001It's now 7 o'clock and we'll call this meeting to order. Jackie, could you do the roll call, please? >> Kristen Bailey >> here. >> Nwood >> here. >> Steve Buyers >> here. Jose >> here. >> Boy >> here. >> Binham. And Maria Bell Rodriguez >> here. >> All right. And now for the pledge. I aliance 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. >> All right. And then we'll move into public comment. Members of the public who wish to speak to the board should include a request prior to the start of the meeting. This section of the meeting will be reserved for comments from the public. All comments should be limited to three minutes. The
002first speaker is Micah Morton. Jackie, do we have any others? >> No. >> All right. Thank you. Good evening, superintendent, board members, and district directors. Thank you for all your hard work on behalf of our community. My name is Michael Morton. I live in downtown TCA. I work at NIOU. My wife works at the new Mitchell Elementary School. Our son Aiden just started sixth grade at St. Mary's School in Dao. Uh my comments are about St. Mary and they're about the pending decision on the bus service the district has graciously provided for St. Mary families for over 45 years. My understanding as a parent with a child who regularly rides and depends on the bus. I was concerned to learn this past summer the district is considering either charging families for the service or altogether
003cancelling the bus service. Uh it's my sincere hope and alternative to both these options can be found. Uh currently 30 St. Mary students rely on the bus service each day. As I noted earlier, the district has provided the service at no cost for over 45 years, and we're very gracious for that. Uh 189 St. Mary students live within the district boundaries. Uh 125 of those families directly pay local property taxes. The rest of us pay this indirectly through our landlords. Um and of course, we all vote in local elections and contribute to the local tax base by patronizing local businesses, many of which are owned by St. Mary families. This summer, when we first learned of the plan uh to revise the bus service to either charge St. Mary's families or cancel it, we were
004told it was due to the withholding of federal funds for education. Since that time, however, those funds were released. And so, we are now left wondering what is the underlying reason. There's a lot of uncertainty and lack of clarity about this. Uh we sincerely hope alternatives can be found to either charging our families or cancelling the service. Uh, as far as I know, our school leaders have been very open and willing to work with the district to find alternative solutions. We are hopeful an alternative can be found before January when the proposed changes would go to effect. Um, and last, since I not most families cannot be here tonight, I did send an email out to sort of query parents whose children ride the bus. And one comment I received from this early this morning
005around 7, probably before she left to work and her kids were able to get on the bus when she was not home because she has to go to early round as a nurse. She sent to me this following message in quotes. My name is Jessica Sky. I had two daughters depend on the bus. They go to St. Mary's. I am a single mother with no extra help. Their fathers in jail, so when I say I have no extra help, I mean it financially and otherwise. I am a nurse who works full-time and goes to school part-time. It would be devastating to our family if we lost the bus service. I would have no other way of getting my children to the school they love so dearly. Please reconsider. Thank you. End of comments. >> Thank
006you. >> Carl Sw. >> Yes. Uh similarly, um my name is Carl Swin. I live in Decal with my wife and kids. Uh we've lived here since about 2015. Um, and I'm here tonight also speaking about the bus service to St. Mary's. Um, my wife and I are both very concerned about the decision to cut bus service or charge u a fee for it. Uh, our kids ride the bus every day and it is also a lifeline for our family. Uh, without it would we wouldn't be able to rely on the high school uh student neighbors that are taking care of our kids in the morning and afternoon. Um, but they are not able to provide transportation. Um, so this uh support helps my wife and I to be able to get to work on
007time and keep our home running. Uh, we understand budgets are are tight and costs are going up. Um, but asking families or the school to pay $1,500 a student uh 45 or $45,000 a year uh for a short bus ride just doesn't seem right to us. Um, it feels like we're being priced out of something that we already help pay for through our taxes and uh working and living in the community. Um my dad growing up was a bus driver. I understand how important the job is. Uh not just getting kids to school, but also making sure uh families such as my own um are able to make it work on a daily basis. I know the district is doing what it can, but I'm asking uh that they take another look at the decision.
008Um thank you very much. >> Thank you. Right. And then from public comment, we'll move into board correspondence. Um, so I guess I'll start out. I got to, you know, pop into a few of our schools last week. Things across the district seem to be going really, really well, especially, you know, this is my third goound now. I will say this has been the smoothest start to a school year since I've been on the board. Things are going pretty well across the district. Mitchell is launching pretty well for the most part. So, honestly, I'm very happy I got to go check out the playground last week at Mitchell. It's very nifty. Some of the stuff was a little more confusing than I even understood how to use, but the kids seem to get along with
009it just fine. We had the FnBO challenge last week, which we raised about $46,000 between Sycamore and Deal for both of our sports programs. So, just a wonderful thing that goes on. look forward in January to the basketball game where we will get the, you know, trophy back and everything and make sure that that's back in decal where it belongs. Um, in regards to just kind of going over St. Mary's busing just so that you know, everyone has exactly kind of where we're at. So, I know there was an illusion to federal funding. So, what it is is the we received or used to receive a mileage reimbursement from the state of Illinois. So, they were not federal funds, but those were state funds that we would receive. And we lost about $2 million minimum
010in mileage reimbursement that the state cut from us. Now, you guys will also see later in this our insurance costs are going to go up about $6 to 7 million this next year as well for health insurance. So, we as a board, because we are very committed to looking forward to doing an early learning development center for our district, has to start finding those pennies in every nook and cranny that we can to provide for our district the best that we can. So, I just want to say that there's not some malicious intent to go after private schooling, at least for me. I am super Catholic. I'm the grand knight of our Knights of Columbus Council in Decal. We support St. Mary's a ton and we love to do that. And it's it's not that
011we want to see St. Mary's harmed, but we have to make sure that we don't do things that operate to the detriment of our district as well and what we do. So that's kind of my quick piece. >> Um I just wanted to add something on with the family's permission. um Tandi Smith uh who was I believe a sub here and um a parah a teachers assistant and she ran for school board with us this spring um passed away last Saturday. Um so I just wanted to let people know and um I'm happy to share information if anybody wants uh details about uh her services and the meal training we've set up for the family and everything. Does anyone else have anything? Okay, hearing nothing. Oh, yes, Steve. >> I went to the FNBO challenge.
012It was a great time. Uh, shout out to the marching barbs. They looked phenomenal. Um, everyone looked phenomenal. Um, but definitely the barbs. It was very cool. >> Maria, do you have anything for us on student board? >> I do. Um, I just wanted to share a very fun project that the mini board is working on. I got in contact with the Genanoa Kingston student board member and Decala is planning to do a student exchange. So, we're going to take about seven or eight kids from our board including me and seven and or eight kids from Genanoa Kingston mini board and we're just going to have them come to the Cal for a day and see how it is. And we're going to go to Genanoa for a day and see how it is. And
013then we're just gonna come together and be like, what are some things that we like from Genanoa's school that we might want to implement in Decal? And what are some things in Decal that you guys really liked and wanted to do? And um a student exchange is something we're planning with more than just one school. And Janoa is the one school that I know that has a student board member. So I got in contact with him and I got together and we have this planned out. So far, everything's pretty much planned and we just need to work on who's going to take us there. Um, yeah, but the mini board's really excited about that and we have some kids really wanting to go to the next exchange and the next exchange and just see how
014everything works. >> That's great. >> That's good to hear. Thank you. >> All right, moving into the consent agenda. Is recommended the board of education approve the consent agenda items 5B through 5F. Board minutes from 8:19, personnel action items, purchase order requisitions,ou with 4C agency, and gift donation from the DHS class of 1970. Does anyone have any questions about any consent agenda items before we vote? Don't really have questions, but I do have a couple comments. Um, start with positive first. I'd like to thank the uh Decal High School class of 1970 for their gift. Um, it's something that could have very easily been just disappeared in the consent agenda. I think it needs to be um identified that there you go. [Applause] >> That from a a high school that hasn't had a class
015reunion since 10. You guys still do that and then you're thinking enough to give a a donation back to the school is awesome. Um, I did not go to Dal High School. Uh, and the other thing, um, on the purchase order requisitions, um, I'd like to actually bring up to discussion a little later, not at this meeting, but that we, um, possibly change, and anything over $50,000 is a separate agenda item, because you you look at the POS and you're seeing six figures go by that is just a line item on a big spreadsheet. that concerns me because it just it people should know where the money goes a little bit more transparent transparently than just being in that. So, um Amir, you're doing a great job of letting us know that. I just think
016that this should a change that we should if we're talking about transparency just makes it a little more evident, we can talk about what how that would be separated out later. So, I guess so that we can just kind of real quick before we do the consent agenda, do we have a majority of the board that's interested in breaking up the purchase orders like that or would we prefer that we keep it as one? I just need to know so that we know the board actually wants it done that way. >> I concur with JJ. No, >> I just have to get consensus so I can properly we can properly instruct admin on how we would like it done. >> So I've got one, two, three. >> We have four. >> Okay. So that makes
017four. So the board is in agreeance that we will break that apart like that. >> All right. Not hearing anything else. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. Second. All right, Jackie, the roll call. >> Atwood, >> yes. >> Buyers, >> yes. >> Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. >> All right. And on the presentations, we have director of facility and safety operations, Tammy Carson, to tell us about our summer projects. >> Thank you. This is one of my favorite presentations of the year because I'm not coming here asking for money. I'm actually just wanting to kind of summarize what we did spend our money on this year and what we were able to accomplish. When I say we, that is the maintenance
018grounds, custodians, our deliveries, our food trucks, our warehouse, as well as the contractors that we've hired over the summer to really focus on getting some things done. And all these projects are projects um I should say the large bid projects are what were approved by the board uh the earlier part of the year. And so we'll hit on some of those as well as some of the smaller projects that we're able to get done. So over 11 weeks, we actually had bid projects of over $4.5 million that were completed. Those are the ones I'll go over right now. Uh we were able to do boiler replacements at Brooks and Founders. That with these being completed, that leaves only the boiler at Huntley Middle School that still needs to be replaced and we are looking at
019that as potential project for either 26 or 27 depending on funding. Uh so those are high efficiency boilers. There's two in each of the buildings to provide us a backup in case one were to go down. We every year for the past several years have been doing toilet room renovations. Lincoln was done this year. So, these are the toilet rooms that were renovated. We've also been focusing on getting playground renovations done throughout our districts. Most of them have their original playgrounds. This year, we did uh finish the rest of Little John and then we did uh replace all of Tyler and Tyler what used to be one playground and we opted to put it into two playgrounds like we have at our other buildings. So, there is a playground for smaller the smaller and younger
020age students and then a playground for the older students. It helps with playground management. One thing that we pursued this year was we do have some gymnasiums that still do not have air conditioning in them. And we have talked about do we want to replace the units in those so that we do have air, but those units are not at the end of the life. So we don't typically replace rooftop units until we get to the point that they are end of life or giving us too much mechanical issues that it's not worth the funding of of doing the repairs. So instead this year we looked at another option which were these large fans that were installed in the gymnasiums of Tyler Brooks and Founders and they from what I've heard of already made a
021significant effect in those gyms to just get the air circulating and keep things at a little bit cooler temperatures. Founders uh towards the end of the school year last year we were identifying spaces we were going to be moving some special ed classes into in the founders lower level. We already had one sole class there and we were moving a second and we did have limited bathroom space in the in the lower level at Founders. So, we did add two new toilet rooms that were not there before. So, this gives us the opportunity uh to have access off of directly off of one of our sole classrooms and then off the hallway in the other for the other to be able to utilize. We're always looking for ways to have more space to be able
022to house the staff at our buildings. And this year we added um in used to be a large workroom break room in the Huntley Middle School office has now two two offices in a hallway having broken out of there. I know one of the spaces is used for a dean. I'm not sure exactly what the other space is used for, but there's second space there that's being utilized. Classroom doors. A lot of our classroom doors are the old wood doors that were original. And as you can imagine with wood doors, they with the temperatures, they expand and contract and cause issues with opening and closing. So again, we've had a and making an effort over the last several years to take buildings and replace the classroom doors in those buildings. Malta was done this year.
023Little John was finished and then there were some remaining ones from founders that were completed. Little John had a lighting and ceiling and lighting project replacement many years ago. But there was one section of the building we weren't able to uh budget at that time and that was the original section uh of the building and because there was a speestous abatement. So it doubled the cost of the project. This year we decided to tackle that because of the lighting concerns. It was not good lighting for our students in those classrooms. So we replaced the lighting as well as the uh ceilings in those spaces. Huntley's classrooms had some flooring replaced. We had four classrooms and an office. Uh Jefferson also had uh with the move of the developmental communications class, we moved it into one
024of the rooms there. So, we renovated one of the uh toilet rooms attached to that room, added some cubbies in there and then also were able to add a sensory room to that space because it was a kind of a superersized classroom. the archive room at the ed center. We've been digitizing all as many files and paperwork as we can. So, that was able to be repurposed and is now serving as um a area for cubicle space for the uh some of the ed center staff that's right next door here. The parking lot uh parking lot is replaced. We're still getting some last minute signage put up in it, but it is now safe to be able to walk through that parking lot and is now at this point right now maintenancefree. Seal coating. We
025have a three-year rotation on seal coating all of the parking lots in our in our district. This summer was Huntley High School or I'm sorry, Huntley the High School and Mena. Some concrete and asphalt improvements. These were uh the site improvements that were done at Jefferson Elementary at the front and in one of our side doors. The high school track resurfacing was done. It looks beautiful. It's already redone with black and orange. And then the Little John mobile classroom. So, the mobile classroom at Little John uh when it was installed, we didn't have a lot of opportunities for classrooms or mobiles that had bathrooms, toilet rooms in them. So, uh it was a decision last year to remove that mobile and replace it with a brand new unit that we are leasing over there that
026has two classroom spaces as well as toilet facilities inside. Marquee signs. You may have noticed them around the district. Some are still getting up and running, but we have replaced some marquee signs at Brooks, Jefferson, Founders, and Lincoln. And that was through partially through the teacher vacancy grant, partially for funding we had already uh planned to put out for operations and maintenance. We also have the one at Mitchell. And then the ed education center one is still coming. It was designed, had some errors, and so we had to ship it back to be renovated. And then that's all of our bid projects of the four and a half million. But then we had uh custodians that were in our buildings doing some deep cleaning. So I'm just going to go through and if you'll notice
027some of the shiny floors and organized and clean is clean is hard to show uh when you're looking at buildings pictures, but that's what you're really seeing is a whole lot of work gone that went into these buildings. Those shiny floors don't last forever. So we try to get that picture right away. Um more deep cleaning, painting, lot of painting that went on. And let's see, again, more painting projects and some other projects that the high school had taken on over the summer. We helped contribute to get those in place. Auditoriums, gymnasiums, had to showcase a lot of them. And then, of course, um I don't didn't have a lot of pictures, but we did have over 900 work orders that were done just in the 11 weeks of the summer. So, that includes our
028maintenance staff, our ground staff, our delivery staff, and our and our painting staff. So 900 were done in a matter of just 11 weeks and we started the school year and still have pending and on hold work orders that still are over 300. So there it's ever evolving. We can have five to 30 added in one day. It just depends on the day. And then just a little side note of course we also opened up Mitchell. A little bit of preparation opening and time went into that. So that I personally want to thank all of the staff on our team um because their hard work and their commitment to this. We never could have been ready to open up the schools. A lot of delays happen with construction. We can't get in and clean spaces.
029We appreciate the patience of the teaching staff and administration and not being able to always get in the buildings exactly when they want to, but by giving us that time, we're able to really have this the buildings ready for our students to return. >> Thank you. [Applause] Is this the first replacement of the track at the high school? >> We had a resurfacing. This was the first replacement. Yes. >> Okay. >> If you had to guess, what's the lifespan of the new parking lot outside? >> That's a great question. Um, boy, I would say upwards of 20 years. >> Okay. >> I would say probably longer if we're we are able to continue to seal coat it and do the repairs as needed with cracks and potholes. It just kind of depends on how in
030the extreme winter conditions that we have, salt does play a huge factor when depending on how much salt we have to pour each year. >> So, we got the track redone at the high school. Now, I know that the football field is the same turf football field that's been there since I was a student when it first opened >> in 2011. Yes. >> My understanding is those football fields really typically have an expected lifespan of 7 to 10 years. So, we're a little after that already. Do we know when that would be put back within because I know that's not a cheap project either. >> Oh, no. It definitely is not. Uh probably upwards of six to $800,000 for a turf replacement. So, every year we have out a company that does up upkeep and
031maintenance and cleaning and repairs for us. We have done that very regularly as well as our staff is trained to do that. When the company comes out, they are extremely impressed by the condition of our turf and we have been commended for how well we have maintained it that they at this point are still looking at it and saying you're probably two two or more years out. It's one of those that each year we continue to keep an eye on and to make a decision if it's something we need to start budgeting or we need to start planning for the following year. But at this point, we're still holding strong. We're not going to look to do it in 26. ask me next year and I'll let you know if it's on the agenda for
03227. >> Okay. >> And just so that I don't forget, I'm going to re concur with thanking everybody who's done such a terrific job over the summer and to get us started for the year. And normally, I know I always end up forgetting somebody. So, while you're saying thank you, I'm going to say thank you, too. So, thanks. >> Thanks. >> Thank you, Tammy. All right. And old business, EHS student council retreat overnight request. It is recommended that the board of education approve the request for the DHS student council to attend the overnight retreat in Chicago November 8th through the 9th, 2025. Do I have any questions before I go for a motion? >> All right. Do I have a motion? >> So move second. >> Jackie, the roll call. >> Steve, >> yes. >>
033Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Mark Sherbot, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. Nick Nickwood, >> yes. >> All right. Item B, case 2025, social and emotional learning exchange. It is recommended the board of education approve out of state travel to Minneapolis for Lisa Becker, Sarah Bates, Sur Williams, Julie Stubblefield, and April Garner to attend and present to the Case Exchange in November of 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call. >> Jose, >> yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Mark Sher, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. >> Nick Alen, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. All right, moving into new business. Item eight, benefits renewal rate proposal for 2026. Those will be promoted by Stacy Smith along with Doug and Adam from
034LP Insurance Services. Get my big foot out. [Music] >> I am Stacy Smith. I'm the benefits coordinator for the school district. Doug and Adam are our consultants with LP Insurance and they are going to give the information about the insurance for 2026. >> Thank you. >> Microphone. >> I'll try to talk really loud. Can everybody hear me? >> There you go. Thank you. First of all, um I would like to thank the insurance committee of the district. their their input has been very valuable, especially in a year like this where we've had some issues with the health plan and with our insurance industry, which I apologize for that even though I'm part of that. Um, but anyway, the insurance committee did a great job. You guys should commend them for their for their efforts. Um,
035what I'd like to do, you guys have the slides, um, the PowerPoint presentation, but what I'd like to do is I like to talk first because there's a lot more than just in those slides. So, let's start with where we've been, where we're at, and what we could do in the future to help mitigate some of this issue. Because as when I walked in, you could see the bottom line cost to insurance this year, and it's horrendous. We've never come to you guys with anything close to this. It's just it's astounding. Um, in fact, we've got um several actual firms have looked at your plan um as well as the health.dicalcount.org to come up with trends for your specific area. And during the last seven years, the trend for medical has been 7.2% increase and
036the pharmacy has been 10.7 and your plan's at 5.7. has done really really well until this year. So that's where we've been. Let's talk about where we are currently. Insurance companies look at the loss ratio and what that amounts to is the amount of premium paid in the amount of claims paid out. So right now for every dollar we pay in premium they're paying u$133 out in claims. out of that. Um, Blue Cross Blue Shield, like most carriers, they like to give us a renewal 90 days before the plan renews. We have got them now to where they do it six months in advance. So, we started getting these numbers in August and as soon as we saw what they were, like we do every year, we go out to bid. So, we went to
037all the major carriers. We went to the school association plans for the state of Illinois, which Sycamore is part of one of those. Um, and because we want to validate is the renewal that you're being presented, is it legitimate based on the claims we've incurred? And in fact, it is. We got a decline from Sigma, um, Etna and United Healthcare. They're the other two major ones you have in the state here, and they all came in at over 42% rate increase. The rate increase for for Blue Cross Blue Shield started off at 52% and wound up at 40 40 >> 3.3. Subsequently, it's come down and we're going to talk about how that occurred. But what I want to to learn first or illustrate first is why do we have a rate increase at all?
038So currently right now we have 77 plan members that have in excess of $50,000 worth of claims. We had 48 last year. Um drug costs have gone up substantially. You probably see if you watch any TV at all. Every day there's commercials on about highriced specialty drugs and they're being prescribed right and left. Um, GLP1's, one of the top ones that you'll see for type 2 diabetes and being prescribed off label. High dollar claimants, 75% of our high dollar claimants are employees, 22% are spouse, and 4% are dependent. if I touch something. Sorry. Out of our high dollar claimments, we have nine that have cancer, 14 have muscularkeeletal um um GI eight, another digestive 10, nervous five, and all others 33 for a total of $7.9 million. So we pay about $17 million. And this
039year so far year to date we're at 22 million and that's why we're up the plan's upside down. The other thing to consider is where has the plan increased. So we look at it from two different factors. One the number of high dollar claimments that we have and those remember you pawn some I don't want to say pawn but you have reinsurance to help take care of that cost. Blue Cross Blue Shield. After $200,000, they moved some of those claims off books. Okay. But because it's owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield, it's still their dollars. But that's one factor. The other thing is what's the average everyday claims cost doing? Do we see more office visits um uh inpatient, outpatient? Those are all cost factors. And this year, every single one of those increased within
040the last nine months. So this isn't a long-term thing. This has really really come on strong. So out of that inpatients um inpatient stay actually dropped slightly from cost standpoint per um inpatient stay but our utilization went up 8.8%. Outpatient we had a 46.10% 10% increase in cost and 9.7% utilization increase. Physicians visit 7.9% cost increase 7.6 for our utilization. Pharmacy actually decreased a little bit um per claim cost, but the utilization went up 2.3. And the problem is that all went up in those GLP1 drugs we were talking about and the high cost specialy drugs. We're going to have gene therapy. There's a lot of things that are coming down the pike that are going to continue within the health insurance industry. The other part of this is the the contractors, the physicians, the
041hospitals, they're trying to get more money out of the public plans and private plans because I I don't want to get into politics, but the government those government plans are not reimbursing the hospitals enough. They don't pay for those bills. So the hospitals have to make that up someplace and especially in uh in rural areas like this markets again we went to Blue Cross Blue Shield, Etna, United Healthcare, Sigma Association trust plans such as the state of Illinois health benefit plan, Illinois schools employee benefit consortium um which is where Sycamore is at. There is a clause called blue onlue. So if you move to one of these association plans, which again we looked at, we would not be able to move and have the same network and that was one of the things that was
042very valuable to the insurance committee. They truly wanted to, if possible, stay with Blue Cross Blue Shield. Blue doesn't complete Pete on Blue. So that's why we went and we also got quotes from Etna and from United Healthcare because those are the three networks that most of those state programs allow you to go into. The issue is moving into those, they take our actual claims history for the last 36 months, but mostly the last 12 months. And so there was no viable option for less money this particular year than modifying the plan and staying with Blue Cross Blue Shield. And that's what's being proposed. The reason I said the insurance committee is so valuable is um they understand where the plan's at and the unions the committee said what do we need to do? We
043understand that this is a big expense to the district. What can we do on our part without giving away the farm on their side obviously but what can they do? What can we do to help? And so they made the following recommendations and that's what's in the plan that we're talking about today. Um, the first is to eliminate the weight loss drugs for true weight loss. If you are on a GLP1 due to diabetic or one of the FDA approved, you would obviously be able to stay on that, but just for true weight loss, they they they wanted that removed. Co-pays for pharmacy would increase $10 per script uh for mail order mail order only. So it' be 35 4565 instead of 25 355. ER visits we have 254 or 264 visits for ER. 29%
044of those are considered non-emergency. And when you consider that the plan's average cost to go through the ER is $5,100. We've got about $380,000 worth of potential savings. if you have the cold a cold, you really shouldn't be going to the ER and that's kind of what we found. So, we've tracked that last year and and the committee didn't want to make a change and this year they do. So, we're trying again, we're going to double that to $300. We want people to really think and try to steer their coverage more um use the virtual visits or use the urgent care facilities. Um the other one is spousal coverage language. So, under the Affordable Care Act, I think everybody's probably heard of ACA by now because it came out in 2009. It was basically set
045up for each employer to take care of their own employees and the children could float between whichever plan that they wanted to. And so, what the committee's recommended is that we offer a spousal spousal language to the plan. If your spouse is offered coverage through their employer, they need to enroll on that plan. They can still be on this plan as secondary, but they would be on their on their spouse's plan. Okay. You want to go through the slides now? Any questions about what I just said? Sorry about that. >> real quick. I know you have a lot of data that is we're all hearing for the first time because we read through these slides. Is there any way the board can get a copy of the data that you are citing? >> Yes, absolutely.
046>> Okay. >> Yeah, we can get that to you. So, let's talk about the spouse. Why would we consider that? Because when you look at about 29% of the high dollar claimants um are spouses. We won't know until open enrollment, but the district is probably um in the neighborhood of $700,000 to a million dollars of savings, which offsets a lot moving forward. You know, it's one thing that we have a rate increase like this this year, but we do not want to have one next year. Part of the other reason for the rate increase um is our largest dollar claimment has approximately $600,000 worth of claims and it's estimated that they'll be a million dollars more before it's resolved. We have had three large deaths this year, but most of those ongoing uh out of
047the high dollar claimments are ongoing. We've got 12 out of the very high that are still or no, excuse me, 10 out of the high that are still moving forward for next year for 26. >> So I have a question um Stacy or Manurva, whichever one. Can we make our employees do that? >> Yes. There's no law that says you can't. There's a lot of school districts and a lot of employers that have the spousal language. Absolutely. In fact, ACA uh there's penalties if you don't provide care for your to your employees. So, I'm saying, can we make the So, if when Jamie was still working here, was still working if if her plan was better than mine and I wanted to go have her be hers be the primary, you're saying that the district
048would say, "No, yours has to be the secondary." >> Yes. And then we would then we would fill in whatever the spouse's plan does not fill in. There's only one caveat to that and that is if a plan will not coordinate benefits then we wouldn't coordinate back. That would be the only the only drawback to that. >> Do you have any sense of how many people that would actually impact? Are we just like spitballing with does am I making any sense? like >> yeah we we had I had Milleman we had Milman look at it an actual real firm and so we kind of took some guesses of what it is but we will know during open enrollment this year >> open enrollment in the past we used business solvers as you're all perfectly familiar
049with if you've enrolled in there um we're going to do a dependent eligibility uh verification this year instead of a passive enrollment. So we'll we'll get the birth certificates and and make sure that we're covering who we need to be covering. That's really what the goal of this is. And at that time, we'll be able to come back um end of January and open enrollment's all done, we'll be able to tell the board exactly what that what that looks like. And then if there's exceptions to be made, that comes back to the board and we talk about, you know, individual exceptions. So the increase that you see on the slides, um it's actually 1% less than that. And the reason that it's 1% less is because remember we have the dental along with the medical
050with Blue Cross Blue Shield. And so there's an additional 1% that's going to come off those rates. So the numbers that you've seen actually take 1% off that. But we need to get it approved and all that good stuff before we give the final numbers for that. But they will be coming down. Also in the packet you're only finding medical. The reason being is the dental vision and all the voluntary benefits. There is no rate increase this year period. >> Thank you. So real quick, I I know that the healthc care marketplace there there was a filing that they have to do every year and 28% is what everybody else I'm on healthcare marketplace myself. Y >> and 28% seems to be the figure throughout the state of Illinois at least through Blue Cross Blue
051Shield. So why is the district is it because of the extra claims that we are impacted by the 38.9% increase justact more claims than we should? >> That's exactly right. >> Yes. Even though we're in >> Blue Cross show you are in a pool of like industry, we are still that much higher than their normal pool. And that's why again we had um 48 claimants over $50,000 last year and we've got 77 this year. >> So it's the claims. It's no more than that. >> What will because I I saw that self-funding was an option that's on there. >> Yes. Now, is that self-funding in the same idea as if I don't get homeowners insurance, I'm just self-insuring? Is that kind of like we're not going to have insurance and we're just going to pay
052it out of our pocket when people make claims or what does self-funding, I guess, mean? >> Okay, so I think the better term that could I could we could have wrote down is partial self-unding. So what happens is a group your size 800 employees or so you would take um risk on let's say the first $150,000 per belly button on the plan and then anything under that we fund through a claims account. Hire a third party administrator. We do everything just like you would do now. In fact, you rent an Anthem or a Blue Cross Blue Shield network provider network and then that $150,000 let's say that's called your specific. Okay. Again, we funded that. Then we couldn't afford, god forbid, if everybody in the district was hit by a Mac truck, there'd be 150
053times, you know, 1500 or 1500 belly buttons wouldn't work. So there's an aggregate. Think of it as an umbrella. So that gives us our maximum exposure. Um sycamore's in it in that same kind of an arrangement with the self-funded plan. You can design your benefits the way you want to. Why why do groups do that? um because it's called an ORISA even though school districts are kind of a no man's were not governmental and we're not you know um but you don't have to follow statemandated benefits. So if there was particular something you didn't want to cover, beriatric surgery or one of those types of things, you don't have to do that. But when we took all of our claims data and we gave it to Millan, the actuaries that we use, self-funding would have
054cost us a lot more money this year, period. So I would I would let Blue Cross Blue Shield manage this. Now, what's Blue Cross Blue Shield done to help us? Because that's one of my questions. What are you doing? I mean, we're writing a big check. what else are you doing? So, they've actually they're enhancing their case management protocols. So, when they get a large we get a large dollar claim, they're getting involved even sooner than they did before to help try to mitigate some of that cost. They're also doing a better job. They're stating um with their contracting with their providers locally, which is what we need them to do. So our mere bottom line, what is this? Because obviously this is going to cost us a lot of money. What is this going
055to cost our boots on the ground employees that now are going to get hit with increased premiums, higher deductibles? What What are we looking at for our employees? >> Is that something you guys could share with us or is that numbers that he has? I just want to make sure. So we're talking about what is it going to cost our employees at the end of the day? So we had that conversation at the insurance committee. Um individual a lot of the bargaining units have um have in their contract 100% individual and that's pretty much what uh for the most part it seems like the union is saying well individually we have 100% coverage so it doesn't affect our individual program. however dependent on family uh they are looking maybe uh I I don't want to
056quote numbers but uh we are looking a lower uh paycheck uh coming January. >> Yes. My my biggest concern is a lot of our assistance in the district cuz we gave them a very nice raise this last year, but my understanding of the situation is that raise also meant they now made too much money for state benefits which means that they're no longer receiving, you know, Medicare or Medicaid from the state of Illinois because they receive that now in income from the district. They can afford to have their own plan. But now they lost that. And I'm just worried, are we going to wipe out that entire raise with health insurance costs now every month? Same idea. The individual uh they uh the individual member itself will have uh the coverage uh from 96.5 to
057100% covered. Uh and then maybe the spousal that they are talking about creating the primary and secondary uh will help litigate it. Mitigate it I guess. But um yes, that is a concern. >> So the total cost to our budget, because I know we're going to be passing the budget soon, what is this going to hit the taxpayers? What dollar amount? I what what do we have to take out of the budget now to pay for this? >> Correct. So, uh, I do believe we'll be in the red because, uh, we have only about $1 million room. Uh, because this is only six months of the, uh, for this current budget year, uh, the plan actually starts in January. So, we're looking at if the increase is about 6.9 million, we're looking about half of
058that. >> Okay. >> It is a walk away. So, one of the things that we talked about as a possibility was um finding a middle ground from the low and the high and would that so that there might be an increase for our staff, but it wouldn't be a high increase, but it would help us to reduce some of our costs. Is there a middle ground that would kind of not go one way or the other and hurt you know, our newly uh paid well-paid folks and would also not become an issue for our families. >> So, well, if I can touch on and then I'll have Duck talk about it. But yeah, uh moving forward, uh seeing that a a shock happened with these rates, uh we are going to be looking at how
059the plans uh what will our union groups willing uh to help the district. What will be their um uh kind of point of eating us in between? Uh so uh come moving forward we are we'll be looking at how do uh how the plans will have be changed what can we mitigate uh there's also talk that in six months let's see how there our claims are looking at and maybe we can look at a uh re re-evaluating our uh current contract with blue cross so but I'll have doc >> so just just to be clear on what air said is that the request is that the conversation happened way before it's happening now to see what the trends look like that there is education that needs to happen with our staff so that they understand
060that they can mitigate the cut the you know the highrise of these costs if they use the plan appropriately right and where possible that we do make some adjustments to the plans that we currently have to support both so neither one side or the other is overly >> burdened >> exactly Exactly. Exactly. So, that's a conversation we had um at our table and I wanted to make sure that it gets clear here because I know that, you know, our board may not understand all of the ramifications of everything that that happens and be able to get to this point and also for us to mitigate some of these things and not wait until it's too late to really take a look at other options that might you might support us a little bit better and
061be more costefficient for us as well. >> Oh, I'm agreeing with you. The insurance committee did look at other alternatives. Um their their main concern was that um they didn't want to materially change the HMR plan um because it is a lower cost item as we talked about before. So if you're on the PO um and this this is a budget or an item that that really does hurt financially, you can move to the HMO. They were afraid that if we increased deductibles, added co-pays and those things to that to the HMO plan. Um that we would kind of leave people in a no man's position of what do we do? And so that that's why and and that savings um was approximately 35% rate increase still. So it they again they didn't want they
062they want their members to be able to move to the HMO plan and still have the care that they want. So just again I want to reiterate we're looking at a difference between no longer a low and a high. >> Right. But something middle ground, >> right? >> That is supportive of everyone. >> Right. >> Okay. I just want to make sure that it's >> Yeah. No, I'm just explaining why why this is the option this particular year is just because of that. And to your point, one of the other things that came up during the insurance committee meetings where they asked Doug and I to come out and do actual presentations to run through the plan, plan savings so we can think long term and how to bring it down. >> So, we're going
063to be meeting with each union. >> Yeah, you bet. And each each group >> Okay. >> So, I had a couple questions. Um, and I guess that would be for you, Ar. Um you had talked about that premium might be affected like 95 or something to 100% it'd be covered but right but for some people it might be um is that something that would be applied unilaterally or would that be uh would that be different based on the pay band that people fall into? >> Yeah. Uh so written in the contract is not by pay bands. uh it is uh just individual uh so if it is an individual premium uh a lot of contracts have their own written whatever negotiated with uh so some contracts have 100% HMO individual others do not others might
064have 90 or 96.5 but individually we don't have anyone uh from correct me if I'm wrong but uh now union groups for individual premiums are below 90 Okay, >> that's correct. >> Yeah. And the one group, the DFSA group, >> you need to >> um DFSA in their new contract, one thing that they did do is we are now paying 100% for the individual for the PO high or the HMO. So, if they were doing POW, they can move to the PO high. They won't have anything taken out of their paycheck. they could take that money and put it in HSA and health savings and use that for the increased deductible, but they won't have the money taken out of their paycheck. >> So again, we talked about educating our staff. >> Is that something
065that I mean, I know that that's got to be a big part of what it is. If we can see that the staff understands that's everybody, >> family sta staff family as well that we're understanding and we're using it appropriately. we would mitigate some of the some of the the numbers and can we make sure that you guys are watching that for us that where we see that we're still not making movement that maybe we can do something to kind of offset that um so that we can then begin to have conversations that are really data driven based on money and and and visits and all of those other things that are really uh costing us more money. >> So you guys will keep track of that. >> Yes. And that's also part of on
066the platform when they go in because we said it's not going to be a passive enrollment. When they go in business, they're going to be able to know they'll find out about the FSAs besides what we do. They'll be able to see it right in front of them. >> So, you bet. >> Is most of the penalties coming from people that are like into catastrophic >> said >> type levels or is it just >> Yeah. or is it kind of the I mean because you listen to people in their insurance and and they're real happy when they hit the max out of pocket and and and that's when they go get their their knee surgery or whatever else like that and that that's going to be part of the problem. But the the big hit
067of the the penalty that we're paying, lack of a better term, penalty we're paying is it from the people that it's not the people that just have an extra surgery? >> No. you know, at the max out of pocket. It's the people who literally catastrophic things have happened to their health and their >> right. >> Okay. >> Yeah. No, it it truly is. The two that we had pass again were there were a million dollars between the two opening clients this year. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So I what Manurva had asked was actually part of my second question was and I'm not sure like who is responsible for the education um that happens but also wellness programs and things like that like what can we do? I know this is tangential to what you're talking
068about, but it seems like in investing resources in in you know programs that are driven by this data. How do we help make sure we're supporting health, >> right? We we can provide all of those data. Um, we've just received that from Blue Cross Blue Shield as well as how many how many are getting all their testing done, how many are taking advantage and you know for diabetes, how many are following through on all those kinds of things. And then I know that there's there's newsletters, there's communications that we do kind of send out that >> that comes from you all. >> We've got to do more from the district on us. Yes. >> Or who who does that? That would be you. Okay. >> She's our go-to. >> She does a great job, by
069the way. She's very good. >> Yeah. Have you talked to any other local districts to see if they've had similar increases? Because everybody probably is getting this data right now at the same time. Um like for example, do we know if Sycamore is seeing this? Do we know if Sandwich is seeing this? St. Charles or whatever the same bump upwards that we're seeing. What we found is that if you take the last four years, pretty much everybody's had a bump during that time period. We didn't. And so I just again um a lot has to do with HIPPA. They don't disclose exactly what they used to to us, but it seems like we must we had a lot of people that put things off during CO and now they've just got it done. Knees and
070hips and things just a lot. >> I know Blue Cross is probably not going to tell you, but talking to other districts, >> that's what I'm saying. Talking to other districts, that's kind of where it's been is they've had higher rate increases during that time period or they've had a spike. All right. >> And that's that's why I gave you the trend in the very beginning to kind of know where everybody's at in the area. >> So we talked about sort of trying to meet in the middle and and one of the things that I'm a little bit concerned about is like if we actually would go forward with a spousal carveout and require our employees to go on what in all likelihood it's probably not as good of insurance if it's coming from the
071private sector versus what they're getting uh here. Is there a way to, you know, increase deductibles maybe with like the HMO plan and offset that cost? Because I mean, if it would be $700,000 or a million dollars, like can we do something like increase the deductible and and keep people on what is a plan that probably pays more on the back end as far as you know their coverage beyond that deductible? Like do we have we looked at what those numbers would look like? >> We wouldn't know that that again until we get an actual enrollment count and know how many people it truly affects. But there's there's employers that charge down 150% if they stay on if their spouse has offered other coverage. So again, until we go through open enrollment, kind of see
072who, what, when, and where, that's really where we need to be. >> And I know from some initial discussions, uh, in the past, we've driven people to the HMO plan because it saves the district a lot of money. Um, and if we start changing the HMO plan, people are going to move out of the plan. So that's one thing we're keeping in mind as well, >> right? And then that you know that being is it still a better plan versus you know I mean that depends on the individual I guess you know versus what they get on the private sector but like generally is that HMO plan good enough that even if we increase the deductible it's still in a costbenefit analysis going to be better for our employee and their family so to speak.
073>> That was the comment that the unions were making and they're like you know what I don't I don't want to do a $500 deductible on the HMO because then our group's going to want to stay with the more expensive plan. But those are good, great, great questions. >> Not to belabor this any further, but um I just want to make sure that it's clear. Can Blue Cross will Blue Cross drop us if at any point that we don't make some improvements in the way that we use this? >> No, they're going to pass rate increases on, but we're going to make sure that that does not happen and that you have alternatives just like we've done in the past. >> Okay. >> So, no again just an anomaly and the things that the committee's
074come up with. I truly believe this is going to be a one time. We're not going to see this. We don't want we don't want them to come back what I would classify as an insurance company buying the business for a year and give us a 25% rate increase and come back next year with a 40% rate increase. That's just >> if the education and the and the more efficient use of the insurance by the members actually creates a better condition. Is there a possibility that it goes down? >> Absolutely. >> It's okay. >> Absolutely. In fact, that's what happened in 2019. >> You bet when we got here that was that rate was driven down substantially. that eight n% rate increases and then boom we got back got a bunch of it back. So
075yes, that could happen. >> Let's do that next year. >> Yeah, this has not been a fun month and a half, believe me at all. >> All right, does anyone have any other questions? >> Hearing no other questions. Do we have consensus to bring this back? >> Yes. >> Thank you guys. Moving on to item B, NCTTE professional development conference request. This will be presented to us by Sarah Montgomery, Kelly Hamilton, >> Dr. Hamilton, >> say Mrs. >> Dr. Hamilton, >> thank you so much. This presentation will be a little bit more upbeat, more uplifting, and will be funded by grants. Yay. Um, so I will turn the mic over to Dr. Hamilton and Miss Harrison. They're going to talk about the NCTTE conference that they would like to attend to. We would like to
076propose up to three people to go. Jen Miller would be the third person, but it will depend on the cost of everything. Take it away. >> Here's the information if you need it since that has insurance. >> Um, well, I'm just going to talk about why Jen Harrison and I wanted to go. Um, we are honored to be accepted to give a poster presentation at this big national conference. Um, our presentation is about how Jen specifically, because I'm just the sidekick in this one, um, how Jen was harnessing AI and specifically formative, which the district supports, um, to help edit, revise, give feedback to her students in their writing. So, in real time, >> in real time. So it was faster, efficient feedback and then she could actually spend her time focusing on specific students
077with specific needs and then the the quicker feedback like capitalizing using five sentences. The little things that would take her a time to work with the AI could do that for her. So we are going to present or hope to be able to present that to our colleagues in NCTTE. But more importantly, Jen's going to talk about what she brought back from going to this conference before and why she really thinks that's a benefit to teachers to be able to go. And actually this presentation was one of the things that I brought back. I attended a workshop session where they were really utilizing AI which is as an older teacher I was not very comfortable with. So I got to get my feet wet with that and then I came back and I worked with
078Dr. Hamilton in the classroom. Um became very comfortable with it. have talked to other people about it. We set up our presentation aside from that, which is super awesome. Um, I also went to other workshops that gave me new strategies to use for poetry. Um, and working with non-fiction in the classroom. I got to meet uh several authors and hear even Katanji Brown uh Jackson speak at the the conference. But my favorite part was meeting Juel Parker Roads in the hotel and we talked. We exchanged email addresses. I went back and emailed her like she said. My kids were sent a box of books that they were all super excited to read. We took pictures, sent them back to her. We responded. Uh my kids were just over the moon about they know an author.
079They talked to an author and they were all reading her books. She even sent books in Spanish so my Spanish speakers could read them in their their native language. So it was really amazing and we would like to represent the district in the conference next year and hopefully inspire other people to use AI and formative in the classroom. >> She's so excited. >> I'm excited just watching how excited she is about that. Thank you so much for that. >> Any questions? >> So your budget is up to $5,000, >> correct? Um, is there a way that in between now and next board meeting we can get better breakdown of how much stuff is? >> Maybe, maybe not. It's going to depend on um some of the hotel and reservations and we're not going to book
080that until you give us the So, no, we can say this is how much, but no, it if we can't afford three, then John will not go as a participant. >> Miller Miller Miller I went burst her bubble. You have to go. >> So, no, we won't know those costs and we won't start spending the exorbitant amount of time of booking and doing all that until we get the stamp of approval. >> And we would share hotel and meals and >> she's off to cut her sandwiches in half, share a water bottle, >> spring break, >> peppermint. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Do we have consensus to bring this back? >> Yes. >> All right. Item C, intergovernmental agreement, Decal County Health Department/alternate to suspension program presented to us
081by assistant principal Jennings. >> Good evening everyone. We are hoping to continue our partnership with the Decal County Health Department to provide an alternative to suspension for our students who are caught um with tobacco products or who are vaping at school. And what that looks like is uh the Decal County uh health department has three specific programs that they use um just various iterations of those programs to actually teach our students about the dangers of tobacco and drug use. So rather than just suspending a student for um their tobacco use or their drug use and just saying, "Hey, come back tomorrow." We're actually giving hoping to give them some education related to those risks. And so what we're looking to do is have the Decal County Health Department come to DHS tw hopefully twice a
082month or usually it's going to be on a half day or PLC days and they're going to be providing about three hours of education to any student who finds themsself in that situation. So, we're hoping to get your blessing, answer any questions on that. >> Do we have any questions? >> Is this in our budget? >> Oh, I don't think there is. >> Thank you. There's no fiscal impact. >> That's all. >> I should have led with that. >> Any questions to bring this back? >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. And item D which is info and action administrator and teacher salary benefits report for 2425. This will be presented by Dr. Garcia Sanchez. >> Good evening. My turn. Um so yearly ISBY requires that each school district report the base salary and benefits
083of all of its administrators and teachers employed by the district. This is a time of year and this is a report of which we need to send forward. is basically salary information of everything a teacher or a person is paid for throughout the year. So it could be anything from um extra duties that are performed including their salary as well as benefits such as any sick days or vacation days. So every year we have to do this and this is um our report that we'd like to be able to uh send over to the state. So we need information action because it's due. Couple questions I have. Um, under I think this is a good thing to have out to the public. So, I encourage the public to look at this. Um, under FTE, usually
084you see 1.0. I see a few employees that are.99. Can I get an explanation on what an employee that is.99 a full-time? >> I'm I'm going to have someone from HR actually answer that question for you. there some >> because I can give you a very general answer but I think >> no I actually have a specific answer. So when we look at um their FTE these teachers are full-time teachers they would be a 1.0 know, right? >> Um teachers are given um base teachers are given 15 sick days and four personal days a year and they build up that time. When you run out of sick and personal days because we pay them out of contract, we've calculated in that they're working those 180 days, they are docked. Some of those people that you're
085seeing.99, right? >> Um used all their personal days at the beginning of the year and then later in the year decided to um a child had a graduation ceremony or something going on and they took a dock day. So it actually >> a zero day. they took a zero day, they actually we actually subtract their daily rate from the check. >> So those people when it added it up, they don't get credit for 180 days. They maybe got credit for 175 days or 178 days, right? >> Because it wasn't a sick or a personal day. It was a dock day. So that's why you'll see a few of those at the N9 or the 0.98. >> Like an unpaid leave of absence, too. >> Um it's just most of them are one or two days.
086Um, some of them could be people that did um, not qualify for FMLA or took a non-medical leave of absence for an extended period of time. That could work into it too where they had extra days that weren't paid. >> You mentioned 15 sick days. I see some that are like 25 on here. Is that under the old plan? >> Um, no. The, uh, it's 15 sick days for our brand new teachers. Um then after you have years of service you can earn up to 25 days a year but there's a it's in their contract that after a certain amount of years they can get a it's their seniority they can get extra days each year. One final question. Retirement enhancements. That seems like a generality. What is that figure composed of? Retirement enhancements. The
087second to last column. >> I didn't prepare this. Let me see if I can I didn't prepare this 6%. >> Um I think that is No, because everybody's got it. I believe that's probably the fact that the district pays >> I think part of it is the >> the district pays into TRS. So that's part of the retirement >> that remember the the document that is set up here is actually copied from what is required from the code. So that's probably why so it's inclusive of that if we indeed pay that out but that's not something we normally pay out. >> It just seems like a general like what could that be? So someone asked me that question. I'm like I don't know. >> Any other questions? >> This is for all employees in the
088district. Um, teachers and administrators >> certified. >> The certified certified administrators. >> All right. Any other questions? >> Hear no other questions. Do I have a motion to approve? >> So move. Second. >> Jackie. Roll call. >> Christopher Boy. >> Yes. >> Mark Sherat. >> Yes. >> Kristen Bailey. >> Yes. >> Nick Atwood. >> Yes. >> Steve Buyers? >> Yes. Jose? >> Yes. >> All right. >> Thank you. take us away with the superintendent report. >> I guess everybody's lucked out today because I don't have a report. Um I the only thing I do want to say is thank you to everybody for the great work that uh I've seen as I've been walking the buildings. I will continue to walk buildings just like Chris said. There are great things happening all over the place.
089So I'll be out there next uh the next day or so and then all of next week. Thank you. >> All right. >> Back to you, sir. All those in favor of adjourning. So move. Yes. >> Do I have a motion? Do I have a motion? Yeah. Yeah. >> I'll make that motion. >> All right. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Amazing. >> Thank you.