- Call this meeting to order, please. We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of 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. Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Our first
- meeting this evening is the meeting for the Board of Finance and
- Let the record reflect that all board members are present. The previous officers last year was President
- Kerr and Secretary DeMoss. So continuing my duties until replaced, I will ask for an election for president,
- a nomination. Okay, first and a second.
- Any other nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
- I'll continue. Now election of the secretary. Do I have a nomination? Nominate Larry DeMoss as the secretary.
- I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any other nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye.
- Opposed? Motion carries.
- So the officers this year are President Dana Kerr and Secretary Larry DeMoss. Next on the agenda is
- designation of depositories and we'll see Dr. Sanders for that. The board every year is required to
- designate the financial institutions that we use for our general business banking.
- the funds that we receive for capital projects, for construction projects, the bonds, and interest-bearing
- accounts. So we would like to continue to use People State Bank, Old National, and Trust Indiana. You
- have a motion on the designation of depositories. I make a motion to accept the People's Old National and the
- It's our depositories. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries.
- Thank you. Now we have an informational item. It's the report of the previous year's investments and
- financial report. So we'll look to deviate from that.
- So I show that with the records that I gave you, the interest that we earned in 2025 was $617,940.75.
- That is based off of our bond proceeds, different things that we deposit and
- Basically, the goal is always to earn as much interest as we can. So I always, any unused funds at the
- moment, I transfer over to Trust Indiana, which gives us a higher interest yield and basically
- gives us a lot of extra money that we can use for different projects, different items within different
- projects. The majority of the funds go into the education fund, but I do have different accounts for
- some of the bond accounts. So that money goes directly back into those bonds to use as extras for any
- supplies, furniture, anything that's just extra that's needed. So try to keep those separate just to
- give those accounts some extra.
- things and incentives. The charts that I provided for you is from this, it's from in.gov and it's the
- DOAB report, which just shows us different information over the past several years of where our school
- has been. It shows really a study base with our student count.
- We've had some ups and downs, but it's stayed pretty steady over the last 10 years Also like on the
- fund report it basically shows like our increase in funding so you see like around I think it was 2019
- and on where the increase started to happen. That's also because I
- the increase of interest rates, and also some of the bond proceeds that we've received. Again, with
- those bond proceeds, I try to get as much interest as possible, so that adds to our phone balances.
- On any deficits or any negative amounts that are there, those are basically from any federal funds,
- or grants that are reimbursable. So those will always be negative because we have to spend the money
- first and then we get reimbursed. But it's always approved. So we always make sure we're approved to
- spend the money before we go into the deficit. But it is a normal process that we've done with these
- grants. And then, yep, I think that's all I have on that. Yeah, do you have any questions?
- Paul? You might get out to cash flows. This is something we do usually during the normal meeting, but
- since this ties into your money and the finances of the corporation and this reflects the entire 2025.
- Now we're finished with it. Now you get to take a good look at
- As an example, the education fund started with almost $5 million, 4.95. It ended the year with 4.3,
- 4.2, 4.3 million. So it shows a deficit spending of 700,000. That's not too abnormal, but it's abnormal
- enough to track it real close in 2026. We don't want that to become a trend. So you still have a healthy
- cash balance
- at the end of the year in that fund, but it has dropped. So we'll keep an eye on that. The operations
- fund started with about 2.7 million, and it ended with a little over 3 million. So that's good. And
- as I've said before, this is the fund that the state is after. This is the fund that's set to lose 900,000
- next year.
- This year as a matter of fact 2026 I have trouble getting from one year to the next But in 2026 you're
- going to take that hit they made up the deficit in the budget by using your cash So what's going to
- happen is your cash balance is going to drop any operations fund even though you see the budget stay
- level So we'll keep an eye on that too, but it did go up actually in cash this year, which is a good
- thing now we're starting to look at
- at, okay, transfer amount and things like that, and how do we level these two funds out, and how do
- we tackle this $900,000 deficit? And that's gonna be a challenge. But that is something that I'm sure
- by now you're aware of, and we are certainly aware of it, and we'll keep a good eye on it. Yes, and
- between both funds, we're down $350,000, so another nine,
- $100,000 next year, that's now 1.2 million. Yeah. 900,000 is no small number. Right. So we're going
- to have to watch that. Paul, what the legislature did, that did not affect the education fund? Because
- the deficit of 700,000 concerns me on the education fund. Is that because we brought in less, or is
- that because of the legislative action? No, I think it's probably.
- Due to hiring and what's happened, I think the state has been true to what they say you're going to
- get in the education fund. But in the second year of the appropriation process they go through, you
- always get less money than the first year. So now we're kind of in that second year. We don't expect
- as much. So we're going to have to watch our expenses. But I think you're going to see that education fund
- deficit continue, we just don't want it to be 700,000 every year. We want to get it back to at least
- zero and zero. We make five million, we spend five million. That's okay. But you got to have a cash
- balance in this day and age. And so we got into it this year. And it's all about expenses, not a lack
- of revenue.
- Any other questions? I just had a quick question on Debbie on that. The bank bank to fund balance report
- of all our different funds. The ones that are in arrears right now, the negative is that's because of
- waiting for reimbursement. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. How are we doing our reverse? Like
- are the one I was a half a million dollars from our placements, right? Are we getting so closure on
- that? Yeah, so
- Basically, because we're allowed to request or spend the funds ahead of time, we will be in a deficit
- until we get the approval from the grant funded person, the state or the federal to request the funds
- so we can spend it and then we have to wait on a letter or reimbursement form
- to be able to actually request the funds. So right now, in our special education account, we just requested
- those funds, because we just got approval for that big grant to request, it's like $300,000 that we're
- getting back. And then we have seek money, which is being used. It's a federally funded thing, which
- is being used for students, student placement, housing.
- The whole process has been delayed, and we've been waiting to get approval, and we just got approval
- on that. So Noah, Dixon, and I are working on that to get that reimbursement done so we can get that
- $400,000 back in our bank. So the $494,000 that's for both placements combined, will we get
- 100% reimbursement, or will we have to take care of part of that ourselves? I'm just kind of curious
- from nervousness here.
- we absorb absorb but we did thankfully know it's an amazing job on those applications we received about
- 1.2 million dollars so we were approved for back on January 5th
- So once we go through, like Debbie described, the whole rigmarole red tape of getting reimbursement,
- it'll be about 1.2, so it'll take care of the 400,000 or so that we are in the red, plus take care of
- the rest of the invoices that we'll have coming in from those residential treatment centers for the
- two students we have out of state. And the rest of it will come from the smart grant, right? We have
- some smart grant reimbursement coming back in too.
- That's gonna be for a different account, yes. But yes, we have that coming in. Title I has finally been
- released, so we're gonna see our Title Ia come in, which is a little over 300,000. And our Title II
- was just released today, so.
- We're starting to finally see some headway with those federal reimbursements coming in, so we can start
- seeing those red accounts turn green on us. Yeah, and that'll help our funding and our interests that
- we're earning. So once we get that, we're going to be able to earn a lot more interest on that money
- that's just been waiting on us. Yeah. Right. OK. All right. Thank you. I might add, if anybody ever
- asks you, why do you have such large cash balances? This is the game the feds play. Right.
- You spend it, then they'll give it to you. But you have to have it to spend. And if you don't have cash
- balances, where do you get it? Yeah. Well, that's one of my concerns is that they kind of put us in
- a hole here. And I guess my other question is, I saw on the due app sheet that there was a negative
- on the federal funds. Are we going to possibly not get some of our federal reimbursement? We always
- get it. We're always going to get it. OK. Yeah. We're OK now.
- There was some question early on, some of our Title I smaller grants, not the large Title IA grant,
- but some smaller. There was some question about whether or not those were going to be released. I think
- you guys probably remember that from two or three months ago. And thankfully that was released through
- the federal government and then trickled on down through the state. And I think that's why we're seeing
- the delay that we're seeing and all of these approvals coming through and all of that happening.
- Just be patient and be thankful we have a cash balance to offset the slow reimbursement. Okay, thanks.
- Board member comments. I'd just like to make one. Losing $900,000 out of the operations fund. When we
- just say that,
- You know, people at home, maybe some parents or community members may not understand what that means.
- What that means is your bus drivers who get the kids here safely. This is your bus monitors. This is
- your custodian staff. This is your maintenance staff. This is your IT staff. This is your kitchen staff
- that feed your kids. And when you take that money away from us,
- You know, what are we going to do? How are we going to cut expenses? What can we cut when we're already,
- you know, a tight ship? So it's a major concern. So I encourage everyone to talk with the legislature
- and tell them that this is bad for Indiana students and that they need to fund the schools appropriately.
- They may say they're given a little bit more in the education fund, but when you take a tremendous amount
- away in the operations fund, it doesn't get you anywhere. We ask that you talk with your legislatures,
- let them know what this is doing to the school systems. We really want a change to benefit public education and
- Public education is the foundation of our state, our country, and we've got to keep supporting it. So
- hope that gets heard. Anything else? Thank you. You have time and work. Thank you. The finance meeting
- is now adjourned.