Speaker 1: 22nd. 2026. Meeting to order at 5 38. So we'll go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Chance, would you Speaker 2: Mind you be my pledge of allegiance Speaker 3: To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands Nation one way, nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 1: Thank you. If you would please remain standing for just a moment of silence. Great, thank you. And actually, really quick before everybody sits down, I would like to recognize that today is administrative assistance day.
And we are going to remain standing because this lady deserves a standing ovation. Because I can guarantee that without her we would not be, be where we are. We would not run as smoothly. I know. I would not be nearly as prepared. And so with that, we have got just a little something from the board. So woo Speaker 3: Woo. Yay. Very well. That's, Speaker 1: That's because you never recognize yourself. That's right. But thank you. All right.
All right. Now onto the agenda. So thank you for that little detour on the agenda. I appreciate it. Very well. Deserved. I would, are there any changes to the agenda? No. Okay. I would take a motion to approve the April 26th, 20 April 22nd, 2026 agenda as presented. Speaker 4: I make a motion to, to approve the April 22nd, 2026 agenda as presented. Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. Chance, may I get a second please? I second that. Thank you, Cassie. Sharon, may I get roll call please? Will
Speaker 5: You? Aye. Haskell? Aye. Jenkins? Aye. Speaker 1: Jensen? Aye. Sharon, do we have any public audience? Speaker 5: No, we do not. Okay. Speaker 1: Alright. Onto the consent agenda. We have got the April 8th, 2026 draft board minutes. I would take a motion to approve the draft board minutes as presented. Speaker 6: I'll make a motion to approve the draft board minutes as presented for April 8th, 2026. Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. May I get a second? Speaker 2: I second. Speaker 1: Thank you Sharon, may I get roll call please? Speaker 5: Will you? Aye. Hasell Aye. Jenkins? Aye. Jen.
Speaker 1: Aye. Okay. Alright. And then onto the consent agenda. Was there any changes to the consent agenda? Speaker 5: No, there is not. Okay. Speaker 1: I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Speaker 5: I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. May I get a second? Speaker 5: I'll second. Speaker 1: Thank you. Sharon, Speaker 5: Will you Aye. Hasco. Aye. Jenkins? Aye Judge. Speaker 1: Aye. Sorry, I heard it. Thank you. Like Speaker 5: Half. Yep. Speaker 1: Yep. Check. Alright. Governance discussion items.
It's our, it's our favorite, favorite group. What can I say? It's fun with finance. Putting Speaker 5: The fun in finance. Yep. I like Speaker 7: To say we put the fun in fun balance. Speaker 5: I really feel like we need like an intro song. I know. Up a walkup you need a walkup song. Right? I would say he doesn't really get to choose it my name. We need to get some fake money and go like this every time he walks up. We could let his team. No, I think the stone cold Steve Austin entrance. The glass shattering. Speaker 1: Okay, Jason, we're done giving you a hard time. Well please. Speaker 7: You know, I, I wanted to say tonight before we get into the economic forecast
and the third quarter financials, that as you know, we run about $82 million through this place in all funds. And I wanna report to you that everything was running just fine and Mary bought Lale. Speaker 5: We're gonna have recover. I Speaker 7: Love her Lale fund. She's a fantastic businesswoman. Her, her department runs amazingly and when, whenever we get into really complex talks and budgeting and stuff, she just always goes, I just make the meatloaf, which is Speaker 5: H really, really, really, Speaker 1: I'm waiting to see a, I'll get thrown at, Speaker 5: Thrown at Speaker 7: Me.
So for tonight's agenda, we're gonna hit the Colorado forecast, the economic forecast, which has already like been shredded, added together, redone and voted on and moved along. So I don't know how timely that is, but I'll try to walk you through that progress. We'll talk about the third quarter, the results where we are, everybody's favorite moment where we look at a chart of numbers and hope they all say 75%. And then maybe what we think we're seeing in some trends. And maybe we can show you what we think the end of the year would look like.
And then talk about some things that the district's been doing at our level in light of the economic forecast. And then finally show you kind of the projected fund balance that, that we're gonna get into. I wanna start with the economic forecast. This, this was an odd year news first. Speaker 5: Huh? The good news? Yeah. Speaker 7: Well it was an odd year. The, there were two economic forecasts presented this year. So normally the one that we bring to you is the Colorado Legislative Council. And this year there was also the Office of State Planning and Budgeting. Those are two separate groups of economists.
The Ledge Council works for the legislative ca branch and the Office of Planning and Budgeting works for the governor's office. And so they both came and presented their economic forecast. They were pretty different. They were with, they were $500 million apart. Hmm. So we're talking about big, big money differences. Excuse me. Yeah. $500 million, half a billion dollars apart. So the Ledge Council came out and said it looked like we were gonna have about a
$1.5 billion shortfall. And then the Office of State Planning and Budgeting came out and said, well probably a billion dollars, maybe 900 million. And so they were off by a fairly substantial piece. They both did agree on some things. Revenue is projected to drop, we're seeing a drop in revenue in 25. The year that we're looking back on an economic rebound won't necessarily save the problem due to the Taber limits that we've talked about. We could triple our revenues, but there's only a certain piece that can be kept. And so school finance is at risk of flattening
or very, very slow growth. Any downturn in their forecasting would be a dollar for dollar reduction in any budgets or revenue that they'll receive. Because if they go over that Taber line and they see a reduction, it's just less refunds that they give out. But their spending and their revenues is safe 'cause we're underneath that line. If there's less money or revenue that comes in, it's actually money they don't have. They have to cut back somewhere else. So I wanna show you basically the key differences in, in what those forecasts said. I'm gonna come stand up and point at things
because that's what I did when I was eight. Thanks coach. Yeah. Or we can watch football film and I'll point to what the safety's doing. You can see that the Office of State Budget planning, they, they thought that they revised up their expectations. So what's happened is tax collections in Colorado are down. So what they're saying is people have more money in their pocket. So we think we're gonna see an economic rev up because of that money in their pockets. Ledge council wasn't so optimistic, they don't think that that rev up is gonna happen at the same speed. So these guys are talking about this year's economy.
What's gonna happen based on the fact that taxes have gone down. Both of them looked at next year. Two, they both see a revision down mostly because labor stagnation, possibly the war. And one of the things that was noted by the alleged council is that really the, there's a separation in growth between AI jobs and jobs that require labor. And we're seeing a growth over here and a reduction over here. So that stuff you hear about in the news that AI's taking jobs ledge counsel is predicting that. So, and a I'll take my job. It it's better at what I do.
It's crazy general fund. It's not as entertaining. Well I asked you to write jokes. Yeah, I'll get there. General fund, they're talking about revising down and we'll talk about that quite a bit in a second. The biggest difference between the two is that ledge counsel said we have to have a 15% reserve. And the Office of State budget planning said, well let's cut the reserve down. It would be like taking money from our fund balance to the tune of about half a billion dollars when you do that. And you, and they, they said we'd be at about 850 shortfall,
1.5 billion shortfall. But over here, if you take from that reserve about half, 500 million, you've made up 500 of 800 of the shortfall. Okay? So that's what's happening. Essentially the house took up the, this concept, they passed the law that said they could cut into that reserve. And so instead of having to have this much money to break even, they moved the bar down a little bit. Fear is you can only do that so many times. Same, same discussion we have with our fund balance.
So this, this is a big deal. This is $500 million. And so, oh my, that's what you're seeing is, is the difference. Now the other piece that I think, and there's not a lot of news on this, I'm reading articles, I'm trying to read between the lines. The other 300 million seems to be made up for by not refunding certain taper refunds from last year that would've gone out because there was some changes in the way taxes were collected. The government is arguing that some of the refunds from last year were unexpected, therefore don't have to go back.
So you get 850 million shortfall being made up for by not giving back some taper refunds and dipping into the reserve. So that took care of most of it. How can they legally not give away Les? Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know. Okay. At all. I'm serious. You'll just figure that out and, and, and talking with Kirk and, and we have some concerns that not just, not just that piece, but with some of this that we could get to January and see a, a legislature that says we have to do rescissions, which we haven't seen in a long time. And so we're nervous Yeah.
About what's the rescission midyear. They'd say, Hey, we, we were gonna give you guys $53 million in your total program. We realized we don't have it. We're gonna give you 52 51. But since you're already halfway there and we've overpaid the first half, then the second half is kind of like much less. Not like when you find out your escrow account was short for the year and you gotta double up to catch up next year kind. It could be like that. Or you, you don't, you don't get January payment. We'll move on past that. So something like that. So that, that keeps us nervous.
So anyway, can we see the next slide? So here's, here's this outline's kind of what I was talking about, which is they change the reserve and by doing that, things look like they come more into budget. And we can do that too. We do that with fund balance. We say, okay, if you had that fund balance, the problem is it's not sustainable. And so now we have fears about next year. So where is all this, these two budgets went through, were looked at the house, chose to, to cut the reserves leg.
Counsel put together another budget for them. They passed it, they gave it over to the Senate. The Senate passed it, it's now in joint conference. They're going through adding the amendments they're gonna add or whatever. If that comes out clean, it would go to the governor. It won't, so it'll go back to the house and send it to be revolted. And I think we'll probably have a final long bill in mid May, which is exciting for me 'cause I owe you guys next year's budget's on the 22nd. So we'll get our revenue numbers probably less than 14 days from the time that we have to confi figure
what we are getting and where it all belongs. So it's, it's an exciting time Speaker 8: When Speaker 7: Mary said you can come cook if you want. I was, I'm thinking that sounds pretty good. Speaker 9: So, quick question, since there's two, two forecasts, what is your professional opinion on which one is, Speaker 8: Well now you're a fortune to Yeah, Speaker 7: Le alleged counsel took the, the, the more optimistic and put together the budget that the state's seeing now and the state's working with. If, if their assumptions hold, then they were right.
You know, then we won't. So I, it's tough to say, we'll, we'll probably the Colorado finance project, Tracy Rainey, there's brilliant, she, she runs all the districts and figures out the monies that we're getting and what's happening. And she said I would shift my budgeting concept to quarterly as opposed to maybe bi-annually. You know, we normally come back in January and, but at least on our end, we should be constantly shifting and watching for any changes that are happening, at least for the next 12 months. So that's probably what we'll be doing. So yeah, so when we give our
economic forecast in like October, I'll, we'll probably be making changes on the back end for you guys to see in January if they, if that's necessary. So any que any questions that should be perfectly clear as mud. Yeah. Perfectly. Yep. So now we'll look at our, at our numbers, which, which actually are concrete and have a, have a position on 'em. So this is our third quarter revenue. We're a little bit behind revenue from last year. I'll show you why. That's just timing stuff. Especially one of our, our biggest accounts, which is property taxes.
Last year people were more willing to pay half of their property taxes upfront this year, I think because everybody lost that $55,000 exemption. They're like, oh, let's pay it all at the end. So we're gonna see more money coming in at the end for property taxes in, in, in the beginning, which is what this is showing here. State equalization, those are big payments we've gotten eight outta nine of those. That's what we're supposed to get. We're right on track. So that's why it's 89% that money helps. You know, they pushed those last three payments into the front nine for timing purposes and cash flow purposes.
And that's been very, very beneficial to our district for sure. So much of our money is state funded that the more we get up front, the easier cash flow is to manage specific ownership tax. The one you like is trending 2% ahead of, of 75%. So maybe people are buying boats and cars with their tax refunds. I don't know. Or maybe it's just 2%. So federal revenue collections are look atrocious compared to last year because we picked up all that a million
and a half SER dollars, which is the last money from Esser that you got. So I wouldn't put too much stock in that. I can, that one's behind slightly because Mary's money lags Medicaid lags. And last year we had a little more BOCES money at this point than we had this year, which lags and comes to. So we'll show you that. So here's our actual numbers. Everybody's favorite moment, the chart, you can see that local property taxes are at 29%. This is the money that I told you always
comes in on May the 10th. And you gotta make it to that from a cash flow position. And then suddenly it all comes in. We were at five last year, we were at seven. So you can see more people paid their taxes early last year than this year. That money right there really, really helps us get through cash flow. If we get any of our taxes up front that the property taxes really takes care of the month of March. 'cause we don't get a state share payment in March, which is five minute. So that helps a lot equalization, like I said, one payment left. We'll get that on the 25th, which I think is tomorrow.
A couple days. Three days. Everything else is tracking pretty well. Our, our mineral lease money, we get that January and it's done. So that's why it's so close. But it's finished. But everything else is on track to be collected over the next two months, two and a half months. So we're, we're almost at 75%. That's not a magic number with revenue, but it looks nice if you're looking at, so any questions about revenue, revenue's, fun. It's where all the money stacks up. This is expenditures.
Yeah, that's what you wanna hear about. I always made Jeff do this part year over year. We're seeing some efficiencies. We're 2% behind spending from last year, which is good. Last year, remember we ended 600,000 below budget. So to be behind last year when behind was a sub budgett year under budget year is good news. I'll show you when we get to the end on adjustments, what adjustments we think we're making and which ones we're not because we're trying to be conservative, but this is some discipline. Proactive monitoring. We've talked about dynamic budgets.
We've talked about Kathy calling every financial secretary at 8:01 AM saying, what did you just buy this stuff right here is, I, I I want to believe helping, I want to believe it's, it's helping put controls in place, putting decisions in good people's hands with good information and, and we're tracking under budget. I'll show you why we're not adjusting that yet. But it feels good. It, we are tracking lower than last year in expenditures. We're, like I said, we're on track to spend out or below budgets and if anybody goes over, you'll never hear about it because Kathy will bury them behind their schools.
So I'll show you the expenditures now, salaries are 2% behind. I've told you that's pretty important. Salaries is a huge piece of the budget and 80% of our expenditures. Same thing with benefits. When salaries go down, para goes down. That's one of the benefits 'cause they're tied together. So that's a double, that can be double to the good or double to the bad. And then some of that is some healthcare too that benefits are lumped together. So that's in good shape. You can see that schools and on the instructional side by most
of their supplies early in the year. And then they spend most of their purchase services at the end of the year. So these two things we rebalanced over the last couple years and really honed in on which expenditures go into which categories. And I think this shows that we've gotten it very, very close. They used to one would be way off and then the other would be way off. And I think now we're tracking that. And again, that is 100% because of, so down here in the, in the support services, you're seeing the same thing. You're seeing salaries and benefits tracking at the same rate.
That 73 as opposed to 75. Same thing with supply supplies and, and purchase services are on the instruct on the support side are not as extreme as the school side. The school opens, everybody goes and buys supplies. So this is a little more balanced look. So overall I think that looks like it's streaming in the right way. Some of it looks like it may even be trending, you know, where we could make some adjustments. But I'll talk about that too in a second while. So any questions about expenditures? Speaker 10: Remind me what property is? Speaker 7: Property expenditures could be things. Where
Speaker 10: Is that? Like capital projects? Speaker 7: It, not necessarily capital, but it's expenditures we have on anything that's a lease or anything that, but it has to be in the general fund. So we only carve out $1.2 million of capital to put into John's fund. Sometimes we spend, we buy things that are similar to what John has in the capital side, but they stay in the 10 fund. 'cause that's, Speaker 10: And the one the transfers to other funds is the 1.2 for capital. That's John. Right. Okay. I just couldn't figure out what the problem was. Does that make sense? Thank you. Good Speaker 7: Question. Sure. Anyone else?
Alright, let's talk about end of year estimates. So if we were gonna say where are we? So here's our budget, here's our actuals. These are the numbers that I just showed you. This is what's left. If we were going to make some adjustments that we think we see by the end of the year, what would those be? We know this one's done. So that was easy. I almost put that specific ownership taxes. We're tracking about 30 to 50,000 ahead. I kept it out to be conservative down here in our federal sources, that money right there is some BOCES pass through money
that we haven't seen that we think we're getting that's above and beyond the budget. So we thought we could make that. This may come down just a little bit. Sarah and I have a phone call with Medicaid tomorrow. Medicaid cuts may affect some of our Medicaid revenues for the rest of the year, but for the most part I think we're gonna see at least a hundred, 150,000 up in revenue that we're gonna see for the rest of the year. So like I said, some of this is dynamic so we'll, we'll, but that's, so we expect to see an increase in revenue from what's budgeted about that amount.
Maybe even a little more with specific ownership tags. So on our expenditure side, and we've had a chance to talk about this a little bit. I went in and originally these were like to the penny, what I was projecting, I thought that's really silly to, to forecast some adjustments for you guys that are to the penny. So I, I went conservative and put in about $560,000 in reductions of expenses that we see in, in salaries and benefits. I follow those trends every month as y'all know, we're looking at how is that trending?
It seems to be trending pretty well. I've got a couple of models working that show that we could see this or greater savings at that level on the supplies. And pro supplies and purchase services we're also trending under budget and trending under last year. Kathy and I decided we probably didn't want to project savings on those because you see end of year spending, people say, I have this left in my budget, I have these needs, I'll buy it. Just because you didn't spend your money up to this point doesn't mean you might not. And so they know their budgets. We don't expect them to go over.
We may capture some savings in those two categories, but I think forecasting that or projecting it is quite too optimistic. So what Speaker 9: Is the philosophy in the departments that say they they they're under budget. There isn't like this philosophy of they have to spend their budget or they lose it next year. Speaker 7: I'm glad you asked that. That is a, in especially in governments, that is historically what happens is you have this culture of people who say, if I don't spend my money, I lose it. Why would I ever do that to my school, my department or whatever. Sure. So we've spent the last two years or three saying we are going
to budget your non-salary pieces by student count even across all elementaries, even across middle schools because they're more expensive as they get older. And even, yeah. So if you pass it back to the general fund, your numbers next year are based on your student count. I think we think that policy promotes what we want, which is if you can throw it back in the pot, we've got that money for staff and next year it doesn't hurt you. If you do what you spend as your baseline for next year, that policy is hurting that philosophy.
And so I think as a policy matter, you, you gotta drill that then you gotta do it so people believe you, right? Yeah. Okay. You gotta prove to 'em that we've done that. We've done that a couple years in a row now. And I think that builds trust so people know that what they throw back in their staff can take in step lane and maybe raises. Yeah, this is, this is the good news. If, if that trend hold and the revenue trend holds, we have a $2.2 million deficit budgeted, we think 1.4 to 1.6, which be, which we talked about.
Nice. That'd be nice. Would be a big deal. Damn that that savings, like I said, goes into the future and shows multiplies. So it also ends interest, which I'm calculating for year's. Budget, anytime you have an extra 800,000, $600,000, you're talking about picking up $30,000 extra in interest over the course of a year. That hires a kitchen staff pays for labels. Yeah. Pays for the labels. Even the ones throwing at you. So, okay on our, because, because Colorado is tightening revenue seems
to be slowing down. People have asked, what, what is it that we've done at the district in light of that, it's, it, it's fair to ask, what are you doing in light of that? And we've made some pretty good decisions over the last three years. A lot of this seven $40,000 came in consulting and food and curriculum, a lot of software, a lot of subscription services that we've cut out over the last three years. That frees up money for people. 90, 90% spending on the non-salary piece by the,
by the district office and nons salary budgets were cut by 200,000 o one year over another u Usually you see non-salary budgets go up a little. We actually cut ours. The next slide shows a lot of stuff that's currently going on. Re two is in the top 30 districts for the slimiest administrative costs. We have 1.1% in admin cost that puts us in the top 30 most efficient districts in the state purchase services we just talked about was cut over $200,000 this year. Interest agreements with our partner banks
are bringing in an estimated 135,000 extra in revenue district office. Changed some schedules of people that work here to match school days. So we have some people that we've moved down to a a nine month schedule instead of a 12 month schedule for some savings. Tech is timing their purchases. You're not gonna believe this, but all the chips and ram and everything in the world is going through the roof. And so the faster we can buy those things, the more money we save Roger estimates in the last two years by pre-buying and figuring out ways to, to take care
of some things early as opposed to waiting until the fiscal year rolls. He thinks we've saved about $400,000 in purchasing tech curriculum cost cuts, which I'll let Simone talk about natural gas contracts. Three years ago we were on the spot market and our gas prices went like this. And we hit the one day that like quadrupled, we had like a $400,000 gas bill one month. And we negotiated that away and ended up coming up with a flat rate, a much more reasonable rate for government. We don't wanna be speculating. And so we've saved a ton of money. John can talk about that too in our natural gas cost
over the last three years. Last year was 600,000 under budget. Huge grant management piece. Best grant, ELL and counselor court grant are probably $1.1 million, maybe more if you add those pieces up. JCI's reducing our cost and utilities collaborative solutions this year came up with a healthcare plan that's, that saved our staff and us money. They, they did a good job of making sure that we had a economically reasonable plan. And then of course the dynamic budgets we talked about across the district seem to be working.
So, and our policy of not cutting people who don't spend the money. So that's, that's just stuff that we've done. I thought I'd show you the fund balance history. This goes back to 2020. What's happened to our fund balance? The blue line is where we were projected or budgeted. The gray line is what we're forecasting. So a little bit better than than projected or budgeted. The, the red line is, is the $8 million re reserve that you guys require as part part of policy. So that's, that's all I've got. I thought I'd give you a little bit of a finance update.
Heather Toes is going to be our new controller. You guys should have vetoed Kathy's resignation. You missed your chance. We tried, but Heather's fantastic. She's got three months now to train with Kathy so that we pretty much sit together all day long and get all that training done. Lindsay Isha is our payroll specialist. You guys see a folder? She pays every bill in the district. She pays all except payroll. So you guys see her folders in all your board reports? We're looking to move her. Heather, when she goes to controller is gonna take the grants piece with her.
She's gonna be a con controller and the grants manager. So expanding that job. Kathy's always also managed all the financial secretary. So we're gonna look to give that job to Lindsay and make her a manager of the 13th, 7 17, 19 19 financial secretaries. Our payroll job is open and posted. So if any of you guys wanna do, we have 10 schools. How do we have 19? Good question. Food services. You got John? Oh you got Sharon. Got Wendy. Sharon. Wendy family Crystal.
Crystal Crow there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, they're all over. Sorry. Yeah. Cheryl and Wendy, Speaker 5: Where are they at? Speaker 7: Wendy's do Wendy. Wendy's down here. She runs TAG and curriculum and Yeah. Yeah. And then Speaker 5: Sharon. Speaker 7: Oh, Sharon. Yeah, she's right there. Speaker 5: Cheryl. Cheryl. Yeah. She does your, your Speaker 7: Budget. She does your Speaker 5: We pay Speaker 7: For stuff. We have a budget. We just don't show it to you. Speaker 5: Probably very well Sharon year. I do a very good job. It's usually, it's never really open.
I didn't even realize we were broke. Leave that account. Closed. Speaker 7: Payroll. The payroll job is open. It's posted. We've got some great applications. We'll probably start interviewing next week. We're gonna leave some of that open until probably Friday or maybe longer depending on if applications keep rolling in. So we'll be doing payroll and then basically from now until we see you next, we'll be doing budgets. Speaker 5: Oh yay. Trying Speaker 7: To figure out what kind of revenue we have and it'll take the whole team
to figure out Mary's Lale budget. Speaker 5: That's Speaker 7: All I've got. Speaker 5: It's just meatloaf. Speaker 1: It's just meatloaf. She just makes the meatloaf. Speaker 5: Thanks Jason. Good work. Thank you Speaker 1: Jason. Thank you Jason. Speaker 5: Thank you. Speaker 1: Finance is always fun, Jason. I appreciate that. Well we've got, so the governance action items, there's nothing on there. So we're good to move through to policy focus. So there were two policies. G-C-K-A-A and then G-C-K-A-A dash R was in the packet. Speaker 5: Correct. Speaker 11: And so these, these were policies
that were brought to our attention for, from HR that were vetted through legal that were, had been recommended but had never been brought forward and were not in our policy books. So they were brought forward for first reading. Speaker 1: Okay. To you all. Speaker 11: So Speaker 5: Why would a policy not ever been brought forward? Like that Speaker 1: Brand new policy, Speaker 5: Isn't it? No, it's from 2012. Oh, Speaker 11: I can't answer that to Speaker 5: Be honest. Cassie. Okay. Well not that like, I'm just in general, how would we miss a policy like Well,
Speaker 11: And when, when legal, when legal looked it over, part of the answer was is, is we didn't, we didn't have the policy. And his answer was, there's other districts that don't have it as well. And so he recommended that we adopt both the policy and the regulation. So I, I don't know, history, but it didn't shock him that we didn't have it. Okay. There was other, he has other clients that don't have it as well. So, okay. When he brought it forward to the hr, it, it wasn't like, oh my God, you don't have a policy. It was like, okay, other districts don't have this policy.
You probably have this policy. So Wow. So Speaker 1: It's a new policy Speaker 11: That we, we have been following this. I mean, so something, you know, it's, it is that, yeah. As far as as SOP, we've been following this policy. It's just not in our policy book. And so that probably might be the differences. Yeah. Is that we definitely have been following the procedure. It's just we, when, when asked do you have, do you have the G-C-K-A-A and G-C-K-A-A dash R? We went, no. Okay. Well guess what's coming up to the board.
So we're bringing it forward for first reason. I think Speaker 1: It's great. Thank you. Yeah. Speaker 2: Just Speaker 1: Like how does happen? My mind goes, Speaker 2: I, Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't have any, anything that stuck out to me. Steve Chance? Did you guys have anything? Speaker 4: No. Just first reading. I might be, I might have things next time. It's probably a good policy to have. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 4: I'm not really a big fan of the timing of it Right. After the, you know, the rumor of the perceived, you know,
terminations phase outs or, or, or attrition. So I'm just trying to point the optics of that out. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 4: But I, I think it's, we definitely have to have it. Speaker 1: I think this also helps explain Speaker 4: Sure. Speaker 1: Why we're doing the no replacements through attrition sort of, Speaker 4: And we see Yeah. I mean this is a problem across the state, right? Yeah. Where especially the metro areas where they're having to close schools, close facilities. And I've always wondered I what that look like, you know, personnel wise.
Speaker 1: Junction Junction did. Speaker 4: Yeah. Junction. Yeah. They're the closest ones. But ones I look at are like the one you hear about in Denver. Denver. Like where they're closing fair amount of schools. Yeah. Speaker 11: And we do have, we do have another set of, of policies for if we were ever to go to reduction in force. So that would be a a a very different Okay. Than this. So if, if we were ever to get into a financial difficulty where you had to theoretically
do reduction in force, you do have a set of policies that talks about what that is. This is the, this is really about student count help moving teachers from one position to another. Yeah. And how that process helps facilitate that and works with our staff around what does that look like. So those are two different things. It's that, that's a great point Speaker 4: To that's a great point. That's a great point. Speaker 11: And those policies you do, you do already have, have been in, in standing for a while. Okay. Speaker 4: That's a great point. Speaker 11: Yeah. So this is, this is about mutual agreement for certain components.
Thank you for the clarification. Yep. Speaker 6: I saw on the dash r within 10 days after receiving board statement. Is that a feasible timeline? The 10 days? It's in red. Yes. It's new, Speaker 1: It's added, right. Speaker 6: Yeah. Notice of individual teacher within 10 days of receiving court statement action. Speaker 11: Yeah. That's, I think that's like towards the last step. And so it matches what we do for other policies. That's why it's, it's, it's in that. Okay. So that's, that, that's just in, in, in informing after a decision has been made. And so that's, that matches other policies
that you have is once, once the board makes it and that information has to go out. So it's kind of that, that component. Okay. For that. So that matches other communication. Yeah. Components. Perfect. Yep. Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 1: So when the notice is served to the teacher, upon to the teacher personally, is there any sort of signature that they've received it? Because I know that's the nice thing with certified mail is, is you get the receipt back. Okay. So 'cause it says they can receive it personally
or by certified registered mail. So if they receive it personally, do they have a signature receipt? Speaker 11: No, because we would have that witness Speaker 1: At the time. Okay. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Anything else on these two for first reading? Yeah, I mean I didn't, Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 11: Now on, on the other piece, I just want to clarify and get feedback. What we did, and Fathom and I talked about this. And so this is the first run through as, as you saw in your packet and I mentioned it in in my update, what we've got now is the Google doc as far as being able
to do a feedback and work through for our revisions. And so what what we did is, is we took the feedback from last meeting, we're able to put it on the Google doc for section A. Took what Sharon captured from our last board meeting made those changes. And so those are captured here in the policy review section. So we made that, but then also I'm, I am gonna jump ahead to the second Google doc, which was then section B for next month. And so just to clarify, what we're asking is, as you do
that review, you do the dropdown arrow, add your name and then anything you'd like my staff to review questions you have on the policy. So then the following month when we bring it back, we can make those changes and help speed along the review on that. If you read a policy and are like, Nope, looks good, feels good, and you don't have to do a drop down, you can just let it be. But then that way we have a record, Sharon and I talked about it. The hope is, is that it actually will be a living document during that month. So you also may go in, I'm gonna pick on Megan 'cause she's not here.
Megan's really good at the, you know, English side of this. So as she's picking up punctuation and those kind of things, when Sharon has time, because she has honestly 80 other things that I throw at her in a month. But when she does have time, she may be changing those things. So if you go in and you see something that Megan's already called out, it may already be changed because it'll be a live document. So if you don't see something that someone else has already said, it's probably already been changed to do that.
And she will mark it on the left side of that document. That's fine. That, that she's made that change just so that you can, you can see it and catch it. But the hope would be that, that way we also have it as a, as an ongoing document for you all on what that looks like. Will you still make changes in red? Yes. Yes. Everything Speaker 12: Will be Speaker 1: The same. Because then if there's, Speaker 12: We'll be able to put 'em up on the board, but you guys will be able to follow that to make sure the changes got made and stuff and if there's awesome. Speaker 11: Yep. And just like we do with the, with the lawyers' recommendations, I mean anything
that is is punctuation, those kind of things will make those changes. Anything that is nce, they will, they will be done in the first and second reading. So we won't change anything in policy unless it's voted upon. But this allows us to do that and then we will mark those as then reviewed upon upon that completion so that we have a record for that. I think our also hope is, is that we do have this record of what went on for every, to every section. And we'll continue, we'll continue that. Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify that.
So what we do have in this packet and both on the, the section A is what hopefully we captured correctly from last month as far as the section a review for that to do that. So that would be first readings on the changes within that, that, that were requested. And I think there was a couple just clarifications that I wanted to make sure I was able to mention in that process. Let me see if I can find those one.
When we were looking at it, you can see the nondescripts or we changed that on a CE. Those are in red. I think we did have a question around, sorry, let me get to it. Address for file. Where to file a complaint on a CR. The address was put put in there. Yeah. So we did add that one. Speaker 1: We changed the, the names? Speaker 11: Yep. Speaker 1: On AC dash e dash one. Yep. Speaker 11: A DA We did add,
when it talks about school districts goals and objectives, we did, we did reference chance, I believe your was about strategic, the strategic plan. That was, that was added in on this, on for this for you all for the first reading components. Speaker 4: So Speaker 11: If everything else is clerical, I'm just double checking. I missed anything. Was it, if there was anything else that you had that, yeah, I think everything else was clerical that we were able to make changes on. But if there's anything else that someone had that you felt like we didn't address,
please bring it forward and we can make sure that we, we address that. Speaker 4: So in a DA where, where you we, we mentioned the strategic plan, would it be worth or would it be pertinent to, 'cause the strategic plan's written, it's infor, it's being enfor, you know it's being lived. How is that? Enforced isn't the right word, but it implemented implement there you implemented it's being implemented. So in that last paragraph it reads, begin the writing of a plan with specific strategies
that will engage our school districts communities. And then we refer to this as the strategic plan. Should we change that last paragraph to, to, 'cause if it's written, we're not beginning to write anything, maybe continue implementation. Implementation or, because I mean, in another couple years another board might do another one. So, Speaker 11: So what are the things that I, I want, want to always recommend is that remember policy, the difference between policy and then what you're implementing.
The policy of course is like the, the direction. Oh, okay. It's the umbrella statement plan. So you don't want in your, in your implementation or your, your writing the law to put that into place for exactly the reason you just cited. That may change. So the strategic plan you hope is always evolving. Sure. Speaker 4: But it Speaker 11: May change. So, but you want to say you will have a plan. Yes. Right? So your policy is gonna direct your future selves to always have a plan. Like that's what your policy should do. Not what the plan is.
Speaker 4: Okay. So rather than using the word begin the writing, keep in place a plan. I mean, because referencing the fact that there's one in place and Right. Speaker 11: We're not starting from Speaker 4: Scratch. We're not starting from scratch. There's one in place whether you want to amend it or change it in future, that's fine. But we need to, as a district to have a plan what, whatever you may call it. Speaker 11: And that's, and yeah. And that's why it, we, we chose the words to refer. We refer to this plan. So this is citing that you will have a plan. So begin, do write a plan with specific strategies that will encourage the school,
our school district and communities. And then, so, because Speaker 4: I guess Speaker 11: The way I interpret that is that we needed to, from your comment was something about the strategic plan. That's why I was choosing the language of saying we refer to this as strategic. Speaker 4: No, I, I get that. But I think the word that's hanging me up is begin. Yes. Speaker 11: Because it's already been, it's Speaker 4: Implemented. I would agree with you. That's the only word that's hanging me up. Yeah, Speaker 11: I would agree with you. Speaker 4: 'cause it's in place. Just make sure something like that stays in place. What I'd say agree Speaker 11: Wouldn't and yeah. So yeah, absolutely. I think if you, if you want to make some language change to
that, we I would agree with you. That would be Speaker 4: Appropriate. Okay. And that's I think everything else as we're going through here. Okay. Yeah. And everything else, the changes that we didn't talk about the changes, maybe we should tell 'em what we want put in there. Hmm. What was that Jan? Maybe we should tell 'em how I'm sorry. Yeah. Maintain. Maintain, yeah. I like maintain maintain a written plan. Yeah. Written plan with specific strategies. Speaker 11: Okay. Maintain a written plan. Speaker 4: Yep. I like that. Yep. Speaker 11: Okay.
Speaker 12: Thank you. Okay. Speaker 11: Excellent. Speaker 6: Did we look at in accordance? Speaker 4: I, I searched through the, I searched through all this stuff. I still can't find the payment for board members policy. Speaker 6: Did anybody look into the education accountability act of 2000? Yes. Speaker 11: And it, the 18 is still the, or whatever the, the, the date that was on there is the most recent, the the most updated Speaker 12: Say August 9th is what it was and yes, it still is the same. Okay. I called Kathy, Speaker 6: It just says accountability act of 2009 in the policy. So I just wanted to make sure that
Speaker 11: It is, and it is still, that's the most updated and Speaker 12: Legislation that is in there. If you look back on like my notes to the side I put in there that we called and stuff and that, that it was Right. So just so you can Speaker 6: Oh, on that Google doc. Yeah. I'm just in the board packet on Diligent. Yeah. I what Speaker 12: We had corrected in and if I reached out to anybody, I'll let you guys know. I did. And Speaker 6: That's where I have information. Perfect. Thank you. I did not look into that. That's okay. That's Google doc. Just letting you know that Speaker 12: Way when you guys go to use it now.
Speaker 11: Yeah. And that, and that, so Cassie, that that's kind of the balance that, that we're working on to try to make it as we're having this is that if there's those kind of things, why, why you're not seeing a change in the document for first reading. It's be we will, we'll put that in that document so you can see why it, why it's not in there. And that's, that was kind of our, okay, so Speaker 6: Let me go that Speaker 11: Piece on that. Speaker 6: Let me go to Speaker 12: Start putting the, and then the second part of, okay, perfect. Okay. Speaker 6: So I was thinking about the, the board shall post the public meetings three places. Yep. No less than 30 days. Do we need to do, we
Speaker 11: Checked on that one as well and, and that we're, we're in compliance on that as well. Okay. Yep. And then we also board Speaker 12: Stuff. It wasn't with the board, like our agendas and stuff. That's not what it was referring to. Speaker 6: Referring to Speaker 12: Into a waiver. Speaker 11: Yes. So if, if we're going to try to waive state law Oh yeah. And apply for that, that has to be posted for 30 days. Speaker 12: Yes. And then three places, which I'm sure now maybe a change, but that, that did not, Speaker 4: Could you gimme an example of when we would ask for a waiver to waive state law? Speaker 11: So you, you can, so there is and where
Speaker 4: May I find these ways? Speaker 11: Yes. So there is, there is a set under, under some different components. Like we as districts can go after a set and Yes, we can, I can find them. The thing is, is that they're not advantageous in, in different ways. So there is some areas that we can ask for waivers of state statute and I mainly Speaker 4: Regarding like students or is it like the whole gamut of education? Speaker 11: Yeah, it's very, it's,
it's actually fairly limited that we can wave. In fact, I just looked at it within the last three months to see and as I looked at it, I said, Hmm, nothing really that, so innovation schools are things. People use it a lot. Really? What, what mostly where it is is charter schools use it a lot to waive from district policies. Okay. It's very difficult for us as a district to waive then from state statute.
Okay. And so there might be some areas that we could, but there was none that I looked at that I thought under what we all currently do that I thought that would be a fine, beneficial or a operational advantage to do that. If it's something you'd like to see, I can find that document on policies and, and show it to you. I, this Speaker 4: Is just first I'm hearing of a waiver of state law. Speaker 11: Yeah. I'm sure it's not advertised. Sure. Speaker 4: It's pretty concrete. Speaker 11: Yeah.
Well it it's it's school, it it's state board policies in which they have flexibility on state so that it's like schools can waiver from board policy and boards can waiver from state board policy. And then state board has so much flexibility in state statute. Okay. Okay. And so it, as you go up the ladder, it's harder and harder that flexibility gets about this big. But there is, there is some okay. That we can, I'm happy to pull if, if you want
to investigate more, but there's nothing in my experience that I go, Hey guys, let's, let's look at it, find some policies this point. Okay. But that's where that 30 days came from because if you do, you have to express it. And so when we looked into it, we realized that's where that came from. And so we are, we are absolutely in compliance and then we look, so we looked at it and made sure that we're posting where we are with the shift to diligent and online what we do. Speaker 1: Okay. Perfect. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: Looks like we're on the future requests.
So I do appreciate the end of school year events because Yes. Thank Speaker 5: You. Speaker 11: Okay. And I, I am just gonna give, I'm gonna give warning to Thank you Theresa team did it what they could. And then there is a caveat that those are constantly changing. Yes. They're so don't are, you don't, don't book your airline tickets based off of it. But we're trying and keep it up. Speaker 1: So pencil it in my calendar. Not permanent Inc. Yes. Check. Okay. Speaker 11: Except for graduations. Those are, I doubt those are gonna change. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: I hope not. Speaker 5: Right there. No laminating. I think, God, I hope not.
Speaker 11: Okay. Speaker 5: That's a lot of, yeah. I you off Speaker 1: Rotating. I appreciate it. Yes. I appreciate it. Notes on Speaker 5: It every time it changes easier than your calendar. So is it a, a living document in Google Docs or something? Because the one on here, the highlighted things are just high schools or are those ones set in set in stone? Well, Speaker 13: The highlighted thing I just wanted to, those are, those are like senior graduation related kinds of things. Speaker 5: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Speaker 13: Graduation. Senior awards banquet,
Speaker 5: Academic signing. Speaker 13: Academic signings. Speaker 5: Yep. Okay. Speaker 11: It's gonna be a fun month. There's lots of good stuff. This Speaker 5: Is one of my favorite months probably. It's cool. It's fun. Speaker 11: And then we will and we are going to send these also electronically. Yes. Correct. Speaker 5: Electronically. So I just mind you guys to have a copy Speaker 11: For, for meetings next. Speaker 5: Oh, okay. Over here. Yay. Thank you. Yay. I'm just, it's a beautiful thing. I was actually looking for this today. I was like, where? No,
Speaker 11: I have a list and I did want that. I did wanna point out that July 15th one. Yes. 'cause that is different than past years because we've done July 15th. That one's in past years has been virtual. And we are gonna do an in-person one this year. Speaker 5: Turn to officer. Okay. That's the July one. Why the change? Speaker 11: Because there is a possibility of something important that day. Speaker 5: Oh, depending, Speaker 11: Depending, depending on what you all want to do. There
Speaker 5: May be business to be done hall. Alright. Like why do we have to be Speaker 1: Here? Sorry. Meeting debrief. If you guys wanna go ahead and Speaker 2: Sorry. Speaker 1: Focus. Focus. I'm fine. Oh, chance focus. Speaker 4: Student achievement. I just wanted to make sure we mentioned it once in the meeting. We're here for the students. Speaker 1: Yes. We did mention that during shine the light here and shine the light nutrition. So Speaker 4: That wasn't part of the actual real board meeting. No. Speaker 1: Yeah. Well and the end of the school year, end of school year events is also for the students too.
'cause this is a chance for us to celebrate, showcase their celebrations and achievements and everything else. So there you go. Speaker 4: That the food services apartment and they, they sure. They should put the work in. Speaker 1: They do. Speaker 4: And them in transportation are a lot of like, I mean think, I think the whole educational industry might be a little unsung hero type. But I mean those are truly like the janitors and the custodians, the ones that keep things moving, moving kids fed, kids showing up where they need to be. Speaker 14: Which just the complexity that people don't understand of like,
Speaker 4: Yes. Speaker 14: Yeah. There's a lot of cogs in the Oh man. And these, these are not small. No. These are complicated operations that Yes. People don't even think about. Yes. Speaker 4: Yes. And that's, I mean, to just to highlight that. Yes. Community. Speaker 1: Thank you. While you guys finished that, were there any other future requests? I know we're getting towards the end of the year, so there's, I think there's, I think we've hit everything that we've requested. Catch those Speaker 14: Boxes. Speaker 1: So what's Speaker 14: A signing ceremony or there's a couple academic signing and assigning. So what was that college Speaker 1: Scholarship? Speaker 13: These are kind of the coolest events, scholarships that,
that our schools, our high schools Do they actually do a assign? Right. We have, we have our athletes who do their athletic scholarship signing. Each school honors every senior that is either going to college, the military trade school workforce. They have something signed committed to that they're doing after school. Oh, very cool. They sign a, honorary is not the right word. What's the word I'm looking for? Came up with all the other words earlier. Speaker 1: It's like a certificate. Yeah. Speaker 13: Saying like a, a non-binding kind of, you know
Speaker 1: Yeah. Contract representative Speaker 13: Contract signing for those things. Very cool. It's really cool. We see where everybody's going, what's doing Speaker 14: Nice. Committing to future plans. Yep. Speaker 13: In front of the whole school. So that like the freshmen that are watching kind of see this as an aspirational cultural. Speaker 14: Right. Speaker 1: Cole Ridges is like really cool. It's like lights out Speaker 6: Spotlights, red carpet. Oh, cool. I haven't been to rifles. Speaker 4: One of the coolest things I've done is I did, what was it, I think it was a reading one of the class English classes. They did an essay reading at Rifle High School.
Speaker 6: Oh. Oh yeah. We did go to that couple ago essays, the IB essays. Speaker 4: At first I was like, I'll go and I was like, then I was like trying to dread it. Like, oh, okay. Speaker 6: That was Speaker 4: Really, but it was amazing. Speaker 6: Is that on our list? It wasn't on any of the calendars, so I don't think it's on your list, but we can, Speaker 4: That was one of the, we Speaker 6: Can find out. She, Speaker 4: She emailed us that. Speaker 6: Yeah. Did Speaker 1: It, it was like, yeah. Speaker 4: Not this year yet. Speaker 6: Not this year yet. Yeah. I'm like that. Okay. Speaker 4: So if anybody ever has the opportunity to go to one of those and see that it's worth it. It's fun. Speaker 6: Jacob, are we allowed to go to the, the airport
for fourth grade career fair? Yes. Speaker 15: I sent on, on our weekly update to you guys, the flyers on there with the details. So yes. I, I caught a glimpse. There'll be two sessions, a rifle, a rifle session, and then a s Newcastle session. The rifle kids will be there from 10 to 1130. And then the SIL Newcastle kiddos will be there from 1230 to two. Speaker 6: Is that the 28th or the 27th? Speaker 15: Monday. The Monday the 27th. Speaker 6: Seventh 27th. Yeah. Notes in the calendars. It's all in there. Is nine 30.
Speaker 15: Yeah. The kid, the presenters need the, we're asking the presenters to be there at nine 30. The kids show up at 10. Speaker 6: Awesome. Speaker 15: Well, the high school kids are showing up even earlier to help me. So Speaker 6: Good. That last year it was a lot of fun. Speaker 1: I, I won't be able to attend this year and I'm really disappointed. Speaker 6: I did, he did an outstanding job. Was that the first year? Year. Year. Last year. Last year. Yeah. I mean, they did a really good job. I'm excited to see the improvements you've made for this year. Speaker 1: Can they, speaking of future board requests, can we actually hear how it went at the next board meeting.
Speaker 15: Can you give Speaker 1: Wednesday board meeting, which May 13th? Speaker 15: May 13th, yes. Speaker 6: Then Speaker 15: Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 15: That's, that's enough turnaround time. Speaker 1: Okay. Because it, it was really interesting too to hear from the student councils too. 'cause I, I mean, it was, it was interesting to see the two student councils work together for the Make-A-Wish and then it's even cooler to see the two student councils work together for this student Council. Council. Speaker 4: Would it be, would it be too much to ask to get the student councils from both high schools Speaker 15: At the Speaker 4: Next board meeting? Speaker 15: No. No. I, it won't be the entire student council's.
That's fine. My full high school, I had to, I had to procure a big bus for both schools because Rifle High School has between 30 and 40 kids in their student council. Speaker 4: Yeah. So how about Speaker 15: Has another, I think between 20 and 30 kids in their student council. So I'll get select kids from, we had, I think we had representation from both schools last year. Yep, Speaker 1: We did. Speaker 15: I'll make sure that that happens. They are actually, just so you know, we did kind of segment it off, so the rifle high school student councilors working with the rifle elementary schools and they'll be at their session
and then the Cole Roots High School is working at the SIL Newcastle elementaries. Speaker 4: What about maybe just the executive, is there an executive committee on the student councils or is everybody Speaker 15: Kind? I know I, I'll, I'll tap into them and, and I'll get their field, but we'll make sure we have representation from involved. Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Okay. Alright. With that we're gonna go ahead and adjourn the, the April 22nd, 2026 board meeting at 6 44.