001Miss Clark, roll call. >> Trusty Burlesen, >> excused. >> Trusty Black >> here. >> Trustee D >> excused. >> Trustee Lucine >> here. >> Trusty Moran >> here. >> Trustee Neil >> here. >> Trustee Sarah Wilson >> here. >> Trustee Sandy Wilson >> here. >> Thank you. All right. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. All right. Thank you for coming tonight. Um, we have the SMS select choir uh with Mrs. Charlotte uh Colliver. Also, thank you for your 222 years. I know you're retiring at the end of this year, so thank you for all your service. We appreciate it. [applause] >> [applause] [applause] [clears throat] >> Hey, thank you very much for coming out. I appreciate it. It was very good. Have a great night. Welcome to the February 9th Boseman School Board meeting.
002Thank you for joining us. Public comment will be taken throughout the meeting on agenda and non-aggenda items. During public comment, no member of the public will be allowed to comment on contested cases, other adjudicative proceedings, or personnel matters. The public portions of this board meeting are being recorded in accordance with district policy 1420 and section 2-3-214 MCA. By remaining in this meeting, all participants and attendees acknowledge they may appear on the recording which will be placed on the school district's website for a minimum of one year from today. Further instructions about participating will be provided throughout the meeting. Before we engage in the business of the board, I would like to share the core purpose of the Bosezeman School District, which can be found on the back of our name plates as well as to
003the left of me. It reads, "Boseman public schools exists to ensure high level of learning for all students." All right, we'll move on. Boseman the BSD experience will have student representative reports. Your quiz for the day is, what's your go-to slang word or saying which is appropriate for this audience? Um, hello. My name is Ridge McGovern. I'm the Gallton High student body president. And my go-to slang word, it's kind of a tough one. I feel like I just say like [laughter] I say like boy or like bruh a lot. Like not on like purpose. I just say it a lot. Um, but yeah, that's probably my go-to slang word. So, on the sporting side of things, swimming has been competing at meets across the state and have brought home several individual trophies along with multiple
004team trophies and they have state this weekend. Uh, boys and girls wrestling have been doing amazing. They have they are competing in divisionals this weekend in Bgrade and then they have state next weekend. Um, going into last week, the boys were tied for second in the state and faced But for a tiebreaker duel, and now they're ranked second overall as a team. And the girls have a six and two record, a dual record. Looking forward to bring home some hardware in these next two weeks. Um, girls basketball is still undefeated and ranked number one in the state. Um, beating Billings West last week in an overtime game and they play Sky View this weekend. And then our boys basketball has a dominant 9-4 record and they play Sky View at home on Friday. Um, speech
005and debate was in Callispel last week and for state um bringing home several individual medals and placing sixth overall as a team. Um, their season isn't quite over yet. They are in Billings this weekend for a NFL tournament. And then the Camrada Orchestra has a concert tomorrow in our Gallatton High auditorium. And then our theater program participates in the thespian festival this weekend in Missoula. And um we wanted to thank you guys for coming out to our winter pep assembly. We had a lot of fun and we heard great things about that. So thank you guys for coming. And our student council is going to Billings in two weeks for our district 4 meeting at Lockwood. So looking forward to that. And then inter mural basketball is in full swing with playoffs coming up soon.
006And then DECA went to Missoula for state and they had 42 top three finishes and elected a new state officer from Gallatin. Thank you. Um my I would probably say my slang word probably the same as ridges. I say bro and bruh all the time. Um, oh, and I'm Jenna. Uh, >> do you want to say your name? >> Okay. My name is Taylor Trojan. Um, student body president Boseman. I don't know. We tried to look up some slang words of what would be considered slang for our generation. Um, I feel like I say bruh. I don't say many of the words that pulled up, but I have little siblings and they say like huz a lot. And so I guess I'll like joke around with them and I'll be like, "Who's the h? I
007don't know." [laughter] Um, okay. So, starting off uh with sports, our girls basketball team's record is seven and seven, and so far we're sixth in the region. [snorts] And our boys basketball record is three and 11 and seventh in the region. I'm not sure if that's correct, but that's what I that's what Google told me, so I am going with that. Um, and then they both have games this weekend, Friday, and Saturday. Um, wrestling has divisionals and state coming up. And then swimming has been doing good, and state is this next weekend. Um and then for DECA, they just went to a um conference in Missoula, the SEDC conference, and they did very well there like they always do. Um and then we also had Bosezeman live auditions this past weekend and this weekend. >>
008Okay. Um with that, our speech and debate has been doing really well. Um, I was on social media the other day and I saw another school who posted something and it said, "Hopefully we win this weekend because Boseman's in Idaho." So, [laughter] um, [snorts] so our speech debate has been doing really well. Um, we have our winter formal coming up on February 28th and it's going to be a warp this year which we haven't done in a really long time. The theme is um glow-in-the-dark and so that should be really fun to decorate. And then we have a winter pep assembly on the 27th. Um inter mural basketball. Boseman didn't have it for a few years, but that's been going really well. And then we're going to have our dodgeball tournament. We moved that to
009being in April. Our final weeks went really well. Um we had a few suggestions that finals would be before winter break. I don't know if you guys have control over that. Um, but a lot of kids don't like coming back from a break and having two weeks before finals. So, that's all from Boseman. >> All right. Hi, my name is Rosie. I'm one of the BCA representatives. >> Uh, hello. My name is Sarah Stannis. I'm the other BCA representative. >> Um, I would say my slang word that I use the most is probably hype. Um, Sarah can confirm this. I say hype after everything other than that um because a lot of people around me use it lately. I've been using locuinuely a lot [laughter] which is I still don't understand it. My dad hates
010it. Um which I think is really funny. What's your slang word? >> Um I think my slang word would probably be or would probably be like swag. I say swag a lot just because it's fun to say and also it's like connotation is pretty pretty good to be like, "Oh yeah, that's really swag." Like swag money, you know, like that type situation. [laughter] Okay, >> I love this question. Um all right. Yeah, just a little bit on the um BHS side of things. I know JHS touched on it a little bit. Um the Hawk Theater Company is also going to the Montana Thespians Festival on Thursday. We leave at 400 p.m. We are taking the GHS kids with us. So, we're going to arrive at GHS, pick them up. They're performing their own show. I'm
011not sure what they're performing. Um, we will be putting on The Marsh, which is an original by Ivy Tyranny, our stage manager and one of my close friends. It is amazing. Um, I will be participating in the tongue twister competition again this year. And I vow to not lose to Modern Major General again. I've been on that grind. [gasps] But yeah, and then hopefully we will have a public showing of that on February 20th as well. I don't know if that's going to be after school or during lunch. However, Llaya Michael, our director and producer, really likes it and believes that it is amazing writing. It's probably one of the best plays that I've read in ages. So, that's pretty awesome. And we're going to hopefully do a public showing of that. So, we invite
012you all to come and join us. Uh, more info on that probably sometime soon. Um, I will urge Michael to email you all. Yeah. And now BCA stuff. >> I also believe that our um speech debate did win state in Callispel which has hasn't happened in 40 years. So that's pretty cool. >> Points or something like that, but like one and a half points like >> it's pretty it's pretty crazy. It's pretty impressive because no one's really ever won there except Callispell for a long time. um >> Glacier always wins there or something. >> Yeah, because it doesn't work. [laughter] >> Uh on the BCA side of things, um we just launched our BCA merch web store. Um and it has been shared with our whole community, uh whether it be parents or students and
013also teachers as well, and we're very excited to see new merch on our teachers and everywhere around our school. Um and then recently in January we were focus focused on wrapping up the semester strong with our students and supporting them like across both BCA and BHS especially with their credits. Um and semester testing has also gone very well and now we're off to a new start with our second semester. Currently our BCA student count is 129 students. Uh recently our hawk times have been focused on community activities such as brid bridger beautifification where we paint the windows to our fishbowl uh area community room which is very fun and we it's very enjoyable. Um and some fun news with uh the read across America BCA will be headed uh to Whittier Elementary School in early
014March to celebrate it. Uh, so we visit K through K through2 classrooms for about an hour or so and everyone has a grand old time. From my experience, I can say it's very fun. >> It's so much fun. Um, we bring tons of activities. Sometimes we're bring books, bookmarks. Other times we just sit and read the kids. But anyway, they love it because they're elementary schoolers, so they think high schoolers are really cool. Um, yeah, students are registering through February for next year's classes, which brings up lots of fun conversations about students futures. That's also been involved with our student count. It compared to last month, I believe our student count is lower. However, we did gain several students from both GHS and BHS. Uh, we're just welcoming our new cohort of BCA students for
015the second semester. We have seven students from both BHS and GHS. We had a few people who left BCA and then we have a few people who went on to uh you know high GED uh leaving high school but still getting their diplomas and their degrees which is why our student count is a bit lower. We have a few people who also graduated a semester early, which does contribute to our count, but it is really fun to just see fellow BCA students who are graduating early. And then students are looking at a new semester and a few new classes. Seniors have finished and presented their senior projects. Um, with the help of Lahi Riner on though, she really made sure that we got those done, which was actually quite helpful towards the end. During it,
016not so much, but towards the end, I'm like, "Thank you so much for bugging me about that." And yeah, that's it on the BCA side of things. Thank you. Oh yeah, choir concert. >> We have a choir concert next week on the 19th if any of you would like to >> Yes. >> come. It is our winter concert and it'll be a lot of fun. >> So much fun. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, thank you guys for the updates. Uh trusty questions or comments? >> All right. Thank you very much. Have a good night. [applause] All right. 2.2 Board of Education. Uh Casey. >> Yeah. Like to welcome this team in front of us. Uh Heather Shiovoika, principal at Highlight Elementary. Kale Vanvelinberg, principal at Whittier Elementary. and Katie McKenna who is uh the
017instructional coach at those two schools. Um the the purpose of this evening's presentation is to talk about um core instruction reading pathways. Um, as you know, it's tied to our long range strategic plan goal of, um, grade level reading. And we were finding that, um, particularly at those two schools, uh, with a dynamic group of students, uh, that we needed to, um, create instructional pathways for K2 foundational literacy skills in phonics and phmic awareness primarily. And this group was tasked with uh, pulling that off. And, uh, they hit the ground running, and they're here to tell you all about it. Thank you for being here. >> Kale, if you could push the right button, make your mic green. So now everybody can hear you. >> I haven't presented in the in front of the board
018since you guys got all this cool stuff. This is fantastic. >> I'm Kale Vanvelberg, principal at Whittier Elementary. [clears throat] >> I'm Katie McKenna, literacy coach at Highlight and Whittier. And then Heather Shvika had highlight. Good job with the first slide tail. Um [laughter] so just to give background on U Casey touched on this a little bit but um so Highlight and Whittier have what we call a flipped um pyramid and a lot of you already know what that means. instead of having 80% of our kids that are at grade level or above in reading and then 15% that we would say just need some reteing and then the 5% that we would say they're below grade level standards and we need some intensive interventions. At Highlight and Whittier, we have more students that are
019in that below um below benchmark than what you would see on a typical pyramid. And so that's why we say it's it's inverted or upside down. Um, and what that means is we've discovered that we can't rely alone um on just like tier one instruction to help those kids who we know need a tier three level of instruction. Um, and so we've done a lot of work um last year on this and then this year we were able to identify it more as what we're calling our pathways model. Um, and the reason we did that is because it's giving us freedom to differentiate our core instruction. Instead of saying the whole day all kids are going to get super kids in K12, we're identifying well what is the actual appropriate core instruction for these kiddos
020if we know that that's not necessarily going to hit on the areas that we know are most important for them to get either caught up in or even just understand at their own grade level. Um and so it's allowing kids access to the curriculum and content that they need so that we can get every kid to be at grade level or above. Um which is a really big deal. Um, and then it also gives us a greater amount of time to provide those supports for those kids because we were able to look at our master schedule and figure out how can we actually do this thing with all of our students knowing that we're going to do quite a bit of differentiation for get the kids to meet them where they are versus just saying
021they're all right here. Um, and then we're relying heavily on the walk to model which I know a lot of you or all of you are well verssed with that. Um it gives students uh a greater number of students access to [clears throat] the content that they need and to be really specific about the skills that they actually need to be working on in that time. Uh it's like an hour and a half time that we have for them now for every kid in each grade level. Um which allows us more time for intensive um intervention, direct instruction, um equitable tier one foundational skills for all students, which we know is the is the jam where we're trying to get to. Um, and then it reduces teacher workload, which took a little convincing at first
022on that one, but it really does reduce it does reduce the workload quite a bit because we are allowing teachers to be the experts in the area that they know their group of kids needs to really focus on versus trying to pull from all these different things and do all of it. They're able to become super wellversed in whatever their group needs so that they can really start to close that achievement gap. Um, and then we've worked a lot this year on, okay, so if we're going to ask the teachers to become experts in those specific fields, what supports do we need to provide them and help them get that professional development they need so that they can be the experts in that field if it's a different curriculum or strategy than what they would
023typically do in super kids. And so our system's still the same. We have our universal screener. So we use a cadence and then once we've identified those kids that are at risk or falling below the grade level standards or the essential standard then we do a diagnostic to dig deeper and figure out okay what is the thing that's preventing these kids from getting where they need them to be and then we do a lot of progress monitoring to then see is what we're doing now working to again get to closing that achievement gap. And so we look at a lot of data um and base our decisions off a lot of that data which has been super um awesome to look at and see. Um so it's been a lot of fun doing that. >>
024Um so looking at what pathways what the time really looks like, how it's broken out. Um when we're looking at how our students learn to read, this is a good visual that just kind of reminds us that there's two parts to the reading brain. Students need to be able to decode words, have funological awareness, um be able to encode, and then they also need language comprehension. So that background knowledge, vocabulary, both of those things need to be present in order for a student to be a proficient reader. Um so we've broken down our literacy blocks into those two strands. Um and so the first strand is the language piece of it. That's the bottom part of the rope that you're seeing. And so that happens in our home room classes. So, it's a heterogeneous mix
025of kids um where they're getting the super kids story, they're getting the non-fiction text, they're talking about them, they're doing vocabulary work, really getting into that rich um language piece um and the background knowledge. Um and that when we look at our super kids curriculum, it breaks down, we call this the pink sections of the curriculum. So, um the comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. So that's a 30 minute block that happens in the home room classroom where all the kids are mixed together. It's protected time. No one is pulled into groups for that because we know how important that language piece is for our students. And then [clears throat] the pathways part of our instruction is the decoding part of the rope. So the top part of the rope where we're looking at um decoding specifically
026and funological and phmic awareness. So this is where we split our group kids up into different homogeneous groupings based on their skill. Um so once we look at that Aadian data, we dig really deep into that diagnostic to figure out are there students who have a significant gap that we need to meet them where they're at. Um so for our pathway one kids they are are students who are approaching the benchmark or at the benchmark or are above our benchmark and they go into a pathway one where they're getting that grade level skills foundational skills instruction. For our kids who are far below um that grade level um standard, they're going into a different pathway. We call it pathway two where we're meeting them where they're at. So, we're figuring out where the skill breakdown
027is. Um, and their instruction is now differentiated. So, instead of saying you all have to learn AI, because that's what a second grader says is that you have to learn the pattern AI, we're going back and making sure to meet those kids where they're at. Um, and we can use a lot more time to do that. So, the goal is to increase the speed at which we will close the gap by meeting them where they're at. Um for our pathway one kids, we're using um our super kids lesson um with varying levels of differentiation if they're close to the benchmark at or beyond. It looks different for those different groups. And then for our pathway 2 kids, um [clears throat] we're using UFly um in both Whittier and Highlight. It's a little more explicit, more
028systematic, a lot more repetitions that we know these sometimes struggling readers really need. Um, and so this just breaks down what it looks like. Um, so all students start in that white core. That's their lit, their language part of the um, reading rope. And then they either break off into a pathway one where they're getting their grade level foundational skills or their pathway two where they're getting differentiated skills. And then from there we're able to break them down into even smaller groups for the second chunk of time where we flood in our interventionists, our ML supports, our paras. So these kids are not only getting super differentiated instruction, they're getting it in a small group setting. Um again, which we know is so important in moving them um faster along that trajectory towards grade level
029reading. >> [clears throat and cough] >> Uh as you can imagine uh anything like this comes with successes and comes with challenges. Uh we have seen some great success already with that uh anywhere from increased uh and improved student [clears throat] sorry student achievement um to efficacy collective efficacy by our staff. So that's been really exciting. Uh some of the challenges uh like so many of those things I know at uh at our board lunchon we talked about space becomes a real premium when you're busting up and creating these smaller targeted groups. Uh but it's it's a okay challenge. Um and again also staffing trying to make sure you have enough adults uh in that building uh to sort of meet with those groups, support those groups so you can have the same, you know,
030the right number of of students uh student to staff ratios in there. Um, and then like I said, sometimes you can get into those groups and in some [clears throat] cases we have so many kids on the second pathway um that sometimes we have to split that into two different groups just because it gets so large uh and the kids start to have a little too much fun. Not that we're against fun, just that's the wrong time for the fun. So, any questions? >> Yeah. Questions or comments? Sammy? Well, thank you for everything that you've done. I just This sounds like exactly what we should be doing for these kids. I'm just curious in your grouping, your two pathways, are they flexible? >> That's actually what I was going to mention. Um, [laughter] so that's
031one of the things that's actually the best part about it is the movement that we can do a lot quicker with the kids. Um, so we actually just did that last Friday at Highlight where we looked at our data and looked at uh like a bunch of different data that we just got because of benchmarking, but then also progress monitoring and figured out where they now needed to move because of the data that we had. But it we don't what's really great about it is it's not just like benchmark to benchmark. We have those conversations every week. And so it's been great to like meet the kids where they're at at that moment and get them moving when they need to move versus waiting for some obscure like every four to six weeks we're going
032to move you. We'll know actually we got to figure out how to move you now because you're ready to move on or we need to keep you where where you're at. And so that's been the best part about it um as far as just being able to like really get the kids to move when it's time for them to move. And so they're that's probably one of my favorite parts because we get to celebrate successes on a lot a more regular basis which has been really empowering for the teachers to see because they're seeing um a lot faster some of the work that they're doing and how it's really benefiting our kids. Um so that feels really good. >> Thank you, >> Gary. >> Yeah, thank you all very much. This is good to hear.
033Um I have two questions. One is based on what you said I a student can move from path one to path two during the year. >> Yeah. Mhm. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> And then I'm just curious how does this reduce the workload for teachers? >> Yeah. It's a great question. So if you think about if we kept what we were doing and all kids were in super kids for that whole reading block, right? But a teacher knows that sitting in front of them there's 10 kids that are just like lost in the soup. I'm just using super kids as an example. So now in that block of time, they're trying to figure out how can I make sure that the kids who are at grade level or above are getting what they need while
034also trying to differentiate all of these things for these other kids over here who could need five or seven different skills and they're the classroom teacher trying to do all that on their own. Whereas by doing this, the teacher can hone in on a specific set of skills for let's say seven or eight kids and not have to worry about what am I going to do with all the other kids that are sitting in the classroom with me right now. And it's also been really great because they're able to become true experts like if they're going to use youly for like decoding things, they can truly become the expert in that in that field and be able to provide the best instruction for the kids too. And so um there's been a lot of growth
035in that area. But that's why it's helpful because it takes some of those other things off their plate so they can really focus on what it is that they're trying the skill they're trying to teach those kids that are sitting in front of them when they're not, you know, there's not 1,200 other things going on. And they it doesn't feel good as a teacher to sit there and be and think like, "Holy cow, I feel like I can't get to these five because I'm trying to do all these other things." And so it's taking that off their plate and letting them feel good about what they're doing. >> Yeah. Sir, >> did you have comment? question. >> You mentioned super kids. So, is it focused on K2 or does it go up through the 35
036and the one K2? Yeah. >> But we're using UFly for um like if you have students that are like below grade level, we are using UFly at the upper grades, too. Yep. >> Greg, >> is this the first year of Pathways? >> Yes. [clears throat] And at the at the end of this year or at some point will we have data showing? Okay. >> Yep. Yeah. And we already have some of that. So, um we'll look at that at the board meeting, too. So, Yep. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Any other comments, questions? >> All right. Well, thank you guys for your time tonight and all the work that you're doing. Thank you very much. Have a great night. recognitions and awards. Mr. Adar, you're up first. Good evening. Uh tonight we'll introduce to
037uh you to the Gallton High School all state football players. uh Gallton High in six years as a school has been to the playoffs five years. Uh been to the semis four years. That probably bothers Hunter a little bit because they haven't got over the hump yet, but that that day will come. Uh the kids he's introducing tonight. Um I go to a lot of practices and they're a good bunch of kids and fun to be around. So, here you go. Hunter Chandler. >> Come on up. >> All right. Yeah, boys, if you can come on up. And your quiz for the night is not to stand behind Carson. You're failing already. um not to stand behind a column. We can't see through columns very well. So, >> I appreciate the introduction, you guys taking
038the time to honor these guys. I'll start with uh you know, and I've said this every time, but it's true, you know, and if you watch the Super Bowl the other day, the you know, the so many guys are involved in having a successful team and you know, in that Super Bowl, the guys up front that a lot of times don't get articles written about them or whatever, but they're instrumental in the success of the team. So, we have a couple of those guys up here, but our uh the team success that we've had is the reason why you guys see so many guys up here um you know that are being that are being recognized. So, these guys are the all state guys. They kind of get some of the recognition, but we had
039a really good uh really good team. A lot of guys bought in and we had a great year. I'll start with the classroom. So, we had a overall we had 137 players, that's freshman through senior. We had 81 sophomores through seniors that were on that kind of JV and varsity team. We had a 3.55 cumulative GPA. And then out of the 81, we have 59 that were academic all state, which is, you know, 3.5 or higher. And out of those guys, a lot of them were closer to the 4.0 mark than the 3.5. So, and a lot of these guys are are in that same boat. You know, they're um all these guys also are also uh two sport athletes at minimum. Some of them are three sport athletes, so they're playing multiple things. They're
040taking AP classes. They're uh challenging themselves. And, you know, just a a great representation of our program. And then in the community, a lot of this stuff is kind of stuff we've carried over from year to year, but the Operation Holiday, Matt Clark, I'm sure you guys have already heard from him, our golf coach at the school at Gallatin, does a great job, but he kind of sets it up and organizes all the sports teams at Gallatin to go out and shop for underpriv under underprivileged youth in the in the valley here. These guys all all did that. So, they got to play hookie a little bit from school, but they went out and shopped. They got a list and uh you know, got to make someone's Christmas. Uh we visited a couple elementary schools.
041Amy Dulki helped out with a lot of that. Carter's mom. Um, great resource for our team, but that was awesome for our kids. Every time they come back, you know, I'm always thinking obviously it's going to be good for the little kids, but these guys I think have just as much fun or more fun than than the, you know, the little the little ones do. Lions Club referee, you know, a lot of these guys also played, you know, locally here in town and that program is, you know, it's instrumental into keeping the game alive and all that. Ryan Ballinger kind of helps set that up, but he always needs help. And these guys volunteer, you know, sometimes, too. We'll come back from a game against, you know, Great Falls, whatever. will get home at midnight
042or 1:00 in the morning, they'll get up out of bed and they'll go referee, you know, YMCA and Lions Club football games. So, um that's that's awesome for us. We helped to the local rodeo last year, set up and tear down. Um we've always done the read across America and usually we go to uh you know CJ for that. So, um some stuff that these guys have done in the community and then on the field, our varsity team went nine and two. Um you know, Mark touched on that. We were able to beat everyone except for the two teams that played in the state title game, Billings West and Calisp Glacier. Two really good football teams. our JV team went undefeated and then our freshman went seven and two. So, um, good year, you know,
043good good year for the for the Raptors. History historically, you know, we started out 1 and five. That was a rough year that, uh, that Billings West team at that point beat us by 70 and that was a, you know, that was a that was a tough game, tough time to none of these guys were there for that, but some of them were watching. Um, and then we were able to, you know, make a big jump, go to four and six, and then, you know, the last four years we've at least been able to win nine games. So, we've had some pretty steady success from these guys and all their offseason work. Um, and then I'll just kind of dive dive in here to the players. So, Bob, he's the one with the crutches back
044here. He got hurt during wrestling. He's uh he he's an all-state defensive lineman from this past year. He had a really good season. He had six sacks, 17 TFLs, 50 tackles, 19 hurries, and two force fumbles. He was uh he was a unanimous first team all state guy, you know, and it's it's always interesting to hear like I know what I think of them and how much I think of all of our players, but when you go there and and uh hear some of the other coaches perspectives and how much they they spent, you know, or how much sleep they lost because of some of these guys and you know, Bob was definitely one of those guys. So, you know, he tooured up on on defense. He was a headache for every team that we
045played. Made a lot of big plays. Also played a little bit of tight end for us, too. Had some good time there. So, he's a he's a junior, you know, looking forward to having him back. He's going to be a big part of what we do and a and a great kid. Also wrestles and uh you know, bummer his season got cut short, but he would have been right in the mix of the mix of things to go win a state title in wrestling. Um interested in the future. He's looking at business and engineering and I'm sure he hopes to end up being a Bobcat someday here in town. Um the next one, another junior here, Luke Jenkins. He's uh he's got the sweet mullet. Um he's, you know, he's a big boy. He's about
0466'1, 240. Um played both ways for us. He was all state as an offensive lineman, you know, and kind of like I touched on earlier, you know, that Super Bowl game was dominated, you know, up front in the trenches and and uh man, Luke is a has been a staple for us the last two years that playing left tackle, which is generally, you know, that blind side. It's pretty important protecting the quarterback and then blocking in the run game. So, he's been a force for us. He also rotates a little bit on defense as well. So, he had a phenomenal year for us. Had a 3.6 GPA. Um, first team all state and first team all conference offensive tackle. He's looking at a business degree pre- matter communications in the future. And then the next
047guy, everyone uh everyone knows this guy's name, Carter Dulkkey, you know, and at those meetings, all those coaches were like, "Are you sure this is the last one?" You know, they were they were excited that he's gone. So, they said, "Finally, Carter's a senior. He's out." So, I said, "I don't know. Cousins might be coming. I don't know. Hopefully." but he [snorts] uh you know played pretty much everything for us on offense whether it was Wildcat, quarterback, running back, receiver, played defensive back for us and and uh you know is also a punt returner and you know punt returners are uh you know that I think they're tough to find and honestly out of all the time that I've been around football as a player as a coach I think he's the he's a really
048good football player and all but man his punt returning skills are are uh up there with the best that I've ever seen and he's another one of those guys played basketball last year you know uh ran track had a really good career in both of those sports. Has a 4.0 cumitive GPA, takes a lot of AP classes, and has already graduated and up and he's working out with, you know, Montana State right now and, you know, buying his time, but I'm sure he'll be tearing up the Big Sky Conference here shortly. Um, offensive stats, he had he had almost 1,600 total yards, about 800 rushing, 700 receiving, and 23 total touchdowns. Defensively, he was a first team all state um defense and offensive athlete. that's kind of a category just for guys that move all
049the way around and just you know are are uh you know just good football players. He plans to study engineering at Montana State. Um and again he's already graduated but out of all the I don't know I'm trying to think back but I mean you know you guys have seen him here quite a bit for for uh for football but it's his fourth year in row being a first team all state guy started for us as a freshman and then again even on that freshman team you know sometimes when you see freshman starting especially in football it's such a physical sport but he started on a team that went to the semis and won nine games. So super impressive. He's had an unbelievable career and we're super excited about watching what he does in the
050future. Next guy, Bobby Gutzman. Big athlete for us. Played on both sides of the ball. Also returned some kicks. He's he's uh you know, really good basketball player. I've always known that, but even watching that last um last Friday night they played Billings West at home and he man, he had a he had a great game, took over the game. Really good basketball player. You know, I'm sure he'll be in the mix to win, you know, I don't know, high jump, long jump, something in track. But he's a he's a phenomenal athlete, really good kid. hasn't I don't know in all the years I've been around him I spent a lot of time with him he's I don't know I'm trying to think maybe 50 words total somewhere in there so he's a pretty quiet
051guy he's super humble but uh man really good athlete and another one too that's a 4.0 0 student taking a really challenging course load and still doing everything on the field and uh just a great representation of our program. Offensively, he had about 500 yards receiving, five touchdowns, nine PBUs on defense, four interceptions, and he was a unanimous first team all-state quarterback, second team all-state receiver, um and also a team captain for us. He plans to study something in in in the in the STEM category at Montana State. He's another one that'll be going to play football there next fall. Um, but he's gonna finish out basketball and track at Gallatin High. But Bobby Goodman had a phenomenal career for us. Another guy that I was just kind of telling him this or maybe I
052was telling Sam, but you know, at those meetings we're talking about kids and I bring him up and man, Rob Stanton from Billings West. He's a big fan of Bobby. He's had great games against Billings West. So, he's got some fans out there. [snorts] The next one is uh Braden Matthews. He played running back and kind of nickel linebacker, defensive back linebacker for us. Kind of a hybrid guy. He uh he's also a baseball player. He'll be on the, you know, inaugural baseball team at Gallatin. Really good athlete. Has a 3.7 GPA. He he had uh he kind of got banged up throughout the year, hurt his knee. He started out as a running back and and played defense and later as the year kind of went on um just kind of focused him on
053the defensive side of the ball, but he had 46 tackles, three TFLs, two fumble recoveries. He was a first team all state um nickel and then a team captain. And then he's planning to study psychology and he's got a scholarship to Rocky Mountain and Billings to play football next fall. The next one, Sam Talbot. Um, you guys, I'm sure you guys remember Brooks Talbot over at Boseman High. He was a really good football player. I got to coach him over there as well. Sam, uh, you know, played running back and linebacker for us primarily a defensive guy and had a 3.9 cumitive GPA. He had 82 tackles, 46 solos, 36 assists. He had a big interception against Boseman um, in that cross town game. He was a unanimous first team all state um, linebacker, team
054captain, and then he plans to study engineering at West Point. and I think um football there too. So, he's uh you know, another just like great energy guy in the weight room. All these guys are awesome. They attend everything and they're they're great teammates, but him specifically the energy he brought to practice. Um one of the one of the better team leaders I've been around in my time as an athlete or as a coach. So, we're going to we're going to miss him dearly. Same another one just like Braden. He'll be playing baseball this spring. Excited to watch him do that. And then, you know, he'll be uh representing our country here shortly as well. the last one. Um, the best for last, Carson. So, Carson Ross is, uh, you know, has been a really
055good football player for us last year. I really think he would have been a first team all state kid as a junior if he didn't get hurt. He got hurt in that cross town game two years ago. Um, but he played primarily right tackle for us in the offensive line. Again, a guy that has never had an article probably written about him, but has been massive to the success of our team. Played in the defensive side as well interiorly. He had a 3 point uh 3.94 GPA, unanimous first team all state offensive tackle, team captain. He plans to study engineering next year at Montana Tech where, you know, even just talking to their coaches, I think they're looking at him, you know, to play early. Um, but just a a phenomenal kid, you know, and
056I've had all all three of Lor's kids either as an athlete or or in class, and man, all three of them are phenomenal humans. Those of you guys that know her know that. And he's not to say anything bad about the rest of our guys, man, but if I had a daughter, which I'm about to in May, Carson, Carson is the one guy, you know, that you'd be like, I want that guy to date my daughter. Just the just the nicest the nicest human, the best teammate, and he had a phenomenal career for us, and we're we're glad that he's only, you know, about an hour away at Montana Tech, so he'll tear up the Frontier Conference. That's all I got for you guys. And then if um you guys got any questions, these guys
057can step up. >> All right. Well, [clears throat] Coach Chandler, thank you for all the information. Congratulations to you guys on your seasons, your careers. Um, I know a couple of you a little bit better than others. So, um, I I appreciated my time, seventh grade, eighth grade, having the opportunity to yell at you guys. Let me take it back. Melissa, I don't yell. I just speak loudly. Right, Carter? >> Yeah, [laughter] I've been accused of that as well. Yes. Um but just appreciate congratulations to you guys um on your accomplishments in football. Um are there any trustee comments? Gary. Well, congratulations to all of you and uh great thank you to the coach and your coaches and parents for supporting you and I clearly appreciate your tolerance of tolerating Kevin through whatever your life
058has been with Kevin. Um, I'm curious for Sam. Which one is Sam? What was your What's the process for West Point? >> Uh, so first you got to make sure you got all your grades in check. You got a pretty good grades. Got to have all A's or B's, high GPA. You got to have a good score on your test scores, your ACT, your SAT. And then, uh, you also have to get a congressional nomination from the [clears throat] representatives of our state. That was a tricky process. You go and you get interviewed and they decide if you're a fit for one of themies or not. And then once you submit all that, it goes to West Point, the administration's office, and they decide if they want you there or not. >> Thank you. Thank
059you for serving in that regard. And good luck to all of you. Continue this road, the path you're on. So, it's very good. So, appreciate it a lot. One last thing. This is really good. I like this. So, thank you. >> You bet. Thank you guys. [snorts] >> Greg, do you have a comment? Listen. >> Um, I just wanted to say congratulations to all of you. Bobby G, you have been so much fun to watch since third grade. Carson, you also Carter, you showed up in fifth grade on the flight team and took us by surprise. So, I wish the three of you the best of luck. Also, the other two seniors, good luck to y'all and juniors next year. Have a great season. Thank y'all for all you do. I love watching football, but
060as the academic in me, I really love high GPA. This is super impressive how good these GPA are. So, nice work to all of you. >> Yeah, ditto that. Uh, Coach Chandler, you're great leader of young men. uh we appreciate what you do for the the program and the community and the school. So, thanks for everything that you do. And um I don't have time to ask all of you questions, but I I I I have questions for all of you. I just going to refrain on a few of my guests, but um I will start with with Carter. You've been a four-year starter and um it's my understanding you're the only person to do that in the history of the program so far. kind of a short history, five, six year history, but um
061you you guys as a as a group or I know you're probably thinking semi-final, semi-final, semi-final, semi-final. Um your your program is going to get over the over the over the hump. uh you guys have been pouring concrete in the foundation and it's going to be uh kids that have been watching you and looking up to you and paying attention to you and uh and so great job representing yourselves in your school um because it's going to happen next year or the year after that or pretty pretty quick and it's it's going to have you guys all over your thumbrints are all over it. So um but uh so Carter are when you stand next to Taco Deler are you guys the same size? >> No, I think I got an inch on it. You
062have an inch on him. [laughter] All right. Well, can't can't wait to to watch. And um and um Carson, I know you had a a pretty bad injury last year to was it an ACL and a miniscus. Is that correct? Yes, sir. >> And that shut you down for the rest of football season. I think it shut you down for track. Is is that right? >> Yeah. >> What was that rehab process like for you? What was that rehab? Yeah. >> Um you know, it's never it's never really like easy, I guess. kind of had some struggles, had some things go wrong, but um yeah, missed out on the rest of the football season after week five, missed out on the semiinal game, and then uh came back during fall camp and um yeah, I
063mean, there's some bumps along the road, but there >> And when in that process did you were you already in communication with Tech at that point or did that come later or how did that work? I believe they first contacted me, Coach Thatcher, um right after junior year football season got done. So, yeah, I've been talking with him before that, but they uh gave me or told me about the scholarship right after. >> That's awesome. Congratulations. Glad glad you made it back. Don't hurt yourself again. >> Um and um yeah, so just really really proud of you guys. Congratulations um on on everything. Uh, coach, do you have something to say? >> No. >> Okay. All right. Well, it is my honor to uh support the recommendation that the board of trustees adopt the following
064resolution. Whereas the Gallatin High football team finished this season with a 9-2 record and advanced to the semi-finals in the state football playoffs. And whereas the following players earned first team all state honors. Carter Dulkkey, Bobby Goodman, Luke Jenkins, Braden Matthews, Carson Ross, Robert Springman, Sam Talbert, Talbot, sorry. Therefore, be it resolved that the board of trustees recognize and honor the 2025 Gallatin High School football first team allstate individuals, Carter Dulki, Bobby Goodman, Luke Jenkins, Braden Matthews, Carson Ross, Robert Springman, and Sam Talbot. Second >> motion [snorts] made by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trustee Moran. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. Congratulations. [applause] >> Thank you guys. >> For you, uh, Carter, >> for you guys, we've changed things up a little bit that have been here before. We
065want you to come up here and you get a picture with all of us. So, come on up. Some of you might need to kneel down cuz some of us are short. >> [applause] >> Yep. >> Okay. Next up, 2.3.2 uh certification achievement of excellence for finan financial reporting. Sounds like Lacy Clark. So exciting. >> Sounds like fun. >> Yeah. Um, I'd like >> So much better than the football stuff. Geez. Finances. >> Like to ask Julia Weman, our accounting supervisor, to come to the hot seat, please. Um, I think this is about the third time you guys have had the pleasure of um, sitting and listening to Julia talk about school finance. Um, she's a whiz. She knows things in and out. She picks up on things really quick. We're really, really lucky to
066have her in the business office. Um, [laughter] the last 14 months have been a really big roller coaster. We've had retirements, we've had two business office babies, neither of ours. We've had um resignations, we've had leaves. Um, and in an office of three people, two bookkeepers and Julia, that's a lot to handle for every dayto-day thing. Um, but when you also talk about completing an audit and putting together financial reports that win the GFOA award every single year for 36 years, it's a it's a huge carry and a hu huge task to take on. Um, so we're incredibly lucky and thankful that we have her on our team. Um, she's meticulous. She understands things. She's transparent. Um, you can see from the financial documents, she she cares about every single thing that is on that
067page. Um, and it's really, really the district's lucky to have somebody like her that can carry on the the theme of transparency and accuracy within the school district. Um, so I'm honored to recognize her tonight for, like I said, the 36th consecutive year um, Julia's third year um, for being awarded the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting. Julia, well, congratulations. Um, and um, thank you for all your hard work and all the time that goes into getting this for the 36th time. Is that right? So, thank you very much. Are there any trustee comments or questions, >> Gary? Yeah. >> Well, thank you very much. your work is critical with Lacy and Mike and uh within our district. So, it's much appreciated. Uh I'm curious what you [snorts] um see as your major
068challenges in your role. >> Um probably the biggest challenge is keeping up with the everchanging requirements. Um it seems like just as soon as you get comfortable with something in accounting, they like to change it on you and always trying to improve things, but um just learning the new the new requirements and how to apply them to our district. >> Just a followup, are those new requirements state or federal or both? >> They're they're mostly accounting requirements, right? So they'll be um you know generally accepted accounting principles. All of the Gazsbes, I think we're up to Gazsby, where are we? 106 this year, Janine. Yeah. So, they're issuing, you know, new requirements every year and um going through trainings to learn how that will apply to our financial statements. >> Well, thank you, uh Sarah,
069I think you have the reading. >> Yes. What originally led you to go into finance? for all the people watching online. [laughter] >> Um, I mean, this sounds really nerdy, but it was something I always wanted to do. I mean, even as a high school student, I accounting kind of spoke to me and it was something that was interesting. And as I got into it, um, you know, I just loved it even more and more. I've kind of been in different types of accounting roles. I've been an auditor um worked in the you know public sector and now in government and it's I don't know it's fun to me I really enjoy it um numbers make sense I don't know >> well thank you for being so good at it whereas the governmental finance officers
070association GFOA awards a certificate of achievement for the excellence of financial reporting to government units whose annual Comprehensive financial reports achieve the highest standards in governmental accounting and financial reporting. And whereas the attainment of this award represents a significant accomplishment by the district and its management. And whereas the Bosezeman School District received the award for fiscal year 2024 annual comprehensive financial report AFC F sorry sorry AFR AF R [laughter] ACFR that's hard and whereas the 36 cone con consecutive year Boseman school district number seven has received this award and whereas the district accounting supervisor Julia Weman was the primary person responsible for overseeing the completion of the AF ACFR. Therefore, be it resolved that the board of trustees recognize and honor Julia Weman and the entire business services staff for continuing the excellence of in
071governmental accounting and financial reporting. >> Second. >> Motion made by trustee Sarah Wilson, seconded by Sandy Wilson. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. Congratulations. [applause] Do you want a picture with us? Do you want a picture with us? >> You sure? >> Sure. Come on up. >> Is the rest of our staff here? >> Lacy, you want in the picture? Do you want to you want to come back this side? You can go back. Yeah. Yeah. You [laughter] can come over. >> Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Next 2.3 Montana Association of Elementary and Middle School Principles Principal of the Year, Casey. >> Would the man with the giant smile hiding behind the pillar come on down? >> Have a seat, Mr. and Vinkula. Welcome. Uh all of you know
072Mr. A and uh he was recently uh awarded a big award um at the state level at the recent SAM conference held in Bosezeman um and is the Montana distinguished um principal and his application will go to the national level for consideration um as well. Um, Adrienne has been a a a teacher and an instructional coach, an elementary principal at at Irving and Metoark, and then has come full circle back to CJ Middle School as the principal there. He's worked um tirelessly on behalf of all students uh for 21 years u in Bosezeman public schools. Um he is a tireless advocate for children and um is a tremendous leader in our school system and also in our community. I'm proud to know him and learn from him. Um, and this award is is welld deserved
073and uh we have a really bold mission statement and Adrian believes in that. Mr. A believes in that. Um, and it is often hard um to reach all kids and be a champion for all kids. And he sees the best in every parent and every teacher and in every student. And I thank you for who you are. >> [applause] >> Adrian, congratulations. Welld deserved. Um, you're very appreciated. Um, I've over the last few years being a trustee, I've seen your work. I've seen how you look, manage kids, seen you outside um the the classroom and that sort of thing. And um I would the the smile piece. I always see you and has a big smile. So, appreciate that and appreciate what you do for all of our kids. So, thank you very much and
074congratulations Trusty's comments or questions. >> Gary, I just want to thank you, Adrian, for all the work you've done in the years I've known you and been able to observe you and schools and outside of that. And uh you're very consistent and uh truly a benefit to our district and our kids. So, thank you very much. >> Anyone else? Sandy. >> Well, I'm not surprised is all I'm going [snorts] to say. I'm not surprised that you [clears throat] have received this award. Adrian, I I've witnessed I was a leazison to metallark for several years, some of it during co and I just saw the calm approach that you had and the sparkle in the kids' eyes when they would see you and Mr. A and and just the culture and um that you had at
075Metallark and I'm sure is going on in your new post. Um, so I am so I am so excited for you and it's welld deserved and well-earned and again I'm not surprised. Um, I have a couple questions. I was wondering when you now you've moved on to middle school which is my realm. That's where I taught. Um, but you spent time in the elementary school. Is there something you miss >> from being an elementary principal? >> Shockingly, uh, elementary kids are much kinder than middle schoolers. >> Oh. [laughter] I know, right? Yeah. >> You know, one of the cool things about elementary, especially when you're you're working with five, six, seven, and eight year olds, there's that that just uninhibited joy when they're at school, when they're with their peers, when they're in in a
076community that they're they're part of. And that's really fun to see. and just just have them engage and not have those inhibitions. Whereas, as you know, in middle school, sometimes whatever slang words these high schools were saying earlier, whatever the middle schools are saying now, it's not hip, rad, whatever it is. Um, sometimes they're there's a little bit of that hesitancy or those barriers. >> Um, and that's one of the big differences. Uh, but overall, you know, they're they're still kids. >> Yeah. >> They're still curious. uh you engage with them, they're they're they're people. They want to be acknowledged. They want to be heard. And I think that's just one of the things that we do really well in this district is to um make sure that we, you know, we see the kids
077that are in our buildings and in our community, we hear what they're saying and we we take action on, you know, how to best support them. Well, I as a teacher, I remember hanging out outside the kindergarten classroom wondering how can I get that awe, [laughter] you know, that feeling. But you can't. It's different. It's very different. So, I'll move on to my second question is um what are what are your goals or what are the things that you're uh looking forward to doing at the middle school going forward? >> Oh, goodness. >> Just pick one. just >> um being a middle schooler is hard. >> You know, at that age it's tough. We know that. I mean, you're figuring things out. You're trying to discover yourself. You know, friendships from elementary school may have
078changed or morphed in some way. Um and sometimes it's hard to feel like you belong or you fit in. Um, and sometimes you you you all good intentions, sometimes you just feel like it's it's it's a tough place to be. >> Um, and so like one of the things that I know that I I've noticed in the semester I've been there at CJ is that one thing that we do well is that we try to recognize and like I said earlier, we we see kids. We see the kids in our classrooms. We see the kids in our schools. I mean, the big thing is just making sure that, you know, they know that we hear them and we may not agree, we may not be the best of friends. Um, but they know that CJ
079is a place to to go to be, you know, to to feel loved, >> you know, to feel all those things that they need to feel as middle schoolers. And they know that even though we may be hard on them sometimes, that um we're going to continue to support them. And that's that climate and culture that I want to continue to build and grow in that over there. >> Nice. >> Well, thank you and thank you for all your service to our kids in our district. Um if there aren't any other comments or questions, I'll just move forward on this. Um it is my honor to recommend that the board of trustees adopt the following resolution. Whereas the MEMSP principal of the year award recognizes outstanding elementary and middle school principles who have succeeded in
080providing high quality learning opportunities for students as well as demonstrating exemplary contributions to the profession. An eligible candidate must have been an active principal for at least three con consecutive years and whereas the recipient must have professional evidence of student performance through compiled data. um testing etc. show a strong commitment to the principal ship through active membership in a professional associations be respected by students, colleagues, parents and the community at large. Assume an active role in their community distinguishing themselves as a leader in civic re religious or humanitarian activities. Show strong educational leadership by setting high expectations for school staff and students and maintain an orderly, purposeful learning environment. Wow. I'm just going to say that right there. Wow. Whereas the award ceremony was held on January 26, 2026 at the SAM principal conference in
081Bosezeman. Therefore, be it resolved that the board of trustees recognize and honor Chief Joseph Middle School principal Adrien Advicula. I said that correctly. >> I did. Awesome. >> For this prestigious award. >> Motion made by Trustee Sandy Wilson, seconded by Trustee Lucine. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. Congratulations. [applause] You can come up. You can come on up for a picture. [laughter] >> Yeah. Julie had to do it. You have to do >> [applause] >> Okay, next one. Uh, Mr. Ader, it looks like 2.3.4 four 202526 Gatorade Montana Player of the Year. [clears throat] I do not see our uh Boseman High volleyball coach here tonight. And Nula is not with us. Nula is in uh she's in Morgantown, West Virginia. She has started her college career. She wanted
082to be there for uh the star of spring ball. Uh Nula was the uh Gatorade volleyball player of the year. Uh she was a she was on the volleyball team for four years. She was a three-year-old state athlete led the Boseman Hawks to uh the top three top two finish twice and a top three finish. Uh she had I obviously do not know her statistics off the top of my head, but we all know she was a great player and she played the game with a smile. So that's thing I think that's the thing that impressed me. So, um, she was a great, uh, example for our kids and will do well in, uh, West Virginia. >> Thank you, Mr. Rder. Um, guess you could ask questions to Mr. Rder, but you might >> want
083She played the game with a smile. You're And she made it look so easy and she would give that little smirk on her face anytime she had a good play. It was just It was fun to watch her the past four years. So, it is my honor to move that the board of trustees adopt the following resolution. Whereas, Nula Anderson, a senior outside hitter at Bosezeman High School, has been named the 202526 Gatorade Montana Volleyball Player of the Year, the highest honor in high school athletics. The Gatorade Player of the Year program recognizes outstanding student athletes for excellence in athletics, academics, and community involvement. And whereas during the 2025 season, Anderson led the Boseman Hawks to the class AAA tournament semifinals with a 24-5 record. She recorded 436 kills, 219 digs, and 49 blocks, compiled
084a 315 hitting percentage, and earned Eastern DAA player of the year honors. a two-time first team all-state selection, she concluded her high school volleyball career with 17 kills. And whereas in addition to her athletic achievements, Anderson maintained a 3.96 GPA, volunteered as a youth volleyball instructor and coach, participated in school choir, and advocated for constructive policy and cultural change within the district. Therefore, be it resolved that the board of trustees recognize and honor Nula Anderson as the 2025 2026 Gatorade Montana volleyball player of the year. >> Second. >> Motion made by Trusty Moran, seconded by Trustee Neil. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. All right. Next. Oh. [applause] Uh, next we go move on to um action items consent three. Gary. >> Yeah. I'd like to move item 3.4.4
085and 3.4.5 uh to section four at the end. Action items singular. >> Is everybody all okay with that? Thumbs up. All right. Thank you. Uh so then I consider a motion for the remaining consent items. Motion to approve consent to agenda items 3.2 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.4.3. >> Second. >> Motion made [snorts] by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trusty Moran. Any public comment? All those in fa favor? Motion passes six to zero. And then we have the elementary district >> motion to approve consent agenda items 3.5. >> Second. >> Motion made by Trustee Neil, seconded by Trusty Moran. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes five to zero. All right. Uh, next is action item singular uh 4.1.1. This is Clark. >> Um, I'd like to once again ask Julia Wayman to come up. And
086in addition, um, we have Janine um, Hcock here with um, I Bailey. She's a partner with I Bailey and she heads up the audit for um, our annual audit every fall. Um, so her and Julia work really closely together. Julia is here to present on the actual aer and Janine is going to present on the audit itself. So I think you guys should be able to hook up into that Welcome back. Yeah, thanks Julia. I was going to remind you to turn on the mic. Thank you. >> Um hi again. Um I am excited to be here tonight to share with you this 2025 annual comprehensive financial report or aur as we lovingly call it. one of those nice acronyms. Um, so this report I'm going to present to you tonight um is largely used
087by state and federal oversight agencies, bond rating agencies, bond issuers, taxpayers, district staff, and the public as a tool to get a bird's eye view of our finances in a format that's consistent with other districts. Our statements are a bit more expansive than some other districts because we do apply for an annual award with the GFOA and have to abide by their rules and requirements. [clears throat] Um so I know you all get those monthly financial reports included in the board agenda and the ACER is different from those reports. Um those monthly numbers serve as the basis. Um but there's many accounting entries that we have to make to convert our books to an acrruel basis required under governmental generally accepted accounting principles. Um one of the biggest examples of this is our net pension
088liability. I mean it's a rather large number 66.5 million. Um and that's something that you'll see reflected in the ACER. Um this number represents our participation in um the TRS and PES retirement systems and it's measured annually using an actuarial valuation. Um there's a few other examples of the differences between the reports. Um in the ACER you have compensated absence and other post-employment health benefit liabilities and our treatment of capital assets and the related depreciation expense. Um, from a Gazsby perspective, fiscical year 25 was relatively quiet. Um, we did have one, um, new accounting standard that we implemented. That was Gazsby 101 that's related to compensated absences. Um, this new standard provided updated guidance for things like our vacation and sick leaves and the measurement of those liabilities in our financials. Um, there wasn't a
089significant effect on our financials really related to this new implementation. There was one accounting change that you will see in the report related to Gazsby 100. Um so every year we're required to calculate which of our funds qualify as major versus minor funds. Um so there was a change in fiscal 25 and three of those funds. Um the elementary grants, elementary retirement and high school retirement funds um were now classified as minor versus major. Um so the Gazsby guidance requires us to present an adjustment in our financials as though that happened as of the beginning of the year. Um you will see this this in the statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balances presented on page 36 within the report if you're looking for it. Um kind of how I was saying before,
090there's always new guidance coming in the pipeline. Um next year we'll be implementing Gazsby 103 related to FI financial model reporting improvements. Um that one you'll see some presentation changes within the report. Um a lot of updates to the MDNA. Um also on the horizon we have Gazsby 104 disclosure of certain capital assets. Um also effective in fiscal year 26. Um, we did have one hiccup, I would call it, in our reporting process this year. Um, there really was a significant delay in the issuance of compliance supplements at both the federal and state levels. Um, these compliance supplements identify requirements for our auditors to consider when performing their single audit procedures. Um, typically the federal supplement is released around the end of the fiscal year. Um, however, there was a major delay, I think partially
091due to the government shutdown that occurred, um, where that wasn't issued until late November. Um, the state compliance supplement was even later, finally issued on December 12th. Um, given that we have a GFOA deadline of December 31st, that really didn't give us a lot of room. Um, but our auditors worked quickly and once the supplements were issued, they were on top of it and were able to issue on time and still meet our deadlines. Um, you know, it was really great to work with ID Bailey again. Um, this was our third year with them and we're really fortunate to have developed a good partnership. The business office is very proud of what we've accomplished this past fiscal year. Um Janine will go into more detail, but we did receive a clean audit opinion with no
092identified misstatements or material weaknesses. Um we worked closely with our auditors to go through every detail of the ACER and continue to improve the presentation and we have a lot of confidence in our day-to-day operations and the quality that comes out of the business office. Um I do have some paper reports here which I'll leave if anybody wants one. Um, but I did kind of want to point out if anybody does want to read through the report or reference it later, um, it is available on our district website under departments and then business services. Uh, there you can find a full history. I think it goes back to 2007. All of our historical afers um are all there for your reading enjoyment. Um, so [sighs and gasps] I know this report is pretty large. um
093it can really be overwhelming if you don't know where to start or kind of what you're looking for. I put together kind of a road map um to kind of highlight some of the important areas within the report if you are trying to dig in on your own or look for more information. Um the first kind of first big stop on our on our road map here is the audit opinion. That's going to be on page 11. Um this is our auditor's conclusion about whether our financial statements are fairly presented. You can kind of think of the audit opinion like a report card on our financials. Uh the best outcome would be an unmodified or a clean audit opinion. Uh next would be what I really consider to be one of the most useful tools
094in the report. It's the MDNA or management discussion and analysis. And this is really an overview of our financial activities for the year. It kind of looks at big picture trends and the reasons behind the changes. After that, you would get into kind of, you know, the meat of your financial statements. Um, the first are going to be your governmentwide financial statements that shows the overall financial health of the district. This includes a statement of net position and statement of activities and it uses full acral accounting. So, that includes like some of those adjustments that I was talking about before with the pension and capital assets and all of those things. Uh our next stop would be the fund financial statements. Those kind of break down the governmentwide financial statements for all of our major
095funds. Um the major funds presented this year are the general fund, the high school debt service fund, and the high school building reserve fund. Um and then all of the non- major and proprietary funds are presented there in a combined manner. The next page on page 44 are the notes to the financial statements. So these are our disclosures that explain the numbers in the financial statements. They provide a lot of context and transparency. Um for example, you can find a lot of details on our accounting policies, breakouts on our capital assets and long-term liabilities, and a lot of further information on our pension. there we do have some supplementary information required to disclose. Um it's primarily a lot of pension and OPED trend data. Um that's the RSI there. And then starting on page 112,
096you'll find a lot more financial statements. These are going to be the detailed statements for our non- major funds and internal service funds that were presented combined in the beginning of the report. Um they also include budget to actual comparisons for any of those funds that are budgeted. Um the next there is our supplemental information mandated by OPI. We do have a few things that we have to put in there as required by OPI. Uh it's a detail of our student extracurricular funds and a schedule of enrollment. Um, we will get to this one a little bit more later, but on page 154, it's the statistical section. Um, this is where we have 26 tables of statistical information as an added tool to better understand our financials. And then our last stop here is the
097last um is a single audit section. Um, this is required due to our federal funding. It includes an auditor's report on our compliance with federal program requirements. If we had any findings or corrective action plans, which we didn't, for fiscal 25, this is where you would find them. Um, now I kind of wanted to dig into a few details of the report. Um, I know I know it's February and this is fiscal 25, but I feel it's still kind of important to see. Um, so for fiscal 25, we experienced a point8% increase in revenue. When looking year-over-year, this equated to roughly $962,000. Um, the new tax levies for the general fund were collected. We saw an increase in state equalization revenue. Um, our split there of revenue by source was consistent with previous years. Um,
098we had approximately 64% from local sources, which includes our tax revenue, uh, 33% from the state, and then 3% federal. Um, looking at our expenses, there was a 2.4% increase in expenses, which equated to roughly 2.7 million. Um, this increase was largely attributable to inflation, increased cost of recruiting and retaining district staffing, and enrollment driven expenses. Um, the district realized rising salaries and benefits largely due to raises of 2% for certified staff and 5% for classified employees. We also had a 1.7% increase in enrollment which results in increased costs across functions. Um, here's just a chart that shows our our elementary and general funds broken down by function in a comparison over the past 10 years. Um you can see over time our expenditures have increased and you can kind of see by function that
099they've kind of stayed consistent there. That um blue box I know my key is pretty small there but the the largest functional expenditure is instruction has continued to be and they showed an increase during the year. Um so instruction like I said is our largest functional expenditure. This really translates into salaries and benefits for our teaching staff. Consistent with the prior year, salaries and benefits were about 57% of our total district expenditures, but really 89% of our general fund expenditures. Um, the payroll team stays very busy. They issued over 1500 W2s this year and processed over 22,000 direct deposits. Um, looking at the general fund. So, the elementary and high school general funds are the main operating funds of the district that houses most of our instructional expenses and our revenue from the state. Looking
100at revenue for 2025 in a comparison to budget, we came in almost spot on to budget with a variance of less than 1%. This small difference was related to our collection of unbudgeted TIFF proceeds. Um the general fund expenditures ended under budget by 1.7 million or about 2.8%. This was mostly due to operations and maintenance. They had lower salaries due to difficulties feel filling some custodial positions, um unspent utility contingency budgets and annual repair and maintenance expenditures below budget. Um looking at that kind of small piece of our pie where I mentioned we get about 3% from federal funding. Um here's just a chart that I find interesting to show the federal grant funding over the last few years. Um our federal funding has dropped significantly and we're now again back to pre-COVID levels. We
101had a peak of in fiscal 22 of over 11.2 million and last year we were back to federal grant funds of about 4.3 million. Um, within the in the report within the single audit section, um, there's a great schedule that details out all of our federal awards, how much expenditures we had for each of those in the current year, and how much revenue. I think I have a screenshot here kind of showing you what it looks like. So, you can see we have our recurring title, our grants, um, federal funds received by the school nutrition program. Um this year the auditors doing their single audit tested both our title one and our school nutrition cluster which includes the federal funding for school meals. Um by far the largest portion of our positive net position reflects
102our net investment in capital assets. Um these are things like our land, building, equipment, construction in progress. um also includes our right to use assets like leases and software agreements. Um you know thinking about all of our school buildings and our facilities makes sense that this is such a large number for us. Um as of June 30th 2025 we had invested roughly 233.5 million in net capital assets. Um during fiscal year 25 our additions were approximately 3 million. um depreciation was just over 10 million and then a majority of that construction in progress balance that you see at year end was related to the Wilson day school and gym improvement project. Um anyone interested in further details, there are some more detailed notes within the notes section of the report that goes through capital assets.
103I believe it's note 3C. Um, here is that statistical section that I was talking about previously. Um, so we have 26 different tables. They're really an added tool to better understand what the financial statements, disclosures, and supplementary information is saying about our overall financial health. Um, there's a few types of schedules that we present. Um, we have some financial trends, revenue capacity, debt capacity, demographic and economic information, um, and operating information. Um, I would highly recommend a review of this section to anyone kind of interested in digging in further. I think I put a few of them in here. Um, there's a few examples here. Um, so within the ST section there, you'll find some historical data. So, this is a great example. um where you have a 10-year comparison of our net position from
104governmental activities. Um you know, this historical data gives good year-over-year comparisons that aren't necessarily in um the financial statements that you'll find in the front of the report. Um there's also some interesting information in that stat section. Um we have a comparison of our principal taxpayers from this year to nine years ago. Um, you know, our number one taxpayer has really stayed consistent. It's been Northwestern Energy for a long time now. Um, but things have changed. You can see that, um, the other top 10 have changed. You can see that the percentage of the total has gotten smaller, showing that our taxes are being spread over a larger number of taxpayers. Um, I think that's all that I had. Um, I can hand it off here to Janine. Okay. Smart for you? >> Yep. [laughter]
105I'll go through twice. Thank you for having me here this evening. My name is Janine Hathcock. I am the audit partner and I'm happy to be here to present the audit for the fiscal year 2025 audit for Bosezeman School District. Okay, my agenda is pretty short um because Julia does all the work. [laughter] Most of my other clients I have to do everything that she just did. So, we very much appreciate having Julia um on your staff as well. She's fantastic. Um so, tonight we're going to go through the financial statement audit. Uh we'll go through the single audit reporting package and then I'll conclude with our letter to governance. Okay. Um but before I kind of get into our auditor's report, I do want to thank both Julia and Lacy for a successful year.
106Again, um it is very easy to work with your business office. It's fantastic. They're wonderful people. Um they're on top of it. U we have staff that fight over being on this audit because they love working with them so much. So uh we just really appreciate that. All right. So to the opinion um if you are following along I have the PDF page number uh it is uh 20 of the PDF of the financial statements. Um now out of our this entire uh financial statement that Julia does put together we contribute four pages. So it is a fantastic job that she does. Um so um kudos to you and um your award earlier. um is very well well um received. So um so to the opinion uh the very first paragraph of our opinion discusses
107what we have audited. Okay. So we have audited the financial statements of your governmental activities and each major fund and as Julia had mentioned earlier you have three of them. So you have your general fund, your high school debt service fund and your high school building reserve fund. And then you have um an aggregate remaining. So all of those non- major funds are all in opinion units. This opinion actually covers five opinion units in the entire document. So um all of those opinions are unmodified opinions, the best you can get. Um, and what it states in our opinion is in our second paragraph, it says that in our opinion, your financial statements are materially correct in all um in respects to our um the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States for governments. Okay?
108And any other CPA firm given the same set of information that we were given would come to the same conclusion. And we can say that because of what's in paragraph three of our opinion and that is the basis for our opinion. So basically here we say that we followed all of our applicable required um auditing standards. We were independent of the district and we've met all of our ethical requirements and responsibilities. Now um moving on to Oh no, not not yet. I'm sorry. Um, moving on to page two of the opinion. Um, the fourth paragraph at, uh, the very top of page two is what we call an emphasis of a matter paragraph. Okay? And that paragraph highlights to a reader information that we believe is important for them to know. Um, this year the
109district had an emphasis of a ma matter paragraph discussing the implementation of that new Gazsby standard on compensated absences. our opinion is not changed or modified in relation to that implementation. It just lets the reader know that there's some information we want them to know about. Um, page two continues by breaking down both management's responsibilities and our responsibilities as your auditors. Um, basically management is responsible for the fair presentation of these financial statements. And then our responsibilities as your auditors are to perform our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards. And then we bullet out what that means for you in the opinion. Okay. So the third and fourth pages of our opinion discuss some other matters. So your financial statements include information other than just the basic financial statements
110that our opinion covers. Uh so on the top of that third page um RSI or required supplementary information that Julia had gone over those OPED schedules that MDNA that sort of information. Uh we apply such limited procedures over that information. We don't express an opinion over that information. Uh your financial statements also include supplementary information and those are going to be things like your combining statements um your uh supplementary information that you're required for this um state of Montana and the schedule of expenditures of federal awards um that Julia had put up there. [laughter] Oh gosh, sorry. >> Okay. >> I'm so sorry. We've got a very germy house at home right now. It's [laughter] been a hard couple weeks for us. Sorry, I'll talk faster. [laughter] Um, but for that supplementary information, we do
111provide certain procedures over there there so that we can provide to you what we call an in relation to opinion. So we can say those schedules are presented fairly in relation to your basic financial statements as a whole. And then finally um the last paragraph uh discusses some other reporting. Um, this paragraph just states that we've also issued a separate report um, in relation to the district's internal controls over financial reporting and testing of compliance. And that is required by our government auditing standards. And I'll cover that report here in just a moment with you when I get to the single audit portion. I threw this slide in here. We do uh, certain uh, Montana state compliance testing. We don't have any findings to report over um the state of Montana compliance. That was one
112of the things that delayed um issuing the audit opinion is waiting on the state to give us the final compliance supplement. So the la the the last um session had so many um bills that they had to go through. That's what caused the delay um from the state. Um, and then Julia had gone over these already, but just so you can see them, um, these are the upcoming accounting, uh, standard implementations. Uh, Gazsby 103 will probably be the most impactful. Um, you you will see a difference in your MDNA next year. Um, the information will be in there. Julia does a great job um, putting everything in there. It just probably will be in a little bit different format. um disclosures on certain capital assets on Gazsby 104. I don't anticipate that being a big
113impact. And then uh 105 isn't until the following year, but uh we do work with Julia and Lacy if they have any questions on any of these. We are available. Great. Um and then the single audit package, um it's in the very back of your financial statement. So it starts on page 191 of the PDF. Uh this is a separate report um and it's our report to over the testing of your federal expenditures and this is all required by the uniform guidance and the um the package includes two different auditors reports. So the very first report is what I had alluded to in the opinion u where you have a report on your internal controls over your financial statements. Um it's important to note it is a report. It's not an opinion. Uh the main
114takeaway from that report is that we are required to um consider your controls over financial reporting um so that we can plan and perform our audit but we don't test internal controls. So we don't provide an opinion over those internal controls. However, we do need to report to you any um controls that we find um any deficiencies that we identified during our audit process that we considered to be either a significant deficiency or material weakness. We don't have any of those to report to you this year. Okay. Um the next report in that package is a uniform guidance report. It does cover our opinion over your compliance with your major programs. Uh the very first paragraph states u that we have audited the district's compliance with the office of management and budgets or the OM's
115compliance supplement. The next is our opinion. Uh we do have unmodified clean opinions on both programs that we tested. Um and then again we provide our basis for our opinion very similar to our financial statement audit opinion. Um but as uh Julia mentioned, we did test the child nutrition cluster in title one this year. Uh the second page of the report describes both management's responsibilities and auditors responsibilities, same as our audit opinion. Um and then the final page includes a report saying that we do consider the controls over the compliance piece of this testing. Um, and we do not uh we did not identify any deficiencies in internal controls to report to you over compliance. Um, and as Julia mentioned, the purpose of the schedule of expenditures of federal awards is to summarize all of
116those financial or federal awards that you've spent during the fiscal year. Um, I've also added that comparison here. Julia had mentioned um we have gotten back or you've gotten back into uh normal spending 4.3 million um with the co money uh being spent down in 2022. So you can kind of see the last three years are back on track. Now this is u my favorite report in uh that we do issue to you all. It's on page 199 if you want to know. Um it is a summary of our auditor's results. So everything that I've just talked about today is summarized on this one page. So you don't have to remember it all. Um but you'll notice here at the very top um is the financial statement um portion of our audit. Um and you
117can see there's an unmodified opinion. Uh no internal control findings, no non-compliance to report. Um and then it goes on to um describe your federal awards, no internal controls to report, unmodified opinions on your major programs. um and no additional findings to um identified. And then it continues to go down and uh list for you the two programs that we tested. The child nutrition cluster and the title one and then I'll just highlight the dollar threshold used to distinguish between um a major program and non- major program was $750,000 um dollars and um that is increasing in the next year. So hopefully that will reduce the burden of um audit requirements for um the district. So that's what we're hoping for anyway. And with that, that concludes um what I have or what we have
118in the financial statements. Um and then the very last piece on my agenda is to discuss our final communication with you as governance. Um it's not part of the financial statement packet, but there was a separate link um on the agenda under the facts header number three for this report. Um but basically the report um tells you that we have complied with all of our uh professional standards including all of our ethical requirements. We highlight the significant estimates that we want to bring to your attention that are in your financial statements. Uh we list any uh sensitive disclosures that we believe that are important to the users of your financial statements. We list them in that report for you if you wanted them. Um if we had any we would report to you um any
119uncorrected or corre corrected misstatements but we don't have any uh to report to you this year but that would also be part of the letter. Um but we do confirm that we don't have any to report and we are happy to report we didn't have any disagreements with management to report to you this year. So with that, um, open up to any questions or >> Gary, >> thank you both very much and whoever else is working with you on this. Um, this is one aspect of our district operations that for me provides extreme confidence in our district and how we're operating. So thank you very much. actually have um a question if you can share with us. Well, one two questions. One, this audit process is voluntary on the part of our district. >> It's
120required by the state of Montana to have an audit every two years, but you guys actually elect to have it every year. >> Every year. Okay. And I'm just curious if you can share with us how in your experience in auditing other districts and businesses, whatever you do, um kind of how we compare with them. >> All right. Um so that through the audit process, I mean you I can't you're probably one of the best clients that I have. Um, it's very easy to come in and audit your information because Julia has it in such great shape. Um, when we review the financial statements, I very minimal comments back to Julia. Um we've had uh as part of our audit process, we do have a another partner or yeah, another partner or senior manager outside
121of the audit review our audit files and the financial statements and we get nothing but positive reviews um on the the quality um that has come through. Um it's very it's very nice to have someone who has been in the audit side um and understands what um causes us heartburn. Um but I also want to say that they your team is excellent to work with. They're available. Um they make us a priority. We never have to wait on anything. Um so um we don't have very many um recommendations throughout the year. uh when we're or we're done um with the audit. Um we but we we have a very good relationship with your group. Um and they're very, like I said, very easy to talk to um going back and forth. And if that answers
122your question. Okay. >> Other questions, >> Sandy? Well, I'd like to thank you for this. This um this piece that we're talking about is really important to me, but it's very important to our community, and I honestly believe that it plays a part in the the support that we have for our school district, ongoing support for years and years and years and years. So, I just wanted to thank you for everything that goes into this. and um I'm very proud of our financial and fiscal ways of the district. So, thank you very much. >> Any other comments or questions? >> Kevin, can I make one? >> Um Gary used the word confidence. Um the long range strategic plan has the words accountability and transparency in it. I'll use the word trust. Um that's what this
123is all about. There's some really in-depth numbers, big numbers, hard to understand concepts up here, but really at the end of the day, this is about community trust, and that's what we're working at working for here. Gary asked questions about how this district stacks up to others. Um there is no comparison in the state of Montana. The best person for all the stuff is sitting at that table right there. Um she's conscientious, thorough, knowledgeable, professional. You're you're not going to find a better team um anywhere in the state. And on top of that, they're fun to work with. This is this this stuff's in the weeds and everybody makes accounting jokes and you should, don't get me wrong, but this is a fun group to work with to the point. And I this is important
124for you all to know, but we um we acquired an employee from another double A district. Um earlier this fall, I think is when she started, something along those lines. I'm not about a year, right? Somewhere around there. Um this employee worked at another double A high school. So, she worked at one of the buildings in the high school and she was nervous about coming to the central office because of the relationship that that district's central office had with their schools. And I think she's been pleasantly surprised. We don't have antagonistic relationships with our buildings. We're working together. We're on the same team. Obviously, we demand a high level of quality and and professionalism, but we're working together. And I think that's also uncommon as well. So, um I'm grateful for Julia every day. I'm
125grateful for her team and the culture that she's established for Lacy. Um we we've got it pretty darn good here in Bosezeman. So, thank you both. >> Thank you, Mike. Um when do you guys when's like the audit process start as far like does that start in well July or January or how often are you guys in communication? I know we talk several times throughout the year, but we it depends on what works for the district. So, Julia some likes to have us come in around May um to do some planning work um and then we'll do some um most of our fieldwork is though in October. Um but we're ready to go. I mean, we're ready to issue by the first week of November. the the only reason that the delays this year was
126due to the federal and state. >> Yeah. I mean, we're ready to go before before Thanksgiving is her goal. Um and so we we strive to meet that. >> It is a process though. I mean, starting in May with the planning and then I'm preparing schedules and closing the books at year end and then pulling the report together. Say the whole process of these six months of my year just getting it ready. like that. >> Yeah. It's a lot of work. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> Well, thank you and thank you for all all your work. Um, also I think Julie obviously right now you're the one that gets a lot of the credit which is greatly appreciated and everybody that you work with, but I know that our school district has a long history
127of these things. And so there's been a lot of people that have been involved in that process to get us to this point. So appreciate all that history as well. Um, again, thank you for all your you guys' work on this. Um, I'd entertain a motion. That would be a motion from a trustee hopefully. [laughter] >> Greg. >> Motion to approve the 202425 annual compensation financial report and audit report. >> Second. Motion made by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trusty Lucine. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. Do you clap for this one or what? [applause] [laughter] >> Thank you guys very much. Um, all right. To go. We'll bringing back items 3.4.4 4 and 3.4 4.5. Do we do these individually, Casey? All right. So, we'll start with 3.4.4. Uh,
128consider approval of superintendent contract um extension. Um, just I think there was some verbiage in there that what needed was requested to be clarified. So um basically based on practice versus what was in the contract it was section 10 um related to um outside I forget what the term is. >> Are you driving Mr. Van Bever >> click on the the actual contract in the at the bottom. >> Um yep and then scroll to section 10. you were you back it up right there. So in section 10 um outside activities um the first sentence starts out for um upon prior approval of the board. Um, traditionally we've been managing that uh with communication not only um during uh weekly or bi-weekly communication from the superintendent to all trustees but the initial part of it starts
129in communication to board leadership and conversations. Um so to make that more in line uh I think the suggestion would be uh just to add one word um to that first uh I to be upon prior approval by the by board leadership I guess taking out one word and adding a word um and then continuing on um this still gives at the la last s sentence if there's a concern um or something like that of where what's going on that this still gives the board the option to request all information regarding to any of those type of situations. Um so I think we still have um u we still have things in we still have controls in place. Um but uh there's some thought that the leaving it as is that would mean that every
130single time something happened uh related to this that it would have to come to a board meeting and that have to be approved which um I don't think that's how we want to operate. Um, also I would just remind all the trustees from my perspective, um, is that, you know, this contract is currently based on our relationship with our current trustee. Um, and, um, to me, he's earned a lot of different things that maybe the next superintendent has doesn't have the exact same things or the same verbiage and that sort of thing. So, um, I would always encourage us as trustees to remember that, um, that piece of it. Um, so I guess if there's any comments or questions, um, and then I would need a motion or a suggestion for something different. Gary, >>
131I I support um Kevin's recommendation to I think it streamlines this and puts us in a position of uh the contract uh coordinating coordinating well with current process and procedure in this and u so I I support his recommendation. >> Do you just need a motion to approve as amended? >> Yes. And that that would be to remove the um upon prior approval by board leadership. So remove the and add leadership after board in the first sentence. Motion to approve item 3.4 as amended per chair black's amended language. >> Second. >> Motion made by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trustee Moran. Is there any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. All right. Thank you. We'll go to 3.4.5. Um consider approval of 202627 superintendent evaluation tool. Um >> Mr. Van, if
132you click on the at a glance document [clears throat] and scroll to the second page right there. Uh the suggestion um is to add some language to 4.4 which is under talent management labor relations um to sort of mirror some parallel language up above regarding student well-being. Um, as you know, student and staff well-being are part of our long range strategic plan goal. So, it would be addressed in standard number one. Um, but at this added language, which I'm proposing is attend to staff well-being aligned with the LRSP measurable goal, um, ensures that under that um, substandard 4.4 highquality staff that we're making a link to staff well-being as part of my role. All right. Any questions or comments or a motion? >> Just a comment. I I appreciate narrowing this down to this uh
133new format and I appreciate adding this language in. Um so I I support this change. >> Okay. Uh and I would entertain a motion. Motion to approve item 3.4.5 per the amended language. Second >> motion made by trustee Neil, seconded by Trustee Lucine. Any public comment? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. >> Chair Black. Um I know that um some trustees appreciate a hard copy. So um in anticipation of that change being approved um this has the corrected language for for all trustees. Thank you. Next discussion item Lacy 5.2 202627 preliminary budget discussion. More numbers. Very exciting. [snorts] All right. Good evening, trustees. Um, we are switching 180 degrees from what Julia was just presenting on because she was wrapping up fiscal year 2024-25 and we are now officially looking at fiscal
134year 26 2026 27 um so in light of um the election coming up in May in light of the next board meeting in March um looking at the election um language and we want to kind of present to you where we're at, do a quick recap of what all transpired last year because it was a really busy year with the legislative session and negotiations. Um and so we're just going to kind of go go through that. One of the things that we always want to keep I mean Mike spoke to it earlier, we want to always keep the fiscal responsibility in the center of the room um for our core values. um we take it very seriously and I think that that's shown in here tonight. Um there's a lot of different levels to fiscal
135responsibility. There's high level budget setting. Um there's day-to-day bookkeeping. There's yearn financial reports. So there's a lot of different components that go into that. And I'm really proud to say that we we handle that across the board. Um and we've done so for many years. So, for that for that, um I'm grateful to work in an office that that um really takes pride in that. Um so, like I alluded to, here's our agenda for tonight. We'll kind of recap the legislative session. Um not all of it. It was it was a big one. Um we'll go over what we've negotiated um for our bargaining units. Um we'll look at our levy review levy request um overview. We want to have some conversation um surrounding what that looks like. um and just some additional conver considerations
136and then we'll look at the calendar because we are more than halfway through the fiscal year and it feels like it just started. So we got a really fast whirlwind of a spring to come. Um to start legislative review so um as most of you guys know House Bill 15 was the inflationary increase that is allowed by law. 3% is the maximum. Um and we don't get that full 3% without getting part of it voted in. So last year we were lucky enough to get the 6% of the 3% um voted in so we could capitalize on the negotiations and the raises that we agreed to. This year we are looking um we can we can get up to 3% again. So we are looking at um 2.4% of that is guaranteed and then of
137course we'll have to go to the taxpayers to reach that maximum um budget amount. Um, this graph is really telling, I think. Um, on the right, it has the consumer price index inflation in green, and it actually has the public school inflationary increase, um, approved by our legislature in gray. You can see that there's lots of years where it's just not keeping up. Um, we are starting to in 2526, it's looking better. Um, but that's still a long ways to go from seven and a half percent CPI when we were getting less than 2% inflationary increase in public education. Another really important legislative item was the STARS Act, which you guys all um had a lot of conversations about this last year. Um the biggest part of that was a quality educator payment increase in
138which quality educator payments um doubled if we were able to comply with state law surrounding base starting salary compared to the average um teaching salary. Um we're proud to say that we accomplished that. The second part of the stars act that we're really going to hit on tonight is the COLA adjustments. So the COLA adjustments are the cost of living increases. This was also in House Bill 252. um it's it's made to help the communities that have high cost of living. So in the law it says that the median residential property in your county must be greater than 105% of the median market value in the state. When they do the calculations, um Gallatin County actually comes in at 306.53% of median market value in the state. um which put into another equation means that
139we have the potential to go over our max budget by 3.44%. Um so that is um above and beyond what we've ever been able to do. Um those cost of living adjustments have to be geared specifically to that to cost of living. So we have to be able to um show that that is what the money is being used for if if that in fact passes. The one thing about the cost of living adjustments, it's an overbase levy. So, it means it has to get voted in. We cannot permissively levy that amount. Um, another thing to note, what we're going to talk about tonight with um what our recommendation is for the election in May, that won't get us to the max of the 3.44%. Um, we don't know exactly what percent it will get
140us to because we're still waiting on OPI budget spreadsheets that don't get put out until after enrollment count, which we're in the middle of right now for spring. Um, so, but we do know that it won't it won't be to that full 3.44%. >> Yep. >> Trustees, don't um lose don't let the irony of this whole thing get lost on you. So, the the legislature allowed for the first time for us to um increase our budgets, increase our spending because we live in a high cost of living area. the only way we can increase our budgets is to increase property taxes. So, it's a big circular argument, right? We're in we're we're in high cost of living so we can ask for more taxes to address our cost of living problem. So, it's a it's
141a great first step. We this is the first time we've ever had an ability to be over max and to address the cost of living, but hopefully it's an evolving process and hopefully it can make a little bit more um sense without having the circular argument in there. Mhm. >> Um, another another bill that we are going to be working through um for fiscal year 27 is House Bill 156. And House Bill 156 is surrounding countywide base general fund levy. So currently um it ultimately it's going to change the way the base of the general fund is um the revenue is collected. So currently each district is in charge of its own base levy. Um we say how much we say how many mills. It's all based on our taxable value of the district. Um
142what this bill is intended to do is it's intended to spread um tax more evenly throughout the county um in an effort to just get some tax regulation throughout. So, what it's doing is now we would report our um the amount of revenue required for our base to the county superintendent. The county superintendent is going to gather that from all of the other school districts in our county and then they're going to spread all of that evenly across all taxpayers in the county. So, all of Gallatin County would pay the same um tax for the base. And I have pictures. So, right now, um, this is what it looks like for any school district. We'll just use Gallatin County as an example. We have the base funding in the black. Um, we have the local
143property tax levy in the light blue. And then we have the state funded GTB. That takes us to um our our um our Oh my gosh, I'm Yeah, base. Thank you. Um, we can go over base budget, but we have to ask actually ask our taxpayers to go over base bu budget. So that very top bar, it varies by individual district. We're lucky that that bar goes up that high for Bosezeman School District. Um, so that's the before. That light blue box on the right, the local property tax levy, that's when we that's what we tell the county we need to levy. We need to levy a certain amount of money with a certain amount of mills. Um, and that's what our district taxpayers pay. Now, there's a couple different situations that could arise with
144this new type of um levy. So, everybody's base funding is still going to be contingent on them. The the biggest different though is um district A if they submit their taxes to the county, there is the um ability for when the county spreads it evenly over everyone that the local property taxpayers are actually paying less um than they would have if it was just delegated by the district to the district taxpayers. So you can see in this circumstance um that blue box got smaller. So, lo local property taxpayers are play paying less because of the countywide levy. Um, we would consider that a winner. We think Bosezeman is going to be a winner. Not by much. We're going to be pretty even with where we have been. Um, mostly because we're one of the biggest
145taxing entities in Gallatin County. Yeah. >> Yeah. [snorts] Thanks. So, does this mean that when the countywide base funding expands, is that because they're increasing the county is increasing taxes to taxpayers to fund that? No, >> they're going to take all the revenue required from local school districts. So, 2 million from Anderson, 15 million from Bosezeman, 10 million from Belgrade and so forth. And instead of us individually levying our district for those individual amounts, they're going to put it all in a bucket and they're going to spread it evenly over the whole county. >> How does that affect other districts, smaller districts and stuff? >> Yeah. Yeah. I think uh Lacy's getting there on winners and losers. I think MTSBA predicts that 60% of Montana school districts will see taxpayers will see a reduction in
146the base mills. They're the winners. 40% will bear um increased in base mills. So, it's going to hit some of the tax haven school districts across the state um significantly. >> And an example of that, Gary, will be Big Sky. um they're within Gallatin County and they are going to on this um third and final box you can see um for some districts the countywide base property tax is going to increase what is levied by their property taxpayers um so they would be ultimate losers in this equalization >> Sarah >> explain how it could hit some of the smaller districts harder like why they would be the losers help me to understand this >> they don't pay as taxes right now with their within their district. Um, so then when they have to combine with
147everybody else and it gets spread evenly, they're going to ultimately have to pay more. Does that make sense? It's it's one of those things. Right now, this is how the retirement fund is handled. Um, we tell the county superintendent that we need $10 million for retirement for the year. Um, and all the other districts report what they need to the county superintendent and they they spread it out over the entire county. So, it's it's very similar to that. We've just never done it within the general fund before. So, it's something to watch. It's the same amount of revenue. We're going to generate the same amount of revenue we need to generate. It's just taxed across the county rather than our district. So, that's just another legislative item that um is creeping up on us really
148quickly and it there is going to be a lot of questions and a lot of schools um it's just a new concept to wrap our mind around. With that being said, um we also had negotiations last year and these are just some reminders of what we negotiated. Um because of the Stars Act, we had the ability to have a really great negotiation year. Um, and because the taxpayers um, supported our levies, we were able to do the full amount that we agreed to. For certified and admin, that was 4.2% raise on the base. And then for classified and professionals, it was a 4.25% raise on the base. Um, what we're looking at and what we agreed to for 2627 is a 3% raise on the base across the board plus an additional $1,500 cost of
149living stipen per 1.0 FTE. Um, obviously there is that asterisk there that all of these negotiated increases are based on the levies passing. So, if the levies don't pass, um, we'll have to have more discussions about what that looks like. But, um, if we continue with our with what we have historically done, um, hopefully this is what we're able to offer employees starting July 1st. Lacy. Um could you tell me that um the stipen the se the cost of living stipen would is that at the end of the day going to be added on to salaries for retirement or those >> Yep. It would go towards the gross salary. So it would be another line item on the earning statement. >> Okay. Yep. >> Thank you. >> And it's per 1.0 FTE. So if they
150were a halftime employee it would be prrated to 750 and so forth. >> [clears throat] >> Yep. So, that's kind of perfect segue into what does this look like? Um, when we're looking at the levy requests, there's some asterises. Um, because there's a lot of conversation to be had around it, it can get a little convoluted and confusing. So, if you have questions, please stop me. Um the basic premise of this ask is we want to a get our general fund to max budget authority. Um and that's the 6% um of the 3% inflation. Then we have some debt service bonds dropping off. So taxpayers are going to see a tax relief with those bonds expiring. Um what we aim to do is have the same amount of revenue coming in that we always have
151had. So currently the bonds the payment is a eight $1.8 million payment. Um we are asking we are hoping to ask taxpayers to keep that revenue neutral. Instead of having the 1.8 million coming in through bond payments, the $1.8 million would come into the general fund. Um it looks a little different. The high school is the fund that has the bond payments currently in it. Um however, we would be asking to get to max budget and above in both elementary and high school general fund. Um so these annual levy amounts are on here. Um we put up 1.2 2 million in elementary and 600,000 in high school. But those distributions may change a little bit um as we kind of review what that looks like for the taxpayers. Um the ultimate end of this part
152of the conversation though is um revenue neutral 1.8 million either coming through bonds like there has been now we want to switch it to the general fund. >> Can I add real quick just a little bit of color? Um can you go back to that slide for a second? So, um, the basic premise up there, the first one we have up there is large. These are big requests for us. Last year, we're I I think we're somewhere around $500,000 total. So, this is three plus times what we normally ask for. We're able to do that in a revenue neutral way. We've got these bond payments coming off that Lacy will talk to you, but I I I want to impress upon you that this is a big number um that we're asking for. It's an
153unusually large number because we have um this the step down in our tax service so we can make this revenue neutral for the district and minimize the tax impact for um for taxpayers. >> It's already on and those include the COLA adjustments. >> Yes, correct. Y >> so so it's uh a bit above the max budget. >> Yes, correct. Correct. >> Yep. Um, yes. This would include the 3% raise plus the $1,500 stipens. >> So, the the cola doesn't just goes into this general fund request. It doesn't it's not a separate line item. >> Correct. >> Can it be? >> It would be two general fund levies than on the >> on the >> I suppose it could be. I don't know. Um, yeah, we could put the questions on there. we can't go over
154max for the cost of living unless we get the max the the amount to get to max. So I think it could be confusing to taxpayers on a issue that Lacy's going to show you is kind of confusing already, right? >> The basic premise is pretty straightforward, but I think you give more people chances to say yes or no and also to confuse them, >> right? Yeah, I can see how that could be confusing. I just know that from also hearing from um people it seems like they're always like well why can't we spend more money on the teachers but if you if you have four questions like you said and you don't combine it I can also see how they don't answer the first two no but they say oh yeah we'd love we
155would love to pay our teachers more and don't understand how they're related so makes sense >> and I think where we're headed with this there's communication nuances that we need some feedback from you all on that we're going to have questions about that but that's one of them. Um making sure that folks understand where we're headed and and why and um what that money is specifically going to be used for. >> So just to kind of give you um Oh, sorry. Was that Oh, yeah. Go ahead and send because now I was listening to you and I forgot it, but I'll remember. So, [laughter] >> oh, >> um, I know we talked about being being able to say some of these things on the ballot. Are we and has anything changed in that matter? Um,
156and maybe this is coming later, but it would be really great to be able to have this on the ballot so that people Yeah, >> we'll we'll get legal advice on that um before we bring a recommendation back. So, we'll talk about that um here in the next month or so. >> Perfect. Thank you, >> Sandy. I think we're um we're very clear on what has to be on the ballot and it's less clear legally about what else you can put on there. >> Okay. It also, in my opinion, gets a little tricky when you're talking about a tax offset for a different purpose >> when you're talking about bond payments versus general fund. It just muddies the water a little bit. >> Yeah. To just just to walk through that, I mean, using these
157numbers. So, the elementary general fund request under that proposal would say, can the district levy $1.2 million to support the elementary general fund? we've got and then a line down below saying we've got $1.8 million coming off of the tax rules for debt service. Similarly for the high school using this example, can the district levy $600,000? We have $1.8 million coming off the tax rules. So there's a little bit of a disconnect with the numbers and making sure that that's clear to to folks as well. >> I'm just thanks. Um does the the change in growth in Bosezeman and tactical value does that influence this in any way? >> Yeah, we'll we'll talk about it. >> Okay. So, just um to give you a visualization of what we're talking about with the debt service schedule.
158Um this is K12 bonds that we have um outstanding for bond payments. Um orange is high school, blue is elementary school. Um, fiscal year 26 is that far left column and that's the year we're currently in. So, what you can see here is we're looking at the $1.8 million drop in the high school bonds um coming up for this next fiscal year. Then you can see it levels out for a couple years and then we see another big drop. So, there's another $2 million drop coming up. That one is in the blue. So, it's in elementary. So, there's different um drops coming up. It's it's one of those things that we just want to be really clear. here. We want to be as transparent as possible, but it's also a confusing conversation um to take
159to taxpayers to explain bond funds in elementary verse high school and general funds and cost of living. So, there's a lot of um moving pieces that go into this conversation, but ultimately um this year we're looking at that $1.8 million um that's dropping for next year. So, here's um another twist and turn into the conversation. The blue box here represents um 2006 Boseman High School district boundaries. 2006 Boseman High School district boundaries look different than 2026 high school boundaries because Big Sky um opted to create a high school district um up there. So, in 2006 when we had bond levies pass, um Big Sky was responsible to pay on those until those bonds expire, which they are now expiring this year. Um so, they've been paying on the bonds that we're talking about, the $1.8
160million, but they are no longer within our taxing jurisdiction for the high school. So, these boxes, the blue box represents 2006. Um the red box represents the Bosezeman High School District now and then the green box represents the Bosezeman Elementary District boundaries both then and now. Those ones haven't changed at all. So when we're looking and talking about these bond payments, we have to keep in mind that everybody in the big blue box was actually paying on those high school bonds that are falling off. Um when we look to the future, that $1.8 8 million that's falling out of the big blue box now would have to be levied by the by the um red box. So the $1.8 million was spread over more districts um then and now the $1.8 million would be spread
161over less because we cannot levy this money out of Big Sky. So you can see the rural districts um on the right. They are currently paying on the $ 1.8 $8 million debt service high school bonds. Um, and they would continue to pay on any general fund high school levy um that that we ask taxpayers to pass. Is there any questions on that? Okay. So, some of the big takeaways here, um, revenue is a big thing and the revenue would stay the same if these general fund levies were to pass. $1.8 8 million coming into the district. Um it doesn't look the same for taxpayers paying on the maturing bonds um because it's just affecting taxpayers differently. It's affecting different jurisdictions within the taxpayers. Um so there would be a small tax increase for both
162Bosezeman Elementary and the new Bosezeman High School boundaries with this $1.8 million levy. Um, but there's also the fact that there's some new um there was new legislation surrounding property taxes and if you are a owneroccupied or a long-term tenant then you have um different taxable value than you had two years ago or in 2006. So, lots of factors playing into this. um we we want to make it as clean and as clear as possible, but you can see from this conversation, it's really confusing. So, with that being said, um we're looking at the election brochure. Um and we're looking at what is going to help taxpayers make the best choice for themselves and for their community possible. Um there's two different ways to look at it. There's looking at it by mills. Um, and
163we're looking at it based on a $100,000 value in home because that's an easy way to um do the math and it's also the way we've always done it. So, people are used to looking at it that way. And we when we look at estimated mills, um the top part is what we would show as an increase on the ballot. The bottom part in red is what is actually expiring. So you can see that it's not a true um clear tax neutral um ask when it comes down to the mills. So we're looking at approximately a dollar um per $100,000 for properties within the Bosezeman school district elementary and high school boundaries. Yeah, Greg. not >> I don't think we should can show offsets. >> Yeah, I think that's that's where it gets confusing. Um,
164first of all, like it's going to be two separate ballots. So, the elementary district is can the district levy $1.2 million, which is approximately 3.62 mills. And then it doesn't make sense to show the full offset for the elementary and the high school as well. Um, because we we we can't because we have to have a similar question for the high school. look in the district levy $600,000 which is approximately 1.46 mills and show the same offset for both. So it's a it's definitely a nuanced um message. Also the ballot has to state >> [snorts] >> um $100,000 home impact, $300,000 home impact and $600,000 home impact per law now. So a lot of numbers in a quick hurry. Um and then again given the fact that we've got owner occupied changes, those numbers aren't
165even necessarily meaningful >> um like like they used to be. So communication is going to be key and and and nuanced. [clears throat] >> Who makes the final decision on the language that's on the ballot? >> The board. It'll it'll come to the March meeting is when we make the recommendation to the board for the ballot language. >> I understand that. But uh if we decide to put this on the ballot, is there somebody that could say that's not appropriate or not legal or >> Well, and I think that kind of goes back to Mike um saying that we will ask for legal advice prior to bringing you a recommendation for March to make sure that we're on the up and up. Yeah, obviously I support this type of language. So, >> and this more
166than anything, um, we send out that election brochure every year. Um, we mail it out to every taxpayer in the district, um, that's registered to vote and we take it to all the presentations and we speak to it in the meetings when we're presenting to the community. And, um, this is one way of doing it. Um the other way that we're looking at is presenting it from the revenue standpoint which revenue-wise is transparent tax wise and mills-wise it gets muddy. Um and so that's going to be the message that we need to get across to people is revenue neutral. Um mills it it depends where you live. Um so it's a little messy. So, we I I think we'd love your feedback on what you think we should be communicating and how >> how do
167you see it um to best reflect >> what we're trying to ask and what people would understand and what you think would be a transparent way of communicating with the public. >> I'm just going to restate what she said. We want to be 100% transparent. We want to be 100% correct. there's a lot of complication and nuance that kind the enemy of transparency is complication, right? Um and we want to make sure that the message we communicate is true and fair and also understandable and looking for your feedback on that. >> Okay. Well, my feedback is we need to have this type of language on the ballot so it's clear to voters what the net impact is on their taxes. So if if our taxable value goes up above 0%. Then that's going to reduce
168that net change the 96 cents. Correct. >> Our taxable value as a district whole um will change very minimally this year since it's a non-reappraisal year. >> Oh yeah. and your homes are worth owner occupied homes are worth less from a taxation perspective because if they're owner occupied the legislaturator's creating breaks in the in in the tax code for owner occupied houses. So our taxable value might not actually go up this year even though we have more growth. Everyone's house from a taxing perspective owner occupied is going to be worth less than it was last year. >> So would that mean it would be an increase above 96 cents? Possibly if it if it changes in that direction. >> Potentially. Yeah. >> So, I hear you saying that if you talk about revenue, it's 100%
169transparent. It's neutral revenue. And if you're talking about mills and you own a million-doll home, it's the cost of an extra value meal at McDonald's. 10 bucks. >> Sure. something like that. That's that's a good >> Got it. >> I I was just just looking at the different options and from this that perspective and what you've said, Mike. Um I I don't really have an answer for you like, oh, this is what I would suggest how we put it. But I do agree with you. We have to be careful on how we put it on. Um also, uh I think you mentioned in a meeting the legislature recently by what they've passed. I don't know the house bills. You probably do. Um they've made it extremely complicated to put any of this mail information on
170because there's so many different that not this year was one layer, but next year my understanding is that they're adding additional layers not only to um homes but also commercial properties. So all these mills mean very little. I mean they mean something but they it all depends on where your house is and what you're using it for. And if it's above what 1.5 million, it's going to be taxed at a higher mill rate because you're paying more. I think you guys did a presentation on that for what this year look like, but next year is going to change even more. Um, being in the commercial uh property management. I I see a lot of different tax bills and I'm kind of shocked on some of them on how much they've gone up. Um, and that's
171a part of this equation which I expect them probably to go up even more. So I this is going to be very I think we have to do what we've always done and communicate and have our flyer that goes out and communicate as much as we can in advance and then figure out the language that we feel is the least confusing to a topic that is the state of Montana has made property taxes it's probably the most um challenging to figure out on how they compute them um out of many many states. So, >> and I'll add to that since our last meeting, several key legislators have sued the legislature over the implementation of that new tax bill here in Gallatton County. So, they they've sued the legislature over those bills being unconstitutional in the
172way that they were passed. So, it might not even happen. Lots going on. Does the county have any data to tell us what how many units are in each category, owner occupied, long-term rental? Do they have any numbers within those categories? >> I think that it's all going based off of the state and um that $400 tax return or what did they call it? >> The $400 what that refund. Thank you. um that's what they're basing the owner occupied um properties off of is whether or not they received that. >> And then there's the there's the application period for everyone else too to to state that their house was was owner occupied as well. That's ongoing and we'll put a we've kind of drafted the brochure and there's a there's an information to get people
173to that place so that they can put that information down. So, I guess the short answer is is we have rough numbers probably, but not great data by any stretch. >> Sandy. >> So, I I'm I've just been sitting here listening wi wearing my rural school hat. Um, which seems to me like there's a layer of taxation that would potentially affect them more than Bosezeman. Is that correct with the county distributing equal? I just want to make sure I understand that piece. >> I mean, the rural feeder districts are going to be impacted by that House Bill 156. Y >> um for the base levy >> um and then this is going to be the overbase levy um that is not spread throughout the county. It's directed solely to the taxpayers of the school districts.
174>> Okay. All right. >> Does that make sense? that. Yeah, I I thought that's what it was, but I just wanted to be really clear. Okay, thank you. >> And to your point, what they'll see the the Anderson taxpayers or Monfort and they'll see um the $1.8 million coming off and they'll see $600,000 estimated going back on. So, they'll see net tax relief as a result of as a result of this. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. with [clears throat] all the new laws and the um cost of living, what is the max we could actually ask for? >> We don't know yet until those OPI budget spreadsheets get produced and they have to get produced um by the final the first Friday in March March 1st. Yeah. >> So it be like April 15th.
175>> Well, it's based on our we have to do two enrollment counts of the year. We're we're in the midst of one. So we don't know how many kids we are and that drives our next year's budget. So, um, that's why this is all preliminary information, structural, conceptual type things, and we'll bring back hard numbers, including how high we could go for you next time. >> And they're also working on making sure they um know exactly how to calculate the quality educator payment. There's been a lot of conversation at OPI recently about making sure that's accurate, too. So, I know they're working on that as well. Okay, we're going to show you a couple more things. Um, this is the why. And I think that this is a really important thing to communicate with the
176public um because the tax conversation is going to be complex um and a lot of questions surrounding it. This this is why we're asking for this amount of money. Um we can see the blue bar is the median home price in in um Bosezeman area. You can see back in 2011 it was $250,000 and now it's well over 900,000. Um and then you can still see this the starting teacher salary is really maintaining status quo there. So while it hasn't changed, cost of living has increased substantially. Um and we know that it's really hard to um want to teach in a place that you can't afford to live. Um and we want to retain and um recruit quality educators to teach our kids. So, so this money is going towards the right reasons um even
177if it's a complex message to get across. >> Yeah. >> Um so just some additional considerations um for things that we're looking at transportation. I I wanted to throw that in there. We're adding um two more precase prek classrooms at Irving. Um we have the prek classrooms right now at Morning Star. Um those are four-year-old kids getting to school. They require um a tenant on the bus. They require the bus driver. Um they're just additional costs that are really starting to kind of to um they're added routes that cost money ultimately and that the transportation levy is a permissive levy, but I just want it to be on your radars that you're probably going to see an increase ask from us um to ensure that we can get everybody to school safely um for the
178upcoming school year. And then Mike already touched on this. Um Senate Bill 542, it does have new rates in it. There is a lawsuit. Um they're saying it was unconstitutionally passed. They're saying that the um intent of the bill was changed too much and therefore it shouldn't have been able to um become law. >> So those are two Yeah. >> on your uh the slide that shows teacher salaries compared to median property. that that one. Um I I think it's that's not the whole story. Um because it doesn't show the substantial increases we have made and where we stack up against other like we can show another graph that shows we're on the tip of the iceberg in terms of starting and average teacher pay compared to every other district. And I think that's another
179part of the story that we've done what we can do with tight budgets to maximize teacher compensation and yet this is still our re lived reality. >> Got it. >> Um and this is I think this is a really good one to show. Um the green is going to be school district um property taxes. Um, and you can see the colors. The, let's see, the blue is Gallatin County, the red is city of Bosezeman. Um, all the shades of green are related to schools. Um, but ours is going to be that, let's say, forest green, the bright one at the very very top. Um, what this kind of depicts is the assessed property value over the last seven years um for the median um house within Bosezeman's Bosezeman city limits. Um, it's really important to
180show that while you can see the blue and the red bars, um, the red bar and the blue bar have both increased and they're coming down a little bit for 25 26, the green bar is a substantial decrease from what it previously has been. Um, I think that these are really good in kind of differentiating what it looks like year-to-year. So the the graph on the left um is showing the difference from 24 to 25 within those taxing jurisdictions. Um so the first green bar on the left is Gallatin County taxes. They came down $266 from the previous year. City of Bosezeman came down 388. If you go all the way to the right, you're going to see the Bosezeman school taxes actually decreased the most by $443. Um, and then when we look at
181the one on the right, this is actually >> interrupt you for just one second. I'm sorry. Our your taxes on your residential property came down $443 despite the fact that Julia just sat there and told you district revenue increased 2% this year, right? So, it's a tax shift away from residential property, Kevin, to large commercials and to those centrally assessed properties. our revenue increased but the legislature made changes to target residential property to give property tax relief to those residential property owners. Sorry, thank you. >> Um so so the graph on the right is just showing the 2019 to 2025. So just a bigger time period. Um you can see that some of them still did increase um over those seven years or six years. um Gallatin County, City of Bosezeman, state of Montana, all
182went up. But when you actually look at the Bosezeman School District on the far right, um since 2019, we've seen a decrease of $116. So, with that being said, um I think there's still a lot of conversation and input we would love to hear um regarding the communication and transparency method. Um what we're looking at is the May election, two elementary trustee seats. Um the deadline for candidates was today at 5:00. We have three candidates that have entered the race. Um and then we have obviously the elementary and high school general fund um that will be on the May ballot as well. When we look at our timeline, um this is just what the rest of the fiscal year into next year looks like. um obviously this budget presentation, the March meeting will be certifying
183the ballot language um and setting the vote set the voted levy amount and then we also by law have to provide um notice of permissive levy increase in the newspaper that'll run in March as well. Um obviously April we're going to hit the community levy presentations hard. Um and then May we'll have the the election and then we'll canvas the election later in the month. Um, June will be pretty quiet as far as the budget's concerned from the board standpoint. Um, and then in July, we'll we'll talk about what it looks like for the year. Beginning of August, we'll get taxable values and we'll bring an actual budget for your approval to that um August [clears throat] meeting. So, with that being said, I'd love Yeah. any feedback or comments. >> Yeah. is the only
184increase in the permissive levy of the transportation >> the there's other permissive levies that we can there's tuition there's transportation um there's I mean yeah there's adult ed so there's other funds we've always been really transparent and we put estimated increases in for even non-permissive levies and that's been our historical um practice that we've done so we take it one step further than what the law asks for >> I'll add that our just real quick if I could, Gary, the our our notice has historically included that base levy also that's falling off this year and becoming a countywide levy. So, it it's the money is still going to be there, but it's going to not come to directly to or from the Voseman school district taxpayers, but it's a complicated message thing again there with
185that piece. Sorry. When you look at this graph next year, that lime green county schools, that color is going to increase because they're levying for all of the base levies across the the county. >> Seahawk green. Yeah, I like that. Well, just to give you my thoughts on the ballot, initial thoughts that probably need to be changed 12 times, but first of all, do we are we required to list anything regarding mills on a ballot? We are. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> All right. Well, there's the answer to that question. Um yeah, I I mean my thought is clarity and and and try to take not try and take take all the legislative stuff. I mean I think those factors that can't be on a on a ballot un you know unknown undecided things can't
186be on a ballot. If we have to list mills we have to list mills. My my thought was levy amount and amount coming off you know and just clear and simple as possible is my message. So for if obviously we can't do that with the um the the county ballots but you're talking about as far as the brochure is concerned keeping it more dollar centric >> rather [snorts] than mills. >> Yes. I mean I you know the general public understands dollars more than mills >> by far. Any other comments from anybody? Casey, I >> I think that I I agree with that. I think that um what we're communicating publicly needs to be in my opinion a bit of we're stressing the revenue neutral aspect and we are saying that revenue neutral does not equal
187tax neutral and there's a 101 reasons why and if you want to learn about all those 101 reasons we point them to all those um to all those reasons. Any other questions or comments for this round? I think we have a couple more rounds. Is that correct, Mike? >> Or Lacy as well. Sorry, I leave you out. >> Okay. So, we'll have some more. So, think about it. Um, does anybody um you have access to the presentation, that sort of thing. So, everybody should have what they need. If they don't then reach out. Thank you. Appreciate it. All information and it's budget discussion and taxes. So, it's clear as mud as of today. All right. Uh the next item is public comment on non non-aggenda items. I think we lost our public comment. So, they
188didn't like finances. Mike Lacy, you bored him out of the room. All right. Uh, item seven, reports. Uh, executive cabinet report. >> I have a couple. Uh, I'll be real brief. Um, tomorrow, Tuesday, 6:00 to 7:30, um, I'll be participating as part of an immigration inform enforcement panel at the public library. Um, it's sort of the messaging is facts over fear. Um there will be um leadership from Ben Venitos um Gallatton County Attorney's Office and City of Bosezeman Police Department and myself on that panel. Um it's being um moderated by a nonpartisan group in town. Um second, um Wednesday is school funding interim commission. They're having a English learner um panel. I've been asked to be on that um panel um presenting on behalf of what is a bit of a changing demographic in Montana
189related to English learners. Um I I had um David Swedman pull some data today and sort of precoid um 75 um 75% of the multilingual English learners in the state were um two basically two categories American Indian students and and Hutterite students um as you know u we have very small populations of those two categories but a significant increase of immigrant family Spanish-sp speakaking multilingual English learners so It's really changed the landscape um statewide. And so the legislature is accustomed to hearing um about the um American Indian aspect and the and the Hutterite aspect. And I'm going to be trying to tell um a different story um related to our district. This handout is um thank you front and back um intended to show show the the story of increasing enrollment of MLE population. Um
190really talking about um the the graph at the bottom of page one is that we have our population significant um numbers of Slife. Um so and it kind of those bullets tell you what Slife is but it's a it's a challenging um demographic and then um those are like WEDA scores where we have to um assess our students. You'll notice that we have over 50% of our kids are at level one. So just entering which is not a typical population of multilingual English learners and makes um our our population more challenging. Um on the back it's intended because it's a school funding interim commission um to show that um we one of those small federal grants was title three $39,000 yet we're spending over $800,000 on um FTE and then in the middle of that
191page I'm trying to make the point that if you just looked at our K5 schools we have 3.4 4 FTE. If we did what OPI says we should do, which is 60 to 135 minutes of direct EL instruction 5 days a week for all of our kids, um we'd have to go from 3.4 to 17 FTE or from 272,000 to 1.36 million, which is a 400% increase. Um and the vast majority of those dollars are coming out of our general fund. Trying to make the point that it's not it's not working. um it's not sustainable and we're not even doing what we're um constitutionally guaranteeing um to those students on a daily basis. And then the bottom graph we've talked about before showing that um it it takes time. So it's re resource intensive. When
192you have students in your district three or more years, that's what that graph represents that we're starting to close achievement gaps for those kids, but it's a long haul. Um, three, uh, Lori Ross has been working hard on the spring election calendar. So, when you get my weekly emails, it has the trustee calendar. Um, you can start um, signing up for those. Um, and then um, also in my last um, memo uh, or last email, there was a memo um, we finally received legal guidance on the title N aspects of flag football and um, executive ch U. Mike Vanver will be making a proposal to executive cabinet and then we'll be bringing a recommendation to the board soon on that topic. Any other I do just um Casey mentioned it but I'll I'll remind everyone
193school funding inter commission meets Thursday and Friday this week. Superintendent Burchin will be presenting on MLE. Um the commission's shifting gears. There was the initial working group study of best practices from around the state and around the globe um and how that would could transfer into Montana's funding formula. We're switching gears now to start digging into the funding formula and talking about the nuts and bolts of of of how that looks. Um English language learners, we've got a successful schools cost study on the docket and then just an overview of how all the funds work. If tonight wasn't enough for you, Wednesday and Thursday might be your ticket. So, uh, feel free to tune in, make public comment, um, share your thoughts there. >> Thank you. Any, that's all the reports there. All right. Thank
194you. Um, 7.2 board of trustee requests, calendar concerns, reports, future agenda items, open meeting topics, next meeting. All right. Well, with that being said, I'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you.