##VIDEO ID:-YEYDIarFyE## okay so I'll can keep talking and now it seems like it's all coming through nicely so she she said okay we'll keep talking it's probably a little bit of a delay maybe who knows oh could be a five minute terrific thank wonderful okay all right good that's great no no that's good um so uh board president's report our sound system is now working as part of my report and um I really don't have that much to say we you know seem so again just happy with the snow and weather cooperating basically with us and um I really don't have much to say in my report tonight so I'm just going to move on to the committee reports buildings and grounds Mrs burwitz is not here do we have anything for buildings and grounds not at this time communication policies Mr White nothing to report Mrs Sande curriculum and Technology no update at this time Mrs Pinelli Finance yes um last week the finance committee met with the auditor regarding the 2324 audit report and he reported that there is no corrective action plan recommended no non-compliance issue no deficiencies no findings to address um he reported that that the district is being run very well and financially we are in great shape so um we would all like to thank Mrs Belo and her staff for all their hard work throughout the year and every year um keeping us in excellent Financial standing and um so thank you very much and please let your staff know that yeah here here that's great terrific you're welcome thank you um I have nothing to say for negotiations tonight nothing to add and Mrs Austin Personnel yes we had a meeting tonight um enrollment is looking steady and we are working on filling some positions but everything's going very well wow good night um please take note of the committee meeting schedule and I'm going to open the agenda to public comments on I'm sorry to public comments on agenda items only the Rivervale board of education is committed to encouraging the citizens of Rivervale and employees of the Rivervale School District to speak directly to board trustees in order to facilitate this communication residents and employees are requested one to sign in before speaking two to maintain an appropriate sensitive Corum and three to limit the remarks to no more than five minutes the board will also take under advisement the written comments and opinions of non-residents that are submitted to the board secretary being mindful of its responsibility to maintain the orderly conduct of meetings the board retains the right to rule on such matters as the speaker's right to address the board as well as the appropriateness of the subject being presented the board's decision in such matters is final the board also reminds all members of the public that while it subscribes without reservation to the principle of keeping the community informed by policy and law it cannot allow public discussion of personnel matters nor can trustees comment on any current or pending litigation if a matter concerning an employee of the riverville public schools is of Interest or concern to a resident the matter should be referred to the respon responsible building principal or the superintendent of schools by telephone letter or email I'm going to open the meeting to public comment on agenda items only at approximately 7:09 p.m. um anybody want to a comment on agenda items okay seeing no one I'm closing it at 7:09 p.m. and I will now move to the superintendent report okay thank you good evening everybody uh so most of you know last week we were supposed to have a professional development day students were already off of school so they were probably actually bummed that they did not get a snow day um however the the teachers did uh we did have a lot of great things though planned for that day so that was the unfortunate thing we had some presenters that were traveling to us to do basically an AI Summit with our staff um they they actually had to cancel as well um from where they were coming from but we are already in the works with them and they're still going to come we just have to plan the day um so we'll still make sure we get some of that good learning I think it's really valuable for our teachers we've been do doing a lot of AI the last couple of years in this District we've been working with staff not not kids our population of kids right now are too young although they're probably using it themselves but we've been working with teachers on how to effectively use Ai and how it's and also how might it disrupt education and how do we have to be prepared for that so we're going to make sure that day still gets done um and the other thing I wanted to tell you guys is I've been talking about our midyear goal report that will be coming to you on Friday I was able to I wanted to finish it up last week but unfortunately I was uh sick so I was able to finish that up and I will send that to you guys on Friday what really good and I know it's a big report that you get but it's nice to see um not only where we are with our goals but like what are the structures we've built to make them happen and then what do we have to accomplish for the rest of the year so that we can make sure we get all of them so when I send it to you it's a lot take the time to kind of look through it we're doing a lot of great things and those are just our former goals um you know we have lots of other projects going on as well but those are sort of our big ones um and I'm I'm really pleased we've done a lot of work around the communication goal we've been doing a lot of and you've seen that with the principles have all that the new eblast that they've been sending out we've been looking we did a parent survey we've been taking that information in the fall from the parent survey I've been working with Tom oara and we've been talking about how are we you know what are we going to do for website you know changes and um so that's coming along really nice we've got a lot of educational goals right now we're in the thick of it we've got link it form we've done two forms already so now we really have to look at the progress that the kids are making and then what do we need to do for the rest of the year to get them there just today we had one of our Consultants Shelley Klein she was here today working with a group of teachers so we have a lot going on and those goals kind of will recap a little bit of that for you guys so I'll send that to you guys on Friday um other than that it's good to see everybody it's good to be back I wasn't here for the last meeting so um good to see you guys and thanks thank you uh Mrs Zito this board secretary report please okay thank you a reminder that the ethics forms need to be submitted to the state by April 30th please don't wait until the last minute if you need any assistance contact my office um Mr White Mrs Austin Mrs burwitz you are on tap for mandatory training so I think my assistant had reached out to you so just let us know if you'd like to do the self-paced or if you'd like to to take it in person um thank you to the buildings and grounds Mr Tracy and his maintenance and custodial staff while everybody was out on Monday they all were in and they were able to clean up all after all of the snow so we appreciate their time and effort we have our results from our every three years we have to test for lead in our water in our drinking fountains and I'm happy to report that the results were that there was no lead detected and if there was it was less than what the EPA sees as being a problem so we're in the clear that gets posted up on our website so that that's public knowledge in terms of the uh another item that we can cross off our list we were able to send out the W2s this past Friday so they're all out and that's up on our portal if if you're not familiar we have a a employee portal so everybody can go up into the portal and they can log in and they can pull their W2 down from there and that's available 247 um in terms of our 2526 budget at my last County meeting the county superintendent which was uh last Thursday I'm sorry last Wednesday he informed us that that there is going to be some tweaks to the budget software that um he is only being trained on on February 10th now we have to send and submit our budgets to the county office by March U sorry March 19th so again another challenge for us and we'll just take it and go in terms of the uh audit thank you to the finance committee to the board and really to everyone involved staff included because I know regulations rules are not always fun but everybody complies and that's why we continue as a team to have a clean audit one of the items that I will mention is that when you talk about good um financial status so in terms of our reserves we have a capital reserve which are for facilities projects in our longrange facility plan we have an emergency Reserve which can be used for um large increases in health benefits and or security type items and then we have a maintenance Reserve that's the three reserves we have the maintenance Reserve can only be utilized for items that are required to keep the buildings operated so it's not for custodial supplies it's for items like a roof a boiler those types of of items and the district oil it the cafra as it's called will be posted up on our website after tonight but I just wanted to share in terms of the healthy financial position that our um maintenance Reserve is at its Max right now which is at 7 159,000 give or take and our capital reserve is at 5.5 million and I know that there was a question that came up a couple meetings ago in terms of utilizing the capital reserve to renovate this building so as you can see we will be able to while we do we don't have the other new um footnote or um call it a assigned fund balance which is that we've carved out for a future purpose is that when we sold our bonds we were in a very positive state in terms of interest rates so our bond sale was at just shy of 2% at that time we were not earning any interest the interest rates were not very positive since then the interest rates have gone up and one of the regulations in terms of bond sales is you have a 24mon window in which you can earn interest and if it's above what your bond sale interest rate is you can keep those earnings but after that 24 month period if you have and there's a formula if you have earnings above the bond sales so we're going to use 2% I'm going to arbitrarily take you're earning 5% on your interest obviously you're up 3% you eventually have to pay back the IRS so because we have earned enough I should say we we've earned almost $750,000 in interest just this year they're going to do a calculation and most likely we are going to owe money back to the IRS so we took some of those interest earnings and had a conversation with the auditor and said hey so that we don't have to just take it out of a different budget let's put aside let's make another savings account for this Arbitrage refund so in speaking with the auditor we decided that $200,000 was a nice number to start to put away because we are going to have to pay back the IRS it's not going to be next year but it will be in the next 3 to four years so this way we're not taking away anything from that particular budget and if for whatever reason we are we comply with an exemption and we don't have to pay back the IRS that money goes back into our fund balance so it's really a reserve so that we are going to be cautious moving forward does anybody have any questions on that I know it's a concept that's not yeah do you think the 200,000 payment to the RS is that's going to be the number ballpark or is it 200 you're going to take out for the next couple years where it's going to increase there's a onetime savings for 3 four years that's just to start we have engaged with an Arbitrage specialist that is looking at our earnings and all the regulations and is going to do a formula and a projection so that this way we will know but to not start that process now when we did earn so much in interest would not be the best practice for the district so to answer your question it's a start and it could be three it could be another 100,000 next year but we want to wait until the Arbitrage specialist gets back to us with that so that's why we have them calculate that you're welcome anyone else will you update us once they back to you yes I will certainly present the report and uh other than that that's that's all I have to report thank you okay thank you um I will move on now to General resolutions G1 through G5 may I have a motion please I'll move G1 through G5 second please I'll second and discussion I see that Cheryl is the uh board legislative delegate which is very nice thank you Cheryl um um anything else do you want an alternate yes well we don't have an alternate is there anyone who was been thinking about it and if not uh you can get back to us but if you I'll volunteer well Lan is volunteering to be the alternate thank you um so we're all set on G4 um anything else no okay roll call vote please certainly Mrs Austin yes Mrs Pinelli yes Mrs assour yes Mrs Sande yes Mr White yes Mr rosini yes moving on to business resolutions B1 through b11 May I have a motion please for that I'll make a motion second please second and discussion I would just like to Echo Mrs pantelli's comments and Mrs Abo's comments um on the audit um that it's not every District that has no recommendations and no findings so um Kudos mrso and her staff on that yeah that's B S I was looking at that and I was thinking about it and and uh it really is an odd thing to have in the agenda I mean just the way it says it there are none there are none so um but there are none so that's the way it works uh anything else okay roll call vote please certainly Mr White yes Mrs assor yes Mrs Sande yes Mrs Austin yes Mrs Pinelli yes Mr rosini yes and moving to P1 through p8 uh motion please home motion second please I'll second and discussion one thing that you know jumps right out is P5 uh that Mr uh Pressa has put in his notice which um you know he seems like an institution to me he been here so long and um so that's uh regretful but um congratulatory to him good for him anything else okay roll call vote please certainly Mrs assor yes Mrs Austin yes Mrs Pinelli yes Mrs Sande yes Mr White yes Mr rosini yes um I am now going to open the meeting to public comments on General items um the same admonition that I read before with regard to agenda items also applies here is there anyone who would like to make a comment on General items nope okay I'll open it at uh 7:24 and close it at 7:24 and um old business anyone new business no okay are we going into closed session okay we're not going into closed session um so motion to adjourn anyone against anyone against I'll second okay and anyone against no okay thank you very much have a great night everybody