There should be no additions to the agenda from Board members per Board Agreements. 

RECOMMENDATION:  I recommend you approve the agenda as presented.

We will need a motion to approve these reports which are attached.  If you have specific questions relating to any of these items, please call me and get clarifications before noon Monday.  The late June and July items are on there as there was not a July Board meeting for formal approval of these, thus we are approving them now.

RECOMMENDATION:  I recommend you approve the agenda as presented.

Nobody has formally requested to address the Board. 

I had invited Superintendent Scott Kuffel to come speak briefly on a few topics.  Unfortunately, he has a family commitment, however he will be in attendance at the September meeting to talk.

We have started the 2016-2017 School Year.  Institute days were on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday is the first day for student attendance. On day one we are expecting  215
K-8 students, 107 9-12 students and 42 PreK students for a total of 364. 

The State Legislature passed a PreK-12 Education Budget Bill at the end of June for Fiscal Year 2017.  We have yet to see any officially approved allocations in dollars come to the local level.  All budgeted items will be total “guesstimates”.

The commission Governor Rauner put together is asked to have new school funding solution report to the legislature in February 2017, thus I don't think we will hear anything official on school funding for the future until after that date.

Our annual audit is completed.  Our audit went extremely well and we just have minor things to continue to work to perfect.  We will once again cited on the  standard that requires a lot more internal control, with a lot of various people performing different jobs within the bookkeeping process, again which is very unrealistic of us and we will continue to get, thus in the big picture a great audit. 

We will receive once again the highest ranking on the State Financial School Report Card of Financial Recognition!   My unaudited numbers were pretty spot on.  I am so thrilled to report to you that we
only had a $24,000 overall deficit in Fiscal Year 2016!

THANK YOU to Chris Kidd, Sandy Crosby, and Brenda Gripp for doing their part to make this audit awesome!

I did include the initial financial profile calculation sheet for you that also includes last years initial scores as well as ending year audited fund balances.

The Hatzer-Nordstrom/Anderson Enterprise Sale is August 19-20, 2016 

This is the first meeting of the school year.  Jerad Heitzler presides over the meeting and Nancy Goodman also serves on this for the Board.

Our end of year, beginning of new year meeting is set for this Friday, August 19th at 8:30 AM at the Purple Onion restaurant in Annawan.  If anybody has something they want us to consider as talking points, please let me know by Tuesday.

The terms of Board President Dwaine Shaw Jr., Board Secretary Brian Childs, and Board member Alvin Landwehr will be up for election on April 4, 2017.  The first day for petitions to be circulated for that election is September 20, 2016.   The first date for a candidate to file their petition is December 12, 2016 and the final date for filing is December 19, 2016.Candidate legal information can be obtained at the Henry and Bureau County Courthouse or online at www.henrycty.com. 

Mr. Brau's Report is attached.  In an efficiency of time, we will not verbally go over reports item by item, but just mention a couple as we all can read.

Mr. Buresh's and Mrs. Wolf's report is attached.  In an efficiency of time, we will not verbally go over reports item by item, but just mention a couple as we all can read.

Mr. Huber's report is attached. In an efficiency of time, we will not verbally go over reports item by item, but just mention a couple as we all can read.
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Classroom is ready for Henry/Stark County Grade School Self-Contained Classroom.
Mr. Greg Wertheim, Henry/Stark Counties Special Education Director, will be present Wednesday afternoon to briefly discuss the classroom and other Henry/Stark County Special Education news.

 Building and grounds are ready for the start of the new school year.  Room closures have been completed for high school language arts room and special education self-contained classroom and approved by architect and ROE.  Chris Goodley and Rod Jackson did amazing work on this and deserve your thanks.

Transportation Committee met to walk through bus fleet and ask questions.  No new transportation capital needs are required for the 2016-2017 school year.  We still need substitute drivers.

A finance committee meeting was held on August 10th for preliminary budget input. Finance Committee supports preliminary budget and supports 15 month Health Insurance plan.  It was a good, productive, meeting.

With the need for bus drivers, the Finance Committee would like the Board to consider paying Health Insurance to 2 bus drivers and paying them for up to 40 hours per week to help with the bus driving shortage the District is facing this year.  From, my perspective that is a great idea, and I am open to that or other incentives as well.

Auditors were here on August 5th and we had another outstanding audit. 

PreK-12 Education budget was passed in Springfield, however, no real financial data has been released by the State yet on school funding for various items.  It just is NOT supposed to be less than last year's payout.  We will see.

Superintendent Mr. Buresh was pretty accurate with unaudited fund balance projections for Fiscal Year 2016.  Auditors made minor moves between funds with a few items, otherwise it was totally spot on.

 

The attached preliminary Fiscal Year 2017 budget is attached for you and will be generically presented to
you on Wednesday.  A draft of the Custom Budget Worksheet (Version 48) is included along with these numbers on the State Budget Form.  The Finance Committee has seen this budget and fully supports it. It literally is an extremely bare bones, simplistic budget projecting revenues at  It is a total
budget projecting $4,895,998 in Revenues and $5,148,996 in Expenses.  This is an overall budget deficit of $252,998.  This is the most conservative budget that I have ever presented and I hope we can make this happen without amending it in May.  The budgeted expenses is less than we budgeted last year and the budgeted revenues slightly higher than what we received a year ago.  Any major additional unanticipated expenses will likely cause us to amend the budget in May.  
 

In this budget, I am again recommending the $500,000 permanent transfer from the Working Cash Fund to the Education Fund Finance Committee agrees) and paying the  $50,000 loan from the IMRF/SS Fund back to the Working Cash Fund at the start of Fiscal Year 2018 to the IMRF/SS Fund.   The $500,000 permanent transfer is recorded as both a revenue and an expense in the budget planner, thus, making both revenues and expenses looking larger than they really are.

RECOMMENDATION:  I recommend you approve a Preliminary Fiscal Year 2017 proposed budget reflecting revenues of $4,895,998 and expenditures of $5,148,996 and put the budget on public display starting August 18, 2016.

The budget needs to set for 30 days for public display before it can be adopted, and the District legally needs to hold a public hearing on the budget.  This works perfectly this year with our September 21, 2016 Board meeting, so I would encourage you to set the budget hearing for September 21, 2016 at 4:45 PM in the District Office.


RECOMMENDATION:  Approve setting the Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Hearing on Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 4:45 PM in the District Office.

I am recommending a $500,000 permanent transfer from the Working Cash Fund to the Education Fund (will be annually) to cover the deficit in the Education Fund and add to the Education Fund balance. This permanent transfer requires Board approval.  I have included this amount in the Fiscal Year 2016 Budget.


 

Recommendation:  Approve a $500,000 Permanent Transfer from Working Cash Fund to Education Fund.

 

The current District health insurance plan will expire on September 30, 2016. I fully support board approval of our current health insurance plan, extending it until December 31, 2017. This 11% rate is phenomenal for 15 months. By my decision making a year ago along with your support of it, and with this decision, we saved the District over $60,000 in health insurance premiums while maintaining the same plan for our valued employees. If we want to get technical about it, the savings would be over $100,000. I fully support extending this plan through December of 2017 and so does the Finance Committee.  This will avoid changing plans, fighting the out of pocket and deductible headaches, other issues, and fully understanding that we will likely have a huge rate increase next year and may have to make a company or policy change at that time.

I may be bringing the possibility of offering a second layer of health insurance options for those employees who do not quality for health insurance by the number of hours they work, however who if we allow them to work more than 30 hours per week and they consistently do it, they may purchase a different plan to meet the letter of the Affordable Healthcare Law.

Recommendation:  Approve Qualified Employee Health Care Coverage utilizing the same plan that we currently use, with the 15 month renewal of UHCRV Plan LK26 with the District paying the single premium of $449.52 per month.

Alyssa Croegaert, a new student, may submit a request on Wednesday to me to graduate early.  If she does, Mrs. Wolf and I would like it acted on.

RECOMMENDATION:  Approve Alyssa Croegaert early graduation pending fulfilling AHS Graduation requirements.

Any individual discussions on specific hiring decisions need to be done in Closed Session.  Thus, if there is any specific person that you wish to discuss before we vote, we need to go into Closed Session.

We need an approximately 20 hour a week night custodian now since the fall is here and we are certain that we will be transporting students to Atkinson regularly.  I will advertise for this position, but we will probably not have anybody in place before the Board meeting.

We have many coaches that we need to employ.  They are:  Gina Peterson and Jill Huber, Co High School Volleyball Coaches, Whitney Walker, jr. high volleyball coach.  Brad Hulick is recommended as an Annawan Boys Basketball Volunteer Assistant Coach.  Annawan-Wethersfield Cooperative Coaches are on the attached page and we need to approve them as well (both schools approve all coaches).

We did get a substitute bus driver letter of application.  One of my checks on this person drew many red flags for me, and at the same time, we don't have any substitutes.  I will need to make additional calls but will probably ask for a motion to "Intend to Hire" Elizabeth Davis as a substitute bus driver so that she can start the certification process.  We lose nothing at the end as I do NOT need to employ her or can limit her trips if she does not work out.

RECOMMENDATION:  Approve hires as presented.
  

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RECOMMENDATION:  I recommend you approve these as presented.

Board Goals has been a brief topic of "wants" by some Board members of the current Board.  Although  I will always contend that there have been unwritten goals, this will put them down in print.  It is a starting place.  Attached I have put together a common sense document that can achieve this for Fiscal Year 2017. 

Even though I know this will come with mixed reviews and thoughts, I put it out there to be considered.  I do NOT want a long drawn out discussion on this, and I merely suggest that if you think its a worthy thing, vote on it, and if it dies by a lack of a motion and second, the topic is put to rest for this year.  I do know that in consulting with the IASB on multiple occasions, they are encouraging and recommending Board Goals and/or Belief statements over Strategic Plans.

The first attachment is a much simpler document that can easily be used as a start up document and then possibly in year 2 expand into and add the second attachment if you wish.  I have actually written for the 2 documents to collaborate together for this purpose.  If you wish to put them both together in year 1, we can do that as well.

Once again, I am NOT looking for a long-drawn out conversation on this.  In fact, I do believe it will be counterproductive at the end if one takes place but that is only my opinion.

RECOMMENDATION:  Board's call from letting it die without a motion and second, to first document, to both documents for Fiscal Year 2017. 

*****Anytime school personnel or individual student issues are discussed, the discussion needs to take place in Closed Session, with action only coming in Open Session.

At this time, there is no need to go into Closed Session.

If there is any new news on the pending litigation with Webster vs. Annawan CUSD 226 I will let you know .

 

The next Board of Education meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 5:00 PM at the District Office at 501 West South St., Annawan, IL  61234.



There will be a Public Hearing on the Fiscal Year 2017 Budget on Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 4:45 PM at the District Office at 501 West South St., Annawan, IL  61234.