001I can do that. >> Thank you. >> Mhm. >> All right, this meeting is called to order on Tuesday, October the 7th at 6:00 p.m. The invocation will be led by Mr. Joe Mitchell, followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Mr. David Parkinson. >> Please join me in prayer. Your heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful day. We just thank you for the change in the seasons that it reminds us that you are the creator of the universe and creator of our lives, dear Lord. We just pray that you'll watch over this board tonight as the decisions that we have to make will be pleasing in your sight beneficial to our school system here. We thank you so much for our teachers and administrators and as they and our workers as
002they deal with the students each day that they may look forward to and anticipate in teaching these kids how to read, how to work math, how to enjoy science and math and English and all the subjects that they teach, dear Lord, that they may be of benefit from that. We just pray that you'll watch and guide us in our fields on many, many students in Class 10. We pray. Amen. >> Salute. >> Please. >> I pledge allegiance 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. >> Thank you. Okay, so the next item on the agenda is the adoption of agenda as presented. Can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> Okay, that's by Mr.
003Hancock. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay, that's by Debbie. Um all in favor? >> Aye. >> Okay, all opposed? Okay, motion carried. The next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes, um the regular session of September the 9th, 2025. Can I get a motion? >> Make a motion we approve the minutes as >> Okay. That's by um Mr. Honore Cyprian. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay, that's by Joe Mitcham. All in favor? >> Aye. >> Okay, all opposed? Okay, motion carried. Okay, the next item on the agenda is recognition of the National Merit Semifinalist Leia by Mr. John Young, Assistant Superintendent. >> Thank you, Dr. Williams. Uh this is a uh awesome opportunity to get to be able to do this for one of my former students.
004She was a seventh grader at Ruston Junior High. I was principal there. Uh but tonight we're recognizing uh Trisha uh Panjolina as a National Merit Semifinalist. Uh students who qualify for this award uh have to have a qualifying score on the PSAT and the NMSQT, the National Merit Scholarship National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. And she scored actually in the top 1%. I did a little bit of research. So, we had 198 in Louisiana last year. Don't have the number for this year. Uh but Trisha is an outstanding student and we want to present this award to her tonight. And Trisha, can you introduce who you you brought tonight? Miss Henderson, Ruston High School counselor, is here as well. But tell us who you brought tonight. >> I brought my mother and my father, Jennifer and
005Eugene Panjolina. >> ALL RIGHT. >> ARE THERE ANY COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD MEMBERS? >> CONGRATULATIONS. It's an incredible honor and and and kudos to your parents. Congrats to your parents all the hard work that you guys have put in and everybody within the system that has been a part of that success. Congratulations. >> Thank you. Board members, I would like to recognize Miss Amanda Simmons for 4-H. Thank you for the beautiful baskets. We appreciate you. >> Thank you all. >> Okay, at this time we would like to invite you to stay for the rest of the meeting, but if you if you're um you're welcome to leave if you need to leave. Thank you for joining us. Okay, the next item on the agenda is the Lincoln Parish Library. The presenter tonight is the executive
006director of Jeremy Ballam. Jeremy? Okay, yes. And do you have a guest with you or you >> Um maybe they're in the hallway. I'm by myself. >> Oh, okay. Okay. >> President Phillips, members of the board and Superintendent Durrett and guests. My name is Jeremy Ballam. I'm the director of Lincoln Parish Library where our mission is to enrich, inspire, and educate. I gratefully stand before you tonight to talk about some of the services and uh programs that we offer at the library and hope that you may deem some of them worthy to be able to help you in your work to help students succeed in the parish. Beyond the physical and digital books that we have for leisure reading and research of the libraries, which is what we're known for, we also have many other
007things. One of the main things through the state partnership with the state library of Louisiana, we offer several specialized online services such as Homework Louisiana. If you're not uh familiar with Homework Louisiana, it sets students up with a live online tutor to help them with their classes. It also has the ability for students to upload samples of writing to have it critiqued also by a live tutor. We have another database called Mo Metrics, which is a test preparation database and it is substantial in the kind of test that it it would be able to help us prepare for PSAT, ACT, any kind of trade school test that are out there too to help people get jobs later in life. We also have two unique databases, one by the state library and one that we have
008ourselves, Mango Languages, which helps you learn foreign languages. I know that's part of curriculum, but sometimes people are just curious as well at the same time. One of the databases that Lincoln Parish Library picked up of its own accord, which sounds kind of juvenile on its own, but when you're a learner of a foreign language, it's good to be able to see the written word next to the English word. So, we have this other database called Language um it's called LOTE for Kids and it's basically storytime books in about 60 different languages and it would help them, you know, see the the sentence structure with the English underneath. So, for any kind of learner, it's a great way of getting a handle on the language. We also have spaces for study. We have study rooms
009for parents to bring in kids who need quiet spaces to do without distraction um and also places for tutors to meet privately with their students. We of course offer all of our regular programming, which includes that social interaction that a lot of kids need outside of of school and home to build those relationships of community. Not only do we have storytime, but we also have family craft afternoons, teen and tween time, which usually have some kind of element of the steamed steamed things especially for the twins and of course other special events that we hold throughout the year. We just had our fall into a book festival every year we fall into a book this last year we fell into Alice in Wonderland. It includes carnival games and prizes and then we I invite local
010children's authors and illustrators to also join us at the fair. Part of the teen group at the library also has a volunteer opportunity component. We have a teen advisory board that works closely with the teen coordinator. She will help several of them get their service hours needed for clubs and for graduation and for any kind of thing where they're doing college applications where that's a handy. They helped with the fall into a book festival. They helped assemble games, put prizes together, that kind of thing and our friends of the library also offers ways for for teens to help out at their book sales. Of course our bread and butter that everybody knows of the library is good for is summer reading. I can't I can only tell you that that's not only fun for the
011kids because we provide incentives but it also fills that gap between the end of school and the next year where kids often forget what learning is. But the best thing that with the library has to offer is the dedicated staff that we have that will not only connect you to all the services that I've just mentioned but are also willing to tell you anything that you would need to know and come to you where you are. So feel free to let us know if there's anything that we can do for you in the class, in an event, if you need a filler for entertainment, what have you. Ask us. You'd be surprised what we could possibly do for you. To stay in the know for the library just want to give us a couple of
012plugs cuz we always have things going on. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We also now have a digital newsletter that's available on our website and while you're at our website sign up for our new text alerts where you can get text reminders of things that are coming up at the library. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you tonight, and if you need any further information, do not hesitate to reach out to me. I love talking about the library, if you can't tell. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> SO, ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS THIS TIME? OKAY, we look forward to our the partnership, and thank you for coming. >> Thank you. >> The next item on the agenda is unfinished business. Is there any unfinished business that we need
013to discuss? Okay. The next item on the agenda is new business, 8.1, approve quitclaim deed and act of correction, um, Superintendent Durrett. Floor, board. >> So, this is just, um, correcting something from 1984, um, the Fair School Board. This is old Hillcrest school site, as I understand, uh, that site was sold to Hollingsworth and Ardrey Graham back in 1984. Um, and it was basically recorded wrong at the, uh, in the courthouse. Um, and this is just correcting that. We did not We've not occupied anything there or done anything with that land. It was understood I researched back We've had our attorneys look at it. There's nothing that we thought we still owned. We thought that was sold. It was just filed incorrectly back in 1984, and this is just to correct that. But, we needed
014to bring it to the board, um, to to get y'all to approve that. >> Okay. Are there any questions or comments from board members? Okay. Any questions or comments from the public? Okay. Can I get a a >> So moved. >> Okay. Hunter Smith. Can I get a second? Mr. Donald All in favor? >> Aye. >> All opposed? Motion carried. Okay. 8.2, we're going to request for authorization to publicly share FCC Form 470 and RFP. Seth Grigsby. >> I'm just going to stay over here. Uh the Wingfield School District needs to post or share an FCC Form 470 using the E-rate program and corresponding request for proposal to initiate a competitive bidding process for Category 1 services. These services are for the new um LAN circuit for the new Ruston High School uh softball complex.
015The uh FCC governs the E-rate program. The FCC will pay 90% of the cost. The Lincoln Parish School Board will pay its portion of the 10% for the Category 1 services contingent upon approval of the Form 470 Uh my recommendation is that the board grant permission to post or share the FCC Form 470 and corresponding RFP to solicit bids from service providers for the RHS softball complex in accordance with state law and local policies and grant the superintendent permission to accept a qualified bid that meets the specifications outlined in the Form 470 and the RFP. >> Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from board members? Okay. Are there any questions or comments from the public? Okay. Can I get a motion? >> I move that we accept this request for authorization. >>
016Okay. >> Second. Motion by Mr. Jamison, second by Mr. Hancock. All in favor? >> Aye. >> All opposed? Motion carried. 8.3, consider upgrades to Simsboro School Cafeteria. Cody? >> Carey Cobb. >> Good evening. >> Good afternoon. >> Um So, the uh Simsboro Cafeteria is in need of upgrades to better serve our students and staff. Uh much of the existing equipment has exceeded its commercial life expectancy resulting in increased downtime and repair expenses. Uh in addition the equipment is not as efficient and no longer meets current standards which inhibits our daily production and operations. In order to ensure the food service can continue to safely and effectively um operate, administration is recommending the replacement of old equipment. Uh example is ovens, steamers, ranges, work tables, um storage shelving, and and purchase also a new walk-in cooler
017freezer. Um the total estimated cost of these upgrades is approximately $220,000. Um so um the recommendation of the board is to give the administration permission to move forward with upgrades of approximately $220,000 for the Simsboro Cafeteria. So, I'm asking permission to advertise for bids to purchase the commercial equipment and to accept the lowest responsive bidder for this equipment at Simsboro. >> Are there any questions or comments from board members? >> Will we use our own labor to install this or do we have to Is that part of the bid? >> Um we would probably look at doing turnkey if possible. Um and then then cuz we are very short on um our staff in maintenance. So, we would be looking to do it turnkey. >> Is there any question? >> Um are there any questions
018other questions from board members? Comments? Okay. Are there any questions or comments from the public? Okay, can I get a motion? >> I make a motion we accept the bid recommendation. >> Okay, Ms. Donna Dolls. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay, Ms. Debbie Aaron. All in favor? >> Aye. >> All opposed? 8.4 request for permission to purchase buses, Assistant Superintendent Johnny Young. >> Thank you, Dr. Wesson. So, in order to provide safe and efficient bus service for our students in Lincoln Parish, we do purchase buses annually on a fairly yearly basis. This current request is to buy five buses. And as our fleet ages, we do replace buses as needed. The request for these five new buses will be similar specs as we have previously gotten with the air conditioning for our
019students. And our recommendation tonight is that the board grant permission to advertise for the bid for five new or used buses and grant the superintendent permission to accept qualified bid that meets our specs, including air conditioning. >> Are there any questions or comments from board members? >> Where does Where do these five buses fit in this in our entire fleet with it being 100% air conditioned? We're getting closer. >> I don't get your total exactly. >> We have about 80 in the fleet, but when we take five off, I'm pretty sure we'll be five once they are air conditioned. So, yeah, it's going to be close to >> I mean, I thought we had a lot. >> I thought we had >> Yeah, I thought it was a lot. >> Okay, any other questions or
020comments from board members? Okay, are there any questions or comments from the public? >> No. >> Okay, can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> Okay, Hunter Smith. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay, Mr. Mitchell. And all in favor? And all opposed? Okay. Motion carried. 8.5 consider employees supplemental benefit offering Ms. Juanita Duke and Superintendent Ricky Durrett. >> All right. Good day. Good evening. We have been working through quite a bit of our supplemental benefits offerings together. As you realize last meeting we named Pelican Benefit Advisors and Gallagher Benefit as TPA for the school systems supplemental benefit program for our employees. And we have received proposals and we reviewed those with Pelican Benefit Advisors and Gallagher Benefits. And we have recommendations that we'd like to make in changing some of those
021products as we have outlined. We do have representative from Pelican Benefit Advisors here, Mr. Scott Walker at our community global community representative. And we're glad he's here and the work that he's done on getting this proposal to us. We feel like there are some great benefits, competitive pricing, lower cost for employees. So we look forward to getting that implemented for payroll deductions to start in January. This is going to be for critical illness, cancer policy, long-term disability, group voluntary life insurance, universal life, universal life with long-term care, vision insurance, flexible spending accounts for medical and dependent care, savings accounts, and and also dental insurance. These others are just replacement products, but the dental insurance is going to be a new fully insured product that's going to be offered to our employees. On the next agenda
022item we'll talk about that about the changes we're making to the funding plan for our dental to to a fully insured plan uh to offer this to our employees with competitive benefits that are the same or equal to the benefits that are offered under our self-funded plan. Uh and then also we are um going to retain the uh payroll deductions that we have in place with our our grandfather or legacy policies that are with American Public Life just because those are some richer plans, some very old plans. Um that uh have some great benefits that you can't find anymore, so we're going to retain those on payroll deductions for the employees that have them. So um with that uh we would like to request permission uh well, unless Scott wants to uh talk about anything.
023I know he's getting ready gearing up for open enrollment coming coming up uh later on in uh early November. >> So so we have enjoyed the last month of working through all of the proposals in the various meetings that we've had and feel that we've made a lot of progress in coming up with what we believe is a very solid offering on all of the supplemental benefits. Uh in many cases being able to enhance the benefit at the same price or keep the benefits the same at a lower price and in a couple of instances enhance the benefit and lower the price. And so uh it it's been a tedious process, a labor-intensive process, but we're grateful for the leadership of Ms. Juanita Duke and Mr. Mr. Durrett, the superintendent. Uh they have been great
024in that and we appreciate the opportunity to uh to carry this business forward. >> Thank you. And we do have some great opportunities with guaranteed issues on many of these products for members to be able to get enrolled uh in some benefits they might not otherwise have the opportunity to enroll in. >> I have a question. >> Yes. >> How does this affect retirees? >> Uh the only thing >> I just want to know. >> Uh well, I mean we're going to be sending out a lot of communication to retirees. We know they like to communicate with us a lot and so we're going to have to communicate with them well. But, um and and we'll talk about that um uh a little bit more. We we need to visit with the carrier to determine
025how that process is going to work um because they're going to be assisting us with the enrollments. Uh but but the retirees will be offered the ones who have our self-funded dental plan now will be offered the opportunity to purchase this dental program as well. So, they'll be given that opportunity so they will not be uh have that coverage in this place. And um >> Okay, then. >> Is it Do you have anything else? >> No. >> I think it's been a We went through a process, interviewed, listened to a lot of proposals, and I think this one was uh a very good one for our employees. It is supplemental, so they have a choice to purchase and do that, but it is some great opportunities with some great pricing with it. >> Um thank
026you. Are there any questions or comments from board members? Any other questions? Okay, are there any questions or comments from the public? Can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> Okay, Mr. Max. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Um Mr. Henderson. Can all in favor? >> I. >> All opposed? Okay, motion carried. Okay, next item 8.7, approve payment of November salary supplement checks. Mr. Lanier, do you have anything? >> Okay. So, uh it is at this meeting that we need to request approval to distribute the November what we call the 13th check to our all hourly employees. >> 85 >> 185 >> So, that includes teachers. >> 186 185 >> Oh, okay. >> 6 >> Or 86 >> But we're talking about the health I'm sorry, health plan. >> Oh, okay.
027Okay, I see. I'm following her lead. Okay, I see. >> We're just trying to keep everybody awake. >> All right. So, okay. So, health plan renewal for 2026. So, it's challenging every day just trying to come up with a plan that's affordable and maintain the benefits for for health plan. We are glad that we have Brown & Brown working with us. We have our agents here, Jason Huffman and Stacie Bienvenu, who are here. And I'll call Jason up to kind of present the information on the renewal. We're glad for the work that they've done. Part of the recommendation that's going to be made here is to discontinue the self-funded health dental program as of December the 31st. It'll be a seamless transition whenever we work with that coalition carrier to get everyone's friends and active
028employees and retired members transitioned over so that there's no gap in coverage there. But we feel like it's going to going to have a great plan for that. And then, um I will defer to Jason and follow up, if you don't mind, just recap our meeting. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much. Dr. Williams, Superintendent Durrett, members of the board, again, my name is Jason Huffman. I'm here with my colleague Stacie Bienvenu from Brown & Brown, and we're just going to go over the highlights where it stands currently with your self-funded health program, and then lead into that discussion about the renewal. You should have in your packets a little printed booklet with some school buses on the front. And Mr. Young, I assure you that all of these school buses are air conditioned. The uh
029the complimentary report from Ms. Duke is also worth noting. So, that's the the handout that looks like this with a few charts on the front. So, probably the best way to think of this is the first two pages that we'll go through and I promise I'm not going to read you this whole booklet, but please feel free to dig in on any of the details and any questions that you might have, I'll be more than happy to entertain. But the first two pages of content are really about where we stand now. How has that plan performed? What are the claims looking like? And then that's going to lead us into a look toward the future. As Ms. Duke mentioned, medical costs are always a challenge. That's nothing unique to Lincoln Parish School Board. That's true
030across Louisiana and across the country. What we will draw your attention to, so this top graph here is looking at both medical and pharmacy costs over the last couple of years. The blue shading is for the medical, the red shading is for pharmacy. And then just below that are the per member per month charges. Per member per per month claims totals is better way to phrase that. Over the last two years as well. And I've added that dotted line in there. That's a least squares regression line, which I'm not going to go into the details on what that is, but essentially you can think of that as that's where our claims would have continued if we had stayed on the same path as last year in 2024. Remember in 2025, the board made the decision
031to make that change over to United Healthcare. Where we were heading before is that dotted line. So those claims costs continued to increase, continued to increase and you see a little bit of good news here in 2025 and that our per member per month claims have now come down below that dotted line. And I've got a couple of bullet points on the next page if you flip over. Through six months of claims, and I know that's not up to the minute data, but it's the best comparable data that we would I to share right now. Medical claims over the the first 6 months are about at 3 million in 2025. If we compare that to last year, we're at 4.6 million at that same point of the year. So, that's a 34% reduction in cost
032that we've already seen come into play to to be realized for the the teachers and the staff and the family members across Lincoln Parish School Board. That's the good side of the news there. The the other more challenging part, and you can see this on the first graph that I shared with you, the blue and the red, is that those pharmacy costs do continue to increase. Again, that's not unique to Lincoln Parish. That's true across the country. That's becoming a larger and larger percentage of medical claims everywhere. Now, what we can report is that there have been over $1 million in rebates received by Lincoln Parish, again, through the first 6 months. That's even a little bit shy of where we expected to be at that point. We were hoping to be a closer to
0331.2 or 1.3 million. Now, the first quarter is always going to be first quarter of the year. So, January, February, March is always going to be a little bit lower than the rest of the year because members are meeting their pharmacy deductible at that point and so on. But, what we did notice is that the actual number of prescriptions is a little bit lower than it was in 2024. And so, that's part of that difference. That's part of the reason why the rebates haven't been quite up to what we had projected the first time. But, we do expect that to increase over the last two quarters where we'll probably finish at about 2.2 million. Okay. I'll not belabor the point on the dental claims only to make note of the fact that the change in
034premium that you all approved last year is looking good and will cover the costs for 2025 calendar year expenditures. So, that leads us toward the future. What does the renewal look like? Uh the first thing that I'll point out at the top of this page three here is that the Medicare Advantage plan has already been approved for renewal by you at the at the September board meeting. But, it's worth noting that the renewal from a year ago, again, before we made that switch, uh was projected at $486 per member, and we're able to reduce that to $331 uh per member per month. So, that has already saved Lincoln Parish uh close to a million dollars. Into next year, those costs go up a little bit, but again, compared to where we were before, it's going
035to be almost half a million dollars in savings. So, even with those uh uh premiums going up a little bit, Lincoln Parish is in a very good place compared to uh to a lot of folks uh that have that uh plan that type of plan in place. How about the renewal itself? So, the bottom half of this page has some bullet points on claims administration. That's a nice easy one. We have a multi-year contract with United Healthcare, so no increase at all. Stop-loss coverage is something that Stacy and I and our team are still working on. We have firm offers in hand for essentially the exact same coverage, so the same uh specific deductible, uh at a 15% increase. It's not the best offer in the world. It's certainly not the worst. We have other
036clients who are experiencing worse renewals than that at the moment. So, we continue to advocate for that. One of the things that uh Ms. Duke and I will be working on uh very, very soon in the near future is whether or not it would be worth considering a slightly increased specific deductible, which could bring that renewal down to about a percentage point. So, almost flat compared to last year. Gene therapy is also another one that's a little bit in place. So, this is a This is a insurance policy that protects you against the highest cost drugs, not regular drugs um that uh that many members would make use of, but kind of those one in a million cases uh where the drug itself might be a one-time administration that might cost $3 million, okay? Very
037It's certainly hasn't happened in Lincoln Parish uh to this point. It's unlikely to occur, but that's what that coverage is for. The increase for the coming year is actually pretty significant. It's 38% increase due to some of the other recommendations that we are making at this time. It may be worth considering letting that policy go for next year. And then that leads us to the recommendation on the premiums. And this do how how much do you Maybe a Maybe at this point it's probably just best to say we're recommending a 4.7% increase, okay? That's about half of what the national trend is in terms of increased costs from 2025 looking into uh 2026, but we feel confident that that 4.7% increase is going to cover all the incurred claims uh that the group will experience
038in 2026 for a couple of reasons. And so, if we flip to the next couple of pages, one of those reasons is a couple of suggested tweaks. Not Not big changes, but minor tweaks to the plan design. One is on maximum amount of pocket. So, that's kind of the maximum threshold that a member would pay over the course of the calendar year. And if they reach that level afterwards the plan the Lincoln Parish School Board plan will cover 100% of the cost past that. So we recommend on both the active plan and the retirees to move that threshold from 5,000 up to 6,500. And then on the pharmacy side you see the two co-pays that are shown in highlighting we're recommending that the generic or tier one the least expensive drugs that that are available
039that that co-pay be reduced to $10 from 25 for the current plan for actives and from 15 for the retiree plan. And that the tier three so that is that some of the more expensive name brand drugs would move from 100 to 120. So all that together actually reduces just by a slight amount it reduces the actuarial value of the two plans which basically means it's going to save a little bit of money. We anticipate 25 to $30,000. That's a that's a relatively conservative estimate but that's what the impact of those changes would be. All right? And the other reason that we think the the 4.7% increase will be sufficient is you see a little bit of that downward turn. This this IBNR which is an acronym it basically means that we're taking into account.
040It's an actuarial calculation that takes into account claims history plus a view towards future trend. So potential increases in the next year and already you see where that had been continually increasing month over month year over year for quite a long time we're seeing that with a little bit of downward trend this year. So that's good news. And then the second actually I got some up to the three. So third piece of good news is the the pharmacy contract. We've got uh something called the managed pharmacy alliance with Brown & Brown. And it's sincerely it's a our team of pharmacists and some other specialists who negotiate on your behalf and many of our other clients to get the best top-line pricing, so ingredient costs uh and things like that, top-line pricing for your pharmaceuticals, and
041then the best rebate contracts that are possible. And so, just real quick snapshot look, if we had the exact same claims filled on the pharmacy side in 2026 as we've had in 2025, the plan would pay almost 9% less. So, that's again very, very good news. And so, all three of those uh recommendations contribute to balancing what we know is going to be something like eight, eight and a half, could could be close to 9% national trend uh increase next year for medical and pharmacy, but then the 4.7 is is very, very confidently realistic uh for Lincoln Parish School Board. And then the last thing I'll mention if if it's if I still can is uh the Samaritan Fund. That's something that's brand new um in in terms of a suggestion. Uh it's been in
042place for not quite 10 years now, but more and more of our Brown & Brown uh colleagues are seeing this work very, very effectively with uh other groups uh around the region and really around the country. Essentially, what it does is it pairs together uh donated funds. So, funds that are raised from philanthropy, funds that are raised from uh nonprofit organizations that have a specific mention, uh excuse me, a specific mission that um it is wanting to address the highest cost medical needs. Things like, you know, cancer for children or muscular dystrophy. You know, the things where there's a there's a nonprofit that's been founded to really try to move the needle on some of these these most needy medical conditions. So, it pairs together those donor raised resources with folks who self-identify from across
043our member population and they say, "Well, I want to see if I can be paired up with this." And when there's a match, the members' costs go down to zero. They don't pay a monthly premium. They don't pay at the doctor's office, at the hospital. They don't pay for pharmaceuticals when there's a match that would be approved by by the board. Uh then that members' costs go to zero and they would transition to their own specific plan, which also means that they will not contribute to these rising costs of the whole group plan. So, it really ends up being a win-win. It's hard to estimate exactly what the impact would be. Could be a savings of $100,000. It could be savings of $200,000 or more. It just depends on who those successful candidates would be.
044But again, uh at Brown & Brown we're seeing that work time and time again where we've rolled out the Samaritan Fund program and really gotten some some great success stories and really happy families. So, all right. So, that brings me to the end of my book. >> I have a long question. >> Yes, sir. >> So, even with that proposed $6,500 increase, would you revisit the benefit that would accrue to our members? >> Yes. So, so that's actually a slight reduction in benefits. So, we're we're back to this chart here where the maximum amount of pocket is recommended to change from 5,000 to 6,500. That's actually a slight reduction in benefit to the member. So, just as a as a kind of a simple example, suppose we have Jason as a member, um a teacher
045in your uh in your district, and I have $100,000 in claims, >> Right. >> whatever uh condition I'm dealing with. That means over the course of the year, right now in 2025, I would contribute 5,000, and Lincoln Parish would pay the rest. Next year, if I had those same claims, I would pay 6,500. So, my contribution does go up by 1,500. >> Right. >> That being said, it's a maximum, right? It actually does not impact very many people. It's going to be between 3 and 4% of your population. So, with uh the employees and their spouses and their children, all said and done, there's about 1,800 plus that are enrolled. Maybe about 50 might see that change. And the ones who see it are the ones who have been uh making use of the plan
046to the greatest extent. >> And Jason, >> Does that answer the question? Okay. >> The other benefit that we made a change we made this slight and then you didn't give me the chart was changing the maximum out-of-pocket >> for families, yes. >> Cuz right now, I think it's >> 15,000. >> It's for an individual it was >> Five. >> It was >> So, you had >> for three people for the family it was for three people at 15. >> Correct. >> And we're moving that down to $10,000. So, that is going to be a savings if they if there was large medical claims in the family unit. And then also the out-of-network out-of-network amount is the maximum at 30,000. >> So, 10 for the individual, 30 for the family. >> Right. And the 30
047is now going to be 20. >> 20. >> If for out of network benefits. >> Right. So, those family maximum out of pockets would actually be an increase in benefit from 15 down to 13 and from 30 out of network down to 20. Right. So, that that's actually a movement in the other direction. Thank you. >> So, what's the success rate as far as the Samaritan? >> I don't have a number, but when maybe it's best to describe it this way. Um, you know, I don't know if this translates to a rate exactly, but I'll I'll describe it and see if that answers the question. The the invitation actually is sent to the entire community. So, everyone is invited to apply. From those that apply, Samaritan Fund asks them to sign a HIPAA release so
048that Samaritan Fund can actually look at their medical records, what the prognosis is. And of those, they're going to find the ones that project out to have the highest level of claim costs, which are going to be those meatest medical conditions like the cancers or like uh debilitating disease, or transplant surgery, something like that. And so, once that's been identified, then the success rate is essentially 100% as long as you approve, yes, we're we're willing to engage the Samaritan uh person Samaritan Fund for this person who has qualified, then then it's done. It's it's a win-win and they will have that zero cost. >> Okay, are there any other comments or uh questions from board members? Okay. Are there any questions? >> I want to wrap up and >> Okay, miss >> So, we got
049a lot of it so, I just to recap I think they did a great job explaining the renewal and the changes that we're making. We explained the 4.7% rate increase and I've included in your packet a chart of what the We'll be giving this out to members as well as far as what that share is going to be. Again, because the school board participates in a large portion of that cost, we are going to be bearing a very large percentage of the increase. Funding for to make up that 4.7%. But those will go into effect with January payrolls if approved on board tonight. The other item is we talked about the dental plan. We feel like that this is This is going to be about a $70,000 savings to the school system as well changing
050to a fully insured plan. There's a benefit there, but also in the dental program that we have going in place, we have some benefits on these benefits to roll over into the new plan year. We're We're expecting to be increased benefits available to members later on instead of our current maximum annual of 1250. I believe it I think what was that Scott? 2250 is the max. It will go up an additional thousand dollars yes ma'am. So that's a great benefit there too. So we feel like that that would really help a lot of families out. There's a couple of other things other than approving the Samaritan fund as well. We do have stop loss like he mentioned and gene therapy that we're still making decisions on and so the recommendation would be for the board
051to approve these changes and then also grant the superintendent permission to contract these final agreements to go ahead and get these programs in place for the renewal for January 1. So it's it's a pleasure to work. >> So, are there any other questions or comments from board members? Are there any questions or comments from the public? Can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> Okay, second Mr. Joe. All in favor? >> Aye. >> All opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Okay. So, okay. >> I will do that. >> Okay. Okay, next up is 8.7 approved payment of the November salary supplement checks. Ms. Juanita Joe. >> Okay, so again we come to the board in October to request permission to distribute the November salary supplement checks. This is our 13th check. This will be paid
052out on I believe November 11th or November the 20th. We're recommending an increase in the supplement compared to what we paid out last year. A $600 increase for certified staff and then a $300 increase for support staff for a total of 12 $2,316 for certified and $1,158 for support staff. We just request permission to you to approve the distribution. >> Okay. Are there any questions or comments from board members? Are there any questions or comments from the public? >> Ms. Joe, could you repeat the number for the certified? >> Okay, it's $2,316. >> Thank you. >> Are there any other questions from the public? Okay, can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> I got a motion that that is. made. >> Can I get a second? Okay. All in favor? >>
053I. >> All opposed? Okay. So, the next item is new business. >> Public reports. >> Reports. >> Yeah, reports. >> Reports. Okay, so we have 9.1 is the boundary study report. Um Mr. Trotter Hunt. >> Yes, thank you, Dr. Williams. And thanks to the board for the opportunity to be here tonight. And thanks to the staff for actually helping with this important project. I've got a lot to review and I've got a few slides so I'm going to jump right into it. Uh this is the agenda. I'm going to talk about the team that's been working on this. Um goals that we have and guiding principles. We got some input from the public. Other considerations and kind of front planning and then the the phases we're planning or proposing to tackle the project in. Some
054scenarios we considered and finally the recommendations we have at this point and then talk about next steps. So, uh HDA, we work in a variety of uh variety of industries. For this project, myself and Ernie Broussard uh to relate, he's a senior planner. I was a city planner and a public planner in Lake Charles and Cameron and Calcasieu parishes. We also uh involved Flow Analytics. You see Ethan Kemp and Jenny or we're really the leads from Flow. It's kind of small for those over here, but Flow has worked on boundary studies, student enrollment forecasting projects across the country from very large school districts to very small school districts. So, they're the real technicians, um did a lot of the data work and we'll talk about uh as we As far as goals, um we wanted
055to first forecast enrollment for the next 10 years to use that for planning. We got some community input on priorities to keep in mind. We talked with the district team regarding issues and priorities that internally we thought would be important and then we developed a series of rezoning scenarios. Talked about those, pros and cons, and tonight we're here to identify rezoning recommendations for the school board. Guiding principles, we did a survey that was out for three or four weeks. We put that out. We had over 1600 respondents, 75% of those are children that are currently enrolled in Lake Orion schools. We asked them to to force rank these four areas with one being the most important and four being least important. You can see that the number one the the item getting the most number
056one votes at 35% was equitable access to for students to academic and extracurricular programs. Number two was minimal transitions between schools. Number three was minimal travel distance to moving towards a neighborhood school approach. And number four was diversity. I wanted to mention at this point that it came to my attention really just last week that while the the school district was under a desegregation order race absolutely had to be taken into consideration in looking at school zoning. But once the school district achieved unitary status, race can no longer be taken into consideration. That'd be a violation of the 14th Amendment. This was mentioned and I talked with Bob Haymons, Mr. Durst put me in touch with the attorney for the school district. And so that's that was just a learning for me and wanted to
057mention that at the outset. We you can take into consideration socioeconomic diversity, just not racial diversity. As far as that kind of some background work we did, um the think of the district did some data gathering to give us uh school enrollment details for the past 10 years. And uh that was used with some other publicly available information. Really flow analytics did the work to develop enrollment forecasting. I'll show some kind of some highlights of that. The school district also gathered school capacity details, um especially the city schools that we're looking at more closely in this phase one. Mike Walpole did some school condition appraisals for us looking at the different buildings. We reached out to A Phillips and Lincoln Prep um just to see if they had any plans pending uh in the area.
058Obviously, they affect our enrollment. Um I think there's always things being discussed, but there's nothing imminent that they could communicate. We visit with Boys and Girls Club. Uh we'd really like to what whatever changes we make reserve some capacity in our elementary schools to uh afford us a partnership with Boys and Girls Club to have after school programs. Their facility in town is is at capacity. They have a long waiting list. We've seen really good uh results in Dubach and Boys and Girls Club can point to good results really wherever they have programs and uh and they would very much like to partner. We'll put more about that. We visit with the the city of Ruston well, the city of Ruston Mayor Walker. I would say what we're going to be talking about tonight in
059phase one is not any construction of any new schools, but uh when that time comes the city would very much like to partner. Um whether that be building roads um if necessary to access new areas. I would say that Mayor Walker's number one where his mind goes to when you talk about the schools is just uh the bus lines, the drop off lines, ensure we have safety in pick up and drop off of our students. So, as far as the enrollment forecast, the methodology they use, they basically look at historical trends as far as grade progressions, when kids may come into and out of the district. Um All right. Well, into and out of the grades. You know, there may be some other, you know, there's other charter and public school options, but some kids
060may go there for some grades and not others. So, they'll look at history there. They look at uh you know recent in-migration or out-migration, births. They look at uh uh recent neighborhoods or permitting for neighborhoods to be built to uh factor all of that into some forecasts. They actually do very detailed forecasts by grade. They have a low, medium, high scenario. Um this gives a summary. Uh you can see they show K-5 enrollment expected to decline slightly over the 10-year period. Grades 6 through 8 enrollment expected to decrease by 3 and 1/2%. With 9 through 12 expected to increase. Obviously, you know, if you're forecasting 5th through 12th grades and you've got some trends for kindergarten through 4th, those are easy to forecast. And uh good example is this year's uh they completed this and
061then we got the enrollment details for kindergarten and I think of 150 plus more kids than uh is normal. Uh don't know if that's an anomaly or if that's a a new trend. So, a forecast is a forecast and going to need update it continually. But, um uh these are what we use, so you know, kind of a I would say that flows feedback. They've done these across the nation and that um a a lot of schools are seeing their their uh enrollment declining. So, just to have roughly flat enrollment forecasted uh is in a better situation than a lot of school districts. So, then what they do is they take the parish and they break it up into to planning areas around the outskirts of the parish where we're We're going to probably change
062any zoning lines. They keep the the groupings big. Uh in the central area where we may change the zones, they make them smaller. It's also denser population there, so if you could see it better, there's there's the numbers kind of indicates the number of uh students in each of the different planning areas. And then we can run scenarios, change zones, see how that affects um the enrollment at each of the schools. Okay, with that background, um talking with the district team, our initial thoughts on priorities was to break this effort into two phases. Phase one would be a focus on utilizing existing facilities, not trying to to build anything new in our major capital projects. A top priority is to reduce the number of transitions in the city of Ruston is to to change the
063grade configurations. Um I'm going to ask Ms. Powell to speak in the next slide about the It's actually came to learn that her doctoral work is around the benefits to student performance of minimizing those transitions, so she'll speak to those to that here next. We also want to like a neighborhood schools to reduce uh you know, bus routes. When you reduce bus routes, you can move to later start times. Um and if there's any opportunities to to close facilities to save some uh operational costs for the district. And finally, like I mentioned, uh we wanted to have a plan to reserve some capacity, some rooms for after-school partnership with the Boys & Girls Club. The I guess just for a little more more expansion there, uh teachers typically don't want their rooms to be used,
064and so we have to I wanted to think about uh preserving two or three classrooms that would just be for Boys & Girls Club. Um phase two, which which would come later, we're not going to talk much about tonight, would be uh exploring new facilities. Um so we could decide, you know, where and uh how those would be those districts would would be comprised. That would be an opportunity to move to fewer schools. Again, if you have fewer schools, that's going to just mean fewer transitions and lower administrative costs. If in phase two we do think Ruston Elementary is our elementary school in the in the district with the really the worst building condition. So either some significant renovations or or closing and building new would need to be thought of at that point. You
065can see the fourth one there is explore school zones for improved socioeconomic diversity. And lastly um if we're going to have further phasing maybe waiting on the west side of town to see how the the Buck E's effect plays out. With that I'll turn it over to Chloe. >> Hi. I'll be brief. Trying to get into a football game at Ruston Junior High tonight. Okay, I I want to just come before you tonight um I have three personas I'm dealing with here. Um first my the role I'm most proud of is mom. I have two Lincoln Parish school kids um and with my two kids we've been to LP, Glenview, Hillcrest, Ruston Elementary, I.A. Lewis, and Ruston Junior High. We've had an amazing amazing experience. Great teachers, great admin. Um I'm also the chief academic
066officer for Lincoln Parish schools. And thirdly um like Mr. Hunt mentioned I'm a doctoral student at Louisiana Tech. And in June of 2024 I I picked the topic of transitions between schools. It was something that was interesting to me. Uh two of my research pathways included academic and social impacts of transitions and then um the role of school structures and grade span configurations in transition success. And so I just want to share just a little bit of the research that I have found along the way that I think are relevant to this topic. For our purposes tonight I'm not sharing any Lincoln Lincoln Parish data. This is just information from body of literature. Okay, so the first thing um is transition effects on achievement. And there are many many studies that show that more transitions
067often correlate to dips in student performance. Um, we see also early transitions can be tough on kids in the literature, um particularly that K3 pivot where we're learning to read and then reading to learn can be tough for kids um in transitions at this time. The research shows can show some lasting reading gaps for students. Um, I think we are all acutely aware of how important it is for our kids to be able to read on grade level by the end of uh grade three. And um these achievement declines are throughout the transition points are are documented nationally. Um, two studies that were really spoke to me as I read, um one was one from 2012 where um the research showed that a single school change could actually be the equivalent of uh a setback
068of more than 10 instructional days. And that really struck me um when I considered um compounded over five transitions in in the city school system with what that could mean for kids. Um, there was also a more recent study from 2018. Um, this was in Texas. Uh students enrolled in configurations with the least amount of transitions out performed their counterparts. So that was one that spoke to me as well. Um, moving on to belonging and relationships. Um, one particular concept that I came across was something called a new to school effect. And um I didn't know if there was a name for it, but there's a name for it. And there is a study that talks about alignment between sending and receiving schools and how um every time a kid transitions um they have this
069fresh start or new to school effect and it refers to that short-term academic and social adjustment period when kids move to a new school and and it's documented that test scores and engagement can drop during this time not necessarily because of kids ability but because they're doing that hard work of adjusting to new routines, rules, procedures, that kind of thing. School climate and engagement. One study that is really a seminal study in the field is that frequent transitions can interrupt that match between students developmental needs and those environments that are designed to support them. That is of particular interest to me for students with disabilities because we want to have that sense of stability and connection. And then last and I sort of already mentioned this just the idea of equity and early literacy. We
070know early literacy is a critical determinant of long-term achievement and they frequent moves can delay proficiency. Another 2018 study showed that transitions disproportionately affect students in poverty who benefit most from stable grade spans with fewer moves. Um The studies that I looked at there were several I decided not to include just because of small sample size or what have you validity. The ones I mostly looked at include K-12 systems with diverse populations both rural and urban. That's what I wanted to share with you and I'll turn it back over. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Hunt, thank you. >> I have a question. >> Yes, sir. >> Everything is based on research-based strategies. >> Mhm. >> And if you would I'd like to know some of them because the population of of in this system has
071to come first. >> I do. >> You know, you can go look at any system, but if it's not the physical makeup of Lincoln Parish, then it's worthless. You know, and I'm just being serious. You know, we we can't What's good for one is not good for all. You know, and I I'm sorry, but you know, being principal all these years, I couldn't treat everybody the same way. They didn't learn in the same way. So, this is all I'm saying. What's good for one is not good for 20. But I'd love to hear the research-based strategies of where it came from. You know, you mentioned it, but you didn't mention mention the school or where you got your research from. >> I can provide that for you. >> That's what I want to see. >>
072Okay. >> Because, you know, I'm always going to Proof is in the pudding. >> And like you like I said, I projected about 30% of the studies because I didn't feel like they were relevant to >> That's what I'm trying to get to. If it's not research-based or based on this school makeup, >> Yeah. Because, you know, my reading is number one. Instruction is number one. These kids' success is number one. You notice I don't eat me and nothing except the teacher's salary. Because my importance is ensuring these kids get what they came to school to get from. And I said good education. Not mediocre. You know, treat them all. They get it in Lincoln Parish. Well, you might as well. Because, hell, if you can't fit the bill, don't put the shoes on. >>
073Think it's first and think it. Yes, sir. I thought that was very relevant to uh what we're looking at. And um >> But you know you have to. Being an educator, it's hard to sit and look. I'm not going to sit and look. I'm not going to castigate and not tell the truth. Well, when you are an imitator, I'm coming for you. You know, there's two people you don't imitate. That's a teacher. I'm going to get you. And a preacher, the Lord going to get you. I'm through. >> So, with that background, I was going to show four of the scenarios what we consider several scenarios and then finish with what what we and made it on as our recommendation. So, phase one scenario one was to leave children Simsboro West and I school or
074West Junior High School with their current boundaries. Close Cypress Springs and close the pre-K center. Convert Dubach, Ruston, Glenview, Holly Ridge, I Lewis to pre-K to sixth grade neighborhood schools. And then move the central office from here to the current pre-K center. Move the bus storage from the junior high to the pre-K center and uh I think sell the current office here. I guess that would really be for the school board to determine what to do with the current central office. So, we we drew the boundaries for this scenario in this manner. I Lewis is a little bit smaller school, so we made the I Lewis district in the southwest a little smaller. Uh made Glenview a little larger. We carried the Ruston Elementary School District a little bit to the north side to try
075to improve the socioeconomic diversity. So, some of the pros were uh fewer transitions, uh savings through closing facilities. Able to close Cypress Springs and pre-K center. Uh simplified bus routes by going back to more neighborhood schools, improve socioeconomic diversity, and getting the bus storage out of what's going to become a very high traffic area with Bucky's. Some of the cons, anytime you're talking about closing a school, it's going to be tough. Very strong community affiliation with Cypress Springs. Um, the Mr. Young and Mr. Garrett made me aware that the teacher accreditation is K to 5, 6 to 8, and 9 to 12, so trying to spread our teachers across more schools will be a challenge that can be overcome, but it won't be a somewhat of a challenge. Um, there is, like I said, I.
076Lewis is a a smaller school, so it is a capacity challenge. And the school zones are are not really geographically intuitive, so they may be a little hard to explain to the parents, but but this we do have the capacity to do this. While while uh I. Lewis is a small school, we still have the capacity. Another scenario we looked at was to leave students Sims and Wernecke and Ruston with current boundaries, close I. Lewis and the Pre-K Center, convert Dubach, Ruston, Glenview, Hope Street, Cypress Springs to Pre-K to 5, and move the 6th grade to Ruston Junior High. Still have the same movements of closing Central Office and moving it and the bus storage to the Pre-K Center. For this scenario, we went a little more geographically intuitive uh lines for the schools. So,
077the pros on this approach are this scenario, again, fewer transitions, savings through closing two facilities, again, simplified bus routes. There are good curriculum and extracurricular synergies for the 6th or 8th grades. This is a more geographically intuitive school zoning, and we are removing the the bus storage from the high traffic area. Again, anytime you talk about closing a school, it's it's going to be a challenge, strong community affiliation with I. Lewis. The really the downside of this is that we don't have the capacity at Reston Junior High. So, it'd have to be an expansion that really fails the test of of no capital uh investment for phase one. Uh also, there's a long-term logistics question at Reston Junior High. We We talked a lot about what's going to be the Bucky's effect and and just
078a hesitant to hesitancy to invest in Reston Junior High until we see how that plays out. It would not really be a long-term challenge. So, we really thought this this failed the test and went to a viable option for what we defined phase one. Phase one scenario three, uh this was leave Shudrant, DoBoc, Simsboro, Island, Reston Junior High, and Reston ES with their current boundaries and zones in great configuration. Close Reston Elementary. We talked about this cuz it's the the oldest school in the in the poor shape. And then convert uh DoBoc, Longview, Hunters Woods, and Cypress Springs to pre-K to fifth grade neighborhood schools. And and still move the the pre-K the central office to the pre-K center. This is the zoning we're looking at um for uh for this scenario. Kind of running
079the zones north-south. Some of the pros again fewer transitions. We talked about the benefits of that, uh savings through closing facilities. Uh as I mentioned, Reston Elementary is in the the poorest condition as a building. Um this zoning does provide improved socioeconomic diversity. And again, we're still moving the bus storage from the high traffic area. Unfortunately, uh our school capacities don't don't don't allow that fit. It would be uh too many kids in that they wouldn't have enough classrooms. So, this actually failed the test as well. So, uh what we do recommend um is leave DoBoc, Shudrant, Simsboro, Island, Reston Junior High, and Reston ES with their current boundaries in great configuration. And only close the pre-K center. So, we'll convert Reston, Longview, Hunters Woods, and Cypress Springs elementary schools to pre-K to fifth grade
080neighborhood schools. Um still move the central office to the Pre-K center and do the bus storage there as well. We believe that more geographically intuitive zoning is the best approach. This is fewer transitions. We are saving through through closing the central office. This does achieve simplified shorter bus routes. Geographically intuitive school zones as I mentioned and and move the bus storage away from high traffic area. Really the only kind of this is that you know we we could take advantage of some additional cost savings through some school consolidation, but we think this is a very very good first step in in removing several transitions for the kids. So as I said, that this this is what we have as a recommendation for phase one. As far as next steps, um So we we we got
081We talked ahead of time and don't think it's you know perfect to take a vote at this meeting and just put this out there for public input. I know the school district has been working on a survey to put out for the next several weeks to get input up from the community. Um That said, you know, we hope to get some good input in the next few weeks cuz I think the school district really feels like a decision needs to be made either at the November or December meeting if we want to try to implement this plan for the '26-'27 school year. Um so if we don't get comfortable, you know, in that timeline, it'll just have to be delayed. Um As I mentioned, phase two could include building new schools or continuing to renovate
082existing schools. We we've just had some preliminary discussions about that, but really need additional time to evaluate options, costs, funding financing options, and build towards recommendations. And not planning that until after phase one decision and possibly be good to to implement phase one and let that play out for for some period of time to see how how that's going before additional decisions are made. That's really all I had today. Welcome any questions. >> Are there any Sorry. Are there any questions or comments from board members? >> I would just say thank you Trotter and your team and fully analytics team for for y'alls hard work on this project. I know Mr. Mack recommended that we we talked last spring about getting a third party involved in this planning and I think you guys did a
083tremendous job on the study and I appreciate your efforts as a as a friend and as a community member. >> And also I want to mention too that and I and I've made this recommendation and want to be very transparent to the community that we need to look at possibly engaging two other consultants. A demographer. When you talk about the social economic status. And also we there is another consultant that has expertise in here. He's from Lincoln Parish. Well respected superintendent from down south. Engage in a conversation. It's just and it's just my opinion that we just need to get the public more involved in the decision making. >> I was going to say Dr. Williams did arrange a call for us with with each of those and great input and I think the best
084input was thinking through phase two and and the approach to get community input involved in a very deliberate way. >> Are there any other comments from the board? >> Only and I know you've done all research that that I guess the big issue and the big unknown is Buc-ee's. You know, no matter what we do, we need to possibly look at doing away with that school and I know that's going to cost a fortune but this is really going to impact that school especially if we look at bringing sixth grade to that to that area. But anyway, that's that's definitely a thorn in the side and there will always be. >> Yeah, that's why I think it'll be good to if we move this the bus storage from over there. >> Every bus is just
085going to have to deal with it. >> Every bus will have to deal with it otherwise. >> Cuz the traffic's tremendous there now and it's going to be triple and quadruple or 10 times more. >> All right. >> We'll see if we can get the buses out of there. And then we move central office, then we're really talking about 30 minutes in the morning getting kids in and out of school and then 30 minutes in the afternoon. Right, then we're getting them back home and it wouldn't be if the central office is moved and we move the bus barn, then it would be just those two times and the rest of the day the Buc-ee's traffic can flow and have at it over there. We'll be having school uh for the time being until uh
086someone comes along and offers us something you can't refuse. You can't refuse. Yeah. >> Thank you, Mr. Ahrens. Okay, next up personnel um Mr. Assistant Superintendent Donnell. >> Thank you, Dr. Williams. Uh so this report has one administrative retirement, two faculty recommendations, one child nutrition resignation, two child nutrition recommendations, and two transportation. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Williams, can I make a comment? >> Uh-huh. Uh-huh. >> Uh Uh, Debbie Pender is on that list and I would like to tell her congratulations on an incredible career. I don't know how long How long is this? >> It's been a long time. But it's been a fun time. >> An incredible employee, an incredible parent in this district, friend to this board, friend of this central office. Congratulations, DEBBIE. >> THANK YOU. >> YOU SET THE NEW
087MAN. >> ROBIN IS ONE PART OF ME and said to just >> And you split the difference. >> Two two great people. >> me in high school, so me and my wife both. So, been a big part of our life the whole time, and I appreciate all that. Help me with bookkeeping and basketball and keeping me in some ball games throughout my career. Thank you for all you've done. >> Have a lot of great memories. >> Thank you Debbie for your service. >> Um, also the next up is the sales tax receipt for the September 2025. Ms. Laney to do. >> Yes, we have the sales tax collected for 4% September, and in fact it's collections are 1.3% higher than they were this month last year. So, overall collections for the first 3 months of
088the year is 7.79 uh, and that's that's about it. >> Um, are there any comments from board members? Okay. Um, next up is financial update for the August 2025. Um, do you have our financial report for our general fund and special revenue funds in the packet as well? I apologize the the fiscal year titles at the top top of the columns are a year behind, but they are current It is current year data. I apologize for that. It will be fixed on the next report going forward. Uh but total general fund revenues, we have achieved 7 10.7% of the budget total uh expenditures. We've expended about 9% of the budget in the general fund. Total special revenue funds combined, we have received about 3.4% of our total revenue budget and we have spent about 7.7%
089for the first 2 months of the fiscal year. >> And any comments from board members? >> Okay. >> Next up is the health plan update from Superintendent Durrett. >> Okay. So, you have the August report for the health fund. This has total contributions for the month of August of 1.4 million. Uh total plan expenses paid out this month is 1.6 million and a reduction in our net assets of about $150,000. Total cumulative for the year, this is just past the midpoint uh well uh 8 months into the year, we have total plan costs of 10.5 million compared to 11.5 million this time last year. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Okay, the next item is the report um from Superintendent Durrett. >> Okay. Um just a couple things. We're going to be out next week for
090fall break. Um I hope everybody enjoys the week off and gets to rest and relaxation, our teachers, administrators, and everyone. Um and we have finished our literacy and numeracy screenings in K3, and we're waiting to get that data back from the state to share the literacy the beginning of the year data with you all. Hopefully, we get it back, we'll share it at the next board meeting. >> Okay. Um are there any reports, comments, or observations um from the board members? Okay. Also, I want to mention um Miss Henderson called me today, and she wanted to inform the board that she is in the hospital with her husband. Um we're sending our thoughts and prayers to her as well. Okay. If there are no other business, can I get a motion of adjournment? >> So
091moved. >> Okay. >> Second the motion.