sounds like a one one cath yes well there you go good evening I'd like to call the uh school board meeting to order for February 10th 2025 if you all please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance IED to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liy and for all all right Little Fall schools works together for each learner to achieve academic and personal growth in a collaborative safe and engaging environment Kelly do we have any public comments yes we do this one
okay all right uh since we have public comments I will read you the public comment policy here Little Falls Community Schools welcomes you to the meeting of the L Falls Board of Education this portion of the agenda will be limited to a total of not more than 30 minutes individual speakers are asked to limit their comments to not more than 3 minutes the board asks that all comments be in keeping with contribute to an atmosphere of civil courteous thoughtful
and respectful discourse Mr Selby looks like you are up with Esports and some guests so we just completed our regular season and we had some gifts for some uh some folks in the district here and uh that help make our season possible um we've got uh five teams that are going to State 13 kids wow wow and uh yeah we've got a team
ranked third in the state and one that's ranked fourth in the state going in so um Tim's not here but uh we made one for Tim and what do you got here Jack uh you got one for Mr dealy these are you know some of the folks that have uh made it possible and what do you got for your B and I got Mr Johnson we got
Mr Johnson fashion com congratulations thank you and then uh we got one from Ryan for CTC as well so since uh they uh made it possible for us to sign up and pay our fees and everything so we just wanted to say thanks awesome very well done very well done thank you thank you thanks for being such a good rep for us all right next
I am looking for a motion to approve the agenda for this evening I'll move motion by Sharon do I have a second second second by Mark any further discussion if not all approve signal by saying I I oppose same side motion carries all right the consent agenda has everybody had a chance to take a look at the consent agenda looks like there's um
a few items like we should probably do the three first that I mean it looks like that's Fallen under there it looks like that is a SE separate action item let's do that okay so let's do that first um in your packets are the approval of um three emlf early retirement agreements for 25 26 these are the um early retirements that we've talked about have done the last couple years so um if you've had a chance to look at that I would entertain a motion
so motion by Dan do we have a second I'll second okay and a second by Kelsey any other further discussion if not all those vote in approval signify by saying I I poose same sign all right that motion carries then it looks like the rest of the consent agendas the prior minutes the financial transactions and Personnel so um again looking for a motion for that
move move to approve so move by Mark second second a second by Kelsey any further discussion questions hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I po same sign all right motion carries all right next a resolution for acceptance of gifts which I'm not prepared
for I'm not used to this yet oh I was looking says page 40 but it's not on okay yes thank okay take it away when you're ready Sharon okay thank you um I'm introducing the following resolution and move for its adoption the resolution for the acceptance of gifts whereas the following had generously offered to donate the Little Falls Community Schools therefore be it resolved by the Little Falls Community Schools of Education to gratefully accept the gifts from the Randle Presbyterian Church a donation
of $400 for coins for cause the Randle cushen Lions Club a donation of $500 for the general school supply needs of students across the district BFW post 9073 out of their gambling account a donation of $1,000 to the Little Falls Community Schools robotics program Flyers athletic boosters donating $11,000 to the Little Falls Community Schools for the athlete of the
Year scholarship fund the Gordon r Larsson charitable Foundation donation of 1 1,900 91,9 51 to Little Falls Community Schools General scholarship fund Minnesota Power Foundation donation of 1,000 to the Little Falls Community Schools robotics the Philippi family Mary Joe Philippi Sullivan Pete
Larry John Mike donation of $3,521 30 to purchase a wind screen for the Little Falls Community Schools baseball field I'm not used to yours words okay and I will second your motion Sharon thank you uh this is a roll call V yes it is so Dan yes Doug yes Julie yes yes Mark yes and Kelsey yes
and myself yes this motion is passed Pres all right thank you Sharon all right next we have flyer Pride cards I Know Dan you've been feeling under the weather so we gave you none appreciate it so yeah save your voice so um let's see I'm going to give you a break Sharon I what what's that oh you're ready yeah okay that one that one they gave me right away um first is Heather wnc her is a student support specialist it says when Heather is a
available she has helped us on numerous occasions the students respond well to Heather thanks for all you do and she was recommended by Sheila ven Hub McKenna ANZ was the recipient a teacher and the web advisor and a coach McKenna has been teaching two years but has the skills and insight of a 10year teacher she is an amazing female role model for her students athletes and web leaders and that was it looks like Sarah
Philippi the next two I have were actually I wrote they both say exactly the same thing but um this is for Mark deal and Kayla Gruber and I wanted to say I truly appreciate the dedication and hard work of our flyer Dynamic dual team and how you have done the Little Falls Child Care Center um the attention to detail has not gone unnoticed without the research including road trips to visit other districts and their facilities details were streamlined and enhanced
to fit our district this saved time and moneyy and I'm excited to see the open house on February 24th and that was my recommendation and that's for both of them thank you Renee waldock um her role is Dr Knight Kea member Renee is a member of our Kea and goes above and beyond for the students at Dr Knight Whitney tuny Lincoln teachers I want to take a
moment to recognize our incredible teachers who go above and beyond every day when classrooms are without a substitute you step up without hesitation giving up your prep time adjusting your schedules and ensuring our students continue to learn and grow in a supportive environment your dedication teamwork and selflessness do not go unnoticed you embody the spirit of collaboration and commitment that makes Lincoln what it is Mr dolis Tracy
natvig par professional Tracy was willing to come be a high school parah in my program from elementary and gosh darn it we are so lucky to have her Tracy's work ethic Love of All students humor ability to take Direction and kindness is so wonderful thank you Tracy P.S your keto snacks are delicious too and who did we think that was Cara Shilling okay um Jamie fukes
music teacher planning and organization in leading the second grade holiday program the program was a resounding success thank you for making this a special memory for our students and families Mr doas nurse Amanda Amanda is extremely kind-hearted and caring she does a wonderful job of caring for our students and communicating following up with teachers and families Amanda excels in her performance and duties by caring for her colleagues and checking in with us as
needed we are so lucky to have Amanda as our school nurse Alicia ginsky Whitney tuni third grade teacher at Dr Knight thank you Whitney for being our school's union rep and for also being on the Dr Knight Kea parent Club I appreciate all the extra things you do to make our school a great place Glenda Davis Jeremy statam PE teacher a big shout out to you all of the hard work you put into your classes the kids have
such an amazing time thank you for all you do Erica B Mr dois Lincoln principal thank you for making Polar Express day a success it was such a joy to see The Polar Express train come to life and the smiles on the children's faces were Priceless thank you for your enthusiasm and teamwork Lindsay B School social worker and I have Sally haer first grade teacher thank you Sally for helping me with first grade standards and prepping
for report cards I appreciate your help Sarah Wester all right Nate Miller student support coordinator thank you for all the support you provide to both staff and students your dedication to building uh conditions and relationships with the kids and embody the spirit of flyer Pride thank you thank you for
all you do now some Lindsay balb Chris M jerus custodian thank you so much for all your work on the pool the water and pool all look great Amanda scuta laugh at uh John soak custodian thank you so much for
all your work the pool and water pool I got two of the same I do oh Chris M jerus with the first one this is John so I'm sorry threw me for a minute Tony Katherine special education teacher thank you for your continued leadership at Lincoln your ability to put students first is remarkable thank
you for all that you do Nate Miller Brenda McCormick sped teacher could I say Brenda Brent you are strugg Brent I am May if I turn my glasses upside down I at least I'm catching my mistakes I apologize Brent look for me it's not Brent you
just said Brent it says Brian Brian I'm getting no help from the audience I'm just through all printed after this hopefully he's not watching no he's getting a lot of time here Brian mccormic sped teacher Bryant is calm patient when working with his students he builds relationships and is
always professional Dan fiser Chelsea Robinson HR Director thank you Chelsea for all your help guidance as we on board new little flyer staff your knowledge hard work and organization does not go unnoticed you are a rock star Kayla Gruber
Tyler Mercer payroll specialist Tyler is always willing to take on any task she has given she goes out of her way to ensure payroll is done in a time and accounting matter Matthew Brown Sarah konack professional Sarah is the ultimate professional limberg Elementary
is is so fortunate to have someone like her she is dedicated to the students in which she supports and always goes the extra mile to ensure a positive experience for them Sarah is helpful patient and cares for everyone thank you Sarah for everything that you do to make limberg a better place you are so appreciated Brent
Kowski chowski you couldn't let that go also enough uh Teresa rarden custodian at Lincoln Teresa you are so appreciated thank you so much for all your work at Little Falls and getting the building ready for our new little Flyers staff Kayla grer Chris maera custodian at Lincoln thank you Chris for all your work on little Flyers we are so lucky to have your knowledge and Leadership for the new building thanks Kayla Gruber
Jesse Olson Dena students Jess is thorough and consistent builds relationships with staff and students staff trust her and she plays a huge role in her building as a leader she has added sped duties and is truly thriving Dan fiser Cassandra Jensen head cook thank you for always going above and beyond for the staff and students you are so flexible and easygoing and always wear a smile we appreciate you so very much step Addie McCoy sped Addie is so kind to everyone she's always willing to help
out when it's needed thanks for always being there Addie Sheila ven hoal flyer Pride team High School the flyer Pride team did an outstanding job organizing the high school holiday celebration and pep Fest flyer Pride supports students and staff at an amazing level creating a positive School climate at the high school Mr bori teal line par professional teal is another per that I got to steal this year we are so lucky Teal's calm demeanor kindness willingness to help all
always and go with the flow nature is so refreshing and appreciated not to mention you've got the best hair thank you TI and I'm not sure who signed that that's Cara oh that Cara again Cara I think so okay Steve El par professional Steve would do anything to ensure student safety he is always professional patient and is great asset in our building Dan fer Middle School teaching team being about the kids I am so proud
and thankful for each and every teacher in our building substitutes are short and when a teacher doesn't fill with a sub we still need the best coverage for our students to learn I put out what I put out what needs to be covered and one by one our teachers help navigate so the students get a quality lesson my hats off to you amazing Educators you go above and beyond every day for our students Sandy rudek Cara Schilling High School sped teacher Cara has done a wonderful job
working with new staff in the DCB program she has been an incredible mentor and provides tremendous support to staff students and families Mr borgi Michael Rey pair professional Michael is always willing to help out when needed he is nice to everyone I appreciate all your help Michael Sheila venen Kyle Conley teacher and web adviser and Coach I can think of no better male role model for our students than Kyle as a parent of student athletes who are greatly influenced by him
and as a colleague who gets to see his work firsthand there is no one better I believe that's Sarah philippy Missy call Pa professional I'm blessed to be surrounded by a great team Missy is a big part of that team her love and kindness to students her organization ability to see the bigger picture and willingness to take Direction the second to none thank you missy PS your handwriting is pretty great too and I think this is signed
by Cara so maybe you need to talk to car Michelle ring PE teacher Michelle is taking great strides to serve students with unique needs thank you Michelle for your hard work Carol Potter Jordan Carroll school age coordinator Jordan your dedication to school age child care has and is so appreciated thank you for keeping our before and after school Child Care Program consistent safe
and successful Cayla gr Megan waldock Kaa president Megan is a great president of our parent organization at Dr Knight and is always willing to take on extra responsibilities that benefit our students Whitney tuny Steph patot social School social worker Steph is just a few Steph in just a few months has widely stepped up as a leader in our building students and staff
trust her and she is a huge asset to our team her knowledge and background add to our already great team Dan fiser McKenna ANZ McKenna is eager to learn more about effective teaching strategies is a great colleague and a great asset to our building Dan fiser Joy Irwin special ed teacher thank you for your dedication to students you are a great teammate and always wanting to do what is best for students thank you Nate Miller
Jessica Jans school counselor Jessica is a leader in our building leading Avid site team flyer Pride committee and is always helping and advocating for students this card is not big enough to include all of the things she does for our kids and our staff Dan fiser all right thank you everyone for submitting those next looks like we have our student report the dynamic Duel of Ellie and Molly all right this is our student update
all right so this is a um a slide for all of the activities that are coming to an end so um dance their season just ended they had a big show on Friday and so for sections kick and Jazz both ended in eighth place and that's better than they've been previously doing in the year's past and I talked to one of the girls on the dance team and she said they had a really good season so dance team ended on very good terms and then Esports they already came in here and talked about that but the regular season is over and they
have five different games they're playing at State and then 13 qualifiers one act their season also officially over and they had a public performance for everyone to watch their one act on January 24th and then Nordic ski we had sections last week and one person got pushed through to be a state participant and that is Elliot oberton and he races on Thursday um last not last week the week before we had our winter week which
which is kind of uh an anticipated week for student council we take a big part in that but it's really fun to kind of give the student body a treat after the end of the semester and to kind of kick off beginning of the new year right so we planned out some dress up days for that week and we had a lot of fun with that we had a groutfit day a it was a secret dress up day so each advisory did their own dress up day and then we had pajama day and then we had an e-learning day so we didn't get to do our
teachers dress as students and students dress as teachers unfortunately and then on Friday was um flyer Pride day which is also the day of the petfest um petfest went really well uh that was completely planned by student counsil we did some activities within the student body we had um mattress racing we also had a dance competition between gymnastics and Nordic skiing um and then we had a presentation about United Way which is a student council Initiative for this year which
went really well um also throughout the week we had a lot of lunchtime activities to try and get students involved and to give away some free dance tickets uh we had some trivia we had twister um but yeah it was a lot of fun all around the participation was good um it's a lot of fun to see everybody participating in the middle of the year it gets people it gets the students to um look forward to something besides like test and things in the middle of the
winter so it's it's a lot of fun and then we also had the dance to look forward to which was that Saturday and then this slide is about how Concordia Band came to the high school last week and they helped different band students so we have something called solo Ensemble and that's where groups of students get into groups with their instruments and then they play different pieces of music and so the college students helped the high school students practice those pieces and they taught us some different
techniques and then they also performed at a concert with our school's concert band and so that was fun for everyone to watch you guys have any questions sounds good are you both in band Yes Yes name just about any activity in these tour yeah pretty much when you're enjoying your high school years yeah we like to be involved it's fun Concordia is actually coming back next week and the week following for to do like
a percussion Focus um session but yeah thank you thank you thank you thank you all right next looks like we have Chris Chris Chris M welcome Chris thank you I'm Chris mberg I am the a win interventionist teacher at Lindberg and the American Indian Ed coordinator for the school district and I am going
to do my annual APAC American Indian parent advisory committee compliance vote presentation so area one we have six areas that um we cover with the grant um the first area is support postsecondary preparation for American Indian students and each area has a smart goal you can see the smart goal out there some of the our main goal was was to have
contact with all second high school students and make them aware of their postsecondary options and that we completed that we also took a group of kids to Camp Ripley for the planting for the future event where they got to talk to different military personnel about the different careers that are were available they also got to traditionally Harvest sage and make seed bombs and throw it
on into field so things can keep supplying us with our needs and so the APAC voted in compliance with that area too was supporting the academic achievement area of our Native American students um here there is a reading gap between this the rest of the state of Minnesota and our American Indian ad students of 13.5% and a math gap of 7.1% um our goal was to
provide at least 80% of the academic struggling American Indian students as identified by Fall assessments and they'll show IND individual growth from Fall to Spring um some of the things we've been providing to help improve our reading and masth scores our individual tutoring and book clubs after school at various places the APAC voted we're in compliance with that that that we were very pleased with what we are
doing and with between what we're doing individually with our American Indian ed students what the school district is doing at as a whole to reduce the reading Gap they're very pleased with it um area three make curriculum relevant to the needs and interest cultural heritage of American Indian pupils and our goal was um 85% of the American Indian students will report an increased engagement in satisfaction with the Little Falls education curriculum
as it relates to the cultural heritage and Improvement of attendance through student interviews and stuff like that um some of the things we've been doing um the grant will be purchasing tribal flags and we've been after school for those American Indian students who are interested we are offering an ojibway language class very beginning because I'm the one facilitating it and I'm
also learning with the students so I'm not going to call myself a teacher cuz I'm not in that at that point but we all are learning together and the feedback from the one session we've had has been very very positive oo is a unique language in that it is syllabic based it is based on syllables and not on individual sounds and stuff each syllable in a word has a different meaning and you put the that together to make a new word and so
we the Apex voted we are in compliance with thatan area four provide positive reinforcement for self image of American Indian students um this was measured by pre and post program surveys um some of the things we've been doing is trying to find more books that relate and show Native American main characters and relate uh are written by Native American Authors uh we're working within the schools to put up
PO posters of famous Native American people especially the males with long hair because having long hair is significant in the American Indian culture um the APAC voted that the school is compliance with the recommendation of making the pre- and poost surveys they were not made at the time of this vote it they are currently being made and will be ready in about a week to send out so it'll be like a mid year instead of a beginning of the year end year thing it'll be a mid year and an end year and then
we'll have it ready for next year um area five develop interculture awareness among pupils parents and staff um this year we did with our American Indian Ed families we did had an opportunity to learn about quilling and how to work with pine quills and how to make the different designs with them that was very successful I can see why quilling takes a lot of time and
usually when you buy something that's made handmade from quilling it is really expensive I don't know why quills hurt when you get stuck with them porcupine quills and they're kind of greasy too and um we're providing some staff training around Native American culture and the importance of long ha in Native American culture and in that area the APAC voted that the school is in compliance the last area is
is supplement not supplant state and federal funding in co-curricular activities and we are doing a good job of supplementing it so it's in addition it goes above and beyond what the curriculum is already providing with that there was no smart goal for that area needed and the APAC was voted in compliance and any questions um how many Native American students do we have
in the district um about 40 the biggest population being at the elementary schools um one other question I have for you Chris is the um I know the budget you guys get it comes like the end of the year or something like that is there a way to change that or not so much um in the past the Grant had to be written for the year in the year that it
was meant for like this year the grant was due November at the end of November for the 25 2425 School season this year for next year the grant is due June 1st okay so that's changed so the day is change when the money goes out I'm not sure no that's I it just seems kind of goofy that you write the grant November for that same school year and by the time you get the money the year
is almost over so the state has had a lot of feedback on that and they have changed it so this year I'm writing two grants in one year okay all right thank you okay anything else for Chris thank you thanks Chris Chris appreciate it all right looks like next on our agenda is the boys and girls club we have a presentation we do uh Jerry Beck told is here with a special guest
the friend I'm glad we're not following YouTube that was impressive that impressive thank you no small feet good every month I bet they do I bet they do so we went old school today and went a little bit of paper instead of um doing a PowerPoint so yeah so actually I was I'm doing this J if you want to get so I'm Jerry Beal and I am the VP of operations for the boys and girls club and Deb is with me
she is the VP of or the director the she's the Rd resource development so I can I'll explain that in a minute um so we are we run the Boys and Girls Club in central Minnesota we are in four different school districts we are in St Cloud Sak RIT sartel and now in Little Falls we acquired Little Falls Boys and Girls Club a year ago in October um have been operating it kind of worked with them a little bit before the acquiring took place um we're we offer
after school programs for kids summer programs so um in St Cloud in the St Cloud area we do we have um three traditional Boys and Girls Clubs like the little FS one here and then we also run the school age program so we have 11 school age programs that are fee based in the area schools there so we'll just talk a little bit about what what we offer who we are and then kind of the ask that we um were approached with so if you want to turn to page to it's our mission
um and our mission of the Boys and Girls Club is to do whatever it takes to empower all youth to reach their full potential so we kind of change with the times the programs that we offer it might be what's important at the time um kid what kids are interested in what we know is good for kids so we like to keep up to time with kids and what they're interested in yeah so again thanks for having us today we've been involved in the Little Falls Community for probably longer than you realize and when I say that I don't just mean Boys and Girls
Clubs but I mean Boys and Girls Clubs Of Central Minnesota the organization that Jerry and I work for so we're based out of St Cloud but we have programs in lots of different communities and actually worked with the staff um and Bernie ju if you all remember Bernie when he was setting up the boys and girls club Bernie was actually on one of our committees when he worked in St Cloud with US Bank so um also been involved with this community Through the Minnesota Alliance of boys and girls club so again we might feel like we're a little bit new and we always want to remind the community that we are based out of
St Cloud but we are in a lot of communities and we spend time in those communities so we really get to know them and like Jerry just said we we want to make sure we're responding to the needs of all kids but then the specific needs in each of the communities so um we spent a lot of time in Little Falls in the last year and a half and have learned a lot about your community so I'm just excited to be here so thank you for that again my name is Deb nesis I work in resource development so like Jerry said and and the page where it says Boys and Girls Clubs impact we run
all the same programs in all of our sites but the sites are a little bit different so we have traditional Boys and Girls Clubs and we have one of those in Little Falls we also have four of them in kind of the Saint Cloud Community serving um the surrounding communities um in those sites as well but the biggest difference with those our clubs versus our kid stop sites and kids stops are before and after school care programs is really the hours of operation probably the primary age that we're
serving in each of those and then our kid stop programs have a fee associated with them our traditional Club programs like what we run here in Little Falls um aside from Summer care don't have a fee those are free programs for our kids um our kid stop programs um serve kids through fifth grade or sixth grade depending on what what the elementary school goes goes through and then our traditional clubs serve up through graduation from high school and in communities these days that's not always 18 anymore so as long as a as
a as a youth is in high school we are offering the services of the Boys and Girls Club so we do like to remind people that when we run a school AG Child Care Program we work with a couple of different sources to make sure we have a pretty robust scholarship fund so the kids who need the service who are referred to the service or our staff know that it would be better if they were in our program versus um doing something else we have the dollars available for families maybe that can't afford it so that we can ensure that
they can get our services so we work with County childcare dollars so specifically Morrison County we also work with Sterns Benton um Sherburn and Wright counties um and then we also work with our local United ways um United Way of Central Minnesota and you referenced I think United Way of Morrison County who we're working with as well to make sure that we use dollars um and then also from our from our individual and corporate um donors in the community so we can't say every child who needs the
services gets it but we can say that we really try hard to make sure that um kids who need the service receive it so um as Jerry just said and I'll just run through this we've got five clubs 11 kid stop sites so that's our after school care program in 11 different elementary schools we have one kids Start program which is an early childhood program that we run in the sartel school district and then one Middle School outreach program in Sock Rapids that's also free um we have two we bounce around for staff
we're actually a fairly big employer in the community we go from 220 staff up to on a really high year we'll have 250 or 260 staff that we employ um we have volunteers in our program and this is something that we're really proud of we're proud of everything we're doing to be honest but we're really proud of the number of meals and snacks that we're able to serve to kids so this is these are just the numbers for one year we just counted it up since we started our meal program in 20 or 2001 we've served
over 3 million meals a lot of those were during covid when families and kids really needed services and weren't able to always access them so that's sort of the Boys and Girls Club in a Snapchat there's more information on here but in the interest of time I won't talk the entire time so Jerry please all right so on the next page um we do intentional programming um we don't want kids to feel like they are in school for 12 13 hours out of the day so a lot of what we do is it used to be called fun with
a purpose but we really try to do fun activities that are um geared around learning areas so the three priority areas that we have is the academic success and that's probably our largest one um really working with the youth to make sure they're meeting the needs of what grade level they're in um so we do a project learn which is incorporating some learning activities and everything that they're doing Power Hour is our homework help program and that's really important to work with the youth on on
their homework trying to keep them up to where they need to be reading has really become um something that's really important to us so last summer the last two summers um during our summer programming time we put the screens away and we took out books because if we want kids to read we have to model that as adults so it doesn't matter if you're a gym staff a art staff um we take time throughout the day to you grab a book and you read to kids or they can read to each other um so last summer we
did a challenge and we read over 300,000 minutes with our kids across the board um which was really impressive and the kids really enjoy doing that so we used to turn on the screen and do veggie time after lunch because it gets to be a long day well now it's not the screen it's the staff reading to kids and um kids reading to each other so really putting a lot into the um reading and math we all know that math is the next area that we're really going to um focus on and then we got some State funding to be
part of the exact path through adum so it's a a platform for for kids and it's like a gaming thing that it really works on reading skills and math skills and our kids just love it so we're really using that um our goal is to have all of our youth reading by third grade level so that means we have to do some interventions with some of the kids and that's one of the things that we do um good character and Leadership is another one that we um really focus on and the top one we have a youth of the year program and that's all for youth that are
age 13 and older and we had our first Youth Of The Year of little fs and it was bellaa who there's a little story about her on one of the sheets um really impressive um we do a lot of career start programming which is working on skills with youth the soft skills that they need to be employable and then also the the career wheel and we give them different opportunities um to really explore that we are just working on it was funny when that orts we're here we're really working on getting an Esports
we got an Esports Lounge in our little FS Club um now we're just working on we have a couple um in the process in St Cloud and they'll be able to play with each other um um boys and girls club really keeps it safe so they can't just play with anybody on their Esports it has to be connected within the club um Healthy Lifestyles is our third area that we really focus on just really working on um the healthy meals we work on getting meals we are working with
um The Little Falls Community to hopefully update our kitchen here in Little Falls that we can start hot meals with the kids but during the summer we partner with the school district um and we're really excited that we'll be able to serve hot meals to our club kids this year because they will be doing meals at the Lincoln site with the Early Childhood Program so we're excited about that but there's different programs that we focus on um with the Healthy Lifestyles then on the next page talking a little bit about our career Start
program um we also got State funding for the transfer VR and the VR headsets are all with different um opportunities for youth to explore different careers and what we found the most important with this is what they're interested in doing but also what they're not interested in so if you think you're going to be interested in something you're going to spend three or four years and all that money on education you're like I didn't really like this it kind of helps the youth figure that out beforehand because it is like you are really doing that so different things that we do there and
then I'm really work working on the Esports which is another one CU we know that really is an area for kids and then our youth Arts Initiative Program offering dance visual arts Digital Arts so we're really working with the community here and it's we like to you use youth voice when it's different programming so what are some things they're interested in so instead of us telling kids what they want to do what are some things that you would like to see and then we try to meet the need of those kids yeah any
questions so far about sort of the scope of the boys and girls club or our programming okay so next up is the Little Falls Boys and Girls Club I'm sure you're all familiar with it and as I said we've been partnering in that program for a long time as Jerry mentioned we took it over about a year and a half ago um and have just really tried to invest a lot and not to not to take from what the other organization was doing but they had a lot of other things going on and this has really been
a focus for us to invest in the community so we've expanded the hours of operations we've added the meal program we've added a lot of um additional programming elements we've added staff um the other thing we just completed was a was a Refresh on the building and that's not taking from how great the building was before but we've looked at our clubs too after Co and said oh boy we've got if you want to keep kids coming to your to your program it's got
to be interesting to them so we're we're sort of going through all of the buildings that we own and and um and investing in new carpeting and walls and furnishings and those type of things so and we just completed that at the Little Falls Boys and Girls Club so we certainly invite you all to take a look but um one thing that we get a lot is is that club solely provided for in terms of funding from the thrift store and the thrift store is an incredible partner with the boy Boys and Girls Club
for operating um but because we have decided to invest so much in it the thrift store contributes about a third or so of what it cost to operate that club um on an annual basis so we certainly couldn't could not provide all the programs without them but it isn't the sole funer and we tell people that only so that they understand that when we're out sort of trying to fundraise in the community all of those dollars stay in Little Falls and they stay with this Boys and Girls Club but if think that the
thrift store contributes 100% of the operating then it feels like well then why do you need the rest of the money are you bringing that into St Cloud and the answer is absolutely not and we just held our first or second and I'll turn around and look at Aon um Little Falls advisory committee so I don't know if you just want to say a word on that at all but I would if I didn't know Aaron wasn't such a professional I would not do that to him but as one of our co-chairs yeah the Boys and Girls Club put together a little Falls advisory committee to just make sure they're
capturing the voice of the Little Falls Community uh so myself and um Ben hanowski are the co-chairs of that along with a group of I think there's about seven or eight uh individuals who represent different um kind of parts of the community businesses Civic leaders uh who are there just to be a voice at the table and make sure the Little Falls Community is represented well and can communicate that with the the overall organization abolutely and then we also added um some of the members ER included from our advisory committee onto our board of directors to again ensure that
we have the voice of this community as Aaron just said represented on our board and the entire organization so this is a little bit more information about the Little Falls Boys and Girls Club specifically and then Bella's story um over on the side so happy to answer any questions you might have about that current programming so then on the next page is why we're sitting before you today is we um have an opportunity Greg
and Kayla approached us about 6 months ago wondering if we would be interested in um taking over the child care the school age child care the K5 in conjunction with partnering with Community Ed so what we would offer in the kidstop program um The Proposal is to start this summer um with doing it at the Lindberg site and then moving to both Lindberg and Lincoln next fall and in our program we offer for a
full-time um leadership like the Jordan that got the shout out which is amazing and then part-time staff and volunteers we do staff at a 1 to 15 ratio we do 45 minute rotations and it's a lot of choice of the kids they get to pick and choose the things that they would like to do um in the sports Arts academic outside and then we would be partnering really close with Community Ed throughout the summer and into next school years to make sure that all the activities that youth were
transported to in the past would be um something that would happen again this summer we work um we do our power hour homework help we work really close with school staff to make sure that that is happening we in our other districts we've gotten the permission and release sign from parents so that we can communicate with the school which is really nice um we also do a lot of outside time and then gym time if we get it and we understand that gyms are are a hot commodities so we make those things
work and then offering snack to the youth um our fees are over on the side we would mirror the um hours so we would in the summertime we would do a 6 to6 um in the past it was done at 5:30 but all of our programs stay open till 6 so we're just going to try that and offer that and then next school year we would do the 6:30 um before school starting at 6 and then ending at 6 um After School dismissal um the fees we would our fees
are a little bit higher in St Cloud than they are here so slowly I'm kind of catching that up because it it it would mirror kind of what we're doing there so then the next sheet in here the the last sheet in here is what we actually prepared um if the decision is made for the boys and girls club tonight then Kayla would start Distributing um this form to parents so they would have this information with our contact information and then the last sheet in here are um the contact information the second last
sheet I'm sorry is the contact information Mary swingle is our CEO um and then Nikki Claire who is out ill tonight um would actually be the one that would be working the closest with Kayla with the programs to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the community so any questions awesome program thank you no further questions and I have we close it up
and I do have to say Kayla has been amazing so I'm going to do a shout out to Kayla the communication has been amazing meetings um she has given me a tour of the sites and we're just really excited if this does um is something that the school board would be um voting on tonight we're just really excited to get that moving Kayla is been amazing she's already got parent meetings on her calendars that will be coming up and meeting with the parents and stuff so again the partnership will be just
wonderful um Staffing we know that that can always be a challenge so we've already talked um like when they're interviewing for the 0o to five if there are staff that would be better suited for the older students and we are interviewing that are better suited for the litts we would be working back and forth so it's not going to be a competition of you and us it is very much we are in this together so I'll just ask because I think
our parents in this community will want clarification so I think you made the comment that if they had summer activities that you guys would be getting them to those activities I just want to clarify we do have some activities that are in like this room the gymnastics and then the um soccer field will they get transported to those or only the ones that are like within the campus of the Lindberg school well and
I'm going to kind of look to Kayla for that CU I let's all look at Kayla that they had her meeting already Nikki and Kayla had a meeting and I wasn't part of that meeting and they've already they are already mapping out a plan if this passed so what what we were kind of doing is forward planning because if if the vote is made tonight and parents start registering it can't be like okay now let's get started so they actually met a couple weeks ago on that so I can definitely answer that question for you Kelsey so um overall with some of the changes that have happened with the
transportation in the district we don't have necessarily that access to get students out to gymnastics or to soccer so Sarah and I as we look at our programming are really looking at rearranging some of those activities so the classes that were during the day may be in the evenings for parents to bring them out um we will uh transport or kid stop will transport to the complex activities so swimming lessons baseball um you know the art classes that we
put on things at the high school basketball whatever um but the offsite things will not we will not be transporting to um and most of those we are working through to change the schedule to that so it's not during the daytime where they would miss it if they were at kid stop and some of that involves massaging the age levels when the age levels attend because often previously we would keep those you know kindergarten through 15 grade during the day so that we
could transport them but without that access to buses anymore it has more to do with that than to the transfer to kid stop it and really we're the ones that will be responsible for making that more accessible for parents to have that ability to bring their youngest Learners and sports kids to activities after hours thank you guys for thinking about that and then previously you guys had the summer program at middle school and now
it's going to be at Lindberg so then are we keeping it though going forward we'll keep the summer program somewhere in that campus area then so that they can transport to baseball and like all the other activities sing yep well the question that came up in our impact meeting um last week is if they're attending the Boys and Girls Club are they going to be able to bounce back and forth because they've done that in the past absolutely and our goal is not to compete against ourselves our goal is not to compete against closing down the
club or closing down this after school I mean they work side by side in our all of our other um communities so we're definitely going to be very aware of that too any other questions thank you very much thank you for your thank you all right next
on the exciting stuff numbers right John the moment you've been waiting for just what you want to sit through as the student Representatives right all right thank you all for having me here tonight I'm happy to present your uh June 30th 2024 audit and just to introduce myself quick I know I know quite a few of you but in case you don't know me my name is John Arch partner with Scher W and Company and
I do work exclusively with schools cities governments and nonprofit organizations so that's this all I do is work with people like you so we're going to walk through your financial audit and the the reality is the financial audit is roughly 100 pages long and so we've condensed that down into this this short slide deck so this is going to be pretty high level view of what you had going on but if you wanted to go into more detail uh you can just interrupt me as I'm going and we can we can sort things out
so just to dive in first uh Greg's got the audit opinion up on the on the screen there so the audit opinion we're giving is called an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion and so if you remember back to last year last year your financial statements actually were um issued using a modified opinion because there are some issues with your bank reconciliations that happened last year we didn't have those same issues happen this year and so because of that and because of the procedures We
performed we were able to be comfortable with your numbers and give the unmodified opinion that you want to receive and so that's that's really good news for the district and moving into next some items that were actually required to communicate with you as the school board and as the school's governance um this is more about how the audit itself went and so here you'd hear us talk about if we had difficulties working with your management team or saw
unusual transactions or fraudulent transactions um really happy to say that we had none of that and so um it's always interesting going into a first year audit with a new auditor um it's it's definitely a challenge for the management team because we have to gather information we have to ask a lot of questions that maybe the the previous firm already knew knew the answer to um your team did a really great job with working with us on on that and getting us the information we needed um quick to
respond to any requests that we have so very happy working with Chris and and the rest of the finance office team um otherwise not a whole lot to report on this page no unusual transactions no fraudulent transactions there's some estimates in the financial statements those all looked good too and the next page we're talking about internal controls on this page um I've heard the the the three items I'm going to talk about here coin is the
big three in the world of auditing um which is segregation of Duties it's financial statement preparation that we draft your financials for you and it's audit adjustments so these are the the three common um control items that are generally reported on with schools um in your case though we could really call it the big two because audit in terms of audit adjustments we had no audit adjustments that we would consider material so what that means is the
information that was presented to us to audit was accurate enough that we could have given the unmodified opinion or clean opinion on your financials without making any adjustments to it which is a big deal because that means that the information that you all as a school board are receiving on a regular basis it's a good indication that it's relatively accurate um segregation of Duties we are reporting a controlled deficiency for that um that's very common with the school year size and actually school is much larger than yours to what we're saying is that
because you have a small staff of uh people in your business office you don't have your duties separated out like you would in a perfect scenario and then financial statement preparation we did prepare your financials for you which is very common um one of the things we look at during the audit is compliance with Minnesota statutes and so we actually look at a pretty broad spectrum of different things one is actually I was I was watching the the board meeting before presented you had gone through gift acceptance that's one of the things that
we look for and so I can see that you're doing that firsthand um but beyond that we we make sure that you're Contracting and bidding how you're supposed to be we take a look at conflicts of interest um we look at whether you have enough collateral pledges on your bank accounts along with a lot of other things and this year we actually are reporting three different things that we noticed during our audit related to compliance with statutes uh the first is related to eup far so uniform financial accounting and
Reporting standards this the framework that Minnesota Department of Education has you report under um two items kind of bundled together with that one is late submission we obviously we're sitting here in February financial statements were du at the end of December we're going to talk about that actually on the next page on what drove that um and then the other is you far's errors and this is actually stemming from last year's audit and so if you remember back to last year's audit that was also so late it was actually later
than it was this year and in the audit process your school is required to submit numbers to upload numbers to the Department of Education last year that upload happened late to the point where they didn't accept those numbers and so when we go into our audit this year our beginning numbers don't tile because the Department of Education didn't accept them and so it's nothing to do with the end of the year numbers it's that we're getting errors from the Department of Education on the beginning of the year opening numbers so this is going to
fall off after this year it's a one-time issue related to the conclusion of last year's audit and um the late submission I hopefully that'll that'll this will be the last time for that as well I think we've got things hammered out with with what we'll talk about next um prompt payment of bills is another thing that we're noticing so under Minesota statutes your school is required to pay bills within 35 days of receiving them um unless obviously there's an issue
with the bill there's something that's wrong you can negotiate then um or you have to pay interest if you pay Beyond 35 days and so during our audit process we do a sample selection we look at a number of different invoices we did notice several of them that were paid after that 35 days and so we did have to report that as a finding for Minnesota statutes and then the final we call it unclaimed property what that means is in your bank reconciliation in your banking process
you issue checks and in the case of your school you've got a number of checks that have been outstanding for quite a few years in this case I think they went back to 2018 and under the Minnesota guidelines or rules what you have to do is if a check has been outstanding longer than 3 years you have to turn it over to the state the commissioner uh Commissioner of Commerce and if you've ever heard where you can go online and you can see if you have any claimed dollars due to you personally where you type in your
information on a website it would show up on that website for that individual and they'd be able to claim their dollars um so that's something that you want to do going forward is turn those checks over to the the state okay so single audit is next and maybe is just a quick refresher so single audit is an additional compliance audit that happens when you expend more than 750 $50,000 of federal dollars and
so under this program um if you spend more than $750,000 we do a compliance audit uh and there's some rules on what program we select based on the risk of the program based on the dollar amount of that's being spent in the program in the case of this last year the program we selected was the Child Nutrition program so food service and it's not necessarily a financial audit in in the same way that the rest of the schools audit is a financial audit here we're talking more about compliance with federal
guidelines and so we do a sample of student applications we look at your food service providers to make sure that they're not debarred by the federal government um we look at your submissions to make sure you're submitting how you're supposed to be as well and we actually do have one item that we've noted during our compliance audit U related to your meal claims and so what we found during the audit is um and I think this is resulting from a
point of sales system change um but what had happened was if a student let's just say as an example student in the high school had lunch in the elementary school so what was happening is the point of sale system would bring that up as an elementary school sale even though it was a high schooler there was a manual process where that was being crossed out and and corrected handwritten process where that was being corrected but the matching wasn't necessarily
happening and so if we were to look at the meals submitted in total um they were either overstated or understated because we might be Crossing it off at the elementary school and writing it in and maybe missing it at the high school level or vice versa and so the meal counts didn't exactly match what were being submitted and so what we did was we actually looked at several months we extrapolated it out it was small enough that we didn't have to to adjust our opinion so you're still giving a unmodified or clean opinion on
your single audit but we did have to note it as an internal control item that you'll want to tighten up your controls over your meal submissions um and a compliance item as well next year the threshold is actually being increased for single audit from 750,000 to a million so a little bit higher bar there so before we dive into numbers I like to start start out by looking at enrollment because so much of your
dollars flowing into the district are dependent on how many students you're serving and so we have a 5-year Trend here really if we look at the last two years 2024 and 2023 um in 24 you're actually down about 42 pup unit so not a significant decrease in the grand scheme of things but a slight decrease in your enrollment um and like I said I point that out just because it does affect your your numbers a little bit so here we're going
to start by talking about the general fund and we're looking at this very broadly so this is just overall budget to actual revenues expenditures change in fund balance so if we look at what you had happened during the year overall you had spent down or decreased your fund balance by $211,000 so you had actually planned for a much larger decrease of $85,000 so your your actual spend down was much better than what you had planned in 2023 your decrease in fund balance
was $1.42 Million so you're also sitting much better than you were in 2023 and if you were to look at this really broadly you'd see um expenditures about $850,000 below budget revenues about $325,000 below budget and U on this page also really quick before we flip to the next page there's another line that says other sources and uses of 145,000 I'm going to point it out right now because I don't have it on any other Pages
most of that is insurance proceeds coming in so if we look at revenues next your school is like most schools where you have a very large concentration of State Source funds um and within there is general education there's several other categories special education is the next largest so we're going to start by talking about that um State Source funds came in at $28.5 million up from budget by about 144,000 so
you came in slightly higher than your budget um also significantly higher than where 2023 came in and so if we were to look at that compared to 2023 you'd see if you were to drill down a little further you'd see your gen Ed Aid is about $665,000 higher than the year before um special education is a little over a million dollars higher than it was the year before um and then basic skills about $1.1 million higher than the year
before and so those those three categories really make up the the difference between your two years other areas that might jump out on this page Federal sources we talked about single audit already but this is the remaining federal funds coming in into the general fund that had a pretty significant decrease from 23 to 24 most of that's covid related programs and more specifically the Esser program and so those have essentially dropped off at this point there was just a little bit
of residual but not very much um that came in at $1.5 million uh your budget was actually 2.1 so you're about 563,000 below budget for federal spending or federal revenues coming in property tax levies other local County revenues sales and conversions these are all relatively close between budget and actual um there was an increase in your other local from last year to this year which was was really driven mostly from stronger investment performance that's probably the most
notable activity in that um otherwise not a lot to say in those categories they were relatively close uh and looking at spending this also looks like a very typical school this page where the bulk of your spending is instructional related which is good because that's really what the purpose of your school is right is to instruct and and teach kids so regular instruction is the largest category so we'll maybe start with that um
here we're seeing your actual spending below last year and Below what you had budgeted um and so we're down about $870,000 from last year a lot of this is compensation related wage related decreases that's really what's driving the bulk of that that savings um district and School Administration very close to last year um and about 250,00 below budget there as well you're going to see a theme here a little
bit a lot of these savings are compensation related um in exceptional instruction which is your special education program that's actually relatively close to budget um down about $75,000 this is actually due to an increase in your special education um wages in program but it mirrors a little bit what you're seeing with your special education funding and so this is something an area that we expected to see increase spending on
um instructional support um included in this is technology different support systems um that's actually up from your budget by 750,000 but below last year by $260,000 and most of that a lot of that is also wage related savings um capital outlay is another category that might stand out where we're seeing increased spending from last year here um included in that is the the work that was done in
this building we're sitting in right now um but also some high school remodels equipment purchases that happen during the year not included in this is the child care center project you'll see that in a few pages here so the next page is your cash balance in the general fund there's not a lot to see on this page as we continue to work with you we'll we'll build this trend line out but here we're looking at 3 years at least as a benchmark um
cash in the general fund just under $3 million up about $60,000 from last year so relatively close and the fund balance in your general fund um if you remember a few pages back I said that your fund balance decreased in total by 211,000 this shows the makeup of that fund balance and there's a few things you might want to have as takeaways on this page the most notable is actually the bottom line where we talk about
your unassigned fund balance so this is the dollars that are available for your more discretionary spending this actually had an increase this year of $460,000 so that's really nice to see so although your District did step back in total fund balance the unrestricted portion undesignated portion um did have an increase and really where we're seeing the largest decrease in fund balances in that restricted category this page also there's
not a lot to see because we only have two years on it but we this is another that we'll build out as we work with you but that unassigned fund balance if we look at it relative to the size of your District spending it works out to be about 4% of a Year's budgeted expenses so you have a policy on what you want that floor to be which is 5 to 7% you're just under that policy right now but you're moving in the right direction toward WS it towards meeting it so the next
few pages we're going to talk about your remaining funds and these are going to be really high level but if you want to dive into it further you can interrupt me and we'll do that um but there's not necessarily a lot to say on some of these so Debt Service in particular Debt Service is pretty well pre-prescribed because when you issue your debt you know what your principal and interest payments are going to be you know what your Lev is going to be you know how you're going to fund it and you just it's WR you're riding it
out and so this fund um revenues of 2.5 million coming in expenditures of 2.4 $100,000 increase in fund balance and fund balance at the end of the year is just under 600,000 the building construction fund is more notable because this is where the bulk of the activity for the child care center is landing so this fund had $775,000 of Revenue coming in which is mostly interest income um $888,000 of capital outlay
so these are construction related costs so this fund intentionally had a decrease in fund bounce of 814,000 and just under 1.5 million remaining at the end of the year uh food service is the up next Food Service there's there's also not a lot to say on this page other than if you were to drill down on the detail of food service a little bit further and look at this year's audit compared to last year's audit what you'd see is the
makeup of that revenue is shifting a little bit between federal and state with with how your your meals are going uh essentially free for for all students so the makeup has shifted a little bit uh overall this fund had a decrease in fund balance of just under 400,000 um of those expenditures of 2.3 million about 310 is capital outlay so Capital related purchase so so those are all intentional spend Downs um this fund has a fund balance of just under
a million dollar at the end of the year community service is the final fund on this page community service had an increase in fund balance of 61,000 uh and an ending fund balance of 48,000 It's Not Unusual for us to see community service funds oper operate in deficits and so uh I was really happy to see that your school is not in that same situation that you're you've got a positive balance in your community service fund and looking
at the cash balances for these four funds obviously building construction had a pretty sizable spend down um that cash balance decreased by 585,000 um Food Service also had a decrease in cash balance of 254,000 mostly related to that same Capital ol we talked about uh remaining funds are relatively steady in C in terms of cash and the last fund we're going to talk
about tonight is uh your new fund your your employee benefit fund and so this fund obviously it's new and we have employee contributions coming in of 3.5 million benefit payments going out of 3.2 million just under uh increase in fund balance of 285,000 and this fund had a has a cash balance at the end of the year of just under $400,000 383,000 at
the end of the year so is this our self Insurance okay yeah yep yep so first year went well with this fund good we're on the right track the next two pages look at your District's assets and liabilities and so what we've done is we've actually taken all these funds we just went through lumped them together added in the value of your Capital assets um added in the dollar amount owed on long-term debt
to look at your District's overall health from from a balance sheet standpoint and so what we're looking at is um current assets which would be cash receivables anything that's going to be converted into cash within the next year falls into that category and then capital and non-current is mostly your building and Equipment your your Capital assets um Capital assets actually remarkably close between the two years despite your Construction activity that you had this last year um all of that
construction activity was offset by depreciation taken on your existing assets so in total you're relatively flat current assets you actually decreased about $450,000 most of that's related to a decrease in your cash position at the end of the year so you spent on your cash balance between all these funds we went through by $430,000 and do we know what kind of depreciation schedule we're on those buildings oh I you where
we're at in the schedule or yeahor my memory is good but it's not that good so I I would have to check and get back to you yeah no big deal it it likely depends on the the building and um also obviously how recently it's been renovated I can't believe there's anything left to be honest yeah the the core building is likely fully depreciated but construction activity remodels additions um a good example is the the work that was done at
the high school this last year obviously that's going to be depreciated out now for a while okay liabilities next um we've got a few more categories here current liabilities are liabilities that you'll be paying within the next year so accounts payable payroll acrs those fall into that category you've got your long-term debt we've got your pension liability which is your share of the actu
determined Pera and TR liability and then post-employment benefit liability um so current liabilities actually increase this year um mostly related to timing and so if you were to look at your financials you'd see your accounts payable of increased this last year um which is really driving that increase and then you've got a smaller construction payable that's new this year that's outstanding at the end of the year as well long-term debt you actually pay down $2 million of your long-term debt balances um
and no new debt obviously taken so we're seeing a decrease overall for that and then pension liability post-employment benefit liability um both of those dis decrease this year those are numbers that are determined by the actuaries that work with those plans and we talked about that already but this page this is is another another page that we'll build out over time
but um here you're seeing the the decrease in debt the $2 million decrease in your debt as you've made your principal payments so really quick before I wrap up I want to give you a heads up on a new standard that's going to be in effect for next year because we can't leave things alone as accountants we have to always be tinkering with them um we have a new standard next year called gby 101 it's related to your compensated app es and how you're acre and
so under this new standard what'll it'll require is that your District records a liability for any compensated absence regardless of whether that amount would ever be paid out if the employee left or not okay and so a good example might be the new earned sick and sick time um acrs esst um depending on your policy if a person were to leave they may not be eligible to actually receive that as
a payout under the standard we'll still have to record a liability for it at the end of the year um and then in addition to that we also would have to record a liability on any payroll taxes that might apply to that liability any Pera or TR payments that would potentially be paid on that liability so um it'll likely mean that your payroll acels will increase next year I don't
like that yeah no I I'm just the messenger yeah I don't I don't necessarily like it either and we do PTO here where it's just all lump together right most of our contracts most of them um I'd be happy to answer any questions you have on financials Auto process ings anything that you have I don't have any questions but
you did a fantastic job explaining this to us oh thank you well yep so why did we need 100 page report that's a good question uh I don't make the rules like I said I just follow them yeah I waited through that like oh go you know if you if you look closely at that you'll see the same numbers are presented about four different ways yeah so you go back and look
make sure they do match up yep y audit the Auditors yeah so Chris gets an A+ yeah yeah I was I was very happy you guys were fabulous to work with thank you thank you John it was very well done now thank you thanks appreciate it okay all right thank you oh all right more exciting stuff the superintendent report I do want
to note thank you Mr chair board members when you approve the acceptance of gifts there was not a typo next to the Gordon Larsson scholarship you noticed it was $1,691 that comes in annually for our students and our scholarship funds it's really incredible to see unique compared to other districts and that's just this year's gift correct right yeah and I I I don't want to put the cart before the horse
but I I do know the high school is looking at are there ways to modify how those those dollars are released to students and and trying to maybe impact more students than we currently are so I'm really excited about what could come from that Ice Fest is this weekend February 15th and 16th we have a number of Staff who are volunteering over the course of the two days it's a free familyfriendly weekend of events that supports
our school district's flyer Pride backpack program and Care closet and if anybody needs I have tickets WRA tickets with tonight just for the record the raffle ticket contribution and profit go comes directly back that all goes back through us so I love to read month it's fun to see the activities going on in most of our buildings recently just last week we held an administrative team data Retreat through kindergarten through 12th grade with
our Administration and looked at um areas of success within our student data primarily in reading and math and then things we want to continue to work on in support and our teachers do that at the building levels but it was fun to get our principles together and and dig into the data preschool and kindergarten registration is March 3rd and and just a quick summary of where things are at with our the
work we've been doing in the district with our finance and facility task force and so our task force has outlined key priorities to ensure the school district remains fiscally responsible and sustainable while continuing to provide quality education and it's really exciting to see John's report and the status and Trend within our budget right now I'm excited about that but as we know we have we have more work to do and so given our declining enrollment the
task force recommends ongoing efforts to identify additional budget reductions which we'll be doing again this year probably in the area of about $400,000 and to rightsize programs and facilities and I think that's a term that all of us use quite a bit in the importance of rightsizing the work that we do to align with our student population trends and then to gain comprehensive Community input the task force as an idea is
recommending conducting a scientific districtwide survey to gather feedback on financial priorities facility needs and long-term planning from our stakeholders Additionally the task force encourages the district to explore adding a grant writing position which could secure um external funding opportunities and be designed to pay for itself through successful Grant Acquisitions which we seen already this year through our little Flyers child care center and
a deed grant that was recently received for over $200,000 and then finally the task force emphasizes the importance of addressing deferred maintenance issues in the district to maintain safe functional and efficient learning environments for students and staff and then these recommendations will guide the district strategic decision making as we navigate Financial challenges and plans for the future any questions
about that okay and then lastly just real quick uh February is career and tech ed Education Month Career and Technical Education Month and so president Trump and Governor walls have both made proclamations to support CTE month in Little Falls we have nine teachers with a CTE license and we have 70 different course offerings that could be offered during through our CTE program we don't offer
70 c CTE classes every year but the options are there based on the nine teachers that are licensed CTE teachers and some of those areas include egg Health Science Transportation Automotive business manufacturing Communications technology and Aviation and for this year fiscal year we've we've accessed $32,000 and perin funding um next year we're looking at close
to $110,000 and then overall from our Aid and Levy if you look at our Aid and Levy report every year we receive about $100,000 in CTE funding for Little Fall schools that's all I have okay thank you welcome all right next looks like some new business here um looks like we need to approve the audit that John just
presented and let's see that is is that as a resolution no no just approve it just approve it okay I'll make a motion to approve as a presented okay I have a motion from Sharon second I have a second from Dan to approve the 2023 2024 audit as presented any further questions okay if not all in favor
signify by saying I I oppose same sign all right motion carries sorry now the resolution I have okay go ahead Shar okay we have a resolution for formal formalizing the little pulse district partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Central Minnesota whereas the Boys and Girls Club of Central Minnesota and Little Falls Community Schools Independent School District 482 will work in Partnership to provide kids stop an award-winning an affordable School AG child care and enrichment program
for Every Little Falls School District student whereas the Boys and Girls Club kidstop program goal is to serve all children who need or want the program and no child will be turned away due the inability to pay and whereas the Boys and Girls Club has saved taxpayer dollars by successfully acquiring donor dollars for kid stop scholarships and whereas the kid stop program provides all children daily access to Quality programs and activities in four
Care Program areas health and well-being character and Leadership academic success and life and Workforce Readiness delivered by trained and experienced Youth Development professionals and whereas Little Fall school district and Boys and Girls Club of Central Minnesota wish to collaborate to offer kids stop programming according to the attached memorandum of understanding therefore be it resolved that kid stop is hereby designated as little
fall school districts designated after school and summer Child Care Program of choice and be it further resolve that school space comparable and substantially equal to current space provided for the Little Falls Community Education Program will be provided for kids stop at no charge for at least the First full year I need a um second for this please I'll second up thank you and the
roll call vote Dan yes Doug yes Julie Mark yes Kelsey yes and myself yes resolution is passed okay thank you Sharon next we have a an approval of the revised 2024 2025 budget um you going to present on this Chris or do we just need to you why don't you do it for our folks
who are watching at home okay thank you want me up there here wherever you're comfortable you can't leave the room all right we'll just go over the second page the Highlight page um which is focusing entirely on the general fund um overall general fund revenues the revised budget is proposing an increase of of $820 $882,000 $354,000 of that
is due to the implementation of a voluntary pre kindergarten program which was a voluntary grant that we applied for the summer and we receive 60 seats which generates 35.4 ADM um second biggest category there is an increase of $200,000 to special educ ation Aid I always start with the conservative estimate there and and increase
it as the year goes on um 94,000 for an increase in federal AIDS the federal government always starts out with a conservative estimate and increases that to um um final numbers typically about halfway through the year and then finally $160,000 increase to local revenues for things like participation fees um interest earnings those types of things
moving on to general fund expend excuse me one one more thing with general fund revenues total general fund revenues are 35 m354 188 ask a quick question did you did I hear you say last week that that um that pre kindergarten program grant that we filled out we get that every year now or we have to fill it out every year no so there is a renewal process but as long
as we go through that process doing it keep the make sure we doely all right cool thank you m moving on to general fund expenditures um proposed increase to general fund expenditures is $577,000 27 $5,000 of that is an increase to purchase Services which um
is a about $50,000 for speech therapy services $55,000 for acquire band trip that they fund raised money for and $42,000 for summer school transportation which was reimbursed 100% of the co monies um $133,000 increase for supplies 4 $8,000 of that was for summer school supplies which again was reimbursed at 100%
um also included $200,000 for an increase to equipment $90,000 of that was for a special education vehicle with a wheelchair lift that we needed um that vehicle will be depreciated over 5 years we will claim what's called depreciation Aid and we'll receive 20% reimbursement each year for those 5 years years so once that 5year period is done um we'll
receive $90,000 an A so a bit of an upfront investment but eventually we get those funds back also a $50,000 purchase for a pay lab for a transition program and $50,000 for a technology equipment purchase so overall that brings our revised budget total in the general fund has a budget surplus of $521,500 which is an increase of about
$300,000 over uh the adopted budget from June we're projecting our unassigned fund balance to end at about 6.33% which is an increase of about 2% compared to what John just reviewed with you guys moments ago um so overall it's looking like the the budget for this year is uh looking like a good recovery year for the general fund um barring any un unexpected subps um looking to the future we
know like um like John mentioned that decline enrollment and lack of State funding are going to be Contin continue to be challenges for us to move forward um the remaining pages are a December budget model that I'm not going to touch on here we did that at the work session and then the last page is the summary by fund balance category that's the page that you all
are ultimately approving any questions for Chris thanks Chris you did a nice job with that as well too and obviously it's trending the right way but knowing that we have to still cut about 400,000 that's as you said always a challenge so okay um that being said I would look for a motion to approve the revised budget as Chris presented it so a motion by Dan second second a second by Mark any further discussion okay if
not all in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign all right motion carries thank you Chris okay next we have an approval of authorization to sign the pay Equity report I read that wrong um you want to give us a little background on that Greg yeah every 3 years um public entities are required to complete a compliance report for pay Equity to determine that we
are pay paying U men and women fair and equal wages and so thanks to sourcewell they were able to get us in partnership with a company called ciso ciso came in so we had an outside agency come in and work with our HR office to collect this data prepare this report for the state and we have a successful compliance report completed and ready to send tomorrow to the Department of management and budget seeking
your approval okay so we just need to approve this compliance report okay make a motion to approve thank you Mark do I have a second no second okay and a second by Kelsey um to approve the compliance report as presented by Mr Johnson any further discussion all right all in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries thank you looks like
we have another um I guess agreement here Greg if you can again give us a little background on it yeah this is an organization uh called mck Morrison County inter agency coordinating Council you can see the other Morrison County entities that are a part of mck from Midstate to our neighboring school districts to um the Community Corrections so we work together um with these entities and people
from the county to be able to expand resources to support students they've been very active in helping us with some of the programs like Northern Pines that supports our our students for mental health support so it's an annual agreement that we continue to work with mck to support our students than any questions for Greg okay if not I would
entertain a motion so moved motion by Sharon a second please second okay and a second by Mark to approve the this would be the mck agreement um any further discussion hey all in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign okay next in your packet there should be an updated senor list um I would entertain a
motion to approve the list as presented I'll make a motion okay a motion from Kelsey second and a second by Dan any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign all right motion carries next we also have a list of the uh February Lane changes um for uh look like a handful of
Staff here um so I would ask for a motion to approve the February 2425 Lane changes so move a motion by Mark we have a second I'll second uh second by Kelsey any further discussion um do you do this certain time times of the year for these late changes February and October okay
okay all right any further questions discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign all right motion carries that takes care of our new business now we have some old and unfinished business um attached is a um next is a just a Revis Schoolboard committees um there was one change to the finance and Facilities um
so if everybody's had a chance to look at that um I would entertain a motion to approve the revised committee assignments Al okay a motion by Sharon and a second and a second by Dan any further discussion all right all in favor signy by saying I I oppose same sign all right those
committee are revised motion carries next is a approval of the revised board renumeration um I know we talked about this at our organizational meeting and stuff and after kind of our discussions at the work session and stuff we've essentially come full circle and come back just changed a little bit of the um language to make it more of a flat fee as opposed to hourly things so I would look for a motion to approve the revised board renumeration
agreement a motion by Kelsey I have a second second a second by Mark any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign all right next we have the approval of the 2025 202 six school calendar and we have a couple of options so um maybe you want to go through those for us Greg
or just maybe tell us a little bit what the difference is yeah so there's a draft calendar A and B for next school year and there's a slight difference so that the start date for the school year for both staff and students is similar um the only difference is really that uh Christmas break holiday break time frame and there's this calendar a which is has been the as we pushed this out to people um
various stakeholders the majority of of people prefer draft a but you'll see that draft a has the 22nd and 23rd of December off and if you looked at draft calendar B you would see these two days as instructional days and you would see a day off an additional day off I think for staff and students in February and April to compensate for the difference between the
holiday break okay they would just prefer the longer correct all that okay okay so we would seek your approval of draft a to draft a okay do I have a motion so moved I have a motion by Dan I have a second second okay and this is for uh um calendar one or a draft a yeah all
right so I have a motion in a second for approval of the 2025 26 school calendar option A any further discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign I okay motion carries all right next next we have our reports from board members um Dan you want to start
us nothing to report nothing to report okay um Julie nothing to report all right Mark nothing to report well I went to Lincoln and I met with Mr doas I have a few things okay um as Greg was saying that it's I love to read month and Chris singing praises to a team of about three or four individuals that led the way for Lincoln I read to I love to read month um
and is very excited about the getting the whole school on board with what those um individuals laid out so that was really cool um the PTA had book bingo in the month of February I think it was like first Monday or something Thursday or something but um I feel like that was very well attended and a lot of kids went home happy with a big stack of books so that was really fun um we also have the 100th day
of school this this week right tomorrow I have no idea we don't do that in high school anymore that's old news for class we done that since elementary school I don't think so in elementary yeah we used to do like a uh you dress up as like a senior citizen like to come look at that I want to know how I should dress the kids are doing that they are dressing up as a hundred-year-old so
I'm excited to see pictures of that Mr doas gets those out probably would even have to change my w and then um we had a lot of discussion about um Mr doas is starting to do a lot of planning for fiscal year 26 and having a lot of discussion on how they're going to utilize their outdoor space um that's really where there's a
lot more chaos for the kids at school and such and so he is working on developing a plan for they kind of have three different types of outdoor space whether it's like the the the sidewalk concrete stuff up front they have the playground area kind of across the street and then they have a green space and um so they're working out plans to figure out how they can best utilize the spaces and kind of rotate the kids so
it's not just mhm mass chaos mass chaos so lots going on there I didn't get a chance to meet with um Jana this week um or last week so I don't really know I don't have any updates for early childhood but that's what I know okay oh also the um at Little Falls Education Foundation they opened up the grant yeah yes um so is open until the end of February so we're encouraging staff to fill those
grants out uh those Grant applications so that we can now that's all staff right not just teachers a lot of times I think it's just teachers yep so I did talk to Mr dois about that so he could bring that back to his building and the board um but yeah he they are able you know if a custodian wants to do it or a food service um it just has to meet the the vision and the mission of um the Education Foundation but we were able to Grant a lot of dollars last year we had a speaker that came from the Kyle
Hogarth came and presented to the board but we gave out a lot of money last year um in Grants and pretty much the people that we turned away were the ones that just got a grant last year so like um spread the well good good opportunity is um and odds of getting the grants so we're very excited to be able to do that nice thank you Kelsey y Sharon um Greg already mentioned the ice vest so hopefully I'll see people out there
with that they've added some extra games and activities and the I didn't get to the fireworks last year but I've heard nothing but Raves about it and that'll happen again this year they had somebody that's picking up the tab for that and what's nice in the winter if you have young kids they go off at I think 6:00 oh have 9 10:00 it's dark enough at at 6:00 for the for them to go off and they were they were really good the only other thing I was at the workshop or the work um session that we had we also had the
tour and I kind of like the idea that we hadn't seen it for a while we weren't stepping over 2x4s and it's just amazing so hopefully they'll have a lot of people come to the open house the end of the month and and check it out yeah all right um for me personally I would Echo that as well um I think the the child care center was amazing the the details and things that they thought of were just I don't know so off my
radar that it was it was pretty cool so um the other thing I would say is something that Mr Johnson touched on was the the Gordon Larson scholarship I I think there's a pretty unique opportunity for our seniors um and for just the kids in Little Falls that will get some type of scholarship that um maybe in the past we couldn't do but that is just the gift that keeps on giving and it's a pretty amazing thing so that is all that I have on
my agenda uh any further business anybody cares to discuss I just want to ask about that survey so um that we talked about last week are do are we going to need to vote on moving that forward yeah considering the dollar amount to conduct a survey like that I'd prefer you folks to weigh in on that and I'd like you to hear a presentation about how works and type of questions we'll have input in the type of questions if we decide to move forward so next month maybe yes okay
okay good and then one clarification the the student representatives were wondering if they get paid is that part of their get paid what get paid that remuneration that oh renumeration be yes it's the experience yeah remember those letters you were just asking for oh yes they don't they charge you for writing them perfect perfect okay I tell you what you write some
grants all right anything else all right if not I'm looking for a motion to adjourn so moved second second all right all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign all right motion carries we are adjourned thank you everyone thank you
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