Board Meeting 3-13-23

001all right let's call this meeting Milwaukee School Board to order Mr sickett could you please lead us in the pledge I certainly will um [Music] one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice strong [Music] yes president Thomas Steele here Mr Burns president Mr Becker Mrs Kaiser here Mrs Carr here Mrs Lee here Mr Keller here president Lee here properly speaking has been posted in accordance with the open meeting Law School in Wisconsin do we have any modifications to the agenda this evening no we have no changes for this evening all right so we'll move right into the superintendents report great uh thank you and good evening everyone we'll start with 6.1 the legislative update there's one in a large piece that we're paying attention to here so it's a new bill that would mandate

002crime reporting and school resources officers added um and so there's a March 2nd there was appearing on March 2nd um and so the legislative reference um Bureau analysis of the bill so this is quoting from them this bill requires each Public School including a charter school to report any incident that occurs in a school building or on school grounds to local law enforcement the bill provides that if 100 or more incidents occur in and on public school buildings and grounds during a school semester and all these 25 of those incidents result in an arrest the school must no later than the first day of the next school year employee or contract for the employment of what law enforcement officer is an armed school resource officer to work under the bills incident is a defined term

003which includes violations of State Municipal disorderly conduct laws and certain crimes including homicide sexual assault burglary battery and arson however the bill provides that for purposes of counting the number of incidents that resulted in arrest incident does not include incidents related to use possession of alcohol cigarettes nicotine tobacco products or vaping devices so this is um ones that we'll watch because I think the support in the public knows we have on resource under school resource officers and our secondary schools on and so I'm not sure if my read at this point we wouldn't be reimbursed for having already done that um so I think there'll be some action because there's lots of schools in the state that already have resource officers who are curious just about how money might flow under this um Bill if

004it becomes law and then um 6.2 is the Board of Education recognition so first from Pershing a shout out to Steve hust um pershing's lead custodian Steve is such a hard worker and always goes with the flow so thank you for all you do Steve uh Walker Walker would like to recognize Susanna Wells Dixon special education teacher for organizing and leading a school-wide focus on the current Iditarod race in Alaska she was running and I did a rad book club daily trivia on the announcements posting updates on other fun activities centered around the race students and staff are enjoying this and appreciate all of Susanna's work Hill we'd like to thank Tony Fox and Glenn dellerman for their quick response to the small fire in the wood shop at Hale on Tuesday evening they cleared

005the building and immediately found the source so the West Allis Fire Department could put the fire out with minimal damage to the building we're grateful for their immediate response to keep students safe and protect the school from further damage um also from Hale the automotive Dealers Association of Mega Milwaukee um I think everybody knows it is Adam conducted their annual technicians of Tomorrow competition last Friday March 3rd at the Milwaukee auto show in downtown Milwaukee at the Wisconsin Center on bryler purple and typo and Alex Dowdy were one of only eight school teams from southeast Wisconsin that qualified for the competition to Showcase their skills working on cars we're proud to announce that Ryder and Alex under the direction of Auto teacher Mr Jack Hart finished fourth in the competition where they were evaluated in

006our written test Hands-On skill stations and the ability to diagnose and repair problems on a vehicle within a specific time limit in recognition of their overall fourth place finish they want a variety of Automotive tools Snap-on and Cornwell along with the 750 scholarship each to a tech school or 500 in additional tools sponsored by the Wisconsin auto and truck Dealers Association so congratulations to brother and Alex um and there will be a number of other items coming up in the action game that us related to career in Tech uh and then finally um 6.3 updates and information items so uh first response to public comments so during our regular meeting on February 27th it's our last regular meeting public comments included two comments on the Detachment petition from the Berlin residents um the attachment petition

007as everybody knows was not approved by our board um and we anticipate additional steps in the process with the Department of Public Instruction the next step if the practitioners or we decided to appeal um would be through the Department of Public Instruction or um haven't heard anything at this point um we also heard comments about our approach to transgender students which are similar to past comments so there's really nothing new or additional follow-up with there uh School consolidation updates we've been updating all the way through the year here so the first round of teacher selection of open positions so those are positions we know in other schools open through um through students moving or through retirements or resignations so the first round of selection will close on March 15th and then we're working to provide

008notification of placement on March 24th and our goal is to match as many teachers as possible to their first or second choices coming out of that first round but that's not the end of it um right the then they'll be um spring break happens and then right after spring break there'll be phase two of choice openings and they'll start on April 3rd so we're going to monitor resignations retirements are there new openings that occur um and then there'll be another round of choice to teachers that are being displaced because of school consolidations um there that deadline would be April 14th and then notification of placement either teachers decided they want to change or they didn't get their first or second choice so they're still um waiting for the opportunity so that notification of placement would

009be April 21st and we're quite Confident by then all of those teachers will have an assignment for next year and then we go back to our normal hiring process starting with the first and then finally um just other updates I want to take this opportunity to welcome Dr Robinson so our incoming superintendent is with us this evening um and he's joining us all week um so he's been visiting schools he'll be meeting with the board meeting with leadership team he'll be meeting with some local officials um and continuous learning and transition process as our next superintendent of schools we're excited for the future of our school district under your leadership um and we look forward to working with you in the coming weeks and months to ensure you're ready on July 1. so welcome to

010Dr Robinson and that concludes the superintendent's report all right thank you very much Echo that welcome before you move on to call the comments this evening uh for those who are interested and might be watching via Zoom or here in person if you'd like to address the board you have three minutes to do so you must start your comments with your name and your address and uh there'll be no back and forth conversation with the board but if there's a simple question that can be answered or clarification that can be done really after your comments are made that can be done otherwise any additional uh further uh comments or response to your comments will be made by the next word of the Board of Education meeting either during the superintense report or via direct mailing

011or emailing so for those who might be on Zoom there should be a link to the sign up in this chat and I will start with um the only person who's currently signed up which is Mr Steve Brockwell I'd like to welcome Dr Thompson too and I only wish you could start next week or 12965 West Ohio Court New Berlin uh misplays priorities highlight Noah's and Marty's Legacy that resulted in this District's dismal performance worse even than MPS time wasted emotionally manipulating our kids with the imposition of SEL and Dei programs have any disastrous 18 year old issues are on the rise fights and bullying are commonplace and not dealt with properly in the name of restorative justice or because you just don't like the parent Christians about success pandemic has ended our libraries parents

012are afraid to confront you worried about retaliation teachers and families are leaving the district your early affirmation of a child's gender confusion opens the door to puberty blockers cross sex hormones bodily mutilation a lifetime misery and regret rather than dealing with their underlying psychological issues despite the total mess that is this District you believe it is most important not to sight of Marty's tip Marty's re-commitment to equity and social justice in his absurd April 20 2020 letter to the public that coincides with the district's deep decline to that end rather than address the district spending deficiencies you feel the need to further dilute core academics with the New Black studies course that focuses on slavery segregation housing disparities incarceration and education isn't this already taught in history class now let's prioritize preparing our kids for

013their BLM adifa or lgbtq social activism source is used to develop this course feature only leftist ideologues like Harvard and Berkeley College professors who support tearing down historical monuments and our poster children for the anti-American sentiment on today's college campuses the teachers are young to hate this country a biased NPR video falsely claims the Electoral College was established to oppress blacks and other biased resource learning for justice that is a project of the Marxist Southern Poverty Law Center States has its goal to act as a catalyst in the dismantling of white supremacy no conservative contributors where's your diversity no white Asian Hispanic or Native American courses where's your Equity where's your inclusion a public schools of abandoned meritocracy and its foundations of virtue and reason in favor of identity politics and a pedagogy driven by

014this country's Marxist cultural revolution race and gender now Trump Merit in an effort to divide us you're indoctrinating our kids through the Warped lens of the left's grievance industry parents today need to ferociously guide their kids Hearts minds and souls they are no longer safe in our Public Schools foreign I'll sign up currently for public comments I'll wait a few seconds in case someone joined the zoom late seeing none I'll close public comments at this time and we will move on to item eight our board reports starting with 8.1 today is Monday March 13th at 6 PM we have a regular Board of Education meeting newly fun we have a financial stability and efficiency Workshop talking about our other post-employment benefit review number two and immediately following we have a closed session meeting on Monday

015March 20th at 6 PM we have school showcases and immediately following we have a closed session meeting this also showcases are a workshop that are open to the public uh however anyone who is listening from home uh the zoom will not be very useful during that time as we move from place to place as we listen to each school as they give their presentation so if you are interested in coming I would recommend you come in person Monday March 27th at 6 PM we have a regular Board of Education meeting immediately followed by Financial disability and efficiency workshops School consolidation workshops part four and a facilities and grounds overview and the money on April 10th at 6 PM we are working a Board of Education meeting and immediately follow your epic Financial stability and efficiency

016Workshop proposed 23-24 budget and preliminary tax levy number one moving on to 8.2 our board committee reports this morning we have 8.2.1 communication and community relations Mr secretary thank you Mr President uh here's our report from February 27th the last time we met Communications and really community community relations board committee meeting we discuss board policy on advertising and Commercial activities that's our policy 9700.01 excuse me and how it pertains to advertising approval in our recreation guide we discussed the language around educational objectives and we'll be proposing some updated language to our board at a future meeting we also discussed our first ever annual report which we are working on this spring we Revisited our timeline for this report in review stages and the final report coming out late in July that concludes my report very

017much does anyone have any questions for Mr Secrets regarding his report or any suggestion um a couple of financial meetings ago we were discussing about putting a survey out to the families that both are enroll out so we can try to identify what are we missing or what can we add to encourage people to come back um could that be something about Communications and finance we kind of work together on I was putting that out there so is that a suggestion for a future agenda communication survey about older enrollment out of the district and you know where are we what maybe we could have an ad hoc committee for that some rep off of each board more sense because then we've got all voices after the meeting that works [Music] Stuart because I know she's

018been working on it already so okay no no no no no no no yeah so I know yeah that someone was brought up and I believe I do remember from a previous committee report that that was something that was being well yeah we tried up in finances but I'm thinking it'd be a good collaboration too I'll make a point of getting you know getting a hold of her this week and talking about what we did here thank you Mr secretary any other items uh for consideration for future communications [Music] thank you very much Mr Seconds moving on to 8.2.2 life right against the College and Career preparation all right so we met tonight uh right before this meeting um so actually we're going to table the update on the school specialty surveys we just didn't

019have all the data that we needed together so I will provide an update on that um after our next meetings uh next month um then uh secondly um so um there was a suggestion that we created an academic recovery plan um similar to some other districts in the area and we actually so we currently do have some Milestones go our goals in place they're just not like in one place like on paper in one particular document so what we're going to be doing is um Deidre and her team are going to be working on a draft um so it will be a formalized or a public-facing document that would have all of our Milestones goals and then broken down to what our objectives are all those type of things um so she will be working

020on that with her team she'll bring a draft to it at our next our April meeting um and we'll go over that and then hopefully be able to bring something to the board um and then um oh and the other thing about that is we also said that we're going to have the superintendent provide updates on our action our academic recovery plan similar to how we were providing updates with like um the superintendent search the covet updates the um the school consolidation that all that stuff like that so that's the other thing that we will do um we've got a couple of upcoming workshops so on April 17th we'll be having our guaranteed and Bible curriculum workshops or workshop and then on May 15th we'll have our student services Workshop um both of those nights

021are Workshop only so we don't have any meetings so we'll be able to have enough time to actually talk about the services and all the different teachers and instructors and stuff um and then they'll just um as an update our math curriculum adoption Workshop we're actually going to push it back to um uh May instead of April just because we're getting more information more data collection as we're um we're trialing it in the different uh classrooms um and then we discuss some future agenda items so some ones that we're going to include for our next meeting is we're going to get an update on the human growth and development committee work that they're doing um and then we want to start working on developing some transition plans for um as Deidra prepares to leave the

022district so we can figure out um make sure that we're all on board and what we need to do as we transition so that's what we thought okay thank you very much does anyone have any questions for anything that's recorded on or any suggestions for future agenda items seeing the normal box 8.3 board member reports of community events are any events that boardrooms attend this Kaiser um I attended Jefferson ptas um literacy night it was really cute they had kids doing scavenger hunts for Words around their locations they had loads of games um there was a lot of kids involved there was nice to see families of all ages Long Fellow families are starting to come to more things so that was very very nice to see um I just want to thank Jefferson PTA

023has been reaching out a lot which has been very nice for me to just schedule and go all right thank you very much Chris Carr uh I've been out and about in the schools lately and um I attended Jefferson had a pop-up store which was really cute and um really well thought out and and planned um and I was a judge an AKA a shark at the Longfellows fourth and fifth grade Shark Tank Public Presentation um where they shared their proposals for their mock businesses and um and also I attended the kickoff of the youth art month at the public library and then I hopped over to inspiration Studio which I know a lot of you guys attended as well um it's an art gallery two absolutely Marvel at the work of our talented intermediate

024and high school all while being serenaded by our shining strings uh um music students so it was it was lovely no thank you very much yeah um I also actually ran into Mrs Connor at inspiration Studios it was it was wonderful and I found out that my kid had some artwork that was being displayed that he didn't even tell me about so that was a nice surprise it was it was really great it was also wonderful talking with the um the studio owner and it was just great seeing families and teachers there and this community so um if you have a chance um the artwork is um up through the end of the month so check out either go to the West Allis Public Library or inspiration Studios and um check out all the great

025artwork from our students um the other thing I was able to go to is the orchestra valve District orchestra concert and let's see last week Wednesday um it was anytime we have a music event at our in our district I'm always because I can't play an instrument so I'm always like just blown away and it was it was absolutely phenomenal I mean they bring in all the schools you have kids you know from third grade and up and they haven't even played with each other and yet they you know the band directors get up there or the orchestra directors and it's just it was great so kudos to Mary Pat Michaels and community events that they would like to report on so as always I was going to last and most people have said the

026things I was able to attend I also was able to go to inspiration Studios after uh missile Miss Carver there so I was able to present after her to represent I should say uh after other people attended so again the the talent that some students aren't district is quite amazing so I'm glad that we have an opportunity to be able to Showcase that for not only people in the district but for the community as well it was a community event and people were welcome to come in for the public uh there were some people there that I actually saw some people purchasing some of the art from that our students that created which is which is amazing and awesome I also was able to attend the all district orchestra concert which again it's it's amazing

027what our students are able to do and the opportunities they have at such young Ages which is not common in districts in other parts of the state so I think that that is great to be able to Showcase and um I think they did a wonderful job the one different thing that I was able to attend was the 2023 Wisconsin young artist honors Orchestra which was held this last weekend it's held always at Mukwonago high school because they have a fantastic Performing Arts Center there and uh so it's made up of students from across different school districts in the state and they are invited to attend and it's a kind of an all day long thing where they come in the morning and they work together on some some songs and then they have a

028concert in the afternoon so I was able to attend that in our own America Michaels is one of the ones who actually directs one of those acquired for three different ones so it was a great event and again when you listen these districts and some are saying like well some of these students haven't even started playing until they're in fifth or sixth grade they don't have the opportunities that we have at first grade where they can start learning and instrument determining if they want to do it so I think that's again my great Testament and we had a number of students in that Orchestra as well so with that we'll move on to 8.4 uh other updates and information items which is just my thing that I and we don't really I don't really have

029anything new here other than to get welcome Dr Robinson uh he's attending here all week long gonna be meeting with a number of different uh individuals in the community as well as at our schools and so I welcome and thank him for taking the time to do that to be able to learn about our district work actually so that when he is here on July 1 he can hit the ground running and we can really start we'll continue moving the work forward so thank you for that Divine our consent agenda this evening we have 9.1 approval of minutes from our regular board meeting on February 27th 9.2 the employment summary 9.3 supplementary contract and 9.4 approval to issue 2324 regular teacher eligible teachers is there any things upgraded out am 9.5 approval to issue primary

030non-renewal bonuses teachers sorry I just wrote out more uh anyone need anything separated out move to approve second moved and seconded any last minute discussion right all those in favor aye opposed all right that passes I'll move on to our action items this evening with our first one 10.1 technical Excellence scholarship recipients I believe Mr Carr will be talking to us about that Jose here he knows where all the microphones work right Joel [Laughter] well thanks for having me here tonight um we have three uh three uh separated uh items that I wanted to present to you today and um they're all somewhat connected the first is the technology uh excellent scholarship um since 2015 uh technology technical Excellence scholarship has been offered to uh our students here in our district um three scholarships each

031at Central and Hale and then we also have an alternate really interesting this year with the the scholarship award recipients this year um it actually works towards our next group of kids uh when I'm going to talk about the start college now because all of the seniors that are going to get this scholarship this year are currently enrolled in doing enrollment programs so they're already started down that path um really I I've been very impressed with the kids who applied um you know the the it's I say it all the time kids don't realize two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars twice makes it that matters and uh we had it was took some doing had to go you realize you write this application for 45 minutes that's two thousand two hundred fifty dollars that's

032an hour you know pretty good money um and then the kids are like really oh yeah I can do that so it worked out great and so we have uh some some much uh very deserving uh Award winners for Tech Flex on scholarship um they're all cats and Traders and they're all in dual enrollment so that makes them fairly easy to select for that um and start college now we have 10 students who met the March 1st deadline to apply for start college now um so that going into the fall semester these students will beyond the pathway to college their college experience while they're in high school and uh you'll notice on my list of students who are uh who applied and were approved we have three kids and this is fairly new uh a

033fairly different uh somewhat different from our previous experience there's three kids involved in the dual enrollment Academy which is a fairly comprehensive experience in uh dual enrollment so those students will spend the vast majority of their time at matc's campus in construction trades interesting a female construction trades kid in dual enrollment which is super cool um and then two firefighter Academy participants uh they'll be at the MATC campus um starting uh in the fall along with the other seven who you know applied and were granted the opportunity to go to start college now at MATC or WCTC the third um uh thing I'd like to present to you today is we had and we haven't had this before either we have three students who applied to go to summer for uh the summer session for

034the early college credit program which is purely ambitious um the uh one student said well I'd like to take these six classes this summer I'm like um I don't I don't think you can really do that um that's pretty ambitious but uh um so we talked it through and she's going to take two courses and uh but uh I really think when we have students who are interested in moving forward and getting started on their their professional lives and their academic experiences in um post-secondary when they they can do that while they're still in high school we've got to meet them there and I I appreciate our board uh supporting them in that and uh thank you very much for providing them with this opportunity uh the more students we have the the the the

035they're just moving quickly accelerating through their school experience so are there any questions about those three agenda items any questions from the board so just to be clear I originally just talked about 10.1 which is the technical excellent scholarship recipients but we also are looking at 10.2 and 10.3 um together and unless the board has any objections about approving those altogether we can do that but I just want to make sure that we're clear on that for the record um are there any questions for Mr Carr regarding these opportunities for our students for any of the students that have been before as experience or having for these opportunities I just have to say these programs are wonderful I spoke to a community member this weekend and I said you know I'm a board member and

036the first thing they said was thank you for these kids that are doing these CNA programs these nursing programs these tech programs and it just weren't me because it's like it's wonderful that you're the positive and it's nice to know that these programs are being well utilized so that's that's a testament to you I appreciate that thanks yeah it's it's nice to we're you know continue to grow those programs and more kids who get on board and walk in with the industry recognized credential walking out of high school they're going to earn their way through whatever their next gonna be so thank you for noticing that yes appreciate it I'm sorry to jump down I believe I just got going so thanks again I appreciate it I believe in the past we have approved multiple

037together I was just going to move to approve 10 1 10 2 and 10 3. motion once second four times right any any last minute discussion all those in favor I opposed all right that passes thank you very much all right so we'll move on to 10.4 teacher retention and Staffing wait board policy 3131 uh that's Dr Lexington down as well um so go ahead uh so we've mentioned this a couple of times in the past months part of a Titan School consolidations as we've worked through all those Staffing like it described in my updates um as we work through that we also started to really think about the dynamic of teacher shortages these days uh and and the policy that we're asking to have waived for the next hiring cycle really now stands at

038conflict of the Dynamics of trying to find and keep quality qualified teachers um that policy was put in place um because you know we were experiencing declining enrollment we needed to have some process through the budget to identify what positions we no longer needed and then a process that would identify which which teachers are in positions that were no longer needed right so that was the intent of that policy that was developed with the association at the table with principals at the table so put together what we thought was a reasonable and predictable process and then that was cleaned up a little bit in 2010 2021 just a little bit of it was still some subjectivity uh that this board supported and taking that out of the process and so it has served us until

039we hit the dynamic of you know we can't find and keep enough people so we're hoping that by waving this and it's really kind of trying it on for this cycle so that we will still use the Matrix that is here to identify which teachers are going to need to go to a different school because the school doesn't need all of their positions so and that's appropriate in terms of managing the finances well we shouldn't over staff schools because it's a cost we don't need to have included but at the same time we don't want to lose that person because we know there'll be openings through normal attrition through the movement of schools consolidation so that's so that's why it's in front of you this evening to waive that policy but with the understanding we'll

040still use the Matrix we're just not providing non-renewal notices to any teachers that get displaced through the Matrix when you passed they would then have under what you approved in the consent agenda um this evening would have then received a non-renewal notice for fiscal reasons not performance and so that's the step we're not doing if you waive the policy so it would be just for this year and then um we would have to wave it back in you would have to wave it back in if if um a year from now their similar circumstances than the administration would need to come back and ask to have it waived again okay okay so after a year it automatically would go back to you so it'll automatically go back and then just to clarify um the plan

041would be to use Esser funding to do this um what's the plan so if that's a good question because I have talked about that as well and these do overlap so if a result of school consolidations of people moving and this where we're not providing non-renal notices we end up with more teachers than we need from a budget planning perspective that's where we'll use Sr money to keep people um and and then through another kind of normal cycle of attrition that'll balance itself back out we don't want to start to carry permanent positions in the budget that we don't think we need that's part of managing um you know the finances effectively but at the same time well we have the dollars and there's quite a bit of disruption in the system um to provide

042some security to teachers that anybody that wants that's you that wants to be here next year we can cover it other questions so I guess the only thing that I would say is in your opinion because I know you're not if you don't have to worry about this and for a few more months but in your opinion is this a policy that we should think about revisiting as far as how the landscape has changed for teachers is in how that we you know instead of having a policy that we have to waive every year maybe modify it may modify the policy that allows more flexibility for administration to be able to make that that decision based off of what we're seeing and what we have in front of us as far as number of Physicians

043versus number of Staff yeah oh great question so so I would advise that if similar circumstances are playing out you know nine ten months from now then the answer is yes the policy probability in total should be reconsidered and I think given the our decline in enrollment has started to level out the need for these large number of decreases will continue to subside so that would further Aid the the suggestion of maybe reconsidering you know the language change for future years the thing I like about the policy it provides Clarity to staff of how those decisions are made when necessary but the need to do it especially in situations where maybe some buildings need to have a lower ratio for one reason or another at that flexibility isn't allowed at this point with the policy

044and so something that I think you know could be considered future so thank you thank you for that any any additional questions [Music] any last minute discussion all those in favor aye opposed all right that passes thank you very much we'll move on to 10.5 our debt defeasants and we have Mr Norris and guest well I guess I'll start by thanking you guys for having me this evening and with me is uh Mr Mike Clark he's the director of Public Finance at Bear Financial I got that right yeah um so Jill's gonna pass out kind of a debt to fees and schedule that um Mr Clark and his team at there put together for us to kind of give you a a short outline it's a little confusing a short outline of kind of you

045know what from a fiscal perspective what this this proposal would do for our district um um in terms of just cost savings overall like what are the cost savings by defeasing our current debt right there are other benefits which is focus on it's like if you're going to refinance that what do you gain it right this is not refinancing it's kind of removing Our obligation to debt and Mr Clark and I will talk a little more a little bit more about that and so um given that we hadn't had a workshop I put together a few slides to give you some background on what this might mean and kind of how it works so we're going to jump through that and then um we will open up to questions and go from there so uh

046kind of the agenda for debt diffusions is really what what does it mean what is what does defeating debt mean uh number one and then how does it actually work and then we'll take a look at our current debt uh Outlook and the schedule kind of referencing a bit the the the piece of paper that Jill passed out um kind of what are some short and long-term fiscal strategies by doing that um how that fits in with the board approved Esser plan that we we had adopted a year and a half ago and then uh really getting into the resolution for consideration for the board to approve and then open up to questions that you might have so uh debt diffusions is defined as it's a provision and a contract that voids a bond or

047loan on a balance sheet when the borrower borrower wants to set aside funds the sufficient sufficiently repay their obligation for non-callable um non-callable debt really just means debt is only paid at the time of maturity means you can't prepay without losing um the assessed interest that was already guaranteed to the um institution that gave up the loan so callable debt would mean you could pay it off early and you would not pay the interest like most people's mortgages are callable I mean you could pay it early and by paying it early you don't pay the interest right there's an incentive to the homeowner to do that right now and callable debt is kind of the opposite um so that is that um so how does it work so steps to diffusing um I guess fun

04838 dead I make a note here this is not Energy Efficiency debt this is um our debt that remains beyond that okay so um first we analyze what our current fund 38 liabilities are and they remain So currently we have a total of just just under uh four and a half million of 38 non-energy efficiency debt um we then compare and contrast those current debt liabilities to existing cash and the analysis of cash like do we have the funds aside to prepay that what are the benefits of doing that if we prepay that debt does it put us in a financial issue that we may not want to be in things like that so um this essentially tells you if it's possible to defease the debt right and we work with there Mr Clark here

049to um if it's possible to work with opening an account through an escrow agent who can take on the liabilities because again we can't prepay them we can set aside funds or someone can take ownership of the debts um and then make those payments at subsequent maturity dates um since the dead side callable the escrow I just mentioned this can can't simply pay it off this means that once the debt becomes callable they would make the payments at that time and since the money uh since since the escrow agent essentially holds our funds to make the payment the escrow agent then is able to take those dollars and they can invest them however they want and they can accrue interest from those dollars right so by doing that they provide an incentive to do that

050which shows you in blue the amount that we would be required to pay them to I guess um meet a liability with our current outstanding debt which is where you see the net savings by doing that of just under 300 000 by opening this escrow account that makes sense the overview of of what current I guess overall fund 38 debt Energy Efficiency is considered from 38 debt although the funding structure for that operates similar to what is considered uh like similar to referendum debt in that fact that we every year of Energy Efficiency that we get additional dollars from the community in the levy for that so um it just it is fun 38 yet but it operates a little differently so the other three um I guess that notes that we have you can

051see on the left which ones would be diffused and this is as of today we have our next debt payment scheduled here for two weeks so these amounts uh will be reduced once that debt payment which was already planned in this year's budgets we made is made and so the only non-energy efficiency fund 38 debt that is not being paid off through this is the um the Million Dollar General obligation of which we only have 221 000 which really is a hundred and eleven thousand because that this year's April debt payment has not been assessed that makes sense so the bulk of our debt will be um I guess considered paid off through this process um here just a little overview of that kind of a interesting way to look at it um of our

052debt so you can see kind of if you look at 2023 here um you can see kind of the total amount of debt that we have um it's payments by by fiscal year not total right just payments by fiscal year so in blue the bulk of our debt as you would have seen here is our Energy Efficiency and then um kind of in red is the 2015 um Bond and then the remaining are just lesser amounts okay and the reason I show you that is you can kind of see here by making our debt I guess by opening it to season so you can see the line substantially reduces what's left of our fund 38 debt that's remained so essentially all will be left um beginning in April of 24 really after that small amount

053is paid off next fiscal year is is really our Energy Efficiency of which we receive every dollar for dollar for that debt so it's not really um budgetary dollars being used to pay that debt that makes sense so so what are the benefits right so beyond this initial Savings of around 200 or 284 000 there are some additional benefits that we can receive as a district by doing something like this so short term um we kind of hit on this at the preliminary budget is the unknown bilonial budget cycle um we don't know what's going to happen right so by diffusing debt you're essentially freeing up Revenue next year by not having a debt payment for the fiscal year so um you know if the state budget turns out not to be I guess more

054advantageous for school districts having those dollars available are going to be um in in I guess in the premium right for us and so at a time of uncertainty having more certainty is a good thing right so that's that's short term that could also be considered long term but certainly short-term for us is a big deal I mentioned this number two short term uh you know saving 284 000 over the life of those loans are are definitely a benefit to the district it's us financially and then really number three and this is the big piece and I'll get to this in a minute we we have a fund balance we carry and fund 38 at the board in previous budget Cycles I believe it was 1920 set aside a surplus and the reason that we

055did that at that time was because we knew with declining enrollment there are going to be non-recurring one-time exemptions that we're going to have to be able to budget through at a time of you know I don't want to use a crisis but like at that year when those exemptions fall off how are you going to make the budget balanced well the thinking at the time was set aside dollars and fund 38 and that at the time when exemptions fall off you can use those dollars to to not make debt payments which is essentially what this this proposal is tonight right so and I'll show you kind of how the dollars break down in a minute but that's kind of a short-term benefit so long term um kind of a little more philosophical but um

056making the four million dollars roughly debt payment uh in terms of the defeasants it's considered shared cost eligible right so we're increasing in the fiscal year 23 our shared costs well how does that help us well our shared costs impact our Aid in the future years so the following year our shared costs or our Aid is based upon how much their costs we have so um by increasing the amount of expense we have in one year um that's fiscally appropriate you can actually receive more in state aid which will reduce the levy which helps us in a multitude of ways helps the community also helps us with our fund 80 Recreation projects there's a multitude of things that would help so that's certainly a huge benefit for us number two um short and long term

057mention is you know approximately reduces um our projected liabilities in future years but I bought a million and a half next year and then you know a little bit less each year there they're they're uh thereafter um but certainly with a projected at this point based on the conservative assumptions we have with the budget reduces our structural deficit and actually from three million to a million and a half so certainly at this point um definitely a short and long-term benefit and then I mentioned this on both so the dollars were set aside in future years for this purpose so let's look at what exactly this would cost right like in showing kind of the breakdown here so um I kind of Linked In the board approved um Esser plan there which really the one of

058the main structural benchmarks was to reduce our structural deficit and if you can look at the table you know given the amount of extra money we do have which is presented at the last uh prelim budget we're not talking about a substantial amount in terms of comparatively to the extra amount of money we've received right so we currently saved from prior budgets have just uh just just under 300 or 3 million and 225 000 set aside for this kind of strategy right we need four million and it's over four million dollars so we roughly need about eight hundred thousand dollars funds to make up the gap which would then free us of really fun 38 or fun 38 that so really the the recommendation is for the board to consider the um the resolution to

059approve um the debt to fees and strategy without me reading that and uh with that I would I would take questions from from the board for either Mr Clark or myself so savings we see is that going to be over time or is it like a yearly savings like the 284k yeah and maybe you could jump into on that but yeah I mean you can you can really allocate the savings to any year you could spread it over a number of years it's just part of the reduction in future debt payments that you'd have that you're eliminating um the savings comes in immediately because you're making a payment today of just over 4 million towards an obligation that's roughly 4.3 today so you're generally you're generating Savings of this fiscal year if you take action

060it's a cash flow State Savings over the next four years so you could spread out over four years if you want but it depends how you look at it it's a total your total payments over that period of time are reduced by the 285 000 okay but you're just you're just like getting that amount up front though so this kind of eliminates fund 38 because we're using it to pay this minus Energy Efficiency exactly right correct yes yeah and it is also a positive from a from a credit rating standpoint I know the district we've come a long way last few years as far as your credit rating and um you know eliminating debt even though your debt load is very low given your size um it's a positive from that standpoint as well I

061wanted to mention yeah so just to be clear forethought of this District board and administration in years past has a lot of money to be set aside that will allow us as a district or Board of community to save 284 000 plus dollars in debt that we would have had to pay anyways by putting this into an escrow fund we paid off over the time period as necessary it will in turn turn around and provide more money that we can use directly back into classrooms because now we're not paying 1.5 million dollars and then whenever it is over the next four years immediately essentially in the next over the next course of the next fiscal year because we're essentially paying off that that fun 38 debt that is not related to energy efficient so that's

062correct all right I just want to make sure so it's a good question yeah it's a good summary of what this is yeah dictionary we're saving we're not we're not let's say the same taxpayers money because it's money that we're paying either way however we're reducing my 24 000 so that money is money that we're not having to pay so it's like a discount on that debt and you may in future years given the share cost increase actually save the community money in the subsequent year by receiving increased Aid well that's true right so for one year you you know the eight you get the eight spikes so you know that would help the community so does that mean for one year it might go down then maybe it might go up back up a

063little bit the mill rate yeah I mean it's possible but you know given the state budget things like that it's uncertain fund 80 you know things like that so we know that's a possibility and not because we did something wrong but correct yes we did something right yes something right yes yeah important to note um any other questions or comments so obviously I'll look for the motion yeah so that was the presentation and then there's specific language which I will read and then look for emotion and second not bad on that language so before I do that because that's something we're going to take action on doing this the seasons and whichever one understands it has any questions they want to do before I read that and move into action it's good so then I

064would look for a motion a second a resolution authorizing the transfer of funds the establishment of escrow accounts perspective and the defeats of the taxable General obligation the funding Bond refunding bonds series 2015 a it is February 26 2015 and the defeats of the general obligation promissory notes series 2015 C A did September 16 2015. movement seconded any last minute discussion and then we will have to do a roll call Vote for This yes Mrs Lee Yes Mrs Carr yes Mr sikich yes Mr Becker yes Mr Keller yes Miss deal yes president Lee yes that fast thank you very much excuse me great thing for the district moving forward efficiency on other post-employment benefits review number two Mr Morris Once Again grab the packets quick ly [Music] Joe [Music] very efficient problems okay I thought

065it was just fun and safe by starting down there you go yeah I just want to first start out and say that uh Ken's Astra who is here at the first presentations out with uh I think his whole family's sick tonight stomach flu and maybe covet I'm not sure yet he's waiting on the test so it was at the entire tournament yeah my son's entire team yeah I know yeah he said he'd spoken with you I know his son's test came back negative for that so no no need for consent yeah either but it's like a stomach bug yeah so um but he sends his regards and apologize for not being here tonight he's been really instrumental in the process as you guys know and he's been with us uh working through this um you

066know from our first workshop and before that to meeting with the executive Association leadership and focus groups and the uh the all staff presentations we've had so just just wanted to make a note that he made every intent to be here but could not also want to take time to thank thank you guys for your patience and your support this has been a long process that almost expanded a full full year here so we're coming full circle but also want to thank the my my team who just uh Jessica's not here but Jill Rakowski are retiree benefit specialist is here this evening she's been you know helping me read retirement language here for the better part of three months so you know we're our eyes are getting a little getting a little glossed over but

067we're here and so ready to go and then um Michael Kors District accountant and then Jessica Johnson our benefit specialist for active employees um and also want to thank our teachers and staff who have you know worked after work to be a part of the process and come to focus groups and take time on the PD day to engage and ask good questions and it's just I feel like we've been very very thorough in giving people opportunity to to to meet and engage and take time to ask questions and I feel like that's really important because this is a big deal this is a big decision and so uh with that uh let's jump in so so the presentations uh is has some similarities to our first workshop and I know it's been um a

068number of months since you've heard this last so I do have some things that might be a little redundant and things you've heard before but overall a lot of new things to talk about this evening so we're first going to talk about the timeline of events which got us here this evening number two kind of dive into a little bit of The Proposal again to get your brains back in that not that you've they've left but it's been a long time um talk about the survey results that we got from staff both pre and posts to give you guys a sense of like where where are people on benefits before they heard this and where are they after it right and this tells I think us a lot of good feedback about what we can

069do in the future because like our benefits are very robust and I think very very competitive to the regional average but if people don't know them that does not make that that's a problem right so we've learned a lot the process too which which uh has sediments around why you go through processes like this right um talk about a little bit about the revised retirement language um and then we'll talk about the fund 73 trust and the cash flow analysis next steps and questions and so before we get in I'm just going to kind of highlight this packet in front of you so on the left side of your packet is the best thing I'm sorry the sample investment schedules that you received last time so just kind of a another piece there and then

070on the right side is our what our draft at this point updated retirement language that I think does a better job of visually showing you kind of um you know what what the plan was what it is now what are the groups kind of who gets what and then the second page is kind of the Define language that kind of provides Clarity and examples and explains and things like that so we've been working with um uh John Shores you know guys I'll know John Shore his firm has someone that specializes retirement language so I've been working with um Kelly on on that and getting this updated and ready to go so this is kind of some light reading I won't go in depth on these this evening because they are redundant a bit but um

071to kind of give you an example all of that will be in the presentation this evening okay so Timeline review this is kind of speaks to the year that we've gone through so not quite a year but may so we began in in May of last year with the Actuarial study which took some time we'll have to engage again around that should the board take action to approve to have our essentially our open liability re-evaluated um but that that began in May and then really um beginning in May through pretty much the entire summer there was research development of the open proposals Regional Regional comparables and essentially waiting for the Millman study to come back to get us a sense of what is the cash flow um analysis around that so um that came back

072in November we we met with the board um everyone here on the 19th uh just prior to Christmas for the first Workshop we had our meeting after the holidays with the executive Association to go through the proposal and get feedback there um from there we we had an um an optional employee focus group one in January a principal cabinet presentation end of January um a second Focus Group in the beginning of February and then really we had a full day um development with all staff all employee groups on the 13th which is during the work day and then that leads us here this evening okay and then pending board feedback um this evening we would look potentially to move to take this to action at the end of the month and then there's some other

073subsequent things that would happen you can kind of look through this here and see you know um to open a fund 73 trust there's a DPI approval process that takes place for the minutes from the future meetings similar to our fund 46 they have to be read in a legal opinion has to be drafted that this was uh I guess the procedures were followed and from an unbiased source and then from there we would look at creating the actual HR accounts opening the trust depositing the funds and then my goal would be by the end of the school year all staff who are eligible to receive a statement so that way they could see that um um kind of as they exit for the school year so that's kind of the timeline leading for today

074um I didn't mention but I I would prefer questions being held to the end unless there's a pressing one just so we can get through this timeline okay so what is opeb we've talked about this so the definition of opeb are um there is an acronym which refers to other post-employment benefits these are benefits other than the pension distributions that employees May begin to receive from their employer once they retire so opeb is is local and it is separate from the Wisconsin retirement system um so other companies other areas of employment across the country they look very similar so private companies have hras 401k stock options and in school districts I really broke that down before pre-act 10 and post Act 10 because benefits um existed but they look different um preactin and post X

075and given the funding restrictions that occurred at that time so pretty much preact 10 everyone had the same thing in terms of compensation salary schedules health insurance at retirement sick Leisure as a service and those things have changed since then given that funding reduction um and in some school districts post-section don't have any benefit here right um and some do and some have Rich and Rich plans and some have not rich plans so it's a variety but the theme is districts that do use things like HRA they have early retirement options and then some have sick leave so the theme is that you've you've likely heard of these benefits but maybe never have them heard them call opeb so um kind of a branch off Marty's earlier approval of the reduction in force process being

076waived is that you know quality benefits today are probably the most important thing we can talk about in the terms of retention of staff and so um with the national average of teachers leaving the profession or accepting other positions in the 20s mid to high 20s whatever it looked like this year it's coming up um you know having good benefits for our employees are good for us and them right we need people to stay that want to work in our district and we need to be regionally comparable or better to keep them these days so um you know that's to be honest that's the best reason to have something that's good that attracts staff and um the thing I'll get to later is the best benefits of the ones people use and we're going to

077talk about that in a little bit so just be really close to Crystal Clear opeb is local retirement benefits and it includes the things I mentioned and the Wisconsin retirement system is a a trust outlined by the state of Wisconsin that is um it's accessible to all public entities um with the subtraction of Milwaukee County but um it has its own separate eligibility investing and has nothing to do with this presentation just to be very clear for anyone in the room or watching uh online so kind of getting into what the issue is with our current plan um so an unfunded benefit is really just that unfunded it's funded at the time of retirement and it's a benefit paid out to an employee at the time of retirement so unfunded means that we don't budget

078for that employee at all until they retire and then the whole obligation comes due well that is bad for fiscal practice and it is the opposite of how every financial advisor would advise anyone in this room to practice for their own fiscal Health right they advise you save as you go and you make plans around what your needs are and then you save according to those plans well that's the issue with unfunded benefits are that they're unfunded so that's kind of the underlying issue and so um given that it's unfunded districts at the time of reduction of Revenue in Act 10 moved away from unfunded benefit practices to defined contributions or the removal of all benefits right those are the options um but you can see an unfunded benefit is is something like Insurance because

079if I an example if I said to you someone at 25 is guaranteed insurance at retirement and I said what would that cost you in 30 years you would not know I do not know I could guess I'd likely be wrong but that's an unfunded benefit it's increasing an amount you can't plan for it it's impossible to make a a wholesome budget to do that so sick leave is similar not as not as egregious as insurance but similar in terms of that so um that's kind of an example of that so why is it proud Mac I hit on this a bit unfunded benefit practice really really across the board ended in in post Act 10 era here um there are some that exist we have one ours was redeveloped in 2011 to reduce the

080amount of unfunded practice but remains unfunded right um and so the the thing here that um I want to mention so in 2021 which that's the last data we have at this point from from bear is our district ranked 90 through the 92nd percentile for all pet benefits meaning that we're near the top in terms of the rich richest in the states and back comparatively to salaries um we rank the 28th percentile which shows you kind of the the extremes were that we're at in terms of um offering people good benefits at retirement but then not offering maybe regionally comparable salaries to people during active employment so that's kind of um I think an important point to make and to talk about um but overall what does that mean for our budget well we budget

081about three and a half million dollars of each Year's budget for people who don't work here which is an obligation that we've taken on and so trying to figure out a way to to reduce that will offering competitive benefits to then maybe repurpose those dollars to solve a different issue is kind of some of the thinking right here so um that's a little bit about kind of why it's an issue right so this this slide we had we presented on this in December but this this is a great visual to highlight that exact issue right and so um as you can see here I've broken up into a bar graph or you're our staff by years of service and bands so we have staff who you know local years of service you can see Zero

082to five just just under or just over 40 percent of our staff today are in year one or up to year five and then you can see that declines to six to ten to about a quarter 11 to 15 that gets cut in half again and then 15 to 27 and then it jumps up um for the staff who have 20 plus years um just just under 15 so some fun some fun data what does this mean so the average age of a teacher in our district today is 34 and when this group of Staff who are in years 20 or more are retired um that age goes to 28. and so so for those of you in the room who are teachers who have been teachers who know teachers you know um graduating at

08322-23 and being considered a veteran staff within your first five years is not something that's it it's Unthinkable a bit to people who have been in the profession for a long time so that as I mentioned before our first Workshop our current our current retirement benefits fiscally at this time are not an issue right but this is a problem right so if this problem were to somehow be fixed they would become a detrimental issue because the reason they're not is because people don't state to retirement here so our liability at retirement is less because very few people make it right so um that to me and I'm sure to you here there's not a goal of the organization to not have people make it to retirement the goal is to get people here early and

084have this District remain um a destination in a place that you worked your career if that's possible so um just to me this isn't really a powerful slide to talk about and to highlight because I think it's it highlights maybe the issue right as opposed to some of the proposals we'll talk about so uh kind of another way to show costs over time so you can see as I mentioned before is The Proposal hasn't changed from 2017 which is the beginning of this graph to 2026 assuming that nothing changed it how is it possible that our liabilities would be decreasing if everything that's unfunded is increasing well it's because people aren't making it to the end so our actuarials look at our retention rates and look at the number of employees who've started and ended

085here and they go back 10 years to develop what they believe is a reasonable number that they believe what it will cost us with the increases of health insurance and they've shown that hey in years 23 and and forward it's going to decrease the the bubble in here is the early retirement window so we had more people retire earlier which makes sense and our liability gets taken off the books early right and then that that also is due to some of the drop but you know um overall this these two graphs kind of speak to each other a bit right and so just kind of to connect that a bit um lost ratio so I hit on this before the first Workshop too so um health insurance companies use what's called a loss ratio to

086determine what your premium renewals are in future years so um a loss ratio is essentially like how many people use use the services that are provided by the insurance company right so if you have a a one school district and everyone goes to the doctor all the time your loss ratios probably through the roof and if people don't go at all it's probably not very high so some of the thinking here was my hypotheses when I got into this was that given that we've had an unfunded benefit practice dating back to who knows when right or staff who retire are able to access insurance it is the hypothesis question is it is our premium renewal higher because we have retirees who access the insurance more frequently than active employees who are younger has that driven

087up the cost for our active employees getting back to the total compensation question right so um initially in 19 you can see here I was wrong in 19 active employees or their loss ratio was higher than our retirees so to give you some sense about the numbers here an 80 loss ratio would represent a zero eighty eighty five it depends on the company and you know we're a larger client so 85 percent we might receive a zero increase right things like that but 80 is usually the kind of the number that districts shoot for 80 85 because that represents a zero percent increase right so if you assume 85 is zero 95 is 10. 10 right so um you know anything over 90 is you really want to try to get it below that right

088just kind of a goal it doesn't always happen but it's cool so in 20 uh 2020 our active employee loss ratio was 80 or retirees was 113. um in 2021 it got closer again 98 uh just under 98 and a half to 100 and then in this year through March um I was 71 to 157. so you know over the over over time I think it's evidence that our retirees loss pressure is higher than active employees to what degree you know the last one is probably some degree of outlier high cost claims that's an egregious difference I don't believe that statistically would hold true quarterly but um I think it's certainly you know I think it's certainly true that it does cost active employees more in their premium renewals than it would if they were

089not right so just just a point to make I don't think this is a a deal breaker by any means but something to consider okay so getting into the staff survey so this is kind of the exiting the part of the details of the plan that you heard last time this is more of now getting into what if what are staff saying and so um I broke this up into pre and post so this is pretty quick to go through but I wanted to when we get when we got to having the February 13th PD day and staff that attended the focus groups the PD day and when the we met with the uh executive Association leadership they all had the opportunity to take the survey too the pre-survey was only available on the 13th

090for all staff to take at that time so my my thinking was I want to know what people know about this before they hear 65 slide survey Because by the time you leave you listen you probably know a lot right and if you don't listen you probably know more than you did before you came so what do they know right so I asked three questions um number one I understand the benefits I will receive when I retire from the West Allis School the West Milwaukee School District overwhelmingly staff in the room across all employee groups 75 said they said no they do not know I even included I think so like how many think you kind of know right 20 thought they kind of know and five percent said they knew they knew like certainly

091knew right so this this tells me something right that educating staff and having time for staff to hear this information uh more than once a year in an optional session is probably something that we need to take feedback on to to have this be available and to make this more of um well-known data because it's it's it's a really good benefit and I think people should have the right to know about it I think it informs decisions so question two I understand the benefits I received when I retire from the Wisconsin retirement system right a different question but yet again two reasons I ask is one separating this is separate we're talking about two different things okay and I want to know do people know what they get when they retire because we've 20 percent

092Across the Nation are leaving the educational field well the Wisconsin retirement system is a great pension system so there's more to the story here Beyond West Allis but in education that there's benefits for um for fiscal reasons to stay in education right so I want to ask that because I think there's more we can do it there too so last question was I know how much is taken out of my paycheck for insurance every month like why would he ask that because our health insurance is a benefit and the best benefits are the ones you use well the data here shows me that staff that use our insurance no one know what gets taken out so to me if we engage more around what our benefits are in terms of retirement staff should should start

093to use that as a piece of data to make decisions around like is this a place that I'm going to continue to work for is it worth it right from a financial lens right because a lot you know if you could if you include I think so and yes that's 72 percent of people either know what they pay or think they know what they pay versus the opposite being true here so there's a definite Gap right of people that use our benefits know what they're using and how much it costs them and the ones they don't use which is retirement benefits they don't know so certainly something a piece of feedback that me and my my team learned here which is uh good stuff to take into the future okay so then post survey we

094asked a little more questions because this is more plan specific right so number one based on today's presentation do you feel you have a good understanding of why we are looking to restructure this benefit so um about 300 people took the survey um we offered it to everybody um certainly can't make people take it but 300 people is a good sample size um 86 of the people that took this said they do understand why we're looking to do it I asked every question is besides vesting us yes no one indifferent because some people that came to the session right they may leave the session saying this this proposal is no better or worse for me I still like it's great I can retire at 57 but I need to work 62 because I need the

095insurance well then you came and you left no better because your current proposal says 62. so if that's how long you have to work I would argue maybe you are a little better because you have the option every year but you know um that's why I included in different I didn't want someone who I didn't want someone who doesn't care to write no right because that's not accurate so that's kind of the structure here um question two overall would you support the proposal 70 just over 70 said yes um 24 percent just our 25 sitting different and then the remaining um uh group said said no do you support Lauren the retirement age 62-57 so a bit of a softball but you know you want to ask people what they think right so um overwhelming

096majority said yes here currently the proposal does not change sick leave payout meaning that we offer sick leave at retirement if you meet the the 20-year and the age requirement and um a large majority against that they support no change mean that they prefer the benefit that's in place and they prefer it in The Proposal which we have best thing's a little harder to read so I'll talk about this a little bit more in depth here but we asked um we asked the question here for staff to Priority rank four different options for vesting and uh we came up with these options based on what other districts offer and so we just put them all together and said what do you think so uh for me to kind of explain this best so blue is

097number one their most preferred red number two their second most preferred Etc et cetera green being the least preferred right so um you can see at the far right 100 invested only at retirement meaning that you only get anything if you stay until you retire the most people thought that was the least preferred option okay so really how I looked at this was which option has the most green or the most blue and red well that's option one in option three so option one um has the most because it's the most blue and the most red right which has best thing as early as five years the first one is five years twenty percent ten years 40 it increases by 20 each each five years and then in option three it's uh 25 um 25

098at five years ten years is 50 there's no benefit at 15 years that's additional and then at 20 or 75 and then 100 retirement so just trying to get some data that what do staff think about this right I'm not this this is an example of something that's very specific to specific school districts trying to solve a specific answer right so it's different so there's not really a best practice recommendation I can make so the best thing I can do is is what are people saying and then we can have a discussion about that so question six instead of offering any retirement benefits um staff could receive a three percent salary increase is that something you'd support essentially meaning that there'd be no benefits for staff at retirement so um overall mainly Seth thought that

099was not something they'd support so that's kind of that data and then um as I mentioned before I wanted to ask this question because I think like I mentioned before the pre-survey I think there's an opportunity here for us to provide more operation related information to staff during the work day we did this with health insurance transition it was very well received it was optional at that time before PD with breakfast maybe breakfast was the thing who knows but people came 300 people showed up for that so it's really great and we want people to engage in their benefits because when they do it provides them with a more clear picture of like how are we offering all Financial components as compared to other districts because it's more than just salary right so overwhelmingly staff

100thought yes we would love more information during the work day and so that is a takeaway that I will take back to my team to craft a schedule and to work with leadership and learning and Dr Robinson to make that happen in future years so I think that's if anything we learn I think this is a great takeaway for me so okay revised retirement language so um getting back to the goals like what what how did we develop these this plan so the goal statement I think with any good system you have to have a goal and then you have to have priorities that drive you in that direction because when they're competing interest and go back to the priorities and any decision was made around a priority so goal statements shift as many active

101employees to our current plan design to a defined contribution HRA while providing staff with a high quality meaningful benefit so Regional comparable all those things um priority One offer a rich comparable benefit to our current retirement package so everything your everything you've heard from the first Workshop to today is based off of our current retirement package so all the numbers the data the fine contributions it's all based on that um decrease future open liability by committing dollars during active employment lowering the retirement age to align with your school districts the next one is about honoring staff within five years of retirement essentially we don't want to change their plan we feel like you're knocking on the door and you've probably made plans with family and your financial advisor and so I I don't think that's

102the right thing to do and that's consistent with other districts when they have made these changes right we talked about the loss ratio um reducing loss ratio aligning with our district goals of fiscal stability and then really providing all staff with a high quality post-employment benefit that in future years recommits the staff recommits the savings to staff compensation because it's an issue and I think balancing that out is a is a priority of administration and the board so okay so what I did for each employee group I broke it into a table to be as readable as possible so you could see um kind of the different groups because as I mentioned before we simply we simply don't have the dollars saved to shift every employee in the whole district from our current plan to

103an HRA Define contribution um to do that would be you know in the 15 20 million dollar range um it would be very costly so other districts who have done this um have either I believe Marty you could speak to this go on to referendum do something like this I believe that's what Sherwood did during Marty's time there or um have phased use a phased approach which is exactly what this is right a phased approach um in trying to to move the needle and then in subsequent years new staff enter in this new proposal right so it's kind of the spaced out approach so what the reason I spend so much time on this slide is because they all look very similar in subsequent slides so what you'll find are there's either going to be

104one two or three groups depending on the employee group and so you can see group three here for teachers this is kind of the grandfather group right groups that is 57 in Age by the end of the year and is in their 15th or more year right meaning that they're within the the 62 and 20. they're five years away or or they're already at that right we're proposing no change to their health insurance because they're grandfathered in no change they're sick leave their current retirement age that's 62 and the number of employees so you guys get a sense of how many people that's 30 people right okay I'm a gender group I'm an object at group one here so group one is staff that are um really it's less than six years they're in their

105fifth year or less so five and a half would be in here you know but not six right they'd be moving to an annual contribution of two thousand dollars per annual year and then any year like if they're in their fifth year well they would have been paid two thousand dollars their first year their second year their third year but they also would have gained interest in those years so when other districts regionally had done this they've honored a five percent interest rate to do that so that's what we have suggested here this evening so you can see for this group of people group one they would have received no change in sick leave and then toward the 57 and then you can see about 276 total staff about half as I mentioned before half

106our staff for under five years that's about half right it's kind of the data flushes itself out and then everyone in the middle right to try to move um to move forward to um to to bring that group in as well so teachers uh with six years of service but under the 57 and 15 they're not quite old enough and that great right um they currently receive five years of health insurance monetized at the time of retirement which is currently valued at seventy seven thousand dollars today right what we're suggesting is when that group is eligible to retire they would receive the monetized amount of what that health insurance would be so this group actually gets the the power of time value of money right so we know through our renewals every year health insurance

107goes up six seven eight percent a year so this group if someone were to retire in 10 years they essentially get the they get the increase that we get so in 10 years 77 000 might be 96. that's what they would get in a monetized amount right like how does it help us well that actually helps us in future years lower their loss ratio for active staff it's removing staff off our insurance right so um that's kind of the explanation for group two best group also receives no change in sick leave and then also receives a reduction from 62 to 57 to be able to retire earlier so um about just about the same number of staff are in group two is in group one and then at the bottom of this slide which is

108in your packet is kind of the retirement language that's been updated uh administrative proposal so same kind of structure right group one two and three um and you can see the The Proposal is is essentially the same and the number of employees the majority of employees here are being moved to the HRA that's the goal of the plan move as many people as possible um that's that is that's that so I'm gonna try to move through these a little quicker just because I think they're easy to understand now that you can see the structure at will similar structure here um so the majority of Atwells here will be moved to the HRA as well 47 versus five people in group two and five people in group three [Music] maintenance and cleaner EA and secretary I

109just want to like highlight these by saying this is that when we started looking at these open proposals I mentioned this before is maintenance cleaners EAS and secretaries all had the ability to receive two years of health insurance at the time of retirement should they meet age 65 in 20 years with the caveat that the insurance could only be paid to them if they weren't Medicare eligible right but the requirement at the time of 2011 the district said was that you had to be 65. well that is that conflicts because if you get two years of health insurance until you're Medicare eligible but you can only retire when you are Medicare eligible you actually get no insurance you actually receive no benefit so that is is why this is the only these three slides are

110the only slides or the benefit currently does not match the proposal because the current benefit is is is not something that any one of us would support having staff that are maintenance cleaners secretaries and EAS receive no benefit at retirement I don't believe is in the best interest or meet the priorities of our goals which is to provide high quality comparable benefits to staff to retain them that is not that does not check any of those boxes so what are we doing about that the proposal is that all staff in these buckets be moved to a defined contribution HRA at 500 a year which is consistent with area districts for support staff they would be back paid for the number of years they served in the district at a five percent rate and you can

111see the number of employees here we're also suggesting that we lower the retirement age to be consistent with all staff there's no reason in my opinion that someone who is in a different employee group other than teacher at one administer be required to work longer than anyone else to me we're all employees it's all the same retirement age and that to me is consistent with other area districts who've been moving to that um so you can kind of see the number of employees here that would be receiving a benefit and um to me it's something to celebrate if we the board approves us so okay financial analysis getting here to the end here so um I kind of broke this out it is halfway Mr Norris we're moving through then sorry so teachers um you

112can see the benefit here um so 276 employees we moved to the HRA and that cost with interest is just under one and a half million and then an annual contribution which is really the two thousand dollars multiplied by 276 for 500 000 a year roughly administrators uh 28 employees 640 000 are um I guess catch-up contribution at Will's similar proposal here 47 employees um 613 000 interest 750 with interest um cleaners um you can see an annual benefit of 4 500 so nominal amount of money but really beneficial to that employee group this is what I want to highlight here so 44 employees no interest 219 with interest 419. that tells me our EA group has 44 people who have dedicated a ton of time to this District because the only way that that's

113possible for that number to be double is because the time value of money right so interest multiplies and so that's a group of people who are are more than thrilled that the board is hearing this proposal this evening because um they've been here a long time so and then maintenance uh similar proposal as I mentioned before in secretaries as well so the in total the in total the cost to do something like this uh with interest is is just under 4 million that number um that's as high as it would be you know we have to vet these out by each employee we have to dive into every employee to go you're you're a third year principal you were a teacher for eight years you worked for the wreck for five we have to go

114back and and attribute the amount by the employee group they were by each year with a thousand employees right so this number today is is is um I don't want to use the word surface level but it's a very conservative number based on current employees in their current positions right so I expect this to drop a few hundred thousand dollars by the end of the year by the time the analysis is done but but that's a substantial up that's a substantial amount of work and we are up to up to the task but it will take time to do uh and then and then you have to factor into the retirements resignation so there's moving pieces here but that's the total um catch-up contribution to do this and then an annual amount of uh 776

115000 before the vesting because people leave early and then those things change so I kind of broke this out this kind of shows you again the same kind of thing but I want to mention here at the note the reason I brought this up the note here is that in in June 30th of 23 the board committed additional dollars for this proposal uh which some total seven million dollars in committed fund balance you might ask the question well if it's seven million why aren't we moving enough people to have seven million well the reason that working with Baird we recommended not doing that is because we're lowering the retirement age for all employees so we might see an uptick of staff that decide to retire in the next year or two which would be inconsistent

116with the Millman study right this is this was this this proposal changes that plan so we have to have dollars set aside that are not in the budget to be able to honor that unfunded benefit and so um and we could be wrong but it's better to be wrong and have the dollars to make good on the promise than to not be and then have to carve dollars out of the current budget or fund balance to do that additionally so that's kind of some of the thinking behind the proposal and then the sample we won't go through these are in your packet around what that would be but you can see that each proposal is linked with the sample vesting just want to highlight here a sample investment of an HRA at two thousand dollars

117current benefit 77 000 you can see two thousand dollars over 30 years assuming a five percent rate provides a hundred and thirty two thousand dollar benefit the reason I mention that is you might think well why are we offering a hundred and thirty two thousand dollar benefit if the current benefits seventy seven thousand well seventy seven thousand in 30 years is going to be very close to 132 000 I believe it's 128 000. so providing a comparable benefit that Maps out in the future that's defined that we can plan for makes very very good fiscal sense so same thing for 500 too so cash flow I'll start with the trust so to give you a little bit of background about a fun 73 trust a fund 73 trust is considered an irrevocable employee benefit trust

118designed for um other post-apoint benefits and the reason I bring this up is because you know um a trust really provides to me transparency to staff it's the dollars are in the trust it's a legal document they cannot be taken so a future a future board a future Administration cannot go back and take that they can change the current plan but the dollar is committed to those employees is theirs and there's some knowns and some transparity those staff knowing that these are theirs right um and so to be honest that's how the WR system works and that system has people have tried taking those dollars and have been unable to do that because it's a legal trust and you cannot take it and so it's for those reasons specifically so um there's also some really

119good share costs similar to our other discussion with the defeasants committing dollars into a fund 783 is instantly share costs eligible hence helping us with Aid so depositing four million dollars into a trust will have substantial increases for the amount of age receipt next year which is also beneficial given the recreation project we've been working on right so there are other benefits Beyond doing it but another uh benefit there cash flow analysis won't go too deep on this but you can see in red at the very left to start this is 3.8 million which is they're in fund uh fund balance that's committed um and then this year we at this point our projections is about 2.3 million in current year retiree benefits um so you're like well how are you going to sustain this

120well we currently we currently budget three and a half million so you can see here in 24 if you add 2.8 and 800 000 it's about 300 it's about 3.5 million that's where having the flexibility of the other three million dollars in case we see a surge of retirements or we see you know um should we not be able to address the retention issue and we see a number of staff that resign or retire and we have to hire a bunch of people with 800 000 could increase substantially we assumed a 15 increase every year if that's 30 800 000 could easily become age 50 60. so having some dollars set aside to mitigate that wave until we get some you know three or four years of hard data to support what we think will

121happen is really I think helpful recommendations we've gone through these moving these recommendation one to kind of move through as quickly is moving these individuals to the defined HRA contribution at these amounts that we went through recommendation two is allowing staff who are grandfather to remain on their current plan and I will make it I will stop and make a note here that if someone is grandfathered and their retirement age is 62 but now all staff can retire 57 that to me is not reasonable why would I have to keep working five more years in my counterpart so we we do have the option for staff who are our grandfather to opt out of their current plan which is 62 with health insurance to the group two which means they could retire at 57 and

122receive the monetized amount of their insurance the reason we do that is because this should be up to the employee the employees should get to decide what they want to do if they say you know what the five years of work to get that insurance to me is not worth it I would like to take the money and leave early that should be up to them they shouldn't be pigeon holed into that so to me that's a very reasonable accommodation it was asked by employees it was including the first presentation further confirmed I think it's a a great opportunity also staff who receive the early retirement option from the board last February this does not include them that is a separate entity they have until June of 24 to formally retire if they do not

123then they would be subject to the changes that are here in the presentation so option three or recognition three is the group two staff receiving the monetized amount and then recommendation four is allowing staff to retire at 57. all right last piece is here so discussion items So based on the feedback from staff if you were to force my hand this is what I'd recommend which is consistent with what the most responses we got from staff around what a vesting schedule might look like for this but with that said these are some potential vesting options that you know at this point I would maybe pause and engage with the board around what they might think is reasonable because it is like I mentioned before there is not a best practice around this it is really

124up to the school district in its own entity to review their current state to make a decision around what they think is best so this is kind of I think at this time I take a pause maybe if there's a discussion to be had if not I could continue we can come back so comments uncomfortable that's a good recommendation yeah as I say I am looking at these I I would be comfortable with option one um I think it provides an opportunity for our teachers who are you know that five year mark I like that more five-year mark and I like the best in schedules I think option three is too enticing you know like I also in option three I feel like if you're here 15 years you're still vested at 50. I mean

125what's the what's the incentive to say another five years you know five years at that ten years the same amount other thoughts even thought you have lots of thoughts I have lots of fun I like option five that's what I like and I say that because I I have my eighth year classrooms have been in four different students so the the piece of whether or not we're valuing our staff I think if we do have a lucrative retirement piece that lucrative peace should be available to those future people say that with the knowledge that out of our staff we currently have what 276 teachers under five years which by statistics we should lose somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of them and so we're down 110 teachers that's 220 000 that stays on the table

126because they have life choices that need to be made they have things that happen they have care for uh young kids or whatever else and they lose that money if we walk away from us and so I think that if this is if this is truly a benefit that we're going to give them then we should give the benefit rather than kind of like a curatively keep going if you have it there right away it's like no keep working for us we're going to keep paying you we're going to keep supporting you and um and then that money is to our staff it's to the people that are doing work um I think two one of the other things that is a little bit uh disconcerting for me here is the 10-year for your option

127one at 40 so 10 years you have 20 000 you leave and uh you'd get 8 000 of that right this forty percent um but we're also talking that if you come in for your last seven years of service and you decide that you want to uh come in and then you retire from us at seven years you'd actually walk away with fourteen thousand over someone who's put in three years longer and so I don't care for that because that's also saying that our employees that we're wanting to keep and say we celebrate you well if you wait to come see us you'll make more money from us than if you actually come here and stay for us at work for us and so I think there's a few things with this that I don't

128care for um and so I would say that option five where we give the people the money because that's what it is and I think that this is also a matter of equity in that if we're looking at what Equity means where Equity means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome and if we're talking about teachers that are close to retirement for 20 years here um and an equity piece of looking at this is that in since 2000 uh the medium home crisis have increased by 160 percent uh the universities have increased by 134 percent uh for tuition and so if we're talking about

129that growth over time and that Equity component the money that we would have necessarily doing a vesting schedule 20 years ago might make more sense whereas now I don't think it makes more sense because there are more costs that our families are having to juggle because of where they're at um and I also don't think that Equity with having someone come in and retire at seven years uh and get full benefits and someone that works 10 years to not forget that seems inappropriate to me yeah okay foreign retirement every age or eight dollars accessible by the employee what would that not be um it would be whatever is in their HRA so if they left at 10 years they'll do whatever they have in their account would be accessible to them um they would take

130it with a position okay yeah do you know if any district has a policy like that currently I don't know of anyone that has something like that I did ask Ken it is an extension of our committee meeting to look into and at this point he said he had from the districts he'd worked with there hasn't been one that's essentially why that wasn't an option with the survey as I mentioned in Mr Burns um yeah my issue with number five is that I want something that's going to retain staff and having something that if as you continue on the district Rose to me it's more of a benefit to retain staff you have someone coming to leave we just pay money extra money up outside of their salary I don't know how that's helping the

131district retain staff and having consistent people working with our students year after year it's very obvious that the current policy that we have right now are our retirement plan either from lack of understanding of what the retirement plan actually provides because it's very evident that most staff didn't really have a clue about what they were getting unless they my guess had been here for a longer amount of time um although we don't have that data from from the survey results but 75 of people say no I don't know what a big kid if I retire here that is something that you know if if that was properly communicated would that change decision making would people have stayed here I don't know I mean that's a question we can't know any answer to but having something

132where you change it to a policy right that's a that is hopefully going to be also a financial benefit to the district so we can continue on long term but now you don't have something you can plan for right because you have money going and money going out depending on if someone leaves or not versus like oh this person is going to get the five years so we know that that 20 or whatever it ends up being is going to be what's going to be coming out of that eternity so that's that's my concern I want to find what I want is something that as a retirement benefit will actually get people to come here and stay here and if I look at number five I don't see that I don't know why they would

133want to stay here come here a few years and just get some money and off you go like and then come back a few years later and get some money in off you don't so I don't I want people to come at year one in state of year 30. some of the thinking around at retirement to speak to your question Mr Burns is you know everyone's life is just different you know I know people that quick jobs that started teaching at 46 and they came and gave the district 10 good years of work and they decided to retire and I think other districts think that's different that's I'm just being I think that that's what they think if you come here second career you shift you moved and you gave us seven five six seven

134good years you should get every dollar you're retiring you're not taking a job I don't know I'm I'm I guess I'm trying to make assumptions I guess I'm not positive but that seems to be a bit of where the thinking shifts because that's everyone's doing that so a lot of fun it's these are post um employees benefits and so we're looking at retirement and so I think that um resting is very appropriate it says I'm we are going to consider you we are going to uh give you something if you leave because this is really for the long term these are post employment benefits so we have to think in those terms and so I very much for investing and this just to be very clear this is just for HRA like if you aren't

135here for 20 years you don't get sick leave like there's some things that honor those people that spent their 20 30 years here Beyond this right so that's something else to just make a note for everyone listening this is just for HRA right so that's specifically so not to cut you off this car I'm sorry yeah right I I agree largely with Noah here I think if we're going to do something we I think something like option one makes sense I think you need to do something to encourage retention um to me that just makes the most sense and I kind of worry about you know if we have a situation where somebody works here two three years and then they get everything that's I don't know I I just feel as though that's not

136necessarily fair either to the teachers that have been here for 15 years and and they put in that time and now that somebody knew who was here three years and they're getting everything paid out so um I think we have to look at it long term here and you know benefits are an important part of what makes um employers attractive one way or the other um and I just think doing some type of investment in different interval intervals will hopefully encourage individuals to stay a little bit longer and and I don't discount the fact that there are sometimes life situations that dictate the need to make a move um but I I think in terms of limit or minimizing those choices just between districts um I I think this would help help in that regard

137foreign a lot of people look at is a a starting point a lot of times it seems like they come in preconceived notion of coming in for a short term seems to be kind of the feel so I already sometimes feel like they're already only kind of thinking that come for a short amount of time anyway so I kind of feel like that option one is a good middle ground between the two you know like I totally understand what you're saying and you know and know it too so I'm torn between them so I'm kind of looking for that you know at that halfway point and so that's where I look at Option One and go okay well then that way it's like kind of festivals so you get those people that are just looking

138at a place to start to at least go okay well hopefully you can at least get them for the five with the hope that they'll stay longer you know but at least they're not gonna only be here for a three in jump ship and then take whatever they've got so to me I had a good middle ground what's your second are the recommendations that are printed here yours or are they from the committee um you mean these recommendations Mr secret yes right here this is these recommendations would come from I guess a conjunction of both but this is really from our our teams from your information you received from the team this is what then I'd be with whatever number one was yeah because I didn't work on a committee didn't hear all the questions

139or discussions but if you guys did and came up with this as your best number one who might argue and I do I do want to just make a quick Point like this vesting schedule this this this can be and should be reviewed either every few five four five year whatever that may be because we might find that 20 isn't moving the mark and then to Brandon's Point well how much money are we seeing in defaults from that what are we doing with that question of what do you do with it is the question that we should have we should have a discussion like repurpose that into compensation maybe that's the marker that keeps people are maybe 20 in five years goes to 30. we're trying to move the needle on the graph right that's

140the goal I think we would all agree that's the problem so I think whatever we start with might not be what we end up with and that's okay you know so I think that's continuous Improvement yeah you know I don't have to agree with that that's that's the point I was going to make is that the starting point isn't at any point and if you know from day one I've said I want something that will attract and retain staff my actual numbers right seeing our retention right increase over time right once we make a change to a compensation model or to our culpep benefits or to our insurance if we actually see an actual Trend in the right direction then okay but if we don't well then there's no point in continuing on with something

141that's not working right and I mean obviously that's continually requiring the board Administration to continue working and getting feedback from staff and so forth and so on but I think at the end of the day we're trying and we're trying to be responsible and not promise to move and not be able to you know five years down it'll be able to actually deliver it right uh and being realistic about the financial situation that you know all districts really are in but specifically our district is in not that we're in in Dire Straits where we don't want to get there by having a benefit that we can't longer so I agree 100 that you know going with something now should be evaluated as as it gets implemented and move forward and then if it's not showing

142the returns we want then query the staff and say at that point hey we move this here you know what is this what you wanted do you want something different what would it be can we afford that and then move forward from there Mr Becker to that end uh teach your attention I know we talk a lot about we have a lot of zero to fives but we don't have the 10 to 15 so I wonder if there's any if there's any rationality it's a enormous option one but instead of 40 at year 10 maybe we make that up bump it up to 50 20 50 and then 60 80 as it is but really focus on that that group we're trying to bring in um been in a similar sense to kind of head

143uh kind of blur the lines like Mr Burns was saying I wonder if there's any flexibility with with providing something for the the zero to five years people who don't make the five maybe it's not a hundred percent but maybe it's portion they were here that it's something I don't know maybe a bit wishy-washy but I want my cake and eat it too so that's another question though it's like how has that help the district so forgiving we're just actually giving the money oh yeah that could provide to stay okay is that going to increase the teachers we're going to have will that increase turnover you know but that's the thing that that's simple I don't think that's a question that I would ask sorry aab wants to some person I'd also like to just

144point out that I I'm 100 support our teachers and all of our staff but this is also a relationship um as an employer like you know we have to provide stuff to them and you know similarly we provide things for them like I know in my job um they pay for me to get uh certain licensures and stuff like that and I know we do provide stuff like that or like tuition so to me I feel like um asking them to vest or give you know get 20 at five years um I will not support I want that if you're at five years or less getting money this is I think this needs to this is an incentive this is a reason like to get yeah we want to keep people here I just see

145that as giving like just giving out money I mean I think there is also responsibility too to like you know we're gonna give you invest this money then you know there's a little expectation for something back and I understand life circumstances I've been in places where I've lost my job unexpectedly I get that but um I just feel like you know we also we we have to be financially responsible too we know that we don't know what more funding we're gonna get and so I just think it just seems like that would be giving out free money I I would not support that the other piece on the five years is it yeah that this matters but from a consistent consistency perspective the wrs requires a five-year vesting for any match so when you pay

146in the Ws for your one two three four if you keep education you don't get any match just just an FYI the other I only bring that up because I did a lot of compare to contrast there so maybe it's a new point just something to consider Mr Burns um I was just gonna say that I I would like us to be a little careful with saying that we're just giving money away I don't think that anyone really believes that our teachers are paid enough for what they do instead of just saying that we're just giving money away they're they're putting in a lot of time and working even if it's your one two three or five they're putting in a lot of work and so I think we need to also be very careful

147about how we're doing do we want to retain them yes do we want to attract them but none of this is just giving money away what they do is is huge and I'm back in the classroom where I want to be but that's where I am and that's it is a huge price that we put on our teachers uh with expectations of a place there so I think that we need to be very careful about the wording that we're using when we're talking about the financial pieces that comes we're not just getting money away for their service I know but I think it sounds like we're being kind of willy-nilly of like oh you're just your five years we don't want to just waste that on you it's not a waste but we're also making

148a lot of strategic decisions to close buildings to do things so that we can increase their salaries too so it's not like this is one piece of the picture you know this is one part of it we also are putting other things in motion so we can maybe compensate our teachers by paying them more so then you know so what I'm saying I'm just what I'm trying to say is that I know I'm not yeah I understand what you're saying about the language but I don't think anyone on this board you know doesn't realize how hard all of our staff work and I understand that I'm just saying that because of the scrutiny that we've been under and with everything that's going there I think that we should just be careful on how we're rewarding

149that for us because our staff are valued in that even if they're here for a short time they're valued yep and that's why we want to increase while they're here and they're valued these are awesome questions so if you say for five years under this plane you get 20 of something I very rarely very rarely try to compare education to other Industries however in terms of vesting that is pretty standard across the board usually you will have like a five percent or five percent find your vesting period in almost every other industry that I've been exposed to so again I I hate comparing the two because they're different different things but in that regard pretty standard one other thing I want to mention about Mr Becker's comment not having a lot of teachers in the

15010 to 15 range that's 10 to 15 is about what act 10 went to place and so I think that's when you start seeing more mobility and teachers could make a decision about well I'm this far into the process of what used to be right and what depending what changes the district made make a decision if you want to jump ship somewhere else or not versus ATAC tent when you're making when you were new to teaching then there was a wild west which is what we have right now so I think that might play a role into why we see lower numbers of staff for that I mean we'd have to look at all districts to really know or or query the staff who are there for that wrong to know for certain but I

151think that might be playable because Act 10 really changed the landscape of how all of this came about um so not that I've opposed necessarily to trying to give a a larger carrot at that particular point but I think that might be one reason why we see that dip and as a government employee myself I have to wait five years before I get benefit in wrs as well and in fact I didn't get health insurance for the first two months paid for I had to do that myself so that's something that our staff don't have to they can get health insurance paid right away they don't have to wait a state employee I did so I think that's another they're you know teaching staff are are a little bit better off than other governmental employees

152at least foreign so I guess we have other comments on this or that we're looking for some direction about where we want to move from here because we have an action item that would be happening here at the end of the month about moving forward with a plan opening up the final 173 oh I think one thing that'd be important to talk about is the district in the past had an issue with old pet fuss and I know we brought this up before but now we're at this point how is this different than that if we would approve this so the opeb proposal that we're hearing today right and dedicating dollars into what's called an opap truss is really for the purposes of having a defined contribution not an investment right and so part of

153the trust agreement that the board will see at the end of the month is that those dollars go into what's called a fixed interest account so same amount of risk that you have is having money in a savings account or a CD or things like that so versus having dollars tied into real estate and you know other Investments That might be more risky that's the major and main difference um to this so the trust will act as more as a as I mentioned before as a transparent entity that protects people and allow house the district that benefit to share cost eligibility into in years of surplus not have to have the aid hit take I mean things like that it it serves as a benefit to both I believe our staff and our district so

154great question and I'll just not bringing that up what would the rate do we know we have any we wouldn't know what the rate is until we put it in well it's a at this point it's range but a minimum interest rate I think of 1.3 percent but then in better markets like today I believe right now it's two and a half so yeah so I have to check with gun on that yeah anything else so I've heard option one I've production five um again we're not making any decisions officially right now but I guess in general need to tell here and like are we okay with the plan in front of us and the recommendations that we're providing records all right yeah well thanks for your time and very much appreciate it so this

155is kind of the next steps we have is I'll work with my team to prepare these items for action in the 27th and then the schedule that I presented before will take place and yeah it's a long process and appreciate you guys taking the time and engaging with it and oh what services before we excuse me before we take action on this at the end of the month will you have a meeting with the teachers group or whatever team you had just to kind of see how this went I I didn't have intention to I certainly can I'm just asking no no it's a good question no I hadn't planned to given that the plan hadn't fundamentally changed the only one change I did want to mention quick is that this came up as a

156proposal that I believe it was the association it asked about having staff have access to the clinic and I think I mentioned this to my fiscal committee and So currently staff who retire that are honor Insurance can use the clinic so given that we're transitioning away from staff having insurance insurance when they retire that question was can staff use it until they hit Medicare eligibility if they retire with us given that it's going to be a shift like kind of a wash of cost for the analysis I did I think it's a reasonable option and we are at a time where we're looking to get more people to use it I think it's and easy I think it's an easy option to offer staff so but yeah so would we be would that be part

157of the action or is that a separate action it's it's more of a practice it's not like a yeah it's no it's not like it's just a practice we have with staff okay and the tourism preach out to you so that if there's other things that we should be in consideration that we did here tonight uh you know provide that to you so that they could be also included in the action or if there's any additional things that we need to consider sure absolutely well thank you for your time tonight I appreciate everyone thank you very much all right so it ends our workshop for this evening let's take a five minute break so we can get into closed session [Music]