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Vigo County Oversight BoardFeb 26, 2026

About this transcript

Automatic transcription, not the official record. This is what speech recognition heard at the meeting; it mis-hears names and numbers, and no editor has checked it. The clerk's minutes are the official record. Every line links to the moment in the recording — check anything that matters.

Voices were separated automatically and named from the meeting's speaker roster where the evidence supported it. An unnamed voice shows as Speaker 12 — a machine label, not a person's name.

Meeting
Vigo County Oversight Board · Feb 26, 2026
Length
1:14:33
Lines
342
Transcribed by
mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo
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  1. 0:00:00 — open the recording at 0 secondsSpeaker 1 All right, time for the boys and their please stand.

  2. 0:00:05 — open the recording at 5 secondsSpeaker 3 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.

  3. 0:00:23 — open the recording at 23 secondsSpeaker 9 All right, thank you.

  4. 0:00:28 — open the recording at 28 secondsSpeaker 12 (chair) Happy everybody found their way back to the conference room here. I'll start off with minutes. I wish we were waiting Monday. Any questions? If not, everything is good. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Terry. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

  5. 0:00:50 — open the recording at 50 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) Heather, you want to give a real quick, just a verbal update on where we stand from Treasurer's perspective?

  6. 0:00:57 — open the recording at 57 secondsSpeaker 19 Yes.

  7. 0:00:58 — open the recording at 58 secondsSpeaker 21 So we've signed two letters of engagement with Crowe and Barnes & Thornton, but we have not been in Will Screen Services so far. Thank you.

  8. 0:01:09 — open the recording at 1 minute 9 secondsSpeaker 26 (oversight board member) Moving on, Mark, I believe you want to talk about moving some of our meetings to an evening.

  9. 0:01:17 — open the recording at 1 minute 17 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) yeah so just just through um a lot of feedback from the public we wanted to get a couple of evening meetings on the calendar so we've got our march 12th and march 26th meetings we're going to basically kind of pivot our normal day meeting those days to a 5 15 meeting in the council chambers those days um we've got uh we've got somebody to take notes or take minutes and And so just a little bit of coordination with the county to make sure we've got great folks here that need to be here.

  10. 0:01:51 — open the recording at 1 minute 51 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) And so March 12th, March 26th at 515, we'll replace our Thursday day meeting.

  11. 0:02:01 — open the recording at 2 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 36 All right. Dr. Hemsall, are you introducing today's speakers? I will do the introduction part. Yeah, feel free to come sit at the table.

  12. 0:02:08 — open the recording at 2 minutes 8 secondsSpeaker 21 So, first of all,

  13. 0:02:38 — open the recording at 2 minutes 38 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) Well, thank you for the opportunity to present again. I apologize for not being here the last time. I think we had other people who presented. I was watching and so forth from afar. Today, from that meeting, I understand that there are some questions regarding some of the legal aspects of how we can finance in schools.

  14. 0:03:00 — open the recording at 3 minutesChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) So with us today, we have Kristen McClellan from Ice Miller. She serves as bond counsel for many, many schools up to indiana serving the pawn council um in conjunction with jane herdon for many years

  15. 0:03:13 — open the recording at 3 minutes 13 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) of the big open school corporation so understands the history of where we've been and where we are

  16. 0:03:18 — open the recording at 3 minutes 18 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) and how we try to set ourselves up to move forward in that regard also with us today is jason fiansell from baker tilly again a long-standing relationship with the school corporation i believe began when

  17. 0:03:31 — open the recording at 3 minutes 31 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) they were humble and then got bought by by baker tilly through a merger so it's now baker tilly but

  18. 0:03:37 — open the recording at 3 minutes 37 secondsSpeaker 60 (district staff or consultant) they also have history with the school corporation and understand where we've been how we got to where

  19. 0:03:43 — open the recording at 3 minutes 43 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) we are and how to move forward and he's going to present a little bit as to how do we come up with the amount of bonding capacity that we have keep in mind that our school board directed us to try trying to figure out what could we do and how much can be done within the existing rate and levels. So what you're going to present today is that we do have the capacity of doing more. But what our task was, was to find out what could we do inside what we already have in our existing

  20. 0:04:14 — open the recording at 4 minutes 14 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) rates and levels. So that's what they're going to present on. But I wanted to clarify that aspect of things. What we've been trying to do throughout this entire process, and the reason we made the

  21. 0:04:25 — open the recording at 4 minutes 25 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) ask of the county is because we're trying to figure out how much can we get done inside existing rates and lobbies without having to raise taxes on taxpayers. And that's what we've asked them to do, find out what we could do maximally. The commissioners have done the same thing, and I think you guys are engaging with Crow to come back and check the county's work and find out

  22. 0:04:48 — open the recording at 4 minutes 48 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) what there is a belief of what they can and cannot do. But obviously, we understand that doesn't exist but hopefully there is and if it is we ask kindly that we figure out how to partner

  23. 0:04:59 — open the recording at 4 minutes 59 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) and take advantage of this as well the other thing that they're going to share with you is how do we compare that was also one of the questions how do we compare with other school corporations what

  24. 0:05:09 — open the recording at 5 minutes 9 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) you're going to find is that we're on the lower side of things um but i think that's going to bear out in in the information that they have we do have we've been fiscally conservative as a school

  25. 0:05:20 — open the recording at 5 minutes 20 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) district and when it comes compared to other school districts you're going to find that we're on the lower side of this um a tribute to the work that donna wilson has done as our chief financial officer and her team to make sure that we're able to live within these needs and we do live within these needs but those needs are limited and that's what puts the pressure points on us to try to figure out how do we move forward with all these different pressures

  26. 0:05:44 — open the recording at 5 minutes 44 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) if you've gotten in the last couple of meetings on what those pressures are and where we can save money in these plans to be able to reinvest back in our kids and that's what we're trying to do is make sure that we're maximizing what we do for kids so with that being said i'm going to turn

  27. 0:05:58 — open the recording at 5 minutes 58 secondsSpeaker 69 over to kristen i think christine's going to get us started good morning

  28. 0:06:12 — open the recording at 6 minutes 12 secondsSpeaker 45 i will push enter

  29. 0:06:13 — open the recording at 6 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 73 I'll do this. Oh, it works.

  30. 0:06:17 — open the recording at 6 minutes 17 secondsSpeaker 74 Oh, there it is.

  31. 0:06:18 — open the recording at 6 minutes 18 secondsSpeaker 73 I'm going to be disgusting. You know.

  32. 0:06:23 — open the recording at 6 minutes 23 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) Good morning, Kristen McFell and Tom Ace Miller. I'm glad that we're around the table because we really want this to be a conversation. We know that some of you had some big questions that you wanted us to go through, so we are prepared to answer those questions we knew about in advance, but also happy to answer any questions that these slides bring up or any other questions that you have one of the first questions that we talked to the school corporation about is the understanding of the type of borrowings

  33. 0:06:53 — open the recording at 6 minutes 53 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) that school corporations can do so one of the things that's been a misconception throughout the state specifically in recent years with a lot of legislation is what can schools do what sources of revenues do they have to do capital projects or construction projects so as it stands today there are two funds that a school corporation has from which they can do projects one is your operations fund and two is vcsc's debt service fund so i wanted to start at the top with the operations fund the operations fund as you may or may not know i think you heard about this a few

  34. 0:07:32 — open the recording at 7 minutes 32 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) weeks ago used to consist of separate accounts so there was what we called a cpf accounts or fund

  35. 0:07:39 — open the recording at 7 minutes 39 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) there was a school bus replacement transportation fund and with some legislation those all got moved into what's called an operations fund with the operations fund this is where schools do projects or it could even be renovations and improvements with their cash it used to be when i started my career 20 years ago also many schools would do what was called like an energy savings loan out of operations but what's happened over the years is that operations fund after all the other funds were combined into it has become extremely pressured because you have to fund transportation

  36. 0:08:20 — open the recording at 8 minutes 20 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) through that you have to find your salaries through that piece and also the cost of utilities and insurance and those sort of things have gone up so i would say in the last 10 years i have done one financing from the operations fund across the state of indiana because again that fund is

  37. 0:08:39 — open the recording at 8 minutes 39 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) pressured so instead i have to clarify yes to clarify on the salary and wages those are non-school

  38. 0:08:45 — open the recording at 8 minutes 45 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) personnel so those are the district office that would be the bus drivers that would be people who are not associated with an individual school so i just wanted to clarify that and those were are

  39. 0:08:55 — open the recording at 8 minutes 55 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) all paid from the education fund which you could never have the power to do construction from either

  40. 0:09:01 — open the recording at 9 minutes 1 secondKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) that's why we're focusing on these two because of the pressure then on the operations fund across the state most schools have turned to the debt service fund to do projects the debt service fund is only for a school corporation supported by property tax levy this is different from other units of government other units of government may be able to do a financing off of proposed

  41. 0:09:24 — open the recording at 9 minutes 24 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) revenues that they will receive schools cannot so unlike some units that could do a bond that's

  42. 0:09:31 — open the recording at 9 minutes 31 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) table from lit revenues or backed by tiff schools cannot do that the only way they can borrow is

  43. 0:09:37 — open the recording at 9 minutes 37 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) through the debt service fund which are property tax levies any questions on that this uh the house

  44. 0:09:45 — open the recording at 9 minutes 45 secondsSpeaker 91 (unknown — contaminated cluster) bill that created this board and this unique opportunity allows for the county

  45. 0:09:51 — open the recording at 9 minutes 51 secondsSpeaker 20 potentially to bond the project. Can a county bond using lit funds and the

  46. 0:09:57 — open the recording at 9 minutes 57 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) school corp cannot? That is correct. Counties have more options than the school corporation does.

  47. 0:10:01 — open the recording at 10 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 95 Okay. That is exactly right. And how are, how's lit revenue viewed compared to say property taxes?

  48. 0:10:09 — open the recording at 10 minutes 9 secondsSpeaker 20 Because that's the collateral for the bonds? Correct. So how's lit viewed compared to property

  49. 0:10:15 — open the recording at 10 minutes 15 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) taxes and then even further a potential like private partnership pledge from the casino

  50. 0:10:22 — open the recording at 10 minutes 22 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) foundation my focus um in my practice and jason's also is on k-12 public ed and we have other groups in both of our firms that focus on the other types of funds work directly with city towns counties but i will say the pledge would be viewed as a bond holder probably very similarly

  51. 0:10:43 — open the recording at 10 minutes 43 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) so that the ratings you know the interest rate that they would pay would be very similar but i can gather more information from you on that but in my world i wouldn't see that bond holders or anyone else would look at one that's more risky because when you do when a county city or town does a lit demand so you have to have a lot of other verifications that the baker tiller team will do for them to make sure they'll cut the revenue to support the bonds where a debt service levy is fully secured because there are laws out

  52. 0:11:16 — open the recording at 11 minutes 16 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) there that say you have to pay debt first and so that levy when they put it into their budget for a series of bonds it's always protected and paid first yeah great question i think where you're

  53. 0:11:27 — open the recording at 11 minutes 27 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) also going with that is property tax revenues are typically more stable than income tax because they're less impacted by the ebbs and flows of the economy i think that's part of what you're asking

  54. 0:11:39 — open the recording at 11 minutes 39 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) for but in terms of how the standard of force does the ratings i think it goes back to more of the

  55. 0:11:45 — open the recording at 11 minutes 45 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) history great question there you go okay um the other question we were asked is are when do schools do they have to be on the ballot and this has come out of we have legislation in 2023 which for the first time set like indiana became a forced referendum state for certain schools and i wanted to make sure we understood that here today it started in 2023 at the school corporation had a debt service fund tax rate of over 80 cents that was in 2023 but i'm going to get to current law that the schools that had a debt service fund tax rate over 80 cents any project they do would

  56. 0:12:32 — open the recording at 12 minutes 32 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) have to be on a referendum balance that was modified in senate enrolled act one to 70 cents and vcsc does not have a debt service fund tax rate over 70 cents many of the referendum that you've seen across the state so this is one reason that a school would be forced to referend them is that they were over 70 in their debt service fund tax rate another reason may be that a school corporations suffer so much in circuit breaker loss that they, even though they weren't required under this rule, they may have to force a construction project on a referendum ballot

  57. 0:13:09 — open the recording at 13 minutes 9 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) so that the debt service is protected and they don't get a lot of hit in their operations.

  58. 0:13:14 — open the recording at 13 minutes 14 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) So those are the two reasons when schools would have to be on a ballot. Otherwise, under current law, and I know tomorrow is the end of session, but as of today,

  59. 0:13:24 — open the recording at 13 minutes 24 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) Those are the only two reasons that a school corporation would have to be on a record and a ballot.

  60. 0:13:30 — open the recording at 13 minutes 30 secondsSpeaker 121 Any questions on that?

  61. 0:13:32 — open the recording at 13 minutes 32 secondsSpeaker 124 Just as a reminder, our debt service rate is .22. I've got that one memorized.

  62. 0:13:38 — open the recording at 13 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 126 I've heard it enough.

  63. 0:13:40 — open the recording at 13 minutes 40 secondsSpeaker 128 (unknown — contaminated cluster) That was more for the community members who haven't been maybe paying attention to all the other needs.

  64. 0:13:45 — open the recording at 13 minutes 45 secondsSpeaker 20 Are we going to get to, or do we only get to how that .2424 airs across the state?

  65. 0:13:51 — open the recording at 13 minutes 51 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) The other thing we know we had a question on is what if we, instead of financing a large project at once, why can't we just do $6 million a year? And the reason is there's a state law out there that says when a school corporation, and I'm going to focus on school corporation, goes through the process for an approval of a project, that project cannot be artificially subdivided. And that is why we struggle a lot when we're doing these projects. I mean, even if we're doing an HVAC unit for a big building, we have to say to ourselves, we are not artificially subdividing this from anything else.

  66. 0:14:35 — open the recording at 14 minutes 35 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) And so what we look at to determine artificial subdivision, and there is no case law yet, but what it is is that if one taxpayer thinks a school corporation has artificially subdivided, they can petition the DLGF. So even though the statute itself on its face doesn't say what an artificial subdivision is, and even though we don't have case law yet, what we do is we review the submissions to the DLGF across the state, that have claimed that a project has been artificially subsidized. So what we look at to make that determination on everything we do at

  67. 0:15:12 — open the recording at 15 minutes 12 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) BCSC and throughout the state, we look at the fact and circumstances of the project, we look at how many sites are going to be impacted and the type of work, we look about the timing of when the work needs to be done, how it's going to be financed in the different contracts. But I wanted to make sure we talked about this but it's a state law as to why we can't do it over time we have to go out and we can't artificially accept it any questions on that makes sense the other question we got is about a capital

  68. 0:15:46 — open the recording at 15 minutes 46 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) referendum ballot and the ballots themselves are stated in state law so there are specific statutes and they contain this language if our school or any school would ever want to be on the ballot for a construction referendum there are very few pieces of this language that we can change

  69. 0:16:08 — open the recording at 16 minutes 8 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) so the only things that can be changed are the name of the school corporation the number of years that the bonds will go out and then the principal amount of the debt the fees again all this language has to be in there and then we can put we get to say along with the auditor calculations what the maximum amount of the levy will be and what the impact on a median residence will be and that is really it we cannot change the form of the ballot question we do have some leeway like here insert a brief description of the project or purpose we do have some leeway but what i wanted

  70. 0:16:52 — open the recording at 16 minutes 52 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) you to know is that under state law if we would ever need to be on a ballot we come up with those blanks working with the auditor working with Baker Tilley and BCFC but then we have to submit it to the DLGF who reviews it to make sure that it is not leaning one way or the other so we have a whole system of timing to make sure that we get a question certified and that the DLGF agrees with all of our blanks that we put in there and then it goes through the county election board once we have that certification so i wanted to make sure you knew yes um if we ever needed to or had to

  71. 0:17:31 — open the recording at 17 minutes 31 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) this is what the today as of today this is what the form of the language would look like but we have no control over anything except for those blanks i think specific to your question is we

  72. 0:17:42 — open the recording at 17 minutes 42 secondsSpeaker 104 (district staff or consultant) don't get to write the question and we don't get to determine what goes into the question

  73. 0:17:46 — open the recording at 17 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 142 Just the blanks and then that has to be certified.

  74. 0:17:51 — open the recording at 17 minutes 51 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) That's a lengthy two sentence question. Is it two sentences? Looks like it.

  75. 0:17:58 — open the recording at 17 minutes 58 secondsSpeaker 144 Yes.

  76. 0:17:59 — open the recording at 17 minutes 59 secondsSpeaker 146 There's not even a question, right?

  77. 0:18:02 — open the recording at 18 minutes 2 seconds Yeah.

  78. 0:18:03 — open the recording at 18 minutes 3 secondsSpeaker 146 Yeah, it is.

  79. 0:18:06 — open the recording at 18 minutes 6 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) Like, you know, you'll see here too, one of the issues has been recently, this just changed

  80. 0:18:11 — open the recording at 18 minutes 11 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) last year and I will be honest, it changes often, you know, at least every other year.

  81. 0:18:16 — open the recording at 18 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 128 (unknown — contaminated cluster) It's possible that at the end of this, as of tomorrow, we may end up with a new question.

  82. 0:18:23 — open the recording at 18 minutes 23 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) So, but one of the things that we worked on, and this is where the auditor gets involved, it's like median household value.

  83. 0:18:29 — open the recording at 18 minutes 29 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) Like in my community where I live, the median was 174, but we have to round that up to the next 50,000 as well. So this is very state law specific in what's in the form of the question.

  84. 0:18:41 — open the recording at 18 minutes 41 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) Any questions on that? The other things I just wanted to bring up because this has been a misconception as well because there was a trailer bill last year that allowed certain schools to go in November of 25. Going forward, the only time we can be on the ballot is in November of even years. I just wanted you to know that because of the misconceptions that are out there.

  85. 0:19:05 — open the recording at 19 minutes 5 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) It used to be that we could go in May or November of any year, even at a special election, but now it's only November of even years general.

  86. 0:19:14 — open the recording at 19 minutes 14 secondsSpeaker 153 Any questions so far?

  87. 0:19:21 — open the recording at 19 minutes 21 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) The second half of the presentation is going to be dealing with numbers. I'm Jason Cantel with Bakertilly.

  88. 0:19:30 — open the recording at 19 minutes 30 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) I serve as a school corporation's municipal advisor, and we assist the school with long-term financial planning and debt issuance planning.

  89. 0:19:37 — open the recording at 19 minutes 37 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) And so as Dr. Epsil mentioned, if I could just clarify one thing. know that the county commissioners have done some studies with baker tilly they are two separate pieces jason works for the school division and doesn't have any in size or knowledge of the

  90. 0:19:52 — open the recording at 19 minutes 52 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) county finances and the person who represents the county commissioners has information about the

  91. 0:19:57 — open the recording at 19 minutes 57 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) county and doesn't work in school finance and doesn't have anything related to us so i just want to point out that separation yeah yeah still with jason i work only i just want to clarify that

  92. 0:20:08 — open the recording at 20 minutes 8 secondsSpeaker 128 (unknown — contaminated cluster) difference for those people who are watching at home.

  93. 0:20:10 — open the recording at 20 minutes 10 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) And I work only in case of the library space. And so as Dr. Hemsall mentioned, one of the questions we are tasked with answering is how

  94. 0:20:20 — open the recording at 20 minutes 20 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) much could the school corporation issue inside its current debt service money without increasing

  95. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:20:27 — open the recording at 20 minutes 27 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) it? And so this is just an illustrative financing where looking at a multi-year capital improvement plan of the amount of borrowing based upon certain interest rates that the school corporation

  96. 0:20:39 — open the recording at 20 minutes 39 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) could issue without increasing its debt service levy above 2026 months.

  97. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:20:45 — open the recording at 20 minutes 45 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) So again, you'll see that this is a three-year program from 2026 through 2028 that can change

  98. 0:20:52 — open the recording at 20 minutes 52 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) and would change depending upon projects.

  99. 0:20:54 — open the recording at 20 minutes 54 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) So the timing and program can become more clear and focused. But just for today's purposes, again, you'll see the breakdown of $40 million, $80 million, $140 million over a three-year program.

  100. 0:21:05 — open the recording at 21 minutes 5 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) Maximum repayment term in Indiana for the school corporation is not to exceed 20 years. So you will see each one of these issuances would be less than 20 years.

  101. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:21:13 — open the recording at 21 minutes 13 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) And based upon an interest rate that was, we had worked with the school corporation before, and we used an interest rate of current plus some inflationary factors of 50 basis points or half a percent. And so based upon that interest rate, you would see interest costs there in total of $91.3 million. That interest rate assumption is approximately 4.63%. Interest rates today are roughly 4%

  102. 0:21:41 — open the recording at 21 minutes 41 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) for a 20 year financing. And so again, that could change depending on where we're able to maybe do the fringe of the market. It could work in our favor,

  103. 0:21:48 — open the recording at 21 minutes 48 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) it could also work against us. But just wanted to point out that we have no control of the interest rate and we have just tried to be conservative with interest rate estimates.

  104. 0:21:56 — open the recording at 21 minutes 56 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) The other thing that you'll notice on here is to divide it into three sections. Whenever we do any bonding, We would get approval for the total amount, but we would only bond in the sections that we need for the construction that's happening at that time. So what we were estimated from Gibraltar, as you recall, was about a two and a half, three year process.

  105. 0:22:15 — open the recording at 22 minutes 15 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) So we would do the first part. When we were first doing this for the school board for illustrative purposes, we were hopeful that we could break ground

  106. 0:22:24 — open the recording at 22 minutes 24 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) by the summer of 26. So what was the work that we could do in the second half of 26? was the work we could do during the 27 calendar year and then what would be done as we finished up the project in 28. so that's how you came up with the three amounts but it's not to exceed the maximum amount that you got approval for at the very beginning of the process

  107. 0:22:44 — open the recording at 22 minutes 44 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) hopefully i said all that correctly because but i wanted to explain why it was divided into three years and the reason it says 26 is the starting point was because this is what we showed our school board back in the fall when we were hopeful that we could break ground in 26.

  108. 0:22:57 — open the recording at 22 minutes 57 secondsSpeaker 26 (oversight board member) What the, is there a treasury yield or something that the rate, the bond rate follows? If the municipal bond market does not follow the treasury yield, it's not like a, they cut

  109. 0:23:09 — open the recording at 23 minutes 9 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) treachery, so we automatically get an increase in municipal bond market. There is a correlation,

  110. 0:23:14 — open the recording at 23 minutes 14 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) but it's not, obviously it's not the same, but the treasury, I think the 10 year treasury is just over 4%, and ours is 20 years actually at 4% with some taxes and financing assumed. soon so it does not follow it you know basis point by basis point but there is a quarter.

  111. 0:23:30 — open the recording at 23 minutes 30 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) And then the 50-bit cushion seems is that pretty conservative at this point because I feel like

  112. 0:23:35 — open the recording at 23 minutes 35 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) we're in a great environment. I don't know if I would say I don't know if it's overly conservative just but I we wanted to provide context that today's rates are about four percent and a little bit of a cushion just to notice this is a trade age. To your point though even though even though

  113. 0:23:52 — open the recording at 23 minutes 52 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) the funds rate continues to drop it really hasn't had much impact on longer term treasuries and munis correct so even though we've seen fed funds they could have a community right yes well

  114. 0:24:04 — open the recording at 24 minutes 4 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) bond market has been relatively stable over the last two years one thing i also wanted to point

  115. 0:24:10 — open the recording at 24 minutes 10 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) out in case it comes up um again the schools are different and their statutes in that we can only go out 20 years on each bond issue where other units could go out longer what about accounting so i believe and i would have to check with our i know it depends on the the financing side too 30

  116. 0:24:30 — open the recording at 24 minutes 30 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) years the last two rows here of our summary is able to adjust the fact that the school corporation's

  117. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:24:40 — open the recording at 24 minutes 40 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) 2026 debt service levy which is the the dollar request by the school to the community to make its debt service payment as they stand today is just under 13 million dollars at 12 million 9.90

  118. 0:24:52 — open the recording at 24 minutes 52 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) and you would not be estimating an increase to that levy amount obviously assessed values could trend one way up or lower but the levy amount of dollar requests from the community would not change in this uh scenario are there any questions so we purposely the board asked to make sure that that

  119. 0:25:11 — open the recording at 25 minutes 11 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) last row was a zero in terms of trying to determine what was the amount we can do.

  120. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:25:16 — open the recording at 25 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 197 Sure. Are underwriter fees included, where do underwriter fees fall into all of that?

  121. 0:25:24 — open the recording at 25 minutes 24 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) Sure. So the assumed borrowing amount in total would be $160 million. And so

  122. 0:25:30 — open the recording at 25 minutes 30 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) we can provide you a breakdown of what estimated fees might look like, but there would be cost issuance fees that would include underwriter's discount, municipal advisor fees, bottle counsel

  123. 0:25:40 — open the recording at 25 minutes 40 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) fees so it's really if we went out with the project approval for 160 million it has to be all in hard cost soft cost and cost of issues okay but any anything over that is really what

  124. 0:25:50 — open the recording at 25 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 189 i think what i was trying to ask is there anything above beyond that but that's the full

  125. 0:25:58 — open the recording at 25 minutes 58 secondsSpeaker 143 (unknown — contaminated cluster) and when those are issued is there any debt service like escrow reserve requirement or

  126. 0:26:04 — open the recording at 26 minutes 4 secondsSpeaker 12 (chair) replacement reserve requirement that's on top of the debt service that's very nice

  127. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:26:11 — open the recording at 26 minutes 11 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) when i one question and if you want to hop in on this when i see maximum debt service if i'm an individual and i max out my in my maximum debt service as a individual household i mean i tend to think of that as you're pretty well tapped out on from a you're taking out the maximum amount of debt that you could possibly have and that would mean right from my background as a financial planner i would say oh that makes me a little nervous can you talk about you could again at the current rate that's what you could do but can you talk about

  128. 0:26:46 — open the recording at 26 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 210 that's not the max that you could do what you'll find is you'll find examples that were going to be

  129. 0:26:52 — open the recording at 26 minutes 52 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) shared that are over a dollar on their debt service rate what we were tasked with was to to find out what could we do inside what our current rate and our current love is. Anything that we would do above this would cause us to increase the lobby or increase the rate. And that means raising taxes.

  130. 0:27:08 — open the recording at 27 minutes 8 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) We've been tasked with what could you do without raising taxes? And that's what this was for. If we wanted to do more up front and get it done faster, we would need to increase our lobby, which means we'd increase our taxes. And at this point, that's not the direction our board has asked us to come back with illustrative examples of that. But there is, I mean, there are school districts, I think you're going to have in your example, that are over a dollar on their debt service rate.

  131. 0:27:35 — open the recording at 27 minutes 35 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) Now, obviously, if you're going to do that, you're forced in a referendum because of what Kristen just shared, which is that if you're 70 cents or higher, you have no choice but to go for a referendum at that point. And that's for any project. So if we are at 70 cents and we just wanted to do a simple $600,000 chiller replacement, we'd have to go to the public with a referendum for the $600,000 request if we were up to 70 cents or higher. So one of the things that Donna and I have been trying to do is to manage our rate,

  132. 0:28:03 — open the recording at 28 minutes 3 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) keep it as low as possible so that when we do have emergencies, we have flexibility to go in and take care of us. But I think that's the question, though.

  133. 0:28:10 — open the recording at 28 minutes 10 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) you're maxing out your your existing 0.2424 can you comfortably make the 13 million dollar payment

  134. 0:28:18 — open the recording at 28 minutes 18 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) and then still have money to fund emergencies the answer is yes we can and there's still things with general obligation bonds and so forth that it would increase the tax rate in order to do those

  135. 0:28:30 — open the recording at 28 minutes 30 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) are geo bonds outside of this yeah um so it schools do have the option to do a geo or a lease I didn't delve into the differences because what Jason's focused on is the debt service levy and both GOs and leases hit the levy the same.

  136. 0:28:48 — open the recording at 28 minutes 48 seconds Good questions.

  137. 0:28:50 — open the recording at 28 minutes 50 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) Yeah, very good.

  138. 0:28:52 — open the recording at 28 minutes 52 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) The other thing that happens is as SS value goes up, we have more flexibility on what to do with those rates. So in year one, it would make us a little bit tighter to stay within that if we had the emergency come up but over time as the assessed value goes up there becomes more and more flexibility to come back and be able to do those projects.

  139. 0:29:16 — open the recording at 29 minutes 16 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) We didn't want to make any assessed value assumptions in our presentation under the strict .

  140. 0:29:27 — open the recording at 29 minutes 27 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) All right so here this is I think getting to the heart of the analysis. We have a couple of different color of bars here in this chart that are stacked upon one another. I wanted to draw your attention to the gray bars. That is the current existing payments of the school corporation.

  141. 0:29:47 — open the recording at 29 minutes 47 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) Currently the school has six bonds currently outstanding. You can see that that's roughly $14 million in 2016, which was driving that $13 million levy. All debt is repaid by 2031,

  142. 0:30:00 — open the recording at 30 minutesJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) And so the school corporation has been careful to repay that quickly to minimize measure suspense, to keep flexibility for the future, having an eye on potential projects. And you can see then

  143. 0:30:12 — open the recording at 30 minutes 12 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) looking at the 2026 bonds, 2027 bonds, 2028 bonds, and different variations of blue,

  144. 0:30:18 — open the recording at 30 minutes 18 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) stacking them upon one another, you can see the 26 bonds. We bring that total payment to 40 years. it goes out to the full 20 years to 2045. The 80 million again that would come on in 2020, reissued in 2027 and would hit our tax rules in 2028. Again you can see payments there just under 14 billion dollars and those payments would not be changing for the next 20 years at this

  145. 0:30:41 — open the recording at 30 minutes 41 secondsSpeaker 212 (unknown — contaminated cluster) that service might be a power. So you can see that everything was just all safe.

  146. 0:30:47 — open the recording at 30 minutes 47 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) Because this is this is focused strictly on levy that's not the tax rate the dotted line that's just our projection for the levy that's that 12 million nine hundred ninety thousand dollars

  147. 0:30:56 — open the recording at 30 minutes 56 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) you can see the payments just correlate to it again just pointing out that these are full 20-year terms so this does you know to answer your question um would there be anything above

  148. 0:31:06 — open the recording at 31 minutes 6 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) and beyond this if we were to stay for shaw 99.9 if the interest rates were to be this 4.6 percent you would see that this would just drive our levy to that's probably a 990 each and every year for

  149. 0:31:18 — open the recording at 31 minutes 18 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) the next 20 years. Jason, how does including things like early call provisions, sinking funds, extraordinary calls, how does adding features like that affect the interest rate

  150. 0:31:34 — open the recording at 31 minutes 34 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) that we could issue at? Sure, so typically for a 20 year financing, it's normal to have a 10 year call. And when we think about municipal bonds, these are fixed rate securities, so It's not as easy or as simple as when we can potentially refinance our homes if interest rates are favorable. We have to wait to get to that call date in order to use taxes and interest rates. So if we were to use a 10-year call, then the price on that bond would be a little bit lower after the call date for the chance that they actually called for investors.

  151. 0:32:06 — open the recording at 32 minutes 6 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) So those are considered when we get to the pricing. you know if the project were to be approved we use the pricing to look at those factors

  152. 0:32:13 — open the recording at 32 minutes 13 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) to make sure it's the most efficient for the school corporation but the answer to your question is those types of provisions would decrease the price of the bonds for the school corporation

  153. 0:32:25 — open the recording at 32 minutes 25 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) and the investors would demand a little bit more so to speak for some of those provisions

  154. 0:32:33 — open the recording at 32 minutes 33 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) so any questions on this slide just again you can see 160 million dollars in this current levy anything above and beyond that we've increased the levy.

  155. 0:32:41 — open the recording at 32 minutes 41 secondsSpeaker 226 So 2027 is the first year you can issue any.

  156. 0:32:45 — open the recording at 32 minutes 45 secondsSpeaker 214 Yeah, if we were to issue, well what would happen is, if you go back to the previous

  157. 0:32:49 — open the recording at 32 minutes 49 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) example, this was bringing it on in 26, but there's always a lag time on when you see it on your tax rate, so it comes up on the 27, that's why you see it on here.

  158. 0:32:57 — open the recording at 32 minutes 57 secondsSpeaker 172 If you issue in 26, it hit the rules in 27, 27, it hit the rules in 28, so on and so forth.

  159. 0:33:05 — open the recording at 33 minutes 5 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) group one funding that's kind of so now i'll put the pieces together so group one funding ideally from the county because community from the community so that you're that you're free up then

  160. 0:33:19 — open the recording at 33 minutes 19 secondsSpeaker 124 to then do group two now the amount that this generates allows us to do the group

  161. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    0:33:29 — open the recording at 33 minutes 29 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) with the help of the casino foundation um that i mean one of the questions you asked is what happens If the county doesn't have the finance here, it can't help us. What we would have to do as a school board is we have to back up and say, if we can't do both high schools and make sure that every high school kid in the county has access to these modernized facilities, because the county doesn't have the money to help us and we can't.

  162. 0:33:55 — open the recording at 33 minutes 55 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) Our capacity is if you take this amount and you marry it with the casino foundation money, it would cause the school board to take a step back and say, do we do the new high school on the east side and wait and put off the group two projects? Or do they stick with their original plan of doing the group two projects and put off and wait on doing the new high school on the east side? I don't know where the board is on that because we haven't had that conversation.

  163. 0:34:21 — open the recording at 34 minutes 21 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) But the answer to the question that you asked the other day, which is what happens if the county can't help or if they can help, but they choose not to help, what is the next step?

  164. 0:34:32 — open the recording at 34 minutes 32 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) The next step would be for the school board to take a step back and say, if we can't do this for all high school kids throughout the entire community, and we have to pick and choose only one project, that's what they would have to step back and take the kids on and say, do we just stick with our original game plan of this financing, live within our current rate, our current levy, and then make a decision as to which side of the river gets the opportunity. and that's what we're trying to avoid we're trying to do this so that every kid in our county

  165. 0:35:04 — open the recording at 35 minutes 4 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) has access to modernized high school facilities that's why we're asking the county to help if they have the opportunity and if they have the opportunity and they have the willingness because then we're not picking and choosing kids across the state across the county for modernized

  166. 0:35:19 — open the recording at 35 minutes 19 secondsSpeaker 104 (district staff or consultant) facilities we can do both high schools at the same time every child in this town will have access to

  167. 0:35:25 — open the recording at 35 minutes 25 secondsSpeaker 237 (unknown — contaminated cluster) modernized facilities. We also know there was a request to have some comparison data of

  168. 0:35:39 — open the recording at 35 minutes 39 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) where the school compares to its peers. And before we start getting into peer comparison, we did just want to provide a five-year history of where the school corporation's tax rate has been from 22, 2026. You can see it's been very stable at that 98 to 97 cent range. Then in 2026,

  169. 0:35:59 — open the recording at 35 minutes 59 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) just this year, that actually dropped by roughly 7 cents. So the school corporation dropped

  170. 0:36:05 — open the recording at 36 minutes 5 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) its referendum rate to 12 cents. It has the authority to go to 16 cents based upon the question that was approved back in 2019. But 12 cents is the operating referendum rate this year in 2026.

  171. 0:36:19 — open the recording at 36 minutes 19 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) And to let you know, we dropped that rate to match the original request of the lobby. So we're still generating the same lobby we did at the beginning. It's just that we lowered the rate to do that. And we lowered the rate to do that in order to make sure that we could do the project

  172. 0:36:35 — open the recording at 36 minutes 35 secondsSpeaker 104 (district staff or consultant) of group two projects and at the same time lower the overall rate.

  173. 0:36:38 — open the recording at 36 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 243 (district staff or consultant) And there was AV growth in the county. So that did help contribute.

  174. 0:36:45 — open the recording at 36 minutes 45 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) AV grew over 10% in the county in 2026.

  175. 0:36:48 — open the recording at 36 minutes 48 secondsSpeaker 72 Which has not happened. Has not happened.

  176. 0:36:50 — open the recording at 36 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) Which to clarify, and this is, Jason may be able to speak to this in more authoritative terms, but in a school corporation, we basically, when we build our budget, we ask for permission and there's formulas we follow and so forth that tell us what the maximum amount is.

  177. 0:37:10 — open the recording at 37 minutes 10 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) If the AV grows, we don't generate more money. We actually see our rate below it because we can't receive more on a levy than what

  178. 0:37:20 — open the recording at 37 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) the formulas and the statutes allow us to do. And we have to get permission to that and we have to prove that those are needed and so forth.

  179. 0:37:29 — open the recording at 37 minutes 29 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) So when there's a set value growth, I know that there was some things going through the community that, oh, you guys are going to see a windfall. Actually, we don't. And what we see is the exact same amount that we had permission to collect, which then causes the rate to go down.

  180. 0:37:44 — open the recording at 37 minutes 44 secondsSpeaker 60 (district staff or consultant) But you had permission to collect more.

  181. 0:37:47 — open the recording at 37 minutes 47 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) We have permission to collect more, but because of circuit breaker losses, those are credits back to the taxpayer. We don't get to collect those. But on the operating referendum side, you chose not to take where you're off.

  182. 0:37:59 — open the recording at 37 minutes 59 secondsSpeaker 60 (district staff or consultant) On the operation referendum side, you're correct.

  183. 0:38:01 — open the recording at 38 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) we did we we had permission to collect an additional two million dollars on the operational reference site that we chose not to because we wanted to offset it with what we were doing

  184. 0:38:10 — open the recording at 38 minutes 10 secondsSpeaker 71 in the debt service so that we could do the group two projects and at the same time lower the work

  185. 0:38:22 — open the recording at 38 minutes 22 secondsSpeaker 250 is that a school board decision it was a community decision we we reached out to some community

  186. 0:38:27 — open the recording at 38 minutes 27 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) members that um pay attention closely to property taxes as well as the school board and made a decision that we thought was in the best interest of the entire community but also make sure that we could do what the board has at schools there's a lot of different strategies the schools you know

  187. 0:38:45 — open the recording at 38 minutes 45 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) with that that are specific so what works for them in their communities we did we did we did

  188. 0:38:49 — open the recording at 38 minutes 49 secondsSpeaker 243 (district staff or consultant) get our maximum rate in the operations fund so we didn't give up any of our operations fund revenue We did take that and that's governed by the growth quotient. So that was that 4% growth quotient that you heard Steve will talk about. So we did get the 4% maximum growth in populations.

  189. 0:39:10 — open the recording at 39 minutes 10 seconds The only fund that we gave a revenue referendum.

  190. 0:39:13 — open the recording at 39 minutes 13 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) Yes, and that is what I think would be a little unique, just lowering it to that by

  191. 0:39:18 — open the recording at 39 minutes 18 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) the amount, knowing you could have had the 16 cent rate in school shows to get the 12

  192. 0:39:24 — open the recording at 39 minutes 24 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) I can tell you that the reason was because that we, what we dropped, it was about four cents. And if you add the four cents back in there, that would have been around 94 cents, 94 to 95 cents. And at the time there was a appeal and a review being done of the assessed valuation. And we wanted to make sure that if that appeal ended up reducing the amount of the assessed valuation growth, that we ended up with the rate going down. And so

  193. 0:39:50 — open the recording at 39 minutes 50 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) if we chose to reduce our love in the operation or in the referendum back to the original lovey amount to guarantee that even if that review ended up with a slightly lower AV than

  194. 0:40:03 — open the recording at 40 minutes 3 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) what they were projecting at the time, we were going to end up with a lower rate in either case. And it ended up that the AV held higher than what we thought it might. And so we ended up with even a lower rate than what we thought. But we did that because we wanted to, it was based on conversations that we've had with farmers in particular, the people who pay close attention to property taxes and pay

  195. 0:40:29 — open the recording at 40 minutes 29 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) very significant in those property taxes.

  196. 0:40:32 — open the recording at 40 minutes 32 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) Yeah, it's commendable, but I don't, I guess $2 million spread across the A and B, I just don't know how impactful it was to the individual taxpayer.

  197. 0:40:43 — open the recording at 40 minutes 43 secondsSpeaker 237 (unknown — contaminated cluster) I know there's a lot of colors on this slide, but realistically, I really just want to draw your attention to the totals.

  198. 0:40:53 — open the recording at 40 minutes 53 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) This is a peer comparison of school corporations with 2026 enrollment ranging between 8,500 and 15,900, but just under 16,000. Also including some that don't quite fit that enrollment category, but they would be MSD Care, Plainfield, Mourdesville are also in this year comparison as well.

  199. 0:41:15 — open the recording at 41 minutes 15 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) You can see that's 29 in this universe that we are comparing to and that we can see Deco County there. We tried to highlight it in yellow. It's at 90.53 cents. The dotted line that you see, that is the average tax rate

  200. 0:41:29 — open the recording at 41 minutes 29 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) in 2026 throughout state and that is one dollar and two cents. So you are below the average tax rate in the state. The median would be 99 cents and so the median being 99 averaging one dollar two cents. Vigo County you can see is below that at 90. The different colors

  201. 0:41:48 — open the recording at 41 minutes 48 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) in the bars just represent that there are different property tax money funds some applicable to some schools like a capital referendum for example that's not applicable to Vigo County schools.

  202. 0:41:57 — open the recording at 41 minutes 57 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) We don't have a capital referendum we have an operating referendum. So again you can see the operations fund that's in the green debt is in blue capital referendum baby blue offering referendum yellow are there any questions on this slide so like right at half

  203. 0:42:13 — open the recording at 42 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 26 (oversight board member) i have an operating referendum it looks like 15 out of 30. no 13 or 29 yes i want to double check

  204. 0:42:20 — open the recording at 42 minutes 20 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) my numbers i was i i it's not i wrote down 10 but for some reason i think it is more than that um i think 10 was the capital reference tim was capital yeah there's 15.

  205. 0:42:36 — open the recording at 42 minutes 36 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) and if you as you may have heard or read there is a number of school districts that are having conversations about operational reference that have never had that before because of what happened with fca1 as well as um the general fund basic tuition funding from last year

  206. 0:42:57 — open the recording at 42 minutes 57 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) we our revenue in the from the state of indiana the basic tuition that we get from them is 1.5

  207. 0:43:03 — open the recording at 43 minutes 3 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) million dollars less than it was previously and lots of school districts encountered that and when you coupled it with the hit of sca1 there are other school districts that are not as in strong a financial position as what we have been in and so there's a lot of referendums that are going to go out in this next election and i think i've a report that came out of channel 15 out of away i think they reported more than 100 school districts were having conversations about doing

  208. 0:43:33 — open the recording at 43 minutes 33 secondsSpeaker 226 operational referendums and the dotted line was statewide it's not this correct our next slide

  209. 0:43:47 — open the recording at 43 minutes 47 secondsSpeaker 237 (unknown — contaminated cluster) looks at drilling down further into the tax rate composition of non exempt debt service.

  210. 0:43:53 — open the recording at 43 minutes 53 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) So this is not capital referendum debt service. This is just non exempt, not voter

  211. 0:43:58 — open the recording at 43 minutes 58 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) referendum approved debt service. You can see again, Wyrdegos County stacks up there at about sixth in our 29 peer comparison universe. The state average for the debt service fund tax rate

  212. 0:44:11 — open the recording at 44 minutes 11 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) is roughly 43 cents in 2026. So the school corporation here at 24 cents is roughly 19 cents below that state average for the debt service fund tax rate.

  213. 0:44:27 — open the recording at 44 minutes 27 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) A lot of information on this slide, I do understand that, but these are the school corporations in the state that have operating requirements outstanding. So this is outside of the peer comparison universe of 29. You can see that Nego County's operating referendum tax rate of 12 cents again that ranks seventh and what's the state and there are over 60 operative terms on this chart the average as you can see there the dotted line that is roughly 24 25 cents the operating referendum average

  214. 0:45:00 — open the recording at 45 minutesSpeaker 237 (unknown — contaminated cluster) What does this mean though on a per student basis? I'm just thinking about the levy that we're generating that $7 million,

  215. 0:45:11 — open the recording at 45 minutes 11 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) covering that amongst the enrollment for Diego County Schools, and also compared to the other schools that have operating requirements outstanding. You can see that that generates $539 per student for Diego County Schools. That's $7 million over the roughly $13,000 that comprises the enrollment count for

  216. 0:45:28 — open the recording at 45 minutes 28 secondsSpeaker 171 that kind of schools so you can see some on the further end of the the chart that

  217. 0:45:35 — open the recording at 45 minutes 35 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) essentially is saying that levy goes further for that for that student on the further end of the

  218. 0:45:41 — open the recording at 45 minutes 41 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) you'll notice that there are many of the highest numbers are rural communities

  219. 0:45:46 — open the recording at 45 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) and the rural communities that are trying to avoid consolidation um and that's you know another question that you asked is that has been asked is why are we to keep all 23 schools well in order

  220. 0:45:59 — open the recording at 45 minutes 59 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) for us to do all 23s continue to utilize all current 23 schools and be able to live within

  221. 0:46:05 — open the recording at 46 minutes 5 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) our means we would need to significantly increase what we've asked for in the operational referendum

  222. 0:46:10 — open the recording at 46 minutes 10 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) because we would need to do something from the operation side in terms of what the impact of

  223. 0:46:16 — open the recording at 46 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) sea1 to make sure that we can preventably maintain our buildings and we would need to increase what we're doing from what the state size and supplementing their side because over the last 15 years we've i think only two of the fifth of two years out of the last 15 years they have reached the funding rate input schools that keeps up with information so we just continue to fall behind that so if we want to keep doing what we've been doing and not make any changes the only way to do that is to significantly increase the operational referendum sure and that's where you see those

  224. 0:46:54 — open the recording at 46 minutes 54 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) numbers on the right with those big numbers those are typically rural school districts that are trying to avoid consolidating what they're needed so that they can keep doing what it is at the

  225. 0:47:05 — open the recording at 47 minutes 5 secondsSpeaker 286 bedroom is that hamilton county all the way out there it is hamilton community

  226. 0:47:09 — open the recording at 47 minutes 9 secondsSpeaker 129 And then our final slide here is net assessed value per student.

  227. 0:47:21 — open the recording at 47 minutes 21 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) And just practically speaking, Liam, what we're trying to get behind what is the impact of this slide is just thinking about the same, we can't just raise the same amount of local property taxes as some taxing districts and other units just based upon our net assessed And so the state average of net assess value per student is 512,000 for 2026.

  228. 0:47:46 — open the recording at 47 minutes 46 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) And you can see Mico County schools at 412,000, so about 100,000 underneath that.

  229. 0:47:52 — open the recording at 47 minutes 52 secondsSpeaker 172 Again, that 512,000 number, that's all the schools in the state, not just the 29 comparing to here.

  230. 0:47:59 — open the recording at 47 minutes 59 secondsSpeaker 250 But when your rates are lower and your NAV is lower, it kind of puts you in a little bit of a...

  231. 0:48:07 — open the recording at 48 minutes 7 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) the previous slides are so much lower than the other because our AV because we have lower AV a penny generates less than they do in some other communities so when you combine both of those two

  232. 0:48:20 — open the recording at 48 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 71 that's why in the previous slide you saw how much lower we were than some of the others

  233. 0:48:28 — open the recording at 48 minutes 28 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) so that was the uh those are the six slides for a clear comparison and and I'm happy to answer any questions pertaining to the financing.

  234. 0:48:39 — open the recording at 48 minutes 39 secondsSpeaker 25 I do appreciate that to speak here.

  235. 0:48:43 — open the recording at 48 minutes 43 secondsMark Matheny (oversight board member) Thank you. Very patient. Great information. Take, to me back a little further, we talked about this the other day, but the 0.2424 debt service rate, talk about how that has trended over the last 20 years.

  236. 0:48:59 — open the recording at 48 minutes 59 secondsSpeaker 1 All right.

  237. 0:49:01 — open the recording at 49 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 298 Sorry.

  238. 0:49:02 — open the recording at 49 minutes 2 secondsSpeaker 25 So, actually, over the past five years, the school corporation's debt service tax rate has been in the most months.

  239. 0:49:08 — open the recording at 49 minutes 8 secondsJason Tanselle (consultant (municipal advisor, Baker Tilly)) It's been 21 cents, 22 cents, now we're 24-24. And so, for the school corporation, that has been consistent over the last five plus years, but this is the 24 cents, a little bit higher than it has been, as Dr. Kemp's alluded to, with the taking about the project based.

  240. 0:49:25 — open the recording at 49 minutes 25 secondsSpeaker 210 And that's part of the reason why to increase it to the 24 so we could do the group two projects,

  241. 0:49:29 — open the recording at 49 minutes 29 secondsSpeaker 129 we lowered the other but the overall net was a lower rate

  242. 0:49:36 — open the recording at 49 minutes 36 secondsSpeaker 151 understood that we didn't have to put the board together

  243. 0:49:41 — open the recording at 49 minutes 41 secondsSpeaker 301 (unclear — consultant or district staff) our tax rate has been extremely consistent in the last 15 20 years

  244. 0:49:48 — open the recording at 49 minutes 48 secondsSpeaker 303 other than the operating referendum if you take the operating referendum

  245. 0:49:52 — open the recording at 49 minutes 52 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) yeah i think i did a had a slide for the community forum back in march that showed the history of the

  246. 0:50:01 — open the recording at 50 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 104 (district staff or consultant) tax rates and i think that the debt service tax rate was pretty level for like 30 years that's in

  247. 0:50:07 — open the recording at 50 minutes 7 secondsSpeaker 306 my comparison i believe in the financial review because we do certainly break our laws please

  248. 0:50:13 — open the recording at 50 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 212 (unknown — contaminated cluster) don't hold me to that hold it to what she says when she does her representation but it was for a very long period of time that it was it was very very stable

  249. 0:50:29 — open the recording at 50 minutes 29 secondsSpeaker 307 questions

  250. 0:50:33 — open the recording at 50 minutes 33 secondsSpeaker 91 (unknown — contaminated cluster) i will christina i failed to take a note you said there are two reasons for a referendum

  251. 0:50:38 — open the recording at 50 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 143 (unknown — contaminated cluster) any project when your existing debt service rate exceeds 70 cents was there increasing the debt

  252. 0:50:44 — open the recording at 50 minutes 44 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) service rate? The other one, so it's number one is if your debt service fund tax rate is over 70 cents as a district. The other one, while you see a lot, most of the referendum we've seen that are capital is because they have so much circuit breaker loss in those communities that they have to go,

  253. 0:51:02 — open the recording at 51 minutes 2 secondsKristin McNulty McClellan (consultant (bond counsel, Ice Miller)) when you do a referendum, your debt is outside circuit breaker cap, so it's an automatic tax increase and so that's why some schools have to do it because they suffer suffer so much circuit breaker loss they're getting a huge hit on their operations fund already issuing more debt they would have to take more from the operation fund and they couldn't do it

  254. 0:51:25 — open the recording at 51 minutes 25 secondsSpeaker 311 you remember our losses almost nine million it wasn't 25.

  255. 0:51:38 — open the recording at 51 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 314 I think what we've done is we've presented to you kind of the process we went through.

  256. 0:51:51 — open the recording at 51 minutes 51 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) We started with the enrollment realities. We went into some budget realities.

  257. 0:51:57 — open the recording at 51 minutes 57 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) We talked through how we worked our way through different options that were there. Jim presented to you where the deficiencies are in our buildings. We've talked a little bit now about the financing and what the parameters were for the financing and how we compare. What we'll do is put together for a future meeting day kind of a summary and tie all those things together so you're not relying on your notes and remembering pieces that we've done. We'll try to do that in a summary. You guys have also asked us for a little bit more on our current financial condition.

  258. 0:52:31 — open the recording at 52 minutes 31 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) Donna is doing a presentation at an upcoming board meeting where she takes a look back as to what we did in 2025. We will share that at a future oversight board meeting as well.

  259. 0:52:43 — open the recording at 52 minutes 43 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) We're going to share it at our school board meeting first and then at an oversight board meeting. Her target date has been based on that board meeting date. So, and I think we're going to do it within a couple of days of each other. So,

  260. 0:52:56 — open the recording at 52 minutes 56 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) we'll be at about the same time. So, I think from that standpoint, if there's anything else that we can answer for you to help you understand how we navigated this we're happy to do more school tours to go and view some of the options that other kids and other communities have that kind of helped us understand how we need to modernize our schools so that our kids have access to opportunities that other communities take for granted we understand the concept of living within our means which is the reason why we've also tried to choose an option that helps us reduce

  261. 0:53:32 — open the recording at 53 minutes 32 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) what we're doing in the education fund because that revenue comes from the state of indiana we're not full of it and how do we also reduce operation fund expenses and come up with the least amount that we need to do for these different projects so that we can maximize all that and be as cognizant as we are with the taxpayer but also provide opportunities for kids so how do we maximize savings and do it as quickly as we can but also not shortchange what we're doing for kids and making sure that we're meeting the needs of kids and that's what we've been trying to do so

  262. 0:54:05 — open the recording at 54 minutes 5 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) if there any of those tours you want to come up with if any of those follow-up information we're happy to do so but i think we've concluded um with answering those questions and we'll put together

  263. 0:54:15 — open the recording at 54 minutes 15 secondsSpeaker 104 (district staff or consultant) kind of a summary and kind of do that overview summary at a future board meeting that mark's

  264. 0:54:20 — open the recording at 54 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 143 (unknown — contaminated cluster) been working with me on a potential date so we've got that done i think it'd be interesting to see

  265. 0:54:26 — open the recording at 54 minutes 26 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) you know that we've kind of outlined a 29 group kind of peer group to see how many facilities how many high schools they have how many middle schools how many elementaries and how is that

  266. 0:54:36 — open the recording at 54 minutes 36 secondsSpeaker 60 (district staff or consultant) compared to our current state and option six and that's where we went when we came back with that

  267. 0:54:46 — open the recording at 54 minutes 46 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) model where we said we want to get between six and seven hundred of an elementary school and around nine hundred to a thousand in a middle school that was based on what you just said which is where does that peer group land and what are other schools doing to try to increase their efficiencies and maximize those efficiencies and that's what drove that part of the conversation

  268. 0:55:04 — open the recording at 55 minutes 4 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) you'll also notice that there were we didn't do the amounts that were done but there were schools up there in that peer group that have 800 900 million dollar referendants that they passed

  269. 0:55:16 — open the recording at 55 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) i think there was one that was up there that was over a billion dollars if i'm not mistaken that you had or close to it um there are community the bottom line is is that there are communities that have invested in their schools for a long period of time which is why you saw the larger debt service rates we saw the capital referendum rates and so forth is because they've been doing that and all we're trying to do is to bring our schools up to a situation where our kids get access to the same types of learning opportunities that other schools take for granted

  270. 0:55:52 — open the recording at 55 minutes 52 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) because our kids can compete with anyone anywhere and we want them to stay in vego county and pursue those options

  271. 0:56:05 — open the recording at 56 minutes 5 secondsSpeaker 26 (oversight board member) any public comment or i guess anything else from the board before we public comment

  272. 0:56:12 — open the recording at 56 minutes 12 secondsSpeaker 25 thank you guys

  273. 0:56:18 — open the recording at 56 minutes 18 secondsSpeaker 326 (resident) i've been to a number of these meetings and tried to absorb a lot of this information

  274. 0:56:23 — open the recording at 56 minutes 23 secondsSpeaker 327 and it seems to me we're looking at the total pro total cost today's dollars of all these projects

  275. 0:56:32 — open the recording at 56 minutes 32 secondsSpeaker 129 500 600 million dollars if we were to keep all 23 schools and not make any change what we're doing

  276. 0:56:40 — open the recording at 56 minutes 40 secondsSpeaker 60 (district staff or consultant) it is over 700 and what we're trying to do is reduce that number of damage you're in the ball bar so so we're not kicking your can down the road we're trying to catch a barrel

  277. 0:56:51 — open the recording at 56 minutes 51 secondsSpeaker 326 (resident) that's rolling down the road on its own and slow it down okay i mean let's let's let's face the facts how serious this is and how much money is ultimately going to be needed to do all of this now i know covet was uh had a horrible impact on construction costs and significantly increased

  278. 0:57:17 — open the recording at 57 minutes 17 secondsSpeaker 327 construction construction costs i mean i've seen it as i dealt with ray park and hear it and read it that's actually added to the problem we have here.

  279. 0:57:30 — open the recording at 57 minutes 30 secondsSpeaker 336 (resident) From an individual taxpayer's perspective, about this time of year, they get their notice of assessment on their home and how much it's gone up is what I expected to see. And then the only other thing they see is their property tax bill.

  280. 0:57:52 — open the recording at 57 minutes 52 seconds Okay.

  281. 0:57:52 — open the recording at 57 minutes 52 secondsSpeaker 326 (resident) And I'm going to answer the guess that maybe 75% of our homeowners are not going to be able to read that referendum wording, required referendum wording, and understand what it's going to mean. Which that makes it so easy to vote note. So is there a marketing process to let people know that own their home? this is what this is going to mean to your house and not just a $50,000 test valuation or whatever. I mean, I realize it may be a significant amount of work, but I think in the last referendum,

  282. 0:58:37 — open the recording at 58 minutes 37 secondsSpeaker 326 (resident) I don't think people really understood how little their property taxes were going to go up if they voted for it.

  283. 0:58:45 — open the recording at 58 minutes 45 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) Obviously, I wasn't here during the last referendum, and I can't speak to how things were done in the last referendum.

  284. 0:58:50 — open the recording at 58 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) But one of the positions that our school board has taken and what we've done is the community told us they did not want what was presented the last time. That was the result of the vote. There's a number of reasons as to why. So what we did this time is in our facility study is we took a look at all of our buildings. We tried to look at it from the standpoint of what are the current laws? What is the direction of those laws and the trends of those laws and put ourselves in the best position? not just for the immediate today but for the next 10 12 15 20 years and that's what we've tried to

  285. 0:59:27 — open the recording at 59 minutes 27 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) do in terms of passing a referendum you're correct and that it's a lot of education of getting information out to people um you know there's um we've been talking about this done it for what 18 almost 24 months now actually we're over 24 months now since we first started facility study

  286. 0:59:47 — open the recording at 59 minutes 47 secondsSpeaker 344 we're over 24 months and we still have people who come up to us and say i didn't know you

  287. 0:59:51 — open the recording at 59 minutes 51 secondsSpeaker 21 have to do that um which is why we're thankful that we've been talking about but i will say

  288. 1:00:00 — open the recording at 1 hourSpeaker 301 (unclear — consultant or district staff) to your question about normally when a school enters a referendum race they engage a consulting firm that works side by side with them in a public relations capacity to run that race and obviously There are a lot of rules that govern how that occurs because once the school board makes that determination that we're going to actually run a referendum race, a lot of things have to stop at the school corporation level. Only certain people at the corporation, and I believe it's the superintendent and the CFO, they can actually work on school time to promote the referendum.

  289. 1:00:39 — open the recording at 1 hour 39 secondsSpeaker 301 (unclear — consultant or district staff) And during the last referendum, we had calculators out there. property tax calculators that people can go out and enter data but you are so correct people do not understand I don't under I don't think that people understand the process of their tax school and let all those things mean but if they went out to that calculator they can input their net assessed value and

  290. 1:01:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 5 secondsSpeaker 333 it would produce somebody needs to do it for them and I know I know I know what

  291. 1:01:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 13 secondsSpeaker 354 (resident) you're saying or if we can go door to door and promote uh the candidates for political office maybe we can go door to door and deal with this this issue because if if we can't tell them this is your pre-taxes and this is your post taxes with this referendum those are the only two numbers but

  292. 1:01:35 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 35 secondsSpeaker 301 (unclear — consultant or district staff) that they're going to be i totally agree with you it is a big big big job and we did have a pack a political action committee that worked with us but obviously it wasn't enough so

  293. 1:01:47 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 47 secondsSpeaker 336 (resident) and we learned a lot if you need a lot more help and you need more people to do it then speak up right christian speak up to that piece if we ever and christian and christian did have a group i

  294. 1:02:00 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutesSpeaker 360 I mean, there was hell, but it obviously we fell short.

  295. 1:02:04 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 4 secondsSpeaker 363 (resident) Yeah. Yeah. And I think we've heard a lot of different voices coming to the table for this, for what we're discussing now versus last time. And so I think Earl is exactly right. It's going to take a lot of people and a lot of education to get out there and make people understand exactly what this means, because this is not a small thing. This is a very big, very long term thing.

  296. 1:02:25 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 25 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) But to your point and all of your pride. Thank you. thank you actually for advocating in the ways that you're doing so but what were our school

  297. 1:02:34 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 34 secondsSpeaker 128 (unknown — contaminated cluster) board tasks us to do is what could we do inside our existing lobbies and our county commissioner

  298. 1:02:39 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 39 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) said what could they do inside their existing bodies sure and what we're trying to do is how much of this could we do inside existing lobbies and is there a way to address a chunk of this that takes care of the entire population inside those existing lobbies and that's what we're able to do at the high schools but early you are correct in that to do the entire total plan we can't do it inside the existing lobbies and we can't do it all at once it's going to be spread out over several

  299. 1:03:08 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 8 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) years but you're playing and i struggle with what the sources of funds are going to be for

  300. 1:03:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 326 (resident) for the total total project and the other piece is the uh other private money that they can come in to this process and and it seems like we need to get rolling on trying to build back but if we

  301. 1:03:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 30 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) if the county does have the resources that the commissioners have expressed which is the reason why you guys are iron pro to do independent type of thing um what we can do in our existing lobbies and what they think they can do in their existing lobbies takes off a very big significant chunk of

  302. 1:03:47 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 47 secondsSpeaker 276 this and greatly reduces how much we would need to raise in addition to do those remaining parts we can use the private money regardless correct well and i think it's to everyone's benefit and

  303. 1:04:01 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 143 (unknown — contaminated cluster) interest to see the operational efficiencies that you laid out over a month ago if we can the long-term efficiencies and savings over 14 million dollars a year yes it's going to take a capital investment up front but there is there is light at the end of the tunnel and then it's

  304. 1:04:21 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 21 secondsSpeaker 17 (chair) not a continual ask for money we can actually start saving money operationally i think that i

  305. 1:04:27 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 27 secondsSpeaker 375 think that the real effort too was that if we could get a big chunk done and do what we said

  306. 1:04:35 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 35 secondsSpeaker 311 we were going to do and establish that momentum in the county and hopefully help the chamber bring in outside businesses and the county people can see it improving that we get momentum that

  307. 1:04:49 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 49 secondsSpeaker 104 (district staff or consultant) the pushes we understand that one of the things that we're trying to overcome in terms of the

  308. 1:04:53 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 53 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) trust factor that's been out there is that some of the projects that we have done have not addressed

  309. 1:05:00 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutesChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) the underlying issues and so for an example being rio grande elementary school was a formerly an open concept school that they came in and put walls, but there were also HVAC issues that needed

  310. 1:05:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 13 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) to be addressed. We put the walls up and we did not address the HVAC issues, which created cold spots and hot spots in the building. And the building is completely dysregulated in terms of

  311. 1:05:25 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 25 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) the heating and cooling. And you can have two rooms next to each other where one room is 62 degrees and the other room is 75 degrees. And the reason is because in the open concept, the HVAC was

  312. 1:05:36 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 36 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corporation superintendent)) designed to circulate the air without those walls being present and now those walls are being put back in there we understand that that's an issue we understand that we need to complete some of

  313. 1:05:47 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 47 secondsSpeaker 62 (unknown — contaminated cluster) these projects to demonstrate that we're not just trying to make them look nice we're trying to address the core issues that really affect teaching and learning and those electrical systems are a key component of this those plumbing systems are a key component of this

  314. 1:06:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 2 secondsSpeaker 36 I enjoy the conversation of meeting in this room.

  315. 1:06:07 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 7 secondsSpeaker 91 (unknown — contaminated cluster) It makes it a lot more collaborative than the council chamber. So just remind everybody there's it's public comment.

  316. 1:06:12 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 12 secondsSpeaker 226 There's no obligation from you all to respond. It's not public Q and A. I appreciate it.

  317. 1:06:17 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 17 secondsSpeaker 387 I think we've got a question. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning to all community members, Dr. Hamza, everyone in attendance.

  318. Highlight drawn from this moment: A resident tells the Vigo County School Oversight Board it lacks Black representation

    1:06:32 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 32 secondsSpeaker 390 (unknown — contaminated cluster) My name is Minister Duane Malone. I'm a lifelong resident of Beagle County and I am employed within the school corporation.

  319. Highlight drawn from this moment: A resident tells the Vigo County School Oversight Board it lacks Black representation

    1:06:42 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 42 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) I'm just gonna read the statement to you

  320. 1:06:43 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 43 secondsSpeaker 390 (unknown — contaminated cluster) so I can just, gonna take me off with any day. I am here today at the encouragement of God's Holy Spirit to speak to you about the concerns we have in the black community regarding these new schools. My first concern comes at the formation of this committee with no African-American representation. I was informed that I was glad to hear from Mr. Matheny,

  321. 1:07:08 — open the recording at 1 hour 7 minutes 8 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) by his name correct, of the process to be selected. And it was, this was the first time I've heard of this selection process to be on this committee. My second concern was Mr. Matheny, was the times of your meetings were all to engage in this process. I was elated to hear from him on the phone when he and I spoke and also be here today that you will be having some evening meetings so that other people can come and engage in this process in our community. My third concern is the options created for new schools in Vigo County. In your six options, West Vigo High School was made to stand alone.

  322. 1:07:51 — open the recording at 1 hour 7 minutes 51 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) My question is, why is this? There are no options with North standing, north south alone only in your options to renovate all three high schools our option is to consolidate west vego and north and expand the boundaries for south consolidate west vego and south and expand the boundaries for north these were some of the things that we thought because of the options it provides for our students Not only was this committee formulated to find the best fiscal resolve for our community, but was also consolidated for the best interests of the people in our concerns.

  323. 1:08:48 — open the recording at 1 hour 8 minutes 48 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) These efforts being made now seem politically motivated with little community insight. Creating one new high school and renovating West Beagle may not create the best conducive

  324. 1:09:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 9 minutes 2 secondsSpeaker 400 (unknown — contaminated public-comment cluster) atmosphere for students needing to transfer schools for numerous reasons, especially our Black students. With the hysterical racial incidents and redacted statements to help solve those issues may

  325. 1:09:20 — open the recording at 1 hour 9 minutes 20 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) not be the best alternative for African American students. Any options that would not violate any civil rights for all students is also important. The speculation that one high school will allow for more academic options for students, and that's a great option. We're definitely happy for the academic options that this would create. But this would also eliminate sporting opportunities and other extracurricular activities for our students. Black student athletes strives in athletics and will eliminate many of these opportunities with

  326. Highlight drawn from this moment: A resident tells the Vigo County School Oversight Board it lacks Black representation

    1:09:57 — open the recording at 1 hour 9 minutes 57 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) one high school. But again, I do like having more academic opportunities for our students. I hope we can tell more truth in our history books about African American, about American history, since we're looking at creating these other options for academics. There's a great need to hire more black teachers and administrators in the Beagle County School Corporation. A great need to reduce the suspension rate of black students, train more teachers and administrators on racial bias training. Brown versus Board of Education was only 72 years ago.

  327. 1:10:40 — open the recording at 1 hour 10 minutes 40 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) Unfortunately, we still have some of these mindsets in our schools today that we need change especially as far as moving forward in creating new schools and building new schools it's not only on the outside and where schools are looking like but what's going on on the inside if not we must be willing to create other educational outlets for our students in Beagle

  328. 1:11:04 — open the recording at 1 hour 11 minutes 4 secondsDwayne Malone (resident) County we don't want that to be the issue but we just want to be included and our verse verse voice heard it in these changes. We know we need new schools. We know we do, but we're not included. We just asked to be included in the process. Said that our voices are heard,

  329. 1:11:27 — open the recording at 1 hour 11 minutes 27 secondsSpeaker 390 (unknown — contaminated cluster) because I've heard many times today about how important this process is, and it is. We're talking about children, and I don't see everybody at the table or everybody's voice being included and that's all I'm having here today is to raise those concerns and I thank you

  330. Highlight drawn from this moment: A resident tells the Vigo County School Oversight Board it lacks Black representation

    1:11:46 — open the recording at 1 hour 11 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 410 (unknown — contaminated public-comment cluster) for your time. Thank you. Any other comments? I'm just going to come sort of along the same lines of a question or comment with potential referendum and something to maybe consider in the future when you see how how far it can go within the existing tax structure that's fantastic and partnering i love all those things um i wonder when it gets to that point of how much is going to be needed for that referendum um if pulling something like that in the in the county would be possible i agree that education and things like that can move the needle um with as bad as it was

  331. 1:12:33 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 33 secondsSpeaker 410 (unknown — contaminated public-comment cluster) defeated last time, I don't know that simple education is enough to move it that far, unfortunately.

  332. 1:12:41 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 41 secondsSpeaker 412 I lament that fact, but I think that might be true. Thank you.

  333. 1:12:48 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 48 secondsSpeaker 409 Thank you. Thanks.

  334. 1:12:50 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 47 Where do I get your name?

  335. 1:12:53 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 53 secondsSpeaker 413 Kyle Kershaw. If I could just make one other comment.

  336. 1:12:59 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 59 secondsSpeaker 390 (unknown — contaminated cluster) Sure. Because it seems that we're moving in a direction to do this without a recollect. Is that correct? Kind of laying this out for the community so we don't have to raise tax payers. But what about creating something that the taxpayers wouldn't mind paying for? We thought about it that way. What do the taxpayers want? I know we said no. But we're talking about creating something that everybody can live with.

  337. 1:13:24 — open the recording at 1 hour 13 minutes 24 secondsSpeaker 400 (unknown — contaminated public-comment cluster) I don't think so far that everybody's going to live with one big new high school. I don't know. i know from my community that's not the case but what can we create that everybody can get on board with we can get a referendum done we can get public money we can get school corporations money and everybody will be pleased everyone though so where are these ideas that everybody the whole corporation is pleased and this is not a political winfield that we could go at it this way we know people county knows we need new schools

  338. 1:13:58 — open the recording at 1 hour 13 minutes 58 secondsSpeaker 400 (unknown — contaminated public-comment cluster) we got to get everybody on board and that's creating options that everyone can live with

  339. 1:14:04 — open the recording at 1 hour 14 minutes 4 secondsSpeaker 419 and i think people in vigo county would have no even our farmers that's just my thing thank you good comment

  340. Highlight drawn from this moment: Board member questions an illustration that uses Vigo County Schools' full existing bonding capacity

    1:14:15 — open the recording at 1 hour 14 minutes 15 secondsSpeaker 421 anything else

  341. 1:14:16 — open the recording at 1 hour 14 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 145 Thank you, Mark. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you, everybody. Nice to warm up here. It is.

  342. 1:14:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 14 minutes 30 secondsSpeaker 45 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Marked moments above are where the archive's reviewed highlights were drawn from. Everything else on this page is unreviewed.