excited over things like that. Sorry. It's important to say yeah. It's a milestone that we hit. So that's really great. Yeah. Sorry. No, it's okay. If there are any questions um at all in the presentation, just let me know. You can stop me. So this table here is the general fund budget to actual activity. So the
021furthest left column are the final budget amounts for the general fund. The final budget called for a net decrease in the fund balance $1.1 million. You'll see in the middle column that's the actual activity actual activity for fiscally 2025. Actual activity increase fund balance in general fund by 3.3 million. The furthest right are those variances. Um revenues were just over budget due to revenues from state sources being more than anticipated. And then expenditures being under budget mainly due to the special education program and also elementary and regular and secondary regular instruction program expenditures. Sorry, just a second. Just not able to pull this up. Oh, that's okay. We don't need to be talking. I had an error loading document when it said error. Mine has a number two after it. You might not have the
022right document. I don't have anything on it. All right. Yeah. Do you want to look on screen at all? There's always there's bound to be sound. So technically, yeah, I do want to say too, we talked about this on Tuesday as well, that a lot of our reserves went up just because we had so many so much more restricted revenue this year and the expenditures were not, you know, we didn't spend them all. And um we also had an ability by doing this to assign some of these funds to plan for the future. So I'll do a little cheer on that. Thank you. But just to summarize this tab of this slide, overall at the end of fiscal year 2025, the general fund balance decreased by 3.3 million. Here's a comparative graph. Um these are
023the general fund revenues per ADM for students. We're comparing it to um last last was the year for the districts of 2024. Then we also compared the region seven which are nearby nearby districts to Chicago lakes and then also the 2025 or 2024 statewide averages. So all districts in Minnesota by general fund revenues we break it down by state sources. So revenues from state sources also federal and other other is mainly comprised of interest earnings and then property tax revenues. the district is within range for um state sources or comparable to region 7E and also the statewide averages while under for federal and then incomparable for other sources. Keep in mind our federal special ed money. Yeah. So we don't see that as federal revenue. So I mean it makes it compared to other districts.
024It is much lower but And then on the flip side, it is the general fund expenditures per ADM. So for students, this is comparing to statewide averages for the past four years. The district has been right about that 25th percentile and then below the statewide averages um slightly trending upwards too since 2023. These break down where the general fund operating expenditures by object, where they're allocated to for the past three years. There's not much else to really say about this slide besides the allocation has remained consistent for the past three years. And by object, I mean salaries and wages, employee benefits, supplies, and purchase services. Moving on to the food service fund. These are the food service fund expenditures per per ADM per students. Again, comparing the statewide averages for the past four years. The
025district um really for the past four years has been below that 25th percentile and then right about that 20th percentile for the fiscal year 24 and 25 with food um food service finishers slightly trending upward as well, but again below the statewide averages. And then moving on to the community fund or the community service fund. These are the community service fund expenditures for students. Um again comparing statewide averages. Again keep in mind that not every district is the same. They offer different student activities. The district does have the community center. Um so that's why the district has been above those statewide averages. Can I ask what's calculated in that amount? So is it like everything from preschool to everything that's fun? Y. So even if they go take a class any any of that. Okay.
026Y that's why it is a hard comparison too because some districts offer others activities. So or less more. And here's just kind of a snapshot of the district's outstanding general obligation bonds. So the end of fiscal year 2025, the district had 53 or roughly 53 million outstanding general obligation bonds. By 2017 um school building bond is set to mature or in February 2038. The 2018 bond um in 2033, the 2020A bond in 2030. The district still is obligated to make remain interest payments of roughly $12 million as well. And then that bar, those bars down below show the um principal interest for the next 10 years on those bonds. These are the cash and investment balances by fund comparing for the past three years. The cash investment balances have been increasing for the past two
027fiscal years and the allocation has remained relatively consistent. So by the general fund, food service, community fund or community service fund and debt service. Here's one of the key performance indicator slides for property taxes. The slide compares um three measures of school property taxes for the district, region 7, and then statewide averages. Property tax per ADM per students. The district is very close to the regional average while the statewide average is slightly higher. Statewide numbers can be influenced by districts with higher approved levies or larger commercial and industrial tax bases. The average tax per home and is higher in the district than the region or statewide. This usually occurs when the home values are higher when the tax base relies more on residential property. And lastly, the tax per $100,000 home value is lower per
028district in both comparison groups. A district can have a lower tax rate, but higher average tax bills if home values are higher. So, this is speaking specifically to school taxes as Yeah. on our property. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So this slide is similar to what I presented earlier but this is just comparing the general fund balances. So not unassigned but total general fund balances as a percent of expenditures um comparing to the region 7E and statewide averages for the past five years. The district is below region 70 and statewide averages from the past five years but also trend upward as we mentioned earlier from 2023. And lastly, these are just the elementary and secondary instruction program expenses. So all expenses in that program divided by um 80 by students. We're comparing it to statewide averages.
029Again, the district has been below the state averages equal 23 percentile um with costs in that program remain relatively consistent as well. And I believe that was my last slide and this last one just everyone who worked on the audit for 2025 Justin Nson being the partner. Yeah, sorry about that presentation too. Forgot the school is using okay and open up now for any questions you might have for me for Robin. What questions do we have about the presentation? What does everybody see when you see state average and you see shadow lakes? You look at the ADM for elementary and secondary regular instruction or the ADM for the first category which was expenditures. What do you think of that when you see that? Look at that. Like when I looked at the first category, general
030fund expenditures for ADM, it's almost $10 million difference. I think when you look at that compared to a We're doing a whole lot with a lot less. That's exactly what how I would sum it up. We're spending less. Our outcomes are amazing considering how far below the average we are on what we spend. It's a pretty simple chart. Boom. Boom. Right. There's a whole lot to it. It's not explained. When we see things on social media constantly and we see people say things or they they get their news from a national source and kind of compare Shab Lakes, it's really frustrating. What do you see when you you do these all the time? What do you see when you compare Shab Lakes and the myriad of other places that you see compared to the state
031averages as far as other districts that I work with? Yeah, I mean it's highly dependent on how the district's structured too, right? So, I mean, this district suggestes, but I work with a handful of other districts that, you know, that might actually be above that statewide average. So, I got to think sitting in that school board meeting is a little bit different than sitting in this school board meeting. Yeah. I mean, is that is that remarkable to you when you see how far we are below the state average? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's certainly No, it's certainly a positive sign that the district I think to me it looks like the district is fish under spending. Oh, could you call the newspapers? Wait, wait, wait. We'd be in a lot of trouble if we were meeting
032the state standards in this category. It'd be taken over. So, you think we're spending? Yeah, we were overspending our revenue. Yeah. I mean, we're over we're we're only spending a tiny bit less than what our revenue is is what I'm saying. And if we were spending what other schools are spending, we you'd have a different story tonight. Yeah. This is what I don't know. I mean, we sit here, we'll prove it, go through it, but it's just so frustrating to me to see this. Man, if we had nine more million a year, that something. If we were spending more, we would hopefully we would have more revenue to spend, too. So, yeah. Y I I just want to say because I had the question in case people are wondering when we're doing the district comparables
033like who are those other places? I actually pulled up your answers. I have here. Yeah. So like the 07 it's county. So those are our comparables. Those are the comparables. 6993. That's the region. 07. I didn't know what 07 was. Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that. That's the region. So in case people are wondering like who do we get compared against? It's just our county black county. Is this then posted on the website? Yes, it will be the the audit report all the stuff put it under the business services. Are there any other questions for John as he's standing up there waiting for our questions? Well, I just want to say I I actually like your response. I mean, because it's true. We spend dollars efficiently and speaks to that. Um, obviously the data says
034where the funding is at and there is a massive disparity there. Um, and I do appreciate your guys's work in keeping our district healthy in the best way we can. And that's hard work to do. And I can we're as healthy as we can be. And that's what an audit's about. But it also doesn't tell the rest of the story because I don't think we'd be going out for pods and levies and be in trouble, you know, constantly biting and cutting and everything else if we had a little more to spend. And so I'm not really disparaging that right. I just think about these other schools that don't have to cut constantly or maybe have really positive fund balances and still go out for levies and pass them. And so I would think and I
035don't know if you get into that kind of stuff. I mean from that sort of yeah information you don't want to join the political discussion. I probably should have teasing you. I do understand what you're talking about. Yes. I'll cheer for those. Yes. Certainly jumping from having a sign balance in the 7% within the district's policy, too. It's great. So, a new story to share. Yes, that's right. Public. That's right. Thank you so much for Yeah. Thanks for having me tonight. Y Thank you. Lauren's not here, but she don't feel pass. And don't feel obligated to stay the remainder of the meeting unless you would like to. My parents actually live in Forest Lake, so I might stop there for Oh, thank you. All right. Thank you everyone. Have a great night. Yep. Have a
036good Christmas as well. Thank you. All right. We will move on to communications. We do need a motion to approve that, please. Should we do the chair, please? Okay. We do need a motion in a second to approve the audit. I'll also move that we approve that. I'll second it. All in favor say I. I. Again, seems a thanks for the reminder. All right, we're back to Robin under communications. Yes. And I don't have the DBS report or the uh treasures report because we're going to have those in January because we don't even have many statements yet. But we do have the enrollment. Okay. Um and you can see Um, our enrollment went down three students from last month. I'm going to call that kind of stable, but unfortunately now we are below what we
037budgeted. So, we will take a look at that when we do a revised budget, kind of see where we're at, kind of see where we come in in January. I did hear a couple new students that are coming in this week and next week. So, hopefully we'll be able to bring that back up. Great. Other than that, I don't really have anything else. You heard a lot of finance already. You've done a lot of work, that's for sure. All right, move to with her student representation. Okay, was scrambling to write the stuff down because there's I guess there's a couple things going on. First and foremost, like winter sports have started off. So, fall season has like officially ended. And to be fair, it kind of ended back in November, but I wasn't really here.
038So, just in case you didn't know, winter is upon us. Yes. Yes, tonight I even think we have home basketball, wrestling and hockey, boys hockey our way. Dance has an invitational coming up. Gymnastics just had an invitational. All sorts of good stuff. So, lots of sports coming up. Um, same with activities. I know I speech and we have that kicking off. DECA started to get going on its competitions. Um, yeah, we no longer have the BPA club, so they won't be there won't be any news on that this year, but DECA is a safe home for all those business students. Um, in other news, student council has a couple events planned. The notable ones would be a winter monopoly. It's kind of hard to explain, but basically students can just scan QR codes and get
039prizes for free. anything from like a two hour or two hour two minute leave early pass so you can get out two minutes before bell to like a free blanket in gold star so nice stuff like that we've got a lot of community participation which is nice um we are also going to be having a prom dress sale in on February 1st so if you know of anyone that can drop off some dresses at the high school we'd be happy to take them from you Um, on Saturday the choir and band had a joint concert. It's called Christmas in Chicago. Every year it's always got rave reviews and people just love to come out and see all the music students. There were some technical difficulties as I'm sure you heard, but it, you know, at
040the end of the day, it's it's still good music and a lot of stuff. Fantastic concert. It was a great concert. Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. It was it was fun to do. Choir's got another concert on Monday. So, if any of you wanted to see that, drop on by. It's free. Um, oh yeah, we've also had some recent awards and I don't know if this would have been officially announced in November, but the Excel Award and the Triple Award have been announced. Um, the recipients of the Junior Excel Award, which is for community involvement, activities, academics, that's Remy Larson and Leia Carlson. So, they they get that award. And then the AAA recipients are for women and girl one boy who have outstanding academics, arts and athletics, excuse me. And I won
041that one instead of Ken. Next week is midterms, so people are kind of just gearing up for tests and all that. Then it's winter break. I think we're all kind of ready for it. Even though we just had a snow day, it's kind of like you did you get a taste and you're like, "Oh, that's that's kind of nice actually." you know, sleeping in, staying home. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Other than that, it's pretty much it for now. Just kind of getting ready for midterms and winter break, I'd say. Thank you so much. Any questions for Anukica? And we have added a junior member to our she had something tonight. Yep. She's the wrestling manager. Stick with those softball kids. They're very reliable. actually had nothing to do with K said a little update just about
042everyone being super excited for holiday break and that everyone's gearing up to have pause parties on the last day. So she'll be a wonderful addition she's hoping to be here in her January meeting. Perfect. Well, thank you for being here. Nice to hear from you and congratulations again on your triple award. That's Thank you so much. That's 7 o'clock tomorrow night, right? Yep. That's Yep. You want to see that whole announcement go down? Middle of the basketball game. I was gonna say in the middle of the basketball game. Okay. Well, we hope some of us hope to be there. So, congratulations. All right. We'll move on to board of committee updates. Our last meeting just so true. And our January meeting comes pretty quick, too. But um any we have a community. I mean that
043neither one of us brought her. So Jen's taking a second. Okay. Well, we're looking for notes. On the on the while you're digging, let me know if you find on the negotiations front um with our teachers union. We have filed for mediation. So we're going to move forward with that and hope that that brings us some closureations with teachers. So that's an update for other committees. We have a staff meeting tomorrow for those whoever can attend virtually virtually I think so too. You don't remember what happened at or if you don't have an update that's okay. Well I don't think there was anything real big just the basic the catalog came out catalog was coming their numbers are good. They're trying to add different classes. More lifeguards. Yeah. Yeah. Danny's done a really good job
044in that pool. We're up to 40 lifeguards. I don't think we've ever had 40 life and they're just trying to find other classes to for the adults. Forever young is going really strong. I haven't talked, you know, silver sneakers was part of that income and now that's supposedly not in existence. So from what I understand, we get to keep it like YMCA does not. So a bunch of seniors are coming over to our WC from what I understand because their silver speakers doesn't work in anymore, but it works here here. So that'll be good. And their numbers, you know, after school. Yeah. answer. Yeah. All right. Thanks you guys. Any other committee updates? Well, uh you and I went to the delegate assembly event for investigating policy. Are we thinking about legislative policy action to
045talk about maybe having their legislative committee or legislative platform? We have an unsigned the people we talk to at MSBA said it does it does make an impact when we reach out and they even talked to us about having our own board's platform about the things that we think are important so that when we do talk to our legislators we're sort of all the things we can be on board maybe well and even you know there's a lot in that policy stack we went through but if we just pick one this one we focus on this year. The ones that are easy to name around are the easy ones. The blue ribbon task force is this year and some special education. And I don't know about you, this was your first year. It's my third
046year. It's always fascinating to literally be surrounded by schoolboard members from all across the state of Minnesota and those who have written resolutions and just how there's consistency with some of the issues that come forward. And then there's some things that are unique to different areas in Minnesota. PSO was a big topic this year, just how smaller school districts are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars and they want to be able to offer the choice and flexibility to kids, but they're trying to put forth resolutions to perhaps regain some of their money um in that area, but there was a lot of argument about that. Not argument, debate. And so not a lot of those moved, but that was a topic we saw at least four resolutions on. Um what were some of the other
047comments that I I can't think right off? Yeah. But anyone wants to learn more about super fascinating that's okay. Thanks Sarah. Anything else? Okay, let's move on to the superintendent update. Mr. Deets, what do you have for us? Uh, I'd be remiss if I didn't start off by just acknowledging Robin, Lauren, and the entire business department for the work they've done. I think sometimes it's unless you're living in that environment. You don't know how much work it takes to go through and just get things prepared for an audit, let alone have fidelity through your district for an entire year. We've changed a lot of systems uh under direction leadership from Rob and her team as well which has helped us be more efficient and really get impressed up and do it the right way. So
048I know she'll never take credit for this piece. She'll always give to other people which I appreciate about her too. But I just wanted to make sure there was a moment just to celebrate her and her team. Um and I agree that what all you said today is that we should celebrate this. We've come a long way in a very short amount of time. Proud of all of us. on the board for your stewardship and leadership and helping us to make this happen, too. So, but again, just thanks Rob and to you and your team. That's outstanding. Um, I'm going to dubtail what Anukica said as well. There's so many cool things going this month. They're'll be going to a band concert in a little bit here when the meeting's done for eighth grade, but
049or sorry, sixth, seventh, and eighth. But there there's just a lot of really great events and I wanted to make sure we focused not just on the sports but like Monica said about the choir concert, the the band concert, uh middle school speech, there's so many cool fine arts pieces. So if people want to get a sense about seeing another side of our district, please come. It's amazing what our kids do. And um I had the great fortune of walking through it uh during my high school visit with Tammy, stopped in the choir room, listen perform. It's it's just outstanding. We have such talented people across the board in all of our sites. So really inspiring. Just looking forward to the sounds of the season as well. Wildcat Academy. Um we talked about this throughout
050the year, but it's really exceeding expectations. I just want to let you know again, grateful for the people that are doing this. Julie's been a rock star. She's our teacher in the program and she's done such a tremendous job to not just only steward the program, to love and care of her kids. and and you're going to get to hear a lot more about this. Sarah Schmidt and I are going to do a presentation and go over this stuff with you in January to work session to talk more about this and to make some future plans for the expansion of this piece. Good news, but also challenging news. Good news is always we're getting pushed hard from people. There's a challenge in that to try and make everything work, but it's a good challenge to
051have for us and just really excited about what that's done for us. And when you talk about some of the numbers tonight, those are reflections of also the success of that program that has made a huge difference for us. So, acce up on that. And then the last piece is you'll see a newspaper article probably next week in the paper about this general topic, but would be missing a point, but I didn't spend time just showing gratitude to the people that make this district. Um, our staff each day show up. It's a hard job. It's gotten harder the last few years. They just they're champions for kids and I just appreciate their efforts each and every day. Our students, it's really easy to get around our students and support everything they're doing. Today we're at
052a meeting with our county um sheriffs and police department and the agencies that represent Chado County and our principles each talked about what's going on their building, talking about successes, challenges, and just how we partner together. It was really neat. We got done with the presentation. They just said, "You know what? Sometimes at the county you see the back end but you don't always see the positives that are happening in the schools but they just give a lot of sort of praise for our principles and all the people that are in our district for the work they're doing. So I wanted to make sure I recognized again staff students administrators and our families because without our families and support they give us as well we wouldn't be here in this situation. We are fortunate to
053have five great communities that support the work we're doing and just again in this season of sort of giving and thinking about beyond yourself. I think it's a really important part just a congrats to everybody else that makes this place special. Thank you for your work as well. Appreciate all of you and uh thanks. Yep. All right. Um with that, we'll move on to the consent agenda. It's claims and accounts and personnel issues past meeting minutes. And we'll need a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to accept the consent. Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. The consent agenda is accepted. By the way, what your bank concert? Okay. All right. I just thought. Okay. No old business.
054We'll move on to new business. We do have some donations and um the Schaefer Fire Department $765 for Wbridge, Center City Fire Department, $1,275 for Wool Bridge. The Society PTO um is giving Primary School $5,760. The Lions Club is giving the National Honor Society $500. And then she cyber weeks PTO is giving Lakeside um $999, $1,984 for novels, 3,300 for adult month, and $6,000 for field trips. So so many generous people in our community give to our schools and we're always very thankful. So we'll need a motion in a second to accept the donations and then we'll do a roll call. motion to accept the donation. I'll second it. Sarah, can we start with you, please? Sarah, I Jen, I and Lori. The donations are accepted and very much appreciated. So, now we will be
055certifying the levy that um Robin just went through. Is there anything specific you need to tell us, Robin, before we Not really. There's no change to it from the preliminary levy. It was in September. So, you're just certifying that 11.6 6 million. No difference. Okay. So, we need a motion in a second to accept the final. I still move that we accept. We have a motion in a second. Any questions? If not, all in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. The buddies are Thank you, Robin, for all your work on that. Thank you. And then um we need an annual resolution for our combined polling cases. Michelle, is there anything you wanted to say about this? Um so we we did it for the February election, but this covers us for the calendar year
056of 2026. It's something we do every year. So it's so no changes. No changes. Okay. Any questions about that? All right. If not, we'll need a motion and a a second to accept our place. I'll make a motion to establish a combination. I thanks for Thank you. Okay. Um, and then we'll if there's nothing else, we need a motion. Second to I'll make a motion to second that. All in favor say I.