##VIDEO ID:sIIn89ao2CU## we'll call the we'll start with a pledge to the flag I pled United States of America to for it stands Nation indivisible with liy and justice for all all right uh for roll call let the record reflect that Tyra is not present tonight uh we wish her well and that you better um board share comments so I have uh four comments I think for tonight uh so last meeting we were given a petition um about adding an optional Levy to the ballot so from our attorney he says there's no process in state law to put the optional levy on the ballot and a petition representing the same is not valid so it's not something that we can do as a board um the second one is uh of note uh we're working on the cell phone policy number 524 so that's in the first reading uh for this month we didn't have a a policy meeting for uh the month of July but we will uh again here in August and that's one of the ones that we're uh taking a big look at um yeah we just got done with Plat River day Summer's almost ending here so that means school's starting up again and everything the buildings are going to be buzzing very soon so uh that's exciting for everybody and uh lastly for the board and um for that so we've talked about getting a board handbook started so I have one Maria sent me a template of one and msba just came out with one that's another template and they're working on doing a a training for that on the 15th here uh so once that stuff happens by the next policy meeting we'll probably add that to the agenda uh as well to start looking at uh how we do things as a board that way uh and that's all I have for uh board chair comments uh can I get an approval of the agenda so moved director tro thank you I'll second it second by director hacket any discussion all in favor say I I I opposed all right motion carries all right recognition of citizens for input purposes uh we have Ellie all right good evening um I am here to represent the district um with the petition to hold a special election vote on our Levy dollar approval um with format changes as requested from the lawyer I guess I didn't receive anything that it was undoable and I don't know if he's a district attorney paid for by the district if I have option to talk to him or do I reach out to a personal or how does that work for the answer I mean like why it's not able to be done yeah as far as I know it' be your own lawyer that you talk to okay so I still do I just got to grab the statute I still do want to present it um and then I will dig further into it as far as not being able to do it um so it would be uh I had received the letter with three um things to change on our petition so like I said I hadn't received anything again from him stating I couldn't rep presentes it so I do want to do that and I'll read the statute because last time it seemed like there was just a few questions on it sorry I have a lot of things on here I just don't find it I wasn't prepared sorry just notification so I have a million pictures on here good okay here it is special elections must be held for a school district on a question on which the voters are authorized by law to pass judgment the school board May on its own motion call a special election to vote on any matter requiring approval of the voters of a district upon petition filed with the school board of 50 or more voters of the school district or 5% of the number of Voters voting at the preceding School District general election whichever is greater the school board shall by resolution call a special election to vote on any matter requiring approval of the voter of a district um so on the petition this time it had also been brought to our attention we needed a purpose so we have a purpose which is to restore the voting rights on school levy questions to all registered voters in in Royalton School District currently only six people the members of the school board have assumed the power to decide the levy for every taxpayer in our district the system affects us all and yet we do not have a say in it we believe that every taxpayer should be able to vote on issues that directly impact them I also needed a summary in summary in summary we call upon our school board to extend voting rights on all School referendum Revenue decisions to all registered voters within our school district as authorized by as authorized by Minnesota statute 126c do7 example is ballot questions are in subdivision nine of the statute referenced above so I have those to present um is there any questions so I covered the three um adjustments or changes as requested by the lawyer from the letter i received I have a question yeah did you vote last election yes I did then you had a vote in it you voted correct year y so that's a little misle I just when I when I heard your purose statement I just I just wanted there it is a offered from the state that's a board member approved Levy so yeah and so we didn't take them rights or anything that's kind of to a point it was given to us yeah okay I just um and I'm just not going to I'm just not going to let it go and unset so that's all y That's fine everyone has an opinion yep um also I'd like to state that it's unfair to threaten staff um that there will be major Cuts if this petition passes I've heard I have a salon I hear many things that there was an email sent out with my name on it it's not only me there's 130 signatures that I got both times um I think it's unfair to put it all on me I'm just a voice for the district members um it's something I feel strongly in and I think it's unfair that your threatening staff or whoever is threatening staff that there will be major cuts um say the petition would pass if we can do it after I look into it that would be up to the six board members to adjust how fun would be handled um everyone I talked to that signed this petition I think everyone's very aware we're extremely topheavy in this district and I believe this petition should create no threat to the Educators and the education of our CH so that's the five minutes for that and I'd like to present to these and then I also ask on the thing if I could do five minutes on the lease Levy topic um as I was going through tonight's agenda um and correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like there will be a presentation on thoughts of passing the Midstate lease dollars onto the taxpayers also it's a presentation of what would happen if if we did that okay um I think it's absolutely absurd after we just presented District taxpayers against taking our dollars without being able to vote on it um just some things I'd like you guys to all think about is how many of those students are district and open enrolled kids and then I'd also like you to think about um as district taxpayers and parents of the district they're already paying taxes they pay for their kids to be in sports they pay to watch the sports they pay for them to go to prom they pay to watch prom any activity they're involved in they pay for we have volunteers that fix baseball fields we have fundraisers for uniforms we have the parents and District taxpayers are so involved already I just think it's crazy to ask them to pay more money um if I'm looking at the budget right we have an 11 plus million budget and we're willing to take more money from the district members when people are struggling to make ends meet the way it is right now um we continue to spend more money testing and student numbers drop the extra dollars are not going to staff and materials that do um anything for the educating of our children and that's just my input I ask you a question yeah am I right in understanding that the collective voice of those who signed that petition is that they're concerned about the district funding and how weend and that they want to have to say yep more to say I have heard um from many people I talked to and I love talking so I've spent a half hour at each person's house um very concerned with yeah the spending of the district and that people are seeing we're going towards that deficit if not in the deficit a little bit and I think people are just sick of their money being taken and not having a say I think that's just the bottom line of it thank you okay uh so reports and news so uh finance committee um finance committee met on July 24th um we had a presentation from Financial Network which we will um get the opportunity to uh experience again tonight for everyone at the board and we um discussed the financial numbers which uh Heidi will go through for all of us as well our adopted budget was revised to reflect 11,924 but our actual expenses this year capped out at 11,620 th000 And1 $62,500 student attendance uh they added the statute added religious accommodation in there um next one is 704 so inventory of fixed assets uh talks about col goes through you fars um and that was just a a policy to look at for every three years and 807 health and safety had the statutes updated um in there and spelled out so those are the three going for that uh in second reading we still have 902 uh which is the uh District use of facility and Equipment um so that one's going to probably be there for one or more two times and then I already talked about we have nine new ones uh for our first policy readings and uh one of the bigger ones is 524 that we're looking at uh which is internet uh technology and cell phone acceptable use and safety policy um in Midstate so uh I've had a lot of conversations um and driving Midstate to have the same policy type meeting that we have so right now uh it's been an email and hey you approved these changes and uh a lot of NOS came back so we're uh we're working on actually getting together as a policy committee and doing that there too which will be great uh once we can actually get that done uh so that's all I have for that report any questions on the reports Finance okay superintendent report okay um you want to pull up the communications plans we did get the based uh utilizing our strategic planning committee and staff input and through Community survey we now have um a Communications plan that of course we will revise as necessary throughout time but you can see here where um we have our purpose we have the stakeholders and channels and we have the Conta so here you keep any one of those and get emails phone numbers or or make any sort of uh suggestion to the real voice and then over there you have um how teachers principes everyone will communicate with different stakeholders and those are all um you click on those to get to that information and then really good feedback was to provide this howto section and so this is for parents um that can go in and check on how to utilize these different technology tools so U thank you Nicole for making it look nice and I appreciate all the input from staff and uh the strategic planning committee and in saying that we do have a strategic planning meeting um coming up in uh sep on September 9th oh no that's our word meeting oh it didn't get added I will double check the date but we do have a a September strategic planning committee meeting and I'm inviting the community to please come and be a part of that um we're going to be taking a look at the Strategic plan again and kind of make sure that our action steps make sense or make any changes so I invite them and also invite the community whenever you have questions feel free to contact us at any time principles and myself uh Heidi our businessman are always willing to meet with people and then talk through things if they have questions and explain um and answer any of those that we can so that's all I ask okay any questions for superintendent oh one other thing our board committees are also in the public so if the public would like to come and observe those finance committee meeetings and policy committee meetings they're welcome uh business manager report start up my computer in case there's any questions good evening board chair Mr hofstead members of the board superintendent Dr Christine workamp tonight's uh fiscal year 2024 update is for the month June 2024 ending you can scroll forward this enrollment slide presentation has been the same since we ended the month of May uh no information has changed since we haven't started a new school year so we ended the year around 910 students that will become published as adjusted daily membership and adjusted pupil units with information that will be um forthcoming from mde for final fiscal year 24 results general fund revenues month end June 2024 um I want to make a note that all of the information shared tonight Still Remains as preliminary fiscal year ended on June 30th however all of fiscal year and tasks take several months leading up to our audit which is scheduled for the first week in October so as I begin to work through through our fiscal yearend checklist uh these numbers will continue to be updated and update shared with the board going forward specific to revenue is percentage of the revised budget 90% that is right on track as one would expect uh state aid is received uh up to uh 90% within the fiscal year and then the remainder remaining 10% is built in as a receivable as I work through year end processes so I would expect that Revenue will come in on budget if not um over budget considering we're still in preliminary phase general fund expenditures again as of month and June 30th again preliminary I haven't even begun to look at um expenditures by object code as you can see here um those are items out as salaries wages benefits purchase Services supplies materials Capital expense and other expense there's a lot of adjustments that go into fiscal year end tasks and I have not done that yet overall just looking preliminary we are over budget um just um by about 4% mostly that is due to fees for services so any vendors that we contract with outside of school district employees provide services for our students we are over budget there and I I will continue to to look to see where we can make some adjustments I do want to make mention um Maria you'd mentioned that uh we're over budget in salaries wages and benefits uh we are about $130,000 again preliminary uh over budget in both salaries wages and benefits which when you consider a $9 million budget in salaries and benefits 130,000 again preliminary is quite close and so overall I'll continue to work through expense we have some adjustments to make from uh fund transfers between different funds and I'll continue to update the board as information becomes available any questions not yet thank you uh principal report chairman hofstead members of the board superintendent Dr Joel swansson High School principal uh report tonight very quick um we will be uh having starting inservice week next week with teachers coming back we are doing an AI training on Tuesday and then an academic vocabulary training all day on Wednesday um and uh it looks to be two very good days we're also be training on our new data um our data warehouse uh prolific which will be on Tuesday afternoon so we have two full days of training that we will be kind of kicking off the school year with um a report on summer school um back in the old days when we just did summer school by um without the formal um summer school model that we have now we would recover approximately four to seven credits over the summer from students working through classes um that number was obviously limited because we had limited help to take care of that and uh didn't have really have a formal process for doing it this summer in summer school we recovered 29 credits um and that was after the first week and so we still have students that are working through that I expect that number to be uh in the 30s by the time summer ends our goal is for those students to have their credit recovery completed by the start of the school year um so very successful i' like to thank Mr Shaw for uh leading the high school summer school effort um it was very successful kids were here they were working they showed up here got got to work and uh the incentive is when they were when they were done and and completed the required credits that they were uh remediating that they were finished with summer school and so um the students uh came and got to work and if you would have walk down to that end of the building you didn't even hear them down there they were they were hard at it and so it was good to see and I'd like again like to thank Mr Shaw for that questions thank you ter hops members of the board superintendent Dr W Camp Herman uh Tony Newman principal at the elementary school um like uh the high school we're gearing up for our PD days next week and then Workshop week which is very very busy uh that last week of August with open house that Wednesday the 28th as well as September 3rd and so we're those those things open up for scheduling on Monday the 19th and so we're anxiously awaiting everybody coming back they hear people coming in the building here and there getting their rooms ready um especially with the with the updates to to the classrooms people are getting their stuff back put back together so it's nice to see um summer school wise uh a big change um from previous years having it in June uh it has worked out well we had 33 kids registered average membership um in attendance was 27 various things happen you know June people have weeklong vacations things come up people get sick it happens uh but we had three teachers and we grouped them together um previous group uh K1 work together 2 three and four five so um it was nice to get those kids in um worked hard got them breakfast got them lunch got to play outside did stuff as well um but we really honed in and and was success questions oh than all right uh cons sense agenda approval so the board is consenting to approve items listed below as presented at one time at any point the director can pull an item off the consent agenda for further discussion so we are looking at approval of regular board meeting minutes uh from a July 24 the claims accounts and financials the approval of resignation and terminations the approval of new hires uh approval of the student handbook the employee handbook and approval of bread dairy and fuel bits with the recommended approval of Cent soda fuel gas clay for dairy and panic gold for bread anybody want to make that motion I'm moov IT director hacket second second by director RoR thank you uh all right discussion I have a few questions about the claims accounts and financials okay goad um my first question is um when I was looking at the check registry I remember a presentation once a couple months back um with some information from uh principal Newman about the Ry 360 um app not really working out well for our busing services and I see that we have re um signed our contract with that company the Tyler Technologies I was wondering if they if anybody can inform me if they provide other services or why we are continuing to have that correct that's the that are what the ring for the buses oh so that's not so this ride 360 is not something that weird it might be right through it's they have a new name or it's a water it's a the new app is my my R2 and and are we going to utilize that yeah service and so that's going to be so they have badges again and the kids will be able to check it out no we're not doing badges oh that's not part of it that's not part of it at all I was just wondering if we I just wanted to have clarification I thought we discontinued service for that because it wasn't working um the only other thing I wanted to make a comment on is as I was looking through it seems that this was the month last last month was the month that we had a lot of uh renewal of contracts and I'm not 100% familiar with all of these but I just like to highlight the fact that I've seen a lot of P Services totaling the ones that I stood out to me there's others that I could obviously tell were first student achievement so I didn't highlight those but to the degree that we partner with these entities that I don't even understand or know anything about M AE Ms Mas masp mcea M EA you know etc etc we have $50,000 almost $51,000 worth of purchased Services there and um and I just had a question for clarification from Dr V Camp here I once remember you saying presenting to us that we should join the M Association because it's for our area and I thought that was going to take replace of our membership to different to see remember it's the ru want remember which one it was trading out for y c was the other one okay the acronyms that you had mentioned yeah are they coded to fees for service or are they coded to subscriptions because those all are subscriptions that the district purchases to operate the operations of the school district well there this Massa that's scho so those would be memberships for usba be able to do the I wouldn't personally be able to tell you what the codes are oh you mentioned fees for service that's why I thought maybe you I don't know the codes oh sorry so they're not fees for service I I couldn't tell you I was just looking at the checkbook accounting those would be subscriptions asso memberships right principal Association high school and know right and um there was a purchase in here from msba for board book Services is that above and beyond our contracted services with msba is that an additional or is that just part of our contracted services that we get from msba because um an $8,000 expense just have board book seems excessive if that's an allart I was just wondering if that's an allart charge that they but that's the that's the subscription we pay to have board book as a a host of all of our board meetings documents agendas I understand what the purpose it serves I just was wondering if it was a part of our contract and it's just you know this is the month we pay it or is it an allart that we add on to We already pay to be a part of msba is this an allart thing that we purchase from them this is specifically for board book that we pay annually but they host it because the charge was correct just trying to understand all the charges thanks that's all my questions okay good questions anybody else um I have one question uh for handbooks so 90 pages and 86 pages is a lot of handbooks um the uh there's a difference in the elementary breakfast and lunch prices and the middle school high school breakfast and lunch prices and the preschool breakfast lunch prices in each of those handbooks they will be all the same Elementary okay they to make that change perfect that was the question all right and then we got one bid for fuel one bid for dairy and we actually got two breed bids this year that's pretty good um one was double the price but that was there uh all right any other discussion all right all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries all right uh we'll go to the K2 Towers uh proposal yeah so this is a second look just wanting to know if the we talked about this last month just wanting to know if the board wants to accept their offer or deny it well I'll make a motion that we deny it here I'll second all right discussion so by denying it this that will tell them that they either need to pay us or yeah or they might remove the tower and that's their Jo y can we can we tell them to remove the tower I mean if they're not renting that property from why do we want their Tower there well they' have to pass the money right so if they would do you want us to say that we no longer want I mean I would say take it down or I mean at this point can't we name our price right on our property so either take it down or they're pay pay us what you were paying aren't they still paying us though and they just want to stop right right so it's either take it down or pay right continue this contract what we're saying right correct yeah for sure that's tionist yeah I I don't know if we need to go that far I think maybe we find out what they say in a response right but they we can't just let them keep it there without paying us so the tower is there we have to get something for it and I don't and that remember too in that agreement they wanted to extend it another 30 years seems like not any other discussion all right so I have a motion in a second uh to deny uh kuu Towers to continue doing their stuff there uh all in favor say I I I oppos motion carries all right Minnesota District's Revenue rankings be call that please we are this is a document that I've been sharing with all of the districts that I support uh it's the 2324 Revenue rankings per ADM for the 328 school districts in public school districts in the state of Minnesota the information was compiled by C and distributed on on behalf of Minnesota districts by m so if you want to scroll all the way to the bottom ranking number one all the way through 328 CL down ways so Royalton is at the way bottom we are sixth from the bottom ranked at 323 we receive just 10,6 $68 per adjusted daily membership or per student as compared to the state average of 14,475 and the district average just over 14,000 so as the district continues to responsibly manage finances we have considerably less amounts of Revenue to support the students meet their needs Etc and an important concept to consider when we're doing what we do is serve kids we do have some highlighted on there of surrounding districts like siiz districts proximity of location and our conference and some of that information is helpful uh to ascertain where we go forward from here so what would change that so that 10608 is if we had uh 850 adms or if we had 912 adms no so this is just per student so regardless of whether we had a th000 students or 900 students right we received $1,684 each of those students what would change that amount is operating referendum which we don't have uh any additional Levy supports depending on what uh the board has authority to uh consider and what the voters have authority to consider uh additional types of categorical funding from the state or federal government a lot of which we as a district in Royalton aren't eligible to receive some of those would be like Q comp we don't receive another one would be if you have a higher pre-introduced population you get more compensatory dollars and title dollars in federal so a lot of different variables in in which districts are funded based on the demographics of their District ranging from student demographics to property demographics to everything in between I will say based on my experience and expertise it's much more challenging to work balancing budgets when you're at the bottom of this ranking so most of the schools above us I'm assuming we must be one of the only ones that don't have a uh a referendum technology Levy or operating Levy that's not true so there's about 90 districts that do not have operating referendums and the majority of them sit in central to Northern Minnesota third yeah SOA has a small operating has a small one I believe but like doesn't have one I believe St not yeah I believe it's districts don't con so next I will turn over the floor to our partners from PM PMA Financial as member trout had mentioned Michael and Bretta had presented on behalf of this this information to our finance committee finance committee felt it important that we should share this information with the board so both Mel are here tonight to present some information thank you thank you welcome yeah good evening glad to be here chair hostad members of the board Dr workamp um so we're GNA talk a little bit here just in this first segment of of our agenda about the the services PMA can offer in terms of enhancing the school district's Investments and helping you manage the C flow for the school district but before I do that in the slides here I'm going to kind of scroll through just an introduction to who PMA is and and our service to school districts um we are a a company that works primarily with the investment and management of public funds including uh over 200 of the school districts in the state of Minnesota so that's more than that's about two-thirds of the school districts in terms of working with Bond proceeds we worked with10 billion the cash flow service I'm going to talk to you about now we actively manage for over 100 school districts across the state the funds are um the well kind of a base part of our program is What's called the mintr fund it's a money market fund where School District funds are held that that fund had over four billion do of Assets in it this summer and that's just School District money in the state of Minnesota um this uh fund is not owned by PMA it is we are hired to manage the fund and to inform our school district's uh clients about it it is owned by the school district clients uh who are a part of the fund uh your District became a part of the fund in 2007 so you have utilized your services before it's governed by a board of 15 trustees similar to a school board and that there's revolving terms and uh all of the member districts get to vote on who those trustees are uh as they as they come up the next couple of slides give you a full list of all the districts across this just state of Minnesota with which we work so we have broad expertise in finances for school districts um in in many aspects of the overall finances but the the key part that we're going to talk about uh to start here is related to our cash flow and Investment Management Services so these services are really uh tied to helping you maximize the investment earnings within a framework of making sure that the the funds are held uh in you know safe and um but we're in a time where there's lots of interest uh earnings available and so on the next slide one of the services that we provide to school district is a cash FL service this looks two years forward every single day trying to have a good projection on how much cash the school district has in the bank for every single day going forward the primary reason for this is that you can by having that information you can maximize your interest earnings by making smart Investments and understanding where you are you can also identify to make sure that you have enough cash on hand and to the extent that you are considering larger Capital purchases as a school district from time to time you may whether that's a facility or um other large Capital purchases this gives you good information about how that's going to affect your cash position cash position is different than fund balance uh when you look at your audit your fund balance cash is the the actual number of dollars that are in the bank today fund balance is affected by lots of other accounting rules uh when you look at your audited financial statements so the the uh the next few slides here show what are overall um the some of the the ways that we manage the cash but the basic it kind of all boils down to the fact that if we have a good view of good information about how much money you you have available to you every day for the next two years we can as a as an Administration with our help we can give you some concept of whether or not you're able to make an investment in a CD or another very safe investment like a US Treasury security or other items that are out there and typically when lock up the funds whether it's for six or 12 or 18 months time you're going to earn a higher interest rate over time and not every single time but this chart here shows the the lines going up and down are the daily rate and those red lines are investments that an actual school district has made and oftentimes you're going to be above that um daily rate over time by making long-term fixed rates Investments like like as you would as a person you know personal making a CD investment we're not talking about stock market stuff here we're talking about very secure safe Investments that the the district consider on the next slide it shows the whole point of doing this is how to to increase your investment earnings to enhance what you have available in your budget every dollar that you earn is a dollar that you have available to you to help support the school district in the programs that you have to offer this shows if you had a million dollars um and you were able to earn an additional half percent above the current rate you would have another $5,000 uh within your fund your funds for for your use if you had that million dollars you're able to earn an extra 1% because you were actively managing this you could have you know an additional 10,000 if you had that on $5 million you could have another $50,000 uh to use so it's it's money that's offered out there with good planning and good information the the next slide in here shows a model what our cash flow looks like in terms of the model but the uh kind continuing forward the way that we do this is that we'll work with your School District staff uh with Heidi and other uh business staff to understand the way that you receive and expend your money throughout the year and will you have a dedicated person dedicated to you to to go through that and help you uh execute the Investments it's all at the discretion of your staff PMA does end ever make an investment without your your Authority so we do that the the agreement for us to to provide this service to the school district um if you just scroll forward two slides please thank you uh is that we don't charge the school district any fee to to maintain the cash flow the the agreement is that your District State a dollars the money that you receive from the state goes into the Min trust fund directly it doesn't have to be held there for any period of time um you can move it out uh to your local bank to pay your bills and and other uh charges as they come due but it comes through that that Min trust fancy agreement without any any additional fee to the school district so um you know the purpose here is to increase your interest earnings and we're um we're experts in doing that and helping manage over this for over 100 districts um and you know we're in a time period now where interest rates are higher especially short-term interest rates but the expectation is that interest rates are going to go down that's what the market believes that's what you know people are betting with real money the Market's not always right of course um we don't know that for sure but that is certainly the expectation and if things follow as expectation holds your your the daily money that you hold will go will ride down as the yields or the interest rates ride down on that so this there's a good time to be an opportunity to sort of to lock in some of those interest earnings as rates are in a higher Market environment depending upon how that goes forward um so because you are a member of the men trust fund already because of past work we have done together there's no formal board action required or no resolution that's required of you but uh I know we wanted to make this a topic and the finance committee has discussed it a couple times um to talk about engaging in this service and and uh working to maximize those interest earnings so I'm happy to take any questions on this piece I have one question when we are determining what number we want to invest is there a recommended amount percentage that you usually keep back out of this or you put all in our because our district membership fluctuates like and I don't know how I don't know what other districts that you work with if they fluctuate to the degree that ours does but you know if we begin the year at 400 or 940 students and we end the year at 9910 is that going to be detrimental to us yeah so you would never have all of your money invested at one time there's always going to be some money that is liquid uh and available to you on a daily basis to pay your bills and one of the things that we work through with the administration is understanding okay what is a what is a comfort level in terms of a dollar amount that always needs to be available for bills to pay today and so that's a that's a conversation in terms of the implementation of this that we would work through to make sure it makes sense with what the people who know the most about your budget know which is you know the the professionals you have hired to help you with that and so that's a part of the that's a part of the conversation we'd have as we we build out the cash flow for the school district I think we're good all right thank you thank you um is there anything from the finance committee you guys have talked about this a few times um I just be on that one question I just ask otherwise I think there was any questions is there a recommendation I don't see it negatively impacting us I think it is a positive option that we could move forward with why wouldn't you want your money to earn money yeah exactly well and that's what I was wondering because I mean you guys have talked about it way more than than the group has so that would oh yeah yep yeah and we're not going for approval or anything so really what we're looking at here is taking money from the bank right we in town here and we into some kind of other fund right that kind of robber that so currently we have uh the majority of our funds in the Minnesota school district liquid asset fund which is a similar type of account as the Min trust account we don't keep um our funds locally to that level or to that amount or to that extent because of the interest rate we receive on that Minnesota liquid asset fund again similar to the rates that we would receive in the minest fund so we maintain those balances in that Minnesota liquid asset fund they do not provide cash flow services so the the benefit of working directly with PMA um and having our our funds instead go into that type of trust account would be that we can make better decisions in investing dollar amounts that will provide a rate of return on the interest earnings over a period of time that we're not doing now we're currently receiving uh interest income in in the accounts that they're currently in we just have a better means to ladder out future investment earnings than we do now that answers your question so we're taking the money that's in a similar type of account and moving it into a different entity but similar type of account and what PMA offers is to help go through the budget to say we want to stick $500,000 or and like well no you should probably only do 300,000 because these expenditures between what you guys would do and and they're correct exper and I'm very familiar with the type of cash Services they provide having about 9 years of experience working directly with them in other districts almost like changing financial advisors really otherwi other than we would receive more financial advising by making this change I'm hoping to get half a per or 1% possibly right that's kind of what if we were to get that that's the fund that's the M we would get right obviously it's a investment where there's no a guarantee but that's what we're looking to to get a half percent or 1% or something it would depend on the rates it could be more right certainly depending on the type of Investments we consider uh we would never lose well we wouldn't invest in in Investments that we would lose out on our principal balance right we would always earn something anything to add to that what do we have next have you continue the conversation so there's just one slide in here um but this is uh illustrating that the impact of levying the Midstates lease on on your taxpayers beginning with the taxes payable in 2025 you're at the time of year uh when you'll be asked next month to approve your preliminary Levy and that's really the first step in the process of making a tax levy and so it's a if you want to include the option for the school board to make that tax levy in terms of the Midstates Levy when you make your final Levy which happens in December and the taxes get levied the next calendar year it there needs to be some consideration whether or not you want to I included in the preliminary Levy when you do your September Levy once that number is set the the dollar amount cannot go up except for if you there's a couple of exceptions and the biggest one of those being if you have a a question on the ballot in November which I in my understanding you do not this year so um once that that uh dollar amount is set in September then the the money can't go up so it's a this is a timely discussion in terms of whether or not the board would want to consider this now or in a future year but that lease amount is about $42,000 per year and based upon your tax base uh as of the current year this gives you an illustration of the annual tax increase related to just this part of your Levy so uh just to pick one out on a $300,000 home that's going to be $19 uh per year or about you know a150 or1 60 per month uh throughout the year in relation to the tax impact I'm also illustrating there some some commercial and uh different taxes with the way the Minnesota property tax system works it divides properties out based upon a classification system so residential property pays differently than commercial or agricultural property this isn't representing every classification but the the primary ones that you have in your District are represented here um in this number we're not assuming any tax-based growth there's been significant tax-based growth in the last few years I believe this is the most conservative way to show it to you as a school board um and then one other thing that I think is sometimes discussed with the lease Levy is whether or not applies to the AG to school credit that's an important really important credit that that saves a lot of money for your agricultural uh property owners that does not apply here this only that only applies to bond issues that you have directly done as a school district um so this is an option it's a um not something you've done in the past although the school district is allowed to Levy for these kind of Cooperative districts and you have a special part of your Levy that the state law allows you to do this many school districts across the state do utilize uh this Levy for similar types of services engagements that's the only slide and all those are for the year that is an annual tax is correct how many of the our Midstate other schools that are in there with us I only do this right now so I'm understanding all of them there's fours and I don't know what Little Falls relationship in that because they were a member and then they're not a member and uiz services and I don't know if they paid for some of that building or not I can't recall but Alia upslow pi and so on will be the other if we would do this what does it what does it do to the budget so right now this is getting paid out of the general fund correct how long have we been a partnership school with Midstate how many years anybody know that least 26 yeah so for 20 to 30 years we've been just paying it out of the G no this building was just built a few I don't know what year that was me too I know do you remember 2019 2019 it was bu PR that they were all they had their programs districts like there's might have over here and then Source I believe helped donate money to this building as well to the building right the lease the lease Levy can only be used for certain types of purposes and this is for the actual physical facility it's not for their operations right how much longer we have to pay on it if it's $42,000 a year is it something you do for the next 10 years is a 20y year deal what get decide every year but how much money do we owe them yet for that building I think it's 20 years but I could be I could be wrong by half so I wasn't here when that happened we agreed to pay our portion of that building when it was built it's kind of all five schools did yeah before it wasil half at that time we were busting kids a lot further and it was costing us about this and busing that that's why it got a proved in real this because we were we were spending almost as much money busing as what the the Lea lby was so by time you drive a kid hour and a half off and then the driver drives home turns around and goes back or sits there and waits so that's what that had added up how many kids are using this facility now we have a number it varies every year it's really dependent right yeah we look at past history yeah I have to double check on our total numbers sure it also serves the 18 to 22 population as well sure all right any other questions on the Midstate ly slide all right we'll go to the refunding the bond option all right so should be a little more fun we're gonna hopefully talk about saving money instead of spending money which is a not a common thing at school boards um so what we're looking at today is refinancing or refunding the the bonds that were originally issued in 2015 based upon a a voter approval of the school district's uh tax payers and so there was 2,260 th000 that was originally issued there is uh you know about um $18 million of that left outstanding as we sit today and the as of February 1st 2025 is the first opportunity which you can consider repaying or refinancing those bonds with uh underneath the terms of the bonds and so on the next slide we're showing that we updated this last week and the finance committee members understand this that this is kind of this is based upon interest rates as they stand at any point in time but this would be to pay off the the remaining maturities of the bond issue and replace it with a new bond issue for savings to the taxpayers the estimated gross savings is about $745,000 as of a week ago that savings is net all of the cost of issuing the bond and that savings is truly uh savings that goes back to the taxpayers this is not money that goes back into your budget this is money that goes back uh in in the form of a reduction in the school district tax levy again the 745,000 is kind of based on Market interest rates I will tell you over the since we've printed this to provide it to you interest rates have gone up a little bit and so I would expect it to be a little bit lower than that today it's been somewhere it was all the way down to like 175,000 and it's been in the 700,000 a couple times throughout the year as we have monitored this uh when we were a couple weeks ago when we presented to the the finance committee it was somewhere in the $300,000 range of of savings so it is dependent on that to change on the next slide it shows the detail of what this looks like so the $745,000 is not all cash you receive at one time it is a reduction in the payments throughout the remaining life of it we're not extending the payments any longer it's the same number of years that you had paid off before so you can see there in the right column it's saving you about 65 to $70,000 a year each year uh throughout the remaining life of the bonds which are scheduled to fully mature on February 1st of 2036 the next slide I've included a kind of just a out of way of transparency an estimate of the cost of issuing the bonds and going through this process what that looks like uh again the savings is is net of all the cost of issuance there's fees to to PMA to help you with this process you also will need hire attorneys there's a rating agency fees that that's included in there and so I wanted to be transparent about what that looks like and um the in terms of the overall uh risk of these fees they're all contingent upon this happening with the exclusion of really one of those fees and that is if we go through the process and we have a a bond rating agency write a report about the school district so this is a really important process in terms of earning the interest rate that that we're projecting um if we go through that process and then the interest rates are not in a favorable position you could be in a position where you you um need to pay the rating agency but that report is good for a period of time you know we could use it for about six months worth of time and so that is the one kind of risk of potential cost that uh the school district could incur and we do not control what interest rates look like so there um I want to make sure that that was was known the next slide shows um tax impact now we showed you what that lease Levy would look like us a very similar slide you know in terms of formatting if we were able to save that kind of $60,000 a year this is this the savings per year that these residential property taxpayers would see on their taxes um so like again for $300,000 houses would be a reduction of $27 annually the the first step in the process and this is not uh in front of you tonight but I wanted to to tell you um should you want to proceed forward with this this is likely what you would see in September for board consideration is a resolution that we call a parameters resolution that approves us proceeding for with the bond sales subject to certain parameters it also allows us to submit an application to the state of Minnesota to be a part of their what's called their credit enhancement program this is an important program because it the state of Minnesota is telling the bond holders that for any reason if this District can not pay the bonds back the state will step in and pay it it's never been used by any school district and we don't expect it to be used here but it reduces your interest rates significantly because that Bond holder the lender to the school district now has the taxpayers of the entire state of Minnesota behind it not just your local taxpayers um so the parameters that um can you go back to the last slide thank you so the other parameters key parameters of part of that resolution is the board is providing Authority to the superintendent or the business manager Director of Business Services and so one of those two people and a Schoolboard officer to execute the bond sale subject to um we have kind of preliminary proposed a minimum Savings of $100,000 that is subject to the board's you know um input of course now um I put that in there as kind of a starting point for the conversation there's a maximum power of 16.6 million and there's a deadline or an expiration on this resolution February 1st of next year so the minimum savings threshold that is just to say these people don't have the authority to do this without that being true we're going to maximize every dollar savings we can get in the in the day that we're in the market um and we're going to work on your behalf to do that so this is just kind of like a floor of hey we don't want to even consider this if it's below that amount okay and then the final slide I have here for you is a kind of a time timeline of what this could look like if the board is interested in proceeding um in September at your September board meeting and as I understand from conversations there's consideration of moving that so at September 9th now if it's later in the month that's not a not a problem the the parameters resolution would be considered as I just described we would go through the rating process uh at the end of September and um release the the information to the market to receive bids uh in around October 1st to receive those bids in the middle of October we have October sometime between October 8th and October 14th on October 14th the board would have a second resolution to consider to ratify the sale of the bonds the bonds would be would close on November 4th which is the first day they can be uh this can happen for with h the call or the payoff the switch out of the bonds would happen on February 1 of next year so I'm happy to take any questions on have question so two times you mentioned uh this February 25th so that's the first time we can do it is there a closing on the time there is not no once you get every day past February 1 you you lose yield yeah there's a there's the if we're not predictors of the market right we're right and so every day that you get past that if if interest ratees stayed the same there's a day where you could have reduced the interest rate that you didn't right I was just wondering if there's like you know like year six or seven or whatever we're in now you can do it and then then eight you can't or no there's no the the only provision that you promise the current Bond holders is you cannot pay them off until February 1st of 2025 all right and the new Bond would have a similar provision in it for a certain amount of years yeah and typically that is between seven and 10 years from the date that you issued so you said the if it was 745,000 or whatever it was um that's not all at once so that's is that a yearly no they um can you go back to slide 21 so this this that savings column there shows you by fiscal year like it says 64,000 so in in fiscal year 26 you're saving $664,000 and fiscal year 27 you're saving $669,000 you add them all together that's how you get to the 745,000 so does that mean each year a portion of that that's what goes back to the taxpayer does it each year that it goes back to them right it would I mean there's not something that goes necessarily like goes back them you just Levy less dollars each year so they will see a lower tax rate than they would have otherwise if you don't do this the reason there's not a savings on that first year is because of the no the reason the savings isn't there on the first year is because you already are committed to making the payment so what that $2,300 is is that we issue Bonds in $5,000 increments and there's $2,300 extra when we put it all together I have a question so suppose this board isn't sitting here these same people in four years or three years two years um and we moveed forward with this and so basically the savings come in our decision to Levy less and so if we have a new board sitting here a couple of years and they want to LY to the max anyway then not savings disappear no they're you're every part of the levy is calculated differently right we just talked about the lease Levy is all is this the de service Levy you are required to and only allowed to Levy based upon the actual payments that you have so it and when the bonds are originally sold actually this board doesn't really even have the authority to not make a levy for this you've already promised it and the county is the county auditor is actually required to make sure you are going to make the levy to pay back the bond holders but when you reduce the payment down you give the county new information and the state has new information and you will only Levy what you need to make the payments and those funds are these funds are all within the debt service fund too when you so it's not a part of your general fund sure and so for any Reon reason you did build up a fund balance there and you it's normal to carry some fund balance in The Debt Service fund um the state does calculation every year to make sure your fund balance isn't too big and if it is too big they reduce down your Levy accordingly I just was trying to avoid like a future board making a mistake going this is one place where the you know the in relation to the bonds that are already outstanding the board doesn't have a lot of discretion about this part of the levy the future board of course could do a new bond issue which would affect The Debt Service Levy but they they don't have the ability to change this once it's in place okay so really this would extend for 12 years correct yeah and so the last three or four years would likely you might have an opportunity to do a Gigan again depending upon where things are at that point in time well two things got to work here you got to be far enough in that you can do it and the market has to be working for you corre because if the market was going the other way right now we would be having this conversation right right so the market has gone down some I mean interest rates come I said they've gone up in the last week but they've come down significantly um throughout this year um and so that's why the opportunities in front of you it's good to see it now because I mean at Le you can see what looks possible we get we get further into it that disappears you know we're pretty much talking about refinancing exactly there you go refining our house it is just I think some important things for the board and the community to understand that's different than a refinance is that we are not changing the term of these bonds they were sold they were set for 20 years we're we're paying them off on the same exact date that we had originally intended to pay them off we're we're just lowering the interest rate and there's a I mean there's a little bit more process with it but like the the rating report that we're talking about is kind of synonymous to when you pull your credit rating when you do a mortgage it's kind of a similar sort of concept and idea you go back to the fees what were the total in fees 22 so when you look at these under discount that is the fee of the The Firm that's actually purchasing the bonds and selling them to um the the folks who will actually end up owning the bond that is an estimate of what it is it'll be part of the bid that we receive so when we receive a bid we receive two parts it's an interest rate and their fee which is in the form of an underwriter's discount we have put that in it could be more or less than that and the way that the bit the process is designed is that it's designed to will award to the lowest bitter like you would with many other things the the fee for PMA you know I wanted to call that out to because I'm in front of you tonight so you can see what that potentially look like the other is an estimate our estimate based upon having done this of um the the largest pieces of that are your your attorneys that you hire to go through this process and the rating agency um that a report within on on the bond issue and which of those are we on the hook for sure all of them if we go through this we for all those fees right if it if it closes you are if it gets done the only one that that is is kind of not contingent is once we get to a certain point with the rating agency there's a potential to to owe them some funds even if it does not get done do you know what that is averages I I don't want to say a number and have it be wrong but it's it's um probably in the 15 to $20,000 range and I could I'll follow up with you have something more exact and have that information for the board next month that's one of those things you get to the refinance Mark right it's like yeah we want to do it okay but now with all your fees we're only actually saving you know $50,000 over the term or whatever will we know the total amount before we say yes proceed with it or is it you know what I mean yeah so the the the savings numbers I'm showing you are all after all of this is paid so that's really the true benefit to the school district right and so that's sort of why we put the parameter metric to say look net of all of this stuff all of the process here's what is the actual benefit to school district and its taxpayers and that's why we have set it up that way so we could set it up as a parameter of it has to be at least 400 of savings in order for us to do it so if we did something like that U once they write the report so that report's good for six months if we come into that and it comes out as only a $350,000 savings do we just wait until the interest rate gets back to where that is and then we can pull the trigger on that yes you can just wait and monitor uh for a period of time of course the higher the higher the threshold that you set the you know it's a probability game the less likely it is to get done and so if it's a matter of where do you want is a if we came back to with $101,000 of savings would that be a good thing for this sport or not um the um so yeah you have you have some options there if it if it doesn't meet your target then we just hit pause on things and we wait and and monitor the markets I question that we I think we discussed in the finance committee that I just wanted you to address here um so as we sit here I can listen to these three options that are available to us um we have the right to say yes to two of them one to no you know say we don't have to accept everything correct that is correct yes there a committee have a um an opinion on you guys talked about what that return should be no I don't know if we really discussed that that's here for the first time so um so no we didn't really talk about that much I mean you have $100,000 threshold in there now right F the re threshold we're talking well could be 745,000 then we see a threshold of 100,000 I mean what's a reasonable number I mean what where do you see really where you see it Landing you know doing typ thing every day you kind of see numbers all the time right yeah I mean it's some of it's it's ultimately down to the I I mean I'm not in the game of predicting rates I've said that a couple times now right and so is it is it is a $100 saved a good thing or is is $50,000 saved or 75,000 if you come back and say it has to be a million dollars of savings the likelihood of it getting done is not zero but it's a lot less than if you say $100,000 savings so if you would feel good about a sixf figure savings number I think it's pretty likely that this will get to the finish line and so it's really a matter of um you could if you push the higher you push the threshold it's um just going to make it it's a matter of likelihood of of finishing of making the process through the Finish Line because it the threshold is not going to change the end result other than whether or not it gets done um if you have a $100,000 threshold and we can get you a million dollars of savings our you know the fee that we charge you does not change because the deal gets better it it we do the same service and charge the same thing no matter how it how it goes through I just see the 745 I get real big and I said we threshold 100,000 like why can't we have a $500,000 threshold you know what I mean you could and the reason I got the 100,000 is that it had been it had been as low as that earlier this summer okay and we had shared that information with Administration it's it's been we're in a I mean we're in a volatile time interest rates are volatile the expectation of what's going to happen in the future is very volatile um with the Federal Reserve news you we you know in case you didn't weren aware we have a big election coming up in a couple months that lots of people talk about and the market you know the market reacts too differently every day depending upon what kind of poll comes out and in the short term markets are emotional in the long term they're based on real real fundamentals so but what's the right in the wave of the it's hard to know in the short term what the fundamentals are that's going to actually play out over time and the market ultimately is everybody's opinion grouped together kind of the market consensus is is what people think going to be in the long run but that changes from day to day and we've seen some pretty wide swings especially in the last few weeks in the end we'll know that number before we say yep right in the end what the board is author what the board would be authorizing based on this resolution is that you are authorizing the superintendent and one of the officers of the board as long as it meets this threshold to say okay we're good yeah we're you can sign a contract to get this done now the school board will still have an opportunity to ratify that resolve but there before we come back to that there's already a contract to sell the bonds in place and this process is important in in terms of giving us the flexibility to help get to the market on the right day there I mean we could go through a different process where we have to have the school board actually approve the sale but that requires you to be meeting and it gives us it it limits our flexibility especially in a volatile time in terms of getting to the market on the um like the right day of the week so like a really simple way to understand this is that I don't know seven out of 10 school boards in Minnesota meet on Mondays okay I'm gone every single Monday night but you can ask my wife but that that also means that if every school board sold their Bonds on Mondays then all of the bond sales would be on Mondays which would mean that it's busy you know so there's only so many people who bid on bonds across the country and so one of the things we do is we offer hold Bond sales on Wednesdays because there are not very many school board meetings on Wednesdays or City Council meetings or County board meetings on Wednesdays and so you want to be the thing that people care about today in terms of the bid that they're putting in so there's it gives us the flexibility to provide that kind of advice to you and that kind of guidance I feel like it' be funny we sit in a room and like you know watching go we want to do it R bring caming the we'll go maybe not yeah it doesn't quite work like that but it's a lot more manual than you would than you would think it's you got a good imagination though yeah way you laid it out my in my head anyway so with the timeline like if we were looking at this and said you know what $100,000 saved to our our tax base is good enough to start out with because eventually that'll get there and and that'll go out and we said hey we want to make that resolution tonight how would that change this and would that change what that percent could be or would be or wouldn't it matter until that October time frame no it doesn't this is the kind of the earliest schedule that you're allowed to do it on so there's nothing you could do tonight to really speed up the process okay um that that would be a different answer next month you know just because we're in September is sort of the time to to move on it in terms of the the time frame that's allowed by the regulations great all right right thank you thank you all right uh next is approval donations by resolution all right um do somebody want to introduce the uh acceptance of gifts to royalt District move by director TR thank you uh introduced the following resolution and moved its adoption so uh Pine Country Bank has generously donated $200 to the royton school district to use towards lunch on our new staff orientation date roon Public Schools will be using the money towards a local food establishment second one is Clinton and Karen Copus have generously donated $2,500 to help grow the educational B program and purchase equipment for the Royalton Middle School and High School Vans and Clinton and Karen Copus have generously donated $500 to the Roy Elementary School to benefit the physical education department uh so being resolved by the Royalton School Board to gratefully accept this gift and thank you to Clinton Karen again this year and Define Country Bank again um for that so the motion for adoption was of the resolution was dued by member Rory Rory thank you and upon a roll call vote will be taken director Trump hi direct Bo hi director r i director hackin I director HED hi all right nobody voted against and nobody obained all right thank you all right uh uh so we have the first policy readings uh coming to us of 424 license status 522 Title 9 sex non-discrimination policy grievance procedure and process 524 the internet acceptable internet technology and cell phone acceptable use and safety policy uh in the form that goes with that uh 705 Investments 706 acceptance of gifts 707 transportation of public school students and the public sorry preschool student pickup and drop off Transportation policy 719 is a transportation pickup and drop off policy and 724 is ecse student drop off Transportation policy so those are all the first readings that we'll be looking at uh in September or October here um second policy reading I talked about 902 already uh use of school district facilities and Equipment uh still in the middle of completely revamping that one uh and then the approval of the third policy reading uh so we have 503 student attendance and I already talked about those 704 the inventory of fixed assets and the asset accounting system and 807 health and safety um so I'll take a motion for to approve the third policy readings 50374 and 807 so moved right by director hacket second second by director to thank you uh any discussion on almost on favor say I I opposed all right motion carries all right uh meeting schedule uh Wednesday August 28th at noon for the finance meeting and at 1M for the policy meeting any issues with those all right um and then the next one in your board briefing we uh had talked about changing September 9th to move to the 24th are there any issues with the 24th Tuesday September 24th yes yes I have a conflict that there have another meing to go through that night was reason we couldn't do Monday because Monday the 20 23rd Heidi has a okay Wednesday we we could probably do Wednesday the 25th if that works for board Ms I don't know about with church with Religion kids that affects any I mean I can make the 24 work if I it works for everybody else I don't want to change it for me that's for sure well I'm good with 25th as well be there okay that was the 25th for you okay yeah 25th yep okay thank you that heid that okay so we'll do uh 600 p.m. on the 25th for the next meeting and then policy so the uh next policy meeting instead of being the on the 25th we want to move that to Wednesday October 2nd how's that important for you was that Finance too in the 25th yes is that mov to October second I think we would want to move that earlier because usually do that means we don't have oh wait when do we have we have one the 28th right yeah so we could move that the no so September 25th will be our next meeting and we'll get the packet done so we'll meet until October for October 2 yeah everything works right now okay so we want to put both of those are is finance with October 2 y I'll talk to on that so noon for finance and 1300 one for all all right um and then we will uh anything else meeting schedule wise strategic planning is September 17th at 6 PM all right that's where all right um and now we're going to close the meeting for superintendent evaluation is permitted by Minnesota statute 13d point5 so can I get a motion to close the regular meeting at 7:32 p.m. by director Stout second second by director hacket all in favor say I I I all right uh we'll resume in 10 minutes 7:43 when they