August 2024 Regular Board of Education Meeting

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Treasurer Bazley reported as follows:

We have begun working on the GAAP Conversion process. The final statements should be done by the middle of October. I have heard from our Julian & Grube auditor regarding getting access to state software, but have not received any requests as of yet for the financial audit, I expect those will start coming in soon.

We’re now a month and a half into fiscal year 2025. Interest continues to pay well. I have read that a rate cut is expected to actually happen at the September meeting, we will see if that actually happens and then have to wait and see if any further rate cuts are expected. Hopefully the first cut they make will not be drastic. We received the Crawford County Real Estate settlement in late July and that coupled with the higher State Foundation payment is the explanation for the revenue variance between this year and last. The only journal entry we have this month is to correct a posting of ID badge from the student fee account to the correct account of the Principal’s fund.

We have on the agenda for approval the Construction Design Phase per OFCC requirements. Once this is approved I will forward the Resolution on to OFCC and that should result in them releasing the remaining $4,960,031.25 of the grant funding. We then have until September 30, 2024 to enter contracts with vendors and place orders for the entire project. Any money not committed at that point will have to be returned to OFCC. We opened bids this afternoon for the project, Studer-Obringer was the lowest bid with $4,589,000 total, then Adena was the second lowest at $5,110,900 total, and ACI Construction was the highest with $5,636,150 total. The Architects will review the bids and provide us with a recommendation for the lowest responsible bidder.

Flipping the books to July also means we opened a new fiscal year and the last year of the Biennial Budget. The most significant change from last year to this year is in regard to State Funding and the phase in % was increased to 66.67% from 50%. Essentially meaning we are getting 2/3 of the funding the FSFP formula says we should be getting. As of right now this is the last year we will know what our funding from the state will look like, hopefully they will continue the implementation of the FSFP and make that current law rather than keeping education in limbo from one biennial budget to the next. My educated guess at this moment would be another bargain over FSFP and Expanded Vouchers similar to what happened during the last budget cycle.

Speaking of Vouchers, according to a Cleveland.com article the State spent $966.2 million (across all five voucher programs) and counting as of August 7^th. The same article stated the final numbers won’t be available until October. The biggest difference came with the universal voucher expansion, in 2022-2023 before universal vouchers Ohio spent $124.4 million on the same voucher program that is now available universally. The expanded voucher program has now cost $405 million and counting, while public schools have not seen a dramatic drop in enrollment, meaning the expanded vouchers are primarily being taken advantage of by families with students already in private schools that now qualify for at least a portion of the voucher amount due to the expansion.

Next month I will have for you the approval of the final/permanent appropriations for all funds.

No EAP Representative

No Public Input

No Correspondence

Director Frye reported as follows:

All Pioneer staff have returned for the start of the 2024-2025 school year. We had a very successful Returning Teacher Day and are ready for the students to arrive tomorrow (August 20th) to start the school year. The maintenance and custodial staff did a fantastic job preparing the building and our administrative/office staff have done a wonderful job getting ready for the start of school. Welcome Week was a huge success- over 80% of our student body attended!
 

Review of 2024-2025 Student Wellness Plan and Success Plan- a copy of the plan will be displayed and reviewed with the Board of Education.

Mike Grady reported on the history of STRS and how they compare to other retirement systems in the state and in the country. He reported on a local meeting he attended that was put on by STRS and informed the Board on what was discussed at that meeting. He also stated he asked Senator Romanchuk about the possibility of the legislature raising the Board contribution percentage for STRS and Senator Romanchuk did not give an indication of whether that would happen or not.

Superintendent Nickoli reported as follows:

Our entire staff is very excited for the start of the new school year. The Administrative Staff put together what proved to be an outstanding return to school protocol. Welcome Week, our and our first three teacher days were as smooth and well-organized as any I can remember. Our six new staff members were welcomed to Pioneer last Thursday and Friday and our returning staff hit the ground running today. Tomorrow we’ll have students new to Pioneer for an exciting day and Wednesday will mark the first day with all students. You should be very proud of the work everyone, including our custodial and maintenance has done to make the start of the 2024-2025 school year absolutely amazing.

Friday, August 2nd the Administrative Team was joined by Mr. Theaker, Mrs. Theaker, Mr. Blubaugh and Mr. Hope for our annual Board Goalsetting Session. They heard reports on our Strategic Planning process and crafted outstanding goals for the 2024-2025 school year.

At 3:00pm today we concluded the bid submission process. Our engineering firm will now review the submitted bids and make a recommendation to the Board. As a reminder, we have to have all funds encumbered by September 30th. To allow for any unforeseen circumstances I’d like to propose that we move the regular Board Meeting to Tuesday, September 3rd at 6:00pm. The only issue that arises from the change in dates is that Mr. Bazley will not likely have his month in reports ready by that early date. He would provide both the August and September reports at our October meeting.

I am recommending that you approve the final construction documents for our expansion project. This is a formality and the next step required by the OFCC as a part of the grant process.

I am pleased to recommend the hiring of Jamie Wagers as a Licensed Social Worker for the students and staff here at Pioneer. This is the first time that Pioneer has directly employed this position and will replace services that were recently contracted. As a reminder, Ms. Wagers will be here full-time serving our students while in the past, we have only been able to secure these services for four days-a-week.

Also, I will be taking one name off of our Personnel document for employment purposes. Diana Speller, who planned to work as a Career Coach at Shelby High School has accepted a full-time position with Tiffin University and withdrew from consideration for our position.

All other items are common for this time of year.

Calendar Items

August 20 - First Day for 1st Year Students

August 21 - First Day for All Students

October 3 & 4 - RMC Manufacturing Days

October 3 & 10 - Parent-Teacher Conferences

October 11 - End of 1st Grading Period

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