May 2022 Board of Education Regular Meeting

Superintendent Nickoli explained the revisions to the hourly pay schedule included steps added for the Career Coaches and an increase in hourly pay for the Student Helpers to make their pay more competitive.

No questions or discussion.  Sent to vote.

Treasurer Schumacher reported as follows:

We received our new Health Insurance rates at the Jefferson Health Plan semi-annual Spring meeting.  Their proposal was 8.12%.  I offered 3.36% because this is the increase they presented that would be the increase for the entire consortium if it were one entity.  They came back with 3.55% and I accepted.  So, I think we did pretty good starting out at 8.12% and finalizing at 3.55%.  There is a 0% increase in dental coverage and 0% increase in vision coverage. We are still waiting on the life insurance quote and the rates from SORSA.  We will have all of those ready for your approval for the June meeting.

On the 002 Bond Retirement Fund, we are still waiting on the approval from the Court to make the transfer of that $14,657.73 to the General Fund.  Food Services has a positive balance heading into the summer which is a good sign that they should make it through the summer and start the new school year with a positive balance.  The balance in the Adult Ed Fund continues to decline as we head toward the summer months.  Hopefully, we will be able to run some classes during the summer.

In the General Fund in our State Foundation payment, we received an IWIP (Innovative Workforce Incentive Program) payment of $156,250.00.  This program seeks to increase the number of high school students who earn industry-recognized credentials in priority industry sectors.  It offers schools additional dollars to continue these programs and establish new programs in these priority industry sectors.  House Bill 110 includes $12.5M in both FY21 and FY22 to incentivize school districts to implement the Innovative Workforce Incentive program.  School districts receive $1,250 for each qualifying credential earned by students.  Pioneer received $1,250 for AWS (Certified Welding Inspector), $1,250 for Child Development Associate Credential (CDA), $11,250 for Microsoft Technology Associate - Developer, $10,000 for Microsoft Technology Associate – IT Infrastructure, $100,000 for NCCER Core and $32,500 for Programmable Logic Controllers Certification – Allen Bradley.

We are still waiting on the Homestead and rollback payments for Richland County and Ashland County.

Five-Year Forecast

We are filing this forecast during the recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The effects of the pandemic continue to impact our economy as inflation during April hit a 40 year high.  While the increased inflation impacting our district’s costs are expected to continue in the short-term, we are still not sure whether this will continue over the next few years which could have a significant impact on our forecast.

I want to just point out a few line items that have changed significantly since the November forecast.  Collections in PUPP taxes were down for this fiscal year by almost $200,000.  Until the Rover Pipeline appeal is settled, we don’t know from one payment to the next what Rover is going to be paying or which payment they will be paying it in.  The appeal was to be heard in May of 2022 and has now been postponed until August, 2022.  We have also increased the Personnel line item and the Operating Transfers out.  If you remember, we raised the Permanent Improvement transfer up to $500,000.

I have a few quick slides to show you.  This first one is just a graph showing the cash balance and spending.  These graphs are all found in the notes to the Forecast.  As you can probably imagine, this graph shows Expenditures increasing over the few years and our cash balance decreasing over the five years.  We have modeled the Revenues flat-lined because of the uncertainty of the new funding formula.  Should the legislature decide not to continue the phase in in the next biennial budget, we have to prepare for that.

The next slide shows the ending cash balance by year. It is recommended that we have no less than a 60-day balance, but with this cash balance forecast, we will have 240 true cash days in FY26. (Days we could operate at year-end if no additional revenues were received.)

Next, we have a chart showing the percentage of each revenue that makes up our total revenues.  As you can see, the State of Ohio contributed 61% of our total revenues in FY22.  Then in this next slide you can see the ration of Local vs. State revenues.  This graph models the State revenues flat-lining and the Local revenues growing as valuations increase.  At this point we are pretty much modeling PUPP tax at the rate of collection until Rover is settled.  So, the increase in Local funding are due to valuation increases.

This graph shows, just like the revenue slide, the percentage for each of the expenditure categories.  Our wages and benefits are about 84% which is the norm.

 

Recognized Dalton Deel and parents and Morrow County Sheriff, John Hinton. 

Stephen Raphael attending.

Mr. Grady informed the Board that the new State Superintendent is Steve Dackin, an ex-member of the Ohio State Board of Education.  The State Board of Education voted 14-4 with one abstention in favor of approving Dackin.

The Legislature returned from Spring Break and is likely to resume Summer Break on June 8 and could possibly not return until after the November election.

 

Superintendent Nickoli reported as follows:

It’s so good to report that we continue to be “back to normal.”  This is a very busy time of the year with all the end-of-year responsibilities including partner school award assemblies and graduations.  The Pioneer Awards Assembly was was held on April 27 and was a tremendous success. Our students were awarded well-over $2 million in scholarships this year!  It is so rewarding to see our students recognized for their excellent work!! 

We will be doing the administrator year-end reviews in the next couple of weeks.  Most Administrators have been evaluated this year using the Ohio Principal Evaluation System (OPES) that is similar to the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES).  Our year-end administrator work session is scheduled for June 3, 2022 at Wynford High School.   At that time, we will review our current school year  progress, review our Strategic Plan initiatives, share relevant data and begin to plan for the 2022-2023 school year.  Additionally, we will be scheduling our Board Goal Setting Meeting for August.  Mr. Tom Applegate will once again be joining us on August 12^th at a location to be determined.  You will receive an invitation including the time, date, and location of the meeting and an Agenda of the activities for the day later in the Summer.

We are finalizing our preparations to resolve the dispute between the OFCC and Vaughn Industries related to Pioneer’s HVAC system that was installed form 2009 to 2012 and replaced in 2018. Mike Grimwood, Jeff Payne, Linda Schumacher and I have been reviewing documents in an effort to share the difficulties that Pioneer experienced during the time between 2010 and 2018.

 

• • May 20 – Preschool Graduation

 

• • May 26 – Last Day for Students

 

• • May 26 – Adult Education Graduation

 

• • May 27 – End-of-Year Breakfast / Teacher Work Day

 

• • May 31 – June 3 – Staff Committee Work Days

 

• • June 3 – Administrative End-of-Year Meeting

 

• • Week of June 6 – Summer Hours Begin (Continues for 8 weeks)

 

With regret, I am recommending that you accept the resignations of Bobbi Eggeman and Alllison Schuster.  Bobbi has accepted a position at Medina County Career Center which is significantly closer to her home east of Wooster and Ally has accepted a position as a Project SEARCH Instructor at OhioHealth-Marion. 

I am excited to recommend the employment of several individuals.

Emma Jenkins, as a Math Instructor.  Emma comes to us from Ashland University by way of room East 110 at Pioneer. She did her student-teaching with us this Spring and did a tremendous job.  We are very excited to have her join the staff as a full-time instructor.

Tasha Lisle as a School Counselor.  Tasha comes to us from the Colonel Crawford Local Schools where she has several years of experience.  She also comes highly recommended by Mr. Martin, Colonel Crawford’s Superintendent and will be a tremendous advocate for our students.

Amy Lohr as our Medical Technologies Instructor. Amy comes to us from Avita Health Systems and North Central State College where she has served as the Clinical Nursing Instructor for several years.  We are excited to have someone with her background and expertise join our Career-Technical Staff.

Amanda Snipes, as an Intervention Specialist.  Amanda comes to us from the Marion City Schools where she has been an outstanding teacher of students with disabilities.  We are also thrilled to have Amanda join the staff at Pioneer.

We will very likely have 2 or 3 more vacancies as folks are working to move closer to home or into administrative positions.

All other personnel items are common for this time year.

No questions or discussion.  Sent to vote.

No questions or discussion.  Sent to vote.