- Before we get started, I would like to
- Just pause for a moment with all the tragedy in Texas. So many young school aged kids have passed, and so we'll just take a couple seconds. Okay.
- So I'd like to welcome all of you from the public to the meeting. This is our preliminary determination meeting. And so hopefully, we've got cats here, so this is being live streamed. And we are holding this preliminary hearing on a proposed project. If any do come and want to speak, they'll need to sign in.
- I do want to make note that the notice of this preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required. And at this time, I will ask that Colin Cochran from Bowes, McKinney & Evans explain the purpose of this hearing. Good evening, members of the board. Colin Cochran with Bowes, McKinney & Evans. I am filling in for my colleague, Jake McClellan.
- But if there's anything I'm not allowed to answer tonight, Jake will be back here at the next Tuesday meeting. Jake probably did not mention that he was sending someone that graduated from the rival Hohen Valley a couple decades ago, so please don't hold that against me. And I don't know your mom and dad. You probably do know my mom and dad. Yeah, I thought we had said we'll knock on your next door. Recently retired Dr. Cochran, that's right. Yeah, right on. Well, Pursuit to Indiana Code 6-1.1-20-3.5, a school corporation must hold two public hearings
- and adopt a resolution preliminary determining to issue bonds or enter into a lease for a project that has a total project costs in excess of the non-controlled project threshold of $1 million. These public hearings and the adoption of the resolution that will be considered at the next meeting are the very beginning of this entire legal process for this project. The resolutions themselves establish the maximum financial terms for the proposed project.
- For the record, all of the statutorily required information is located on that table at the entrance of the meeting, as required by statute. If proceeding forward, this project will be financed by an issuance of bonds pursuant to the school's building corporation's existing indenture and lease. There will be a supplement to the indenture and an amendment to the lease. Those will be drafted and circulated and approved as part of the overall authorization process. Our current timeline has us working through all of the legal processes through
- mid-October, anticipating selling the bonds in early November and then closing on the bonds in late November. As mentioned, this is the very first step in the overall legal process. There is no action required by the board tonight, only just to hold this public hearing. And if there are any questions or comments, please hesitate to ask. Thank you very much. And we will now hear from Dr. Sanders.
- about the process of determining the scope of the project and the need for this project? Certainly. So the scope of the project developed out of a comprehensive effort to determine the most prioritized needs across the Edgewood School's campus. We used the following sources. In 2022, we had a facility assessment done by
- Lancer architect firm in 2024, just last fall. We also had a demographic study done by McKimmon's demographic and research. And then most recently we've had a number of work sessions where we've, as you know, we invited teachers, administrators,
- We had our athletic director here, teachers and coaches from the performing arts, maintenance. We met with skillman construction managers and a Lancer architecture to determine what our needs would be. The project will serve to provide a better educational opportunity for Edgewood students across the campus by providing elements of effective
- and positive educational environment, which includes students and staff must feel safe, students and staff must feel positive about their learning environment, students and staff must, or students must be actively engaged in the educational process. As a result, the project consists of the construction and equipping of renovations, improvements and additions to
- Edgewood High School including, but not limited to, roof replacement, repair, and renovations, and solar installation. B, band choir expansion, upgrades, improvements, and renovations. C, constructing and equipping additional classrooms. D, constructing and equipping biomedical training classrooms. E, installation of turf to the baseball field.
- F, installation of turf and other improvements and upgrades to the softball field. G, technology, office, storage, and workspace upgrades, replacements, and equipping. H, parking and asphalt repair, upgrades and replacements. I, tennis court repairs and renovations. And J, other related renovations, improvements, and upgrades to permit such
- buildings to be utilized for school purposes. Also, the construction of equipping of renovations, improvements, and additions to Edgewood Junior High School, including but not limited to roof replacement, repair, and renovations, and solar installation. B, banquire expansion upgrades, improvements, and renovations. C, constructing and equipping additional classrooms.
- D, replacement of bleachers, E, parking and asphalt repair, upgrades and replacements, F, tennis court repairs and renovations, and G, other related renovations, improvements, upgrades to permit such buildings to be utilized for school purposes. Also, the construction and equipping of renovations, improvements, and additions to Edgewood Primary School
- and Edgewood Intermediate School, including but not limited to A, roof replacement, repair and renovations and solar installation, B, playground expansion, improvements and renovations, C, asphalt patching, resurfacing and additional parking, D, other related renovations, improvements and upgrades to permit such buildings to be utilized for school purposes and
- for other related renovations, upgrades, improvements, repairs, replacements, and equipping by the school corporation at its facilities. And as you know, we often put there are more needs than there is money. So we obviously would not be able to do all these projects, but these are just kind of represent the most important needs across our campus.
- Now we will hear from Stiefel, and they are our underwriter, and they're going to explain how the proposed project will be financed, as well as information about the effect on the typical property taxpayer.
- Good evening, everybody. Thanks for having us here. So yeah, you guys, I think, have in front of you a hard copy. I'll just kind of walk through the different slides. Feel free to ask me questions. So on the first slide, this represents all of your current outstanding debt and the annual payments for each one of the individual six bond issues that you guys currently have outstanding.
- On the second page in orange, we have layered in the proposed $40 million project as a potential 2025 approval. And so you can see after layering those in,
- what the annual, proposed annual payments would potentially look like. You know, more than likely with a project this big, you're probably going to do it in multiple issues, you know, and that does help some of this picture as we move forward. And the plan is, as of right now, to keep your tax rate or your tax levy flat throughout the project, so then that would not be an increase to the taxpayer from this particular project, okay?
- And if we go to the last slide, I'm just going to read through some of what we call the legal parameters. I'll just kind of look at some of these. So the max par amount of the bonds being the $40 million, it will go out with a maturity of 20 years. Maximum interest rate right now in what we're running is around 7%. I can tell you today,
- Municipal bonds issued today are probably in the four and a half to four point three percent range. But we do use a conservative seven percent running your numbers. So estimated interest expense at the seven percent would be the forty seven million fifty two thousand. The max annual payment that we have in the parameters would be seven million dollars. So that would bring the maximum total payments to just over eighty seven million.
- The 2024 pay 25 debt service levy is 9.8 million and the 24 pay 25 debt service tax rate is 65 cents. That's just your current levy and 25 for debt and your current tax rate in the debt service fund. So as you can see, our plan is to keep the pay 26 levy around the same 9.8 million.
- Tax rate itself could go up a little bit if assessed value drops, but the levy is what reflects what the taxpayer is actually paying on, not the rate. Okay, so the plan is to keep that flat. Max annual payments as a percent of NAV are 6.43 percent, and your direct and overlapping debt as a percent of NAV is 8.02 percent. So, any questions with any of that?
- Net assessed value. Thank you. Yep. I always forget that one. In the debt service rate, we can't go over 70 cents as the new starting when? That starts in 2026. OK. And then next year. When Matt was here, Shoemaker, he was going to run one of these 30 million also just for us to look at. At 30? At 30. Yeah. Agreed. We can get that to Jared. Agreed. We're going to look at one just for comparison. Just to see what it looked like. OK.
- I would like to see that too. Okay. Okay. This is, I know this is a starting point. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cause you know, you can see there, you're probably looking at, you were approaching the 70 at the 0.68 cents. Yeah. At 40 million. Yeah. 40. Correct. And it's 7%. I mean, at the 7%. Yep. That'll all bring it down. Also doing it in multiple issuances. If we do it in two or three, that also makes that tax rate come down. Correct.
- Absolutely the goal would be to keep you guys under the 70 cents. No referendum. No referendum. Got it. All right. We're good. All right. Now is the time that we would open this hearing up for public comments. Doesn't look like we have anybody that's commenting. So therefore, I will close the public hearing.
- We appreciate everyone for your time and incoming this evening. Thank you to Katz for keeping us going. Were you able to pick us up okay with all the drums? Awesome. Awesome. I just want to know if they're here. I thought I'd better check on that. Okay. So this meeting is adjourned, so thank you all very much.