##VIDEO ID:38p9xQ0XhMU## we'll start with the pledge IED to the flag of the United States of America and the for it stands one nation indivisible withy and justice for all all right welcome everybody uh roll call let the record reflect all members then we'll start with the board chair comments so uh just a couple things so uh we did the superintendent evaluation on August 12th um so we had a close session for superintendent evaluation with uh in there we had Mr LM Dr we camp Perman director trout director roaring director Hackett director Boyd and director hofstead so we talked about uh goal number one which was uh standardizing the communication plan as part of the Strategic plan and that so the communication um was understood with measures of Effectiveness as part of the Strategic plan and uh we have a great communication plan now uh it's easily accessible on the website uh and we can use the time and and refine it now and the board uh ranked highly effective and goal number two was a financial plan for 10 years into the future so uh we had some great ideas and collaboration from the entire board for that uh and we were able to come up with some unique opportunities to help balance the budget and prepare for our future and there again uh was highly effective uh so that's the superintendent evaluation um I'm super excited to look at the investment strategy uh that we have coming up in uh possible refund taxpayers on some bonds and uh I just want to say again there's seven uh donations tonight so I just want to say thank you to the community and the community organizations that continue to to donate to move us forward uh and that's it for that so I will take an approval of the agenda I would motion to approve with the amendment of moving number 10 letters a [Music] through or if you want to do through us and the policies U moving them up on the agenda just um I have to leave early so I would say BC D and second all right discussion basically we're going to move the the stuff that we're voting on up sooner so we can get to that before Dr B has to leave all right all in favor say I I opposed abstain all right motion carries uh appreciation recognition and presentations here hofstead members of the board superintendent Dr workamp kman I'm Amy kruer the Human Resources Director um I'm here to introduce you to our new staff they were all invited um and many were not able to attend um however I will introduce who I can go ahead and go to the next slide so our new staff at the elementary and Early Childhood Center um we have a new preschool teacher Bailey wara um Jennifer Melby is a long-term sub for a preschool teacher who is out um Emma Melby is a kinderart teacher um and I think Emma is I saw she was online I don't know um Amy SK Carlson is a second grade teacher Amy is returning to us after being gone for a year um she sent an email today and said she wishes she could be here um that she wanted to say hello to everyone and that she was super excited to be back here in Royalton after a year of being gone um Samantha cop is a special education teacher at the elementary school as well um for our food service people Food Service staff we have Jackie Lawrence who is a kitchen helper at the middle school high school and another kitchen helper Jill Justin um at the middle school high school Ben Benjamin gilber Gilbertson is a long-term sub PE teacher and then will become the long-term sub building sub long-term sub building sub that's a mouthful um as soon as he's done with his long-term um job there and then um Bethany Newman is returning back to us as a pair professional at the high school at the district we actually have our two people here District um office Gina Funk is our new executive assistant to the superintendent wave Gina and then we have Madison hacket and I spelled her name wrong sorry j um she is our van driver um and is doing a fabulous job with a lot of little preschoolers um and she just graduated from high school so we're super excited that an Alum is coming back and driving for us with our Littles any questions on our new hires yeah just like to say welcome to all and new staff that's great um yep so it is uh September is the Minnesota school board recognition month so I have certificates for all of our board members and I want to thank you all personally for your time and service to our school district students staff Community hope that you show these proudly thank you very much thank you very much and I'm thinking we should get a picture with you and your certificates want to do that was coming back way down there oh we me her halfway yeah we go I Gra [Music] than well again I'd just like to thank all of you for your service it takes a lot of extra time on your personal life to come and do this work and so thank you very much for doing that um recognition of citizens for input purposes uh Ellie we'll start with you good evening everybody um once again I'm just bringing forward that petition um that I had presented the last two months um last time I presented it I was told to reach out to a personal attorney so I have and there is a few great areas he's looking into I understand you're going to be approving the levy tonight um I just hope I understand that this wouldn't take place you know this year it would be approved um but I do hope you guys take into consideration both of the petitions of 130 plus people that would appreciate um really looking into what you're spending that money on and I understand it probably will be approved but just take into consideration of trying to respect the community who you guys are here for and what they would like thank you uh Susan hello chair hon members of the board and superintendent Dr re Camp um Monday night there was a lot of questions at the meet the candidate about our revenues and how we're getting our funding and yesterday I had time because I was sitting in a hospital for 12 hours and so I kind of went through ours data for Royalton um to put it in perspective I do sit on the Ed by board or the committee um with the Royalton representative and so I am very knowledgeable in Mars so I just want to make sure that you guys know and I just want to make sure that this has been corrected so I found a lot of loopholes um two years ago we missed some funding in the um Early Childhood area and then um our numbers for 2122 because I'm looking at your maintenance of effort and it's always behind this report was given to us by mde on 4324 it is a public um document you can go to mde the data center and you can go down to reports and there's an MFR and if you put in your dates you can put list all these things and in 2122 we only had 140 which was a little bit less than the year prior um and that affected our um special ed funding and then in 2223 which is the most current data because it just came out on April 30th um Royalton did not do any special ed Transportation expenditures that year you guys got Zer and the year before it was a $136,500 in 2122 where I said we had missed some to 188 l in 22 23 and if you think we probably missed like 30 students that's significant that that would have made a difference in this and the special education Transportation expenditures would have been higher as well so this is public knowledge you can anybody can go on the data center and look at your reports um mde does fabulous trainings they're in the middle of them every fall and so um my request is that who is looking at these reports and guaranteeing that you guys are getting your funding because we lost out and now you guys are deficit and you're wondering why well let's gone so there still is time to appeal this year um but probably not for your maintenance of efforts so and I can give this to you because I know how to find it but sure thank you I don't know if anybody has any questions or not I just wanted to NOP it's just for input okay thank you um all right so going to the new number 8A which was 10B uh which is uh cash flow investment good evening everyone um Mr chair of board members superintendent workamp I'm Steve pumper with PMA Financial I'll be speaking to the Capal presentation and then Michael Hart will be speaking to the next agenda item on the bond refunding um we have been in front of your finance committee with more detail than what's on tonight's agenda for the presentation um two times and then once in front of the full board so this is our fourth time now working with with uh your board and um it's an action item on your agenda tonight so the services that that PMA provides um specifically a cash flow we do we work with over 210 school districts in the state of Minnesota providing a cash flow um to roughly 100 districts um and we have worked with just to give you slight bit of background we've worked with the Royalton School District in the past on investing your bond proceeds you're actually the bonds that you're thinking about funding tonight refunding tonight um that help build this facility and and refurbish the facility Etc so we we have a relationship with burlton school district but we've never provided the cash flow service for you tonight so the reason to have a cash flow I'm going to talk really about the top two bullet points on here um the most important important for your district is actually to maximize the interest earnings so again this just helps the revenue that would come into the district without asking your taxpayers for additional dollars not asking the the state for additional dollars but just um doing a different process so that you can increase your interest earnings which can be spent at anything um that the school district have expenditure store the second um bullet point though on there that green line item um can also come into play and that's to identify if you truly have enough cash on hand throughout the entire year to meet your expenditures when they come in and the reason that's important is it's the timing of your Revenue the revenue comes in through tax um payments and it comes in through state aid payments and they don't come in evenly throughout the year and so for some districts especially districts who don't have a large fund balance they can come into a situation where they truly don't have the revenue coming in at the right time of the year to meet their expenditures when they're going out and by having this forecast which I'll show you in a moment um it just gives you you know a third party verification that you're on track and you'll have enough cash on hand to meet your your obligations so the next slide just shows you um a little bit about how we're going to invest your money and why it's important um this is the treasury yield curve um as of the 18th Wednesday of last week and this is actually right the same day that the FED um took action and actually reduced the Federal Reserve rate if you saw that in the news which means that the um interest rates were reduced by a half a percent now they're expecting to reduce um when I say they the mark the market is expecting them toet take action to reduce interest rates by another half percent um this calendar year and then by another full percent in calendar 2025 what this is showing you is what the market expectation is as far as what what what's going to happen to interest rates and as you go out longer you see that they're they're being reduced if we go to the next page where districts normally um have their money whether it's within a local bank or with when it's in a money market this this report here this graph is showing data from back to 1998 on the very left hand side and all those lines those the blue lines going up and down represent the money market rate and you can see it you know back in 1998 we were over a 6% rate and then it dropped all the way down to a third of percent then it jumped back up to 5% and when we get into you know 2010 2011 that's the start of the Great Recession where was 0% for a long period of time it started work its way up again to that 2 and a half% range and then we had Co and we're back down to a 0% and then the far right hand of the chart shows you where we are right now which was about a 5.2% last week and now because of the FED Reserve rate we're we're closer to getting to a 4.9% right now but what the red lines represent on this chart represent all of the fixed rate Investments the Investments that we are making for in this case this is just one school district and so what we are doing is we're taking their excess cash and we are locking it up for a longer period of time so as the money market market rate starts dropping down for these districts we have interest um we have maturities and we have Investments that are locked up at a 5% rate right now for in some cases for a two-year period of time so in two years when the money market rate is going down to a 3% to lower rate they'll still be collecting 5% on a portion of their money so that's how you retain um your earnings as we go to the next slide we can kind of put this into some um equations here for you to look that the impact with mean so right now if I look at that Top Line and you have a million dollars of excess cash you're earning 5% or you were last week 5% um uh rate it was in liquid in the money market so annually that's $50,000 for your District which is great if the money market were to stay at 5% but a lot but it likely won't so if if it comes down and we're able to um lock that in at a 5% rate and and you're earning now 45% that's an extra $5,000 that you're keeping for your distri as opposed to losing if we look at that million dollars at at 1% it's an extra 10,000 and then for a district your size you could have $5 million that You' be locking up so it's potentially 50,000 for every 1% that you were keeping at a higher rate as opposed to um having that interest being reduced by that $50,000 on an annual basis um and so that will help you support your operational budgets um you know as you go forward Year bye the next page will show you an example of actually what the cash flow looks like this is probably much deeper than the boards ever get involved in but this is something your Finance director um Heidi Hagen would use um that we would work with her on and all this is just is showing you is on the far right hand side it's showing what is your cash position for the district and then the column on the left shows you Revenue that's coming in on any given month um any day within the month expenses that are going out are in the second um column for your accounts payable and then your third column there is is your payroll account so what that's just saying is that we have this much money in say you know this much money coming in this much money going out what is the excess fund you have on hand and that guides us to making Investments so this is one month we look for 24 months so if you have an excess million dollars $2 million $3 million whatever that number is we now then can look forward and say well how long will you have those excess funds for and that's how we make our recommendations to you you know you can afford or you have the ability to invest a million dollars for a full seven months a full 13 months a full 18 months a full two years or whatever may be to match um what your data is showing so we're using data driven um to make data driven decision by making recommendations one point that's important I just want to make sure your board realizes this we cannot execute an investment without um The District's approval so all we do is we share the data we suggest the Investments we tell them what are the investment rates would be and then your staff indicates yes go ahead and pull that trigger or don't pull that trigger if we go to the next um slid so kind of just summing some of this up the P difference we'll have a person in our office that's dedicated to servicing your account we up we update this information both the expenditure Revenue side on a twice a month um and we look out 24 months um going forward once um you say yes to the the investment that we would recommend we do all the full execution so it's it's no staff time on your end other than for them to look at the reports we're we're sending to them and saying yes or no on that um again it's a second set of eyes of experienced people we've been um we've been in business now for over 40 years as a company um and it's also a useful budgeting tool for you as well um what is the cost what important for board members to know so we we do not charge anything um to produce this cash flow for you um however the agreement is that your the state aid dollars that you receive from the state flow through your minust account as opposed to where those dollars are going right now um and then if we actually conduct an investment we would we charge you a fe for that normally speaking on a on a a CD a commercial deposit we charge you a quarter of a percent um but you aren't getting build in as an an invoice for that so what would happen is if we were able to secure a CD as an example for a year long at a 5.25% you get that CD at a 5% and we're keeping that that top 4% so that's usually what we charge if we do a security we're charging 15 basis points 100% 100 basis points is 1% so we're charging just a little over 10 different per. so that's how we get paid um by by doing this so I think the last slide is just a summary um again the main purpose is to increase your investment earnings um to avoid the risk of having all your money liquid and just riding that that interest rate curve down as it will as it will go down um we have a dedicated staff member on your account we execute all the investments in house so there's again no time or expertise needed by your staff to make that happen um and then there's no direct cost for the cas service on ta to that and with that um Mr chair I'll stand for any questions uh I have one to start out with is so the interest that's made is that reinvested like a CD or does that come out and it's just the however many dollars put in there stays in there well the money that's in in your minest account we'll use whatever we need of that money to make the investment when it matures it goes back in there if we will have a conversation again with Heidi at that point in time to say we can reinvest this and so again the interest that's earned is part of the reinvestment going forward or depending what your cash flow position tells us you may not be able to reinvest at a time if you need the cash FL so it's just dependent on what the data says yeah other questions I'm curious finance committee what else was talked about uh or was there anything you know one thing I just verified like there wasn't penalties or anything like that if we for some reason needed to withdraw money other than if it's like a a CD at bank a bank might charge a penalty if you cash it out earlier things of that nature I know that was one thing we verified much the same information so the money has to go through I know I gotta get the right verbage here so is there a leg in time that that like does that take more time than for it to get to the school or is it just no it's just ones and zeros and where they move yeah it's it's um to actually make that switch it's a one page form that we send to the management budget for the state but that money comes the same day as it would go if you're going at your local bank or any other place one thing I should mention I don't even know if I mentioned the finance committee but the money that's in the money market of Min it's liquid that same day till 11 o'clock so ID were make a transfer as long as she lets us know before 11 o'clock or she can do it herself um it's liquid that for same day transfer all right does anybody want to make a motion a motion to approve second director bber thank you second director ran any other discussion so from this if we approve this we'll find out how much we think we can put in there and and go for it the next step for us would be to work with ID on collecting the data we need to produce that cash flow once we have that up in operational then we would have the conversations with her as far as any recommendations if you have we do not know if you have money to invest right now but if the cash would show and we would start making recommendations with thir okay y any talking like on process right because we got to get to a Aigner and I have one clarifying question as board Treasurer is there anything extra expectation from me none just wondering because I have to go to the local bank and sign papers so I just didn't know if there was documentation that I needed to be sign right you already have the accounts already set up you don't have any or you have very little dollars in the account right now um again is because of our relationship we had back with you in 2015 when we were investing a bond so there's no paperwork because that's still okay still in force okay y any other discussion all right I have a motion the second uh for approval of the CL cash flow investment all in favor say I Iain motion carries great thank you very much thank you uh we'll move on to the approval of refunding bonds hi Michael good evening Michael Hart with PMA Cher Hoff members of the board Dr wamp happy to be here tonight so what I have tonight is a very similar presentation what the the primary thing that is different you'll see we've updated the interest rates from from where I was and I we had some discussion about how that has moved around over the summer and so we have information that's current as of last week um one note that I'll say on that uh my colleague Mr pumper just talked about the FED Reserve cutting interest rates which does affect short-term interest rates almost immediately in terms of your Investments because your Investments are you know generally all within a two-year time period and most of them are kind of an overnight daily liquid rate when we're talking about a bond we're talking about a longer term interest rate going out as long as 10 12 15 years and so the the impact of that decision last week rates have actually if anything's ticked up slightly from that long-term interest rates are more based on on long-term expectations of inflation and economic growth and they're not as much based on this overnight metric that the Federal Reserve talks about and so you'll see you'll see that reflected here in this presentation so if you flip forward um again this is the same chart this is the payment schedule of the current bonds that were sold in 2015 on the next slide we have a this the summary page of of where you stand today so we're proposing is that you pay off the bonds that are set to come due on February 1st of 2026 through 2036 it's it amounts to $16.6 million and the total savings today once you have paid for all the cost of issuance and going through the process is estimated at $482,000 the next slide shows that that savings doesn't all come at one time right and we talked about this it comes as a reduction in your property tax levy so I want to be clear this is not adding to your budget is a reduce a reduction in your tax levy um of of just about $40,000 a year a little more than that each year throughout the remainder of the life of of the bonds and this savings is truly the net benefit to your taxpayers after you have paid for the cost of going through this in transparency the next slide shows our estimated costs of going through uh the bonding process and then we're also showing on the the following slide the reduction or estimated reduction if you reduce your Levy by about $440,000 what that turns into or equates to for example on a $300,000 home is a reduction of $18 per year in in school taxes on the tax bill one thing that we added uh from the last time shows on this next slide just to kind of because there was some discussion about this this is a what we call a sensitivity analysis if rates go up a a qu of a percent or half a percent you can see what happens to the savings there kind of following the bottom line so if the if rates increase by a quarter percent between now when that it's executed it would be 202,000 of savings whereas if they go down a quarter percent it' be 757,50 slide uh outlines so you do have an action for consideration tonight in the form of a resolution and the this resolution would approve proceeding forward with the bond SES subject to certain parameters in addition to those parameters it allows us to help you facilitate the process to apply for the State Credit enhancement program that's a program where the state says that they'll pay the bond holders in any case that the school district cannot it does not cost you anything to be a part of that it's a very important program because it lowers your interest rate the parameters for the bond that are for consideration in the resolution tonight is that you're provide the board is providing the authority to the superintendent uh or business manager and a Schoolboard officer so one administrator and one officer of this board to execute the bond sale as long as the savings exceeds $100,000 the par amount does not exceed 16.6 million and we have a window until February 1st of 2025 where this resolution uh can be acted upon the final slide that I have here tonight for you is our our projection of a calendar events we've uh discussed this in August we provided a resolution to the board to review at that time um we've been preparing the documents to be ready to do this in in short order we understand that you know the the challenge of the interest rate markets and the risk with that we wanted to limit the amount of time between when you uh authorize us to proceed forward and when we're able to execute or lock in the interest rate so subject to your approval tonight we will have a a call with a rating agency tomorrow to get a rating report uh completed and be out in the market so that we can have the bonds sold or priced uh with the interest rates locked on October 10th and we would come back to you with a ratifying resolution or a final a final resolution on the 14th at your your regular school board meeting in October the bonds would close in early November and those old bonds are paid off on February 1st so with that I'm happy to take any questions from so you talked about the $300,000 house was $18 in savings how long is that for is that for 10 years each year for 10 years basically or what is that yeah it's through 2036 which is when these bonds would pay off and then you know if you don't do anything new your completely pay off at that time this the same as what we had stand time frame yes we're not changing that time frame so this is different than a mortgage you know sometimes you go back to a mortgage and they say hey I can lower your payment but you've already been paying on of 10 years and they extended out for a new 30 years we are not doing that here this is the same time frame that it was originally going to be paid off from 20 years from when you started in 2015 and we're maintaining that uh that same structure sure other questions what would be the D like if we didn't do this what is the downside no tax break I think the primary the primary risk with acting on it now is that interest rates could fall and once you've done it you can't do it again you're locked into the new the new issue but we don't we certainly do not know what interest rates will do and um we're not in the business of kind of making that kind of bet on the market and basically approving this the only thing we're doing is uh giving supporting our taxpayers basically is that correct yeah giving them money back right okay all right uh does anybody want to make a motion I'm Mo hack I'll second discussion uh anything from the finance committee on this any conversations want to talk about the parameters wasn't that just kind of their recommendation but we didn't really talk about it what's our minimum numbers we're looking for sure that mean I know it's Tak savings but this locks Us in we can't do it again what our threshold for so you're asking if we should raise the $100,000 one to 200 or $400 right ,000 I don't know yeah what do the rest of you guys think that's 10 years right we'd be locked in yep well either way there'd be a savings right no matter what and we' pay it wouldn't do anything to us or for us um but you know I I think we're fine leaving it 100,000 um because you know the estimate if it was locked in today was 480 so it can still be way higher than that but it won't go any lower than that but I think any of the savings that we can do I think is is worth it and I think if we rais the threshold to 200,000 and we don't get we don't meet that threshold now we're losing we get 15,000 right we're losing that the opportunity right losing the opportunity Miss opportunity right and that savings is after all the fees are paid correct and that's hard Sav yeah I don't see a benefit of raising it other than you're waiting around and then you may not reach that point then you lose out on savings all together but every year goes on it's less chance of realizing it that's a great question though all right any other discussion all right so I have a motion in a second uh and we have to do this by resolution correct yes if we're going to do that so we have a motion in a second to approve doing the resolution um and this would be setting this at $100,000 for the refunding of bonds uh all in favor say I I opposed resolution uh no we're approving this and then we're going to do the resolution just approving that we can do the resolution y uh so all in favor say I opposed obain all right motion carries all right so we can pull all right now you're going to test me reading this can we yeah the r of it sure motion to approve resolution and wave reading wave reading by director bman second second you're welcome all right uh so for that motion uh any discussion on that all in favor say I I I oppos obain all right that motion carries so now we have the um the resolution as stated when we scroll down to bottom there all right so uh upon a roll call vote uh we will approve this resolution uh can we get a roll call Dr hi hi Dr hi Dr I Dr hack hi Dr H hi all right and nobody voted against and the resolution was Dy passed and adopt september4 all right thank you very much so approval of the ly certification good evening I'm haidi Hagen business manager chairman hofstead members of the board Dr Christine workamp Herman I'm presenting tonight the details on the 24 page 25 preliminary lby this is a simple timeline the Levy can be confusing to those that aren't familiar with how it works 24 page25 Levy timeline in September the Board needs to consider by Statute by September 30th to approve a preliminary Levy we receive lovey calculations through the state of Minnesota those are updated throughout the months of September I present that information tonight and then the board has a decision to make in October November there will be continuous updates to the preliminary Levy calculations I'll continue to monitor that and make changes as needed and then in December the final Levy certification is required to be presented at the truth and Taxation meeting and the board will have the decision at that time to approve a final Levy so taxpayers or the board approves a final l in 2024 District taxpayers pay their taxes in the calendar year of 25 which results in Revenue to the school district in fiscal year 26 the 24 pay 25 detailed Levy information so we have school taxes so there's a trend with how property valuations impact our school taxes and then there are various categories of the levy both voter approved and board approved you you want to click on that document link I will talk more in detail about property valuations and categories so if you can um make this screen a little bit bigger at the bottom if you click on the plus plus sign yeah keep going and then scroll down a little bit so you can just see this top half or scroll up I guess okay yeah so this is a a bar graph for School total School tax levy Trend you can see um scroll down a little bit I want to see the whole thing maybe Min reduce it just a little bit a little bit okay A little bit more okay so this shows um dating back uh pay 2017 through the estimated pay 2025 the the difference in total Levy dollars to the school district there's two different categories net tax capacity which includes all types of property within the district and then there's a referendum market value which excludes Agriculture and seasonal wreck properties so the green pays the majority of the taxes uh that support the school district levy and the blue uh excludes like I said egg and seasonal wreck and that's a smaller portion of the total Levy for the school district and scroll down this shows over the the course of um the last several years again pay 2017 through estimated pay 2025 similar type of bar graph where we're looking at the blue is a referendum market value the green is net tax capacity and how property valuations in those two categories have increased year over-year and in some cases greater than 10% throughout the years what this illustrates is the school district and the board and the decisions that you all make for approving uh the levy for the school district we have no control over property valuations and property valuations impact taxpayers individual taxes and what they pay and so as you can see in Pay 22 property valuations remained fairly consistent from the prior year in Pay 23 they increased over 10% in in one category and over 7% in another and then again remained high in Pay 24 now you can see property valuation percentages are coming back down as the markets continue to stabilize so the last couple years property valuations across the district have increased substantially which impacts the amount of individual tax for each taxpayer right can you go back to the oh this one yeah so then here this one you'll want to minimize so we can see the whole diagram this divides out the different types of property tax uh of the school district levy so like IID mentioned there's voter approved and there's board approved the majority maity of our school district tax levy is the $741 on a $300,000 house is the voter approved referendum Bond referendum for building facility updates so when we look at this we can see that um the impact to individual taxpayers major majority of at least 66% of that tax comes from voter approved Levy and then there's some smaller categories there a board approved debt $24 is the long-term facilities maintenance bond that was approved by the board authorized by the board and then some small categorical Levy categories and then the bottom one is local optional equity and transition presentation so now we have the option to look at a few different options for the levy we have an option uh that the board and uh might are familiar with in past levies is the no Midstate building Le we also have the option to consider leving for the Midstate building lease in which we pay out of the general fund every year uh for that lease and we don't Levy for it currently all of the other school distri districts in our area do Levy for that that building lease so we can take a look at the document link you want to scroll in here so this is a summary uh of the lease uh the levy the total Levy you want to scroll in so I can see it okay so this does not include the building lease uh again this is preliminary so overall the general fund has a slight increase in the total Levy as compared to Prior years of just uh over under $3,000 the general fund has a slight want to scroll down increase again uh just under $3,000 uh in total increase to the school district levy and then The Debt Service fund has an overall increase of $90,000 and so the total Levy preliminary results in about a 95,000 increase um to the school district levy that's about a 3.71% overall increase from the prior year what this tells us is that we are receiving based on preliminary information about 3.71% more Levy Revenue than we did in the previous fiscal year this does not equate to nor is applicable to what taxpayers are going to see on their tax statements this is strictly comparison between prior years total Levy to current preliminary updates and we can see um the overall gen or Debt Service Levy increase has to do a lot with property valuations uh and state aid Equalization so the the greater increases to overall property values in our district decreases the amount of state aid that offsets the local lby and the next one is this is with the consideration of the Midstate building lease which is just over $42,000 a year again that's where we would see about a $45,000 increase in the general fund community service stays the same Debt Service stays the same for a total of about 138,000 increase to the the total district levy or 5.35% increase from prior year scroll down this is an illustration on local optional revenue and how it impacts taxpayers and how if there were to be considerations to reduce the local optional Revenue how it impacts the school district's Revenue Stream So currently the school district levies $724 per pupil for local optional that's what the pay 24 taxes are scenario a is continuing with that same Levy amount for about $700,000 in local optional Revenue if we were to reduce that to 500,000 that decreases the revenue Levy Revenue to the district of about 287,000 and if we were to decrease that even more to 300 it de increases the revenue to the district of 479,000 so you can see by reducing the local optional Levy Revenue by $250 or $200 the impact to the the district is great when it comes to the amount of Revenue however on the other side taxpayers see a minimal impact to their taxes and what they would pay so this is a a monthly um analysis of what a residential Homestead taxpayer would pay if we considered reducing the local optional so an impact of reducing it to 500 uh $300,000 homeowner would see a reduction in their tax statement per month of about $8 if we reduced it to 300 again the taxpayer would see an impact to their monthly tax um amount of $8 and so $8 to an individual taxpayer versus 300 or $500,000 in decreased Revenue to the district would pose considerable um conversations about what we can do to offset that decrease back to the presentation so based on my recommendation I would recommend that the board consider approving the 24 pay 25 Levy to the maximum what that means is we have between the board approval tonight and December to continue to monitor the levy at which time in December the board can choose to decrease that Levy if they want however if we do not approve prove maximum at the preliminary Levy we cannot increase it in December now proving the levy to the max that is not adding that Midstate amount into it correct so the board has to decide tonight if they want to Levy to the max with the lease or Levy to the max without the lease I would start loving the max without the Midstate in there motion sure all right act mid we have a second I will second that discussion you want to keep Max without help Midstate anybody want to add Midstate good we're good with this okay all right all in favor say I I I opposed obain all right motion carries all right thank you very much all right we will move back to what is now 8 e which was 88 which is board committee reports um I think we're good with Finance I think we talk about everything that we already have to talk about um poliy yep so we have nothing for a third policy reading the only thing that we're looking at is resending three policies that uh nobody else has and are already covered under uh it's Transportation pickup and drop off ecse student drop off transportation and preschool student pick up and drop off which is already covered in in other policies and everything else is still being worked on still still in readings uh Midstate we are working with the budgeting of Midstate considerably um and I'll leave it with that we're we're working and doing a lot with that uh and as a board uh royon Leading The Way with that I'll say it that way so uh next one is superintendent report just want to give a quick update on we had sent out um for the board request to homeschool and open enroll out students um an anonymous uh way to respond so we sent out 52 letters um we received nine respondents eight by paper and one by email so um six had no issues uh it was all around location or offerings of another district and then um three did state issues two of which I I don't know who they are um one I was able to meet um principal and I were able to meet with that family to get some updates so I don't know what response rate that would be % is that worth it probably yeah well I'm wondering if maybe moving forward when we get a new family yeah who leads we could reach out yeah yeah but even at 20% I would consider that a success yeah yeah yeah I would consider getting feedback from one that we can use to improve right and make sure that we're also a learning organization and a learning board and administration that is great so and then um just quickly the strategic planning committee met last week and we um had a couple of students there hoping to get additional students and definitely additional community members um they have provided input on action steps and we'll just keep working through that our next meeting will be in November November 12th right yes 16 any questions for the superintendent all right uh business manager report good evening chair hon members of the board Dr Christine wor Camp Herman Heidi Hagen business manager this is the monthly update on the fiscal year 2025 September budget update for this slide we see every month tracking enrollment our original fy2 adopted budget calls for 910 ADM we ended the FY 24 school year with around 97 ADM which equates to 991 adjusted pupil units and what we are funded off of for state aid calculations and enrollment we continue to track it uh in more information to come in the future months I added this slide in there just for historical Trend data showing 10 years of enrollment kindergarten early childhood through 12 grade the next slide general fund revenues month and July again this is the first month of our fiscal year overall we're on track as a percentage of the budget in the general fund uh I wanted to make note that the state revenue as compared to the previous fiscal year uh looks as though we have a variance whereas as compared to the fiscal year um prior to that it looks like we're on track that's strictly an accounting method and on how business managers account for their rece receivables uh in that fiscal year so I do it a little bit different the business manager before me did it different than me nothing to note other than it's an accounting practice overall just over 4% again on track as a budget general fund expense again month in July on track as a percent of budget uh around 6% purchase services and other expenditures would appear to be accelerated however this is in conjunction to property insurance and long-term facilities maintenance the prior fiscal years we paid our property insurance monthly going forward we pay the full premium all at once one saves time and and effort and in some cases we are charged a fee if we pay monthly and long-term facilities maintenance those are just planned projects and the timeline uh for those projects was this summer whereas in previous years ltfm projects might have happened throughout the span of the fiscal years that's it question um so we don't have any average daily membership information numbers for September we for how many students we have we submitted a Mars and an EDI report um just last week or the week before and that came in around 925 we will continue to submit our Mars and EDI based on the required timelines typically October is the time when we will see enrollment stabilized October one a better okay I was just wondering what if we had to put preliminary numbers or not for this year's um and I have another uh just a clerical question as I was looking as was reviewing through some of the previous um business manager reports I'm wondering how we got to the place where we are um in the month of September's meeting looking at July's information historically we were looking at the month prior how did we get to a two-month leg uh we changed the meeting date from third or fourth Monday of the month to the second Monday so those year or month-end reports aren't finalized by the time I need to publish the board packet okay thanks I was just wondering what happened good question all right thank you Ed uh principal report CH HED members of the board superintendent Dr W Camp Joel Swenson middle school high school principal uh I wanted to update the the board on our cell phone protocol um we did a survey the last week of August out to families whether or not they'd be in support of a more restrictive cell phone policy uh the survey came back 75% to 25% people were more in favor of a strict uh cell phone policy uh this is important it strengthens when we talk about school and home working together her kids um and when I have conversations with nth graders about why they can't use their cell phone in school I have the backing of the parents uh in that conversation alongside the school district which really does help um that we are making a we're making a determination for their for their benefit and so that that survey was exactly what I was hoping to see um had it been the opposite you going to be preparing yourself for more questions and challenges to any changes uh the new protocol will be that students will not be able to use smartphones smart watches or airpods in school between the hours of 8:15 to 3:10 um I'd also like to thank Stacy rore who brought to my attention that MacBooks now I guess you can communicate with them and the seniors are asking for them so we are to continuing to navigate the world of them trying to weave around the the the requirements of this Rule and we'll have to cross that bridge I don't think I know I'm not getting my kid a Macbook so he can talk to his friends but um we're GNA have to navigate that as we do it the students will be able to use their cell phones at their locker during passing time a grand total of 12 minutes a day I think it's important if my son has a football game in St Cloud and he needs to he forgot his socks that he can at the break text home and hey Mom Dad dog can you bring my socks to the school um and uh I so I think that's important that they have that portion of it and if they go into a job where a cell phone I call parents all the time where I'm I'm at work I cannot reach my cell phone I will call you on a break I will you can reach me on a break um our students um need to be learning those protocols that they can't just pull the cell phone out all the time um it is not students can have their cell phone with them it is not something I mean parents want to keep the cell phone at home that's their choice but I'm not telling people that they need to do that um they can have their cell phone with them in their pocket I just all it is is it is you cannot use it in school um except during those times um keeping it out of your pocket if this thing look rings I'm going to think about it I'm going to sit down and I want to look at it if it is in my locker or it's in a secure place I'm not going to have that issue um so we do encourage students to keep their phones in their lockers so they they don't feel that pressure in class uh to check it the tentative discipline protocol this is uh being evaluated by teachers and um right now um teachers and staff who are will be responsible for this when the when the full protocol procedure goes into place on October 21st um and the part of the reason for the delay is so we could work on some of this stuff the first offens you can just see the offenses there there's a little bit of ramping up from one of first offense to second off um part of the year last year in skywards teachers did not have cell phone policy or cell phone violation as an option in the pull down menu when they when they submitted a discipline so it came in as insubordination or it came in as non-compliance or we cleaning that up so we can track cell phone violations and so when anytime there's a cell phone involved with what's going on teachers are to to write that protocol up and to write it up in Skyward as the cell phone um so um I am very excited that we have had very few issues in school with the with the cell phone with this change um they're not the students are knowledgeable that October 21st is coming because they said I can use this right now right I can I can yep you can right now you can you can use your phone at lunch and but OCT October 21st is coming and they're aware of that um I am much more confident about it than I was going into the first day of school that our students will handle this in a in a good way and we will be able to uh to to handle it and to to enforce it in a way that's indicative of what the procedure is so questions got one so the uh discipline that reset at the end of the day end of the month end of the year this this for the year okay obviously every year we're going to have to take a look at what does that look like I mean if you have 700 cell phone violations you'd be doing nothing but digging with cell phones um I don't anticipate that we are what September 25th I think Caitlyn and middle school had one and I think I have four um so five times that we've had it in the first month of school okay I have one other question um what about staff or teachers staff are encouraged to model now it's not we have lunch supervisors that communicate with the office by phone if they need a student we're communicating to them by phone there's some places and times where staff are expected to to answer their phone um but we are encouraging staff that in in a classroom or in a you can't give out an assignment and then go sit and look at sit down and pull out your cell phone and look at it that's not good modeling um even I am trying to mine's dinging and buzzing all the time with people trying to get a hold of me and I am trying to make sure that I don't do that with in front kids as much as I possibly can that's the question though do we need like a discipline policy for staff as well that's kind of an old there question I mean I guess it could be considered I I I mean it's it's definitely if it was you don't have to worry about the kids will point it out if it's a problem and and I would agree if if if kids are pointing it out to me it's it's a discussion that I'm going to have it might be a coaching discussion of when the kids notice it you know we need to fix it um I'm hoping that we don't end up in that issue oh yeah no I was just curious it'll definitely be addressed like I said the kids will kids will the kids will point it out I agree with you I didn't bring my in meeting this the first meeting I haven't brought one and I left it in truck so if we're going to expect the students to do it we should do the same I agree I have a clarifying question so we went through the route of creating the policy so that um what I thought was the intention was to take some of the responsibility off the teachers for implementation um but I see all the discipline areas on the teacher shoulders um it's going to be communicated that this is policy wide not teachers classroom rules building wide dis like um so that the teachers aren't the ones carrying the load of implementation responsibility oh everyone's going to share in the responsibility the First Communication of the if if it happens in the in the discipline if it happens in your classroom a number of times where the teacher is encouraged to encourage to contact parents if it's happening in your classroom everything else is coming through the principles so all communication home all notifications out of Skyward come from Caitlyn and I any other question all right thank you all right director Sher Hopson members of the board superintendent Dr W Camp Herman Caitlyn aren um activities director I want to just give you a quick rundown of what our numbers are at for our fall Sports and activities um for girls swimming which is CAU with little we have two girls participating in that um for volleyball 9th through 12th grade we have 40 girls out um 7eventh through 8th grade we have 28 girls football 9 through 12th we have 47 which is up by good chunk from last year um 7 through eth is around 27 cross country um boys 7 through 12 program is has 16 girls 7 through 12 is six robotics to start this past week they have 11 signed up from for my records um we have 27 kids that are going to participate in the fall play and with it being homecoming we have our first uh home volleyball game of the season tomorrow against Kimble so hopefully everyone comes and joins and then for football we are taking on Inbal so and the parade is at 5:30 they'll start at the elementary school and then come to the Northeast parking lot which we'll have tailgating food first come first kind of thing any questions looks like we're good thank you all right uh next is consent agenda approval so uh approval all items on the consent agenda uh we're talking about uh approval of the regular board meeting minutes claims accounts and financials approval of resignation terminations approval of new hires approval of uh Mo MOA for fy2 e-learning days uh which was no change from last year approval of eate complete service agreement and approval of football fundraiser proposal anybody want to pull anything Mr chair y I'd like to pull item D the consent agenda okay and just do separately yes okay all right anybody else all right I'll take a motion to uh approve the consent agenda a through G minus D Mr chair I move a through D A through G minus D okay director ha second I'll second IT director boy thank you uh discussion I have some questions on the claims account and financial yep um this one might be best addressed by kin I see a charge for puddle services that we use for the 16,000 per year and I see it's broke down per sport y but there's one charge in there that just named Athletics so what is that cover um that's just like the general Athletics so we split it up between the just the general Athletics because that's how we stream everything um and then it's broken down further into the other sports that actually use like this like the like they have it's a company that analyzes the films and stuff so they can get act support so those ones that actually use that to break things down have it given as part of their General budget but it's also in the general Athletics for everything else that doesn't actually use it for the breakdown and stuff sure so that line item for the Athletics is what that's where we stream through that's that charge okay I was just wondering that was one y and it's one big wump so it's broken down in percentage okay thank you um I have a secondary question I don't know who can answer this one maybe um Dr we camp would know the what company is meer right what is the Meer and right special ed Co-op uh that we are paying $11,000 for Educational Services through that in parent treatment oh that's for oh that's for student oh okay than and that was it that was my questions okay anybody else all right we have a motion in the second to go uh approve the consent agenda a through G minus d uh all in favor say I I opposed same all right motion carries all right uh I will take a motion for an approval of new hires move thank you director trout I will second that one uh discussion all right all in favor say I I opposed obain I all right motion carries state of Transportation thank you for your patience Jo I'm not chair hofstead members of the board and superintendent Dr wamp my name is Joe Weiser I am the transportation director and I'm here to to the state of transportion um first I just want to just point out that we this probably been the best crew that I have ever worked with as bus drivers so I really applaud you guys for creating that um it's has been just absolutely Wonder coming in and and working with these guys they do really care about transporting your students to and from the different places that they go to uh safely and they doing a phenomenal job at it so thank you um so we do have 14 full-size buses um we we only have nine routes so we do have five regular buses well four um that we use for in case we have a breakdown trips and that so we have some extras there um we do have one little mini buus uh which we did at one time it sounds like used as a wheelchair bus um right now it is not being in use and then we have five minivans um which can transport up to eight most of them right now only transport up to seven so they can climb in and out pretty easily we do have one fullsize van that transports up to nine students and then we and then we have the one wheelchair van that can transport up to five um like I said four we have nine bus routes uh Slash drivers we also have three van drivers that do an AM and PM routes um and then we have one and a half midday routes um Monday through Friday we have one and then on Thursdays and Fridays we have to take our little preschoolers home so that's where we account for the other one um we also have five substitutes and activities drivers and one substitute band driver um throughout the year we have done already our first date in fupin training um we have also done some driver training on how to do bus evacuations we just finished up on our bus for our students so they got that done um we will also be implementing eight hours of training for our bus drivers and van drivers and that'll be done throughout the year so we're hoping to do something more in February or something like that um I also do annual training um behind or an evaluation um behind the wheel for all of our uh coaches and or anyone else that needs to transport students uh that usually happens throughout the year as they need it um we also do yearly bus evaluations and Bs um by law I'm more I'm only we're only required to do either eight hours of training or we do the yearly bus evaluations I do both um just double protects us and it also just um I just think it's just good practice that so just to tally up our our two or our nine bus routes our drivers drove 131,000 miles and uh 500 and then with our three van routes that we had last year they tallied up to 73,800 Miles and those were all done safely so um again just an add kudos to the drivers um with activities we roughly did about 346 School Bus activity trips SL field trips um which also totaled up to be about 15,500 miles um we had 131 where the coaches and or uh staff members took students on field trips or activities and that racked up to about 12,000 miles um so we implemented last year we took a couple of our bus drivers and we started they were willing to do some of the smaller repairs that we do inside our shop versus sending them all the way out uh which would mean that we have to send them all the way down to St Cloud to the two bus shops that we have down there um so with the shop we just tallied up the total hours per se that the what we would estimate that the shop would have costed us if we would have sent it down to the s cloud um with the buses that we had done inside our shop with the estimated hours that we would have guessed that the that either uh North Central or actually north central uh both of them are North Central would have cost us almost $177,000 with our district mechanics doing it roughly just costed us over 4,000 um which saved the district and us um just over well almost $133,000 um we're hoping to do more this year um with just doing more preventive of Maintenance um we're having a better um being able to maintain our buses a little better with the prevention getting our oil changes done on time being able to grease the chassis and making sure that we're taking care of our buses better so we have less cost in repairs the other thing that was really great about it is we have a faster turnaround of our repairs because we're not having to send them down to the St Cloud to get fixed wait a week and then get them back um our guys are able to probably get it done in about two days or less maybe most of the time even the same day so we're getting those buses back on route back on to our trips and we're not having to uh worry about having enough buses for our different activities and things any questions oh i' I'd say we definitely appreciate uh thinking outside the box with the cost savings and I know we talked about that um earlier this summer but yeah that's great $116,000 have anything in there for time for taking the bus that's the same I was going to say that I did not but yes that did not I did not add that in um but yeah I could have so because you you can't just you got to take it down there and then somebody's gota go with somebody and but I would take two of my drivers one to drive the bus down and then one to follow with another vehicle and bring back so we CAU estimated that each time that we got to take it down or go pick up cost us 50 bucks because that's the hourly wage for a driver to go down and pick it up the pack so yeah that would have been It's actually an an correct an additional savings I just want to thank you for sharing this information I've never seen this information shared with the board before so thank you for this presentation problem Perfect all right thanks thank you uh approval of donations by resolutions I don't have a resolution you guys have [Music] resolution you can just pull it up from there I can read it off there we can that and sign up later tonight all right so uh somebody want introduce the resolution for donations I will director TR thank you a second pull it down a little y That's fine uh so member tro introduced the following resolution and moved its adoption uh Charities Aid Foundation of America has generously donated $100 to the Royalton School District to use for its District programs the Royalton Legion has generously donated ,000 to the Royalton district school district to use towards breakfast on our district in service day to kick off new school year royton Legion has generously donated four United States flags that total the amount of $363 190 the district was able to proudly fly them in time for the first 2024 home football game the Royalton Legion has generously donated $2,500 to the Royalton School District to use towards the fifth grade deep Portage trip the roilton legion has generously donated $100 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the student council Color Run The Royalton Lions Club has generously donated $490 to the Royalton School District for the cross country 5050 raffle and lastly the stcloud Optimus Club has generously donated $2,000 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the Middle School robotics program so therefore be it resolved by the royton school board to greatly accept these gifts uh and a motion for adoption of the forgoing resolution was duly seconded very hacket by director hacket and approved upon a roll call V hi B hi R hack hi thank you what's that no and abstain goes with the majority problem you yep it'll be written on there yep all right pa uh so what we have uh first readings are all there um along with second readings uh those are still in there we've looked at them once uh and we still have some work to do on them so they're just staying at second reading um for resending the policies I talked about the three Transportation ones that uh are all encompassed in our transportation policy already so uh uh and then we're approving uh looking for approval for the second and final reading of the license status which was a a three-year one that we just looked at uh to go to Second and final so I will take a motion to approve resending 77.1 719 724 and approving 424 license status director TR thank you I'll second it second director hacket any discussion all in favor say I I iose all right motion carried um there is no approval for third policy readings uh so the upcoming meeting schedule we have October 2nd finance committee we're still good with new for there and then uh policy committee at 1 p.m. then our next board meeting is uh October 14th and then uh November 12th for the um strategic planning committee yep all right all right so I will take a motion to close the meeting for superintendent evaluation as permitted by Minnesota statute section 13 d05 TR thank you second second director hacket at 7:26 pm thank you got M okay all right all in favor say I I opposed all right motion carries all right thank you everybody