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.