##VIDEO ID:zydvBXMpk7E## 7 o' in the media center we'll call the meeting to order I to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation God indivisible jce for call chrison is not with us quter syic here s here here do we have any public comment at this time I just have one item um the November 27th issue of the Grant County Herald um it was not my intent to quote the former board member and so I just want to make that clear we'll move on to approving the agenda um you'll see a couple of adjustments um we have a lead request under 5.3.1 point2 and a resignation under 5.3.3 as well as um 6.4 consider uh the district office assistant phys um are there any other additions or corrections to the agenda for Mo to approve and a second second all in favor say I I motion carries that brings us right to um this with our a presentation perfect thank you for having us today um Mary have been here before if you us she is our in charge for the audit so you have your bound financial statements great reading if you want to take a look at that and then we do the Powerpoints as well just give you some pictures and graphs of where you've been and then where you're at currently now just a little bit easier to get to so we'll go through the PowerPoint you have them and then obviously up on the screen as well so page two here we'll go through some required Communications there you go so our primary responsibility as Auditors who sprad an opinion on the fairness of the financial statements presented today we do review internal accounting controls of course we want to make sure that controls are in place and that they're working risk based audit approach meaning we can't test every transaction but we do some detail level transaction testing and then some comparisons current year to Prior year and then um current year to it as well we'll dig into any areas that U we don't feel are accurate significant accounting policies those are outlined in note one and no unusual transactions noted for this year page three here um within the bound document of course there's going to be management judgments and accounting estimates we do test over those to make sure they're reasonable and supported page four no disagreements with management um worked hand inand with management to get those numbers accurate um difficulties encounter performing the audit none there um even with the turnover still still able to get the information that we needed there corrected and uncorrected so uncorrected we are passing on your subscription based Information Technology Arrangements um just considered to be overall a material for the district and then corrected we do come in and help with some of those year end adjustments um depending on future Year's potential of that going away as as well um but but pretty good accurate information um month to month so you can make decisions on that page five overall summary of the audit results for the financial statements we did Issue an unmodified or a clean opinion um had some material weaknesses here segregation of Duties just based on the size of the accounting department the financial statement prep we do um prepare the bound documents of course we let management review that make sure that numbers look correct as well and then the audit adjustments I talked about we have an um significant efficiency from last year and this year timely bank reconciliation um we have checked in on that feels like that will get corrected this year um just due to the time over and um turnover and such but this is one of the areas we really need to stay on top of um just relates to just High FR risk um without doing those to clarify that Jo doing it on a spreadsheet smartd okay perfect okay Minnesota legal compliance um outstanding indebtedness report has to be reported early February um just with the turnover and stuff Joe was not aware of this it was filed it was just filed l that should go away as well you know what Becca do so this is a snapshot of your general fund so you can see that expenditure succeeded revenues this year causing a decrease in fund balance by about $261,000 so revenues actually increased from the prior year about $784,000 so this was due to an increase in your General Ed Aid and your special ed Aid and then there were also some new additional Revenue sources that came through the state so that's going to be your school library Aid student support Aid and then your hour worker unemployment that came through this year so that both sources caused that increase this year um expenditures also increased by about $242,000 from the prior year so that was primarily due to um the payroll services that were provided by the freshwater education District so just some additional costs that were paid to them this year for those services and then um paying SMS for the business manager positions your cost po increases and then your cost supping adjustments overall so you can see that revenues on the bottom table were over budget and then so were expenditures um we did note that the district policy that's currently in place is to have 10% of your general fund budgeted expenditures in un aign fund balance at year end so currently the district is sitting at about 12% so it's actually in line with policies anything you wanted to add over yeah just continue to monitor that right so you've seen the last three years um you've you've gone down pretty significant I know in 20 21 um you did make up some ground but you really want to keep within that 10 to 15% of unassigned fund balance um just with because of the size of your district and expenditures that you have um so just continue to monitor that as you go the next slide this service fund so expenditures revenues in the current year causing fund balance to decrease by about $52,000 so Revenue increase from the prior year about $58,000 so that is additional State funding that was received du student meals being free during the current year um we found that the state for most districts were reimbursing them at a higher rate than what you previous been charging the students so that caused revenues to increase and then um expenditures also increased from the prior year about $1,000 this was uh mainly due to purchasing a combination oven so that was a half outlay expenditure that hadn't been incurred in the prior year um the bottom table you can see that both revenues and expenditures were over budget in the current year and then we did note that we've been seeing a significant decrease in fund balance over the past few years um if you take out your nonspendable balance which is for your inventory at year end overall fund balance is only sitting it's got negative on assigned fund balance at your end so you just want to keep that in mind the state does look at your unassigned they do not net the two of your or nonspendable category so next year if you are negative again you have to make a transfer the state will um enforce that because you're sitting at negative right now um they do not net those to so with the last two years obviously you've seen fund balance drop pretty significantly and I would say about 75% of my districts are actually looking for ways to spend their fund balance because they Reed so much additional r Revenue sources so really need to look at your expenditures um what you know in line with others and see how to maybe reduce those and get them more in line with your revenues that are coming in moving on to the next SL is your community services fund so expenditures exceeded revenues by about $26,000 this year having a decrease in fund balance um Revenue is overall decreased from the prior year about $14,000 um daycare numbers decreased this year cing for that decrease in revenues and then we also noted that there was no swimming program in the current year uh expenditures increased by about $220,000 from the prior year this is primarily due to your salaries expense increasing in the current year and then both revenues and expenditures exceeded budget in the current year and then and you can also see that fund balance has been significantly decreasing over the past two years with an overall negative balance of $344,000 so definitely need to work on this um maybe drill in to see what's going on I believe all already knows not do transfer we did not last year the last time we did was my first year here when here and last year we opted not correct to do that but it is yeah some pieces that we're definitely going to have to look at two things of course bpk funding but the concern there is the students that qualify for bpk are already our early childhood special education students for the most part so there won't be additional Revenue so this with the fre preschool program that we provide so we know that there so it really has to come out of our general fund probably and then our daycare the two pieces so yesterday Todd and I and were in conversation I said food service and community service rela looked into to see what decisions we need to make especially in fun yeah the state will not allow us to continue that so you say transfer means transfer right out of our general fund transfer someplace else so so we're look at that dig in to see yeah if the daycare program we know a need to make sure that we're Notting The District in other areas student experience because of that there the preschool we thought the bpk with that extra seat was going to help us and and then we found out that if they already qualify for special education funding we can't double up so the help was as yeah and so right now basically your general fund is already helping with community service just because of how negative it is um and we didn't do a transfer in 23 because once you transfer in it's tied to community service right you can't you can't get that money back out so now that you've seen it go another year right need to assess expenditures or do we need to transfer from general fund at that point and that's not something you see traditionally with other districts not this negative both of these last two correct yes I would say you're in the low percentage dayc carees Mary how dayc carees in other districts that you do do you see is that usually a little bit of a deficit in those or is there schools that we could check to see able to make that um yes and then so some run um the preschool Readiness out of community service and then they know all of those costs they just transfer automatically from to help with that but I'll have to look at the daycare piece I want to say I probably have one that probably does pretty good at it so I can definitely maybe get you in contact with them so this next slide is your debt service fund so revenues exceeded expenditures by about $1,000 so your revenues coming in they increase from the prior year this is primarily just due to your state aid I believe it was the bond a credit that came in this year that was a little bit higher than the prior year and then your expenditures those followed your debt payment schedules and then capital projects fund that closed out in 2020 so no expenditures in that fund for the past several years the next slide so this is a graph that shows the breakout of revenues by source for the District of the whole so you can see that your state piece is the biggest chunk at about 74% % um followed by taxes at about 16% so this is very consistent year-over-year um that's going to be your you know your state is your general at Aid your special at Aid that all comes through that bucket that comp districts that's right in line You'll see your federal will drop off this year we didn't do single audit right because all of that ESF funding is is falling off so now you're getting back up to you know where the state normally is so this graph is those Revenue sources broken out over the past five years so you can see like Mary mentioned that Federal peaked a few years ago and then R will seeing that drop off as your Co sources are dropping off um so we'll probably see that continue to decline and then State increase this year do your General Ed um special ed and then those free lunches also F under fell under that bucket and then you can see your taxes stayed pretty consistent year-over-year and then if you move to the next slide this is a graph of your expenditures so you can see here that your regular instruction is about 41% of the district's expenditures um your biggest bucket I think that's exactly the same percentage as it was in the prior year I think your breakout in almost every category is very consistent year-over-year we noted then this next slide is those expenditures over the past five years you can see how much larger regular instruction is over the other categories so most categories we've been seeing increase over the past five years um that's you know typically going to be your cost of living adjustments your inflation so we see that at most districts um your increase in Deb service fund so that or not sorry not Deb service the district Support Services that's going to be for the business manager salary and then those payroll services that were provided by the freshwater um your regular instruction and pupil Services pupil Support Services we noted that's just going to be your cost of living adjustments causing those increases uh your special ed increase due to your cost of living adjustments and then additional amounts were paid this year to bed Co-op and then you'll see that Capital outlay dropped this year that was just because last year there was the greenhouse project that was paid for so you'll see why that was such a significant drop I think that Greenhouse project was about 400 some, last year we also have some coding pieces that we're addressing fund balance now op 28,000 should be there so there just ening pie that we're working with as well you look at other like siiz districts in this breakout how is our ratio in particular our big increases around exceptional and people support is that is that a trend is that are we out of whack any of these or um I was actually surprised how high special it is in all of the other districts this year compared to last year it seemed to really Spike um it's hard to pinpoint I don't know if it was because of the additional Revenue coming in that you were able to you know put more funds and use it in that category that caused you to put it there um and then regular instruction is the other one that we've seen um Spike quite a bit um from prior year and people support I would say is right in line sometimes it depends on how a district codes maybe certain expenses right um but really the two pieces there is your ready regular instruction and an exceptional I think so I think that's right because I think you have to show it to get reimbursed for it yes that huge um a lot of other districts are dealing with that as well yeah pretty pretty like 20% increase sometimes people support I believe is where we it's gets corded to right right so you say youve seen transportation for districts that provide their own transportation or districts that contract out contract out this slide is showing your governmental fund balances into those different buckets over the past five years so you can see how your unassigned fund balance that we mentioned has been dropping over the past several years we actually have been seeing restricted fund balance go up this year and it's happened in many districts um those additional State sources that we've been seeing come in have restrictions set in place by the state so we've been seeing that that category has been going up in almost every single District so we've just been recommending that districts do their best to code expenditures or apply expenditures as possible to reduce those restrict balances okay so average daily memberships how the district uh gets pays here so 2324 did drop 741 um down from 774 in the prior year again this is very common I think I only have maybe like three or four districts that actually increased in adms um and then the biggest drop is going to be your kindergarten class which is pretty consistent and in line with others as well um this is where a lot of them are going down and then the other categories would be any of the homeschooling coming out of Elementary or secondary cling the kindergarten number oh yes includes um both all of the categories so kindergarten and others so we take anybody from kindergarten and younger and it's in that number as well correct so revenues per weighted average daily membership here um so you can see like Bea talked about State revenues was increased significantly so that caused the increase there along with your decrease in students and then your um revenues in total increased as well Levy stayed pretty consistent from prior year then your expenditures per weighted average saving membership so your expenditures went up your students went down so you're naturally going to see this go up so dark blue is your general fund um so increase by about a th there and then increase in your total um of all expenditures as well okay so we' like to look at your open enrollment so those coming in and out of the district so residents being served elsewhere 140 so you did drop that you can see went from 171 down to 140 and then non-resident students dropped a little bit there down to 67 so page 20 shows you your net gain or loss in open enrollment and so you did have a positive um uptick in that but still had a loss of about 73 so any other follow followup questions all right perfect thank you and if there's any other followup questions or anything um you can always reach out okay thank you well we have our next Community task force meeting this evening from 6: to 8 and in that meeting the agenda is posted on the website an article should be in the paper today kind of give you an update while we're currently at uh but they'll be talking about the review cost opinions I questions from people but they're just coming up with opinions to say here we believe the cost would be on some of those Identity or prioritized areas that were identified by the committee so they'll be going through that and then we'll be talking about if they need to explore or why they need to explore other options and alternative Solutions um and so it'll be a two-hour meeting this evening to go through that it's Tak a little while to get the demographer study information all put together in op diesel uh but she is starting to work on that and hopefully that will all be ready to go by January meeting um that'll be an important piece but they look at housing um so she looks at housing stud enrollment loss of students through that uh through open enrollment and things like that so she'll be putting that together and hopefully have that information by January 8 for that meeting there um again all that information can be found on our school website under that Community task force tab talks about the demographic study already leadership conference we've got Josh Claire Ryan and I attending uh the phase two training on that Wednesday um see Ryan and I will actually go down a little earlier on on Tuesday to hit phase one because that's a requirement there so we'll do phase one phase two and then the leadership conference will be Thursday and Friday the two speakers are going to be phenomenal just kind of watching the video clips I don't know if you had a chance to see one was a a music teacher um I think was a Grammy wedding music teacher and the other was a principal that comes from New Zealand so those will both be great Keynotes there to watch and hope you bring back back some excitement and some possible things to review and look at as we we go there and just want to thank our two board members who are this is last meeting for Gary And of course Terry's The Other Board member who was ending his term on the board I did say that elected in 2016 but Gary I think you said you were actually appointed earlier in 2016 when your term started in 17 and did two terms so we just want to thank you for your service to the school district you've been through quite a few things over those last eight years I appreciate your leadership and commitment to students we do have have your Bell so I didn't grab that in this morning so we make sure that we get that to you with your your placard on there and everything so anything else from other board members your retirement do have Refreshments after the meeting so um we will have that as well so thank you here want to thank make sure Terry knows app and two terms for Terry as well so yeah great great leadership during those times and then just our upcoming dates here tonight of course the community task force meeting holiday break December 23rd through January 1st we do come back to school on that Thursday the 2nd and really the reason why it kind of lines up with the calendar either come back then or you come back in June so we decided to do that and hopefully I didn't with my note that went out earlier hopefully I J ourselves with the weather but tomorrow can be a little interesting so we'll monitor that as well and then our organizational in January committee meeting remember is Monday January 6 with the 5:30 start so both of those meetings will be wrapped in um to that meeting we'll start with the organizational and then our regular Comm all right any questions or comment move on to our approvement of of claims Mr did you have some items for us this morning do um i' just like to note Maggie been doing a great job providing a lot of detail to myself and all everybody so that's been um a lot of clarity a lot of transparency which is important costs continue to climb as we all know and everything that we all do so as we just saw in the audit we're going to have to take some additional steps to make sure we're cost for the best of our ability for sure so a couple of of things uh we did some improvements uh to the basketball hoops and curtains that was 28792 to H&B in this payroll or in this uh approval of payments excuse me also PSO to Alec Tech was 10,356 a couple of those just for your reference there's three payrolls as well in this um particular approval of payment of claims and everything else was pretty pretty granular so there's a I'm moving to approve 852 21274 right I have a motion a second second you want all in favor say I cares can I just say one thing the other piece that was in there was a significant wire for unemployment for $71,000 at our last superintendent meeting one of the things that was mentioned by the state is the fact that um course we see that there's a projected smaller uh um budget surplus but when they start to calculate all the longterm costs of free lunch unemployment and all those pieces there is real concerning all several districts are talking about reductions um even talking about flexibility as um Mary talked about transfers I know some other districts are saying we've got a huge ltfm balance but it's locked in it's reserved we can't use that so we're going to cut teachers but we have this huge balance that we can't touch because it's reserved so we'll want to watch that as well um but that is the concern one of the things that was noted I think from m is that a lot of districts hopefully Levy that unemployment that's it's an important piece that takes care of that's that summer unemployment already cost was 71,000 that will continue to increase but as a local ly that means that there is no state aid that would just that $71,000 would be passed on to taxpayers if that's the direction they take sometimes it sounds pretty easy we'll just we'll let you Levy for that but it does come at cost as well if you aware of that so this session of the legislature will be very important to see how some of those things shape up right other questions or comments then we move on to our consent agenda we have a few items there uh we need to approve the meeting minutes for the November 20th and December 4th meeting you have those in your CET um we have to approve the final reading of the following statutory uh policies with the statutory and recommended divisions policy 704 policy 707 policy 708 policy 709 policy 710 and policy 906 as well as the following Personnel items leave request for Jessica Mueller and Har V hires of Elijah Wallace as a band teacher and the resignation of Ashley questions or comments on those items there a second all in favor say I I motion carries brings us to new business um accept the donations um we have the following donations uh elake Fire Relief Association $800 to change makers um Hoffman Lions $100 to copy poster Supply and West Central Area boosters $1,000 to wait room donation look for a motion to accept the resolution for donations and a second a roll call Porter syic yes sad yes and yes um item 6.2 is you approve the fiscal year 24 School distri Artic as presented by C lson Allen um any questions or comments additionally on that move to approve to approve is there a second second all in favor say I I motion carries um item 6.3 to certify the 2024 payable 2025 Levy for 2,753 n44 26 any comments questions for a motion to do that second all in favor say I I motion carries um and then we have the considering approve the increase in the district office assistant position you want to touch on that Mr BR sure absolutely so um we did do some interviews and uh I know we have a candidate who would be a successful candidate uh and but we also know there's some addition needs as we look to do some communication here over the course of the next year with our um you know with different pieces of communication that need do all our community task force we want to make sure that everybody's uh you know understanding that piece and so we believe there's some pieces there that uh could definitely be enhanced adding those extra 10 hours to that position to really home in on that marketing I know Maggie also sent me an email yesterday and just noted she said boy there's a lot more reporting though state with what they call EDI so it's our Mar student recording you would think that some of those things as technology gets better would become simpler they only become more complex and so it be an opportunity to also add some of those pieces in in there so um we did post the position at 20 hours the request is to go up to 30 to take care of those pieces um I think it can be offset because we know have business manager which is um at a fixed rate so that doesn't include any of those benefits they take care of it that way um so I think there is still some savings you know in regards to what we're paying what we would paid somebody inhouse compared to doing Outsourcing it that way of course we have less time that we have for somebody here that do all that work remotely but it is going to efficiently so the request is to go from 20 to 30 hours really to focus again on that marketing communication piece to get that out you know to make sure that's very clean as we move forward and then also to student management pieces with our student manag question on that I know that was one of our coal areas that we were working towards as well communication so I just have a comment that yeah I think as we look at the High Cost of operations that were experiencing and and the district overall we talked about the task force how do we deal with additional revenues to manage what we have or make improvements so this communication piece is a very critical so your efforts and trying to improve that acoss as many venues as we can you know there's so many so motion to approve I'll second that motion in a second all in favor say I motion carries um we have a school vehicle purchase discussion right yeah I was hoping I was going to be able to get Todd on here unfortunately he wasn't able to join this morning Todd mitsky so he and I did talk yesterday with Maggie and we again one of those other reserved accounts we have 7,000 in medical assistance we can use that to take care of special education staff members benefits we always have to be careful of Maintenance of effort we also want to make sure that we don't reimburse something that we would reduce state aid on that and so we did talk to Todd say we've got a fund balance there um Canen we which is not typical before I think Diane would always do some adjustments at the end of the year so get some coding pieces but Todd did recommend that we probably look at purchasing a van that's wheelchair accessible then we would transport our own students for that and then special ed could also use that if they need to take a day trip maybe they're going to go over to Fergus to do some shopping you know some life Ste shopping and things like that then our own staff are going to drive we're already paying them and the vehicle cost would be a lot less and then what we'll do is use that medical assistance but then again do a fine line because there's some reimbursement on school transportation purchases as well as long as that's completely in special so the one request is to get some prices on a van with a wheelchair accessible lift in there the second one is we've been talking about a school vehicle for a while we did did some prices the um Ford Expedition with the $61,000 and Yukon would be roughly $69,000 I was really hoping to get one of those transport bands but you just can't get those right now you those are the ones that I think I see when Brandon Evansville comes over to have other schools have them we've reached out but evidently the Amazon and those companies have all scooped those up and so they're not available but we are in the current Eon it's just under 70,000 miles on it of course the um Cavalier or Malibu that we have is really not able to be used anymore for student transportation so again something that we feel we have a need for um and then hopefully we can also maybe some of those smaller trips say instead of us paying our vendor to do that let's take care of that because that might be something an area that we look at immediately is to say should we just look at doing our own band transportation to figure out something there we did get some what I included in the packet was some financing that we did do from stock Growers Bank out of North Dakota they do quite a bit of work with that I did mention to Todd um that we do have three CDs remember two of those are expiring here in January he thinks that we should probably sit down as a finance commit and discuss that because we really only have in those CS roughly 375,000 on the audit it includes a little bit of our other Reserve in there to put us about 500 over 500,000 he said Paul he said you know he said I'm open the bo recognizes that you're not going to be so it's reserve for purchasing buses he said you're not going to get 12 buses for that so he said it might be time to look at that to say is there another area that we he said he could still be locked into Transportation but he said wanted to look at that his recommendation he said instead of paying fin charges if you got the money reserved in those CD one of those is coming up he said my recomendation would be to look at that January time period just to pay for whatever School vehicle that would get off the state pricing with the money there and then putting the rest into a different type of CD or something like that the residual so SK instead of paying that four 4 and a half% I think it was 4.4 4 half% you got the money it's already un Reserve comments discussion on that so what we'll do is I'll bring it to the January meeting and for approval we'll let the dealership know that we would be looking to those Vehicles ites four mons to get order to us so for January all our Sports sounds good uh just a note reminder that the uh next meeting will be January 6 Monday at 5:30 that'll be our organizational meeting and our regular committee meeting so um for those of you that are new to the board or will be new to the table at that time remember that that's a different date for normal for us and then uh we will set the rest of those dates for next year at that meeting as well so um there's nothing else for motion to ad second all in favor say I