Board of Education Meeting Summary

All right time to get started it is now 7 0 1 and I am reconvening to open session on calling to order the regular Board of Education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday November 18 2024 Michelle will you please call the roll Here. Ms. Demming? Present. Mr. Rising? Here. And Mr. Karubas? Here. We have a quorum. Mr. Karubas, will you lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So the board looks a little different tonight we had some absences so we invited some of our students to come and sit up with us that are on the advisory board or our regular presenters at the meeting so we're happy to have you up here so thank you Jasmine Tiana and Emily All right we have one board salute Mr. Karubas Illinois Music Education Association District 9 festivals The board salutes the 323 Indian Prairie student musicians who participated in this year's Illinois Music Education Association District 9 Festivals. 119 middle school students participated in the Junior Festival, 29 in band, 54 in choir, 49 in orchestra. 204 high school students represented Indian Prairie at the Senior Festival, 34 in band, 82 in choir, 56 in orchestra, 12 in the jazz band, and 20 in the jazz band. the vocal jazz ensemble our high school musicians were selected through a highly competitive audition process that included student musicians from approximately 50 West suburban high schools congratulations to our student musicians next we have our student representative report by Emily Shield from Waubonsie Valley High School Hello everyone, it's a pleasure to be here again. My name is Emily Shield and I'm here today to represent Waubonsie Valley High School. As a Warrior, I'm proud to report that our Waubonsie community continues to thrive and provide many outstanding experiences to our students. Clubs and activities are up and running. At most recent count, we have 1,132 students in clubs and activities. This is 42% of our student population. It's too early in the year for any final results, but we're confident that speech, scholastic bowl, and especially chess will have some strong seasons with state fans. finishers. We'll keep you posted. In terms of athletics, the Waubonsie Valley fall athletics season officially came to a close this past weekend as our girls swim and dive team competed in the IHSA state finals in Westmont. As a team, the girls finished 21st in state. The Warriors had two divers that finished top 10 in the state of Illinois. Lucia Caruso Jr. finished 8th and Ella Buchanauer, sophomore, finished 9th. The girls tennis team made history at Waubonsie Valley by winning their first ever IHSA sectional championship. and finished 20th in state. This 20th place finish is also the highest placed finish in school history. The girls cross-country team also made history at Waubonsie Valley, becoming the first state qualifying team in school history. The girls had a great season by finishing second in the DuPage Valley Conference, second at IHSA Regionals, fourth at IHSA Sectionals, and 20th at the IHSA State Meet. Our football team competed a competitive season by qualifying for the IHSA State Playoffs. This was the first playoff appearance for the Warriors since the fall of 2018. sophomore girls golfer golfer Mina Scheiman was IHSA regional champion in state qualifier and finished 19th overall in the state of Illinois the winter athletic season is up and running with the exception of boys swim and dive which begins their season next Monday November 25th the defending fourth and state girls basketball team begins their season at York high school tournament tonight in Elmhurst the Waubonsie Valley athletic department looks forward to an exciting winter season go warriors moving on to academics as you may be aware, Waubonsie Valley was recently rated in the top 25 high schools in Illinois by Niche. We are currently signing up our students to take their AP exams in May. November 1st was the deadline to register without incurring a late fee and also to withdraw from testing without being charged a fee. Students can register until March 1st for $140. For the Presidential Scholars Program, five CTE Presidential Scholars were nominated, along with ten for the General Presidential Scholars. We also have 14 National Merit Semi-Finalists that have entered the finalist competition. and 33 students that were commended by the National Merit Scholarship Program. For seniors and their families, FAFSA is expected to open on December 1st. We will have a FAFSA workshop led by ISAC on January 8th at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria. This is not a presentation, but a time to work on FAFSA with help from the experts. As a building, the Waubonsie Valley staff are working on three initiatives via the school improvement plan. They are executive functioning, disciplinary literacy, and student attendance. The instructional leadership team has targeted these initiatives based on feedback gathered last year from staff surveys, the five essential survey, and progress from a previous school improvement plan. That's all for the Waubonsie Valley report. Thank you, and as always, go Warriors. Thank you. Next up is our spotlight, and today it's going to be Matia Valli, and we will have a presentation from Allison Herr, Molly Owls. Oh sorry Waubonsee Valley Don't mess with the original Valley Molly Owls Ryan Van Campen and Laura McGarren I should have seen all of the Waubonsee Thank you Mr. Krupis for representing with the letterman's jacket All right, well thank you for having us here today to talk a little bit about our Career Connections program at Waubonsee. This is a program that we've developed over the past 13 years, and in that time we've had the opportunity to present at state and national conferences, to help other districts and schools develop their own Career Connections program. But I think what we're all collectively most proud of is the thousands of students that we've been able to impact through this program. And a big thing for us when we're looking at what Career Connections is, First we have to take a step back and say well why Career Connections in the first place and two common questions that you'll hear at Waubonsee Valley is what is something you're good at and what is something you love to do these are the first two questions that principal Stipp asked all of our students at eighth grade open house in January and then we'll repeat those throughout their years ending right before graduation when he'll ask them those same two questions our goal through the Career Connections program isn't to give students the answers to those questions but really to show them the realm of what's possible with a 204 education. Too many times students come in with a very limited knowledge of what career pathways are available to them. So our goal right away as freshmen is to introduce them really truly to what's possible here with a 204 diploma. So we really want students from the time they enter our doors at Waubonsee as freshmen to start looking at what their four years will look like. So we start with Achieve, and here we have our school links with interest inventories. We've set up a program in the Achieve activities that will help... kids really kind of look at what their interests are like Ryan was talking about what they love to do and how that ties into different skills and opportunities that they'll have in the future so once they've done some activities in Achieve then we set up the career fair where they get a broader vision of different careers that they can go into and then we narrow it down using our 16 state career clusters through panel presentations and here that they can choose through four days different careers that they specifically are interested in and then from there they they have a passport and they take that to their counselor meetings and here they look at their four-year plan so our hope really is to get kids to think about what is it that they're really interested in what they're good at what skills they need they've now heard from professionals on what type of opportunities that they can have that mesh with those skills and then of course kind of tie that into their course selection along the way so they can make better plans in that four years that they're at Waubonsee and really maximize the time that they're there before they get into the real world and their post-secondary endeavors We really take pride in that we train our students and our presenters before they go to The career fair, there is a section that we have in Achieve where we talk about that we will have people coming in from the community. How do you talk to a person that's coming in? What type of questions that you can ask? And so we've also talked with our presenters because a lot of times they haven't been in a high school for many years. And how do you talk to students who are freshmen who really aren't at the end of their career at Waubonsee? but at the beginning and so we want them to tailor their presentation so they can maximize that time so we've set up a pretty comprehensive connections website for our community we want this to be a win-win situation so that that they can talk to students about what skills they're looking for so when our kids go into the real world they're more prepared so we set up the night before and we make sure we have everything ready for that day to welcome our guests. We want them to come into our school and really enjoy the time that they're there and get to know our students too. At the career fair, throughout the day, there's a couple things that happen. In the morning, our students set up breakfast for our presenters. A lot of the pastries are typically made by our culinary students. Then as they're setting up their booths, we're getting them ready, making sure that everyone's comfortable. The students when they're walking around we typically have between 70 and 120 professionals that set up booths so probably right around 50 booths is kind of our goal for the day our freshmen achieve during our freshmen attend during their achieve period teachers typically will bring their classes down because we try to highlight who's going to be there and kind of what their expertise is and then from there we also have our our sophomore through seniors who also attend they attend because they've seen it in the past as a freshman and they want to continue to make those connections We do give our presenters a break during the day and we provide them lunch as well And that lunch is prepared by our catering students. We're trying to bring students into the planning process as much as possible So the last part of our career connections program is the panels, which is actually going on right now. We do it for over four days. There's 16 career clusters, and so there are four clusters a day that present. and professionals from the community. Each panel consists of generally two to three professionals. So the students during their achieve period get to choose of the four that day, which they want to go here present. And they sit in a room with those professionals. And And they talk all the way from where they started in high school. A lot of them talk about, like, the grades that they got, what they were interested in, and then all the way up to the career that they're doing right now out in the real world. And so the kids can, you know, hear from their personal experiences. It's really powerful for them. So, yeah, it's actually going on right now. We were Thursday, Friday, and today and tomorrow is our last day. So it's been pretty exciting. So these are, I'm not going to read these to you, but these are just a few quotes. We often give... surveys to our students after this is over and to the professionals that attended so these we just pulled a few quotes from them to spotlight the highlights that we feel is it's just really successful and fun we have a great time Thank you very much. I know our last meeting we had Matias, so that was on my mind. So thank you so much. This is a very important program for the students, and certainly I'm sure the students appreciate getting that insight, especially as freshmen on things that they need to work on or take to make sure that they pursue what they're interested in. So thank you so much for sharing. I'll just say one thing. I think Dr. Lee was visiting the program. last week he came back very excited about his conversations with the students so we know how important this really is He volunteered that first year Tonight we have no public comment so we will move to our consent agenda and superintendent report We will start with the superintendent report Dr. Talley Thank You Ms. Donahue members of the Board of Education and the Indian Prairie community I will start my comments with words of thanks to our entire community when I speak about our entire community I mean everyone who lives within the Indian Prairie catchment area on Tuesday November 5th our community overwhelmingly supported our bond referendum initiative with an unofficial election result of 74 percent Our community supported our safer, stronger 204 referendum. I believe the results reflect a community that trusts us in our ability to use the funds effectively. I believe the community believes in how we are. running the schools. I believe the community has a strong desire to ensure our students have the best possible for their success. I do not take these results lightly and none of us do. Rather, these results fuel my desire. to ensure we are as transparent as possible with our plans for enhancing our schools and addressing the capital needs of our district we will use the board of ed meetings and our website to share information about the construction work that is planned as early as this summer coming up work will begin on our schools with some of the work started and completed by the end of the summer other work however will take longer getting the results we did was not the work of one person person. I want to thank all who were involved from the YES 204 community committee to our Citizens Task Force to our unions, our administrators, our business partners and the Board of Education. They all played a role in making this referendum possible. We are all excited about the future and how our children will benefit. I want to correct something that was said last Board of Ed meeting by a person who spoke during public comments. The speaker mentioned that Fisher Middle School was below the state average in reading and math as measured by IAR. That comment was not answered. correct in fact Fisher Middle School is above the state average in both reading by seven percentage points and science by more than nine percentage points and it's almost one percentage point above the math state average to correct the misinformation because the wrong information does not respect the hard work of the staff at the school I know how hard the staff are working and to ensure student success over the weekend some students and families from Fisher and Hill middle school were able to take a trip to Fermilab for a Fermilab science and new exploration our families were able to explore the life science around the lab with various lab experts commission artists and residents, ecologists, hydrologists, environmental scientists, indigenous bison expert, and life science program leaders. Much thanks to Dr. Tara Bell and Ms. Beverly Matthews from Indian Prairie and Dr. Natalie Johnson from Fermilabs. As this is the last Board of Ed meeting before we have Thanksgiving, I will end my comments by wishing for all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for this Board of Education, for our staff, our students, and our community. please think about those who may be going through a difficult time and reach out to them if you can may all of you have a safe holiday I'll now turn it back over to Ms. Donahue Thank you those are very excellent words for Thanksgiving and for the results of the referendum that was a lot of hard work from lots and lots of people and we definitely appreciate the support from the community in approving that referendum so thank you to all I now need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through R Make a motion that the Board of Education approve consent agenda items D through R as presented Second Any discussion Michelle will you please call the roll Mr. Rising Yes Miss Demming Aye Mr. Karubas Yes And Miss Donahue Yes The motion passes Next we move to our action items I need a motion and a second to approve the professional services contract with our architect, White & Company, for summer 2025 work on secure vestibules and Waubonsie Valley's auditorium as presented. Make a motion. the board of education approved the professional services contract with our architect white and company for the summer 2025 work on secure vestibules at waubonsie valley auditorium as presented oh sorry secure vestibule and waubonsie valley auditorium as presented second any discussion Turn your mic on. Is that on? Yeah. Good evening members of the Board of Education as you know the community overwhelmingly supported the district's bond referendum on the November 5th 2024 ballot the referendum now authorizes the district to issue bonds up to 420 million dollars to fund capital needs throughout the district however each capital project still must be approved by the Board of Education in a manner consistent with state and federal laws and board policy this evening administration is recommending the board approve two professional service contracts with white and company for architectural services these are the first two contracts that will be funded with referendum dollars this is an exciting evening for the district during the informational campaign leading up to the referendum we articulated five priorities we would address following a successful referendum those areas were safety and security building infrastructure modernizing learning environments Comprehensive work to Waubonsie Valley High School, Hill Middle School and Gregory Middle School and finally creating operating efficiencies these two contracts being approved this evening directly impact some of these priority areas The first contract is to begin safety and security upgrades at 11 schools this summer. This work will include modernizing our front entryways and creating a secure front entrance, a full replacement of exterior doors and door hardware, improvement to access controls and other related work. The second contract is to renovate the Waubonsee Valley Auditorium. This will be the first step in the comprehensive work planned for Waubonsee Valley High School. This work will include upgrading theater seating, lighting, sound and acoustical upgrades, rigging and band shell improvements, and backstage improvements as well. Both of these agreements are consistent with the Master Services Agreement previously approved by the Board of Education. As presented to the Board in September, we are budgeting $40 million of projects to be completed this summer, and our team is already busy planning and preparing for this work. We expect to have several other contracts for Board approval over the next several months to cover improvements to district lighting, Flooring replacements mechanical systems HVAC systems parking lot and hardscaping projects as well as playgrounds in Addition to the regular updates at Board of Education meetings We will be continuing to host our safer stronger 204 website The website has transitioned from a site informing our community about the referendum proposal To a site informing the community about our progress and the forthcoming work I encourage community members to regularly visit the website for updates as we are excited to share our progress And with that, I am available if there are any questions on these two contracts. I just have a, so it's the vestibules and going back to Dr. talia's comments i want to just make sure that we're transparent transparent for the community so the first plan for the vestibules is it looks like 11 elementary schools um at a budget of 10 million dollars initially that's kind of what the thought there is okay and then the waubonsie auditorium a budget of five million dollars so both the auditorium and those 11 elementary schools is is the hope and the plan to have that that work done like it was said by the end of summer 2025 Correct these are projects that we intend to complete by summer of 2025 And as we learn more and you'll bring the bids to us for approval and that type of stuff when those go out to bid Correct so this is just the architectural services contract related to those two specific projects I would expect that by early winter January or February this year we'll have contracts for the for various construction services related to these projects One ask is on the on the website that we where we inform the community on what we're doing I think in addition to the physical work it would be nice to see some information about what is actually happening with the bonds as well you know we asked for 420 million in bonds but we're not taking out 420 million in bonds right away so I think it's important to say we borrowed this amount this year and we used it for this and there's still this amount left or some other way to present it like that so I think that we've said that message in many ways but I think there's a way to include it in the website that's informative thank you Anything else okay Michelle will you please call the roll Mr. Rising Yes Ms. Demming Aye Mr. Karubas Yes And Ms. Donahue Yes The motion passes We will now have a presentation from Matt Shipley regarding the tentative tax levy Good evening again Tonight we are presenting our tentative levy presentation this is an annual presentation that is part of the steps we take as a board and as an administration to present our annual tax levy to our community tonight's presentation is in line with strategic plan priority number four and board policy 4.30 revenue and investments Tonight's presentation I'll just give a brief overview of the property tax process. I'll go into detail and formally show our tentative levy request. This will be sort of in total and show the impact directly on the district of the of the proposed tentative levy next we'll show a little bit of information on what we anticipate this will impact the individual taxpayer obviously each taxpayers experience or impact will be a little different but this will show in general the taxpayer impact and then we will talk about the next steps required to formally adopt this levy so no action is being required or asked of the board this evening to adopt the levy we're merely presenting it as a discussion item that action will take place at a future Board of Education meeting so just want to briefly show the property tax process and the number of different organizations or entities involved in assessing and levying property taxes in the state of Illinois this is shown kind of as a general timeline and I think the the big takeaway is really that as a school district our only direct responsibility is to adopt a levy annually By the Board of Education and that is done on a calendar year basis and is required to be done by the last Tuesday in December with that said there are other units of government involved whether that's a township Assessor who assesses all properties in an area we actually have four different townships within our school district boundaries we have a county supervisor a level of county government which reviews those assessments and applies exemptions The state of Illinois is actually involved in the process with through a process known as equalization and then the county clerk and county treasurer are also involved in the back end with actually calculating the limiting rate for the district billing district taxpayers and ultimately collecting those funds and remitting them to the school district again the primary takeaway for this evening is that in a process that has a lot of different steps between before Taxes are ultimately levied and paid by our taxpayers the school district's primary responsibility is to adopt a levy annually just a few few updates on sort of the Assessment process exemption and process and other county updates Again, the district is not responsible for property assessment applying exemptions or administering any assessment challenges And we're also not responsible for billing or collections. However, we do want to make sure our taxpayers are aware of the entities that are responsible for these processes and so I would encourage any taxpayers with questions about their property to work directly with their assessor or with that appropriate county department again questions about property values or any exemptions are not something we can deal with as a school district we are aware of some general trends in that in that process and I'll start by kind of covering 2023 Which was a quadrennial reassessment year and that impacted the taxes paid in 2024 So taxes our taxpayers paid in June and September of this calendar year So as a as a reassessment year, which occurs once every four years Every property in both of our counties was viewed inspected and revalued by the township assessor Given the economic environment we're in that resulted in significant increases in assessed values and particularly in residential properties These assessments exceeded the increase in the district's tax levy which led to a decreased tax rate for taxpayers however because there were significant increases in residential values increases that generally exceeded what was seen on the commercial or industrial side this did see a shifting of tax burden towards residential property and we did have some residents in our area who saw some significant tax increases as a result of that again that's not a result of that necessarily of the levy of the district but in how that levy was spread out due to some significant property value increases in the prior year. In 2024, we are transitioning back to a standard revaluation year. So this is what's going to be impacting taxes paid in 2025 and the levy that we are going to ask you to approve next month. During 2024, a general factor is being applied to all property values based on current market conditions. but there's not going to be a significant revaluation or review of every single property in the district we do expect again to see significant increases in assessed values based on current market conditions however this should be applied more uniformly across all property types and across our geographic area so we should see experiences by individual taxpayers more consistent with with each other and finally we do expect this will result in a decreased tax rate again for Indian Prairie taxpayers and this should lead to the district's tax rate being the lowest it's been in over 15 years So with that as sort of our background, here's tonight's tentative levy request. We are requesting for the 2024 tax levy an operating fund levy of $347 million. This is approximately $15.1 million more than the prior year, or about 4.5% more. For the bond and interest fund, we are anticipating to levy the exact same amount that we extended in the prior year. So that's a 0% increase. the operating levy is tied to cpi which in 2023 was 3.4 percent and the district does receive an allowance for new property that that comes online so we real so that 4.54 percent is really 3.4 tied to cpi plus 1.1 percent tied to new property in the district the bond and interest levy i'll cover a little bit more on the next slide but as a reminder during the safer stronger 204 referendum campaign we did commit to a consistent debt service tax rate that amount will be finalized in december 2024 after we issue the first bond associated with that referendum and again as a reminder our levy is really just a request this will be adjusted down by the county once we know the final new property amount so again this looking at the debt service levy schedule with the remaining years covered from the prior bonds and just showing how our safer, stronger levy is going to interact with those new bonds. So a lot of the questions we received during our informational campaign regarding the referendum was, how would we be able to structure bonds to ensure that consistent tax amount or tax rate? So what we're showing here is that in the last calendar year, in 2023, we actually levied a little bit more than $27 million to pay debt service. In the current year, we levied $25.5 million, and that's scheduled to go down to $24.5 million. on the bonds that are currently outstanding our intention with the first issuance to be approved at the december 2nd board meeting is to issue a bond that's structured to have a payment of just over a million dollars for next year this would create a total amount again shown in the total column here of that that same amount as the current year and then we would look to do the same thing in in the 2026 calendar year Make sure that we're issuing bonds that are structured to have just under $10 million worth of payments Again create a consistent payment rate and at that point then the prior bonds will be fully paid off and we'll be able to focus on the new bonds Tied to the referendum again trying to keep that tax rate at or below the 37 cent rate that was communicated during the referendum I will just talk briefly on our justification for tonight's tentative tax levy as the board knows property taxes represent the largest and most consistent revenue source of the district representing 78 percent of our revenues the remaining sources of revenue are state and federal aid and those revenue sources are not consistent and they have not kept up with recent cost increases as you know the primary source of funding in the state of illinois for schools is illinois evidence-based funding The district's funding percentage is 85% so that is a recognition by the state that the district does not have all resources necessary to meet all EBF components. Therefore we do feel justified in continuing to extend the levy close to CPI so we continue to provide as close to an adequate level of funding as possible. I will disclose this evening that in accordance with State Act 102-0895 That on June 30th of 2024 we did have approximately $218 million of cash and investments on hand as the board knows this is after the first large property tax payment is received in June so this in some ways is an artificially high number for the district for most of the year our cash and investments balance is significantly lower with that said that amount was off partially offset by salaries and benefits payable accounts payable various construction commitments and other liabilities and we have assessed that that remaining balance was necessary to ensure adequate reserves and liquidity for the district so as mentioned just want to talk about the individual taxpayer impact that we're projecting as a result of this levy so we do project a declining tax rate from prior years with the total tax rate both operating and debt service being just above five five years ago in 2019 that rate was 5.36 so we've seen fairly significant decrease about a 7% decrease in the last five years alone And if we were to extend this out, this is the lowest tax rate we've seen since prior to the Great Recession So 15 16 plus years For a home with an assessed market value of $450,000, which is about the average home value in the district, we estimate taxpayers will see about a $215 increase in their total property tax payments or about a 3.16% increase. Again, the individual taxpayer impact will vary based on how an individual's property is reassessed, but we expect that variance to be within a narrower range than we saw in the prior year. Again, the remaining levy increase we... Thank you. asked for on the previous slide will be assessed on new property or adjusted down as part of the limiting rate adjustment and that's why we're levying 4.54 percent more but we're only showing a 3.16 percent increase on current taxpayers so the next steps for the formal adoption of this levy will occur at the december 16th board of education meeting we are recommending we do a public hearing at 7 pm to allow the public the opportunity to to provide comment on this levy and then we will follow that up with an action item later in the board meeting to formally adopt the levy after that is completed our office will file the levy with both dupage and will counties and that will make the levy official for the 2025 calendar year a couple other next steps or steps you'll see coming from the business office in the winter as we've previously mentioned we will look to adopt an amended budget as a result of the successful passage of our referendum And that budget will adjust the debt service levy and the debt service payments tied to the proposed bond issuance in December And then I'll be back here in February to present our five-year forecast as we begin planning for the 25-26 school year Again that's a school year that will substantially be funded by this property tax levy we will adopt next month So with that I'm available for any questions Thank you Mr. Karubas Thanks a very thorough presentation I enjoy where your the areas where you're heading one question is on administering assessment challenges on page five and this really isn't for Kind of the residential owner this is more from the district's perspective are we involved in Challenges where a commercial owner of a business challenges their assessment where Since we're a large stakeholder in their real estate tax payments Can you just tell me a little bit briefly about that The district does receive notice whenever there's a large property tax appeal The definition of large is over $100,000 so we receive those notifications we review that with our legal counsel to determine if a intervention is appropriate at this time we are not intervening in any of those assessment challenges that is something that if if the board would like us to maybe set different different thresholds or practices around we could review that I would say at this time when it's probably been several years since we've been involved in one we we don't have our concentration of commercial and industrial property tax payments is relatively low compared to some other districts I think there are some districts that have been involved in some significant challenges in litigation over the years but that's generally tied to you know a district where maybe you know 5% of their EAV is tied to one commercial property and I'm thinking of large commercial campuses power plants things like that Even though we don't intervene, there is the state's attorney's office or other governmental bodies that are involved to try to advocate for our interests. So we don't want to double up in trying to make sure that the revenue of the district, the tax burden, is appropriately spread throughout the district. I do think it is something to monitor. I don't know if the board needs to be involved, but I do think from a... state's attorney standpoint they're probably it's not a high priority item for them to You know negotiate Assessment challenges so I'd like for us to You know see if there's an opportunity maybe to negotiate with them or you know establish relationships with them a little bit more aggressively I've seen a few working through the the tax court and There might be some opportunities there. So I just bring it up as an item to investigate And then often we on another point often we hear about abatement of levies can you just speak briefly about that where some districts levy a higher amount and then end up abating that amount later why do they do that why aren't we doing that thoughts Sure there's There's a couple considerations when it comes to abatement and so I'll start kind of on the operating side so as a district that's subject to PTEL we are limited each year on how much we can levy to the consumer price index and so again for this year that was 3.4% if we were to levy less than 3.4% there's no real Consistent or guaranteed mechanism to ever get that back in the future so when you do not levy up to that full CPI You are potentially leaving that money on the table not just for the the next levy year but for for every levy year subsequent to that and so Districts that get to a point where they're considering that whether it's it's because they they feel like they're in a good enough financial position Or they're aware of challenges within their district that maybe would make sense to provide some savings to the taxpayer That's a really difficult decision because they're making a decision not just for that board that's sitting there there But in theory every board subsequent to that So one strategy that that's been used is that you do levy the full amount and then you come back and you abate a portion Of it or you you find a way to return the taxpayers a small portion of that levy back to the taxpayers and there are districts that have tried tried doing that one of our neighbors did that three or four years ago where they issued handwritten checks basically to every residential taxpayer in the district to try and refund a portion of that levy so that would be on the operating fund that would be one thing that's done the other one then is similar goal to not give up that that CPI increase each year there are districts that abate a portion of the bond and interest levy so because the bond and interest levy is is set through the actual bond issue you can abate a portion of that payment or all of that payment make that bond payment from fund balance or other funds on hand and then not have that bond payment be levied in that year and that is another year-to-year determination that doesn't have a potential long-term or multi-year impact on the district so that's sort of the rationale behind behind the strategy in some ways it is in either situation it's extra work and it's it's not as transparent as you know adopting a lower levy on the front end but that's that's sort of the rationale for it is to avoid that that PTEL implication And the reason we're not doing that is because we're not in enough of a good financial position where we can give up some of our levy because we are still underfunded from an adequacy standpoint right I think that's fair yes and that we did speak briefly but I'll reiterate as part of the levy justification we are a district that is underfunded by the state of Illinois adequacy percentage calculation I'll ask this but I'm pretty certain there aren't questions from our students on the text Any questions? Okay, Ms. Demming I appreciate the review because it is always really good to know that we ask for what we need. And to Member Karubas'point, slide 9 where as you indicated you shared with us you know as you walk through I think it's always prudent upon us to share with the to remind ourselves as well as the public where we stand from an EBF standpoint and that 85% is what we only are able to provide as suggested by the state so so many of the the school districts that you talked about it or mentioned when we talk about abatement have opportunities because they are able to provide at a much more adequacy rate than we are but just from a standpoint of sharing exactly what that means that 85% can you share with that just so that that we do remind the public of what that means Given the size of our district I mean it 85% in dollar terms does represent tens of millions of dollars that we are short in revenue each year compared to what the state would recognize we need to provide an adequate education to all students. So we are, in many cases, doing more with less than our peer districts and really districts across the state. We continue to be spending... over $2,000 below the state average on a spending per student number as well so what that means in our schools and looking at the expense side if you compare our how we use our funds compared to what EBF would recommend we do have higher class sizes than EBF would would manage we have some of the highest student to administrator levels in the state so we don't have necessarily the level of administration support that other districts have You know one of the areas that that we've identified as administration that would be a goal would be to increase our instructional coaches and some instructional specialist roles in our building so again struggling to provide some of that that support for our teachers and professional development for our teachers that that would be suggested or recommended as part of being fully funded so those are those are a few examples I'm sure there's many more where you do see a direct programming impact From being from being an underfunded district we do work hard to ensure that we're operating as efficient as possible where on the Support operations or operating end we're spending our money efficiently to ensure we can invest every Single dollar possible back in our students and back in our classrooms, but but the reality is there are there are some programming shortcomings because of that funding situation thank you and then um i just wanted to share i like slide eight really like how you show uh the calendar years levy and and you know everything that as uh where it's pertaining to so i think that's really beneficial for us as we look at the bond repayment schedule and just appreciate that so thank you very much and i think some of the things that you shared especially regarding ebf just help reinforce you know some of the grateful means that we are able to move forward in a safer stronger opportunities going forward thank you Mr Rising Go to slide 6 so right off the bat Property taxes suck in Illinois. Nobody likes them. And the reality of it is this year was a tough year as well with the quadrennial reassessment. and I got the letter in the mail too that my property taxes went up. And it's important to understand that a taxing body like the school district is tax capped of what we can raise the taxes. With this quadrennial reassessment, what happens is the assessor looks at what the assessor needs for all the taxing bodies, whether it's a city, a library, a park, a school district, whatever it is, the assessor looks at it and says, okay how am I going to get this money that I need what happens is is when businesses leave the burden of property taxes that the assessor needs falls to the residential So while the school district is tax capped of what we can raise, you might see your school district taxes go up more than what we are tax capped of what we can raise. That is not the school district. school district doesn't see that extra money the school district only sees of what their tax cap of what they can receive so I know that is a big misconception out there that I just kind of wanted to clarify because you know if If you go to the next slide, what you talked about, we're going to look at, you know, assessing a levy of 3.4%. That's CPI, right? So it has to be CPI or 5%, whichever is lower. There have been some years where CPI was over 5%, we could still only levy 5%. So when people look at their tax bill and they say, oh, the school district went up 10%. Well, we didn't see that 10%. We'll. only saw the 3.4 of which the school district levied so I think that's really important to mention because all The taxing bodies are talking about this right now. In fact, the city of Naperville just had a discussion last week and they love putting up this dollar bill that shows 76 percent or 76 cents of your dollar bill goes towards the school districts. Yeah and it stinks because Illinois, Illinois as a state funds education one of the worst in the country. They rely on residential property taxes to fund public schools. So we understand that and we understand that as a biggest portion of your property tax bill are the local schools. But I'll also make the argument that the public schools are the biggest reason that your property values are as high as they are because of the quality of our school district. So that kind of explains Why so much is funded by local property taxes? Because of the state of Illinois. And then we get into the adequate funding, which we talked about, all of us have talked about now, how our district is only 84-85% funded, while the district to the east of us is at 119% funded. So they have more money than they need, while we have less money than we need. Then you talk about inflation. School districts face inflation like all of us. So whether it's groceries, whether it's our electric bills, our heating bills, the school district faces that, but yet we can only levy CPI. And I guarantee our inflation has been a lot higher than CPI. So, you know, I just wanted to point out that we're looking at 3.4%. We're tax cap, if you go to slide nine then. You know, I remember when I first came on board, the state was about 15% of our revenue, and now it's down to 10%, which is interesting because the state has tried to put more money into education funding, but yet our reliance locally has actually gone up, and our money from the state, or percentage from the state, has actually gone down. So, yeah. Hopefully Illinois continues if all of us want our property taxes to be lower every time this comes up at the state level I always tell state legislators put more money into public education because that is going to help all the local school districts that you know with their with their funding and they don't have to be reliant as far as locally as much and then slide 10 This also came up in the City of Naperville's discussion how they talked about since 2016 they have lowered their tax rate. And how many years have you said we have consistently lowered our tax rate in 204? This is the lowest tax rate we've seen in about 15 years. So the school district has lowered the tax rate for 15 years. While yes we have levied the tax rate is lower than it's been in 15 years so you know I think that's important because this board for the time I've always been on has been extremely diligent with not you know spending in areas that are unnecessary to spend we have the lowest amount administrators in the state our class sizes even though we all all don't want our class sizes to be as large as they are we have class sizes and it's the reason why we spend so less money per student compared to the state average so I think we're doing a wonderful job I think we're doing right by our taxpayers we have wonderful schools that keep continuously improving the property values so you know I'm excited on the trajectory that we're at so thank you All right, thank you. Remind me what the levy was last year, the percentage. the levy percentage which is shown here was about 5.2 in total so that's the 4.82 operating levy and then the 37 cent debt service levy tax rate is sorry that was the 2023 tax rate was about 5.2 compared to the 3.4 is that the equivalent of the 3.4 that we're going to levy Okay, yeah, so two different pieces. So the tax rate last year was 5.2. That was after assessing a 5% CPI increase. So last year's CPI increase was tied to the 2022 CPI, which if you remember, we were still in significant inflation. We were actually capped to some of what Board Members Rising's comments were earlier. That was a year we were capped to 5%, so CPI had actually been above 5% that year. Right. Yeah, I'm glad that was mentioned because there were several, a couple years at least, that we were capped where inflation was higher than our cap at 5%. So, again, inflation costs us more. and we were experiencing high inflation but limited to only increasing our levy to 5%. So this year we're actually down with the amount that we're levying. One of the things that I thought... the community might be confused about is that you know we just went through this effort to get our referendum passed and we put all over the place no tax increase associated with that referendum and so now when they look at this they might go hey what was that so could you provide like a kind of a simple explanation about the difference and what was meant by that versus what we're seeing now sure so And we work closely with our communications team and our legal team to ensure that we were communicating our message as clear and concise as possible. With that said, it is reasonable to expect that there could be some confusion about that. So, again, our successful referendum was exclusively a capital levy. And so that is... exclusively talking about the bond and interest levy and so if we we look at here the bond and interest levy in 2023 we extended 25.5 million that is what we are targeting to levy for next year as well so that portion of the levy we are showing and it is shown here on slide 7 as a no tax increase and no tax rate increase referendum amount the operating rate again was not impacted at all by the referendum we did if you remember in the spring we did did some polling and some preliminary survey data and and the community was did not want to necessarily look at an operating referendum and so that operating referendum was excuse me that operating levy was not included as part of the referendum question at all and that amount as a result is continuing to follow the ptel language or what's set up by the state of Illinois as statute and so that's again what's shown here in the total levy and again I'll point out that we did say it would be we would be targeting a 37 cent tax rate again the same tax rate that we saw in the current calendar year we do project that that tax rate will actually go below 37 cents next year so I would assume taxpayers will not be disappointed that we're actually going lower with the tax rate but yeah that is lower than even what we were presenting as part of our informational campaign I thank you for the information it is important that people really look at this and recognize the information and understand the difference between what was discussed with the referendum versus our levy and I wouldn't be surprised if we do get some questions about that but so thank you for that information and thank you for the presentation tonight All right so our next agenda item is legislative advocacy and Board of Education update does anyone have any items we have our conference this weekend the Illinois Association of School boards we have several presentations Mr. Rising is presenting on a panel we have our panel that our district is sponsoring and we will be actively involved in all sorts of new training that we will bring back the benefits for our community by attending so Did we need to make an official determination at our last board meeting regarding to direct member Fosdick Yes We did? Well we we elected her for our representative and in the consent agenda tonight we had Okay resolutions or whatever Okay All right so anything else all right I need a motion to adjourn Motion to adjourn Second All in favor aye any opposed okay thank you Thank you ladies

And Mr. Karubas? Here. We have a quorum.

Mr. Karubas, will you lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So the board looks a little different tonight we had some absences so we invited some of our students to come and sit up with us that are on the advisory board or our regular presenters at the meeting so we're happy to have you up here so thank you Jasmine Tiana and Emily All right we have one board salute Mr. Karubas Illinois Music Education Association District 9 festivals The board salutes the 323 Indian Prairie student musicians who participated in this year's Illinois Music Education Association District 9 Festivals.

119 middle school students participated in the Junior Festival, 29 in band, 54 in choir, 49 in orchestra. 204 high school students represented Indian Prairie at the Senior Festival, 34 in band, 82 in choir, 56 in orchestra, 12 in the jazz band, and 20 in the jazz band. the vocal jazz ensemble our high school musicians were selected through a highly competitive audition process that included student musicians from approximately 50 West suburban high schools congratulations to our student musicians next we have our student representative report by Emily Shield from Waubonsie Valley High School Hello everyone, it's a pleasure to be here again.

My name is Emily Shield and I'm here today to represent Waubonsie Valley High School. As a Warrior, I'm proud to report that our Waubonsie community continues to thrive and provide many outstanding experiences to our students. Clubs and activities are up and running. At most recent count, we have 1,132 students in clubs and activities.

This is 42% of our student population. It's too early in the year for any final results, but we're confident that speech, scholastic bowl, and especially chess will have some strong seasons with state fans. finishers.

We'll keep you posted. In terms of athletics, the Waubonsie Valley fall athletics season officially came to a close this past weekend as our girls swim and dive team competed in the IHSA state finals in Westmont. As a team, the girls finished 21st in state.

The Warriors had two divers that finished top 10 in the state of Illinois. Lucia Caruso Jr. finished 8th and Ella Buchanauer, sophomore, finished 9th. The girls tennis team made history at Waubonsie Valley by winning their first ever IHSA sectional championship.

and finished 20th in state. This 20th place finish is also the highest placed finish in school history. The girls cross-country team also made history at Waubonsie Valley, becoming the first state qualifying team in school history.

The girls had a great season by finishing second in the DuPage Valley Conference, second at IHSA Regionals, fourth at IHSA Sectionals, and 20th at the IHSA State Meet. Our football team competed a competitive season by qualifying for the IHSA State Playoffs. This was the first playoff appearance for the Warriors since the fall of 2018. sophomore girls golfer golfer Mina Scheiman was IHSA regional champion in state qualifier and finished 19th overall in the state of Illinois the winter athletic season is up and running with the exception of boys swim and dive which begins their season next Monday November 25th the defending fourth and state girls basketball team begins their season at York high school tournament tonight in Elmhurst the Waubonsie Valley athletic department looks forward to an exciting winter season go warriors moving on to academics as you may be aware, Waubonsie Valley was recently rated in the top 25 high schools in Illinois by Niche. We are currently signing up our students to take their AP exams in May.

November 1st was the deadline to register without incurring a late fee and also to withdraw from testing without being charged a fee. Students can register until March 1st for $140. For the Presidential Scholars Program, five CTE Presidential Scholars were nominated, along with ten for the General Presidential Scholars.

We also have 14 National Merit Semi-Finalists that have entered the finalist competition. and 33 students that were commended by the National Merit Scholarship Program. For seniors and their families, FAFSA is expected to open on December 1st.

We will have a FAFSA workshop led by ISAC on January 8th at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria. This is not a presentation, but a time to work on FAFSA with help from the experts.

As a building, the Waubonsie Valley staff are working on three initiatives via the school improvement plan. They are executive functioning, disciplinary literacy, and student attendance. The instructional leadership team has targeted these initiatives based on feedback gathered last year from staff surveys, the five essential survey, and progress from a previous school improvement plan.

That's all for the Waubonsie Valley report. Thank you, and as always, go Warriors. Thank you.

Next up is our spotlight, and today it's going to be Matia Valli, and we will have a presentation from Allison Herr, Molly Owls. Oh sorry Waubonsee Valley Don't mess with the original Valley Molly Owls Ryan Van Campen and Laura McGarren I should have seen all of the Waubonsee Thank you Mr. Krupis for representing with the letterman's jacket All right, well thank you for having us here today to talk a little bit about our Career Connections program at Waubonsee. This is a program that we've developed over the past 13 years, and in that time we've had the opportunity to present at state and national conferences, to help other districts and schools develop their own Career Connections program.

But I think what we're all collectively most proud of is the thousands of students that we've been able to impact through this program. And a big thing for us when we're looking at what Career Connections is, First we have to take a step back and say well why Career Connections in the first place and two common questions that you'll hear at Waubonsee Valley is what is something you're good at and what is something you love to do these are the first two questions that principal Stipp asked all of our students at eighth grade open house in January and then we'll repeat those throughout their years ending right before graduation when he'll ask them those same two questions our goal through the Career Connections program isn't to give students the answers to those questions but really to show them the realm of what's possible with a 204 education. Too many times students come in with a very limited knowledge of what career pathways are available to them.

So our goal right away as freshmen is to introduce them really truly to what's possible here with a 204 diploma. So we really want students from the time they enter our doors at Waubonsee as freshmen to start looking at what their four years will look like. So we start with Achieve, and here we have our school links with interest inventories.

We've set up a program in the Achieve activities that will help... kids really kind of look at what their interests are like Ryan was talking about what they love to do and how that ties into different skills and opportunities that they'll have in the future so once they've done some activities in Achieve then we set up the career fair where they get a broader vision of different careers that they can go into and then we narrow it down using our 16 state career clusters through panel presentations and here that they can choose through four days different careers that they specifically are interested in and then from there they they have a passport and they take that to their counselor meetings and here they look at their four-year plan so our hope really is to get kids to think about what is it that they're really interested in what they're good at what skills they need they've now heard from professionals on what type of opportunities that they can have that mesh with those skills and then of course kind of tie that into their course selection along the way so they can make better plans in that four years that they're at Waubonsee and really maximize the time that they're there before they get into the real world and their post-secondary endeavors We really take pride in that we train our students and our presenters before they go to The career fair, there is a section that we have in Achieve where we talk about that we will have people coming in from the community. How do you talk to a person that's coming in?

What type of questions that you can ask? And so we've also talked with our presenters because a lot of times they haven't been in a high school for many years. And how do you talk to students who are freshmen who really aren't at the end of their career at Waubonsee? but at the beginning and so we want them to tailor their presentation so they can maximize that time so we've set up a pretty comprehensive connections website for our community we want this to be a win-win situation so that that they can talk to students about what skills they're looking for so when our kids go into the real world they're more prepared so we set up the night before and we make sure we have everything ready for that day to welcome our guests. We want them to come into our school and really enjoy the time that they're there and get to know our students too.

At the career fair, throughout the day, there's a couple things that happen. In the morning, our students set up breakfast for our presenters. A lot of the pastries are typically made by our culinary students.

Then as they're setting up their booths, we're getting them ready, making sure that everyone's comfortable. The students when they're walking around we typically have between 70 and 120 professionals that set up booths so probably right around 50 booths is kind of our goal for the day our freshmen achieve during our freshmen attend during their achieve period teachers typically will bring their classes down because we try to highlight who's going to be there and kind of what their expertise is and then from there we also have our our sophomore through seniors who also attend they attend because they've seen it in the past as a freshman and they want to continue to make those connections We do give our presenters a break during the day and we provide them lunch as well And that lunch is prepared by our catering students. We're trying to bring students into the planning process as much as possible So the last part of our career connections program is the panels, which is actually going on right now.

We do it for over four days. There's 16 career clusters, and so there are four clusters a day that present. and professionals from the community. Each panel consists of generally two to three professionals. So the students during their achieve period get to choose of the four that day, which they want to go here present.

And they sit in a room with those professionals. And And they talk all the way from where they started in high school. A lot of them talk about, like, the grades that they got, what they were interested in, and then all the way up to the career that they're doing right now out in the real world.

And so the kids can, you know, hear from their personal experiences. It's really powerful for them. So, yeah, it's actually going on right now. We were Thursday, Friday, and today and tomorrow is our last day. So it's been pretty exciting.

So these are, I'm not going to read these to you, but these are just a few quotes. We often give... surveys to our students after this is over and to the professionals that attended so these we just pulled a few quotes from them to spotlight the highlights that we feel is it's just really successful and fun we have a great time Thank you very much. I know our last meeting we had Matias, so that was on my mind.

So thank you so much. This is a very important program for the students, and certainly I'm sure the students appreciate getting that insight, especially as freshmen on things that they need to work on or take to make sure that they pursue what they're interested in. So thank you so much for sharing. I'll just say one thing. I think Dr. Lee was visiting the program.

last week he came back very excited about his conversations with the students so we know how important this really is He volunteered that first year Tonight we have no public comment so we will move to our consent agenda and superintendent report We will start with the superintendent report Dr. Talley Thank You Ms. Donahue members of the Board of Education and the Indian Prairie community I will start my comments with words of thanks to our entire community when I speak about our entire community I mean everyone who lives within the Indian Prairie catchment area on Tuesday November 5th our community overwhelmingly supported our bond referendum initiative with an unofficial election result of 74 percent Our community supported our safer, stronger 204 referendum. I believe the results reflect a community that trusts us in our ability to use the funds effectively. I believe the community believes in how we are.

running the schools. I believe the community has a strong desire to ensure our students have the best possible for their success. I do not take these results lightly and none of us do.

Rather, these results fuel my desire. to ensure we are as transparent as possible with our plans for enhancing our schools and addressing the capital needs of our district we will use the board of ed meetings and our website to share information about the construction work that is planned as early as this summer coming up work will begin on our schools with some of the work started and completed by the end of the summer other work however will take longer getting the results we did was not the work of one person person. I want to thank all who were involved from the YES 204 community committee to our Citizens Task Force to our unions, our administrators, our business partners and the Board of Education.

They all played a role in making this referendum possible. We are all excited about the future and how our children will benefit. I want to correct something that was said last Board of Ed meeting by a person who spoke during public comments. The speaker mentioned that Fisher Middle School was below the state average in reading and math as measured by IAR. That comment was not answered.

correct in fact Fisher Middle School is above the state average in both reading by seven percentage points and science by more than nine percentage points and it's almost one percentage point above the math state average to correct the misinformation because the wrong information does not respect the hard work of the staff at the school I know how hard the staff are working and to ensure student success over the weekend some students and families from Fisher and Hill middle school were able to take a trip to Fermilab for a Fermilab science and new exploration our families were able to explore the life science around the lab with various lab experts commission artists and residents, ecologists, hydrologists, environmental scientists, indigenous bison expert, and life science program leaders. Much thanks to Dr. Tara Bell and Ms. Beverly Matthews from Indian Prairie and Dr. Natalie Johnson from Fermilabs. As this is the last Board of Ed meeting before we have Thanksgiving, I will end my comments by wishing for all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for this Board of Education, for our staff, our students, and our community.

please think about those who may be going through a difficult time and reach out to them if you can may all of you have a safe holiday I'll now turn it back over to Ms. Donahue Thank you those are very excellent words for Thanksgiving and for the results of the referendum that was a lot of hard work from lots and lots of people and we definitely appreciate the support from the community in approving that referendum so thank you to all I now need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through R Make a motion that the Board of Education approve consent agenda items D through R as presented Second Any discussion Michelle will you please call the roll Mr. Rising Yes Miss Demming Aye Mr. Karubas Yes And Miss Donahue Yes The motion passes Next we move to our action items I need a motion and a second to approve the professional services contract with our architect, White & Company, for summer 2025 work on secure vestibules and Waubonsie Valley's auditorium as presented. Make a motion. the board of education approved the professional services contract with our architect white and company for the summer 2025 work on secure vestibules at waubonsie valley auditorium as presented oh sorry secure vestibule and waubonsie valley auditorium as presented second any discussion Turn your mic on. Is that on? Yeah.

Good evening members of the Board of Education as you know the community overwhelmingly supported the district's bond referendum on the November 5th 2024 ballot the referendum now authorizes the district to issue bonds up to 420 million dollars to fund capital needs throughout the district however each capital project still must be approved by the Board of Education in a manner consistent with state and federal laws and board policy this evening administration is recommending the board approve two professional service contracts with white and company for architectural services these are the first two contracts that will be funded with referendum dollars this is an exciting evening for the district during the informational campaign leading up to the referendum we articulated five priorities we would address following a successful referendum those areas were safety and security building infrastructure modernizing learning environments Comprehensive work to Waubonsie Valley High School, Hill Middle School and Gregory Middle School and finally creating operating efficiencies these two contracts being approved this evening directly impact some of these priority areas The first contract is to begin safety and security upgrades at 11 schools this summer. This work will include modernizing our front entryways and creating a secure front entrance, a full replacement of exterior doors and door hardware, improvement to access controls and other related work. The second contract is to renovate the Waubonsee Valley Auditorium. This will be the first step in the comprehensive work planned for Waubonsee Valley High School. This work will include upgrading theater seating, lighting, sound and acoustical upgrades, rigging and band shell improvements, and backstage improvements as well.

Both of these agreements are consistent with the Master Services Agreement previously approved by the Board of Education. As presented to the Board in September, we are budgeting $40 million of projects to be completed this summer, and our team is already busy planning and preparing for this work. We expect to have several other contracts for Board approval over the next several months to cover improvements to district lighting, Flooring replacements mechanical systems HVAC systems parking lot and hardscaping projects as well as playgrounds in Addition to the regular updates at Board of Education meetings We will be continuing to host our safer stronger 204 website The website has transitioned from a site informing our community about the referendum proposal To a site informing the community about our progress and the forthcoming work I encourage community members to regularly visit the website for updates as we are excited to share our progress And with that, I am available if there are any questions on these two contracts.

I just have a, so it's the vestibules and going back to Dr. talia's comments i want to just make sure that we're transparent transparent for the community so the first plan for the vestibules is it looks like 11 elementary schools um at a budget of 10 million dollars initially that's kind of what the thought there is okay and then the waubonsie auditorium a budget of five million dollars so both the auditorium and those 11 elementary schools is is the hope and the plan to have that that work done like it was said by the end of summer 2025 Correct these are projects that we intend to complete by summer of 2025 And as we learn more and you'll bring the bids to us for approval and that type of stuff when those go out to bid Correct so this is just the architectural services contract related to those two specific projects I would expect that by early winter January or February this year we'll have contracts for the for various construction services related to these projects One ask is on the on the website that we where we inform the community on what we're doing I think in addition to the physical work it would be nice to see some information about what is actually happening with the bonds as well you know we asked for 420 million in bonds but we're not taking out 420 million in bonds right away so I think it's important to say we borrowed this amount this year and we used it for this and there's still this amount left or some other way to present it like that so I think that we've said that message in many ways but I think there's a way to include it in the website that's informative thank you Anything else okay Michelle will you please call the roll Mr. Rising Yes Ms. Demming Aye Mr. Karubas Yes And Ms. Donahue Yes The motion passes We will now have a presentation from Matt Shipley regarding the tentative tax levy Good evening again Tonight we are presenting our tentative levy presentation this is an annual presentation that is part of the steps we take as a board and as an administration to present our annual tax levy to our community tonight's presentation is in line with strategic plan priority number four and board policy 4.30 revenue and investments Tonight's presentation I'll just give a brief overview of the property tax process. I'll go into detail and formally show our tentative levy request. This will be sort of in total and show the impact directly on the district of the of the proposed tentative levy next we'll show a little bit of information on what we anticipate this will impact the individual taxpayer obviously each taxpayers experience or impact will be a little different but this will show in general the taxpayer impact and then we will talk about the next steps required to formally adopt this levy so no action is being required or asked of the board this evening to adopt the levy we're merely presenting it as a discussion item that action will take place at a future Board of Education meeting so just want to briefly show the property tax process and the number of different organizations or entities involved in assessing and levying property taxes in the state of Illinois this is shown kind of as a general timeline and I think the the big takeaway is really that as a school district our only direct responsibility is to adopt a levy annually By the Board of Education and that is done on a calendar year basis and is required to be done by the last Tuesday in December with that said there are other units of government involved whether that's a township Assessor who assesses all properties in an area we actually have four different townships within our school district boundaries we have a county supervisor a level of county government which reviews those assessments and applies exemptions The state of Illinois is actually involved in the process with through a process known as equalization and then the county clerk and county treasurer are also involved in the back end with actually calculating the limiting rate for the district billing district taxpayers and ultimately collecting those funds and remitting them to the school district again the primary takeaway for this evening is that in a process that has a lot of different steps between before Taxes are ultimately levied and paid by our taxpayers the school district's primary responsibility is to adopt a levy annually just a few few updates on sort of the Assessment process exemption and process and other county updates Again, the district is not responsible for property assessment applying exemptions or administering any assessment challenges And we're also not responsible for billing or collections.

However, we do want to make sure our taxpayers are aware of the entities that are responsible for these processes and so I would encourage any taxpayers with questions about their property to work directly with their assessor or with that appropriate county department again questions about property values or any exemptions are not something we can deal with as a school district we are aware of some general trends in that in that process and I'll start by kind of covering 2023 Which was a quadrennial reassessment year and that impacted the taxes paid in 2024 So taxes our taxpayers paid in June and September of this calendar year So as a as a reassessment year, which occurs once every four years Every property in both of our counties was viewed inspected and revalued by the township assessor Given the economic environment we're in that resulted in significant increases in assessed values and particularly in residential properties These assessments exceeded the increase in the district's tax levy which led to a decreased tax rate for taxpayers however because there were significant increases in residential values increases that generally exceeded what was seen on the commercial or industrial side this did see a shifting of tax burden towards residential property and we did have some residents in our area who saw some significant tax increases as a result of that again that's not a result of that necessarily of the levy of the district but in how that levy was spread out due to some significant property value increases in the prior year. In 2024, we are transitioning back to a standard revaluation year. So this is what's going to be impacting taxes paid in 2025 and the levy that we are going to ask you to approve next month. During 2024, a general factor is being applied to all property values based on current market conditions. but there's not going to be a significant revaluation or review of every single property in the district we do expect again to see significant increases in assessed values based on current market conditions however this should be applied more uniformly across all property types and across our geographic area so we should see experiences by individual taxpayers more consistent with with each other and finally we do expect this will result in a decreased tax rate again for Indian Prairie taxpayers and this should lead to the district's tax rate being the lowest it's been in over 15 years So with that as sort of our background, here's tonight's tentative levy request.

We are requesting for the 2024 tax levy an operating fund levy of $347 million. This is approximately $15.1 million more than the prior year, or about 4.5% more. For the bond and interest fund, we are anticipating to levy the exact same amount that we extended in the prior year.

So that's a 0% increase. the operating levy is tied to cpi which in 2023 was 3.4 percent and the district does receive an allowance for new property that that comes online so we real so that 4.54 percent is really 3.4 tied to cpi plus 1.1 percent tied to new property in the district the bond and interest levy i'll cover a little bit more on the next slide but as a reminder during the safer stronger 204 referendum campaign we did commit to a consistent debt service tax rate that amount will be finalized in december 2024 after we issue the first bond associated with that referendum and again as a reminder our levy is really just a request this will be adjusted down by the county once we know the final new property amount so again this looking at the debt service levy schedule with the remaining years covered from the prior bonds and just showing how our safer, stronger levy is going to interact with those new bonds. So a lot of the questions we received during our informational campaign regarding the referendum was, how would we be able to structure bonds to ensure that consistent tax amount or tax rate? So what we're showing here is that in the last calendar year, in 2023, we actually levied a little bit more than $27 million to pay debt service.

In the current year, we levied $25.5 million, and that's scheduled to go down to $24.5 million. on the bonds that are currently outstanding our intention with the first issuance to be approved at the december 2nd board meeting is to issue a bond that's structured to have a payment of just over a million dollars for next year this would create a total amount again shown in the total column here of that that same amount as the current year and then we would look to do the same thing in in the 2026 calendar year Make sure that we're issuing bonds that are structured to have just under $10 million worth of payments Again create a consistent payment rate and at that point then the prior bonds will be fully paid off and we'll be able to focus on the new bonds Tied to the referendum again trying to keep that tax rate at or below the 37 cent rate that was communicated during the referendum I will just talk briefly on our justification for tonight's tentative tax levy as the board knows property taxes represent the largest and most consistent revenue source of the district representing 78 percent of our revenues the remaining sources of revenue are state and federal aid and those revenue sources are not consistent and they have not kept up with recent cost increases as you know the primary source of funding in the state of illinois for schools is illinois evidence-based funding The district's funding percentage is 85% so that is a recognition by the state that the district does not have all resources necessary to meet all EBF components. Therefore we do feel justified in continuing to extend the levy close to CPI so we continue to provide as close to an adequate level of funding as possible. I will disclose this evening that in accordance with State Act 102-0895 That on June 30th of 2024 we did have approximately $218 million of cash and investments on hand as the board knows this is after the first large property tax payment is received in June so this in some ways is an artificially high number for the district for most of the year our cash and investments balance is significantly lower with that said that amount was off partially offset by salaries and benefits payable accounts payable various construction commitments and other liabilities and we have assessed that that remaining balance was necessary to ensure adequate reserves and liquidity for the district so as mentioned just want to talk about the individual taxpayer impact that we're projecting as a result of this levy so we do project a declining tax rate from prior years with the total tax rate both operating and debt service being just above five five years ago in 2019 that rate was 5.36 so we've seen fairly significant decrease about a 7% decrease in the last five years alone And if we were to extend this out, this is the lowest tax rate we've seen since prior to the Great Recession So 15 16 plus years For a home with an assessed market value of $450,000, which is about the average home value in the district, we estimate taxpayers will see about a $215 increase in their total property tax payments or about a 3.16% increase. Again, the individual taxpayer impact will vary based on how an individual's property is reassessed, but we expect that variance to be within a narrower range than we saw in the prior year.

Again, the remaining levy increase we... Thank you. asked for on the previous slide will be assessed on new property or adjusted down as part of the limiting rate adjustment and that's why we're levying 4.54 percent more but we're only showing a 3.16 percent increase on current taxpayers so the next steps for the formal adoption of this levy will occur at the december 16th board of education meeting we are recommending we do a public hearing at 7 pm to allow the public the opportunity to to provide comment on this levy and then we will follow that up with an action item later in the board meeting to formally adopt the levy after that is completed our office will file the levy with both dupage and will counties and that will make the levy official for the 2025 calendar year a couple other next steps or steps you'll see coming from the business office in the winter as we've previously mentioned we will look to adopt an amended budget as a result of the successful passage of our referendum And that budget will adjust the debt service levy and the debt service payments tied to the proposed bond issuance in December And then I'll be back here in February to present our five-year forecast as we begin planning for the 25-26 school year Again that's a school year that will substantially be funded by this property tax levy we will adopt next month So with that I'm available for any questions Thank you Mr. Karubas Thanks a very thorough presentation I enjoy where your the areas where you're heading one question is on administering assessment challenges on page five and this really isn't for Kind of the residential owner this is more from the district's perspective are we involved in Challenges where a commercial owner of a business challenges their assessment where Since we're a large stakeholder in their real estate tax payments Can you just tell me a little bit briefly about that The district does receive notice whenever there's a large property tax appeal The definition of large is over $100,000 so we receive those notifications we review that with our legal counsel to determine if a intervention is appropriate at this time we are not intervening in any of those assessment challenges that is something that if if the board would like us to maybe set different different thresholds or practices around we could review that I would say at this time when it's probably been several years since we've been involved in one we we don't have our concentration of commercial and industrial property tax payments is relatively low compared to some other districts I think there are some districts that have been involved in some significant challenges in litigation over the years but that's generally tied to you know a district where maybe you know 5% of their EAV is tied to one commercial property and I'm thinking of large commercial campuses power plants things like that Even though we don't intervene, there is the state's attorney's office or other governmental bodies that are involved to try to advocate for our interests.

So we don't want to double up in trying to make sure that the revenue of the district, the tax burden, is appropriately spread throughout the district. I do think it is something to monitor. I don't know if the board needs to be involved, but I do think from a...

state's attorney standpoint they're probably it's not a high priority item for them to You know negotiate Assessment challenges so I'd like for us to You know see if there's an opportunity maybe to negotiate with them or you know establish relationships with them a little bit more aggressively I've seen a few working through the the tax court and There might be some opportunities there. So I just bring it up as an item to investigate And then often we on another point often we hear about abatement of levies can you just speak briefly about that where some districts levy a higher amount and then end up abating that amount later why do they do that why aren't we doing that thoughts Sure there's There's a couple considerations when it comes to abatement and so I'll start kind of on the operating side so as a district that's subject to PTEL we are limited each year on how much we can levy to the consumer price index and so again for this year that was 3.4% if we were to levy less than 3.4% there's no real Consistent or guaranteed mechanism to ever get that back in the future so when you do not levy up to that full CPI You are potentially leaving that money on the table not just for the the next levy year but for for every levy year subsequent to that and so Districts that get to a point where they're considering that whether it's it's because they they feel like they're in a good enough financial position Or they're aware of challenges within their district that maybe would make sense to provide some savings to the taxpayer That's a really difficult decision because they're making a decision not just for that board that's sitting there there But in theory every board subsequent to that So one strategy that that's been used is that you do levy the full amount and then you come back and you abate a portion Of it or you you find a way to return the taxpayers a small portion of that levy back to the taxpayers and there are districts that have tried tried doing that one of our neighbors did that three or four years ago where they issued handwritten checks basically to every residential taxpayer in the district to try and refund a portion of that levy so that would be on the operating fund that would be one thing that's done the other one then is similar goal to not give up that that CPI increase each year there are districts that abate a portion of the bond and interest levy so because the bond and interest levy is is set through the actual bond issue you can abate a portion of that payment or all of that payment make that bond payment from fund balance or other funds on hand and then not have that bond payment be levied in that year and that is another year-to-year determination that doesn't have a potential long-term or multi-year impact on the district so that's sort of the rationale behind behind the strategy in some ways it is in either situation it's extra work and it's it's not as transparent as you know adopting a lower levy on the front end but that's that's sort of the rationale for it is to avoid that that PTEL implication And the reason we're not doing that is because we're not in enough of a good financial position where we can give up some of our levy because we are still underfunded from an adequacy standpoint right I think that's fair yes and that we did speak briefly but I'll reiterate as part of the levy justification we are a district that is underfunded by the state of Illinois adequacy percentage calculation I'll ask this but I'm pretty certain there aren't questions from our students on the text Any questions? Okay, Ms. Demming I appreciate the review because it is always really good to know that we ask for what we need.

And to Member Karubas'point, slide 9 where as you indicated you shared with us you know as you walk through I think it's always prudent upon us to share with the to remind ourselves as well as the public where we stand from an EBF standpoint and that 85% is what we only are able to provide as suggested by the state so so many of the the school districts that you talked about it or mentioned when we talk about abatement have opportunities because they are able to provide at a much more adequacy rate than we are but just from a standpoint of sharing exactly what that means that 85% can you share with that just so that that we do remind the public of what that means Given the size of our district I mean it 85% in dollar terms does represent tens of millions of dollars that we are short in revenue each year compared to what the state would recognize we need to provide an adequate education to all students. So we are, in many cases, doing more with less than our peer districts and really districts across the state. We continue to be spending...

over $2,000 below the state average on a spending per student number as well so what that means in our schools and looking at the expense side if you compare our how we use our funds compared to what EBF would recommend we do have higher class sizes than EBF would would manage we have some of the highest student to administrator levels in the state so we don't have necessarily the level of administration support that other districts have You know one of the areas that that we've identified as administration that would be a goal would be to increase our instructional coaches and some instructional specialist roles in our building so again struggling to provide some of that that support for our teachers and professional development for our teachers that that would be suggested or recommended as part of being fully funded so those are those are a few examples I'm sure there's many more where you do see a direct programming impact From being from being an underfunded district we do work hard to ensure that we're operating as efficient as possible where on the Support operations or operating end we're spending our money efficiently to ensure we can invest every Single dollar possible back in our students and back in our classrooms, but but the reality is there are there are some programming shortcomings because of that funding situation thank you and then um i just wanted to share i like slide eight really like how you show uh the calendar years levy and and you know everything that as uh where it's pertaining to so i think that's really beneficial for us as we look at the bond repayment schedule and just appreciate that so thank you very much and i think some of the things that you shared especially regarding ebf just help reinforce you know some of the grateful means that we are able to move forward in a safer stronger opportunities going forward thank you Mr Rising Go to slide 6 so right off the bat Property taxes suck in Illinois. Nobody likes them. And the reality of it is this year was a tough year as well with the quadrennial reassessment. and I got the letter in the mail too that my property taxes went up.

And it's important to understand that a taxing body like the school district is tax capped of what we can raise the taxes. With this quadrennial reassessment, what happens is the assessor looks at what the assessor needs for all the taxing bodies, whether it's a city, a library, a park, a school district, whatever it is, the assessor looks at it and says, okay how am I going to get this money that I need what happens is is when businesses leave the burden of property taxes that the assessor needs falls to the residential So while the school district is tax capped of what we can raise, you might see your school district taxes go up more than what we are tax capped of what we can raise. That is not the school district.

school district doesn't see that extra money the school district only sees of what their tax cap of what they can receive so I know that is a big misconception out there that I just kind of wanted to clarify because you know if If you go to the next slide, what you talked about, we're going to look at, you know, assessing a levy of 3.4%. That's CPI, right? So it has to be CPI or 5%, whichever is lower.

There have been some years where CPI was over 5%, we could still only levy 5%. So when people look at their tax bill and they say, oh, the school district went up 10%. Well, we didn't see that 10%.

We'll. only saw the 3.4 of which the school district levied so I think that's really important to mention because all The taxing bodies are talking about this right now. In fact, the city of Naperville just had a discussion last week and they love putting up this dollar bill that shows 76 percent or 76 cents of your dollar bill goes towards the school districts. Yeah and it stinks because Illinois, Illinois as a state funds education one of the worst in the country.

They rely on residential property taxes to fund public schools. So we understand that and we understand that as a biggest portion of your property tax bill are the local schools. But I'll also make the argument that the public schools are the biggest reason that your property values are as high as they are because of the quality of our school district.

So that kind of explains Why so much is funded by local property taxes? Because of the state of Illinois. And then we get into the adequate funding, which we talked about, all of us have talked about now, how our district is only 84-85% funded, while the district to the east of us is at 119% funded.

So they have more money than they need, while we have less money than we need. Then you talk about inflation. School districts face inflation like all of us. So whether it's groceries, whether it's our electric bills, our heating bills, the school district faces that, but yet we can only levy CPI.

And I guarantee our inflation has been a lot higher than CPI. So, you know, I just wanted to point out that we're looking at 3.4%. We're tax cap, if you go to slide nine then.

You know, I remember when I first came on board, the state was about 15% of our revenue, and now it's down to 10%, which is interesting because the state has tried to put more money into education funding, but yet our reliance locally has actually gone up, and our money from the state, or percentage from the state, has actually gone down. So, yeah. Hopefully Illinois continues if all of us want our property taxes to be lower every time this comes up at the state level I always tell state legislators put more money into public education because that is going to help all the local school districts that you know with their with their funding and they don't have to be reliant as far as locally as much and then slide 10 This also came up in the City of Naperville's discussion how they talked about since 2016 they have lowered their tax rate.

And how many years have you said we have consistently lowered our tax rate in 204? This is the lowest tax rate we've seen in about 15 years. So the school district has lowered the tax rate for 15 years.

While yes we have levied the tax rate is lower than it's been in 15 years so you know I think that's important because this board for the time I've always been on has been extremely diligent with not you know spending in areas that are unnecessary to spend we have the lowest amount administrators in the state our class sizes even though we all all don't want our class sizes to be as large as they are we have class sizes and it's the reason why we spend so less money per student compared to the state average so I think we're doing a wonderful job I think we're doing right by our taxpayers we have wonderful schools that keep continuously improving the property values so you know I'm excited on the trajectory that we're at so thank you All right, thank you. Remind me what the levy was last year, the percentage. the levy percentage which is shown here was about 5.2 in total so that's the 4.82 operating levy and then the 37 cent debt service levy tax rate is sorry that was the 2023 tax rate was about 5.2 compared to the 3.4 is that the equivalent of the 3.4 that we're going to levy Okay, yeah, so two different pieces. So the tax rate last year was 5.2. That was after assessing a 5% CPI increase.

So last year's CPI increase was tied to the 2022 CPI, which if you remember, we were still in significant inflation. We were actually capped to some of what Board Members Rising's comments were earlier. That was a year we were capped to 5%, so CPI had actually been above 5% that year.

Right. Yeah, I'm glad that was mentioned because there were several, a couple years at least, that we were capped where inflation was higher than our cap at 5%. So, again, inflation costs us more.

and we were experiencing high inflation but limited to only increasing our levy to 5%. So this year we're actually down with the amount that we're levying. One of the things that I thought... the community might be confused about is that you know we just went through this effort to get our referendum passed and we put all over the place no tax increase associated with that referendum and so now when they look at this they might go hey what was that so could you provide like a kind of a simple explanation about the difference and what was meant by that versus what we're seeing now sure so And we work closely with our communications team and our legal team to ensure that we were communicating our message as clear and concise as possible. With that said, it is reasonable to expect that there could be some confusion about that.

So, again, our successful referendum was exclusively a capital levy. And so that is... exclusively talking about the bond and interest levy and so if we we look at here the bond and interest levy in 2023 we extended 25.5 million that is what we are targeting to levy for next year as well so that portion of the levy we are showing and it is shown here on slide 7 as a no tax increase and no tax rate increase referendum amount the operating rate again was not impacted at all by the referendum we did if you remember in the spring we did did some polling and some preliminary survey data and and the community was did not want to necessarily look at an operating referendum and so that operating referendum was excuse me that operating levy was not included as part of the referendum question at all and that amount as a result is continuing to follow the ptel language or what's set up by the state of Illinois as statute and so that's again what's shown here in the total levy and again I'll point out that we did say it would be we would be targeting a 37 cent tax rate again the same tax rate that we saw in the current calendar year we do project that that tax rate will actually go below 37 cents next year so I would assume taxpayers will not be disappointed that we're actually going lower with the tax rate but yeah that is lower than even what we were presenting as part of our informational campaign I thank you for the information it is important that people really look at this and recognize the information and understand the difference between what was discussed with the referendum versus our levy and I wouldn't be surprised if we do get some questions about that but so thank you for that information and thank you for the presentation tonight All right so our next agenda item is legislative advocacy and Board of Education update does anyone have any items we have our conference this weekend the Illinois Association of School boards we have several presentations Mr. Rising is presenting on a panel we have our panel that our district is sponsoring and we will be actively involved in all sorts of new training that we will bring back the benefits for our community by attending so Did we need to make an official determination at our last board meeting regarding to direct member Fosdick Yes We did?

Well we we elected her for our representative and in the consent agenda tonight we had Okay resolutions or whatever Okay All right so anything else all right I need a motion to adjourn Motion to adjourn Second All in favor aye any opposed okay thank you Thank you ladies

Transcript for:Board of Education Meeting Summary

Transcript for:
Board of Education Meeting Summary