001end of April when we're looking at yep at the full board meeting at the full board meeting okay perfect yep thank you very much excited thank you all right you want to go into announcements and information right away Mr Russ absolutely um just some uh um news and happenings uh our winter Sport Seasons have officially ended um um Gabby borkman had a excellent finish at the um State Gymnastics um and we had a very high finisher uh third place wrestler or fourth place wrestler um his name is escaping me Mr Blaha can you help me out with that Devon leel uh performed very well there as well um so very proud of them and we did have two other wrestlers that made to the state as well so thank you they were did a very
002nice job Joe choir's wrapping up um and I believe on March 22nd they have their end of the Year's spectacular with the camp and everything like that in their last performance of the year uh our ctsos or our um our U Career and Technical education organizations are continuing to move forward uh and uh a lot of positive things uh music um we're going into the state solo Ensemble uh opportunities with our band and choir um and it is State assessment the last thing I'll say it is State assessment for all of our kids um Act is going to be happening in 2 weeks which is a big day however we have the forward happening uh at the lower levels as well um we're wrapping up uh training for ACT 20 and what they need to
003do to make sure our screeners Diagnostics and moving forward with that um so it's a very busy time and then the spring means more field trips and everything like that to get our kids those those outside experiences that are so important to go outside of the classroom so um and then we have the um upcoming agendas I just want to indicate that may 27th is a day that we moved because of Memorial Day on the 26th so that'll be on Tuesday at 6 o'clock at meal view perfect thank you all right should move right into business 3A discussion possible recommendation to possibly recommend revisions to policy 8220 school day and school closures Mr yes yes thank you uh we do have Jason Schwarz from Southwest uh Transportation as well um I'm not going to go
004into the reasons why we're here tonight but uh we did have a uh situation where we did follow the policy the data was uh not accurate moving forward where we were under the -25 threshold the data showed uh for air temp the data showed that uh we should be around that 25 uh when the buses started rolling out however that data was wrong so it ended up being uh almost ne3 30° in some areas well we realized that when we got that cold the buses started to fuel up or gel up uh which means I'm learning a lot more and so is Jason um is the the fil the fuel that goes through the filter clogs it turns into gel thus the geling up and the fuel cannot flow freely through and as the bus
005accelerates it's not able to accelerate accelerate accelerate um and then Jason's bus drivers or Southwest bus driver ders did a very nice job reporting back to um the headquarters saying that they're experiencing this and uh that's when we made the decision to call everybody uh call the buses in and and activate our school closure procedures so talking with Jason um it didn't necessarily have anything to do as you remember we did switch to uh fuel on site uh away from Quick Trip that had nothing to do with this uh or anything like that but um the bus fuel is guaranteed to - 15° it's guaranteed that I won't have any issue with that and interesting enough windshield doesn't affect the buses not going to answer why or why not but research shows that it's not
006important there so what we're looking at due to the fact that our fuel is guaranteed to minus5 uh to change that from -25 to -20 that gives us some leeway uh in regards so if it's minus 20 at 5: a.m. M or when we we read it most likely it's going to drop a degree or two um looking at the data we may only have a delay the sun will come up and you know it's all depending on the data or it'll continue to drop and we make the decision whether we have a school closure or a 2-hour delay so uh it's our recommendation to change the policy for the actual air temperature to minus 20° to match with what happened but also to get a a little bit more uh closer to that minus5°
007uh that um the fuel is guaranteed to and that's the only recommended change from Administration I did want to highlight it seems like every school closure when we have activities after school we still have them I get the question of why do we have co-curriculars when school is canceled well some districts do it differently some districts say if school is canceled activities are automatic for in general State tournaments and tournaments is something different however our policy is is that if conditions improve by noon we're going to have those activities we're going to have the buildings open Community walking our clubs or whoever's reserved the facility can continue so it's my recommendation that we continue to do that um but we do get a question and and and if the board wants to tackle that that's
008perfectly fine but uh I'm not a big fan of if school is closed automatically because school is not always closed for um cold weather it could be closed for uh a major construction project it could be closed for a water main break and even though we don't have school doesn't mean that other facilities are perfectly fine um but by noon we talk with specifically at the high school and uh you know about activities and that sort of thing Ryan uh buildings and grounds directors and I ask hey is the building safe if we can get the building safe most likely we're going to do it if the weather improves by noon if the weather is supposed to be done by 2:00 nope it hasn't been improved by noon so but that's kind of the rationale
009behind that so up to you guys for a discussion or questions thank you Mr Russ questions or comments from the board yeah go for it Mr Brett I've got some comments uh one um is that windchill is used because uh it Exposed Skin can frostbite and that's that's the thing I think we have to be concerned with our policy is frostbite um at um a minus 20° of windchill um you've got about 30 minutes before you uh have um frostbite um and in looking at the uh the change in the PO policy um I guess I'd like to see that we make um the current language be 25° minus 25 degrees for air temperature and um minus 20 for windchill um that's a little more we've got more leeway uh at minus 35 but when
010you get out to minus 35 you can have frostbite in 10 minutes um um and you know there's certainly possibility we could have you know a child out there for 10 minutes so I'm thinking we ought to be a little more conservative here I guess I guess uh roll back into that how how long do we ask our families to stand out stand outside for like what's the expectation how much earlier should you be out for the bus Jason do you want to come to the front please I don't want to misspeak me I know there's times when they're running out to the bus that's something that we don't want let me just put that way Jason comes I did that very often yes and I'm sure the bus stopped maybe not Jason the question
011was as you know um when do we ask our families to have their students out on the bus stop so we ask that uh families be at the stop 5 minutes prior to pickup so that's what's in the board policy that's what we've always told parents it's what goes out in our letter every every spring or every fall sorry so five minutes before pickup time is when students are supposed to be at the stop waiting for the bus all right so I would I would like to roll that in and just because I like looking at the back patterns here and the the the closure time or the time that you decide for closure is around 5 in the morning right or the goal is 5 but no later than 5:30 in the morning yep
012so I mean very likely that it could warm up that when conditions could change and all that so I I'd personally recommend to keep the wind chill the same but as what we've experienced with the buses um bringing that down as per recommendation sounds like a valuable option thank you Mr Wells um quick question what sorry did did you have anything else what uh why -20 and not the guaranteed ne15 go ahead Jason yeah so uh the the co-op will guarantee the fuel to-5 it does uh it it will last a little bit older than that um we just this last time we just hit way lower temperatures than what we should have um we do a mixture of number one and number two diesel um and they adjust that uh accordingly according to the
013temperature um they look at the forecast and we get fuel once a week from them so they project what the temperatures are going to be and they adjust accordingly the more number one uh diesel you put in the the colder the temperatures it'll go um it's only guaranteed to -15 but we've ran at -20 without issue um and the issues that we would possibly have um wouldn't be across the board we just got hammered with some really cold weather this last time mhm yeah so so that negative 15 comes from the fuel but then we have you were saying adjust the the ratio depending on yep yeah5 we're fine run at um -20 will be fine I don't I don't have any concern with -20 um it's guaranteed to5 but we'll be fine attive -20
014yeah thank you other questions or comments from board otherwise I'd entertain a motion I move to make the changes to policy 8220 as presented motion from Mr Wells placed under consent thank you for that second second from Miss Barons also under consent yes y okay any further discussion or comments from vard all right hearing none otherwise we'll do uh all those in favor to move to the full board uh changes as presented say I I I all oppos say a motion moves to the full board 403 absent thank you thank you thank you all right 3B discussion and possible recommendation to approve health insurance for the 2526 school year good evening uh I am happy to bring to you our health insurance renewal for this coming school year which takes effect July 1st uh employees
015have open enrollment the first two weeks of May um currently our health insurance is through Group Health Trust and through that we offer our employees two different plan design options the base plan if you will or the HMO plan is primarily the Gunderson uh Health System locally but there are other health systems as well in that HMO plan it's uh considered the alliance Network which primarily is Gunderson in our area for those employees who are interested in having a mail option in our area we do have option number two which is a HMO and a PO plan that plan is more expensive on the monthly premiums so employees who choose to have that Mayo option locally do have to pay more for their monthly premiums than those employees who take the base plan or the
016HMO plan under both plans another huge benefit that we have through our current health insurance is free access to the neighborhood Family Clinic for all covered employees and their families um so Neighborhood Family Clinic at no charge one thing Miss aler I'd like to mention is for the mail it also includes an outof Network option so they have an extended out of um out of network option so it comes with mail and additional out of area options as well thank you and um not all but some of our employees who are interested in that would be employees who have maybe children at colleges outside of the area and things like that um so about March of every year we go through the renewal process to determine what our rates will be for next year uh
017we use Marshall clennon agency as our broker who basically they help us navigate the market go out to bid and so on um we have been happy with Group Health Trust but in the interest of testing the market to make sure we're getting the best value possible they did look at other options as well um as a reminder we budgeted a 10% renewal for this coming year that was based on last year's actual of a 9 and a half% renewal also industry Trends throughout uh this whole school year have been anywhere from 10 12 14% increases and we have had actuary tracking through marshm clenon on our plan and they were predicting about an 11% increase we were really excited when we got our initial renewal at a 7% increase um and Marsh basically said
018well hold on we're going to try to get that lower for you and they did they were able to come back with a 3% increase um with the difference from the 10 to the 3% increase being several $1,000 on the budget um so we had the meeting to go over what that 3% increase meant and Marsh came to the meeting and said well we have a wrench to throw in there and it's a really good one um courts came back and they're very interested in the district and really want the business and they'll give you a 5% decrease on your current funding so that's a 15% swing from what we budgeted to what courts came back with which is nearly a million dollars um no it's C you know and yes just a not going
019it it is worth celebrating we just had our meeting but it's also dedicated to the hard work of our employees who who really taken to consumerism this is the best way to make sure our health insurance I get the care that I need but in the most efficient way and not taking away a lot of options so family Neighborhood clinic um we had an an hour presentation to all of our staff to how to be better consumerism so this is really a a whole group effort uh I know you know it's easy for one person to say yeah that's but no it's truly a whole group effort the committee does an excellent job of promoting it um our business department does an excellent job of promoting it but so cral really go to those who
020are promoting and using using good consumerism so yes this is a big deal for our district no even have to go into our financial situation so this is a big deal and if we clap it should be the all for our staff because they're doing a wonderful job with their consumerism um so Courts at the five % decrease um courts is basically a Gunderson only option so it would be a pretty significant change to our employees but at that million dooll swing with our budget conversation that was a real possibility of a change we'd have to make but again we've been happy with Group Health Trust they've been giving us um the service that we need and so uh Marsh again went back to the table with them let them know what courts was offering
021and they were able to get um pretty darn close so they came back with two different options for us with uh one of the options being a 4.6% decrease so really close to courts um so I'm going to go through the two different options the one would be with no changes to our current plan we would still offer the two plans to employees and so on that would be a 3.7% decrease if we kept what we had currently so they basically went from 7% to 3% down to a negative 3.7% all with the same plan but then they also came back and said or we can get down to -4.6 if you do the following changes they would no offer no longer offer the PO plan which is Mayo locally so mayo and Rochester for
022instance would still be included but I'm going to say basically in the lacrosse area Mayo would not be included and there would be no option for employees to buy up into having mail locally um but they would add what we don't currently have which is a nationwide wraparound plan in essence any employee any dependent any spouse can go anywhere in the nation and have coverage without any pre-approval process except for male locally um and I don't want to say it's 100% Coverage Nationwide there's a website you go and you type in where you are but we looked at a couple different cities kind of playing with it and there was anywhere from five to 100 different options depending what city we typed in so um there the long and short of it is it gives
023a great option for um employees who have are traveling or have family outside of the area and that's offered at the base plan price that's not a buy up the one thing that we would lose through insurance would be the coverage at Neighborhood Family Clinic um however in working with Marsh there's an option that we could still offer Neighborhood Family Clinic to our employees it would just be a different billing Arrangement outside of insurance so to our employees still the same benefit to the district the billing and the business office side would look a little different um so with all of that good news uh we did have an insurance committee meeting uh just earlier this afternoon uh where we went over all these options and great detail had a lot of wonderful questions we
024had a good mix of people who were on both the HMO plan and the PO plan um and it was unanimous that this was the recommendation from the committee uh that we stick with Group Health Trust with a 4.6% decrease meaning we would go through some of those plan design changes um but also that the board give permission to Administration to work out an agreement with Neighborhood Family Clinic that we could continue to use them to provide free services to our employees through a direct Bill Arrangement um so with that are there any questions before we get into the questions um what's next okay before you get into that so um as you know every after every board meeting I send up an update and uh this would be uh a bigger update uh giving
025the the reasons why very similar to what was already in but a little bit more explanation um and we would make sure that we would support our if it's a recommendation to take our recommendation um how do we support our people that truly are here for mail because that's the biggest one I take the buy up plan just because my kids are out of network networ now they're in network because they're covered under the wraparound it's called the wraparound Network for phcs and uh I plan on sending that website out tomorrow to the family to the staff so they can start playing with it my kid goes to St Cloud St Cloud urgent care okay what's local you may not be local but when you do stcloud primary care woof so hospitals will not change
026hospitals are still emergency our emergencies are covered at the same at the same plan rate so I'll be educating them uh we asked uh ght do they help assist um people switching from mail to to to other providers they'll help with finding a provider but they have found that uh male providers and it happened to me mail providers are happy to give referral give yep what do you need just have a request for records and if it's needed even more urgent I think they make calls on your behalf and say hey can you call this can you call Gunderson because I need to continue my treatment and one of the reasons why we are bringing to you in March rather than April is because if we do make the change it also gives our employees
027one more month to get ahead of things which we feel is very important so it's the education piece will still be there um and we're not downplaying the 42 people that are currently on the mail plan or the buy up plan we're not downplaying that but we don't know why they're on the mail plan I'm on the mail plan because of my kids are out of network I don't know how many other people are like that and how many people are truly you know what I like my car at mail and I know I'm going to pay more so that would be a little bit of Change by not going to courts it all stays status quo that means it doesn't raise the stress level or whatever level you want to do um for the
028vast majority also for the long term for the health of the uh organization Mayo is just more expensive it just is and even with the buy up it doesn't mean that those claims aren't paid so in the Long Haul as we've been getting away from mail there's a reason why we've been getting away from mail it's not because of their care it's just because of the economics of it so that's also plays into part as well um because our budget situation is what we know about this year we don't know about our budget situation next year the next buy Anyan budget is still up in the a so we still have to be planning for next year when we are only getting maybe hopefully 325 no change in the low Revenue ceiling no change in
029special ed because that's a different outlook for us and we have to plan a minimum of a maximum of 325 per pupil increase as a Max we have to plan for so it's all part of the long range planning of the district as well I'd like to thank Leah and her team for getting all this information I'd like to thank Matt and and Bob from Marsh McLendon um but it's it's truly a a team effort in the business office beerheads this so um now we're going be open for yep um and I just want to thank Group Health Trust for Ev valuing us as customers and continuing to work with us to find a solution as well um and then I didn't really touch on the employee side so we see our budget savings on
030the employee side this is positive as well there will be no change in deductible out of packet co-pays all of that stays the same and it's actually even better for the employees who had to do the current buy up plan they have a addition to higher premiums they also have higher deductibles and co-pays so they'll um have the advantage of lower deductibles and co-pays under this option as well as um you know for employees who had to do the buy up plan uh granted they'll lose the mail locally but if they're doing it for dependent coverage they'll have about a $300 savings a month in health insurance coverage so and every other employee um you know they're saving that 5% over you know so take-home pay will increase for all employees under this Arrangement on
031the health insurance side as well so very positive all around I think I heard it but I just wanted to have a clarification so that R around plan isn't or that wraparound isn't an option it's included it is included yep current currently it's an option as a buy up in this proposal it's a different wrap or wraparound plan but it would be included well I just like to comment uh congratulations to all involved including the employees that have worked hard at this um it's not often that you get a uh decrease in health insurance that almost always always goes up I used to work in the insurance industry for a while in my past life and U I've watched it go up every year um and uh seems we have the best of of all
032worlds with maintaining our coverage and and uh it's a good deal yeah it's we're very fortunate as Miss Hower said we're looking at 10 to 14% industry standard and good thing we when they said we were sitting down because it's it's like what you you got a minus that the minus isn't there so it it is a big deal and once again I'll go cud those to our staff because they're the ones that drive this and we'll continue to drive home because this is our situation this year and we're trending in the right direction our goal is is to continue to to M if we maintain where we're at we're looking at very good rates we've looked at Self insurance or self-funding we've looked at that okay and courts coming in isn't self-funded we have
033ght and we're very pleased to get this quote we're very excited and we're going to do our best to keep that as a low premium um and keep the coverage as same as possible next year a year from now we may be in a different situation but we'll take it when we can especially when during our um our budget situation we're at but it also begins to set us up for long-term success as well um and once again I feel for the 42 people that truly are getting it and saying i' I'd really still don't want to change I'm not going to tell them how to feel but we're going to be here to support them and say how can we make make that transition as ease as possible how can we give them the
034network how can we give them into the in in network doctors how can they work with their primary providers if it's not currently in there to get that um we have the neighborhood Family Clinic for example when I switched over last year was 18 or two years ago was 18 months to get into a dermatologist yep the neighborhood Family Clinic can get you in in a month or two so we're looking at those kind of options and I can still make my appointment with Gunderson but I can still schedule my routine care if it's routine and if not I'm sure we they can work with hey this is what I have I need this prescription refilled or whatever come see me and because the familyhood Neighborhood clinic is a real clinic and we're working with
035that to make sure our families knows because some people our staff knows well it no this is what the benefits are and that's what our staff is doing to share their stories without going through Hippa hey I went there and it was a positive experience I went there I didn't hit a bill I called they said can you come in an hour I walked in you're greeted you wait five minutes the doctor's there and I'm leaving with medicine all free of charge that the district takes care of oh okay why you go there what just like anything else so we're really going to promot that goes back to the consumerism train we're going to continue to push hard because every time we do that we're saving in the big picture so we're all in this
036together very pleased and very excited and congrats to our entire staff on that yeah absolutely other questions board I had a couple but um good I was just going to ask um how how often has this happened to us in the last ever we couldn't figure it out um we had the insurance committee who they had I think two two or three people people that were on before Leah started and that was 10 plus years ago we've never seen a negative mhm never seen a negative which is makes sense because as Dave just mentioned Industries they don't go backwards yeah I just didn't know if there was context there or precedence do we know um kind of this might be more of the committee conversation but what are there any specifics that we've done over
037the past couple years from you know Pro active education or I've seen the waddle like a penguin signs right when it's icy some of that is is there anything that we can point to that have led to us being in competition against the insurance companies yep I I mentioned that today at the insurance committee or the employee benefit and wellness committee and I said there's not a silver bullet it is we spent one hour all staff got a one hour consumerism training we have the every time in the weekly notes hey this is how you can be good we're promoting the Neighborhood Family Clinic we're promoting walk like a penguin and even that even increase decreases our um just outside awareness but on campus we have workman's comp that that's decreasing assuming we don't have
038other types of injuries but it is really about people sharing their stories because I can tell them it's a great thing until I share a story that hey my kid needed something they went there I got them in in an hour and they had it before they left and when I called my primary they said well I can get you in 3 4 days I could have went to Urgent Care yeah but I know that if I can call a neighborhood Family Clinic that doesn't go to my deductible it doesn't do any of that so it's really about the education but it's really I think from a district perspective making sure that we take the time and space and the appropriateness to do it and when we start the uh beginning of the year in
039service that we've already started to plan but we're starting to finalize what our message is at the beginning of the year guess what health insurance is going to be one of them and it doesn't take long you show them the savings that's enough and now we can really train not train educate our new employees about this is how the best use of your your health insurance and this is what it is we're not looking to take away the HRA I just wanted to make sure it was the HRA the HRA because right now we give about $750 to the single plan to help offset the deductible in families you get 1,500 and if you don't use it guess what you have it it's something that we can't take away so if you go to the
040Urgent Care and you've never gone to the doctor before you're going to pay you have to pay your deductible yet you go to the neighborhood Family Clinic you still have your deductible all intact you still have the $1,500 or the $750 oh real dollars and cents another free option that we have for our employees under Group Health Trust is tedac for both medical and Behavioral Health um so that's another great service for employees um that they don't even have to leave their house or their room at work they can call tedac get a prescription sent right in and pick it up on their way home um and again that's completely free of charge and that will continue to be offered under uh what we're looking at for July 1 as well and so we've like
041Sam said we've really been pushing the tedac and the neighborhood Family Clinic and um just kudos to uh our payroll and HR staff who do an excellent job pushing that um to new employees and employees throughout the year and through the weekly notes and kudos to all of our staff for uh taking the time to learn that consumerism and sharing it with their families so as we continue to look at that consumerism we start we we continue to move more it was asked at our committee tonight what about prescription drugs and right or wrong Walgreens is more expensive than Walmart right or wrong that's a fact just like Mayo's more expensive than Gunderson that's a fact am I telling people that they can't go to wall greens no am I recommending they go to Walmart
042for consumerism yes because you get the same stuff and it saves out of your pocket because you might get a zero gener generic versus paying up to $10 it it it adds up but it's all about that education that we keep promoting yeah thank you can you um my last question I think maybe um Miss Hower can you explain the direct bill with the neighborhood Family Clinic how that would work that was one that I was glad that we were still able to to weave that in I'm still a little hesitant of um you know 4.6 plus 7 hey 11% just like that that's causing me some concern why we would stay with them if they just um kind of went back on that but can you explain B my concern is that that's not
043going to all of a sudden surprise us with extra charges and what that looks like sure um so I would say the -4.6 to the 7 that's the normal dance through this process so um for instance right when we were told 7% and we you know Sam and I started talking right away and Marsh goes just hold on we'll get to 3% no problem like it's pretty typical that the first offu kind of like other things that you bargain for insurance just has that um thing around it where the initial offer is never the final offer kind of thing um so Marsh was kind of thinking 3% before they ever even went back and talked to Group Health Trust and sure enough um we had to make some concessions to get down to the ne
044-4.6 so at 3% we didn't have to do any plan design Chang changes to get to the 4.6 it's dropping the Mayo option and the neighborhood Family Clinic going to direct bills so we did make some concessions and um I think we got that we were able to get that offer because we had a competing offer Sol I don't know that we would have got that if we didn't have another offer on the table so um I do think that from my standpoint it was in good faith um and it just is how the process played out this year um as as far as the direct bill with Neighborhood Family Clinic I couldn't go into detail right now that's a meeting yet to come um as we learn more but in essence um certainly we
045will make sure it complies with HIPPA reporting requirements uh that was my first and foremost concern um but basically we'll work with Neighborhood Family clinic to get um make sure that we're in compliance with HIPPA but get enough information to be able to pay basically an invoice directly to them for the services provided um versus it filtering through the insurance company first as far as a budgetary impact um last year we spent about 35,000 per the insurance company who kind of gives us monthly Trend reports uh about $35,000 was charged to the insurance company through neighborhood Family Clinic last year so that'd be a budgetary addition so we're saving you know from the 10% propose down to the negative 4.6 but we'll have to add back roughly $35,000 to account for the direct Bill to
046Neighborhood Family Clinic yep thank you any other comments or questions from the board otherwise I'd entertain a motion move to accept the uh 2025 26 renewal with Group Health Trust just to clarify the 4.6 decrease renewal yes okay and uh you're okay with and part of the motion is to have Administration work with the neighborhood Family Clinic to provide services with direct Bill to sasd which would continue to be free to on employees yes thank you I'll second motion from Mr Bernette second from Mr Wells any further discussion comments otherwise we'd go to a roll call Miss marran please miss barens yes Mr Wells yes Mr Burns gobert yes Dr Bernette yes motion moves to the full board 403 absent thank you to everyone doing all the work to get those savings that's huge thank
047you all right three where we on 3C discussion possible recommendation to approve dental insurance all right so our dental insurance is through Delta Dental you may recall last year uh we did do a switch we were we have been with Delta Dental for quite some time but last year we switched from fully insured to self-insured uh and that did come with a savings last year and so this year was really a kind of testing year to see if that savings if we would need to adjust our rates um in the performance history that we have today they're recommending no change in our rates for next year so um 0% change meaning no budgetary impact which is what we budgeted and is also a positive because we tried a new funding mechanism this year and it
048showed this is the result that we were hoping for so um pretty simple it'd be the same plans same offerings same cost and we would recommend going with that questions or comments from board okay okay otherwise I'd entertain a motion I move to approve uh to recommend to the full board approval of dental insurance for the 2526 school year as presented motion from Mr Wells second from Miss Barons any further comments or discussion otherwise we go to roll call Miss markr Mr Wells yes M barens yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes Dr Bernett yes motion moves to the full board 40 three absent moving right along uh 3D discussion possible recommendation to approve vision insurance for 2526 school year so we also offer vision insurance through Delta Dental this is all out of the employees packet
049it's completely voluntary so the District doesn't have a cost in it the board just has to approve continuing to offer this benefit to employees again there is no change in the benefit um 0% change in rates and coverage and again no budgetary impact we would recommend continuing this program questions or comments from the board entertain a motion if there's no further discussion motion for Miss Barons to approve as presented second second for Mr Bernett any further discussion otherwise we'll do another roll call Miss marran you're on a lot tonight thank you Mr Verns Gilbert yes Dr Bernett yes Mr Wells yes yes Miss baren yes motion moves to the full board 403 absent all right 3E discussion possible recommendation to approve offering accident and critical illness insurance for employees Mr Ross I will take this
050one also um so this is per the request of the employee benefit and wellness committee uh who is also the committee that looks at our health insurance um we have had the talk for few years now about the possibility of offering voluntary insurance to our staffs um think of Affleck type Insurance the insurance for Mayhem you know all those commercials that we see but in essence it's additional policies um for if something unexpected were were to happen uh the reason we decided to explore this in more detail this year was We were expecting a higher uh rate renewal with health insurance and this would be a way to help our employees offset some of that cost we're still recommending um moving forward with this again completely voluntary so it's 100% out of the employees pocket
051the benefit to the employee is the rates are arguably better because it's part of a group and also it can be withheld from their payroll so the first one is for accidents and the long and short of it is somebody has an accident whether that's they broke their ankle or get you know cut themselves they would go and get treatment right away but then after they get treatment they would submit a claim and then the insurance company basically Cuts them a check for a flat amount based on whatever their accident was um the accident can raise anywhere from a cut to needing physical therapy to a fracture all the way up to dismemberment um it covers any surgery needed needed along with the accident hospitalizations er um ambulance and basically each event that were to
052happen to the person there's a dollar amount attached to it and whatever you pay out of packet or even if insurance covers it that for whatever your injury is you get that flat amount back to you to help offset any costs or inconveniences or anything um so it's that and Insurance you hope you never need but sometimes um is there for uh things that are unexpected the monthly rate again this is all out of the employees packet if they elect to get this benefit for an employee is about 12 bucks a month um ranging up to a family plan is about $40 a month the other one that that we were asked to explore with the employee benefit committee is similar in its coverage for critical illnesses um and how it works is you receive
053a diagnosis once you get the diagnosis you submit a claim and again you get paid an amount based on the coverage that you selected so a few examples would be any heart related condition cancer any organ issues any issues that impact your quality of life and the benefit amount ranges from $5 to $50,000 um this is the chart for the fee it's basically based on age and the type of coverage but it can range anywhere from $5 a month up to over $100 a month again depending on the factors for each individual employee who would elect um so with that again this was would just be you're approving that we can offer the plan to employees and that we would manage it through the business office and payroll but again no New budgetary Impact it's
054all uh optional for the employees thank you Miss Hower any questions comments from the board yeah Miss parents um with either one of these plans are there any like wellness benefits for it like I I keep CED I get $60 with my plan at work so yep that um the which one was it one of them did for sure it was $50 per covered member who gets uh the annual exam so like my family of four if we all did we could get $200 back which would help offset the cost of the premium yep thank you so is this meant to cover gaps in your health insurance and other non-covered Associated costs correct yep um but you don't have to prove there's a gap to get it so for example if I've already met my
055deductible this year and tomorrow my son breaks his arm I could still get this amount even though it'd be fully covered under insurance so but yep it's to help with those gaps and the inconvenience of unexpected injuries any other question question s otherwise I'd entertain a motion if no further discussion I move to recommend to the full board to approve uh sasd to offer accident and critical ESS Insurance to employees uh as presented would you like that on consent are we able to have that under consent that should be fine yep we can do that under consent perfect thank you Mr Wells second a second from Miss Barons any further conversation questions from board I like that we're offering our employees more support that's good finding creative ways all right uh then we'll go to
056roll call please miss markron Dr Bernett yes Miss Barons yes Mr Wells yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes motion moves to the full board 403 absent thank you all right discussion possible recommendation to approve new lease agreement for the student onetoone devices I'll take this one too you get a lot of me tonight uh Mr steer's out of the district this week so I'll be stepping in for him um so last meeting Mr seerman went over our technology long range plan and in that he had talked about it's been quite a few years for some of our devices that are in the hands of our student stud in particular um since we've replaced them and so we're looking to refresh all of those Cycles this year so we've had um a lot of really collaborative conversations
057between technology and administration uh the past month or so trying to really make sure that we get the devices our students need and also are conscious of our budget situation in accomplishing those needs so what we have concluded is that at Sparta High School Meadow View Herman and Innovation STEM Academy they will all get a new iPad with a keyboard case that equals about 2200 devices that we would be uh looking to get new each device costs $473 which includes the keyboard case and it also includes Apple Care which is a three-year accidental damage warranty which is really beneficial we have that on our current High School Fleet and although we pay a little more to have that coverage uh it really does save over the 3 years and reduces the need for a budgetary
058line item for breakage um so we have found that to be very beneficial this brings the total cost for this new iPad Fleet to just over a million dollar however through Apple we can get a 0% interest lease and leasing also helps us to budget that cost over time and not have kind of those dips and valleys or Peaks and valleys um in our budget and so we're recommending spreading that cost over 3 years which is our recommended replacement cycle which would be just about $350,000 per year um the remaining schools of man story Southside and sales and talking with those administrators um we do not do one to one in any um of the pre-care kindergarten classes and also at sales so because of their reduced usage um we explored using the current High
059School iPads which are just a couple years old um and then in working with bosor that can continue on through the of the monu grades as well so at the whole monu building sside building and sales we would not be looking to purchase new iPads but instead using the newest of our current iPads and repurposing them to those schools that would be about 260 devices again if we were to buy new it would be 473 a device the resale value if we were to salvage those um is $138 so we're saving about $335 per device by going through this method so we want to thank those schools for um being open-minded and working with us through that that saves us a total cost avoidance of about $887,000 which is really significant and then our last
060group for student devices Isa um does not work well on the iPads and so they do need a laptop option we um are looking to reuse our existing staff laptops so um all of our teacher MacBooks basically were collecting those this summer and reissuing instead of trading those in we would instead give 55 of them TOA the cost if we were to buy a new computer fora is about $1,200 we get about $300 per device we trade in so we're saving almost $900 a device reusing what we currently have that is still in good working order um avoiding another new budgetary cost of almost $50,000 so uh with your approval of these items we would look to move forward with apple in initiating those lease documents um for that first bullet line item the other
061two items um are more for your information that that's what we plan to do but we do need your approval to go with the Apple lease for that first bullet and one more uh bit of information uh once if if you give us the go to move into a lease with Apple for our one toone student devices as presented Apple then sends us a nice wonderful resolution that all the language needs to be done so it's really about hey we're approving the the the the lease uh to move forward and at the full board you'll actually see the full lease and the legal ease with it same thing with the um uh the staff uh if you say yes to that lease as well thank you questions or comments from Bor I uh I just
062want to say I appreciate the the almost like the hybrid approach there I think that makes a lot of sense especially with you know learning more about the Litt and monor and say just the the students need different things so I just appreciated identifying that fitting what our options are to meet you know the education programs in different buildings different Student Styles so thank you for doing that especially when it comes to what 120 130 thousands in savings along the way that's good um if there's no further questions I'd entertain a motion I'll make a motion to uh approve a new lease agreement for student one:1 devices as presented yes and that one cannot be on consent so perfect motion from Mr Bernett I'll second second from miss barens any further conversation questions from board
063J some done no I oh okay all right uh roll call Miss Markin Please Mr Wells yes M barens yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes Dr berett yes all right motion moves forward to the full board thank you all right we are on Three G no getting my letters mied up here discussion possible recommendation to approve a new lease agreement for staff devices that Miss Hower again it it is um so I'm going to go by employee category um so first educational assistants they all use iPads um and again in learning more about their use and their needs um we determined that similar to Southside and manasu that we would look to reuse the best of our current Fleet at the high school uh those devices are about 3 years old and based on the usage
064and the model uh we believe we can get three more years of good quality service out of those uh for the use that the educational assistance have so again of the devices at the high school we'd be looking to pull about 125 of those to keep in District saving roughly 330 per staff member device with a total cost avoided of just over $40,000 for our certified staff um teacher group we are they currently have MacBooks and we are looking to replace those MacBooks um this one needs to be done because those MacBooks are leased and part of that lease agreement was that we send them back after the 3 years otherwise there's a large balloon payment and So based on the high resale value that MacBooks carry with them it's to our benefit to send
065them back and to get the newest MacBook um for really close to a cost neutral with what we're currently paying as a lease so um those devices would be 235 for instructional staff 85 for non-instructional staff um non-instructional staff could include anything from our maintenance team who needs one to keep our HVAC system going to other positions as well so largely teachers but there are some other ones in there as well um that total cost is $340,000 again we'd break that apart over a three-year lease which would come at just over 112,000 a year and then lastly um certain positions in central office and across the district need a divice device that's just a little bit different than the teacher device due to the different operating systems that we manage or the different use purposes
066and so there's 19 devices like that um and we typically do not leas those devices we just buy them outright but those are on the refresh cycle this summer as well so we just wanted you to be aware that there will be one additional price T this summer for about 35,000 so over the middle bullet here is the one that will be coming with formal lease wording for um at the end of the month any questions questions from board thank you Miss Hower is there a reason why we explore the Mac again and not like the Apple products again and not any other PC or other options like that yeah pardon me for not being completely Tey but I'll just say the backbone of our whole infrastructure is based on the Mac so from our
067firewalls and security systems and how we log in and how we push out apps to devices um students have iPads so like the MacBooks being able the basically the interchangeability of the devices and really the big part is that infrastructure backbone all those like software agreements and things that it manages are based on the platform that we use and so long story short we're in Mach District now yep all right any further questions from board otherwise I'd entertain a motion uh I move to recommend the to approve the new lease agreement for staff devices as presented motion for Mr Wells I'll second second for Miss Barons any further questions as we go to roll call from Miss marran Please Mr Wells yes Miss Barons yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes Dr berett yes all right staff
068device plan moves forward to the full board four oh three absent thank you and the last device 3 discussion possible recommendation to approve staff device buyback plan all right so as I just mentioned um our current staff devices we leased we have to turn them back in or pay for a large balloon payment um for each device we turn back in they credit us basically $320 so if we don't turn a device in that's what we have to pay them for all the devices I'll say that we short them um as I mentioned we're using some of them fora and repurposing a few of them here and there uh but the bulk of them will be getting sent back a few years back when we did new staff devices we gave the option to our
069employees to purchase the ones that we would be trading in for the same cost that the trading company would give us and that was a really successful program that a lot of our employees took advantage of and really appreciated because it'd be next to impossible to find a device of this quality at that price point just out online or you know at the store or anything like that um so because our board policy is that all um disposal goes through auction if it has value we put this on the board agenda just to get your approval that we could do this um it would all be handled inhouse we would have a sign up form of some sort um but basically all employees District wide would have the opportunity to buy a three-year-old MacBook for
070$320 if they choose and then any that we don't sell would get sent back to the leasing company we did this a few years ago specifically three years ago and it was a big hit with the staff and since there we they know that this list agreement was up they asked can we buy our MacBook can we buy our MacBook and that's why we're bringing it back it's a good benefit to our employees as Leah said um to do that and they'll do our best to get you back this laptop but there's no guarantee because they may run a system Diagnostic and I think this is the best thing in the world and it saying like nope it's going to die tomorrow so there's going to be we're going to do our best though to
071get that back but there's no guarantees um this since this is on a quick turnaround um if I want this we'll have a quick timeline after the board agrees it could be April 15th because we can't be waiting till May 15th and say can we get your laptop oh I because we need check in hand as Leah said when we send them back so but this is a great benefit to our employees who want to take advantage of it and if you don't that's perfectly fine as well thank you questions or comments from board it's a great great option to have I was goingon to um what was my question I think I heard that correctly but this is open to all employees not necessarily ones using computers in their roles with us right any
072employee can can sign up to to get this that is correct okay perfect that was my question I'd entertain a motion I'll move to approve the staff device buyback as presented with initial limit of one per employee I'll second motion from Mr Bernett uh did you want that on consent at all Mr Bernett uh yes yep does that work for you Mr yeah that's perfectly fine I just wanted are you okay if we have more devices that people can have to sure so as long as it's demand we can do that okay not a problem as presented right yep all right that still works for you okay perfect uh roll call please miss marker Mr Wells yes Dr Bernett yes M baren yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes motion moves to the full board 403 absent
073thank you all right we have some graduate or uh applications discussion possible recommendation to approve the early college credit and the start college now fall applications Miss trip Mr Ford thank you hi good evening thanks for um letting us come up here and ask uh to recommend these credits to the board um and I also want to thank you for your previous um support of this program for our students weave as you'll see the numbers keep um growing um and so we have a lot of students taking advantage of this opportunity so I uh we very much thank you um just to kind of reiterate again what's uh start college now early college credit program the difference between the two so start college now you'll see um we have 40 applications in um so that
074would be through our 2-year um technical colleges um for the most part our students are applying to take courses through Western but we do have a few outliers um as you'll see in the board um document like at CV c cbtc um and I think that's the only Outsider uh this next semester um and then early college credit program would be um our four-year institutions U most of those would be through our UW system schools um but you will see that we have um a few students who have applied to take courses in um through V turbo um through they have an interpreting program that um some of our students take advantage of um and just an update on that we have two students this year who will be getting their um interpreting certification at
075the end of the school year so uh that's really exciting um they were very successful in that program and because of that we have more students who are applying to that in the future um another thing that um maybe an update for this year um Western turn are changed their core structure into seven week courses so instead of a semester they're essentially running on quarters um if we want to compare it to our high school structure um and I was actually very concerned about this as a counselor seven weeks with with a you know a semester long course kind of squeezed into that time frame uh that was I was kind of worried I mean it's actually done the exact opposite our students are thriving in this system um and I think if you think
076about our teenagers um there's not any long deadlines so they're squeezing everything in so our students are having to stay on top of their workload a little bit more so um we've seen some great success in that area um so as you can see see we have uh 40 students that have applied for start college now for the fall semester um for 2025 and then we have 15 applications um specific to early college credit programming um I don't know if you want comparisons to previous semesters at all or um okay so let's just see here last fall we had 12 applicants for early college credit um and 28 applicants for the fall of 2024 for start college now so those numbers have um definitely gone up um and then you'll see too that we are
077so our students can apply to both programs but they can only take courses in one so what happens is a student might apply to take courses at UWL um some sometimes they can't get into a course there it's closed because they're they're the they're below freshman status um so then they would have the opportunity to turn around and try to take a course at Western and the only way they can do that is if they have the applications in so there's overlap of six students um that have applied to both programs um so that would you know bring down the numbers then in the end any questions thank you questions or comments from board good this is H one of my favorite things so I always appreciate looking at it um I don't can you
078speak to maybe a little bit I just always look at the trends of what are students are signing up for to maybe take down the road does that how does that inform what we're offering them at the high school when it comes to classes or that guidance that you're giving them is that part of our process at all um so we did change um I are you okay me answering okay um we changed um kind of uh what students were allowed to take through start college now and early college credit based on um they need to take all of the available coursework at the high school before they can apply to the college level coursework so on the front end you know there's that piece I don't know as far as informing decisions on future
079and so in addition to that I think we're seeing courses that are an extension of what we offer at the high school so they're taking courses above and beyond what they could take with us for the most part there's some overlap so for example if you took psychology you know you've got to take psych 100 anyway in most four your schools right so you may sign up for that the other thing is is that um those classes may not be available so students may not end up as as uh justess said in those exact classes but all of our kids are on track to graduate and they are excited to take these classes thank you other questions comments from the board all right thank you very much I'd entertain a motion then I move to
080recommend to the full board to approve the eccp and start college now fall applica fall applications as presented and to be placed under ENT thank you Mr Wells I'll second second from Miss Barons any further questions otherwise and give Miss marker a break all those in favor say I I I all opposed say nay motion moves forward to the full board 40 thank you all right uh three we just did J are we on J now discussion and possible recommendation to approve the 2526 cesa contract Mr Russ yes in board docs and linked into the agenda or into the slides are um uh the cesa contract uh just a quick overview uh cisa is our uh local Cooperative Education Service Association um so they provide a lot of things that we might not be able
081to provide solely so we gather together as cesa 4 uh and you know it's kind of like a CO it's a Cooperative so that sort of thing so School Improvement services and aot of this um is we'll talk about the funding a little bit but School Improvement services and all sorts of types student services wise data support and just wise in general uh the DPI has a lot of changing things for reporting for compliance and that sort of thing and and cisa does offer a lot of great support with that uh a lot of Career and Technical education planning uh youth apprenticeship career Pathways academic and career planning and continued um Services there and support uh itinerate Services which means hearing vision and uh occupational therapy these are things we don't hire a uh hearing
082teacher per se we don't hire a vision we don't hire an occupational therapist because we we we would like to but our demand isn't quite there yet so we do have um we have physical therapists and that sort of thing on site but when you get into the itinerant the specialized uh we have a lot of shared services and as I mentioned earlier it's just it it it's a lot of support we all have our networks uh that we're able to go to and uh to bounce ideas and collaboration off funding sources on the next slide um majority of this and it's all linked to the cesa contract with funding sources it's very interesting because this is a big ticket item which is only $30 increase from last year but when you look at the
083number of Grants and the DOA it's very little to actually comes out of actual fund balance it's all through the uh grants so um we're looking at a $30 increase from last year uh for your review um and I know there's been a lot of talk about the federal government and the Department of Education and funding like that please know that CE is keeping an eye on it and U they they they know that if the if the funding goes away most likely we're not going to be able to absorb this into our fed into our budget as you guys know so they're keeping an eye on it um we continually to get um information through a lot of different Avenues but please know that cesa and the DPR are taking an eye close eye
084on that because they know schools like districts like Sparta rely heavily on the uh title uh specifically TOA were one of the few ones because we're military Affiliated but that's pretty big that's pretty big so um we're recommending the contract as presented and this can be placed on consent just out of curios just out of curiosity uh is just because just because Federal issues have been pre present in our climate is DOA through the Department of Defense funding or is that Department of Education funding that's Department of Defense good other questions from board comments otherwise I'd entertain a motion move to approve the 2025 26 cesa contract as presented under consent motion for Mr Bernett I'll second second from Mr Wells any further questions or comments from board otherwise we go to another roll call
085Miss marran Dr Bernett yes Miss barens yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes Mr Wells yes right motion moves to the full board absent thank you and thanks for continuing to ask cisa about keep an eye on those things that's important all right 3K discussion possible recommendation to approve budget revisions for the 2425 school year Miss Hower all right so we're in the last four months of this um calendar year and in March we start to talk about the preliminary budget for next year um as well as the Staffing plan but tonight we're going to focus on budget revisions for the current year so in Revenue we just have one revision um which was for some State money that we received for our school safety program called speak up speak out so if you see the banner
086over here on the side of the stage that's what that grant money paid for was marketing over there up by the flag um that grant money paid for marketing and promotional materials to help our students staff and community members know the resources that are available for anonymous tip reporting so really important um State money that we received to support that special effort um for expenses starting with salaries uh I started adjusting salary accounts for positions that maybe went vacant during the year um early resignations uh positions that maybe we budgeted for but we weren't able to fill and things like that um also adjusting our non-contracted pay which is basically all other payroll that does isn't attached to like a work agreement um adjusting that to actual and overall our total salary budget uh has
087savings from the last budget revision of about $220,000 for benefits again adjusting those to actual benefit elections as well as adjusting them for uh any changes in Staffing throughout the year and that equated to just under 14,000 worth of savings for um School budgets um no revisions are needed at this time but all purchase orders are required to be submitted by the end of this week um so and the next round of budget revisions we'll know how much of those funds are left remaining for instructional Services the only budget item that was changed was under grants and that's because that line item has an inverse relationship with salaries and benefits so basically um with our grant Revenue we get we use a on either salaries and benefits or this line item which is everything else
088so purchase Services supplies equipment um so as one goes down the other goes up so that's the only change there and student services um there's just one additional line item so we use daus sign as a district um and we are expanding the use in student services to help families with the ease of filling out forms and returning them and also the administrative Ease on our side of collecting forms and things like that so we did a revision of 12,000 to help with that process which should be better on our families and our staff um in Business Services the only change was in central office um which is a reduction due to a cost being already included in a different budget item which is another $25,000 savings and then lastly under governance um just shifting
089some money around for referendums and elections so all in all how that shakes out is we uh were able to reduce the budget by about $235,000 as opposed to January's budget revision which I see Mr well shaking his head because he knows that's less fund balance that we would have to use this year um I want to note that some of these budget items are still I'll say conservative so for example utilities budget we budget kind of worst case scenario and looking at a three-year history we're not out of the heating season yet so I haven't started to reduce that um similar with insurances we have to set a budget for things like unemployment insurance a lot of that budget hasn't been tapped into so just know that um I would anticipate that there's still
090more budget savings coming but as of right now um we just don't know enough at this point in the year so here's where we're at for March in one comment to the heating season it was record high today and when I was at Southside we had students in shorts so we're pretty close to being out of the heating season and at least one at Meadow View and there's probably a lot more at Meadow View and shs so but um but no so uh we're very pleased uh Miss Hower continues to monitor um and refine um because we're once again we've said it multiple times we're not going to go into our budgetary situation uh it's well known so very good news that we're um in the positive here yeah thank you questions or comments from
091board I had one question Miss Hower um yeah you might have just briefly mentioned it does this do these revisions are they including the um utilities assessment that we talked about a couple months ago is that kicking in yet or is that when does that start oh um well the installation of that utility had to keep getting pushed back cuz on the day we were going to do it it's been freezing cold temperature so um we have not seen the benefit of that yet but we will hopefully see it next year during that heating season perfect we're looking to install those on March 21st um that's why the heating season has to be done we get a few more big snowfalls at least until April it's all good all right any other questions from board
092on budget revisions for this year otherwise I'd entertain a motion I move to approve the budget revisions for the 24 25 school year as presented on consent consent consent perfect Miss Barons second second from Mr Wells any further questions otherwise Miss Mark and roll call please Mr Wells yes Miss barens yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes Dr Bernette yes all right budget revision Visions move to the full board 403 absent thank you 3 l discussion and possible action to move to close session pursuant with Wisconsin statutes 1985 parent 1 parent parent C for the purpose of discussion of Staff planning regarding individual teacher assignments and duties I'd entertain a motion I move to go into Clos session second motion by Miss Baron second by Mr Bernett do we have to do roll call for that yes
093perfect roll call Miss Markin Mr Wells yes M baren yes Mr Burns Gilbert yes Dr berett yes all right motion passes we're in a close session thank you all for coming tonight have a great night everybody we are going to end the live stream now and not resume if there is any announcement I'll come back and make the announcement at the appropriate time enjoy the night everybody see you tomorrow e e for