##VIDEO ID:tEv3q53BYrU## there we go hello welcome to tonight's uh minona School Board study session uh it's August 22nd 2024 uh before we begin just kind of wanted to acknowledge this is our first time doing a live stream of the study sessions um we're going to Pilot it for this school year and uh see how it goes but if you are watching at home Welcome to our inaugural try at this and hopefully it goes well so um on the agenda tonight our first item is a review of policies superintendent law Madam chair members of the board the first two items tonight are policy reviews that were driven by statutory changes uh that some of them were triggered during the 2023 leg legislative session so tonight executive director of VR and general counsel Angie flowers and Associate superintendent Dr Amy Leo are going to review these two policies what was recommended change through statute and the input they gathered from our own uh District employes as they ran through it m flowers thank you superintendent law good evening Madam chair and members of the board I'd first like to review the attendance policy with you and as a superintendent St Dr Amy Leo is here as well for any questions or additional comments the newly proposed attendance policy that you have before you 502 combines our previous policy 502 and the policy 503 that policy was the attendance policy for the high school so we're trying to move to one policy the 502 before had elementary and middle and the 503 prior had High School only one of the reasons we are moving to one policy is just to create some consistency and eliminate confusion the new policy still does have a carve out for the specific needs of the high school how did we get here we held meetings with all the principles and the it and enrollment teams and other stakeholders as part of this process we also worked on getting our student information system codes updated it so that we could have a successful roll out that was a big piece of it and this work has been happening for the past year so not a fast process but that's how good work happens um you'll notice that the previous two policies that you have in front of you they are fully redlined the level of revisions and you know working with multiple stakeholders it just it was cleaner to do it that way um and now another reason for that is that we actually aligned it to the the msba policy as well so we really needed to do that rewrite the new policy clearly states that attendance is a shared responsibility of the student parents teachers and administrators you will see that in the purpose section of the policy we clearly lay out the expectations of each stakeholder as you can see in the shared responsibility section of the policy that is followed by the attendance protocols which outlines reasons and consequences for excused and unexcused absences both of these sections reflect legislative updates the consequences section in particular for both excused and unexcused included a lot of conversation and thought partnership to arrive at what this would look like it was important to give students the opportunity to make up work and part with parents to get students back in school who have excessive absences while also being transparent about what to expect from the school parents are always called as part of our current practice or we reach out in a multitude of different ways for any absences and certainly for excessive absences those consecutive ones in particular you'll notice a juvenile court petition that is not something that we have exercised as we do all that we can to support the family but the msba recommends having this as a tool to assist a student if necessary tardiness is defined and religious observance reflects the current statute and finally the policy reflects our reporting obligations any questions thank you any questions for Miss flower uh I had one question um so if you go into Skyward to report an absence uh it will have different options that you can choose for your child will those now align with these excused absences because that like personally I have found a couple times where I'm like oh I don't really know which one to choose so will Skyward um have these same options or will parents kind of be left to to their discretion of as to how to enter that there excuse me there still will be um several options we've cleaned those up they won't align perfectly because there could be some variation um but they hopefully will be much clearer and we've eliminated some of the choices that seemed confusing so I think it will be a clear process but it won't go line by line with the policy okay thank you any other questions or comments okay um do we want to go ahead and do 506 right away thank you thank you for our discipline policy 506 student conduct and discipline this is also been in the works for the past year this policy was heavily reliant on our stud student information system codes so we spent a lot of time working again with student enrollment it getting those codes updated um student Support Services um just again several stakeholders working with principles one of the largest changes from the legislature for discipline was imploring the non-exclusionary practices prior to suspension accepting safety our systems were not set up to cash capture and track this information doesn't mean that we weren't applying it but we didn't have a way of capturing it because it wasn't required for reporting but now we have to report that data to the state so we wanted to be sure we were prepared before changing the actual policy the discipline policy was already aligned with the msse msba policy so the amount of red lines weren't as considerable as the attendance policy there were substantive changes passed by the legislature regarding non-exclusionary requirements along with some changes to use of force the first revision you'll see is on page two under principal and teacher these changes allow us to use Force when the student is a danger to themselves in an effort to prevent them from harming themselves whereas prior it was only when the student posed danger to another person note that any use of force is only the minimal amount required to prevent harm to the student there is no use of force for damage to property the next revision is to the readmission plan and clarifying that that can be verbal looking for the page here um and that is yes that's on page seven letter o saying verbal or written for that readmission plan because those generally occur through that conversation between the parent and the administrator we wanted to capture this in policy but we've also informed principles to reduce the readmission plans to writing as soon as feasibly possible i' like to draw your attention to the top of page nine this is where our non-exclusionary practice practices will be implored again with the exception of safety this is attempted prior to most suspensions the bottom of page nine notes our obligations to offer to assist with making mental health arrangements for students in certain circumstances however the district is not responsible for the cost of these services in addition the district can collaborate with the mental health specialists or other community support or partner with the family when necessary moving on to the bottom of page 10 that states our notice requirements for suspension and that is within 48 Hours the bottom of page 11 that notes the prohibition on suspensions for students prek through third grade we are not allowed to susp Su spend them however a partial day does not count as suspension a top of page 12 that has been updated to non-exclusionary versus alternative services and an update to show that legal resources are available on MD's website on the next page the bottom of 13 it notes our reporting duties that they include physical assault on a staff member by a student and the reporting of non-exclusionary discipline again our systems have been updated to support this reporting principes have received training and office assistance will be trained next on page 14 it states the admission or readmission plan requirement and for the students with disability section the language is now more inclusive and points out that fatee and still apply whenever we're updating policy discussing general education requirements we're always keeping top of mine what are the requirements for special education for instance a partial day may be a suspension for students with an IEP where it would not be for students without an IEP special education regulations and laws always apply regardless of broad level changes lastly our complaint procedure we launched this last year and it's in our student handbooks and it allows staff and families to challenge a disciplinary decision these matters are appealed through the associate superintendent who will investigate and submit a findings report we have not had any appeals in the past year any questions any questions or comments on policy 506 Dan yeah thank you Angie um Amy thank you for this uh one little question going under the uh the suspension procedures under dismissal um the the changes just regarding us being able to help arrange mental health uh resources and things for families um I know it's at the parent or guardian's expense I just I just want to throw out there that I know we've got a a relationship with Relate Counseling and things like that and I hope we also have resources for families who may not be inclined to say yes to that kind of help because they don't think they can afford it I just want to make sure we're in touch with other institutions and people who may be able to offer those resources to folks who don't have the means yes we do have we have relate and we have other collaboratives that I know the director of Health Works closely with in addition to our executive director of student support services so yes we we do have several resources thank you any other questions or comments Ms thank you Miss Flowers Ando thank you um next up tonight we have a review of draft 2025 legislative position State statements uh superintendent law Madam chair members of the board I would point out that we have several viewers who have been texting saying the volume's good but make sure you lean in when you're talking just a remind for all of us um on an annual basis we create a list of priorities that we're going to bring to the legislation with hopes that we can get changes that are most favorable for community and students top of mind for us this year is after cutting about $3 million last year we're facing a $5.5 million shortfall again for the 25 26 school year um it's worth noting that the solution to that was first brought to this board into the legislation in 2017 we are uh it's now or never I mean not I want to say never but there has never been a better time than now to have this solution come so tonight Mr BW is going to be talking about our top three priorities that will all help us impact that shortfall Mr bis thank you superintendent law and Madam chair and members of the board um I've got a few slides that actually kind of augment what superintendent law mentioned uh why this is so important I mean we do know but it's it's just I think it's important to just look at it and see it and we all we're all familiar with this slide um we uh um had have had a great run with a couple of referendums passed by the community uh student enrollment growth and that created a virtuous cycle uh we've had 18 years without budget reductions so for fiscal year 25 budget reductions that we put into place uh some reductions some adjusting of where we can charge things where we have opportunities uh we've had to it's the first time time since 2005 but the thing is is uh we are at the point again where you recall the uh uh the slide that I used a few times of the 747 with a couple of the engine shut down related to enrollment growth we've relaxed or we've opened up that engine a little bit uh but also uh being at the operating referendum cap and we've been talking since 2017 about that and a couple of other things and we just haven't had too much success uh I mentioned here 2017 uh in since 2018 then uh which we in the fall 2017 we talked about it 2018 was uh the first time which is really not that that that far after or that long after we had actually passed the 2015 referendum to provide uh in uh additional revenue for 2017 through basically 2025 and um the um sorry let me hit back here there was a thing on my there we go um so the thing is is uh what all all that we uh have been wanting to do since then is have wanting the ability to ask our voters if they'd be willing to provide additional re resources for students it wouldn't uh actually impact the state budget at all literally at all we are actually one of the districts that has very little state aid so it's not that the state would have to kick in additional Aid if we had the opportunity to ask and something was approved so we've had additional planks uh regarding raising Revenue in during the last you know eight years uh but through the 24th session uh the legislature really hasn't been interested in advancing any of our proposals last year just giving credit where credits due uh representative Myers happened to be a person who was willing to put all four of our prop planks into bills they were not Advan but he at least stepped up and put them into bills and that was actually uh really the first time that had that that had happened that I can remember in at the district so now this this slide you're all familiar with and I'm actually going to go through it a little bit because it it kind of explains why we are so um why why why it's so critical it it's been critical but it's even more critical because we've said hey it's coming it's coming it's coming and now it's like it's here uh the um we we we reduced uh 3.7 million for this year and I'm going to talk really loud like I used to use my quarterback voice but um for fiscal year 26 we're looking at about a $5.3 million budget reduction so let's say that we balance the budget for fiscal year 26 we balanced the budget um uh we reduce 5.3 million what that does is if we cut 5.3 million here it reduces this reduction down to 2.5 if we reduce 2.5 million to balance that budget if we do 5.3 and 2.5 this is getting got reduced to 3 million if we reduce 5.3 2.5 and three this is reduced down to 3.6 million if we do 5.3 2.5 3.0 and 3.6 this is reduced to 3.1 million the cumulative effect of all those is 17.5 million of budget reductions over the next 5 years the the point about the point to be made in in highlighting that is the if if if our Revenue situation doesn't change uh if our uh and our expenditures are as projected which uh you know 66% of our our budget is teachers and salaries and benefits and about another uh 12% is per professional salaries and benefits 88% of our budget is Personnel salaries and benefits but if none of those change and these expenditures turn out that way we will have to we will basically have to make those reductions over five years uh you know that's just it it's not a fun thing to talk about but it's just the way it is and I have the obligation to you know just be um be upfront with integrity and objectivity uh so our first pro uh our first plank again is except we've upped it uh is to asked to have $1,000 added to the operating referendum uh cap and what that would do is um give us the ability to ask the the the first bullet or the second bullet down there is the purchasing power of the basic formula which is about 54% of our revenues it's fallen behind by about $1,400 per pupil from 2003 to 2025 so for minut that's for every school district by the way in the state for minaka though that is a loss of about 16.8 million in purchasing power annually in today's dollars that's a lot uh and so our our district along with others we found it necessary to ask for additional operating referendum dollars and we ask the local public for the additional resources for any deficiencies in state a in addition minona is in the bottom desile of state aid we with the latest number showing that we received uh 1492 less than the last comparative year available or about $18 million less in state aid than the average school district between those two that's almost 35 ion 17 of which is everybody else's experience and 17.9 of which almost 18 million is just because of the way the funding formulas are for lack of a better term not not as supportive of us as they are of other districts uh the uh in fact I'm going to go backwards here because so how do we make up for that well our public said yes we're going to kick in $35 million and we're showing $28 million of support to make up for that shortfall in inflation and the uh shortfall in state aid so I mean and thank you to our public out there um because without that we would really be in a world of hurt our kids would not have nearly the opportunities they have that along with open enrollment so our referendum cap is at uh 2263 for fy2 and we're asking that to be increased by $1,000 to make up for that uh that would generate approximately $12 million on an ongoing basis and if we ask for inflation on on top of that at approval it would increase by $12 million and then the rate of inflation afterwards third tier local optional Revenue uh to give school boards local control to offset some of that basic formula shortfall uh that's $360 per adjusted pupil unit ask that again is to ask people ask for school uh school districts in the bottom quartile um to be able to at to make up for some of that uh shortfall in state eight so uh this one's a little bit less complicated in terms of explaining it I would give school boards the ability just like we do now for $724 to increase that amount 50% by another $362 uh and that would generate about $4.5 million annually also of not local optional Revenue started in 2014 and it has not been increased for the rate of inflation since then so we've lost out to inflation there also if you're going to increase that up to the uh the level of inflation just to match the purchasing power from 2014 in fiscal year 26 it would have to be at $1,000 and then finally increase the special education cross subsidy uh adding an additional 10% to get it up to 54% the legislature increased it to 44% a couple of years ago and it's been great progress uh anything on special ed cross subsidy would be a help this would help every District in the state for us it would generate an additional $800,000 and you know any we'll take anything that we could get and so with any other District in the state so just to kind of um sum it up just to reiterate what superintendent law said regarding this is uh success in a 2025 legislative session is really critical because if if we're not successful and nothing else changes you know it's the path is set and so uh we really need additional Revenue we need additional support we've got to be very motivated very Advocate oriented and and just get out there and have our legislators know that we need them to in particular just let us help ourselves just get out of our way let us help ourselves that's that's all we're asking so those are the three main planks you know we could add a little bit here and there but it's these are so important in terms of needing additional revenues to be able to maintain for our students for our kindergarteners today into the next decade that um we really just have these three to focus on thank you Mr bis uh questions or comments discussion Mike uh thank you Mr bis um I just wanted people understand that that last uh that last plank is actually a pretty important one I said I represent the board this our school district on the 287 intermediate 287 uh school board and they don't actually get any money from uh the the general formula all of their financing comes from the member districts and the non-member districts that pay in out of their special education uh funding and so um if if that amount were to increase that would actually help 287 quite a bit and therefore help all of our students that that utilize their services as well as all the other member and non-member District special Education Services in the area Dan thank you and Paul thank you I feel like I say this almost every time we have a budget presentation but it as Paul stated it is really important for everyone to reach out and speak with their elected officials on the state level to communicate to them how important this is and now is an especially uh valuable time to do that because we had a primary two weeks ago we know who all of our major party nominees are in these elections and next year is a budget year so all these folks are out there right now trying to earn your vote and trying to get elected so make sure you let your folks running for office know that fully funding public education and giving local communities the option to fund education the way they need to is a priority for you thank you I would also add uh we all had an email week asking from a parent uh what can we do like how can we help and so uh the case committee is out there but I found myself kind of wondering what else can we do to encourage our community to share amongst each other just the information because I think people don't really necessarily know what our financial situation is um the perception is that we have a money tree somewhere growing in minona I think and really we're we're not in that position we're below to at average with our current funding streams and so I think the more we can do to just encourage our community members to talk to each other make sure everybody's just aware I think that is the other kind of first step of that so that then they know to reach out to elected officials and to organize and kind of be the community voice that is also pushing for us for all this right cuz if it's just the school board and a superintendent and they're not hearing for the community members um I think the community members probably have a lot more power and sway than we do so just something to think about any other questions or comments thank you Miss brois and I don't think you get to go very far here um next on the agenda we have an update on community solar Gardens superintendent law Madam chair members of the board one of the things that comes to the board on an annual basis is uh sustainability green energy how are we working to make sure that we are being sustainable and and green in our thinking and I think people are often surprised when we respond all of the work that the district has done over the last 20 years to get sustainable energy options for our school district so tonight Executive Director of Finance and operations Mr bris is going to be providing an update to the board of the community about our community solar Gardens and the percentage of energy we draw from those places Mr ban thank you superintendent Madam chair members of the board uh we've been working consistently on just trying to be as efficient as possible it's a uh it's a good business it it frees up dollars for construction and uh you know it's good for the planet too I guess the um our district was actually named in 2010 an energy star District which was at the time uh we were um we were one of the very few districts there's about 270 different entities in in the or the individual buildings uh that's individ let me back up that's the individual build individual buildings one every one of our buildings got an energy star plant we by that time we had actually replaced a lot of our old mechanical units and uh we made sure all our boilers were primarily natural gas which has a much lower carbon uh footprint uh we add roof insulation every time that we that we put a new roof on but the other thing we were doing is uh we were swapping out at that time with fluorescent tubes and we we swapped all of those down and we were just starting to do they were just starting to come on the market led parking lot lights and the exterior building cons security lights the ones that stay on a lot all night um and uh we were an early adopter uh also Energy Management controls uh and and in controlling our individual HVAC units for occupancies uh in 2013 the whole District was named an energy star leader again we are one of only 270 entities in the time that at the time that had been named that it was kind of a new a new award uh but again more energy saving initiatives replacement with boiler burners but we started swapping out our fluorescent tubes with uh 14 and 12 watt and 10 watt LED tubes um we've been all LED for 10 years so they just passed a a a requirement in the state to phas out LED and a lot of my colleagues are wondering how we're going to do that it's I'm telling them all you got to do do is get uh there's tubes that actually fit into most of the the light they call them troughs the light trough and uh if they don't work you just actually have to pull the ballast out and then they work and so we've been all LED for that time uh we actually have the Dome uh Pagel Center in Anderson Veterans Field everything is all LED so um we've been LED for 10 years uh the uh um we've also it's kind of interesting because our buildings were built pretty old and they used to have a lot of Radiators and what's interesting about that is we've been able to pull radiators because we don't need them because we have so much insulation new windows that are are are much much tighter still have air flow with all the HVAC um but uh we we don't need as much and so many of our our schools U actually almost all of our schools well I'll use the high school as an example uh there's three giant boilers down in the catacombs of the of the high school and it's it was built with 152,000 square ft and unless it's like you know one of these long patches of 20 or 30 below where we get on occasion up here in Minnesota um typically we it's now it's now almost 600,000 Square F feet and we actually heat that with one boiler so it's just just the efficiency so and when it's really cold we actually fire up two but there's one boiler in the basement it was put in in 1952 and that has just barely over 8,000 hours on it and 8,000 hours is is about what you have in a year so the thing is actually literally brand new like it's has been sitting there in mod so we you know so there's been people being efficient before me too so uh give credit where credit is due and uh a couple interesting things uh right now uh we've been having a little bit of a spike in natural gas uh these are our our uh cents per delivered THM and uh we were for 15 through 21 we were 5.3% lower um we're about 46% higher on average over the last three years we're hoping that that comes down over the next few years but we've been that that's just putting a little more pressure on our budget you know not a lot but it's a little more pressure um you know at a time when it'd be nice if we didn't have that so this is what we've been spending on natural gas uh we had a polar vortex year and fiscal year 14 uh but otherwise we were pretty low here but the last couple years and I've got to get the final numbers plugged in for FY 24 we're still waiting for some adjustments on a few bills there um and so on electricity uh rates uh these are actually the bill for EXL energy uh for minona high school I did uh not many of us have 10 years worth of bills at home right uh but I went back and I pulled the last 10 years in in fiscal 14 and then 10 years later from XL Energy and now we've been shifting as a state to more Reliance on wind and solar it is more expensive but we're up about 43% but that is expected to continue to go up so us being as efficient as possible is important and as you'll hear as I go through some of the solar garden stuff it's really important for us because we get credits back on our solar garden participation so uh the other thing about our solar Gardens is their utility scale so it's like you know if if you need a big load of dirt you don't bring a pickup truck you bring a you you you bring a dump truck so we we've got dump trucks um and then uh that's our annual electric cost so you can kind of see it edging up there the last couple of years uh that's that's net after the credits um and now this is an interesting chart because during this time and I'm not going to go through everyone because I have one for every school uh but during during this time uh there's just some interesting stories to tell in that we were growing by about 45% in students we also grew about 25% in square footage and you can see as we grew we we've growing up in in growing in our uses usage but we pretty much flattened out for the most part in in uh 14 through 16 and and 18 uh then you see that the co years uh we were down in our our electrical usage and uh now it's edging up a little bit but still we are still with all the additional square footage we've been basically flattened out um and in there we were still growing up to our current student level also so charging all the iPads and cell phones and everything else uh you know related to that so we've been pretty efficient um the other thing that i' like to show is what I call the original buildings which was our K12 buildings Community Ed the district service center and the warehouse and the Dome so you can see kind of similar pattern there uh and again just just showing that so I'm not going to go through each individual School uh but there's different patterns when you see something kind of jump up at at at Middle School West for instance we did an addition and and we increase the use of the pool so you see in 2014 there's a kind of like a little bit of a jump up there but usually it's related to that so we try to stay um efficient the ice arena uh we we purchased that in 2013 and um so we only owned it for part of the Year there but uh then fiscal 14 15 we actually um the usage has the hour usage continues to go up there's been uh they don't take ice out every year so sometimes when ice is out um this is a 60,000 foot building so um ice time ice is ice time's not free but um what we've done is with all LED and everything that we can do to make it as efficient as possible um Community Education Center for instance a large um large addition was done in fiscal 10 but we stay pretty pretty even uh even Steven there um a couple of new buildings purchased in the warehouse so I'm going to get into the emissions for electricity uh zero emissions initiatives uh we have a renewable connect contract with Excel Energy for wind and solar sources so it's a price certainty lock in a 10-year term and it provides flexibility over the long term so the high school Community Ed the district service center and the district warehouse are currently sourced 100% from from wind and solar through this and our contract goes through 2028 so uh we've already I've already talked with our a representative about extending that but also at the same time we're always kind of like Warren Buffett's always on the hunt for Investments we're always on the hunt for more uh solar Gardens because they're a really good deal so the other thing that we've been doing is we have invested in community solar Gardens and it makes Community solar garden sounds small but these things are actually um one and a half to two million kilowatts and and so we are anchor tenants in six solar Gardens right now we are going to be seven but one of them got got cancelled because they're they're apparently working on some new legisl or not right legislation but regulation at the Public Utility Commission so that one got canceled but uh we've got one that's uh under construction here you'll see right at the end and that'll be coming online in July but uh with our community solar Gardens in the last uh four fiscal years we don't have FY 24 yet um that'll get settled up here in the next next couple of months but we've Ser we've gotten credits for $1,484 th000 so we're hoping to be over $2 million of credits uh for uh the community solar garden so we take 40% of the off take out of anything that's produced on these solar guards so we are the anchor tenant just like I don't know I'll probably use the wrong store because I'm not up to date on that but like you know the is there still Nordstroms um and so like we're like the Nordstrom in the mall right okay we are the anchor tant and at 40% on all these so we have nesvold one which is near Watertown in Carver County uh and you know it's not real exciting but but there it is um and uh you you I got a picture on a day when it was even an operation so um a 25e contract 2018 through 2042 that was in production uh for in January 2018 uh the Aaron Community solar garden is actually near Green Island in si County and uh it gives 670,000 74,000 kwatt hours to minona Middle School West again a 25-year contract and uh so yeah the little little Google marker there shows you approximately where it's at I mean um I'm sorry shows that's what I did the plug it but the solar garden is actually um um oh it's actually built right here um so that's where that is it's just south of green right before 190th Street so on the on the aerial they don't have it but it's there believe me um then we have uh chub these are all named after Lakes uh we've been working the last five with nomus energy which is named after Lake nomus uh so they name him after lakes in the vicinity chub Community solar garden near Northfield it's Northwest of of Northfield so you can see the ramp parts of St ol of college from there and we get 57 70,000 Kow hours for Groveland and 125,000 for cenic Heights get a 25-year contract the Lyman Community solar garden is again also near Northfield but it's on the northeast side of Northfield if you basically take that Highway N not Highway 19 Highway 3 out towards Rand um and again uh so we're picking up a little just about 700,000 kilowatt hours for exceler and Scenic Heights and U uh commercial operation January 21 and then roll is um our latest uh solar garden near uh Clear Lake in Sherburn County um 621,000 kilowatt hours for minow 69,000 kilowatt hours for Scenic heits and 400,000 for deep Haven same 25e so johnnyville was the one that was canceled it was going to be right adjacent to chub which and it's too bad because we were locked in they had our 40 um our 40% locked in you know and but uh they're uncertain about what the Pu going to do in terms of possibly changing the parameters which would really be unfortunate because this has been a really good program um but we're still so we're still looking for uh 533,000 kilowatt hours for Groveland and Scenic Heights we've told Excel Energy that we'd be interested in doing the um uh the um participating in the hydroelectric at the former Ford plant they're also re refurbishing a hydro electric Dam at Lake billsby and we'd like to participate in that if we could uh so we're still working on it but we're also looking um uh got a u um have had contact with clear solar which has a bunch of solar Gardens and these Community solar Gardens can have people drop on and drop off and what I and they're one of the bigger solar garden entities I got the list of solar garden providers in the state and they're one of the bigger ones and so I contacted them told them that we were looking for for basically whatever they could take uh and uh um so they're looking for uh they're going to beos supposed to be notifying us when they have a contract drop off and we could basically step into the shoes and and take that contract so but again I mentioned there 1. 1484 million uh that savings right to the unassign fund balance in the general fund you know for use um students other initiatives showard LED building Community uh convert LED right away when we bought it the stadium LED conversion so eer Anderson had LED lights installed in Spring 2020 veteran field Veterans Field has LED lights installed in Fall 21 the thing is is um with V field um actually that one is we basically for the same amount for actually less wattage and less kilowatt hours we actually have the brightness level although it's got really good lights and they they beam straight down so the neighbors actually don't complain they actually complain less than when we had the hogin but um I should say complain but they're concerned L um but uh um that that field is lit um to a level that's just below Target Field so uh if they wanted to we have a lot of college teams that come there and play but it's if they want to actually like do a sporting broadcast there they could do it the lighting level is good enough same thing actually with the um uh with the hockey rink and Pagel that thing is lit up to NHL standards but it's with LEDs and so we we cut you know the kilowatt hours by about 90% um for those lights the vage momentum building uh signed up I mentioned Highland Park hydro and then solar enough is available so we're still looking and uh uh we're so again we're going to continue to partner with wherever we can and uh stay stay as as uh you know as green as we can in terms of providing electricity and and natural gas and just being as sustainable as so thank you thank you Mr bis uh questions comments any discussion I would just say thank you for the continued update it sounds like the big difference compared to last year was that that one that we had planned for kind of fell off and so now we're looking to replace that but I know we've had um community members ask us about our solar initiatives and I think it's great to just be really you know clear about the fact that we may not have the solar panels on our buildings but we are using solar energy and I think that's an important distinction yeah and you know maybe we could we could put up someplace or a billboard outside not billboard but uh well billboard be Co um but or just some type of information board and just going hey here's our our family of community solar guards you know so they know and uh what our how many millions of kilowatt hours we're taking which is like I said we're over 90% almost and we're working towards so there's not many entities could say that and the ones on the roof they might get you 100,000 uh but they won't power your whole buildings we got almost all of our buildings powered 100% by these you know it's kind of like you know a um I'll use another metaphor it's like do you want a uh because that's where the Skippers you know do you want like a roll booat or do you want a battleship we got B thank you um I also understand I don't think you can use both I don't think you can have a community solar garden and also have solar panels because of the way that Excel uses the um tracking is my understanding so yeah I I don't know but it's like it's just so much more efficient and the credits that you get are are very yeah thank you so much um next up we have an update on the outstanding long-term debt superintendent law Madam chair members of the board one of the ways is I I had joked earlier tonight at a open house that most of us dig on our couch and can find a quarter Mr brw digs in his couch and finds $500,000 part of that is through an incredibly diligent monitoring of our debt what we're paying to borrow money and what we're paying people who have who have invested in us so tonight we're going to get an update on our outstanding long-term debt and the steps we've taken to reduce the financial impact on our community and some upcoming steps Mr bwah thank you superintendent law Madam chair members of the board uh years where we're sitting uh I have this projected out as of June 30th of 2025 with our our current long-term maintenance bonds that we just closed on yesterday and then we've got a couple of refundings as that you approved us to go ahead with that are coming up uh later in September to actually sell and Clos so I'm just going a little through a little bit of background um and a little bit estimating the future but crystal balls much more cracked and cloudy especially when we don't know what way the FED is going with their interest rates but I think they're going to be going down hopefully so people can buy houses we can if we have to borrow money we can actually we've got a bunch of of bonds that are just teed up ready to go when interest rates drop by about 50 basis once we can refund and restructure some create some payment capacity for for things or or just save actually probably both so this is just uh uh everything is related to our facilities related to our bonds and you can see uh we have about 1.5 million square feet that is 83% of our total square footage is 27 years or more of use uh so if you have a 27 year old house you know you just got to Ross and you got to replace the furnace and this and that same thing with a big building like like ours uh of that amount uh about uh one 1 million a little over almost 1.1 million is uh 58 years of use and we have uh 470,000 ft that's 67 years of use or older but all these I would I would Hazard to say are going to be still around for another 5050 or 60 years and we've been working hard to rebuild them uh in 2007 uh the district was leving a total of $10 million in facility Bond payments and long-term maintenance projects on a pagal basis it was about 32% of the total Levy we've tried to stay as close as possible to that amount we're up a little bit of it but our Levy is actually up at about $60 million and we're at about $12 million so the percentage has dropped particularly um uh in you know in relation to just the overall Levy and one of the reasons we're doing that is uh we also wanted to make sure that if we were asking the community for money we were asking them for money uh for oper you know for the operating reference and you a couple times that was really important um so we we've and capital projects so things that were related to operations are responsible for the vast majority of the increase of our Levy of $32 million in 2007 versus 67 million now uh we spread costs over multiple Generations uh rather than doing page you go you can actually get more done but by bonding you actually have the ability to uh uh basically have the people are going to benefit from these long liveed improvements this rebuilding to be able to pay for it as their students and the community gets the benefit so uh uh we do a lot of restructuring and uh try to create payment capacity if needed uh try to get net peasant present value savings cash savings sometimes we're able like this last one we're also able to actually uh not only lower the interest rate but actually lower the the principle from the refunding bond compared to the principle that was outstanding on the bond being refunded so um so far if you you add all it together things that we've done for additional capacity for uh for uh open enrollment uh to generate Revenue to help pay for additional things for not only our open enrolled students but for our students uh about $132 Million worth of long-term facility bonds averaging 7.3 million over 18 years uh but that's 132 million uh that is been plowed into the buildings just to make sure that they're ready for the next 50 or 60 years uh we really have done a lot of replacement of things and um uh really things that you need replacement every 30 40 50 years and they won't need replacement for 30 40 or 50 years so uh we have another couple years where our elevation or our dollar amount is going to be similar to what we did this past year 14 million but after that it's it's going to drop off considerably because a lot of those big items are pretty much all of them are gone you can never say not can never say everything is done completely when you you know it's like painting the Golden Gate Bridge start on one end and go to the end and start again but um but uh there's definitely a Time periods where you're going to have an elevated level versus a kind of a lower level and we're going to be coming up on a time where we should have a lower level but we've also done about 89 uh2 million in bonds and then we also added in about $ 9, 850,000 from opep investment earnings excess ones uh and that was used for $7 million plus that 99.8 million was used for the bage momentum building and also included here is the $2.2 million Bond we did for the um the momentum aviation in the vano building but we built the capacity uh for uh for open enrollment we've also done 50 refunding bonds and restructuring transactions and they have had a positive Financial impact of lowering uh levies lowering power value reducing payments uh either immediately or in the future by 26.8 million so that's just a kind of a fun thing is that's the that those are the books I go into uh every every year several times a year just checking everything to make sure at the numbers and just go okay why are we there and it's uh it's for me it's like I like pulling them out looking at them and um you know as opposed to just flipping through on a screen because if I actually take the time to physically pull them out physically go through for me it just kind of gets me focused and I'm not so much into scanning I'm actually more detailed into digging in so um what have we gotten out of this investment capacity for additional students to generate revenues for serving all students uh and we pretty much there was a lot of of deferred maintenance when I got here and they were just starting to really get into uh into to trying to pair it back and now we're really in a state of good repair and our buildings are really could can be used for another 50 or 60 years um we've saved in-house construction management about 8.1 million uh for the cost of the things we've done uh the one thing about additional students it's going to be so important is um uh the additional revenue for students that we get from open enrolled students generates enough revenue for them to pay for their cost of education and have an additional amount left over for the resident students equal to between 23% and 25% more than they would otherwise have every year if we were just a stand this I've got all the numbers in in calculations in my um some of the you know I'm not going to walk through everything but this is in your packet but we we built 146 uh classrooms either new build or reconfigured split spaces up small group rooms uh by Elementary gymnasiums pool editions and Renovations that includes the um Aquatic Center um various cafeteria expansions and then on things outside uh 22 tennis courts parking lots uh things like that so this is an important slide because it it shows that this is if we had not done any of the uh building uh editions that we had done when we started going out looking for open enrollment 200 7 we had capacity for about 88,200 students and if if we had not done anything so it was really a necessity because if we had not done anything we would have topped out at about 88,200 students just like we kind of topped out at 11,100 but now we're going up a little bit 11,250 but I mean we'd have topped out and we'd have bumped up really quick against um against the need to start cutting the budget because the open enrolled students generate additional Revenue um and so the 51 facility projects that we've done there's 51 large enough to actually worn a one of those black dedication plaques on it and and those were not done just for fun they were done because it was really a necessity to make the learning model work because they made the Gap from 88,200 kids up to where we're at possible and without that we wouldn't have the programs our students our resident students wouldn't have had the opportunities that they had all these years and that they're going to continue to have going forward uh we all see see you this having those additional spaces had a direct impact and it's it's all it all ties together right it's tied into the fact that we had that run because we had the capacity to add students also in addition to operating reference so it all ties together uh a long list of the the rebuilding that we've done I've just said rebuilding for 2070 because uh for next 40 50 years 45 years from now now I've been using that number for a number of years but um a lot of these things are going to a lot of what we've done are going to last a long time and the buildings are still going to be so uh this is just kind of a summary it's you know if you look at the bulk of our our square footage was built in the post World War II Baby Boom time and uh so again we we basically at are at 50 and 60 years of age and we're rebuilding for another 50 the interesting thing about putting money every year into your buildings is that it's it's really prudent investment it's also honoring the past people made an investment to provide us with these Assets in these facilities and um it's more cost effective than tearing them down and rebuilding in fact our sites are so small I'm not sure if you could actually build a new school on a site and then tear the old one down like they used to do um but our uh new construction for square foot is approaching $500 a square foot so if you had to build everything new it would be $925 million so um that's that's a lot of money these are very expensive assets uh this is just a a graph of our long-term maintenance we're kind of at a a spike here as we over the next couple of years as we try to complete some things like next year we'll be completing HVAC across the whole District we'll be one of the few districts in the state to have that um but then we're going to level out we're going to level out uh be doing Roofing and and Paving uh you never get away from Roofing and Paving in Minnesota so here's where we're at in terms of where where we will be unless we get some refunding opportunities if interest rates drop but as of right now with what we have in place um we have total outstanding Bond uh General obligation is what Geo stands for and cop stands for certificate of participation it's a fancy name for a bond that's paid for through a lease purchase uh but it still is a bond of the district uh 179.2 million outstanding uh of that amount 155 million uh is to be paid back by by direct property taxes and 24.2 million is going to is paid back through other sources so of the uh Direct Tax sources the general obligation debt um there's actually still one more payment from the 1990 uh the April 23rd 1996 referendum where they passed the last General obligation Bond referendum approved there's one more payment left on that Bond um and that'll be paid off in February of 26 uh then we have our opep debt which is 16.2 million that's that matures in 203 and then we have lease purchase uh levies that's a chunk of the building additions that we did for and and or site acquisition and site improvements related to having to increase the capacity of the district for open enrollment and then uh other funding sources uh operating Capital about $23.7 million is uh going to be paid off out of operating capital and uh there's about two so if you look at those uh 57 um 57 point almost $58 million of outstanding bonds between the lease purchase and operating Capital that's how much of the bonds the original 89 uh million dollar worth of bonds that we issued that's how much is left to be paid back of of the projects that we've done and uh but uh what's interesting about that is that $89 million was funded with a revenue stream of about $4.5 million about $2.5 million in least purchase Levy capacity and about $2 million in operating uh Capital capacity and those are flat dollar amounts that we have but we were able to leverage that into basically that plus thrown in 9.8 million out of the excess earnings from the opep fund when the stock market was going very well back in the late 2010s you know 2018 2019 um we were able to leverage that into $100 million of improvements so who pays off the 155 million uh this is from a a a database at the State Department of Revenue called prism and I'm not sure it's property records something something something um but it's the prism system and uh uh so in in our in our district 92% of the property wealth is actually residential uh either residential or uh agricultural Homestead uh and in residential there's individual residential and Commercial residential which is an apartment building things like that uh but then commercial there's only only 253 parcels and 15 what they consider industrial parcels and that's really light industrial kind of like the um um the small like the the glass the minona glass place across from Bennet field um so and then so but you see there's uh 13,14 residential parcels and four agricultural Homestead Parcels um I think those are in chanhassan because you to be an agricultural Homestead you have to have a house I think it's 10 so there's still somebody planting something somewhere so um but because actually if you look on our our uh uh our Aerials from back in the day it's like this area used to be almost completely so it's amazing how it's filled in and then now looks like Urban forest from the standpoint because we bring in houses and with houses bring in trees so it's all good um but that that so 13,14 uh residences are going to be handling 92% of that uh so here for fiscal year 25 uh we've got um our facility maintenance bonds and then uh our rates are are rates are dropping slowly uh we've got those refundings uh coming up and uh actually when we get to the sale date uh depending on what the FED does this uh in September here at their next meeting we may see that drop even better this is just a distribution of our of our bonds that we've issued over time the ones on the far right hand side are some of the more recent ones so uh but we've been able to get really good rates uh so this is our outstanding debt service it's just a list of of all the bonds we have outstanding in the rates this is what our outstanding uh uh Bond payments look like um for Levy so we've got a little bit of a spike up this year but you see that black one on the upper end there that's that last payment from 20 from 1996 and so we we keep it fairly consistent um so yeah we're up at about $12 million um uh next year but then we drop back down to that million which is really close to where we were in 2007 that's what the you know that we pay off about $10 million a year so that's what this demonstrates um then our lease purchase uh that gives you the list of the current ones the refundings are listed there with the original refundings on the center column and the rates um so uh this is what this looks like and uh we have a little bit of a bump up over 2.5 million but we have the 2020b have a all day coming up and when those come up we're actually going to take that kind of thicker green area which bumps it up above and we'll be able to spread that out a little bit and then these will drop back down again also so um depending on so we get but we have several that are actually ready to go on that and and again that either lowers or levier also creates additional payment comp uh Capital lease purchases that are paid out of operating Capital uh again same thing uh the bonds the refundings if they're refunding Bond what the the original bonds paid for so um goes down um every year and that's where we're at right there we try to stay right at $2 million and uh we've got a few bonds that are ready to go I call them restructure kind of like a Lunchable um but uh uh they're ready to we're ready to Chomp on those uh when we get the chance and that's what it looks like going down so and then uh our Tonka doome and I always put this is paid for by the usage fees from the Dome and uh I list all the questions I I kind of list in terms of or the questions I get about well when is a dome paid off or when will we get a new dome uh the Dome is actually in decent shape but it'll be 25 years of use in 2029 it's the it's the collateral for the bond so we got to pay the bond off before we can replace it but it'll be fine it'll make it and actually if you look at the years of use um uh it actually has 97 months of actual use through June 30th of 2020 it first opened in November of 20 24 right um so it's equals to 8 years in one month of actual use and so it has to be used for 25 more months and uh that's equals to another two years so it'll have had 10 years and and two months of actual use when the bonds are paid off um but a new dome can be financed in Spring of 2029 for use in November 29 um if necessary so see what it looks like but it's it's in good shape um one of the things we'll be doing through long-term maintenance so is we'll be looking at replacing the actual equipment that keeps the Dome inflated um so CU that's that'll have about a 25e life and for sure that will have to be replaced but we can do that and then uh that's the Dome and then U the debt on the do is deflating and then this is just a a op and I just show the history here just because it kind of shows you kind of like how we engineered things down to get a better deal and then another better deal and so we started out when we initially issued the D and it was right in the middle of the financial crisis I'm not sorry the the opep bonds right in the middle of financial crisis and uh but we knew it was a it was a good deal for the district uh to be able to set that up and we were concerned about the window closing on being able to bond for our OPB liability and so we did it and sure enough the next legisl said oh can't do that anymore but we were we were basically over the gate so to speak so to speak so we we're good but we were able to refund those bonds from 6.83 and 6.24 down to 5.05 and 3.01 and then we got to refund them again at 2.93 and 1.64 so um all those things basically reduced the amount that we had to basically pay back by about 3.95 and that's what that looks like again uh 2037 is the last Levy collection year so the payment is going to be in U uh 2038 and um so uh Moody's Bond rating is just worth mentioning uh three school districts in Minnesota currently and 90 across the district out of over 13,000 districts have uh AAA Bond rating we're hanging on to harest for one more year so if we make it through April 20 uh 2025 it'll be 15 years um there's been four districts all time in Minnesota that had it Rochester had it for 96 2002 uh and just some things that I I want to put out here because we're talking about bonds and debt but and this is an excerpt from a two 2023a but it it's basically the same as the 2024a uh we don't control all of factors that indicate where we're at um you know for instance the economy turns down really bad uh our property values tank uh things like that that help to bolster our bond rating uh and property values are a big deal in how much our community pays virtually 100% of their property taxes every year is really a big deal in terms of keeping a AAA um so the factors that could could help could result in us we can't get an upgrade because we're at the you know you're on the pen hols right so um but you could get a downgrade if you if you get a downgrade to A1 um that's you know that's still like okay you're just below the pen um but uh factors that could lead to a downgrade is if we have weakening in the tax base of Resident incomes weakening in our reserves of liquidity that's a fancy way of saying our fund balance cash balances um so if we if we keep deficit spending that would tend to have them take another look at it at where they put or material increases to the debt burden or unfunded retirement liabilities would increase um now on that one there is our unfunded liabilities that we own that we in Ence as a district own from contracts that were uh entered into prior to 2002 those are capped off and that's what's funded in the opep liability uh but the uh the District uh is is on our books every year we have to take on a TR shortfall and a p shortfall in terms of unfunded liabilities for the pension plans and even though there's nothing in in law that would require us to pay that we're required to put that on so if if uh P or TR would do something or just start all sudden have their uh have their uh uh what they paid retirees did just said heck let's just jump it up real high in their liability goes crazy that makes us get a bigger liability that way that could impact us and we don't have control of that so um the one thing we do have control of basically is is the reserves and liquid liquidity are the and and the first part of that material de um and but the unfunded retirement liabilities what we can control on that we have but there's a couple so that's just important to know um as we estimate the future you know a long-term facilities mean is going to continue to taper off and uh close close about fy2 we're going to really have a lot of focus on Roofing and caving but replacing some turf fields there'll be some other things two large projects left to do are uh replacing the the high school cooling tower and then there's Pagel the Pagel ice making equipment in summer 2031 but we really have that dialed in it's R22 you can't get R22 refrigerant anymore but we bought a big pile of it and we have it stored uh at our our vendor Warehouse because you have to have a license to store it and uh we have enough we haven't hardly even touched it because we've been running so efficiently but we we might be able to run that pagal ice making equipment 20 35 20 40 20 45 it's just working so well and we have we bought all this R22 way ahead of time so we bought it for $60,000 and apparently on open market worth 300,000 so we can always tap that if we need um anyway uh just some other things the momentum addition uh added a 45 student capacity at the high school bage momentum we got 300 student capacity um you know there's ways that we can maybe make that work if we need to get additional uh students um the Highway 7 building uh which is tsp which is actually technically the Minon education center because you have to give it an official name State it's got a lot of potential as a Swiss army knife of a building so if we we need additional space for students we've been using it we can use it again all so um you know who knows what the future will look like and of course we have facilities t for looking at so just that one Minor Detail um so that's all I have so bead thank you Mr ubis I have a feeling you've been waiting a long time to say d de deflation is that true it just comes out questions discussion comments Camary thank you to you and your team for all of this number crunching and being so data driven I feel like we are at such a crucial critical time that I feel confident with you and your team and having gone through and find $500,000 in the sofa is just thank you because it's and I learn something every time I hear you speak thank you we all do our part you know the gifts we're given thank you Dan yeah seconded everything that that kemry said um on the just curious on the the debt burden front you know if it was you know it in 2007 it looked like it was something like 32% debt to debt payment to Total Le Levy ratio and it's maybe down to like 20% now you were saying it's $12 million is $60 million is something like that about of 67 yeah it's under under 20 so I'm just curious like as far as our bond rating goes when looking at our debt like what what would constitute a material increase to our debt burden or is there like a sweet spot of debt payment to Total Levy ratio that the the ratings houses look at when evaluating this stuff I I think it's not so much the Total Bonds but in terms of what you can do hopefully to to structure the payment because um municipal bonds can be paid off typically they issue we issue them at 20 years but you can issue them as much as 30 years and so if you take $155 million for business and and put that over 13,000 households that's about I don't know what is it about 12 to 14,000 somewhere in there I mean in ballark and that's just round to $15,000 that's $115,000 but it's $115,000 per household that's paid off over over um 30 years you know so basically divided by 30 it's $500 so and and that's different that's not you know straight across the board because more expensive homes play more and less expensive homes P but uh so you got to look at that and and they would kind of look at what the overall debt burden is what the debt plan is and and how that went you know so if we all a sudden go hey we're going to double our Levy or you know to from $12 million to 25 they probably go oh okay well I mean they probably make it but they you know they might not give us a you know full it might might give us a downgrade because of how big the annual payment is there thing that that is um geodb is important because it doesn't matter what the value of the property is so back in 2008 we actually did have a decline in property value but it didn't matter on our Levy because the levy is going to be spread across all the parcels based on their proportion of the total debt burst burden and so um if we have a a a decrease in property value let's say we had for some whatever reason um that there was like we had in 2008 our the value of our property drop the one thing that we have that we Levy that is contingent on property value is actually the capital project so if for some reason property values dropped from um about 16 billion down to say 13 billion way 20% in three our capital projects referendum could drop by% but is terms of collecting on General obligation bonds and on our lease Levy that's lease levies on a per pupil basis um but um uh everything else General obligation bond is on basically a total amount that you need to collect and it's spread no matter what thank you um I just had one more question so just for clarification um we saw a slide that we have different bonds at different interest rates and my understanding but I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly is that it's not like a house where you can refinance anytime interest rates are favorable you can only restructure the bonds as they approach call date is that correct yeah that's correct but then once once they're at their call date then you can restructure them literally at okay but what happens the the reason for the call date is um investors look typically will look at a bond and they'll go okay what's the call day because so like let's just say that there's a $5 with 5% they know that they'll get that 5% coupon um for X number of years and then the bond might be called but they're looking for that certainty to especially like Banks because they need they need to keep reserves in their portfolios but um so they look at that call date like how long am I actually going to have but and they know that once you reach a call date it could be called okay thank you any other questions or discussion thank you Mr bis and that was the last item on our agenda for tonight so thank you everybody and we're done almost on time e