Lisle 202 Board of Education Finance Committee Meeting April 27, 2026

001Everybody, it is 6:17 on April the 27, 2026. I would like to call to order the meeting of the finance committee for LA Community Unit School District 202. Uh let's see. Next up on the agenda, uh do we have any public comment? any blue cards, internet, anything like that? >> We do not >> do not. Okay. We do have a packed meeting, so we'll try to get through this uh as diligently as possible. Uh third item on the agenda are the minutes from the February 23rd, 2026 meeting. Uh does anyone have any questions uh comments or changes regarding those minutes? No. So, we all agree that they accurately reflect last actually the meeting two months ago, pardon me. Yes. Excellent. Good. All right. Um, item four is a financial projection. Information regarding this can be

002found under item four, the finance committee packet. Mr. Wilkinson, if you please take it away. Uh, good evening everybody. Thanks for uh, tuning in this evening. Um, I hesitate to call this the Dave Show, but you will hear quite a bit from me this evening. As uh Greg mentioned, we do have a a pretty packed agenda this evening, but we are going to start uh with the 5-year financial review and forecast, our projection, which hopefully we can get up on the screen here shortly. Perfect. There we are. Uh this is something we look at annually. Again, the purpose is just to kind of um share the long range forecast with the committee. uh talk a little bit about some of the trends that we've seen in the past and are affecting kind of our future

003budgets and where we're heading. And then hopefully we can use this tool, not only this version, but future versions that we look at um to guide and plan some of the decisions uh that may need to be made in the years ahead. if you want to just kind of listen to one thing and then watch your Star Wars or whatever it is you want to watch the rest of the evening. The the kind of the short version is um the district still is uh remains financially healthy. We remain uh stable financially and we've built up some healthy reserves, but as we'll talk about tonight, there are kind of some um future expenditures that are projected to grow a little bit faster than our revenues. And so that's kind of the focus of this evening. Uh

004we'll touch on some slides a little bit longer than others. Uh but you do have the presentation now in your packet. I apologize that um earlier when I shared that out this morning, it wasn't uh shared with everybody to view. I'm still trying to be a good team player here and use Google Slides instead of good old Microsoft PowerPoint. Um but I did end up um sharing that with everybody so you can now follow along there as well. Uh kind of starting with uh the big picture trends. Let me turn this on here first. You saw this slide um last year in in our presentation and it's been refreshed a little bit here, but this tells kind of the overall story of um the projection here at Lyall. The left side looks at the historical

005results uh while the right side looks at our five-year projection. on the lefth hand side. This this covers kind of the past decade. And we see here that operating revenues have really exceeded expenditures by a pretty healthy margin of about $2 million annually. We'll talk a little bit about uh some of that surplus kind of over the last recent five years and kind of why that is. Um but during that time, we've really seen revenues and expenditures both growing at about 3% annually. And so that's allowed the district to continually uh remain financially stable over the last 10 years. That trend, we're seeing that continue kind of in the near term. Uh when we look at uh the year we're currently in, fiscal year 26, uh that's projected to end with another surplus at this

006point. Again, we'll talk a little bit more about maybe some things that might impact that as we finish out the year. Uh and then fiscal year 27 next year, again, we're uh looking at that basically being balanced. We'll learn more as we put together the budget and get some specific numbers. Uh but we're targeting a balanced budget for fiscal year 27 as well. It's when you start to look at uh up there on the chart on the right hand side, fiscal year 28, that's when the lines start to cross. uh and then our expenditures start to grow at least based on kind of our assumptions and projections a little bit faster than our revenues. And so based on this projection here, we're looking at revenues increasing about 3% annually based on the assumptions and our

007expenditures growing closer to 4%. And so that kind of creates this widening gap as we go uh further into the forecast further out uh more towards the four and five years uh where that deficit starts to grow terms of you know why are these trends changing? What's different? Uh there's really two main reasons that are driving that change. The first, and we've talked about this at some of our other meetings, is that realistically the expenditure pressures are increasing. Um, the largest drivers of those are uh employee benefits, which we've touched on. We just saw the most recent renewals coming in at 15 and 16%. Uh, transportation has been something that's been weighing on the district for many years coming out of the pandemic. Now, special ed tuition goes up and down, but we've seen uh

008as of this most recent year an uptick in our special education costs. Those are for our outplace students uh that we can't provide the services in house. And then also just overall inflation with our contracted services. We're seeing a lot of this in buildings and grounds. I mean, you can't get a contractor out here for less than $1,000 to fix something. And so, uh we're seeing some of those increased costs in our onm fund as well. Secondly, uh several revenue sources that really helped us in the last few years. Those are either fading, disappearing, disappearing, or really kind of getting more to a normal level. Uh the big one that comes to mind is our ESSER and ARP funds. Those are the fund the federal funding that came out of the pandemic to help with

009learning loss and and some of the um impacts of the COVID pandemic. those really propped up some of our um results for a few years. Then we've also had very strong investment earnings. Rates were at 5% at one point and so fortunately we have some healthy reserves and some good fund balances and so we saw a lot of interest income um during that period. And then also there was kind of this interesting blip in corporate personal property replacement tax receipts from the state of Illinois. um that those numbers went up really big for two years and now we've seen those kind of get back to more normal levels. And so while the district like I mentioned continues to remain uh stable today, our future budgets will see um some of these impacts. And so that's

010where kind of continued planning and adjustments along the way will become more and more important. Uh this table shows I know there's a lot of numbers up here, but it it shows in a little bit more detail uh what the six-year forecast looks like. Uh fiscal year 26, as I mentioned earlier, is projected in with a surplus of about 1.3 million. That's kind of projections right now. Don't hold me to that. Um obviously some things that could change that number are uh if we have a lot of additional special education tuition costs at the end of the year. I know uh two students were recently added that I think are about $800 a day. And so again, that's going to impact where this might land. Um anytime we outplace some students that requires transportation, which

011also adds to our cost. So I'm always kind of on pins and needles as we finish out the year wondering what trailing transportation bills are going to come in and what tuition bills are going to come in because those are the ones that really we could end up at 1.3 or we could end up at half a million. And those those are just some numbers that can really swing things um a lot as we close out the year. That second column, fiscal year 27, that's where we're showing at this point a balanced budget. That's what we're going to work towards as as Keith, Jason, and the buildings and I all uh look at developing that budget for fiscal year 27. We're targeting a balanced budget. And again, it's in FY28. That's where uh the deficits

012start to begin and then they gradually grow reaching approximately 2 million by fiscal year 2031. Overall over this six-year projection period, uh operating fund balances are projected to decline just under $4 million. Um but even with that decline, our fund balances will continue to remain strong, continue to be positive throughout this projection period. And I think the other important takeaway here is that um this shows we have time to plan. We're not in financial uh stress right now. We're we we we we have, you know, a surplus this year. We have a balanced budget next year. It gives us some time to have those conversations, look at our options, and see if those trends continue. And if so, we have some decisions to make. Um if not, then um hopefully we can maintain what we've

013been doing so far. talking about um kind of some of the changes and key insights in this projection versus maybe where we were with the update back in October. Um overall, this is a um I guess I'll call it a stronger forecast than what we saw in October. Probably the biggest reason for that is the projected uh revenues and that growth from Arbor Station. And so there's kind of two pieces of Arbor Station. There's um this is the development that's going on. I don't know where I am directionally, but uh just um what would it be here? North of the village hall, I think. Um half of that is outside the tiff. And so as those houses come on the tax rolls, we'll be able to capture that as new construction. The other half is

014inside the tiff. Uh but Keith had some extensive discussions Pam with the village and we were able to work out in concept an agreement where uh the Arbor Station town homes the additional increment from those from that development will be distributed at surplus. So that's been factored into this projection and that helps significantly as far as the revenues are concerned. Um the other thing that's on here is and we're going to discuss this here at the next agenda item is the reinstatement of student fees. Um, and then interest earnings have I say they're projected to be a little bit stronger than than where we were last year. Uh, this time last year the Fed was doing some rate cuts. That's kind of stabilized. They haven't done any rate cuts yet in 2026. And so those

015investment earnings were kept a little bit higher in this projection period because that those interest rates um that has kind of eased in terms of the decreases. I do want to always highlight this uh this was in our prior projection and it's also in this one and it was a question I also received over the weekend is that this assumes no transfers from our operating funds to the capital projects fund for future uh capital projects and so every um I think it's October we look at those facility needs and what they are and historically in the past we've been able to save about $750,000 annually for those that's not happening here. Um, those funds, you know, really need to be redirected to operations at this point. I'm okay with that in the near term because

016if you recall, I think it was actually just last year, we actually transferred about $3 million from our education fund over to the capital projects fund almost to like preund all of those renovations at the junior high. So, we did kind of a big transfer of what I would call a lot of that $750,000 in one fell swoop. And so, we've kind of done that um proactively for a few years. And then we also do still have just over a million dollars in our capital projects fund. So, if something comes up that like, hey, this is critical. We can't wait till we can till we're debtree in 2029 and we can issue new bonds. We do have some funds available uh for a project. But I wanted to um make sure everyone's aware of that.

017It's not in here. And then I think there was also a question about um debt service levy abatements. We did a few of those within this. I think two of the three we did are in the the five-year recent five-year memory, but there's no contemplation of any kind of le abatement of our debt service levy or anything along those lines um in the projection. So, I can pause here really quick if there's any questions. Hopefully, I answered the questions that I received over the weekend. Okay. And so, just as a quick reminder, um this is a planning document. It's a planning tool. It's based on the information we have today. It's built on assumptions. Those assumptions can change and obviously that'll change the forecast as well. But again, we update this regularly. We look at

018it in in April. We look at it in October. If for those of you who've been on the negotiations team and even when we talk about negotiations, when we're looking at staffing, collective bargaining agreements, we use this tool. We update it and that way we can see kind of real time what some of those whatif scenarios uh might be or if there's tax levy changes like arbor station coming on the rolls. Not going to go into this slide, but this summarizes our district funds. It's really just here for reference. Again, tonight's discussion we focus on the operating funds the left side of that slide. If you want to see all funds or in the past we've had members who wanted to reconcile the numbers to the audit report and the Isby uh annual financial report.

019If you're interested in doing that, you have all of the details in the complete report that was included in your packet and you're welcome uh to do that as well. This slide uh again just shows kind of our recent years. The one before showed all 10. This is just kind of our last five years. I touched on this, but our our strongest surpluses really occurred kind of in fiscal year 22 and fiscal year 23. Um in part by those CPPRE corporate personal property replacement tax receipts that ballooned as well as those ESSER and our federal funding dollars that came in. And so that helped prop up some of those surpluses for those years. Kind of moving further to the right, looking at those last two fiscal years, you know, we've had $2 million in interest

020income because the rates have been so high and we have these healthy fund balances. Um, so that's really helped our surpluses kind of more near-term. Um, again, it's helped strengthen our reserves. Um it's put us in a good position here as we kind of enter into this projection period where maybe some of those trends are a little bit more um uncertain. I see this every year, but this uh again highlights kind of um our reliance on property taxes here to fund our operations. um 80% of operating revenues come from our local local property taxes. And so um you probably heard me say that all the time, but it's again worth emphasizing. And so CPI is critical. new property development in the area. Those are all really critical to um giving us additional revenues so that

021if health insurance rates go up 50% we have resources to help offset some of those costs. Um property taxes really the focal point there is in the box. They've they've been had pretty predictable growth. They've been growing about 4% annually over the last 5 years. We did have one or two years that was limited by uh the property tax caps. And so even though CPI was I think six and 7% uh the district is obviously limited to that 5% increase. Um but again, even you know, modest changes here to to CPI or new growth can have either a positive effect such as Arbor Station or um potentially could weigh on our our revenues um if if we don't have much new property growth. This one touches on what I I discussed earlier with the ESSER

022and ARP pandemic funds. Um they helped oper support our operations for several years, but those have been fully exhausted. we've received all those dollars. Those are not going to be available at least in the esser and ARP world moving forward. Um CPVRT has kind of gotten back to its uh more normal levels. But then the other thing you'll notice is there was kind of an increase in in those green bars the state revenues and now it's kind of going the other direction. What's going on there? And so um a lot of that increase is because our transportation costs started to go up. And so when our transportation costs go up, we started to get more reimbursement from the state for transportation. Unfortunately, everybody else's transportation costs are going up. And the state, they're putting most

023of their money in the evidence-based funding model, which we get basically nothing from. And so they're not funding the mandated categoricals, which includes our transportation reimbursement. They're not putting any more money there. And so it's the same pot of money for an increased amount of expenditures. And so ultimately where we used to get 40 cents on the dollar, now we're getting 37 cents on the dollar. And I expect that to continue to go down, 35, 31. Um because we haven't gotten any indication from Springfield that they're going to put any more money into the transportation reimbursement to help offset our costs that are going up. Um yes, it's not. Oh, there. Um it the federal money um is that also decreasing or did it level off? I'm just trying to look at the heights of

024the blue sections. >> Yeah, so there's a little bit of variableness. We we had some carryover money from some of our IDA grants and some of our special education grants and we've done a better job of spending those dollars and using those up. So that's kind of also added to some of the blue there, but for purposes of the projection, like we're just hoping it stays flat. Obviously, there's all kinds of discussion in Washington and what's going to happen and there's uh media stories about potentially threatening those those dollars, but at this point, we haven't seen that actually happen. And so, um, uh, while the SS or AARP did fall off, we're expecting everything else to remain to remain the same. Does that kind of address the Okay, this chart just really quick, obviously, some

025of those yellow bars are much higher than the others. Uh, it just, you know, again, reflects kind of the volatility we've seen in interest rates. Obviously, we're very happy that they're staying high. We're very happy to keep having that $2 million. Um at this point we haven't seen uh more cuts to kind of reduce those rates but they are at three and a half where they used to be at five. So that that is a difference. Um but they did again provide some meaningful support over the last five years to kind of what we've seen in those surpluses. Shifting things to expenditures. Um this shows where the district's dollars are spent. It's really for reference more than anything else. But obviously the key piece there is um school districts are a very staffing intensive um

026operation and um you know people are the primary resource. That's what supports our students. That's what provides instruction. And so it's no surprise that 70% of our cost between uh salaries and benefits are uh for our people. salaries. You know, even with some of the the CPI driven raises in recent years, we're still seeing kind of an average growth of about 4%. Which is um relative, you know, relative in line with where the revenues are going. Um this obviously is our largest category in expenses. So, as we look towards next year, where we're negotiating both of our collective bargaining agreements, um where we land in those negotiations and what we end up settling on could have a pretty significant impact on um our future budgets as well as future projections when we're we're here again

027next year. Dave, on the salaries, as we kind of noted in our board packet, there's several retiree retirements, albeit some are not for two, three years out. >> And so, would you expect that often someone who retires whoever we hire would be significantly lower historically? Histoly. >> Yeah. So, that's a really great question. Um, >> I don't expect you to project anything. >> No, it's all in the projection. All those retirements are all factored in. Those I already knew about. So those are factored in. >> And so in the near term, we're not seeing a lot of benefit from those retirements. >> Why is that? Well, we see a savings because obviously retire, you know, teachers have been here a while. They're they're a little bit further on the salary schedule. We hire some new

028teachers and they typically cost less. So there is a salary savings there, but in the short term, it's offset by the service bonuses that are built into our contract. So it really kind of eats up all of those salary savings in the short term. That being said, those lower salaries are then here for many, many years to come. And so once we get past that kind of one-time bonus time frame, that's when we start to see some of the savings from younger teachers coming in with the older teachers retiring. On the benefits side, um, not as much good news as on the salary side. We've we've recently seen benefits growing much faster than salaries. It's been about a 7% average over the last five years. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned a number of times, our recent

029renewal came in at basically 15%. Um, so that was obviously a shock. We're hoping that um that will trend back towards ideally CPI, but even like five 6% the averages would be really nice. I think, and I'll talk about this later, one thing we're probably going to have to start looking at is some plan design changes and what kind of savings we can get from plan design changes in our insurance. It's not something we've historically done here. We have a very good plan. It's a very good benefit for our staff. Um, but I think in order to help offset some of those increases, we're probably going to have to dig in more um to what exactly we're offering in the plan design and have those conversations um with the unions. does sorry um you said

030we'll have to talk to the union so that would that be something then we'd have to negotiate into their contract or can we take a look at those benefits and see if there's anything we can change in the meantime without renegotiating that >> so the only thing that has to be negotiated is if we would change the cost sharing percentage right now for medical insurance the board pays 82% and the employee pays 18 that would have to be negotiated plan design changes do not, but it's certainly something that you don't want to just go making these plan design changes without having them part of those conversations. And so we would certainly pull together an insurance committee, talk through those things. Um, but ultimately the board could make those decisions without having to go through negotiations.

031>> And for for those negotiations, do we negotiate with a larger group? Do we can or we >> for insurance? >> Yeah. No, there's a committee outlined in the um I I don't know that it specifies how many members are a part of that or but it it's just a group basically to to sit down and and review what our options are and discuss the plan. But again, cost percentage changes, those have to be negotiated. Plan design changes do not. >> That'll be a big conversation is you probably remember we need to negotiate both contracts next year. I think our goal is to try and get closure at around the end of the calendar year next year. Traditionally, our salaries have been in the area of around 3 to 4%. Excuse me. With COVID and

032high inflation, we all started to dip a lot higher, but I think we're going to try and work towards more of that 3 to 4%. But it's critical that we close the negotiation by or end the negotiation by um the end of 202 correct six end of 2026. So halfway through next school year so that if we do need to decrease staffing because we can't afford whatever those raises are. So our goal is to have it done by the end of this calendar year. But part of that conversation as we've often done is to look at our comps. And so what we would do is look at what the deductibles are, what's included in our plans for the five comps. Neighborville, Indian Prairie, Weeden, Warrenville, Westmont, um, uh, what's the last one I'm not thinking

033of? Elmer's 205. >> Just look at their plan design. It's one of the beauties of AI now. You can just upload all that and just say, how do we stand? What's differences between these plans? and then have our insurance broker figure out what those savings might be if we modify to what the average is. But we don't yet know what our benefits are relative to those groups. And so the big push for those first six months of next school year is try and get closure on the contract, see if we can land it at three and a half% because that's what Dave used for this projection. If it's higher than that there that projection will not look as good as it currently does and we need to look at plan design to see if maybe

034we fell out of the market and negotiations is the time to have those conversations. So people fully understand when they look at what their salary is going to be that there's additional costs or things not included in previously in the plan design. But it's a much quicker turnaround. It's not unlikely that we usually drag it out to the end of the school year. Sometimes we even vote on it like start of the very next year. But if we need to make some changes in staffing, it's critical that we know by the end of this calendar year so that we can hit that spring deadline that if we need to let somebody know that we're riffing them. anything to add to that? >> No, that's Thank you for sharing that. If you weren't already asleep, now

035you got the rain to kind of lull you to sleep. So, um, but this might wake you up a little bit more. This is our our purchase services. This is where we've seen some real sharper increases in recent years, and it's one of the more significant uh pressures that we're seeing on the budget. I did in I did include um all the way back to fiscal year 19 on this slide as you can see fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 21. Um we saw those it's really kind of distracting. That's really loud. Um they were unusually low those years due to kind of the the the shutdown from COVID in the hybrid learning environment. So we really kind of have to go back to fiscal year 2019 um to get that baseline. And uh since

036FY19, we've seen purchase services in the operating funds increase by 53%. Um it's gone from 4.2 million to more than 6.4 million. And so that's a 7% annual increase um during that time frame. Obviously, the major driver of that is our transportation costs coming out of the pandemic. But we've also been hit with higher insurance costs. that includes property and liability insurance, our workers compensation insurance. Uh and then also those increased costs for contracted services and buildings and grounds. And so this is really a major reason right here that we're projecting expenditures um to kind of outpace our revenue sources over the course of the projection. >> And did you look at that? I thought we looked at that the other day in purchase services. Over 90% of those numbers are transportation. Uh, we looked

037at other objects in terms of our special ed tuition costs. >> Okay. >> Um, I don't know that I could make that statement for purchase services. I'd have to I mean I can tell you off the top of my head at least three and a half to four million of that is transportation, but it could be more. That's just a ballpark because I know we're spending at least a one and a half million on our regular and one and a half million on our special ed, but it could be more. That's just off top of memory. I shared this uh this wasn't in last year's but I did share this uh this year because I think it's interesting that this category has been pretty stable when you talk about supplies and materials. Um you know

038it it really hasn't for probably five or six years we've we've kept these things in line just through our purchasing practices and changing our purchasing. So this isn't what's driving uh kind of these these surpluses to turn into deficits. We are seeing a little bit of an uptick kind of in FY25 and we talked about it for FY26. Unfortunately, as much as we love using AI here and it helps us with our jobs, it's driving up the cost of our technology. And so, you've probably heard about that in the news. I know we talked about that I think at the February finance meeting, but unfortunately, uh, Chromebooks 1:1 are now a a a thing that that that we have at schools. That's kind of what we expect. And now those devices are really going up

03920 and 30%. So that that is probably putting the most pressure on our supplies budget than anything else. Um this is the other big area. This is other objects. This is where Keith was saying 90% of these costs are our outplaced specialed tuition costs. While this is a smaller percentage of our budget, maybe 10% or so compared to purchase services, this is the one that that can be less predictable and has more volatility. Um, you know, it these costs are driven by the number of students that we service, what kind of services they're getting, and so those can really vary from one year to the next. And so, uh, from FY29 through FY25, it's averaged about $2.5 million, but we have seen roughly a 6% growth annually each year, which is obviously higher than than

040what the inflation has been during that same time period. And so the kind the key takeaway here is that, you know, this isn't our largest expenditure, but it is probably our most unpredictable expenditure that can lead us from being, hey, we've got a balanced budget to all of a sudden, wait, no, we've got a deficit because this one is very hard to budget because you just don't know what the students are and you don't know what the services are that they're going to need. All the assumptions, all of that's in the report. You can read through that in detail. This is here for reference purposes. Obviously, the biggest assumptions for us is CPI and new property growth. I did want to just direct your attention to the bottom left hand corner. That new property projection

04126 through 31, that's kind of the entire course of this projection. I assumed a baseline of $1.3 million in new AVA, new property growth. That adds about $58,000 a year in taxes. That's that's for every single year. But then I noted there that in 27 and 28, that's when we're hoping to start to see some of this arbor station come onto the tax roles as well as the distribution of the surplus through the IGA with the village of Lyall. And so that's where you'd have some pretty significant additions to our EAV and add another in addition to that 58,000 each of those years would add another $260,000 a year in taxes. So, I just wanted to highlight that because that's probably the biggest change in this projection from our previous one. But again, all those

042are outlined in the report if you want to look at them. Same thing on the expenses. Keith touched on the most important one here, and that's our salaries. We're hoping to land somewhere in that 3 to 4% range. I use three and a half% for now. um that's a little bit closer to what the averages used to be prior to COVID, prior to these higher CPI years that we've seen. Um but again, these are some of kind of the key assumptions. All of them are outlined um in in the financial report. This is really just a chart to visually kind of reinforce that table we looked at earlier looking at the the next five-year projection period. Again, I just want to emphasize like the district continues to remain stable in the near term. Um it's

043when we look further out in the projection period, that's when some of the impacts of these expenditures start to compound and we start to see that uh the forecasting of some of those uh current trends. Um final financial slide for tonight. Uh this shows our projected cash balances in the operating funds over the course of that um forecast period. Uh it indicates that our our cash balances will remain adequate throughout the projection. You will see that it starts to decline a little bit in those later years. But um you know September is typically the highest point, May is the lowest point. And even at that lowest level there on the right hand side, we're still above that 25% benchmark, which is often referenced as kind of a general indicator of of good financial health. And

044so, kind of looking ahead, um I'll close with kind of some of the the priorities, some of the things we, you know, are going to be looking at um as we kind of start the planning process. Um there's no formal recommendations here. There's nothing for action tonight. This is just kind of priorities and some things that'll help guide us as we have future budget discussions, future discussions about um areas of our budget that we can look at. First of all, obviously formalizing that conceptual agreement that we have with the village of Lyall for the IGA related to the Arbor Station town homes. would um not only allow us to capture the new property but also the surplus uh tiff distributions from the portion of arbor station that's in that tiff. Secondly, Keith touched on this

045um well I guess first of all staffing levels just continuing to remain where we are not adding any new staff not taking away any new staff but the projection assumes kind of a certain base level for our negotiations getting those more in line with our revenue growth. Um, we'll have to see where that lands as we move through the rest of 2026. We talked about employee benefits and that that's going to require some attention uh here in the coming months. And then um purchase services. Right now, we're under contract for I think two more years with our current providers both both for regular and special ed. I'll be honest, I'm a little nervous on the regular education side. Um, this is something we'll probably communicate more in the summer, but Westway Coach, our current provider,

046was bought out by First Student. And so, First Student acquired them a few months ago. It's pretty much been business as usual. Most of our buses still say Westway Coach on there. It's all the same drivers. It's all the same uh dispatch staff and operations manager. I don't know what kind of changes we're going to see as we move into next year. I'll be honest, First Students, a great company. They you hear nothing but good things about them from other districts. They're uh very well respected, but they have bid on our um our district in the past. All of our last bids, they've they've bid and they've been much higher than where we're at currently. So, little nervous as we eventually have to go through that bidding process. There won't be quite as much competition

047and so we may see some cost increases in a few years for that. hoping that on the special ed side, we can work really closely with Sassid and some of the other SASID member districts to try and uh tweak some of the things in our bid and maybe get some uh improved cost rate structures in there. And so that'll be the focus uh in about two years. Supplies and materials isn't the biggest cost. I showed you that slide earlier, but obviously we want to continue to limit the increases as much as possible um in that arena. And then um you know special education, we're going to evaluate our tuition costs, our placement costs, review those closely. Obviously, we must always meet the students need and whatever those legal requirements are. Um but we're going to

048see if there's any opportunities that may exist to kind of ina expand maybe in district programming, evaluate some of the placements, or maybe identify some more uh costeffective service options uh if they're available. As I kind of started tonight, again, the key message is that we're financially stable today. Um, but obviously some thoughtful long-term planning. Um, continuing to update this projection, keeping tabs on what's happening with those trends, all that's going to be um important to make sure that we maintain this strong position uh into the future. And so for this topic, that's all that I have. I I hopefully addressed all the questions uh that I received over the weekend. Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of kind of what the story is for our district, where we've been, where we're going, what

049some of those pressures are that are on the district, and some of the um areas we might have to look at to um help alleviate some of those cost increases uh here down the road in the next year or two. There any other questions? Dave, I know you highlighted it and mentioned it several times, the potential future revenue from Arbor Station. >> And I I just wanted to thank Dr. Philippia because back in February when we approved the conditional letter of support, those negotiations went through. So, uh, you know, it was a lot of collaboration with the village and they were very receptive to that. So, it's, um, it's going to make a big difference. I know, uh, Dr. Philippia had several sleepless nights waiting for everything to pan out from that. But thank you.

050>> I I really appreciate everybody on the on the village team at this point. I think they were open to having conversations. They definitely saw that there was a way of still getting the the new large uh whatever they might name apartment complex, focusing on just the property taxes from that apartment complex and allowing other taxing bodies to take advantage of the Arbor Station knowing that um if you've driven by it's it's really coming across coming along very quickly. I think they're doing a lot of the infrastructure with the sewer and water right now, but very hopeful within the next six months that you'll start to see some foundations and it move forward. Ultimately, we don't know how many students we're going to get from that area, but uh it is very nice to know

051that uh we have the partnership with the village that they're willing to make those distributions um that would be generated there. >> Any further questions? No, that's very good. >> Well, thank you very much, Mr. Wilkinson. That was a very detailed summary and it's given us a lot to think about. Uh, but pressing on. Item five is the student fees and facility usage rates for school year 2026 through 2027. Once again, Mr. Wil. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. That can be found under 5A 5 of the regular board meeting packet, if you would, please. So, you do have several attachments in the regular uh board book board packet. That would be uh the write up for this agenda item, the proposed 2627 fee schedule, a historical summary of fees that's always provided where you can see

052the kind of the five-year history of what each of these fees has done, the proposed facility usage rates are in there, and then a late addition that was supposed to be in there on Thursday, but apparently I forgot about the attachment, so I apologize, but it was brought to my attention that the registration fees re-implementation communication plan uh was not included. So, I apologize for that. I did upload it this morning. That was not uh my intent, but I had quite a few attachments to keep track of this month and so that one slipped through the cracks. So, thank you for bringing that to my attention. Um, as the board knows, you know, books and supplies fees, those were suspended beginning in the 2021 school year uh during the COVID period, and those have remained

053waved all the way through the current 2526 school year that we're finishing up in this uh for the board meeting tonight. We are the administration is recommending reinstatement of those fees beginning in 2627. Uh those really the rationale for that is kind of what we just touched on with our projection that we have seen some rising operational costs and budget pressures. And so reinstating the book and supplies fees will provide an additional recurring revenue source um to help support some of the district's uh long-term fiscal plans and fiscal stability. The proposed fee levels, they're new. They were discussed back in February. We didn't just take the old fees and increase them by CPI to get to the new fees. We actually did a study of all the comparable unit districts in DuPage County and kind

054of came up with an average. And so we've kind of reset our fees uh that were uh suggesting reimplementation. And again, it's based on the average of those other DuPage County districts. I do want to remind you obviously qualifying families if um they submit a fee waiver, they remain eligible for those fee waivers. We just need them to fill it out. If they fill it out, then they can do that. Obviously, if they don't take the time to to fill it out or they're not directly certified through the state's automated system, uh then we would charge them the fees. At a prior meeting, as I mentioned, a a board member did ask for kind of what that communication plan for the reinstatement of fees is. Uh that is included now, and it outlines the multiple

055touch points that will start in May, continue throughout the registration process. Um, those communications include the district newsletter, website updates, principal newsletter, parent square reminders, final approved fee information, information regarding fee assistance. Uh, the goal is to provide families with advanced notice, explain why we're returning the fees, give them adequate time to plan, um, all before registration opens. And so, I want to thank, um, Jenna, our communications coordinator, as well as Keith assisted her with it. They put that all together. Um, I think that was a good suggestion to to kind of ask for that at the meeting to get us moving in that direction and starting to put that together. But, um, Jenna always does a great job with communications and I'm sure she will work closely with the principles to make sure that

056the message gets out and that people are aware um, of this change, assuming the board um, elects to move forward. Continuing on, usage fees. Those have typically been adjusted relative to the consumer price index. Uh, usually rounded to kind of the nearest dollar amount. And so the fees that are in here for those reflect that 2.7% increase from the 2025 calendar year CPI. A few notable items that don't necessarily line to that. PE shirts. We've seen the costs of those go up with our vendors. And so we're going to increase those by a dollar to $10. the shorts, we can still um reconcile those costs to what we're charging. So that the shorts will remain at $12. Student parking that also will remain at $70 a semester. That used to be a little bit higher.

057The committee asked for us to lower that so that it was more in line with some of our neighbors. And so we'll continue to keep the per semester parking fee at $70. Also recommending some recommending some modest increases to our meal prices. This is really based on the current rates that um Chartwells is charging us. I know the meals have improved in quality, but they do come at a cost. And so we want to try and get our meal prices a little bit closer to what the cost actually is to produce those meals. As well as we do have some target rates through the paid lunch equity requirements of the National School Lunch Program. And so we're looking at a 25-cent increase in our lunch prices and just a small 5-cent increase uh for both

058breakfast and milk fall play and spring musical tickets. Last year we approved kind of a tiered pricing structure. That's really just to help estimate attendance, improves planning logistics for the staff, uh and then also offsets some of the the rising production and ticketing costs. And so we are going to increase the adult ticket price from $10 to 12, but all the other rates remain unchanged from last year. The other big item that was discussed back in February is our TCD fees. Most of those courses cost $100 per course um that the student is responsible for. uh cosmetology carries a higher cost because as we mentioned in February, there's actually some materials and supplies that are required for that course that are above and beyond the other courses. And so in the past years, the district

059has subsidized a portion of our those costs, but we appear to be in the minority uh doing that. And so we are recommending to discontinue that subsidy uh with the students being responsible for the full cosmetology fee. That's also in the recommendation. Uh you have some enroll enrollment history in there if you want to look at that. Um we are recommending $5 increase for our facility usage rates um for the current approved rates. So that's what we would be charging organizations that are class B and C in our guide. I did get a question about where are those A and C categorizations. If you actually go on our website, I guess you probably in the search would type in facility use application. You can pull that up. I think it's page three. It shows you

060what all the A, B, and C organizations are. In particular, this question was about things like the boosters, Lyall band, parent organization. I wasn't sure what LCPO was. Maybe is that the new activity? >> Choir parents. Okay. All right. Choir parents. And I know we have the new activity group. We have our HSO organizations. All of those are considered um district related organizations. Uh all of those are class A. We do not charge for the rental of the auditorium. the rental of the gyms, the rental of the classrooms, those are all not charged for. What we have been charging more in order to align with our policy, and you may hear about this a little bit, and it's probably something we'll be discussing at a future finance meeting when I'm not working on the projection,

061um, is that there is instances where these organizations ask to use our facilities on the weekends. We don't have staff here on the weekends. One of the requirements in our facility use guide is that we have to have a custodial staff member there when an outside organization is using our facilities. And so we end up having to pay overtime for those organizations to have events on the weekends. For the most part, if it's during the week, we already have custodians here. We have coverage. It's part of the regular shifts. We don't charge for the custodian during those times. We don't charge other organizations, costbc organizations, because we already have someone here that's already part of our cost. Where we do start to charge is when we have to have staff come in on the weekends.

062They have to give up their weekends. We have to pay overtime and so those costs are passed on to the organizations. Um there may be some instances where we haven't necessarily followed that in the past. I'm starting to follow that policy more and so it has come as a surprise to some of our organizations when I start to say, "Hey, we're incurring overtime. There are some costs associated with that." So we may have to have some future discussions at the committee level about do we want to continue to enforce that. I mean we really should be following what our policy says. Do we want to grant except exceptions in those cases? But at the same time their decision to have an event is costing the district money in terms of overtime. So we have to

063be careful because if they're not incurring any of those costs, there's not as much of an incentive to maybe streamline the hours, get creative in terms of what's needed and so on. So, that's just kind of a teaser for when we eventually have those conversations. Um, but it was a good segue for a question that I received over the weekend. Uh, you can see the financial impact in the writeup and uh I've done enough talking. I will open it up to uh the floor to have discussions about how we want to proceed at the regular board meeting. In this regard, >> Dave, before we go on to that, I just wanted to point out besides uh under the find find it fast tab under the Lyall district website, you can go under departments and then

064there's an actual drop-down that goes into facility usage information and it says all the different groups in there. >> Great. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. >> The uh the financial projection was that under the assumption that the fee recommendation would be approved. >> Yes. >> Okay. Dave, do we uh this is kind of in addition to so I don't know if you had time to prepare anything on it, but fee fee waivers. Um do we also have unpaid balances? I know that that was a topic that came up at our lend discussion on Friday. >> Yeah, so we definitely do. Um getting some of those balances a little bit challenging. I did have uh thank you for that question, Miss Alman. I did have Marilyn look up some of the information and

065our records that we kind of have right now go back to about 2017. And so looking at kind of the overall balance in not only just student fees, but also, you know, lost IDs, lost Chromebook chargers, broken Chromebooks, um, you know, fees for driver's ed, student fees for all those kinds of things. Our balances are getting close to $40,000 in unpaid. Um, if you look at kind of fiscal year 19 to where we are today, it added about $20,000. Part of that is because there was some new policy that was passed at at Springfield that limited our ability to collect those damages from people who are on the free and reduced list. And so, um, that has caused the balances to go up. The other one that's getting more alarming is the unpaid lunch balances.

066There was legislation passed in Springfield a while ago where we are not allowed to deny a student a free meal even if they don't have the money to pay for it. And so, um, people have taken advantage of that. And so, our balances in the unpaid meal arena are also in the $40,000 range. And so, it's on my list of things to start to figure out how we want to tackle that. We did reach out very recently to another collection agency. I'm hoping maybe we'd have better success with them. So, we're actually going to be pursuing that in the next month or two. What we have not done is gone to the level where it actually impacts their credit report. Um, and so obviously before we would do anything along those lines, we would have

067the discussion with the board to decide if that is something we want to do. What is frustrating is when they passed the law about the all students must eat and you can't deny a student a free meal. There was supposed to be a program with the Illinois comprollers's office where if the balances went above $500, you could go through a process with the Illinois comproller and they would take that money out of state refunds. But unfortunately, that program was never put in place. It was never It's in place for municipalities, but they never put it in place for school districts. And so that was the mechanism that was supposed to allow us to pay for these unpaid balances. That mechanism is mechanism is not in place. Not sure if any of that came up in

068your uh lend agenda item or not, but that's a little bit of the history and some of the challenges that we're dealing with. Well, I think it was in reference to there's a mandated reduction council and they're still looking at it, but several of the districts had significant increases, especially in the food cost because of the reduction in food stamps, Medicaid, several other services. So, I think LEND is just recognizing this as a as a as a big area uh for the future. So, >> correct. I think some districts are I feel like I've heard approaching million dollars some of the bigger ones. So, it's significant amounts of money. Um, and we've we send unpaid balance notices. They get emails every week. Like, we we're not doing nothing. It's just I think for some of

069these, if we want to really um focus on collecting them, we're going to have to put some more teeth behind whatever that mechanism is because right now the letters and the emails don't appear to be working. I think the biggest challenge we run into and I just so you know I did upload the facility uh document to board book. So if you hit refresh you'll see it. It'll show you all the different classes. But there's parent decisions and there's student decisions. And so if a parent doesn't keep a balance for a student to eat, that's a parent issue. That's not a student issue. And so we feel the need to allow students to eat. uh if a student wants to be in an activity but a parent doesn't pay, again, it's you don't want to

070negatively impact a student because of a decision or not a lack of a follow-th through for a parent not to be able to actually pay. And so, as Dave pointed out earlier, if somebody cannot afford something, we wave it. But if somebody just decides not to pay, that's where we try and work with the parents to have them pay, but do not want a student to be negatively impacted. So, it's it's a position we're in, but we've taken the approach that we want to continue to support the student as much as we can. So, we're looking at a new collection agent, but uh again, it's a a parent decision and as much as we say is you can't afford it or you're just unwilling. And I think for a very long time, this organization has

071felt like property taxes pay for our students education and we did that as long as we could. But we're at a point to where we cannot financially afford to do it anymore. And it pains us as an organization to reimplement fees, but we do feel like the choice is either cut programs or implement fees. And so we're a minority in terms of not charging the fees. And so we're going to try and follow but suit of what other organizations are communicate it, but also make sure that if you cannot, it's not a matter of not wanting to pay, it's an unability to pay that we will always always work with families. I I just want to clarify to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. I know this is a little bit digression from the meeting,

072but these $40,000. These are not families on free and reduced lunch. These are families who for whatever reason haven't paid that mind of the district and future state we may need to discuss. >> You're talking about the student fee side of things or the unpaid lunch balances. >> So for is it's 40,000 each. Yes. >> 40,000 total. So 80,000 total. >> Yes. >> Oh. >> So the That's a lot of money. >> Again, I didn't look through everything, but a lot of the student fees um a lot of them are people not paying the driver's ed fee, people breaking a Chromebook charger, not paying for us, people um losing their student ID and not paying for paying them for us, paying us for them. And so, um, things like that, the chargers, the the, uh,

073IDs, things like that, it wouldn't matter whether you're free, paid, reduced. That would be something that you would be responsible for paying because you lost it, damaged it, whatever that might be the case. When it comes to the driver's ed fees, if they fill out the application, it would be waved. if they choose not to fill out the application, either they don't want to or they don't qualify, those are the ones that would be on that balance for $40,000. Um, in terms of the lunches, one of the things that is frustrating because Maryland does a really good job of communicating, hey, fill out the waiver. If you can't afford to buy lunch, fill out the waiver. You will get a free meal. But some people, for whatever reasons, choose not to fill those out and

074then they also don't pay. So, we can't automatically make them free or reduced. They have to fill out the application. And if they don't, that's when those balances can run up, but we don't know if they're eligible or not cuz they haven't filled out the application. >> So, there's a potential of that 80,000 or 40,000, let's just say, for meals, that there are people who are not eligible for free and reduced who are acquiring. >> Absolutely. 100%. And we can't do anything about it. >> Okay. That's part of what lend is looking at. You know, is there support from the state on something like that? >> What we do is that they can't purchase all of cart items if they don't have any money on their account. Okay, >> we shut that off and so

075they don't have that ability. But in terms of a complete free meal, the first one, they can't come back for a second one, but the first one, we have to provide it whether they can pay or not pay. >> What about things like driver's ed? Is that like a requirement that we like let them be in driver's ed if they aren't able to pay? >> So, if they sign up, they will be issued a fee for driver's ed. We hope that they pay. If they choose not to pay, then it continues to be a balance and we'll send letters saying that they have that they owe for driver's ed. Um, if they fill out a fee waver application and they qualify for the fee waver application, then they won't be charged the fee and it

076won't it's not part of that balance. It's it's if they either are a don't qualify and or um have chosen not to fill out the application >> for for the drivers that do we have the ability to withhold their certificate? >> We do not. We're not allowed to withhold transcripts. >> Do we have the ability to say you can't enroll in that extra class unless you pay the fee for it? >> I don't know all the answers to these questions. I think this is something I know we digressed a little. No, I I it's it's frustrating and it's it's something that as these balances have grown primarily because of legislation passed in Springfield, this was not a problem before that legislation was passed. Um it's something that is on the list of projects to start

077figuring out what can and can't we do because there's a lot of as Keith was saying, you don't want to penalize the student for the parent not paying. And so not giving them their driver's ed certificate, not giving them their transcript, those are the kinds of things that aren't aren't things that we can do. Now, I know some districts, for example, um my own students district, uh or my own child's district, you know, the people can't attend graduation if they have unpaid fee balances. And so those are the kinds of things we may want to explore, but um it's obviously something for a future meeting. The the focus of tonight is the reimplementation of fees and then the cosmetology fee no longer subsidizing it. The recommendation is to reimplement fees as much as we don't

078want to do that. Um I think to help the stability of the district, it's important to do that and then also um no longer do the subsidy. So that's what's in the board packet for voting this evening. And these are all great questions and I'm sorry I don't have all the answers or all the details, but um I appreciate the the feedback. >> No, sorry. I just you said that it piqued my interest. It wasn't an early question. So, >> great question. >> You know, I think waving um or uh charging for the student fees, you know, it's it's not unlike um you know, in the future maybe we can move operating funds to the capital, you know, capital improvement funds. Um it's something that we look at every year and um based on the

079projection right now it's necessary. So >> Okay. >> Any further questions? >> No, I just I've supported bringing back fees in the past. I continue to support it. I feel you know for I guess I'll just speak for you know families like mine that are able to pay that to help the district. We're using the services. You know it feels like the right thing to do. So this will be voted on the regular um meeting at uh five during the consent agenda. So uh that's when we'll take it up next. Um so moving on item six is the school association for special education debage summer 2026 classroom lease agreement. Mr. Wilkinson. Yeah. So um this is for the summer lease agreement, not the regular school year. This is for the summer of 2026. As everyone

080is well aware, uh Sassid continues to use uh the Shisure Elementary building for some of its uh specialized student programming. Uh they're requesting the use of eight classrooms for the summer over there at Shisure. And uh the program will operate primarily during the month of June or exclusively in the month of June. Um the agreement is now structured a little bit differently. Uh there's kind of a master SASID lease agreement. That's what Sassid uses for all of the districts that it leases space from. But then because of some of the unique situations with Shisure and Chesterton Academy having exclusive use of the gym and several of the other items uh specific to our facility, in particular the $50,000 cap on major repairs, as well as that we don't have staff over there. Uh there's an

081addendum now that modifies that master lease agreement so that Sassid can continue to use that and we'll have our own addendum uh for Lyle 202. So for financial standpoint, we'll receive just about $13,000 in rent from the summer lease and um we're recommending approval as presented in the board packet. >> Any questions? Well, it leads directly into the next item, which is the school year uh 2026 2027 classroom lease agreement for SASET as well. Um this is item 5 A8 in the regular board meeting packet. Same spiel. This is for next school year 2026 2027. Seven classrooms, one office space. Uh two documents, got the master lease, got our special addendums. um confirms that it's being used in its current condition, acknowledges that we don't have staff on site, and that Chesterin gets exclus Chesterton

082Academy gets exclusive use of the gymnasium and has the cap of $50,000 in terms of repairs that the district would be um subject to cost. As part of lease, we will continue to provide utilities, garbage removal, snow removal, janitorial support, and kind of general maintenance. That's different than what we have with Chesterton. Chesterton is responsible for those costs, but we have to cover the portion that of the building that Sassid is using. total rents just over $170,000 almost $178,000 and uh continues to be a good arrangement for the district using our our facilities over there. It helps out Sassid and uh they've been a good partner in this process and so master lease and addendum included for uh recommended for approval in your regular packet. >> Thank you. Uh item eight is the athletic training

083services agreement. Uh that is under item eight of the finance committee packet. Once again, Mr. Wilkinson. >> Uh area for a little bit of discussion. Athletic training services are provided at Lyall High School uh to obviously support the health, safety, and kind of well-being of our student athletes. Uh those services include injury evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation, communication with coaches and families, return to play guidance if they're have a concussion. Um they cover the practices, they cover the contests, they also help out with some of our summer athletic camps that go on at the high school. Current provider is Illinois Bone and Joint Institute. We've had um a great relationship with them. Tom has really enjoyed working with them. They've serviced the district since 2020. Um initially it was below the bidding threshold. I think it

084was around $25,000. They said they could no longer do it at that price. So, we went out to bid in and they were the lowest. Well, actually, they were the only bidder uh in 2023 and the cost went up to about uh to $50,000 a year and we had a three-year agreement in place with them. There was some additional costs for kind of the summer camp and some of the extra coverage, but for the most part, it was $50,000. that three-year agreement approached expiration. So, we reached out to IBJI um kind of based on the extension language that was in the bid to see if we could renew with them. We kind of anticipated this because the again this is a contracted service. We're seeing increases in contracted services and um athletic training has gotten

085more expensive and so um they were willing to offer us up to two years. That's the max we can go under the current bid. the first year would be at $75,000. So, it's $25,000 more than what we're currently paying. And then if we want to do a second year with them, that would be $80,000. Um, a board member did ask whether the 2728 rate could be tied to the lesser of CPI or 5,000. I really wish that was the case. We tried to get it two years at 75. Um, but they really feel like they're doing us a favor here. they don't necessarily um they don't make money on this. It's not something they necessarily want to continue, but they've been a good partner of ours and so they were willing to extend it at

086this $75,000 and $80,000 arrangement. Um I guess as a reminder, you know, we're kind of in a difficult situation here where last time we bid this out, they were the, you know, we used to use Athletico. Athletico decided they couldn't do it for the 25,000 at the time. That's when IBJ IBJI came in and we started working with them. But Athletico did not bid on it in 2023. In fact, nobody else did even though we reached out to a number of partners. I think Northwestern Medicine was one of them. And so there just didn't seem to be a lot of interest in providing that service for our school district. And so, um, you know, what are I guess we're concerned that if we go out to the bid process, the options may be limited. Um,

087if we only get one bidder, whatever that bid is, that's what we would have to accept. Um, because at once it's bid out and there's a bidder, you can't go back to who you negotiated with previously and um, go back to that agreement. We could bid it out and then see if, you know, IBGI indicated they were not going to bid if we did. Now, I don't know if they'll change their mind or not, but we could end up going back to them and and seeing, but it's kind of a we just don't know what's going to happen. And so, um, kind of what are our options right now? Um, you know, we could renew for one year right now at the $75,000 and then go through the bidding process next winter. Uh, we could

088renew for the two years at the 75 and the $80,000 to kind of have that stability, that consistency, lock it in, and then we'd have to go out to bid after those two years are up. Or this would be a little bit of a tight time frame. Um, I actually had the bid ready to go. We were thinking about bidding it out in March, but we were just really wrestling with are we going to get any biders? Is there going to be one? Is there going to be none? And so I do have it ready if we would want to go through the bidding process. Again, I don't know if anybody will bid. I don't know if one vendor will bid. I don't I just don't know. And so our recommendation at this point, kind

089of where we are, making sure we have coverage in place for the summer. My recommendation would be to renew for at least one more year and then most likely bid it out probably in the winter and see what happens. >> Dave, as we approach this 80,000, 90,000 one day, what's the nature of these services? Could they be done by a full-time equivalent if we hired somebody? How would >> So, we've started to have those conversations. It could. Chances are by the time you pay them probably some kind of salary. I don't know if it'll be on the teacher schedule or not. We'd have to talk to our attorney, but by the time you pay salaries and benefits, you're looking at at least probably $70,000, probably closer to 90 to be honest. Um, one of the

090challenges with that is we're not big enough to be able to hire two, three athletic trainers. So, we're going to have one. And so, if that athletic trainer is sick, they'll get the 15 sick days. you know, if they're not here, I don't know who we get to cover. Um cuz we don't we're not big enough to have two or three on staff where okay, if one's gone, the other one can fill in. And so that's one of the nice thing about being with a contracted provider is they have a pool of other trainers where if someone is out or something happens, they can backfill that with someone else. So >> that's what I wasn't sure how all of it. just thinking I wouldn't surprise it's more than one resource, but >> some districts have

091gone that route. From what I'm recalling, they were bigger districts that had two or three on staff. >> Dave, over the the next year, would we have any opportunity to check with other districts and see who they use for training services? >> Um, yeah. I did a survey of other districts. I I don't remember if I asked who they use, but I was trying to get a feel for are they contracted? Are they in house? U how much are they paying in general? They were all paying over 75,000, but a lot of them were bigger districts as well. Um but yeah, it's definitely something that again it's kind of half and half split right now. Half are contracting, half have it in-house. I think Keith grabbed a name of all the vendors in the area.

092Um Northwestern Medicine, Athletico, IBGI, there was another one I'm drawing a blank on. So, there's five or six providers and we reached out to all of them last time and unfortunately nobody bid. I don't know if you have anything else to add. >> I just I think that when you hire a person, if they're sick, if they quit, it's it's just difficult. Number two, you want to be able to support that person. We're so small. How do we provide training to them? But when you work at a big organization like that that make sure the license are in place, that make sure they have the training, they have the insurance in place. I just don't think we're a big enough organization to hire a individual to do that, an individual to do that. So, um,

093it pains us that the numbers going up, but it seems like if we brought it in house or what other places are paying, it's just not out of line. It's it's the cost of doing business. And I think if we renew for again, if if we renew with them, it would be one year at a time. So the agreement as it would as it's spelled out, I've worked through with IBJ on the agreement. We'd have the first year $75,000 and then we would have the option to do a second year or not do a second year. And so we can certainly do the first year and then go out to bid in the winter, go out to bid earlier, see who bids, see what the results are. Again, I've got the bid on the shelf.

094I just got to refresh the dates and we can send that out. And if we get a couple of bids, great. then we know what the market is and we know what our options are. If we don't, then we can either talk with IBJ about renewing for that last year or we can start to have more internal conversations about the pros and cons of bringing it inhouse. So, that's my recommendation. I know it's not great that it's going up to $75,000, but I think it's probably the prudent course for now and then we can re-evaluate once we've hopefully bid it out in the winter. >> So, you need direction from us today, which are >> I just need that um you guys are comfortable with this direction and then in May I would actually bring

095the agreement for approval at the board meeting. >> Understood. >> The extension of our existing bid. Basically, we typically don't bid uh vote in this committee, but uh do we want to go through and maybe each voice our opinion or our desired preference for which um option we would like? >> I support the recommendation. >> Thank you. >> I support the recommendation. >> I I just want to clarify there's no chance we could go out to bid to see if anyone would do it. It just sounds like it's too >> We can We could >> I could I could publish it this week. I could get it out on the street. We'd target approval in June if we have biders. Uh again, the risk there you run is that if we have no biders, I

096don't know what position that puts us in with IBJI. I don't know if they'll say, "Well, we're going to charge you a lot more now." Um or uh the other the other challenge would be if we get one bidder and they're at $150,000, that's the bid we have to take. >> Yeah. >> Because once you bid it out, you can't go once you have a bidder, >> you can't go and negotiate with someone else. >> You indicated that um I believe you said that IBJ said they would not bid. >> They initially said they were not interested in bidding. That's when we started the conversation to say, "Hey, would you be interested in extending under our current agreement?" >> Um, really quick question though. If we only did one year, which I think I understand

097is the recommendation, >> that's the recommendation, correct? >> Yeah. >> Would we just be moving that same risk to just a year from now? Like what would be different a year from now? Um, I I think I'm understanding your question, but yes, the risk of bidding and having one bidder come in at 125, 100,000, whatever that might be, that risk will exist whenever we go out to bid. And so we can either take that risk now, we can take it next year, or we will have to take it in two years. So would you is it a quick answer to why you why the recommendation is not to just renew for the two years? >> Um I'd be happy to renew for two years. I mean that would be much easier and I I think

098we've had a great relationship with them. I just I'm discouraged by the increase in the cost. I mean I expected it honestly to be 70 to 75,000. I would expect if we go to bid that would be what it is. But um I also I I don't know the market and that's what bidding helps you find out is the market. I'm kind of guessing on what I think the market is and Tom, you know, we've talked about it. Um if the committee wanted to renew for two years, I' I'd be more than happy to do that. I just know it's a relatively large increase to go from 50 to 75,000 and then to 80. But um but sounds like the risk of is I think we're heading is there's a risk of going beyond 80

099even the year after that. So if we can fix it in at just a 5k increase. >> Correct. But I I >> I don't want I mean that's my thought. That's Tom's thoughts. That's our I guess we could also do another survey uh of those that are contracting right now. That's probably what I I mean if if we enter into this agreement right now, we have the option for the second year. We don't have to make that decision today. The decision today is do we want to start with the agreement that at least locks in next year at 75. The agreement will have the option for the second year at 80. It's got to be mutually agreed upon. So they have to agree just like we have to agree for that second year. But we

100could do a survey of other districts that are specifically outsourcing to find out what other districts are paying and then make that decision um closer to the winner before we would go through the bid process. So the year two the year two would be written in as more of an optin in in this first year's agreement. >> Okay. >> So that's a good clarification. Thank you Heather for >> um I know this is a little bit confusing. I apologize but right now we really are just deciding do we want to at least move forward with the first year at 75 and we're definitely recommending that we would do that at this point. >> I agree with that recommendation. I would agree with the two years um but one year minimum. >> Yeah. What are I

101was just are we querying right now? Are we going around the table? I'm not sure. I'm comfortable with one and I like the I like that to clar the clarification that it's opt-in for year two. I think that's the best path forward at this point. So >> okay. And so I will move forward with the agreement with IBJI as drafted and then as we get as we move into the late fall winter, we'll survey some of the other districts and we'll decide then if we want to go out to bid or do the second year. Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry for some of the confusion. Um and thank you for your patience this evening. And Mr. Negler, I'll turn it back to you. We are over time but we

102only have one other item. So I think we should probably push through. Uh was that um acceptable? >> Can do it very quickly. >> Good. So we are up to item nine, the quarterly financial update. Uh that can be found under item nine of the finance committee packet. Mr. Wilkinson. >> So this is for our nine months ending March 31st. Um starting with revenues, property taxes as we would expect 100% through March. uh interest income. I finally got that one figured out. I think I talked about that uh earlier in the year, but um we're right at 73% of our budget. So, threequarters of the way through the year, we're we're tracking just right there. Uh other local revenues, a little bit higher at 82%, but that's where we would normally be at this time

103of year. So, that's also in line with expectations. State and federal revenues, um those are really more timing driven. uh but we do expect to receive those throughout the rest of the year. Salaries and benefits again given the timing of our payroll acrals 62% is considered in line with expectations. Purchase services actually running a little bit lower right now um than last year which is good but again sometimes the timing of the bills transportation bills can kind of um impact that. But I did project out what I'm expecting to get in our bills and we are um uh not quite as uh costs are not quite as high as we've seen in the past. So we're a little bit under budget in that area. So I'm really really hoping that that that continues as we

104finish out the year. Um tuition we are higher than last time at this uh at this time last year. We're actually at 2.6 6 million versus 2.1 million. So that's just that unpredictable nature that I've talked about earlier tonight in our projection. Um again, there's timings of bills there as far as when we get them, when we don't get them, but we are we did budget more this year and we are trending higher this year. So that's kind of my biggest fear as we close out this year. um and what that will mean in terms of whether we have a million dollar surplus or something less than that. Um but overall uh activity is generally in line with our budget as we uh move toward the end of the year and I didn't get any

105questions uh over the weekend. I'm not sure if the projection or anything in this report has triggered any additional questions, but I think for the evening you've probably got your fill of finance. Any further questions? Oh, well, thank you very much, Mr. Wilkinson. I hope your voice survives the rest of the evening uh because you've done the majority of the lion share of the talking. >> Thank you for your attentiveness and for uh your feedback on some of these items. I do appreciate it. >> You're very welcome. So, uh, next up are agenda topics for future finance committee meeting. Does anyone wish to, uh, introduce a topic? >> You know, it's not really a future agenda topic, but it does come up every year. Um, tomorrow is Mr. Wilkinson's birthday. And, um, so after all

106his hard work in present, preparing everything and presenting for the finance agenda, I think we all want to wish him a happy birthday. You can enjoy the day tomorrow. >> As always, Pam, I I appreciate you remembering. I don't know how you remember this every year and I thank you for publicly um sharing that with the community. So, thank you. >> Well, fortunately, we don't sing at these meetings. Well, uh happy birthday, Mr. Wilkinson or early birthday. So, as no agenda topics have been entered, uh I can move to um entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. So, we are adjourned at 7:40. Thank you very much everyone. again. I think we need