001I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Hi everybody. Glad you're here. Um, you know, before we vote to accept the agenda, I would like to put forward a motion to close this meeting for the negotiation strategy for as we enter a negotiations with superintendent. We have a little information that we got and I just would like to talk to everyone. So, I would need a second and I would need all of us to approve to do so. We have a motion and a second to close the meeting at the end. All in favor say I. I. can't see sign that motion passes. So now we'll go on and approve the rest of the agenda. So
002we'll need a motion and a second um to accept our agenda for tonight with the addition of the closed meeting. I'll make a motion to accept the agenda. Second it. We have a motion and second. All in favor say I. Again, same sign. That motion passes. Uh Michelle, we have no one signed up for open form. Correct. Correct. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to communications. Our director of business services is going to update us on some things. It looks like maybe beginning with enrollment, right? I am. You're on. So, the first the first report is the enrollment. Uh we held steady steady through June 2nd. So, we were at 3213 um as of June 2nd, which was the last time we took enrollment there. If you look at the graph, you
003can see we went down, which is pretty normal every year. There was one year we went back up, but we stayed steady from about February. February on we leveled off that 3213. Unfortunately, that's kind of where our ADMs are coming in as well. So, um they aren't much higher than that. So, we will start our we had have had our first preliminary audit meeting as well. So, we'll be starting audit probably right around September, but we'll do a lot of work over the summer to try and get a lot of that stuff done before they come in. Um, probably one of you will get a phone call from our auditors just they like to call on you and have some conversation. I know I'm sure you've probably gotten called a few times. I think they
004called you when you were at the state or something. Yeah. Just to try and get a hold of something like sorry, but they like to have a conversation with you and they call it a fraud audit, but it's not it's nothing to be afraid of. They just want to ask questions. But we be starting that in September. But again, back to enrollment. not exactly where we want to keep this. When do you start a new enrollment? Not until you see the whites in the eyes come September or do you Well, we've already projected we've already projected for next year 3200 for next year. That's our projection. That's part of all of our assumptions. Um but yeah, when they walk in the door in September, we'll take a first first enrollment and I'll have that for
005you at the I won't have anything in September, obviously, but we'll have something in October. Well, maybe in September we'll have a quick snapshot because there's also a 15-day drop. So, kids, if they don't, they're on our roles until if they don't show up after 15 days, they'll drop. Rob, can you just clarify this is inclusive of block academy members? This number? Oh, no. Okay. No, because we haven't started. Yep. And the 3200 is not included in next year's assumption either. So it might be like 3222 maybe. Okay. Um on to the monthly update. Just uh keep in mind here at the the top is the expenditures. Um and it looks like you know you think we're at the end of the year salaries and benefits would be closer to 100% but just remember we
006have summer payoffs. So our teachers get paid from September through August. So, our payroll department just ran all three months just just today, yesterday, I think. Um, and so then they get paid out over the summer. So, that's why it's showing it's showing right on where it should be. Um, other things like supplies supplies and materials are super high as a percentage, but capital expenditures are low. And that's just sometimes a crossover in what the code is in there. So, I kind of put those two together as well, depending on codes. Um, food service and community service are looking just fine there. for expenditures. And in revenue, um the general fund's right on track, our food service is slightly lower than we want to see it right now, and we did adjust that in the
007FY26 budget. And then, uh community service revenue is over 100% already. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Um and then our debt service is the same. So, and so can you go back up to the first? Sorry. Yeah. Wrong. So this one, just so you know, this is compared to to budget. So you're looking at budget compared to actual. And then when you look at the graphs, those are actually revenue versus expenses. So you can see in the general fund, our revenue is higher than expenses, which is good, a good thing. Food service, we're pretty even right there. And then in community service, we're showing our revenue quite a bit over expenditures at this point. Any questions? Thank you, Robin. You're welcome. We're going to move on. There's no student reps here today. It's summertime and
008in the fall we'll add add a junior to or senior. So, um we'll move on to board committee updates. Are there any board committees that have met that would like to update us on anything? As Greg me, um they kind of wrapped up budget season over there and they worked really hard to get the budget. um our our bills will basically be down about 6 or 7% because they're paying down um paying down that reserve fund to a place that's a little more reasonable and then getting started on next year's budget early so we really look ahead and try to and just knowing that every district in scratch is dealing with so trying to get creative about how they can operate as possible like we all are that's kind of take away there and then
009the other thing is the legislative form next year is already scheduled. So mark your calendars October 9th and they'll probably do a pretty similar format to last time. Just need to be curious maybe you know this too is spread more affected by federal dollars than we are special because all of our special sorry all of our federal dollars run through. So they don't come directly to us, they go to them. So yeah, they And are there still unknowns with that? So many unknown. And Nicole is spending a lot of time working with her peers to try to really figure out what that means, what to how to just a lot unknown, right? Yes. And as part of the plan they come up with to help support the district too helps us to because they're cutting
010down some of the costs every year to increase obviously every year further down the road that's going up in price and cost and they've been able to hold that and actually lower that for districts which is important because there's districts in our region that are struggling. So some of the work they're doing is trying to help everybody out to get to that better place. And like Sarah said too, some really meaningful conversations coming up probably this summer and fall to talk about longterm how do you keep this going and make some decisions to really get balance out as well. And the hard thing is that I think we need to keep in mind is yeah as we watch our enrollment numbers kind of shooting down enrollment numbers are actually going the demand is high there's
011weight list. So it's it's something that students are updating the right work. Any other committee updates? I had a staff that do counseling and poor people at four schools did not really want to be part of that and I do think it probably has something to do with you know there's not much funding and so how they have to come up but they're looking at a different way instead of maybe giving levy authority and I don't know if Brian you talked anything there it's kind of a complicated way to look at way to get more funding for schools like us helping with the formula I guess to say that and and there's some concerns of overlap with staff and a couple other organizations that do some of the same things. It's interesting thing but it's
012complex. It's a complicated thing to afford about, but there is some thought that it would hopefully help us if they could somehow lobby those kinds of things and help with the local taxes more coming to help us do a formula instead of educational for I don't know Brian you have anything else interesting deal any All right, we'll move on to the superintendent update. Brian, what do you have for us tonight? Two things to roll over quick. The first one is I just want to make sure every time we end here in June, just to spend a little bit of time reflecting on the year, it was a good school year for us. And that doesn't happen without the support of just a ton of people that make it work. So want to make sure I
013take an opportunity right now just to thank our staff across the board. Every inch of our district, we don't get this job done without them and and just want to thank them for their efforts. Um it's a long arduous year at times and they are continually coming to work and doing what's right kids each and every day. So thanks to them. I want to thank our students and families. Um again we have great students in this district. excited in July to talk a little bit about our discipline numbers. Uh I want to share some data with you about comparing that between last year and this year and we saw some extremely great growth. We think there's some reasons that attributes to that piece. One being the cell phone policy I think helps out with that
014too. But just excited because again we got really good kids but they're doing really good things make good choices and that's partly because of the fact that our staff build positive relation with our kids. So excited about that. And then also to our community at large too. I started to go out and already again now I've done this annually where I go and talk to the cities in the summer. We have one down and I have about three or four more to go. It's just a really good conversation to to find out that again we're cared about. People think really highly of the district and the work we're doing and sometimes our folks don't get to hear that. So I get the benefit of hearing that from them. But again just really appreciate their partnerships
015and working with us as well. Uh the other big piece is the postelection work. So obviously we have the bond campaign in May and now comes again that sort of work about what are we doing next and how we take some steps forward. So I just made a couple notes I want just the public to know about. The first piece I think is the listening aspect where again we're spending a lot of time going through and trying to listen to what people have said. It's happening a couple different ways. Number one through a survey. That survey is now complete. We should be getting data back here in the next week or so. And then you'll hear this at our work study session in July, which I'm excited for you guys to have Peter Rman for
016the company come out and talk about what have we learned from this campaign by a lot of different lenses. And then even just discussions too. I just actually met with someone for coffee today and just sitting down and listening to what they have to say and gathering that data to have a better understanding about maybe where people fell in the categories or their thoughts in general. So it's just really making sure that we're being active listeners and trying to take that discipline with it. The planning aspects again looking at data reviewing the needs and then looking at new legislation. There's some pieces that have come forward specifically in the state this year in this session that talk about some new avenues we haven't had before and specifically with growth. So I think there's going to
017be some really good conversation for us to have in the next month on those topics. And then finally from a meeting perspective we have a lot going to happen in the next couple months which is good. It's exciting actually. So next month we have actually next Monday we have our facilities meeting to talk about just big picture some things we've learned some things we're going to try to talk about and bring to the board on the July 15th work study session. We have that in the board meeting to sort of open the door to conversations about where do we see things? What does it look like? what are the needs that we want to basically try to promote and put forward and then with the goal being that try to come back in August and
018try to sharpen the pencil and say let's get some decisions made at that point with the possibility of looking at a February election for us as well. I want people to know because I know I've already gotten this question today or sitting down for coffee is why not go out in November and I want people to hear this so they understand our timelines are so tight including the requirements we have to get reports in place at the state level to get approved. We cannot hit that mark right now. We've had to do this basically the day after the election and still be tight at that point. So we're trying to make sure that people understand it's not about lagging or avoiding times. We're doing this as fast as we can. we have to do this
019right and hopefully this other piece is tied to it. If we are not if we're going at light speed, we're going to miss something and then we're going to miss the piece of getting feedback from people. So I want to understand going slow to go fast is a way to do this. We're going to get really good feedback and we're going to make a really good decision what's going to happen moving forward. For the people that are wondering if something's coming, it's coming. Send us over. We have no other options. We have to do some of this work. So again, it'll be great to have these discussions, talk about their community, have these discussions at the board level. It's exciting time for us to get going on this piece. Ready, set, go. them up. Here
020we go. Thanks, All right, we're going to move on to the consent agenda that includes our accounts, personnel, contracts, lots lots of extracurricular contracts, and our past meeting minutes. So unless there are questions, we'll need a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda. I'll make a motion accept. I'll second it. We have a motion to second. Any questions about the consent agenda? If not, all in favor say I. Again, same sign. That motion passes. So moving on to We have no old business, so we'll move on to the new business. We have some um we'll have to have a roll call vote for a resolution to accept donations. So the Chicago PTO has donated $7,517 for a primary school garden prek plan unit kindergarten math Scholastic News and Brain Pop. Um the Minnesota
021Potters have donated $1,000 for the ceramics program at the high at the middle school in TF. The Bailey family has donated $1,000 to our choir. The Chicago Lakes Fire Department has donated $500 for the Lakeside Pride shirts. Taylor's Hall School Foundation has donated $1,000 for gym mats and climbing ropes. And Peterson Company has donated $1,000 for the dance team. And Chad Lakes Hockey Association, in the name of Mike Lazat, has donated $1,000 for a scholarship. So, um, we're going to go ahead and take a motion and a second for this roll call. So, I'll make a motion to accept this the donations. I'll second it. Okay, we'll start with you, sir. I, Jen, I and Lori. Once again, we're just very thankful for a community that supports these. It's very generous. We're very thankful. All
022right. Next, we're going to look at the Minnesota High School League Week resolution for membership. We look at this every year and um eventually this is also a resolution, but are there any questions about the Minnesota High School membership? If no questions, we need a motion in a second. I'll make a motion to accept this and we'll do a roll call vote. I'll start this time a little backwards. Lori I Jen I We're going to spice up the We're trying something new. Didn't mean to throw you off Michelle. Okay. Next. Um so this is the language one next. Yes. Okay. This is the language access plan. And in looking it over, it looks like there's state statutes and other districts have to have available for students who English is not their first language, but they're
023able to test and um that we meet their civil rights in terms of their education if they don't speak English. So, this lays out the Chicago plan all that we have in place to meet the needs of these kids. So we will need a motion and a second and again a roll call vote for this resolution. I'll make a motion second. We have a motion and a second. We'll start with Sarah on a roll call. I Jen and Lori I. Okay. Next we have a reertification of census resolution. and I was about and I clicked in and just to see what it looked like. But it looks like our school district area has gained what four about 400 people since 2020. And so we just need to certify these new um population estimates for our
024district. Think that's all that's to it unless there's something else. Okay. So I'll make a motion to accept the new census resolution and we'll take a second. We'll do a roll call. It's starting. I'll start. We need a second. Okay. Um Lori I motion passes. Next we have spread LTFM information. Um is someone going to speak to this or I can. Okay. Thank you Robin. Um you'll notice that I do not have the Chisawa Lakes LTFM plan tenure plan. We're going to bring that in July after we meet with our facilities committee and have some more information. But Screg also, they don't have levy authority like we do to levy for LTFM. So, they use each of their member districts to be able to levy. And so, our portion of it is what we need
025approval on. I believe it's about $35,000. I know that's so tiny, Michelle. Um, yeah, it's about $35,000 Chicago Lakes levies. It doesn't affect our LTFM levy at all and it doesn't it just runs through it. So we get the revenue and then we pass it through to them. So they're able to upkeep their buildings. Otherwise, if they did it any other way, it would cost us out of our general fund. Way for them to be able to have somewhat I'm going to put in quotes levy authority. Question. Sure. So LTFM is that governed under state statute as far as how much they can levy that that's state capital. I don't know what it is right off the top of my head, but I Yes. Is is that for them or you I don't think so.
026I I can find out for you. Okay. Any other questions about the LTFM portion? So, it looks like we need a motion and a second to approve the script LTFM proposal before us. I'll make a motion to approve. Second it. Uh, any more questions about it? All in favor say I. I. All right. Same sign. That proposal passes. There's a couple other things listed here that need not provoke. Uh, do we need to talk about the co-op allocation or is that just for It's just three different documents that go with it. It's just documents. Yeah, it's just one one levy, but there's three different documents just like we'll have three different documents as well that go along with this. Okay. Thank you. Yep. All right, we're going to move on to budget. It's everyone's favorite
027time of year, especially Robin. It is. So, Robin's going to put on the 2526 budget. I am. So, like I just Here we go again. Here we are. It's I always say this is the, you know, the end product to eight months of talking about budget. At least for me. Not everybody's involved in eight months, but um I think it's been a really good process the last since I've been here, but I think we try to make it better every year. and I think it's gotten better. So, I want to thank you as a board for all your help on this, our whole entire administrative team and our whole staff. I mean, everybody plays a part in this. So, and I'm not going to read these for you, so you don't have to worry about
028that. Um, but basically just, you know, what is the purpose of our budget? You know, it's just to provide a financial plan, estimates, proposals, assumptions. That's what we use. Um, and we use these, you know, as a means of financing that plan. This one's really small up there, too. So, our financial structure, as you know, um we're we're a fiscally independent public school under a locally elected six member board of govern government, and that's the six of you. We have financial records and reports that are maintained and prepared on a modified or full full acral basis of accounting which might not mean a lot to a lot of people but it doesn't mean basically that we have receivables and payables at the end of what we're doing. Um budget budgetary control is maintained during annual
029budget that is adopted by the school board and we do that in June of every year. It is stated in here as well that we do record that the board is recommending a minimum unassigned general fund balance of 10 to 7% of all of our general fund expenditures. So budget context, I did put in here the budget process just in a nice little circle because that's how I see everything too is in a circular motion. Um so now in June, we're looking at our preliminary budget um for the board to approve. I always say my my job is kind of like I talk about eight months of budget and then I move right into audit. So it's like I go budget, audit, budget, audit, and that's where I see a circle all the time. So
030we're going to move into audit now from July through October, probably into November. We'll start a little bit of levy in there. So we throw a little bit of levy in between budget and audit. And that'll start in July and we'll run that through September as well until the board approves that. Um, our audit reports will be presented probably at that December board meeting. We're really hopeful to have it done earlier. We're already having talks about that. Um, with Lauren being new last year. This year she's, you know, got one year under her belt. I told her she can't play the new girl anymore. And she's, you know, I think she's really she's doing great. So, it's going to be good. And then we turn right around into that truth and taxation hearing in December,
031which everyone loves. And then we move right into budget again. So that's our budgetary cycle as we go through um new requirements for school districts. These aren't really new for this year. I talked about these last year as well. So we had that you know a lot of changes in that 24 and 25 school year where they gave us a 4% and 2% increase in those years and then we had as we said historic levels of new mandates that came along with that and they were very costly to us. Um, but for the fiscal year 26 that we're looking at right now, the legislature did increase that formula by 2.74% and then going forward there's a ceiling of 3% and a floor of 2%. So we'll see how that falls in there. So that's the
032only change for this year. What are the budget pressures that we see every year that we have been seeing especially lately? Um, inflation. We all know that's huge in our even our own personal. We have inflation here at school as well with utilities, transportation, supplies, insurance, which insurance I'll bring to you guys in July as well. I'm working through that right now. Um, staff shortages. I know a lot of school districts are seeing it. I'm going to knock on the wood right now and kind of look at Corey and say we've been doing pretty good so far. There are some shortages out there still, but we're like I said, I'm a knock on wood on that, too. I hope I didn't just jinx something there. uh cost of living. Obviously, everybody's seeing that and we
033want to make sure that we're able to um pay our staff as well. So, that cost of living is is affecting what we do as well. Change in enrollment. This graph makes it actually look pretty even, but we do go I mean, we're projecting to be down 232 students since 2019. So, that's a lot. That's a lot of kids in a short period of time. We're down 220 just since 2020. you say, you know, I started in 2020. I'm pregnant. It wasn't me. Um, an overview. I threw this in here. This year, all of our revenue district-wide. So, this shows all of our funds. And just to show that 80% of our funds are in the general fund. And that's why we talk about that one so much. So, the big green part there is
034all general fund. And it's basically exactly the same on the other side. 80% of the expenses we have are in the general fund as well. So, we're going to talk about the general fund since over 80% of our revenue expenditures are in those funds. So, what is our general fund? Honestly, it's basically everything that isn't food service, community service, and debt service runs through our general fund. Um, our educational activities, our district instruction, our student support, and anything that falls under any of those. When we talk about fund balances, we always talk about the general fund as well. Our non-spendable fund balances, that's our inventory and our prepaid expenses that stay in there. Our assigned, that's our severance, our long-term liabilities, our compensated absences. We keep in that unassign or our assigned fund balances. Our
035unassigned is the one we talk about the most. That's our main one that we always talk about. That's where we want to keep that healthy. That's our checkbook. And then some of the reserve funds, those are all set by statute. And these are just a few that we have. Well, they're most of them though. student activities, staff development, operating capital, our safe school levy, long-term facility maintenance. We do have a couple. We have gifted a small amount and medical assistance that we just talked about. Just some small fund balances there, too. These are the original assumptions that we started with this year and we started building our budget on that enrollment of 3200. Um, we were making that assumption right off the bat of 2.74 because we had heard that pretty early on and it
036stuck. So, that's a good thing. We were talking about a large compensatory revenue decrease at the time and summer unemployment and how that was going to affect us. And then at the time, I should have kept that because we did have other contracts open at the time, too. These are the updated assumptions. Um, staying at that 3200, we did get the 2.74 increase. our compensatory revenue. I kind of talked about this before with you. That's um they're calling it a hold harmless, but we are actually having a decrease there of about $60,000. Not as much as we thought it was going to be to begin with, but they're calling it a hold harmless. Summer employment, um the legislature gave $100 million statewide towards that. So, it should cover us through this summer and probably next
037summer. See what happens after that. Um there was a decrease in library aid which just came in two years ago along with student support aid. We're also seeing a decrease there as well. And we're also seeing a reduction well statewide in uh special ed transportation. They appropriated that. It used to be always paid at 100%. Now that's prorated next year at 95% of all of our special ed transportation. And after I think the year after it goes on to 90% if I remember right. Yeah. So, um, expenditure increase, we're seeing a range of about two to seven% depending on what it is. That was I just got to put that range in. And the only contract we have open is the teachers contract. So, I know Corey will talk about contracts later, too. But, I
038think that's a pretty pretty good thing that we got a lot of those done. So, if we look at what we have in the general fund for next year, um, obviously our fund balance at the beginning is estimated because we're not done with this year yet of 2025. So, we're estimating that fund balance to be about $7.8 million. We're looking at revenue next year of 47 point almost nine and expenditures of 48.9. You will see and we talked about this before too that we are deficit spending but it's only in those restricted areas. We're not deficit spending in our unassigned amounts. Um we're also setting aside some um more assigned money to look at um self insurance and we set aside some money to start up wildcat. So we do have money set aside there
039too and for curriculum. Looking at this, this shows just the general fund. So 80% of our funds were in the general fund. And now if we look at 80% of our revenue comes from the state in the general fund. So I mean that's our our biggest thing. About 12 and a half% and those numbers are really small there too come from our property tax lear and benefits. 72% of our general fund is spent on salaries and benefits. So I always say we're buildings and bodies. So we've got a we spend a lot of money on buildings and bodies. And then in purchase services 18.6% that also includes we talk about spread a lot and that's our spread bill too. So those are also people that we're paying for there. So that would if they were
040our employees that would increase that salaries and benefit amount as well. So, if we were talking about fund balance projection for the general funds, um we have actual numbers there from 2024 from our audit, what we've projected to end this year and then what we're projecting for next year. And so, in that restricted and unassigned, that's where you're going to see that decrease. We'll be decreasing um a little over a million dollars in both of those years for restricted, assigned, and non-spendable. But in our unassigned, we're increasing just slightly about 90,000 and $88,000 a year. So, you're going to see that um those amounts just inching up a little bit, holding stable is what I'd like to see. And as you know, you know very well what our fund balance policy is, which is that
041seven between 7 and 10% of our general fund expenditures. So, what does that mean percentage- wise? Um, as of June 30th, 2024, we are at about 6.6% fund balance, and that's the unassigned. Um, we're projecting to be about 6% as of Oh, I just want to type Michelle. That is 25 and 26. How many times do we look at this? Anyway, so the last one is projected 26 at 6.52%. Um, just keep in mind too, even though a fund balanced dollar amount might go up, the percent might go down because of the expenses, the whole math thing there. But we're getting we're getting super close to that seven um 7%. So, this ends our general the general fund. I just want to see if there's any questions about the general fund before I go on
042to the other other funds that we have. Well, I was wondering if could you talk a little bit about that compensatory piece um what exactly decreases um and maybe because we got the whole got the whole piece. So, we got a lot of academy we get some new enrollment coming in the year after. Does that mean we lose that whole piece or No, because compensatory what it was based on before was free and reduced lunches. Y and so then now they're trying to come up with a new formula and I know they are looking at it for this next bianium to come up with a whole different formula on it. What they're saying holds harmless is they're holding us harmless to either where we were this year or at there was some other level too.
043So I need some more information for you on it if you'd like. But that's what they're saying to hold harmless. To me I say going I see us going down a little bit but our enrollment's also going down too. So it could be going off of that. So then the decrease for the compensatory that is is that is that a formula? Yes. Okay. A very very complex formula, right? Well, they're holding it harmless is what they're saying for us for no for the whole state is what but it is changing in every district. I mean there are there are some big winners and some losers still even though the whole car and didn't start where people who were getting free and reduced would fill out a form and that was how we got our payment
044by how many families filled out the form but then during COVID and then there were free meals no one was filling out the form. Aren't they trying to find a way more fair? And then they went to direct certification. Whoever's on direct certification and then they found out that that really wasn't there was going to be a number of winners and losers. Exactly. Right. Okay. And I will say overall we don't get a lot of compensatory money here in our districts because we don't have a real high free reduced lunch or free reduced percent. Um there are some districts that are looking at millions and millions of dollars. We're not right. So that the issue that our district is facing isn't as you're right about that direct service. Is that the issue or is the
045issue that the states just giving less? I think they're trying to figure out how to change to yeah unify it to make it easier. I just think yeah the whole change in free lunches really kind of threw that off. Great. No great questions though and I don't have perfect answers for you at all. Sorry. It's still the details yet. It is. It is. I was just happy. I at first I thought we were going to, you know, be cut in half and lose like 300 because we get about I think this past year we got about $900,000 and I thought we were going to be cut back to about six or five which in prior years we were only getting about three. So it was a bump for a while. So I'm just happy to
046stay where we're at and not cut back that much. Any other questions on general fund? You always make me thankful, Josh. Okay, on to food service. So, our food service fund, I think we all kind of know what food service is. It's our breakfast and our lunch, any snacks, milk that anything that we feed our students. Um, and we have usually we can only spend it on what's in the kitchen. Now, there has been a little bit of leeway in legislation allowing us to purchase um other equipment, and we have purchased some cafeteria tables with these. Um Jeeoff you had asked me that question the other day about what's happening to what we are doing at the high school is some of those tables are going into some of our other schools kind of moving
047them down a little bit. I think a couple of them are going to the middle school and some may be going to 10 because they're not complet they just may not be sizewise for those students at the high school. That's part of it in great shape I'm sure. So really can be done they're in good enough shape for some some of our rules to sit on. So, but we are looking at revamping a lot of that as much as we can. So, that's why you're going to see a little bit here too where we are spending down this fund balance somewhat, but it is planned. Um, so we we're assuming a fund balance of just a little under a million dollars at the beginning of this year. Um, and a 2.6 and 2.6 revenue and
048expense with just a little tiny bit of a deficit spending there about $30,000. Like I said, it's all planned and we have about 200 about $220,000 planned expense purchase in there again this year. Was there a change this legislative session? I know they talked about it for the paying for meals. No. Okay. Well, there was something in the state. So, there's there's a little bit of fluctuation there. The dollar amount changed a little bit. Okay. So if we look at the percentage um on graph there we get 52% of our money from the state in in food service 32 from the federal government and then um about 14% in sales. So that's a total change from if you went five years ago in five maybe six years ago when we did everything was more sales
049based. So it would have been more half and half of sales versus state and federal. And then the other little tiny percent there is interest. Some interest income there too. Then on the expense side, uh 41% of our expenses are in salaries and benefits and 46% in food. And there you can see equipment is about 800%. You can see that little purple chunk in there. That's about $220,000 we plan on spending on equipment. And not just cafeteria tables. We've purchased a lot of ovens um and new equipment in the kitchen as well. Looks purple to me. Sorry. Any questions on food service before we jump into community service? So, our community service fund um obviously we use this fund to record all financial activities in the community service fund. It's our restricted and reserve fund
050balances in community education, our early childhood, family education, our school readiness, and AB. So, what we're looking at here um ending this year at about $650,000. We're showing about three $3.2 million in revenue and $3.1 million in expenses. To show um revenues over expenses, about $120,000. Um I'm going to give Dan a lot of credit. You worked really hard on this budget, not just because you're here, but I appreciate all the work you did on this um to make this to make things look better. And I mean, you've been working really hard at that, so I appreciate that. So we'd be looking at about a $776,000 fund bounce at this year. So we're on the right track there. Showing our community service revenue. Um we show about 70 about 80% of the money that comes
051into community service is fee based. So we're looking at all those programs they run, our kids club, our preschool, those are those big fee based. So most of the money there and we only get about 12% about 13% from the state and about 8% from property tax revenue there and community service. And on the flip side, obviously the biggest chunk there is salaries and benefits as well at 80%. And about 18% of purchase services, which could be some of the people running some of these programs that we pay as a purchase service as well. Any questions on community service? I kind of just have a general question. You know, we're we're at trying to get to that seven to 10%. Talk about food service and community services when I mean they're considerably higher fund balances.
052What do you spend that on then? It seems high. What do you spend those things on? I know what food service want. What do we do in community ed when the fund balance gets high? Um actually where we're at right now, I wouldn't consider that a super high fund balance. And actually three million and you're at 700. Yeah. And they're split out. There's there's separate fund balances and we can dig into that too. There's an ECF fund balance. There's the restricted community. There's So there's multiple different fund balances in there as well. But it's funny that you asked that because I just had another business manager ask me the other day. So does your board have a fund balance uh percentage for the your other funds for food service and community ed? And I said
053I no we don't and I don't think I ever have. Have you ever had that? I've never had it in my career anywhere else either. But but to your point, Biji has about the same size budget as us $3 million revenues around there and their fund balance is 2.1 million. So then I look at my little 700,000 and I'm like, boy, I got some work to do. Everything's relative services and I think there's some maybe they need to spend some more. I don't know. Yeah, I think those are conversations that we could have moving into the future. I mean, the WCC probably could use a nice fresh coat of paint and there's there's probably some things that we we as a the three of us we could talk about a little bit going forward, but
054I've also been in a district where it's been negative, too, and that's kind of scary, but but yeah, I know it's not because the general fund has to cover it. Yeah. You know, but that it's also in a smaller community that's maybe a higher I'm going to say a higher free and reduced population as well. is, you know, how much do you charge your your community to or are they going to still come? You know, are they going to use your services? We were like that in International Falls where 44,000 was was a nice number for us. Yeah. And Danny, since they're more uh I don't know if there's statutes on what community can actually spend and absolutely a lot like they can't just say, "Oh, we have this. Let's go do this." Yeah. They
055can't do that. And there was some talk at the legislature this year because across the state the fund balances in community service funds are pretty high overall with when you take us as a collective there was some talk that they might help out fund one because those numbers are so high that that didn't end up going through Brian I don't remember when food services yeah you know that so I could see that coming down the road as budgets get tighter on fund one and I'd rather have us be in a good position to be able to Yep. make that happen if we need to. Right. And they used to back this was many moons ago that they used if your fund if your community service fund balance is too high the state would take it
056away. Yeah. And we that's that's what some of the chatter business managers was. Do you remember that when that was? Maybe it was 2008. Maybe it was 2006. We were trying to remember when that was and we don't want that to happen. Yeah. We look historically just kind of co and kind of where we've been with, you know, community service and and the general thought was is that they're not paying for themselves, but they're well in balance and we've increased the budget and services are increasing and I and I so I think there's this concept of this is in reality what is happening. They are paying it's feebased. it's really doing very well and yet I think there's still this concept that it's not covering at least you kind of would we would heard we
057heard that a little bit during the bond discussion and the numbers show that you're doing very well and increased that and there was a time when that I don't think was the case because co just upended everything yeah and I I think I've talked about that too I think we're getting into that new norm that our normal and feeling where we're feeling comfortable about into yet. And a ton ton of credit to Robin. I mean, she kind of led me through I did things differently in my other districts that I've worked in and Robin kind of helped make sure I understood and I think that was part of what's led to the success as well. I now speak Robin a little bit which is that's scary. That is scary. I just want to say another
058thing because during the bond discussion too comments were things are very expensive you know if you're going to get a membership or whatever when we found out in reality they were three and a half times less the expenses if you go to course like MCA or if you look at some of the workout places and you know there's some always some discussion about when those things are open and things like that but I think I just want the reality of community service and the debt service and the things that we're doing and where you are in your budget it to be the truth, not what somebody thinks to be true. I think that's just really critical. I think you're doing a great job. I think we're providing more and more service. There's always those things
059we can, you know, look at and ways to serve our community. But I but in reality, it's doing very well and we provide a really good quality place for people to come at a much cheaper rate than other places. I think that just has to constantly be said. I wish, you know, this was somehow mandatory meeting. They had to hear some of this stuff. But we hear the negative of that when it's just not true. And I think that that is very frustrating. I think for those it's got to be very frustrating. You Yeah. And one of the things Brenda and Jen have heard this, but next year we're going to be really purposeful about telling our story a little bit more per purposefully, if I can use that word twice in a sentence. We
060we just need to be more purposeful about trying to change that narrative out there that people people have we've let them say what what they're going to say about us and I we want to now start telling the story in a different way. So that's one of our goals for next year. Jeeoff, I appreciate you picking up on that. Anything else? Community service. All right. Debt service. The debt service fund obviously is where we take in tax revenue to pay our assigned bonds. Um much like our mortgage. I always compare this to you know your own mortgage where you're going to obviously we don't tax mortgages paid but that's how we get our funding here and be able to pay those bonds. Um so what we have in the debt service fund oops sorry um
061expecting our fund balance at the end of this year to be about $1.6 million. looking at revenue of about 5.6 and expenditures of 5.2 with a fund balance there at the end of this about $2 million. Um, this is one fund that when it gets built up in our levy, you'll see that the state will they can take they'll take some of that back so it helps taxpayers out too. So, excess excess lobby there. Um, yes. Any questions on debt service? Sorry. I mean, it's real basic on where our revenue comes in from from our property tax levies and we pay off our interest and expenses there. Then the last fund that we have is our custodial fund, which is our our scholarship fund. It is literally it's a fiduciary fund that go we take
062money in from donations and we pay them out to scholarships to students. So, we're really there's nothing that the district really does with it except hold that money as a real payout. um in there. We just we keep a very small balance in there. So, fund balances, fun stuff. There's a lot of numbers in front of you here. So, if you look at our change in fund balance um in the general fund, obviously we're deficit spending there only in reserve funds. A small um deficit there in uh food service and that is a positive number in community service, not a negative number there too. positive. My gosh, do you know how many times I've looked at this, you guys? Notice if you wouldn't call it out. I know, but I call I call myself out.
063I know you do. You're doing great, Robin. We'll have the on the on the board book as well. So, and debt service was an increase of 415 there. Um, but this is the one you're really going to want to look at. It's our ending ending fund balances. So, in the general unassigned, we should be about 3.1 million. kind of keeping that steady. You can see that $88,000 change there. Um the deficit spending in the reserve funds there and that's spending down our capital, our LTFM places that we need to be able to spend money right now. Um our food service fund, that small deficit there is a positive and community service showing that 776 ending there and the debt service is a little over $2 million. And that's all I have for you tonight. Not
06447 minutes, but 47 slides. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. A lot of plates in the air as you're putting this stuff together. There's there's a lot of stuff. And I think I would just like to add just my gratefulness um between you and Robin. I mean the leadership and primarily you as our business manager on the numbers end of it, Robin have just put Chas Lakes in a just a really good position. We've made the adjustments we needed to make. Even though they're painful at times, it's work we needed to do so that our budget is in good shape and even though funding is still difficult, funding will remain difficult if not get hard. You know, there's a lot of districts I mean literally staring at statuto operating debt with the way things
065are, but you identified the adjustments we needed to make. You've led us through making sure we're we're keeping our funds healthy. and it's really the most important thing that we have to keep going for to have a strong school district. And I'm just really thankful for your expertise um both of you really because it makes our job so much easier. So the other thing I will point out is that we do have the executive summary that was put together that I'm gonna give Michelle credit for this because she put she put all these great pictures on here where I just I just popped the numbers in. Um, but if you ever have some need some nighttime reading, needs the executive summaries out there and it it's on the website or will be on the website
066as well, right? We were waiting until I think Michelle sent it to us, too. Yeah. So, we just wanted to make sure we didn't make it public and tell you it's actually budget. So, kind of a fun little thing to put together. I'm ded what you said because sometimes Robin doesn't give herself enough credit and I want our community to hear this stuff, too. It's good to what she just said. We're one of the pos best positions financially been in a couple decades. I actually asked Rob to do some digging before uh we were in the Bond campaign to start talking about this message because we've been traveling at times with the message that we don't budget our money well. It's so incorrect. We're in a really good place because of stewardship that's happening at
067this point. The other point I want to really make too is that this is so vitally important. We're 311 328. We have to struggle for every dollar that we get to make sure we've done the right things overall. So her examples about cafeteria tables sharing in months buildings and I wrote down even the Wildcat Academy about trying to be creative and try to get different ways to generate more funds for our district. We do the best job of stretching $1. Barone. And I want our communities to know that if we didn't do this stuff, we'd be in some serious trouble. And we're going the opposite direction. We're in a great place because of that work. And then just a general thanks to you, all of your staff members, all of our staff members. It's a
068tough position sometimes to talk to people about what we might not have, but I appreciate the fact too that Robin and everybody else is really creative, too, saying maybe we can't get this this way. We can look at things differently and help out. And that nice balance allows us to keep growing as well as a district. So, I know you won't take this credit, but thank you for the work you do. Thank your team for the work you do. Want to thank everybody for getting us in this position. We are we're in a really good place when we don't get treated fairly in the state of Minnesota. When you're 8.2 million less than the average school in the state of Minnesota and I think and you know you two have been on the board a
069very long time and I always careful a little bit historically but I feel like there's more confidence in credibility than there has been. And I don't mean, you know, to say you guys have seen it, but I just felt even kind of being on the union part of this. I never really quite knew. And I don't think we ever really quite knew. You're only told what you're told. And you know, Brian said maybe the best we've been in 20 years, right? I think there's validity to that just because I think we're a little more transparent about what we have. We've had some questions of our community to be that way and I think we've answered that call and um I just feel more confident in that we are managing the billions of dollars less a
070year that we have less than other people. And I think that message just needs to constantly and constantly constantly get out to our bond boarders, future levy boarders that we're really doing a great job. And I think part of it is the community is asking and being part of our committees that meet and having input and I just think it I just have a confidence that we're in a good place even though we're not in a good place. We wish we had more money. So I think the good way to put it maybe is we're doing the very best we can with what we have. Now does that mean we have enough to fix all the things we need to fix in our bill? I mean of course we don't. That's why we asked our
071voters for help. We don't have what we need but we're doing the best we can with what we have. I think maybe the message. All right, that was all the compliments for Robin. Good job, Robin. No, we'll keep giving you compliments. So, thank you for sharing. All right, we are moving on to the Iowa and Iowa proxy. I believe we can't pay any bills starting July 1. So, please please second to accept the preliminary budget. I make a motion to accept. We have a motion and second. All in favor say I. Again, same sign. The preliminary budget passes. Thanks, brother, for reminding me. Okay. Now, we're moving on to a resol is it a resolution? Yeah. So, it's going to be two separate one for the Iowa for Brian and Iowa. Okay. And basically, this
072is just allowing you access to certain educational information that you have to gain access to. Correct. We do this every year. Correct. So, uh, we first need a motion and a second to appro, uh, approve Superintendent Deetsz as the Iowa and then we need to approve Michelle for the process. So, I will make a motion to, um, approve Brian Deets to be the Iowa main person. Um, resolution. Okay. We have a motion. Okay. I Jen I Now we have to approve Michelle as the Iowa proxy. We need a motion to second. I'll make I'll second it. Sarah I Josh I Jen I and Rory I motion passes. All right. Um, we have a policy 721 to look at and it's going to do a little presentation for us. I'm going to give a major presentation
073because this has to do with problem. Oh, but what I will say is Robin brought this policy to us to um increase a dollar amount of equipment. Correct. Okay. Um, and it was recommended by our auditors and so um we are recommending change to the increased amount. Any questions about it? I would defer to Robin as much as he can. It's a very detailed policy. Like as I tried to read through it to think I wonder what precipitated this policy look and it had something to do with our purchases and our auditors recommended. Yeah. And the only change in here literally is it used to say under equipment it was $5,000 and now it's $10,000. And this is a Gazsby change is the governmental accounting standards board. And so they're increasing the equipment purchasing threshold.
074They're asking each district to do that as well. Okay, great. Any other questions about that? If not, we need a motion from a second to accept policy 721 as presented. I'll make a motion to accept policy 721. We have a second. I'll second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. Policy 721 carries. Thank you. Um we'll move on to some of our agreements. Uh we have our technology master agreement before us. Corey, did you want to comment on that? Yeah, I think I just want to um let you guys know that the total package percentage for them was 7.28% but that did fall within the district budgetary constraints that we provided to them. Um so we did come in at budget for that. So we did not go above. Um, and I don't
075I'm just writing the percentage and if they fell with the budgetary districts, if you guys have any questions, let me know. You saw the presented time there. So, how many times did you need that? Took us an hour, hour and a halfish. Yeah. I think we were able to uh really get to a place that they understand when when we when we're coming together. It's to have a conversation. It's not to bicker and argue about where things are at. It's let's have a conversation about where where we're headed, why we're presenting what we're presenting, and let's, you know, we can reach the best agreement within the budgetary constraints that we have. Any other questions about that technology master agreement? If not, we need a motion and a second to approve agreement. I'll second. All in
076favor say I. Again, same sign. The technology master agreement is approved. Uh we also have the custodial master. Anything you want to say about that? Yeah, so this one came in at total package percentage of 7%. We did go over budget on this one by about $5,000, but we did inform them through the process as we are with all of our groups if we're going over a budgeted amount that we will have to make adjustments within their units. Um, they're okay with that when we go over budget. So, they they're made aware of that and they were receptive to that. But I would say that it also was much the last time um we got it done literally two meetings, but each meeting was an hour each. So, two hours total. I negotiated with our
077facilities here that it was a very positive process and wants to speak that was part of it to you guys. I think we mentioned last time respectful coming together to get the best deal. I thought they were creative too. That was good. Any other questions about the federal agreement? We need a motion to in a second to accept. Make a motion. Second. Okay, we have a motion in the second to accept. All in favor say I. Again, same sign. The custodium contract is accepted. Okay. We're going to move on to the food service master agreement. All right. So, this one came in at 6.95% and they did also fall within the budgetary districts that we provided to them through the process. So, they were not over budget budget for that as the assumptions. All three
078of these are the assumptions of this year's budget. Any questions about food service agreement? One meeting. 25 minutes. We were so excited. Um if not, we need a motion to second to accept that. Madam Chair, I make a motion to accept the food service master agreement. I have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. Again, same sign. That motion passes. Just a quick comment. I mean, this really is big improvements in how we've done with our negotiations. We just we have to acknowledge that relationships have been built. We purposely worked on being respectful, getting our employee groups close to comparable or you know, we work with comparables so everyone feels good about it, feels better about it, I think. And so I think
079we at least need to acknowledge even though we're joking about two meetings, one meeting I mean huge improvements in this area. So just want to acknowledge that it is as well. So probably the investment of times negotiations because we have it's taken a lot of but it's been good work. I just too I think it's important to know that you know that my first year here through the negotiation rounds there are a lot of people that were really delayed in getting to the negotiating table as I was trying to learn how to do it therefore everything that goes with negotiations for the first time and I just think it's really important to know that um we currently have three groups completed before their contracts expired which means that means no retro the first paycheck of
080the new contract time is going to have all the stuff in there that they need um And there are also six individual contracts out there, but four of those are completed will be in July. The other two will be completed before the July board meeting as well. So the only outstanding contract we have individual or um group would be CL and we do plan on starting with them at the Yeah, the district has set the goal of getting these done actually early earlier than what you know there's times people went months without contracts and like Cory said, we just need big improvements. you in those areas. So, thank you for that. I'd just add in order to make things better like they've been there had to be a break in protocol how we were doing
081things from the past. And I think when you come to negotiations, it has become much more collaborative. They look out for us even in a way how they come came those bargaining units came with you know feasible and very practical amounts of increases in the contracts which we've seen a big change there and then we talked to each other during the negotiations and you don't talk to each other and I think it just you know the proof is in the pudding and how the number of times we met were down the the uh a little bit of headbutting was down. The the tension in the room was down. It's a little bit more about talking with each other instead of your side and our side. And uh being on both sides of this for a
082number of years, it is just a better feeling for everybody. I don't think Lord feels good about when it's tension and there's emnity between us and and I know the staff don't feel that way. So, I'm just really looking forward now and maybe one of the other tougher ones is CL coming up and and changes have been made there as well. I mean, we didn't have the teamsters meeting out front here and we met two two times and got it done. I just think it's just come so far and people are feeling much better about even coming into the negotiation. So, it is really just a wonderful thing. I think you want to make this a place that you want to come to work and you feel like you're at least there's a process and
083a procedure of comparables and all those things and a lot of those really troubling feelings have kind of gone out the window and we're just in a much better place. So I have nobody else to commend. I think the board wanted that but also our leadership and those things that people you know folks that said we're not going to it's not going to be this way. we are going to work with our people have agreeable process you know where we collaborate and look out for each other that's just it's just such a better feeling I think especially the people that work dayto day what was Brian's story when first you first came out a year a little more than a year ago paddle in the same direction right in the same direction I like that
084okay so um we will need a motion a second to adjourn the open meeting and then we'll open a close meeting and record it. So right now we need a motion a second to adjourn the open motion. Was there a second? Okay. All in favor of adjourning the open meeting say I. Again same time meeting is adjourned. We'll just take one minute to get the recording going. Thankful to you that were here with us today. Have a great everybody. You too.