June 2026 Regular Board of Education Meeting

No discussion - moved to vote. 

Treasurer Bazley reported as follows:

Just a couple notes on a few Consent Agenda items:

4.3 Temporary Appropriations -This is our annual Temporary Appropriations resolution in order for us to be able to operate and pay the bills starting July 1st. Final FY27 Appropriations will be presented at the August/September Board meeting. This temporary amount just allows us to operate until the final appropriations are complete and approved.

4.4 Liability Insurance – SORSA – The Liability insurance market seems to have calmed down, we’re seeing a renewal at $119,019 compared to last year’s $116,716 ($2,303 difference) as well as an increase in our total property limit to $107,033,828 compared to last year’s $99,757,913. As we’ve talked about before, quoting with Liberty, they may be able to get close on premium, but we would forego the favorable deductibles with SORSA and our higher liability limits for a little savings in Premium. SORSA is a not for profit run by school Supt/Treasurers and in bad years will try and use reserves to keep increases below market, whereas a Liberty/Utica will not, they’ll give us the increase that is being seen in the market. SORSA is selective with their membership to protect the pool. Utica is another carrier in the marketplace that is making a push to gain membership from Liberty customers, but still cannot compete with SORSA. The one change we could consider making is a separate Cyber policy outside of SORSA with a different carrier to get an aggregate specific to us rather than a shared member aggregate. RFME suggested we could get some better coverage for a similar premium, and SORSA would credit that cyber portion of the premium.

Now to the Financial Report,

June kicks off a very busy month for the fiscal office as we prepare to wrap up FY26 and prepare for FY27 which will arrive in a matter of a couple of weeks. Our interest earnings remain strong, as the talk of rate cuts not only appear to be off the table for this year, but the market now is starting to show investors expect at least one Fed rate hike this year to tamp down inflation.

We have done drawdowns for our Perkins grant. We’ll do another drawdown on the Perkins grant prior to closing the FY. This way we can avoid doing an advance and having to recoup that from the general fund next fiscal year. By law we can have a grant account be negative as long as we are actively trying to collect on it, which is what having a PCR in place will accomplish. After year end we’ll present the transfer of funds to Adult Ed to cover their deficit for the Fiscal Year.

The end of May marks 11 complete months of the fiscal year, with one month to go as you can see we are tracking a little ahead of schedule overall for our revenue and a little under forecasted on our expenses for the fiscal year. Our salary line will jump a little bit in June as we pay contract payoffs/severances, and end of year supplementals.

For your approval this month we also are presenting the request for and Amended Certificate of Available Resources and for an amended certificate for appropriations from the County Auditor. We typically do this every June for auditing purposes to show we did not spend more than we appropriated and we had enough resources to spend the money that we did.

The co-founder of the movement to abolish property taxes announced they did not hit the targeted goal of signatures to get the amendment on the ballot this November and will shift focus to the November 2027 ballot measure. They can carry the signatures they do have forward, but the number needed I believe will most likely increase as they’ll have to meet a new threshold of the 10% of votes cast for governor in this fall’s election, which I would expect to be a much higher voter turnout from the last governor election when incumbent Governor DeWine ran against challenger Whaley.

With the State budget also through 11 months of the year, with a combination of state revenues above estimate and expenditures below estimate the bottom line for the state was $2 billion. As part of the Budget correction bill, the state allocated $35 million to the Budget Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund) taking it a bit over $4 billion. $320 million will go to the expanded 15-day sales tax holiday for August 2027 and another $350 million will go to a new Property Tax Relief Fund targeting approximately 710,000 homestead exemption recipients with credits to their January 2027 property tax notices. A move that I am sure is an attempt to move the needle for those struggling with property tax bills to avoid a successful property tax abolition amendment making the ballot and passing.

Contracts and Salary notices for regular contracts have all been sent and since signed/returned to our office through the SCView software. I am proud of the effort of our office to get these out ahead of staff leaving for the summer and ensuring that they were signed/acknowledged prior to that as well.

With the changes to the forecasting deadlines in the most recent Budget Bill a busy summer will be even busier as we prepare the Forecast for Board Approval and filing at the August Board Meeting to meet the new August 31st deadline.

Tim Slone was present as the EAP representative.

None.

No Correspondence.

Don Paullin introduced Brianna DeMay, an LPN student, and Lila Mencer, a 600 hour welding student. Both students shared their journey to Pioneer Adult Education and expressed appreciation for the great instructors that they have had. They discussed how they enjoyed their class and how the class led them to certifications and will provide better opportunities for them in current and future employment thanks to their Adult Ed classes. 

Board Member Mike Grady reported as follows:

The Committee to Abolish Ohio Property Taxes or also known as Ax Ohio Tax announced they would not have the 415,000 required signatures by July 1 to place the amendment on the November ballot.  In late April the group stated that they had 305,000 signatures.  The group is now targeting the November, 2027 ballot with the goal of collecting enough valid signatures by July 1, 2027.  Before that deadline we will have a lame duck session of the Ohio General Assembly and in January, a new general assembly and a new governor.  The biennium budget will need to be in place by June 30.  So, it will be interesting to see how the general assembly and new governor will proceed on the issues of income, sales and property taxes.

Last week a number of bills passed both houses and were sent to the governor.  Among the bills passed by both houses and sent to the governor was Senate Bill 19 that requires public schools to provide free, evidence-based intervention services to students displaying limited proficiency in mathematics. 

Earlier this month Republican State Senator Bill Blessing and Democrat State Senator Kent Smith introduced SB 443 to address accountability for non-public schools use of vouchers.  The name of the bill is, “Take the Dough, We Gotta Know” Act.

Superintendent Nickoli reported as follows:

YEAR-END REPORT/PLANNING FOR THE 2026-2027 SCHOOL YEAR

Not only is it hard to believe that the 2025 – 2026 school year is over, it’s amazing to reflect back on our many accomplishments. We finished the year off in outstanding fashion with our Spring Adult Education Graduation and our End-of-the-Year Staff Breakfast. Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Theaker for attending the breakfast and to Mr. Theaker for providing some concluding comments to an outstanding year. The administrative staff is now beginning to prepare for next year. I appreciate their hard work in preparation for what I know will be an outstanding 2026 – 2027 school year.

SUMMER CAMP

Pioneer staff, led by Mr. Kevin Vargyas, hosted our fourth annual Summer Camp for students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades in our Partner Schools. Nearly 160 students got to experience hands on activities in 8 different labs. Family and social media responses indicated that it was a tremendous success as we celebrated America’s Bisesquicentennial. You have a camp t-shirt at your place.

APPROVAL OF ADULT EDUCATION AGREEMENT WITH PORTICO

I am recommending your approval of an agreement with Portico to provide financial aide services for our Adult Education students. We use them to process Pell Grants and other financial aide to students in our Pell eligible programs. This service replaces our part-time financial-aid secretary position.

APPROVAL OF FACILITIES PLAN

I am also recommending that you approve the attached facilities plan. This will allow us to use designated funds to maintain our facility to a high standard and to be able to continue to provide a state-of-the-art education for our students in a facility and with equipment that properly prepares them for their future careers.

PERSONNEL

I am recommending that you approve several employment actions for the 2026-2027 school year. They are:

The transfer of John Stewart from an Intervention Specialist position to our CollegeNOW Business Instructor replacing Rita Weining, who is retiring. He has extensive experience in running a business prior to entering education and has previously been an adjunct for NCSC who is our post-secondary partner for the program.

Employing Ellen Zaebst as an Intervention Specialist to replace Mr. Stewart in that role. She is a Pioneer graduate and previously worked in our pre-school. Since earning her IS license she has been employed at Cypress High School.

The transfer of Charles Curren from a Math Instructor position to our Culinary Arts position. Even though his experience prior to coming to Pioneer was in a traditional classroom setting he has extensive experience in the Culinary field and has already demonstrated that he is a talented chef and an outstanding teacher.

Employing Michael Marshall as a Math Instructor to replace Mr. Curren. He comes to us from Madison High School and clearly demonstrated his passion for Pioneer as well as working with students.

Employing Tammy Baumberger as an FCS Instructor at Bucyrus Secondary School replacing Jordan Keiss who we transferred to Colonel Crawford last month to replace the retiring Melanie Studer. Tammy previously taught for Pioneer at Shelby High School before retiring. She is an outstanding teacher and better person. She will be a great fit at Bucyrus.

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

EXECUTIVE SESSION

We will enter into executive session for discussing the evaluations of the Superintendent and Treasurer and the self-evaluation of the Board of Education as well as the other reasons listed on the agenda.

No discussion - moved to vote. 

The Board entered into executive session at 6:55 pm and exited back into regular session at 7:28 pm.