We have all those people. >> Good evening. Good evening. Welcome everyone to the South Vinnie Community School Corporation Board of Trustee meeting today, Monday, October the 6th at 5:30. The board had a close session at 3:30
and there will be some items brought over from the closed session and will be voted on an action item 10.01. This meeting is called to order. Mr. Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Good afternoon. Mr. Marcus Ellison, >> present.
>> Mr. Marcusello >> here. >> Miss Kate Lee here. >> Dr. Stur Green >> here. >> Mr. Carlos Lea >> here. >> Mr. Dr. Bill Snideki >> here. >> Dr. Janet McCulla present.
>> Adoption of the agenda. >> We would like Do I have a motion to amend the agenda >> to remove items number 9.01 and 9.19? >> Yes. Uh, President McColl, I based upon
what we discussed in executive session, I'd move to amend the agenda to remove 9.01 and 9.19 for further >> another day. >> It's been motioned by Mr. Ellison and second by Mr. Costello, I'm sorry,
Mr. Snideki to amend the agenda. Do I have any concerns or questions? Any conversations? Miss Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Costello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I.
>> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lea, >> I. >> Mr. Snedy, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The motion carries. Seven votes. We now move to adopt the agenda. >> It is recommended that school
corporation adopt adopt the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? May uh may I have a motion? It's been a motion by Miss Lee, second by >> Second. >> Mr. Ellison. Uh, are there any questions or concerns?
>> Mr. Nandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Castello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Leva, >> I. >> Mr. Sigi, I >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to adopt the agenda passes
unanimously. We now move to uh the next item on the agenda is the superintendent recognitions and announcements. M superintendent Eid. >> Good evening Dr. McCulla, board members, members of the public.
Uh every year we have a group of German students who join us as part of the GermanAmerican partnership program. And I don't think I will do it enough justice if I talk about it myself. So I
am going to ask Mr. Henderson, the principal of Riley High School, along with Miss Heidi Darren, the program sponsor to come up to the podium and explain what we do. >> Also, I'd like to say Heidi Darren,
teacher of the year, >> teacher of the year for South Ben Community School Corporation. You want me to do the whole thing? Okay. >> All right. All right. Well, good evening, uh, Dr. McCulla, uh, Miss Superintendent Eids, Vice President, Mr. Snideki. Again, we just want to thank
you all for allowing us this opportunity. Um, as long as I've been at Riley, and I'm in my ninth year, uh, we've been doing the GAP GermanAmerican Partnership Program. Um it's just amazing for the fact that our students are allowed to link up with students from Germany and build a lifetime of
friendship. Um I would actually say they become family. Um this past year I was able to host a student from Germany for the entire year and it branched off of having this relationship with our students from Germany. So it's exciting. Um but Mrs. Darren is going to speak a
little bit more about the program and we are excited that we can continue on with this tradition and we want to continue to move forward with it. Miss Darren, >> thank you. So, GAP is an exchange program that connects our students and teachers from Riley with our partner
school in Germany um through homeays and shared learning experiences. It gives students the chance to step into another culture not as tourists but as part of a community. Uh, our German students have spent the last three weeks as part of
our Wildcat community living with our American families. Next June, 13 of our students and two teachers will be making the exchange trip to stay with our German hosts for three weeks, experiencing firsthand that even though we live a world apart, we have a lot in
common. In today's world where global awareness and cross-cultural cultural understanding are more important than ever, GAP helps our students build empathy, communication skills, competence, and connections that last a lifetime. It's a meaningful, often
life-changing way to bring international education directly into our district and to prepare our young people to succeed and lead in a connected world. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you.
>> Oh, Lordy Jesus. Thank [Applause] Love it. Not appreciating chocolate. >> Who are you? >> So I have I goters and schol that's where I come from. So
>> okay, this one wants to go to >> Thank you. It's my friend. >> Out of here. Nothing complain. They are out of here. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. I love chocolate. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> My wife will enjoy this.
>> All the best to you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> As long as not. >> Item 4.02.
Southbend Community School Corporation. Our adult education program has been named a program of excellence for the third year in a row uh by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. And I believe we have Dr. Finley and Miss
Gorski with us to speak about the program and about the award. >> Good evening, Dr. McCulla, trustees. Um, I would just like to, you know, recognize, uh, Jenny Gorski's work and the staff at Adult Ed and all the stuff
they do. I wish I could take any amount of credit for this, but this will be the third year in a row and unfortunately that precedes me. So, I'll let Jenny talk about a little bit of uh, what happened with this. >> Thank you again for celebrating with us tonight for the program of excellence
award. Um, Southbend Adult Education has met almost all their goals last year. And that's what this comes from. The state of Indiana DWD, Department of Workforce Development creates goals for us to meet. And if you meet, I think there's three we have to meet and two
out of four. So, a total of five goals. Um, to go over some of those, we'll highlight our program, which is why the goals are exciting because it makes it easy to tell people what we're doing in our program. Um last year the state set a goal for us to have 830 students enrolled and at the end of the year we
had 846. So that was a huge goal and the teachers are like we aren't going to do that. I said oh yes we will. So we did. So that was exciting. Um, we have measurable skill gains in adult education, which means students either earn a high school
equivalency, the GED, HSSE, or they make gains with assessments that we give them in the classroom, or they complete a certification. And last year the goal for us was 69% of our students and we ended with 73% of our students making a
measurable skill gains which Indiana is the number one in the United States for adult education measurable skill gains. So and that's on top of big states. So I mean it's just exciting what we do and the goals they set for us and that's how we get to that point. Um, and the last
thing I wanted to mention was that we had students last year earn certifications as CNAs, the certified nursing assistants. Um, QAS, qualified medical aids, logistics, welding, and um, we had nine students start a CDA
class in the spring and they finished this fall. All of them got their certifications last month. So, we are proud of what we're doing and we thank you for your support and we even we are I am grateful for the school corporation because we had some problems with our
grants this summer as I know a lot of people did and when I went to the South School Corporation and asked for a little support until we knew more information, they said yes to everything I asked for and I appreciate that and that showed us that you guys care about
us. you're working for us. And it allowed us to move forward without having to stop, which a lot of adult education programs did. There were some in the state that actually let a lot of people go and we did not have to do that and it all worked out okay. So, we just appreciate you saying yes even though it
worked out fine, but it allowed us to continue our program without any flaws. So, we appreciate what you do for us and thank you. >> Thank you. Item number 4.03. October is National Principal Month
and I believe Miss Kali has uh something in the works for our principles. Item 4.04, National Custodian Appreciation Day, was last week, October 2nd. And the last
announcement and or recognition is National Service Food Service Week October 5th through the 11th. That's all for the superintendent announcements and recognitions. >> Thank you, Superintendent.
We now have the opportunity to hear from visitors under action items 9.01 all the way through 9.19. At regular meetings at 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 meetings and state the action agenda items which they will address. Indivision 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 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 Lever, do we have anyone signed up to speak?
>> Yes. 9.02. We have Kimberly Reese. Yep. You can come up. Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Uh thank you to the superintendent and
also to you Dr. McCulla and the other trustees. We are speaking to you today on behalf of Beacon Health System. My name is Kimberly Green Reeves. Our address is 710 North Niles Avenue in South Bend. The reason for coming to you
this morning is because we pro provided to you a curriculum uh to teach to students in grades sixth, seventh, and eth. This is to um continue our sexual health education program. And we know
that there are new sexuality codes and we want to ensure that um we've done our due diligence to review the curriculum and made updates to meet those expectations and wanted to be able to provide an opportunity for you all to answer any question or ask any questions
that you all may have and then as well so that we can answer those questions. I would like to just offer that we are also we've been in the schools for over 20 plus years teaching this curriculum and we think it's very important. We focus on prevention and want to ensure
that our students still have that opportunity to learn. >> Thank you. 9.16 we have Paul and Nasses Hello again everybody. Paul asked 51680 Orange Road. Using my
first amendment right what I say should not be held against me, my family or my co-workers. So I'm talking about the action item 9.16 which is the approval of the contract with team care for new medical and prescription.
And uh I would like to express some concern regarding the proposed contract. First, I did not see a PDF or any supporting documentation attached to the item for us to review. If the contract is approved this evening, it appears that only one organization organized
body, which I believe was a teachers union, had access to the information. And then to my knowledge, none of the other bargaining units were of the any of the other bargaining units or employee groups had received any information
or any explanation about the plan. Um, how it's unable to uh I I'm sorry, excuse me. How it is unable to determine what specific medical coverage options are being proposed for Southbend school employees. However, I did find that Team
Care uses Caremark, I believe, for their prescription benefit program. And this raises concern because the previous outsource provider also used Caremark and at that time there was numerous employee complaints regarding prescription coverage, availability, and
customer service. So, um, unless, sorry, I lost my place. Unless they have been there have been significant improvements or changes since then, this could present similar
issues for staff. I believe the corporation and all employee groups deserve to review the full detail of this proposal before its finalization at minimal transparency above coverage costs and potential changes for the current plan should be provided to all
affected staff members, not just one group. and I request the information be shared district-wide before any contract is executed. And basically, I do understand that the insurance from what we're understanding is going up year-toear. And so, we need to find a
better cost-effective way, but it would be nice to have everybody included in on this and so everybody has an idea. And like I say, there was no PDF, so I there was nothing that we could review to see what what was even being offered to us.
So that's it. >> Thank you. Was anything offered to them to see? >> Uh all unions were invited uh to a presentation where we had our current insurance provider and team care
present at the same time. Actually, Mr. Dael is sitting back door. He represents the teamsters. He was here. Uh the lady representing ask me was here. Um the
NEA was here along with Mr. Washington. We had all the unions representing Southbend. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> That's it.
>> Okay. Thank you. Uh we now move to the hearing of visitors on other items. Um we now have the opportunity to hear from visit on other items. At regular meetings, the public is invited to address uh the board for three minutes regarding
items not posted on the agenda. Individuals 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. Personnel issues are not to be addressed during this open session of the school board. The board president may
interrupt, warn, or terminate a person's statement if the statement becomes personally a directive, abusive, or obscene. Yes. Thank you. Welcome. >> Thank you, Sue Kelum for 22 Kennedy Drive. Um, I wanted to say I just love
driving past the school and seeing a sign that says it's great to read 20 minutes a day. Um, of course I hope that they can read it, but um um yeah, it was great to see that
reminder of reading 20 minutes a day. So, I was so glad to see that. Um, I took the time to go to the PTO meeting at Marshall. Oh my gosh, talk about a wonderful group. I mean, amazing. Uh they're well
organized um both in their activities and their fundraising. They had a Zoom for those who were, you know, parents can't always make it to a meeting. So, they had Zoom for those who couldn't be there. They kept it to one hour,
respecting everybody's time. All the slides were like um organized and they had the amounts and what the activities were. And what struck me is their fundraising um was not only effective but it was fun
at the same time. They had a lot of um gamification of their fundraising and their um activities. So what I'd like to say about that is they are so exceptional in my opinion. It would be great for them
to do a training video for other PTOs on how to organize, how to fundra, how to plan, how to get that kind of involvement because they were just wonderful. It was one of those um success leaves clues
and um very successful just I was so impressed. So maybe consider doing a training video that they can uh spread their knowledge to other PTOs in the system. They were really good. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak?
Hi, my name is Lexiana Casper uh 11:34 Fremont Street. I am here today um in regards to an incident that had happened and it actually it's a huge problem that has been happening since school has started in regards to SNAP children that
go to McKinley Elementary School. Um it's the the transportation has been a very big issue. Um if you don't mind, I would like to read a statement in regards to the incident, which is what prompted me to be here today because
it's not only our family, my child that the that problems have happened with, but multiple children that go to this school. They're preschool age children. Um, so to start, the last we have been told, my son Miles Casper, um, he
his drop off time at his daycare is around 3:20 p.m. Um, at this at this moment in time, we were not exactly sure because we have been told on many different occasions of his um, drop off time changing.
Uh, my husband actually had gotten off of work on Monday at 3:30 p.m. and went straight to his daycare to pick him up. He was not yet dropped off, so he waited in his truck. Knowing that they are
consistently late, dropping my son off, uh, we tend to wait about 40 minutes from the time he gets out of school before calling dispatch and seeing where he is at. That being said, my husband texted me at 4:11 p.m. to tell me that he is still not there. We gave them
another 10 minutes and then I called dispatch. So, at this point, he was an hour late from the time that we expected him to be dropped off. Again, we felt that we were originally giving them some grace as we are consistently being told that they are short on drivers and Miles is consistently late.
So, I call dispatch and who I spoke with gets a hold of the driver and he tells her to let me know that he is 5 to 10 minutes away from his daycare. She asks me what his bus number is and I have to tell her that I don't know because he is
on an open route uh and they never have the same bus for him in the afternoon times. This much time passes as he is still not there. We are very worried up about this point but I think okay maybe the driver did not account to the time >> seconds.
>> So basically he ends up being 20 or two hours late being dropped back off. We are told on multiple accounts that he's so many minutes away and he is not. Um turns out that it's a very huge communication problem. As parents, we
are not being told what is going on, where our drivers at at the moment. Um, and then I have to call consistently to ask where my son is at. Um, >> three minutes are up. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Anyone else wish to speak? John Pachznney 18420 Crown Hill Drive. Good evening. Mr. Castello, you should be commended for putting forth the effort of devising the plan you did. Rather than sitting idle and rubber stamping everything, you went to work to
create a plan that made a lot more sense in 2023 than the plan that we were given. I told the company at the time that the right sizing plan and the information and numbers did not add up. Well, we found
out it was true. It was clear that where you came from, you were provided with the opportunity to present it to the public. It sounded great. It sounded right. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time. Superintendent E, your replies to
the comments and questions from the public at the town hall meetings was refreshing. You had a reply to everyone's question or concern which shows you know the many aspects of your job and it was so nice to hear good solid answers and not I will get back to
you. To the board members, can we please pause any idea of changing any school grade structure until the 2728 school year? Parent, teachers, and public are tired of the uncertainty and
what may change next. Please take a pause. We had the lowest student loss number in years. Let's see what happens in the next school year. Now all we need to do is really monitor the buildings to the 50% threshold and act accordingly
with those buildings, not every building causing disruption. Superintendent E, you and I both heard we need more parental involvement at the town hall meetings. It resonated at each one. How do we increase parental
involvement? With that in mind, I'm giving you a suggestion to compete. a task force of seven to nine people, no administration nor board members to talk and seek out why parents are not involved. Talk to other PTOs at other
schools and how they got parents involved. Give them a time frame say of six months or so and come back with a full report and let's see if this could be the start of building something better in parental involvement. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Seeing none, we'll move now move to academic focus um 7.01 budget. I see the CFO is approaching the table. Welcome
Thank you, Dr. Melo, president of the board and uh everyone else at the board tonight. Uh thank you for joining us. I am Anaf Tamid, the CFO of Southern Schools, and I will present tonight along with my team the recommended 2026
district general fund budget for the calendar year January 1st, 2026 to December 31st, 2026. As I mentioned, I'm an off. I have with me director of internal audits, Miss Marina Jones, uh, deputy CFO, Louisa Brand, and director
of strategic financial analysis, K9. So, what's the agenda tonight? We are going to talk about the financial strategy a little bit. Then the internal financial audit that we perform 2025 achievements that the financial services team have achieved so far. What's so
special about the 2026 budget? Then we will do a budget overview and then we will do a fund deep dives into all four of our general funds. After that we will talk about some district level financial insights including the cash balance,
some district level spending and then we will conclude. So what is our financial strategy? We cannot perform without a strategy, right? We are a $300 million corporation and we definitely need a strategy. So
from a bird's eye point of view, we have four portions in our overall strategy. Number one, financial sustainability. We want to maintain a good cash reserve. We want to maintain our budget. We don't want to go over the budget. But at the
same time, we want to ensure a good financial future of the district. It is not a two-year, three-year plan. It is a multi-year plan. And we want to survive and thrive for centuries as we already have. We are a century old school districts in Indiana. We want to
maximize our investment in education because that is our sole purpose. In order to do so, we want to maximize money in education fund and ensure equity. And in order to do that we will have to maximize our operational efficiency which we do through insourcing budget cuts and other
operational effic efficiency drives. And also we want to minimize the education to operations fund transfer right now for 2025 which is 5.5% one of the lowest already in the state but we are proposing only 1% which will
be the lowest in the state if the budget is approved by the board. We also want to maximize our investment in our brand ambassadors who are our teachers, bus drivers and other support staff. We do negotiation in a different way now. And
we do not hold back money if we have it because we want to empower our brand ambassadors. And at the same time, we want to have safe, secure, clean and functional buildings because we want to ensure a steady and good learning
environment for for all our students. Now I will pass the baton to director of internal audits, Miss Marino Johns. >> Good evening everyone. So we're probably tired of hearing about internal controls, but I think everybody will recall last year about this time the
state board of accounts was wanting us to create an internal control manual and have a training program. So that is what we've been working on diligently in the last year. We've actually had two versions of it released at this point. We had the first version December of 2024 and then the next version was just
released in this past June. It's going to be a living document because as we run into areas of confusion or areas of concern, we're going to add those into the manual and address them as quickly as we can. So, some of the more recent things that we have added is a cash box
handling form, which requires a minimum of a monthly inventory done of any cash boxes, as well as if there is an event you're using a cash box for, we need to do the inventory before the event starts. Then, after the deposit has been completed, we want to verify that the
original amount is back in that cashbox inventory. We are now requiring that any stipend requests that were not approved through the grant process or through professional bargaining goes before the board for approval prior to any kind of financial payout.
We are sending contracts back to the board or to superintendent Eid for review. We discovered that there were a lot of small contracts that were just scattered all over the schools and the departments. could be something as simple as a um DJ for an afterchool dance, but those kind of things have
legal ramifications for the corporation. So, we want to make sure that they're being reviewed appropriately and being signed by authorized individuals. We also have created an asset disposition procedure and form so that we can have the director of um buildings
and grounds review any kind of transfers, auctions, disposals, or anything like that to make sure that we're maximizing the assets that we have. Just in case there isn't a teacher waiting on an office chair over at a school that we may not have known about, let's check that first before we dispose
of items. Gift card purchases. We heard a lot of feedback over the last year about gift cards. No one can issue a gift card to an employee from corporation or grant funds ever. So, we've clarified that. We have also added in that any gift card
purchases need to be approved in advance by the board. And then once those are approved, we have to utilize a tracking form for each of them that shows us the amount that was purchased, the vendor, and then tracks which student it went to and then has an employee signature there. It's also to be treated as cash
and kept under lock and key and a monthly inventory needs to be completed at a minimum on that too to make sure that those gift cards are still where they're supposed to be. Uh new this year is the internal controls training. We had uh three in-person trainings over the summer and
for anyone who was not able to attend those trainings, we are now actually going through the self-led portion. middle of September, I think everybody probably received it um on the board, but middle of September, we sent out a notice to everyone letting them know it was a mandatory training, giving them
the resources to review and the requirement that they complete the signature form and then send it back to me. So, so far we have about a quarter of our employees that have that form completed at this point and we're going to actually today the reminder just went out, so I expect that we're going to
have a lot more come in after that. Um, and then for anyone who doesn't have it completed by the October 15th deadline, we're going to follow up with their supervisors and get the forms completed, get the training completed. We do want to point out that internal controls are not meant to be punitive. They are there to help us all. They keep
us honest. They keep the taxpayers trusting us. They help us improve across the board with communication and just making sure everybody's on the right page. So, we do want to make that very clear to people. It's not anything against any particular person. Also this summer we completed our first
capital asset summary in probably two decades or more. The assets that we had on hand before the asset list we had on before was like a binder that's this big and you know this tall that you would have to flip through to try to figure out where everything was which obviously is not ideal. So we actually contracted
a small company to come out and do a physical asset inventory of anything valued at $5,000 or more. And within that inventory was listing the location. So telling us which school it was at and then which classroom it was in or which cafeteria or wherever it might be. From
that they also did a valuation to estimate what the original cost was of those items and then what the depreciation depreciated amount is after straight line depreciation is considered. So right now we're looking at about $75 million in assets. But if something were to happen catastrophic
and all of our buildings and items were gone, it would cost us about 1 billion to actually obtain all those items again because we had to factor in that depreciation. We also had them affix labels or barcodes to anything valued at 5,000 or more. Those are numbered, but with a barcode system, if we decided in the
future that we want to go to some kind of an inventory software where they could scan it, we're going to be set up to do that. We have implemented our purchasing process flow which is asking people to verify what type of items they are they are purchasing and then what the amount
is and then based on that it's trickling down here to tell you what kind of process you need to complete. It has been instituted for um about a year now and we gave people a little bit of leeway just to kind of learn what we needed from them and we actually got a
lot of really good questions out of this and one of the nice things is we've had people reaching out to us now saying hey are we allowed to purchase this or are we allowed to use funds for this and we can give them advice in advance whereas before they probably weren't going to ask. So we really like to see that.
We do want to remind everyone that the Southbend schools are a highly audited and um regulated entity just like any other Indiana school corporation. We have to provide monthly or yearly reports or even quarterly reports to many different agencies and we are actually in good standing with those
agencies because we do provide our reporting. We are still going through our 2022 2023 audit. From what I understand, we're very close to being done which is great. Uh, I do want to say though, it's been really nice having the auditors here for so long because as I've been working on the internal control manual, if I come up with
something, some kind of a question I may not know the answer to, they are super helpful with giving me answers or pointing me in the right direction. So, I've actually really appreciated them being here for that. And that's it for me. This is Lou Brand. Okay. Hello everyone. Um, I'm really
proud to share what the finance team has accomplished during year 2025. And these are numbers that you are going to hear throughout this presentation. Actually Anav has already shared a couple of these numbers. Uh but we need to learn how or why they are so
important. So the one the very first thing that we need to say is that that the education to operations from transfer lower from 9.1% in 2024 to 5.5% in 2025. That meant that meant that uh there were more $4 million
that were directly to the education fund and as uh anaf already mentioned we are pushing ourself to get only 1% transfer for year 2026. Negotiations with four non-certified unions were done in only four days. That
was amazing. We got the highest races offered in recent history. they they were done back in November 2024 and we want to do even better for 2026. Um we visited uh all schools and we uh
listen to all their wish list that gave to the schools 1.4 4 million 1.5 millions more for the the classrooms what wherever they need bus drivers for a professionals uh they receive a special stipens up to $3,500.
Uh and even though that even all these investments we are super honored to say that we have the highest cash reserve in history for the South Community School Corporation. That means that by the end of August 2025, we got $119 million
versus $12 million back in August 2024. But more than numbers, what really matters is that we are we are rebuilding trust within our school, our staff, and our community. Internally, uh we are doing our best in
terms of structure and accountability. As Marina mentioned, we develop and enforce the internal control manual that puts us in a very good position because now every single contract and stipen is presented for board approval in uh we
are following and we are refor reinforcing all the Indiana purchasing laws and all this has been done districtwide. Also we had the capital asset inventory project. This was done fulfilled and it was the first time in
decades. We also terminated the SSC contract effective on June 30th 2025 saving between three and 5 million annually. Uh finance and operation team we have done
around 10 academic focus presentations during the year 2025. We are also continue uh improving our finance web page on the SBCSC website. We put in there amazing information all our
presentations and we also include uh all our commonly used forms and we are also uh implementing a new financial system. We already received the approval from the board and we are we are working on a stage one
for this. So what's special about 2026? Okay, so we all know that this is a very special year because it's a year of transition and opportunity. On the positive side, uh as I mentioned
already, we are bringing facilities management inhouse, which means around $4.5 million in potent potential savings, but we are also entering a new era of transparency and public trust. As we mentioned already, we bring to the
board every single contract. It doesn't matter what the amount is, but also we bring all the stipens. they are listed and the board has the chance to take a look before they are approved. This also gives us the chance to uh have better
expenditure control over every single penny that is spent uh in Salv school corporation. Uh we of course think that there is going to be a modest increase in property tax revenues and the state tuition support.
We also maintain our very healthy cash reserve as I mentioned before highest in history of sen school and we are also planning on having a potential savings between six and $7 million for medical insurance. On the negative side, of
course, this is the first year of impact for Senate Bill One. And even though we really don't understand as of right now how this is going to impact the school corporation, we truly believe that this is the opportunity for us to do
incredible um new things. Also, the student loss, even though it seems to be the lowest in recent years, it's also a negative impact. This is always going to be a negative impact. All of that positions us for incredible
opportunity in 2026. This is a year to maximize investment in education, to empower our employees, address teacher and bus drivers shortage and improve retention. We want SBCSC to be the top employer in our region, attracting and
keeping the best talent. And soon we you will know why. When we invest in our people, we directly improve our classrooms, our students, and our community as a whole. As I mentioned, uh this is a year of opportunity.
If the board approves the budget for 2026, uh this will become the highest paying district in our region by a clear margin and one of the top in the entire state. And this is going to apply to teachers, bus drivers, par profofessionals, custodians, and office
personnel. Our goal is to have the best educators and support staff serving our students to solve teacher and bus drivers shortage, boost retention and morale, and make sure these improvements translate into better student outcomes
and stop enrollment loss. Financially um financially we are going to talk about uh we have a modest revenue growth across our three main funds education operations and referendum operations because we still don't know how the
impacts are going to be about senial one we are always thinking that the revenue growth is going to be bo but it also captures significant savings and cost avoidance around $5 uh million because
of the in-house of facilities management and another $7 million for the medical insurance optimization. The impact of inflation will hit us less than in previous years due to internal capacity to build and explore new options. These
savings enable us to fund major unprecedented races for teachers, bus drivers, paraprofessionals and other support staff. We are intentionally investing more in our own people and less in contracted services. In 2026, our education to
operations fund transfer will be just 1%. This means about $1.3 million compared to compared to the 5.5% last year and 9.1% the year before. This creates the
largest education fund budget in district history, ensuring that the maximum dollars go where they belong, into our classrooms. We have also increased the classroom supply budget by about 10% per student, the highest in
recent SBCSC years. Altogether, this budget extends our staff, our classroom, and our financial sustainability for years ahead. Thank you for all your continued support. Thank you, Lisa. Now, I will give a
general overview of the 2026 budget. But before I do that, I need to talk about some key assumptions that we took into consideration to build this budget. Now, we will experience approximately 3 to 4% growth in our property tax levy for both
our operations fund and our referendum operations fund. However, in order to know for sure, we need the certified net assessed value from the auditor of uh the county. Usually, that is released sometime in early August, but this year
we don't have that yet. Now, just think about the situation that we do not have such a important piece of information before our budget and that kind of binds our hands. But we are experts in finances so we have to make our
estimations. So we have done so and we are kind of confident in our estimations there and in order to advertise the tax rates we had to be a little more conservative there. So we took 85% of the net assets value from last year's as
advised by our municipal adviserss. Also the property tax cap impact approximately $13 million uh which we have anticipated which is more than 2025 due to the potential Senate Bill one impact. In short, we will receive more money both in our operations and
referendum operations fund. However, we could have received much more if it were not for the uncertaintities of the Senate Bill one. Now, there are some other key assumptions that we need to talk about. Last year, we did not receive any
increase in the state tuition support, but this year it will be different. We are anticipating a 2% back-to-back increase for 2526 and 26 27 school year. Now if you ask me is that good? Absolutely not. But it is something and
we have to make do with whatever we have. So any money is good money. Enrollment loss we are estimating approximately 250 student loss there. It is the lowest in recent history in terms of estimation. But we want to achieve where we are actually anticipating
growth because we have to have a growth mindset there and we believe with all the things that we are planning to do we can achieve that in very near future. Definitely we will have some savings from the medical insurance switch savings from SSC transition and other budgetary efficiency measured factored
in which Louisa and my other colleagues have discussed in order to provide historic raises to employees and maximize our educational investment. Also there are two other things that I want to touch base uh very shortly. No capital project has been budgeted from
the operations fund because we do that from the bond fund. No bus replacement plan for 2026. Please do not get scared because we have enough buses and miss Dr. McCullo asked about that in the last budget. I remember that. >> Uh she raised a very important question
that hey if you have enough buses why are you budgeting for the money? I kind of blabbered at the time because I just took on the CFO role and I did not have enough information and I and I didn't have the director of transportation with me at that time. But now that it is under my portfolio, we have done a
thorough analysis. So, we really do not need to replace any buses for 2026. Also, at the same time, we had a $1.5 million budget in our 2025 budget for some bus replacement, and we haven't utilized that yet. So we will utilize
the 2025 allocated money if we need to but we really don't need to allocate some money and just to inflate the budget for 2026. We can utilize the money for other educational investments which we are going to do. So this is uh the level of operational efficiency that
we strive to achieve. Now, possibly one of the most important slides here, it shows a six-year snapshot of our general fund budgets for all the four funds that we consider into the general fund pool. And I will take a
little bit of time here, but not too long. Number one, education fund. How do we get the money? What is the funding method? What is the revenue sources? Right? We get money from the state on a per student basis which is approximately $8,200
per student. We also get some money for summer school reimbursement, textbook reimbursement and some other u miscellaneous revenue sources. 2026 if approved will have the biggest education fund budget in SBCSC history.
it will be $132 million compared to $121 million from 2025. Now you may ask where did we suddenly get the 11 million right? Okay. So there are multiple factors behind that. Number one, the little increase that we will have from
the state tition support increase 2erson and two person that compounds and will give us some boost. But more importantly, last year we transferred almost $7 million from our education fund to operations fund, right? But this year we will transfer only a little over
$1 million. So there's another $6 more million additional money in the education fund to be invested on education. Then we have the operations fund. We we rely mostly on the St. Joseph County property taxes. There are other miscellaneous taxes like
commercial vehicle, financial institute, license excise. We also have a good cash reserve which we bragged about quite a bit, right? We get interest revenue from that which we deposit into our operations fund and also we transfer some money from education to operation even though that will be the lowest in
history this year but still that will offer some revenue for the operations fund. Last year it was around $45 million this year it's about $47 million uh which is a general and uh very common increase year-to-year if you look at the
trends. referendum operations. As we know, we have a 8-year referendum. Uh 2026 is the sixth year of this referendum. Then we have 2027 and 2028. So 2026 we are anticipating to receive
approximately $32.5 million uh with the tax rate that was approved by the taxpayers. We have debt service fund. uh we get some additional property tax revenue in order to pay off our debts which we raise to incur our capital
expenditures. It will be almost the same. It is a little inflated though because we are issuing three new geo bonds. So just for safety we bumped up the numbers a little bit. However, in reality we anticipate the actual expenditure will be much less. But no
worries we have not increased the tax rates or anything there. we are operating uh within the tax rates and not increasing that for our taxpayers. Uh if we take a more in-depth look into our education fund year to year from
2020 to 2026 as I mentioned we are anticipating around 250 students uh lost their enrollment loss. So in other words, even though we are having more money in our education fund, we could have received approximately two more million dollars if we did not lose any
students there. Uh if you take a look into the bars, you can see there is a yellow portion there, right? So that yellow portion used to be the transfer from education to operations. In 2020, that was almost $18 million.
And 6 years from now, now it is 2026, we are only going to transfer $1.2 million because we have been lowering down the transfers gradually. It was 15%, it was 9% in 2024, then I slashed it down to 5.5% last year and now it is only 1%. Uh
it is almost zero but not zero. We will strive to make it zero because that will be the ultimate ideal case where we are leaving all the money that we can get into our education fund. And also there's a orange portion there. It was there till 2024. That was the money that we we used to transfer to our
empowerment zone. The zone is there no more. So we operate under the same bucket now. I will not spend a lot of time here because we already talked about our referendum fund and referendum operations fund. Same thing here. We don't owe any money to the empowerment
zone because we operate under the same umbrella. The property tax cap impact has increased in 2026 due to the circuit breaker impact and also potential impact from senate bill one. Uh last year we anticipated much higher but this year we
tried to be a little more realistic but even after that it is more than last year because of potential senate bill impacts. In terms of proportion we are proposing a $212 million general fund budget. 62%
is from education fund, 22% operations and 15% from referendum operations. The proportion that I just talked here has not changed significantly over the years but a little bit because in 2024 education fund used to be 58% of the
total uh general fund budget. In 2025 that was 61 and in 2026 that is 62. And the increase has happened because we are lowering down the transfer from education to operations leaving more money in the education fund. So same thing but from different perspectives
which establishes that we are very much committed in terms of leaving the most money for our education fund. Now, this is my favorite slide and I might spend a little time here because this gives a very good snapshot of our
2025 budget versus 2026 budget in terms of expenditure categories. Starting with certified salaries. In 2025, we had around $75 million budgeted for certified salaries. But in 2026, that
will be more than $82 million, a historic increase of more than 10%. If the board approves, we will be utilizing that money to offer unprecedented raises to our teachers. I cannot share much details at this point because currently we are negotiating with them. But I plan
to share very good news with all of you very very soon. Non-certified salary, it was around $30 million last year. Now it is $49 million. Definitely we are also going to offer raises to all our non-certified employees but it has
increased quite a more uh because we now have all the custodian employees into our payroll now. So that's why the increase is a little uh odd there but it is not truly odd. Medical insurance we are anticipating
decrease there for the first time in history. If we stay with our current provider, it will increase by $3.3 million because our actial studies have indicated it will increase by 13.3% if we stay with our current vendor. And that is why we are proposing that we
switch our medical insurance provider. We are saving the money and we are not going to spend that on contracted services. Rather, we will give it back to our employees. Other important things here contracted services we budgeted $32 million last year but this year it will
be only $16 million because we got rid of SSC and couple of other contracted services. So we are actually reducing our reliance on contracted services and focusing more to build our internal capacity there.
Uh fund transfer as you can see it was $6.7 million last year but it will be $1.2 2 million this year. Everything else is kind of the same. There has been some increases here and there, some decreases here and there. Facilities and other central office supplies, it has
increased mostly because now we are operating inhouse and we have to incur the costs of all custodial supplies for all our buildings. That is why it has increased a little bit. Uh do not feel that we are inflating our departmental supply budgets. That is because of the
custodial supply budget that has to be plugged in there. Equipment, hardware, vehicle, we had $4 million last year. Now it will be 2.3 mostly because we are not going to have any bus replacement budget for 2026. Now the most important
thing is 2025 we had a $26 million general fund budget. This year we have approximately $213 million. Out of $26 million, we budgeted $145 million for personnel like our employees, wages,
benefits, salaries in 2025, which was 70% approximately. But in 2026, we are becoming a more employerdriven organization and this year it will be 82%. One of the highest in the state and
definitely the highest in our own history. And I know that uh Mr. Costello will be delighted with the number here because he always talks about that we should invest more on our employees. So this is a testament to that. If the budget is approved, we will move another
big step towards that goal. So outlines this outlines HBCS's investment on employee morale retention and building that internal capacity. Uh now my colleague Countine will take a
deeper dive into the three general firms. Greetings board members, superintendent and the general public. So as my fellow speakers have already mentioned about the aggregate budgets of the different general funds, I'll focus a bit deeper
into how that funds are allocated based on expense categories and the cost center categories. I'll first start off with the education fund. So in the education fund we are for we are expecting a education fund of about $132 million and what stands out in the slide
as you can see um the biggest portion is of of course the salaries and benefits which in terms is $124 million which is about 94% of the education budget. So who are funded from this? The people include the teachers, the guidance counselors, the school admin staff, the
secretaries and the support staff. So they take up the the 94% of the education fund in terms of their salaries and benefits. So how does that compare from last year? So from last year to this year the salaries and benefits budget increases by about 10%.
And this is because these people are directly involved with our kids and they deserve better. So other than the salaries and benefits, we also have the school the textbook adoptions, the school curriculum supplies, the pay for any substitute teachers and other miscellaneous
educational expenses that takes up the portion the 8 million portion of the education fund. Now that I've talked about the expense categories there, I want to put in another perspective which is comes in the form of the cost centers. So based on the order on which we have
uh allocated the money, the elementary schools get the biggest portion of the education fund followed by the high schools, the middle schools, the instructional central departments and other central departments possess a small portion of the education budget.
So we do a small metric of sorts within our department in terms of identifying how much of the education fund we directly link to the classes. And what we have seen that based on our our forecasted budget for next year, we'll be allocating 98.6%
of our education fund directly for our classrooms. This is a 6% increase from what we had since 2020 in 2025. Similar to this metric, we have another metric. This is for the this is a state
metric that we have to comply to which is the teacher compensation state requirement. This has been adopted from 2324 where Indiana school districts were required to spend at least 62% of their state tuition support on direct salaries and benefits for only teachers. In that
metric, we are spending about 64.3% of that for the teacher salaries. This is an 1.3% increase from what we had from 2025 if we adopt the budget accordingly. Next up is what we are going to move
into the operations fund. So similar to the the education fund operation a huge portion of the operations fund is for salaries and benefits which comprises of about $28 million and is for the salaries and benefits of most
non-certified admins 140 plus bus drivers 50 plus securities 70 plus um bus para profofessionals 15 ISS mechanics tech technicians etc. As this is the operations fund, there are a lot of operational expenses that needs to be
taken up other than the salaries and benefits. This includes property and vehicle insurance, utilities, office supplies and other essential operational services. As you can see in the slide above, there are also some capital outlays that we have pointed out and these capital outlays comes in the form
of IT software and systems and financial HR softwares for instance TCP, RDS and P school. Now let's move towards the cost center category. So just to give a different idea on what it looked like in 2025 and
26, I have provided both of the charts above. The 2025 uh operations budget is on the right and the 2026 operations fund budget that we are proposing is on the left. As you can see the one thing that stands out is look at the budget
for the other central departments. It was 41.6 6 million in 2025 and our in our proposed budget it will be 35.6. I will not I will not just go on and say that we're reducing the uh budget for oper uh the other central department. I
would rather say that we have we are trying to be more efficient with our budgets and more efficient in the other central departments. That's why we are able to budget less amount for the other central departments and focus more of that money towards the elementary schools, the high schools, middle
schools and the other instit other instructional departments so that they can better serve the kids. Moving on to the next slide is the bus replacement plan. As what Anav has mentioned that we are not budgeting any money for the bus replacement plan
citing two reasons. one because we already have a fleet of 150 buses currently in our school district. Additionally, we still haven't fully utilized the 2024 PO of the bus replacement plan and we still have the
2025 remaining. So, it made sense for us to not budget anything for the 2026 budget. But just as how it's presented every year, it's a five-year forecast. So we are expecting that we will be allocating about $1.5 million from 2027
onwards. This one is the capital project plan. As I've mentioned that we do have capital outlays but those capital outlays are different from capital projects. So we are not and as Anav and Louisa has have mentioned already we are not going to be
allocating any money of C for capital projects from the operations fund. So this is something that we have to be clear about and we and though any projects related to the capital projects will be funded through the geo bonds or any other funds.
Now comes to the point that Anaf has already boasted about a couple of times already and I would probably take a bit of his lightning a bit not more than that. So in 2025 we uh we were already one of the low lowest uh we were taking
one of the lowest transfer from the education to the operations fund and in 2026 we are have an even lofty even loftier ambition of put through of putting out just one person from the education fund operations fund which is about $1.3 million. This citing all other school districts
following their same percentages would make us the lowest operations transfer percentage uh from the education fund to the operations fund in the district and this will allow and this in itself shows us how how much better we have done in
the last one year and how much better we can do going forward as well. Now comes the referendum operations fund. So this slide in itself I'll ask for forgiveness. This is a bit numbers heavy file. So I'll try to be as concise
and careful when I'm explaining this. The blue line is essentially the referendum operations budget that we will that we are expected to receive in the year of 2026. And the red bar chart represents the tax cap impact. The tax
cap impact is because of the Senate uh the Senate bill one impact and the circuit breaker impact. So even though we are re we were expected to receive 32 million uh dollars from the referendum operations but because of a
revenue loss of 13 million our net in net gain from the referendum operations is essentially $19 million. I'm not going to spend much time here. I'm going to show up show the expense categories that's involved in the referendum operations. This includes
very similar to the other funds the salary and benefits and but this one is essentially all the ones that we have moved from contracted services to the salaries of custodian services. So they're getting paid out of the referendum operations. Then we have certain positions of schools that are
funded through the referendum operations funds which includes preschool teachers, social workers and some digital integration specialists. There are also some services that we fund through the referendum operations which includes the nursing contract, some repairs and maintenance and upkeep of school safety
equipment. Then comes some capital outlays which is safety and security equipment plus essential parts and equipments for school operations and finally some supplies that are also purchased from the referendum operations fund. In another perspective of the referendum
operations as you can see in the chart we did a cost center category comparison as well. So this one is a lot different from the other ones because as you can see in the 2025 budget which is on the right we we allocated a lot of money for the other central departments. This was
because SEC was a contracted service and that was funded and tagged under the other central departments. But now given we are allocate we have um taken in all of the custodian staff they have been allocated to each school so that we can monitor their operations in the schools
in a better way. So that's why you can see that the chart in 2026 on the left the other central department slice has reduced but the portion of ed elementary schools middle schools instructional central department high school has increased because those custodian staffs
are tagged under those schools and those school levels. So additionally the one thing that I would like to add in the referendum operations we have also increased the budget for safety and security funding and which has been doubled from what it was last year to
this year. So we are trying to make sure that our schools are more safer. Finally this chart represents all our three fronts and how the how does that outlook look like for each cost center. So overall as you can see in the
elementary schools we have increased our budgets for high schools we have increased for middle school instructional central departments and in safety and security we have increased our we have increased our potential budget for next year and we have reduced
the budget for other central department as I've mentioned this is because we are trying to be as transparent and accountable with our funds in the other central departments and we are trying to make sure that we achieve achieve operational efficiency and that is the
outcome of that. So overall this ensures that we have a strong growth in school level funding. We have added support for instructional departments and also we improve our safety and security. Next up you have the floor again. Thank you
Carine uh for the deep dive into our education operations and referendum operations fund. Now I will go into the boring fund of debt service fund. uh as I have already talked about uh debt payments for 2026 will be quite
similar to 2025 or 2024 as we will be paying off some debts at the same time we will be issuing more debts to keep on the flow for our capital projects. Now the debts that we have can take into various forms including common school
loan which we utilize to buy Chromebooks or other IT equipment directly for the kids. We have geo bonds lease bonds to perform our capital project needs, construction work and everything else. So we are anticipating in 2026 that we
will be paying approximately $23.7 million for principal and interest for the existing and anticipated debts. It will not increase the tax rate for our taxpayers. Now I often get some opinion that hey
SBCSC has a lot of debts. We are broke. SBCSC makes millions of dollars debt payments each year. Why don't we utilize the money someplace else? Now, it does not work that way. As we have debts, that is why we get a
money from the property tax revenue. If we did not have any debts, we would not receive the money from the property tax revenue, right? And we are not debt. I believe a lot of people here have mortgages or auto loans, right? But we
pay that off from our salaries. So, we are not necessarily broke. I mean that is how uh the American financial system works. Same thing for school districts. Now there's another perception that hey we have too many debts. Is that really
true? It is not true if we compare ourselves with our neighboring school districts. Now, school districts in Indiana can raise debts up to 2%. And that percentage is calculated by dividing the total outstanding bonds by
one/ird of the certified net assessed value. I know that that is very complex, but let me assure you we are way below that 2% margin. We are actually below 1%. So that means we are actually operating very well in terms of our debt
capacity. And in future if we need to pursue more debts we can definitely do that. Now coming back to the point again why do we issue bonds or debts right? In order to fulfill our capital project
needs we are a very large school districts with a lot of old buildings and facilities and we need approximately $250 million if we want to do a complete district-wide renovation. Now, we do not have the $250 million, right? That is
why we must prioritize our needs to work on the capital projects which are most needed to ensure the minimum the bare minimum safe and secure learning environment for all our students regardless of their race or the neighborhood or the side of the town.
Now, SBCS finance and facilities management team has done an extensive analysis. They have visited all these schools. We have done a proper analysis and we have prepared a plan for 2026 to 2028 for our capital projects which we must
perform to ensure our buildings and grounds are functional again for all students and employees and that is regardless of any master facilities plan. Now that is not going to be funded from our general fund but I'm talking about that because those are kind of
related. If we are not incurring any expenditure from our general fund for the capital projects the question arises where are you going to fund those from right from the bond funds and that is why I'm presenting that for transparency and overall understanding and also
because we have three more action items tonight for the three bonds which we'll be issuing for 2020 uh six capital projects. In short, we have proposed a $44 million plan for the next 3 years and we will only be issuing the bonds
that we need for 2026 this year. Then we will do the same in 27 and 2028. Now, in terms of project category, that $44 million is divided as you can see here and roof replacement is in the top
approximately $15 million. Then safety, security, camera, rekeying, fire panel, other necessary upgrades, another $7 million parking lot repairs. A lot of our parking lots are very bad in shape and you know that when you visit these schools, right? So we had to allocate
around $6 million there. HVAC, we need that very very much in order to ensure a proper safe environment for our kids, right? Septic removal, pool upgrades, bleacher upgrades, again safety and security, all these are very much
needed. We must perform and those are not something that we are doing uh on a luxurious or extravagant way because we need to do this bare minimum and $44 million is the total anticipation for the next three years.
Now the same thing if we divide it by schools, you can see Washington is at the top. So I know there are often considerations or opinion why do not we invest on the west side but that is actually not the case. We are investing
the most on Washington here. However I do not want to take neither any pride or any shame from the number here. Washington is at the top because the building is at the worst situation there. They need the money. If it was another building we would have done the
same thing. These projects again here included are the most urgent priorities in terms of safety, security and the necessary bare minimum learning environment and are regardless of any master facilities plan or any other
future similar plans. For instance, Washington Medical Magnet or the Carrier Center, those are not the most urgent ones, right? Those are something that we are trying to do beyond our bare minimum capital projects and those will be funded from a different source other
than this. And we actually try to prioritize the the area of the neighborhood or other factors there. You may ask why do we have the medical magnet in Washington? Why not in other schools, right? Because we wanted to empower and invest on the west side.
That is why. And this is just a snapshot of the existing bonds that we have. As you can see on the rightmost column, a lot of blank spaces are there because we will be paying off those debts. But at the same time, we will be issuing some new debts there to utilize the capacity that
we will have released in order to again perform our most needed capital projects. Now I will talk a little bit about our cash balance. Now my colleagues and I have bragged about that a little bit that we have $119 million cash reserve
now compared to the exact time from last year when we had $102 million. Now, we have done a lot of great things in this year, right? We have offered great stipens to our bus drivers, para profofessionals, right? Up to $3,500.
We have allocated extra $1.5 million as classroom supplies to all these schools, right? We are trying to invest money on our employees. We have offered the non-certified unions highest raises in history. Then the question might come, hey, you are doing all those things.
Then how did your cash balance increase? Right? That has happened because of our magic. I'm kidding. Not because of our magic but because we are being more efficient in terms of our internal control. All the contracts now come to the board for
your approval. So the departments have acting very cautious now and they are only doing the contracted services or the projects that are only and most needed. Right? So that's that puts a check on our budget. We are being efficient in our internal controls. We
are also submitting grant reimbursements on a very regular basis. And you can see that federal funds 2024 same time we had a negative $34 million budget because there were grant reimbursements that were pending. Now we only have $10
million negative balance. And that will always be there because grants operate on a reimbursement cycle. We spend the money first then we ask for the money back. Now there are some money that we cannot recover from the previous years approximately $11 million which we will
have to account uh adjust from an accounting perspective and we will do that on October 20th. We will ask for the board's permission to do that through a separate resolution. But if you take a look into here the situation has improved very very well and significantly. It was a minus $34
million and now it is only minus 10. So we have recovered $24 million from grant reimbursements. Our general fund cash reserve has also increased and overall that is $119 million cash reserve, $17 million more from last year. Also
another thing that I would like to point out here bond capital funds you can see it was around $30 million last year. Now it is $22 million. You might be surprised that hey where is that $8 million? The $8 million has been spent on our buildings. It is not sitting in
our bank anymore. We are actually trying to utilize the money that we already have from our bonds and capital funds because we are now performing all those capital expenditures. Okay. Now all the money that we have out of that $119 million is not up for the
grab. Right? There are restricted portions of the cash balance and unrestricted portions of the cash balance which I will talk in more depth in the next slide. But in snapshot in 2024 we had $42 million of unrestricted cash balance but that too has increased
now that is $68 million now $16 million more than last year. So again another question debt versus deficit not the same thing. We are definitely not in a not in a deficit. We do a budget that is balanced. We earn the money and we spend the whole money.
We are not for aprofit organization, right? At the same time, we do not have a deficit because we have a very healthy cash reserve, but we do have debts there. And again, $119 million restrictions applicable is our current cash reserve. Meaning the money that we
have right now in our bank balance, right? So, total cash balance $119 million. If you take a look in the right side, restricted cash balance is $51 million which comes from bond and construction funds, retirement of employees, insurance, debt service funds, etc. That leaves around $68
million of unrestricted cash reserve. Why do we need such a large cash reserve? You may ask, right? Why are we not investing that money all of a sudden, right? We need that money for potential issues like emergencies, shutdowns, which is a very uh popular
word now, right? shutdown because we are anticipating one. What h what will happen if there is a true shutdown? What happens if we do not get our state tution support or property tax revenues suddenly right then we will have to operate on our own and uh even though
there is no set state regulation uh to dictate us how much cash balance we should have. However, the professionals in our field recommend that we have approximately 2 to 3 months of unrestricted cash reserve and right now we have 2.5 months of unrest uh
restricted cash reserve. Last year at the same time when I presented the budget it was 1.5 months but now we have 2.5 months. So we are in a better and more secure position financially at this point.
uh credit rating. Uh I do not want to brag about our credit rating a lot. We have a double A plus credit rating, but that is kind of common in government organizations. So in other words, if you have a double A credit rating, good job. If you don't have a double A credit
rating, then we might have to get scared. But we are in a good financial standing right now in terms of our debt payments, our obligation to our vendors and everything else. So I do not foresee any potential reasons to get afraid. We are in a good standing here with an
excellent credit rating. Some district level spending. And this is one of my favorite slides. It also offers possibly a seven-year snapshot. Yeah, a seven-year snapshot. So we don't have to discuss the whole thing. But if
we take a look into 2020 indirect administrative expenditures as percentage of total expenses that was approximately 30.6%. Right? It means we spent around 30% of our total expenditure for indirect
expenses which are not directly linked to the students. What's the situation in 2026? It's going to be 16.9%. which will be one of the lowest in the state and lowest in our history because we are continuously striving for
operational ex uh excellence and at the same time we will have $17,600 per student direct expenditure which was only $10,600 in 2020. So we are just showing two sides of the
same coin here which means at the same time we are actually striving for operational excellence and we are achieving that and in return we are getting to spend more money directly on our students. Now in terms of that direct expenditure
on students I know uh we often want to see the par student direct expenditure across different schools. So these are the slides as you can see uh riseup had the highest par student expenditure among the high schools there but riseup
is a special situation so we should actually consider Washington Riley and Adams. Washington had the highest par student expenditure among the high schools that we have followed by Riley and Adams there. So we did spend the highest dollars for Washington students
there. Is it a good number? It might be from some aspects but at the same time there are laws of economies of scale here. When you have lower number of students your per student expenditure will increase. So that is not necessarily a good thing but at the same
time it is some kind of an answer uh to everyone who speaks about our investment potential on the west side. The answer is we actually do invest the highest on the west side among the high schools. In the middle are K8 schools. Dickinson is the highest followed by Navar
Jackson. Uh Dickinson $22,000 there as you can see Edison Lassal Clay Jefferson is the lowest. Why? Because Jefferson is very close to their overall building utilization. So definitely I mean their per student expenditure will be lower.
Doesn't necessarily mean that we are not giving the money to Jefferson. Elementary schools same thing. uh highest is garden that is because uh of the capital expenditures that we had to incur for garden that kind of like drove
up the parish student expenditure Lincoln Madison Wilson kulard there yeah now conclusion the 2026 budget has been designed to maximize our investment in education making it the highest in
history make SBCSC the highest paying district in the region and one of the highest in the state for teachers, bus drivers and other super staff because we truly believe that we should invest on our brand ambassadors because that directly links to educational outcome
and student outcomes and that is research proven to maximize operational efficiency and to reduce education to operations transfer which we will do if the board approves. Build internal capacity, empower employees and brand ambassadors, reduce
reliance on contracted services and be forward thinking in serving students, retaining students, retaining employees, attracting employees and increasing enrollment. This is a time, this is a challenging time, but we cannot play defensive. We will have to be aggressive
in investing money on education and on our employees. And that is what we try to do here. In terms of timeline, today is October the 6th, the public hearing of the budget. We will come back as a team on October the 20th when we will formally
seek the board's approval for the budget adoption. What happens if the board does not approve the budget? Last year's budget will automatically be approved by Department of Local Government rules here. In other words, the district will not be able to take advantage of the
increased budget and revenues to support our strategic goals. Okay, a little quiz here. It's going to be very short though. So, when was the last time SBCSC's general budget was unanimously approved
by the board of trustees? Did you did you take a look into Board Dogs and got the answer? >> That's bad, John. You spoiled it. >> At least heed it. So, >> okay. So, >> okay. He's smart. So he got the answer because the presentation was already in
board docs. Uh but anyway anyway that's that's my bad. Yeah I should have uh kept that blank but anyway 2020 was the year when the board unanimously approved the general fund. After that it has been approved all the years but not
unanimously approved. Now I personally want to become the best CFO in the history of Southbend schools. I want my team to become the best financial services team in the history of Southbend schools and not only in the history of Southbend schools but in the
entire state and we do not settle for less. So we are seeking we will be seeking the board's unanimous approval of the budget come 20th of October and in order to do that whatever question you have whatever data you need please
ask us we will supply that we will do our best to seek that unanimous approval. Uh there are some external sources here. Our financial services website is the best now uh advised by SUKIM. That is a one-stop resource for all our financial
sources. And yep, thank you everyone. The floor is now open for questions. >> Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Castillo. >> Yes. So I want to thank you uh all for I think putting up some very interesting
figures for us to look at and absorb and u I guess I got three questions. Uh the first one I didn't see anything in that uh all those uh data points you uh you showed
us and everything. Do you have enough money uh to pay the board or stipen monthly stipen? Do you would you reserve enough in there? >> Okay. I just wondered
>> uh gift cards. uh you did a I think a a nice job of presenting it in a in a very positive way of showing that you wanted to do something about that.
Uh I just have to draw out the fact that the reason why they had to do that is because in the past I think people could say they were misused. U I won't go into details on that.
Uh, but I'm glad and I know you probably work with the state board of accounts on that issue in order to get that thing resolved. And you know, I'm all for giving people
honors and recognizing people for their work. Uh, but what was going on was way beyond that. And um so I'm glad we got that under control.
My last statement to you, and I know that you probably have, but I just want to bring out to people that every budget you put forward. Um there's always something in it
somewhere during the year that comes up of emergency basis that you have to adjust it. And I just like to get from you tonight, have you made
uh a correctable budget so that when emergencies do come up, you can handle Uh Mr. Costello, yes, we have definitely some buffers and some budgets for emergency situations. So we can
definitely do that. However, if the board decides something in uh the future, for instance, last year, sorry, this year we terminated our contract with SSC, right? >> Uh except for >> Yeah. >> Except for the board stipen. That's the only thing in there I wanted to make
sure you have. >> Yeah. for emergency bas. >> Thank you guys. You did you did a great job tonight. Give them another hand. They did a great job. >> Any other questions? >> Yeah.
Uh, did I did I miss weren't weren't you guys looking at uh Southbend Community School Corporation cost of uh cost of living wages?
I thought that was going to be in the budget. uh that is in the budget as I have talked about that if the budget is approved we will be the highest paying district in the region however I did not share a specific details
>> because we are actually negotiating with the unions currently >> right >> uh so that will come in a later time but very very soon in recent future >> right >> so it's in the budget >> it is >> now if I said something like
Uh, Mr. Castella said about that, uh, Miss Jews thing, our lawyer would tell me that they're going to sue me. Every time I say something, they're going to sue me.
Uh, go ahead. Don't sue the corporation. Sue me. >> We're going to move on. Anyone else have any questions? Miss Lee, >> first I love the idea of the cash controls, the cash box inventory, and
I'm just I'm just curious about as a former booster PTO person, like the logistics of that, like how like are we talking like every Friday after concession stands close at football games? Tell me. >> Yeah. We should be verifying the amount before the event happens. And then at the end of the event, you would take
your deposit, put it together, and then you want to make sure that you're ending cash balance in that box matches the beginning. >> But you like that's on like I'm just I always go back to like concession stand. >> Way too much time in concession stands. But um >> so that's like the the boosters do a
they have a form and they do a before and after and they double sign on things like that. Okay. >> Yeah, >> that's great. Um and then uh let's see just for because I I was not a math person. I did take accounting but not very well. Where like where the 2020 22
and 25 bus allocation like we didn't spend it so we have it for later but where does it sit right now in that budget? >> So >> is that in savings? >> Yeah. Uh basically we are still under the 2025 budget right because that is on a calendar year basis. But what I will
do is as transportation is under my portfolio now so we will perhaps uh contract and issue POS to encumber the money you know so that we can still utilize that in 2026 even though that will not put a hit on our 2026 budget.
>> Okay. Okay. And my final question are we when we're talking about staff and I love everything we're talking about how we're going to show our staff financially how we appreciate them. Are we looking at things like counseling, guidance, and career coaching that we're going to need um to support our students
as they're preparing for and navigating these new graduation requirements? Are we looking at increasing certain types of staff at the school level that'll ensure that our students are on track to succeed in these new graduation requirements? Uh yes to be honest uh we
often work with our instruction and curriculum department and other departments to understand their needs and to be honest right now I will give one example we have the highest number of para professionals in SBCSCA history now we actually achieved the full uh
allocation that we had and we actually never were very close to that but now we are you know so we work with those departments but at the same time uh you raised a very important point here Miss Lee. So uh finance team is like investors you know and the other
departments and these schools will have to state their needs to us so that we can allocate the money or allocate the money from someplace else right so that is like a continuous process there and we are actually being a very good partner there in terms of allocating our resources
>> I'm just looking at like what's happening across the state with well you look at Purdue who just lost all that gear up funding yeah >> and you think about the roles that have been hired based on that that we're supporting our students in a really important way in this planning >> and now what? So unless those schools
had a plan in place, >> they're going to struggle to give our students the support that they need >> and their fellow educators. So I just want to make sure that we have that like on our radar. >> Yes. And uh that is also another great example because there has been some grants uh not renewed or expired, you
know, for instance uh the school climate grant, right? And we had some very good employees funded from those grants and we have absorbed those important positions which are student centric into the general fund. So we try to do the
best within the bounds of our general fund there. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dr. Green. >> I have a more macro level question I guess and looking at slide 39.
>> Okay. I will uh try to open that 39 >> and you know I'm thinking of the the fact that on this slide we see that uh 19 million 19 millions is the true impact of the
referendum operations and that coupled with uh SP1 makes me anxious. I imagine it makes us all anxious, especially the questions that we've just been hearing, you know,
about have we thought about things that will come up and like graduation requirements. I know that we've really figured out what that's going to uh cost us. Uh I love everything you've said, everything you're doing, especially
since uh the board has been asking to see more money going toward, you know, education. But what are the contingencies here? And I guess underlying my question of what are the contingencies? What's the narrative? What's the story you're telling in this slide that we should be
aware of? >> Don't mind you want to address that as that was one of your slides. So the thing about this referendum operations is that ideally we would have received $32 million. If based on what
we agreed upon in 2020, we would have received $32 million. But with what the state legislation and all that has come into play in terms of the revenue loss that we're exhibiting, potential benefit loss, uh revenue loss that we're expecting is the $13 million that we
have as a tax cap impact. So essentially that 19 million what we are trying to say is if in any scenario we did not have any tax cap impact we would have received $32 million but due to the revenue loss we will now come we would
we're netting somewhere around $19 million on the referendum operations and as um Anav can probably add to this as well with how we are in terms of our expenditures throughout in terms of custodian services in terms of all the other services We would definitely
require um a referendum down the line if possible and for that to happen we are trying to invest as much as possible for the teachers and our other support staff because as we have mentioned that they are our brand ambassadors in itself.
>> If we can u if we can motivate them and we can build up a good salary base and a lot of benefits to them they will be our brand ambassadors for us when it comes to the next referendum. So long story short, referendum is definitely needed
even when we pass 2028, >> right? >> But to invest in our kids, we have to invest on the people who are teaching those kids and that's what we are trying to focus on. >> Yeah, I think nine uh mentioned something very important here. We have
to keep the referendum promises if we ever wish or hope to ask for another one. And that is what we are trying to achieve here and trying to make sure that we really really keep our current referendum promises in terms of
investing on our teachers, our brand ambassadors and on our students. Now uh Dr. Green, you also mentioned another important topic which is the Senate Bill one, right? Uh 2026 is kind of easy because 2026 uh as estimated will have
the lowest impact from the Senate Bill one. However, in 2027 and 2028, the impact might be much greater. So that essentially means all the things that we are doing now, you know, striving for operational excellence, we cannot stop.
We will have to keep doing that. We will have to keep doing that, investing on our on our students and our educational programs there. And if we need to strategically invest a little more from our cash reserve, we might also have to do that in the coming years. You know,
now in 2026, I do not anticipate that because our revenue should be good enough to sustain our expenditures that I have presented here in terms of the budget. But in 27 and 28, if need be, we might have to do that to sustain all the
great things that we are doing at least for the short term and let the winter storm pass. >> So, >> okay. I'm glad it's in your hands, >> but I think you've given us a great deal of optimism that we can weather this. >> Yeah.
>> And your idea about investing in the people who really matter >> goes a long way. So, thanks to your whole team. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> I just want to reiterate and I really thank thank you all for your report. Uh it's a very in-depth report, very much
needed report to give the general public an idea where we are with our budget. And I just want to say thank you so much for investing in our teachers, our secretaries, which is much needed, our par profofessionals, the bus drivers, because all of these folks interact with
our students. And so when you invest in them, you invest in our students. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. Any other questions? >> I would like to ask the board, in the last uh four years you're going to be on the board, have you ever had a presentation
like this? >> Never. >> We appreciate you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you everyone. We now move on to the consent agenda. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve the consent agenda 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second?
>> Second. It has been moved uh by Mrs. Lee, second by Dr. Green. Uh are there any questions, concerns? >> Mr. Nandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I >> Mr. Castillo,
>> I >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I >> Mr. Leva, >> I >> Mr. Snedi, >> I >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. We now move
to approve action item 9.02. It is recommended that school board of trustees approve action item 9.02. Approval of partnership with Beacon Community Impact draw the line respect the line program. Is there a motion?
>> I'll move. >> Second. >> Been moved by Dr. Green. Second by Mrs. Lee. Are there any questions, concerns? Mr. Mr. Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Castello, >> I. >> Miss Lee,
>> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lebo, >> I. >> Mr. Snicky, >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve action item 9.02 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve action item 9.03. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? Second. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Lee, second by Dr. Green. Are there any questions, concerns? >> The motion, the action item is approve
of the five-star life contract. I'm sorry I didn't say that. Uh, Mr. Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Costello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lea, >> I. >> Mr. Snakei, >> I.
>> Dr. McCulla >> I the vote to approve action item 9.03 passes unanimously. It is recommended the school board of trustees approve action item 9.04
approval of quote for top score writing to provide a curriculum and professional development services to Madison Steam Academy for the 2025 2026 school year. Is there a motion? >> So moved. Second. >> Second.
>> It's been moved by Miss Lee, second by Dr. Green. Are there any questions? >> Mr. Nandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Costello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lea, >> I.
>> Mr. Snakei, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve action item 9.04 passes unanimously. It is recommended that school board of trustees approve
action item 9.05, approval of 20 Head Start slot for title one students. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Second. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Lee, second by
Dr. Green. Are there any questions? Mr. Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Castello, >> I. Miss Lee >> I >> Dr. Green >> I >> Mr. Lea >> I >> Mr. Snicki >> I >> Dr. McCulla
>> I The vote to approve action item 9.05 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item 9.06. Uh
yeah, we're going to now open it for public hearing on item 9.06. Members of the public will be heard on this item at this time. Speakers will be limited to three minutes. Comments comments will be limited to the specific
agenda item which is 9.06. Is there anyone wishing to speak on item 9.06? Did you read the item? >> Conduct of public hearing on budget 2026. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Is anyone wishing to speak on that
item? Seeing no one wishes to speak on item 9.06. We will close the hearing. We will now move to approve action item 9.06, which is conduct a public hearing of
2026 budget. Actually, we're not going to be voting for approval on the budget tonight. You'll be doing that at the next meeting, but what we're doing tonight is conducting the public hearings required by state law on the different budget items. >> Okay. So, we'll approve it next board meeting. >> Yes.
>> Okay. Then we'll move to action item 9.07. We now open it for public hearing on action item 9.07. Members of the public will be heard on this action item. At this time, speakers will be limited to three minutes. comments will be limited
to to the specific action item which is conduct public hearing on 9.07 20 26 bus replacement plan. Does anyone wish to speak? No one wishing to speak. We will close
that hearing. Um so we will now move to uh action item public hearing 9.08 which is conduct a public hearing on 2026 capital project funds. We're now open the hearing uh on to the
public members of the public to uh be here uh to speak on action item 9.08 2026 capital project funds the public will be limited speaker will be limited three minutes comments comments will be limited to the specific agenda item does
anyone wish to speak on action item 9.08 8. Seeing no one wish to speak, we will close the hearing for action item 9.08. Okay, we will now move to um our regular 9.09.
Is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item 9.09, approval of the financial adoption of the series 2025A general obligation bond resolution and series 2025A
general obligation bond appropriation resolution. Is there a motion? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Is it's been motioned by Dr. Green, second by Mrs. Lee. Are there any questions? What is that bond for?
>> Mr. CFO and Mr. Anf, would you please explain to Mr. Snideki what that bond is? >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Snideki. Uh, the bond is for performing our capital projects which I presented during uh the budget presentation. We need approximately $44
million uh to do the muchneeded capital projects including roofing repair, safety and security, parking lot repairs uh for the next 3 years. Now we are issuing around $16 million for 2026 projects in uh the form of three bonds
2025 series A, B and C. So that's uh why the bonds are there. >> Any other questions? Miss Lee, can I mean Miss Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Castello, >> I.
>> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lea, >> I. >> Mr. Senki, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve action item 9.09 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve action item 9.10, 10 approval of the fund adoption of the Sirius series 2025B general obligation bond resolution in series 2025B general obligation bond appropriation
resolution. Is there a motion? >> Some move. >> Second. >> Second. >> It's been motioned by Dr. Green, second by Mrs. Lee. Are there any questions? >> Mr. Nendes, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Casillo >> I
>> Miss Lee >> I >> Dr. Green >> I >> Mr. Lea >> I >> Mr. Sedi >> I >> Dr. McCulla >> I the vote to approve action item 9.10 passes unanimously. It is recommended that school board of
trustees approve action item 911, approval of the final adoption of series C, general obligation bond resolution and series 2025 C general obligation bond appropriation resolution. Is there a motion?
>> So second I'm sorry, was that Dr. Green? >> It's been motioned by Dr. Green, second by Mrs. Lee. Are there any questions? Mr. Hend ask you to call call the role please. >> Mr. Ellison >> I. >> Mr. Castello >> I.
>> Miss Lee I. >> Dr. Green >> I. >> Mr. Lea. >> I. >> Mr. Snakei. >> I. >> Dr. McCulla. >> I. The vote to approve action item 911 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve action item 912. approval of a professional service services contract with Herbert and Herbert Architects Incorporated for architectural and engineering services for the Adams High School restoration and renovation project. Is there a motion to approve
911? >> Second. >> Second. >> It's been moved by Mr. Snide, second by Mr. Castello. Are there any questions? Mr. Mr. Nendes, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I.
>> Mr. Castello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lebo, >> I. >> Mr. Sediki, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve action item 912 passes unanimously.
It is recommended by the school corporation uh to approve action item 913 approval to pay past due invoices for transportation services offered by First Student Incorporated. Is there a motion?
>> So moved. >> Second. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Lee, second by M. Dr. Green. Uh are there any questions? >> I have one. >> Mr. Castella, >> how much how much money are we talking about here?
>> Uh, first students, it is approximately $12,000. >> And why why is it passed due? >> Uh because the invoices were never submitted to accounts payable team for payment processing and also it did not have the necessary approvals and we
don't pay anything without the necessary approval. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, not just too long ago, we we approved another pass through from them. >> Yes. >> Just come regularly or what? >> Yeah, we are actually reconciling our
accounts and those invoices are coming from past services. For instance, this one is for some special education transportation services which were received uh a long time ago uh few months ago, you know, but we just
got those and we are seeking your approval to pay. Uh without your approval, we don't usually pay invoices for services. >> Any other questions? Mr. Nandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Castello
>> I >> Miss Lee >> I >> Dr. Green >> I >> Mr. Lea >> I >> Mr. Sedeki >> I >> Dr. McCulla >> I the vote to approve action item 913 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve action item 914 approval of Johnson Controls professional services agreement. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Second. >> It's been moved by Mr. Snideki, second by Mr. Castello. Are there any questions?
Mr. Hernandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Castillo, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Leva, >> I. >> Mr. Senaki, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla,
>> I. The vote to approve action item 914 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustee trustees approve action item 915, approval to pay past due invoices for BR bleachers. Is there a motion?
>> No moved. >> Second. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Lee, second by Dr. Green. Uh, are there any questions? Mr. Nes, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Costello, >> I. Miss Lee
>> I >> Dr. Green >> I >> Mr. Lea >> I >> Mr. Sediki >> I >> Dr. McCulla >> I The vote to approve action item 915 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve action item 916 approval of contract with team care for new medical and prescriptions insurance plans. Are there any questions? >> Um >> I'm sorry. >> Yes. >> The motion. Let me get that motion for I'm sorry. Is there a motion? >> So moved.
>> Is there a second? >> Second. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Lee, second by Dr. Green. Are there any questions? >> Uh, yes. Not so much just a question and comment, but I do know that there have been some questions earlier about the prescription coverage and how it might
change. And it was pretty clear not only in the presentation we got but what's also at least now on the website posted the file that it's not just CVS or Carmark that people would be able to go to fill scripts that it would also include like Kroger's, Walgreens and other kind of things probably similar to
how it is now both for 30-day and 90day. Um and also I guess the clinic would still be open and some of those kind of things. So I I do know now at least on the website all the different attachments are there about the summary description plan and all of those kind of things but it does seem like it would
be it's not going to be more restrictive or anything than what people are able to do now. Um and then Mr. Yeah, the again like you said the prescriptions will be available from all
these outlet. Uh again the clinic will be there. So if you get your medications from the clinic you will still be able to get those free of charge. Um the premiums I believe were 800 less
per year per employee. um could be offset especially if you are on a specialty drug uh because you could it's $200 for 90
for a 90day supply. So one will offset the other if you are on the specialty drug. I believe we had about 30 employees on multiple specialty drugs and we had about 300 out of 2700
at least one specialty drug. >> I I think that question was asked uh during the presentation and I remember them saying that nothing is going to change in those areas. So,
um, hopefully they're telling us the truth. >> Any other questions, comments? >> Mr. Nandez, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Costello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I.
>> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lebo, >> I. >> Mr. Snakei, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve action item 916 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees approve action item 917 9.17
approval of price amendment to agreement to purchase food from another vendor. Another state approved food authority. Excuse me. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second?
>> It's been moved. >> Second. I'm sorry. It's been moved by Dr. Green, second by Mrs. Lee. Are there any questions? >> Could I get What is this? >> I'm sorry. >> Can I get some clarification about what this is? >> Yeah. Uh, sure. So, basically, uh, we
are not purchasing something. Basically, we are selling something. You know, we have our food and nutrition services department and we prepare the meal for Pario Poly Technic and we charge a fee for that. uh that is a revenue generating opportunity for our uh food
and nutrition services department. Now it was brought to the board before I believe however there was some uh you know like glitches in the numbers. So we have amended the figures and we are presenting that again for the board's approval.
>> It used to be 235 per meal for an adult. Now it's 535. >> Yeah. Any other questions? >> Do we have other agree? We have agreements with others. This is seems fairly unique.
>> We do. We have another agreement with uh the Robinson Center. >> Okay. Any other questions, comments, concerns? Mr. Nandesk, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Ellison, >> I. >> Mr. Costello,
>> I. Miss Lee >> I >> Dr. Green >> I >> Mr. Leva >> I >> Mr. Senaki >> I >> Dr. McCulla >> I The vote to approve action item 9.17 passes unanimously. It is recommended that the school board of trustees
approve action item 9.18 approval of school year 2025 2026 meal prices for adults. Is there a motion to approve action item 9.18? So moved. >> Is there a second?
>> Second. >> It's been moved by Mrs. Lee, second by Dr. Green. Are there any questions, concerns? >> Yes. How much >> is it? It's tied. It's tied to the other one. It's 535 now, I believe.
>> Yeah. It's going to be uh $5 per lunch for 2425 school year. and we are recommending it to be $5.5 with a 50 cent increase. However, the breakfast was $3 and it will remain $3,
you know, and this is for adult meal prices, meaning if the t-shirts or even us, I mean, we go to the cafeteria and want to purchase breakfast or lunch, we can do that at a very reasonable price, you know. >> Okay, >> any other questions?
>> Next time, >> Mr. Mr. Hernandez asking you to please call the role. >> Mr. Ellison, >> I >> Mr. Cassello, >> I. >> Miss Lee, >> I. >> Dr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Lea, >> I. >> Mr. Snakei, >> I. >> Dr. McCulla,
>> I. The vote to approve action item 19 passes unanimously. We now move to um uh item from our executive session um to consider a settlement opinion
litigation. Uh do I have a motion? So move >> second. >> It's been moved by Dr. Green, second by Miss Lee. Is are there any questions or concerns? Mr. Nandez, can you please call the
role? Mr. Ellison, >> I >> Mr. Costello, >> I >> Miss Lee, >> I >> Dr. Green, >> I >> Mr. Lea, >> I >> Mr. Siki, >> I >> Dr. McCulla, >> I. The vote to approve action item 10.01
is legitimate uh unanimously. Uh we now move to uh hearing board communication. Does anyone wish to speak at this time? I guess well I just asked superintendent since we
uh passed the the medical thing now and next next meeting we'll do the budget. Does that mean negotiations are finished?
>> Uh we're hoping to get to a tentative agreement at the next negotiations. Yes. Anyone else wish to speak? Mrs. Castello,
I want to make uh a last comment on the restructuring of the uh facilities plan that we have right now.
um and what I presented and put forward. Um my comment is that I want to thank uh Mr. Eid for allowing me to come
forward with it. I came forward with it reluctantly because I don't think a board member uh responsibility is in this area
of bringing forth such a facility plan like I did because I really believe those things should come from within. But the problem I had was this
and still do. We are going to continue to lose after this year and I I projected that as well. Uh the third year out I projected that
our enrollment would be somewhere uh in the vicinity of 200 to 500. uh loss in enrollment and right now it's 250 but it by January we'll see where it might be
when the enrollment figures go in but it gets much worse later on and that's what I was trying to prevent um center office
teachers were not interested in it. Um, I knew that from the enthusiasm that would greeted me at town at the town
hall meeting at Nuner and I was not going to be a salesman for this program. It either floated on its own and it took a course of its own or it died.
And it died. But I'm glad I brought it forward because three or four years from now, if I'm still living, um I can at least say to the public, anybody who comes up to me and says to
me, "Well, did you do anything to prevent this cor school corporation from going in the in the tank?" and I can say, well, yes, I tried and
that's all I could have done. Uh, we got some great people with numbers over that presented that information to us today. Um, I feel badly for them because they got
they've got a really difficult job ahead of them for the next three or four years. Uh, they do a really great job for this school corporation and I God bless them. they, you know,
they uh I don't know if how I don't know if people realize how many hours they have to spend on coming up with this budget,
but it's massive. It's a massive undertaking and uh for them to be as specific as they were in many of their items they presented to us
is an enormous responsibility on their part. So again, it's over with. And um
all the negativity I received in emails, especially from teachers, um I accept and I and I will not dispute what you stated.
All I was trying to do and I knew after you went through something in 2023, it was it was not going to be easy to get people to listen. And
but I had to do it. uh out of the great love I have for this school corporation and uh the people on this board that I
truly respect and a superintendent that I think a world of, I still had to bring it forward and um I'm glad I did. But you know what? I accept
what people wanted and we go on with life and I'm just hoping everything I predict have predicted for the future will be wrong. Thank you very much. >> Any other board members wish to speak?
>> Yes. Like the um national principles of month. I like to thank we have two amazing principles right here. Mar Castello, Mr. Eid, and I think we have the best principles in the area. Uh, I like to brag about our
principles. They're community leaders. They're great listeners. Um, they deal with things every day. Talk to teachers, parents, students. Um, Harrison Nar Washington are in my backyard. So, I'm always um I love to engage in the principles there. And um, you know, I
didn't get to uh the principal at Washington referred as Mr. G. I got to know him over the past year um to introduce myself and um so I give him a shout out. He does some great things at Washington, things that haven't been done in years. So um you know, he's a
great guy and continue to support him and um and all our principles. Thank you. >> Any other board members wish to speak? >> I I would like to uh like one of the speakers said today about your plan. It
was a good plan. And uh the he also says, which is true, is they they're just tired of all the moving around that went on the last eight years. And uh but you had an excellent
plan. I would have made a few changes, but not very many. And pe people been asking for years, make neighborhoods schools. And that's what you were doing in your plan. The only problem is the last
administration closed about eight neighborhood schools. So the neighborhoods are further apart. So, uh, that's, you know, we kept all our schools that we had, they and everyone
we closed were were AB schools. They were I don't I could not understand sitting back in the background. Why we're closing all all these a a schools, you know, that didn't make no sense to
me whatsoever. But your plan and that still might be in the future. Give them a year or so, you know, and and uh but cuz they do want neighborhood schools. Maybe we'll buy all them schools back. They're made schools.
You never know. >> Any other board members wish to speak? >> Seeing that there's no additional comments, the next school board meeting is Monday, October the 20th, 5:30 here at the Brown Administration Building. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. >> Is there a second?
>> Second. >> It's been motioned by uh Mrs. Lee, second by Dr. Green. >> Uh all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. >> The meet the school board trustee meeting is now adjourned. Thank you for
coming.