thank you and welcome just a little preview i've said this at the beginning of each meeting but we are doing a rewrite of all of the policies that peter township has tonight we will be going over the six hundred six and eight hundred so if you are listening from home if you go on the school board website to meetings in minutes under the policy committ meeting you will have the opportunity to see the attachments which lists all of the proposed redlined versions of the policies that are discussed tonight as well as a description of the changes that are recommended and follow along with them so having said that i will start off and we will only discuss the policies for which the board has a question about  otherwise we'll just move past that so we'll call six zero one does anyone have a comment or question on six zero one  since there are no comments or questions are there any comments or questions from the floor on six zero one ok we'll move on to six o t yes this is just the committee and they would what however whatever changes we recommend today will go on to first read at the next regular board meeting ok six o two any questions or comments from the board any questions or comments from the audience ok we'll move on to six o three budget preparation knows that i have i can bring up that statute but i'm almost positive it's based on a timeline and that's what they base the timeline on i could pull it up i mean see what is it view pulling our budget was already put together in december in printed form yes because i said invent his office and we looked at it and i know that we are on the phone because mr mcmurray and i were talking about on the phone before christmas my question then is where was it available for the public to see it was a good question i know vince put it somewhere i don't know where he put it it was out in the lobby i don't know where i don't know where that happened but i do know he told me he put it up for public display yes i believe it was the lobby i find that mistake and come to this i know before i was on school board i came and asked for a copy of the budget and just asked personnel at entrance of the ministration building which is i just want to make sure that we're meeting and i'm ahead i'm sorry right ok so on this one though i will check you before the first three thank you ok any other comments on six o three and are there any comments from the floor on six o three ok will move on to six o fo reference to the statutory language that the preliminary budget shall be made available in printed form for public expense to expand inspection at least one hundred days hundred ten days prior to the primary election so we'll check that normally they will if there is any requirement of being somewhere they will they will specifically note that in fact there were other instances related to the comprehensive plan that the district had to post for public inspection and those p s p a policies basically said at you know in the schools or in the public library but they made a notation saying that that public library language was off we included it i think in our proposed policy on the comprehensive plan and we did posted in at the library but that check and see if there's been any adaptation to the fact that it could easily be posted on the website i'm wondering if that has to have some kind of a language because of technology it's got to be there well you still have a percentage of the population and you have x i think you understand that a ll i'm saying is i can't imagine that in today's modern age that wouldn't be justified as any means of disseminating information excess again i think isn't it on the website i believe and i also believe that you've always been able to get the preliminary budget through the office because i know people who just simply go there and get it but i think it is on our website i believe the presentation is on the website it's whatever we've presented in terms of who and right i mean every budget is on the web asked and it was a three ring binder and yes it was detailed it was very detailed i don't think that it was necessarily down to the last line but if it was not just a one page synopsis or you know a synopsis of the different items it was very well i can tell you this much i know for a fact that at least when the work that i do with vents we do it by category not line by line you know and so it would seem to me that even at this board level in the short time i've been on this board i don't think i've ever seen a line by line other than expenses that were made every month which is a different it was by category but it was detailed by ok so we will check out that particular language on six zero four is there any other comment and any comment from the floor ok we'll go on to six o five so we kind of wanted to change that up any other comments ok and any comments from the audience ok so six o five is done and  ok so be it but they are always they may not always can that position be appointed to someone else besides our business manager so that's just practice so this board  and these aren't one word let's move i'm assuming that the four thirty three talked about the secretary being responsible for the business of the district and six eighty four is garment for the bond so not having the ability to read it in detail i can't say for sure but i could look into it to ensure that it is the ok so we will look at that any other comments ok any comments from the audience ok six zero six we do that in six o seven about tuition and when we would accept students and it actually has a provision in it that says that the district shall set to wish and in accordance with state law so it's use people but that's not totally true historically because and i won't mention a name but i know for a fact that we have a student who was not moving into this and so i'm just wondering about that as well had it was a printer issue but that's all i'm going to say and it's no longer an issue let's just say that well there is actually several more exceptions and one of them i mean they have to deal with you know divorce or custody issues institutionalized i don't have a problem i'm only pointing out the fact that and you can hear me say this in the next policy but according to what that the french just said we don't have those cases but we have very recently had those case and again i have no problem with it and maybe when we come to sue you'll see if it fell into one of those or possibly could have very possibly going to the other exception is if you're an yeah and again this is for me this is just being a broken record but mr wagner i wonder when is the last time that the district has solicited quotations for bank deposits do you know in your tenure has  not very recently well and the reason i bring this up is because i spoke to vince about this recently and this is my biggest problem with policy right here because here we have a policy that's already in play to my understanding and it's we're not seeking any changes to it but i believe we need to be following these policies because this issue i believe today because i've been the point i want to make then is just simply i'm for this i think we need to do this because i think right now we could be saving some money by doing this we were approached and i presented vince with that information and just because of a lot of work that's been going on he hasn't had time to do this and again that's another worry that i have we're going to be i hope adopting this policy and if we adopt this policy and needs to be happening and saw i'm just i'm very leery about adopting these policies with the expectation that they're go followed when they're currently not being followed and not that they have to because we're not in policy but that practice is not happening and we place a policy on it we're basically saying we want you to do this and you're not already doing it and so we're just adding something else for you to do this one i think is a good one because it's a fiscal management strategy to be able to get the best deals that we can and we have at least three one is chasing us hard one is chasing us hard and i got to tell you i looked at the numbers and we would save money and i talked to vince about this but we have a bank we've used and you know this whole this whole attitude of why change you know because it's a big process i get it i mean you know our deposits in our payroll i get that when you could be saving as much as possibly three percent on that counts we got fifty six million dollars budget that's a lot of money are in policies now are going to be changed because we got a new chief in town that's but also you know we have an assistance through so i'm helping eight and any comments from the audience ok six zero eight is done and we'll go to six o nine i have a strange thing i've read this three times and i have had one sleep so also references i believe that we would have an investment program that is approved by the board so as we were preparing in our  committee for our agenda meeting with this we talked about what those they are would be and i'm guessing i did get some samples of those that that would be referenced in the investment plan itself or should be here well i think it might should we should probably leave it here so that you can reference it if there are any parameters in the investment plan that really short term long term and then range but i did miss mary when we just did this previous bond issue while that's not necessarily an investment in some respects i mean does the duration matter to me because this is right and there is a definition of short term and for forty point one which is the statutory authority there and this is an existing policy in thirty to fifty but i will say that i looked around at several other policies i have three different policies from different school districts and they they kept the short term long term so it wasn't unique to peter's time but it's also an issue of liquidity too and i think that's the real issue it's an issue of liquidity it says that later on in here too the ability and the accessibility to receive those funds in a timely fashion which would be dictated what it was being spent for but that determined its duration all right and so what i i'm sorry go has a value you know in doing so and so what i think will happen is you know once this is finally what would happen hopefully is the finance committee would get together or the chairs with with mr bell sick and come up with the the plan that's talked about in here so the parameters of how the money would be invested i was going to say i don't want to correct you mr mccarthy but because i read an article today about what they're talking about doing and i have no faith in what the but what you would have to go with that type of investments to protect two h so in your opinion do we still want to keep that particular language again i'm going through obviously it's not a huge spectrum of policies that i print it says that the business manager so verify the value of the collateral and sure instrument quarterly if not now we don't have this today mr mcmahon i understand this but based on what you said about the history if insurance or excuse me if interest rates rise on c d s that could be a headache in and of itself if we have to follow the f d i c limits of two fifty and month quarterly deal with verifying the stuff i mean that statutory language know i get that because it's based on mutual funds in another things that are quarterly reported and we haven't done that and that's another reason why i think we should just not have it in there it's excess of language that has no bearing on our investments we're going to  i would be a question for the accountants well but it's where is on page two page one of the i may get gap is generally accepted accounting principles but i well i agree with you however if i understand law gap as overarching it's federal government and everything is a standard of gap when it comes to accounting principles so i would just ask us to look into because i don't know  that the reason the life specifically asked the question is the language an item number one suggested may have been the an additional regulation that was put in to deal with right foreign investment right i don't know ok so right now i am checking into page three whether in number two the national association of securities dealers should be and ministers yeah ok right and then i'm looking into whether we need the last action protection of bank balances in excess of f d i c limits and the just i got was that you'd prefer it to be out if i'm sorry on page five the protection of bank balances in excess of f b i see limits would you prefer that to be out and i'm just ensuring that that is ok if it's removed as long as we're  get i get your point my only question to that would be it's a calculated risk if the return is greater than what you're risking you would want to risk it and so my only concern with using that f t c the i c language is what if there is that case where you're getting let's say eight percent and you're not going to get that in other places i might prefer to roll the dice in certain cases and go abo fifty if i'm getting eight percent return with that opportunity now so i'm put every single dollar there but maybe i want to put five hundred thousand into risk not putting two fifty in this bank to fifteen this bank to fifty in this bank you see i mean i just i just don't want to limit us yeah that we know my question is you're probably no no but my point is if we use f d i c language here currently and if i'm not mistaken as to fifty right now they raise it to two fifty and so the reality is you know if you have that bank locally that's going to give you a little bit  extra and you have this f d i c language here you're going to be maxed to two fifty and you have to spread it and then you're either just that to fifty portion at that local bank or if this is a broader thing that other banks can offer now you're to fifty here to fifty here to fifty here and now you're back to this language of having to look at this thing quarterly and i'm just thinking of the practicality of doing that well i understand that but i think you know when i was on council we were looking at something like that and the cons were brought up the idea that that would be case presented itself where you could get a higher return by depositing more than two hundred fifty thousand would you be able to are you limited to the two hundred fifty thousand dollars limit in any one bank and if you are then it would be ok to leave this language and if you are not looking into on this policy any other comments ok and any comments from the audience ok we'll go on to six ten are there any comments on this policy ok are there any comments by the audience any comments ok any comments from the audience ok we'll move on to six t any comments it comments from the audience ok we will move on to six fourteen i thought there was an awful lot of stuff in here that didn't belong at the board policy level k ok so and i don't have any problem with that is that our that information about the mistake in the paycheck and the garnishments is that in an employee manual so that it would be covered and i ok any other comments for this one not the trash or are we appoint is the bank and the secretary is mr bell said and he did say that the checks that that is accurate because i asked the same thing when we met really there's a plate and that's why the changes down below under guidelines signature of the president the orders are in there because he said that there's one original signature on them and then the president i think is this is the original signature do you know what isn't yasser of right but he did say because point well we had a big discussion on this because i was going to suggest in the second paragraph of the policy where it's specifies that before language each obligation of this district must be fully itemized verified and approved by the board and my idea was to strike everything after before and down through and including the number four and this is why we had a big discussion at the agenda meeting saying that's fine and dandy at the statute says that but in essence when we approve the check register those are payments that are already made and there was a big discussion about those four exceptions one two three and four that come under there those are statutory exceptions when you can pay prior to and that's like when you have a contract and we've already approved the contract we talked about is approving the budget ok for him to spend money up to the line item of the budget there's an exception if he gets a discount if he's able to pay in advance and so when i went to p with this dilemma because it doesn't nobody know district can really comply with that because there's probably a few checks they go through that don't mean any of those exceptions and the response back i got is that we struggle with this particular language because the statute really hasn't advanced with technology and so what i was going to recommend is to remove that language even though you're still technically bound by it at least we are approved it but there probably are going to be some checks in there and  a recognized that you know they would love to have some suggestions of additional language but they recognize that too well i concur with you and i would like to see a strike it and for the very reasons that you are to queue later but even more so because we are always operating backwards and for doing it that way at least if we strike it we won't be operating against it when it really has to happen because i think number one up there can be argued probably in most cases if you want to make the case that a timely payment right would produce a benefit for us or an advantage if i was a treasurer guess what i would argue it on a number of occasions because when you're when you're in good standing with paying your bills on time your vendors tend to treat you better and so it is always going to be an advantage to pay your bills on time or even ahead of due dates and that in that sense and that was actually what mr bell said commented on as you know i wan agree i like to strike it i personally don't want to strike it i'd like to keep it there because i just feel like it's something that's a safeguard well can you explain what why you say it's a safeguard i don't see any any of that language being a safeguard because the what mrs anderson is promoting is striking everything after the word borg and so the authority and responsibility still lies in the board to approve it if we leave that language in there i'm telling you every month we will be out of compliance to this policy because there are going to be those bills and those checks that have to be written for and as you said mrs anderson they're going to be those even if we take this out that are going to have to be so it's happening this is gre not and it was just a comfort level of not seeing defiant rightly in a that's not a company that's a policy is what i'm saying by no means those this mean that would have the ability to pay whatever he wanted to pay he would still have to come in with those four it was just you know in prior conversations where we talk about having language in a policy where you know you're not complying with what i don't know if this is the place for warm and fuzzy yes but i don't i mean i go i don't feel strongly either way so whatever the the board decides who would like  no district i mean there are some instances where you know like mr hardy i mean dr hardy mentioned that you could probably always pigeon hole into one two three or four would something get in it's just a statute that i don't know when it was passed but it's on the same thing that this is the exception to our standards for dealing with statutory one through four one through four ok so we're not going to go into all of our programs and removing the statutory requirements we're doing it here no it would be whatever the board whatever the board would like i mean you still have those four exceptions so i mean it's funny i just for me personally i just like knowing that it's written down and that the community is understanding that we as the board do take recognition of our bills and that we know and it says indeed our president is signing signing our bills our checks ok so it's i guess it's a piece that i feel like the community needs to see but ok so does anybody i totally agree with what i mean that language of the president that but that's not in this section we're seeking to strike your point is not in the set the only thing receiving the strike are those one through force and everything after the word board not the rest of the policy maybe maybe a no no no i pretty much in every case so even if the policy of the are written and nothing has changed because i said this events when i first came out i'm sitting here looking every month at these bills that you know myself there's no way that that check can't already have been written and said and there's just no way fine we talked at the last meeting about the fact that some of the student accounts for which we are now technically responsible do carry a negative balance which would  cause a problem with the next to the last paragraph on the page and student accounts are meaning soon activity accounts i'm sorry we are as ours that when did we discuss that because i can't remember we had we had a couple of accounts it came up at the last meeting where they were showing a negative balance and i said what's up with that what happens if they don't pay or you know it are we preparing hotel rooms and the kids reimburse us whatever but there were i think three student activities counselor carrying a negative balance and since the board is now responsible for student activity accounts but as we've just talked about we don't want to policy that we consistently set out to violate while and i don't think in the account because i would vote against making such a transfer anyway so the question is is the in the accounts meaning the student activity account i would tend to say no because those student activity funds are property of the students we are just acting as a custody in there not in our name and there are instances where when a student group disbands they have to find the kids to and we're on the hook for it now so used to be we weren't on that goes well actually the building if you want to wait we can get into it in six eighteen because it designates the princ all so well if there's nothing else on six sixteen anything from the audience for six sixteen ok so we'll move on to six seventeen we talked about that at the agenda meeting and  but but you have petty cash why well i don't know mr bell so i guess in here but we talked about in general that i could have sworn mr merrill do you recall because you had  whatever building there doesn't show this is a new policy it's not existing policy so if we allegedly we do have petty cash we have no policy governing it so we have not identified anybody  would think though that we that's a reason to have the policy so that there could be a formal process and they are of designating whether it's the principle or whatever but one of the good things i think this policy does and we added that last language with supporting receipts meaning that whoever it is and if they are as established whether it's the principle and on a monthly basis submit a report to the business manager and submit their receipts buys of what petty cash would be used for because using mr merrill's point regarding credit cards you use a credit card for that situation and frankly that's what a reimbursement system is built in for with the same support of receipts i spend something out of my pocket submit the receipt i get a check back for it so i am very much against using petty cash and if we're doing it we need to stop i would i do not like this policy i don't like it because it opens us up for potential fraudulent activity that supporting receipts or not i mean i hate in my business we don't touch cash i am nowhere near cash for this very reason we work off of credit cards and checks know the only cash that ever came through p v was for a student purchase plan or so if we did planners or field trips and that came right to my office we accounted for it and within a day it was that that was receipts that's not my any cash you  cash had nothing would you have like a pizza party for your teachers on a on a in teacher no it wasn't that nice but not that that's not what i heard but  the idea is that this would be not recommended because we are going to or do you have something a policy that says petty cash that says there shall be no petty cash why don't we change petty cash to a teen these are the student activity funds now i do have suze smith did call me and made a comment about a she suggested in the definition of student activity fun show include the funds a board approved student group she recommended adding a particular provision saying that this does not apply to booster proops just so that there's not any she felt that there might be some confusion this student activity funds just relate to the fans that we approve on the left hand side of our packet that come through for our approval that's the high school activity middle school activity funds i think mari activity funds so it's like student those student run organizations these are not booster groups so you're looking at me like you did you think it did include those there are schools let me see what they call about  school related organizations which are the booster groups and school organizations or school groups which are be the activity groups at the high  yes under the title nine moderate regulations that we have to persist under we are responsible for those those defined we were not responsible for them we're responsible for reporting the expenditures on them so the booster groups have to give us meaning the district the athletic director the information of how they spent their money and then we have to account for that in our reporting we are not if a booster group it's not running a negative balance in your account per se because the there's different counts that are covered by a larger account so it's fund accounting and it can be negative for example if you have to debit out of it for two part to pre purchase yearbooks or whatever for you bring in the accumulated sales because some things you have to do in that manner so it's just a fun line accounting was never a real  we're not spending negative cash it's just a case of out of a pot of ten thousand dollars if five thousand dollars comes out of the yearbook and they don't have that there's the debits that account but it doesn't run it dry into the hole we're not the building principal is responsible for working with students and advisors implementing policies and procedures and maintaining physical records the principal shall service custodian of the funds and shall countersign all checks drawn upon them there quite a responsibility on the principals well i understand it's just what they do and i mean you know just keep weapon and it's ok my point is from a fiduciary responsibility what i'm talking about here that's cold where where is the principal cell service custodian i'm just picking on the word custodian does not place an over burden of responsibility in terms of financial generally would be first to her with respect to in the last portion of the policy where we made this suggestion to change where the monies are transferred if monies remain  the senior graduating class because we felt that that's what our our prior policy said that those funds would be deposited back into the general fund of the school district which we all thought was really against the law because they're never supposed to be our funds we are holding them for statutory torah leave for this dinner activity funds so i emailed her and within a minute she responded back and said there's there's never any funds left we make sure that they use them if for some reason anything else go ahead give it to student council then it would benefit all kids but she within literally two minutes knew that there was no funds ever existed at the end so i do think that that is one of her responsibilities and she does know what's going on so does anybody have any opposition to adding any qualifying language under the definition so that we can further identify what the student activity funds are and maybe mrs smith was suggesting language after that board approved student groups to say something like this does not apply to booster groups that's not a student group that i don't used i think it could be you know if somebody read it so i don't think it it it you know i can't think of any booster group that is technically just a student group but if it helps to clarify some thing i don't mind does anybody have an opposition so if you put  right but one one item of mention is that i think that that audit issue had to deal with student activity fee that were collected by the district to those are own by the district so if somebody has is an n h s and they have to pay the ten dollars fee or somebody is playing baseball and they pay the hundred dollar fee that actually is payme on this and just for some reason i am believe i believe that you do need to have it in and has a separate account will but that maybe not all back as a board information and we did make mrs smith's change and any other things in this particular file yeah one if everything goes into one account and i realize there's not much of and well i just i didn't know of the student accounts are actually if they came into the school district and they were sitting in a large balance of something then whenever they got the monthly credited to a percentage of whatever it is one tenth of one eighth and using compensating balances as opposed to just very counts there may not be any interest generated us it's aussie fees so there might not actually be any income and that's the very point going back to going back to the policy i discussed regarding competitive bidding for our banking services because that's debts what's at issue right now in my estimation with some of these other banks that are proposing to take our services that's the issue right there will and that was always a big when they have been looked at in the past that was the offset you make more with the compensation bill is versus the interest write it with a lot of the requirements that we would put on a bank that function  traitor as well as a lot of the other reports and so on the compensation balance was actually better visually right right ok anything more on six eighteen and anything from the audience ok we'll move on to six nineteen any comments on six nineteen any comments from the audience ok we'll go on to six twenty i have to ask a very ignorant question when we display our fund balance information both to the board and to the public is it broken down in those four categories so that both the board and the public can easily see what's restricted what's committed what's a song and what's on the side not currently however well this policy is a fantastic policy for that reason and i also think for the reason of misinformation by the public because as mr mcmurray and i always have to say whenever we deal with our finances of the district we have to consistently point out the fact that not all of the fund balance is accessible money some is resit relegate appeaser some is relegated to capital projects and so i absolutely endorse this policy because it brings clarity for the public as well as to those members of the board who might not understand or who are new so this is good this is real oh no what happened was and i'm going to recommend it we talked at the agenda meeting whether it should be recommended or shouldn't be recommended and we i thought we came out that it should be recommended and that's why it reflected that way on your explanation of your changes but it was not reflected in the  it's saying get changed but i couldn't get changed here either it's not recommended here right but on the on the agenda where it listed here it says recommended so there was just an issue when we are recommending it because if you don't i will yes amending it and i was actually recommending it with this proposed language that was added because i thought it was nice language that i found from some other districts policies which talked about striving to maintain a at least a minimum of a five percent and fun balance and not more than the eight percent because the eight percent is  statutory limit and so that sets a tone where you want to have savings but it's not if there was an emergency situation where you had to miss the senate and i appreciate that position the only thing i would say regarding peter's township is i don't think that that language is necessary for this reason i think this board of education especially in the last pick a number fifteen twenty years how have you been  has shown itself to be very fiscally sound and the word that is catching me is strive it's certainly not a mandate but it certainly is an encouraged mandate and i would hate to see that mandate even though it's not mandated to have those numbers in there eight percent is a statutory requirement so it's assumed i don't think we have to have it written but this five percent bit is just something that again i don't disagree your philosophy in any way i just try to keep as much out of these policies as we can the more you write into these policies the more difficult it becomes to manage and let's be frank the reason that other districts have that in their policy is because they're not fiscally run properly and with long range stewardship in mind and i understand that and i don't i mean if the board prefers to have that language removed that is fine with me one scenario that i thought up in my mind because i have sat in through several years of board me meetings where there was was a large group of people on the board that were adamant that they would never vote to increase taxes and they would want to use the funds to fund the operation so i just thought i get this they they could they could certainly amend the policy and they could do that i just felt like in that situation like i think from the conversations we've had in finance committee meetings that i do feel like we all agree that i don't want to use the fund balance to pay for you know operations but i was just looking down the road if the forward make up was different then we might be able to point to this let's not go below five percent because we have this policy that says dr it has no teeth and i know that but that's the only scenario that i can think of that i like that language but agree with that i get asked about it pretty often why we have so much fun bills we really don't have that much fun people don't understand why we have that money set aside i think to put a five percent number up there just so that the public understands we need to try to at least put five percent aside for them though while i agree with their philosophy mr don't leave i think this articulation here of restrictive committed assigned unassigned fixes that problem and that's why i'm so for this policy because it articulates the community what those portions of dollars in there are and i guess my biggest hang up with this language and this is any board member in the last pick a number ten years eight years who would say that they will not raise taxes is absolutely fiscally irresponsible because there's no financial demonstrated that this year we've demonstrated that last year there's no financial numerical way that you can make these numbers work without raising taxes so that doesn't matter to me whoever board member you heard say that whatever group a board member said that we're just politely stumping as far as i'm concerned because you cannot say you're not going to raise taxes if you have a three point nine million dollars deficit there's no way because the fund balance doesn't have and you and you yourself mr macmurray pointed out we had eighteen months where the operations if we change nothing from the current scenario at the last finance committee meeting and that was probably were there was close to being enough people to not approve a tax increase and it doesn't take you no more than a couple that were are playing politics and what they're doing is  and the reason for because at that time people pointed out that there was eighteen or twenty million dollars in accounts and they wanted us to use of one of the board at that time to use those monies but as as you pointed out that wasn't in this account this policy is now we have an articulation of what those funds mean and we can point to those dollars of any board member who says no to tax increases we simply point out that six million dollars pieces of four million dollars is for  curriculum and our standards and we're teaching our kids when they budget for their personal budgets they're supposed to be saving for emergencies and i think it is honorable to at least have some consistent about you know you don't just go check in along with your ordinary expenses stuff happens as we've had to happen twice this week on and if you don't have a question that you plan for then you're out of luck so what i'm i'm sort of hearing is that several board members might be in favor of the language and you're not really opposed to it you jet you don't think it has a right and again right so people are bruising that every year know that that's part of the action we take to make sure we do that so that would be good yancey's which is the statutory law did you say the statutory not more than it out there after five percent put a comma in the statutory limit not more than a percent right and make that into a clause a proper class ok tell us what you want the district will strive to maintain unassigned general found fund balance of not less than five percent the undersigned your whole family fund balance may not exceed eight percent per statute categories we can say well why statutory regulation we could not have or use operating on elocute and actually the statute section six eighty eight basically it really kind of is a little bit different in that it says no school district shall approve an increase in real estate property taxes unless it has adopted a budget that includes an estimated ending unreserved on designated fund balance less than and then it goes through certain percentages and based on our budget expenditures that would be eight percent well i suppose there could be a really sort of janick world in which we had way too much cash and so we couldn't raise taxes i'm i'm not the right and i'm not anticipating that  one and i'm dispensing with the audience comments just because there's no audience anymore so they gave us six twenty one this is statutory would there have been gas statement thirty four fifty something and forty gee i mean i assume that all these statements i mean they're all dealing with finances but i all i assume that they're all dealing with different aspects of will be part of his job description also since think it is imperative that we have an official statement that it is our policy explicitly to comply with great requirements i'm not aware of that i will i haven't seen it as  by you have to feel like if it's the board's response sometimes the board is given responsibility to do so stop and so we have to say as a policy you we are designating you to do this because that's our t is to say not just because i was statutorily required so we don't need a policy by the policy sometimes says the board shao create the curriculum or talk about that i would assume that there's a regulatory requirement requiring this document showed nothing important piece of this one is to say that you shall review and approve all applications because in applications we commit the board to certain activities that we may or may not have actually need to pull back up to the board levels right i think maybe the board has had its hand in as much of this is it needs to that was the only reason i didn't and that's all i'm all for dance we just saw conversion happen in front of your  shall keep it and move on to the eight hundred eight hundred security going oh i don't know about that noise ok eight hundred records management and just so you know when i read when i read this i said i really do want to have a records management policy and i realize that that's going to be a lot of work and mind it's been other work about record retention we do we are we should strive to be in compliance with all record management requirements this is again just putting more teeth on this that we should have a committee i'm no graham magical scholar but this words dr drives me nuts i'm serious because there's a reason for this because it's kind of a catchall word that you know i get that but as a catchall word percent do right and i was i trying to be truthful i really appreciate the honest but it is a good policy and if we do get mr sequin shock on that and heading it up i'm sure it's going to be great and then when people there when she get the management program in and then you can eight o three mrs smith contacted me about this one and her question was in the second to the last paragraph she would like us to consider striking the words at his or her discretion and then use a word either she said it could be made but she would like to see should her feeling was that in the past superintendents had sought some advice on the calendar and she just about like it is a way to ensure that you're having a great calendar with feedback i have no skin in the game she would be fine with leaving out at his or her discretion and then the question would be would you want elaborate sitting down talking about it because in the end of the day we don't want to make a mistake so the more people we can blame it on the better and i know the reason i stupidly brought this up a few years ago they were having major dances on jewish and we get feedback points knocked and so the fact is you're proving a preliminary calendar and we put it out there we have two years to get feedback but the word shall though i agree i think it should be shot rather than may because that's what you're doing now and i applaud it's the right way to do it what happens if the next superintendent comes along and the word may gives them the flexibility of saying i'm not talking to anybody we're not hiring another superintendent she's here she said i guess you're right and i pray that's the case but i also know that let's not set a precedent that can be looked back upon ok so we'll strike it down as everybody in agreement with the policy then ok we'll move on to the next one eight zero four zero i'm sorry let me go but you know the board shall reserve the right to alter the school calendar at any time when it is in the best interest of the district when will this the readings of this be presented this will be the next regular meeting for occurs and the second read would come to you the reason i ask this question is under any circumstance the district the board reserves the right to alter the school year it was a going along just not having a policy for things we automatically do well let's be frank we've pushed a number of policies tonight for that very reason and while i appreciate this i do i think that if we're going to consistent we should be consistent in having policies that we already do and that's isn't us just basically saying what we already do in a sense in that second sense the board shows that was the times for the daily sessions of the district schools isn't that already in effect what happens i mean i think really the only thing that statutory probably not statutory is the superintendent concern but on the other hand if we're supposed to be determining the days in the hours and delays for school have to be passed by the board  suggesting the board should be a committee of the whole to do this in no way i guess all i'm saying is there's a lot of a mix in me this is why you're not recommending it there's a mixture here of the responsiblity of the board and the responsibility of the superintendent which are separate really we and we entrust you with this responsibility we still maintain that responsibility the board never loses its responsibility to set we delegate you know we might actually want to keep this in just because it when i look at the statute book fifteen zero four and it's titled the dates and times of school terms in session and it talks about you know the board setting the  it and then it says unless otherwise determined by the board the daily session of school shall open it nine and close at four with an intermission of one hour at noon and in a mission ye dates and times because otherwise statutorily well we want to go with all joking aside and i mean us when i say this all joking aside if the board has the responsibility of setting the calendar the school day all these things we just intrust dr french is going to pay attention to making us a compliant with our number of days and hours right you do that as a part of your job but isn't that yet still a responsibility of the board that we're simply delegating the board holds that responsibility not us assume or do we give it to you i mean it's like a this is the heavy weight you carry it right by this policy where delegating it to her so i'm thinking maybe we do say recommend just because an orthodontist appoint or whatever that's not the school that's a our dismissal thing so i would take out that last bit as not belonging here and i'm wondering what that under exceptional conditions really mean doctors appointments or not so i can give you an example my son's grand mother died and or was dying and we came and got as a group meaning closing school not exclude somebody for an excused absence versus an excused absence me i'm wrong i could be wrong this probably goes to the point of the law we have to make there are certain things that we can categorize as excused absences certain things that we cannot there is a provision that we can  e or make other recommendations regarding what's excuse and what's not excuse i think that's what that's talk might be talk yeah actually yes i was incorrect when i said what i thought it might do  it says that a principal or teacher may upon receipt of satisfactory evidence excuse a student for nonattendance during a temporary period but the term urgent shall be strictly construed and does not permit irregular attendance it does say that a school district policy is describe the instructional services that are available to students who have been excused under these  bark the policies must include statements that define the responsibilities about the district and the student with regard that some structural services so i think we could remove that because that's not a statutory obligation of the board so we would be removing that first sentence the whole the whole paragraph or do you think that's the rules that sentence plus the whole you want the whole paragraph ok that's either a or student the public wants to know we do this having it as part of the statute is not enough to give comfort to the public it was one of those ones and i say we do need the policy even though it simply speaks to legislation does anybody have any and i believe the board should in fact sign off on this policy to get a review on this policy and sign off on it and my question would should we do have a we do have a core document i do think the thing that mr l speaking to that he helped develop that would be very helpful for the board to review and sign off on some of the things like the required emergency drills or not wouldn't be in a in a in a document ok so mr merrill where would you place language and what language would you place where would it be under the  believe it and then the other question we came in which i do not know the answer to is if the board had to approve it would that be done could it only be done at a regular meeting and what it there for be subject to any disclosure something like that does anyone know there's issues that are allowed to be disclosed and there are issues that do not have be disclosed in accordance with law but technically if memory serves me correctly right now they're trying to amend the open or the now it's actually the sunshine law technically security issues aren't governed by that i think school districts do it but technically i think there is some legislation underway to specifically make an exception under the sunshine law for those things but so when i write i mean i don't in the plan it's specifically talked about that issue and i forget exactly the paragraph or the law but there's like forty two different organizations slash laws slash whatever you want to say that in fact have to deal with these issues and they're all listed in the back of that binder but the bottom line is there are safety issues that you do not have to underwrite to know or anything else give out to the public not affect the students don't even have the right to know just for the administration the staff so would you put that after the second paragraph if you were adding something after the district in cooperation with you know the barges the management agency and pima develop and implement a comprehensive disaster response and emergency preparedness plan consistent with requirement know our board approval is a put in the very first paragraph the board recognizes responsibilities safeguard the health and welfare of the district students and employees and w review and approve an emergency plan covering the fall well you can it doesn't sound like you said all that all they do is handle the money they just give the money to the states or the county or whatever and that's why the states have to have to apply for an emergency declaration the board recognizes it's of responsibility to safeguard the health and welfare of district students and employees and approve a plan will review and approve ok plan that includes but not limited to and then what  k however now remember dr french was saying that there are it's not in one document so all of these things community  plans for exercising is not necessarily in one document the emergency plans of the far practices every so often ok it's not in an actual working document it is the requirement from the state ok but we're saying that the board show approve a plan that covers natural disasters a written plan natural disasters hazardous chemicals fires rapin spawn threats terrorism communicable diseases and pandemic so my question is is is there in fact a written plan that covers all of that so that the language is accurate and there's a plan that covers a lot more than this by your shore  says including but not limited to so i guess your is everybody ok with that language i am we have proof student organizations and their funding in their trips  no i don't i don't i don't disagree with approving the plan i just want to make sure that there is something it's possible to do while that's all and again the plan calls for a cooperation between letting the fire handwashing and germs yes we have a plan for that but it's not in the same plan that's looking at i remember you with the police and disaster response it's just a matter of coming up with one place t just chat with the solicitor to ensure that if the board is approving this emergency plan that it does somehow you know doesn't make that it's disclosable or or something like that so off with that on our list of things five point one ok any comments and you know five point one ok we will go on to eight o seven this religious freedom the separation between church and state bit but as mr sylvester will tell you you know when you start to have a certain i won't mention any specific names of the organizations very religious bodies complain about these things were not represented by those who play in this community right and so i think it's about high time that we take the stand that we ought to be taking in not your freedom and the haitian for a national go attention on this issue i mean the fact is we are saying up to date on all the legal cases and everything and i don't want one penny of our district funds in my opinion fighting something like that i w mean that the child who is doing the act can't have it as a religious experience on their own but that of a teacher that professional employees can not what conduct their  don't think the easiest way is just to say a brief period of silence which you can pray you can sleep you can do whatever you want we're not telling you what you have to do during meditation and just let people do whatever they want to do during that period of silence just like yes well i figured you would but that's why i do is the meeting and you can do it when you do it your way because i know i lived through this during your graduation ceremony when these kids were going to pray and we went through a lot of legal expense ford and i have trouble explaining so high school district money to meditation authorized by subjection and a of this section is not intended to be and shall not be conducted as a religious service or exercise but shall be considered as an opportunity for silent prayer or meditation on a religious theme by those who are so disposed or a moment of silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day and put that down like that language the whole the whole thing we want the whole thing under pressure typing under pressure she's typing now and we won't pressure you if we have any other comments but can we move on to eight o eight it might be less controversy all food services in business and i don't want to have one without the other things that we have to do i would like to come back though to finish this up just unless we are going to have we have we  we have a we have buildings and grounds as opponents and grounds on monday to be very short agenda while we just piggyback another policy committee meeting on and pick up the other ones there's not that many you know it's going to be about seven minutes long monday is that march first ok