2.23.2026 Regular Board Meeting

Mrs. Stephey led the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Ms. Spence conducted Roll Call. All members were present. 

The Agenda was amended to remove "no action taken" from executive session. The Board of Education will resume session with action at the conclusion of executive session. 

Mr. Williamson reported on his first three weeks. Mr. Williamson toured all buildings, met with administration, and met staff members. He mentioned that each building is unique in its own way. The One Needs Assessment team, Educational Programming Committee and Finance all met over last three weeks. The passion of each group did not go unnoticed. Each member had the students best interest in mind. The finance committee met and discussed the House Bills, technology, and thanked the taxpayers for their support and dedication to the students and community. Mr. Boes has been searching for an interim principal for Krout for the remainder of the school year. Mr. Boes met with Kevin Katafias last week and provided a tour of the Krout building. Mr. Katafias agreed to complete the interim responsibilities at Krout. He comes with a variety of education experience. Calamity day review for the buildings. Seniors are the major concern since there are only 3 hours left. Mr. Williamson has requested that Mrs. Tuite and Mr. Bauman submit a proposal for make up time. 

Ms. Spence presented on two seperate items. First being the General Fund. The district revenue has increased due to the DPIA dollars from the state. The district enrollment has decreased. Mr. Williamson and Ms. Spence have been in conversation related to expenses for the district. The two of them will continue to meet and develop a plan to assist with the expense concerns. Supplies are the major expense within the district. Recently, the leadership team met and were informed of the concerns related to supplies. The goal is to provide building budgets next year. Mr. Williamson emphasized that these are budgets for one year only. The budgets can always be adjusted per year. Ms. Spence has sent spreadsheets of expenses per building to the administrators to review and ask any questions. 

February Forecast: 

We believe that 5 years continues to paint a better picture of the Districts financial state.  Required funds include general funds, emergency levies (which are now called Fixed-Sum Levies) and Debt Services.  First, the Forecast engages the Board of Education and community in long range planning and promotes discussion of our financial situation.  It serves as the basis for determining our ability to sign the 412 certificate, and it provides a method for Department of Education and Workforce and the Auditor of State to identify schools in poor financial health. The Five Year Forecast is a key management tool that needs to be updated periodically.  For it to be meaningful, it is important to review the notes and assumptions.  The notes provide the backstory on our expected revenue and expenditures.  The forecast encourages districts to examine future projects and identify challenges, and it helps the Administration navigate through challenges. The Forecast is divided into two parts: Revenue and Expenditures.  The District’s revenue consists of two main sources, which are state and local funding.  Salary and benefits make up the majority of the District’s expenditures.  Additional expenditures include purchase services, supplies and equipment. In this Forecast, we are using a conservative estimate of the impact that HB129 is going to have on our District’s revenue.  There are too many unanswered questions at this point to rely solely on the current States simulations. The slow growth portion of HB186 is reasonable and that we should expect growth at a range of 7 - 9% when at the 20 mill floor.  This alone, is a good reason to utilize a more conservative impact estimate. Emergency and substitute levies approved before 2026 may be renewed as a fixed-sum current operating expense levy for up to five years and may be subsequently renewed.  Only Districts in fiscal caution, watch, or emergency (or those impacted by declared disasters) may impose a new fixed-sum levy for up to 5 years, which may not be renewed. Moving forward, the District’s only options for new levies will be Current Expense, Income Tax, Bond or PI Levies. HB186 caps property growth and guarantees the same amount of taxes collected in FY2024.  It provides for temporary tax credits, however, Mr. Spence does not anticipate a tax credit impact on Tiffin City School District. HB186 modifies the Rollback and Owner occupied tax credit structure.  It will not have an effect on our Districts funding until tax year 2029, payable in 2030, however our State reimbursement is suppose to increase by the amount of the new credit, so it affect should be neutral. HB309 is a little bit more worrisome.  It allows the County Budget Commission to reduce our voter-approved levies (except in the case of Debt levies) if they feel it is reasonable and prudent to avoid unnecessary or excessive collections.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of room for interpretation in this bill.  We will need to continue to build strong relationships with our County Budget Commission so they understand our financial needs. With these new property tax laws, districts must reassess levy strategy, timing, and eligibility. Prohibits a school district from submitting a new money current expense levy to voters if its general fund carry-over balance is more than 100% of general fund expenditures in the preceding fiscal year. The district's only saving grace, is it allows a district to exclude funds to be used within the next 3 years on permanent improvements from the carry-over balance calculation. Piggyback Tax Exemptions - HB96 included a Piggyback Tax Exemptions law that allows County Commissioners to give a 2nd tax credit for Homestead and Homeowners 2.5% credit without reimbursement. This could cost the district if approved by our commissioners.  Currently, the Piggyback Exemption was not approved by our county commissioners, however, can be reconsidered annually. Unfortunately, the district decline in enrollment directly impacts our State funding and being on the formula does not allow for any increase in funding for the length of this forecast. The district State funding increased in FY25 because the DPIA increased as a result of our CEP approval.  CEP is the program that allows our students to receive free lunches. Revenue Overview - first and foremost, Ms. Spence thanked for community for approving the district new earned income tax.  It is going to go a long way to help us provide quality educational experiences for our students.  And even though most of the newly passed legislation negatively impacts our districts financial health, we will continue to make expenditure cuts and wise investment decisions in order to prevail.  We have to because, our total revenue is estimated to grow by 1.57% annually over the next 5 years while expenses are estimated to grow by 3.9% a year, which is unsustainable long term. The recommended percentage of wage and benefit costs for a school district is 75% or less, so we are in good shape at 72.6%  this percentage could be a little higher if we would decide to bring some of the services that are currently outsourced in house, however, sometimes it is more cost effective to hire service out.  The district needs to continually monitor this contracts and opportunities. The district is predicting to have a minimum of 60 days of True Days Cash through FY29, which was made possible because of the newly approved earned income tax.  Mr. Williamson has been discussing adopting fiscal health indicators based on different levels of True Days Cash (for instance, if we hit 120 days we respond by implementing this fiscal plan and if we hit 60 days we implement another portion of the fiscal plan).  I believe that a structured fiscal plan like this would be very beneficial to the financial health of our district and am looking forward to developing it with the districts stakeholders. The stability of State Funding on the Fair School Funding plan is still uncertain.  Currently, we receive 50.7% of our funding from local resources, which is up from 49% in October before the levy passed.  The new property tax reform laws will make growth on future reappraisals limited and will make it more challenging to pass additional levies.  Our local revenue and ability to manage the district feels under threat as a result of the recently passed property tax legislation.  However, our district make the right decision by diversifying its revenue stream and asking for an earned income tax when it did.  Because of this, and our thoughtful community, our district is in a much better financial position than a lot of districts across the state.  Because of the passage of the income tax, we are projecting  positive cash balance all the way until FY30.

No Public Comment 

The consent agenda was adopted as presented. 

There was no additional board discussion this evening. 

Time in: 7:32pm 

No action taken was removed when the agenda was amended. 

Time out: 8:30pm 

Meeting started: 6:30pm
Meeting ended: 8:36pm