Board Meeting 9-13-21

001all right i'd like to call this meeting of the west south milwaukee school district to order uh mr keller would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you very much suzette will you please call the role yes ms deal here mr sikich president mr keller here mrs carr here mr ustruck is excused mr burns president mrs justin are you remote okay i don't see her let me know if she joins please thank you mrs kaiser here and president lee here proper notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the open meeting laws of the state of wisconsin are there any modifications to the agenda this evening we

002have no suggested changes okay so with that we'll move on into the public budget hearing so uh annually the west southwest monkey school district will hold a public hearing to go over the proposed budget for the 21 22 school year uh as part of that i just wanted to make a few comments about the process this budget went through so every year we want to make sure that we're passing number one a balanced budget and one that will hopefully move forward our strategic plan and this budget uh that we have proposed for earnest right here is actually both of those things um for our strategic plan we had in there to increase our fund balance to a 20 of our general fund which we actually have been able to do over the last school year

003and as such we are able to not have to set aside money in our budget this to be able to get that money saved for us and this is really important to make sure that we can keep a a good borrowing rate when we do need to do any short-term borrowing and it increases our credit rating as well additionally we wanted to increase our budgeting accuracy and caitlin and her team has done a number of measures to be able to do that so that we're not ending up at the end of the school year with money that we could have spent during the school year teaching students providing support to our teachers and so forth and so on and that is another thing that has been prioritized in our budget here today and the last

004thing i want to mention is really an implementation of a new compensation plan something that has been ongoing for a number of years now and this budget does fully fund that new implementation of a compensation plan for our teaching staff so with that i want to pass it on to ms whitner thank you very much so we'll work through our budget hearing tonight this is going to be a high-level overview of we'll start with how schools are funded in the funding formula and then we'll go into all of our various funds in the budget throughout those funds before we do that i just want to start as we always do with our mission statement and this is what drives us in our work every day so every day the west ellis west milwaukee school district

005focuses on equity through deeper learning fosters a sense of belonging and educates the whole child so that every learner achieves success i just want to give a shout out to our board members who do this work day in and day out with moving our strategic plan forward and making sure that our students are successful in life once they leave our schools and also to our administrative team who truly works as a team day in and day out to continue to do the same for our students so we'll work through our budget adoption timeline there's a number of reasons why this is not our final budget today and it's because of these upcoming items so we have this friday is our third friday in september pupil count so we have two official pupil counts in the

006school year one is the third friday in september and the second is the second friday in january so we often just call this friday the third friday count and this is the important number for our revenue limit which we'll work through in a few slides here about how that all works together in our funding formula but that pupil count is this friday and then we have two weeks once the pupil count date is here to submit our final people count numbers on october 1st is when we receive our equalized property values and those are important for both our tax levy and for our mill rate and also our final state aid calculation which is important for the same reasons so that's on october 1st and october 15th and that october 15th date is finally our

007last big piece of our puzzle before we can approve the budget and the tax levy at the end of october on the 25th and then finally once the board does that then we send our tax levy certifications to our four municipalities so starting with the revenue limit computation it's quite a complex formula but it really does boil down to a simple calculation which is the one that you see in front of you right now so i'll work through that kind of at a high level without numbers and then we'll show you what it looks like with our own numbers in it so the basic part of this formula that develops about 90 of our revenue is our resident member fte and this is a three year rolling average of our resident membership times a per

008pupil amount which is dictated by the state um it was when people are sorry revenue limits were enacted in 1993 and then the state adds or keeps them the same or subtracts the dollar amount for the per pupil increase each year within their biennial the state biennial budget we then add in non-recurring exemptions or and or recurring exemptions if there are any and that equals our total revenue limit authority so the total revenue limit authority is the total amount of money that we receive from property taxes and from state aid this is the majority of our revenue the majority of our budget is made up of these funds about 90 of our revenue comes from these this this route so throwing our numbers in here our resident membership that's calculated that our budget is based

009on is 7902 so 7 902 students is the three year average that we're using this year this number decreases by anywhere between one and two and a half percent each year based on our projections and it does the same here from the previous year and then our per pupil amount is ten thousand four hundred and seventy three dollars we talk a lot when the state by is going through their biennial budget process and what dollar amount is the state going to give us in a per pupil allocation within the revenue limit this is exactly the dollar amount that we're talking about when we say those things and the state came forward with a zero dollar increase in the per pupil amount which is this number for both the 21 22 school year and the 22

01023 school year so this this formula will stay that ten thousand four seventy three will stay for this year and for next year we add then in our exemptions and our whole harmless amounts which you can see is a large dollar amount for us nine million dollars which equates to our total revenue limit authority of 91.7 million dollars and as i go through these slides here always look at the last number and it'll be the beginning number in the next slide so this is our basic revenue limit computation and it's quite complex so this is boiled down to a simple formula there's a number of other factors that go into it but ultimately we end up with a total revenue limit authority of about 91.7 million dollars the next piece in the computation is developing

011our total tax levy and this is the revenue limit tax levy so again high level for this one is that our revenue limit authority which we just calculated in the previous slide less our equalization aid and other aids equals the allowable tax levy or through the revenue limit so we saw that 91.7 million at the last number in the previous slide starts off this computation so we have our total revenue limit authority of 91.7 million we subtract out our aids so the biggest of those is our equalization aid and then we are left with our total revenue limit tax levy so 37.5 million dollars the next step then is calculating our tax levy components so we have a fun 10 and a fun 38 component and we have a fund 80 component so we left

012off on that other side with the 37.5 million and so here we see that the total amount between our fund 10 and fund 38 which i'll go into what those mean but it's our general operating budget and our debt service budget those two numbers have to equal that 37.5 million so as we have more debt to pay off in fund 38 that reduces the debt or the amount that we have in our general operating budget in fontaine and this is an example of why when we did our refinancing and we're able to reduce our interest payments within fund 38 that's why this freed up general operating dollars it's because our fund 38 levy was reduced which put more money more money into the fund 10 budget and then we add in our fund 80 or

013our community service fund to get our total property tax levy of 40.5 million so ultimately 40 million 523 991 is our current projected revenue total tax levy and then finally we work through our mill rate computation so we take that total tax levy that we just saw divided by our total equalized property value so that's all of the property values within our four municipalities multiplied by a thousand and that equates to our mill rate so again the last number we saw was the 40.5 million our total equalized property value estimated is 5.03 billion times 1000 equals eight dollars and six cents so we do anticipate i guess i should start by saying these numbers at this point are old even though i'm doing this presentation today when we get go through the summer we get

014more information as the as the weeks go on and so recently the state came out with an updated equalized property value estimate which is higher than the 5.3 billion which lowers the mil rate so we can confidently say that our mill rate will be less than eight dollars and six cents but this is the when we had to submit this budget to the newspaper a month ago these are the numbers that we had so we know at this point the eight dollars and six cents is a very conservative number and will very likely be lower than that and we'll see in our community survey going forward we're using an estimate of seven dollars and ninety four cents for our mill rate for purposes of this we'll move forward with an 8.6 cent mill rate for

015our projections so moving forward into our history of our revenue limit the diagonal line on the bar on the far right is our 2122 projected and we can see how it's been growing over time this is due to a number of factors mainly our per pupil number has been increasing from the state and you can see there's a little bit of a spike in the 2021 so due to the weird nature of our declining enrollment exemption when we last year had more students decline like our enrollment declined by a greater number we actually saw a spike in our revenue that year which is going to come we're seeing now the effects of that coming off so that's why that 2021 bar is a little bit higher than the trend and our 2122 revenue is actually

016decreasing in our revenue limit total amount our revenue limit cap from last year so ultimately we're working with less revenue in 21 22 than we had in 2021 and still working through a balanced budget this graph is really interesting to me um in a nerdy way about the balance between equalization aid and tax levy trends so the the way that the equalization and tax levy works when you take your total revenue limit you subtract off your equalization aid and you're left with your tax levy so if your equalization aid is going up your tax levy generally all factors staying the same is going down so you can see the green bar represents the equalization aid it's historically trending up and you can see similarly the blue line the tax levy is sort of trending down

017there's a lot of up and downs because there are a number of other factors including the total revenue limit authority but generally our equalization has been going down it has been going up and our tax levy then is trending down so you can see the same trend continue in 2122. and i should note too that the equalization aid is not necessarily based on and the total tax levy is not necessarily based on factors that our school district controls the way that equalization aid is meant to work is that it kind of equalizes the property um the need that the property taxpayers have in paying their property taxes so ultimately the state thinks that property the municipalities who have the ability with property tax payers of the greater ability to pay their property taxes compared to

018the state average they consider those property tax rich municipalities so if you are in a municipality that's considered more property tax rich than the average you receive less equalization aid if you're in a municipality that has considered more property tax poor per member than the state average you receive a lot more equalization aid so that's what our graph is showing is that over time we're trending a little bit more property tax poor just compared to the state average and that's by receiving that additional aid over time and then how does this affect our mill rate so you can see our mill rate has been declining over time and again projecting to be 806 again that's a very conservative number will be lower for actuals in 2122 but certainly lower than it's been in the last

019decade so we'll move into the various funds that we have in a little bit greater of detail we'll go through each one and then at the end again we'll go high level total tax levy and total mill rate trending and how that compares to previous years in terms of percent increase or decrease once again so starting with fun 10 font 10 is our general fund so we use this to record our district financial activities for current year operations and this is where the most of our financial transactions happen so this is our general operating fund part of our general operating fund which we kind of consider in our normal routines is fund 27 so we have in the in the 20s we have funds 21 and 27 21 is our special revenue trust fund and

02027 is our special ad fund so in 21 we see school clubs and organizations where an advisor receives revenue from those if there's grants or anything like that or say a teacher gets a kohl's grant which is a pretty often a pretty common one those are fun 21 transactions 127 is our special ed fund and that's what we'll work through in these upcoming graphs and kind of high level budget highlights because fund 10 and 27 are pretty much our how our school functions on a day-to-day basis so looking at just 10 and 27 these are the breakdown you can see here of our revenues so we have 30 in property taxes and then the majority here between these two funds is our state aid we then have much lower amounts in categorical aid open enrollment

021grants and agr is our achievement gap reduction which is one of the largest grants that we have on an annual basis our total projected revenues just in dollar amounts you can see our local sources broken out inter-district payments which is our open enrollment in revenue state sources federal sources and other sources and then i just noted that this excludes the transfer that we make annually from fund 10 to fund 27. so if 127 does not function that's on its own we receive about 28 reimbursement from our state aid eligible expenses so we have to make up the difference with the transfer from fund 10 to fund 27 which is very common in wisconsin school districts so just focusing on the highlights that that are in our 21 22 budget and noah talked through a few

022of these already so i'll just go through this list again and this is what is included as we start to look in the next few slides on our expenditures so we have a 1.23 cpi increase for all returning staff we have a projected health insurance increase of 8.5 percent our health insurance renewal is on a calendar year so that starts january of 2022. however we are working with our health insurance broker right now i know that that will be lower than 8.5 and still working through what that actual savings will be um based on the percent that comes back to us this also includes funding of all components of our new professional education educator compensation model so that includes the initial move to the average so that was based on every educator was put in

023a group of similarly situated educators so that was based on their local their waw years of experience their degree their master's or bachelor's degree and then their total years of experience so wherever they fell in comparison to the average of that group if they were below it and they removed up to that average so that's what that move to the average represents there's also the 200 annual increase for our returning professional educators and then the compensation for retroactive micro credentials so as we know in this first year our teachers are earning their micro credentials for compensation in the next school year in 2223 but at this point anybody who's completed eligible micro credential courses previously is working through their final requirements to earn those retroactive micro credentials this year also you'll note that this includes

024the school budgets only receiving 75 percent of their allocation so that was in a measure to balance our budget with the reduced revenue that we had um so the schools received 75 of their allocation and that's an internal formula that we use an internal per per people and then there's kind of an equity component to it and there's a free reduced component to it that ends up with how much schools will receive in their building budget and then also the leadership and learning and business office budgets were reduced in this process as well we have a new expense for crossing guards so we're contracting with all city management for crossing guards um we previously that was an expense in a management that the city provided and at this point now it's our school district's expense

025so that's about 180 000 in our budget and of course we always have our focus on equity and funding schools with varying varying needs so that's an ongoing certainly as we're staffing in the summer and an ongoing process and conversation as well and then last but not least just in these highlights here is our community survey regarding our long-range facilities master plan so we have our community community informational sessions that are coming up first one is tomorrow night at hail at 6 p.m and there will be three others there's information going on our social medias and is also posted um from an inboard book i believe too so that the survey that will be coming out that the informational sessions are explaining um that is also funded in this budget as well so looking through

026this is just reflecting what we just talked through those highlights of expenses and all other things we've got filled that are within our fontana fun 27 budget as always our salaries and benefits are the majority of our budget so that's very normal 63 of our budget is goes to our salaries and benefits of our staff and then the next largest chunk is our purchase services so purchase services are things like transportation utilities and then also our open enrollment out expense is in purchase services and then the smaller much smaller buckets are supplies capital equipment we have no debt retirement within fund some insurance and then those transfers so we talked about the transfer from fund 10 to fund 27 we also have a transfer in our budget from fund 10 to fund 46 which we'll

027talk through so that's the seven percent that you're seeing there again the dollar amounts so i won't read them all to you but the salaries and benefits broken up purchase services supplies capital objects and capital objects are objects that are 5 000 or more per unit so if we buy 25 computers say we say by 50 computers and they're all 100 and that's 5 000 that's still not a capital expense it's under 5 000 per unit a capital object generally will be a vehicle or if we purchase welding equipment that's 10 000 for example for one item that would be a capital object and there's our total between fun 10 and fun 27 in terms of expenses 124 million 293 427.25 so moving into our debt service funds funds 38 and 39. funds 38 and

02839 are different in one way and that is in 38 this is non-referendum debt so that means the community did not need to support this debt that we incurred 139 is referendum debt so that's that outside the revenue limit it would increase our tax levy if we had fund 39 debt which we do not so fund 38 going through the revenues and expenses revenues in fund 38 are always based on the calendar year payments that are upcoming so in this budget you're seeing the 3.29 million is based on the calendar year of 2022 debt payments that are upcoming and then the expenditures are broken out between principal and interest and those are based on the 21 22 fiscal year expenses and again these were higher and we were able to refinance some of our debt

029and we also pre-paid some of our debt so the refinancing reduced our interest payments that are existing within fund 38 which then freed up some of our general operating dollars which if you think back to the previous slide why that happened was because we reduced our phone 38 levy and were able to increase our fund 10 levy does that directly relate to our increase in our standing for our good credit paying off debt yes so yep so in the credit opinions that both moody's or smp write for us they both reference the debt standing is lower than in previous years and it's kind of a funky situation with with paying off debt because it's not always a bad thing to have it's not a bad thing to have debt and initially when you incur debt

030you might receive a lower credit opinion in that first year but that doesn't mean it's lower forever it's kind of like when you open a new credit card and your credit rating drops initially and then all of a sudden it's good to have that additional debt on your credit on your credit history so it functions in a similar way and then fun 39 here you can see that we have no revenues and no expenditures because we have no longer have referendum approved yet we've paid it all off and this is just a visual representation of that so you can see the light blue bars ended in 1718 again that's the referendum approved that or the fun 39 debt and that ended we've completely paid that off and then what's remaining is our fund 38 debt

031so these are our tax levies that we've had over the past few years excuse me over the past 10 years with on both fun fun 38 and fun 39 and our fun 38 debt as you can see in the next slide is nearing completion so this slide shows the remaining debt payments each year you can see that in some of the la in recent years we had very large debt payments on our books and i should say combined remaining payments and that was from in years and we had to incur debt in order to meet some of our payroll expenses and our ongoing um accounts payable et cetera and voice expenses and we have since pen paid all of that off so we're in a really good position with our current debt and that it

032truly will be gone in six years and once again this is fun 38 debt so once those are once that that payment is is done is then that increases our fund 10 general operating dollars so when we talk about debt service this leads to a conversation on credit rating so we have some really awesome news to report in terms of our credit ratings due to our financial improvements so we have a couple credit ratings we have one from standard and poor's also called smp and moody's so in the standard and poor's writing we're at a double a minus which is in the high grade and moody's has a set a na2 which is in the upper medium grade and just for reference how this compares to other school districts 58 of wisconsin school districts are

033at or above high grade and 42 percent are below high grade so we're in very good company up here and you might ask why does a credit rating matter well the higher credit rating is the better interest rates are and we saw that when we refinanced and were able to pre-pay our debt and that that helped in terms of our interest rates when we um when we refinanced our debt that saved that was for debt outside the revenue limit which saved taxpayers over 800 thousand dollars by reducing the levy by that much over the life of the remaining debt and if we borrow moving forward this will result in better interest rates also moving on to fund 46 so this is our long-term capital improvement trust fund and we just have our revenue in there

034at this point because fund 46 works on a five-year clock so the minute you open your fund 46 you have five years that's basically a waiting period where you can be putting money in but you can't be expending any of it and that clock ends at the beginning of next fiscal year so at this point this plan that was approved for when we opened our fund 46 was for our turf field replacement which we are right on track for and actually ahead so this the board has had communications about wanting to expand and incorporate our broader capital improvement projects which we can do and will this year so that when our clock runs out for fun 46 and we can actually use those dollars we don't have to just use them for our turf fields

035we will and we'll replace our turf fields with the dollars that are in there but also can be opened up to support broader capital improvements as well fun 50 is our food service fund and this is probably the most highly regulated fund any dollars that are in fund 50 have well like other funds but especially in fund 50 have to stay in fund 50. so if we have a fund balance in here we cannot use it on our classrooms it has to stay within food service eligible expenses so before we get into the budget start with the most important thing regarding our food service program is that every student will receive free breakfast and lunch this school year so that's extension of a federal program basically a summer program that existed that allowed for breakfast

036and lunch for all our kiddos extends throughout the whole fiscal year so all of our students will receive free meals and free free breakfast and lunch throughout the school year which is awesome for families and also keeps a lunchroom incredibly efficient because they're not typing in a keypad in the in their numbers we have to believe that this will probably go back to normal after the 21 22 school year so just a reminder that our lunchrooms will probably slow down a little bit in 22-23 but for now really awesome thing that we're able to provide for our families throughout this school year and also just a note while we're on the topic that the free introduced meal application and sharing form is still very important for families if they're looking to have their school fees

037waived or reduced and then also this in incorporates into our school funding so there's a number of grants that we receive that are based on our total free introduced population as a school district so even though everybody's free this year it's not that we're at 100 free meals that's just extension of a federal program we're still at the only the number of percentages of free reduce based on however many applications that we get where families actually qualify for free reduce based on their income or directly certified from having other government programs so just a reminder to make sure that families are filling that out we're working with our schools to get that message out the forms are available in the main offices and also through skyward on each individual student's own registration website so looking

038at fun50 here just wanted to point out normally our revenues and our local sources are much higher and the federal revenues are much lower and so the reason we're seeing the difference there is because of this federal program we're anticipating much lower revenues in the local sources we still have a la carte so there's going to be some and in the federal we're going to be receiving funds to support this free introducing our free meal program throughout 21 22. and so that's why those numbers are a little bit shifted from from the previous year and then also in this next oh there we go and this next slide here you'll see generally our goal is to balance our budget so we have the same dollar amount in revenues as expenditures but dpi only allows us

039to have a certain dollar amount in fund balance in fund 50 which is three months of operating expenses and we're exceeding that so we have to spend our fund balance and so we're working with our food service contractor sodexo and our food service manager is steve kassner who's done a great job in working with the schools and what their needs are within within the food service program so you'll see in the schools this year video menu projection boards there are new cafeteria tables and then there's equipment needs like ovens and things like that and then other minor kitchen refreshes so those are some of those um expenses that are being incurred to utilize our fund balance within fund50 it would be awesome i'm trying to get the law changed um to be able to use

040those for like a culinary programs and things like that in the classroom but for now the law is that it has to stay within the food service program so that's what we will abide by and finally our fund 80 is our last one that we'll work through tonight so this is our community service fund the definition is to record related transactions related to the use of district property for civic purposes and what this means in plain english is that we use this for programs for adult ed community rec programs and care services and we have some really exciting things going on within our fund 80 so we were able to build a rec center addition and renovation which is now complete and the second phase of that project is ongoing for a garage facility so

041if you haven't seen it it's a beautiful facility and quite an amazing resource for both our community and our staff and students and the exciting thing also is that the fund the recreation center and the garage were able to be completed without raising the tax levy so that fund 80 tax levy of three million dollars which you can see here as as a revenue has been staying the same for a number of years now our local sources or our fees have been in 2021 they took a hit with covid and so we're projecting back up to normal levels now with this 1.075 million in local revenue and then those taxes that's the tax levy for fund 80 is staying the same at 3 million as it has for a number of years and then our

042expenditures you can see on the right side again normally we project our revenues and expenditures would be the same meaning a balanced budget but we are intentionally we intentionally have greater expenses than revenues because we are working on the final construction of that garage facility for a rec center so you can see there that the difference is in the building construction for that last phase of the project and then again this just shows the same numbers to the beginning fund balance we're utilizing our fund balance 465 000 of it to work through that project and then our ending fund balance in fund 80. so the final piece of our presentation tonight is the tax levy and then we'll work through um again the history of the tax levy and the mill rate are so we

043looked at these numbers a number of times but again our fund 10 projected tax levy at this point is 34 million 230 and the fund 80. i'm sorry 138 tax levy 33 million 293 461 for a total revenue limit levy of 37 million 523 991 we add in the fund 80 tax levy of 3 million and get our total proposed property tax levy of forty million five hundred twenty three thousand nine hundred and ninety one dollars again the breakdown of what that looks like the majority of course is for a general fund and then we have eight percent for our debt service fund which is fund 38 and seven percent for a community service fund so the final two slides tonight will be a tax-living comparison and a millwright comparison the tax levy comparison you

044can see is sort of been trending down there's been a few spikes in there one in in 1718 and so our tax levy this year is projected to decrease by 5.37 percent from the previous year finally a millwright comparison so our mill rate in 2021 was 8.75 and looking at a we know this will be a more significant decrease than we're showing right now but as the numbers are presented here and eight dollar six cents projected mill rate which is a seven point eight nine percent decrease from the previous year you can see where we've been over the history um over the last decade so certainly lower than the last 10 years for our mill rate any questions or comments from the board any questions for caitlin about the budget this is obviously something we've

045seen a number of times jane yes um just to clarify um so can you give me an example so we talked about our shared and focused um highlights on one of the slides can you give me an example of the equity in funding schools with varying needs like what would that be for yes so every every school has a different community in different population with with various needs so we might see at one school a youth advisor would be a really helpful position in that school whereas another school maybe it's an assistant principal or a social worker or guidance counselor so it's really looking working with the school leadership team on what what staffing and there's a number of things but staffing is helpful for their school for their students to succeed to support their

046students needs and then within the schools we they have their own building budgets to do with as they choose so if they see that in my school it would be really helpful for our students to have more opportunities to be in the community and do public presentations of learning or demonstrations of learning things like that or is it you know science materials that kind of thing so there's it's at a lot of levels so it's at the staffing level it's at in this within the school funding school building budget funding formula that we have within our own school district and then also at the building level thank you [Music] any other questions for caitlin okay well then um what i will do now is open this up for any comments from the public so if

047there's anyone listening on zoom if you have interest in and providing a public comment regarding the budget we will have a separate public comments section for things not related to the proposed budget hearing here tonight please put your name in the chat and i will make sure to allow you to speak again please make sure to state your name and your address and you'll have three minutes to make any comments you might have so but we do have one person at least i know in first here that would like to make a comment on the budget but mr molly yeah will be up there yes please one question you want me to name and everything again yes please john mulling 3850 south pole drive in new berlin i i really have two questions one was

048brought up about the free meals for breakfast and lunch that needs to stop when did we get to a point where we're providing breakfast and lunch for people who probably are making a hundred thousand dollars a lot of them between two people that's a joke those people need to provide those lunches and breakfast by themselves that's what parenting is called you need to make sure you set a limit next year x number of dollars you make for a family you don't get a free lunch or you don't get a free breakfast but you need to do a limit that's ridiculous that's just ridiculous that's what parenting is for the other thing is i try to look up the salary that dr michael johnson's getting i couldn't find it anywhere i'm sure he's not doing the

049service for free as a medical director for the school board when we came down to one of the most critical decisions the school board should make he recommended the kids not wear masks mr balling this is for the budget only i'm getting there okay i'm getting there right he recommended not to have the kids wearing masks he's the medical director he knows what he's talking about you guys voted against it and voted for mass if you're not going to listen to his vice and such an important thing eliminate his salary and get rid of him i don't know how much he makes but i'm sure he doesn't do it for free and if you're not going to listen to his advice what's the point all right thank you uh is there anyone else in person

050i want to make a comment about the budget hearing seeing none um last chance for anyone who's in or in zoom who would like to make a comment regarding the budget hearing i don't see anyone currently but i'll wait 15 more seconds to see if anyone wanted to put their name in all right i'm not seeing anyone so we will close the public comments for the budget hearing and uh caitlyn i believe closing our marks yep so um thank you for questions and your comments and we will have we're scheduled to have our final budget approval on october 25th as we kind of talk through we have a number of changes that we assume so we know that we'll have a different health insurance renewal rate than the 8.5 that we've worked through um we

051have an action item tonight which would also reduce create savings within our budget so we'll have another workshop before our actual budget is approved at the end of october so that our board can give direction on some of those savings and where they'll where they'll go and that's fun all right well thank you very much caitlin and again for you and your team putting this together it's always a moving target we have to start very early in the process in june and passing a budget and we always are great to get closer to this point where we can actually see the numbers falling into place and so thank you for your team uh always doing that doing such a good job explaining all the different interest intricacies that are involved in a school budget and

052everything like that so thank you so much julie all right so from now we're going to move on to regular public comments so same rules apply regarding uh the public comments please state your name your address you have three minutes to address the board and mr mauling we'll start with you again if there's anyone in zoom who'd like to address the board about something not related to the budget please put your name in the chat go ahead mr molly uh john mulling 3850 south pole drive i want to address all the people that are watching this that have killed children in the school district i'm going to be reading the names of the people who received the book by ibram kenti how to be an anti-racist these are the people i'll go as fast as

053i can as clear as i can at daki alex bruzen at frank lloyd wright jason fish jennifer ilahi mike sheehan and sabrina bartis general mitchell kristen swobot hale karen houston hoover amygol sweeney horace mann jen houston irving gail sidowitz plastic irving elementary brie milroy and nicole hazelton lane josiah pliedle longfellow carey stalin work madison wilson breen williams nathan hale mary was bush and nikki levine shared journeys lisa cola walker stacy lang west dallas central brian summerfield mitchell brittany witty i'm going to read the rest of the names at another time but these people could be your teachers or i was suggested that they might be counselors if your children or you recognize that name you need to contact those people and ask them if they really are teaching critical race theory because it's important and

054if you find out what it really is i don't think you'd want them teaching it i'll keep going because i got time other people that got the book cecily lyons hayley johnson liz hatab lydia khloe sarah dahl dana asolini caitlyn desto amanda hendrickson brendan kelly joanna schred aaron burhau jen kohler shannon danhoff caitlin oliver allison cardwell miranda lentz lisa erickson megan hogg kale reddens redwinds monica lewicky jenny ernst brienne williams brittany verbanik robert wilson meg elliott patty wilkie angie nowicki megan b lindsey r.h and 12 books were given to michael johnson to distribute that hail all these people have the book abram candy teaches the blacks belong here and the whites belong here not like they should be together in the same place at the same time you need to find out about critical race

055theory and what it teaches because it isn't what martin luther king taught and i want to know why there's 80 books out in this school school district and no one's teaching critical race theory and i don't believe it for a minute thank you mr molly all right uh mr michael i check my name is joe mikolajek 3355 south russell court new berlin number one i'm here to let you know again for the fourth time this school district does not need a tax increase enrollment is down and federal funding is increasing we do not need any additional facilities or building referendums number two i again again i will ask you for a district health insurance cost analysis and answer the question why you continue to use the expensive teachers union wea trust for health insurance i've

056asked this question previously and have not gotten any answers to that question number three again i will remind you that this board is supposed to represent students parents and taxpayers not teachers and school administrators you need to start listening and acting on behalf of the people you represent number four your discussions at the last board meeting regarding limiting public comments is something i find anti-first amendment and disgusting i strongly and for many reasons think this is the idea of the non-elected educate superintendent mr lexman it is meant to stifle the speech of the public that does not agree with the administration and teachers views on important issues this is what dictators and tyrannical governments do to control the populace to make sure they remain quiet and do not and do what they are told to

057do number five it is quite obvious to me nearly all parents and the public do not want critical race theory taught i honestly believe all of you know this however you continue to push this garbage and have been pushing this for years again not listening to the constituency you supposedly represent number six the public and parents do not want mandatory mask policies in our schools parents need to make that decision for their children not you is very arrogant of you to think you know better than parents that their children must wear masks at school i am not at all surprised of this arrogance you know best what must be done and to protect must be done to protect everyone ten seconds as usual i will ask if you have any questions for me of course

058you don't thank you mr glidecheck uh steve broadwell 12965 west ohio court new berlin uh you continue to ignore facts parents your own doctor unmasking and instead rely on your science the changes with the wind mass do not work and cause harm to many kids you ignore the ever increasing pushback against crt you continue to lament the reality of shrinking enrollment and teacher migration out of the district kids are going elsewhere and many teachers are sick and tired of having crt concepts and mass shove down their throats in the last couple of weeks both my daughters have decided to find alternatives for their five young children hillsdale college has launched several charter schools around the country including one recently in waukesha county with more planned they received 400 applications for 150 seats and had to

059buy another building no cost for these schools it seems mass migration out of the public school system is the only way to get you to listen to your constituents marty i watched your message on the website in which you stated the focus should be on what is possible rather than what is wrong i find that comical in light of your push to focus on racial injustice that and would be curious what you see as possible do you see it possible to make it clear to students that some of them have had it hard and to understand that any difference in their performance is due to systematic racism rather than the student's unique ability talent and work ethic not everybody brings the same school tools to the classroom whether black or white do you see it

060as possible to get white kids to understand that they've had a good or privilege that are part of the problem eventually getting them to understand their oppressor status and get them to accept their white guilt do you see it as possible to create student racial justice warriors that will look for racism everywhere that needs to be identified and called out just like the marxist crackpot candy to whom you seem to look for guidance you folks on the left seem determined to place blame on others for an individual's failings i do believe that there are many young teachers that have been so indoctrinated in this garbage in our uber liberal and universities that they feel they are doing the right thing they don't realize how divisive this all is and the words of stalin are useful

061idiots and in reality political predators marty both you and deidre have told me that you are not teaching crt in this district i wish you'd stop lying to us it's obvious it's it's here terms ubiquitous here like diversity equity inclusion sel and social justice are all terms right out of the crt handbook you might not be as bad as some god-awful schools in this country yet but this only gets worse as pressure grows from our own increasingly authoritarian misguided government and unions i'll close by saying that no child should ever be taught to feel like a victim of circumstance it is unfortunate that leftists crave any opportunity to assign victimhood to any group doing this only leads to discontent and division thank you mr broadwell that is all that i had signed up for public

062comments here today is there anyone else who is present that would like to make a public comment that was not signed up previously sir if you could pull your mask up over here terry dresdo 8113 west drier place uh just one issue i just found out recently that we are still doing business with wea trust 10 years ago with act 10 we all found out what a ripoff it was to do business with this company and many school districts switched to other companies and saved hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars school districts smaller than this one but we continue to throw money at wea trust i don't understand why i'd like to have some assurances that there will be competitive bidding when we come up again i understand we're renewing in january there's reason

063there's all these insurance ads on tv you see them constantly is that they're competing with each other both in advertising and in price other insurance companies will compete for our health business we need to listen to them we need competitive bill bidding and i understand it's a lot of work insurance is complicated but somebody needs to do that work and not be lazy and we need to ignore the fact that all this money is going through the teachers union to one political party and uh let's start fighting for the taxpayers and the parents and the kids and get the lowest possible bid for our insurance and stuff stop this nonsense wea trust has ripped off the state of wisconsin for decades and we finally found out thanks to act 10 and it's time to start

064saving some money thank you all right thank you very much is there anyone else president who would like to address the board is there anyone who is watching via zoom who would like to address the board please put your name in the chat seeing none i will close public comments and we will move on to item number eight the superintendent's report great um thank you everybody we're going to start with our returning to in-person learning um it was previously called the return to school update but we're back in school um so now it's about really staying with in-person learning uh and so we'll start like we always do with each of these just a little bit of what i'm going to cover so again our guiding principles where we are in the health metrics um

065a little update on our mask wearing requirement kova testing in school and then a little bit of just touch on vaccination requirements which is kind of the latest thing that everybody's paying attention to in the news and then where we are with next steps so our guiding principles again are always safety and well-being as what's been driving us first learning that works for all being responsive and flexible and then practicality right there's a million things we could do but you can't do them all so what's practical to do so where we are in our metrics and so this was um i received the latest so it is september 7th is the latest information we have from our local health department i received that today actually and so for milwaukee county the burden status is up

066a little bit we're down a little bit for west allis west milwaukee percent positive in milwaukee county is up and percent positive is down quite a bit for west allis west milwaukee but most of these are kind of within the range from the last time from august 17th so it's a little bit of what our health directors told us about last week tuesday because again area health directors and superintendents now we meet every other week through most of all this we've been meeting every tuesday but what they shared last week is they're starting to see a plateau so it's not getting better yet but things have stopped kind of increasing and the way that um they felt like there was a plateau coming i'm sorry you said it went down but the mercury in the

067west also smoky actually went up to 170 from 150 oh sorry i got the wrong arrow on there um so the number's probably correct so i'm just looking at the arrow i can't really see the number from here right i can read that it did say 153.36 last time and then good catch no i appreciate that yeah positive went down down correct correct yeah and those where you see the blue those are active links and at the top where it says the big word here is an active link right to the report we get directly from the health department which is always a pdf so whatever they share is available to everybody okay so our masquerading requirement right so um it has gone well i think better than expected and for me from a school

068leadership side better than on the concerns we are hearing from parents so we've had very little pushback once school really started some and we anticipated more um and in general kids are doing a pretty good job keeping masks on i think we're blessed with the kind of fall weather we've been having so i think that has helped right and so i'll accept that blessing for us um and so that you know what we what we stated was that we would look you know a few weeks into the school year for secondary schools in particular and what we're seeing is you know if masks are being relaxed it's really grades seven through twelve um what i'm watching is a lot of districts that have started with no mass and have to go back they're starting with

069littles through sixth grade um so there's some logic in that and like who's able to get vaccinated and we probably would start to look at the same thing right now our internal positivity rate stays low we're right around the 0.25 so i mean 0.25 or 0.24 um is where it seems to be hovering which is good for us um and so i think we're going to continue to evaluate community conditions and internal conditions but i'd really like to wait until after homecoming i think it's just wise so we can see if we get any kind of because we're going to have as normal a homecoming as we can that seems to be what most districts in the area are doing we did um greenfield lisa elliott kind of heads up our quadrant conversations so i

070asked her and she put a little survey out last week kind of okay what's everybody doing for homecoming and it ranges from really pretty normal all of the activities almost all of the activities are masked um so consistent with whatever their kind of internal expectations are one school district is having their dance outdoors um and so i think we're going to proceed with you know um the events as normal as they can be with with following our mask requirements um and so that's the plan at this point and then i think we look a week 10 days after that to see if we get any change in our internal numbers and then i think maybe i'll come back to the board and have a conversation about are we ready to make some changes at the

071secondary level so again kova testing in schools this is more kind of now a public service announcement just to remind anybody that's listening or anybody board members are talking to that this is available in schools our school nurses do the actual collection so it's somebody we know and like and works with us all the time um that noaa clinical labs is our provider they're right here in west allis so they actually um we have a courier that picks it up they do all the analysis parents go on and set up a little account with them um so it's really you get the results through email if we have a situation where the nurse really feels like a young person should be tested and the parent either doesn't have access or can't do email or set

072up an account in that moment the nurses can take verbal permission and go in as the parent and even set up their account so they get the um the results as quickly as possible and again there's no cost for any of that so proposed vaccination requirements so this is new within the last week even right so part of what's being proposed and it may come as executive orders even from the president is requiring all employers with a hundred or more employees to ensure all workers are vaccinated or tested weekly and so we're waiting for some osha rules to come out some of what i'm reading and listening to is osha certainly does not have the capacity by any means to actually enforce something like this so the fact that it's going to be from osha

073gets to be a little bit interesting the other one is that the president is also calling on states to adopt vaccine requirements for all school employees and so we'll see if there's any momentum in the state of wisconsin to do that but i think we'll watch we're already getting a little bit of advice from our attorneys about how to proceed with this some of his a little bit waiting for what rule comes out from osha and so and we may come back to the board with the conversation as um does the board want to consider this kind of requirement for our employees i think you know you're aware that milwaukee public schools have certainly moved in this direction um and we may want to go back and even um check again of how many employees

074are vaccinated before we want to say it's time to have an um requirement that it raises all kinds of questions about what happens if on managing for employees that can't managing for employees that refuse and then we're in a time when it's hard enough to fill positions right so do we create a bigger problem for ourselves maybe when the data tells us it's not entirely necessary for us to go down this path so i i don't have answers for you i'm just kind of raising some of the questions that may come as this possibly gets momentum and some direction from osha and then next steps um so we're going to we're continuing to communicate the cova testing opportunity there's the incentive program for student vaccinations and that's you know getting a pair of branded socks

075that are branded to your school mascot logo and colors and then we're going to continue to monitor the health metrics and then you know if appropriate um bring a recommendation forward to the board to consider vaccination requirements right so that may be something new that we asked the board to consider going forward and so that's our going back to in-person learning updates so any questions there any questions about that kristin ah there's been questions because hale's homecoming is not on a calendar do we know anything about that um i know they're having one oh it's october one okay so you don't buy cards i do october 1st yes okay so if anyone's listening october 1st because there's a lot of rumor and speculation going on oh yes a lot of questions from moms about whether

076or not they should buy a homecoming dress and i am advising please yes go ahead and buy whatever appropriate wear um you feel is right for your child so yes october one is number one mr lesser will be sending out a communication shortly to all the families about that as well so we'll make sure it also gets updated onto our calendar okay thank you great uh so i will go on to 8.2 the legislative update yeah there we go i have to open so assembly education bill assembly education committee and is still holding a hearing on reading instruction overhaul and we've been hearing more about this recently so it's chaired by representative jerry thiesfeld holding a public hearing on tuesday september 14th so tomorrow in room 412 east of the state capitol the committee will

077receive public testimony in the following bills so ab446 relating to reading readiness assessments an assembly bill for 20 relating to payments to an independent charter school authorized by a tribal college so there's the the um reading one in particular i think is one we're going to be paying more and more attention to is it going to require new reading assessments or is there going to be are there going to be mandated um programs so literacy programs that have to get implemented and and depending on what how this evolves if it um aligns and supports the work we're doing um it may be something that then we want to support and if not we may need to voice some concerns um a bill increasing tobacco nicotine vapor product age to 21 that's having a public hearing

078so so this would propose raising the legal age for the sale purchase possession of cigarettes nicotine and tobacco products and vapor products to 21. wasbee supports the aims of the bill from the standpoint that raising age would help keep those products hopefully keep more of them out of k-12 schools coming back into school this year we are seeing greater challenges with vaping in schools um so it is something that it's not just us clearly it's a statewide or maybe national kind of dynamic but it is something that we would support uh so and then um losby leader john ashley calls for civility i do want to read this piece out loud so um john ashley is the wisconsin association of school board's executive director and so he shared the following statement we've become increasingly alarmed

079at the recent reports of personal threats of violence and harassment directed at school board members across the state civil disagreement and protest are cornerstones of our democracy but attempts to intimidate school board members and physically disrupt school board proceedings are not acceptable being passionate about the well-being of our children is commendable and the public is welcome to voice displeasure or disagreement with their school boards however threatening to physically harm school board members or their family members shouting profanities during school board meetings or attempting to prevent school boards from executing their constitutional governing role crosses a line and should not be tolerated by our communities on behalf of the nearly 3 000 school board members in wisconsin we're calling for this for school board meetings to be held in a civil respectful manner are asking for

080assistance by all civic and organizational leaders to help ensure that their local governments are able to govern this week the new school year began in most wisconsin school districts our children are watching how the adults in their communities deal with conflict and strife it is up to all of us to set the right example ensure that our democracy functions as it is intended so we appreciate that coming from john ashley legislative fiscal bureau state tax collections came in at 319 million dollars higher than previous estimates so that's also very good news again half of it has to go into what is often referred to as the rainy day fund in the state and then at the federal level i'm not going to read all of this but it but i think it is helpful especially

081for more rural parts of the state but emergency connectivity fund update so send a second funding window to open and so the last paragraph here this federally funded program is an excellent opportunity for school districts to acquire technology equipment at no cost to help close the homework gap for students who lack adequate access to broadband service in their home so getting all students connected through this program also could potentially eliminate learning disruptions due to snow days or other interruptions it could be useful to continue learning should for example covet outbreaks cause large numbers of students to have to quarantine so right now we do not have devices in the hands of kids coming and going from school so that usually gets referred to as one to one we have enough devices to do that but

082we haven't distributed them that way they're using devices all day long in classrooms we're still adding the new devices right because just like everybody else every school district in the country has ordered more chromebooks than chromebooks can be delivered um however we're watching this because it would should it allow us to actually be able to support every family in a one-to-one um it creates flexibility it creates more management challenges with devices coming and going and more breakage but if there's funds to support it i think we would be interested in working that out so um go to recognitions that's 8.3 sorry i'm jumping around here in my agenda um what i want to start with is just before i go into the ones that were submitted from schools um just take a moment to honor

083recognize that really the um commemoration of of 9 11 right so september 11th 20 years ago uh so i've watched and read and it's you know the emotion that is part of what we all experienced um that i think media and this case has done a really good job explaining and transmitting to young people and to anybody that wasn't paying attention 20 years ago so i just wanted to recognize just all of the the souls that were lost and appreciation for the firefighters the police the first responders anybody and everybody that helped that day in the days that followed you know many of them lost their lives saving others on and even though you know september 11th this year fell on a saturday our schools held a number of events i know teachers held classroom

084conversations that were careful and on point and our students at central you know put on a really nice display outside as they often do with um you know u.s flags commemorating the 20 years i just think it's important for us in the public space and then the roles we um serve in to recognize that moment um then also recognition at shared journeys i'm sure journey is partnering with the parenting network this collaboration involves working together to provide parenting programming for current students as well as alumni of shared journeys shared journeys received a 500 donation from motor castings foundation they also received a 3 000 grant 3 000 grant from rotary to purchase new car seats and pack and plays for students in need and then at hoover they would like to recognize kristen swabota the

085dlc she is constantly going above and beyond to support staff and students and was recognized several times in her in their engagement so the employee engagement survey for her commitment and hard work to the hoover community and then the last one um is just some updates from me and first i'll start with response to public comments from august 23rd and as i begin this one of the comments this evening and usually we don't respond directly to the immediate comments but there's it's a repeat one about why um the individual has not heard our explanation about why we continue to work with wea trust as their health care provider i have responded to that publicly verbally publicly twice so i just want it on the record that that has in fact been responded to and it's

086available in the recordings of our school board meetings and i think the rationale um has been and continues to be sound why we work the wea trust but we will consider other opportunities if there are cost savings and ways to provide employees with really good health care coverage um so that one being said going back now to august 23rd we again heard from mr mulling that he believes crt is being taught in our classrooms and i'm going to repeat myself endlessly here that we reiterate that that is not the case we're not teaching crt in our classrooms we are focused on diversity equity and inclusion and even though those are now tagged words within the whole crt debate um we've been working on diversity equity and inclusion way before this ever became a debate right

087so this is just attached to the kind of um moment but that work precludes all of this um but we do think that it is appropriate um for crt to be considered by the adults now in terms of students it belongs at colleges and universities but we're adults we're the leaders we're the teachers in classrooms and whatever we can learn that helps us better understand the lived experience of some of the families we serve that's healthy for us we can do a better job serving some of our families because we learn something that some people think is inappropriate um i think that's okay it helps us pursue our mission we also heard from several members on august 23rd objecting to mask requirements and since on the 23rd covey cases nationally have gotten worse we know

088that locally elevated but stable and so far students and staff like i said are really doing a pretty good job with this and there is a recent uh article published in the atlantic and it's the first um random study about mass effectiveness and the the headline of the article is the masks were working all along we now have definitive proof that masks really are effective so they want to do and randomly assign people and monitored this and studied it and there is evidence that it works it's not perfect right but it's one of the best mitigation practices we have to try to keep our kids in school at the august 23rd meeting one member of the public objected to propose changes in policy and that we heard this again tonight it's zero one six seven

089point three public participation at board meetings and the proposed changes would have limited public comments to only items on the agenda now in my comments introducing that i stated that this is what the city of west allis does and that was quite incorrect um and a couple members of the public uh reached out and made it clear to me that i got that wrong um which is fine you know we make mistakes at times um so the city does not limit comments during open public comment opportunities but when there's a specific public hearing on a matter comments then must be focused on either supporting or not supporting the matter right so similarly we did something with our budget hearing tonight where you know um no ass just this is just for the comments on the

090um budget but but i misrepresented how the city um facilitates public comments and i just wanted to acknowledge that um i apologize that it created any confusion and again appreciate just getting feedback that helps me learn like oh that's not exactly how that works but that being said so our school board right all of you approved revisions during the first reading that would not include those limits right so that's what's in the first reading right now and you'll see that particular revision of that policy without that language come back right it gets held in committee under our policy and in this case committee of the whole for 30 days so you'll see it again at the end of the month um and and we'll look for final kind of feedback from the board to approve

091any revision to that policy and then in our facility master planning which is something we'll be talking a lot about probably for the next seven months so tomorrow we begin our first community information session um and that is going to be uh at hale at six o'clock in the auditorium and we're going to have about a 30-minute presentation and then provide opportunities for members of the public to explore very specific aspects of the plan by visiting kind of tables with experts and so rather than do kind of an open forum q a which sometimes gets dominated by people that are you know willing to step up to a microphone in a big public room and ask lots of questions and other people don't get the opportunity our architects and engineers have advised let's do something

092that gives more people access to the experts so there'll be a table on facility conditions and needs that's going to be steve eichman there'll be a table or an area around design construction and management so that's going to be um bray and cg schmidt um then caitlin um and i probably join her just to hear where the questions are coming from around budget finance and tax impact and then deidre will do a table on modernizing buildings for hands-on learning and so it's a way and then the idea is you don't have to pick a table and stay there the whole time you may say i have one question for you and then i might go somewhere else and then i might go for a tour and so it's a way to just really engage people

093a little bit differently and maybe a little more fully and lastly what we'd like to do is that um a quick video with the board and the public maybe you've seen this but i think it's worth looking at again just because it's fun on opening day we randomly so opening day of the school randomly surprised two or three teachers in every school with a voucher that they could use for classroom supplies and in addition to that we asked principals to review the employee engagement survey comments not the ratings the comments and is there a teacher that gets mentioned over and over by their colleagues that really is contributing to employee engagement or the student empowerment in ways that their colleagues see and talk about in the comments and we surprise those teachers with a 300

094voucher and this is a little bit of um capturing kind of their them in that moment um and i will clarify that that is not the video that is up right now um this video it's okay this video are um some highlights for the first week of school and so i can pull up that video as well because um amanda if you are not following some of our social media please start following it um there's always uh when somebody as beloved and as dedicated to our district as beth leaves it also opens a window sometimes and so what um amanda and her digital storytelling skills have brought is that revamp of some of our social media um so each week um i can share that video with everyone as well but each week she's been

095putting out a stopping out at the schools and just finding out what's going on kind of that man on the street sort of interview at each one of those schools so i apologize i pulled up that video and we'll start with that one this one's good hey guys fran pluta here principal of wilson i'm just taking a look around what we're doing oh there's our gym teacher hey hey i hear some orchestra stuff happening down here so follow me into the field house i think they're i think we're trying to get some students that are going to join orchestra [Music] oh yeah it is from star wars star wars this is what we have happening here at wilson say hi [Applause] [Music] yeah hi it's principal matt lester here at nathan hale and i'm with

096miss erickson's math class taught uh with mr trojan as well and uh they're doing a deeper learning activity today and they're building towers out of toothpicks and marshmallows in a little competition so they're school let's see what our sixth graders are working on on day two we're gonna go over the sheet and then we're gonna continue on with your toughest roses all right now almost compass roses hi this is miss ramos from jefferson elementary here with team bridge and mrs bond's class and join our outdoor classroom hi mrs johnson at pershing elementary i'm outside here with mr k's class and we're enjoying the new blacktop playground [Music] hey it's mr lester here principal nathan hale and i'm in miss hopping's ap chemistry class uh they're diving into a lab today looking at some uh chemical

097reactions and right now they're in a discussion once again we're hitting those deeper learning competencies communication collaboration being self-directed and uh they're about ready to dive in some experimentation and good afternoon how are we doing today that was the second day at lane intermediate going you guys having fun yes how about mr furley baby [Music] good morning it's mrs sack here coming to you from the garden which is our 4k classroom here at hoover we're going to take a look and see what our 4k friends are doing on their first date with everybody here we have friends we're gonna walk through their little secret passageway here we have friends that are having snacks we have mrs wietrich and miss pippia here helping and then we have some friends who are going outside it's miss spence

098and we have some friends who are outside in their outdoor space playing and having some free time working out their wiggles [Music] can't wait to share what our other grade levels are doing all right this is mr lester principal at anything in high school i'm in the football field with uh mr pretzel and miss townsend's phy ed classes and they're doing some preliminary testing for setting personalized goals around fitness [Music] down 17. right all right we got what do we have like a half hour left in the day mr furley so let's finish up strong look at this no school on [Applause] we'll monday back tuesday all right but have a good weekend if i don't see you until then nice shoe who's this one you guys cool no that's perfect yeah so amanda's been

099making one of those there's a couple of others so far there's two out on our website if you want to check them out and she'll be meandering her way across our district to make sure that we're capturing all the good things that we know are happening in our schools every day and just making that more outwardly facing to the public so keep an eye out for those videos thank you that's the end of the superintendent's report all right thank you so much for sharing all of that i'll move on to item 9 the board reports starting with item 9.9 9.1 review of board calendar today is monday september 13th 6 pm we had our public budget hearing and our regular board of education meeting uh monday september 20th at 6 pm we have a board

100workshop which we do not have a topic for yet but i'm sure we'll learn about uh soon monday september 27th at 6 pm we have a regular board of education meeting monday october 11th at 6 pm we have a regular board of education meeting monday october 18th at 6 pm we have a communication committee workshop which which also includes school showcases which will be exciting and then monday october 25th we have a regular board of education meeting including our final budget and tax levy which will be approved on that night so let's move on to item 9.2 our board committee reports with 9.2.1 our employee engagement and culture with mr keller okay we met on tuesday september 21st where we reviewed the definition section of a couple neola policies 3362 employee anti-harassment and 262 non-discrimination

101on the basis of sex and education programs or activities um we also talked a little bit more about the compensation model and how the staff would be getting their final communications that friday so that should have taken place on september 24th we will be meeting again i believe next week tuesday today did you say you met on september 21st i'm sorry that is accurate i mean august i'm reading something else that's our next meeting is september 21st we met in august my apologies that's what happens when you leave your own personal notes that's good did anyone else have any questions about brian's report if he had any other inklings from the future [Laughter] no does anyone have any questions that they would like brian's committee to consider so anything uh that other board members might

102be thinking would be something that the financial committee would be looking at uh that maybe isn't on their docket currently employment employment engagement i'm sorry engage basically no okay all right well thank you for that brian we'll move on to a 9.2.2 our communication and community community relations committee ms kaiser thank you at the august 30th communications community relations meeting we outlined and began planning for the school showcases we will the concept is we will have four to five schools present at a time for a total of an hour six to seven for a round table we'll incur we're encouraging all stages of projects to be presented we want to see the beginning the planning the middles the ends the continuing everything there'll be four nights in total throughout the school year and they would

103occur on monday workshop evenings we're encouraging it to be student driven and presented and we'll have more info to come as it comes in great any questions for kristin no all right does anyone have any questions that they would like her committee to maybe look at in the future that isn't currently on the docket that's something that we're going to add into our board reports just an opportunity for board members to there's something that they think would be interesting or they have an interest in having being looked at all of those questions generally flow through our committees and so we'll just kind of add that to the end of our board reports going forward an opportunity so just keep that in mind board members in the future as you see uh committee report coming up

104if you have anything you'd like to ask you can include that here all right seeing nothing else is there item 9.3 any any board members would like to report on community events jeff i'd just like to give a shout out to mrs connors at franklin i was invited to their ribbon cutting for their collaboration space it is unbelievable yeah it is so cool i thought gee i wish my kids were young so they could be going into that and and also a shout out to jason pollard who i guess was pretty instrumental with organizing and helping a plan that jordan yeah and then last chance get them while they're hot barbecued chicken dinner for the monogram and so i don't forget anything i'm gonna just read it quick it supports our support our military veterans

105by donating a meal serving the va hospital and other military organizations in the milwaukee area and come enjoy your dinner dine in or carry out all proceeds go to the west allis west milwaukee school district for athletic scholarships and in our surveying we do in and out patients at woods hospital we we serve several vfw and american legion posts in the milwaukee area we support the ptsd vietnam groups in the milwaukee area and also wisconsin national guard last year we did about 650 dinners and we're shooting for 900 this year and of all my tickets i only have three left so they're going like hot cakes that's great thanks so much thank you what's the date that is this saturday this saturday the 18th from uh noon until three o'clock at the legion post 416

106on 63rd in grange does anyone else have any uh kristen i don't know this is appropriate to put here or not but we are hiring crossing guards it's a paid position it's mornings and afternoons you get to see the sweet kiddos and be a part of our district so if you are interested please go to our website we've got some lovely stand-ins but we would really love to have more people who are permanent and can help out the district great job retirees stay at homes anything anybody who would like to help out the district and get paid yes we're not technically hiring but the company that we are uh oh sorry we're contracting all city management just to be clear um and that would probably go for for students and bus drivers as well which

107we also probably need more as well so thank you very much for that kristen anyone else with any other uh community events you'd like to talk about always we'll move on to oh brandon yeah one more um i don't know if we talk about it next week or not but uh harvest fairs coming up uh two weeks on the 24th 26th of september so it's a good time to get your kids out and people out doing some things for the fall right over at state fair park so we're playing on a note over there so yeah enjoy oh and food truck fridays over at the um farmers market they got one more i think left uh according to my wife's calendar announcements so you know if you if you like some food trucks they got

108some good stuff over there too all right thank you very much anyone else going once going twice all right move on to our consent agenda we have three items item 10.1 the approval of minutes from several minutes regular board meme minutes from august 23rd our board workshop session minutes from august 30th and our special board meeting and work session minutes from september 2nd item 10.2 our employment summary and item 10.3 are supplementary contracts does that mean anything separated out if not i would look for a motion move to approve second said moved in seconded any discussion all those in favor aye opposed all right that passes okay we will move on to item 11 our i'm sorry our action items are 11.1 retiree medical and pharmacy benefits for age 65 and over i believe miss

109windler is doing that and team at all miss swindler at all hmm lorenzo if you want to just hop over here after a workshop on september 2nd so joining us tonight we have our benefits office of jill rakowski and jessica johnson and then john and kathy are from innovative benefit solutions so they're the insur insurance broker that we currently work with for the retiree prescription plan and lorenzo's with us from hayes which is our insurance broker for all of our other plans so thanks everybody for joining tonight so talking through what we worked what we talked through last time just a recap and we'll go through some high level things and any questions that that the board would have so we previously talked through that our retirement plans for those who are 65 and over

110so once once a retiree reaches age 65 they become medicare eligible and so they move to a medicare eligible rate through the wea plan and at that same time the plan also becomes separate with prescription so they have a wea medical plan and a humana prescription plan what we are recommending is a change for that wea portion for just the medical portion to move to an anthem medicare advantage plan that was based on our discussion last time we worked through both an anthem option and a humana option and the board discussed that the anthem option provided better benefits to our retirees and actually is at a more reasonable rate for both our retirees and our district as well so with that plan a move to the anthem plan does not in any way affect the

111humana plan so the prescription plan would see no changes and instead of having once a retiree reaches age 65 instead of having the wea for a medical and humanitarian prescription it would be the anthem medicare advantage plan for medical and then the humana for prescription so again the there's no change to the humana pharmacy plan the plan does the anthem plan does have an additional benefit um multiple benefits along with it so i'm just going to recap that once again i'm going to plug in here thanks so the items that we're seeing here were outlined for us from from innovative benefit solutions and these are the items that are additional benefits with the antheplan that are not currently included in the wea plan so here we and the items that are in green are noted

112in green because those are not included with the humana plan so those are that's what we're seeing here so eyewear for post cataract surgery not a medicare covered acupuncture acupuncture exam and treatments 12 per year non-network benefits are the same as in network benefits so truly there's really like no network there's all the same benefits for retirees with the answer medicare advantage plan routine dental care routine vision care there's a foot care component to these benefits us the silver sneakers program which we get a lot of inquiries about so i think our retirees will be really excited about that program healthy food deliveries and healthy pantry routine transportation for a non-emergency and that's 36 visits 136 one-way visits a 500 amount to use at walmart for assisted devices such as shower handles to prevent falls

113discounted services for vision hearing vitamins alternative therapy and personal care diet nutrition and fitness and then foreign travel and those are medical expenses that would come along with something that would have happened while you were traveling abroad so those are some of the additional benefits that a retiree would see on the anthem plan that are not already included with the wea plan i will go into the cost savings as well let's start with the actual premium amount so the projected premiums for 2022 and these are the actual so with wea the actual premiums for 2022 medical would be 170 458 and the medical part d pharmacy which is humana would be 156 18. so combined that's 330 76 and again that is the total premium so for most retirees and i say most not all

114because our retiree plans ver differ greatly depending on the package that retiree was available for and their various benchmarks that come along with that retirement package but for most of our retirees the premium per month is split 50 50 retiree and our district so the 330 76 would be divided in half so a retiree would pay in 2022 if they were on both plans 165 38 and we would pay 165 38 for a single person moving to the anthem plan the dollar amount decreases greatly and the total premium for both medical and pharmacy so what medic would be anthem and pharmacy again would be with humana no changes there total of 156 18. so dividing that in half for a retiree who pays 50 and our district pays 50 7809 is what a retiree would

115pay so the savings there from per on a per month basis for both us and for our retirees would be 87.29 per month that a retiree would see in savings so it's really an additional benefit in terms of what they receive through the anthem plan and a cheaper cost to both the retiree and our school district and then this plan does come along the anthem plan comes along with the 500 calendar year deductible that the medicare costs would apply to initially before they're covered any further see any other big things i needed to mention um one change that would happen is a retiree so currently with our with our wea plan when there is a retiree who reaches 65 but a spouse isn't 65 yet or vice versa a spouse reaches 65 but the is

116not yet 65 we refer to that as one over one under meaning one over 65 165 and there's a special medicare rate at that point so basically those retirees who fall in either those groups would stay on wea until both retiree and spouse reach age 65 at which point they would move to the medicare plan there also is this is a combined package so retirees would have to be on both the medical and the human pharmacy plan and we do have some retirees who are on just one or the other at this point any big things that i'm missing any questions oh let me go through this is a big one on my end um so the total savings that we're looking at on an annual basis so if we're factoring approximately 600 retirees on

117our plan i know these numbers are super small so i apologize we would see an approximate savings of 628 000 on a calendar year basis so that's just west dallas west milwaukee's portion of the premium savings on a calendar year basis we know that removing a group of members from the wea trust plan would result in a one point increase in just the 22 2022 premiums on wea and so that is approximate increasing cost on the wea portion for our district of 140 000 which still results in a net savings in calendar year 22 of 488 000 and that's that's on the conservative end we do have um retirees who have a spouse in the plan so truly there are more than 600 retirees all together that's our subscribers at this point so these numbers

118are conservative in nature um and so that savings and then the the increase on the wea trust side so that one percent increase really is only a one-time increase because going forward wba will factor the renewal rates in the loss ratios on just the people who are currently on the wba plan and so for those employees that and you might have talked about this last time i don't remember they have just pharmacy or just health how much of a cost is going to occur to them like is it is it significant like what's if they have to take both of them if mandated yeah jill you're the expert on the rates do you want to yeah so currently the rates for our humana are 74 37 and that's for one person so currently our rates

119for humana are 7437 for a single person for humana prescription drugs so if a person does not have humana and only has their wea insurance that's approximately 89 right in the 89 range okay so by switching now and having both humana and anthem they're only going to be paying 74 and thirty seven cents they're paying less okay they're paying the less they have more either way they'll be paying less okay and they'll be having that added benefit okay what other questions do we have caitlyn yes can can i add to the rate for the second year we do have a rate cap so the premium that's proposed at 156 18 in the second year we have a not to exceed premium of 170 16. james do you have a question yeah well i just think

120it's important for me to clarify i am a proud retiree of our district and so i just want to clarify that i do not receive any benefits though and um therefore i am able to vote tonight so i just wanted to make that clear okay any other questions so i had one um what's what was the current so it was a 500 deductible for the new plan what's the current deductible yep the current deductible dollars is 1500. 500 or 1500 on a single plan okay and that would just go down to 500 period however yeah generally not medicare okay so even if we add it sorry so currently currently our um our plans they do have a 500 and a 1500 plan but normally with medicare none of that portion actually comes into play unless

121it's something that medicare does not cover that's the only time that their deductible actually comes into play and we like to use the um the idea of like orthotics that's something that medicare does not cover and so that whole fund would come against their um deductible and they would need to pay that with having a 500 deductible with anthem you know still if we included that you know and divided that 500 across 12 months um doing the math quick is like um and i should have had that at the top of my head so 500 divided by 12 is you know it's about another 46 dollars a month or 40 i'm sorry 41.66 a month um so even if we added that 41 you know if we're talking about their individual savings to the the

12274 dollars that's still 110 you know about 110 115 um dollars a month that they would be putting out versus the current much more than that and i don't have the slide yandy but much more than that the 71 and then the 89 which is yeah it's a definite savings still do we have exact numbers of what this because you mentioned that you know it varies the retirement plan varies about what we pay and what they pay do we have exact numbers of what the cost savings this is based off 50 50 and not everyone's going to be 50 50 some instances we're paying all of it right and in some instances the retiree be paying more i presume so do honestly once they get to the the medicare age all of their language reads

123that they're responsible for 50 now it's sometimes it's a little tricky if it if they're in the buy-up plan so if they're in the buy-up plan meaning they only have a 500 deductible but we won't have that anymore right um so if they're in the 500 deductible their rate is um a little more expensive um and some of our retirees were still splitting that 50 50 whereas now any retirees they're paying it we call it the lower cost plan the district only pays the lower cost plan but some of the prior language did not refer to the lower cost plan so to answer your question truly before we it would not be worth our time i could probably phrase it in a better way but to do an analysis on the true savings because we'd

124have to truly break down every single retiree what they're paying and that's why we use the 50 50 because majority especially when they reach medicare age 90 maybe 95 percent split 50 50. there are a few that are on the buy-up plan where we still split 50-50 but the majority who are on the buyer plan we they pay we pay the half of the lower-cost plan right and they pay the difference so truly we use the 50-50 right because 95-95 of our people we split the we split the lower cost plan right 50 50. okay so but you'll be able to you're waiting for us to approve this and then you'll do that so you'll be able to report that to us once it was completed we'll do our best to track our data throughout

125i don't know that we'll be able to say something ahead of time um ahead of actually implementing a plan in 2022 okay that's really that's like an actual aerial study evaluation rather than our own internal district time spent on that so um this the 488 000 in net savings is certainly is we will hit that target and there likely will be additional savings and some of those additional savings will come from the fact that not necessarily just that we have somebody who might who are you know our district might pay more than 50 percent for the medicare rate but the fact that we have family members a spouse should say a spouse on the plan which would be another added savings because right now on the family on family plan you know what i'm saying

126on the family plan the help me out i'm trying to understand where you're going with this i'm sorry there are there i guess what i'm saying is there are more than 600 retirees on the phone absolutely break down those who have a spouse on the plan and we factored our savings on the 600 retirees at this point yeah we're probably more like that's what you say 800 would be a more um a closer factor and there one what happens when we move from the wa plan to the anthem plan is that right now we have a family plan available when we move there's only single plans so everybody's on their own single plan each retiree and each spouse is on their own single plan so that's where we come up with this being a conservative

127number because we will have more than the 600 plans it'll be when we add in our our spouses is will be the true savings yeah so even though they're two signal plans they're connected still because you said you said when you get into the world of medicare supplement and medicare advantage there's no longer a family plan everyone has a single contract the retiree will have their own contract their spouse will have their own contract everybody will stand on their own there will no longer be a family plan and i think one of the things caitlyn's trying to say that today until they both reach 65 they're sitting on the wea plan now because they're single contracts the moment one of them reaches 65 we can move them to anthem thus getting immediate savings on that

128post-65 retiree the spouses can stay behind the retiree can stay behind if the spouse turns 65 first they can move the spouse immediately the retiree would remain on the wea until they reach 65. all right thank you for clarifying that because that was my last question regarding that um it didn't make sense to me if there were single plans why we had to wait for both of the v65 we no longer have to wait so that's a different and i think that's even a better savings because obviously the wps plan is more expensive yes than what this will be so all right that completes my questions um for now it's a complicated topic so please ask and especially while our experts are here this is very helpful so that was everything does anyone else have

129any questions on this took everyone's questions that's okay um well if there's other questions then i would entertain a motion promotion second second quotient has been moved and seconded multiple times any last minute discussion if not all those in favor opposed that passes all right that was the last item on our agenda so i would look for a motion to adjourn move to adjourn opposed we are adjourned