001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] not [Applause] Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] the to order the special meeting for for Bullheads City School Board on Thursday, March 27th, 2025 at 900 a.m. Roll call. President Melinda Saski, Charlene Dia is here, Fred Rushton here, Barb Zarziki here, Judy Reid here. Would you please stand and say the pledge with me? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we have no citizens present. So,
002we're going to skip the 1.5 adoption of the agenda. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda, please? I make a motion we adopt the agenda. I'll second that motion. All those in favor? I, Melinda Saski. I, Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barbara Zarziki. I Judy Reed. Good news, huh? Yeah. Very good. All right, let's hear some good news. Uh Cass, if you'd put No, the other one. If you'd put that one up, please. Yes, big and make it as big as you can. There you go. That looks really good. Um okay so the uh meet and confer committee uh uh when I went back to them and reported uh that the increase proposed increase with Kyros uh was higher than I had originally in uh told them based on uh having attended
003their state meeting their state board meeting. Um uh I asked them how they'd like to proceed. They did ask if we could get a presentation from Asbait. So, we had that presentation on Tuesday afternoon. Um, uh, was all virtual. Um, but Chuck Nelson presented, uh, these numbers to us, uh, from, uh, ASBAT. So, on the left where it says proxy current rates. Um, you can see the core 500, the co-pay 750, and the HDHP1650. Those are the three current programs that we have with Chyros. the one in the middle, the co-pay, uh the the $1,3520 is what we are paying the current year. So, fiscal year 25 uh for employees, we pay that amount toward the core 500 and employees can buy up to have that because then the deductible is less um and the
004co-pays I think are less. Uh the HDHP, I'm not quite sure how all of that works, but we pay that uh for our employees on that side, too. So those are the current rates this current year. On the right you see the uh the offer that ASBA is making for us uh for next school year. The classic gold uh corresponds to the core 500 in the current year. The classic silver corresponds to the co-pay 750 in the current year and the HDHPA corresponds to the HDHP1650. The difference there is that the lowest HDHP that ASB has is 2600, which means that it's $2,600 um uh deductible um for that one. And and the folks who sign up for that are usually younger and you know, a few health issues and whatever. And so it becomes
005a it becomes a health savings account for them. Um and if they currently have one uh then that will roll over. they can roll it over to the to the new program. Um, so you can see the difference in uh the rate for classic silver and co-ay 750. Whereas currently we're paying $1,3520 per month, we would be paying $1,9 per month for next year. Um, I only highlighted those because as a district we have not paid for um employees uh dependent. We've only paid for full-time employees. Okay. Uh but you can see even that there's a uh the better rates for those uh if even if people want to buy up to those uh if our employees want to buy up to those they're better rates than uh we are currently offering. Um so that's
006the first part. The second part is for several years now we have had our dental and vision insurance with Ammeritas and um and it's been a self-paid self-funded um uh item for us u because they had they had good rates um and um so each year the the committee um originally it was an insurance committee but now it's the meet and confer committee uh had just recommended that we stay with them for two years. We had some commitment from Ammeritas that on the vision side that our employees could get both glasses and contacts if they wanted. They've never followed through with that. So, our employees are disappointed because they kind of feel that we were lied to. Uh I don't know that it was a lie, but it certainly was a misrepresentation of of what
007we were going to get. Um and so I recommended to the committee and as a separate action uh in our meeting on Tuesday uh that we just move all of our vision and dental to asbait have it in one package um so that the only other thing that we have is our life insurance which is a separate a separate insurance policy and that we continue that with UNM and I can explain in a minute why that why that's a desirable thing but this puts everything else in terms of our employee insurance in one package and um uh in some ways makes it a little easier in our business office because we just send one premium check each month instead of having to write separate checks and and do some other things separately. Um so uh
008the committee the committee unanimously approved that recommendation that I made to them. So um uh recommendations for these were unanimous by that committee. Um and uh we had a long discussion about uh the carrier because um Asbait's carrier is Etna and several years ago the last time we were with Asbait with Etna which was in school year 1920 uh 201920 um there were issues with providers in this area. 1920 2020 20 2019 and 2020 that school year sorry the first year I was here. Yeah. 1920. 1920 I don't think I was here. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I was having problems with that. Yes. And I get that. I get that. It was the first year I was in in this position was and uh uh we were still with ASB at that time. I mean
009yes with ASB and they were with Etna. Um uh and there were there were issues that our folks had of concerns with um with providers in in the area. Uh we had um both Asbait and Kai Ross make presentations in the in the spring of 20 for school year 2020 2021. Um and basically they came in with about the same rates. The differences uh that that pushed the recommendation to Kyros at the time were a couple of things. One was the displeasure with Asbait's uh list of providers. The second was that um they that Mayo Clinic was not one of the uh providers for ASBA at the time. Um and there was a third reason and then right now I can't think what the third reason was but those were the two big ones. So
010when I met with the committee on Tuesday, uh to me the two elephants in the room were the price and would Asbait have the services and the providers that our employees would need. Um and uh they have vastly increased uh Etna Etna has vastly increased their uh coverage in our area. Um and uh and to verify that after uh after the decision was made on Tuesday, of course, my team went away and talked to the people that they represent and had questions. several employees said um okay I'm currently with and named a doctor or named a a facility or you know a medical practice and said um uh you know is this is this in the provider list uh is Mayo Clinic so Mayo Clinic is now in the provider list and in fact every
011single question that we've had from our employees about their current providers those folks are on the list so Etna has stepped up in terms of increasing providers ers uh in the area, there's not been a no at all in terms of uh of the questions that we've had from our current employees. Um so um uh so it's fairly easy for me to recommend to you that we contract with Asbait uh for our medical, pharmacy, vision, and dental insurance uh for our school year 2526. Now Caroline, did we get a quote from our current Yes. And it was tw a 20% increase. A 20% increase. Okay. Yeah, it was a 20% increase. Okay. Thank you. And that's that's and that's a good question, Barb. That that's what led the committee to say, can we at least
012hear what Aspate has to say? Uh and we and we stuck with the two because they we are members of these two trusts. Yeah. Okay. Um uh you know, as a district, we're a member of ASBA, so we're a member of ASBAT, which is their insurance trust. We are also members of the Arizona Risk Retention Trust which pays all of our liability insurance and all of those things. Uh and our workers comp. Um and so we're a member of that. So Kyros is the insurance wing of that trust. So we're members of both of these uh you know both of these agencies. And um and that makes it pretty easy for us to to make the comparisons and make the decisions u because then we don't need a broker. we don't have to go out
013and search on our own. Um, saves us a lot of time and energy and probably a lot of cost, too. Any other questions? Can I have a motion to approve um our carrier, a new carrier? I make a motion we approve Asbait as the new carrier for the medical pharmacy vision and dental insurance for the school year 2526. I'll second the motion. All those in favor? I Melinda Saskki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb Zarziki. I Judy Reed. Item 3.1 future topics. Fred brought in the the this paper. Yeah. Okay. every got he gave us a everybody a copy. We don't have to share. Yeah. Um I we have done this. I have done this and it might have been on in a previous board but I I remember doing this but there
014have been so many changes that I think we need to at least look into it and Julie Bacon is phenomenal as far as presenting things. Um it does take time. It's not just a a an hour's thing. Sometimes it'll stretch into I remember it being longer, like two to four hours long. But if that's what it takes to make me understand school finance, that's probably a good idea. It's probably going to take more than four hours. But the thing but the thing is it may be shorter and I may have a bad memory of this you know not a bad not that it was a bad thing but a bad you know circuit. Um I would like to suggest following Fred's suggestion that we go ahead and have uh Kelsey look into or call Julie
015and see what what this would be about. Yeah. Okay. see if we can arrange a time where she can be here. And Cassie says that it does happen virtually. She does have virtual. Yeah, I was going to say it does say that in person and virtual, but I think with something like this, I would prefer in person. Yeah, I prefer Julie being here and stuff. It's easier to I think ask questions. The reason why is because I learn better if I see the whites of their eyes. Yeah. And also we have the benefit and the advantage of the input from other board members that uh you know I mean we all have insights that that we bring to the to the board that uh can help us all learn and get better and you don't
016have to worry about your Zoom meeting freezing up halfway through. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. That happens that happened to us Sunday. I I would also like to to get your opinions on whether we should ask the other local boards if they would like to make this more of a of a a workshop for everybody who idea for the other boards like the high school board or Mojave Valley. Yeah. Make it worth their while you're see if they would like to send one or more or the whole board and I'm sure that we could we could do this. Would that be okay with the board? Absolutely. I think it'd be a great idea. I mean, we're bringing somebody in who's I mean, Julie's up on everything. So, everybody has a different question. Yeah. Oh, what
017is the cost of this or is there no cost? $700 a person. Yeah. I'll take your money. Thank you. Oh, I didn't I thought is it being ASBA? Yeah, because a member of ASBA. If it does, it's it's minimal and we'll take it out of your salary. Yeah, you can take it all out of So, Cassie, if you would do that for us and then u let's see if any of the other boards might be wanting to do that. It' be a nice thing to host here. Yes, it would. And that might also be a selling point for Julie, too. You know, if she knows that there's other boards interested and it won't be just for five people. Yeah. No, she's come on here before for five of us. Well, it might be more attractive
018if she knew there's going to be 30, but you know. Yeah. I know Julie's told us at all the conferences she doesn't mind making the trip out here for us for teaching purposes and stuff. She enjoys it. Any other topics that we'd like to have Cassie or or Carolyn look into for us? Okay. We have our next meeting on April 17, 2025 at 5:30 for the workshop. And as soon as the workshop gets over, I hope you guys aren't doing another workshop. That won't be a long one. Okay. Um because we've had some long meetings recently. The last two meetings probably very long. Yeah. Um and the meeting the normal meeting would start at u the regular meeting would start at 6. Is everybody in line for that? Yep. Okay. Can I have a motion
019to adjourn the meeting then, please? I'll make a motion that we adjourn the meeting. I'll second it. All those in favor? I Meinda Saskki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. Hi, Barbara Darziki. Hi, Judy Reed. See, you're done.