i'm sure Exactly today was the one day I didn't want to leave four or five games till now yeah yesterday tomorrow a nice nice you
I don't think it's a big deal you're not buying something i don't mind yeah I can so I don't know that you or I It is 6:30 and I will call the April regular meeting of the Saral St stevens
School Board to order thank you to all of our community members that are attending in person as well as online we appreciate your interest and engagement in our school district the expectation of our community is that all participants and attendees will conduct themselves professionally and with respect for other members of our community the first item on the agenda
is the pledge of 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 i will look for a motion to approve the
agenda so motion by Emily second by Chelsea any discussion hearing none all signify by All in favor signify by saying I i those oppos say
name motion carries then I will look for question if we have to ask for nominations at the start otherwise I'm fine i think we're supposed to call nominations
I guess so I will look for any other nominations i will look for any other nominations i will look for any other nominations then I can open the floor for any discussion
um I do I just have something related to this kind of you know regardless of how the vote results turn out i just had something from last week that I think is kind of pertinent to this conversation or in relation to it um how whoever and however the results
turn out tonight and going forward with the board chair position i had received a uh email from a city council member last week with a letter attached from the district and it was essentially um a
letter showing support for putting up a stoplight on Pine Cone and Seventh Street North which I knew nothing about um and the question to me in that email was "What do you know about this?" Basically you know what are your thoughts on this what do you know about this
unfortunately I had to say "I don't know anything about it." But I noticed it was signed by Dr and I talked to my co this last week and board chair Trisha Neing and so the assumption from the city council member was that this was a uh
you know something that a position the full board was in support of so when I said I didn't know anything about it it was just kind of like oh okay um and it was you know provided to the city council the letter was to weigh into their decision making because this is a proposal they'll vote on this month so
just regardless of how you know the votes go going forward doesn't matter but whoever is in the position of chair or acting chair I just think it's really important that if we're putting out correspondence if it's not something that has been discussed as a full board or not a position the full board is
taking it not be signed as board chair you know be board member whatever um but whoever is in the role of board chair I think that's where that responsibility of speaking on behalf of the board part comes in is that the assumption people in the public as if it's signed by the board chair in your capacity in that
role that it's a position that the whole board is behind in this situation I didn't have a position because I didn't even know what was going on so just you know going forward whoever is there making sure that that's not you know the signature that goes on there that's not
discussion that's just request any other discussion i mean I would agree because we should be either having the discussion or at least notified that
whoever is in that role okay uh we will start with um Jen so all those in favor of Jen Smith raise your hands three all those in favor of Christian kneeling okay we are still at a 33 i
will look for a motion to approve the consent agenda so second okay motion by Matt second by Jen all those in favor signify by saying I i those oppos say nay motion carries we'll move on to our reports and
our first report is um with Dr n coming up from Riverview all right um this month as we know Review uh was able to select our Saber staff star um we had a lot of people that were nominated for his position and
coming up to the top was Miss Amy Hagglin so I'm going to read to you what a colleague wrote about Amy i would like to nominate Amy for Saber staff because of her incredible work she's done this school year both in the classroom and with the launch of the Marina program on the one side of our building amy
consistently goes above and beyond to support her students she works tirelessly to ensure their needs are met even going as far as to complete math homework assignments ahead of time just to be fully prepared and confident in guiding them that level of dedication is truly inspiring amy is also exceptional
at building strong meaningful relationships with her students something that she continues to shine year after year her calm presence attention to detail and genuine care make a lasting impact on the lives of those she works with she brings valuable insight into what makes a great pair
professional and her commitment to excellent raises the bar for everyone around her we're so fortunate to have Amy supporting our students with such heart and professionalism and I would love to echo every single word that staff member said about this month's
saber star thank you so much so cool thank you then we will move on to our school board student representative report with Emily and Good evening um April has been a very fun month at our schools and as always we are very excited to share it
with all of you um starting at OLC preschool students have been learning about animals during the month of April which is always a favorite unit of study for our young learners they also celebrated bike week with each class enjoying time in the gym to ride trikes scooters and crazy coupe cars meanwhile
kindergarten students have been exploring colonial times in their CKLA knowledge units and learning about recycling and science they are especially excited to attend Souakov the musical at Sartell High School on Wednesday April 23rd and the school gives a big saber shout out to the
theater department for adding an extra show just for the kindergarteners the students also have um lots to look forward to in May as it will be packed with exciting activities including field trips music concerts the art show family night field day and end of year
celebrations at Pine Meadow the April music in our school's concerts were a huge success with all four evenings being standing room only as family and friends filled the gym first and second graders were beyond excited to showcase all they have learned this year in music looking ahead the annual student art
show is set for May 6th and students are working hard to finalize their pieces and showcase their artistic flare and are excited to welcome families back into the hallways at Pine Meadow additionally the entire school is eagerly anticipating the all school field trip to Sartell High School on April 25th to see the club musical
because there's nothing better than sabers celebrating with sabers riverview students are currently taking the MCAs and students in grades 3 four and five will complete the reading MCAs from April 22nd to 24th followed by the math MCAs from April 29th to May 1st fifth
graders will also take the science MCAs on May 6th and 7th and in addition to academic testing Riverview students recently showcased their talent in the Kids Speak Out event ri student council members proudly represented our school in the Optimist Speak Out contest where
they delivered heartfelt and inspiring speeches centered around the theme of optimism with confidence courage and excitement these young leaders spoke about optimism leadership and making a difference in their school and community representing Riverview with pride each
participant received a bookmark certificate and t-shirt which were generously funded by the Optimus Club of St cloud and the top three speakers were awarded a cash prize thanks Emily um over at the middle school we had severe weather awareness week so students and
staff discussed what we would do if severe weather happened during the school day there also was the adaptive music performance held on April 10th students did an incredible job and everybody seemed to love the show on the activity side there the uh middle school
students participated in Envirrothon on April 16th they had a fun day about um went with their students or science students excuse me exchanging information about the environment and swept first through third in that competition amongst their three teams so
we have a little startell sweep there and then the robotics team took fourth place and um at their competitions as well as a myriad of other spring sports have been getting rolling here and then as always teacher and student teachers and students are preparing for MCA
testing and thank you to all of them for their hard work it's been a busy time over at the high school we had our big annual funfest on April 11th which was quite the day of organized chaos for some i think I We made like a thousand
snow cones i should have counted actually quicker um but anyway we raised $5,500 for the United Way which was incredible um some more activities the spring musical as Emily talked about are on April 24th 25th and 26th 700 p.m
shows yeah and then on the Saturday show there's a 2 p.m yeah so mine on Saturday and some of our spring sports our knowledge bowl team took third in the state big shout out to them always doing well and then our Envirrothon team or our high school team is also headed to
state um in middle of May jv lacrosse won a shutout and our track team continues to excel in their programs um prom is coming up on May 3rd so students are quite excited about that something students are less excited
about is AP testing which is the first two weeks of May so those will be you know a lot of fun and then finally student council just wrapped up our mental health week which is one of my favorite events we bring in therapy dogs and provide resources for students it's
a really solid week of a little bit of less stress in this stressful time and a lot of this work we couldn't do without our four awesome school counselors at the high school all of them have had a tangible impact on our student body and I I can assure you that our school would not be as excellent as it is had we not
had So big shout out to them and everybody who's helped put on these great events at the high school and all our buildings really questions $5,000 for crushed ice well not just for
those think I know how we're going to fund our stadium okay then we'll move on to our superintendent report good evening school board members i'm going to read from my phone which I've never done i see the students doing this often but I kind of have two screens going at the same time um but I will
start out by saying I did visit the Funfest also and the line for the snow cones was around the corner um it came up during my interview with WJ Oen and the concern being uh that people were going to be getting bit by bees and everything else because he was thinking back to the old days of when the person
interviewing me would see those at county fairs and was very worried about our students and bees and I said "Start tell Stephen is always safe we had the snow cone machine inside no bees things that day." No um besides that I did have a few
other updates um have been fortunate to spend some time with Ecroth music recently across music's um leader right now as a Sartell St steven resident so we were had an opportunity to talk about the music programs um and some of legislative concerns that are coming up that might impact um some of those
things down the road as he was thinking about just the the business that Dr r does providing so many um instruments and things for districts across the state um our counseling staff and social workers had an opportunity to meet with the folks at Cartel Pediatrics and their
mental health department wonderful wonderful opportunity to spend some time talking about the services they provide ensuring that our collaborative efforts are continuing to improve and moving forward and helping students and families napac did have their meeting uh this
past month and did want to invite all school board members if you're interested NAPAC will be having a special graduation ceremony on May 17th Saturday at Sartell High School um for our American Indian students who are graduating it's a special ceremony if
you have never attended it's a very it's a very good thing to be able to see and be part of um and then afterwards there will be a lunch provided Sorry oh one o'clock thank
you and did have an opportunity to spend time with our Sartell all sports booster fundraiser at Blackberry Ridge a few Fridays ago um incredible support the number of people who came out that evening um in support of our athletics and activities it was fun to be with
neighbors and friends but also just to see the community coming together for our students last item i I tend to leave the enrollment update and just have it as part of the packet as an update about where we're at for the current school
year uh Joe has been working on some projections as we move into next year it is going to impact some of the discussions we're going to have a little bit later so I'm not sure if you're going to be able to turn your heads and see this i' I've gone over this with many of you already um but it does
highlight um where our grade levels are looking at as we go into the 2526 school year all of our grade levels are going up when you look at our cohorts from 2024 to 2025 um and we're expecting approximately enrollment of 3681 for our
kindergarten through 12th grade we naturally see a drop off so that our community is aware during some of those high school years um where we might see five to 10 kids um not continuing their enrollment Sartell St steven but for the most part as you look at the grade
levels as the cohort goes from first to second grade third to fourth grade our numbers tend to increase as we have students either join us from other schools um and move into our attendance area um or students who might be joining us from pro schools and our charter
schools so that's an update where we're staying within our class averages according to the board policy we'll have one or two that might be fluctuating with one or two sections being above but we also recognize that these are estimates as we go into 25 26 um my
concern and um happiness is that Joe's usually within about half of 1% of his estimate he's off by four or five kids out of 4,000 last year um so I'm very confident where those numbers are if anyone does have any questions about our
enrollment numbers as projected on the screen I'd welcome an opportunity to talk about just to clarify um the 18 to 22 program that's now going to be at Oakidge that doesn't really impact that will not impact those so when you're talking
about kids enrollment going elsewhere from high school it's usually like PSO or something you might lose some students to PSO you might have some students who choose to start homeschooling at that time for lots of varying reasons at other school districts we have alternative learning centers and ALC's and we do have a
partnership with the St cloud ALC where students may choose to go it's small numbers but it does happen online learning since since um 2020 has become a little more prevalent when students get to high school whether
it's for their full course load or not so I take some courses to go online with so it's not necessarily a PSO program it's not necessarily an alternative ALC program but it's just online learning through another public school so they can get it that way
instead of having to go which will impact our more of a trend there statewide too so maybe in the lead but if there's we have current talks of having online courses correct correct
how does that enrollment fair with our current enrollment doesn't have to because we would still those would be our students okay because we're not enrolling they're not rolling in a separate school okay and either way they would still be part of our school district so if you think
of a virtual if we were to open a virtual academy um per se and and be inviting people from other school districts to join us um which would involve our open policy would probably have to change a little bit too those would still be our students for state aid reasons yeah yeah it's more it's
more of a strategy to retain the students we have and keep them from doing online classes or something else which is part of you see less of a drop off as we get to 10 if I remember right from the case meeting we've seen uh I mean not a significant increase but definitely an
increase in PSO over the past two three years and in conjunction with that more online options being taken through other schools that offer them that the whole conversation was how can we retain as many of these as possible and do it well yes
other questions related to that's super we are doing the 2025 2026 FTE projections based on enrollments and registrations next to we'll kind of blend one sorry
u I do have the board financial report linked uh which shows um this does have what will be the revised budget after tonight hopefully um in in the budget column and so we've got a budget to actual reports in there for this year and last year and we are pretty much
within half a percent as far as our total funds um between this year and last year as far as our percentage of budget spent um across the board there so not a lot of concern as far as this year tracking
uh in terms of budget to actual overall we're in that stage there we're just timeline reminder um uh we've got an action item later that I'll I'll go through at the time um some of the changes to our revised budget for this year um so that's on this agenda we're
in the process and with some of the personnel changes that are on the agenda tonight um of formulating our We're just working on the the preliminary budget for next year and keeping in mind all of you know some of the potential legislative changes
kind of right now what we know about funding including in that budget and um looking at having a finance committee meeting either the last week of May or first week of June and then um having the preliminary budget for next year on
June I believe it's the 17th agenda June 16th or 17th agenda so we're tracking to be on board with that as That's about all I have for the district finance report um Mike has we we put together
the the next item which is just looking at our FTE projections for next year and this is what we're using to uh some of the assumptions we're using to base our fiscal 26 budget on so I would say if you want if you want to turn I've shared
this with board members but this is what we'll be speaking about for this next item so are we okay moving on to the next yeah sorry okay that's okay so we're we're each going to take a turn talking a little bit about the staffing process and what's happened over these last two months um but we've been
reviewing staffing making sure and ensuring that we're staying within not only fiscal responsible in terms of what we're making recommendations to the school board for um but that we're also identifying where our program needs are um watching enrollment which is why we
shared that a little bit earlier um so some of the things that you're going to see that we'll go through today is that we are expecting budget reductions in both elementary and secondary um the changes we'll minor in some places by a7
or 23 or 33 but they do all come together and are reflective of either the number of sections you may be seeing reduction at the elementary level um or in areas at the secondary level where we saw some needs for efficiencies that we
had to take a look at some of those were related to class sizes of some of those um sections in at the secondary others were just looking at the offerings that we So right now we're expecting an budget
reduction of 4.3 at the elementary level with primarily four sections to be decreased from grades one through five at the secondary level we're expecting the reduction of about 3.5 FTEEs and that's varied across
different content areas and I know we' asked a little bit earlier about our 18 to 22 program m that's an increase uh that's a budgetary increase or excuse me that's an increase that's going to be somewhat budget neutral because right now we do fund 18 to 22 programs through
BTS education district so we won't be sending that money out but I know Joe wanted to talk a little bit more about some of these areas in terms of the process that we go through with principles yeah kind of how we got here um was initially really looking starting with that enrollment that might show a
couple earlier and and then we look at that on a grade by grade level and and a section by section level say how many sections did you have this year how many how many based on our class size or polic class size ranges um how many
would we be looking at so really the first thing we do is once we project that enrollment out is apply that to K through five because those are um they're all kind of the same in terms of each you know it's a onetoone each each
child is with one kid for their home room and for their their core instruction the whole way through so K through five we look at that initially and we just plug in since we are all in one each grade level is in its own building we can just apply across that
building and look at um what will that mean for FPE needed at that section so in kindergarten we were exactly the same no change um we were looking at a reduction in uh first grade because we were going down by about 24 students
there so we are reducing an FTE um at the first grade level at the second grade level there was no change needed we were already at 11 teachers and and that put us in we're looking at a similar number um teachers for the following year and then um we're looking
at between third so third and fifth obviously is all in the intermediate school um we're looking at going down by two sections in third grade and fifth grade but then adding one back essentially moving in the fourth grade so between the within the intermediate
school um we'll have three less core teachers next year so between the intermediate school and first grade is where you see that negative4 uh grades one through five they're showing up um that honestly those were all
accomplished through retirements and a resignation from a teacher who's going looking to go elsewhere for next year so no non-renewals related to reducing those four FTEES as well as the.33 FIAD we um had a FIA teacher retiring who um
when we looked at our FIAD allocation throughout the district we were able to move uh with the number of sections that have gone down the last couple years at Pine Metal we were able to move the amount of FIA time teacher time down by a 33 and that teachers decided to come
back at a lower contract um so from the elementary standpoint that kind of took care of everything the secondary is always a little more difficult because you've got um you know everybody's got their own there's different leng areas
and um so sixth grade was seeing an increase in students by about 30 students um so we'll actually be adding a sixth grade section and then making some reductions from different areas within the high school and this was
really just a process kind of within the high school we've got in middle school we've got a lot of moving parts going on between all the different um departments that was really just a process of us three um myself Christa and Dr vard
sitting down with each principal individually to kind of get their take on where they thought they had an opportunity based on registration based on what their current staffing looks like um and then kind of going back and forth a couple times looking at class
registrations and student choice um and making some other changes so that's kind of at the secondary level it's a lot more difficult just because of the number of different departments and lures involved i don't know if you want to talk about that process at all as far as deciding sure um you can as you can
see there's a few full FTE reductions at the secondary level and those we can I can say are individuals that are that we are non-renewing tonight um most of them there's like Joe said um in accomplishing seven and a half FTE reduction we only have three
non-renewals um two of them are tier two one or two licensed teachers so only one tier three fully licensed um educator that is um being non-renewed um you will also see all of these small like 0.17s
um at the high school we can easily we have some part-time staff in a variety of areas and we've been very lucky that they're flexible with us in that they will take an additional we might need to offer one more block throughout the course of the year so instead of being a point um what would they be or two
blocks they go to 67 so we have a lot of flexibility there so that's where you see some of these strange numbers um you will also see that there's a reduction in general music um which overall we aren't I wouldn't say we're reducing any offerings it's really due to the fact
that the elementary levels we have less sections so our specialists um in music FIAD art and at the middle school um some STEM time they have more ability um to teach elsewhere either in another building well generally in another
building um so that's why we have the reduction in FIAD um we were able to um like Joe indicated hire back um a retired teacher to work part-time they will still be servicing a full day of classes but they won't move buildings to go help out in another space where some
of our other elementary educators may be moving in between buildings if they're in specialist areas Um so that.5 general music is actually um someone who was uh in a specialist area who had left us so we were it was a new hire we hired someone to teach 0.5
orchestra they are no long they are not teaching.5 of general music like that individual did last year because our elementary school educators in music can come up and help with that general music at the middle school so we're really not changing any programming with some of those reductions it's just a
reallocation of our resources yeah with three fewer sections overall at Riverview especially it opened up some space um and I'm just trying to think if there's any others uh there the one I just want to point out the science ad is
as Joe mentioned um we are we allocated an FTE to the middle school to account for that sixth section or not six the additional section of sixth grade um and in doing so one with science license lenture from
the high school went down to the middle school and we needed just again that a little bit more of science time and because we had a part-time individual we were able to add just that little portion so it's a it's a science ad but that's due to a a reallocation to
where our students are so that's the only kind of hope there are there any questions i was so this year we're spending a little bit more time on this than maybe what you've done in the past i'm not sure for me I recognize that um while we're looking at numbers these are people these are our people who care
about our kids each and every day um but to be fiscally responsible sometimes school districts have to make these decisions and these come before the board we want to make sure that you're hearing we're transparent about all these make these hard decisions but we recognize that these are the people that
are there for our kids and this is hard but as Chris said we're open to any questions that you may have want to steer away from anything related to performance of the teacher or anything like that so just to clarify the pluses that's not
we're we're not hiring moving them to cover yeah we're just adding a little bit of time to them so that.17 is an ad to an FTE so they're going from a.5 to a 67 no I just finds more of comment as someone who's passionate about mental
health and I just I you know losing someone as a counselor but also really appreciating how transparent the information you've provided us with so um just as being new in this position I think nor like outside of it I would have
looked at that and been like "Oh my gosh." And I had a lot of questions and concerns and while I still think it's unfortunate that we're facing these budget difficulties this year which are out of our control and have more to do with what's going on at the state um just
acknowledging that i really appreciate the information we've been given on the process and um I think that the principles have done a a very thorough job of assessing all of their options i know these aren't easy numbers to come by but again I just wanted to call
that so for our principles we spent about two months going back and forth working with them um at minimum two months so this is a process that does take time and a lot of hard work for them on the secondary level it's a lot to do with registrations and those types
of things but there's also just that decision we have to make based on fiscally where we're at i invite community members to please reach out to your local legislators or even just legislators that you may know across the state the session isn't done
yet we can utilize any increase to state aid along with any changes that would help school districts but especially Yeah Chelsea I agree too that from an outside perspective I think this is almost impossible to fully grasp but even from an inside perspective it's a
lot it's a lot of information but I think that especially now with the legislative climate and the things that have changed in the past two years I don't I don't know how well the public fully understands the impact that that's had on not just Sel St steven but school districts across Minnesota and it's a
large part of why you know we're having to make these decisions um and so I think it's really important for everybody to fully understand that and certainly get involved at the state level as much as you possibly can advocate because the changes that were made in 2023 have been pretty devastating financially to every
district not just us so so if I could just kind of follow up on Chelsea's comment I think it is important to point out the counselor loss of an FTE at the high school level because Um it's important to know the history too that I think we've only been
at four for a couple years now three years or four years three years yeah so it's going back to a level we used to be at it's not that we've been at three or four for two decades and now we're cutting it down but you know that said
it is going to be an impact one way or another absolutely provide incredible service yeah so this is where we as a board trust you as the administration to make the best decisions for us um we just
know and hope that they'll be as efficient as possible and continue effective for our kids because that is an important service i'm very appreciative of this district administrative team is also props to the whole team i
think the creativity trying to have this be as small as impact as possible to head count um there's a lot of work that goes into that as well with the numbers thank you for any other questions for us move on to the insurance broker report
so that is me um although Joe's here to answer questions as well get into numbers um as I think we've indicated to all of you uh we did a request for a proposal for our insurance our insurance line um lines for our our staff not our
property and casualty so all of our health life dental all those um types of products for our employees so we did a RFP for a broker we started that in February of this year we wanted to evaluate potential brokerage firms that can help us with our benefit plans as
you've all heard from our staff our insurance costs continue to go up um and we it's also been five years so we felt it was just a good time um to go out again for an RFP to see what else was out there um with brokerage firms we
sent out the RFP to six firms that we knew who had either called on us for business um was we had currently or for we've worked with or that we knew of kind of in our profession as go-to firms for school districts um we received
responses from all of them and after we reviewed all the proposals we selected three of them for interviews as finalists and um the really what it came down to because they all provide provided in the RFP process the written process very similar
um kind of boilerplate um responses was who had worked with school districts of our size not just very small districts but people who worked with groups that were similar to us um so we interviewed the Joe and myself and um a
representative of the Sartell Education Association Insurance Committee and a member of the principal association who's also on our insurance committee sat in on those interviews with us um we after conducting those interviews we had a discussion following the interviews as
to uh the strengths and weaknesses of each of the brokerage firms uh the fees for the services range from about 45,000 or from 45,000 to $60,000 annually and currently we were paying approximately just shy of $53,000 per year when
considering all the revenue streams to our current broker so um they were all in the same ballpark following those interviews Joe and I embarked on a call to our to all of the um listed references and then also some unlisted references uh for people that we knew
who worked with them again we everyone found it great um so we circled back with our team and um initially I think Joe and I thought well let's just go with the lowest cost option and um in talking with our team a bit more uh they pushed back on us a little bit on that
that's great but is that going to be more of the status quo um so ultimately the team agreed to going with um USI as our insurance broker they stood out to us as the best as the firm best positioned to meet our district's needs uh most importantly we think they have
strong negotiating power with insurance carriers and presented um really proactive and innovative strategies on how best to reduce our claims so um we know that high claims are issue and they came up with ideas that number one we hadn't really heard of and that they we
know they have the resources to we think follow through on them i mean obviously nothing is a given um additionally they have some really great reporting capabilities as a self-insured plan they are able to help us monitor more monthtomonth than our current um broker
was able to do um so we think that will be a value ad to us and they provide some additional services that we haven't seen before um it's now called population health formerly known as wellness initiatives and they um have a pharmacy consultant and those two things were not offered by the other firms so
we're hopeful that some of those more um proactive strategies along with some of the reactive things we can do will really situate us um for some long-term success with USI again although their fee is a bit higher than the other uh fees we think that um their strategies
moving forward will save us money in the long run on our insurance plans but um because we didn't just take the lowest cost option we felt like we needed to give you kind of a comprehensible overview of what that looked like um because it wasn't what everyone you know people might just look at them and say go with the cheapest but we really thought that the
long-term cost benefit will be with us is there any questions or is there anything I missed yeah well the only thing is going to mention you know maybe their best reference was the city of Oh yes was using them already and they're doing some things within their programs
that we thought you know down the road would be good value ads for our members right now i think you know we keep seeing premiums go up and up and those are mostly related to you know your high claimments and while you want everybody
to experience lower costs um what we're seeing in our group is you know as with many is some high claimments that are are going to be very difficult to avoid um driving a lot of cost of our plan so what can we do for everybody else that's
on the plan that who see their premium go up that can provide value to them as an insurance holder um some things like you know ondemand care virtual care that's free or very low low cost um some
programs where you can get some very free or lowcost prescriptions um through some of those um programs that they have so they just thought they they had some good uh partnerships and some good um strategies in place for kind of our
whole population and not just looking at just our high our high claims yeah and they actually had um some strategies that they put in that have drawn people back onto their plan which is also would be great you know more warm people on
the plan more uh revenue we have coming in to support those there's there's lots of good that we heard about them and yes Sartell was a go so as we move forward knowing that we're stewards of the taxpayers we recognize
this possibility of providing still great services to our employees but also having different options available to us so administratively this is the direction we'd like to move forward onvious obviously a voting matter per se but we also recognize that by not going to lowest
bid level transparency we want clear administrative decisions that make but we're open to questions what if the teacher wants to opt out of the insurance and go on the husband's
plan is there any kind of bonus or incentive to do that we currently have that it's um it's called complete the company we go through is catalyzed health catalyzed health and it's um called complete care and yes that is an option but the amount that the person
would get reimbured is dependent on the spouse's insurance and that's all calculated by the company catalyze health so it's a complex calculation we would we could pay up to the amount that we would pay for insurance for our employees but we don't do those
calculations it's all done by the So we're also we're also like as of for making this change we're not necessarily Yeah we're not changing anything we're doing as as far as our actual policy or plan it's really hiring a consultant to
go through that process of you know when we of getting quotes from carriers comparing the networks there comparing how they can what they can provide for our policy where those premiums should land so those type of strategies we're not we're not into the weeds of yet but
this we're we're confident they'll be a really good they've got some really good analytical tools in place to show us like wow if you could get you know to kind of steer us towards what are some of those strategies that would be good for our employees and our plan and none of our so this brokerage agreement will
start July 1 and all of our plans renew January 1 so they will come into place and mid year and help us get prepared for our next round of open enrollment so nothing will change for our employees from July to January we'll just work on
what's next year looks like sorry I should have maybe made that clear before how long is our contract with USI then um if we're going to go into place July 1 how long are we contracting i haven't we haven't seen a contract yet we were planning on a two-year contract is what
we were planning on so we could see what changes one year would not be enough for us to see what they could do for us long term because they're going to be coming in kind of late to the game um in their eyes for our renewal in January starting July one they're going to have to get up to speed and a minimum
of two years is really needed to see what we can do especially we'd also like to get that feedback employees based on and what we've seen in the past is anywhere from what we've gotten requests for threeear contracts in the past broker so two to three years is
pretty typical so what's the difference between this company's fee and the lowest cost option $15,000 and how much is their fee $60,000 and you said we're currently at 53 yeah
so it's a $7,000 increase over what we were paying last year any other questions for the team thank you okay we'll move on to our committee reports and Matt do you have an update
for sure um we had a I guess I'll call a special meeting because it was in addition to our regular meeting in March talking about facilities with that Sterns board um we
are unfortunately no closer to finding a place than when we first started this process um Bozer at Adventure gave a pretty long talk at our last regular meeting um kind of summarizing the
efforts thus far um we have looked or inquired to at least a half dozen properties um a couple I can mention would be the old crafts direct building which got acquired by a different education
organization um the old Burlington coat factory next to Costco um which the owner was not interested in doing the type of lease that we would need in the end um look at Solid Rock Church over by the old paper mill they are choosing to
continue on with their operations instead of selling the building uh we looked at the old what was it called the old Persian club on St off 33rd which I actually got to tour um side note that looked like a really cool
place back in the day you could just kind of picture what it used to be like bone age myself yeah no I Well that's Yeah that's before I moved to town anyway but uh yeah that was that was a really quirky but unique property um and it was our best option
unfortunately it just isn't quite big enough they wouldn't be able to the architects took a look at it they wouldn't be able to quite fit in the number of classrooms we would need and it was going to be a really kind of goofy project where we'd have the main building get renovated and then they'd have to build kind of a satellite
gymnasium slash now under the new zoning requirements storm shelter so there would have been a big box brand new building next to the old Persian club on the same property so would ended up looking a little peace meal but it could have worked if the main property was big enough which is not and the other
problem is it would not have fit our office staff from the facility on second so um knowing what we know about projects that maybe aren't getting done all at once um we didn't want to take the chance of moving to that place and then having the main building just be
stuck so long so we are still looking doug Bozer is still helping us but we're kind of back to square one we might have to go down the road of a RFP just try to get any property owners or landlords the
weeds and maybe Doug and his team haven't been able to fall out of the weeds themselves so hopefully I'll have more and better news coming up but um one piece of good news we have uh three students from our Sartell district are
graduating from that what they call New Frontiers new Frontiers which is their 18 to 22 program so that graduation will be in May i'm hoping to attend artists too um that sounds like a really great
event because they get all the ages of kids in from Bed programs to take part in this event so there's a lot of support there for these kids and so the families are there to to enjoy it may 29th Rapids Government
Center 1 p.m the other thing we're obviously in our same budgeting cycle as we have here so at our last meeting in April here we our preliminary budget for next year um we got a report that all the redact
training for this year was complete um they are also in a negotiations year with their licensed staff so they just got their notice of intent to negotiate like we got ours so that will be starting soon i'm not on the committee so I'll just be getting reports from the
committee um yeah that's all I have for they looked at electrolux building uh it has not been brought to us as a even an option so I don't know what its
availability is well it's it's 900,000 square feet obviously much they can piece it together though they actually have different companies that have moved in but there's like office So just my initial reaction to that is
um we're looking kind of for unique types of properties that's why the the old Persian club was so good is we need a certain amount of green space for the kids to have their playground and get outside recreation time i don't know the Electrolux facility that well so I don't know if that would be possible but um
you know even like the I mentioned the Burlington factory which is kind of a big box store there was maybe enough space behind it between there and the Miller Marine whatever it is we could build something out yeah that that kind of stuff kind of limits us but well they do
have green space at Electrolux in the front and it's all fenced off security gates that's important yeah as far as shelters there's a lot of like where they used to have hydraulic lifts they're sunk into the ground and stuff so I mean it's a
lot of potential sorry about that thank you okay Scott do you have you had a career in tech no um I did see on remember where that they're having their uh their signing day again so if you can make sure that
you let us know what the signing day they did that career pathway signing day last year in the spring i will get that okay just uh otherwise communication and technology maybe we have
community we also finance and personnel okay legislative network and schools advocating for fair funding yes we had one um kind of my biggest takeaways and then Matt if you want to jump in or
regard a lot of the funding like we were talking about that or the budgetary deficits that school districts are facing are not because of mismanaging money as much as mandates that are being put on the school and not enough funding
to take care of that um one of the things that they talked about was the the free lunches for all uh kind of hitting districts pretty hard um and another thing that I had taken away was it's time to have very real and
honest conversations and really looking at things um from a cost savings perspective because we just don't know where the legislature is going to go with financing so that's kind of what my takeaways were
um yeah we had So that meeting was Friday April 11th um at that point in time seemed like almost everything that was being talked about as far as education finance was still in committee nothing the legislaturator is moving
slow we'll just put it that way this year especially um so everything is kind of a half-hearted answer we had two state reps there we have GOP rep Ben Bake from Jordan and
DFL rep Carrie Raywower who just started she's in her first term as of January from Did she say okay um so we had reps from both sides of the aisle um a lot of the answers were just don't know still
in committee um I guess you know I don't disagree with anything Jen said my biggest takeaway was more um where our organization staff fits into this i mean I've talked a lot about how we're there advocating for the equalization dollars
that have fallen off the formula that hasn't kept up and how that impacts districts like ours and what our tax base looks like in similar districts across the state the thing I really noticed is you know and I get it probably twothirds of the room there are superintendents the rest of our board members everybody's gets fired up this time of year when it comes to
legislation um and we had two legislator right in front of us so we had their ear but a lot of the questions to me were getting off on tangents from that main goal of finance equalization for districts like us because what really shown through to me was that's the
common thread of the member districts in that organization and once we started talking about different issues that went away from that we really saw some conflict even amongst our district me or our membership because there's people from all different parts of the state that are part of this so there's going
to be a lot of different political opinions in that so um I even tried to ask a question of each of them to get them back to the issue of equalization and there unfortunately there wasn't much to grasp onto it's just well it's being looked
at do you have any more details no so um so I guess I'm personally I'm hoping we can get back to that i gave Mike this feedback already i think he was going to bring it back to the group but that that to me was the import is that we need a
group like that that can butt heads when you're talking about all kinds of different issues really needs to stay focused on their core issue and their core mission because that would really impact every one of our taxpayers if we could actually make some ground in this
equalization formula financing um each of our taxpayers would see their property tax tick down and down because more aid would come from the state like it used to and it's really gone down i mean somebody put some together it would be pretty eye opening I think
so but um that said um Dr lard and I also went down to St paul one time since we had our last regular meeting here um we met with some more representatives um talked about the issues of the day that day I think was a day where a lot of
them were pretty distracted that was the day that there was a state senator who had some criminal charges announced against them so there was a lot of legislators looking at their phones and being really distracted but um we still nevertheless trudged on so we met with
Senator How who was our senator here um in this area and in the same room at that time Senator Jazinski from area and Senator Dreheim from Cleveland um so we had a good long chat with them we met a
second time representative O'Drisco from the house who's our representative here and also met um with a rep from Northfield and New Craig because one of our group members was in the new district superintendent um so that was
representative Purcell House member representing that area um they seem to understand our issue they I mean this is not the first time they've heard it so at this point it's a question of priority and motivation for them so it's really important again going back to our
core mission in this group that we just stay laser focused on that don't let them forget about it because everybody in the room they get it maybe they've got different ideas as they're brainstorming approaches to it but one of the main questions I got back in response half the time I think was well
why hasn't somebody done something about this in the last five 10 years why hasn't it happened and one thing we're always told and I think it I see it ring true as we go down there more often is that nobody's taking ownership of this legislative side people look at
this and some people say "Well that's education finance." And some people say "No that's taxation." So those two committees point the finger this way at each other so I think as a group we're going to hopefully come up with some new strategies because we've now got to the point where people are educated about it
i don't think that needs to be the focus more I think now is how can we check sorry yeah go ahead were those representatives uh that you guys met with on any of the committees that the policy committee and the finance
committee so would have impact all those leaders oh yeah sorry I forgot to mention yes we spoke with speaker of the house and then one other one was the finance committee college
um yeah so the two that were at our last meeting Ray Rrower and Baker they're both on education finance committ i think my my take away from this is I don't think we get a lot of feedback saying that equalization aid is a poor decision from from either side of the
political aisle um I think they look at other things as being more important possibly for education funding so staying zeroed in This part about equalization aid as a group of 41 school districts is really important because we can't get lost in the other areas the
other areas are very important too for education but I think the impact equalization can have on districts like us and many other districts is important to try to stay focused on sometimes that's difficult to do when they have so many other things going through their head but we appreciate the time they
gave us right absolutely do you remember did we I say we I mean staff did they grow was there a couple districts that have now added we've added four school districts as we read 37 last year
okay so in these meetings with the reps this is all for or through staff these meetings have been set up on behalf of Yeah so Kim Springer who is our executive director well not executive director I guess i don't know her title
we we went away away from having an executive director to now Kim does our administration and she's basically Yeah she's our manager she's basically our only paid employee and now instead of having an executive director like Brad who came
and talked to us a while back we've hired out to essentially a lobbying firm we've got two okay gentlemen go around to those visits with us to come to our meetings i guess my my question is And I don't know if this is
where things get so in the weeds but the equalization aid that is the goal and purpose of SAP and so when we're there on behalf of you know that group yes that should be our topic of conversation gets difficult in this political climate though because there's been so many recent mandates gone through the
legislature that while you have them in front of you those are you know even just a repeal one of them would have such an impact that it's like you want to have I think there's that motivation to have that immediate um gratification conversation like there are things that
have been placed on us within the past two years that should have probably never been and so yes the equalization a what this organization is all and what we are advocating for when you have them in front of you it's difficult to be like but also right yeah and I should
give a caveat some of the time when we were in our last meeting when other issues were raised it was for that exact purpose right you know you'd save x00 million if you got rid of this you know x y or z so in that context yeah it makes sense because you have to fund
equalization formulas cost the state money they're updating them because there's more state going out you have find a way to fund that so yeah cutting other programs is one option for doing that and it was brought up in that way but then the ball keeps rolling you need to get off track i mean that's kind of
the nature of it so um and this is where I see people can all of us individually can advocate people listening home i mean you know these people are approachable i've met with our reps I don't know how many times you know they'll have a conversation with anybody about anything um I think the more
people advocating for those more immediate gratification topics and issues the better because that's having a large impact and part of the reason part of the reason why we're having to make difficult decisions like we are not that equalization isn't playing into that but for that immediate
gratification all of us should probably be taking the stance with our local legislators on this um not through an organization but just on behalf of our school district so yeah that would be very impactful so if anybody comes to any board member or you hear of anybody
who wants to say what can I do to get my property taxes to decrease if they've gone up too much lately our way myself we can tell them educate on them on this issue just enough to make them
dangerous legislation stop and think while something might sound really great and shiny and beautiful it usually comes with a price tag so and in this it's affecting our staff and our students so and I think part of the
challenge anyway that you when you bring it up that way is very accurate because I think of when we went down with Minnesota School Board Association and Massa um it was kind of a wider spectrum of things that we were going to talk about and and those were impacting during our conversations but when it comes to the
SAP conversations we also want to make sure we're continuing to have equalization be kind of the paramount thing that we're talking about so it does sometimes matter who you're down there with right right and it shouldn't necessarily but that's kind of the nature of politics
that's why I say when you're with staff they're on their behalf that should be what you're advocating for because that's that's our participation in that group but as an individual or if you want to you know have a conversation with a rep about all of the other things do it i mean there's basically politics is
motivation you know what they want to know what is going help them stay in their seat um and and get reelected and if they know they don't have support on uh some of the decisions that have been made the more people that voice that
typically the more that moves so on all of the other topics the equalization of staff there is I think we have one more meeting in May so we have our comprehensive achievement
and civic readiness um okay so lot of time spent talking about letters letters training um which we have made a lot of headway on it sounds like we've had 140 teachers have
completed volume one I believe um which included all K through five special ed six through 12 interventionist speech therapists and elementary principles I'm hoping that I got all of the cohorts there um all early childhood is fully
completed with their letters training volume two for that group will be completed by the end of next school year um and it has been extremely helpful having uh director and and a few others
they were trained as facilitators so we as a district have to coordinate with the state offer trainings so we've been able to kind of schedule with some flexibility to be able to uh knock out some of these phases faster
um Genad 6 through 12 has started their first of four phases they're using a different correct me if I'm wrong they're using a different training it's carry all or not letters it's similar to letters 80 hours of training required more geared toward older readers um and
paras I believe we found out late later on the state made everybody aware they need eight hours of language training so 40 of our paras are being trained through a pilot program we were accepted into wagon was ahead of the game on getting us uh considered for that so
that was great um talked about amplify CKLA implementation has now happened in all K through five classrooms and there were staff members there and um I think there was interventions
anyways people there just talking about how successful it's been um but glad that they did not implement try to do a full implementation the first year that it was phased in with the four classrooms in each grade level the first year and then move to full implementation this year so that has
happened um we have had site visits from outside districts including St cloud Rockford the Corey and DO to see how we've been implementing and how it's been working um and just kind of helping other districts maybe develop their road map on that because we are somewhat
ahead of the game on our implementation of our reading curriculum for the read act um reading goals we talked about reading goals there was a lot of a lot of statistics there which I did not include all of that in my notes but essentially um we discussed each
building's reading specific goals that were set in the fall to be met by spring for both lowrisk and moderate or high-risisk groups um and the takeaway was almost every building had met or exceeded their goals at the time of the case meeting so um things were already
essentially going you know they've met their goals or they're exceeding their goals so going really well there um proficiency scales i don't know how deeply we got into this because we were kind of cruising through the end of the meeting but just talking about what do students need to show to measure proficiency and
creating a uniform measure measure for that um Chelsea this is where I don't think I had a whole lot for notes do you have more no you I think covered on all the things that I've had really again just wanted
to reiterate the amazing work that Megan's done to be able to get us into the pilot group for the paras for having gone through the training herself so her and our instructional um staff can train um our the rest of our staff on this
which u allows us to move into the phase two like Emily said um so actual the Minnesota Department of Education is delaying phase two but we are um we are we have a proposal with them
to allow us to proceed with phase two next year and we're able to do that because of the training that our staff has gone through um and again just reiterating like some of the comments that I wrote down of hearing teachers and administration um talk about the work that's been going
on with letters carry all um CKLA uh just that we knocked it out of the park when it comes to how it was implemented with the early adopters program um just really a lot of excitement
over seeing how this has been able to help pair together um you know kind of the technical part of it but also then like the philosophy behind it as well and just that it's been a game game changer
um was a grade three through five teacher so just what started out as it sounds like was a bit of overwhelm and and a lot of information to take in um that teachers and admin are it sounds really excited over the results that
they've seen from it but that's been a a lot of hard work that has gone into that which was really inspiring i think you mentioned that the they were glad that they didn't roll it out all in one year is that mainly because that first teacher in each each
grade level that's done it is now such a good resource or what yes essentially they've been able to help uh well two things yes they've been able to help train new teachers as they implement this year but also the students who went through it in those early adopter
classes you have four classrooms at each grade level now full of students who are already embedded in it so it makes that next year for that new teacher these students are already familiar with this process because they did it the year before so you do have quite a few students who participated that don't
have to go through that initial bumpy phase of learning this now so this new way they've taken those initial sections and now the next year those students have fanned out to the other classes right yep yeah and they also said it allowed them to work out kinks was there
no we're working on setting the next one up and facilities we have next week and then policy yes um I'll go over the ones that we looked
at we looked at policy 417 that's coming to us um as a revision with three readings that are needed 425 also is a review or as a revise with three readings needed we tabled policy
503 which has to do with student attendance um because we were going to discuss a little bit more questions that we had and just clarifying a couple things um 505 is revised with three
readings um 507 we revised but it's only legal changes so we just have to do the one reading uh 508 we just reviewed it and 203.1 we tabled um Matt this is the one
that you proposed ideas for it has to do with the schoolboard procedures so we wanted to make sure that we were able to give that enough time we didn't have time that night so what number was that 203.11 rules of
order our next meeting is in June last but not least we have seen um I now have all three dates for their summer truck or tunes and trucks gathering um June 10th i guess I should explain this
is outdoor music um food trucks just gatherings in the evening at Sartell Community Center uh for all ages not just senior connection um so June 10th is a car show night July 15th and August 12th are the other two
nights for this summer um there is a fundraiser that benefits both the Sartell Historical Society and Sartell Senior Connection April 26 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m that's this Saturday um that is
the same day as the puzzle contest if you're there for that registration is closed so you missed out on the puzzle contest if you haven't signed up um what is the fundraiser oh I'm sorry uh yeah they call it market so it's selling
um home decor homemade crafts cards says here's something for everyone so basically a craft sale and did you just say the August one time august 12th so before we move on um I did attend Oh sorry go ahead oh yeah go ahead because
I You do yours but I also have school oh that's what I was going to lead into um I did attend the Minnesota State High School League uh board meeting or a large chunk of it i was there for three and a half hours finally had to leave because I wasn't planning on it being an
all day thing um they are they passed their bylaws series 200 300 and 400 so that will be moving to the rep assembly matt I think is that yours
you're part of the rep assembly correct uh no the rep assembly is the one where we as a region administrative committee only send one or two people to the rep right correct okay well those bylaws are
moving to the rep assembly um they wanted to rep assembly that's I mean it's probably an athletic director from district is able to send two to three people down to assembly 16 different
regions because you have eight and district one person I thought it was two yeah I don't I don't recall at the moment but it's a very well it's they report back to us on that I just don't recall if
it's one or two because if it was two like you said then there'd be 32 members down there um one of the things that they wanted to draw attention to was bylaws 208 Um it is now going to be Minnesota State
High School League versus non Minnesota State High School League participation versus Before it was Minnesota State High School League and non schools um which is not accurate you're just either a member or you're not um they talked about digging into their constitution
more regularly so they can clarify some operations and do some reviewing that way and the other I mean there was a lot of things that they talked about in that three and a half hours but um also to rely on the online handbooks and
policies because as soon as they print the hard copies it's like everything else it's pretty much obsolete or there's already changes being made so um if you're looking for anything I would go online and look at
their handbooks and policies that way the other thing that they discussed um and went through in great detail was how they do section placements and balancing the sections so placements are done
every two years and every six years they basically scratch the whole thing and start over making sure that things are even and they have a whole map it's very interactive you can click on two points it'll make sure it draws a line we spent a lot of time doing that
what did you want to add yeah I was just going to say my next um region committee meeting is this Wednesday morning so I'll be heading up to that that's in Alexandria um I was just looking at the agenda for the first time before we sat down for the meeting tonight it looks
like mostly just administrative stuff so we're going to talk about the new section alignments and what planning has to go on for that to create the new section tournaments and locations now different numbers um we can do a fiveyear winter tournament comparison so
we'll get the all the reports on the winter sports section tournaments especially that that we've posted um arts updates spring looking ahead to spring tournaments
um our region secretary is going to have evaluation Yeah some of this other stuff I'm not even aware of enough to just explain it when we get there so yep and then we host the summer
meeting July 16th and then we start a new after that next school year i will report what happens at the meeting when we meet next anyone else have any Okay then we'll move on to our action
items i'll look for a motion to approve the resolution accepting donations and actually before I looked at Scott I believe it was you somebody else can so I'll look for a motion to approve
second motion by Jen second by Emily discussion uh yes just want to recognize again our generous community and the donations that we've received the grants at Mulligans donated $60 to Sartell High School for the fun silent auction wells
Fargo on behalf of Scott Kenning donated $500 to Sartell High School boys tennis saber All Sports Booster Club donated to Sartell High School softball softball apparel in the amount of $2,63848 magnify Financial donated $250
to Sartell High School Saber Robotics glt Architects donated $500 to uh Sartell High School Saber Robotics central Minnesota Manufacturers Association donated $750 to Sartell High School Saber Robotics sartell Saber
Dance Team Booster Club donated $1,254 to Sartell High School for a dance strength coach magnify Financial again for $250 to Sartell High School DECA program sartell All Sport Booster Club
had a donation of $7,25523 to Sartell High School for the Cross Apparel saber All Sport Booster Club again donated $247.80 to Sardal High School for softball travel tops and then the
Minnesota Vikings Foundation with a very generous donation of $10,000 to community education for girls flight football program so again fantastic support from our community any other discussion
all those in favor signify by saying I those opposed say nay motion carries i will look for a motion to approve the resolution for non-renewals of employment second motion by Matt second by Chelsea
any discussion um not I guess a clarifying question it looks like the vote is listed out by board member at the bottom are we doing a roll call please i think it's just listed like that do we I don't know that we broke in
the past okay i don't think we have to roll that any other discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I those opposed say nay motion carries we'll look for a motion to
approve the revised 2024 2025 budget so moved second motion by Chelsea second by Jen any discussion i'm just going to kind of go through some of the items that are attached to the agenda and take time for
questions um so our uh our revised budget for approval is attach um again the process was this was approved originally um back in June of 24 um we go through and obviously go through the
audit of the previous fiscal year um in the fall present those findings then and then we take the fall and winter to basically evaluate um where do our normal projections look at compared to where we were last spring where um what
does our staffing you know have we had to make changes to adjust for some certain things and then we kind of look at everything else too you know where utilities were where we were sub costs where we're at for um kind of all all that different stuff is there anything
unexpected that's come up um so we met as a finance and personnel committee on February 14th I believe and uh discussed a lot of the same information um some has changed a little bit since then but
nothing drastic uh compared to what we did there um so I'm going to walk you through some of the documents um and then I'll kind of come back to the front budget page to kind of wrap it up but um the the big things we look at as far as potential changes are enrollment and
staffing and there's a page that shows our our revised budget and our preliminary projected uh APU by students you know an APU is um adjusted pupil unit so that takes into effect that an
APU is 1.0 the student that is um enrolled in our district for the entire school year um if they're K through six that's one and if a student is a 7th through 12th grader that's worth 1.2 in
terms of funding so one student equals 1 two APUs on the secondary level for a funding perspective so our APU change um from last year's preliminary budget to this revised budget is four APUs um and it's kind of up and down
throughout the system a little bit uh in terms of where those came from mostly though they came at the high school level and it was kind of that increase in the PSU that we talked about overall um a little more than we expected so um the total impact on that fortunately
isn't huge um on the basic gened formula is about $30,000 there are some things that are attached to that that um that fluctuate in the budget as well um so we did take all those into account with the revised budget but as far as a basic
gened formula it wasn't off by a whole lot because of our enrollment um the next thing just looking at staffing I attached a certified staffing and Paris staffing FTE these are our largest groups of employees um and last year
when we looked at this we were way up on our par staffing from one year to another if you look at the um revi you know kind of the middle of this page where you look at prelim 23 to revised 24 in the in the bottom section we were
up 13 paras at this time last year compared to the beginning of the school year what we had projected we then went we made uh when we made budget adjustments last year we reduced 17 parent positions and we've pretty much held the course on that we've added one overall throughout the system there's
been some we've reduced some dropped and there's been some you know turnover here and there between buildings but overall we're up one parah compared to where we were at the beginning of the school year and then as for the certified teaching staff as well we're within a half of FTE
and um I believe that was you know as related to special ed uh between buildings you know our biggest ad was at the early childhood level and then um we had some changes in assignments between buildings um that just kind of followed the students from where we were
projected last summer to where we're at now so really our staffing holding firm um has led to a lot of stability in our budget for throughout the course of this fiscal year um as compared to what at some other previous years we've um
looked at where we've had to react and add a lot throughout the school year we've been very intentionable intentional about being careful about adding support staff uh this year um overall our total general fund budget
there's a spreadsheet that it might be sideways on here i don't ever rotate that at all if you got a paper copy it's probably easier to see um but overall this this sheet kind of works from top down and the general fund total budget is at the top and we're looking at
having 27 or 57.3 million in revenue um 59.8 in expenditures but those are offset by just over $2 million in other financing sources that other financing source was there at the beginning of the year too that's not a change from the
preliminary budget that was the lease um the Apple lease for our Apple refresh of devices um so we had a large uh iPad um laptop refresh that took place we
financed it with um this lease activity plus we also had about a million dollars in emergency connectivity funding or rate from the federal government and um sold back some old devices as well so
that's kind of I wouldn't say a not a one-time thing it occurs about every four or five four years but it's um it won't impact next year's budget we'll have we won't have that piece coming in we'll just have the least payment that will will be due for the second year now
um overall though revenues have gone up by um about $460,000 since the beginning uh since the premium budget and expenditures have gone up by about $329,000 um so a net a net positive
there um as far as our our increases go mostly looking at a couple of things the state special ed aid and the tuition some of that tuition is related to that um they had increased the cross subsidy aid two years ago and last year when we
put the budget together we had factors in factored in some of that but we didn't really have the final amounts of what that would be based on what our that always legs behind a previous year expenditure so this year's revenue for state special ed is based on what we
spent last year um so it's kind of based in our spending and it's also dependent on which of our students enroll into other programs that we have to pay tuition to or if they're open enrolled to other districts and they're on an IEP
we pay a share of that tuition billing so that can fluctuate um quite a bit from one year to the next and when we got our um you know our calculation for this year's special edum is now much clearer than it was a year ago um
overall we're looking at you know the net difference between the increase in that and a and a decrease in medical assistance billing is about a $350,000 increase total um so a budget positive for us this year sometimes that can go the other way we usually
conservative enough in our budgeting to try to not let that go the other way by very much um so this is a positive increase um uh for us we also had donations in total and other other activities related increases based on
you know student participation and things like that increased the budget by about $97,000 as I mentioned GenEd aid went down by um a little over $30,000 and then our in interest income revenue is going down by about $50,000 as well just
the difference in interest rates and investable funds basically on the revenue side um on the expenditure side we went up by about 329,000 there's really no like I explained earlier um significant change in the amount of staff we had both on
the certified and non-certified side um we did settle a contract where with the pair professionals union that was included that so that the the new the updated numbers are in the updated budget and we did settle within our budgeted aotment for that so that there
was no negative impact to our budget for that um the cost of substitute teachers is going up by about 85,000 in the revised budget as we looked at trend so far we're looking at what we had budgeted wasn't going to be enough to cover um and then some tuition for some
special ed students and some other students that are placed in other um educational settings is going to increase by about 75,000 uh activities and athletics are also going up by about 70,000 you heard how we increased some of the
participation and some of the donations in there we also have some some of those a lot of those donations are specific to things we're going to purchase and also when we get increased participation there's also increased coaching costs increased transportation sometimes those types of things um so activities had
some additions on both sides our operating capital expenditures increased by about 117,000 we did we are replacing three large lawn tractors where we're um trading in three old ones that have
been giving us problems um and uh also installing a golf simulator that was part of the donations that were kind of received on the activity side so our overall projected deficit for this year in the general fund is a loss of about
$434,000 our original budget last year was a loss of 571,000 um so a slight improvement on the revised budget um some of these are going to impact some of our reserves and not necessarily our unassigned fund
balance but the um total decrease to the unassigned fund balance is expected to be $328,000 to land us at about 13% as of June 30th 2025 um we talked about for our district
policy is a minimum of 10% so we're spending down by about 1% this year um our LTFM fund balance is is pretty much a break even for the um current fiscal year at our facilities
and operations committee meeting next week we're Jesse will be there to talk about um some of the projects that are on the docket for this summer and then our operating capital um is anticipated increase by about 160,000
some of that is you know we were reselling some old devices and financing some of that with a lease purchase um so we're building up that fund balance a little bit so we'll have some room to uh basically stay stable in our operating capital fund we had we had spent down
our operating capital a little bit the previous fiscal year we bought our teacher devices before we refreshed all the rest of them so this is we're going to be supplementing that back a little bit for fiscal 25 for the other funds our food service
fund we initially budgeted at $134,000 deficit um and then the updated budget is showing an increase in both revenues increase in revenues and a little bit of decrease in expenditures and we're budgeting for a $67,000
deficit of all the funds I don't want to call this a worst case scenario but it's pretty close to a worst case scenario it's um our you know be because all meals all first meals now all first breakfast and lunches are all subsidized by either the state or the federal
government um in general we at least break even for our food and labor cost and then um we have some planned replacements of equipment that are coming on this year and next year because of the large fund balance we are basically accumulated
um last year for the last couple years um this food cost I would say is a bit conservative in this too so I would be I wouldn't be surprised if we're at least break even in the food service fund um but right now the budget I'm asking you to approve is kind of um
anticipating all possible food costs and and equipment costs that we're looking at will be a loss of approximately 67,000 but still leaving us at a really healthy fund balance there of about 28% of our expenditures um the community service
fund we are we've added some offerings both the last couple years in early childhood and school readiness um trying to just get those programs built up so in and of themselves those have lost a little money the last couple years um
and and also our our food our community service fund um has also increased some of our enrichment offerings we've increased them we're summer recck things looking at this summer we're hiring a um a new what's position program
coordinator position to really help out with more and more of those opportunities that'll be more reflected in next year's budget um but we do also still have a healthy fund balance we're looking at in community service fund we don't have there's no real policy in terms of community service what your
fund balance needs to be um you just want it to be self- sustaining and not reliant on any type of transfer from the general fund so we're again still in a pretty healthy position there the building construction fund we're actually not by statute required to
approve a budget for this i do include it in in there um just to be more transparent I guess um we did add because of the bonds being hopefully approved on the next action item but initially approved by the voters did add
other financing sources of just about $22 million there for the Riverview HBAC project and some additional interest income because of that money coming in um so um nothing surprising there and then the debt service fund was just um
updated to reflect changes in any estimates for um equalization aid for this current year that kind of tred up from what we looked at last spring um I'll entertain any questions
like I mentioned the next steps for this uh for for our budget overall um is looking at you know we're we're well into next year's budget already um some of the discussions we've had at the admin level and in terms of um you know
really legislature is going to impact our revenue more than our expenditures typically um but it's really what revenues are are potentially changing we try not to I try not to get too uh speculative when we're putting the
budget together because we'll probably need it approved or we'll certainly need to do the work to get it approved before we know what that's going to be overall um so we'll make some assumptions based on what is already in statute for general ed aid and um um you know be
fairly conservative on special ed and on you know things like unemployment compensation that are out there things like compensatory um that are talked about a lot um and then there are major changes that we aren't expecting we'll have to decide how that will impact next
year's budget after so um that's kind of you know we'll kind of we'll tackle next year's budget um kind of starting after this one and and we'll we'll walk through that with the um finance and personnel committee in about a month or about
month and a half but as far as this year's budget this is where questions you have um I think it was in Wasn't there something about kind of like a warning or a caution not to go out and
spend food funds or the nutrition funds on big projects unless it was needed i do there's there's a question out there because the state of Minnesota has been allowing us to use food service dollars to buy major pieces of equipment but there's still some room that
legislatively they don't know what's going to happen moving forward so they're asking they're asking districts to consider slowing down some of those major expenditures on equipment um because there's still some questions related to what food service funding or
revenues are going to look like yeah we're What we really are doing at this point is working with Shelby Tanner is just to to put she's got an equipment um equipment prior replacement priority list you always buy more of the stuff
when you build a new school so we bought a bunch of things when we built the high school and and kind of backfilled everything where we needed to at the time and you know there are obviously certain pieces of equipment that require more maintenance than others certain that have a longer um useful life than
others so she's got kind of a replacement an equipment um capital replacement plan of when we should look at replacing each thing so it's it's nothing new it's kind of a yearby-year thing we look at and go "Okay which ones are really up for priority and go get
quotes on those?" We'll say "All right which ones do we are we comfortable tackling two of these three of these kind of based on where fund balance is at where what our needs are we have something that we're sticking a couple thousand dollars of repairs of year after year and that's kind of where we're at
with some of these things we haven't our surplus isn't that great for our fund balance and food services and we're not trying to be extravagant we're continuing to be conservative but we ensure that we have good equipment for our staff
when we're talking about the food service and changes at the legislature we're not talking about them subsidizing the free lunches we're talking about them restricting what we can use the food service money for correct a couple of unknowns in that question
because from both sides because I think there's so many things that are going to come out of the omnibus bill that people are down advocating for that I'm not sure how to answer that because I know some I know some of our school districts that I'm I work with superintendent on have been down testifying related to
this particular question okay want to be able to utilize the money for even more things that an opportunity to ensure that maybe doesn't the general fun impact of what might be going on for school districts like ourselves that they would be able to utilize that for
right now that's not possible so I think those are some of the questions that we hear in staff that makes the big question mark slow down and make sure yeah there are some things like if you need to add in a walk or if you need to replace a walk-in cooler um you can replace that with food service dollars
but you can't you can't do the electrical work that you might need to do to get there so it's those types of things they're looking which we typically would say "All right we'll pay for the electrical." I have one more question so you were talking about
uh was it with community ed we were hiring a position is that going to are we still working with the the city as well are we still partnered with them we are partnered with them currently we're
looking not purchasing the services of one of their employees would that be because of this particular not necessarily how old is the how old is the contract right now that we're utilizing funding that position we've been doing that for
it and so there's there's a change in staffing that's going to happen with that position so it's an opportunity to reook at the responsibilities that the district that district 748 wants to see happen along with what the city is looking to have happen so we're drawing
a contract we're working with them on that with the hopes of decreasing district 748's expenditure towards that but that's still working nobody else has question um as far as the substitute teachers
increasing by an estimated 85,000 district wide is that this is probably a two-part question but is that because of the need or because of the increase in their rate for subs so it's a it's an increase in they haven't increased the
actual rate we get charged per sub okay it's an increase in the um number of absences which also can include long-term needs due to you know pregnancy or other you know birth child or other medical leaves that have gone on
so it's a combination of the dayto-day leaves that teachers take plus the longer but not an actual increase in pay rate okay anyone else have any other questions okay hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I i those oppos
say nay motion passes i will look for a motion to approve ratifying resolution so second motion by Chelsea second by Emily any discussion this is is the final step in
approval of these bonds um it's u some of this can be a little bit confusing but I I did have I did attach this one document um that bear provided for us it's called ISD 748 premium
versus final pricing summary so basically they compared they had to submit um an estimate to the department of ed when we submitted um the review and comment of the project back in October and then we also used those to
publish tax impact and things like that to taxpayers throughout the election process so they just wanted to include a table um that showed what was submitted that's kind of in the gray column um what the pricing was finalized at on
March 26th and then the difference there so the bottom line borrowing amount has not changed there is some change in the premium and the capitalized interest related to these um basically think of the premium
somewhat as like buying points um but it's kind of on the opposite side so you sell you sell them for for more to get a lower payback lower interest rate that
we pay back to the bond holders overall to get a lower true interest cost of the deal so because of that we are actually we'll be We'll be depositing about $200,000 more back to the project fund for the same um estimated tax impact
than we than we that we initially um had anticipated the bottom line there is the annual tax impact so they have that target that they are going to stay within when they sell these bonds and sometimes they have to um sell the bonds at a premium to get that interest that
true interest cost down if that makes sense it's kind of confusing process but it's why we why everybody contracts with and really are required to contract with a a bond um underwriter to get these things done on our behalf so um sale
went rather smoothly they said the the treasury bond market the market for municipal bonds has been um a little unpredictable in the past couple months um so they looked at hey we could set that it was a little less aggressive when they were pricing it than they were hoping so they were like you know we
could put this for a couple months if we don't need the money right away um but we can also lock this in right now as something that's within what you taxpayers and that we kind of went with with all the uncertainty in what's going
on nationwide with with markets right now so so they did and so u we'll be able to close on these um April 30th and we'll get the proceeds at that point so we'll be using these initially really
for uh paying you know mostly design and some of the costs that we need to get to bidding because we won't be doing a lot of construction till next summer but also any other equipment that we need to pre- purchase or anything we want to buy directly or get on order we'll be able to use this for as well we will be able
to get some interest earnings on these um in the meantime and we'll use some of that to pay the first interest payment that'll be due next taxes anyone have any questions all those in favor signify by saying I i
those oppos say nay motion passes i'll look for a motion to approve policy 501 second motion by Jen second by Emily any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify
by saying I i those oppos say nay motion passes look for a motion to approve policy 507 matt can have it jen you were the first right okay motion by Jen second by Matt any
discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I i those oppos say nay motion passes so we have our first reading of policies 417 425 and
505 is there any questions about that question on 425 on the first page first of all it looks like are we just adopting an old form language or is this a red line copy
of ours that's actually the model policy that it looks like but it shouldn't be though actually okay so this is red lines of what we have currently along with along with
changes that were recommended by district administration right but I think this I think we we maybe have the wrong edited copy in here because like some of it there's a couple things that are grammatically just it's like we didn't finish a sentence so I think we
might have printed off the wrong maybe my question should we'll make sure that the right one is for the next meeting if district administration made a mistake we'll make sure to clear it up is there any other motion to adjourn before we do
that we have upcoming work session on May 1st at the district service center and a future board meeting on Monday May 19th at the Sartell High School at 6:30 um the special note on the bottom of our um agenda is just noting that some construction around the district service
center so just making sure that not only we as board members but our community is also just aware to plan accordingly so you don't get stuck and then there is a link if you look at it on the website that will look for a motion
to question yeah so before we adjourn one of the things that we talked about with Gail was doing three takeaways from the meeting are we implementing this this month or are we doing it next month i think the plan was to talk about it at a work session okay
make sure that we were looking to motion by Emily second by Matt any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I i those oppos say nay motion passes we adjourn at 8:21