001Good evening everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the finance committee here at the board of ed office on 382 Long A. >> The date is Wednesday, January 28th, 2026. The time is 601. >> I please get a roll call. Kaylee >> Rich O' Conor >> here. >> Ponazo >> here. >> Patricia Munan >> here. >> Rosner >> here. Also in attendance, Ken Serinich, Jackie Tulings, Tracy Hussy, Kate Coutach, Joey Palagi, and Jim Fen. >> Can you all please stand for this pledge of allegiance? >> I pledge allegiance 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. [clears throat] for the review and approval of the following reports to the finance committee. The meet meetings of
002the meeting of the finance committee on December 17th, 2025. May I get a motion to approve? >> I'll make that motion to approve those two. I'll second >> motion made by Patty Moonen and second by Loren Rosner. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Seeing none, motion carries. Moving on to the public comment. Is there anyone in the audience who wants to make a public comment to the finance committee? Anyone willing to make a comment to the public uh to the finance committee? Anyone to make a comment to the uh finance committee? Seeing none, we'll move on. So, the first agenda item is the finance report. So, I'll pass it over to you, Jackie. >> Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Uh, this report reflects financial activity for the 6 months of expenditures for the 2026 fiscal
003year for the period ending December 31st, 2025. Accounts 5110 through 5128. Total certified staff. The year-to- date expenditure is 16.9 million. Accounts 5112 through 5129. Non-certified staff. The year-to-ate expenditure is 5.5 million. Employee benefits account 5210. Health insurance reflects a year-to-ate expenditure of 6.1 million, representing 74.8% of the budget expended and 25.2% remaining. The total projected annualized health insurance cost for the district as of December 31st is 12,224,52. The projected amount will bring the district over budget um in that line by 4,54,53. Health insurance waiverss reflects a negative variance of $29,800. Accounts 5330 through 5535. Total professional services shows a year-to-ate expenditure of 1.4 4 million professional services sped account 5336 that displays a deficit due to students requiring significant behavioral support. Accounts 5561 through 5569 total tuition is showing a year-to-ate expenditure of approximately
0045.9 million and an unfavorable variance of 1.8 million. Excess cost grant funding will be allocated [snorts] to lines 5561 and 5566. So, the year-to-ate total expenditures are $46,270,9. The board of ed is displaying an overall favorable varant variance of approximately 34.5 million with 57.3% of its budget expended and 42.7 remaining. And then I just want to give you a comparative. November of 2024, the year-to- date expenditures totaled 34 [clears throat] million with 57.3% of its budget expended and 42.7 remaining. And the year-to-ate health insurance expenditure was 4.99. Does anyone have any questions regarding the expenditures? I'll start. Um, so from last month to this month, it seems like we've gone up uh in terms of the annualized cost is about 10.5 million I think last month and now it's up to about 12.2. So, um,
005how much worse is this going to get as time goes on? >> Well, I actually think in speaking with Joe and receiving an email um from the city, there's a lag with the rebates, so I think we're going to start to taper off a little bit. Uh believe the city received roughly 700,000 in rebates last week. >> And how much more are we expecting? >> No. >> You know, I introduced myself to believe most everybody before the meeting. I'm Joe Pinto with IMA. I'm the broker on the health insurance account for the city and the board of ed. Uh on screen here is Chelsea Kovitz, our director of data analytics. Chelsea. Um, so there's there's actually there's $1.7 million and Chelsea's going to go through these, but um the $700,000 [clears throat] of checks that
006I hand delivered last week to the finance office at city hall was for stop-loss claims. Um, so that's >> Can you tell me what the stop-loss amount is? >> Chelsea, chime in. You're on mute. So that was for two claims. The $700,000 [clears throat] >> two claims at this point exceeded the $200,000 stop-loss limit. Thank you. >> And then um there's also uh prescription rebates that that are coming into the plan. there's a six-month lag on it. So, um that's why those are probably reported the numbers Jackie is reporting to. >> Why is there such a long lag? >> It takes that long for the rebates to get processed from the pharmaceutical companies back through the prescription benefit manager back to the back to the city of the >> Thank you. So, that money uh
007those were checks that were brought directly back to the city. They'll they'll make their I don't know if they've already made their way to the finance office here. Um but they're making their way to the finance office here and then they'll be deposited into the account into the claim account. So they'll offset claim spending. >> Well, uh, so those the $700,000 were that was the board of ed total. There was another $20 and something,000 that I brought to the city. >> Now [cough] any other members of the board? uh willing to ask any questions. Mosa, >> so in terms of um our our greatest burden um for healthc care this past year as you've reviewed it to this point, 6 months of data from July to December, I would imagine um where's our greatest um
008where's our greatest um uh burden? Is it prescription drugs catastrophic? There's only two claims that you just mentioned, so I I wouldn't imagine that's it. Is it um where why are we exceeding almost $4 million at this point? Where would you say our greatest affliction is? >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> Thank you. Uh if you want to note on the on the the handout that you that you were given, um net claims are running at 89.2% of budget. So claims are actually running almost 11% better than budget at this point. When you net out the prescription rebates and the [clears throat] stop-loss claims, the stop-loss claims and prescription rebates year to date, uh that's the 2025 year to date on the bottom uh bottom left are $1.7 million. So you haven't received all $1.7 million,
009but it's been booked. Um, we know it's coming. Some of it's been received. Some of it is is in route process. >> Is that board of ed? That's board of ed. >> That's just board of ed. >> Board of only. >> Yeah. We we broke all the city numbers out from the board of ed for purposes of this evening's discussion just cuz we didn't think you'd care about their side of the budget. Be honest. >> Well, we do care, but >> but but it's it's [laughter] not it's not your >> we do care because we're taxpayers, but we >> Yeah. [laughter] So, and this and the city side is running similarly around 89 88%. Um, if you look at the rolling 12-month period, uh, which is basically calendar year 2025, um, you can see that
010the the rebates and reimbursements, um, stop loss totaled about 2.4 almost 2.5 million. So, we anticipate that it'll be probably around that by the end this fiscal year, but you are you are running ahead on claims. So, if as long as you continue to run ahead on claims, um there's no reason to to think at the end of the year you even even though it doesn't sound that way when Jackie reads the numbers. >> Anybody else have any questions? >> Esposa. >> So, I just have one more question. Um how often do you provide this type of data to the board of ed um administration? Is it monthly or is it quarterly? >> So uh you're getting a quarterly update now. We're going to be moving to uh monthly updates but with quarterly uh data
011analysis or quarterly data analysis. >> So we should have a an update with this type of data for January. >> Um yeah, I believe we can get you when the January numbers are are fully vetted. I know that we've probably gotten preliminary numbers um through the middle of January, but probably towards the middle of February, you'll have January numbers. Okay. >> A two to three week lag time. >> Um and then you'll have a full quarterly update. >> And and do you expect any of the rebates to be included in that data? >> Uh there there would be rebates included. >> Thank you. Any other questions on any of the other line items that Jackie discussed [clears throat and cough] year-to- date collected $160,291 event ticket sales through one January 20th total $29,972 $2. And
012uh we did give checks to the city, $200,000 for grant reimbursement and interest on the grant account, $173. Any questions on the revenue? Seeing none, I'll pass it over to Dr. Cerninich. Thank you. Uh before I make any comments, I I want to thank you know Joe Pinto for joining us this evening. I know the board requested for him to be here and I want to make certain before we move out and close out the meeting that there are no further questions this evening for Joe or IMA why they're with us tonight. That's our biggest, you know, piece. There was a lot of questions centering around health insurance and the reimbursement. I want to make sure for this meeting's purposes that we've got those answer those questions answered from the board. So, um I just
013want to report out that last night, I know I I mentioned this um to the board chair and last night Jackie and I were were asked to attend the board of alderman finance meeting uh in which we did. Um the discussion was basically u looking at the the reserved accounts that were established. I guess in this the city side of it, they're still looking on um allocating the money that the board of alderman had established um uh from the mayor, the the finance committee for the board of alderman are just looking for the data points that we provided for them in terms of expenditure reports and everything that um developed the reserves. So they were very satisfied uh with that data data that we provide them. We also had some preliminary discussions on our budget
014requests that we'll be speaking with the city in a you know few weeks, couple months from now. Um it was a a really informative conversation in terms of what specifically they would be looking for when we make our presentation. Um a lot of it centered on the breakdowns of special ed costs. That was a a major driver of the discussion and uh it it gave Jackie and I some good I I haven't had a chance to debrief with her today because I spent the day at SAS but tomorrow she and I will be meeting to kind of culminate our notes. Um and then the next step uh the city treasurer Ra Larry said that he would like to follow up with the two of us so that we would be able to provide the alderman
015and ENT um the specific data that they would like to see um when they're developing their decisions based on our budget recommendation. So I thought overall I thought it was a very positive meeting >> went very well. >> I have a question for you. Um any update uh from the letter that was sent to the city regarding the healthc care problems that we uh have stated in the past? >> We have not received any communication from anyone regarding the letter whether that be the board of alderman members directly or the mayor's office. >> Anybody else have any questions for Dr. Sinich before we move on? Nope. All right. I'll be brief. Uh so I just wanted to thank the folks from IMA for being here tonight uh and providing clarity on the insurance data as
016well as answering our questions uh regarding the data in front of us. Um I also just wanted to request Jackie if you could set up a monthly meeting uh the third Friday of every month with myself and Miss Pinoso uh so that we can go through the the numbers. Um, outside of that, don't really have any other comments uh than what we've discussed tonight. So, would anyone like to make a motion to adjurnn the meeting? >> I'll second. >> All right. Motion to adjourn made by Miss Penoso