Votes at a glance: Speedway board reorganizes, moves funds, accepts donation pledge and approves grant work

The Board of Trustees of the School Town of Speedway took a series of routine organizational, budgetary and personnel actions at its Jan. 14 meeting; all votes recorded in open session passed unanimously.

The board reorganized for 2025, approving a slate of officers: Bill Harding as president, Adam Gonzalez as vice president, Tom Smith as secretary, Nancy Johnson as corporation treasurer and Laura DeGay as ISBA policy liaison; the board also approved an amendment to name Luke Bickel as legislative liaison. The reorganization motion passed and the board turned the meeting over to President Bill Harding.

Other actions the board approved (each recorded as passing 5–0): approving the Dec. 10, 2024 meeting minutes; adopting the 2025 expenditure goal required by Indiana Code —20-42.5-3-4 to maintain current levels of student instruction-category spending; approving adjustments to the 2024 budget appropriations and authorizing transfers between subaccounts (staff said the net value of the transfers is zero because funds moved between subaccounts); and adopting a resolution to transfer $1,000,000 from the referendum fund to the rainy day fund.

The board also approved a resolution to pledge donated funds that will enable the corporation to accept approximately $300,000 pledged by an anonymous Speedway graduate to pay for a video scoreboard at the athletic field. The board approved an agreement with Bridge Builder Strategies (Mike Simmons) to continue developing a Lilly Endowment funding proposal; the presenter said an initial award of up to $50,000 had been secured for grant writing, a competitive second round could yield up to about $800,000 for district programming, and a third round could offer grants up to $25,000,000 per school (the third round is highly competitive). The board recorded receipt of grants totaling $553,278.98 in the acknowledgement portion of the agenda.

On personnel, the board accepted two resignations (Marjorie Graham from musical/choral work and Lindy Scott, CTE teacher, effective at the end of the first semester) and approved hiring Joel Magnabasco as a temporary Career and Technical Education teacher; the personnel report was approved 5–0. The meeting concluded with approval of claims and adjournment.

Motions and resolutions were moved and seconded in open session as recorded in the minutes; specific mover/second names were not consistently identified in the transcript. Where the transcript listed statutory references or financial amounts, the board minutes and packet items were referenced during discussion.