Mt. Vernon Board of School Trustees

Dr. Parker, on behalf of Maria Bond, shared the following Good News:

1.  MVHS Football Team became the first boys team in MV history to win a state title as they became 4A State Champions.  Quarterback Gehrig Slunaker won the Eskew Mental Attitude Award for Class 4A.

2.  MVHS senior Maitlyn Griner was awarded one of the two coveted four-year tuition scholarships from the Lilly Endowment.

3.  MVMS 8th Grade Boys' Basketball won the HHC Conference.

4.  All three elementary schools raised $8,395 for the local Make-a-Wish Foundation, in an effort to help grant wishes for children with critical illnesses.

5.  MVHS National Honor Society ran a toy drive to benefit members of the community and offer a shop to purchase these donated gifts. 

Dr. Parker introduced several MVHS athletes in attendance:

1. Golfer Meredith Johnson earned all-county and all-Hoosier Heritage Conference honors, finished 2nd in the sectional with a 78, and fired an 80 at regional to secure a spot in the state finals.

2.  Golfer Alaina Nugent finished 1st at county, 1st in Hoosier Heritage Conference, fired a 75 to win sectional medalists honors, and shot an 82 and secured the final advancing spot out of the Lapel regional into the state finals.  Alaina also earned Academic All-State Honorable Mention.

3.  Cross Country runner Austin Rush is an all-county, all-Hoosier Heritage Conference runner, He helped guide the Marauders to a regional title on his way to qualifying for the state finals finishing 89th out of 208 runners.

4.  Cross Country runner Tristan  Trevino won the county meet, won the Hoosier Heritage Conference meet, and finished 77th out of 208 runners at the state finals. 

5.  Cheer team members advanced to state finals in both the timeout and traditional competition categories, finishing in 5th place in timeout and 3rd in traditional.

6.  The Mt. Vernon Football Team, State 4A Football Champions, finished with a 14-1 record, most wins in a single season; record 3rd straight sectional title; back-to-back HHC titles for the first time in program history; 1st semi-state title in program history; 1st state championship in a boys sport at MV;  and 1st 4A state championship at MV.  Quarterback Gehrig Slunaker won the Philip N. Eskew Mental Attitude Award, an honor only given to one athlete participating in each of the 6 classes.  Dr. Parker thanked Coach Lidy for how he led the team this year.  Coach Lidy thanked all the players, parents and his coaching staff.  He thanked community members for all their support as it has been really special to him and the players.  He presented board members with a State Finals medal. 

Dr. Parker gave a presentation entitled "Operations Fund Cliff" regarding pursuing a Referendum for the purpose of sustaining the Operations Fund, recruiting and retaining teachers and classified staff, and increasing Student Resource Officers to allow for one in each building and two at the high school. Key takeaways include our Future Growth Plan ($100M+) can move forward without increasing debit service rate; we are monitoring enrollment and will continue to decrease transfer students; our loss of increment, compounded with large tax cap loss, brings our Operations Fund to the edge of a cliff in 2025; and our Operations Fund expenses are very reasonable. The Future Growth Plan was approved in 2020, put pushed off a year as enrollment did not warrant starting the plan.  The gross number of transfer students has decreased the past three years.   During the 2020-21 school year we had 654 incoming transfer students while 385 of our students left the district making 269 net transfers minus the 95 who choice home schooling making a net total of 174 transfers. We are moving forward with Future Growth Plan Projects new elementary school with a preschool, new transportation center, elementary/intermediate school addition and main campus circulation.  

Mr. Elkins reminded everyone that the Debt Service Fund is the largest of the property tax supported funds and next month he will be bringing  to the board the final pieces of the Future Growth Plan which is the financing.  He showed a graph indicating that we will not be raising our debt service rate of  $1.18, six cents of which is working to get the debt rate back to $1.12.  Key thing to take away is debt service is in really good shape and the debt rate is very manageable and is not going to go up for any of the projects that have already been approved.  Steps we have already taken to support our Operations Fund include change in employee clinic providers ($198,997 annual savings); change in prescription provider ($1,000,000 annual savings); energy savings projects ($1,170,000  annual savings); insurance pool ($488,000 annual savings); and staff decreases in 2019-2020 ($215,565 annual savings).  He commended Mt. Vernon's Operations Department staff, maintenance and custodial, for managing their budget and doing as much in-house maintenance as possible making it unnecessary to hire outside companies to do the  work.  Whenever there has been left over funds in Operations, we have tried to move it over to Rainy Day Fund to be used when needed in the future.   A slide showing Operations Fund Revenue indicates Mt. Vernon  receives substantially less revenue from local sources (taxes) than bordering Greenfield-Central and Southern Hancock.  Revenue from transfer dollars and misc. cash, the transfer from debt service to operations and where the increment is.  It will shrink by a third next year and be gone the next year.  Data proves that we have a revenue issue, not an expenditure issue.  

Dr. Parker continued by discussing school funding.  Two things happened, 2009 Indiana legislature began property tax caps and how schools were funded and we have been behind ever since.  In 2019, due to federal legislation, our General Fund, Capital Projects Fund, Transportation Fund and Bus Replacement Fund became two funds, the Education and Operations Funds.  

Mr. Elkins noted things we have already done for an annual savings of $2,000,000+.  They include tax cap waiver, maximize debt service operating balance, excess levy appeal for transportation, refinanced existing debts saving $7 million in interest; and general obligation bonds (stewardship and  energy savings projects). 

What options do we have to avoid the cliff? Increase Education Fund transfer to Operations Fund, increase student to staff ratio through attrition (hire fewer people as we grow), make more budget cuts, smaller raises and operating referendum.  A growing tax base could help, but in the last 9 years, amount of TIF AV captured within Mt. Vernon has grown by approximately 800%.  Approximately  80% of this captured AV is from TIFs established by Hancock County.  $222 million of $282 million in non-residential AV is being captured by a TIF, which makes it impossible to combat tax cap losses. 

McCordsville Elementary teacher Kristi Norton gave a presentation spotlighting MES's STEM Program.  STEM has been a part of MVCSC for the past 5 years.  Using Project Lead the Way as the main curriculum, the program not only expands students' knowledge of science, technology, engineering and math, but helps to build on state standards that are tested on ILearn.  Each grade level is presented with a problem at the beginning of a unit.  While working through the unit, they build the skills necessary to solve the end project and the presented problem.  Some of the activities for each grade level included:  a)  Kindergarteners studied floating and sinking by creating boats; b) 1st Graders Bee Bots-balloons  over Broadway; c)  2nd Graders Grids and Games-coded a game on Scratch Jr.; d) 3rd Graders Stability and Motion: created a glider to deliver supplies; e) 4th Graders Energy: created a vehicle; and f)  5th graders Robotics and Automation:  to move hazardous materials. 

Mrs. Muffler gave a Teacher Evaluation Summary for the 2020-2021 school year.  The State of Indiana sets the requirements for teacher evaluations.  Mt. Vernons Evaluation Formula is 80% employee effectiveness rubric (includes 4 domains, observations and artifacts) and 20% school learning measure.  Of the 278 certified staff members, 77 achieved a Highly Effective rating, 200 Effective Rating, and one Improvement Necessary.  

Dr. Parker asked the board to consider approval of a question on the May, 2022 ballet (a referendum) as it  has been determined that based on current revenue calculations for the years 2023 through and including 2030, the school corporation will not be able to carry out its public educational duty unless it annually imposes a referendum tax levy of up to, but not to exceed, $0.1700 per $100  assessed valuation.  The expected annual revenue from $0.17 Referendum is $3,201,691 which would provide sustainability of  the Operations Fund; recruit and retain teachers and classified staff; and increase SROs (Student Resource Officers) to allow for one in each school and two in the high school.   Dr. Parker stated he and his administrative team has been working very hard on teacher compensation. From 2009-2014, Mt. Vernon employees received zero dollars in pay raises, and they have been working hard to climb out of that.  This Referendum would increase pay for  all teachers, increase starting pay (we are currently 3rd in Hancock Co.) and allow an increase in classified pay by restructuring the classified pay schedule to allow a minimum of $16.00 per hour starting pay (134 of 235 classified staff are currently making less than $16 per hour and 76 of those less than $15 per hour).  Dr. Parker stated the average home price in Mt. Vernon is $201,825.  A $0.17 Referendum would add $14.02/monthly or $168.19 annually to that property owner's property tax.  He reminded everyone that this would be on top of all other taxes and the reason it is such a moderate ask ($0.17)  is because  it would pertain to everyone including new businesses (ones with TIF's and abatements also).  Mr. Elkins noted that at $0.17 we are still in the middle  range of overall tax rate.  

Mrs. Walls made a motion to approve Resolution 2021-44 Referendum Tax Levy Resolution.  Mr. Gray seconded. 

Mr. Edwards asked if this Referendum would allow us to hire librarians at all our schools.  Dr. Parker responded it would allow space for us to continue to grow in those areas.  If  the Referendum were not to pass, cuts in special positions is possible through attrition.  Mrs. Walls thanked the administration for their hard work to get us to this point.  She does not want to leave the next leaders of the district in a bind and believes this is the action to take.  Mrs. Freeman stated with teacher shortages, if we don't increase base pay we will lose teachers to other districts.  

The motion carried 5-0.

Mr. Elkins stated 2/18/22 is the date we will need to have a ballot question to the county election board to be put on the ballot for the May primary.  Resolution 2021-45 authorizes Mr. Elkins, Mr. Smedley and Dr. Parker to continue to investigate a referendum at a property tax rate of $0.1700, such authorization includes communicating, on behalf of the Board, such tax rate to the Hancock County Auditor.  It also  allows for them to work on this as part of their daily responsibilities during normal business hours.  

Mr. May made a motion to approve Resolution 2021-45 Authorizing Administration Re: Operating Referendum.  Mr. Edwards seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.