Members of our community at the game at at the semi state At Chesterton. At Chesterton. People that just drove from South Bend. And, honestly, we received, the love from afar even, those that weren't there. I was, actually at my daughter's wedding, so I was remote control, paying attention. They set up a special room just for me so I can so I can be part of the the the game, with with them. But I'm just so delighted, by the support we received from the community, from from
the staff at at John Adams, from the parents, and I'm I couldn't be more proud of these boys. Principal Sykes already talked about their character, but I wanna tell you these guys have a a winning mentality. And what makes their win winning mentality work is the fact that they are absolute competitors. They knew that they can beat any team in the state because last year, we beat the number one ranked team in the state, and this year, we beat them again. Yes. We beat Concord on our own on turf. And we know on any single day, we can waltz with any team in the
state, and they they approach every single, any single, game, any single competition with that mindset. So I couldn't be more proud of them. So please recognize them, with applause. You guys wanna take a picture? Alright. Second announcement, or actually something that happened last week on October 29, the Showcase of Schools, was an exciting time. We imbued some fun into it this year. It was a trunk or tree. Kids came out. We had kids had to get the paper stamped at every table, and then they
were rewarded at the end. It was a totally different atmosphere, very welcoming, and we had a good a good turnout. And the last thing is an announcement for the former SSC employees who have joined us in as engineers or custodians. There was a, I want to say, a mess up during the transfer of records,
especially with American Fidelity. They did not transfer the premium subtraction from the payroll. So on Friday, American Fidelity sent termination notices and erroneously. And to that, they apologize, and they would like you to know that all of your benefits are still active. So please don't panic. They are sending a letter to adjust that. That's all I have. Thank you. We now have the opportunity to hear from visitors under action items nine point o
one through nine point o nine. At regular meetings, the public is invited to address the board for three minutes regarding action agenda items. Visitors wishing to address the board on action agenda items must sign the registration sheet prior to the meeting and state the action agenda item or items which they will address. Individuals who may only speak once during this section of the agenda, speakers shall properly identify themselves after they approach the podium by stating their name and address for the record. Personal personnel issues are not to be addressed during open sessions of the school board.
The board president may interrupt, warn, or terminate a person's statement if the statement becomes personally directed, abusive, or obscene. Secretary Lieber, has anyone wished signed up to speak? We have one speaker tonight, mister John Paschewski. John Pachesney, 18420 Crown Hill Drive. Superintendent Nee, you and your financial team, headed by your CFO to be, should be commended for working to find the wasteful spending that has occurred in this corporation under the prior administration since you took over.
Your hard work has paid off with a record budget and also record raises for our teachers in the corporation, the employees who really deserve it. Now I can't help but wonder what would have been done with all of the Esther money that was flushed down the toilet and wasted, as and not being put to good use and proper use. While we can't worry about the past, with the raises and deferred maintenance, I really wonder what we would be sitting at today.
Anyway, it was a great job putting the money where it matters the most. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing there's no one else. We now have the opportunity to hear from, visitors on other items. At regular meetings, the public is invited to address the board for three minutes regarding items not posted on the agenda. Individuals may only speak once during this section of the agenda. Speaker shall properly identify themselves after they approach the podium by stating their name and address for the record. Personnel issues are not to be addressed during open sessions of the school board.
The board president may interrupt, warn, or terminate a person's statement if the statement becomes personally directed, abusive or obscene. Does anyone wish to speak? John Pacisni. +1 8420 At a recent South Bend High School football game, it was senior night. There were 19 seniors. Eight of these young men are not going to college. Eight of them all said they were going to into the trades. You know, we've heard a lot about the CTE Center and its failed attempts over
the past years, And I hope along with many in this community that once the judge rules on the Clay Building, this board will then look to establish a CTE center here in town. I was up in Kalamazoo yesterday and saw their mammoth building and ironically ended up talking to an employee of their corporation. While the building was free, they're going to have to do some type of taxing or, I forget what they call it, millage in in Michigan to order to operate
it. So a 100,000,000 building may not be that grand of a thing if you have to keep spending money. Also, I don't know if anybody has noticed, but parochial schools are also establishing CTE centers. Bishop Duanger in Fort Wayne is adding on to their building with a CTE center now. Construction has started. They see and understand the new pathways in education. I hope in 2026, we can see some movement in establishing one here in South
Bend. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? K. So I'm gonna, switch a little bit here. We need to make an amendment to adopt the agenda, to amend the agenda because we're going to be removing nine point o nine, the approval of the Beacon Health System agreement for the school nursing services. And so we're going to amend the agenda to remove that, and that will be back on the agenda with the next board meeting. However, in the meantime, I'd like to have a motion to amend the agenda.
So moved. Is there a second? Second. There's been, moved by missus Lee, second by mister Schneidecki to amend the agenda. Is there any questions? Miss Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? K. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Nay. Mister Leivo? Aye. Mister Snedicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote passes, five to two. Five yeses and two nos to, amend the agenda, removing item number nine point o
nine. Are there is there anyone in the, audience that would like to speak on anything on the, action items? None? Okay. So we will move right along to academic focus. And it's the budget, nine seven point o one, the budget. We welcome CFO Inef and his team to the table. Good evening, good evening, doctor McCullough and the board of trustees and everyone in audience tonight. Today, we are gonna be covering the budget in a summary view as we have
already done our presentation. So we will try to be quick, but to give you a refresher before you vote on the budget, adoption. However, there are some new slides which I will be covering towards the end of the presentation. Anav, the CFO. I have with me deputy CFO, miss Louisa Brand, director of internal control and audits, Marlena Jones, and Kaunain Ahmed, director, strategic finance. Just to give a little bit refresher about the financial strategy of the district, we want to ensure a safe and healthy, financial future for the district with a good
cash balance and a sustainable one. We want to maximize our investment in education. We would like to achieve that through operational efficiency and lowering down transfer from education to operations. We are never gonna be holding money back when we can maximize our investment in brand ambassadors because they deserve all the goodwill gestures from our district. And we also want to ensure safe, secure, and learn, safe learning environment for all
our students at all the buildings. Good evening. I'm not gonna go into detail just like Anav said because we've already gone over most of this. So going back to the internal control manual, I think probably everybody has received a couple of emails about it already. We are looking at having a December release with updates. We have about 20 areas of clarification or new areas that we're going to cover in that. So again, it is a living beast, if you have any ideas from anybody in the corporation board members, whoever, about an area that we need to investigate or look into more, please reach out, I'd be happy to look at it and then maybe
add it to the next one. So far we we still have the three in person trainings. Back, October 2, we had six twenty five employees who completed the training. Now we're up to just shy of 1,600, which is about 60% of our employment workforce, which includes the hourly and salary people. We did get some good news from the State Board of Accounts. People who are not directly working with funds or managing funds or working with cash will not have to complete that training every year. They are satisfied with the manual that we put together and the training that we
have so far that they won't have everybody do it moving forward. So once we have people sign off on it initially, and we're going to do it again unless they're actually involved with funds or cash or managing funds in any way. The capital asset inventory, we we did clarify that the, inventory should be able to be uploaded into the new financial software that we are acquiring. It does not have the barcode capability yet, but, again, we wanted to plan for the future. So we do have those barcodes on there so that, potentially, with new software down
the line or new developments with the software we're getting, we'll be able to utilize that system. Important to note here is that we do have that 75,000,000 in assets and book value or about $1,000,000,000 in assets for market value. So if something happened and everything had to be replaced, it would be about a billion dollars to replace everything. As everyone knows, we are a highly regulated entity. We get audited, very regularly, and I know people are probably tired of hearing this, but the 2223 financial audit we feel is getting very, very close to being completed.
And the reason that I'm pretty confident in that is that I don't have the auditors reaching out for as many documents anymore. So that means that they're working on closing things down, which is a great sign. So, hopefully, we'll see the output from that very soon. We are in good standing with all of our reporting partners, so there's no, no big updates there. And so Lou? Hello. As Anup and Marlena mentioned, I'm not gonna show or say again everything, but I really want to share certain things that are important for the budget approval tonight. The one important thing is that, as enough mentioned, we are lowering our education to
operation transfer from, 9.1% to 5.5% in, year between year '24 and '25. We also completed four union negotiations in just four days that included also stipends for both divers and paraprofessionals for up to $3,500, and the schools got 1,500,000.0 in additional support for for classrooms. Even after all these investments, in education, we, our cash reserve in August 2025 was
119,000,000 versus 102,000,000 back in August 2024. As Marlena mentioned, we developed our, district wide internal control manual and completed our fuel, capital asset inventory. Now every contract and a stipend go to the board for approval, so we have a better control on all our expenditures. And, we ended our SSC contract saving between 3 and $5,000,000 per year. What is about, especially about 2026? So pretty much, this is a turning point.
With the facilities management in house, SBCSC is saving about 4,500,000.0 each year and other 6 to 7,000,000 in savings from medical insurance. Our big challenge, of course, is the first year impact of senate bill one, which limits property tax growth and enrollment loss. 2026 is definitely a year of opportunity to maximize our investment in education. Important news. If approved, this budget makes South Bend schools the highest paying district in the region and one of the tops in the state for teachers, bus drivers, paraprofessionals, custodians, and
office staff. As the finance department, when we invest, we do know that when we invest in our staff, we are investing directly in our students, and that's how we drive better outcomes and enrollment stability. Our assumptions, for this budget are conservative. We, a four percent increase in the operations levy and a 3%, in the referendum levy, that's how we, we created this budget. We use 85% of last year's assessed value since county data is in final yet,
and we've already included the estimated 13,000,000 impact from, senate bill one. So what you are going to see here is a balanced, cautious, and realistic budget focused in education. Other assumptions are state tuition support is assumed to rise 2% each school year for school year 2526 and 2627. We anticipate around 250 fewer students, about a 2,000,000 revenue drop. But even with that, our education to operations transfer will remain only in 1%.
That means 1,250,000.00 approx compared to 6,700,000.0 in 2025. Efficiency savings from medical insurance and the SSC transition help fund historic races while protecting our reserves, but most important, to maximize educational investment. This slide here shows us our budgets, the the amounts that have been budgeted for the last, six years. The education fund, as you can see, remains our largest projected at about 132,000,000 for
year 2026 with more dollars reaching, classrooms. The operations and referendum funds remain steady at around 47 and 32,000,000, ensuring continued support for our buildings and daily operations. The debt service fund at 23,600,000.0 is what we use to make our annual bond payments, supporting construction and renovation projects. This slide, shows our education fund budget alongside with the student enrollment from 2020 to 2026. You can see enrollment has gradually declining about 250, fewer students is what we have
projected for next year, which equals roughly to 2,000,000 potential loss in revenue. Still, the fund stays strong because we have lowered the, education to operation transfer from 15% back in year 2020 to only one percent in year 2026. So even with enrollment declines, we are keeping more money where it matters, meaning in our classroom instruction, education, and our staff. This slide, also shows our budget for the operations of referendum funds over the last
six years. The green section is operations, covering daily needs like transportation, security, and IT. The blue is the referendum operations, facilities, staff, social workers, preschool teachers are paid from this fund. And the gray section is what shows the impact of tax caps. Even with the 13,000,000 tax cap because of senate bill one, the 2026 budget stays sustainable. Greetings, board members, superintendent and the general public. I'm Conan. And I will be going, do a short recap of the fund deep dives that
we have. First off, the Education Fund. So the Education Fund is forecasted to be 132,000,000 fund for 2026. And out of that, dollars 124,000,000 will be for salaries and benefits. And these salaries and benefits are for teachers, guidance counselors, school admin staff, secretaries and support staff. In contrast to 2025, we are increasing the salaries and benefits for these classes by 10% as we truly believe that teachers and the support staff in our schools deserve better and should be compensated better for what they do for the children in our
school district. The other expenses that we have about the remaining $8,000,000 will be spent on curriculum adoption, school supplies and the pay for substitute teachers. Moving on, when we look into the cost center categories, this chart shows what are the amount we are spending on each school level. You can see the elementary schools, high school, middle school, instructional central departments and other central department. We use a small metric here in terms of identifying how much of our education fund is directly invested in our classrooms and staff.
And in the budget of 2026, we expect 98.6 percent of the education fund to be spent directly for our class rooms and staff. This is a 0.6% increase from what we had from the 2025 budget. There is another metric that we have to comply to in terms of the state, which is the teacher compensation state requirement. So, these are 24, 25 actual numbers. And this states that an Indiana school district are required to spend at least 62% of their state tuition support for direct salaries and benefit for teachers.
Here, we are doing about 64.3, which is a 1.3% increase from previous years. And this expects this is forecasted to be better next year as well. Moving on now to the operation fund. So similar to the education fund, the operations funds take the huge portion of the operations fund is for salaries and benefits. It's about $28,000,000 and it's paid for the non certified admins, the bus positions, securities, busbarrow professionals, ISS, mechanics and technicians. The remaining $19,000,000 is paid for a lot of other operational services essential for the
school district. This includes the IT software systems, property and vehicle insurance, utilities, office supplies and a few other essential operational services. Now, we also in terms of the operations fund, every year we do present a bus replacement plan as well. This year is a bit different from previous years as we are not allocating any money to be allocated for the bus replacement plan for 2026 as we still are utilizing the POs from 2024 and we have the 2025 still remaining to use. So, it made sense to not spend any money from for the bus replacement plan
this year. However, we always have to show a five year plan. So, from 2027 onwards, we will be allocating another $1,500,000 each every year. Next comes the capital project plan. This is also another part that we mentioned when it comes to the operations fund. And as it states here, we will not be utilizing any money of the operations fund for capital projects. This will be done through other avenues, which I'll discuss later. Finally, when it comes to the education to operations fund, as Louisa and Anav has mentioned, we are try we are attempting to transfer only 1% from the education to
operations fund. So this technically highlights two important things for us. One is we are by reducing that to just 1%, we are spending we are keeping more money in the education fund that's going to be spent directly for our classroom and staff. And it also shows that we are operationally more efficient now. And things that has been done in the last year or so has directly impacted us to have just a one person transfer. And this makes us, if not the lowest, one of the lowest in the state
in terms of transfers from the education to the operations fund. Next up, we have the Referendum Operation Fund deep dive. So, the Referendum Operation Fund does a array of different things for us. For instance, it pays the salaries and benefits for all the facilities staff that we have and other specialized positions like the social workers, preschool teachers, and digital integration specialists. It also helps us fund the nursing contract, and some repairs and maintenance, some capital outlay outlays for safety and security equipment plus some other essential parts and equipments for
schools operations and some supplies as well. From a cost center perspective, you might see if you see the chart above from 2025 to 2026, you will see the chart from the other central departments to be lower as the custodian staff is now funded through different school levels. So other than that, we have also increased our funding in the elementary, middle, and high school support. And we have also added a dedicated budget for safety and security funding through the referendum operations as well. Overall, when we look into the general funds of these three funds, the education fund,
the operations fund, and the referendum operations fund, this is what the chart looks like from a comparison of 2026 to twenty twenty twenty five. The 2026 is the light blue one, and the 2026 is 2026 is the light blue one, and the 2025 is the navy blue. So as you can see, we have increased our expenditures in elementary school, high school, middle school, and central central departments, and we have also reduced our expenditures in other central department. This portrays that we are trying to increase our spending in school levels, adding more
support for the instructional department on safety and security and also achieving more operational excellence in terms of reducing our operational costs and spending more money in our classrooms. Finally, this chart also depicts what how we are spending our money based on objects. So, as you can see, the 2025 budget, the 2026 budget and the increase and decrease as you can see from the table. What I would like to point out and as Mr. Costello has always mentioned about making sure that we spend on our employees and this
was what we're trying to achieve in the 2026 budget. As we were spending about 70.4% last year in 2025. For the employee expenditures, that goes up to 82%. This outlines our objective of investing on employee morale, retention and internal capacity building. So finally, the debt service fund, a pretty important fund for us. And this is what it looks like and how it's how we have been servicing
our debts in the last few years. As you can see, the twenty twenty six one is very similar to that of 2025 and 2024. The reason it's pretty much holding it's holding the same amounts that we are paying is because as once as much as we are paying off our debts, we're also issuing new ones. Hence, why the numbers you might seem is eerily similar from 2024 onwards. So there are certain questions that comes to play when we talk about the debt service. So these are the questions that I'm trying to answer here as well. So a lot of one of the first question that's usually asked is that SBCAC
has considerable debts. We make millions of dollars in payments each year for our debt service. So does it mean we would have had the money left if we didn't have those debts? So that's a very good question. The simple answer is no as what we get, we from the state, we get revenue from the state to service our debts. So, essentially, if we don't have any debts, we won't get debt service revenue from the state in this regard. So this is not essentially just a debt that, you know, if we don't have this debt, we'll have more money. It's not necessarily the case.
Next up, when we look into this chart, the other question is, is South Bend's Community Schools taking too much debt? So here, there's a statewide formula that we follow, which is the total outstanding school bond divided by one third of the cumulative net assessed value. Here, the ratio the benchmark is 2% is the maximum ratio for school for school bonds. Currently, for SBCAC, we are less than 1% and exactly at 0.93%. This puts us as one of the lowest school bond ratios in Indiana.
The next question is the third most important question people ask is why do we even take GEO bonds? And the reason is our capital projects. As I have mentioned that we are not spending any money for our capital projects throughout the operations fund. We have to get that money from somewhere else. And that is the GEO bonds. From the different analysis that has been conducted, South Bend Community Schools need about $250,000,000 And, obviously, with the ratio that I just mentioned, that is not possible in a year. But what is possible right now is to prioritize our needs and to make sure
that we keep we do the things that are most needed and also to make sure that we keep our schools safe and secure. So the facilities and the finance team have come up with a three year plan where we will be focusing on the high priority, needs required in those buildings and grounds to make sure that there is a safe environment safe learning environment. So there is a three year plan which comprises of about $44,000,000 If you see this slide, you will focus you will see the different projects that is going to be spent in the next three years in from roof replacement to safety and security,
parking lot repairs to foundation repairs, window shade replacement. All of that has been detailed out here. I will not dig much deeper all of that has been detailed out here. I will not dig much deeper into this. And if you have any questions, we can always answer that. Finally, this is done based on building. So it shows all of our schools that we have. And I just want to be clear about this that all of these projects need to be completed regardless of the master facilities plan. So this is something that is beyond that, and that's why we are taking those geo bonds to make sure that we get the payments done. So all of the information of each school is provided for the next few years
in this slide. Thank you. Well, I'm back again. I will talk about the cash balance, possibly one of the most important measures of our financial health. And as Luisa has bragged about, we had approximately $102,000,000 cash in our bank, August 2024. But just one year after, in August 2025, we have $119,000,000 Now we have spent a lot of money on our employees and other instructional programs in the last year.
Right? We have offered huge stipends to the paraprofessionals, to the bus drivers. We have given them possibly highest raises in history, and we are gonna top that again. Right? At the same time, we have maximized our investment on education. So how did that happen? Right? Even after all the spending, our cash balance grew. Well, that is the magic of the finance team. But jokes apart, that has been possible because we are now submitting grant reimbursements in a much timelier fashion now. We are putting tighter control in our budget.
So we are not going over our budgets. Everything is now going for the board's approval, all the contracts, stipends, everything. So the due to enough check and balances, we are being more cautious now in terms of spending. Now out of that $119,000,000, I mean, everything is not, unrestricted. Right? Because there are, some bond money there, medical insurance funds, retirement funds. However, the unrestricted portion also grew. It was $42,000,000 in 2024.
Now it is more than, $68,000,000 So we have approximately two point five months of cash reserve. In other words, I mean, if there is a government shutdown, which is the case now, though, but we are not affected that much because, most of our revenue come from the state. Right? However, in an I non ideal scenario, if there is an emergency that we are not receiving any money, that means we can safely operate the district for two and a half months. And that is recommended, to be kept as a cash reserve.
There is no, statutory limitations or guideline there. However, experts in the field of finance recommend that we maintain two to three months of cash balance with us. So we, fill that criteria now with two point five months of cash reserve. Last year, same time, we had one point five months of cash reserve. So we have done much better, in, the last twelve months. District level spending, I will talk about a little bit about some district level spending, and it has a snapshot of multiple years here, starting from 2020.
Now, I'm throwing a lot of numbers, but I will take you through it. Right? So, couple of columns, the most important ones, are the last three columns here. So in 2020, our administrative expenses, in other words, our indirect student expenses, not the direct one, was around 31%. And per student spending was around $10,600 in 2020. Now in 2026, budgeted, it will be only about 17%.
So we have done a huge progress in terms of achieving operational efficiency. Because you can see, I mean, it was 31% before. Now it is coming down to only 17%. So that means we are being more operationally excellent, leaving more dollars to be invested on the teachers and the students directly in the classroom. And also you can see the other side of the coin here. It was $10,600 in 2020 that we directly invested on our students. And now, we are eyeing for $17,600 So huge progress, over the years.
And that just shows that we are continually striving for operational efficiency and excellence. Per student spending based on actual twenty twenty four, twenty five school year data. In terms of high schools, Washington was the high. However, we have to be a little cautious here when we interpret this data because it can be interpreted in many ways. Right? So people who know about economies, know that there is something called economies of scale. Right? In other words, if you have more students at a building, if the building utilization
rate is higher, you will have lower per student spending. So that does not necessarily mean that we are investing less on that school. Right? So there is that economics part, and also, we continually try to invest more where students need it the most. Right? So there are a lot of interplays of different factors. But from finance, we are just showing the data because we believe in transparency. And based on the data, the board and the other departments can take more decisions to make it more equitable when we invest the money on our students.
Same thing for our middle schools. Dickinson had the highest, per student spending. But again, I mean, you see, Jefferson was, having the lowest per student spending. But that doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing, because Jefferson possibly had, one of the highest, number of his students among the middle or k eight schools. That meant they were possibly more efficient in terms of the building utilization rate, going down on their per student spending. Also at the same time, the total expenditure here includes, expenditure from grants, expenditure from
donations, expenditure from title money or capital expenses. Right? So there are different scenarios at different buildings. For instance, Darden and Coquillett. Right? We can compare to elementary schools. Darden had more capital projects done in 2425 compared to Cocchylord. And we only invest on the most needed capital projects because we really don't have the money to do everything there. Right? So that could drive off the per student spending. Also, recently, you have seen that Adams has received a donation of $300,000 there.
Right? So there are stipulations when we receive donations that can also drive off per student spending. Doesn't necessarily mean that we are, not prioritizing all these schools at the same time. Again, I already talked about the elementary schools. Darden had the highest, but does not necessarily mean that it was the most prioritized elementary schools. There are a lot of factors there in in the interplay. Now the most exciting thing. SBC is a bargaining strategy, which was the driving force in our 2026 budget, because we have repeatedly said, we are trying to achieve operational excellence and trying to rebuild
our internal capacity by empowering our employees. Historic raises, if the board approves this budget, will make SBCSC the highest paying in the district. Now, why do so? Right? I mean, why should we pay our employees the highest? Let me give you some backgrounds. SBCSC versus Indiana high school districts. There are approximately 304 Indiana school districts. And in terms of, the number of teachers, we are fifth. Great. However, in terms of teacher salaries, we lag behind a lot, you know.
We are two hundred and third in terms of average teacher salary. This is based on twenty three-twenty four school year data. In terms of teacher retention rate or minimum starting salary, well, we don't do that well either. Some people may say that, hey, you are comparing, a large school district with smaller school districts that are more agile. Right? They can invest more on their teachers. But we can take a look at SBCSC versus largest other districts. I have taken the top 10 districts here in terms of number of teachers and
students. The situation does not show much improvement. We are still lagging behind in all the metric there. Average salary, minimum starting salary, years of experience, which is a measure of teacher tenure, and also teacher retention rate, which is a great measure that shows that teachers are staying at your district. So we are kind of in the bottom, even among the top 10 largest school districts in Indiana. And again, this is based on 2324 school year data. But I do not think that has improved much in 2425.
Now, why pay teachers a good salary? Right? So there has been a lot of research, but we did a little bit of research on our own, based on only the top 25 largest Indiana districts. That includes us. So we have found positive correlation, moderate to strong positive correlation, between teacher salaries and iLearn, iRead, and graduation data. And also, we found a negative correlation between chronic absenteeism and teacher salaries, meaning in
the districts that had higher teacher salaries had lower absenteeism. Right? Not surprising, but the data shows that your gut feels or your, what can I say, perceptions are quantitatively proven here? So if you increase teacher salaries, definitely, you can, anticipate that there will be some very good outcomes or return on investments in terms of the student outcomes. Right? Definitely, teacher salary is not the only thing that drives up the student outcomes, but
possibly, it is the strongest one. Now again, we have talked a little bit about vision 2029. It is not something set in stone, but I would like to call it a vision twenty twenty nine because few things will happen in 2028. Our referendum will be gone in 2028, and also after 2028, we will possibly see the worst impact of Senate Bill one. So what should we do? We should really try to leverage our existing funds, you know, all the money that we are getting and also the healthy cash balance that we have.
And this is the endgame, one reference for Marvel fans. Right? Endgame. If we don't make significant investments now, we might be left with nothing in a few years. Who knows? Right? We overspent approximately $40,000,000 in last two, three years: the empowerment zone, Brown renovation, special education expenditures there, and SSC. What about we really overspend on our own people, on our employees, and see if we can get some actual return on investment. Right?
How about we truly partner up with teachers and really empower them? So subject to board's approval and any ASB and SBCSC agreement, and this has already been shown in social media, I don't know how, but, that was a little spoiler, but I'm gonna brag about that again. We are offering a $9,000 flat base salary raise to all our teachers, dollars 7,000 for the school year of twenty five-twenty six, and $2,000 to be followed in twenty six-twenty seven. Right now, we have a minimum teacher salary of $46,000 So with the raise, it
will be $53,000 in twenty five-twenty six school year, and $55,000 in twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven school year. The average teacher salary right now for SBCSC is around $56,000 It's going to be $63,000 and $65,000 in the next two school years. In addition to the $9,000 raise, we are also offering a one time, boost in base salary of $1,700 Mr. Reid and Mr. Augustino will share more details about that. It is mostly for the employees whose base salary was not adjusted when they received
a master's degree. We are also increasing the sick day payout from $50 per day to $100 per day, which should boost our perfect attendance and attendance more. Also, professional development pay will be increased from $25 to $30, class coverage from $46 to 53 and $55 in the next two years. And, also, for literacy endorsements, there will be an additional $100 increase. Coaches, the other extra duties, class sponsors, they also play very important roles for our
students, and that is also expected to go up by 35%. Now again, a current scenario, SBCSC versus neighbor school districts, and we have taken around like nine neighbor districts here. Thanks to Mr. Ellison for, this suggestion. We have added couple of slides today because he had an excellent suggestion that we should also compare ourselves with the neighboring school districts. So this is the current scenario, you know, based on '24, '25, school year data. Our minimum salary right now is $46,000 Average is around $56,000 And as you can
see, we are kind of at the bottom compared to our neighbors. New scenario, SBCC versus neighbor districts, if budget is approved and if the agreement is approved, we will be the highest paying in the region, and one of the top two in the state. Because we will have the new minimum teacher salary as $53,000 second is Penn Harris Madison, around $48,000 I just, was informed that they also have presented the tentative teacher agreement that will bring their minimum teacher salary to $50,000 but we still will be
$3,000 more, and we will be $5,000 more in July 2026. And also in terms of average salary, we should be, reasonably the number one in this region and in the neighboring counties. And again, one of the highest in the state. Now often people say that, why only, empower the teachers? What about the bus drivers or other office personnel? Now we do not have a tentative agreement with those unions. However, we have rebuilt our trust with all the unions, and we have budgeted around
28 to $30 per hour for the bus drivers. Paraprofessionals, office personnel, custodians, all groups will be minimum $20 per hour. We are basic basically moving towards a minimum $20 hour, wage for this district. And, mister Smiedecki has been advocating that for a long time, so dream is coming true. It might be a little different from grant funded positions, but definitely for the general funded positions, I mean, we have budgeted approximately 20% raise for all those positions there.
Thank you. I, I was a little disheartened with the weak one, but again, thank you. I don't I don't see the cafeteria workers on there. Why I thought that was gonna be included? Cafeteria workers are funded from a different federal fund. That is why I have not included them here because this is the general budget presentation. However, we have good plans for them as well. Yeah. Well, it's what excuse you used last time is that it's it's federally funded, but
we're talking about taking from the general fund to equalize that. So so we make it a $20 an hour around South Bend School Corporation, cost of living. And I think that's not out of place by doing that Yes, sir. And especially in this day and age. And, I'd like to make sure you guys amend that and work on the custodians. I thought that was happening, but I guess it's not in the presentation.
Custodians are included in this. Custodians are included in this. Custodians, not, cafeteria. Cafeteria. Like mister Tameed said, there are plans to bring them up and subsidize the current rate from the general fund, but it has to be at the there will be there will need to be amendments to the current budget. And, of course, it will come to your approval. I thought that was I saw that one time that was all included in the, the January 1 budget.
We have taken care of the people from the general fund, but I'm not saying no to you at all. You know, I too believe that if we take care of everyone else, we should do the same for our cafeteria workers. But it might be a little complex due to the federal grant, but we are gonna do everything that we can to bring them on the same power. We'll be back with you. I'm hopeful that that's gonna happen. We can't just do and leave them out there unless we want, you know, an
empty, cafeteria except for kids with no one to feed them food. I mean, and they deserve it. They work just as hard with their kids than anybody else. You know? They do. They do. Will. And, they do. So let's take some of that extra fun we got there and and make sure everybody gets equal. I mean, I I know some getting too much now now, but it is in the wrong places. And that's what's happening. That's why we're making historical moves because we got the right people in the right
place. And, that gives credit to the board, people running it like you and and AIDS and the teachers and, it it wouldn't happen. It could've happened years ago. Would you guys are putting what what we got here now and and give recognition to everybody, everybody on this board and you guys that the money's going where it's supposed to go now. Yes. And but we got a lot to work on yet. There's a lot of things. I'm waiting on security to bring to do safety things and, I mean, we're we're
doing a lot of things that people don't know that's cost them money, and you guys are doing it with less money coming in. Yes. And, so so, I I commend you and I commend the teachers. I commend all these workers that and we plan on putting more workers from Brown School into our where the kids are, and that's what's happening. And that's what needs to keep happening and putting the money in the right places. Yes, sir.
So I thank you guys all for that. All you guys, the board and everybody. I wanna say thank you to your team and our team, this board. There's not one member on this board, including the superintendent, that has not advocated for raises Yes. For our teachers, our custodians, our bus drivers, our cafeteria staff, our, paras, and secretary staff. And so I commend you for finding the funds to make that happen. So I appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. And, also, I would like to thank the board because, this required aggressive leadership. And without your leadership, we could not have done that because I am all the time having crazy ideas. I go to mister Reid, and I come to you, and you see the merit in it, and you let me proceed. So Yeah. I mean, without you, we couldn't have done that. So thank you so much. I appreciate you. I thank you because we are every last one of us have advocated for this and I appreciate it to see it finally happening.
Thank you so much. Mister Costello. You guys have done a just a fantastic job of, putting this budget together. So many people wonder how and what is in a budget. But they don't know who to come to in order to find out. I'm not gonna go back through the last administration, but I am gonna advocate to
anybody out there and I've seen it on emails directed to our accounting staff. Any questions that people have, they answer it. They give you a response. And I think that's very important that you are responding to people because there's a lot of misunderstanding about how to develop a budget.
Because school budgets are really different than a regular business and very complex. One of the things you guys do very, very well is not only do you look at the past to show us what you had, give us an indication of the present of what we have, but you also try to look at the future. That is very, very important in a school budget.
Because from the standpoint, if you don't start looking at what we have for the future Sure. Then some of the things that we're gonna be doing right now, it never develops where we can afford to spend on things that we have, that we need in the future. So I thank you for that presentation in those three areas. The increase in money that we're, that we have in our budget for salaries doesn't
appear people on a with magic saying, hey, we finally got money. It takes a lot of work from these people because we didn't get it from the state. We got it from these people working on a budget to decide what is important and where is the needs. This could have been done a long time ago, but you decided to do it. Especially with the understanding and the purpose that raises for people are as more important
than other things that we have in that budget. That's very important to understand, that money just didn't come from the air. It came from their hard diligent work of trying to develop and create money in certain areas that we had, and then move it over into other areas that we need. I salute you and I thank you so much for what you have given this
board. But more importantly, I thank you very much for what you have given to people in these buildings who deserve it. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? No. Mister Leba? Oh, I was gonna say thanks thanks again, Anaf, and thanks for the shout out to the board and her leadership. But not only are we board members, we're elected public officials. So it's the community who's responsible for this because they put us here, and we empowered you. And then in two years, at the 2028, we're gonna need a community again to
help us. That's that's our long term goal. So thanks again. Any other comments? Miss Lee? So I'm using my journalism degree right now. So, you know, that's so I'm I'm just I'm I'm thinking about questions the community might ask about this particular budget. So why are other districts in our area less optimistic in their budgets? Do you think we're being, I mean, I think we do need to be a little more aggressive and have a little bit of swagger. Right? Because our kids are worth it and so are our our staff. But does it why are we able to be more aggressive?
It does have to do with the bond form like, our percentages? Like, help me understand that a little bit better. Sure. I think, that's a very important question there. One of the major things that allow us to be aggressive is the referendum. We do have the referendum, and not a lot of neighboring districts has one. I know that Elkhart had a failed attempt. Mishawaka had one as well. You know? So we are blessed with referendum right now. We have a bigger tax base than most of our neighboring districts.
Not all of them have that. Penn Harris Madison gets much lower compared to us in terms of their property tax revenue. However, they have more than 10,000 students, very close to 11, and we have around 13,000. Right? So if you do a per student ratio of property tax revenue that they get versus we get, we get more. Now I'm not gonna talk about the past, but only the present and the future. What we are trying to do is the things that we have, we are trying to make the best use of it.
You know? And we do have those blessings now. And if we want those blessings to continue, we have to be aggressive now and show good faith effort to our taxpayers. Keep up the referendum promises if we ever hope to ask for another one. Because that is the biggest strength that we have had for the past, five years, and we will still have that for the next three years. Now even with the senate bill one impacts on everything, two important and strength areas, we are being able to be aggressive.
One is definitely the referendum. Another is the healthy cash reserve that we have. You know? So k. So I have I have, like, five questions, so bear with me on this. So but that feeds well into my next one, which is so when you, talked about the the spending in the schools, you mentioned that there were the different categories like capital and donations that impact that. And I hate to give you more work to do because thank you for all that you do because you do finance, but I'm so happy that you do that. So, is there a way that that could be illustrated, like, kind of that breakdown?
Because I think it's important not just for us to understand, but for the community to understand the impact of how much it costs to maintain buildings when you're a 100 year old plus district. That that's an expense that we can never avoid. We can't go out and magically make all new schools. Mhmm. And then also the donation piece to help understand that philanthropy makes a difference in our buildings as well. I I I don't know if that makes sense, but for the for just the because the equity in the buildings is about even more than just the cash investment. It's about how the buildings are staffed. And I think there's gotta be a way to work with HR to show those,
the equitable investment of people and money into our buildings. So just that's more that's probably not so much of a question. That's more of a that'd be a really nice thing. No. But thank you for the suggestion because we can definitely do that, you know, by You do such a really nice job with these illustrations, so this will get you in trouble because now I'm gonna ask for more. Yeah. We can do that because we already have the data based on which we prepared the visualizations there. So we can definitely prepare more reports on the donations and capital projects by buildings. Thank you. Can I respond to that quick? You're the superintendent.
You can do whatever you want. May I, I should say? The reason when you looked at that graph and you saw a rise up at 24,000 per pupil expenditure, rise up is limited to 15 per classroom. So and they have 13 teachers, which I believe brings it to, like, one eighty maximum, something like that. Mhmm. That's why it's higher. Plus, given that they have received that 3,200,000, anything they spend in that building is
also used to to be divided. Yeah. I think that's an important thing too. You see the if you see the teacher ratios in buildings, then you understand Yeah. That that's an investment too. So I think that's just possibly an interesting way for the community to really understand how we best serve the students in our different buildings and that some buildings have great students with greater needs than others. And I think it's kind of hard to wrap your head around when you just look at it, the South Bend Schools as one whole thing Yeah. To really see that each building is unique just like the students are. Okay. This is an internal controls question. Again, I was a former PTO slash athletic booster person.
Our internal controls, are they cumbersome? And, like, are you getting feedback from, like, the staff and others, like, in ways to, like, simplify them just so they don't people don't go, not even gonna do that. But is there do you continue to try to simplify them, I guess? Yeah. We're always open to suggestions. So right now, it's going through the learning process where people are asking questions, how do I go about doing this? And, you know, where can I find the form to get it to the board, etcetera? So we are trying to get all forms that people need because almost everything needs
a form these days, on the employee resources portal on the website under documents. So we try to have them centrally housed there with instructions on what they need to do with them once they filled them out. Hopefully, we won't have too many more forms that are going to need to be created. I think we've kind of tackled the biggest so far. But, yeah, if anybody has any suggestions on simplifying, I'm I'm open to it. And one of the things that I'm doing is working with the state board of accounts asking them, does this look right to you? Is this the correct process to follow? Do you know if any other district has a better way to do it?
And, actually, with the financial software that we're switching to, we told them the same thing. If we're doing something that doesn't make sense to you or that we could do better, let us know because that's what we wanna do. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I I just I mean, the manual is great, but it's a lot. That's a lot. So then you go, whew. How's that going? So thanks for the answer. Uh-huh. Let's see. I think the my other my my final question. Back to the showing what the differences are in the schools. I think there there was something really important on slide 56 about partnering with teachers, which is true. But I think really being transparent to the community and letting them know how they
can best support our schools and where we really need, not just financial support, but when we talk about tutors and different things like that, really making that clear where they can be of the most help to make sure that our children succeed and that our educators feel supported. So thank you. Again, big for your work on all of this. Thank you. Mister Siedeke. The short thing, I would make a bet that that twenty twenty twenty year where you got a unanimous well, it's gonna change to 2025. And, I diddle everything mister Castello has said.
Not I don't say it quite as elegant, but it it it's, it's I diddle everything he says. So, and I appreciate all you guys. So I think I wanna make sure you guys include the the rest of it, and people don't know that nurses aren't gonna get raises. Important thing there is we gotta make sure that nurses are there Yeah. Not invisible nurses. And that's why we raised it in, the same thing with the cafeteria workers, you know.
So, I'm I would guess I'd be really surprised if we don't have a unanimous vote for the 2025 budget. Thank you. Mister Ellison? Yes. And I would just, you know, kinda did a lot of things everyone has said. You know, I think if you're currently teaching for the South Bend schools, you know, I think we would say this is a, you know, pretty large pay increase for the next couple years. So congratulations. You've earned it. You deserved it. Kinda just going back looking at the slide that now had added my request regarding if you're a teacher teaching for a neighboring district, Penn, Mishawaka, John Glenn, Concord, Elk
Grove, Fairfield, La Porte, New Prairie. If you would like to also have a large pay increase next year without having to move the, that opportunity is out there and available to you. There are there are jobs open. If you're a, education student that's graduating, you're interested in, you know, teacher apprenticing, or, a, you know, long term sub now, you've been thinking about maybe I should go into teaching or that kind of thing, and you're looking at making, you know, well into well above $50,000 a year, you know, coming out as opposed to, you know,
the 45, $46.47 that you'd be looking at everywhere else in the area. I would also again say to you, that opportunity now exists. You can come get on this train. So if you're interested in that, again, you know, go to the website, send in your resume because, you know, we're ideally, we're gonna, you know, be able to fill everything up with certified teachers. So, again, I think that's just a really big takeaway. You know, if you're in education, you're looking to teach, you've got, you know, what, 20% pay reasons to to think, you know, where do you wanna teach next year
and how much do you wanna make to make sure, you know, you look into that and take that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you for your words. Doctor Green. So okay. What you've done is really, incredible. And I think underlying is the principle of making sure we've got resources going to the very places where we where we need them. One one of the things that you began to do, not just this year, but in the past, is to use equity as a lens through which we might begin
to understand something about what's gonna enable our our students to thrive. And, I think one of the the measures of that is per pupil expenses. But I really appreciated both your own recognition and mister E's that that may oversimplify, what it is we're doing in terms of making sure that the resources are going to the classrooms where we need them most and where we can support, kids. This is a budget presentation and again, I think we all are just really taken
by the work you've done. And the aggressive nature of what you've been doing could be applied as well to our understanding of the resources that are less tangible. And, teachers, are working so hard to accomplish so much. Do they have what they need? And, I think that's a question worth asking. What are the conditions that enable teachers and kids, to thrive? And some of that, you know, has to do with programming. And, my suggestion in the past is to have a dashboard where, even though this
is a budget presentation that we understand the connection between budget and curriculum. And you have some very good hard data, but I think the thing is that, we're seeing that certified teachers, are in all of the buildings. Do we have certified teachers who have fifteen and twenty years? Do we have teachers who have high retention rates? Do we have buildings where we can promise kids that there are lots of extracurriculars,
that there's, before school programs, special programs during. Right now, we have eight schools that have tutor ND. Why only eight? Why not 10? Why not 12? You know, what's holding us back? We have after school programs. What about summer programs? What about athletics combined with with, academics? So I think, you know, we know the condition we know some of the conditions, but I think as we plot out our understanding of the culture of schools, where
we can be our best selves as board members and teachers and administrators and so on, What about our students and what about our teachers? Can we say something about the intangibles? And that's what I I would love to see being unpacked in any sort of equity approach to to a budget. There aren't these, tangibles. It's not just the finance as you as you say. Yep. We're spending some money more in schools for special ed as well as the grants that some schools are getting and other schools aren't.
And how does that translate into a what what does that mean for kids, teachers, and others? So with all that, I still applaud you. I think we have some work to do. I think we have to be aggressive in making sure that everybody has what they need, and it's not just in terms of, dollars and cents. Thank you. I agree. I agree. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Thank you so much for your presentation. I appreciate you. We now move to cons to the consent agenda. It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve the consent agenda.
So moved. I'm sorry. Not yet. Not yet. I'm gonna pull eight point o four, and that's gonna be a separate vote. So do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda minus eight point o four? We're going to approve eight point o one, which is the approval of minutes, October 2025, 8.02, financial reports and statements 8.03, bills and payroll for payment 8.05, resolutions requiring annual adoption 8.06,
gifts and fundraisers 8.07, contracts for $50,000 or less. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? It's where I say so moved. Yes. Oh, okay. Second. It's been moved by mister Snedecki, second by missus Lee. Are there any questions? Miss Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Snarecki? Aye. Doctor McCullough. Aye. The vote to approve the consent agenda eight point o one, eight point o two,
eight point o three, eight point o five, eight point o six, eight point o seven passes unanimously. Seven votes. We now go to, eight point o four, the personnel report. Is there a motion to Oh, we're gonna pull. We need to pull number nine under noncertified coaches. I can't vote on that one. K. We're gonna take a separate vote on the personnel, report minus number nine, which will be a separate vote, by itself. Is there a motion to approve the personnel agenda minus item number nine?
Under under noncertified coaches. Just there's there's no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no So moved. Second. It's been moved by missus, Leese. And do I have a second? Second. Second by doctor Green. Are there any questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Castillo? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Labo? Aye. Mister Smedicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve the personnel agenda Midas item number nine, passes unanimously seven votes.
We now go to item number nine on the noncertified coaches. Is there a motion to approve item number nine? So moved. It's been moved by mister Snedecki. Is there a second? Second. It's been, second by doctor Green. Are there any questions? Miss Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee, abstain. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Smodicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item number nine I'm sorry.
Not action item. Item number nine under the noncertified coaches passes six to one abstention. We now move to act to approve action item 9.01. It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item nine point o one. Is there a motion? I'll move. Second. It's been motion by doctor Green, second by missus Lee. Are there any questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye.
Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Yes. Mister Snarecki? Aye. Doctor mc doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to, approve action item 9.1 nine point o one passes unanimously, seven votes. It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item nine point o two, approve and adopt the twenty twenty six, twenty thirty school bus replacement plan. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. It's been moved by missus Lee, second by doctor Green.
Are there any questions? Miss Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Sadeghi? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item 9.202 passes unanimously seven votes. It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item nine point o three, approve and adopt the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty eight Capital Projects Operations Fund
Plan. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved by missus Lee, second by mister Snedechy. Are there any questions? A point of clarity. So when we're because we're not asking for anything here, can you explain why we're not? Like, how the how these how capital expenses are being covered? Yeah. Sure. So we are going to be covering our capital expenditures through the GEO bonds or other bond and capital funds, which we have been doing in the past. You know? Recently, we just have issued $16,000,000 of, bonds for twenty twenty six capital projects.
Even previously, we did the same thing. It has not been a huge change in the, policy or strategy there, But we have some little placeholder budgets in our operations fund, which we really did not utilize. So we are just trying to be more leaner into our, in terms of our operations fund budget. So that is why we are just advertising zero when we have actually been spending $0 there. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello?
Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Snedicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item nine point o three passes unanimously. Seven votes. It is recommended by the school board of trustees to approve action item nine point o four, approve a resolution to authorize raises for certain nonunauthorized I'm sorry, non unionized and certified employee groups for twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six. Is there a motion?
So moved. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved motion by doctor Green, second by missus Lee. Are there any questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee, abstain. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Snedicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item nine point o four passes six votes to one abstention. The motion passes. It is recommended by the school board of trustees to approve action item nine point
o five, approval of construction quote from wells, paving, and asphalt project at Dart Elementary. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. It's been motion by missus Lee, second by doctor Green. Are there any questions? Mister Hernandez, please call the roll. Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Snodicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item nine point o five passes unanimously seven votes.
It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item nine point o six, approval of the tiny eye contract. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Been a motion by doctor Green, second by miss Lee. Are there any questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Castillo? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Labo? Aye. Mister Snedicki? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item nine point o six passes unanimously. Seven votes. It is recommended that the school board trustees approve action item 9.07,
approval of the renewal of PowerSchool maintenance and support invoice. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. It's been motioned by missus Lee, second by doctor Green. Are there any questions? Miss Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leyva? Aye. Mister Senecky? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The motion to approve act the vote to approve action item nine point o seven passes unanimously second? Second.
Is there a second? Second. It's been moved by missus Lee, second by mister Costello. Are there any questions? Yeah. This is a subscription, but I'm not sure I know what is a subscription for. Okay. So anyone can answer that question for doctor Green. Instructure is the company that owns Canvas, which is our learning management system that we're we're going, shifting the learning management system from Google Classroom to Canvas.
And they're basically the ones who own Canvas. That's very helpful. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Any other question? Yes, sir. Question. Is this so teachers have used Google Classroom and Canvas. Is this what they want? They want is Canvas more effective? Eventually, Google Classroom will be phased out Okay. And Canvas will be the learning management system of SBCSC. Alright. Alright. Thanks. Thank you. Any other questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Aye. Miss Lee? Aye.
Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Leiva? Aye. Mister Seneke? Aye. Doctor McCullough? Aye. The vote to approve action item nine point o eight passes unanimously seven votes. In closed section, we move we're moving over I think we're going to have a presentation for the tentative collective bargaining agreement. Okay. I'm getting there. Okay. Yes. Yeah. 10.01, the tentative agreement of the teacher collective bargaining agreement presentation by, mister Lee I mean, mister, Eid, mister Augustino.
We got a whole big team here. Mister Zook is here. Mister Summers is here. Doctor Stevens is here. An office here if they wanna come on up. But we'll make it a fast presentation. Alrighty. Thank you. And and as you can see, I've put up there, the team. I I do want to say thank you on behalf of our team to the the negotiating team for the teachers. I know miss Linda Lucey is here. I think Joe Washington with the ISTA and Linda's team did a very nice job,
very collaborative effort. So I want to say thank you to them for participating in this. I also want to say special thanks to Amy Asmus, who did a wonderful job keeping track of the changes in the collective bargaining agreement as we went through and did those. And it was very rewarding to hear from Beverly Beck during the negotiation process. She's been a teacher with us for over eighty years that this was the best
round of negotiations she'd ever participated in. So, and so anyway, big round of applause to the group. As you can see on our team, we had a lot of red ink up there. What happened to it? Everything you guys sitting at the table is your team, right? Right? Yep. Our team. And everyone here except Doctor Stevens and Jason Zook were rookies on this negotiating team. Where's the other side of the table? Well, we got Linda Lucy back there.
Oh, there's some other groups down there. See? I I would like to see that altogether as a team. We'll do that after the afterwards for photos. So let me get going on this. I'm gonna call out the changes. We got some veterans here, that can answer questions regarding these or provide you historical context. The big changes obviously were the switch to TeamCare as our health care provider, which enabled us to get savings, which we could then use for the pay raises and
Anaf already laid those out. Like is he here somewhere? I know. Yeah. There he is. He's a he's a big part of the team. So, the big part were were the raises, for the teachers, And, we'll point those out in the appendices when we get to them. So, but I'll I'm gonna scroll through the agreement here. I know this will be a little bit tedious, but I'll I'll call out things as we go through this. And, mostly not many changes at all.
So under article one on recognizing, the union, the only addition under article one was to add deans and principal interns to the definition of who is excluded from the definition of teacher as far as who is part of the bargaining unit. On Article two, there were no changes. Oops, I went too far. Article three, absences and leaves, we added a distinction in the contract distinguishing between teachers hired before the twenty sixteen-twenty seventeen school year and what they're allowed to accumulate in
sick leave days. There is a distinction of three thirty for that group whereas teachers hired after 07/01/2016 get only 200. Is that right, Jason? That is correct, sir. He knows the stuff inside out, I don't. Okay. We also added language from Indiana code Twenty-twenty 28 dash nine dash 10, which allows, that's on the next page. Let me get to it. The the red the red lettering add on that allows for transfer of up to
three days per year. And we also addressed what happens with returning teachers and what they get to use as far as previous year's sick and personal time. On, next item we changed was on bereavement and it's past it. Yeah. On bereavement, we did add the stillbirth and miscarriage as additional reasons for allowing bereavement. Okay. So then we're going to go to page four. Okay. We added a section three here under h of article three for allowing reasonable break
periods for nursing mothers, required by law, but it hadn't been in here. So we thought it was essential to put that in there. Another item that was added in here was j paid parental leave up to ten days for birth or adoption of child. Okay. Going to queue. That jump. Okay. On sick leave bank on page five, we set forth some rules on accessing the
leave bank based on making that consistent with the FMLA rules for getting that. We also recognize that some of our teachers may not have eligibility for FMLA based on length of time working or whether they had used it. And we do allow ability to seek up to fifty days. We also specify that if teachers do draw from the sick bank, they're required to pay those days back and we have a method for doing that. Did you wanna expound on that, Jason?
Okay. Okay. So then we're at article four. Okay. We're going to page 10 as the next point of change. And consistent with the prior change I mentioned earlier on '3 30 versus 200 on sick leave payout. We did specify that in the contract under item C here on page 10. And we laid out the sick leave payout at retirement schedule, dollars 100 per day
for one the first one hundred days, dollars 150 per day from 101 to 200, dollars dollars 200 per day for two zero one to $302.50 dollars per day for over three zero one up to the three thirty. Under retirement, we did make a distinction between end of year retirement and mid year retirement, and laid out the rules for the midyear retirement. Under Article six, insurance, beginning on Page 11, The big change here is the adoption
of TeamCare as the provider. Our contribution rates are eightytwenty for the standard plan and the Cadillac plan is a 70 seven contribution rate. On dental insurance, we did add a clarifier that $1,500 was the lifetime max pay on orthodontic. That's right there in the middle of the page there. You can see that on page 12. And then on compensation, and I think we laid out some rules here on how
we're calculating the hourly salary when we need that calculation and also the daily rate when we need that calculation. We allowed for reclassification two times a year, January 15 and June 15. You want to add a little background on that one, Jason? Sure. So about 2012, I believe it was, the state made a rule that master's degrees don't matter any longer. And so from then on, teachers had a couple years to finish their programs. But after that, when a teacher earned their master's degree or doctorate degree, they did
not receive any pay increase with that because the lanes and steps were taken away from the contract. A new employee that had a master's degree or doctorate degree coming in would get compensated for that on the new hire scale, but not our current employees because it wasn't allowed. So therefore, prior language allowed for reclassification when we could do that. And so since now that we were able to provide I think with 1,700 for those that earned a master's degree during that time, this will give the Human Resources Department an opportunity for people to reclassify, provide that information and then based on the
next negotiations look at how many people earn their master's degree, doctorate degree and then decide are we able to afford increases separately for those people that earn those advanced degrees. New employees coming into the district will still continue to earn that because it's based on our new hire schedule. So this will allow for our internal people now to hopefully if money is available earn that. There is a caveat, though, on the master's degree. What was happening is some people were leaving the district and coming back to get
reclassified at the highest at the higher rate. So, as long as there was continuous employment non interrupted, then we will reclassify them now so that they can earn the credits. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. We're gonna move to let's see. Equal pays. Yeah. I think I passed that up. Okay. We added a statement in here that those are who are retiring, resigning or emergency
permit holders who have been non renewed will be paid out on the June schedule. J through K, no changes. L, on additional teaching duties, we specified that on extended contracts, the teachers will be paid at 0.085 of their workday per semester. K. And I think the next change on why. So on why and I think this is a significant add in here.
This allows the school to pay out of line up to 35% of the maximum new hire rate of compensation for certain positions that are like high demand, high need, hearing and prayer teacher, occupational therapist, physical therapist, speech language pathologists, psychologists and visually handicapped teachers. So, this enables the school to deviate from the regular pay rate in order to
recruit people to fill these positions. And if you recall too, this is an area where we did incur a lot of contract claims in the Special Ed area. I think it was up to $10,000,000 it was having to fill or backfill or provide these services. So again, keeping with the idea of being aggressive here, we want to try to be able to pay aggressively to find people as our employees in these areas. And then a small change here under BB, payment for retiree substitute teachers at a
rate of $200 per day. Okay. There's really no changes on Article eight. Article nine are updated with the signatures, but nothing significant. And then, we've got the compensation schedules. And I think, enough had a very good slide that summarize those. I can pull that back up here. I don't know if you wanna add anything to that, Jason or mister Ed, Sarita? Yeah. Did you leave something out? Yeah. We are we are the highest paying district in the region now. You know? Yeah. I I did note that you had a unanimous approval on your budget tonight, so
congratulations. I gave them the sign already. I think as far as the pay goes, this does summarize it pretty well. And it is an aggressive pay and it does put us in competition. I think it does put pressure on other schools to either move up or we're going to be able to draw in, I think teachers, certified teachers back over here.
Let me get back to my. Okay. And then the one thing that is new then, is under Article nine. So when we adopted or made the switch over to TeamCare, I'll give them to that. There was a change up in how specialty drugs would be paid for under the yes, so here we go, under the TeamCare plan and the co pays were going
to jump substantially, I think at least up to $800 at least for some of these specialty drugs. So, the finance team looked at the savings and I think calculated that we could set aside $500,000 for twenty six twenty five, twenty six and then for also for 2627 to reimburse out of pocket expenses for specialty drugs for employees.
So the way this plan is going to work is going to reimburse each participant, not just employees, but participants in the plan up to $1,500 per year with an aggregate total of claims paid. So it's going to be first come first serve of 500,000. We think the $500,000 will be more than enough to cover that expense. There's a procedure laid out here. This is again something completely new.
We had to be creative on coming up with this. But it lays out the rules. The drugs do have to be covered under the plan. So we're paying for the out of pocket of it. So no experimental drugs, they have to be prescribed by licensed physicians, medically necessary and fit the specialty drug meds listing under the plan. So they are covered expenses. They just have a high out of pocket impact on our employees. We do have a review process. What we are going to do, the claims, we're going to get a report quarterly
from TeamCare that's going to give us the name of the employee and the amount that they incurred out of pocket and then we will issue reimbursement. If someone happens to fall off that list, we've got a process described in the plan on how they can go about getting reimbursed. We have a review process on processing these claims and appeals, which is all laid out. And it took quite a while to fine tune this, but I think we reached a point where everybody was on board on how we can work this through with
the benefits. Can I ask, are all these I know we're talking about teachers right here? Are are all the rules for all the employees same rules or is there special So the specialty drug plan applies for all employees, not just the teachers. Yes. K. That's basically my question. And when do the employees have a certain date they gotta enroll in this? So the the this plan, once you approve this, this plan then will will, take
effect. It takes effect 01/01/1926 forward because that's when our team care plan comes into place. In fact. Yeah. Is that it got till then to decide whether they wanted to be in it or not? Oh, there there's a different time period for that. You wanna answer that, Sarita? Once, the approval from the board takes place, the the onboarding process takes place. So TeamCare, will take care of that for us. We we have all the records through Optimize, so they will literally contact people.
So the enrollment period will almost start right away. Okay. And there's been a lot of work being done, I know, behind the scenes to get ready to launch that. Yeah. In terms of records. Okay. I was just trying to get her to talk. No. They they got it. You know? I guess we've done all the work, so they got it. So those are the highlights of the CVA. Any questions? I just have one question. On page 15, under BB, are we going to be the highest paid corporation for
retired substitute teachers, or are we compatible with someone with the rest of the corporations? I don't know the answer to that. But you know. Not yet. Okay. I I was under the impression that we were, but I was just corrected. Elkhart is still at $2.75. Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you. I'm now retired. I have I have one question, and it's not directed to anybody at the front desk. It's the person away in the back. Missus Lucy, teachers approve this?
Everybody in agreement with this? You wanna speak at the Podium. Podium there? Yes. We ratified the contract, and it was unanimous. Everyone there voted in four. And I have to say thank you, if you approve this, for the leadership of doctor McCullough as president, the school board, and everyone sitting at this table. It was a very collective, collaborative effort. And I think, pardon me, one of the best tributes that anyone could get was
as we were leaving the hall from our ratification meeting, the team care people came, to present, their information and take questions take questions from our people. And as I was leaving, they pulled me aside and said, I want you to know how impressed we are that you take such good care of your employees. So we're getting a reputation, and we thank you very, very much. No. We thank you for your comment. And I was asked to point out one other thing here on under appendix two
and section two that our extra pay schedule is indexed to $46,000 for the twenty five through twenty seven school years. But you need to explain why that's important. Sure. This is important because for many, many years, it's been held at 34,000, I believe, and frozen. So our coaches and those that do after school activities have been paid off that rate. And so this is a huge percentage increase for the hard work that they put in after school, for our clubs, for our sports. And the other thing I think should be noticed, it's it's kinda funny because I
was cleaning out the union hall one time in the filing cabinet, and I found a note that said was talking about appendix two, and this was from the late seventies and said, hey. We'll talk about this next year. And, of course, it was typewritten. And, literally, the appendix two has been kicked down the can down the road year after year after year, get one or two things in. And both sides, both teams really worked hard, spent almost the whole day putting in a ton of positions that exist, but weren't people weren't getting compensated for.
And we really wanted to fix that this year. So when you look through and if you compare it to an old contract, it's probably doubled in size with the amount of positions now we're gonna pay people for with their time. That's very important. Thank you. Any other questions? No questions. Thank you. You're welcome. So, attorney Augustino, are we moving anything else from that, meeting in the, executive meeting? We are. Just, before we get to that, though, so, we're requesting that we have a you
you can't vote on this tonight, but we're requesting a special meeting for November 10, if we could, so that, the board may ratify this agreement. Okay. But we were required to present the contents of it tonight. November 10 at 05:30. Thank you. You're welcome. And so then moving on to your agenda under item 11, there was one item involving a legal settlement of a claim that I would request the Board's approval on.
Okay. So tell me the item again so we can I can put the motion in place? It was a settlement of a legal claim involving an employment matter. Okay. Okay. So do I have a motion, to approve the settlement of a legal claim agreement. So do I have a motion? So moved. And do I have a second? Second.
It was moved by doctor Green, second by, mister, Ellison. Are there any questions? Mister Hernandez, can you please call the roll? Mister Ellison? Aye. Mister Costello? Abstain. Miss Lee? Abstain. Doctor Green? Aye. Mister Labo? Aye. Mister Snedicki? Abstain. Doctor McCullough. Aye. The vote to approve the item, 11 o one from closed session to settlement agreement passes four to three. Three vote in favor and three I'm sorry.
Four votes in favor and three abstentions. The vote passes. We now move to board communications. Does anyone wish to speak? Seeing no one want I'll go. Mister Lieba? Yeah. End of the fall sports, we're entering the winter sports, and we got a couple new coaches. Maybe you guys haven't heard of it. I have coach Corey coaching the girls' Washington basketball team. We have Moe Scott coaching the Washington boys, and I'm sure they're gonna churn those keep those programs going, and we expect good big things from them.
Then we got junior Scott coaching Adams. And then we also got boys' basketball starting pretty soon, so, and Riley girls' basketball starting. So good luck to all the winter sports. Anyone else wish to speak? Seeing no one wish to speak, there, will be a special meeting on 11:10 at 05:30 in regards to the teacher contract. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. There's second. It's been motioned by missus Leese, second by doctor Green.
If all signified by in favor, say aye. Aye. The motion is adjourned. Thank you for coming.