December 9, 2025: Hernando County School Board Workshop

001Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. I would like to call this workshop to order at 2:00 p.m. Please note we may not complete all the agenda items today and the order has been adjusted where number three and number four will be swapped. Thank you. All right. Item number one, 26-3464, presentation of Somerset and Explorer K8 access by Jim Lipy, school planner, Caroline Mockler, staff council, and Christine Kowleski of Gray Robinson, PA. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon, Madam Chair, school board members, Superintendent Pender. Uh, presenting today a summary of how uh the developer for the Somerset development has agreed to reconfigure access to Explorer K8 from Northcliffe Boulevard. Uh this will facilitate construction of a new four-lane extension of Explorer Boulevard to the south uh into the development to a traffic

002circle while also providing improvements to the school including new extended parent queuing lanes on school property, new sidewalks, new fencing and gates and a new marquee sign. And then the second half of our presentation will provide an overview of multiple legal agreements needed between the school board, Fernando County, Duke Energy, and the developer to facilitate these. We'll be we'll be presenting today briefly a vicinity map to help orient you to the uh area under discussion, a brief history of how we got to where we are. Uh the current and proposed school access configuration together with an overview of the legal agreements. The area under discussion this this map and all maps in our discussion north is to the right. So, this gives us the perspective of the of the the roadway and development from the

003school. Uh, and so on the right hand side of the map, you'll see uh North Cliff Boulevard running off of North Cliff Boulevard uh in the white dotted lines that represents a 100 foot wide easement uh for the uh the power lines for Duke Energy underneath of which is the access to Explorer K8. Uh and then um we see the school there in the lower right hand corner and then uh above that and to the left are phases one, two and three of Somerset. Phase one is at the top right. Phase two is in the top center and phase three is shown in yellow. Briefly, how did we get here? The property was originally owned by a gentleman by the name of Lauren Ham. There was a judgment in 1995 for taking in permanent easement,

004a taking and a permanent easement uh that provided the easement for Duke that was then known as Florida Power. And it also provided the owner the right to place parallel roads within the power lines easement and on either side. Fast forward to 2006 uh and that's when the school was built. It was an encroachment agreement uh executed by the school district and Duke that allowed for encroachment into the permanent easement exclusively for public school access to and from North Cliff Boulevard. Then in 2015, there was an access agreement executed with the developer allowing Mark 425 to use the schoolboard's access to North Cliff for the project in exchange for additional access and queuing for stacking lanes, perimeter perimeter fencing gates, and the new sign. In 2015, Duke issued a letter of no objection to proposed

005conceptual drawings that were for the realignment of the roads within that permanent easement pending a review of final plans. In 2022, there was an amended access agreement that provided for revised access and queuing plan. uh in 2022. Also, the development agreement provided for the extension of Explorer K8 access drive by means of that four collector road to a traffic circle to the south at Bay Drive and also the dedication of the portion of Explorer Boulevard that was on the district's property uh deeding that over to the county. Then in 2023, Duke raised objections uh to the parallel driveways that were within the transmission corridor and they said at the time that any changes to current current school access would nullify that encroachment agreement. So that's really uh where a lot of the the contention and

006slowdown in the project happened. Late in 2024, the county published an agenda with a proposed resolution asking the school board to dedicate and transfer to the county that portion of property so that explorer could become a county road. Duke issued an objection at that time asking for postponement of the resolution, but then the uh the board of county commissioner proceeded and adopted that resolution in 2024, which was then sent to the board. Here we are in 2025. In September, we learned that negotiations between the county and the developer and Duke had proceeded to a point where Duke is now willing to agree to a revised queuing plan, which is what we are presenting here today. So, this image is a a closeup of the the map that we showed you before. It shows current access

007off of North Cliff Boulevard and uh the the yellow rectangles, the yellow lines basically indicate um property lines. Um, so the school district owns the portion from North Cliff to the corner of the school property and accesses the school through that and access continues. The area shaded in uh, pink there is actually a parcel owned by the developer that the school currently crosses to get into the school. Um, it should be mentioned that on the bottom portion of that image, Tillery Road, that school access will remain as it is today. Tiller is not a thoroughare through the school. It will not become a thorough affair through the school and has no part in this discussion. Taking a look at the proposed school access. This shows basically an overall access plan. Not all the way out

008to uh North Cliff, but enough of a view uh that you can see that Explorer Boulevard will become a fourlane boulevard that that uh proceeds to the south. it adjusts a little bit uh and then uh gets out from under that Duke easement. On the right hand portion there entering the school, you can see there's a reconfigured entrance to staff and visitors parking uh that allows both left and right exit onto North Boulevard. Further down to the left, a new entrance to a 20,000 lineal foot two-lane parent queuing lane. That entrance is moved further south than previous versions had shown. Uh and this facilitates uh on-site stacking. Currently today, we can accommodate about 30 vehicles on the school property. Uh this will increase that to about 200 vehicles and Uh uh we'll we'll take a

009closer look at this in just a minute. Entrance to the bus loop is shifted yet further south and the purpose for this is to alleviate congestion caused by co-mingled parent and bus traffic which we currently have today. Sidewalks onto the campus. Uh the primary sidewalk will be located midway between the the parent loop and the bus loop to minimize pedestrian interaction with vehicle movements area. Taking a slightly closer look at this on the north end, we see the entrance to the staff parking is now completely separated from the entrance to the parent pickup lanes. This allows not only direct access into staff parking, but also allows a left and right exit from staff parking onto Explorer Boulevard. You'll see down at the bottom of the page there, uh, there is a sidewalk that was initially

010suggested by our civil engineer. We have since declined that due to the sheer volume of walkers. If you've been to that campus, you know how many walkers are there. And uh, that sidewalk currently there is no gate. There's no connection or passage through to a Zora road, I believe it's called. That's a small residential street that currently has no access to the school. And I can imagine the the lashback that we would hear if we had hundreds of walkers suddenly going down that street. You'll see on this, if you look at Explorer Boulevard on the upper right hand corner of that image, there is now a dedicated left turn lane uh from Explorer Boulevard into the two-lane parent pickup queue. So that stacking that we talked about earlier, this only helps add to that to

011provide additional stacking on Explorer Boulevard. Again, the bus loop entry is shifted further south again away from parent traffic and then the sidewalks onto the campus. One coming from the top part of this image uh crosses from the west side of Explorer and you'll see that that's located the parent loop entry and the bus loop entry. Uh, and we've requested that this sidewalk be elevated much like a speed table. An elevated crosswalk helps make the students more visible to traffic and it just enhances safety. Walkers that would be approaching the school from the south. Uh there is also a sidewalk on the east side of Explorer that comes in uh shown here below the bus loop and connects to existing sidewalk on the property. So that's the uh that's the proposed configuration. Uh after multiple

012iterations and uh years of dialogue, that's finally where all parties have ended up. And this has been vetted by not only our facilities department, but also by the uh safe schools department, the school principal, transportation. We've had multiple district staff reviewing this to to arrive at this consensus. Moving on now. >> Oh, hold on one second. Miss Rodriguez has a question. >> I just wanted to say one of the biggest benefits is that we would be eliminating the um backup on North Boulevard. that >> that has been a nightmare. Yes. >> And for all of the people who live there in those homes, it has just been terrible year after year. So that would be a huge benefit. >> Absolutely. >> You may continue >> and we'll uh turn the presentation over now to Miss

013Mler. >> Hello board chair, superintendent, and board members. I'm Caroline Mopler, staff council to the Hernando County School District. >> Sorry, I'm gonna stop you. I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson had a question before we move forward. >> Uh this is just a small question, Mr. Lipsky. The the turn for the buses off of Explorer Boulevard on that furthest to the left on that picture. How many buses are held in that lefthand turn lane for the buses to turn? You have two lanes going I guess it's actually east and west on Explorer Boulevard. Then you have making left turn to get into the uh the staging area for the buses. How many buses can sit at that juncture before they make the turn to come into explore? Is there room for two or three buses there? >>

014Um first that's not a dedicated left turn lane for the buses like it is for the parent loop. Um so uh and you can see there are merge arrows shown because just after that it merges from four lanes down to two I believe. Okay. >> Um and If if I had to guess, I don't know the length on this. The the the short answer is I'm not positive. If I had to guess, I would say probably three buses. >> Okay. I I I was curious. I I don't see the stacking there being an issue. I just because that's two lane and thoughtfully enough there's a turn lane to get for the parents to get into the school. I would think the same consideration. It would be at least an area where the buses could get

015out of as well and that's the only reason I was asked. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Mler. You can continue. >> Thank you so much. So, in order to effectuate the transfer and the um improvements to Explorer Boulevard, um several legal agreements need to be executed. First of all, um we're going to go over Duke Energy's um letter of no objection. So Duke Energy has authored a conditional letter of no objection um which Duke Energy and the developer have agreed to um and the county wishes to move move forward with. In the conditional letter of no objection, it states that Duke Energy has conditionally approved the Explore Boulevard improvement project 60% construction plans subject to specific conditions and future final approval. The conditional approval is contingent upon Duke Energy Transmission receiving and reviewing final

016plans stamped and signed by licensed professional engineer was which must meet all detailed conditions before construction begins and a final letter of no objection will be issued within 30 days of notification that all permits and governmental approvals have been obtained provided that there are no incompatible designs or changes. We need all parties to confirm this but since the final plans are I believe approved um Mr. Taylor with 88 suggests that this be converted from a conditional letter of no objection to a final letter of no objection. The letter of no objection goes on to state conditions for approval. The conditions include that Duke Energy does not comment on present or future vegetation plantings, but retains the right to manage vegetation within or outside the easement to ensure safe and reliable service. No stockpiling or storage

017of materials, dirt, or equipment is permitted with the Duke Energy Transmission easement area, nor combustible materials be placed there. Contractors should not operate equipment within 25 ft of the electrical structures and all slopes must be 4:1 or less. Underground facilities must bear a load of 80,000 lbs and irrigation systems and signs are not permitted in the ement area except for a government required signs. Any damage to the transmission line or structures related to the project is the responsibility of the developer or owner. and Duke Energy Transmission retains the right to use its entire easement area for electric line operations regardless of pre-existing encroachment agreements. Additional comments and requirements include that any incompatible design changes involving transmission easements must be reviewed by Duke Energy Transmissions. Proper clearances must be maintained and any required transmission line modifications

018will be the owner's responsibility. Duke Energy transmission heav equipment access must not be restricted during the project. The owner is responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including safety codes and acts, and the final final letter of no objection will supersede the previously approved encroachment agreement, terminating its conditions and terms. The exhibits to the letter of no objection include site plans, Duke Energy use guidelines for encroachments involving trans transmission easements, Duke Energy lookup and live brochure, and the Duke Energy utility relocation agreement. >> Miss Mler, >> yes. May I ask um Duke Energy if she could maybe come up and I could ask her a question as to much as far as maybe what the timeline could be for this final letter or will the final letter hold up or do we need

019an encroachment agreement from Duke? >> The final letter will hold up and um we have other agreements in here which um it terminates the encroachment agreement. So I'll get to that. Okay. Legal document. Are you able to maybe give us a timeline or come up? Thank you. If you can state your name for the record. I'm Gayen Holloway. I'm the government and community relations manager for Duke Energy for this area. I am not our legal representative, but I'm here to speak um on to answer any questions you may have. Um in terms of timeline, our standard um we have told um the parties in this conversation that once the 100% plans are received, which they were received midweek, we'll need about 10 days to review them before we can give the approval that we can

020move forward with the letter of no objection. I did speak with our team once those were reviewed midweek last week and there were no substantial changes to them and so we don't affect any substantial changes to the conversations that we've had thus far. >> Okay, those I believe the date that we communicated was December 17th as our latest um to give the direction after the draw 100% drawings were received. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Any further questions for her? >> No, thank you. >> Absolutely. >> And I wanted to add that if we do go with a conditional letter of no objection. Um we are going to ask Duke Energy to add language expressly acknowledging and approving the transfer agreement under which the district is dedicating land to the county. And then we also

021of course need the final plans to attach as um she mentioned. Thank you. Okay. So next we are going to move on to um the Hernando County School Board's transfer and dedication of Explorer Boulevard to the county. The transfer agreement is executed between the Hernando County and the school board regarding the transfer of a portion of Explorer Boulevard. The district owns the property which provides access to Explorer K8 School. The county requests the district to transfer the property to incorporate Explorer Boulevard into the county road system, addressing access and traffic issues and assuming maintenance responsibilities. The transfer is authorized by section 335.0415 Florida statutes and is deemed in the public interest. The district agrees to transfer subject to conditions including the county's acknowledgement of existing incumbrances and the provision of perpetual easement for school access.

022The district's transfer is also contingent on Duke executing a final letter of no objection which authorizes the transfer. The agreement states that Somerset must construct additional access in a new marquee for the school at no cost to the district which will be subject to a separate agreement between the developer and the district. The county agrees not to store hazardous materials on the property and to comply with all applicable laws. The developer must release and indemnify the district regarding the access agreement. The county assumes liability for tors related to the roadway after transfer while the district remains liable for prior incidents subject to sovereign immunity. The county agrees to indemnify the district against claims arising from the county's actions or violations related to the agreement. Indemnifications obligations are ongoing and binding on the county and its

023successors. Once the county transfer agreement officially goes before the board for execution, the proposed resolution will authorize the superintendent and/or chair to sign all ancillary documents, including closing documents, deed of dedication, closing statement, and any other related documents necessary to complete the closing. The exhibits to the agreement include a legal description of the district property detailing its boundaries and size, title encumbrances, including easements and agreements affecting the property, the Duke letter of no objection, and approved construction plans. Um this agreement is pending the letter of no objection resolution. Uh we need final plans to attach and a deed of dedication to follow 60 days after the execution of the transfer agreement. To move on to the deed of dedication. The deed of dedication is the district's proposed legal document to dedicate the district property to

024the county for purposes of public rideway and a county collector road. It has been approved by the county and it would be the document executed and recorded at the closing of the county transfer agreement. It does not need to be signed at the next board meeting. The exhibit include to the deed of dedication is legal description of the land dedicated. Okay, we're going to move on to the termination and release of encroachment agreement. Duke holds easement rights to the district property based on an easement dated April 1st, 1927 and an order of taking. An encroachment agreement dated November 20th, 2006 allowed the district to use part of the property for road access to the school explorer K8. Because the district is dedicating this land to the county to be converted into a public rideway, the

025district's right to access this property will be provided by the public rightway and Duke's agreement to the construction plans. As a result, the current encroachment agreement is unnecessary and a termination of the original encroachment agreement with Duke along with a release of each party's rights, duties, and obligations in accordance with the terms and conditions of the termination release of encroachment agreement is necessary. The termination and release of encroachment agreement formally ends the district's rights on the Duke easement area which is located on the property being dedicated to the county, removes outdated encumbrances from the property and prevents future against the district um future claims by Duke against the district under the original encroachment agreement. In the conditional letter of no objection, Duke agrees to replace district access rights with a right of way described and

026depicted in the termination and release of encroachment agreement. The document includes standard provisions on construction, captions, severability, entire agreement, governing law, and authority. We do need confirmation from Duke that they agreed to the termination and release of encroachment agreement, and we need um final plans. The document will be executed at the next meeting, but would not be dated or recorded until the construction of the ride ofway is completed, and Duke and the developer are prepared to enter into their own encroachment agreement. The exhibit to that legal agreement is a legal description of the district property and right-of-way plans. And moving on to the termination and release release of access agreement. The access agreement is dated May 19th, 2015 and allows the developer limited access to the district property in exchange for improvements by the developer.

027As the district will no longer own this property, the developer's access will be pursuant to the right of way. This document is unnecessary and the district and the developer need to enter a termin termination and release of access agreement. The termination release of access agreement formally ends the developer's access to the property and any obligations the district had in original access agreement. The agreement officially revokes to the developer's right to enter or use school district property under the prior agreement. confirm confirms the agreement no longer owes any the district no longer owes any duties under the early agreement and includes a release meaning the developer agrees that they have no further claims, demands or rights arising out of the old agreement. If necessary, the developer must enter into new agreement with the county for access.

028The agreement requires the developer to endemnify the district and this document should be recorded at the time that the district transfers the property to the county. And so we are on to the developer transfer agreement and that is between the developer and the school board as consideration for the district dedicating a portion of the explorer boulevard to Hernando County and the transfer agreement with the county Somerset and Ax 88. the developer known collectively will transfer portions of the properties to the district that will ultimately incorporate the revised access and queuing for the school. This will ensure that the district will own the underlying property to these improvements instead of having its access on a third party's property. The agreement includes the transfer of both real and intangible property. The real property includes a fee simple

029title to the property by a special warranty deed, rights of ingress and egress, airspace rights, and subsurface rights among others. The intangible property encompasses engineering design plans, permits, and other development related rights. The developer is required to complete certain improvement work, including extending Explorer Boulevard and adding security features on schoolboard property. The work must comply with all relevant laws will occur 15 days after the developer completes the improvement work provided that the district complies with all conditions present to closing in the agreement. The agreement will put a time frame on the construction and completion of this work. And if developer fails to meet those deadlines, the district has the right to complete the work and receive reimbursement plus 10% or seek any other legal remedies. The developer is also improving the school's drainage by connecting

030um the district's existing drainage retention areas to a new drainage pond on Somerset's property. In connection with the grading and slope alterations that are necessary for the developers construction of these drainage improvements, the district will be required to obtain a perpetual non-exclusive drainage easement over from Somerset over and upon across through and under a portion of Somerset property for the drainage retention. At closing, Somerset and District will execute and record the drainage easement agreement that is attached to the transfer agreement as exhibit D. In case of default by the developer under the transfer agreement, the district may terminate the transfer agreement, seek specific performance, or pursue other legal remedies. If the district defaults, the developer may terminate the agreement after providing notice and an opportunity to cure. The agreement includes standard clauses on notice, amendments,

031governing law and counterparts with venue in Hernando County. The agreement also gives the district 60 days for an inspection period so the district can conduct all standard due diligence regarding title survey and environmental matters. The district will have the right to request the developer cure title survey and environmental matters to which the district objects. Once the county transfer agreement officially goes before the board for execution, the proposed resolution will authorize the superintendent and/or chair to sign all in ancillary documents, including closing documents, easements, closing statements, and any other related documents necessary to complete the closing. Attached to the transfer agreement with the developer are approved construction plans, legal description of the AX8 property, legal description of the Somerset property and non-governmental entity human trafficking act human trafficking affidavit. Um I will now go into describing

032the drainage easement agreement between Somerset Land LLC and the school board attached to the transfer agreement as exhibit D. The purpose and grant of the easement. Somerset is connecting the district existing the district's existing drainage retention area to a new drainage pond on Somerset's property. Detailed in an exhibit attached to the agreement. Somerset grants the district a non-exclusive permanent easement over Somerset's property for storm water dra drainage to the Somerset pond. Somerset reserves a right to use this property for purposes that do not materially affect the easement rights. The maintenance responsibilities include that Somerset is responsible for maintaining the drainage utilities at its own expense and must not alter them without the district's consent except for the necessary improvements. If Somerset fails to maintain the utilities, the district can perform maintenance and seek reimbursement for

033Somerset with interest acrewing on unpaid amounts. Miscellaneous provisions include that the easement does not wave the district sovereign immunity or liability limits and the agreement is governed by Florida law with disputes to be resolved in Hernando County courts. Exhibits to that agreement include depiction of utilities, legal description of district property and the legal description of the Somerset property. Now um what is uh have has been a subject of discussion among the parties is uh paragraph six which is the timing of improvement work. Now um there has been discussion as to what to tie the uh what is the triggering event for this improvement work. Um we first began with proposed language which tied these improvements to the extension of Explorer Boulevard including the improvements to the school district property. Um uh it was set to

034commence I believe within 60 days um of the uh commencement of the agreements and um to be completed within 18 months. Um we received information from the developer that um these improvements were no longer needed or um because they have um created construction on a roadway and multiple access points to the property. Um however um and they wanted to tie tie the improvement work to the development agreement. However, the development agreement um is a bit nebulous and it does not have a um any kind of deadline for um well the improvements are actually in the development agreement it states that the improvements are to be completed at the commencement of phase one and prior to any issuance of a certificate of occupancy in phase one. Now the infrastructure of phase one has um begun but

035no houses have been built. Um the developer proposed that the um again then proposed that the improvements be tied to phase three. However, um there was discussion as to whether phase three would occur. Um it's note worthy noteworthy to include that the development agreement um and the improve the need for improvements was based off of the traffic study that was done in accordance with the methodology that was created by the county and it was approved by the county and that was done in August of 2021. So um right now paragraph six is up to >> Hold on one second. Sorry >> interrupt. You said how there's some concern over phase three not occurring. >> Well, um these were discussions. They wanted to tie the um construction of improvements that we're going to agree to in

036the transfer of um and the transfer agreement between the developer and the school board to phase three. But phase three um we don't know when and if that will ever occur. They there's no re what are the reasons that it wouldn't occur? They give anything. >> Um they have not provided us a reason for if it would not occur but um we don't know when it would occur and this >> doesn't that impact >> it impacts >> everything. >> It impacts everything. So if phase three I mean if we tie it to phase three then um no improvements are going to be completed until phase three occurs. The original understanding was that these improvements were needed based off of a traffic study and that they would commence at the beginning of phase one. Um, >>

037and that hasn't happened. >> No. >> And it hasn't happened for phase two. >> Well, phase Yeah. So the conditional phase two has >> phase three. >> Is that correct? >> Phase three hasn't even begun. >> I know. >> Yeah. Yeah. No. So I mean >> so nothing is >> so we would like um the discussion is you know what triggering event do we tie the improvements to or do we set a um a timeline as we originally agreed to with 60 days to 18 months for completion. >> So what have you all come up with to tie that to? >> That's the discussion for today. >> Well if Miss Rodriguez >> right now the school continues to operate business as usual. It would continue that way until phase three would happen if phase three

038ever happened. But at this moment, um, we have access points being Bay Drive and Chomemers. Currently, phase one and phase two, they do not need Explore Boulevard for traffic circulation, and we won't need that until the traffic demand exceeds the capacity on Chomemer and Bay Drive. So, regardless whether that were to happen or not to happen, we're still guaranteed access. We're still guaranteed business as usual. Nothing changes. And then one thing that this does is it takes away our liability by making this. >> Go ahead. Continue. >> It reduces the liability by turning over the properties to turn into accounting for a public street. So by doing this at the end of the day, if something were to happen and the constituents said this is now county access, then what we would do, Somerset would

039just open up their entrance and we would still continue with our school. So it would not jeopardize anything except benefit us with liability, benefit us with access, um not having the queuing going on on North Cliff Boulevard. All in all, it's a win-win when it comes down to the way that it puts us um as far as the structure um of of the school and the parents, the traffic. Is that not correct, Mr. Lipy? Yeah, my my understanding is that that we would proceed as is as we are today until such time as the need to connect that traffic circle to North Cliff by means of Explorer Boulevard is is determined. It's not within our purview to make that determination. So we because we would be relying presumably on the county. I'm not entirely positive,

040but I presume we would rely on the county to make that determination. That would be the point at which then all these improvements would happen. >> So, if there's a concern about the gate and security, in order to keep the safety and security, the county would agree to leave the gate as is. Or alternately, Somerset would then allow a gate to be constructed on their property. If the conu constituents did bulk at this being county owned ever down the road, we would still have Somerset and that could be put into the paperwork um to make the time frame more definite for further definition of phase three. These improvements for Explore Boulevard, we could put something where it would commence within 18 months after construction permits are granted for the next phase when whenever that would

041be um of Somerset Bay and be completed within three years. So, there's things we could do to protect oursel. And uh I have proposed um language which um again in the original developer agreement this extension improvements they're based off of a traffic study that was in 2021. So perhaps we could um hinge the improvements on another traffic study and the proposed language was the determination of need for access and improvement work shall be based on an empirical study impact data or investigation conducted by an engineer and approved by Hernando County. Any party may request a study or investigation the cost of which shall be borne by the developer. Upon the determination that need for the improvement work exists based upon the empirical study impact data or the investigation. The developer shall commence the improvement work

042within a specific num amount of time. Um which is proposed by the developer to be eight months unless such deadlines are modified by Hernando County or both parties approval. Developers shall provide district with at least 90 days prior notice to the commencement of the improvement work. Until commencement of improvement work, Explorer Boulevard and school access shall be operated in the current condition and the developer shall not make changes which interfere with the school oper operations. So, at this moment with phase one and phase two, we do not need explore boulevard for traffic circulation and we won't need it until we did another traffic demand um traffic study and to see what the traffic demand if it exceeds the capacity on Chmer and Bay Drive, then at that point then we could address that issue. But

043as long as we had everything legalized and put into our paperwork, then that would never jeopardize the integrity of our access points and us doing um continuing to use the school as usual, >> Mr. J. >> But that needs to be in the agreement. Correct. >> Yes. >> That kind of language, legal language. And I still don't understand phase three. They're not they don't know what's going to happen. You've got 2,300 homes set up for that area. It's zoned for that. Um, I have a hard time trying to figure out what they might be using that for other than whether it's them. Maybe they'll sell it sell it to another developer. That's that would be my guess. If that if they don't have a clear picture of what they're doing or willing to put a

044timeline with it, something's going to happen. >> But either way, No, but those 23 homes are 2,300 homes are going to go in there one way or another, whether it's that development or another. Where does that put us in terms of our legal responsibilities and not having a clear plan of what we're going to be doing, able to do? Well, would that not continue with Somerset putting in the legal verbiage that they would allow the gate to be constructed on their property, that would still continue to be access points to the school? >> I can't speak to that. >> And also, if they sold the land, if they sold the land, whoever acquired the land would have to honor this. Correct? >> We would have to tie that into the agreement. we would have to

045modify all the agreements if we were go see that was the problem with the phase three. So um you know it's like with the improvements what if in the future the traffic um necessitates the improvements but phase three hasn't been constructed but then in these documents we've tied the improvements to phase three. So we have no recourse in to get these improvements if they're needed in the future. That was the problem. >> Mr. Johnson, I'm sorry. >> Thank you. Um, I would like to see the security gate remain in place until such time as Explorer Boulevard is worked on to make it a complete access road. Second part, I think Mrs. Dval, if I remember correctly, u the the U and M. would know better. There is no concurrency as I understand it for phase

046three to be developed at this point. If that's the case, they would have to do a traffic study and come back to us >> to assure that a they could build a 2,300 homes which would in today's uh formula a.3 would be about 700 students had a place to go. So I think the concurrency would have to be in place for 2,300 even if they sold the develop to a different developer. There would have to be some kind of concession made. Um so I I don't think that is necessarily an issue because am I right about the concurrency? There is none for for phase three. >> That's correct. >> You are correct. So they in order to build the other homes out, I would imagine he'd have the developer currently would have to sell 90%

047plus of the homes in in phases one and two and then mitigate the damages at which time they'd have to do another study uh for the traffic. So if if the traffic study is required at the commencement of phase three, I think we're protected and I don't see a problem as long as the security for the school is in place until such time as that road becomes an access road. >> Mr. Lipy, >> your microphone, Mr. what I'm looking at. Do you think by putting the all of the restrictions into this current legal document that it will be more difficult for this developer to sell that piece of property? >> No. uh with the access points from Bay on the uh Deltona side and Charmers on the uh Mariner side, the cross street going below

048the school where that new circle is proposed. That's already in place so that he has access to get to his property. He does not need Explorer Boulevard to get to those pieces of property. What the county, I believe, is requiring is the access from Unexplorer Boulevard if he goes into phase three because they always want multiple entrance and exits to communities. >> Then then why are they not wanting to put any kind of a timeline? >> I I think the problem I'm going to guess I'm going to guess he has phase one and two where not a single stick of wood has gone into the ground to build these homes. He's got a huge investment from until now 30 years where he he could not build for regard different reasons. Now he's to the point

049I I don't know what his financial condition is. I don't know if he's running into a cash flow problem, but if that was me, I' I'd be a little worried about it. Um, so if you give we give him a chance to build homes and and be stable, he can sell those and then move into the other areas, which I think is the, you know, the intent. >> But then you have the concurrency problem. Miss Rodriguez, >> at this moment, well, in the past three and a half years, from 2022 to 2026, almost four years actually, >> um, Somerset proceeded with the other access points being the Bay Drive, Chalmer's, and during that time, they expended millions of dollars to do that. So, they've put that money in there in order to get to where

050we are now. This has been going on since 2006, if not before that. So basically we the school board in 2006 we had the responsibility at that time to provide access to this piece of property which is 450 acres off of the explorer boulevard. So we've been going through this for a long long time and there's a lot of benefits to us being able to see this through and make it happen as well as for Somerset. But I don't think I think we could ask Mr. Taylor if he would like to come up and speak on um phase three if you wouldn't mind. >> Madam Chair. >> Yes. >> While Mr. Taylor's approaching uh just to remind the board um the executive summary for this indicated that Kristen Coaleski of Gray Robinson uh council rep

051outside council representing the school district uh is also a part of the presentation. Miss Coaleesi has been listening to the conversation. She is connected via teams and so if there are specific questions uh that perhaps Miss Moer and I are unable to answer, she has been listening to the conversation and is able to address other questions you may have. >> Thank you. >> The only question I have which I think has been answered is the security for the school as it is now. And if that gate is up until such time as Explorer Boulevard is changed and reconfigured, that would solve the problem as far as I'm concerned as to security for the existing school. So I I don't think that places a burden necessarily on the developer. Um um I would like also Miss

052Mosul to see a time frame, but it seems like it's almost impractical to tie it to a a time frame frame. So, it has to be an event and the only event that makes sense is when the shovel goes in the ground for phase three or when they go to when they go to get that approved at that point require an additional traffic study. And I think that would I think that makes sense u and maybe put a time frame at that at that point after the traffic study have so many days or months to to start improving uh Explorer Boulevard. And I think Rodriguez, >> I think that's where we were within 18 months after we were to put the shovel on the ground. We would do the 18 months after construction permits are

053granted for that next phase, which would be phase three of Somerset Bay and then to be completed by three years. Um Mr. Taylor, if tell me if you think that that sounds reasonable. >> I'm sorry if I can just interject really quickly. Um I I just wanted to say that um I think that you know tying it to phase three um rather than omitting phase three and just keeping it traffic study as that was originally what the development agreement now between the county and the developer is based off of what the original need was based off of. And so I think that um a traffic study and just saying that it's going to be based off of a traffic study and the proposed language would um satisfy um the requirement and like be a good

054triggering event as um that's what was originally agreed to um between the county and the developer. And um you know that would also perhaps allow for the um in case another developer there was a successor to come along for phase three because we don't know when phase three is going to happen and so um you know a traffic study that can be requested at any time. >> Thank you Mr. Taylor. >> Uh good afternoon. My name is Mark Taylor. I am the manager for Axe LLC. Also, just as way of history, I am also a general partner for Mark 425 and the general partner for Luke 1248. All of those companies have owned this uh property at one time or another. Just uh it is uh originally Mark 4:25 purchased it. That was me and

055my wife. Uh Luke 12:48 was me, my wife, and my two children. Act 88 is me, my wife, my two children, and a charitable organization that owns part of our the ownership of that. So, I've been involved with this since 2012, working through these issues since that time. I'll try to answer the questions that that have been posed uh as best that I remember them. I was writing down some other things out out back. Um the the biggest question that is uh has been asked is why now? The reason now is because in 2022 we had an agreement, an amended agreement with this group. Um, most of you weren't on the board at the time. Uh, I do know Mr. Devall was on the board in 2015 when we did the original agreement that said

056we could have access to the property because the school board owned it. Then in 2022 when we gained a joint venture partner who was Somerset Lands, Ron Bastier sitting in the back and he can certainly come up and speak if you need him to came on board. They started to get the conditional plat through the county got got as far as submitting the construction plans and Duke Energy said wait a minute we don't think you should do this even after they had said in 2015 conceptually in our opinion that it could be done we didn't feel like it was necessary to go to legal uh at that time so we chose to try to negotiate compromise do whatever we could to make Duke happen But unfortunately, as that related to that, in 2022 and beyond,

057um the your staff got a little reticent about trying to approve much of anything because they didn't want to enter you into a lawsuit with Duke and I understand that. I think that was probably a good choice looking back on it. However, that was in 2022. If you look at your calendar, almost to and um that's been three and a half years. Um in the last year, negotiated with Duke and the and the board of county commissioners has been very helpful in that and they have agreed to drop their opposition to that in exchange for us doing a few things for them as well. We have to move we have to pay for part of their relocation of a particular pole and some other things. All right. The problem was that we now have a

058very strong building economy and we're sitting there with a lot of dirt that our our families owned for a long time and our joint venture partner partners invested a bunch of money into and we can't build anything because the development agreement said we're supposed to go build Explorer Boulevard. So we went back to the county and said look we're we're stuck. can we build Chalmer's and Bay Drive and access some of the property? And they said yes. So we did that. Mr. Bastier and his partners back in the back have spent millions of dollars doing that. And Mr. Johnson, you're probably correct in that after you spend a lot of money, it's really hard to go spend a lot of money that you don't need to spend right now. But we Why now? That's the

059question. now is because we have all the parties not only aligned um but we have them all aligned in concept. Duke says go ahead, the county says go ahead. You guys say go ahead and this is the third time you will say actually the fourth time you will say go ahead. It was in 2006 you said go ahead. In 2015 you said go ahead. In 2022 you said go ahead. This is now 2025. It's time to go ahead. Um, so that's the reason that we need to put this off. Now, let's talk a little bit about when that would be. And I'm thankful for Miss Mo. Uh, there there's uh there's scientific and technical issues that come into play. And then there's stuff that that that we can see we can create all kinds of

060fear if we want to do that. But the reality of it is we are approved for phase one. It's if you've been out there, it's built most for the most part. Okay. But this has also caused some issues with our with our uh our ultimate buyer of the property who is a home builder who hasn't closed on some documents yet because he's waiting to make sure we're trying to get this all squared away. So, phase one's done. Phase two has been conditionally platted by the county, which means it's now in the permitting process. The construction plans are being developed and we're moving to phase one. at phase two. There is no doubt that phase three because if you look at that picture that's up there, you'll see that more than half of the property has

061not been developed. There is no doubt that we're going we're moving to another phase. That's just going to happen. Exactly when that's going to be is going to be dependent on when phase one and phase two are completed. And we cannot tell you that. I've been in this community a long time and I've developed a reputation in this community that's different than somebody coming from out of town. And I'm going to tell you, I'm not gonna be I'm not going to sit up here and tell you a bunch of stories and I'm not going to threaten to sue you and I'm not going to we're that's just who we are. So the deal is we don't know exactly. So what triggers it? the the contract that was on the um agenda today says that from

062the time you sign the agreement six days after that we'll start work I just like anybody to look me in the eye and say that's reasonable six days and it'll be completed in 180 days u which I'd like you to look at your staff and say that's reasonable because it's not >> that's the part we need to amend. >> Pardon? >> That needs to be amended. >> Yeah. So, that's the that's the issue we're talking about >> and that's what we're talking about. >> Paragraph six, page five. All right. Our suggestion is that we take it out of our hands and frankly your hands and we put it in the uh hands of the county engineer who will say when there's not enough traffic uh circulation available to build another house, Somerset, you will stop.

063Just like when you tell us there's not another seat in a classroom to build to put a kid in, you will tell us that's your pervery. That's where you guys operate. You will stop. So to me, the traffic makes the most sense. We've been going back and forth the last week or so trying to figure out what alternatively might work. We've got some language involving phase three uh that might work, but but we really think the traffic study is is where it would be because when the traffic exceeds and and somebody asked a question to us as we've been discussing this, where are we talking about traffic? We're not talking about traffic on Chalmer's and Bay Drive. We are talking when you do a traffic study, it is more global than that. We're talking about

064Deltona. We're talking about Mariner. The traffic impacts on those roads and other places. It's not just the the roads that are close by to this thing. It spreads out. I I've got an engineer. I'm gonna let him talk in a second because I' I've gone too long. Uh he can explain the traffic study to you much better than I can. But it's not just the little neighborhood that we're talking about. We're talking about traffic impacts on lots of things. So when we get to that point, the county is going to say, "Mr. Developer, you have to do improvements on those roads." So we may have to do improvements on Deltona. We may have to do improvements on Mar. I don't know what the traffic study's going to say, but that's what that's what it does.

065We don't Another question that was uh well, what happens if we go away? Can I tell you something? My dream is that I go away because what I want to do is sell this to Mr. Bastier sitting back there in the in the uh in the thing and then he, who is a very honorable man by the way, also takes it over and runs forward with it. I don't think he's going anywhere, but if we keep stalling so long, he may we may get somebody like the folks you've dealt with last month in here before it's over with. And you don't want to deal with folks like that again. Okay? I'm just here to I think I'm here to tell you about that. You don't you don't need to me to remind you about that.

066So we I I would just tell you we have no issue at all to adding to the agreement that it can be assignable that our whoever we assign it to takes chairman. Uh that's your question to me. I'm in the real estate business. That'd be that'd be silliness for us to say that it couldn't be assigned. I mean that's just normal standard legal language. Of course it could be assigned. The final thing I want to say before I turn it over to my engineer is that if you go back to sl 16. Could you do that, please? On slide 16 that you're looking at now in blue, we own it. You have operated the access to Explorer Boulevard on our property since the day it was built. We have had no issues with any of

067that. It's been operated just fine. And if until that day when the traffic study says we got to build something, you guys can keep building and dealing with that until the day we do that. And we have a 20 year history. I think at this point is that's pretty good that says we hadn't messed up with you guys. What you know, I'm not gonna get I'm not an attorney married to one, but I'm just going to ask I'm just a rhetorical question. What you have on the blue piece of property right there is an easement. It's not very specific. It just says easement. If I wanted to run cattle on that blue piece of property and I wanted to open fences all over the places to do that, the question I would have for my

068attorney and your attorney is, could I do that? And my guess is the answer is probably yes, because all you have is an easement across the blue area. We need to get that squared away. You should not operate I think hopefully your attorneys will tell you this. You shouldn't operate across a piece of property that's an easement in 2006. You couldn't negotiate that with a prior owner. He wouldn't allow it. You currently have the prior own the current owners in the room and you ought to square that up. As a citizens of this county and taxpayer, I think it's not good for you to operate a school across an easement that you don't own. All right. Thank you. I think Mr. Duval had a question first. >> I was just going to go back to

069our attorney and ask for an opinion on this timeline with phase three. What could be done to alleviate concerns that the board might have with not having something in place? >> Um to have some sort of triggering event. um that's not arbitrarily chosen. Um, it's also difficult to, you know, base it off of, you know, it's it's difficult for I mean, I'm I would, I guess, have to defer to the board, um, attorney, but, um, I think that the board needs to make a decision that is in the best interest of the school district. And, um, you have to base that off of something. Um, and you know, if you base it off of we're going to do this when phase three occurs, you know what, um, what is that based off of? or you

070know a certain number of homes and that are maybe a certain number of homes in phase two would work. But um you know again it's just it's not really based off of something concrete. Um but that's those are my thoughts. Um I'll maybe defer to Kristen Kowleski also the attorney that's been um handling this and uh she also drafted the documents and helped draft the documents. So um if she has any input. So, are we are we suggesting to base it off of a travel of a um a study like a traffic study, right? Correct. That's what you're suggesting. And they're wanting to leave it as phase three. Are they okay with having it as >> No, madam chair. >> Traffic study, right? So, what are we arguing then? >> We're not really arguing that

071point at all. >> Perfect. >> So, when we cannot use Explorer Boulevard, we had to update our traffic study with the county. So, the one she's referring to is not the current one. and we had to update it to include connection to Chmer. So we specifically went in and said not because of school district but because of Duke we can't do the improvements to Explore. So we updated the traffic study convinced them to build the Chomemers took Explore out until we could finally get to a point where it could be a public roadway. Um we can't do any improvements on it currently but when it becomes a public roadway we can do all the improvements. So, a traffic study is done each step of the way, each phase, and whether you want to call it

072future phases of development as assigned or just the next traffic study that's approved by Hernando County and the development agreement with the developer. Um, the traffic study is the key. It is how the trips are disputed or distributed into the community and it will be the trigger when Explorer needs to be built. The fourth connection we have is to a road on the south side of the property that doesn't provide near the benefits that Explorer Boulevard does. And if you look at what we've been doing for the last several years, we've been pursuing y'all to build it. So, it's not like we're backing away from it. The thing that got us was we already spent the money to update the traffic study and build Chomemers. That's built in place connected. We're putting it in operation

073as we speak. the traffic circle that's built there is for Explore Boulevard to connect to and we fully feel phase three or whatever future phase comes along is going to happen that's going to trigger that traffic study saying you now got to do those improvements but with phase one and two built approved chummers built connected day drive built connected we simply were asking the district to allow us to use the traffic study to trip the generation needs to trigger the improvements versus speific specific date like six days from the date of the effective you know the agreements effective. We've also discussed with your staff in great detail that this needs to be scheduled around summer months so that most of the improvements that we're doing on campus is not done during your normal school time.

074>> Appreciate that. >> So if we're going to schedule a summer, we also need to time to do that improvement with those summers kind of built into that future phase. So we're fine with the traffic study being the trigger. No issues with that. And then we want to be able to uh commence and complete it within 18 months from that trigger being approved, which will be with the next phase of development. Traffic study is not going to change for what I've already done until we have more homes to trigger additional cars. Similar to our concurrency analysis we do with them. You know, he's not going to trigger our need to do a prop share agreement if we don't have another phase of development coming in. But if phase three comes in today and y'all are

075short, we got to do a prop share agreement or meet concurrency requirements. Same with traffic. >> Cliff, you you talk about something being a traffic study being triggered. What actually triggers >> new the new homes? >> Is there is there a number that's attached to >> Oh, how many the next conditional plat similar to y'all use for um school concurrency triggers it >> the next and we could depending how she wants to write it. We don't have to tie it at phase three. I don't know if it was Ray or who was staff kind of said, "Well, what what if y'all went to phase four next?" I said, "Well, we're going to have to build a road." That was stupid. So, it's um the next phase of development >> next Rodriguez plat Yeah. And it

076will require traffic study with the conventional plat concurrency >> and our transportation concurrency. >> Okay. Miss Rodriguez, >> is it fair to say that Mr. Taylor, your group has been more than patient because with the school district from many, many, many, many years ago. And we're basically consummating agreements that started back in 2006, which by doing that and honoring this, which should have been honored a long time ago, um it would remove any conflicts and eliminate potential litigation with us. So, you have probably been one of the most patient men that I know because most businessmen that have went this many years would not have just sat on their hands. so so to speak. And I think that you have shown a lot of grace and I know that you have a lot of money

077out on this. So you're just looking for this to be finalized as it should have been a long time ago. Is that not correct? >> Well, if that was a question, I would just say that we feel as if we have compromised in any way, shape, or form that we can um we feel like we've done a pretty admirable job in that regard. >> All right, Mr. Johnson. >> I I feel Mrs. Rodriguez that the school board is not the fault here. I think it it's all been Duke Energy who has been stalling this and not working with the community to see a project through. I mean, thank you for the clarification. We say phase three, you see the next conditional flat that works. That gives, you know, and and I would even stipulate I

078appreciate the fact that that you want to do the construction over the summer because that makes it easier on the school. I'm sure you could arrange it where where that road is semifunctional in the fall or whatever school year that is even if it doesn't get completed until the springtime. To me, that's >> campus activities for queuing areas and stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Staff. Yeah, I understand that. I I don't have any problem with that. I I think that solves your problem. It solves our problem because we don't want that elephant in the room again, that other project where it was just indefinite forever and ever and ever. So, Knowing that we can't get a time certain to have a triggering event like another conditional flat to me is p perfectly reasonable and should

079be done. That gives everybody a time frame in a sense where we all know what's going on and and you're right because you still have the problem with concurrency to deal with at that point. >> So we were thrown during all of that process we were thrown in the midst of when Duke raised their head at that time in 2022. the school board, the district staff got concerned because of that and we backed off. So at that time we were no longer doing plans, no longer looking at anything. We just basically said we're stepping back because Duke had strife and they weren't seeing eye to eye with wanting to move forward. So we did step back. So I think all in all together it has been a problem for the developer whether it be us

080whether it be Duke whatever the stronghold has been it's been there. So at this moment if we have the ability to release that and we have the ability to let this development go forward and we can do it safely for the best interest of the district as well as the county commissioners Duke and the school board and we can let them proceed. I think that it's finally time. I think that we have strung them along not intentionally and not because of us as an entity but all government entities everything because no one could get everything together and now since everyone has their ducks in a row I think it's time to go ahead and let you proceed and move forward because you've been waiting on this for probably more years than anyone I've known. >>

081All right, let's move on to the last question with Mr. Dval and then we'll wrap this up. >> So Mr. Taylor Cliff, you're willing to work our our legal counsel on additional language that will satisfy and resolve the problem with phase three coming on board. Is that correct? >> Yeah. Let me let me take this and just say that what I hear you saying and I'm sure your staff is doing better notes than this. Uh a conditional plat will trigger a traffic study. the traffic study when uh the traffic exceeds the current uh concurrency because that's it would you know you all talk about school concurrency the the county also deals with traffic currency it's the same so when it exceeds the same concurrency or exceeds concurrency that we will institute u the construction within

082a certain period of time and uh I would suggest 18 months after that traffic study that we would commence and three years after that it would it would be completed. >> Miss Mockler, are you okay with that? >> Not to put you on the spot. Generally speaking, >> I'll have to discuss this. I'm sorry I can't provide a definitive answer right now. >> It is my feeling that we can work this out just like we've worked out just about everything or tried to work out just about everything. We've worked for many many years through. So use so doing using what you just said you will meet and get this finished so that >> we are now able to move forward if we get the correct language right. >> Yes we absolutely commit to >> and

083if I can get um Kristen Kowleski's opinion as well. >> Okay Mr. Myers would >> I'm here no I definitely think we come with some language and I think this has been helpful. I think we kind of wanted some of the board input on the triggering language because it was something that we had gone back and forth with, but it seems like everybody's um along the same page and I don't anticipate any issues being able to to finalize the language with Mr. Taylor on on this paragraph for this document. >> Thank you. >> Can we add the 18 months? Is it we do do it during summer that we know that >> okay language? >> You know what I'm saying? like I want them to be like we have to get it done in 18

084months so we're in the middle of school. >> All right, Mr. Myers. >> Yeah, I mean just a couple other things that Mr. Taylor mentioned. I think it'd be important to include obviously the successors you know or the assignability in the event you know it's sold that that needs to be included. Uh, also the point about that that easement, you know, in that blue area bothered me when you brought that up that we need to nail that down uh, as well because the fact that, you know, the the district was granted an easement for 20 years, it doesn't mean it'll be granted for the next five years. So, we we have to get a commitment there as well. >> And I would like to say that I appreciate Duke willing to work with us now.

085Um, I know management and things change over the years, so I do appreciate your willingness to to to get this completed as well. And then Mr. Pender, >> does that question um Well, let me say I appreciate I know there's been a lot of discussion. I know this has been going on a long time. So, I appreciate um this moving to this place that we're in now. Would that blue area be would that easement be solved when we sign the agreement. >> Would the would the easement issue be solved when we sign it? >> Or >> no, that would become property. >> Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Kristen. >> Um, as the transfer agreement is drafted now, that would not resolve the the issue until the closing, which we currently have stated as, I think,

08615 days after completion of construction. Um, until then, this would still be an easement. Um, so just mainly signing the agreement wouldn't be enough. It would be have to be after closing when we acquire title to the property. I mean, if the board's okay with that, it's the board decision. Um, so if the board wants just clarification for moving forward with from this point, does the board want when the final language is drafted for us to bring that language back to a workshop to discuss the language? I would feel comfortable with both of our attorneys the looking it over and as long as they felt that it was in good standing and it was a benefit for the district and all the verbiage was in place I would feel um confident in them. >> Mr.

087Nson >> I could see it being brought back to a a meeting for a vote as as Mrs. Rodriguez said Mrs. Mak will have reviewed it. Our attorney will have reviewed it. Their attorney will have reviewed it. And I think we can put stock in what they all say. They all know what the agreement states. >> So, we're going to go do the agreement. We're going to bring it back to a board meeting, put it on a board agenda. If you have questions, you can pull it at that time. >> Okay. >> Everyone okay with that? >> The only thing I want to state is the construction timeline. I know that over the summer is ideal, but with any development, with any construction, sometimes it takes a little bit more than that. I just want

088the board to be aware and understand that I think that they will do their due diligence and their very best to do it during the time that the school's closed. But if it happens to be some when we're open, I just want to know that that's not going to be a problem. >> I don't want to ruin all the great will that we're right now, but >> but I also want to cover that >> so that so that >> so that the roadway construction itself from North Cliff to the roundabout cannot be done during the summer. no way, shape or form. >> I wanted to cover this so that they >> more associated with that. >> But in the construction schedule, we're going to peel out the pieces that directly impact school campus. >> That's

089what I was talking about. >> So there's a healing area, there's sidewalks, there's security fencing that you all talked about. >> We can secure and put the campus back in order during the summer. The rest of the project will be going on and not completed in that short period of time. >> I just wanted clarification so that it didn't >> get All I'm worried about is keeping our schools safe. I don't care about >> any cliff traffic. >> Madam Chair, if I could sure one thing. So, um, >> sometimes they say when you've sold it, shut up. >> Um, but I would just tell you for this is an example. Our agreement as we currently have it doesn't say anything about what time frames we would do any construction, but we've agreed with your staff

090over the last two or three years that it makes sense for everybody to do it during the summer. Now, they may have asked for that, but we could have said no. We haven't said no. We said yes. And I just want to encourage you to think that through. The second thing we would request is I believe you have a meeting on January 20. There's one on the 13th and the 27th. We would request that this be agended for the 27th so that uh with the holidays and so forth, we anticipate taking a little time to get through all this with attorneys if you've ever dealt with that. Uh so that we could have maybe have this on the final agenda for the 27th. >> And we want to thank you for not putting cattle on

091the property. >> Yes. >> Not till this afternoon. >> Mr. Pender, is that possible for the 27th? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. At this um time, we're going to take a five minute recess at 3:16 p.m. >> I just wanted to thank you for being here. >> Thank you all for All right, we will reconvene at 3:22 p.m. Moving on to item number two, 263491. Presentation and information on the option of a part, excuse me, participation agreement with the Florida Education Health Trust. It's been a long meeting before you. I apologize. Thank you guys for coming. >> You may start. >> Hi board chair, board members, superintendent Pender. Um I'm Matt. Goldrich, director of labor relations, professional standards, and I have the Flet here on the agenda today for you to consider. Just to

092put it in kind of a timeline, Mr. Pender bumped into the idea of Flet this summer when I think there were four four members, three member districts. Uh is caught steam. It's growing incredibly. Uh point of agenda order. I've given you a PowerPoint because we slightly changed the PowerPoint. Many of the slides are the same, but there was even a new member added. So, we we adjusted that. So, it's something that I think can help the district save money and explore being self-insured in a very safe way. Um, this comes to you in the timeline that for 2026, we've already agreed that we're going to continue with Blue Cross Blue Shield. Uh, we you guys did that back in September, but this is really looking and planning for 2027 using 2026 to do that. So,

093if this goes well, we'll continue this discussion next month in a board meeting with this participation agreement, which these guys I'm going to turn this over to Ted and he's going to tell you all about Flet Thank you very much. It's uh great to be with you all here today. Board Chair Hawkins, Superintendent Pender, and board members. U I will just say as a former superintendent, that last session brought back memories for me working through those types of issues. Um it's always always a heavy heavy load when you're trying to make great decisions, right, for for your district and for your school district. So, thank you for what you do. Uh with me today, I would like to introduce briefly before I jump in, uh Mr. Joe Albrittain with a Vale Analytics uh works inside

094a fleet as our program manager. He and his team do a phenomenal job. We'll talk a little more about their role here in just a few moments. We have Mr. Darren Bryan back here also with the Veil and Mr. Kramer Royal serves as the chief of staff. And so uh as we wrap up our presentation here in just a few minutes, uh any and all of us will be able to available to answer your questions uh about Fleet. So Fleet is the Florida Educator Health Trust. I'm going to skip past these couple statistic slides because there's no surprise to anyone obviously that health insurance costs along with costs across the board uh have skyrocketed in recent years but fleet was established uh after and on the concept of the original program Fship that was formed

095in 2009 under the Florida school board's insurance trust under FSB which as you all know lives under FS lives under FSBA Fleet was moved and renamed under the fads association, the Florida Association of District School Superintendent so that all school districts that wanted to join would be able to join. Uh because obviously not everybody was a member of FISB only a certain number of districts are members of FISB. Uh and it was important to be able to have any district that joined to be able to have representation uh as a voting member on the fleet board. So the sole purpose of fleet is to bring together really for the first time. You know, you think about the state of Florida as large as it is never having had a vehicle to bring school districts together

096to bring buying power to bring costs down to bring and drive efficiency within health insurance programs, right? You know, we talk about as we're going through our budget planning process and we're adopting a budget, we always look at those salary and benefit lines as the two largest drivers of our overall budget. So it makes sense, right, to have an entity, in this case a fleet that lives under the superintendent association to try to put school districts back in control together to help drive down cost and bring uh program health uh to the to individual school districts. So what is Fleet? Fleet is a nonprofit again under FADS and uh it's proving to be the sustainable savings um solutions to bringing uh value uh to to districts at a level not seen uh before as districts

097stand alone as as you're aware are really shopping on their own and trying to get the best deal. uh our program brings a tremendous amount of of transparency uh to the overall to the overall program and the health insurance spend. As you all are aware, as you've looked at programs year-over-year and you look at renewals year-over-year for your health insurance spend, a lot of times it's hard to make sense, right, of what costs are there? Uh why are costs accelerating? What are the drivers that are accelerating cost? Who's making what? Um, and so Fleet brings all of that into complete clarity for school districts and provides a transparent way forward. Uh, Mr. Gold just mentioned just a minute ago, this is one of the slides that was changed. Uh, Okaloosa County School District out in

098the panhandle with their 3,500 or so employees uh, voted to join last night, matter of fact, and so we added them to the list of member districts. Uh, Swany will be voting tonight uh, to join. And so uh of the original three members that uh that were part of fleet, you can see the districts that have joined uh since the original three now representing over 37,000 school district employees that are members of or have districts rather that are members of fleet as a trust. We're engaged across the state with 25 or so other districts uh from the tip of the panhandle all the way down to Monroe. Uh we are crisscrossing the state and having conversations with school boards, with insurance and benefits committee members, uh, with superintendents and their cabinet members about what Fleet

099is and what solutions Fleet might be able to bring to the table for their district. So, let's talk about a few bullet points here. And I'm going to try to go briefly uh through these, but it's very important for me uh that we get into the Q&A time because I think that's really where you'll have your questions answered about uh why fleet uh might be a great fit for the Hernando County School District. I already mentioned earlier that transparency uh is huge. This is a program that uh as a former super uh I would have loved to have had because it it it puts everything in a very clear lane. Everybody is is uh dealt with and require anybody that comes to any vendor that works with fleet. Let me say that has to operate

100in a complete space of transparency uh and accountability. The economy scale buying power makes sense to you if I say you know Fernando County is going to I'm just use transportation terms here. If you put in a if you put in an order for 50 bus tires but PK County is putting in an order for 500, who's going to get the best buying power on the cost per tire? Well, the same is true in the health insurance arena, especially with around those items like commodities with your prescription drug market. Uh Joe often says that a moxicylin is a moxicylin, right? More people together bringing stronger buying power. Financial stability through minimizing year-to-year volatility. Every district, whether you're fully insured or self-insured, experiences volatility. Uh you see that in your fully insured world currently with through

101your rate renewals. you have a bad year, your renewal looks a lot worse, right? Uh the same is true in the self-insured world. However, within fleet, there are a lot of controls, a lot of levers that get applied to bring a stability and a reduced volatility so that you don't have those shocks year-over-year when you go to your renewal. uh the 11208 compliance verification as a self-insured district if you were to move in this arena because all of our districts inside of fleet are either self-insured or transitioning to self-insured there's compliance reports that have to be done with OIR each year the office of insurance regulation that all happens within fleet for our school districts uh sharing in a dividend program through risk sharing uh with individual districts individual district protection rather uh we may

102may not have a chance to dive into that, but suffice it to say, uh, many of you all are probably familiar with stop-loss insurance. It's basically a an insurance that you carry as a part of a self-insured program to ensure your catastrophic interest or your loss to to to protect your your fund balance, if you will, uh, by having that in place. Well, stop-loss insurance. Uh, traditionally, when you pay that stop-loss premium, there's not an opportunity uh to recover any of those dollars when you when you have that policy. Um, in our program, you would have a you would have a there would be a process by which you could actually recover a portion of your proceeds back to the district in years where you had great great years. Stop-loss, premium reduction, and stabilization. Uh

103this is an area where again tied to the the risk sharing program. Um it's very it's very important to districts as we talk about self-insured programs to school districts that haven't been self-insured in a very long time or if ever they get concerned about uh stability and and stabilization. We we will talk more with you all about what that looks like and how that looks. Reduce district procurement and operational costs. Uh, one of the things that districts deal with, especially in districts where you're not staffed up to be self-insured, is that, uh, there's all these different procurements that you run. There's the bids, RFPs, for stop-loss, for your PBM, for your ASO, for your administrative services only contract, for your health insurance carrier. All those procurements and all those recommendations and all that vetting uh,

104gets done inside of Fleet for our member districts. So, who is eligible to join Fleet? uh all 67 districts theoretically are eligible to join Fleet now that it lives under FADS. Uh school districts that are self-insured are willing to become self-insured. And then finally, we we we like to work with districts that are wanting to take control of and harness uh harness the control of and take back control of their health insurance programs to be able to have and put forward the best product possible for their employees and their families. So, how to participate? Uh the process looks a little different for every district kind of leading up to this point. I mentioned, you know, schoolboard workshops, meetings with insurance and benefits committee uh folks um going in front of unions in some cases, but

105it all evolves down to arrives at the point where a school board entertains a participation agreement with fleet. And so the participation agreement would come by recommendation through your superintendent to you all as a board and then you all would vote to uh to move forward. Think of that as your letter of intent to move forward to joining fleet. Uh once that is passed and adopted, then we bring that back to the to the fleet board and the fleet board is made up of superintendent or their designs that are members of the trust. And so in the hypothetical, if Fernando joined Fleet, Superintendent Pender or his design would become a voting member uh in the management and operation of Fleet as an entity. We would establish a district transition plan with you all to crosswalk

106what it looks like to go from fully insured where you currently are into that self-insured world with fleet uh 111 of 2027 as Mr. Goldendrick mentioned earlier at that point you become an active member of fleet 111 of 27 once that crosswalk takes place and then as I said earlier each superintendent or designate or trust becomes a trustee on the fleet board. So, what can a district expect? And that's really what it boils down to. As we across the state, districts want to know, board members want to know, especially CFOs want to know what's going to happen for us and why is this a value? Where's the return on investment? So, you all being currently a fully insured district, we have longitudinal data, historical data that shows you're going to save 7 to 12% right

107out the gate with your health insurance spend. And you said, well, how can you say that so uh with such assurance? Really two things drive that seven to 10 percent. Number one is carrier profit. Carrier profit is stripped out when you're going into a self-insured environment. And also, you're not paying a premium tax on your fully insured plan that you do not have to pay. You no longer pay inside the self-insured environment. One of the things we're going to be bringing to you all is leading uh industryleading assistance with data analysis and application. You're going to have access to a data that you did not have access to before. As a fully insured plan, you were paying a carrier to carry 100% of the risk. Uh you have access to very little of the data.

108As a self-insured district, you have a lot of access to the control of the data. And being able to have access and control of that data will help you drive and make decisions that benefit your employees and your overall uh financial outlook in your plan. Uh wellness support. We got some great things going on in the wellness arena with districts that are wanting to operate or have school district operated wellness centers or clinics for their employees and their families that we can talk more about should you all decide to come to fleet. And then performance audits of contract effectuation that are delivered uh by the agent broker to ensure the our ROI and protect the district. That's one of the things that Mr. Albert Britain and his team do is they have and I don't

109believe currently you all have a a formal a formalized relationship with a with a with a traditional agent or broker. Uh but we call those folks contract effectuators inside a fleet and those contract effectuators are audited annually by our our group through through avail to make sure that they are doing for you and providing for you the services that are out outlined in their fleet scope of services uh for you all as a district. Uh five unique unique fleet facts. Try saying that fast five times. We do know that a properly managed self- insurance program inside a fleet will always net savings over time when compared to fully insured district uh programs. That that's it's just the mathematical output uh that exists in in inside uh a self-insured arrangement. You have so many other uh

110options to you as a as a board. U independently self-insured districts also gain. That's not you all right now. So we won't talk about that uh particularly uh but I will skip down to number five and this is very important because this is a school district program under fads for school districts. We are not a vendor we are service we are service through fads just like their member services under FSBA and we operate as a complete fiduciary on your side of the table and making sure that you're getting the best access and leverage to the market as absolutely possible. Nobody inside fleet receives any type of renumeration from any of the major carriers like Florida Blue, United, Etna. Uh there's a PEPM, a per employee per month fee for your members that are on your

111health insurance plan that gets paid as a flat fee uh to Fleet just like if you were a member of FSB. Not sure if you're a member of FSBOT or not, but if you were, you play a flat flat fee and then FSB uh acts as a fiduciary on your behalf uh to get the best deal possible for you. These are our operational uh components and partners inside of fleet. FADS obviously I mentioned is the sponsoring organization. Uh fleet uh is that is that suborganization just like FSBIT is under FSBA. I serve as the executive director. This is exciting work for me as an executive director because while Mr. All Britain is is is wearing us out, running us across the state with all these appointments to speak with good folks like you all. As

112a former superintendent and sitting on finance and benefits insurance and benefits committees for more than 25 years, uh there's been a need for this quite honestly for a very long time. There's been a need for this to be able to bring districts together to experience economy of scale buying power. Avail pro provides the program management and the checks and balances best practices that I spoke about briefly. uh making sure that everything from an audit to general compliance is taken care of and that the district stands ready uh for any audit that comes. We all love audits, right? And then contract management uh for vendors that work work inside the fleet space uh are also vetted through a analytics and Mr. Aubbert and his and his partners. Alliant is our fleet broker. We have one broker

113that serves all of the fleet member districts. complete uh the actuarial services and the funding recommendations that come to districts to adopt uh for their overall plan year-over-year also come through all they place the stop-loss insurance uh the PBM the pharmacy benefit management program and houses the data warehouse so inside of fleet uh traditionally I'm going to say in your case for example it's a fully insured district your data all your data and your granular data specifically is housed I believe you are with Florida blue is that correct correct So at Florida Blue, they have all your data inside of Fleet. Uh the data warehouse is owned by the member districts. And so all of your data comes together and is is funneled uh into into your portion of that data warehouse that you have

114access to at a granular and genuine le u level at any point in time for you to be able to get that uh that pristine data out of that warehouse. that's unlike any other program and that usually those data warehouses live with a carrier. So that's very important in having that information available to you and at your fingertips uh with our assistance to make good decisions on. And then finally, FSBIT remains a part of Fleet. Uh they serve as our accounting arm of Fleet. They put together these fancy reports and these financial packages for CFOs that are turnkey uh at the conclusion of each month to show the CFO and the district how the program is running month over month, how the funding is working uh through a function of board contributions and employee uh

115payroll deductions relative to the cost and the claims, right, that are coming into your program. And so all of this all this data and these the this package arrives to the district monthly. uh in and in and user ready format uh from from FSBIT. So those are the four major operational components of of fleet as a group. This is just a snapshot if you will of the member benefits and the scope of services that uh that are provided as a member of fleet. Uh the annual repricing on pharmacy benefits is huge. We're seeing seeing huge savings in the pharmacy world. It's not it's not u it's usual to pharmacy contracts that are two or three year contracts. Pharmacy world, like everything else, like technology. You know, three years ago, we were just start starting to

116talk about AI, right? Well, pharmacy world changes about as fast. If you watch TV for any length of time, you're going to see one commercial right after the next, right after the next, introducing new drugs right to the market. They're also name brand drugs that are going generic for the first time. So, it's important to stay on top of your pharmacy cost. Your pharmacy cost may run anywhere from 18 to 30% as an overall cost to your overall program. And so one of the member benefits is that we annually repric and we'll shop that uh stop loss as well as the pharmacy and repric your medical claims to make sure that our districts are getting the very best deal uh for their dollar. Uh many of these I've already mentioned for the sake of time

117and getting to the Q&A which is really uh where the rubber meets the road. I'll leave that with you for uh for your own review. So very quickly, I wanted to go through that rather fast, maybe too fast. Uh but let's park there for a minute and madam board chair will we'll await your questions. >> Okay. Anyone want to start? >> Mr. Johnson. >> Yeah. So not knowing so much about this, you provide a network of doctors, hospitals, pharmacies that we can contract and use or do how do we establish a premium for our our employees? Those are my basic questions. You're out lying on the back end of this, but I want to know how it works for the individual employee of the district. >> Okay. So the autonomy lives still at the district

118level with who your carrier is. So if you wanted to wanted to remain with Florida Blue, then you could remain with Florida Blue. If you don't want to do any design changes in your overall plans, that is those plans that your employees have to choose from. That's completely up to the district and and and that process for whatever you have in place. Uh most have an insurance and benefits committee, right, that inform those decisions. So really what you're moving what you would be moving to would be a program that is self-insured where your relationship assuming you stayed with Florida Blue would become one of a an ASO relationship administrative services only where you enter into an agreement for a fee per employee to be able to access the Florida Blue network and for your employees

119to have that Florida Blue card. In many cases, the member number on that I would say in most cases, Joe, correct me if I'm wrong, the member number or the group number and the member number on their insurance card wouldn't even change moving from a fully insured program before the blue to a self-insured program. So, what we would do is we would come in assuming that you all joined fleet and we would start putting together the pathway to what it looks like with Florida Blue inside of fleet for 111 of 27. A part of that process include includes shopping stop-loss and getting a stop-loss uh carrier in place uh to ensure the district's overall um interest financially. Uh the PBM might be might might be carved out, might not be carved out just depending on

120what type of response we could get from Florida Blue on their their um self-insured pharmacy uh program for school districts. Uh Joe, do you want to elaborate on any of that any further? Part of that is also funding recommendations. The actuarial services that Alliant does would take what you currently fund as a part of your board contribution and the income uh from the payroll deduction from your employees. That goes together in one pot. And they say, "Okay, based on projections, this is the amount of revenue you have to fund at a 90% confidence interval where you can say with 90% confidence that you're going to be funding appropriately for your claims." Those numbers would come from Alliant back to you all as a school board to adopt prior to going live uh and active with

121fleet 111 of 27. >> Oh, if you'll hit your light, please. Thank you. >> There we go. Um if you wanted to stay with Florida Blue, you're basically renting their doctor network when you go selfinsured. When you're fully insured, it's still the same exact doctor network. The only is instead of them providing it to you for a profit, you are renting their network. So none of that changes. All four of the major carriers participate with fleet. So we have some districts with Sigma, some districts with Etna, some districts with United, and some districts with Florida Blue. You have full autonomy. You can select whatever you want. As far as the um when you when you think about how much you're going to pay in premium, you typically think of premium when you're fully insured. Um

122it's the same function, but in the self-insured world, we call it a recommended uh recommended funding, but it's the same structure. Being a simple person and considering it a premium, it's almost like we're acting as the insurance agent or broker going directly to Blue Cross rather than through a third party. Is that what you're saying? >> Uh, not exactly. What you're doing when you go self-insured is you are you are in some respects becoming the insurance company, >> not the agent. >> Okay. >> So, in the in the reality, you have the company which is Florida Blue. fully insured and what an agent does is they are the salesman right so in this case there is no sales fleet is managing that process for you >> right that's basically what I was saying >> yeah

123you just become an insurance company as opposed to an insurance agent >> and you anticipate the savings between seven and 10% initially >> yes sir and the math on that's pretty simple when you're fully insured, the carriers make about a 7 and a half% profit, >> right? >> Um when you go selfinsured, they don't make that profit anymore. And when you're fully insured, Florida Office of Insurance Regulation requires you to pay a fully insured premium tax. When you go self-insured, they don't impose that tax. So you add those two together, you get 10%. >> One one other question with that. So at the end of the fiscal year of that policy, I guess the total dollar amount of the claims are added up to see if they reach or exceed a given threshold and that

124would adjust the premium up or down. So that that that analysis takes place regularly on the month. I mean you're you're going to be looking at that monthtomonth revenue versus claims. And when I say claims, I'm not only talking about medical claims from doctor office visits, urgent care, hospitalizations, surgeries. I'm also talking about pharmacy, right? All that comes into a number, right? And you're going to be able to see as a district monthto monthth how you're running. Our goal is to put you in a position obviously with our recommendations through Alliant that your that your u revenue is always a little bit greater, right, than your cost. So you're running you're running in the black. Mhm. >> Uh that wouldn't be tred up at the end of the year. You there never would be a

125scenario where after 12 months you're ending that one year self-insured and oh my gosh, we have this huge surprise that that that simply would not take place. There would be indicators by looking at that by the month that would uh in many times allow you an opportunity as a board uh to make adjustments if necessary. >> When you say adjustments, what kind of adjustments to how much we deduct or employee salary or how much we don't deduct if it's a positive number reduction. >> How much you pay for claims. Yeah. >> So, if you if you think of it this way, when you're fully insured, you pay the same premium month after month after month, >> right? >> And there's claims being taken out by the carrier. That's they're being that's how they pay doctors,

126right? At the end, if you um gave the carrier more money than you spent on claims, they keep the difference. It goes into the profits. If you spent more than they charge than they were charging you, that's when you get a large rate increase, right? >> They still get their money back, right? It's just through a rate increase. When you go selfinsured, that first example I gave where you didn't spend as much as you uh fund in, you keep that difference. It goes into a bank account with your name on it. The carrier doesn't get that. You keep it. And in the event that your claims are higher than your your funding, if there if it triggers your stop-loss insurance policy, the stop loss carrier pays that claim for you. If it doesn't trigger the

127policy, you would just take some of the money out of your savings account and pay that. And then at the end of the year, we would come back and say, "Okay, this is what your trends look like. Your own claims, you're paying your own claims. This is what they look like. You need to increase your funding. Your recommended funding may go up four or five%." As opposed to taking a rate increase in a fully insured scenario. Does that make sense to you? >> Yeah, thank you. I was looking for that explanation. >> Yeah. >> Miss Rodriguez, >> um, is there any binding contracts that would be involved? >> Uh, there's a participation agreement and then there's a set of bylaws and the trust document itself that explain the the exit process for a district that

128joins and then wants, you know, wants to wants to leave. Fortunately, we have not experienced that yet. Uh well, we we had we had we had one that uh thought about it and then they saw the rates they were going to get by staying inside a fleet and they uh decided to decided to decided to stay with Fleet. >> There there are no binding contracts with fleets. If you wanted to leave, you simply leave. >> Where there are binding contracts that you need to be aware of, just like you have a contract Florida Blue, that's a binding one-year contract, right? So when you go self-insured, instead of having one contract with say Florida Blue, you're going to have an ASO contract. That's administrative. That's your doctor network. That's going to be a binding contract. You're

129also going to have a PBM contract. Think of that as your pharmacy, your your medications. That's a binding contract. And you're going to have a stop-loss contract in the event you have a really high claim, they come in and bail you out. that is also a binding contract. So, as it relates to fleet, there is no contract. As it relates to the program itself that you're going to be uh running, there are there are binding contracts. >> So, Revard says that they have saved over a million dollars. um as well as Hendry County, they save nearly five million in their health insurance fund, which if that's the case, that's tangible savings. >> That's real dollars in their in their budget. >> So basically, by having this, we would be essentially saving on the employee health

130plans without having to pass along the benefit reductions. We would be able to pick and choose So our our job is to lower your overall cost. >> We don't go past that. Our job is to to drive down the cost to the school district as much as possible. What you guys choose to do with that savings is your business. Whether you want to and you know, we have one district for the first time that I've ever seen it in 25 years made their insurance benefits richer for the employee. they lower the deductible instead of raising. Other districts build up a huge surplus so they don't have those shock years, right? So you don't get that 12% rate increase. You get a two or 3% every single year. The strategy that you you impose with the

131savings we create for you is completely up to you. >> When it comes to the broker, does this basically put the district, not the broker, in control? >> The district's fully in control, 100%. >> So that gives us long-term savings. Yes, you save your money. You we make recommendations to you with with the analytical support of why we're saying it, but you ultimately make your own decisions. >> Question. Um, how many counties did you say are involved? >> 14. >> Okay. I did want to ask you about the health clinics currently. We do not have one. And I know you had touched just maybe a sentence or two on that. How does that work? >> You want you built one. >> Yeah. So, in my previous district, we moving from fully insured uh we we

132were full insured forever and we moved into the self-insured environment. Uh get this, February 20th of 2020. >> Nice. Perfect timing, right? Three weeks later, we're shut down for for what we won't talk about anymore. Uh over the next year or two following uh the pandemic, we started looking at having a clinic model, putting a clinic model in place. would be a wellness center for district employees and their families to be able to come primary care visits to build out a suite of services that would include a list of of of uh maintenance drugs most commonly used right among the employees and their families to have on-site lab services on-site X-ray services and bringing those services in house so we could run our workers comp through that we could run our uh pre-employment physicals through

133that operation through that through that clinic setup. And so what we found and what we experienced uh after I think that was in place probably two two and a half years uh prior to me not running for office. No no rumors I did not get I didn't run for re-election and then booted. I I retired uh from public office. Uh but it was one of the better things we had done. It was one of the better things we had done for our employees and their families. And so what we wanted to do because we have a growing number of districts inside a fleet that want to have that type of uh service for their employees and their families, uh Mr. Albrittain and his team brought a solution to the table to help bring that to

134any district that wants to move into that arena. What I will say is is that there's no there's not really benefit for you as a district going down that road into the clinic or wellness center operation unless you're self-insured. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We can talk more about that, but Joe, you want to kind of elaborate on that? >> Yeah. A lot of a lot of um generally the way you save money is the direct care model is cheaper than going to a hospital. >> Easiest way to think about it. You go to an urgent care center or go to the hospital versus going to your direct care model that that you are funding at a reduced rate, you save money. It's it's it's proven model over and over and over

135again. The convenience dynamic is something that shouldn't be overlooked either uh for the employees to have a convenient place to go get to go get care. One of the big things that we faced, we heard from a lot of districts that wanted to go down the road of clinics, but it was a little scary for them because they're not healthare companies. Um how do we even do this? Like this is terrifying. How do we open it? How do we open a doctor's office? We're, you know, we're educators. What in the world? Well, that's the solution that um Ted's referencing. We we went into the marketplace and found the best in class in the world health help clinic uh we call them clinical analysis and management companies. So, if you decided you wanted to open a

136clinic, they'd run the analysis for you. They would determine how much it would save you, where you should put the clinics, how many clinics you should have. Good examples, Pulk Schools currently has two clinics. They're looking to expand it to six clinics. Um, but so this this company comes in and they they do that for you and then they execute the plan that you decide on on your behalf. One thing that's really great about the way we structured that that operation, if the clinic selected to come into Hernando and they don't generate real dollar return on investment to you. The contract we have in place with them, they have to give you money back. Real dollars. There are real real financial implications if they come in here and they can't execute what they're promising. That's

137a little bit different than what a lot of other clinic structure. So what's our benefit by having multiple school districts involved as you're capturing all these districts? How does the economy of scale work by doing that? >> Um well so I'll give the example of a moxicylinoxic. >> If you buy 15 doses of amoxicylin you're not going to buy it as cheap as if you buy 15,000 doses of amoxicellin. It's just a simple rule of economics, right? Economy scale is a generates financial savings. That typically only applies in a commodity scenario. It has to be that a moxicylum is a moxy. So then when you buy a lot of it, cost goes down. Does that make sense to you? So if Hernando by itself went out and tried to buy a moxicyl through the PBM

138contract, the price you would get because of the size of your school district is going to be higher than the price that fleet would get with 37,000. So that's that's one dynamic of the benefit of joining together with other school districts is simply an economy of scale purchasing. We are seeing 10, 12, 15% reduction in pharmacy spend from an independently bid PBM versus a fleet bid PBM. We go into the market on a fleet dynamic. We are marketing as fleet, not as the individual school district. The contracts are written to the district. that PBM realizes, oh, I'm bidding on 37 37,000 potential people, not 1700. So that's that's that's that dyn on on the commodities on the volatility side. Does it make sense to you that I know I want to talk about statistics? People

139hate statistics. >> I knew you were going there. >> I can't help. It's the world I live in. So um when you have a hundred trials or 100 samples of something the volatility of that is much much greater than if you have 100,000 samples. 100,000 samples is far more predictable than 100. Right? It works exactly the same way with your claims. So if you if you went selfinsured by yourself, roughly 4% of your total claims is going to make up about 55% of your claim spent. So it's the same it's the oldfashioned mindset of 10% of the people's causing 90% of the spend, right? Everybody knows that to be true. Well, if a group of a thousand people 4% driving that, that's only 40 people. So if if you had a bad situation and you

140had 10 more and it went from 40 to 50, which on a group of a thousand seems pretty reasonable, that's not that hard to do. That's a 1% swing, right? >> Your your your 55% spend just jumped 25%. Because of those 10 people, but if you were 100,000 people, it's far more predictable. You're not going to have rate shock just because of the statistical predictability. We just went through a presentation last week that showed um it's technically called a Monte Carlo simulation, but it's 100,000 claims actual claims profiles and it showed what happens when you're independently insured and it was really it was a big spread versus the volatility if you are in fact. So that's the other thing that we we that is an advantage of school districts joining other districts is it becomes

141far more predictive. The volatility is reduced. Yeah. The economy scale savings the volatility. I hope I didn't get too in the weeds on that. >> Are you okay? >> So, I have a couple questions. Um, you said we oversee it as in the board themselves or we're going to have Mr. Goldendrick oversee it. The superintendent oversees it. >> Oversees your plan. >> Yeah. >> How how do you do it now? >> Does it? Right. >> Well, I mean benefits and we go through our purchasing and all of that, but I mean >> that'd be the same. Okay. And then what about do we lose all choices for the teachers? Is this the only choice they're going to have >> if we go selfinsured? >> Um, you're not going to lose you're not going to lose

142any choice. what you have. The only thing that there may be is there may be more choices for you all to choose from. >> Okay? >> Uh more opportunities uh to look at, especially if there are uh you know, if you if you were with Florida Blue Prime Therapeutics, which is the PBM arm of of Florida Blue, right? And we came back through that repricing and said, "Listen, you all can save 10, 12, 14% by moving over to pick one CVS or Optimum uh Optimum within the the trust model. the trust contract we have, then you all would make that decision ultimately to either move from Florida Blue Prime Therapeutics to to one of those other carriers. But what you do with that savings is up to you all and and whether or not you

143move or your employees are comfortable carrying a second or you know a different card, having to carry a second card uh for that prescription drug plan. That would all you know that would all be up to you. >> You technically wind up with more choices, not less. more choices not okay that's better to get out okay >> um and then your health care not the healthare but the freestanding building that would be a health building how hard are those to get and do you know about how much it would cost to get it up and >> meaning having like the clinic here the fire department has it so I'm just wonder >> in in some cases again depending on where where you would need or want to put in a clinic clinics Uh whether or

144not you have existing buildings that could be used and or retrofitted versus a brand new build all highly obviously impacts, you know, the cost. >> Well, we don't have to have we could use an existing building is what you're telling me then. >> Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And in our case, there was a doctor that was retired. We actually bought the doctor's office. So, everybody already knew that as a doctor's office and we renovated the doctor office space and then it be, you know, became our our school district's our school district's wellness center is what we call it. And so, uh, yeah, there's a lot of options there, but that's one of those things that this company that we're now partnered with will come in and and and do all that work and do

145that analysis and look at the heat maps, the population, where your folks live, where do they do life, right? Where do they go to the grocery store, where do they, you know, where do they go to recreate? Uh, where those are placed is highly important to um to utilization. Employ aren't going to necessarily drive 35 or 40 minutes, right, for primary care. Uh if if there's a regular mom and pop doctor's office 10 minutes down the road from their house. >> So, all of that needs to be looked at. Uh if that's something that you all ended up wanting to look at, we can certainly help do that for you. >> One of the things that I negotiated when contract um that we eventually partnered with Fleet partnered with was I wanted somebody that would

146manage the construction if that's what the district wanted. If you guys said we we do not want to manage the construction of the clinic, that's too much for us to think about. I wanted a company that had capability doing that. That's that's one of the reasons we selected these this company. So, as far as how hard is it to do, how hard do you want to make it for yourself is the question. How how how much how involved do you want to be? Uh because they'll they'll they'll carry it from start to finish. >> Mr. Rodriguez. >> Um, Mr. Rous, since you're a data-driven person, um, I would presume that you have done analysis on all the different districts. Are you seeing savings in all the districts? And what does that look like to you?

147I know that I was able to pull up Hendry County for the 5 million in savings, Bard for the million. I'm sure there's more. Can you give me a little insight on what your data looks like? >> Um, well, Pulp's another example. We just rolled a program out in pulp that saved them 4.5 million more. >> We went into the contracts and found I call it black hole money. Um it's probably not the correct term, but that's what I call it. It's it's the details in the contracts where maybe the district didn't know they were supposed to invoice somebody to get paid, so they weren't doing it. Uh we found about $850,000 of black hole money in um that just it just wasn't being done. So I can't there there we we have not been

148into a district yet that we don't save significant amount of money and the statistic that we put up there was a a second statistic that we didn't touch on. So going from self-insured or going from fully insured to selfinsured you're going to save that carrier profit and that premium tax. Right? Simple. The second statistic on that slide, we are seeing savings of 7 to 11% of independently self-insured to fleet self-insured. So you save the first chunk by going self-insured, but then by leveraging the economy of scale and volatility management, you're saving an additional seven to 11 years. And we're seeing those are real numbers. Those those are based on actual dollar savings, >> which essentially is saving the taxpayers. 100%. There hasn't been a district yet where we haven't been able to bring a better

149pharmacy solution with savings, a stop-loss policy with savings. And that's just touching, you know, the tip of the iceberg. A lot of cases, depending on how well uh a plant is being run, um there may be some redundancy there that can be captured. To Mr. Al Britain's point, uh, some some redundancy in terms of you're paying three people to do parts of the same thing. Uh, so yeah, the savings savings are definitely there. >> Not to mention, what I liked is the idea that you're able to see and get a glimpse of everything that's going on behind the scenes where with our current carrier, again, not to say we would change carriers, but with our current insurance the way that it is, I don't think you get to see all of the data. It's more

150It's more than a glimpse. Um I think it's a glimpse. This is this you're able to see every single thing. >> Every single thing. >> Superintendent Vender. >> And I think just to add on to the data, when you see the data, then that helps you make additional changes, adjustments along the way to help with some of the overall costs. I just wanted to say um you know we've been we've been talking about insurance for I don't know as long as I've been around I think in Hernando County and maybe the world I don't know. Um and there was a time when we were self-insured. So, for those people that have been around a while, um I want to I want to say with as much confidence as I can that this is not what

151we did before with self-insured. Um, one of the things when we were self-insured before, which I know is a nightmare for everyone, was the board decided who got treatment, basically who got treated and like that. That's not this that's not what we're talking about. Mo, a lot of the reassurances that you're talking about with these different um organizations, groups help control some of the cost. Um it's from a trusted source. It's, you know, FADS is backing this s um FSBA, um FSBIT, all these different organizations. They're not. You guys aren't vendors. You're organizations. Um, you said that you have currently have 37,000 people participating now in your insurance and that gives you good buying power and you're just starting. So, as you think of that and as you know, you started with what when we

152started talking to you, when I ran in when I when when when we talked, you had a couple districts and now you have 15 and 25 in kind of the hopper, >> right? >> So, when you add those districts on that 37 goes to more people, then that gives you, I would assume, correct me if I'm wrong, in any of this, um, more buying power. So, that multiplies that effect. Um, I know when that we first talked I thought, you know, when you get that feeling in your head like it's too good to be true, maybe you should back away from this. That was my initial kind of. But as we talked more and we and and you know, we discover more um I see it as a possible opportunity. Um and I don't want

153people to think like I ran into at a conference and we're, you know, going in this direction. There's been a lot of thought over the years between the district and the um insurance committee and all the groups that are on that insurance committee and conversations that we've had since the first time we ran into each other to get to this point. So, I just wanted to give that background. Um, and I know that involved I believe uh a couple weeks ago you guys made a presentation to our insurance committee also, >> right? >> Yeah. So, there's been a lot of conversations and I think more that'll continue. So, this is part of that process. >> Mr. Duval, >> just a quick question. Right now, you have 15 districts, >> 14 with the 15th voting tonight.

154>> Okay. 15. and you're looking to add 25 more or 24 more, are you going to have the ability management wise with the groups that you work with to handle such a huge increase in participation the companies that you work with? >> Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. Talk about that. So, um, Alliant for example, when we when we built this program out, we started building this program out about four years ago. To your point, this this this didn't come to us three months ago. We've been working on this. We had to design a structure that could handle up to 275,000 lives. Now, why do I say that number? Because if you took every school district in the state of Florida and they all joined, that's about 350,000 employees. And if you take about a 75 80%

155participation profile, you come in at about 275,000. So when we built the team out, we sought out people that had the scalability to handle up to 275,000 lives in less than a year. my mind was I needed to have somebody if we went from zero to 275,000 in one year could they handle and I know that's a big statement because the state of Florida >> healthinsured employees is only 183,000 this could wind up being bigger than the state of Florida employees right so when we chose Alliant Alliant is the number four insurance broker in the world they have tens of thousands employees and resources like you can't believe. Um, Marsh is who we selected as the clinical solution. Marsh is the largest broker in the world. They have 100,000 employees. The the people we partnered

156with, it was intentional that we could take on from zero to 275,000 in one year. Now, that's not going to happen, but my fear was, what if it did? because I don't have the flexibility or option of this not working. >> Ted would be very unhappy with me. >> I I I asked that question only to reassure the board that you all have >> uh planned this out uh in every aspect of the way. I heard a pres heard a presentation before, so I am fully in favor of this. But uh just in case you wondered if they could keep up, yes they can. >> Yes. >> Thank you, Mr. V. Mr. Rodriguez. >> So the scenario you shared about 10% of claims impacting the renewals. What if we had a bad year? >> Um

157in a stop-loss program, you set what's called an aggregate limit. So if you imagine you're going to have I'm just going to make some numbers up. For example, let's just say you you anticipate $10 million in claims that you projected $10 million in claims is the most likely 90% confidence interval. You're going to be at $10 million in claims. We would place a commercial stop-loss policy, insurance policy at 10 million1 to an unlimited amount. So if you had a bad year, the stop loss would carry that for you. and protect you. >> Are we still expected to see increases based on our claims? >> Absolutely. If I I would be lying to you if I sat here and told you that you're not going to have increases. Everything costs more every year. If you think

158of it this way right now, your your rate increase, this is your trend line of your insurance premium by going selfinsured, you drop it 10%. It's still going to increase, but >> it's still going to increase, but then you lay in the clinics and you lay in some of the cost savings measures, then you flatten, but it doesn't go completely flat and it certainly doesn't go negative >> opposed to the other that we're >> exactly moving straight >> up. How does our participation impact the fluctuations yeartoear with our renewals? >> I'm not sure I understand the question >> with participating in this. How is it yeartoyear going to be with our renewals? How's how does that impact us? >> That's going to be driven by your claims. It's really really hard for me to predict

159that. Um if you had an exceptionally bad year, stop-loss policy would cover you that year, right? In the year the claims hit, but that same stop-loss company that's providing that insurance for you just lost money on. So the year they're going to raise the >> rate, >> right? >> So, it's really hard for me to project what's going to happen. All I can tell you is whatever that event was going to be, if you were fully insured, that same event was going to happen >> would be significant higher. >> Yes. >> Um, what about our pharmaceutical rates? >> I don't know if you touched on that. Um, tell me again, >> that's where the economies scale. far there's not been a district yet there has not been pharmaceutical rates through the PBM >> right when

160you said that basically you're the powerhouse and opposed to us being single by oursel buying that certain >> so when you guys are purchasing it for us of course you're getting the best buy um is that the same thing across the board on all medication on everything do you is it just certain things that you pick and choose from that you guys are getting a benefit or is it going to be >> No it's it's all of the medication Mr. Johnson. >> Yeah. Um, in regards to to uh if we're self-insured, we have a bad year as you were saying, we go over that $10 million threshold into a big area. We're not considered part of a larger pool where that gets flattened out economy of scale. >> You transfer that risk off completely. So,

161if if you um if we decide as if you decide as a district that we're only comfortable taking $10 million in risk, you buy an insurance policy that if you go above $10 million, you don't pay any more money. It's a complete transfer at that really bad year. It's not a risk sharing is off of you. >> Okay. So, if we if uh Henry County has a horrible disastrous year. Their $200 million in claims is not going to affect the rates that go across because it's laid off on an insurance company. >> Correct. At the at the very top side. >> Yeah. >> Where you save money is is below that top side. >> Yeah. I I I think it's something worth moving forward with. Personally, >> what I like is that you have so

162many counties that are utilizing your service. I like the fact that we can pick up the phone at any given day and we can give them a call and we can verify. So, I think that anytime you have a business and you have customers that you can pick up the phone and call and see, you know, how they feel about what they're doing, I think that's a win. >> Mr. Pender. >> So, if I'm hearing the board correctly, seems like we have consensus to move forward. And then what does that look like if that's the case? Am I I assume forward motion is >> I would like to see I wish that you would have come with some numbers showing us from another district's perspective on maybe what you know, their monthly fee, you know,

163for the year was and and how their rates differ. you know, changed um from year to year. I feel like it's it is very new. Um >> I'd like to see >> I like it, but I would love to have seen the numbers. I would also like to see the numbers as what are we paying for the um FSBIT fee per person? What are we paying for the ALS contract per person? What are we paying for the PVM contract? You know, just examples of And then also, what's the transition cost? I'm sure there's got to be a transition. You have a transition plan. So, there's got to be a cost there. Um I know you said there really wasn't an exit cost. It's just an exit exit cost um if we choose to come out

164of it by the contracts that we have. Just some examples to have some more data, some more information. >> I I see an estimate of what it would cost us versus what we're paying now. >> Right. >> So, some of the things you said I would absolutely love to show you. >> Okay. >> Is it's an opportunity for fleet to kind of brag. I mean, We've had a lot of success. I I welcome. As far as what your PBM cost would be as Henry as as Hernando schools compared to Henry schools, >> give me a comparable one is what I'm I was asking for. I know that it would mean they're a little bit different. >> Yeah. I mean, we can show you kind of what it will look like, but your actual cost will

165come You're one, correct? >> 111 27. >> So, your actual cost would be handed to you in September and then you make the decision. Yeah, this looks good or not. >> Yeah, because we'd have to get your That's the reason for the participation agreement so we can collect the data to be able to show you the actual numbers, >> right? But what does the participation agreement also cost those as well? >> I think that's what he was. >> But I I go back I go back to one thing though. Um being a business owner oursel, >> we wouldn't have customers and our parking lot wouldn't still continue to be full. One, it's because of God, and two, because we're blessed. And three, because we have quality and we do a good job. But it we

166would not have the customers there, and the parking lot would not be full. We would look like the May Tag Man every time you drove by if we weren't able to deliver and execute what we say we can. So, I feel like I already feel confident, and yeah, Mrs. Hawkins, I agree. I think numbers are good and the whole nine yards. So definitely whatever they would like to see, but I feel extremely confident seeing all of those counties and the counties that I know and those superintendents that I know as well. And none of those people would be using you. They would not sustain. They would not continue. They would pull out if it was not a benefit. So, you know, once again, yeah, definitely proof is in the pudding. By all means, feel free.

167Show whatever you'd like. But as far as my stance and me sitting here, I definitely believe that um they're all business people and none of them in those districts would be would continue to use you and utilize the services if it was not a benefit. And I did research you was able to see all the savings and it was not just a little bit, it's a astronomical amount. So, thank you for your presentation just from me saying, you know, the chair will let you go whenever time is, but I just want to say thank you for coming here and thank you for um giving us this opportunity. >> Yes. So, if we move forward, we want to call for consensus for moving forward with this, Mr. Pender. >> Yes, I would like to. And then

168I think you wanted to share some of the the next step. Didn't you want to talk about that? >> The next step he said was September. >> Yeah. >> No, I mean >> there's a lot to get to the September when I get to come show the chair the actual >> Yeah. Before you decide that you might want to hear the next step, >> have to enter into a participation. >> Yeah. The the steps would go like this. You're fully insured. >> Make it easy on us and be really nice. >> So, I'll kind of break it down here. >> The participation agreement, the onepage participation agreement would come before this board for consideration. You would act on that participation agreement. It would be signed by the superintendent and the board chair. If passed by

16932 or better vote, right? It comes back to me. I take it to our board made up of fleet member districts. They vote to accept you as a district entering into fleet. And I I was going to say something I probably shouldn't say. There are >> there there are there are a handful of districts that are not eligible for a number of reasons. We won't get into that. You all are not one of them. You run very very well. So you would be accepted into fleet by the fleet board and then all the processes that have to go on with the data piece to be able to get the data to be able to get the numbers to be able to run a stop loss on to get a PBM contract on all that would

170take place. Normally a district has an agent and the agent would normally work with us if they were wanting to be friendly and work you up to that 111 of 27 active date inside a fleet. If you don't have that in-house expertise and you come to us and say, "Listen, hold our hand and walk us from say January, if you acted on it in January up to the next January, we would put together a short-term contract with another business partner that has the expertise in transitioning districts from fully insured to self-insured. Month by month, this is what happens up to that one of 27 UN entry point. So the first thing that has to is the participation agreement. To your question, madam board chair, that is a one-time setup fee inside to get all everything

171set up for the eventual start of Hernando inside a fleet is a onetime $10,000 fee. >> Okay. >> Period. >> Thank you. >> That $10,000 fee, does that include if we needed an agent to walk us up to that January uh timetable? >> No, that is additional fees. That's to set up the operation for you inside a fleet. >> How much would the other contract to to as an agent to walk us through it? >> We have some districts that are doing doing it on their own and we have other districts that are contracting to have it done for them. Joe, you want to speak to that? >> One thing is I would recommend that he utiliz um other districts have not. So it it's it's really up to you if you guys and there's

172not a set amount because different districts need different amounts of help. So what would happen is we would evaluate what you guys can do on your own. It's a short-term contract. The whole purpose of it is to get you in the fleet. Um so we would sit down with Matt and say, "Okay, what what can your staff do? What would you like for us to do? Florida Blue is an excellent partner. Uh we we brought districts that were fully insured with Florida Blue. I know you guys deal with Robin McDonald at Florida Blue. He's excellent. Um the amount so the amount of work that be would be required is minimal with Florida Blue. And I'm not I'm not you know um sitting here marketing Florida Blue by any stretch, but the way they carry out

173the transition is much smoother than other carriers. So, I would tell you that if you needed help, it would be minimal because you're with Florida Blue. >> Okay. But we would just sit to find out. >> Okay. Are we going to move forward with this? Okay. Any further discussion? Thank you guys. Appreciate your presentation. >> Thank you. >> Look forward to seeing you again. Okay. Um earlier I misspoke. We are actually moving number item number 326 um 3398 to the very last item on the agenda number six. So we're going to call forward um number four that was on the agenda item which is review 26-3348 review and tenative approval of the volunteer handbook. Okay, welcome. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. Um, madame chair, board members, and superintendent Pender. My name is Angel Pagan, director

174of Safe School. With me, I have my security systems facilitator, Beverly Drew, who's wellversed in the volunteer um coordinator program that we began. u numerous years ago and she's been in our office safe schools and and has been extremely uh helpful in putting this together as well. Um we currently I noticed that we had an issue with uh we had a older version of the handbook that was currently not being shared among uh the district correctly and there was a lot of questions and so I took a look at it. Uh we formed a committee um between the uh uh district safety team. Um it was the lead principles. It also went to cabinet for review. And I think uh we came across a better version, a more condensed version uh from 20 pages down

175to uh 13, two of them being the title page and the uh table contents. So basically 11 pages. um that will make it a little more easier for uh parents, students, staff, all to understand what the volunteer program is all about. And um I do have the um corrective version um with the corrections. I don't know if you wanted to see the clean version or um >> or if anyone has any comments or suggestions. Do you want to see the clean version or do you want to >> I'd like to strike through because it shows us where the changes were. >> Okay. Do you want him to go through the whole volunteer book due to time or do we have anything we want to question or pull? >> The only question I have is what

176if the fees for volunteers is still $75 a year? >> The fees vary and it depends on who the vendor that they go to for fingerprinting is. Um so there is no set quote but it is a much higher um depending on who you go to. Um but there are more than one option. >> Okay. >> Miss Bons I have a question. Yes. >> Um so it's been brought up a couple times. Somebody that's committed a felon right before they turn 18, nonsexual, non-children, but did a felony. They can't ever be volunteer. >> Well, there's a matrix that we have to follow by statute >> and it's not the it's not us. >> It's not us. It's actual Florida state statute, which that's what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure because somebody

177questioned that. They're like, >> you know, it here's a thing. I did it when I was 17, right? >> Charged at 18. I have a felony on my record and I can't ever do it now. I've been out. I haven't done anything. I've been good 20 years. It's unfortunate, but uh you know these decisions, bad judgments that we make when we're young >> young I know >> follow you for a >> Okay, good enough. Thank you. That's all. >> Mr. Duval, do you have anything? >> Okay, Mr. Pender. >> No, I don't have anything. I just don't know if board members have any specific questions. If not, then we're good. >> Okay. Thank you. Well, I'll send it for approval in the next board meeting. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. >> Thank you

178for your time. >> Okay, hold on one second. >> Hit your light, please. >> It's Mr. Mark Johnson instead of Mrs. Mark Johnson on the paper. We scratched out, but we didn't scratch out Mrs. >> Oh, is it on >> on the I think on the clean version is fixed >> on the strike view. >> Okay, I'll I'll take a look. >> Make sure they don't put >> I will definitely take a look at that. apologize for that. >> And Miss Rodriguez is back, so let me chime in with her. Do you have anything um that you wanted to pull on the volunteer? >> I do not. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Have a nice day. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, my wife is not on the school board. >>

179Not on the school board. >> Okay. And we'll move on to item number 5 263431. Review proposed job description of the substitute ESSE therapy provider. Good afternoon board chair, board members, superintendent. We are here today to give you a draft of uh a substitute ESE therapy provider job description. We welcome any questions, >> Miss Rodriguez. So, by having Well, thank you ladies for being here and by having um a substitute ESSE therapy provider inhouse opposed to outside contracting. I know we could have both or in addition to that is going to um be a savings to us. Correct. Yes, we are hoping um we do multiple ways of trying to make sure that students are getting services and we have contracted services which are very costly but we do have to use them when we

180are we have open positions. We um have some virtual options which we had brought to you guys in the past um and we're still not um ruling that out but we're tweaking what it looks like to bring it back to you. And then this is another option we are hoping to use just like we would have a substitute for a teacher coming in and we are um offering them a whatever the starting hourly rate would be for one of those therapy providers to make it competitive. We're hoping we can get some people that maybe have retired uh that still hold the correct lensure and certifications to come in and help us out. >> Well, I like the fact that it is a actual person. Um I'm not a fan of the virtual when it comes

181to ESSE. So definitely I um think that having somebody there in front of them is much better. >> And just as a comparison for the board, um contract services generally can range from $55 an hour to $100 an hour. So just to give you an idea of how much those actually cost. >> Thank you. Any other further discussion? Do do we have any um substitutes right now currently that are applying? >> It has to be approved first and then we'll start advertising it. So it'll go on the next board uh agenda for your final approval and then we can start advertising. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Are you guys to answer that question? I know a few that are willing to do it if the position is open that way that has already met with

182people and said that they would do it. Yes, >> you were fine with your answer, but that's what I meant. Were we already sitting somewhere in a position where we would have potential applicants? >> Yes, we're going to start with our retired educators. They know our system. Uh they know how things work. A lot of them still will know the students. So, we're hoping that they'll want to come back and earn some vacation money or >> yeah, >> something like that. >> And they currently still have the lensure as well that's required by the state of Florida. >> Very nice. Thank you. Mr. Um, sounds like that we have consensus to move forward. It'll be on the next board agenda. Um, it's not normal practice, but what I would ask is that, um, I'm allowed

183to, um, post this job with the job description tenatively approved so that we can get that out there and then not hire or offer a position until it's board approved. If you guys are okay with that, >> I agree. I think that's a great way to offer a Christmas present. >> Okay. All right. >> Thank you. We appreciate your Christmas present. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um so we have a hard stop at 5:00 pm. Um if the board wishes, we can stop here or we can try to continue. >> I would like to continue. Can we do? >> Okay. >> So we're going to Absolutely. We're going to move on to item number 626-3481. Presentation of the analysis of the athletic ticket pricing >> option and related revenue

184and budget trends. >> Good afternoon, Madam Chair, board members, Superintendent Pender. Pull this. >> Good afternoon, sir. All right. Not sure how to view this. We'll roll with it this way. All right. So, uh, kind of real quick what, uh, Miss Hawkins and other board members had asked me to kind of put together, uh, just kind of a review of current practices and some of our past issues that we've had, uh, with ticket prices and family passes and whatnot. Uh, some of the current trends that we're seeing around the state, uh, as well as some of the athletic expenses that we're seeing and just kind of the the averages uh, from middle and high. uh along with some ticket sales um and some future considerations. So, just to review, just to make sure we understand

185where we're at right now, uh our middle school prices are $6 for varsity football, five for all other sports. High school is $10 for varsity football. Uh the high school student ticket stayed at eight, and all other sports are at six. Also, a reminder that we got rid of parking this year for the first time, as far as I know. I also want to remind everybody that children fourth grade and below accompanied with an adult are free. So, they're already getting in free. We also admit any Hernando County School Board employee with their badge in for free. And there is also a Hernando County School District retiree uh honorary pass that they register with me and they can go to any um any athletic event for free as long as they have that pass. It's

186a digital pass. So, there's a fair amount that are already kind of, you know, have that have that bonus pass there. Um, you'd ask me to kind of accumulate what is currently being offered as far as season passes or family passes. We don't currently offer any uh family passes or any um school year-long passes. However, all of the high schools do offer a single sport, single person season pass. And generally speaking, they basically knock off a game. So they're getting a game discount. Uh and they're also not being charged a processing fee every single time uh if they, you know, if they chose the digital route. Uh so they're saving on that as well. And they're saving on time, right? They just walk right in, flash it, scan it, and they're in. Um the only

187one that's offering any other type of pass is Wiki Watchi. Uh this is specific to the season. All right. Uh they did it this fall for the first time. They only sold 28 of them. They were $20. They could go to as many fall sporting events as they wanted to. Uh only 28 were sold. I believe that's a school of around 15,600. So not a great success rate. It was in year one, but that is a pretty darn good deal. Um I'm hoping, you know, to see that what the numbers look like in the winter for basketball and soccer and wrestling and cheer and whatnot. The middle schools do not offer any passes because the seasons are so short. it just doesn't really make sense. Each school only hosts three home games. So, um it

188just doesn't make doesn't make sense. It's not worth the juice isn't worth the squeeze there. And then, as I mentioned, uh those those honorary passes. And then we also do have some different incentive and donation nights. For example, one time I was at Springstead, we did something where if you brought in a canned good, that was your ticket, right? So, there's different nights like that. So, some past issues, we talked about misuse and abuse of the family passes. Uh it was hard to enforce, though. I think uh the digital piece could help us with that uh a little bit. It definitely caused some friction at the gate at times. Participation numbers were low and then it does negatively affect uh our athletic department's bottom line. So again, these are the numbers of our fall sport

189season passes from this past school or excuse me, this past season. You could see varying levels of success. Uh football is is the big one generally. varsity football uh as well. You see there varsity and JV volleyball that is a joint pass. So that's often popular but not a ton not a ton of participation. A school like Springstead uh you know around 1,800 students you're looking at what's that 20 about 28 total participated in the in the season passes but Wikiwashi Hernando did have some some bigger numbers. So these are the statewide varsity football ticket prices. uh 26 districts responded. You can see we're at the $10 mark, which out of the 26, that was actually the highest um occurrence or the, you know, the most common price I should say. Uh the districts around

190us, Citrus is at eight with parking. Pasco is at seven with parking. Um Pasco does not offer a cash option. Citrus does. Uh, I did want to note that 17 of the 26 that responded do still charge parking as well and many of the districts are not cashless. So, or excuse me, are cashless. So, they have no option to not they're always getting that processing fee and that convenience fee. So, while $10 does seem like a lot, and I and I tend to agree with you, uh, based on the temperature of of where we're at across the state and the fact that we got rid of parking, I I I think we're good. Um, and there's some numbers I'll show you later on to kind of back that up along with that $8 student price,

191which I think is cool, too. These are all the other tickets. So, for any JV events or any other varsity sports, regular season events. Um, we're at $6. So, again, >> check Mr. Johnson, I think, wanted to ask you a question on your other slide possibly. >> Yeah, I just in passing, I am not in favor of going cashless. I think there's a policy in fact an ordinance by the uh county commission that we have to have accept cash. >> Yeah, we've we've been we've been uh having a cash option at every single gate. >> And you're very good at correcting mistakes when they occur. >> Yes. Yes. And we're definitely, you know, not ashamed. We we're going to mess up from time to time, but yeah. No, 100%. We've been offering cash since the

192first of this year and uh and continue to do so. I can only speak for athletics. I can't speak for any other events uh or or extracurriculars, but uh definitely athletics, we've been offering cash. >> Okay, we can come >> receive. >> So again, I I think you can see there. I think we're right where we need to be with all the other cash prices or excuse me, all the other ticket prices. Pasco's at five, Citrus is at six. So we're right where we need to be there as well, I feel. And um four of the 26 districts did respond saying they did offer discounted tickets to students for those games as well. also maybe something to consider for next year. So, I didn't get as great a response from uh my counterparts across the

193state on this survey. I only got 16 districts to respond, but only four of the 16 districts offer any type of family pass. They varied from two all the way up to five people in that pass, what they considered a quote unquote family. Um, and all, excuse me, all four of them did cover the entire school year of athletics. The costs range between 200 and 250. Citrus, for example, is at 250. Pasco, they said they do allow it, but it is up to each school how they want to configure it. Um, again, participation was low. Again, just from the information I got from my counterparts across the state. They said anywhere from 10 to 50 per school that did it um were were those that, you know, were purchased. So, not a ton of participation.

194Uh but definitely a lot of value and again I'll show you some some information some numbers there uh as we get further through this. I just wanted to give you an idea of where we're at. Again this is this is average. Uh these are three biggest expenses at the middle school level. You have equipment and uniforms officials and your SRO and EMS. U those are the three biggest. Again much smaller seasons less sports etc. At the high school level, our biggest yearly expense is our officials. Uh you can see over 41,000. That's average across all five. Uh the next is equipment and uniforms. And then you have other things like the SRO, EMS, travel and hotels. And that varies greatly from year to year. That's really hard to budget for. Um you have the success

195like Hernando had last year with wrestling, with girls flag football, with baseball. They had a lot of travel, a lot of hotels, a lot of meals, a lot of charter buses, which I know the district does help cover those charter buses, but um you know, a lot a lot of travel uh for them last year. So, that's definitely one that will fluctuate. Uh technology, things like huddle and cameras and and things of that nature and then field maintenance as well, which has risen substantially over the past three to five years. So, those are the biggest those are the biggest that we have to cover. Some other things I did not include. You can see there things like dues, fees and fines, awards and recognition, hospitality, medical supplies and equipment, safety supplies and equipment, rentals. So,

196for example, renting the YMCA pool um or renting uh the beach courts at Sunwest, things like that. Big ticket purchases, um scoreboards, sometimes the district covers them, sometimes the district doesn't. For example, all of Springstead scoreboards were purchased in house uh with general athletic funds and sponsorships and whatnot. And then uh emergency purchases like when an ice machine goes out, right? So you have those things pop up. None of those supersede the previous ones I showed you, but again some other things that do add up quick and again you have some of those surprises at times. So, our biggest stream of revenue, really our only uh consistent stream of revenue and dependable stream of revenue are our ticket sales. So, I kind of compared last year, again, I'm only going off of fall right now

197because we we haven't completed winter yet. We're in the middle of it. But you can see there, football, we sold um a little over 20,000 tickets in 24. We're up 7.5% this year in football. In volleyball, the same trend, a little over 4,000. We're up to over 4,400, which is up 8.7%. So, even though we raised the ticket prices at football, attendance did go up. And um I I do think some of it has to do with the cash. Uh I I do think having that cash option is quick, is easy. I I think uh you know, people enjoy having that option. So, uh I think that helps. And I and I also think based on my travels across the district, I feel like school spirit is up. So, um there's that. And then you

198can see again across all sports the whole year, 2425, those were our average total ticket sales at the high school level and the middle school level. So, just real quick, you see the 85,000 there, 86,000. If you go up, our biggest expenses, right, our biggest expenses on average are over 88,000. So, you're asking how do we cover that little bit there? Um, you definitely those athletic fees help big time, sponsorships, donations, and grants. And then you also have your boosters and fundraising, right? So, that kind of helps everything balance out. And if there is uh if we are in in the positive uh anything substantial that usually goes towards something like a scoreboard uh or like weight room equipment or cheer mats, things of that nature, um uniforms, etc. So, um, that's kind of where

199we're at from a financial perspective. I did want to kind of cost out, you know, looking at Citrus's Pass. Citrus's Pass is for a family of four for $250. It covers the entire year in our district, that would be over a $2,300 value. So, that's a steal. Um, and even if you only went to a quarter of those games, which I because obviously we're not I can't imagine everyone's going to every single one of those games, but even if you went to a quarter of those games, it's still a 578 dollar value. So, um, definitely taking a hit there, but, uh, you know, I could understand that being attractive for a family of four. So, some things to finish that I feel like we need to really get a grip on is what is the

200actual demand and how many people is this really going to affect? Um, you know, how many people would actually participate in this? Is it worth going through all this for 10 people to 10 families to participate in in a district our size? Um, and then in order if we were to move in this direction, whether it's something smaller or something as grand as an entire package across the whole year, it would have to be digital and an ID would have to be required, which I know may may be uncomfortable for some people, but ultimately I feel like in order to keep the fidelity and keep it where we, you know, how it needs to be and help the people that needs to actually help, we would need to monitor it a little more closely. >>

201And that would cost as well, right? That would be an extra cost. >> Minimal. Yeah. any pass is just a $3 flat. Like there's no other processing. It's a onetime $3 and it that's it at the initial purchase. And then um you know what because 250 bucks up front that's a you know it's it's a good chunk. So I I we need to find again if we if if we go in this direction we need to find what that price is where people find it attractive but it's also not hurting our athletic departments too much. And then the last question, just something to ponder as well based on the participation numbers that we've seen uh local and and statewide at least from the people that responded. Maybe it's more prudent to do a family pass

202that's sports specific. You know, just for football, just for volleyball, family of four, just for soccer, that type of thing. So, some things that and I have not presented this to the athletic directors yet. They gave me a lot of this information obviously, but I have not presented it to them. I meet with them tomorrow. But um definitely some questions for them to ponder as well. So that is my report. >> Thank you. >> Do we have any comments from the board? >> We do. Thank you for taking the time out to do all of that. >> Absolutely. >> Um it's up to all of you what you decide. For me, I don't >> I'm not really interested in any of it. >> Okay. >> Thank you for everything. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >>

203Anyone else? >> And I'm not interested in >> I know I know what you mean. I think we're fine how we are, but whatever they all want is fine. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Ma, >> um I would want the data on the pricing for um passes because we cannot afford to have especially at the high schools. >> We're just barely scraping by right now with the expenses and those are only going up. >> Yes. every one of those. >> I'm petrified they're going to raise the officials again. >> Yes. And that that probably gonna happen. So I don't want to price us out of having the ability to pay those requirements that we have to pay your officials. Uh definitely right off the top, your equipment, your uniforms. >> Don't want to see that happen.

204I appreciate the information. I think it would be hard um for a lot of our families to come up with that $250 right off the bat. And I think that would deter them from buying and that maybe why the numbers are so low. I think for Citrus or or one of the schools that you showed um how many passes were actually purchased. >> So in the long run, unfortunately, I don't feel that >> this is the right time to do it. It's like worth the squeeze. I think you said >> Yeah. juice worth. >> Is the juice worth the squeeze? I think at this moment maybe not. I was thinking that would cause um definitely would cause us more headache to keep up with and maintenance of >> we really try to push the people

205to the season passes because again it's saving time. You're saving on the processing fees >> and you know you're you're getting you get your tickets off the bat. You're getting a game free chunk. >> So it's >> it's a big chunk your kid on a Friday night and say okay here's $10. Go to the game. >> 100%. I'm just, you know, if you're planning on going to all five football games, to me, it's worth buying a $40 season pass, you know, you're saving some money there. So, we just push people to that because we really feel like that's that's usually the best financial, you know, decision if you're if you're truly planning on going to to all the games or at least the majority of them, >> right, Mr. Johnson? >> Yeah, it's looking at

206your slides, it seemed like the expenses and the revenue for kind of coincided. They were very close. >> So, If if you wanted to offset an additional cost, it seems to me like the sponsorship would be the place to to raise it for the businesses. >> Sure. >> Put their banners up in fields and whatnot. >> Yeah, the sponsor we we do a good job. Our ads and coaches do a good job of fundraising and and you know getting as many sponsorships as they can and whatnot um to to help you know get us up above over the hump and and make sure we we're running first class program. So yeah, absolutely. So, it sounds that the board agrees that we're going to just leave it the way it is and appreciate all of your

207hard work. Absolutely. Presentation. >> Appreciate it, guys. See you later. >> So, thank you. So, the workshop is adjourned at 4:58 p.m. Thank you.