CCBoE 08.26.2025 Working Meeting Notes

(The slides and video has not been updated lately on the website. I recorded the meeting though, audio only, after recognitions):

Call To Order: 5:30PM

Invocation: Philadelphia Methodist Church Pastor James Hyder

Pledge of Allegiance: Lakeside High School JROTC

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recognitions:

• State and National Beta Club Summer Competitions:

  • Harlem Middle School, National Beta Club Secretary Top 3 Finalist

    • Lorelei Patrick

  • Harlem High School, 2nd Place Color Photography

    • Destiny Smith

  • Lakeside High School

    • Eliana Benevides, 2nd Place, Science

    • Coralyn Cairns, 3rd Place, French

    • Om Doshi

      • 2nd Place, Biomedical Health Science

      • 2nd Place, Visual Art (Quilling)

      • 5th Place, Visual Art (Quilling, National Level Competition)

    • Stephen Lin, 1st Place, Instrumental Soloist (flute)

    • Julia Min, 2nd Place, Spelling

    • Musicology Team, 2nd Place

      • Gray Hollan

      • Alejandro Martinez

      • Holly Sun

      • Hannah Thomas

• 77th US Junior Amateur Golf Champion

  • Hamilton Coleman, Lakeside High School

(Before voting on consent items, District 4 Katie Allen asked for item B, June and July Financials, to be removed from consent Agenda, for discussion)

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• Minutes of 8/12/2025, Regular Session Meeting and Minutes of 8/14/2025 Board Retreat

• Budget Amendment and Transfer

• Fundraisers

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/Use of Facilities

June and July Financials: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

(The following discussion is not transcribed)

Allen: Doesn’t have questions but commentary to keep in mind when heading into budget discussions in the spring. Comparing end of year fiscal numbers to the beginning of the fiscal year budget numbers, and looking at patterns and talk about that. Then, I’m fine approving it. The final adopted budget starting the fiscal year showed an estimated revenue about $349 million. Final revenue collected at the end of the fiscal year was $375 million, which means that we collected $26 million additional revenue during FY25. Then the final adopted budget that we started the fiscal year with showed estimated expenditures of $349 million. Actual expenditures were $342 million, which put us $7 million under budget, plus an extra $23 million transferred to the building program, which reaches the final expenditure of $365 million, which is on the financial sheet. Wants to highlight to continue budget discussion a few months ago. Had we not transferred that $23 million to the building program, we would have had $26 million extra revenue, $7 million less in spending, which would have created essentially a surplus from last year FY 25 of $33 million. In future budget discussions, a few months ago for FY26, we had this discussion about trends over the last few years and we're consistently under budgeting revenue. pattern is continuing. Important was because by under budgeting, I'd ask, part of our conversation was, hey, can we give our teachers a raise or can we hire more sped paraprofessionals? You know, there were concerns that there wouldn't be enough money in the budget.

Dekle: Thanked Mr. Casado for great accounting practices and the district keeping under budget. Transferring funds to the building program keeps district from having to borrow more money.

Teasley: Verified that there was an audit conducted for FY24 and that everything was OK during the audit.

Casado: Verified that yes, the audit was conducted and everything was fine.

Teasley: The auditor also explained that the budgetary practices used are acceptable and used at other school districts?

Casado: Yes, that was the results of the audit.

Discussion Topics and Presentations

• Strategic Planning, Dr. Flynt

  • Vision: The Columbia County School District will lead the nation in educational excellence where each student is engaged, enriched , and inspired.

  • Mission: The Columbia County School District will provide each student challenging content in a supportive environment resulting in increased academic achievement through shared accountability.

• Goal 1: Maximize Student Achievement and Success for Each Student, LeAnne Gregg

  • Performance Objective 1: Increase understanding and mastery of the curriculum

    • Transition to New ACE Platform

    • Writing assessments at 4th, 7th, and 9th grades

    • Provide professional learning and increase collaboration for special education staff

    • Develop standard science labs for 5th grade, Biology and Chemistry

  • Performance Objective 2: Increase instructional rigor

    • Expand CTAE Offerings

    • Implement Strings Academy opportunity

    • Revise and align gifted instructional units

  • Performance Objective 3: Enhance Academic Support

    • Refine HS MTSS Process

    • Redesign credit recovery and summer school

    • Improve supports for SPED, Gifted, and EL.

    • Administer PSAT 8/9th grade

• Goal 2: Community Engagement and Support, Alex Casado

  • Performance Objective 1: Maximize family and community involvement

    • Expand number of community partners contributing time and resources to the CCSD foundation

    • Create school accountability report and post to each school website

  • Performance Objective 2: Expand meaningful business and post-secondary partnerships

  • Performance Objective 3: Improve Internal/external communication

    • Reorganize and update district website to increase engagement

    • Continue to refine the monthly newsletter to employees

• Goal 3: Consistent and Supportive Culture, Steve Cummings

  • Performance Objective 1: Ensure a safe learning environment

    • Installation and implementation of EPIC systems

    • Student behavior threat assessment training and implementation teams

  • Performance Objective 2: Nurture strong relationships in a supportive environment

    • Implement ACE for Elementary counseling

    • Continue the use of PBIS

  • Performance Objective 3: Support the overall health of students

    • Implement signs of suicide at Middle and High School Level

    • Enhance vetted resources for parents and guardians at all levels

    • hire and train (2) student advocacy specialists

• Goal 4: Facilities and Operational Excellence, Penny Jackson and James Van Meter

  • Performance Objective 1: Improve operational processes and systems

    • Marketing tools to improve access to nutritional resources

    • Implement and utilize the transportation routing and camera system

  • Performance Objective 2: Identify and plan for upcoming facility needs

    • Comprehensive building program

    • Implement and utilize entry and alert management systems for increased security

  • Performance Objective 3: Improve Technology Access

    • Engineer IT systems to improve digital infrastructure

    • Develop disaster recovery/ business continuity plan

    • Promote a distraction free learning environment

Staff: 14 core + 32 in schools

• Talent Optimization, Tony Wright

  • Performance Objective 1: Attract a highly-Qualified Staff

    • Use data driven talent recruiting strategies to better target hi-payoff talent markets

    • Use talent screening tools to increase success probability of hired teachers and leaders

  • Performance Objective 2: Provide Professional growth opportunities and development for all employees

    • Improve new employee onboarding

    • Continue professional development opportunities.

  • Performance Objective 3: Retain a highly-effective workforce

    • Employee recognition pins

    • Better communicate to employees about benefits/compensation package

    • Leverage feedback from current and departing employees to improve retention

    • Increase pool of applicants and fill rates in hard to fill areas

Staff Reports

• America 250 Update, Dr. Campbell

  • District will incorporate patriotic themes all school year in all subjects to celebrate.

• School Calendar for 2026-2027, Penny Jackson

  • 1096 voted, 107 additional comments.

    • Option 3 was winner with 47%

Discussion about Veteran’s Day because it falls on a Wednesday and suggestion of not having actual day off. However, the military community prefers to have the actual Veteran’s Day off.

Building Program

• Bid Results

  • School Mapping Services, Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Samsara Internal Bus Cameras, Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Resolutions for Euchee Creek Elementary School & Greenbrier High School HVAC: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

This is to verify that the projects have been completed so the state can reimburse funds.

• Resolution to approve funding plan for Harlem High School, Greenbrier High School, and other capital projects, and issuance of bonds approved by voters at election held on 11/5/2024. Approve: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Casado: Hello again. As Dr. Flint mentioned, we have a great discussion during the last retreat regarding the comprehensive building program and how to move forward with financing the next stage of the building program. Reviewed the history of the building program and the general timeline of events that have led up to where we are today. As a reminder, the building program was developed in response to feedback from a cross section of community, community stakeholders, both internal and external during the district's development of the new strategic plan. We heard time and time again throughout that process that the community wants our aging facilities to be addressed so that they meet the standard enjoyed by students across the district in our newer facilities as well as across similar sized districts in the state and the Southeast.

Those sentiments were echoed again for community feedback and input later that year during the development of the actual building program. More recently, we went back to the community last fall before the November election and received the same very similar feedback about the district's aging facilities. Finally, the voters of Columbia county approved the general obligation bond referendum secured by East Boss sales tax dollars during the November election. Now we are at the next stage of the comprehensive building program where we are seeking to do similar work to Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School as we are currently doing with Lakeside and Evans High School.

Doing so would require issuing a portion of the general obligation bonds approved by the voters in November in order to start the work on these projects and ensures the district is following through with the direction we shared with the voters regarding the building program. And the plan of finance that we put together is a financially sound one that aims to avoid the need to levy a debt service millage rate to pay back these bonds. Undertaking these bonds under this plan won't jeopardize vital work happening in each of our schools every day, which is high level student instruction. Tonight, we ask that you approve the resolution before you to move forward with the plan of finance for the additions and renovation projects for both Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School.

Allen: All right, I'll jump in. So we have great discussions at our retreat meeting. I thought it was, well, really great delving financials at that level. And I left y'all with some questions. Dr. Flynt, you sent me responses yesterday to those questions, and thank you for that. I've kind of reviewed those. And I want to support these bonds because I fully support the program that what they're funding building these high schools. And but along with that, I still did have some financial concerns with where this additional bond, 190 million, would put us in a concept of how much debt we'll be looking at. So I did pardon… These are my handwritten notes since I was working on it this morning, trying to incorporate the latest answers I have, and I did make copies for y'all so you can kind of look at what I'm looking at as I speak. And I did keep it very, very simple.

I'm a visual person, so I find that really helps if I can kind of look at the numbers. And so you'll see two pie charts, one on the left that shows splost 2027 to 2032, this splost that we're going into. And one on the right, a future 2032-2037 splost if approved by voters. And it's important that we talk about that, even though it hasn't been approved yet, because the financial decisions we're making today put payments and debt well into the future. And even right now, our payments are already into 2036. So I do think it's important that we talk about not just going into the current splost but the splost after, because our financial decisions and debt decisions expand all the way to that.

So with that, I see that our expected SPLOST revenue that I'm working off of is the $235 million that I was told we expected to receive. So based on our current bond and interest payments alone for this time period, we are already looking at $59 million of payments, and that works out to be right around a quarter. So a quarter of this splost that we're just about to enter into is already earmarked just to make our basic bonds and interest payments for that time period. And mind you, that $59 million is just for the current, the splost, the 27 splost. But it still leaves $85 million left over that we've already signed our names to for the 2032-2037 splost. So altogether, our current bond and interest debt from 2028 through 2036, when the payments end, is looking at $144 million.

And that's important because adding another $190 million to that, not even including the interest, because we don't know the interest rate yet, would put us at $334 million of bond debt starting in, I'd say, 2028. I tried to, you know, round favorably for what we're trying to do, so but there's still a lot of unknowns. I mean, just looking at the debt aspects, that explains kind of that first page. The second page is a recurrence of what you've already been given.

In my previous packet, I'm looking at trends, and I understand that debt to splost ratio, it's not an industry standard as we talked about, but it does put it kind of in layman's terms, and it shows a trend that I'm seeing that even as our splosts getting approved or getting approved at larger numbers, the debt that we're carrying into those splosts starts increasing. It's growing at a higher rate than the splosts are growing. So, for example, the 2017 splost was approved at $140 million. We went into that splost with about $70 million of debt, so about a 50% debt. Debt to splost ratio. In 2022, the splost was $160 million. We went in with $68 million, a little bit less, and that put it at about 43% of the SPLOST compared to our total debt. 2027, $270 million was approved for loss.

We came in at a total of around $162 million. We were looking at about 60% of a splost to debt ratio. And if we add $190 million of bonds today, that puts us at roughly $350 total debt, or I think our number was $344 on that first page, which puts us roughly at about 130% of the SPLOST. So really that means that we're entering a SPLOST of $270 million, really only expecting $235 million, carrying, if we approve this bond today, a debt of $334 million. And there's just so much we don't know. I've not seen a payment schedule, what these payments are going to look like over the next eight, 10 years.

I don't know the interest rate, which is substantial when you're looking at a bond this size. So really we don't even know what that. If we're looking at this current 2027 SPLOST with $59 million that we know we're making in bond and interest payments and we're adding payments to that during the splost, we don't know what that's going to look like. We don't know that amount or that percentage. We don't know it for the next splost. And so I would just say that I would like to come back to this when we have that financial information and have another discussion at that time. Because the magnitude of the decision we're making today to approve this $190 million in bonds and the longevity of it over the next, I'd say eight to 10 years, roughly. If I had to guess off of what I'm seeing here, I don't think there's enough information for us to make a wise decision and put that kind of debt on our citizens in seven to 10 years in hopes that they approve the splost. Now, I can speak from experience. My family's back in Kansas. Their splost did not pass. A year ago they did a committee looking into why it did not pass, and the committee recommended they don't put it on the ballot even a year later because public sentiment was still not supportive of it. And so they found themselves in a difficult position at their school district. I know it's kind of popping up here and there around the United States that splosts aren't always getting approved like they used to. And so I would just ask Alex, what would our millage rate look like if we approved this $190 million bond and a splost 2032 did not get approved? What would our millage have to look like to cover that Amount of debt?

Casado: It is hard to know because we won't know at 2032 what the value of the mill would be. So I would have to try to carry that out into the future and estimate what a mill might look like and put it up against it to be able to answer accurately.

Allen: I would just reiterate to kind of close it out and I'll let everybody else jump in. I want to support this. I fully support… The projects are very important. However, I just, I, I want to see what this decision would look like with some rough numbers. I know we won't have the finals, but some rough estimates of what we could expect a bond interest rate to look like based on this time frame where we're selling the bonds, what we would see a payment schedule roughly to look like, how far out it would be, about what the payments would be, what that would look like in the context of our current floss and next loss. What a mill. My millage rate might have to be roughly if the next, next splost didn't pass. Because now we really are making decisions today in 2025 that are banking on a next splost to be passed. And if we're going to do that because we, we feel that we're in a good position to do that, then I would want to have some of these questions answered and not go into what where I just have so many unknowns with the magnitude and longevity of this decision.

Dekle: Mr. Casado, can you. I think you had already answered a lot of these questions earlier, but just remind us, first of all, we have our current bonds that are outstanding series 2020 bonds. Yes. And payments for those are already secured?

Casado: Correct

Dekle: So that, that's not unsecured yet. And those will be paid off in 2027?

Casado: Correct

Dekle: And then we have series 2023 bonds which are issued for Lakeside and Evans, is that right?

Casado: Yes.

Dekle: And. And those are secured with our earlier splost.

Casado: Yeah, a large portion of them are, yes. A large percentage with the splost that was just removed, right?

Dekle: And so when we do go to the voters and ask them, do you want us to bring our schools up to date? And it's going to cost what we believe a certain amount of money. We can only ask for a five year splost under the Georgia laws, Correct?

Casado: Correct

Dekle: We can't ask for 20 year splost. We can only do it five years. And, and so the question of whether or not we are bringing on too much debt. You don't agree with that statement, do you?

Casado: No, I think again, we have a plan that we've purposely put together because we wanted to, as best as we could, be certain that we would avoid having to levy a debt service millage rate assuming the splost renewed. Right. And so if we were not in that scenario, I might have answered that question differently. But this was crafted with that in mind and within the confines of all the splost, the couple splost referendum that are backing that both the previous bonds and the bonds were considering.

Dekle: And if we, if we just, if we don't issue bonds, the, the effect of that is we, we are not able to conduct the improvements of Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School like we have previously already agreed to do and want to do with the county.

Casado: Right. It would have to wait, I mean, until a day where the funding could be submitted. All the money we have now, and I said this during the retreat on the, on the board reports that you see there is a little bit of unallocated funds there, but it's pretty negligible in the grand scheme of this. But all the funds that we have today and can reasonably anticipate through these splost renewals, through the current esplost cycle, that we're in fully pay for Lakeside, Evans and any other, you know, leftover kind of, of projects that we're finishing up. And then some other money has been set aside. So my point is, is that anything we want to do in addition to that has to come from, from bonds or it would have to wait until we have enough money in the bank, I guess you could say, to sign that contract.

Dekle: What about our bond rating and how does that work? In other words, would we even be given permission to issue bonds if we had problems financially?

Casado: No, we may be given permission, but they would come with a really bad bond rating which would drive the interest rate up and significantly shrink the number of folks out there, investors out there, who are willing to buy them and take on the risk. But yeah, anytime you sell bonds like this, you go through a process where you have to compile. Compile a preliminary offering statements, what it's called to the investors in the credit rating agencies. They, the credit rating agencies, and we use the two premier ones, Standard and Poor's and Moody's, so two, not just one. Pour over our financials, that preliminary offering, and use that data on top of community data, things out of your control, to give the school district a bond rating, if you will, a credit rating. Essentially they're giving their opinion on the credit worthiness of the school district. And our bond ratings, we have a history of them being extremely high. And so we will go through that process again before these bonds are sold to get an updated credit rating. And so again, that will signal to the market how worthy these bonds might be of their investment and the interest rate that we get.

Baker: I have a question. When was Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School built?

Teasley: Harlem was in 1982 and Greenbrier 1996. Just along that note, I've either been a student, parent, a teacher, or a taxpayer… in multiple roles. I don't remember a time Columbia County has not owed for a school or schools. There's never been a time we haven't been paying for schools. Never been a time this community has not supported paying for schools. It's just a way of life. It's a necessity. If you're going to provide education, you provide the capital facilities for that. And this community has always risen to the occasion.

Baker: And I know we can’t anticipate the construction costs.I don't see it getting any better. I mean, as far as financial end of it, you know, being a parent who had three children who went through Evans High School, Evans probably was a little delayed in the building program. I appreciate all that you've done. I think listen to the public on both Lakeside and Evans High School. It's beautiful. It looks really nice. I think it'll be an asset to the community. As far as Harlem and Greenbrier, are those additions going to be, you know, it's going to be the athletic complex. It's going to be the auditorium building. That fine arts program for Harlem… ptae.

Flynt: Yes. It's gonna just, you know, have any new classrooms coming, right? No, we. We did the addition already, but it'll be very similar. I mean, you know, when we took this back out to the public prior to the bonds and squats, we were very clear on what each of the schools would get. So because it's the same size or the same. Around the same age as Evans and Lakeside somewhat, they'll be very similar projects. So there doesn't have to be a lot of changes. Although it has to be adapted for the school. We also are going to go inside the school to renovate just like we are those schools, all of the classrooms and even the, you know, what is the theater now, because there'll be a new one that'll be turned into, you know, other usable classroom space, as well as the cafeteria and the kitchen, things like that. So it's a pretty much a redo. As we talked about the last couple of years. Of those three schools. And as we move into the Greenbrier and Grovetown, then those will be more about the additions that they don't already have, but not as much renovation inside the school because they don't qualify for the state entitlement funds.

Baker: How fast are we growing at Harlem and Greenbrier? But Harlem seems to be the focus as far as what I hear in the community….

Flynt: And we think we've gotten some of that under control with that addition that we just put onto the front. However, with this renovation, as you know, we're going to be moving the fields to the. To the back of the property. We were able to buy 25 acres back there. And so there'll be a space dedicated for another addition. Addition right to the back of the school. So it'll be much easier to be able to attach that to the school if needed. We are going to see some increases over the next couple years because we have a bubble going through the system right now. But there's a lot of growth out in that area. But we also don't want to put in too many classrooms, so we're going to save some of those so we can do those when the students arrive. But we'll have. We'll have plenty of space for the next number of years for students.

Baker: Do you know, the seat capacity for the auditorium. So I've been to a graduation back in the days when we did them at Harlem, and I know space is very limited. So are we seeing the same thing when they have meetings or they need that additional space for the community?

Flynt: The new theater will have 500. I don't know what the old one is. This is very small. It's got to be like 150 or something. It's pretty, pretty small. So it will support….

Baker: And I know they have large crowds.

Flynt: But yeah, no, I think, you know, from what we've talked about, you know, Evans and Lakeside are very similar. We provided a lot of updates on those, the design. And we have some, you know, we've shared with you all the renderings and all that. Even though it has a different look, the spaces are a standard that we're trying to get to. And that's kind of what we were aiming for with the tenure plan and now the comprehensive program was to get a standard that every student could kind of enjoy at every school, not just high schools, but we've been very focused on modernization of the high schools because that was the thing we heard loud and clear from our community.

Baker: And I know you don't have crystal ball and you can't predict, but if we did not issue bonds, how long would this delay the building projects?

Flynt: Yeah, it wouldn't be done. I don't. Not. Not in many years. The bonds are the vehicle to do this and that's why we put that on. Even the referendum that went to the voters listed first the bonds on that referendum.

Baker: Do you think it's fair to say that any delay could increase cost on building?

Flynt: Well, we've seen that now. I'll say and y' all have asked about know even the budgets that are the estimates that we put in place, we've greatly increased the. In what we might anticipate the building cost to be over the next couple of years. So we do anticipate that continuing to go up and. But we've built that into the cost and of our estimates anyway. Now the board would obviously have to approve the final approval for the, for the gmp, for the, for the project the way we're doing Harlem.

Dekle: Before I call for the question, Mr. Kent, do you have any questions? A couple comments?

Kent: Yeah, I guess I come from the mentality that beautiful buildings don't necessarily equate to beautiful minds. With plenty of examples of out there Davidsons, you know, there's many out there, however, I mean, clearly, you know, safety. Upgrading the buildings is, you know, an important thing when you do it. The public has spoken about this on many occasions and this is how the building project was derived. So you've got to take… I've got to separate myself and you know what I think about buildings now applied to education versus what the public has said that they really want. You know, I'm not, I'm just saying I'm not a huge, huge fan of selling this many bonds at this point. I would have liked to have seen more of a delay, I think, in doing it. However, I'm gonna put my trust in Alex Casado and the management team and I think they've really dug into this for some time now. They put a lot of thought into it. I appreciate a lot of the words that Ms. Allen has said and I agree with a lot of what she has to say. Also to mention that there were some reiterations that were done in the. And some thought processes were put into place to question. We have to beat up Alex a little bit. Right? Retreat a lot of pressure, which is. What we're supposed to do up here in public. And I think what came out a Speaker really good conversation also. It also showed that, you know, the Superintendent, you know, Mr. Casado and the rest of the management team sort of listened to those questions and they made suggestions, and the phasing out of the building plan. And so while we were originally, correct me if I'm wrong, talking about $270 million ran out of. Shoot, we're talking about more of $180, $190 million with about $8 million to the side there, instead of really going after it like the original intentions were, correct?

Flynt: Yeah, no, that's correct. And that came from feedback and we had great discussions and so we limited it. You know, we may be coming back for that, but that'll have to be a different discussion because we'd have to have another approval if we went over 109.

Kent: So, yeah, I just thought I'd make a couple comments and make sure that I was on track. How does the bond sale go here? If we're talking about sort of meeting. That 180 to 190, I think. 190. The paperwork shows the 270. Right? Is there just a document they're waiting for to adjust back or is this these additional. Can we go after the bonds now. These additional dollars set aside?

Casado: Yeah, in your question, you just because you get authorization, it's an up to up to 270 in bonds and up to 270 in collections in this case. So you could issue none or you or some portion. And then I think where you're getting to is at some point down the road, if you wanted to come back, issue the remaining, you could. Or you could leave them on the table and do nothing. I mean, either way, you're not compelled to issue them.

Flynt: One of the areas, though, we've got to be careful of is that we are somewhat compelled to do the projects that we said we were going to. So I think that's where the difference lies. And so the voters are expecting that we're going to move forward to complete these projects over a reasonable amount of time.

Dekle: And also for clarification, this, this resolution is almost like a preliminary resolution because it y' all will be coming back to us in November and that will have the actual number. So what this resolution does is it says please proceed to doing paperwork. To bring back to the board and at that time there will be a set amount in that resolution.

Casado: Correct

Flynt There'll be a number of other times where we're going to have to come back to you just as any project that we have to get bid approval for. And so we're also going to have to expend funds between now and then. So we wouldn't be out spending time, effort money, legal expenses if we didn't think that we would be able to get an approval later. It would be kind of not only a waste of time, but a waste of money and resources.

Allen: Okay, I just want to make a few more comments as I started. Given every all the information that we've got, the what's before us today that we're putting our names on as a board is to vote to approve to move forward with $190 million of bonds. We don't know what the payments are going to be or even a rough amount. We don't know what the interest rates are going to be even a rough amount of. We don't know how long our payments are going to extend. And we don't even know if we're going to have income to pay any of this debt in 2032 with another next next splost. So out of those four items, obviously we're not going to know until 2032 if we get that splost or not. But the other three we could have if we just delayed this a bit more. So right now, if this vote votes, if this board votes to approve this $190 million of bond, we are quite literally voting to take on substantial debt without knowing these three things when we could know them at a future time with Alex, given time to go crunch some numbers and come back to us with some more information for us to look and really see what this is doing. And on top of that, we are also voting to accept that today we stand at $179 million worth of bond and interest debt. According to the responses I received on my questions, we had $190 million. That puts us today, well after the bonds are secured, but it puts us pre-accepting the amount of $369 million, if I did my quick addition correctly, $179 and $190. We haven't even started the $270 million lost in 2027 of which we only expect to receive 235 million of that. So just to kind of sum it up where I'm looking at this vote today, where we could wait a couple of weeks, come back at our next meeting with these numbers with some visuals to see what really is this decision going to look like, not just for us, but eight years from now and possibly we're not board members anymore when it may be a different administration is here. What is it going to look like for people down the road if we approve this amount? And so just really, I mean, to put in layman's terms, it's almost like we're going to buy a third car and we're not being told the interest rate. We're not being told how many payments are going to be and we're being told hey, it's going to be fine. And we're co-owners of the dealership. And so I guess I'm just surprised and I would caution this board to really truly think about what we're doing and if we could maybe delay it a couple weeks so that we could have all the information we need to go into this decision really fully understanding, knowing and getting a visual for what this means and doing our due diligence and not just trusting that everything's going to be okay. I know we have the cash flow. I know we are going to make our minimum payments and I know that our credit score is good because, but just because we can, at what cost are we going to do it at? And on top of that, like Kristi said, we're already looking at another bond after this one. We're already looking at more money that we're going to borrow. We're already looking at construction costs that run anywhere from 150 to 200% over budget. When you're looking at going into a splost on day one compared to where those splosts end as those construction costs and things change. Harlem as an example, we signed a CMR for what, $83 million, $80 million in January. And right now we're looking at a new budget of I think $120 million for Harlem. That's, that's in just less than a year. We're already looking at 40 million more allocated to finish that project. There's a lot riding on this and I think to take a couple of weeks to have those numbers in front of us and then to revisit this decision, I think that would be prudent.

Flynt: I'd just maybe say a couple of words on that. Let me just first of all, those two numbers are not the cmar. We haven't been over budget on anything. We have all of the estimates for all of the payment schedules and the interest rates. We had this discussion with our financial advisor and he has kind of gone through this process as well as the cost with us, as well as the final payment dates. I don't know that I could say Much more. But Alex, did I say that correctly?

Casado: Yes, that's correct. We've had to lay out scenarios, right, to come to come up with this. And so to a certain point, it is guessing and you don't quite know what your interest rate is going to be because it's day specific. So I think that we have a good plan in place. Like I said, good scenario in place to do all the things we said.

Dekle: I think you have given us as much information as possible. So any call for the question. Okay, well, good discussion. At this time, all in favor of the motion to approve the resolution as presented, please raise your right hand. All opposed? All right. As a record, reflect that that passed 4 to 1 with District 4 representative Katie Allen opposite.

Superintendent Reports:

• Website Makeover 9/2/2025

• Early Dismissal/Parent Conferences, 8/29/2025

• Labor Day Holiday, 9/1/2025

• Columbia County Chamber of Commerce 2025 Future Forward Summit, 9/4/2025

• Progress Reports, 9/5/2025

• Annual Retirement Ceremony, September 10

Executive Session: Removed from agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Personnel Sheet Approved: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Next meeting regular session: 9/9/2025