##VIDEO ID:JhJJwtkAcMQ## you e e e e to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all I have question I'd like to pull um the committee assignments and dates the agenda right now motion looking for a second second second Mr discussion I'd like to P um 35 P 3.5 and where do you want to put 3.5 um I'd like to table it till the next meeting um I I I don't know who's on there for the assignments I don't know how that's been and I would like to have everybody have a look at that before we make a determination or at least have a chair look at it chair look at it maybe table Mr I think still just look at discuss it have to make decisions at least it's on there discuss it talk make a final determination right that's what I'm saying I want to make a determination because right so I'm just saying we can leave it on the agenda just not make a decision on okay so we're not going to approve we're not going to approve it as or when we get to that part on the agenda then we could table it if that's what the board decided to do or vote on it or you know whatever ises any other discussion on the agenda adoption see discussion all in favor motion signify all opposed no favor next on the agenda is School Board organization um the first item is New School Board member over office all the new board members come come the center and we'll do your of office and if any of the current board members would like to reaffirm their of office you also yeah just facing [Music] the facing the this is the owl by the way what records everything and live streams so I'm gonna read the beginning of it and then I'll have you repeat after get yes so it is an honor that you were elected to guide the education of our community's children as you recite the ult of office you assume a tremendous responsibility as a director of our school district the do these EMP powerered by the Minnesota legislation this power put you and other members of our school board in the position of being both morally and legally responsible for Equitable quality education of every student in this District in carrying out this responsibility you will be asked to fulfill the roles of division structure accountability and advocacy in providing them Vision the board will board with extensive participation of the community envisions the community's educational future then formulates the goals defines the outcomes and sets course for the public schools to achieve the vision the board establishes a structure and creates an environment designed to ensure all students the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framew because as a board we must be accountable to the community we must ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education where children as board members we serve as education's key advocats on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision for our school furthermore we must strive to work together with the superintendent and staff to lead the district toward fulfilling the vision we have created fostering Excellence for every student in the areas of AC academic skills and knowledge citizenship and personal development so you could me having signed the acceptance of the office and of office office and the both of office I hereby publicly affirm my commit to the I swear that I will support the Constitution support theti of the United States of the United States and of this state and I will discharge PID the duties of the office of school board SCH member of Independent School District number 15 to the best of my judgment and ability thank you so much I know so the next item on the agenda is election of school board officers if I could jump in different ways as far as after the the chair is elected or selected and we think it's probably best if everyone just stays where they are uh and then Vanessa will take the the gamble over to whoever is selected and then the chair will run the meeting after that so uh at the next board meeting though we'll reshuffle where everyone sits depending on who the chair Vice chair uh Clerk and Treasurer uh another thing I'll just just point out is that U whoever for and this is true for each one of the offices is that the winning candidate needs to have a majority of the quum president in order to get elected so if there were three people vying for the chair for example and it was a 322 vote that chair is not selected even if the person has three votes because that person needs a majority we have seven people so that person would need four votes in order to become the chair Jill Anderson will remain the chair or acting chair until the chair is selected and then we'll have the chair take over from there so seeking nominations for chair are there any nominations for chair i' like nominate West nomination of the West is there a second second second Hans is there any other nominations Mr hum nominate Mr B seconds on that we but I don't know we need okay so we have two nominations Mr Burr and Miss West are there any other nominations seeing no of their nominations um would the board prefer to do a voal hold or would you prefer to do silent bance uh yeah the you could do a show of hands uh but we need to know who votes for whom you know so we'll put that the record Mr H is there a discussion before this yes okay so miss wesy were nominated first would you like to speak Mr B I okay all in favor of West please raise your hand I thought was discussion oh discussion okay you yes okay go ahead Mr great so um I I choose to support me he asked me uh for his support um and my concerns uh not over him but over our board chair would be the person on this board who our bosses are our cons uh have uh valid concerns but that we have Fair access to the meeting agenda and committee assignments I think it's a great P value in it so we can evaluate where we would best utilize our towns um but I would demand that uh the board whoever gets elected would uh Grant Fair access to the meeting agenda and committee assignments um recognize that the school board determines the agenda agenda for our one employee the super attendant who will follow and fulfill those agenda items and our vote in that direction and then um I would just ask that this uh new board chair uh support the effort that once a decision is made board members support that decision to as it says in the handbook of uh the description of the board chair any other discussion seeing no other discussion all in favor of Miss West please raise your hand three VES all in favor of Mr her congratulations Mr [Applause] I'd like to start by saying thank you for your support and the vote to be board chair um I'm excited to work collaboratively with all of you to continue to advance this district for our students our staff and our community uh we each represent part of our community and must remember uh that our decision should reflect that as we work toward policy and governance uh that is inclusive of that representation I'm confident we will have an effective and efficient board meeting board meetings and we operate as a team with one common goal to fulfill the mission of this District as we move forward on agenda items I will ensure each member has an opportunity to provide comments I ask that you respect our fellow board members and not interrupt them while they are speaking I also ask that we as much as possible try to stick to the general rules of debate share your support or opposition of a topic um he will be provided an opportunity to reut any comment that comes from other members as well as be able to summarize our opinions with that let's continue through the agenda and the rest of this meeting at this time I call for nominations for vice chair Mr humy Mr sh M Anderson any other nominations okay is there a motion to close nominations is there a second all in favor of the motion uh to close nomination signified by saying I all opposed is unanimous motion passes with a vote of 70 all right uh all in support of board member West for vice chair anybody want yes any discussion on the we already voted but let's do the discussion any discussion any discussion position nominated yes okay so thank you for the nomination over the course of my tenure on the board I've served in many roles including chair and vice chair I have the knowledge skills and ability to build and as the chair when he is not in attendance and my P my past chair I for through times ensuring all members were engaged as Vice chair I'm statute school last school board is a nonpartisan physician this isn't about politics it's about qualifications and experience the air board I really hope you look at my experience not based on your political beliefs any other discussion I would appreciate the support of my fell board been for two years any other discussion we are so we're good there all right all in support of uh we'll start with the first nomination of board member West for vice Chair signifi by saying I and we can we can do the vote but all in support of board member Anderson for vice chair signify by [Music] say ra your hand you all right we have a four votes for member West and votes for member Anderson for the pleasure of the board member West is now the vice chair congratulations at this time I call for nominations for clerk Mr any other nominations court is there a motion to close nominations or do a unanimous ballot be cast unanimous ballot is there a second second any [Music] discussion no discussion okay all in favor of the motion uh to close for unanimous ballot for clerk member Anon signify by saying I allst signify by saying thank you question of the board member nson is now the CL congratulations at this time I call for nominations for treasurer nomin Mr any other nominations is there a motion to CL nominations is there a second any [Music] discussion all in favor of the motion on the floor U with the two nominations of sh Rock and working signify by saying I all those opposed signify by saying n he motion passes with a vote of 70 all in support of board member shown Rock for treasur signifi by say I and raising your hand all in support of board member working for Treasure signified by saying I and rais so Andrea J for the pleasure of the board member working is now Treasurer congratulations all right moving on agenda item 3.3 School Board member compensation per state statute we will approve our compensation levels for the next year uh in the board packet you will see the rates for the last 5 years as you can see there was a 2% increase from 2022 and 2023 rates uh we will meet a motion or multiple motions to cover the annual compensation rates the negotiation meeting rate as well as the mileage reimbursement are there any questions prior to a motion being made okay is there a call to motion for school board member compensation thats the just for a point of clarification would that be for all of the it yes that cover that motion would cover the annual compensation rate the negotiation meeting rates as well as the mileage reimbursement the director board chair negotiating meetings negotiating meeting exceeding four hours um School Board member C and you just is there a second thank you any discussion on the motion so I said this before and I will say it again um I don't believe in paid political office uh I would I don't know a different motion or comment on this motion that um I would like see the school board compensation be zero and that money be F back to where it's needed most perhaps bu drivers perhaps whatever um and U the argument that people say is we do so much work and it's for so little money comes out to like five bucks an hour or something like this and I'm saying all more reason why you should be able to be doing it for free because that's would work for five bucks an hour and I just think the Optics of a politician getting paid are are bad especially when um some employee groups are feeling under compensating and or we give ourselves a raise or people are giving themselves a raise so that's my own personal stance I don't hold anyone else to lesser lightting but in my personal opinion I don't think the school board should be a position any other discussion okay the current motion on the floor is uh to remain at the rates for annual compensation negotiation meeting rates as well as mileage as the 2024 that is in the board packet the exact numbers are in there that is the motion on the floor all in flavor favor of that motion signified by staying I all those opposed signified by saying n n motion passes 6 to one all right moving forward agenda item three that's 3.4 school board meeting dates per Minnesota State Statute we must give proper notice to the public on our regular special emercy meetings in the board packet you will see a list of planned regular meetings as well as a list from msba of dates with restrictions for meeting are there any questions prior to a motion being made make a quick comment there are three months with only one board meeting December and then March because of spring break and July uh we also suggest listing each one as a regular meeting and then if we decide to convert it to a workshop we can always do that that appr thank you Mr Anderson is there a call to motion for the 2025 school board meeting schedule is there a second there any discussion on the motion we are not recognizing IND indigenous people St is that correct oh yeah it's not um it's not um the state doesn't classify it the same as some of the other holidays so that's why it's it's following this that or is it no I I think as long as we are having school and the district is open you can have a meeting if we were to shut down school and not the district would be closed yeah thank you for that question any other discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion to accept the 2025 school board meeting schedule as published in our board book signifi by saying I I all opposed to the motion signify by saying n the motion passes 7 to Z thank you next agenda item uh 3 Das or 3 point five Schoolboard committee assignments and dates as you can see on the document in the board book there are 18 committees or liaison assignments for us as school board members what I'm asking for tonight as the chair is approval of those 18 positions and within the next week I will work with each of you on your preference and availability to fill each of those roles between now and when I speak to you please have an idea of what you would like you can see there are some time commitments to most of these committees and we want to ensure Max participation on those committees are there any questions prior to a motion being laid do we need to approve meeting dates so they're approve meeting dates this evening because otherwise if we do not approve them we'll have meeting dates that go P before our next meeting so yes so any school board any of these 18 committees are a public meeting because it's scho board members participation therefore they have to to be approved dates with proper notification to the public and I'm getting the head from Mr Nelson so I would suggest that we approve the meeting dates and continue forward the rest of it Le meeting dates any other questions before a motion Mr sh need confer if we can add one more [Music] as the representative on confer um there's three meetings a year typically um I don't know two board members I need on or not Mr Anderson is there any uh historical information as we have one on that committee as far as I know there's no contractual obligation or policy that would say how many members um you know there's some advantages having a second member just because then we have multiple perspectives that could be shared or or provided um but really it's up to the board to decide you know if you want one two or three members you mentioned taking one week to look over the list is it possible that um we stretch that over two weeks because our next meeting is until further down the road 27 27 we do two weit yeah I have no issue with that we would have we have line up before that next meeting so each of us would know what Comm we I'm just to make a point two weeks to go over they put us the 20th as a holiday for staff then we have all together by the 23rd so to so two weeks doesn't there are some committees that are meing before two weeks for example the child family education advisory is me on the 9th so one possibility I'm just weing it out there it's one or two weeks you know doesn't matter to me but if Nate could at least determine those really early meeting date committees and get that established so at least we don't disrupt the is that the only one that's earlier this two weeks I'm looking through here real [Music] quick yeah the the one right below the insurance advisory committee was on the 21st I think oh thank you and Community advisory committees on the 16th so all with members currently sit or thank you I don't have access to computer oh yeah Community Education on 16 and the other two we that and i' also like to say I think that's a great question we push it out from that so we can better find out what we like and we be best appreciate you taking that into consideration I think we'll have way more effective uh presence on these committees something that we know more about or are passionate about or have time for can show up to so really kind of your suggestion is to at least have those three committees with like interim assignments they existing board members so it makes sense to have them continue and then we can revie the next just if I could jump in to just to make sure that we're um all on the same page uh when Brandon and I met to discuss the Committees we were really looking at things that were required and not required but it's up to the board to decide uh so we did suggest not having the facilities committee because it's not required anywhere uh then we also have the activities advisory committee uh that we can eliminate as well just as a reminder we have the schedule CD committee which is very similar to that and there's been some confusion about which committee does w work and so I don't think the eliminating the activities advisory is necessarily an issue but the facilities committee has been active uh for multiple years then robes into what I was to bring up I know we've talked about getting rid of the activities advisory committee because it kind of correlates with Schedule C but there isn't that much just says chair I add one to that group as well or find the way it is and then the facilities committee I guess that one I isn't this is just news Comm yeah and you know it's been a good committee so again Brandon and I just looked at the lens as what's required like by contract or by state law or something like that so that's why we put that out there but again it's up to the board to decide we're not opposed to keeping them I don't know I thought this facilities Comm committee did some good work but you probably know better how much need there is for it I think um correct me if I'm wrong Chris Brandon but I think it was established when the building referendum was first passed because there so many big decisions occurring during that time of course most almost all the money has been spent now um so sometimes the facilities committee talks about other facilities related issues right so there is a value to it um it's just a different value than it was when it originated so what do what what does that do maybe we started instead of bringing every little Minor Detail back to the board this committee was formed during the bond to kind of direct where the build Bond should be spent and now that that's all done now it's just kind of looking at all authorities and where needs are and what what we should be looking at looking into the future is what need yeah I think that's a fair [Music] assessment so you and I think Mr star on that and I remember those reports from back in my day and that was very worthwhile and I also think that because I'm in construction I think that's so important that uh that can be a good first line if things um you know need to be brought to the board's attention or there's other things that other items that people come up with that could be utied sh yeah and if we're not sure then my suggestion would be to keep those two committees there's no harm in doing it um and you know I think we've differentiated the tasks that the activities um advisory committee does versus the schedule CNB committee so so we can make it work if we keep both of those committees Mr yeah I guess for me I would like to keep the facilities committee schedule CN and the activities one I see them as two different things but I could also see that they could be combined I think you would just for the schedule CB I think you need to add more people to that mix than was currently there but because the activities one is more it has teachers and everything but has coaches and other things that are more tied with the activities and Athletics that just schedule CD but I see the over as well so as a point of clarification how did you divide the two the activity in the CD yeah there was um uh the teacher agreement has certain language um and I think well when I first started here there was some um Crossing of who does what and so that's when I change kind of the the purpose of each one of those committees and so schedule CN d is focused on the things that are specifically listed there and then I took everything else and put it in the activity advisory committee so and like Rob said it meets maybe two or three times a year if that the activity advisor schedule CN D is intense for a period of time uh during negotiations uh but it's really not in at other times Mr sh sorry I'm open up cams here but we have a book policy that has a committee for but doesn't have board members on it but should that be listed uh well this is uh specifically for board member Representatives on committees or leas like with external organizations so if the board for example added School Board member or members in the future of the Review Committee then we we'd add it here got thank you yeah my if I could throw a suggestion you know um you know we're going to be good either way you know if we keep those two committees or not so perhaps we could um uh keep both the activities advisory committee and Facilities committee and then kind of more carefully evaluate it this year to see if if some of the committee structures should change that gives everyone here you know like a year to really look at that and decide so that would be a very easy change to make compared to the recommendation but again it depends motion I make a motion that we um don't [Music] know so I'll highlight what we just discussed um we talked about any meeting that were to occur before our next regular schedule lead on the 27th those currently in place would continue with those committee assignments as we work through the new assignments uh there was discussion on uh not striking the athletic activities advisory committee or the facility committee and there's also talk about adding board representation on the CNB committee as well as an additional neede confirm that was what was just questioned the superintendent and the rest of the admin answer those questions that that is all feasible that we can do that so now there is there a call for a motion for the 2025 School Board committee on assignments I so that is there a Mr shro so the current motion um actually we're going to do discussion first any discussion on that motion okay the current motion is to keep the 18 that are currently not strike through add thetic activities advis commity back in the facilities Community back in add a school board representative schedule CN in addition to meet and confir that is the current motion that is on the table all in favor of that motion signify by saying I hi I'll oppose to that motion signify by saying name motion passes 7 thank you for the record who made thetion was it no Mr Huffy made the motion all right moving on item 3.6 annual designation and other annual routine authorizations and actions the list of authorizations and actions is in the boardbook and DDR Director of Business servic will provide update and answer questions you have any updates no add no additional updates the information provided in front of you is a routine um item for school districts to go through and designate the the different um entities to be um oural designations are there any questions prior to a motion being made or DB on any of those authorizations all right is there a call motion for annual designation and other annual routine authorizations and actions M Anderson thank you is there a second Mr sh thank you any discussion on the motion so I'm curious it says um Kennedy anden the attorney um we sent out to three attorneys and only none of them responded except this one so that's why we're going to with Kennedy agreement yeah I think even if the other two entities had submitted something as long as it was with the ballpark we would recommend keeping Kennedy for but um in what I've learned not obviously from this round of review but previously Kennedy engraven provides um very competitive rates uh compared to other experts in uh School legal matters so I'm curious how we know that R are competitive if we're not getting information back on other and yeah in previous school districts of course I've surveyed you know for this kind of information um I've spoken you know many months ago about comparative data you in terms of legal Rate rates and this is you know King engrav has been competitive with those within those discussions any other discussion one thing I'd like to point I'm sorry I didn't need to jump in can we pull legal council out of here approve the others and come back to that after we've had at least two more um two more estimates or two more bids and what would cost I have significant concerns of moving away from current attorney that we have we have pending legal action currently that we will be paying for another attorney to come up to speed on those issues we potentially could have a pening lawsuit currently with our actions regarding ban books um I think that's a huge risk and in accordance with Minnesota State Statute we are violating the law in accordance with uh our cor bths just read it aware in fulfilling my legal obligations as a school board member I will comply with federal state and law work as a school currently violating the law we've been put on notice if I could jump in just for the decision making um aned asked to pull the item so we could consider this like a consent agenda where we discuss that after we approve everything else so go through with the approval process for Bond counsil official repository those things and then we'll come back to discuss this particular item because the that um as to pull it I think that that makes sense and then we can discuss that more fully then and that does not require a second so we will we will Pat the approval of our legal representation from the list of the authorizations and actions but then we'll talk about it next during this meeting um so I'm just I'm walking through Roberts here so the motion was for all of them so I think we actually need to amend that because it included all of them so is there a call for an amendment to that motion make a motion that we amend the previous motion to withdraw for this legal is there a second all right so to be clear the motion on the floor is to approve all the annual designation other annual routine authorizations and actions minus the legal council that is being we will address that right after this vote all in favor of the current motion on the four signifi by saying I I'll oppos to the motion signified by say n motion passes 6 to1 all right we will move to now discuss the legal councel I just think it would be um important for us to have Apples compar to Apples and not just stick with the status because no responded um I just think it's it's good to see what's out there um so to give him a chance to Fe back with some numbers before I call on anyone else Mr Anderson can you just give us a quick update on the bids that went out and then if there's any timeline for contract agreement with them given our current status yeah and I did not ask for particular bids or quotes for the services I sent well I called one of the the legal firms and then I sent an email to one of the partners of the second firm just asking for the current rates um but I did not specifically ask for a quote for [Music] services did I answer that question well enough yeah the first part the second part is there any timeline that we have to have Council um do we have is the current contract we have with an expire or contract it will continue indefinitely until a different legal council is selected if if that happens this feels very arbitrary because a decision was because our legal council advised us in a fashion that some board members were opposed to and it feels like we're targeting one of our or gations that we partner with we didn't ask any question no questions fromed about who's our B counil and how many or how many different vids we got for that nobody asked about official depository nobody nobody asked about who does our audits it really feels like we're targeting one group because they didn't some board members didn't the support on an issue where they would like de to provide support and quite frankly I think that's Mr sh Mr do you know what other districts P their [Music] attorneys uh you know that's a good question I've not asked that question this year but I could certainly find that out sorry I don't my computer but is Jill what you brought up are the other ones on opposed as well I just approved them allbody as a question on any of those were they so to like no contest bids I don't know but no questions were asked on any of the rest of them but one was specifically targeted and if we're going to look at getting bids for that one I want to know every piece of work that is currently outstanding and how much it will cost to transition that work to somebody else because that will be additional cost I I I do know in our board packet uh there was two newspaper bids that came back I can't speak to the other ones but the board packet itself does have on Mr sh yeah just to clarify so Mr Anderson at your other districts you paid about the same as what they quoted of course this was years ago um so I know at my most recent District um it was was actually the same off so it was slight L lower but of course you know as time goes on those those costs go up and I know that I've gone through a process then of soliciting information from other attorneys and Kennedy and gr was right in line maybe even on the lower end at that time so that would have been three five years ago um I would I would like to make a motion that we table a decision on legal council until we get at least two other um ideas have because this is a high dollar item this is one that we're paying a lot of money when we utilize them I I would like to be competitive and have some competitive numbers um Bond Council that doesn't fluctuate um depository Village Bank St Francis they're local I highly support local business um Financial auditor I don't know a lot about them except that their fees are going to maybe flush maybe that's the next one we look at and in NOA County Union Herald they're local they're in in our area so you know that's why I'm okay with that I just feel like withal Council there there could be the potential for a lot a lot of um money saved somebody who was a little less expensive not saying that there is but I'm saying I'd like to see the information before I make decision uh is are you making a motion or is that just a comment that you want I make a motion that we table for the next meeting or uh or until we get the information yeah so what I had written down but you know it's obviously your motion so it's up to you but what I had written down is that moves the table the motion about legal council until two other legal council hourly cost rates are yeah I didn't say it's nicely but I think that's the that's the G okay motion on the FL is what the superintendent just said I'm not going to repeat it again is there a second all favor discussion thank you Rob so is there a timeline for this or we looking for other bids or just these two or what I guess dire Super Mr Anderson you have a recommendation on a timeline of when you can get those requests for proposals or quotes well it um no um I don't have a specific timeline because it depends on how formal we want it to be you know I could reach out to the same two firms you know who do the majority of work in Minnesota's public schools and see if they're willing to do it or I could at least find out um you know what our other other schools in the area or in Minnesota PA or I could um work with d and Brandon and actually come up with requests for proposals but if we do that then that will take more time it could take a couple of months so what's ramifications if this isn't pass T we just still use them until it's pass that's my assumption we'd have to you know because we need legal counsil on things like human resources General matters um you know different policies you know everything that's listed there so we what's that we still have representation yeah that's what I'm assuming I we have to continue with with someone right so I know there could be you know questions you know as far as the timing of selection but yeah we would pursue how we continue with Kennedy and Graven unless there was a change is the current Council on rainment that we hold with them or is it like based on few basis as services are needed yeah it's a services are needed so we pay an hourly rate for their service depend on if partner is providing a service or Association service obviously we never want to choose the cheapest one just because of the cheapest you know we have to rely heavily on expertise um and experience and background the breadth of their work and that's why there's just a hand small handful of of providers in the state who really do good workers in districts and they constantly change you know we have Partners going people merging and those kinds of things but there are three primary ones now in Minnesota any further discussion I guess I kind of shared Joel's point on if there are other non-contested bids we should be pulling those as well um but or we should uh like if if the if the legitimate concern is that we don't have other competitive bids we should get those competitive bids of course um but if our precedent even this own this own or this this topic itself is that it's just this one that's consistent I I don't necessarily think that's proper could we get dollar amounts associated with this in frequency of use because I think that could help us to tr what we actually focus on and what we don't because like Bond Council I'm familiar with dorsy they come at a high rate and that's fine if we want to use them but I don't know what that frequency looks like so I get anette's point if if it's 64 Grand routinely that we're paying out to Kennedy and Graven and everything else is 5,000 twice a year what you know whatever those numbers are that's a huge difference so I hear what you're saying I'm going to bring us back to the current item that we're discussing is just the legal councel piece we've already approved the other one so if we want to take further action on that we'll have to do that at a future meeting with the future agenda item but for tonight we're currently just speaking on the legal council M Anderson and our rates for Comm kened and are going to be directly attributed to what issues we have going on in this district for instance we have lots of Human Resources issues going on it's going to be high in Human Resources if we have lots of special education issues that's going to bring up our cost so we probably should look at what our our legal spending is over a period of time to even understand what we're spending because somebody might be a little bit cheaper but it might be also because this year we have a lot of legal costs for previous year CS this year could be exponential more what's going on U one possibility if there are concerns about who represents us on specific issues is that we could continue uh with Kennedy Graven or really any one of these School specialty firms uh for the bulk of the work and then if there's a specific issue we could contract with another legal firm I'll give you an example again from another District but um you know legal council for the other District was Kennedy and Graven they're very pleased with their work um they're prompt they're quick and all that stuff uh but when there was a claim against the school district a discrimination claim then the insurance carrier that represented the school district selected a different firm uh to work on the Discrimination claim and so you know there could be a variety of issues where we want to contract with a different Leal Council another example could be and I don't anticipate this uh this year but if there was a a simple real estate transaction and we have a a local attorney who is proficient in that kind of work then we can contract with that legal firm uh to do that specific project so again I don't anticipate either one but you know there are options of as far as using you know for example Kenedy engraven for the wel Bo still choos another firm for something and I don't know Brandon has any comments to make about your work with actually actually Nathan it's really your call as far as if you want brand if you have something um there is some efficiency using a consistent attorney they they do become familiar with um things that might be unique to the school district for example um they've seen bargain agreements for I'm looking as far as a human resources perspective you're familiar with those familiar with their policies and um it's it's there's efficiency with that as far as if we have an issue that we bring to to that firm they already have a lot of background so I just wanted to throw that out there any other discussion okay the current motion on the table is from Miss West to get at least two more bids for legal councel there there is no timeline associated with the current motion yeah again it wouldn't be bids it would be prices or our cost all right that's the motion that's on the floor all in favor of that motion signifi by saying I I I'll oppose to that motion signify by saying N I think we need aoll V we'll do a roll call vote I'll start with Mr working um we'll go back to in favor of the motion signify by saying I Mr working name I and is that FAL three to four right correct the motion fail all right is there a call for any other motion for legal councel Miss Anderson thank you M Anderson is there a second Mr shrock thank you any [Music] discussion no discussion the motion on the floor uh is from Miss Anderson to retain legal council of Kennedy and Graven uh for 2025 all in favor of that motion signify by saying I I all oppos signify by saying name no another roll call went the same motion pass all right agenda item for consideration of visitors as per District policy 206 members of the public will be provided the after to address the board we have we have five we have five individuals wanting to speak tonight uh we will allow up to 5 minutes for each Vanessa will you please um let them know when they have reached the 2 minute and 30 seconds as well as when they have 30 seconds left yeah four minut oh I've got okay oh I got two jobs two jobs yeah uh there will be no board action on any request during consideration of visitors the superintendent or myself will address any comments if required for consideration our first one tonight is Mr R mayor [Music] of great well good evening uh thank you chair and board for allowing me to speak tonight I'm here to give a uh update regarding the city I'm not going to B you tonight with roads and buildings and things like that but things that directly affect our youth and your students in the district here uh for those of you that don't know like I said I'm West r mayor of bro I came to you a couple of years ago and told you some of you are obviously new here welcome to the new new board uh but I told you it was important to me to try to get our city involved with the community uh when it comes to the youth I feel like the school district and communities tend to kind of ignore one another and so it was my goal to try to bring this together the good news is I have a really good Cil that agreed with me uh so some of some of these things that we've done and again for a couple of you you're already aware of this but since there's so many new board members I thought I would come tonight um to get a little off track here for just a moment the reason why I came tonight is usually we have our meetings the same night as yours I found out last night that yours was tonight so that's why I'm here uh but one of the things that we voted in all of these things was unanimous and I think that's important just to show what type of council that we have is one we wanted to have a council member Le on here which is remember Paul tradewell uh he's not here every meeting again because most of the time our meetings are the same night uh but when occasionally they're not uh that's when you'll see in here um I talked a little bit about uh chable gambling last time that a lot of people don't know but when you have an establishment in your community that sells pups the city gets 10% now there's only so many things that the city can do with it you can't put into your operating expenses and so on and so forth but what of the things that you can do is you can actually give it back to the youth so we decided a couple years ago is to give approximately 13d those funds back when requested not just that start throwing money here and there but when somebody actually comes to the city and requests that um we look at it and and we kind of look forward with that just to give you an idea in 2023 we gave $3,500 back and in 2024 we gave $6,200 back totally $9700 into your students who are you know different sports so on and so forth I'm going to give you a little breakdown here and hope I'm not boring you with this uh but in 2023 we gave and I hope they wrote my notes down correctly because I'm not sure F Rak St is um if that's something we gave them $500 if they typed it wrong hopefully somebody will figure out what that uh $2,500 to cross uh country and track team $500 to the east Beth PTO which I believe assisted in their I think they got a new playground I remember right um in 2024 we gave $1,200 to The Cho part of that was they actually came to our tree lighting event and put on a nice presentation it was a Friday night we felt that we should we should do something for that so we gave them $1,200 the all night St Francis um graduation party if I have that I'm explaining that right $500 $1,000 for the fast pitch softball another $2500 to the cross country and track booster club and $1,000 uh to the volleyball team so we only have so much money but we're open to people submitting a requests we don't want to keep giving it just to the same people and I did talk about this two years ago this is all I got on so I'm starting to think these booster clubs maybe don't want all the money they think they need but we we are open to it again we have a dollar a month that we have to stay within uh some of the other things here that I think are relevant to you with again the chared with gaming is we have a fire Explorer Program uh that that particular account funds and one of the things that really uh I think may hit home for some of you is I don't know if you've heard of heart safe but basically what that is is it's handson CPR and our fire department with the support of our Council in unanimous unanimous support has funded to train the goal is every single high school student at the high school uh and to continue on I tried to get the actual number but I wasn't able to get that but uh the goal is to train them all again that's with this Oak Grove uh city council and the fire department doing that on a side note I'm G to go quick here and skip a few things another part of it was with superintendent uh Anderson was to form a working relationship with him he's been great to work with we try to meet on a quarterly basis in fact me on Wednesday and so I'm going to cut it to the end but for staff in the room if there's anything I can do whether it's ever a a classroom visit or anything I let me know and I know you guys aren't going to ask me questions but I will leave some business cards and you certainly can contact me all right thank you thank you next is Mike star star good evening board directors and commune members to new members to the board tonight welcome to the board it's going to be an enjoyable four years for you reason we're coming before the board tonight is just to pass on to the new board chair information we have the superintendent files right here for the evaluations cont all information you need to be a board chair to take a look at with's good training done at the msba conference on that information I really encourage all of you you can go to the msba conference January 161 17 2025 I'll leave this with a board chair also for you it is really educational to go down to that conference for two days they get some really good information for you a bit late for tonight but I do have also to help you all little cheat sheet for uh uh uh GRS of orders and so forth to help you out it helped me out quite a few times for the last eight years and the last thing I'll say to the board here is what I wrote on my file here years ago at some training I went to uh came from msba one of their comments in training was the school board is meant to sent to set the direction of the district not to manage the daytoday operations which is done by your superintendent please keep that in mind as a board member we do not control the day-to-day operations thank you very much Mr B this is your file now there you go thanks next Barb Anderson on the topic is Mission and core values good evening um I'm bar Anderson I live in St Francis but thanks to Old Gro have been there and it's so great to see that cooperation that didn't always happen in the past so wonderful job Mr Mayor and your board so but to all welcome to all you new board people I'm speaking as a community member uh totally and here we have I want you to kind of picture it as a rope and you each have a different Strand and we see this working out tonight as you're trying to work through everything that happens so you have each are bringing your different strand of your life of your life experiences of your political background although I want to point out none of you had a r or a d or an I behind your names when you ran on that ballot so as a large community we we need you to to not be a political group you are our school board as a community and we trust you to do that that's of utmost importance so you each bring your Strand and you bring it together how is that going to tighten how is that going to be as strong as it can be wise use of money the best for our students the best for our staff how can that happen the only way that's going to happen so my present to you is the mission statement and the core values they're often hidden behind this uh these little things here these screens okay but if we stray from these we get in trouble and we do not come together with a strong rope with a strong community together the only way this is going to happen is when we look at these and we make our decisions or you make your decisions but we as a community expect that from you and we trust you will do it and we thank you for doing it and for the time and energy you put into it we're thankful these students too so so in that way that all those strands wherever you're coming from thank you for your experience thank you for your time and all this staff that work on this behind the scenes that we that we don't even know about in the community and the parents and and just everybody works on it but you come together and it'll be tighter and it will be strong and it'll hold up whatever issues come and try and pull on it some will pull one way some will pull the other but you will stay steady you will go straight if we go back if you keep to the mission and also to those core values on any decision um so thank you that's your gift had some money but thank you all and keep that Ro strong and centered thank you next I believe it's James Jones is that right corre Mr Jones uh topic is ignore legal I am uh happy to be and to meet with you superint board member School official in the public I am a farmer who happen to have a lree so I'm not appearing him as a lawyer I'm appearing as a farmer I am a 70E resident of St Francis I uh up 49 years never practice pass the bar went home and bar and uh nothing I say should be interpreted as legal advice whenever anyone ask me for legal advice I tell to go see a prac attorney I tell them I forgot more about the law than most people will know I express no opinion as to what book should be B and what shouldn't uh but I um I appear before you only to question the rale and logic ofing books and ignoring legal uh I Came Upon watching TV half sleep Channel 9 and I said uh we'll break now and we'll come back with North Suburban School District that has Ved to ban books and I thought to myself please know not St Francis St Francis has seen a share of characters on school board and City councils there was a young man on a school board who was guilty of plagiarism there was a party that thought they were uh superintendent of school do know where didn't belong and now we've got four people who are legal advice it's music to my there only two are left so I'm speaking to those two and I'm speaking to the new members uh when you get on these boards important to know to Know Your Role you may watch the WWF with Dwayne Anders of D Johnson he's now a uh movie star he was known as The Rock and his watch was no Ro and uh my uh my I grew up in a household which was kind of different I had my grandparents there my parents there my brother and sister and my dad's kid sister and uh we got people from the h and buggy days all the way up to laun to the moon so it was a different different thing my grandmother was uh want to read the paper to us kids when some story PID their interest and I think she alive today she would have read about the school board Banning books and ignoring legal advice and would have said there something WR in Denmark and uh my father when he encountered people rational logic didn't make sense to him would say where did you go to school and those who want to ban books I think are failing the schools they went to or the schools that failed then uh I think by Bing legal advice you're doing the community At Your Service you're doing the uh SCH disservice and you're doing the students of disservice you party advice you don't have to follow legal advice and I think that is not something to be done if someone want tell me I want to move to St Francis what could you say 70 years I would say well I tell you what they don't follow the legal advice you want to bring your K up that way you know uh Mr Jones that's the if you have a final statement that's okay but that is the five minute [Music] timey my final statement would be that uh if I had been on the board and there have been a motion to ignore legal advice I would have moov to cancel the contract with the uh legal people because we have four amateur lawyers on the board couple adages from school uh advice what you pay for it those who are Ser as their own attorneys have ped for clients and the last thing I got in school on the way out the door and I new planning class my practicing attourney was you young men and women are going out to represent people on my news question always remember there's no law against making a fool of yourself so uh I wish you well I thank you for uh the thank you next is Brian congratulations new board chair Vice chair new leadership as well as new members that join us today my name is Ryan S I currently serve in multiple hats that have brought me to this Podium for the last can now say over 13 years of attending school board meetings uh with an inability to connect with a few of the new school board members I wanted to make sure that I had a chance to share with you hopefully a little bit of advice as you take on the new um in my time uh even if I've disagreed with Schoolboard members uh past school board members have been willing to pick up the phone and listen uh as one of the roles I play as local president of Education Minnesota St Francis which serves not just the teachers but the educational assistant the nutrition staff transportation office professionals and I used to say preschool but they're now teachers now so I'm really proud of the work that was done there uh and I get a chance to serve them and uh I also get the chance to serve my three children uh in the school this year and I I really I moved my family out here after I started my career because I believed in what we were doing out here we have very many unique opportunities for not just uh teaching staff to learn to be better uh but also our stud students have a very unique uh learning pathway here it right now my biggest concern in that realm is they don't have a lot of choices and they don't have a lot of opportunities because we don't have enough to go around but you set the direction on those kind of conversations as far as what we can look at uh future will be like the bit of advice I'll give you is as you start to drink from the the like fire hose that I've had experience holding for Beth fire department for a couple years a few years ago in this role you agreed to a set of committee work today that had dates on it but there's a whole another set of committee work that isn't on that document I ask that you lean into the committee work and show up to it because it makes a difference that you're there to hear the stories of the staff members and and some of the committee work the students that are there just having your name assigned to a committee doesn't mean you're going to be there all the time but when you don't show up I hear about it because they want to be heard they want to hear and share their stories with you so that you will Advocate at this table for them that's not meant to put you into a pickle or anything but in order to get a chance to know what's going on behind the scenes it depends on you showing up to and that can be a huge responsibility when you really look at so I hope that you're ready to tackle these challenges that we've got and even though we're going to disagree on things in the future and there's a topic we significantly disagree on now I'm really excited that you're able to join us today we'll deal with the disagreements later so thank you there no other consideration of visitors we'll move on to agenda item number five agenda District policy 203 point six we will now approve items within the consent agenda there are currently five items in the meeting consent agenda are there any questions or request for remove an item from the prior to a motion I just have a few questions about 5.5 so we [Music] can ask request is to pull it so we pull it so we will be voting if there motion it be 5.1 to 5.4 is there a call motion to approve the consented I that we approve 51 54 Mr H any discussion all in favor of the motion to approve 5.1 to 5.4 the consent agenda signified by saying I I all opposed signif by say motion pass s all right uh the item that was pulled is 5.5 extended trip request theater I just have a question and probably you can answer it um because this is really last minute we've talked a lot about this at previous meetings I mean this is this weekend but the registration was closed on December 9th so why we just getting this yeah the district office received the request today late morning or early afternoon so I'm not sure why it wasn't orted to us earlier but we received it today um I think again I don't know for sure but I think the booster club will do a lot of the planning for it and there may have been a miscommunication between booster club and the high school as far as getting information to us we received it today um because it directly impacts students that's why I wanted to add it to the agenda um but we'll make it clear to the high school uh staff involved that we need to follow our procedures for submitting those overnight requests approve there's a motion to approve second discuss as a coach on the girls basketball team we just had a trip up to H and so we had to go through this same form there just a lot of behind the scenes stuff with the booster PL trying to get all of it in line with the hotel space and all the times when you going to be there so not saying not giving an excuse why it's now but there's things that plus they could have given it earlier and then ad has to sign off on it the principal has to sign off on it and it's got to come over here so there is a process to it I'm not sure when the process this exact started holiday break again that's they're not our intent is to get these uh to us early enough so they can be processed and in with the board agenda back you know on Thursday before the board meeting any other discussion all right the current motion on the floor is to approve 5.5 all in favor signify by saying [Music] I another all right next agenda 6.1 tonight we're going to receive a presentation on the 2024 audit report from mmkr DB our director of business services along with Aon from mmkr The auding Firm will provide the findings of the audit board members please try to hold questions to the end of the presentation thank you um Mr chair um members of the board superintendent Anderson and community members I'm very happy today to say that we''ve uh made it to the audit process and and Hest session and we'll have a report from Mr neelon here I I first want to start off by thanking individuals that did help to make this happen I want to include Josh Kinski that's here um as well as P Jensen who's worked on behalf of that business office and the HR staff and other staff who help make it happen um on your desk in front of you you have a number of reports and they're the same reports that are in the action item later so I just want to point out a couple of things the biggest document is this um annual conf of annual financial report um um this is the first time the school district has done this lengthy report and it took fa amount a task to do that there's a lot more statistics in it a lot more information in it you give provides more information to the community than say a regular smaller audit report I know it's a lot I know you haven't had a chance to read probably through all of it but I encourage you to do that at some point in time it's a great report we will be submitting this to the um asbo the uh Association of school business officials for their certificate of excellence award it's a process that we go through and once we get that then we should be it's a good recognition for the community and for the financial um um management of the district uh second there's two other reports and I'm sure Eric's going to talk about these as well um if you need the short condensed um easy version I really recommend you reading the management reports the maroon color the short one it is a great synopsis if you just want to get a quick read and then have time to dive into the other one and then of course the special purpose uh report is included as well so with that I'm very happy to um have here with mkr to provide a report onit turn it over to Ain all right so I'm Ding A Lot getting used to the the glasses and the as I aged I can't do the one thing anymore so I'll try to work with all the buttons and uh work through the financial statements so uh as mentioned my name is a Neil was a partner in charge of your audit for this past year um a new term we refer to your financial statements now as an AER for that annual comprehensive financial report so a more detailed document that the district's prepared in the past a lot of departments involved in the work that go into that um as Deon has mentioned the special purpose reports include the requirements under government auditing standards a single act and legal compliance man uh and then you also have our management requests mentions so um fighting the cold so I'm I have a cough drop in my mouth so trying you to think I'm choing on some gum here trying to present it for you but our management report uh we utilize to share some of the key informational results of our audit and PowerPoint presentation I have before you tonight is not to have one more thing for you to go through uh it really is just some pieces I've pulled that I'm used to keep us on the same page of the presentation and uh keep camera off of me and and uh share with the general public as well so with that I'll make my way through the PowerPoint um I'm happy to take questions at the end if there's anything we can move back to the slides but I'll make my way through uh as we go through it so uh our role as independent Auditors of the district we've issued our audit results the district's Financial audit so that back for we' issued what is known as an unmodified or clean opinion on the basic Financial so the financial information you find in that document was fairly stated as of June 30th 2024 and the results of operations for the year then ended uh the second Bull point I put there was just to highlight the additional work your sta keeps inuring because the changes under government auditing standards I think when we started we were at I want to say 27 uh good gasby government aiting standards uh you know we're well over aqua but we're over 101 that we've implemented now and so it keeps changing this past year wasn't even actually a standard but just to change in literature so group assets is what we refer to so Capital assets that maybe alone don't need a capitalization threshold but if you're R A lot of them together and it's significant they now require you I would suggest you should be capitalizing so really that's capturing uh technology devices as well as time to by furniture and large clubs if you're replacing L uh furniture or or other classroom desks when you're buying them in Mass you will now be capitalizing them with regard to the internal control and compliance a second Point I've noted there you will see we've made two material weaknesses and that's with the financial reporting and ACC course with government auditing standards uh this lack of a proper segregation of Duties and then the process of cash receipts and I'll expand that it's it was more detailed into uh gate receipts specifically at the high school um just that was identified where the audit process that we confirm through the audit procedures and and wanted to share with you as to our audit process the uh internal control comment we have with regard to that so larger we identified du to turnover and staff new positions this past year um we've had some heard in the business office as well that has created that finding in the past couple years with regard to the segregation of Duties but processing the cash receipts um we spent a lot of time meeting with staff talking with individuals at the district and at the site um as well as I know the district's working through that process to make improvements to interal controls process procedures in place for the organization my last slide the audit results the next slide you see here is the single audit of federal Awards we've issued what is known as a clean opinion on the sea which is the schedule of expenditures and federal Awards so you receive moment access of the current threshold $750,000 of federal award spending uh they will be moving that up to a million I think it'll be a couple years before the district can take advantage of that but it won't matter you beond that threshold anyway so you'll continue have that separate SLE audit of your federal Awards um but we also have no material weaknesses or instances of non-compliance with regard to that testing and then the last area we had was the Minnesota Office of the State Auditors legal compliance man uh there are seven broad categories and within that there's a number of test are included in there with regard to depositories public Investments the legal your debt limits your that issuance and so on so misls Provisions claims and dispersements and we have just one comment with regard to that testing of all the areas of the requirement for timely payment of invoices so uh as local governments you have that meet once once a month you have a requirement to make sure you're paying your invoices within 35 days of the service or the invis date or within what's acceptable to the vendor providing that so um we just had some instances where we found they were paid after that timeline so um yeah as I know the board members are aware it's not my job to make excuses for but I do like to share it's not necessarily an uncommon finding that we'll come across uh some of the occasions we'll find is there's the checks and balances going back and forth did you receive the number of units you purchased getting the approvals or sometimes it's how late you get the invoices and it's needed and it be almost direct to the 35 days that would be impossible for you to pay um so we'd recommend you look at your procedures make sure you're identifying what is the cause of it if it's within the district making sure individuals that are part of the process know that timeline uh if you're challenging an invoice because you're not certain you received all of the goods or happy worth of goods you received I would say you can document that and that would be acceptable to us but you want to make sure you're docum documenting that as you go through the process and not after we've discovered it selected that invoice so with that the rest of my presentation is really based on the information some historical data that we pulled together it is included all in your management report but uh just some information show you the financial position and some of the drivers of the revenue for your organization uh as you can see here we showed the adjusted ADM of average daily membership and then which gets convered to pupil units based on a waiting system where uh secondary students get a heavier waiting um so that conversion occurs with the process to paying you based on a student C so we include that because just the funding really following the number of students who serve as part of the basic funding formula allowance so this past year your organization served an estimated at ADM or student population of 4,17 students that represents a decrease of about 91 compared to the prior year or about 2.2% when we compare that to what we found out as final numbers for 2023 so 2024 currently is an estimate as we close the book so that doesn't get finalized until all the statement dat is gaed but we do come andate the 23 number in the graph to what the find that enrollment count it become through the meetings process the next slide I have for you really shows just kind of a financial position of where the district's been over the past 10 years um I know I I've been to presentation and talked about where the district had a very lean fund balance position low cash balance and you can see that the district really has improved that financial position uh over the past several years we I know it's a challenging process really it's easy as aitor to stand up here say it's important to do it but it it comes at a cost and it's it's a difficult process that involves the staff the board to get there when you look at 2023 to 2024 I would say it's a very similar financial position really uh showing the growth in cash Investments and that unrestricted fund balance consistent with the growth in expenditures this past year to dive a little deeper into the general fund and I I do have a few slides for the general fund it is your primary operating fund for the organization so the breakdown I have for you here is looking at the components of the equity the fund balance when we talk about governmental funds nonspendable being made up of the resources that you've spent but haven't utilized yet so inventory and prepaid dollar amounts within the general fund would be considered nonspendable you can't re utilize those dollars for something else without going selling they and then recouping it for another purpose you'd really likely just burn through that through insurance or or supplies and materials the restricted category you can see there was a slight out tick in that that would capture your long-term facilities maintenance operating Capital dollars basic skills a lot of the state restricted requirements that you receive resources for and then unrestricted fun bells and captur dollar of the organization where you can set them aside for your purpose so it doesn't involve an outside Source uh the district is also delegated that Authority um to individuals within your organization they're allowed to assign fund balances for a particular purpose but a common one we see is when an organization adopts a budget for the subsequent year and your deficit spending and so we recogniz that today we're presenting about 6 months into your next fiscal year and so a portion of the fin balance your deficit spending get set aside as an assigned fund balance because you're already counting on those dollars to be utilized through the budget process that you're working through in the current fisal year so that Al is a good example of an assigning fund balance as you can see uh there was an increase in overall Equity but a very minimal change in that fund balance percentag is a half a percent when you look at unrestricted and then ass sign with a slightly more of an increase but it's a shift between the components of that unrestricted assignment on site looking at the general fund revenues this past year I'm sorry I want to back up one slide I should share with you um with this fund balance position as you can see here recently you have continued to beet your fund balance policy so I know it's an important policy of the board and you have again continued to meet that with regard to the general revenues this year to share with the I know the board's well aware of this through the budget process but with the public and and uh people that are watching the total revenues this past year of the general fund amounted to about 611 million for your organization just to give you a gauge in the size of the operation that you're working with uh just a couple of comments this past year you came in I would say very close to budget about 1.8% over budget um as a conservative accountant I like to see revenues coming in over budget expenditures coming in under budget us approv so uh this past year you're seeing out of a increase the over budget of revenues at 1.8% and then about a 6.9% increase over the prior year so that increase clearly wasn't because of the additional students you served with the decline but there were funding improvements that help provide additional resources to the district this past year that basic formula allowance for general education funding there an increase for basic skills funding this P year and then one of the big pushes was a special cross subsidy funding that was a big deal for school districts in 2024 so um similar message I'm sharing with a lot of districts this year the other areas you can see that other category of revenues which um when we look at your graph that really makes up about 6.6% of your total coming in over the prior year over budget uh that split between investment earnings as a key component about one third of that and the balance of that is fees of local collections that you're having at your building so um and and what we found with your District like many others is the investment improving can't believe the past couple of years it's been a area where districts have been afraid to budget aggressively with it because the has been so long where you were wearing very minimal amounts of investment so uh seeing a favorable result compared to budget for investment earnings and then the other areas the uh local collections that you really can't control it's based on participation and programs uh you have some idea of you know when you set your rates for uh fees and so on that you anticipate they go up if you can assume the change and the number of U participants is going to stay similar but we generally see people budget conservatively for that area when you look at your property taxes State sources the property taxes goes through a very long process greater invol process with your truth and Taxation so the levy was set to increase you came it very close to budget and I would say when you look at your property taxes and state sources they're almost spot on and offset one another and it's because of County apportionment which when you receive that from the county and property taxes for school districts that money is taken away in your state aid so that made up a majority of that variance and so really coming in very close the federal sources were slightly under budget plus some prior year and really due to the timing and usage of those Co funds that are running out with those grants in terms of our ability use those funds as ending I have the similar gra for the expenditures of your general fund this past year uh expenditures were $60 million overall for St Francis area schools when we look at your expenditures you can see that um now you can't see that total graph but if you look within your financial statements you came even closer with their expenditures in total about 1.2% under what was anticipated in total for the organization about 7.9% of an increase over the prior year as I would say as anticipated with the budget process um like revenues there's a concentration I didn't point it out very timely with the state sources you can see this past year State sources for school districts majority revenues it was 78% for your District in 2024 likewise when we talk about educating students in the district the key component of that is the bees and expenses related to salaries and employee benefits um making up for your District 77.2% it was about a 99.4% increase with contract improvements additional staff filling open positions um but coming in extremely close to the budget for salties and benefits within a half of 1% just under budget for those categories and just a couple more slides and couple of comments that are tied right to a slide couple of your other operating funds is the food Serv special Revenue fund and the community service special Revenue fund uh we've only include the year end fund balance so we're talking about $60 million for the general fund operation of activity the these two funds have about 3.2 million of spending in the Food Service fund about $3.3 million in the community service special Revenue fund uh you can see both of them experienced an increases past year in fund balance both of them came in favor bottom line to help us anticipated in that final budget um really I just Express the board I know we've talked about this in the past is um where do you want that sweet spot to be for fun balance where and where within an optimal level for you so um obviously you would want to continue to grow funds um but at your end you're at about 62% of funds for Food Service fund and the community service fund is at 48.9% so um these funds do have to be spent in accordance with the requirements of each the individual fund so it's not as you can transfer into other areas Food Service fund requirements is required to stay in the Food Service fund the community service fund there's a number of programs within if that you have usage requirements for it so um it's it's largely we stress the importance that they're not a drain on your general fund and you've been successful with that they're available for certain Capital expenditures when you have Frable or postive fund balance so um good to see those in a healthy financial position my last slide is the most difficult but before I start talking about this last slide I did want to mention a couple of your other funds so you have an internal service one which the district uses for self-insured activities of the district for your uh Dental premiums you're self-insured for dental for your employees um there really isn't nearly the level of activity I want to say about $400,000 for that activity annual annually this past year there was a decrease in fund balance I had noted about $40,000 which was a similar decrease to that what US experienced last year so just important to note that you're making sure you're monitoring rates which I know you are and managing those costs uh on an ongoing basis so um I'm sure you're all seeing increases in health insurance rates and so on we're en covering them our own health insurance premium so um just being aware of that so I wanted to make sure I was at least sharing an additional point of not to S everything came in favorably the budget but a point to make caution of and monitor the rates with the dental Self insurance and where that one financial position is the building construction fund you issued about $2.5 million Minds this past year at year end you have about $1.2 million left available for spending in the construction one for calory L purposes and restricted for that purpose that they were approved for and then the last one I wanted to mention individually was The Debt Service one The Debt Service one and really I'm Shing this for the public is that the dollars in the individual funds are largely restricted for the purpose of the funds so you'll see there significant resources and your debt service funds as well restricted for Debt Service so it's required and driven by the financing plans as issue your bonds and manag by the Minnesota Department of Education as well with their process and the levy process um so you saw a slight decrease this past year um but all those dollars are restricted for that service so to this point I've been talking about your individual funds which is on a Current financial resource measurement Focus so it's the dollars that you you're really focusing on what do you have at hand to be able to put in programs and utilize for the children and participants of programs so it's a very short-term perspective we don't capture long-term obligations longterm assets of your infrastructure the organization which then we capture that the entity wide districtwide financial statements so with this presentation we've Consolidated all the funds brought them together we've Incorporated the C assets we've Incorporated the long-term obligations which is bonds your pension obligations from the Statewide pension plans P TR and then we have adjustments for the entity wide requirements since those have been uh has one of the more recent casby standards in the uh perspectively um but you can see the top half what we've done is give you a breakdown where we talked about the governmental funds you saw an increase of about $2.3 million when we go entity wide you see an increase of $10 million so but one area of caution is part of that increase is because it's tied up in your infrastructure so we see your net investment in capital assets improving increasing about $2 million but that doesn't mean you have $2 million to put in the program it's tied up in the capital assets of your organization you're paying off your buildings at a faster Pace than are being depreciated and we Comm only see that you generally are in your building 40 years maybe longer in many cases but the bonds associated with building them are generally paid off in 20 to 25 years restricted that's following really the increases we talked about food service fund uh the community service fund some of the restrictions in The Debt Service fund and then the unrestricted category as you can see is actually in a deficit position and that's really driven by that pension line that you can see the Statewide pension plan so those pensions for people and TR are managed separately uh it's really a requirement that's been around about well 10 years this year for your organization we've been incorporating that but not an area to be concerned you are meeting your obligations to pay those pension plans and they really do Flex based on the market and how well those uh plans are funded and you can see they saw an increase of about 5.6 when we look at our pension adjustments that year which translate down to the unrestricted component and I would say the difference between that was that Improvement in the general fund unrestricted dollars we talked about almost the start presentation with that I know I don't present the most exciting presentation of the year that you get as an auditor but I think it goes with the teritory of being an auditor and I'm happy to try to touch spas on any of the categories or you know as de mentioned the ACT has a significant information in there that we find use laws move forward as an organization as well thank your staff all those involved in the process it is a l through process any questions from board members general fund for 24 um towards the beginning was that an estimate or is that final I want to make sure I have the right one you're looking at here are you talking percent here slide is are those of 2024 right there as of June 30th 2024 so your audit year end yes for each year so it's cash and Investments we say n a borrowing because some of those previous years might have been impacted by cash FL borrowing that may have been required and then unrestricted it's not the same as to fund that so that would be your committed assignment unassigned any other question no concern about the of not at this time I there are so many estimates and assumptions that are involved with the discount rate the current stock market and now that we've got 10 years of History you can kind of see where it's at and where the funding levels are they have separate Audits and I the thing I like about it now you can really kind of just watch it and then they get a lot of news of course when the new rates come out and they manage how much do you have to pay to it so I wish they were fully funded so we could say okay I don't expect to see any increase in your contribution r but I I also think there's kind of a balance if they were fully funded what happens if we have just a fantastic stock market year then they way overfunded and so there is kind of a let's manage it over a longterm perspective and I think that's that's what they are doing is managing from the long term trying to stay stable with with their discount rates and and not being overly aggressive their discount rates that anticipated 7% return over the lifetime your disclosures share what what that up be for you 1% higher or 1% lower but you can see it drastically changes so I think it's informational but it it makes the en wide numbers tough to digest because they can swing so fast just for that one component I do have a question for you so in our last year report as well we had the similar comment about segregation of Duties uh did you see an improvement in the segregation of Duty procedure um as it relates to the District operation because we know based on both comments both years it's specific to turnover but did you see an improvement in our procedures knowing that we can't impact the turnover yeah I I would say it was probably very similar this past year again with turnover um I think as we now build and improve and work on policies I know talked to superintendent that that will and we'll hope we see some improvement with that but you can't speak to the Future as your auditor because then when I come back to audit it I can't beend so I'll keep that in check all right uh thank you Aaron and your team for your work on this audit thank you and our staff for your work support I know we talked a few us board members we like detail this report be nice to have some time that creating the cover on that I think it's beautiful actually our students and our staff thank you also I want to point out the work of Josh who is our district and is Tak a larger Ro in the process this year learning process app all right moving forward to the most anticipated agenda tonight 6.2 the San Francis High School student C report we have the privilege of Jack humy here tonight your I'm glad Mr B thank you I'd like to thank the cabinet for having us here the superintendent the new board thank you chair B all the people watching both here and online he and otherwise let's get started so first throughout this speech I'd like to first talk about the minimal things that the student council has done since the last meeting that we appeared at a little bit of a St Francis Roundup and then anything coming up within St Francis or that is currently occurring first of all since the last board meeting of course the most anticipated event was our community night which we hosted on December 13th of 2024 at our high school we had both the middle school and high school jazz bands play we had a basketball game which was not included but was also at the same time as our community night we had games for family and kids we had hot chocolate there was a choir concert going on and overall good night with Santa Claus there as well and his elves and so it was a great night for both the student council I know we ran out of our hot chocolate that they were serving so pretty good success for us I'd say then from there moving on forward within our student council the only thing that is really on the board right now as we have not since had a meeting since that December 13th is the snow days which is coming up in February we will have a petfest and a spirit week and of course Crown our snow days king and queen there won't be a dance as there usually isn't but otherwise that's all that I have for you right now on our actual student council now moving into a little bit of a St Francis roundabout we have a lot that we have currently had happening within St Francis basketball is going on both boys and girls there's a game tomorrow at Big Lake at double header and wrestling has started up so has girls and boys hockey the girls with Northern Tier Stars with North Branch and Cambridge and the boys with Northern Tier or Northern edge with North Branch I've heard that both of their seasons have been going on as well and that they've been successful so I'm glad to hear that so far our Sports have been doing well and I anticipating for them to continue up throughout the year otherwise our debate team on the 13th and 14th participated at their National qualifier well the Congress team participated at the national qualifier senior ran Anderson also participated in Lincoln doulas did not advance to the Nationals or the elimination rounds sadly but but our Congress team did send six students out to Plat Lakes where senior where Juniors Skylar aler and myself participated in the final round of congressional debate house Skyler aier plays third overall receiving the first alternate spot and I play second overall qualifying the Nationals for the first time in our school's history in four years and in that set event for the first time in 13 years and overall our team plays so well success so well accumulatively with also sophomore cayin inly placing six in the Senate that we won the district s Stakes award for Congressional debate which is the first time in 13 years that our school has won that award as well so the only tournament that's left remaining in our season that is guaranteed is the section tournament for Rowan Anderson this weekend the 10th and 11th at Egan hopefully she'll get her spot at the state tournament the 17th and 18th at the U and otherwise we look forward to Nationals uh in June in deoy Iowa otherwise the speech season starts up soon the 18th we host our own home meet and then Deca is also for judges for their District 5 competition on January 29th of 2025 there is no past requirements needed or any possible training that you have not that you need to do before the meeting you can go and then learn your training and you can contact either myself or Miss sh our business teacher and de adviser for the possibility to judge at the same clch Mall in order for us to hold our competition otherwise are there any questions from you one question I have for you would be um I don't know the city of old gr would love to have student representative come to their city council meeting periodically just to give updates and ideally be someone who lives in but it doesn't have to be would you be willing to try to find a volunteer to to go to the the city council meeting well I both live in O and I've been in Communications with Mr Rolf through Facebook about possibly attending those meetings or at least finding someone so I believe so that we will be able to find a student representative from oako in go to those meetings yeah it doesn't have to be our me are the same night so I I think we uh are G to give you a round of [Music] applause but for the team itself because we know it's not just the individual you guys practice as a team and that's very important so that that's awesome news for our high school students and thank for sharing that if there's one person we could thank it's Mr tul at the beginning of this season we didn't have a coach and he could have let our team continue to fizzle out and not get a coach but instead he stepped up and took back the position that he retired from so big thanks to him for coaching both a national qualifier and a team that had success in a brand new event for the first time in nearly 13 years at our school's history awes you thank you all all right next agenda item is 6.3 administrative report superintendent has a list of items that he'll be going through it's really challenging following Jack that no one has ever applauded me at the end of my um I'm gonna quickly go through the first page uh because most of it was discussed at the last four meeting and so I just memorialized it here in this written document so that goes for the levy certification the adults with disabilities Levy Finance equity revenue technology issues at the Middle School uh Mike star brought up earlier about the importance of the msba leadership conference which is the 16th uh and 17th of this month with the convention center please if you can possibly go even if you're an experienced board member we' love to see you there I'm planning to be there it's a great way not only to learn from the sessions but learn from other board members throughout the state the um the school board association's legislative uh platform is attached uh to the agenda uh so feel free to to read through that I know that Rob was a participant in the delegate assembly where a lot of that was discussed and then an executive committee U made the actual platform based on feedback uh also I have an update about policy 66.5 um you know in terms of of um when it was uh recently revised some of the feedback that I've received um I also met with uh representatives of the Minnesota Department of Education to answer their questions about the revised policy I do not have any indication what will happen next if anything but I did have that meeting and answer the questions uh they've reached out to me by the way to have a meeting uh the next paragraph I I kind of regret I'm suggesting something because really it's up to the the board chair and over the school board to really decide uh if we should um look at potential changes to the policy uh but to be fourth right I did I do recommend uh considering possible changes uh based on feedback um and uh we can do that a number of ways if the board decides to pursue it could be a a committee meeting uh either a special policy committee meeting held fairly soon or or at the first scheduled one in February uh we could also discuss it at the board level again in a special session if we want or perhaps in conjunction with another board meeting uh but I do think we should at least consider uh potential changes uh discipline data through November uh is still reflected in the report uh I know it's January so we would typically have December data uh but a lot of those data reports are entered at the beginning of the next month of course we the holidays so I'll include December's data in the next uh Schoolboard packet and then as I've been doing um in recent agendas I include a list of the formal challenges of Library materials that's in part to keep the board in form because it's my obligation to do that uh and then I have to report to the state that's part of the state statute so I'm just kind of logging everything there and then I'll do the reporting as appropriate that's all I have any questions for the super so just as far as msba conference um I don't know who plans on going down we've done the lunching before we've not done the lunch I don't know oh come up with a plan now thank you for bringing that up because Mr bird will be recognized uh for uh some staff development work or because he completed all the phases of his leadership train right so he'll be recognized during the recognition lunch in so it might be of interest to attend that particular meeting I know did that a couple years ago when Amy Kelly was recognized for 20 years of service on the board can we still sign up for just let Vanessa know if you have interest so Nate you should you should probably be there I guess does anybody else plan on when is that 16th and 17th so be Thursday and Friday yeah it's really well attended it's a pretty good conference [Music] confence so in the the book some of you if you're now that you're members of the school board you'll get this sent to you by msba if you go on to their website and sign up but Mr starus there is an agenda on here so you can take a look at it I am registered and attending both the 16th and the 17th we'll just go down the line so that way it's public knowledge and answers Mr sh's Question you are you planning on attending do you know what dates um still Friday and again I'll leave this uh on the table for after with if you want to take a picture of the agenda it's got a code as full and Mr Anderson you said and I'm going to a workshop on Wednesday evening about artificial intelligence so looking forward to that all right moving forward uh next agenda items are action items we only have one tonight that is for the acceptance of the FY 24 AED financial statements sorry I raise my hand and one of you recognize I try to follow the process um I had a question for the superintendent um so you brought out policy 6065 uh have all the emails that we've received that are in opposition or support of the policy been provided to new board members or any of the documentation that we received from um Cal La suit or anything else been provided to the so they're aware of the standing of this issue yeah thanks thank you for bringing that up um they have not been provided that information but now that they're officially board members I feel comfortable with updating or providing that information I'm assuming that all of you would be interested in receiving that information and so we'll we'll work out providing that um I'm not sure if it will be one PDF that will be shared or if it will be a whole bunch of different emails that are forwarded we'll figure that out and by the way that also reminds me that U it's um it can be kind of challenging to start because you know you don't have your computers you don't have your accounts or email addresses but I think within 24 hours um everyone should have that information and so I send that out to the your isd15 email addresses and so you'll have all that and just a reminder uh we are obligated to maintain written documentation through the data retention uh schedule uh which is governed or which is expected by state law and so you know make sure that you keep track of all that written communication to and from uh not only your school email address but any personal accounts too but I will forward that information to you in short order may not be tomorrow but sometime this week oh thank you yes yes um uh Vanessa reminded me of something really important in the the previous board was really good at this uh but if you get a a message from anyone including myself uh you know we're we encourage people to use the Schoolboard email address and then the email goes to all board members uh please do not reply to all uh because it is really easy to violate the open meeting law if we do that um and start having a discussion among the cor of board members so when you get that um if you so choose you can respond directly to the person who sent it to you um you know but please don't reply all because I can get a a l long I think wouldn't that apply to like um social media if you get too many school board members communicating on social media that could also be an open law violation potentially yeah if there's a discussion taking place it can happen with personal conversations like through serial meetings it's a very complicated um issue uh I believe phase one or phase two TR TR will cover that you know through the msba uh but in the meantime until you can participate in that training if um you don't reply to all make sure that if there's any discussion of a Schoolboard topic that it does not include a quorum of board members um that's really important too you know you can talk about or there can be Communications three people but not four and they're all sorts of nuances thankfully we have an expert named Brandon Nelson on staff who can help us with that or at least follow up with you know questions of msba another suggestion if you have any questions about any school board issue or School District issue if you're unhappy with me or whatever it could be the Minnesota School Board Association gives excellent advice excellent advice they do not provide legal advice which is contingent on specific circumstances but they're really good at at working with school board members they are hired to provide service to each one of you and to the school district uh you you know at the conference you may need some msba reps and you might really resonate with one or two of them call them find the person you resonate with uh the one I call most often and I think branding does the same is a gentleman named Terry Marl but he's not the only person there and you know it's 1 800 three well I better I better not say that I used to have that memorized all the time uh but we'll we'll make sure you have that phone number uh so that you can call them at at your confi Mr so you mentioned 66.5 did you you looking for direction or what yeah Nate I don't know if you have a a preference um you know for how it should be handled um but if there are suggestions for potential changes you know it would be helpful if if either Nate or I or maybe it'd be better just to come through me and then whatever group that's analyzing it could look at the pros and cons of each one of those suggestions and then we can take it to either the policy committee or the full School Board you know if we so if we decide to to review up to okay so my comment on that uh on a sticker on procedure and following procedure uh so when we look at this um going forward if there are school board members that would like a policy to have our vision just like any policy we have it should go through the committee um we have not set the committee yet we said that we're going to have it so once we work through that um that process of work through superintendent Anderson is right if there's changes that want to or that board members have input that should all be funneled through that committee um we'll determine if if it's specific to this policy if it's going directly to the superintendent and then share with the committee or how that's going to work once we set that yeah and so really none of that was figured out because you know I wanted to wait until the board chair was selected so now we can really have that out but did did Nate and I answer your question Rob or you did I was just wondering if you were needing more info from us or if you had what you needed uh I think we'll ask for more feedback uh from board members but Nate and I should probably get together and Hammer out how we could you know look at that feedback or or obtain that feedback the the to me the more important part tonight was that there was an update um that the new board members are provided the opportunity to get any of the information that has come into the district and where we're currently at and then we'll move forward after the three new board members are clear on what's Happening Here with this so just to make sure I understand the first policy committee that we will have for 20125 is I think February 9th so the very earliest that this topic of discussion would come for and board meeting would be the end of February um or early March based on our current timeline with the current timeline just want to make sure okay any other questions for the superintendent administrative report what this thanks for bringing up those questions by the way it's good to get everything out okay moving on to the next agenda item 7.1 acceptance of the FY 2024 audited financial statements we received the update in the overview by De and Aaron this same report the financial statements have already been sent to mde as required we met that suspense are there any further questions prior to a motion pleas see none is there a call to motion to accept the audited uh Financial State from fy4 as presented Mr sh thank you is there a second thank you any discussion see no none all in favor of the current motion to accept as presented the AED financial statements for FY 2024 signify by saying I all oppos signify by say name mtion pass to zero thank you next item is agenda item eight upcoming meetings and per topics uh this aligns with the already approved meeting dates and list current agenda items these items are specific currently what's listed on there specific to District Operations and other items will be added based on for inut as a new board chair I will relook at all of this with the superintendent and get feedback from all of you if there's any changes required to those preliminary topics as we move forward are there any questions or comments about the upcoming meetings or topics if I could note that um District cabinet members and I reviewed those topics today and so we'll have some suggested changes in terms of timing not adding topics necessarily but just when they'll be presented so uh but Mr Berg and I can can review those together any other questions or comments uh just just so you guys are aware um I'm looking at adding a one hour work session to our next meeting the 27 that will be specifically to review School Board member handbook as a group uh so I'm working on a draft handbook with input from msba and other districts but we will look at that would be a work session prior to the official meeting uh to discuss uh the school board member handbook I do not have a timeline for approval of that process but I want to start that process as a team looking forward at what that handbook would look like uh I will also send out the draft document of that prior to so you have time to look at it and write your comments um I have not set in a date time on that sent out yet but will have it prior to that meeting if we move forward Mr so if you're doing that there is new board member orientation that meeting as well to coordinate we will work through that process and and let all you know what that comes up all right moving forward to the next agenda item School Board member report member Anderson member St going onere um just with all these new faces on the board table I think it be nice to have some sort of just like a meal or gathering whatever it is you do it before or whatever if that's a possibility to just get to know one another just throw dat just if it's a possibility something we do to each other um and then I did write down on here at the school board handbook so just brought that up thank you other than that I don't really have anything to report thank you m welcome to all our new school board members great to have you on board I wish you a lot of luck and God speak as we go through as you go through four years um that's all I have M off I'd like to thank for allowing five minutes for the consideration of visitors I believe that hearing from our consitency is one of the most important things that a school board member can do so I really appreciate that other than that yeah welcome and welcome Chad and everyone else look forward to working with you again and appreciate the support and remember this is this is going to fun and not fun all at the same time probably I don't know maybe it'll be good so doing good by these kids is what we're looking looking for we offering I'm grateful that we have such a different uh variety of inputs to col our baces and come up with the greatest path forward so forward to did you remember answer thank uh no I'm just grateful to be here appreciate everybody's support up until this point and looking forward to the process and helping improve the overall educational outcome for our kids this I had on my report just the msba conference we already hit that I hope to see many of you there that would be great um and then just a comment about please be responsive in the next week to two weeks as I work through the Comm assignments and helping me with your input I do value the input of all of you so I want to make sure we get this right and we do the best for the district when it comes to participation in all these committees and then again thank you for the the vot of confidence for board chair I'm excited to work together as a team I think we can be a very uh beneficial team for our district because we all know what that one purpose is and where we're going for that so so thank you for that uh with that the the final item for tonight is a jour I have a motion to thank you any discussion all right we arej at 855