001559. Please join me for the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with all. Welcome everybody. We're glad you're here. All right. Um, we will need a motion and a second to accept the agenda for tonight. So move. Second. Motion to second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same time. The agenda is accepted. Um, no one has signed up for public comment tonight. So, we will move directly to communications and our director of business services and will give us some updates. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. I do have quite a few on there, too. Um, the first one is enrollment. Um, and we did put we did add in here, you can see class sizes as well,
002you ask for that before. So, it's only at the elementary levels, but those are the easiest ones obviously to look at, and you can see the average class sizes off to the right there. um staying within our constraints that we try to stay within. But um our enrollment Wildcat Academy is helping us. We have 27 students enrolled in Wildcat Academy right now and that's keeping us above that 3,200 students. Without that, unfortunately, we'd be below it. But so that's where we're at right now is 3213. And I appreciate the way you broke it down into residents and non-residents. And I see we have 342 non-resident students. Is that state about the same? Um I cannot take credit for this. This is Michelle Candid's report that we just pull. This is where I pull my numbers
003off of. But yes, she does. She would know if pull that. I can look and see where and if I put this curious. Yeah. No, no, but I can look that up. That means since I've been here are open enroll in and out as per state. Okay. I had a question about Wildcat Academy. So the 27 students that are there, they're there fulltime like they've signed up for the year, but then there was one person that's going to start later. So they there's actually not going to be three. They're going to start second term. Okay. So that they just weren't prepared to start right away now, but they're going to start second term. And yes, it's comprehensive. We want a comprehensive program. So that means you're going to the cat academy and you're all in
004for the tag year and for a full class. Okay. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Um so there you can see it broken down. There's the other sheet that I This is the norm the one I usually gave you. I just added in Wildcat Academy. Um, this shows our graph. Obviously, the dot at the bottom is where we're at in September. So, we are starting quite a bit lower um this year, but that's kind of what we budgeted to be at 3200. Um, the next one is preschool, which we only show at the beginning of the year because Dan gives us the number of what we're starting with. We're at 199 to start the year at preschool. So, a little increase over last year, not a lot, but a little bit. So, that's good. We'll take a
005little bit. Um, then let's see. That's enrollment. All my reports in mine. Um, so this is the monthly update. We didn't do a graph this time because the graphs are still kind of goofy at this point because we're not that far into the year. Um, this is the revenue and expenses. So, I kind of want to explain the difference between the DVS monthly update, which is revenues and expenses, and then the treasures report, which is cash. So, I'm going to show you both of them just so we can show cash investments. But this one, um, keep in mind we still have a lot of audit adjustments to happen yet. Um, we're working through that. We have a lot of receivables and payables. But if I were to give you an example, so let's say we
006got a state aid payment. It's going to show up in our cash on the treasures report, but it might be last year's revenue because it's a receivable. So it's not going to show up on this report. So the difference kind of between that revenues and expenses and cash. Um little general fund is pretty much right on for the year. We look at food service, their expenses are a little higher right now, but we purchased an oven at primary school and an oven at Taylor's Falls. this summer. So, that's a little bit higher there. And then at the bottom, an auto adjustment. You can see community service. Our revenue seems a little lower compared to prior years. And that's that deferred revenue adjustment, which means that we took money in last year. Let's say you bought
007a pass at the WCC or full pass, but it's for the whole year. So, we're going to keep just a few months in last year and then defer the rest of that revenue into next year. Look at all that, you know, accounting 101 you guys have. Um, but that's where that shows. We just haven't made that adjustment yet. It's just one of those audit adjustments that has to happen. Speaking of audit, our auditors will be here September 29th through August 2nd. They were here one day last week. I do believe Lori got Did you speak to him? He called me. Yes. My phone wasn't working. I missed him. I called him back. So, we're playing a little. So, I don't know if he called another board member or he'll just reach out to me. Yeah.
008And like I said, they'll be back September 29th through October 2nd. Um and then October 22nd to the and the 23rd. And we also squeeze in a trio audit in between those dates too. So we throw that in there as well. Um so if you look at the treasures report then I'll show you ahead of me. Um this just shows where our cash is by fund across the top on the on the bottom there you can see the investments that we have we have invested and then off to the side is our bank reconciliation. But I do want to point out too where it says MSDLAF at 4.14%. That is the percent we get on basically our checking account and then below that is the max account and we get 4.24. So we're getting really
009good interest rates just on the max account is more of our savings account. So it's also liquid where the CDs are not liquid. Those we can't take out until the due date. But we are getting some really good interest rates just on our savings and checking account there. Any questions on finances before we get to the budget calendar? I said I threw a lot of accounting at you there. The outstanding amounts. Those are outstanding checks. Just out. Just like when you do a bankrupt. If you do your bankruptcy at home, I don't know if anybody does that anymore. We do here. Um so the budget timeline uh we've talked a little bit about this throughout um this week at the study session as well but the yellow highlighted are the schoolboard meetings. The white highlight
010the white ones that are not highlighted are the stud board study sessions because we kind of changed it up where before we were having finance committee and we've changed that to the full board. Um and then the blue is more administrative. So that's where we start as administrators to start meeting with each other trying to figure out what we want to do for budget next year. We have our state of the district presentations in there in February. Um and then we meet with each of you as board members in February, that February, March timeline. Keep in mind this is just a guide because I had to make some assumptions on when you're actually going to have board meetings in 2026. That could change a little bit, but I did pick the third Thursday of each
011of those months. Any questions on that? Okay. Um, let's see. And then I just want to I feel like I need to say that, you know, yesterday we said goodbye to a longtime Chicago Lakes employee, Jack. I'm sorry. Um, but he worked for 43 and a half years. You know, that was his entire career. And so I just felt like, you know, he sat behind the scenes and I just wanted to recognize him. He was the first person I worked with here. You know, I had Jack and Marilyn in my department and they're both gone now. So, I just need to say that public. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And that's all I have for you. All right. Thank you, Robin. All right. We'll move on to the student representative update. Welcome back. Thank you. Glad
012to be back. What do you have for us? Okay. So, for like sports this fall so far that I know of, volleyball is doing pretty well in conference. We're got a pretty solid team this year. They've been winning, losing some, but like it's I think they're headed in the right direction. Football has not gotten there yet. But they also, you know, it's like the first half of the season. JB had a win. That's about it. But homecoming's tomorrow, so wear your green and gold. Whatever. Cheer them on. Hopefully it's not stormy. Um, what else? Uh, soccer. I think they're doing well. The girls team's been pretty good in years past. Boys team is also like kind of 50/50, but you know, still very fun activity to watch. As for other things, uh, fall musical has
013just started to get going. The cast list is posted on Instagram and the website and all that stuff and it's going to be a really great show. We've got some fun like props this year. We'll have, you know, the big head and that's the wizard talking and some like dry ice for like smoky effects and fire stuff like that. Very cool. That's just what we want to hear. fire. Well, either there's a way you can do it with like steel wool that steel wool can burn, I guess, or there's like this little birdie popper. I don't know. So, that's going to be a really cool show this year. The Wizard of Oz. Um NHS is helping out with uh tackle Wait, what was it? Okay, this year for the tackle cancer like fundraisers, I think
014it's a combination of student council, NHS, and grid iron. So, like football. Mhm. We're all kind of like pitching in to do these like there's this thing called the penny wars and then there's the typical stuff that NHS and Red Iron do where they just go around asking for money, but this year we're doing a penny wars. So students are encouraged to like you drop pennies in your own grade or you drop dollar bills in your own grade and then any silver coins go against like your score. So the more pennies and dollars, the more like points you have and then the more silver coinage you have less. So, currently 10th grade is winning by a lot. Someone dropped a $50 bill in there. And it all goes to like cancer research. That's pretty cool.
015A lot of that is here. And you can't let 10th grade. I'm teasing. I wish they wouldn't, but I they're pretty secure in there. there. No, we there was like a graphic and there was like a graph of like who's winning and 10th grade was out like 3,000 and every other grade was like 500. It's like you know we'll compete for second. It's fine. What else? Earlier this week it was a coronation. Uh Elliot Oddland and Jacob Crabo are the homecoming king and queen this year. So they've, you know, the homecoming court's been doing some fun stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think that's about it for what I know. Thank you. Yeah, of course. We'll be in touch with you about our plan for getting a junior on board mentor and how maybe you could
016help spread the word and so I'd love to. Okay, perfect. Well, thanks for being here and I'm excited for the Wizard of Oz. Me, too. All right. Um, moving on. Do we have board committee updates? different committees I have met. I know Brenda and Jenna spent a lot really like talk. Um Brenda and I had a very early community ed morning meeting this week. So I got to that was the first one I had been to. So I got to meet all the players and hear about ECF all the way up to the Forever Young activities. And it's just nice to hear all the things that are happening out, you know, not just in the schools, but outside with the rest of the community. Yeah, it was good. It was good to hear all the
017things that they're thinking and what they want to do going forward. It's always a good positive group. Like it's always it's never like a drag, you know? It's always pretty positive. Well, and I I think her name was Courtney from the county. hearing how they're partnering to do do things for the community and going through. So, it was real positive. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. They got a big grant for mental was mental health. Mental health. So, they're going to be reaching out to the school to see what they It's a pretty big grant. Yeah. Any other committee? There was a scrap meeting. The only big takeaway is register for the forum. It's coming up fast. October 14th. I heard that. I think I did. And met last night. Okay. Um and one note when they
018came down here is that they have a security summit. Um it's a separate thing at the Brown Event Center. And uh what what I understand they do is they have both the cyber security side of it and then they also have physical security side of it as well. Um so if you guys have time might be interesting. It sounds like the different districts from that are a part of that might get together and it sounds like there's some opportunities for discussions and for brainstorming ideas see what what's going on what can and from my end um just uh we've continued to um negotiate with our teachers union and so that'll be ongoing and we're actually going to meet at some point and go over some financial things so we can going to be on the
019same plate in fact, but those are moving forward. All right. Um, Superintendent Deetsz, do you have an update for us? Yeah, a few things just wanted to go over. I mean, start of the school year. It's it's really been a great start. Been in every building and talk to staff and students and it's just been a really nice start to the year. A lot of good energy, especially as you hit homecoming week, as I talked about too, it just it just swells this week just positivity. So looking forward tomorrow. My favorite part I think for especially elementary kids, you watch them in the hallways, the parade and having the band just come pump the music in. Oh, that gets jacked up for the rest of the day. We love it. I know, right? So, no,
020but it's it's just a really cool time. I'm really appreciative that program is a little bit earlier this year because I think just it's a good shot of adrenaline in the arm to start the year off. Um we started actually our eighth grade mentor program today and we have about 25 students are participating and we have about eight Rarians that are being the mentors for them. It was awesome. It was such a good morning and just to see the dialogue we you know just so you know the structure really quick it's a 30 minute program of some type of topic and then after that we have time just for them to connect with their mentors. It was just really neat to see the interaction and the Rotarians that were doing this were just so just
021excited. They talked. We had a meeting afterwards for lunch as well and they just were like this is the best thing ever. It gave us a shot of traveling for our lives as well. Feel like we're giving back to people. So we are just excited about where this is going to go. There'll be a program every month. It'll end at the end of May with celebration for the students that are involved in the program. So that was really cool. uh next month, you know, just for the general community, we've been working really hard since May to make some finals decisions on what we're going to do on the bond. Problems don't go away. We have to come back out and address these pieces. Feel like we've had some really good discussions and been very intentional
022about making sure we've heard people and we've come to the list of things that we feel like we can do and really meet that need, get this work done. So next month's a big month where we're going to take some of this stuff up to the board level and make some decisions and move this process forward. So more to come on that and we have to end on this note too is that I just want to make sure that you know there was a little message for board meeting started about board member appreciation and I just want you to know from my lens that how much I appreciate you and the work you do. It's hard right now in everything we do in this world it seems like and these jobs are not easy. So,
023thank you for the commitment you make to show up and do this work. Thank you for just being around and available for kids and for our staff members and for all of us as well. We just we couldn't do this without you. Just really grateful that you know we have a great board and I'm very proud to tell people that this is a great place to be and you guys make a huge reason why that's the case. So, just thank you. That's kind of you. Thank you, Brian. Okay. Um, we'll move on to the consent agenda. I would first like to pull out a contract for Doug Berg, my husband, because he is helping um by providing training services at some of the events for Jody. So, could we pull his contract out and vote
024for it first? And I'm going to abstain and then we'll get to the rest of the consent agenda. So, um, we need a motion and a second to accept the contract for Doug work for athletic training services. Also move to accept contract. I'll second and second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. I obtain. That motion passes. Okay. So, we'll move on to the rest of the um consent agenda, including things and accounts, the other personnel items. There's quite a few of them. certified agreements, extracurricular agreements, and then just a category of other agreements. So, we'll need a motion in a second to accept all of those as well. I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda. We have a motion. Do we have any further questions about the consent agenda? If
025not, we need a second. We have a motion to second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. Consent agenda passes. All right, we have no old business, so we'll move on to new business. We do have some donations. Uh we have a donation for boys soccer in the amount of $1,000 from L as well. Girls soccer, $1,000 from L. And then some playground swims um from the Taylor Falls School Foundation in the amount of $1,250. So, um, I'll take a motion in a second and then we'll do a roll call. Since this is donations, I'll I'll make a motion to accept these donations. I'll second it. Sarah, could we start with you on a roll call? I Jen I and Lori I. The donations are accepted. Thanks to the people in our community
026giving these donations. We are thankful for each and every one of them. All right. Um it's that time of year where we need to set our levy limitation. Um Robin would like to talk to us about this. Yes. Well, thank you madam chair to the board. This is the preliminary levy um that we're setting right now and normally what we do is or what you do as a board is uh approve the maximum and what that means is that we if things will change because I will tell you right now MP is not this is not final. I don't think ours is going to change pretty very much. I'm pretty solid, but I know there's a lot of districts I've talked to quite a few today that are like, "Oh, this is wrong and ours
027and this is wrong and what are we gonna do?" And so, they do give us until September 30th to get the actual number in there, but we're at a an increase of 0.57% right now, which is almost zero. Almost zero. Um, but I don't think it's going to change very much. So, what I'm requesting from you as a board right now is to approve that maximum. So if there are any changes um we can make those changes. I did give you kind of what happens what's happening right now in each fund and you can see the general fund is going down by 2.33%. And most of it there is due to our decrease in enrollment because that's going to affect all the numbers. Um community education is going up. It looks like a big percent.
028It's not a huge dollar amount but the main increase there is a change in school age care and that's an adjustment for a prior year. And then our debt service fund is staying pretty stable at 1.85% increase. Robin, is there more uncertainty from the Department of Education this year than other times? Um, I would say right now for them, they've had a lot of retirements. And so they're also struggling to hire people. So they don't have a lot of people in these areas who know exactly or they haven't even hired them yet. They're like, "Oh, somebody's starting next week, you know, in the lease levy area." And nobody's ever done that for, you know, it's been the same person for 20 years. And so, they're struggling in the same place most people are is trying
029to get get staff. So, they're, you know, they're doing the best and but we talked about it today. Do we change, you know, did they change the timing on this so that we can, you know, boards can get these approved? So, you're asking us to approve the maximum on our preliminary levy and then I'll bring back all the details. Obviously, when you approve the final levy in December after that truth and taxation presentation that I'll do for you as well. Do are there any questions for Robin about this? We always since I've been on the board, we've always the maximum just to give people in case. Like I said, I don't think much will change honestly because I've looked at every every number in that 39 page document. I don't think much change. Okay. If
030not, if not, we need a motion and a second to accept the preliminary money. I'll make the motion to pass the I'll second it. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. Again, same sign. That motion passes. Welcome, Jeremy. We're gonna talk about our snow removal agreement. Um, are there any parts of the agreement we need to discuss? Any changes we need to discuss? Um, no, not really. I just want to let the board know that we did go out for RFP, which is request for proposal. We received two proposals. One was obviously from J&H. Um, the other one we received was from Spaded Landscaping. Um, you can see J&H's proposal was 725. The other one we received was 164420. So, Obviously, we want to accept um the proposal from JH.
031And I'd also like to say, Jeremy, I just I hear from so many people across this district who just so appreciate you and I want you to hear that because, you know, we have this huge campus of buildings and people know they can count on you and you've been so fair to the school district. So, we just appreciate you. I just wanted to stop in and say thank you. I'm I know fewer and fewer every time I come in. Yeah. I just haven't met a lot of you guys, but I just want to come in and say thanks for the business for 22 years now, 23 years. Well, you provided good service, so we appreciate it as well. And it's it's been my way to give back to the community, try to keep pricey low.
032So, I went to school here. My mom worked here. Kids went to school here. And I want to mimic on that, Jeremy. Anytime you are called, you are there. Thank you. Because being an outside sport person, I know if something goes wrong, you're gonna always be there. So, I mean, it might take me 30 minutes, but you'll always be there. Thank you very much. Yeah. So, this is the snow for two years. You're right. We don't ever get to see it. We will I know work on the long hair one next. That's our That's our next objective to work on that. So, so this is a two-year contract with it as well. So, all right. So, we need a motion and a second to accept this two-year snow removal. And then if Jeremy's still here,
033you have to introduce yourself to him because he's a big part of what we do around here. I'll make a motion to approve the snow. We have a motion and second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. Motion passes. Thanks again. Thank you. And the last thing on our agenda tonight actually is the CLEM lane changes and they're all attached. um is our teachers earning credits and moving themselves along on the salary schedule. So, we'll need a motion in a second to accept the lane changes. I'll make a motion to accept the lane changes from 11. I'll second it. We have a motion in a second. Any questions about this? If not, all in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. Um the lane changes are accepted. Is there anything else for anyone?
034I can run it efficiently. Okay. If not, we need a motion and second to have a motion. Second. Second. All in favor say I. I. Well, the meeting is a from its own. It was not the