001distribute. Yeah, they had something on the news how they're trying to discourage candy thrown kids run out. I mean, been doing it for years. Okay, it's 5:30 and I'll call the meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Black here. Calhoun here. Hinrich here. Hersh. Kissinger here. Long here. Swinty here. Blue here. Zimmerman here. We have a quorum. Entertain a motion to adopt the agenda presented. I move. Long second. Motion second to approve the agenda as presented. Any further discussion, changes, deletions, additions. Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. The district administrator's
002report. All right. One one main thing on the agenda here on my list here tonight, just to make the board aware of or provide an update, uh, is obviously the news broke that the new banial budget has been signed. um still unpacking some things on how exactly it's going to impact each district and and how that funding will work, but at what we know right now uh is their per pupil adjustment is going to remain at that $325 rate. So that's not something that um the legislator the legislature has really um I think since that 420 veto that they're interested in taking up. So, for the foreseeable future, we're we're looking at that being a $325 increase. Now, obviously, that's uh adjusted according to whether or not you, you know, what your your school population
003is and what your enrollment is. So, as your enrollment grows, that will be a bigger number for us. And as a if it if it dwindles, then that will go down. Right now, the way it stands, we're looking at approximately $355,000 somewhere in that range. uh through that section alone. The low revenue ceiling uh did not see any movement. So that will remain at 11,000. So over the past couple years, we did see uh some incremental increases to that. But for the next two years uh that will remain at that 11,000 number. Uh we did not see an increase or a change in general aid or equalization aid. So, if you remember going back to around this time last year, I think in August, uh we were part of the press release that went out,
004Tomahawk was mentioned about significant decreases to our equalization aid, primarily attributed to the referendum that was passed in Milwaukee and referendum that that formula gets pretty comp complicated or the general aid formula, but ultimately it comes down to a district's spending versus their property values versus their population. and that gets uh worked around. So for us, we're seeing uh from what we understand right now, it looks to be about a $500,000 decrease in that number going into this year's budget. That does not mean $500,000 less in spendable revenue for us or spendable dollars for us. What it does mean is $500,000 that will um that that does not show up in the form of tax relief. Right? So an example of that is if our um If our overall tax levy is 14 million per
005saying, that's just an example number and we get three million in general aid, our community is only responsible for 11 million of that that budget. In this case, it would be it would be 11,500,000. Okay. When they take that out. So, we will see that when it comes to our mill rate and our levy and hopefully when we get down to where our final numbers are, we can under levy and massage that a little bit and still have the least impact on our taxpayers as possible. And I'm pretty confident that we can that we can get there over the next month or so when we start looking at that. Uh, special ed did see an increase, a slight increase, uh, 42% so we roughly were 30% this year. It will go up to it will
006go up to 42% in 2025 and 45% in 2026. Now, it may seem like a significant number, but we're anywhere um we transfer anywhere between one and $1.8 million out of our general fund every year to cover the portion that's not reimbured by the state. So to put this in a numbers form, we'll see based on last year's number and estimate would be close to $90,000 as an increase to what we see from the state. Uh year two would be somewhere around 112 if the number stayed consistent. So it's it's not a number that gets us anywhere near really seeing that deficit decrease. Um we were hoping to see around 60, but we get 42 and 45. So high cost special ed. There was a significant increase to this. Unfortunately though, that will not impact
007our district. We do not have any kids in that category currently. Uh so for 2025, I'm not anticipating we will. Uh mental health, uh there were some increases in mental health funding and it was and when that funding is going to be released over the two years, a significant amount in year one and then a smaller amount in year two. Um, it looks to us like our mental health funding through the getting kids ahead grant, which is our primary source of that, is going to remain pretty consistent with what it was. So, I don't think we'll see an increase there. We did see some movement in transportation around $50 uh per student, and this is based on kids that live more than 12 miles away from your district. We have a small number of kids
008in that category. It'll be approximately $2,153 that we'll see as an increase there. And then there was some additions with highcost transportation aid as well. Uh with that though they didn't increase the total amount of spending or of funding for that. But what they did is they decreased the threshold so that more schools would be eligible uh for that funding. So we don't know what kind of impact right now that's going to have. We may see an increase or we may see a decrease if if the amount stays the same and more people are now eligible to claim some of that money. So, I'll keep you posted on that as we kind of flush out the details on it. So, um, but I would anticipate over the next month or so, there's going to be
009a lot more information, workable information that we see and that we can build as we as we put together that first primary budget to bring to you guys next month. Any questions on any of of the budget stuff that we know right now? Okay. Um the then the only other thing that I wanted to throw out there is over the next month I will be scheduling committee meetings for each of our committees. And what I'd like to do is put together the calendar for how often the committee would like to meet throughout the year and we can get those dates on a calendar. Now obviously if things come up there would be extra meetings in there. Um but we'd also need to select a chairperson and then we'll just decide on a reporting piece. So,
010at the next month's um regular meeting, we will put a u an update committee update agenda item right in there and then the chairperson can update the the rest of the board on what was discussed in that committee. So, Colleen will be reaching out to try to schedule those in the next week or so. That is all I have. Okay. Any questions for Wendle? None. Okay. Next item is the consent agenda. Uh pretty much the same type of uh items in there. Regular meetings, uh close sessions, uh new hires, reservations, above pay, so on so forth. Any questions about the consent agenda? Okay. I entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion a second to approve the consent agenda as presented. Any
011discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Number eight, approve the addition of the middle school girls swimming and middle school golf. So, two proposals uh that were attached uh for this. Ryan Flynn Do we have to approve the minutes? There's minutes on here. Agenda. Okay. I think it is. I did the next chip. Sorry. Blurred here. Yeah. Yeah. Grab some water. Yeah. Okay. You do that. So, there's a a couple of proposals attached here for that we put on there for your review. Ryan Flynn has been working on this. uh for quite a while looking at what opportunities we would have uh in terms of uh other schools participation um what travel costs would look like, what coaching costs would look like, equipment costs, so on
012and so forth, and what our projected outcomes would be in hopefully long-term thinking. Uh building more interest around both of these sports as as kids enter high school and and bolstering those programs. We know these are uh both programs that we've had interest shown both by students and by uh community members to see them grow. So uh this was the first on the docket and we know that as far as middle school students go there there's there's not a ton of options there for our kids to get involved. The kids that are involved typically are are doing better in school. Uh they're more connected with their peers. We know it's got a positive impact on student mental health and their belonging and our overall school culture. So, we're trying to expand some of these offerings
013so that more kids can get connected. You can see the cost is uh pretty pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things as far as as what the positives and the outcomes would be coming out of it. So, um I you know, Ryan asked if he needed to be here to entertain questions. I told him we've talked enough. I think I can cover it. If there are any questions, I'd be happy. And if there's, you know, still things that maybe we need to take to him, we can we can do that and get back to you as well. Is there staff that has expressed an interest in coaching this program? Yeah, we well we've had people reach out um and as far as u you know the details on who would would step in, but
014we know we have people interested in coaching with transportation to and from maybe not golf so much but the swimming. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's covered I think in his proposal. transportation is is often times, you know, the higher in the higher range as far as costs associated with putting these in. I have a question when he said this year because all the schedules are pretty much already made up that they would try to get involved in other meets if possible. So, I'm not belittling the sport at all, but if you're not going to meets, is the coaching going to be paid out the same as if you were going to meets? I don't know. That's kind of if it was a full schedule, yes, depending on the time that they're there. Um, if it's
015a reduced season, when I talk to them, I think we're fine in getting into meets away meets. It's just they can't fit us into the schedule to host a meet this year and we would be on the docket to do that in the so they get enough away meets to have a pretty busy schedule for both golf and swimming. Yeah, golf um golf might be a shorter season and you can see he put the reduced right season in there as a to kind of give you an outlook on what it would look like if we if we didn't get in the number of meets. Um with middle school golf, some schools do it uh as a full on and other schools do it where they call it an inter mural sport, but they still hire
016a coach and they'll travel and go to these different meets. Usually your middle school golf meets are fourperson scrambles. You go out and it's just about getting the kids on the course, learning the game, learning the sport, and that sort of thing. So, and that would be cool. Yeah. Okay. Would this be funded out of funding? The middle school. Yeah. Middle school athletics. I didn't Yeah. Yeah. Anyone else? I just have one comment, window. Uh I'm not opposed to this to doing this. I hope it accomplishes what you're we're looking for and that is to attract more students to these two particular uh sporting events. Uh the concern I have and I think that we need uh Ryan needs to watch is that we're not pulling from other sports, right? And you end up diluting
017everything. I think you got to be careful with that. Uh especially in a school our size, you can end up diluting everything by if we're pulling from other sports and uh to do this, right? So whether it's this or any other sport we would be looking at, I think that's something we need to need to watch and be be careful for. Watch. Okay. I think on the Go ahead. Okay. I think on the flip side of that though, and I'm coming from probably the other side is so I'm the president of a swim club and we lose a ton of kids in middle school going to that we have a fair number of middle school swimmers and we lose them in the middle school to end up going to volleyball, cross country and then they
018don't end up to participate because they don't have that. And then we end up with three high school volleyball teams at the freshman level. And although unfortunately, good, bad, or different, all those kids aren't going to continue to play. So you have a significant number of volleyball players that aren't going to end up on that varsity volleyball team where they could be filling other and they may have fell in love with that sport. They just now didn't have that opportunity and don't continue to swim. Good. I was just going to say if you have if you have those options, there are students that don't want to get into the physical sports per se and you know I don't know if golf gets really physical but you know swimming doesn't. So give them those options. I'd
019even add someday we should add tennis. So that's like I said I'm just I think something they need to watch. That's all. Absolutely. Absolutely. I just know the number of kids we've lost in that middle school. Okay. When I will say when when Ryan and I were looking at this and we took the data that we had uh or the information that we got back from our perception survey too to see what what students were saying they were interested in and that sort of thing and um tennis, lacrosse, there's a lot of things out there, soccer, um just, you know, a lot of things kids are saying they want. One of the things that we were thinking and talked about was right in line with what you were saying is um let's limit this to
020sports we already offer. I don't want to introduce lacrosse or soccer, even though those are sports that are probably growing in other districts in our area um for that very reason. We, you know, we've adopted a lot of sports over the year when we were a much larger school. Now, we have much fewer kids in the same amount of offerings. So, we do get spread pre-event. So, okay, that's definitely a consideration. Okay, good. Any other questions, Carmen? Yeah, I guess I that adds into a little thinking that I had is that we're we have a high school girls swim program and we're adding a middle school might add a middle school girl swim program. We have a boy swim program but we don't have a middle school boy swim program. Correct. So is I'm just
021hearing interest from the girl side. So there's a couple of things to that. One is um the boys swim program um takes place in middle school in the middle of winter. Yeah. So it would it would compete with both in a much smaller pool that we have for offerings with wrestling and and middle school basketball and we didn't see as much um of an interest level on that side. So that's to say and and there's always title N concerns. Correct. you got to wait out and we had the leeway to offer these two without getting into it. Okay, that was the situation. Next question. And uh you know I I I take it then that uh the boys program is comfortable with this setup the way it is. I mean not looking to add in
022the future or anything like that. They're they're comfortable with their feeder program. I think as of I think they would they would probably push to offer down the road if we could, but I think this is Don't we get into what Ron said? Is that all of a sudden you know what? Okay, I got it. Any others? Anyone else? Okay, I entertain a motion to add middle school girls swimming and middle school golf to the program. I have a motion. I'll second. Motion a second. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I I opposed. Motion carries. Approve changes to the 2526 district calendar. Uh okay. So Sherry Wood all approached me a while back on this. The initial conversation that we were having was around the amount of time that
023act 20 uh was demanding from our staff in K through three primarily. So there's a lot of pieces to that puzzle to do it right. And uh the the requirement for students who are not at that considered benchmark level to have reading plans to have uh teams much like an IEP but but a little separate where you have to meet with the family and you have to go through this process was something that the elementary schedule was having a hard time accommodating. So, she asked if we could look into this. Um, I did look uh into it with, you know, I contacted a number of schools and the ones that got back to me. Some were already doing this and others were had plans to to put this through in the future. Now, whether or
024not those plans, you know, made it through their board and and got into their calendar, I don't know. But um I asked Sher to put together this proposal because my biggest thing is if we are going to allot two days to elementary school planning to act 20 work and it and I agree with her it's much needed and they don't have a lot of prep time in their schedule in the elementary. They are with kids and more than uh teachers throughout the other parts of the building. But we know there's some challenges with this if we put just an elementary day in uh where the high school and middle school students would be here. We know that it puts a strain on some of our families for daycare and that sort of thing. So those
025concerns were definitely brought up and talked about. Um but my hope is if we do this far enough in advance, if we did it this month, we give families plenty of time to prepare for those two days throughout our school year. As far as the required numbers of hours of instruction, um there's plenty of time in that elementary time bank to accommodate these two days. There wouldn't be so much in the high school, but there's there's fewer required hours of instruction for elementary. So, this would not be an issue at that level. So, uh I think she put together a wellthoughtout proposal. It looks to me like it's something that will definitely benefit not only our our students in the elementary, but also our staff who desperately need that time together to and collaborate and
026get their arrows aligned on a lot of these initiatives. Okay, any questions, discussion? Okay, entertain a motion to approve the changes to the 2526 district calendar. So move 20 second second. Motion a second to approve the changes. Uh any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. I I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Employee handbook changes. Okay. Not a long list of changes here. So, I outlined in your board packets. Um I I believe page nine had one very slight change. just uh to make it a little more flexible for uh when our hourly staff um if we have a a day where school's not in session where students are not here. If if there is for whatever reason in one of the buildings a need to have that individual
027there, their direct supervisor would have um would be able to make that exception for them and have them come in for a period of time. This is primarily for secretaries to be honest with you. It wouldn't apply really much on that when when when it says pre-approved I mean like sometimes you call it in the morning so then it's just a phone call pre preapproved just so it's not likeary the day before or something okay and then the rest of it uh the rest of the changes that are highlighted there are really the updated um compensation plan for our hourly employees as well as any other changes in those in those addend or um appendix areas Any other any questions? Okay. Entertain a motion to approve the employee handbook changes for 2526. Second. Hydrick second.
028Motion is second to approve approve the changes to the employee handbook. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Okay. Item 10, Scott. Options for life insurance offered through the district. Yes. So, I assume that's why some of my old friends are here. Yes. Hi, guys. Um, so we uh the renewals were up for renewal for our uh life insurance for both our active and retired employees. And Jeffrey had sent out for quotes uh through M3. So, Cory Palmer has been negotiating with uh the folks you see on this attachment that I sent. Um really the numbers the numbers on the renewals are pretty astronomical in terms of increases. So, I wanted just to present this. We're not going to take action. I'm not going to ask the board to
029take action on this tonight. In fact, what I think the outcome should be with this is I'm going to present the numbers to the full board, but I think this should be referred down to the personnel committee and a better comprehensive look at it uh and then a recommendation that would come back to the full board for uh for consideration at next month's meeting. So, but I do want to go through the numbers with you uh and kind of kind of outline what what the options are here. So, uh currently we are with Metife. Uh MetLife in the past was a monthly expense to the district of $4,6863. Uh we've been paying that for quite some time. For our retirees, it was $210.60 paid to annually. Uh that comes to on the district's end of
030things $55,3356. When we sent the renewal to MetLife, they came back with a quote that was annually cost to the district was $121,95144. That's an increase up to $10,162 per month. So, um you know, just under $6,000 there. And then the retiree portion of that would be $464.40 paid or paid Yeah. paid annually. So with that, we obviously uh went out to try to get other quotes. Um two companies refused to quote anything for retirees. They're listed at the bottom, Symmetra and Principal. The only one that did get back to us uh currently is ST is the standard. So their composite rate for everybody would be $8,4320 per month cost to the district. That's $100,83840 annual cost to our district. So, still a significant increase. Could you repeat that? I'm sorry. One the total $100,83840.
031Um, and then their their total cost to be paid by the retiree annually would be $384 a year. Um, so still an increase ac across the board there. With that said, they also quoted it two other ways. So, they quoted separating out active employees from retiree employees. Um, and that was um so that if it was separated out, the district cost just for active employees would be $22,000 $22,5840. So, that's $1,838.20 per. If then the retirees were separated out, paid on their own, it'd be $1,320 paid annually. So those those are the quotes that we've received at this point. And again, will those numbers stay intact? I don't know. Corey uh Palmer is usually pretty good at, you know, working with the companies to get some of this to come down, but I don't see
032we're going to I don't think we're going to see a significant decrease in this. The insurance market across the board is has tightened up considerably. So, especially knowing that there's only two companies even willing to quote it right now, um kind of puts us in the bind. So, what we need to consider is is total cost of the district. Obviously, our responsibility to our retirees and um I don't want anybody to think in this room that the that the goal by any means is to is to pull this out. It's but the goal is for the board to get all the information uh and and look at it comprehensively and and make a decision on what they want. So, I will pull uh any additional numbers that the committee would want, but I think we
033would have a if it goes to the personnel committee, we could um take a much deeper and in-depth look at this over the next month and then come back with either a recommendation or a number of recommendations that the board could sit through. Okay. I have some questions. Yeah. Okay. Is the 50,000 is that is that a flat amount or does that go up every year? No. So, um the the 50 So, it's a h 100,000 for active employees, $50,000 for retirees. Okay. And then that's that's what it would be. Well, when would it just be that's what it was quoted as. Okay. Yeah. So, that's what the quote came in as. Now, retirees could say, "I only want $10,000." And we could individually work with people for any number under that 50,000. They won't
034go above. Okay? But what I'm Okay, make sure I understand it. The 50,000 is for every retiree now and retirees five years from now, I believe. So, the way this is quoted, yes. Okay. So, does the life insurance go up for active employees? No. What do you mean go up more than 100,000? I think 100,000 is the max. It's double your income up to 100,000. Okay. Okay. So, that's the flat amount no matter what. Okay. Well, couple things I guess obviously cost is a factor, but my own and I, you know, I was there, but I don't get life insurance. But I think it's I think it's a little unfair to say to the retirees now that you're on your own because when this was done, they were at this age. So if they went
035out on their own, they would pay this amount. Now after five years, 10 years, whatever it happens to be. Uh some of them are more than 10 years, but it's it's now you now you're paying some amount. It's you know, if you want to keep the 50,000, you know, I I think that's a little unfair. I I think we there's there may be some options uh that you could do with to help save some save some money, but I don't I don't like the idea of saying, "Okay, you're done, right?" You know, I don't think that's good. Uh I just don't think it's fair. No. Like myself. Okay. But I think it is something that the full board needs to know every option that's on the table up there to make a decision. Yeah. I'm
036not advocating for that. No, I know. I know that. And I can just tell you from personal experience that's from the from the paper mill and the paper mill is selfured. So PCA doesn't have a company. PCA is the company. They pay it all. And it got to a point where it was getting difficult saying because you're going to pay it. You're paying this out if you're insurance company because it's life insurance. You're going to pay it out. So, uh, what they did is is they just cut it and made it 10,000. Period. That's it. They didn't stop it. They just do it. And I think I don't know if we can do it that way, but that's something I think that present retirees stay where they're at. And future retirees might go to something
037less than 50,000. Yeah. And I'm just throwing it out. That's just it's a way of dealing with it without in my mind ticking my friends off here for one thing though. But no, I just think it's uh it's a way to deal with it. But I agree. Let's take it to the personnel committee, get everything together. I'm just I'm just speaking from the top of my head. You know, there's much up there anymore anyway, but uh that's you know, I think that let's let's discuss it. Yeah. Excuse my ignorance, but are we only allowed to use M3 as a broker like insurance broker looking at um check for health insurance? Yes, because we're part of a consortium. We have less local because obviously they're they get a kickback school. They're broker too. I mean, so
038like is that their only option? I don't I don't know. I don't know how to I'd have to look and see if if we could leave either way. Do you happen to know if like say you change companies from what they have now to a different company to the existing insured have to go into underwriting then or will they just accept a different company will just accept what we have right y okay we're currently operating under the Metife and we will monthly until we decide to make a change so we'll pay that and then if we decide to change companies that will that will happen. Okay. So, some wouldn't get like denied coverage or something, right? No. No. And that's what we want to explore, too. And that's one of the things that Corey is
039looking at um because there was some indication that there might be a where somebody aged out of it. And we want to make sure that if we change companies um that that's not explicitly written in the contract that where you hit a certain age and they no longer they take you off. Right. So that's part of what when I say we take it to um and again I don't want to scare anybody. We have 11 retirees that are over that 80 threshold. 83 I think total that are on this. We have more retirees on our life insurance policy currently than we do active employees. So when I say we want to take a real comprehensive look at it in committee, I think that's the team that can consider all of those things. Okay. I mean,
040I don't know if everybody understands it's wasn't a the life insurance was part of our benefit package, part of the school district. When you retired, you had the option to continue with it and pay the premiums. So, anybody who's been retired for 17 years or more, they've been paying every year. And what it started was at your retire year, it's a h 100,000. Then the next year it went down 10,000 to the minimum of 50,000. So, keeping it at 50,000 is exactly where everybody's at right now, everybody in this room. But if you offer that to the current, that means anybody who retires next year would get the 50,000 right away. Like, you know, they wouldn't be paying like this. These people have paid since they've retired the premiums. So, I mean, any of them
041could probably tell you more than Rand was on negotiations and that situation, Michelle. So I mean that's why it's it's pretty it's frustrating because act 10 then you know took away so much of what we negotiated for year after year after year instead of salary and then you know hearing like well this maybe we could just drop this and I appreciate Ron that you feel that way but I think that was not anything nobody said. No, I'm not saying that you're going to. I'm just saying, you know. Well, you said you heard that. So, I just want to make sure that anybody in the room that was there's a cost to never presented as dropping anything for anybody. These are what we were quoted and this is where it's happening. Exactly. Great. Board needs to
042make that decision. So, so I appreciate that. We'll work it. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Okay. Any other comments, questions, guys? Make sure that the the entire board gets notified when that goes to the personnel committee. Just make sure the entire board gets notified of that meeting so we can be part of that discussion. All 30 meetings will Okay. Anything else? Okay. Next item. Approve contribution to fund 46. So, we're uh looking at the end of this uh fiscal year having the opportunity to dedicate uh the additional 1.9 million into that capital project list to cover some of those projects that are upcoming. Um that still leaves the district with around we don't know the exact numbers still after the audit, but it'll be somewhere between 500 and a million that would be transferred to
043fund balance even with that contribution. But this is our last month to make the contribution. So, okay, any questions, comments? Okay, I entertain a motion to approve the contribution to fund 46 in the amount of 1.5 million to complete projects outlined in the capital project list. So, move second. A second. Motion a second to approve the item as presented. All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries. uh designate the following depositories. Can I just say banks? Yep. Thank you. Um so yeah, we used to obviously we use um CrossFit Community Bank for uh you know our checking account, our cash on hand and then the local government investment pools where we've been storing our money or parking our money so to speak that fund balance money and collecting around four and
044a half% uh quarterly. So we would just like to stick with that same strategy forward. It's worked out pretty well for us past three years. Any questions? Okay. Entertain a motion to approve CrossFit Community Bank and local government investment pool. Banks. I'll second. Motion is second. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion opposed. Motion carries. uh following uh school district attorneys questions there. So yeah, last year we we switched it to just say the we we use attorneys from WSB. We use attorneys through our insurance company and um we have been uh we been working with Renick Lewis and Lacy this past year. That has worked really well for us. They have a number of attorneys that specialize in different areas. So that's been very helpful. So, I
045just like to basically stick with what we've been doing forward with that for next year. Okay. Any questions? Okay. Then uh entertain a motion to approve the uh school district attorneys as presented. Sweet. Second. Motion a second to approve the school district uh attorneys as presented. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Uh 15. Approve the annual declaration of parent notice of the district student academic standards. So we've traditionally used the DPI standards and recommendations remain. Okay. Any questions? Entertain a motion to remain with the DPI for the standards. Move. Second. Second. Any further discussion? Okay. Uh, all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Uh, prepper down to public comment. Anyone? Sure. I'd like to make a comment. When
046you think about the whole insurance thing about you're kind of, and I carefully say this, pitting the old against the new when it comes to insurance, saying that they're costing us money and we could save money if they weren't part of it. That's no different in life with insurance. Something bad happens in Florida, we're paying for part of that through your individual policies because American family, if they're insuring homes in Florida, they are not strictly getting their money out of Florida. They're raising our rates up here. we all end up paying a portion of that. This is kind of no different. So the old people with the current staff, we'll call them, you know, it's a composite thing where you're taking averages to figure out what the cost is going to be. So I think
047you can't just say old against current and that's kind of the way it's coming across. The other thing is we negotiated I was part of it this whole thing on life insurance at that point when we retired and they said nope you don't get it anymore I would have gone out on my own bought my own policy and I would have been paying under those rates all of this time but if by chance the old staff gets cut off man that's kind of crude that's harsh I'd like you to think about some of those we understand I just have a couple questions question because we asked it here. Nobody seems to know. So, we open up. Can anyone besides school board members attend the personnel committee meeting? Yes. Okay. Okay. How do we get notified
048when that's going to be? They're publicly post post one online. Posted outside online on the website. Okay. Is it in the newspaper? We're old. It's online. Anyway, we're in second. Well, my second question, will retirees be notified? You might say online when the vote will be taken and what the motion will be that they're going to be voting on at that meeting. Yeah. Well, it's okay. As as as said, it's in there. We're probably going to take action on it at the August meeting. Okay. But if you look at the minutes which are put online uh and and put out on the door, that item would be in that agenda. On that agenda for August, right out here out in front there's a front door. There's a glass case right there. long time. Is the
049insurance company cancelling out the life policy in their company or are you guys just deciding not to go with it? We haven't decided anything. So, we we were up for renewal. So, and that's where the quote the quotes have come in. So, then those are just board approved on the direction. And do you put any money towards our life insurance cuz we pay 300 a year or does the school put money in? Yes. Well, they do. Yes. On the retirees. So, yeah. And to not so if you so if you just look at the one number um the LA you know our portion if we stayed with our current amount would go from 55,000 to 121,000 roughly then with some other numbers. Um then the retiree portion still has an increase because they pay a
050percentage of that. So the increase goes from for the retiree would be $210 to $464 with that current plan if if we stayed with Metife with what we currently have the same 50,000 that same amount. So that's why then that was a significant increase. So why we reached out to other companies to provide quotes to see where we could land and that's the process we're in now. So Corey's negotiating with those other companies currently. Um some won't quote it at all. They they flat out said if if you have retirees included, we're not going to provide you a quote. Those were the two that I had listed at the bottom. Symmetra and principal would not quote anything. So we're Don't they have to let us know a whole year in advance that they're cancelling our
051insurance? We're not That's not on the table. It's just I know, but they would. That's not that's not even a recommendation that's on the table right now. Just so just so you're aware. So that's um it's just how much it's going to cost and what plan you want to go with. And we won't know those numbers for another well until until we get them in. So and that's that's kind of what I was saying with the PCA side of it. Uh that's how the insurance companies look at it. If they're insuring ret insuring retirees, they're going to pay that. there's no getting around it because at some point you're going to pay it, right? Where if you're just paying the people that are working or active, whatever you want to call them when they retire,
052then that ends and they've they've collected the money and haven't paid anything out. So, that's how the insurance company that's that's the reason I I'm not trying to defend insurance companies, believe me. But that's the reason that it takes a big jump because they're going to pay it. It's people. So that's one of the main reasons here is that there's so many retirees right now that that's why it jumped. Well, it's I assume that's part of it, but it's it's it's across the board as Randy says. I mean, it's retirees that if they if they got a plan in Merill or Rhinelander or Tupelo, Mississippi, if they're covering if Metife's covering it. Yeah. You're getting more and more of them. Yeah. I think our main main concern many of us are here was that it
053would be dropped and we're not so we appreciate knowing that that is not on the table. We're going to figure something out. Okay. And I guess just because we had heard that there was a rise in the in the rate, but that was the last we heard and now all of a sudden we're discussing changes and like okay where where are we at? So I appreciate the the information. Okay, good. Thank you. All right. Um Bonnie, retiree. Um somewhat related issue, but not Ann mentioned Act 10 at one time. Uh those of you that have been around for a while familiar with in handbook, the retirement stipen in the six day predium. Um, act 10 greatly affected that, but there was a set amount that we gave up salary for to bank towards paying our
054health insurance premiums. And if you banked 120 sick days, you got so much per day. Okay? And that was that was banked to the school. Under the understanding that money could be used for health insurance, premiums, vision, and dental. Okay? Um, there's a flaw because someone in my situation, my husband died young. Had he lived, I would have gone through that money. Um, and I'll be frank, this isn't going into the leader. You know, I have $19,000 sitting here that I can't use because our district will not allow our Medicare premiums to come out of that pool of money. I approached Jackie about it. I talked to Jeffrey about it. So, I researched a little bit um because I don't understand the reasoning behind it other than I was told well would be get issuing
055a stipen and probably a lot more paperwork. Um the school district in bill I'd like to site they do reimburse the stipens and the way they do that is individual teachers go go on their social security account. you do a screenshot of that and then you submit that to the district and then they reimburse you directly direct deposit it to your account. So I guess I'm wondering if this is something that can be looked into because that money dies with us. I personally know one retiree that has over $50,000 in there. Had I known this, I would have you called in sick a lot more days for um but I'm just wondering if it's something that can be looked at. If there's a concrete reason why our district won't allow it, if it's even feasible,
056I would appreciate that. And maybe I said this was related, you know, maybe we could take our life insurance costs out of there. Something and some people don't have anything left because they were foolish. I'm kidding. Um, you know, it's different for every person, but I think, um, that's our investment in the district. That's basically our money, and I think having some more options on how we can spend it would be a good thing. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else? Okay. Uh, board referrals, anything? Anyone? Nothing. Okay. Okay. Then entertain a motion to go into close session. I so move Swinty. Second. Cal second. Motion second to go into close session. Roll call, please. Yes. Kers, Wolf, yes. Long, yes. Valu, yes. Zimmerman, yes. Okay, we're in close session. Thank you guys. Thank you for
057your time.