July 2023 Regular Board of Education Meeting

No questions or discussions.  Sent to Vote.

Treasurer Schumacher reported as follows:

Busy times in fiscal offices.  We went to close the PNC bank accounts and they told us they had to process a request to close the Sweep Account.  I called a few days later to find out where they were in this process and they had not heard anything from the main office, but said we could come over and take a withdrawal to 0 the balance and then when the authorization was complete we could just close the account.  That is what we did.  We went back to Willard and they wrote Pioneer a check to zero out the balance.  Then 2 days later, they credited interest and charge us a fee for closing the account.  Therefore, there is a small balance still in PNC.  I received an email Monday that said the account was approved for closure.  I will go tomorrow and, hopefully, get these closed for good.

SWSF fund 467 is spent as you can see by the zero balance.  We will now be spending SWSF monies out of the General Fund as we receive foundation payments.

GEER is either spent or encumbered.  We should have the final spending finished in July.

I have heard from the OFCC concerning the closeout.  I received the Closeout Calculator and told Greg I guess we get to keep the entire lawsuit settlement because they didn’t include it in the closeout.  About an hour later I received another email stating that she didn’t realize there was a lawsuit involved in the closeout and she would process the calculations again and send it to me.  It looks as though we are finally going to get this project closed.

Year-end shows our General Fund balance grew by $1.85M.  This is about $400,000 more than the forecast.  We ended up using a total of $415,000 for GEER and SWSF monies, which means we were only about $15,000 different from the General Fund forecast.  Those funds will no longer exist going forward so everything will revert back to General Fund expenses.

We have lots of Journal entries for year-end for your approval.

Please take a look at the year-end financial statements and let me know if you have any questions or concerns and we can discuss them in the August meeting.

We can now begin working on the GAAP conversion and then move on to the audit.  I have requested that Julian & Grube have the audit completed and posted before I leave in December.

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Superintendent Nickoli reported as follows:

Our staff has been working diligently getting the building ready for the 2023-2024 school year.  Mr. Kowalski has been especially pleased with the summer custodial staff.  They have all been working very hard and are ahead of schedule.  We always set a goal to be ready for Welcome Week which is August 8-11.

I am recommending that you allow us to enter into an agreement for consulting services that will allow us to proceed with the beginning steps of starting an LPN program for both our high school and adult education programs.  Working with the Ohio Board of Nursing at this level is unfamiliar to our staff and I believe this will help us facilitate and expedite the process so that we can meet our goal of starting the program for the 2024-2025 school year.

Doug Theaker, Board President, has asked me to place this on the agenda.  You will nominate a delegate and alternate for the OSBA Conference November 12–14 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.  We will be passing around a sign-up sheet for hotel reservations at the August Board meeting.  Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis so it will be very important that we know if you want us to make hotel reservations.  Any cancellations result in a $100 cancellation fee.

I’d like to invite you to our Annual Board Goal Setting session for the 2023-2024 academic year.  It will be conducted the morning of August 4th from 9:00am until Noon at The Vault Restaurant here in Shelby.  We will be following the same format as last year where you heard presentations by our Strategic Planning Team Leaders.  We look forward to Board Members joining the Administrative Team as we set the direction for Pioneer for the coming school year.

I am pleased to recommend the employment of Brittany Van Dine as an Educational Aide.  She comes to us from the Discovery School in Mansfield where she was an outstanding preschool educator.  She did an outstanding job throughout the hiring process and we are excited to have her join Pioneer.                         

All other personnel items are normal for this time of the year.

No questions or discussion.  Sent to vote.

Mr. Smith asked if the amount might go up in the future and Superintendent Nickoli replied that it would not.                    No more questions or discussion.  Sent to vote.

Royden Smith moved that Mike Grady and Bill Hope be elected and as official delegate and alternate resp;ectively from the Pioneer Career and Technology Center Board of Education for the 2023 OSBA Annual Business Meeting.  Seconded by Dennis Long.

Dennis Long moved; seconded by Bill Hope to enter into Executive Session at 6:25 pm. 

Dennis Long moved, seconded by Spencer Shipman to return to Regular Session at 7:39 pm.