001Lacy. Roll call. >> Trusty Burlesen >> here. >> Trustee Black >> here. >> Trustee D >> here. >> Trustee Lucine >> here. >> Trusty Moran >> here. >> Trustee Neil >> here. >> Trustee Sandy Wilson >> here. >> Trustee Sarah Wilson >> here. >> All right. All please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Welcome to the July 28th Boseman School District board meeting. Thank 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 portion of this board meeting is being recorded in accordance with district policy 420 and section 2-3-214 MCA. By remaining in this meeting, all participants and attendees acknowledge that they they may
002appear on the recording which will be placed on the school district's site for a minimum of one year from today. Further instructions about participating will be provided throughout the meeting. We will go directly to consent to action items for consent. Greg, >> I can Oh, I don't need to be called on >> Sandy. Go ahead. >> All right. I move that we approve um consent items 3.1.1, 3.4.1, and 3.4.2. >> Um I'm going to have I'm going to call on Greg first. >> So I I apologize. Trusty Wilson, I'll explain the why, but would you be willing to withdraw your motion? >> I think I know why. >> Okay. >> Yes. And I'm more than willing to withdraw that. Um, so, >> so I think I think first if Greg I think Greg might have
003a request to pull. >> I had a request before a motion is made. >> Absolutely. Go ahead. >> Sorry. >> May I request that we pull item 3.4.2 from consent agenda and add it back as the last item under singular action. >> Yes. So, we have a request from Greg. I think all what we need is a thumbs up from all trustees. All right. So now we would have left um looks like the remaining singular action items. So >> do it again. >> Yes. >> Awesome. Um I move that we approve um action item consent 3.1.1 3.4.1 >> second. >> All right. Motion made by um Trusty Sandy Wilson, seconded by Trustee Moran. All those in favor? Motion passes 8 to zero? If I Yes. Is there any public comment? All right. Do we still
004have 3.2.1 or am I missing it? I didn't like All right. Um, so in the elementary district, we have another Greg, you have a motion. >> Motion to approve consent agenda item 3.5.1. >> Second. >> All right. Motion made by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trusty Burlesen. Any public comment? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes 70. >> All right. Um, moving to singular action items. We have 4.1.1 Casey. >> Thanks, Chair Black. Um, executive team has received uh legislative policy updates from Montana School Boards Association as well as legislative policy updates from Cala Law. um we've been cross referencing those to our um current policies. Um my understanding is this is a first this is the first round of policy changes that either had a immediate effective date or
005a July one effective date um similar to approval in the past. We've put them into a um table for you um that is sorted by um series. It gives you the MTSBA policy, our policy, sometimes our policy name or number. It fits best in a different area than the MTSBA model policy m manual. So, you may you may see some differences there. Uh in the notes column, um what I've uh provided in the notes is what uh piece of legislation or pieces of legislation uh these changes are tied to. because they are u the result of legislation. U it it requires one reading and we can um approve those um this evening. Towards the end of that there are a couple items um one in particular that is not not necessarily due to changes in
006legislation but changes in uh uniform guidance um from our auditors and um from uh financial auditing. So there's a change to 71 excuse me, 7510. Um, I'm happy to I don't think I'm going to walk through every one of these policies. I'm happy to um answer any questions or executive team can help me answer any questions you have regarding um any of them. The final thing I'll say is there were a few similar to previous legislative sessions, there were a few items uh where Montana legislation passed was in direct conflict with um federal law, particularly as it relates to non-discrimination policy and our policy. We're not bringing those um Montana law changes forward and we'll be um looking further at them and creating guidance documents for our administrative team to navigate those issues. All right.
007Thank you. Any questions or comments? Trust. >> Yeah, thank you Casey. I went through the policies and I have no issues with the policies. Do have a question kind of related to policy 2335 which deals with the health enhancement portion and opt out which could apply to any course where parents can opt out of it. How do teachers handle the testing of those courses if there's questions on an exam that are related to portions of the content that were they opted out of? >> Yeah, really good question. Most of those um so as you know health enhancement has the the physical activity aspect and then they move into the classroom for the health aspect. Uh most of those topics are done in a unit. So the entire unit is the human sexuality unit and typically
008those students are opting out of the entire unit of instruction and so it's been a pretty clean um way to opt in and opt out. >> Any other questions or comments? >> Thank you guys. >> I also uh Trustee Lucina also note that that piece of legislation also clarified that the oneoff question that that arises from a student within a classroom um doesn't qualify as human sexuality instruction. That was a a great clarification. >> I have a question about 365 and the requirement of the um fingerprint background checks for volunteers. I just wonder what this looks like as we're getting up and going in August with schools trying to get volunteers in the classroom early. So, do like what does this mean for the administrators and what is the >> Yeah, I'll let Mr. Shrauss
009answer that. >> Yeah, thanks. That's a great question. And so, what it's going to require is and we're working on this is we're going to have to set some office hours in the HR department and we'll get that uh communicated to the schools and to the parents as they come in. Um, uh, before we went to the online version that we currently use, uh, we ran into situations where people were just dropping in any time of the day. And you can just imagine sort of the stopand go nature of the work for for my folks. So, I think that's why we're going to set some office hours, some in the morning, some in the evening, so that we're available. And we're even thinking that we may need to do like an appointment type deal. I
010haven't looked into how we're going to manage that yet, but obviously if we have 30 people come at one time, they're going to be waiting a long time. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to fill out the forms and do the fingerprinting. So anyway, that's that's our plan. >> And maybe one now and then one as the ski trips get round up like in January because that's when everybody wants the volunters for the ski trips. >> Well, actually what I see us doing it, it'll be year round because we we um >> we have requests unteers for field trips, for music events. So, it'll be kind of a year round appointment type thing. All right. Any other questions or comments from trustees? All right. So, uh let's see. Um because these are legislative, it's
011just one reading. Um so, I would entertain a motion to approve these. Craig >> motion to approve the revisions to legislative policies as presented. >> Second. >> All right. Um, is there any public comment? >> I seeing none. Uh, there's a motion made by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trusty Lucine. All those in favor? Motion passes 8 to zero. All right, moving on. 5.3 lacing. >> Let's do the 4.1.2. >> Oh, yeah. >> I even put it in my notes. >> All right. To go back to uh to our addition of 4.1.2 now, which is uh consider approval of the BSD7 trustee letter regarding frozen federal funds. There's a Casey you have a quick update on that and then >> the funds thawed and they are um we we heard um uh about a four or
012five days ago about the um 21st century funds being released that um flow to the OPI and then to Greater Gallatin United Way to fund our afterchool programming. um the and then recently heard um in the last day or two that the rest of the title 2A and um title four and title three funds um had been released and are flowing to states. So um we I believe have uh updated our budget presentation accordingly um and are thankful that that is um moving forward. Um, I would recommend a motion to um not send the letter to our um senators as a result. >> Are trustees any questions on that or discussion? >> All right. So, trusty Wilson. Um um is is this going to be a yearly thing or does this funding of title two
013and title one and everything else that's been wrapped up in this is this is something that Congress votes on every year. >> Uh Trusty Wilson, we didn't expect this to happen. We had no knowledge that this was was happening. I think this is more of a not necessarily a vote by Congress, but a a move by the legislative or sorry, the executive branch of the the federal government. So, um, we did we've never had this problem before and we don't necessarily have reason to expect it to happen again, but our eyes have been opened a little bit to the process and we realize that all funding is kind of at risk until until we receive it. >> So, I guess my maybe I wasn't clear. I um I guess what I'm asking is these funds
014Congress doesn't vote on them every year, right? They do. >> No, you're I think you're correct. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Because they were appropriated, right? And then frozen. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. So, we have a motion. Neil, >> I'm going to make a motion to not approve item 3.4.2. >> Second. >> Any public discussion? Comment. >> All right. So, we have a motion made by Trusty Neil, seconded by Trustee Sandy Wilson. All those in favor? >> Question. >> Can we clarify the motion? Um, what would you like? >> You could repeat the motion. >> I believe the motion is now 3.2.1 or 3.4.2 as it is. Thank you. >> Is that correct? >> That is correct. All right. So, all those in favor motion passes 8 to zero. Okay. Next board
015discussion. Lacy, I think this is you. 5.3 202526 preliminary budget report. All right. Good evening, trustees. Um, it is my pleasure tonight to begin to discuss with you um what the budget will look like for fiscal year 26. Um, as you know, this is the preliminary budget presentation. So, this is the can't hear me. This is the preliminary budget presentation. So, This is kind of the first glance at what we're looking at for fiscal year 26. Um it's preliminary because we don't have any taxable values for um for our district. So basically, state law requires that we'll receive our taxable values the first Monday in August. We do this preliminary budget presentation because we want to give you time to think about what we talk about. Um time to ask questions before you approve the
016final budget at the board meeting in August. So, we're just going to jump right into it. Um, a few of the items on the agenda today are just going to be going over the general fund. Um, going over the general fund, some of the negotiation outcomes that have a big effect on what we're looking at for the general fund budget. Um, the stars act and what passed during the legislative session to impact our general fund budget, the structural imbalance that we've looked at over the years as well as the budget to actual. Um, we set a budget but we actual savings is different than what a budget actually is. And then um last year we looked at vacancy savings and I want to give you an update as to what that looks like going for
017this past year. Um we're going to look at debt service. Um those are our bond payments and what our schedule looks like for that since we have some upcoming um bond payments coming off of the books. So we'll have some tax savings there. we have some big changes coming to taxable values um or not necessarily taxable values but the the tax structure is going to change the way taxable values are calculated. So we're going to look at that and then we're just going to look at a couple of the taxation challenges um that we're looking at with a couple of our funds and then what we're looking for for the budget for the upcoming year. So, just as a reminder, um we did certified and classified negotiations for this um in May for the upcoming
018two years. Certified had a 4.2% total increase this year. Um 3% for the upcoming year with an additional $1,500 cost of living stipend. The amounts for next year are based on tax voter approval of a general fund levy passing. The big item when we were talking about um salaries within negotiations was our salary schedule and how we can bring the salary schedule into compliance with the stars act. So one of the big items was how do we get it so that our base pay for a BA step one teacher actually equates to 70% of an average salary um within the district so that we can comply with the stars act and get double quality educator payment. What we were able to do, as a reminder, is we were able to gray out those first two
019rows of the salary schedule. Um, we ended up keeping those first two rows there. Um, a lot of it was for logistics of running the actual schedule itself, but we also, um, kept them so that when we calculate stipens, that's still based off of step one BA, so the 48,000. Um, but what that did is it gave us the ability to pay teachers over $50,000 as a starting teacher coming into the Bosezeman School District. Um, we also had a big bump on our far bottom right that brings our veteran teachers to $93,168. In addition to all of that, um, we had a lot of more items on the negotiations table um, for those people in the bottom right hand corner, we had the over step 18 longevity increase. So, we increased since they don't get
020to go up another row. They they max out at step 18. Um we did um move up additional longevity increases so they get an additional $500 a year sooner. And then the um schedule for those amounts um is built in. So, it's a bigger and longer schedule. So that will help them maximize um their earnings over time. We did change the nurses. So the nurses previously um they're on their own salary schedule, but it's within the certified bargaining agreement. Their nursing nursing um 1.0 FTE was based off of an eight hour day. We don't have any nurses that actually work an eight hour day. So we um decided it was only fair to create the nurses 1.0 FTE to the teachers 1.0 FT at a sevenh hour day. So that immediately increased their overall wages.
021Um we added and updated all of the um hourly stipen increases to keep up with inflation to make sure that everything such as driver's ed, um end of school year or extended school year, homebound, all of those items within the bargaining agreement were um updated. And then we went over a lot and I think Mike did a really good job during negotiations just talking about the student achievement and what we've done and how much we've improved over time and how we've pushed our teachers but we are seeing um all of the benefits of what is happening within the classrooms. And I think that was really important for them to see and hear and um to be able to acknowledge that what we are doing is working. Um, and it was a really, really good conversation
022to be able to have within that room. In addition to certified negotiations, we did do classified negotiations. Um, classified negotiations was quite a bit shorter. I think it took half a day, threequarters of a day. We were able to negotiate a 4.25% raise across the salary schedule for this year and then 3% for next year with an additional 1,500 cost of living stipend. that is also contingent on the general fund levy passing next year. Um and then the other big one that was on the classified um bargaining agreement was a increase to the head um custodian stipen at the high school to make sure that they were where they needed to be. Um, we also incorporated some of theus that had been written over the years. And then we acknowledge some communication needs um and
023some conversations that needed to take place post um bargaining that um I know Pat's been working on trying to address some of the concerns that didn't necessarily have a place in the circle but um were on employees minds and they wanted to to see have conversations arise from. So, with that being said, we'll get into the nitty-gritty. Um, here is our general fund just budget history over time. This includes both the elementary and the high school general funds. Um, you can see it's a pretty steady small increase um over time. Up until this year, we're seeing an overall 7.22%. Um, it's the by far the biggest increase in recent history. That's for one has to do with the 3% inflationary increase and the fact that we have supportive voters that allow us to levy that
024full amount. Um and the big kicker on all of this of course is the stars act coming into compliance with the stars act and then receiving that additional money. And what does that mean and how much money is that? Um here's what we're looking at is our elementary general fund and our high school general fund. You can see the base amount is in green. Um the base amount is what's comprised of all of the um the parts of the equation that add up into the general fund. Quality educator has always been included in that base amount. What you'll see on that blue line there is the stars. So the stars act is the additional quality educator payment that we are receiving because of house bill um 252 that passed. That amount is 1.3 million in
025the elementary and $779,000 in the high school. So that's an additional $2.12 million into our general fund budget for this upcoming school year. So that's a huge boost for us. We're very grateful for it. We're grateful for our um union that we were able to come to consensus on what that looks like for our salary schedule because that was a really big deal in getting there. Um so we're excited for what that can do for our general fund. It was a much needed boost. Um, it's not we're not out of the mud yet, but it's it's helping clear it up a little bit. You guys have seen this graph over the years. Um, this is our structural imbalance. So, we're looking at the red line is elementary, the green line is the high school. Um,
026we're still running pretty hot in the elementary. You can see that for fiscal year 26, the stars act um is taking our high school above that zero dollar level. So, for the first time in a long time, we're looking at not being in a deficit going into the new year for the high school. We're about $200,000 to the black. Um the high or the elementary school though is a different story. We're looking at being about three $3.5 million in the red still at the elementary school level. Um without the stars money, that line would look like it was continuing down. So, so the stars money is drastically helping. The red line is trending upwards ever so slightly. Um, our enrollment is stagnant. We don't have growth in the elementary that's having a huge impact on
027what we're seeing here. Um, things are expensive. It costs a lot to run schools. It costs a lot to staff schools. Um, and that is just the way our world is working right now. So, it is trending upwards. That is the good news. Um, the good news is the high school is looking really good. Um but we are we are still running pretty hot there. This is our budget to actual. So we are I would say 95% closed out on our books for fiscal year 25. We have I think two or three more journal entries to make that are going to change these numbers ever so slightly. Um so this is a pretty good projection of what you're going to see here at the end of August. What you're seeing here is um we're anticipated
028to basically break even come the end of the year. So the blue is the budget for K12 and the orange is the actual for K12. So you can see the budget was just um I guess about 3.7 million in the red for the year. Um and we're going to be I think right at zero. So that's good news. Um we're not going to be in the red. That's great news. Um, but we're not going to be putting much into the interlocal agreement for this year, if any at all. And then this is just a graph I thought was interesting. Um, this is our actual year-end balances in the general fund year-over-year. Um the elementary is the blue and you can see that ever since fiscal year 20 when COVID hit and enrollment started to really
029decline and become stagnant. It's been just a steady decline. Um so I would I would say that that's has the strong correlation to what enrollment looks like. High school um has bounced around. We know that we've had a lot of growth in the high school. We've had some esser cliffs when a lot of the federal funding stopped and we had some spending um drops um or some excuse me funding drops. Um so that's where that hit right in fiscal year 22. Um we can definitely see based on this picture that right now the high school is subsidizing the elementary in overall costs. With that being said um when we vacancy savings. So, we budget for fully staffed schools. We budget, like Mike always says, for really cold winters. Um here's what we're looking at as
030far as vacancy savings. So, when we're looking at a fully staffed um school, as far as classified staff, meaning secretaries, paras, and custodians, these are where our numbers are right um are sitting. So, you can see fiscal year 24, we were about 50% staffed with our parah um budget. This year it jumped up to 65%. We were really happy to see that there was very very very few vacancies within discretionary paras positions. So we had a lot of pair of positions um at that discretionary level. Um they were all filled. The pair of positions that are not filled that really account for that that gap is the overflow. Um those are tough to fill. The sped para positions those are harder to fill as well. Um but we are seeing that trend upward. I have
031no reason to believe that that won't continue into the future. Um, custodians, we are, um, we were just talking with Matt Stark the other day. They're they're looking really really good on the staffing side. They haven't had to hire, a lot of times they have to hire some summertime type substit substitutes or seasonal staff to come in and get schools cleaned up over the summer. They haven't had to do any of that. So, our custodial um vacancy savings is I think probably going to be less than the 86% for the upcoming year. And then secretaries um we fill those positions pretty quickly when they become vacant. So, we're looking like we're trending back to where we once were. Um which is great news for our schools. Um but with that being said, when we have
032less savings um with those vacancies, then that's less money that can go into the interlocal. more money out of our pockets. And then this is just another way of looking at it. Um you can see that the orange is the high school and that's actual savings to budget. Um and then the blue is the elementary. The high school really didn't change at all. So I would say that that staffing is really pretty similar year-over-year. Um what did say what did change a lot is that elementary and I would credit that to those discretionary para um positions being filled. Now I know when we um have talked about going to the voters next year and a cost of living stipen we've talked a lot about how do we make that a tax neutral um option when
033we're looking at our debt service and our bond payments. Um, we have made it so that we have some significant drops and tax relief breaks coming up into the foreseeable future. Fiscal year 26 is going to be the last year um at our highest bond payments that we're going to be having until we choose to build another facility or have a major remodel at another facility. Um, so next year we're going to see a tax savings of $1.8 million. When we look three years ahead of that, we're going to have another big bond drop of $2.6 6 million. So, as we start paying off these buildings, if enrollment continues to be pretty stagnant, um if we don't foresee any large um remodels that need to occur, then we're going to continue to see these tax
034breaks hit um our local taxpayers, which I think is great news and gives us some flexibility um and ability to go to the taxpayers and and educate them on on what their options are. Okay, taxing methodology. So, this is where it gets a little confusing and complex. In the past, um, our tax taxing methodology for property taxes has been pretty straightforward. It's been a one-sizefits-all for residential property taxes. Um, so you can see the prior tax rate up there is 0135. So, when we look at an overall market value of a million dollar home, um we take the million dollars and I I calculated all of these demonstrations based off of the 95 mills because that's really familiar to everybody. Um, everybody's home that was valued at a million dollars was going to pay $1,282.50
035in property taxes for those 95 mills, regardless of if it was a first home, a second home, a short-term rental, a long-term rental. What we've seen legislation that passed this this last year is the taxing methodology has changed. They realized that um property tax values, market values increased substantially. Um there's a lot of concern about those rates increasing and how can they help um keep those rates down or keep and mitigate property taxes for local taxpayers. Um so this is kind of a one-year fix until it changes again. So, what they did is they did a tiered tax rate. And this tax rate is going to apply across the board to residential properties. Um, so it's still going to be a one-sizefits-all for um first homes, second homes, VBOs, long-term rentals. Um it's going to
036change again next year. So, this is kind of a bridge to get us through to the next year. Um, so when we look at the market value of a million dollar home, you can see that this tiered system actually lowers the total taxable value. So when you look at the lower taxable value based on the 95 mills, it lowers the overall taxes that that person is going to pay if we were looking at this year um in comparison. So taxes levied at the 0135 this year for 95 mills on a million dollar home is $1,282. If we at it with the new formula based on a million-doll home, it's $1,000. So, somebody would see roughly a $282 savings annually on property taxes um based on this new formula. There any questions about that? Just for
037the 95 mills, this is just the comparison so that you can see kind of how that would impact a homeowner. uh on the tax acceptance. So obviously you see up there the your second column which is the tax rate that's applied to the tax value to get to the new taxable value. So many values um once you're above the 1.5 those people are actually paying more. So in full scheme of things we're still they're still charging the same amount of property taxes to everybody. just moving around. Who's paying that? Uh, so if the states always, and I don't know what the number is, if the states always last year collected a billion dollars in property taxes, um, they're not they're not changing this formula and all of a sudden going to collect $900 million. We're
038still collecting a billion just spread out amongst all the different types of categories and problem based on that. >> Yeah, that's that's correct. The only thing I'd add into there is there's an acknowledgement I think at the state level that they've been collecting too much in property taxes and that's um being manifested in the in the rebate checks that you've been getting and will be getting again this year as well. So, um, I think there's an acknowledgement at the state level that they they've been collecting more property taxes maybe than they than they need to and then they're trying to give some of that back via rebates. >> I think it's also a really point though, Kevin, is they are trying to acknowledge that the people that have a lesser valued home um have the
039lower tax rates. And then yes, as they have a more expensive home, they're going to be responsible and have to pay more in taxes than than people that have smaller homes or more maybe typical um not as fancy or wealthy homes, >> right? And I know we look spend a lot of time looking at residential property, which is the one that most everybody can correlate with. This will have a impact on commercial as well obviously. So, >> and the other thing that this will do is um on the election ballots every year we have to put the value of $100,000 home. Now, obviously we can calculate what that's going to be. Um but if this changes, so this is a one-year bridge until it changes again. And next year, what it's going to do is
040it's going to be different tax rates for a primary home than a secondary home or a VRBO versus a long-term rental. So, there's going to be different tax rates for different types of residential properties. So, it's going to be a different puzzle to try and piece together to really figure out how it's going to impact each individual taxpayer. It's not going to be as simple as putting $100,000 and multiply it by 10 to see what a million dollar home is going to cost for taxes. So this is just kind of the first step. I wanted to give you a general idea of what it does look like as far as tax savings, but it's a very general concept of the overall complexity of it. >> For our election road show, we're going to craft some
041secret decoder rings and pass those out so you can understand your tax bill. >> I think it's honestly it's a and we say it in Jess, but it's an important point that the district's a part of the Montana Taxpayers Association. members of that organization. And we got a a newsletter just this past week saying that Montana has the most complicated property tax system in the nation. And this just makes it worse. I think it makes it there there is some property tax relief associated with it and that's the reason the legislature did it. But it's hard to understand this stuff. It was hard before and it's going to be way harder now than than than it was before that. So, um, complication is the enemy of transparency and we're we're moving in the wrong direction
042as far as that goes. Oh, to add to the complexity of it, um, as I'm sure is on your radar, this is a reappraisal year, and if you remember anything about the last reappraisal year, there was some really significant hikes in overall taxable value. Um, so what this graph shows is it shows um the elementary, sorry, I didn't the the red and the blue don't make any sense because I didn't actually put what they mean next to it, but the blue is the country and the red is the high school and these are the taxable values during each year. Um you can see every two years it goes up a little bit more. Um those are the reappraisal years. Obviously um two years ago we saw tax increases of 54.6% in the elementary and 56%
043in the high school. Um those were very significant and led to a lot of the legislation around how do we lower property taxes for a lot of our um different communities that we're going to be watching very closely come Monday does mean for our for our district and for our taxpayers? I don't know if you guys remember but last year we actually saw a decline in taxable value um which was really really interesting. We haven't seen that for many many years. Um, a lot of that was due to those protested taxes when people got that huge tax increase. A lot of people came back and said, "I don't think that's right." And a lot of those protested taxes actually were the appeal was approved and pay the new um higher rate. So, it used to
044be really straightforward. We would calculate, you know, a 2% taxable value increase on non-appraisal years. We would anticipate a 7% increase on reappraisal years. And that was really conservative. We It's really a crapshoot. At this point, we don't know what's going to happen. Um, so we're we're going with a 0% increase and we'll just see what happens. Um, but it is something to keep your eyes on. The past four cycles, the average has been 26%. If we take off that anomaly, which was the last session, um, or the last reappraisal year, the three prior cycles averaged was 16.69%. If we take our last um equation and we change our market value and we increase it 15%. So it's no longer a $1 million home. It's a $ 1.15 million home. You can see down below
045that the tax based on the new formula at the new market value would give an overall um cost of $1,199. And it would be a potential tax savings um of $82.65 65 compared to what the homeowner was paying on their million dollar home this year. So even with the 95 mills, even if there was a potential increase in their overall market value, they could still see some savings on those 95 mills. Um, another thing to that you should know is the newly taxable property was a big thing of discussion last year because it was odd that taxable value went down. Um it came to our understanding that maybe a lot of the new builds that were going up around town and around the county and around the state weren't actually being um put onto the
046property tax roles. We were able to um get a better understanding that they don't have a very concrete and systematic method for identifying brand new properties. Within city limits, there are permits that are drawn that they can track a little bit, but within counties, it's a lot harder. Rather, it's a lot harder besides them just literally going and driving roads, just what is new construction and what is not. Um, so there's no concrete method for them to identify all of the new builds. So, that's really difficult for them to get all of that onto the new taxable property roles. Um, and it does it takes time for them to account for all of that. Um, so even all the new growth in Bosezeman, we may not see all of that on this upcoming reappraisal year.
047And then with the disputed taxes that we saw two years ago, if it is a huge increase again, we don't know what's going to happen for the upcoming year. We may see another huge jump into taxes that might start to become a more makes everything okay. Any questions on taxable value and property? We'll we'll dive into the taxable value a lot more at the next um actual budgetation. Um and I just wanted to kind of bring attention to a couple of the funds Um the tuition fund is one that I wanted to bring you guys' attention to because of um some of the legisl legislative changes that happened in 23 session that are really actually affecting um our budget this year. Um the tuition fund is a fund that we can permissively levy. So we
048don't actually have to ask ta ask ask taxpayers um in order to levy these on their taxes. Um you can see that these are the six big um categories in which we do levy money for the tuition fund. Day treatment place placements um detention facility placements if we have to pay for kids to go to fost residential treatment. the educational savings three were the 2023 legislative session and then our indisted costs. Those are um to pay for paras that um work with our special ed students. The ones that I really want to bring your attention to are the educational savings account and the open enrollment placement. So, the educational savings account um is going to account for $46,000 of expenses from the district that we pay straight to the state for this upcoming year. The
049educational savings account is basically the district paying the state for um the state to um write a check to parents for them to use to um educate their children within their own home. So, it's homeschooling um but us paying paying for services for those House Bill 203 open enrollment placement. As you all know, that's for our district students of residents to attend out of residence or out of attendance area um schools such as Anderson or Monforton. So, we can permissively levy these amounts of money from the tuition fund. They go the check goes directly to the district of attendance. they deposit that money into the general fund. So, it's an offset for their taxpayers. So, when we invoice other districts for the kids that come to our district, when we get a check from them,
050we deposit that, it goes into our general fund and then it offsets the taxes um for our taxpayers. So, it's it's kind of a wash. Um but we do levy the amount that we pay out out of the tuition fund. So overall, that's going to be about a $400,000 increase to the tuition fund that you'll see um for the upcoming budget. And then the last one I really want to bring your attention to um that's kind of an anomaly is the technology levy. So the technology levy um we have two. We have one in the elementary and one in the high school. The high school technology levy is 1 mil and it's a 10year um levy. So, it's based off of the value of one mill. So, last year we levied $428,000. Because the um
051levy was passed after 2013, we can use that $428,000 for anything technology related. We don't have restrictions on that money. Um the elementary one works a little bit differently. So, we did prior to 2013 pass a permanent technology levy. It's based on three mills. So it's based on the fluctuating value of a mill. Um however there are more um there's more stringent rules surrounding that. We can actually or um hardware equipment or the cloud or things that we actually put a lot of ources at this point. So when we look at this, we actually have to um put a formula to our overall expenses. We depreciate it out and it has to be depreciated. I think we use it over seven years and it count can't amount to more than 150% of the total value
052of the depreciated expenses. Um and so when we put that together this next year we can only be $625,000 in elementary fund technology value is substantially more. So if we look at fiscal year 26 I just put the value of three mills to equal that of which it would have equaled last year since we don't know what that number is yet. But as you can see, um, the amount we have the ability to levy is far less than what the voters have approved for that. And that's just due to law and the timing of when that was passed. >> Is is that a opportunity for legislative changes? potentially in the law it it states that if your levy was passed pre203 um it can be permanent but there's rules if it was passed post 2013
053it's a maximum of 10 years but it's basically you can do more with it >> feels like um since that has passed what Mike and the technology department are dealing with in terms of cyber security and subscriptions and uh you know all of the um all of the vendors that we're having to write checks to to create a safe environment um is not accounted for in that in that equation. >> Absolutely. I have a little bit of history with this. This um this request came about because of another um district resolution process back about well it was in 2013 when I was in Louistown and um it came about as as a result of our specific request that we need to stop depreciating these small assets that we've got a ton of and stop the
054the paperwork around that and and the tracking associated with that. and we ended up leaving the legislative session with um you know you can you can do that but you have to have a 10-year duration on your on your levy. So it was a kind of a win and a loss at the same point in time. So um we we could certainly talk about that again. It just didn't end up exactly the way we envisioned it when we when we tried this in 2013. So, when we look at all of our funds, um here's what we are looking at for the overall budget lookout or budget budget outlook. Sorry, I'm fumbling my words. Um these are all of the budgeted funds. So, general fund, you're looking at about a 7.2% increase overall $4.4 million change.
055Um like I said, 2.12 million of that is coming directly from the STARS Act. Debt service is remaining just about equal for the year. We're going to see that big drop next year. Building reserve, you're going to see the budget itself is increasing nearly $3 million. That's because we're having some fund balance reappropriated. We're having money roll over from last year into this year. It's not because we're actually going to be levying that much more. Um our elementary levy is going to be $300,000 more, but that's that's the extent of it. Um, retirement is going to go up a little bit. Retirement is based on the percentage of gross salary. So, as salaries increase, we have to keep up with the retirement fund to make sure we have adequate money in there to pay for
056those. Transportation is going to increase slightly. We've added some more um routes for summer jumpstart. We've added some more routes for Boseman Reeds. Um, there's been some more special education routes that have been added. Um, so we have to make sure we account for those technology. Um, we have some fund balance there that's getting reappropriated. We do anticipate if the mill does increase then the high school one we will be able to levy a little bit more in that. Adult education is increasing 41,000. 25,000 of that is for the grow your own teacher program. We started that program last year um at 25,000. We're adding an additional 25,000 this year so that we can keep those people moving through that program. Um bus depreciation is solely based on interest. The tuition, you'll see that 422,000
057that comes back to House Bill 203 and the educational savings accounts. And then the flexibility fund is where the um um the AOG grant comes from, the advanced grant that's actually decreasing for the upcoming year. Um, so we are seeing a slight decline in that. Those are what the budgeted funds are going to be looking like for the upcoming year. Yeah. >> Yeah. Thanks, Lacy. On the on the general fund for the 2526 budget, is that the max budget? Does that include the overbase? >> It includes overbase. Yes. >> Can I just add just a quick little bit of color on a couple things. Uh, the building reserve increase. You see, we've got as I'm I'm looking at the the significant changes. Lacy talked about the general fund due to the stars act and and
058our voter approval, the 3% increase. Building reserve is increasing because we're carrying money forward. We've got some significant projects I think as you all know um on our capital projects list that being the Boseman High renovation. Um we've got the sports park that we paid out of um the transition levy which is part of the building reserve fund. And then we've also got um baseball um issues coming up that we'll need to to finance. So, um you see a big increase this year. It'll probably be a big decrease this coming the following year as we um complete some of those large projects. And then technology, uh Mike, you said that we had some significant um infrastructure investments coming up this year as well, too. So, one-time increases that you'll look at, they're probably not going
059to be sustained year-over-year. >> Thanks, Mike. Um just another way of looking at it, you can see that our general fund is our big one. Um, debt service is going to just keep coming down. Um, and then building reserve once again is big, but like Mike mentioned, that will probably come down in the foreseeable future as well. Um, and just some key takeaways for you guys to think about as we look to August. Um, and as other questions arise, please don't hesitate to reach out. Overall, 7.2% increase in general fund budget. 2.12 million of that coming from the STARS Act. Obviously, that's a huge hit for us or not hit for us, win for us. Um, and that's making a big impact on our overall budget. Um, tax formulas just got even more complicated. The
060reappraisal year is going to add a lot more to that. It'll be interesting to see where we come out. Um, and I'm excited to report on that in August. The tuition levy increases we are going to see for that open enrollment in the educational savings account. And then that elementary tech levy, um, it just continues to be a challenge. It's always disappointing to know that you could and have approval from the taxpayers to go for more money, but legislation hinders that. Um, technology is a huge expense and it's just it's a part of education anymore and to not be able to levy that full amount is disappointing and um, I wish we could. So, with that, is there any questions? We're also moving towards countywide equalization of mills in this next >> when we get
061taxable values. Correct. >> Next year. Yep. So that will be a challenge for next year. Yep. >> Yeah. Gary. >> Yeah. Thanks, Lacy. Very good. Um, could you give us your perspective on the importance of our voters approving our levies in the spring to get us to max budget? And I mean, I'm very appreciative of our voters doing that, but that seems to be a at least in years past a pretty stable revenue source for us to do things. So is that just give us your perspective of the influence of that? Um the levy amount we get. >> Um let's see. All of this I'm going to go way back here. All of this over base um the 7.6 in elementary and the 5.2 in high school over the years. That's all had to come
062from voter approval. It's a huge hit. If we didn't have that, that that's over $12 million. um to our overall budget. So that that's a huge impact. I can't imagine running on less than what we have um let alone on less than what the the voters have allowed us to have. So we're lucky. We're very lucky. I can't imagine being in a different district that doesn't have that kind of support. Trustee Lucine, I would add, I think we're in a really um unique position this coming spring um with the debt service dropdown where it would be the first time that I'm aware of that the if there's an elementary um operational levy, high school operational levy, and the cost of living adjustment would all be um tax neutral um to taxpayers because of the offset
063from the from the bond payment. We know the complications of trying to explain that or not explain the restrictions of explaining that on a ballot. So, um that will be a the most significant part of our road show is trying to make that all apparent. >> Just to give some numbers, I I totally agree. It's it's um we'll be asking voters for about $1.8 million next year as a general fund increase. The taxes associated with that will be offset by this $1.8 million decrease in the in the debt service structure. That's why we're asking for that amount. But that $ 1.8 million number is more than three times what we asked for this this particular year. We are just short of $500,000 for this year. So well over three times that amount that we'll be
064asking for. So to your question, um never has it been more important. Um we've got an incredible track record across the state. We feel like we've got a good plan this year to to make it tax neutral. Um but the importance of voter approval isn't going to go away and I'd say it's compounding. um each year. >> Greg >> Lacy, do we have any information on the the 2 point what the why behind the 2.1 number? How that was arrived at? What other doublea's roughly our size in the state received? Um what that looked like like Billings, Missoula, >> I don't know what their numbers are. Um, when I calculated our 2.12, I took um, OPI sends out a really big spreadsheet with all of our funding formulas in it and I calculated it with
065the quality educator enhancement and without or with the double payment and with the regular payment um, to find the difference. I don't know I don't know what the other districts look like. Um, I do know that this is how it helped us though. >> Thank you. Mhm. >> I I think it would very much mirror student enrollment numbers. So student enrollment numbers in a ratio basis equal quality educators you need to run the the district. And so the Billings number is going to be a lot bigger. The Missoula number, Great Falls number will be a lot bigger. But Calispo would be smaller than ours. >> Thanks. You should also know that as we as we move into election season this coming spring, um we've got within the formulas a minimum budget, a base budget, and
066then there's a maximum budget as well. What we're going to be proposing and was which was newly approved with as a result of House Bill 252, the STARS Act, we're going to be asking to go over MAX. Um and we're allowed to do that because we're a high cost of living county. Um, and and we're going to be doing that with with with the with the tax neutral offset, but that will actually take us over max. I'm not aware of other doubleAs's that are going to be over max at all. So, it's a I I think it's an aggressive um choice that we're making, direction we're headed. Um, but I think it's justified and I think the fact that we've got these offsets to make it tax neutral shows that we're we're trying to do
067the best for our employees and our taxpayers at the same time. We've got an a pretty unique opportunity here to set ourselves apart to do some really good things for recruitment and retention of our teachers. And that's really why we're doing all of these things. >> Any other questions or comments from the trustees? >> Any public comment? >> Lacy Mike, thank you for all your input and all the information. Appreciate it. All right. Next item. Uh 5.4 for MTSBA 2027 legislature session resolutions. Casey, >> thank you, Chair Black. Um MTSBA um starts early in in terms of their gearing up for the next legislative session. Um in the agenda item, um we have a link to um the resolution that was created way back, I think 23, um right after that session, gearing up for
068the 25 session. Um and then uh a link to your legislative priorities for this for this past session. Um I'll have Mr. Waterman talk a little bit about the status of the dennial um study commission and uh this discussion item is really to hear from um trustees any um priority areas they want us to explore or topics they want to explore. Um I I foresee that we would as an administrative team take those items um of importance to this board, turn them into a um some resolution language and bring it back for um discussion and approval at a later date. Um there is a um timeline on this. I think uh Thursday, September 18th, they need to be submitted to MTSBA to get in the hopper for their approval process. Uh so Mr. Mr. Waterman,
069if you want to talk about the dennial study and then we we'll just take any feedback you have around um priorities for the legislative session in 27. >> Um thanks. The the school funding interim commission has met twice at at this point in time. Once with um at at the MTSBA headquarters where we received the presentation from Georgetown University and then an organizational meeting afterwards. The second meeting um was was more about voting who members would be on the on the working group. Um there was the the graph that we looked at and I showed all of you at a previous meeting that showed the intersection of cost per student that districts across the state spend and the return on that investment kind of their their their reading scores and what that's what that's getting
070them and and the disparities um the the wide dispersement of both that we have across the state. We've seen that the two meetings we've seen that we've seen that graph at at both at both meetings. So I think that's important. And I think that's going to be something that um the committee continues to focus on. The other thing I'll let you know about is that we've received in the form of public comment some it hasn't been discussed at the meeting level yet, but we've received public comment from MTSBA, School Administrators of Montana and MFPE with regards to what their priorities are. There's some there's some uniqueness about each one of those things, but there's also some some overlap. We had a a meeting today with uh the Chronicle actually and talked a little bit about
071efficiencies to be gained through school organization. So I think that'll be a topic. Um we were pleasantly surprised to see school administrators of Montana include that as one of their u priorities. And then uh MTSBA did a really I I credit to Lance. I think he did a really well-written piece about the need um to look back kind of at at the history, recognize that there's um uh uh we can't just look at the inputs of of the way we've always done it. We can't just keep funding teachers and districts and those types of things. We need to be looking at outcomes and and funding it uh things that way. So, a couple really good pieces of public comment from from Mr. Melton and MTSBA. Outside of that, the the committee has taken no action.
072There's a meeting scheduled for August 7th, I believe. Um, early August. It'll be a Zoom meeting. Um, and that'll be the next time the committee meets. >> Mr. Waterman, it's my understanding that the the what is the official name of your group work the commission study commission >> funding interim commission >> is one and the same with the working group >> with the exception of there. So that was a that was an interesting vote that was taken. There was um um the House Bill 153, the kind of the enabling law that Trusty Lucine pursued to to great length talked about the the creation of a working group and that the House Bill 153 says the working group has to include me all the members of the commission are on the working group and then the
073commission has the opportunity to add other people who are um interested whether it be school administrators or trustees or teachers um other folks who are interested. Um the committee voted basically two to one um to add only one other person to the working group that being a representative from um a parent organization that was um the uh commission felt basically that all the other groups were represented to some level or another on the committee already. So there was a working a request to add one parent organization um from it. We I've been in contact with the key group. No. Yes. Yeah. Is it? Yes. Yes. Uh from from Great Falls, Trusty Lucine's been working pretty closely with them and I know that they've been working closely with community me or community members here in Bosezeman
074to start something similar to them. So, I'm hopeful that we can get someone in with with their level of involvement and um familiarity with the issues on on that on that on that uh working group. The other thing I'll add is that the the just to keep in mind the commission has no authority to do anything besides make recommendations to the legislature and the working group is the they're just basically non- voting members who make recommendations to the to the commission. So there's a little bit of a a lack of power or authority to make any final decisions. At the end of the day, this is all going to be recommendations to the 27 legislature for them to do with things as they please. with that any any um love to hear any priorities um
075or topic areas um that are bubbling up for trustees that you would like us to dig deeper around possible resolution language. >> Gary. >> Yeah, thanks. Um I have two in mind. Um one I'll need Mike's expertise on, but one is to look at um legislation that would allow offsets to be included on the ballot. When so when voters have to vote on any levy, they can see what the net cost is going to be to them, not just what the new levy is going to be. If there's an offset, then let's include that on the ballot. And Mike's been looking into that. And I don't know, there's some complexities around that. So, I'm not sure if Do you have information for us? >> I don't. It hasn't fallen off my radar yet. I just
076hadn't gotten to it this summer. And this this um process came up a little bit quicker than I said. So, before we come back to the August meeting, I'll have uh more a lot more information for you on that. >> And then my other one is uh I guess just The concept and thought I've developed over the last four or five years looking into this is to um have our state really look at our system of education and not focus on funding only but look at our system and make sure we can fund the right system. And that comes from survey we did last year and the meeting held last October of just learning from the different key stakeholders. Um which I totally respect the school funding interim commission but that's not all the key
077stakeholders. So we need to have actual teachers and administrators dealing with their environment every day providing information along with students and parents. So, the general concept is to take the MTSBA and have them I don't know the exact wording yet, but the general thought would be to have MPSA be one of the leaders that that gathers key education stakeholders around the state to really look at our system of education. And if I use Nevada as the example of what they're doing right now, and four other states in the country have done the same thing, and this could be a possibility for the 2027 legislative session, is that our state actually develops a commission of on innovation and excellence in education just like Nevada has done. and their commission is on a five to I think
078a seven-year process to really look at their system and learn about high functioning systems in our country which is a few states doing this as well as around the world. what what does their system look like that allows them to have really high student achievement and can we make those changes in our state which the time period right now with the interim commission and the education interim commission is is way too short to really figure all that out. So it takes a longer period of time. So my thought right now is somehow get ideally get legislation passed in 2027 that an actual commission is put together with really good stakeholders over a period of time and it's funded appropriately so they have the funding and time available to really look into our system of education.
079and Nevada is uh and other states have worked with NCE who our state has worked with and I've working with Janice case on uh she's the one that doing helping Nevada right now. Um if you're interested in looking at Nevada just look them up innovation and excellence and education commission. Um, but it's a really good process which I think would really help us to know really what we want to fund that can produce the results we want to produce. Um, I don't know if you read the op-ed in the chronicle recently from Senator Bittton and Senator Beard. Um, I wrote to both of them with my thoughts. They're on the school funding interim commission. um heard back from Senator Beard and she totally agreed with my concept which was good to hear. So we have
080to see where it goes but um that would be my thought to at least have some form of resolution to MTSBA to get this process in place that can actually produce the results we would like to see. Byiana, did you have something? >> Yeah, I don't know if I have anything to add because we had a long conversation about this and I think listening to Gary talk about this over over time. What I'm really understanding is how how do we with everything that's happening right now in the dennial study and looking at the formulas and everything. How do we focus how do we have a system that focuses on what is really going to have impact that that's doable for teachers? That's that's kind of the message that I'm I'm I'm getting and that feels
081like what's been missing. So I don't know how that looks as a policy, but I I do believe it's an important process. One of the most helpful things last fall for me was um and I don't know if Casey spearheaded this, but when we had all of our local legislators and we met at Gallatin High and we just had this those of us who were able to be there, that was such a good conversation to understand legislators were asking questions and and administrators and people were saying this is why this doesn't work or this is why it would or this is what happens and like that's what's missing. thing to really enact things that are going to impact our schools. So, I don't know if all of that made sense. This is this is how
082I'm understanding what Gary's talking about. And I I believe it can be a really powerful process. Um yeah, and I don't know about the timing, but I do think that with Mike and the dennial study and all the things that are coming forward with these other policies we have, it's a good time to think how how do we be impactful? How do we become efficient? and we are missing some people at the table who can give us some good insight on what would work. That's that's the the only other thought and I know that we've most of us have sat here before and listened to to this and it's just it's just taken a while to really wrap my head around how it makes sense and how it would play out. Like I essentially have
083agreed but I I just couldn't quite wrap my head around the vision of what it looks like. So, if we want to talk about that more, I think that's becoming more clear to me on what that would mean as far as um a resolution that we can bring forward. And it wouldn't we we can bring it forward with MTSBA. I don't think MTSBA is the be all and the end all of where that would it's a but it's a start. >> Mike, how long is this denial study? Is it just this year? one year. >> What's um I think results are due to be finalized September of 206 >> 26 >> in advance of the 27 session. >> And have goals been identified on what what you're going to present or recommend? >> No, not
084beyond what's in House Bill 153. >> Okay. Okay. If I if I could add to that, I think the working group is supposed to have their recommendations to the commission by January. So they have between now and January. >> That's not very long. >> No, >> at all. >> Yeah. So there just the process and how to um engage in that process is is important and um just to engage with the school funding interim commission and then then the dennial study commission after that you know into next year and um see where it goes. I think having I just feel as a trustee and I've expressed this to legisl You know, as a publicly elected official, it's my job to make sure our public school system can function as highly as it can and it's
085funded appropriately. And that's where I've arrived at this concept of not just looking at funding things, but because I think they still funding an outdated system, but really look at the system and learn from teachers and administrators and students and parents on what they're experiencing and what do we have to change to really allow our students to um reach their full educational potential. Um, >> so when when we look back at the resolutions we put forward at the last one, um, I think the first one when Gary was talking about this, we put forward um, a process. I think we're looking at something different than a process now. Is that true, Gary? like because because that that got distilled into one word um into something. But so we're talking about taking that first policy and
086or or um resolution that we had before and and shifting that more to what is how do we examine our system so we know that we're identifying the right things. Yeah, that's one of the challenges to me is the wording of this is going to be critical because it's my view of this that um I believe the delegate assembly, the trustees of the state need to decide what MTSBA is going to do on this. It's not just left up to MTSBA. So that's kind of the point of this is to having, you know, having it written well enough and so we can explain it well enough so people can capture the concept correctly. And I've heard from a lot of other people about this I've talked to that support it. But um I think getting
087the wording correct uh and the messaging done well is going to be critical for delegate assembly. >> All right. Um, one more thing, Mike. Uh, it will you will the dennial study be tasked with um the definition of equality education and what is funded? >> I think there will be recommendations that come out of the committee for that. But again, it's a legislative decision about >> that's part of what you'll be. Okay. Thank you. I'd throw out too that, you know, as we talk about the working group and the relationship with that and the the timing and the um quick time frame that that we're on, I would like to um reemphasize to everyone the importance of public comment. The the working group is it has, you know, some official titles associated with it, but
088really has no more power than public comment. So folks who are interested in this process, interested in school funding, should engage through public comment and and do so well. You know what I mean? And and I I think that's just as important as a seat on a on a on a working group given the the time frame. >> All right. Any other comments or questions, suggestions from trustees discussion? All right. Any public comment on this item? >> Casey, do you have what you need? >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Next item. Item six, uh, public comment on non-aggenda items. >> All right. Well, thank you for coming again. It's we're going to have more exciting meetings, so keep on coming back. Um, all right. Item seven, uh, executive cabinet report. All right. Board
089of trustees. Anybody have anything? Lyanna? Um this is a a reminder that we didn't have our um our delegate assembly in June for MTSBA and so um we received an email that we're going to need to vote at a board meeting electronically. Um I I will resend the email as a reminder but it's on the principles and that we have a new um uh president and vice president that we're electing and then um an estimate of the dues revenue. So um it's in an email. We all we all got that. I'm just reminding us that we will need to vote on that before August 29th and it will be done at a board meeting. So, just heads up. Okay. Anything else? All right. With that being said, I'll adjourn this meeting. Thank you. It means
090this