It's 6:30, so we're going to call the meeting to order. Please rise to say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, please take note that um five of the six board members are present. Scott Mo is excused for the evening. Um
also um Mr. Rochce is here. A couple other people in the room as well. Um we're going to start with the strategic plan review. Um I'm going to review something tonight. Um, last time we uh
did belonging. So, I'm just going to go up one and do integrity. Um, integrity. This is what we strive for and we hope to have. We are transparent, accountable, and responsible. We promote high expectations through honesty,
respect, and fairness. So, and then that brings us to the agenda. Um, the agenda is amend it. um at one location for um we had originally had marked on there um approving the
animals and school buildings and grounds policy which we actually did last time. So that has been removed. Um is there a motion to approve the amended agenda? >> Move to approve. >> Dakota made the first. Is there Jill
second? Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor of approving the amended agenda say I. >> I. All those opposed say no. It's approved unanimously. Um, now we have the truth and taxation
presentation or the hearing for taxes payable in 2026 by Eric Brush, our business manager. Uh, good evening. Um, welcome to Truth and Taxation. Uh, it's a meeting that we have every year. opportunity for members of the public to not only hear a little
bit more about our budget and what goes into taxes, uh, but also at the end of this meeting, it's an opportunity for members of the public, uh, if they so choose, are welcome to make comments to the school board on, um, you know, opinions on the school budget or suggestions for the school budget or,
um, or to just vocalize anything they'd like to say about the school budget. Um, just before I get started, one of the couple of caveats though, just in case anyone is interested in potentially speaking here tonight. Um, first off, individual taxes. Uh, school board has no control over individual taxes or tax
statements. Um, so to the extent that, you know, we've got questions about the valuation, the classification of your property, things like that, I'd encourage you to go to the county and um, you know, and uh, do some of the due diligence on that front. the school
can't necessarily abate any taxes um on individual statements like that. Uh the the second thing I'd just like to point out is that this isn't necessarily a Q&A with the school board. You can make your comments, but the school board's not necessarily required to um have any kind of response or make any kind of response
in time. Um certainly if uh anyone has any questions for me about the content of this presentation or would like to reach out to me, I'm certainly willing to, you know, take phone calls, appointments, that kind of thing. So, um, certainly feel free to reach out if you do have any questions or you want to know a little bit more. Um, I'm always available to, uh, to have those
conversations. So, uh, with that in mind, uh, here's our agenda here this evening. Um, all right. So, I like to start off with just kind of looking at what levy cycle looks at looks like for cities and counties. And the reason why I do this is because the timing of truth and
taxation is actually kind of weird for school districts. We're halfway through our budget year. We're in the infancy of even planning our 26 27 budget and we're halfway through using our 2526 budget. So, we're we're in a really weird spot to be talking about the taxes associated
with a budget. Um, and that's because a lot of this process that's that's embedded in state law is built around counties and cities because most of your counties and cities actually have a calendar year January to December fiscal year. So, as you're building your budget in the fall, you arrive at December, we
approve a levy, and then immediately in January, that budget takes effect. So, it makes a lot more sense there. You can kind of see what that flowchart. It's pretty simple. Um, Kelly, if you don't mind going to the next slide here for school districts, it's a little less simple. Um, so what we'll be looking at here tonight is we'll have a
recommendation for a tax levy here this evening. Um, we'll need to be certified either tonight or if we don't agree on one tonight, then a special session before the 28th. and I'll get into that would have to be called but either way in December of 2025 we'll certify a levy
um which gets paid by taxpayers in 2026 and then ultimately uh we don't recognize the revenue from this tax levy until fiscal year 2027. Um so it's a lot of different accounting maneuvers for taxes because we'll actually collect the cash during this fiscal year but it's
unrecognized revenue until the next fiscal year. So, anything that we do with the taxes that we're looking at, reviewing, and approving here this evening actually goes into planning our 2627 school year. Um, so ultimately, if we were to approve anything other than
the max levy, then we would be making any adjustments to our budget as we plan for staffing and operations and capital planning and all that, that whole process is going to be working itself out throughout the uh next couple of winter months and into the spring. So obviously we take whatever is approved
here tonight as our tax and plug that into our budget as kind of one of the big revenue pieces. All right. So what impacts our our property taxes? It's it's kind of a a tail. I like to use pizza analogy for this one. So there's there's two different sides of this coin. You've got
the size of the levy. That's how much money we need to tax in order to uh maintain our operation. So that's uh for every dollar that the school board authorizes for a tax levy, that's money that needs to get raised through taxes. So obviously the more money that you
know that goes into our tax levy, the larger the tax bill is per taxpayer. Um which tracks The other thing that matters, and I mentioned it kind of at the top of the presentation here, is your property valuation and classification. Um and I consider that to be kind of like how big of a slice of pizza are you having. um the more value
that your property has, the larger of a slice of pizza that you have. Um same thing with if you uh have commercial and industrial that taxes at a higher rate than residential homestead. Uh agriculture taxes at a different uh in a different way than residential homestead. So all those things that are
on your tax statement up the upper right hand box, all of that makes tells you how big of a slice of the pizza that you have of that overall levy pizza. Um, so that's kind of the analogy we like to use here. And on the slide here, you can kind of see what a uh there you go. Um,
yeah, you can see what a tax statement looks like here. Um, what I'm referring to is in that upper right box, you can see the valuation, the classification, residential homestead value of the property. If you are homesteaded, um, and you do get any kind of, uh, uh, tax credits for that, your homestead credit,
um, that would be up there as well. And then ultimately, that's the amount which you're being taxed on. Um, now as we talk through truth and taxation here tonight, obviously um the tax statement's made up of a lot more than just school taxes. In fact, most people when you open up your tax bill, your eyes draw straight down to the very
bottom line to say, "Okay, what what's the damage?" And then when you do, you you know, then go from there and say, "Okay, what's driving that?" And then you start looking at all the individual lines. So So really obviously if there's concerns about other parts of the tax bill, there's every entity that exists within um your tax bill. So be it your
township, your city, uh your your county, which is connectic for pretty much all of us, and then the school district being MOA, we all have our piece of the puzzle here. Um but we're really just talking about those two lines. Um one thing I like to mention on the right hand side, when you get your
tax statement in March, you'll also get a valuation notice for 2027. Um, oftentimes, and this comes from back in the day when I did county um, you know, county taxes, what would happen is you get your tax bill and then you try to challenge your valuation at that time.
That's actually a year too late. Um, the valuation notice is the county's attempt to tell you this is what we're going to tax your property on next year. So, if you're looking at that value notice and you say there's no way my property is worth what's on that statement, that's the time to act. It's got the
instructions in there on how to challenge that property value, how to, you know, go through the board of equalization, all the different steps that are necessary because ultimately once that valuation, once those processes are are exhausted, then it becomes a tax bill and there's very few
things other than like fire abatement, there's very few things that actually reduce your tax once the bill is printed. Next slide. So, this is kind of a look at a little bit of history here. um sources of revenue and expenditures. Now on the left hand side you'll see the pie chart.
Uh you know about half of our revenue comes from state aid generally and in the upper left hand you'll see that about 26% of our operating grants and contributions a lot of those are state revenues as well. So the state funds about 70% of our operations as a school district. Um that's everything from the
categorical revenues such as like uh operating capital, long-term facilities maintenance, and a lot of that stuff has state funding components to it as well. Um the part that we're talking about though here tonight is that tan part on the bottom left hand side where it says property taxes. Um makes up anywhere
from about 18 to 20% of our uh sources of revenue on any given year. On the right hand side you can kind of see a a blowup chart of where our expenditures come from. So obviously it's no surprise that instruction support services are are a big piece of what we do. We're
also a very capital intensive environment. What I mean by that is we run uh clearly one of the biggest campuses in the city. Um we also run a fleet of buses and so all of that takes money and and resources to maintain an entire bus fleet. You know, maintain all of the facilities that we need to have
to be able to educate students. Um and then there's some other smaller things in there, you know, things like our nutrition services, our um you know, our community ed programs and all that. that all feeds in there but on on smaller scales than obviously uh running capital and providing instruction to students
which are obviously our largest sources of uh expenditures. This slide did not change this I apologize a little tough to read in the audience here but this slide didn't change from our uh 2026 adopted budget. Uh so every year when we adopt our budget our final approved budget occurs
in June of the year right before it's time to enact that budget. Um so this hasn't changed. This isn't the night to revise a budget. In fact, we'll be bringing a revis the first edition of the revised budget in the next couple months before the school board. Um, and that'll kind of tell us how we're tracking against that budget. Um, but
really that adopted budget, uh, every year, um, we're we have our fund balance policy, which is 15% of unrestricted unassigned fund balance that we need to maintain to maintain our operations. And so we build our budget in a way to maintain that fund balance but also um
complete our public purpose which is to educate students. Um so because our fund balance is hovered right around 15 16% on any given year. We basically budget every single year for breaking even. So the revenue that we make the the salaries the expenses the uh the the
school supplies the capital all that stuff all that stuff tends to come out nice and even as terms of a budgeting perspective. We don't budget to lose. We don't really budget to gain. Mostly because right now our operations have been very um stable and our fund balance
has been very stable. So what is our funding mechanism in the state of Minnesota is what's known as a average daily membership and then another calculation hidden behind it called average pupil units. So when we think of students being served by our
staff, it's it's usually spoken in terms of enrollment. So when a a student enrolls at Mora public schools, you know, we sign them up for classes, they get assigned a teacher, and that gives us an indicator that the student is coming to our schools. Obviously, average daily membership is a review of
the students that we actually serve. And you'll see that it's actually broken out by a decimal point, which seems a little nonsensical because you can't serve 63 of a student. Um, but that's because one ADM, so one average daily membership student equals a kid that a student that
enrolls on day one of the school. They complete the entire year with us. They don't go to say Rum River, they don't have any breaks or any of that kind of stuff. That's considered to be a 1.0 year. So, we obviously have a lot of students that kind of come and go throughout the year for a lot of different reasons. Maybe it's sped,
maybe they moved in, maybe they moved out. Um there's other reasons why students may not generate a full 1.0 ADM. So you'll note that a lot of times when we express our enrollment, the enrollment numbers a few numbers higher than what the actual served ADM is at
the end of the year. But this number is incredibly important because it is the one that we get paid on uh ultimately at the end of the year uh when the state does its final true up and looks at our um you know how many students we serve. Now on this chart you could see that we obviously had a huge uh drop right
around COVID time and that was kind of everyone experienced that drop. We've been very fortunate to see um quite the rebounding effect in the last few years. Um, it's helped keep our finances very stable because obviously as inflation has has put pressure on the district and
as a lot of things have put pressure on the district, we've been serving more and more students which has enabled us to receive the funds necessary to continue to maintain what we've got. Um, so right now you can see uh it's trending upwards. I'll I'll admit this
year we're a little bit down so that might be peaking out a little bit. I don't think it's going to continue to trend upwards indefinitely. Um but certainly uh been good news. A lot of districts in the state continue to see declining enrollment for a lot of reasons including things like um
declining birth rates, um private schools, homeschooling, all those other kinds of things are kind of taking uh chunks out of numbers of students that the public school are serving. So looking at our current enrollment, uh this comes right out of the board packet
gets updated every month. Actually, when I prepared this one, um it's from December 3rd, so it's a little bit older. I think there might be a newer one out there. Um but nonetheless, it just kind of shows you where those students are in terms of grade level. So, you can see again, um you know, we're down a few students from where we
were last year. Uh but nonetheless, you could see that we're pretty well distributed between the elementary and high school. Um we have had a couple of larger graduating senior classes and a couple of smaller incoming kindergarten classes. Um so that's been a little worrisome here as we look to the future.
But some of the other things other than that uh we look at birth rates, we look at you know how many students are enrolling in kindergarten. We also look at things like PSO um and uh and um our movement from primary to secondary. So what I mean by that is that a lot of
like uh churches or religious schools will run a primary education program but don't necessarily run a high school. So, we'll see some students pick up, not as much in this area, but other schools will see a little bit of that. Um, you'll also see that in the home school realm as well that um homeschool is a little more uh done in the earlier
grades and then maybe when it comes to high school for reasons like sports or you know some of the more advanced electives that you might see some of those students return to public school as they get a little bit older. Um so, we do watch some of that um uh grade level movement as well.
So our levy categories here um these are the areas that actually show up on the tax levy. So not every expenditure category within the school is funded by taxpayers. A lot of them are funded by state or federal sources as well um or or through fees. Um so looking at the
left hand side um the um some of our general funds. So local optional revenue that's just general use funds. That's for whatever the district needs to be able to you know either pay teachers, buy supplies, buy fuel, that kind of stuff. Um, some of them are pretty self-explanatory. Alternative teach
teacher compensation Q comp is a uh uh staff development type of uh program. Um, and they get a little bit more into detail than that. I won't get into that here tonight. Um, and uh our building and lease levy, I'll I'll you'll see that here coming up in a few slides. Our
building and lease levy also includes the cost of Rum River uh our specialed co-op. they uh uh they have the ability to access our uh tax statements by uh leasing against our um our area in order
to provide services to our special ed students. Um in the community ed, a lot of our community ed programs are run on a feebased program, which means that if you go to preschool, you'll pay fees to the preschool, which then pay for the fees associated with the preschool. Um
some of that does get subsidized through taxpayer dollars. Um not a lot. It's actually the formula's just recently changed to increase the amount of state aid and decrease the taxpayer aid. Um so you'll see actually over the last couple of years that that category has gone down quite a bit. So we don't have a whole lot of tax levy in there. And then
in our district specifically debt service is uh a pretty big chunk of our our tax levy. U mostly because we have five different building bonds on our books. Uh everything from the Trail View expansion to the high school we're sitting in right now.
All right. So, equalization. I wanted to touch on this a little bit here because I think what we wind up seeing in our community is you'll see a uh a trend between uh taxes that continue to go up and up and up and there's a reason for that and that reason is largely due to equalization. So, the state of Minnesota
has a has a a concept that ties property valuation to abil to ability to pay tax. Now, I don't I'm not saying that everyone has to agree with that concept. That's how that's how property tax works in Minnesota is that the more valuable your property is. The more money you
have to be able to support your own public services. And so what has happened over the last several years is the property values in this area and everywhere have gone up and up and up. So these factors that determine how much state aid we get and how much taxpayer
aid we get has been sliding. So, we've been seeing instead of us getting state equalization aid and money from the state, we've been getting that number's been reducing from the state as that number slides over to taxpayers and our taxes have gone up, but the actual funding to the school continues to
remain the same. Um, so those equalization factors, it's something that comes up every bienium, you know, to look at those factors. Um, but that's what really makes taxes continue to go up because unless those uh equalization factors continued on with the inflation
of house prices, then that slide will continue to happen. It looks like a pseudo tax increase. Um, so on the chart on the right there, you could basically see what the effect of not having equalization is. And what it means is that for districts that don't have the large commercial base or large
residential base, it gets tougher for us to ask our taxpayers to put any more in because in order for us to access um a $2,553 per pupil, so 200 or 2500 per student
levy, it would cost our taxpayers $1,345 per year. Now, for the exact same amount of money in some of the more property wealthy areas such as like Hopkins, that's $387. So, they can go to their voters and say, "Hey, you can get the
school district this much money and it it's only going to cost you $400 on your taxes." Whereas for us to put the exact same offer out there, we have to ask our taxpayers for $1,300. And it creates a bit of an inequity. So, it is a challenge for the legislature. I don't mean to make this a a big political
grandstand because obviously adjusting this stuff is very expensive and very difficult to do at a statewide level to get it right. So looking at our proposed levy here um on the left hand side you can see where we ended up on final 2025 and we're
proposed as 2026. And I'll just kind of highlight some of the bigger areas because things kind of fluttered around here and there. Um really the biggest issue or biggest issue I should say the biggest change on the general fund was the inclusion of Rum River North. There's uh the new campus that the board
uh had voted on as with the other five districts. Um the revamping of those facilities, the construction of those facilities um will go against our lease levy. So that's where some of those taxes are coming in right there. Um so it did result in the general fund portion of our levy went up by 4.5%.
However, um mentioning with the community ed levy, you've continued to see more state aid, less local aid. Um so that one actually went down 10.8%. Um again, pretty small dollars there, uh all things considered. And then the big one that went down, uh the percentage-
wise, it didn't go down a whole lot, just a half a percent. Um but dollar-wise, the the pretty big uh reduction in our debt service levy. Now, debt service levy is not something that the school necessarily has any control over. What'll wind up happening is our
debt service is set by uh state formulas that enable us to levy enough to collect so that we can make our debt service payments. But once our fund balance reaches a certain level, we'll actually get debt excess uh reductions to make sure that our fund balance stays in line
with where it needs to be while allowing us to still make those payments. So overall, our uh property tax levy um is a 93% increase over previous year. And I'd say largely due to the impacts of equalization. Again, um we'll we'll
look at that when we get to the next slide. Here on the right hand side, there's a chart. Um this chart is basically showing you that if you have a home value of $265,000, your estimated school tax, everyone's mileage varies a little bit, but your estimated school tax would be about
$193. And of that 1193, you could see how that would break down what exactly those dollars are going towards. We don't have a voter operating levy. Uh meaning that we don't have voter dollars that are um funding our day-to-day operations. We do, however, the big green bar in the middle, dark green bar
there in the middle, that is our building levy. Uh so obviously $727 worth of the taxes are going towards the bonds to pay for the facility. Um, and then the light blue is all of your categorical revenues, whereas the very
top one there, um, are just more categorical revenues. So, those are kind of some of those other categories, things like long-term facilities maintenance, uh, career technical education, um, lease, levy, local, optional, things like that.
Okay, so looking at our property tax trends, we're almost to the end, I promise. Um looking at our property tax trends here uh on the left hand side you'll see this is exactly the cumulative effect of what equalization is done. So you can see exactly where the high school came on because there's
a pretty big tax jump that year when the the high school came on the books there. Um but every year you just see a little bit more of that slide where we're getting less state aid, more taxpayer aid and it just ticks up and up and up every single year. And that is really exactly what I spoke to about
equalization. It is that shifting effect where it just keeps slowly trickling on to taxpayers and saving the same money essentially. Uh on the right hand side, now I don't want this graph to get kind of misinterpreted here. This is how much the property value has increased from
the year before. So in 23 and 24 we had massive changes in property value. But nonetheless, every year our properties continue to increase in value. And that's exactly why those equalization factors weaken every single year when we talk about those. Um, so if you were to
take, you know, the value of a house that you bought for $100,000 in 2018, you'd have to, you know, add another 7% 6% 7%, you know, like you have to increase that every step of the way. I think last year I did that exercise and it was like 10 and some% of value. like
over time the cumulative effect your house basically doubled in value if you bought it even 10 years ago. Okay, so looking at our next steps here, this is uh uh just about to the end of the the presentation, my piece speaking. Of course, I'll open it up for any board member questions if you have any
questions of me. Um once we're done with me, then uh I'll invite the board chair to go ahead and open up that public comment period. Um, just as a reminder, this is just a comment on the budget itself, um, school operations, things of that nature, uh, not individual taxes. And just remember that the school board,
uh, doesn't have to necessarily answer any questions, per se. Um once that public comment period is over um then later on in the agenda there'll be the opportunity for the school board to um adopt the final approved levy uh which
will need to get certified to uh which is something that I do will certify to the county into the state. Um and we have to get that turned in by December 28th of 2025. Uh so with that if there are any questions >> have any questions? >> Excellent. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> So now we'll open the floor for public comment on um the truth and truth in taxation and the levy. Is there anybody who would like to speak?
Okay. Seeing none, um we will move to open form. Did anybody We have to close it. >> Do we have to >> do we have to close it? >> I don't know. Do we have to close it? >> No. Good. Perfect. I got the no. >> Okay.
>> Um is there any cards for open? >> Okay. Um if at any time anybody does want to address the board about um any topic, they can come to a board meeting and fill out a card. And um for those
online especially, you want to state that um and then we're on to listing spirit record. >> Yes. >> Do you >> I have some people in the crowd that I'd like to invite up. Um Ashley and Molly, our our coaches along with our student
athletes um for our state bowling team. Come on up. I'll start with a a little a little story here. Ashley is a former student of mine >> and um
her grandpa was a mentor to me um as I took over his position uh my one of my first teaching jobs. So Ashley and I go back and I see her mom in the crowd here today. And um and uh I asked Ashley if
she'd bring a couple of her bowling teams and maybe just tell the board a little bit about your season. And um you've been to the state a couple times now. >> Yep. So this is our Special Olympics uh two athletes from our Special Olympics bowling team. They're also in Well,
you're not in basketball, are you? Because you do golf in the spring and Alli's also in basketball. But these two went to the state tournament in November. We had a blast. We it was a Friday be a little before Thanksgiving and we went down for lunch then did our
tournament came back at the end of the school day and we just had so much fun. We practice once a week at the bowling alley in town and September through like mid November. >> Yeah. So we have a lot of fun.
>> Yeah. Awesome. >> Yeah. had one of the highlights was going to the state tournament and seeing the students. We they always do a sendoff for anybody who makes a state tournament and uh the athletes along with the coaches got to walk through the
whole school and >> the last two school years we've done the walk through and it's like why haven't we done that before kind is so fun. >> Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. That was pretty cool. That was so cool. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, do you want to introduce your
>> Ally here and we have Brit and then Molly coaches with me and we have about almost 10 kids this athletes this year. >> Yeah. Well, thanks for braving the elements and thanks for having us >> all the leadership. I've got a card for you and a bell
>> so when you walk down the hall next time you can ring it as well. We'll >> do that. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> Thanks. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you. All right. You guys are welcome to stay the rest of the meeting, but you have to. >> You're welcome to leave as well. Yeah.
>> Get back on the road. Bye, Michelle. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Does anybody else have any spirit recognitions? >> All right. Seeing none, I believe it's Chip Grant's uh presentation for
building and grounds. >> Hey, good evening. >> Um just put together with the help of my daughters a slideshow. Um I just want to give you a little bit of overview some things um you may not
know. Uh just some staffing issu not issues, staffing um numbers and things like that. Um buildings and grounds. We have four maintenance uh personnel. One of them is which is dedicated just outside mowing, snow removal, um anything outside. Um and the other
three, one at the elementary and two at the the high school. Um and then we have nine building custodians. Those are the night cleaners. Um we have uh one facility manager, um Kurt Norgard, um who was going to be my Mustang Spirit
tonight, but he went home uh sick today or early um and he's not here. So, um just a little quick Kurt, he's uh contemplating retirement. Uh hasn't pulled the trigger yet. Um and so when he if and when he does, um I'll come
back with the Mustang spear because uh he's welld deserved uh outstanding man. So, um we have 30 I'm sorry, 380,000 some square feet of our facility now. Um and I was talking to Ken. I just did a
quick search for average homes in in Kenova County and I was way off. It was about 1,300 square feet. But if if you just think average home is about 2,000 square feet. It's a little bigger than what we have um according to Google. Um the nine cleaners clean 21 homes in 8
hours each night. Um of course there's areas we don't have to clean. You know, all the auditorium we don't touch unless it's being used, you know, that type of stuff. But um that's that's a lot of square footage for nine people. So um just wanted to point that out. Um we do yearly uh safety trainings IIEA does
beginning of the year with them. Um uh hazardous materials, slips and falls, uh proper lifting, that type of stuff. Um we also have ongoing training throughout the year. We do forklift training for our individuals. Chains Ron just had chainsaw training uh this week. Um, so
keep them educated and trying to keep them to be safe. Um, and go from there. So, um, transportation department, we have one transportation assistant, one mechanic. We have 35 drivers/bus aids. Um, and we, uh, currently have 43
vehicles that Corey keeps an eye on. And that's a that's a and he does a great job. It's a I can hardly keep keep track of two, but um, I had Gail pull some numbers. We have about 879 average daily riders um on our route buses only. We didn't count vans and all that stuff. Um
we put on about 300 I'm sorry 650 miles a day with all of our route buses and that's about 112,000 miles a year. Our school district is about 30 miles north and south and about 15 miles east and west. So it's a pretty large area
especially north and south, but um we do well and they they uh they're troopers. Our drivers are great. Um, we had a little uptick in applications and people interested, um, after we did a little media blitz and we sent that letter home
to parents, I don't know when, month or two ago. Um, possibly doing some double runs if we were that short. Um, Gail is continuing to drive and we're trying to see if we can get her not to do that, but she's happy in doing that as well. So, um, so things are on the up with
with the applications and the process and getting going. We are really super lucky to have Jesse Faber be our local trainer. Um so she does uh drive arounds with our drivers every year part of their training. We also do back to school training. Um they also get slips
and falls and things of those natures and um some not so much hazardous materials but um and then one thing we're working on is building relationships with their students on their bus. Um that goes a long way. Um, and so we we're we're hitting that with our meetings and stuff and trying to
give them the tidbits and it but uh so far at the high school level the referrals for buses are down. I don't have a whole lot of them um as of late and so the kids are behaving and the drivers are they're hardy group. They don't like driving in the snow but they do it because they got to get the kids
home. So um all right, switching back to building grounds. Um some things that we're contemplating for this summer, this uh next season of uh LTFM. Um the elementary school is completely up to date except for court 6. That that's not
old. It's the it's the new new um court basketball court. Um that unit has been junk for a while. Um we've tried to get um parts for it. Um and we're just going to probably end up replacing that this summer. Um it's functional. It's heating. it just doesn't cool very well.
Um, but we're we're going to get that uh going. It was on the list this summer, but we did the four, five, and 600 wing and got those up to par. Um, and so that was a big big project for us. Um, the uh the tennis courts are kind of due. I have my daughter plays tennis and I
didn't really pay attention, but um we might have to put a new acrylic coating on that um this summer. Um, I had the vendor come out. Um, we had it scheduled and it snowed, so we couldn't do much, but we walked around a little bit. So, he'll come back and we'll see what we can do. If we can squeeze another year
out of it, we don't know. Um, we're going to the high school parking lots will get resealed and and striped this uh this year. Um, we I try to go back and forth about every 3, four years with the elementary and this side just to keep those fresh. Um, so we're that's
kind of in the works. Um, and then we're going to be mo removing the USS, the under storage uh tanks, underground storage tanks at the bus garage, diesel and the gas. Um, the diesel one is is we've abandoned. Um, we haven't used in
a year or so. Um, and we have a limited time to get that out for the MPCA. Um, but we're going to do both at the same time. Um, it's way cheaper to do both. And then we'll um with the fuel bids and stuff, we'll get a skid for our unleted.
Um so we'll have that on site and then the very few diesel engines we have left, we will have a pe a card for Budray or whoever gets the bid to fill those up. Those are mostly our spare um activity buses. So So that's kind of what we're thinking for this summer.
Um next slide is the kind of the future projects. Um, I think I presented this a couple years ago, but there's just some things to think about. Now, I'm not sure if everybody in this room will be in your capacity at the schoolboard level. Um, but like the artificial turf, it's
about a 10 12 year cycle on those with the UV beating that up. So, we'll have to replace that and and given give or take these dates. Um, the roofs, the the elementary and the Wellia are 25 year roofs. Um, so those are due in 4143. And
then this high school is a 20-y year road. They'll be due in 2043 as well. Um not to say that we wouldn't repair a section at a time um if there's issues um ahead of that. We don't I'm not anticipating that in one year we have to
do the entire complex. We that would be pretty uh really expensive. But um that's just some food for thought. the parking lot replacement and overlay um that the guys that we deal with that said those will probably be due in the 2038 and the uh m that's the elementary
the bus loop and the tennis courts up top and then the uh everything else that's new with this high school um would be due about 2043 um there's options there too you wouldn't have to pull everything out you could scrape you know three inches and add two or whatever it's you know so but that's uh
that's just something up there. Um the Wellia Center 4 is probably due um to 2038. Um it's the guy that the tennis court guy does those for us too. And we walked in there and he said this is absolutely remarkable how well this has
kept up since 2018. Um so we don't have any issues currently, but he said they're, you know, they're probably a 20 year. You might think about uh getting that on the radar, so to speak. Um and then the outdoor track that's due, but that'll be due um roughly 20 38 as well.
So we have a tight time frame there with a bunch of stuff that could become overdue, but hopefully um with care and maintenance and stuff, that's what we'll try to avoid is not have big all these big ticket items coming up that are due. So um and lastly, I'm going to switch over
to this computer. I wanted to show a little interactive um our BAS system. and I talk about it all the time, but you maybe don't know what it's all about. BAS is our building automation system, and this is a a tool
that Kurt lives on. I dabble with, but it's it's really cool, I think. So, we're going to go to the high school. Um, oh, so we're unoccupied. So, normally where you see the auditorium is
green here. Um, normally we would see green and blues, like light blue throughout the whole building. It must be unoccupied, but the red in the entrance way is telling me it's cold because the doors have been open and back and forth. Um, we can click on
the auditorium for example and we can see like right now it is 69° in there. Um, I can I can adjust the heating and cooling from here. So, if they call and say, "Hey, um, the auditorium is really cold." Oh, okay. I
can jump it up a couple degrees and then, you know, a few minutes later they can feel heat. Um, it takes us to the air handling unit that this unit's running on if we have issues. Um, again, I'm not an expert, but this is something that's Kurt checks every morning. So,
sometimes we open up these um these maps and it's just all red. There's something's an alarm. There's something going on. It's like, holy cow. Well, then we Kurt digs in deeper at all these layers. It says, "Well, gez, that's the dampers are frozen shut. They're not getting fresh air. So, they're choking
out, whatever." So then they help to do whatever they could diagnose a ton of stuff. Um so yeah this is something we you know all these things mean a lot to Kurt. Um we can see trends you know we can see the trends of the temp control and
what's going on in each room. Um I'm trying to go to like this elementary school see. So this is what it normally would look like. All these greens and blues um are ideal. There's a little red here. So, I don't know what's going on there, but um we can dive in and and
really detail uh each room or each air handler if we can figure out what's going on. Um there's pages and pages and pages on here of of finding out what what alarm is, if there's a freeze stat, um and all that stuff. So, I just thought I like it. It's really cool. I
don't mess with it a whole lot because I don't want to screw things up, but this is something that um really helps helps our community. That's pretty cool. >> That is awesome. >> It's It comes in handy a lot. Like this.
This one's always orange. Oh, no. No. Yeah. The boiler room cuz it's always hot in there. Um but yeah, we can see that the fan is on and it's 82 degrees in there because the boilers are truck chugging along and we can look at the the temp the um the trends on the
temperature inside there. And um we can go weeks to months to years and all sorts of stuff. So, it's really a really cool tool. But I thought it was interesting and we we'd like to see that. So, >> thanks for sharing. >> Yeah. Great. >> All right. Cool. Thank you. If you have
any questions, I'm here today. >> So, thanks. >> Okay. Next is the consent agenda. Are there anybody who is does anybody want to remove anything from the consent agenda? All right. Seeing none, um I'll take a
motion from somebody to approve. >> Was that you, Matt? >> Yes. >> Jill made the second. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda say I. >> All those opposed say no. >> It's approved unanimously.
Um next is the budget calendar review. It's listed here for on the agenda for you to review. And now we're on to 10. consider approval of the final levy for 2025 payable in 2026.
I'll take a motion regarding this. >> So moved. >> Is motioning to approve it. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Matt seconded it. Um is there any discussion? All those in favor of approving this
levy say I. >> I. >> All those opposed say no. It is approved unanimously. Next. Consider approval of the education Minnesota more local ESP AFL CIO seniority list for June 30th 2025.
Is there a motion to approve this? >> So moved. >> Matt made the first motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Um Dakota second it. Is there any discussion? All those in favor of approving this say I. I. >> All those opposed say no. It's approved
unanimously. Next. Consider approval of the SEI. the local 284 seniority list for June 30th, 2025. Um, take a motion. >> So moved. >> Matt motion second.
>> Second it. All those in favor of approving the seniority list say I. I. >> All those opposed say no. >> It's approved unanimously. Next, consider approval of the three-year board governance plan. Um, I'll take a motion from somebody to approve this.
>> So moved. Dakota is approving it. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Um Ken second it. Any discussion? >> I just appreciate everybody's work on it. So, >> it's been good. So, it's good to see us having a plan moving forward. So, >> yeah. I hope we can stick to it.
>> We will. >> Good. All right. All those in favor um of approving the three-year board governance plan say I. >> All those opposed say no. >> All right. The plan is approved unanimously. Um, next is um the second
reading of the forms. I believe the service dog forms. Um, they don't need to be approved. It's just there for us to look at so we can see them. Um, and that brings us to the board reports. I think first is Maya. Do you have
anything you want to share? >> Yes. Do I go over here today? >> Yeah, that's okay. Um, so we've been having meetings. We have a meeting every other week. Um, and at our last meeting, we talked about things for formal. And so the students
voted this year and decided, you know, Dancing with the Stars cuz that's been like kind of big thing this year. So, I think that'll be fun. Um, and then the holiday drive went super duper well. We raised over $5,000 this year. Um, so we're very happy that we were able to do
that. Um, and then I just wanted to give a little bit of an update um on student experiences. So um, one thing I've heard from my peers is that the days can feel kind of long. I think that's because um, winter
breaks coming up and we're maybe all a bit um, tired. So hopefully that will refresh us a little bit when we come back. But overall this year I've heard a lot of really positive things. I don't know if it's because I'm a senior and we're all excited to be done, but even
from lower grades I've just heard that um the community in the school is feeling very supportive and people are really enjoying their classes. Um so that's been really good and positive this year. Um the only other thing that is coming
up is really winter formal and then we have some rewards coming up for the grades that reach the goal of for the holiday drive. So >> awesome. >> Yeah, >> I have a question like holiday drive. Can you explain like what you collect and what you do with it?
>> So we collect just money. Um, we used to collect food items, but it got a little bit difficult with that. And then we use the money to buy toys and food and we're donating it to the the food for friends and the food shelf. >> Awesome. Thanks for doing that.
>> Listening, can you tell them um how much winter formal is and if how they register for that? >> Yes. So, there will be signups coming up after winter break. I don't believe we have a cost set out yet. I think usually it's like $20 though, right around that
range. Um, and it's January 24th. I believe it starts at 8:00 p.m. But we will send something out and we'll make sure that it gets on the um more the student council Facebook page for sure. >> Awesome. Thank you.
>> Thanks. >> Do any board members have any reports to share? >> All right. um activities in community education. Um it's listed there for us to review in the agenda. Um Chip talked about
transportation buildings and grounds tonight. Um there's a report listed there. Um same from the principles and the superintendent. Do you have anything you want to like? >> Yeah, I would just say like uh the Kbec County Family Collaborative. That's
where like the school district and um superintendent like Ogleby Mora Rum River meet with our Kabic County family um and the sheriff um Kabic County Community Health. And
what our goal is is to try to work together so we can better help our students and families. So, it's always good to share what we're all doing to try and what we're all seeing in the county. Um, so for instance, like family
services, what they're seeing uh from the families here and then uh the school and then probation talks a little bit about what they're doing. Um the partnership is really um beneficial and
supportive of each agencies. Um out of that group has come like the SRO funding. We you know the um Kav County Community Health has the opioid grant. Um we're able to make
connections with the sheriff and um and just talk about how the SRO is helping our schools and helping our students and our families. So it's it's a really good thing. We don't we meet like in the fall and the spring. I wish we met a little
bit more, but it's a really it's a really good um time to connect with each other and help each other. So, >> okay. So, we have listed the upcoming dates to remember listed here. Um we have MSBA coming up. We have the
organizational meeting. Um, I think the time is listed at 4:30 to >> Did we want to change that time at all or is that a discussion for later? >> I had asked Dan the day if he would touch base with everybody and see if we
could do it at 3:30 on that day instead. >> Matt's good with that, Dakota. >> Doesn't matter to me. >> I'm pretty sure Scott would be good with that. So, let's change it to 3:30. Do you think um everything that we have planned for that evening after the organizational meeting, do you think
that will all fit into the time that we need um because we were going to do an evaluation afterwards? >> Yeah, I think it can all be done in the time. >> Okay. I don't know what time your game starts. So, um >> it's at 4:30, but I think we can have it
all done in an hour. So, >> okay, sounds good. Um is there any correspondence? I didn't see any. All right. Um, other board business. Anything else we should talk about? Okay. Um, second open forum. Probably
nothing. Right. I'll take a motion for adjournment. >> Motion. >> Second. >> And, um, Jill will take a second. It is 7:22. Um, all those in favor of approving um, adjourning say I. >> I. All those opposed say no. Okay, we
are.