06/09/2025 - Board Meeting

001God, indivisible. Good evening and welcome to the school board meeting of Laurel Public Schools. Public participation is encouraged in the Laurel School District. All meetings of the board will be open to the public as except as provided by law. Scheduled meetings of the board may be recorded. Audience members may address the board during public comment for non-aggenda interests or during the discussion of the relevant printed agenda item. Your attendance is welcome. If you plan to speak to the board, please look over the information on the agenda, then complete the public comment section on the other side of this card and give it to the superintendent or the school board chair, that's me, prior to the meeting being called to order. To address the board, please stand and be recognized by the chair. And we have

002a podium for you here. Identify yourself. Briefly state your concern. Public participation is a right that carries certain responsibilities such as informing oneself in advance of the issues being discussed, voluntarily being as brief and gerine as possible, not unduly repeating remarks others or you have already made, and showing respect at all times for the rights and opinions of others, whether citizens, board members, school district employees, or students. Thank you for your involvement. Do I have any items uh that are not on the agenda that wish to be addressed? Miss curriculum director for the district. I just wanted to thank the school board for the decision that you guys made to change our end of the school year days um to allow for those packing days. They were invaluable. absolutely invaluable. Um I just can't thank

003you guys enough for making that decision. I do not know how we would have gotten graph to the point that we did to be ready for crews to start coming in had we not had that day. So um I just wanted to say thank you for that. It was incredibly helpful. John Stillson, assistant principal Laurel High School. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the board um and all the folks at Laurel High School for the last couple years. It's touched me deeply and um I better stop before I get emotional. So, thank you. Same here. Don't make us get all emotional either. So, moved. If there's no other items, we'll move on to the next section which is correspondence. Uh we have several to this week. Uh first, the Billings

004Elks Lodge. Thank you for your donation to the speech and drama department. CHS for baseball. CHS also for speech, drama, and debate. Laurel Community Foundation also for speech and drama and Sunlight Property Management again for speech, drama, and debate. We really appreciate your donations and they do not go unrecognized. We have no presentations tonight, so we'll move to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. Motion by Britney. Do I have a second? I'll second. A motion by Britney and a second by Jenny. Any discussion by the board? Any discussion by the public audience? Hearing none, we'll move to vote. All in favor? Oh, sorry, Mr. Sorry to interrupt, but um Devin, do we have Donnie on the line? Is that correct? Okay. So, just to

005realize Donnie is on the line, so we'll have to ask for her vote individually. So, Donnie, if you can hear me, I'll specifically call you out after the the vote in the room. Thank you. [Music] Okay, go ahead. Not last minute. And then on the May 27th meeting, I just wanted to note that I made a nomination for the um I did confirm that it was a nomination by going back and looking at the video. It was a nomination. Also go with my motion on those changes. Great. Thank you. Jenny is still a second. Excellent. Any other public or any other board discussion? Public discussion hearing none. We'll move to vote. All in favor for mo approval of the consent agenda. Motion by Britney, seconded by Jenny. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

006Donnie. Sorry. Thank you, Britney. Donnie, thank you. Motion carries. Next, we'll move to the action items. the high school parking lot project. Matt, do you want to Yeah, I I can. So, you'll you'll see a couple things there. Uh we got only one estimate in so far, but it looks like the estimate is for what we want to do is going to exceed. If you bring up the map uh on letter B, you'll see that it's uh divided up into five areas. And the um the estimate is also uh divided into those five areas. So realistically we can we have about Julie and I came to the conclusion we can afford about $100,000 out of our remaining uh building reserve fund without running us dry in the high school building reserve. Um if you look

007on the map, area one is obviously the large area and that's a resurfacing and repainting of lines. Um it would also uh include a few new painting which we'll get to here in a second. Area two is on the east side of the gymnasium and uh that's going to require they wanted to tear it up because it's in pretty bad shape. We're not going to be able to afford to do that. So Wayne and I are looking at options and right now it would would just be just getting a nice little resurface, not a um uh not a redo. Uh three and four. We're not going to do either one of those projects. Doing some asphalt and taking over some of that old gravel and reasspholding it. Uh people are parking there now and four,

008but we're just not going to be able to afford to uh asphalt that the way we want. That's the precursor to putting in a new entrance, but we're not going to be able to do that. Uh five, if you remember right, we kind of have that nice big old peninsula of concrete that comes out. Um, this group will go ahead and can, I should say, go ahead and cut out that concrete so it's not as big and that would add some parking spots straight across there. So, you would actually drive straight across. Buses could still drop off there for activities, but there wouldn't be that drive out and around like it is. So, in working with uh uh Wayne and the civil engineer that looked at it, they thought that would be the absolute best.

009Uh it still gives us plenty of like you know walking out there and standing on the sidewalk space. You're not going to walk out and boom have a problem with a bus there. It's plenty of space. Uh this would add some uh much needed handicap parking that's not actually out in the middle of the parking lot. Handicap parking would be close to the building. Uh and it would again help with uh uh hopefully some flow. We did have a few stop signs. I put a I should have wrote them a little bit better on there, but uh a couple of stop signs to put in there that would hopefully help with that flow as well, especially when exiting. Not so much. They wouldn't really be a big factor coming into the uh like in the

010morning, but more of a factor when people are all trying to leave at once. Um so, we can do all or part of these. Uh we have about $100,000. And if you go back and look at the estimate, it it's it exceeds $100,000. So, we kind of have to make a decision from this board group what we want to do. Uh if we did everything we wanted, we're looking at right around that 275,000. We have about 100. So, I would suggest we do uh and we're getting some other estimates to make sure we're we're in the right area here. 1 through 4. Um, six, which is uh, uh, excuse me, I'm looking at the estimate now, not the map. So, numbers one through four on the estimate. Six is the removal of that concrete pavement

011and redoing that and then striping all of our sections, which comes out to right around $100,000. It's over $80,000, which means that's why it's come to the board. If it was under $80,000, we would just we could just do it without a board approval. But because uh it's it's 80,000 and above uh and I'm not big into dividing up all the projects. So we play that little oh it's just a bunch of separate little projects. It is one major project. So I do come to the board on that. So I would say that um our budget is right around $100,000 max. Is that average correct Julie? Yes. So what we feel like we can afford is on the estimate on a is 1, two, three, and four. Six and eight. uh anything beyond that five

012and seven. We don't feel like we can uh we can do that. So, you did say we do have other bids coming in. We do have some other Wayne. I don't know where we're at with the bids. Would you comment on that? I know we we've had some people walk it. We just haven't got the bids yet. We received the bid uh another bid early this morning. Good. their thought process on a couple of the areas is different. So, I've got to get them back on uh apples for apples. U but uh the hard drive looking good right at this point. Sorry. Go ahead. Do it. Okay. So, can this be delayed for two weeks just so we can see the other bids? Y I think we could do that. Um biggest thing is is

013just so you guys are aware of it, there will be this uh project moving forward. It's over 100,000 or over 80. So you guys will have to do that. Can I get someone to turn off the air conditioner at the back just so it's a hearing issue? I can't hardly hear Wayne. I know it's not because of my age or anything. I know it's going to be a phone. All right. Thank you. If it gets really unbearably hot, we can turn it back on. But for now, are we pattern any? Yeah. Yeah, we'll gain some spots. So, if you look along there, okay, you know where we currently go in. It's the first section for students. Not the teacher parking, but the next section right along that old fire lane, which we're not sure why

014it's a fire lane. It's um we parked parallel. We would be turning those to be perpendicular, and that's that's marked on here. So that would be perpendicular all the way along there, which I don't know how many that adds. I didn't count them, but probably adds 50 spots total. Um, so it does help us a little bit. And again, this is just running it by a civil engineer. What are what would you guys do if this was your parking lot? And that's basically what they said that this would maximize your parking. Uh we still have if we do a perpendicular with where we're per currently parallel uh we do we do have enough room it's equal to the uh the next row up. Uh it's not and nothing's perfect. Of course with teenagers you always

015want a lot more room but uh uh but currently if we do what we have on here we would add about 50 spots. We would also uh you know it does away with the traditional senior parking. uh we would make that into some visitor parking and then more actual real parking that we have um for handicapped. One thing we would have to do though and Wayne and I noticed that the sidewalk that is currently why quote unquote where the senior parking is, we would have to widen that uh in some way uh because there's no way you can have you know it's going to be an issue I think for handicap parking. So, right now it's a very narrow park or very narrow when people pull over the curb, they cover threequarters of the park

016or the uh sidewalk. So, we'd have to look at some options there. But, that's where we're sitting right now. And um we're certainly if you guys don't want to approve it tonight, we can bring it back or we can approve the project at the lowest bid, lowest responsible bid and we can do that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they do that like a month agoish. Oh yeah, this is going to cover all that. Or the seniors painted at the beginning of the year, something like that. took Chris to mention that though. But you have to think we paint that because of um Hello. What do we do at the beginning when we do all of our fun stuff, homecoming, all of that? That parking lot gets painted for the teams as well. So, I know

017it kind of goes away and then it's not the school's responsibility for those. It's the parent group that sets those aside and requests that time. So if that parent group isn't put together or funding and getting themselves, then it's the scheduling. So they really have to be together right now asking, you know, the high school when that weekend can be done going around the sports. So I mean, if we're going to do it, we might need to kick it like two years so that those particular seniors know what's going to happen instead of switching it during a summer. So think of it that way. I have one more question. How many spots is this total? How many new How many spots if we just did section one ripping out the island and removing the How

018many spots in total would we have for parking? I tell you, I don't have the running number of them separately. 20050. Well over that. Well over that probably closer. Could this be the time? Well, never mind. It's only 62 $6,200. I mean, trying to see if we could do some of that parking permit and pay, you know, like, hey, I'm a student. I want to park in the parking. And I know it's we've talked about who monitors that, how that works and everything, but you know, $25 for a year, but $250 spots is $6,300. So, I don't know. Is it worth it to go into the senior fund or something like that? So, just some ideas. Yes, Donnie. I need to detail this up because of the project. bids project unless we're using and I

019do have a call into that co-op purchasing co-op uh uh Larry Crowder and Um he was going to check cuz off the top of he was driving when I called him and uh he was going to check for me and get back to me ASAP and that was on last week and he hasn't called me back yet. So I'll call Larry Crowder and find out if they have a um someone who is on their uh co-op list. That would be wonderful. Thank you. So what I was asking for tonight was we approve the project. We don't have to approve the bids because I don't have three bids. I just told you this is about what it's going to cost, but I'm going to need that moving forward. We we still do the bids. We're still

020going to have the opening and all that. Uh we're not going to approve this group doing it tonight uh at all. So, uh this project's going to run over either way. So, something you guys want to know what's what the money is being spent on. I make a motion to table the high school parking lot project to ensure that we do the bid processing correctly and we know what those bids look like and get some more information. I have a motion to table action item number eight for high school parking lot project. Do I have a second? I'll second. I just want to clarify. I'm not I I know that we need to get this done. That's not what I'm tableabling. I want it to come back. I just wanted to make sure that we

021have those bids what that really is going to look like. I understand that our budget can only hold so much, but if another bid comes in and we can do more to the project within that budget, that would be nice to see because maybe we could potentially do more to the parking lot if we could just see what other bids look like. It's just a quick question um for transportation because once we lose that particular bump belt out there that's all of our team buses load and unload. So we'll need to look for another option that way. It won't be taking away that there could still be a load and unload there. We're not putting parking lots across that front. It'll stay concrete and it'll be unused. Okay. Yeah. But just double checking because I

022couldn't tell by this. Does it look like you losing because we couldn't run we can't run through where the senior parking is right now because we wouldn't be able to make the turn out of there into where the sports place is at and to my understanding that's not going to be full senior parking anymore anyways be present. Okay. I just wanted to make sure because I just looking at it that's what I was seeing there. So thank you. Just a point of clarity and maybe Donnie can help for the bidding process. Do we need to declare that now? So this table, we don't have to declare that in order to continue with bidding. Correct. We don't need to declare it as a project yet, Donnie. I can't remember. Do we? I would like to find

023out if this vendor is part of because if they are, we don't need to know. I I don't think this one is. I don't think this one is. That's why I called uh Larry wanted to find out if they had anyone working on parking lots, school parking lots that was. And he didn't know if anyone off top of his head, but he was going to call me back. So, I'll I'll call even Larry back on my way home tonight and see where what he knows. I guess what we could do if we need to do a formal process, we could do that. And then if you find someone who would have Yep. What we have now is an order of magnitude cost so that we can take and go in and say, "Okay, if this

024is what we want, these are the areas that we would want those." And we've got some order of magnitude costs. If we have to go through the bid process, then we put together the specs, everything and go out to bid. But I do believe that hard drives is part or is in the process of becoming part of the co-op and I spoke to him earlier today. You know what that time frame looks like? He he wasn't sure. It shouldn't take that long according to him and I should know more tomorrow. and the motion to table with. We just have a motion. We do have a motion in second. Okay. So, we do have a motion to table by Britney and a second by Jenny. Is there any other discussion? Any other public discussion? Hearing none,

025we will call for a vote to table the high school parking lot. Motion by Britney, second by Jenny. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Donnie. I. Now, any opposed? Motion carries. Move on to number B which is the renewal of our MTSBA membership. Do I have a motion to renew membership? A motion to renew by Donnie. Do we have a second? I'll second. Any board discussion? Do we know why it went down this year? It it goes up and down. I don't know necessarily why or but it uh I think it's based on population. Is that right, Julie? Isn't it A and B? I think it is. But it'll it'll creep up and down every once in a while. Had them go up and down. Same with insurance. We've had those go up

026and sometimes they'll go down every once in a while. Yes, Donnie. They did outline. I think policy services is very valuable but nature have any comments any public comments. So, I do have a motion to approve action item B, renewal of the MTSBA membership by Donnie and a second by Kayla. All in favor say I. I. Were you Were you and I? Okay. Donnie, I opposed. I desent by Jenny and Britney, but the motion does carry. Action item number C, the renewal of our liability insurance for the 2526 school year. We do have representatives from both of these um carriers here tonight. So, we'll just begin in the order which they are presented. which is um MSPIP. You guys can present first if you would uh excuse me, Mr. Chair, members of the board. My

027name is Rodie Hullman. I serve as a producer with Marsh McClennon Agency. Uh, and as part of my role with Marsh McClennon, I also manage the Montana schools property and liability insurance plan. Um, I did bring with me today Kevin Smith, who uh may be a familiar face to some of you. Kevin had worked with the Laurel School District for several years um when um when we were insuring the Laurel School District. Um, I want to tip my cap and thank uh, Superintendent Torx and uh, business clerk Julie Jones for taking the time to uh, allow us the opportunity to present to you tonight. Um it uh it is um a task and there is some definite information gathering that is uh is necessary and uh again I I want to thank the superintendent and

028the business manager for the opportunity and for helping us along the way in terms of making sure that we had all of the adequate information we needed in order to uh to provide this uh this school district with a proposal. As I said, you know, we have had a long-standing relationship with the Laurel School District. Um it uh unfortunately uh went away three years ago and uh we're extremely excited about the opportunity to be before you tonight and hopefully uh be able to uh once again work with the school district. Um the Montana schools property liability insurance plan. Uh we planted a flag in the state of Montana in 1995. Um we started insuring school districts back then and there has been some transition but some of you may recall the western states insurance days

029and then the pay west insurance days and now the firm is Marsh Mlennon. I don't think there are going to be any future name changes as I mentioned uh on Friday with uh with the superintendent and the business manager. Um we think that number of that name is here to stay. Um but again um we planted a flag in the state uh in 1995 to be the leader in the property and casualty insurance space within the state of Montana and uh we proudly uh carry that out to today. Uh we are the largest uh property and casualty insurance program in the state of Montana covering uh covering the Scholastic K12 public entity space. um we ensure um many many districts in all four corners of the state uh including most of the doublea school districts

030as well. So um suffice it to say that we uh have a track record of uh of handling um large school districts, school districts large and small frankly and uh we feel like we do a remarkable job uh in that front. Um the the proposal that we had put forward um needs I guess a little bit of explanation. Um you know I did I did have the luxury of knowing what the school district paid last year uh when we put forth our proposal. Um and uh of course the property and casualty proposal that we put forth this year um at $341,000 represented um about a about a uh 20 thou $30,000 savings over your expiring proposal. But not only is it a money thing, we think that there are some coverage distinctions that are are

031worth worth mentioning. And I don't want to bore this board with a bunch of detail, but I do feel like it's important to touch upon some of the highlights, if you will, of our proposal so that you can get a flavor for uh for some of the differences. Um the the first thing I think is really important to mention is the fact that our proposal is a guaranteed cost program, meaning that that cost is the cost quoted is the cost that you will pay period. um as opposed to a competing program which has an accessibility provision. Accessibility provisions or special assessment clauses give the insurer the right to come back and assess members additional premium should they have a financial problem in their program. Now you will likely hear that that's not a big issue.

032um the assessment provision is shouldn't be a factor and I'm here to tell you tonight that it is a distinction with a difference. Uh I'm a broker. I'm an insurance broker and when I see something in an insurance contract that is adverse to an insured, I go back to the insurance company and I tell them to take it out. Uh and sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. But the rest assured that that is in there to protect them and not the Laurel school district. So that's a big distinction. We always say if there are two programs that are comparable in coverage and one has an assessment provision and the other doesn't, why would the school district want to take on that financial potential financial liability of the assessment? So I think that's important. Um

033also, um we had the good fortune this year of switching carriers, which um resulted in some significant premium savings for the benefit of our membership as a whole. And not only were we able to do that, but we were able to increase limits of liability, limits of coverage for for the benefit of our members. So you will note that in our proposal there is $und00 million worth of quake coverage, earthquake coverage and uh you will note that there's also hund00 million worth of flood coverage uh including 25 million for high hazard flood areas and 25 million for moderate area uh moderate flood areas. So that's a that's a distinction I think is is important as well. um um d uh our our boiler and machinery coverage is is more than double our competitors and we're

034also using a $1,000 deductible on that coverage as well. That's important as well. Um, another compo component of our uh program that I think is a benefit to the district uh is our non-monetary defense coverage, which um I had explained to Superintendent uh Torx and um the business manager last week that um we had had a couple of districts that were bumping up against a $100,000 limit um with some very um technical specialed type claims. and our carrier after we tried two different times finally the third time we were able to get them to increase that limit to 250. So our program has 250,000 competing program has a h 100,000. Uh and frankly we had two doubleA districts not too far not too long ago that um bumped up against that $100,000 and almost eroded

035that entire limit. And that's what um preempt or what caused us to go out and and request those increased limits. Uh important distinction is in the cyber deductibles. We um have engaged with a firm called Paladin. Uh and Paladin is a uh uh they're a wholesale broker, but they also provide cyber resiliency training and efforts uh for the benefit of of school districts and others throughout the country. And as a result of our relationship with Paladin, our carrier has agreed to um offer a $25,000 deductible on cyber claims. However, that seems like a a rich number. However, the Misplip board of directors um which is governed by business managers, school district uh superintendent, and trustees just like you, uh felt like it was appropriate for us to help with that. And so if a district,

036if Laurel were to come on board with with the program and renew with us after a three-year hiatus, um we would ask the district to become Shield Paladin Shield Upfort Shield activated, which is a 10-minute process. Uh and by virtue of doing that, you're doubling your coverage and you're also driving your deductible down to zero. So, the Misplip board has said, "We will pay the first $25,000 of that deductible," at which time then the carrier, the insurer would would would jump in in into the mix. So, that's a really critical uh uh distinction as well. Uh our disaster management coverage um uh is much more broad um than just active asalent. Now, that's it's it's too bad. It's terribly unfortunate that we have to be talking about active asalent coverage uh in a school setting,

037but it's real uh and uh and uh it's something that is really critical. Um but our program coverage is much more broad. It covers natural and man-made disasters. So, not just the active act of asalent. So, that's another important distinction. Travel accident uh policy we have in place. Um that coverage covers three classes of uh people. Uh it covers trustees, school board, schoolboard trustees, employees and also volunteers. So, in the terribly unfortunate event of a fatality, if the school board trustee, board uh employee or volunteer happens to um happens to uh there was a fatality involved, our program would pick up coverage for those three classes of of people as opposed to just trustees. So, I think that's another distinction. Um we talked a little bit last week about the uh uh deductible waiver. So,

038in the event the Laurel School District finds itself in a situation where uh it might have a claim coming up, we will allow the school district administration to consult with one of our approved attorneys to have that visit. And if that visit or if that matter ends up becoming a claim, then we will wave the deductible for the benefit of the school district. Uh so that's a really important uh benefit as well. And then also investigative expenses. Um we have a $7,500 limit which is three times the limit of the competing program. $7,500 limit um for any investigative expense cost. So, this would be if you uh uh the school district found itself in a situation where it was too close or it felt like it couldn't uh it couldn't uh impartially investigate, then if

039you the district wanted to bring in an outside investigator, typically an attorney, we would pay that $7,500 as well. So, I think it's critical. Those are some of the high points I guess of the distinction of the of the program. Um, we obviously um would allow the Laurel School District to utilize its choice of attorneys from our uh uh our pre-approved list and uh I think that the Laurel School District has utilized those attorneys in the past as well. So, um for various types of claim situations. So, we would allow that to happen. we're not going to impose any uh requirements to use specific council if as long as you use them from the approved list. So I think that that when you couple the price difference and again this is you know this is

040uh several thousand over your expiring premium. When you couple that with all of the things I had mentioned, it's uh it frankly is a pretty clear choice uh in in our opinion and we'd certainly love the opportunity to have Laurel come back into the Misplift program. Uh we think it's uh uh the the right home for the district and I'm obviously available to answer any questions that uh the board may have. Thank you. Uh Mike I usually keep it on, so I'm not used to not keeping it on. Um, are we in a flood is the is are any of our buildings in a flood plane zone? Mad. Uh, Mr. Chair, trustee, I I we would have to look at that, but it's suffice it to say, it's a national it's a national system. So

041if you are if you are in that flood plane, you're still going to get up to five times more coverage with our program than you would with a competing program if it's a high hazard if it's a high hazard area. But that would mean that sorry that would mean that we'd have to complete those buildings would have to be completely flooded out to the point I mean because flood insurance to what I understand is that you have those buildings have to be I mean water damage gone away washed into the flood zone to my understanding. No that's that's not how our policy would respond. That's not so um so we would treat that as a as a as a a property a property claim. your flood, just to follow up on that question too, I

042think include included flood from sewer. Is it the same flood or is this are those two separate um occurrences? So flood from a which none of our buildings are in a plane, but it but if say we did have like a sewer backup situation, that would be a covered claim. That would be a covered claim through the flood or through property. Well, we would submit it to the carrier. It's the same carrier. So, it's the same carrier on the property as it's offering the flood. And so, how they would decide that's that's truly their call. But, we would we would have we would be at the table with them discussing that. I mean, it's it's one of those things where if it's property or if it's flood, it's the same carrier. And so, either way,

043it's going to be we're going to take care of that. Had a Devon question about that cyber uh thing that he mentioned. Are you familiar with that? What what would that take for us or or are we already set up with that? The the specific Paladin certification thing, but I know how the Paladin programs work. They have um it's a lot like No, before they have online training you can go and you can do um they also have a a browser extension that you add that goes into your inbox to monitor for things. Um and it's it's a good active defense. It's pretty highly rated. So, it's like no before then. Yeah. But it also has other inbox tools for Did you questions from the public? Right. Thank you for now. Thank you. and I'll

044stick around obviously and answer any questions that might arise. Thank you, Mr. Board, chair, members of the board. Um, my name is Matt Karmac. I'm with the Montana Schools Group Interlocal Authority, MSGIA. And, um, I appreciate your time tonight. Um, I know insurance isn't always the the most exciting topic to discuss, but I'll I'll keep it short and sweet. But, um, first off, I want to start by um, thanking the school board and especially administration with working for with us um, the last three years um, as a member of our property liability program. Um, you've been a great addition to the program. Um, little history on MSGIA. We've been in existence for about 35 years now. Um, our whole focus is public school districts in Montana. started as a work comp um program back in

045the late 80s um when there was a kind of a work co work comp um um tragedy for school districts. There were it was such a hard market. Um you weren't able to get coverage. So our self-insured program started at that time. Um it is true that we are an assessible program. It's been 35 years now. We've never assessed a member a penny. We we the way we structure our program with our reinsurance contracts, things like that. um we protect those large catastrophic losses from the need for assess assessing our members. And so in 35 years, we've never assessed a member. Um and it's the way we structured our program and and purchased um you know those reinsurance contracts and things like that. 18 years ago, our membership came to us and said we need

046relief on the property and liability side as well. Um at the time there was one program um our competitor's program was in place before us. That is correct. um our membership came to us and said we need some relief and so we started our director at the time started the program um built it from the ground up in the last 18 years we've went from covering no school districts to about half in the state um we see constant growth each year um our whole focus for this program is for the benefit of public schools in Montana that's all we do we don't cover the town pump down the street the law firm in town or anything like that everything we build from a risk management program coverage structure and things like that is focused some

047public schools in Montana. We feel like we're very good at it. Um if you call our office, if you don't, it's very well, you will get somebody. Somebody will answer the phone and if the person you're not you're looking for is not there, they will be back to you um very quickly and I don't care if they're off that day or what, our responsiveness is topnotch. Um we're there to serve our members. Um really our whole focus is the risk management side to pre try to prevent claims in the first place um before they even develop. Um, we have a very strong team including two full-time risk managers and Annette Sadderly and Brenda Ko. Um, we're very fortunate. Brenda, former assistant superintendent in the Billing School District, um, lives in Shepard, um, is, you know,

048right at your beck and call and can be here at any time to support your administration or district in any way. Um, from a coverage standpoint, I'll be honest, both programs are great programs. Um, it's funny. Last year I was talking about how our quake and flood limits were the higher of the two and obviously that's changed this year. We carry $75 million in quake and flood limits. They now have a hundred. You're going to see those slight nuances. Um, overall, you know, we have a $2 million cyber limit compared to a million. So, there's some changes, differences in coverage throughout. I'll be honest though, 99% of the claims are going to be handled very similar between both programs. Um, what I will tell you is with our program, you're going to be working with

049an in-state adjuster, Jeremy May in our office in Helena, um, or myself. I do handle a little bit of claim overload claims as well or overflow. Um, you're going to be talking with an instate adjuster, um, that is going to be responsive and help you along the whole way and can be down to Laurel in three and a half hours if you have a claim that needs immediate attention. Um, that is one big benefit. Um, rather than talking to a different adjuster every time you have a claim and who knows where they're going to be based out of. Um, I know there's always, I'll be honest, there's always an advantage to the company um, that's providing the proposal, especially when they know the expiring premium. Um, I think we're close. I don't I understand we're

050maybe not the lowest in price, but um I I think the value that our program offers between the safe schools training, the risk management efforts um and the ability um to really try to help prevent losses from occurring in the first place. There's a there's a lot of value there that you can't tie to just the bottom line premium dollar. And it's not always, in my opinion, about the best cost. I fight it every year with my homeowners policy as well, looking at the coverage and service I'm going to um be provided. And I know the last few years have been a really hard hard market, especially on the property and li liability side and costs have gone up um over the course of the last three years since we've covered the district. Um I

051think there's been about a $25,000 increase over that time um from when we wrote the district three years ago. So, I understand could cost do go up and um totally understand the board's desire to get another bid and totally respect that decision. It's really a great thing about having two carriers in the marketplace right now because you do have options and that's healthy for the school districts and your budgets right now. Um but I will say the package that we offer um and the services we provide, there's a reason why we've seen the growth we have the last 18 years. Um, you know, one big benefit too that I'll touch on real quick is access to the Safe Schools training platform and your your bus driver is able to get their 15 hour renewal credits

052through that program. Um, which is a service that's made available through you to you through the program. And so it's things like that. Everything we do is built around school districts to benefit you um and really be there to support you. Couple things I'll mention real quick. We have two eight eight new cyber um courses coming online through safe schools this year that'll be a available July 1st. So that'll be available for your staff and IDT department. Um we did work with the network for inter internet security to develop a 28 question survey which the district completed back when they joined us um three years ago. We get a 25 disc% discount to know before services through our program. So things like that are all available to you. Um Brenda was planning on scheduling coaches

053sponsor advisor training with the district later this summer. So that's another thing that's no cost to the district that's done by a risk manager. And there are every year you do have the ability um at no cost to the district to have a a schoolboard legal training done by MTSBA as well. That's something that typically is about 1,500 bucks that we cover that expense. If that's something you're interested in, schedule it through us if that's something you ever do want to do and and we cover that expense. Um, you do have the ability to work with whatever attorney you want. Um, we while we do have an approved list, we also work with attorneys outside of that list. Um, and if you've got uh obviously a a specific case that you want a certain attorney

054on, um, we discuss it with administration. We don't have a problem with that at all. So, um, that's really kind of what I want to talk talk about. I I want to thank you for the relationship we've had. Um, I hope to continue that relationship with the Laurel School District. Um, and happy to answer any questions you may have. One question I have and maybe it's for both of you and I didn't understand uh Rodie when we were talking on Friday, but I didn't understand until Julie and I got to talking later and I brought in uh Wayne, our facilities director, but talk a little bit about either one of you could about the asbestous. Um, I had told Roie at the one time that I wasn't sure. I think we did all of our

055asbestous testing and all that on our own, but I don't think we do. I think we do utilize some services from you guys. I don't I I can't remember exactly what you said, Rodie, on the on that. So, if you would just talk a little bit about asbestous services and what that looks like. You bet. And I don't know if you want to talk about it here or if you want to do it during the work comp because um the next agenda item because and what it is I'll touch on it real quick is Annette Sadderly in our office has the designations required to meet your state and federal asbestous testing requirements which is required every three years. You guys are um actually scheduled to be done again in July of this year. Um if

056you don't use a net there's about seven actually including a net there's seven vendors in the state of Montana that are licensed to meet the federal and state um through the workman's comp then. Yes, that's so Kevin will touch on that as well, but absolutely we'll go deeper into that during the work comp session. Yeah, that's the next one. My apologies, guys. Britney, um so trying to compare. Absolutely. You know, being buried on apples to apples. Um I don't see where you have any section that covers like our broilers and our machinery. Am I missing that on the It is in there. We have $100 million in boiler machinery coverage. Um, it's on page I was just looking at it. The coverage summary is on page um Oh, I don't have page numbers. If you

057don't It's okay. I think I did find it. I apologize. Yeah. No, you're right. It's right after property. There's the boiler machinery. We have $100 million. And we handle your boiler inspections right now through the Hartford steam boiler. Handle handles all your annual inspections. Um, yeah, that's done on an annual basis part as part of that program. So, because you're a member of both our work comp and property and liability pool, um you get that discount. So, that is something to consider as well. Um if by chance you were to leave the work comp program, you wouldn't be eligible for that discount as well. So, that's a consideration. But is that about 5%. Yeah, it is 5%. And just to be very front with you, I'm not a salesman. we, you know, that's not what

058we're here to do. We're here to service our members. I don't get a commission off this. We're here to truly provide the best service that we can for public schools in Montana. Um, you know, we feel that our programs the best suited for public school districts in Montana, and there's a reason we designed it the way it is. Um, and and that's our whole goal. I've been with the program 13 years now. Um, and it's been uh great watching the growth that we've seen and how we've been able to help our schools over that time. This change was made before uh before I got here, so I can only really attest to working with MSGIA. Um, you know, and again, I'm not I'm sure I'm sure the other one's fine, too, but I've had, you

059know, a lot of positive experiences working with, you know, Sean and and Matt, and I will tell you guys, um, you know, I got their cell phone numbers and call them anytime. So, u I can't attest to the other one just because I haven't worked with them and I haven't been a part of that program might be the same thing. Um you know Julie has any comments she can jump in too. But um as far as ease of use we we're we're okay but we again we're Julie and I are always thinking all right how can is there going to be big difference in money? How can we uh look at always being responsible with the budget? So that's why we ask for these And I did work with um the other group when I

060first came and they were fine. I had no problem with either one. Again, we just went out for bids, you know, three years ago and MSGIA came in lower and that's just the game we play, you know, we go back and forth. Who are you guys underwritten by? So, it depends which line of coverage. Yeah, we're uh our property program is through the Allian property insurance program. Um it's uh a large program that's specifically designed for public entities. Um yeah, our liability side um is uh um Oh yeah, draw a blank. Bear with me. Um Oh, man. Great American. Excuse me. Thank you. It's Great American right now. Are is any of that underwriting located in Montana or is it all outside? So, we actually do the underwriting primarily at our office, right? So, um

061that's the the love of uh running a self-insured pool like this is I get to play adjuster, I get to play underwriter, get to play risk manager, you know, we do we're not, you know, a large insurance companies that got every um different department with the specialization, right? Um and so I we do the majority of our underwriting here. Now, we place our reinsurance coverage through these other carriers. We've had long-standing relationships with these carriers. Um, and and so, you know, that's one thing that we haven't jumped around to different carriers a lot. Yeah, we're making sure we're we have competitive pricing, but if you play that game where you jump around a lot, eventually there's no more carriers left at the end of the day um to provide you reinsurance coverage, right? And so,

062because of our loss history and the way we've structured our program, we haven't had that need to move around a lot. Um, and and we do our underwriting though primarily in house with the help of our reinsurance partners. And I'll be honest, it primarily is based off of what those costs do to what our members have to pay because those are direct costs that affect our budget, right? And then and that impacts your pricing. Um, so um, property coverage, what is the deductible on because it 5,000? Yep. And we cover the sewer backups as well. And then you have on here that you have unscheduled animals 2.5 million um per animal and then watercraft of 2.5. Yeah, there's a bunch of sublims. Um and you you know that there are some schools that have um

063you know recreational farms and things like that. Um the watercraft really doesn't uh um apply very often, but you do see schools occasionally doing float trips and things like that. Okay. So, it's float trips, not like watercraft like we have a boat and well the the cover. It potentially would. It's all built into the program though. You're not paying additional premium for things like that. Um that's part of the um program structure of the API program. So, how does this pricing, Julie, um, compare to what we've been paying? Because I'm imagining just like auto insurance, there's a gotcha rate going on either through acquisition or renewal to a point, you know, where pretty soon it's like my All State one was like $1,000 a month and then I switch and it's like a $100 a

064month. How does that how has that happened here? Has this increased incrementally? How does this compare? And then how do you guys then this is a question for both of you I guess while we're in this space. How does how do you reconcile increases and is this an introductory offer or is this the you know can we expect a regular schedule of increase? Obviously that makes sense, but are we going to see it like today and then a big jump and a little jump then a big jump? What is the cadence of usually how I'll let Julie answer first? And I'll I'll just jump in before while you're looking for your answer. But one of the things that I worry about and why we're here today is that that you know insurance, health insurance, liability,

065property insurance, they seem to jump 7 8 9 10% a year, but our budgets don't jump up 9 10% a year proportionally. So, so that that is a worry I have as as things jump up and it's a worry I have switching over to someone new. It's a worry I have with our current uh that we're we're simply well we only it's only gone up 10%. It's only gone up 12%. Well, that's great. That's the word only doesn't mean anything to me. Um it's it's a major worry I have because my budget didn't go up 12% or 10%. Um yeah, often times I'm cutting money but my insurance goes up. So it is something and that's I guess that's one of the reasons why we always have to be responsible with taxpayer money because these

066are almost identical um costs. So I'm sorry Julie go ahead. Um I just you know I know last year um MSGIA was a lot more than what they are quoting this year and um not sure why the difference maybe because we're doing buildings or maybe we went out for quotes you know I don't know anyway it just seems like every year I try to budget another 10% you know thinking ahead of time because it just seems Seems like that's the nature of the beast that goes up every year, you know, and can't beat it. So point, how do you control that at the district not of business? So, no, absolutely. And I'll touch on that real quick is um the since co and I know this there's so many excuses on price increases since co,

067right? Since COVID, there's been a significant hard market cycle and and Rodie will attest to this as well. It's um affected the whole industry between natural disasters. You don't think a calip fire in California affects you in Montana, but when you buy reinsurance from the largest reinsurers in the world that get affected by that fire, it's going to trickle down to you, right? Um, and so that between the cost of construction, as you can attest to, new construction, how much when Lockwood High School built that high school five, six years ago now for $225 a square foot and now you guys are looking at over 500, right? On probably 450. Um, so that increases your insurability, right? The cost of And so the last four years have been like no four-year period that I've ever

068seen in the insurance market. Um, it's affected everybody. Um, you're seeing it on your homeowners as well, I'm sure. Um, I will say there's some light at the end of the tunnel. Um, it seems like the hard market cycle is coming to an end on the property side. You know, construction costs have kind of stabled out. Um, but really it's controlling what you control as far as mitigating your risk, trying to prevent claims. You guys have been really good the last three years. You haven't had a lot of losses. We've had a few liability issues and some minor things, but um, nothing real significant. I'd like to think some of that's because of our risk management efforts. I think a lot of it is relates back to good administration and I'll tell you a good

069maintenance guy is worth their weight and gold um or gal and so that on the property side um is huge alone but there is light at the end of the tunnel um and I think you will start to see some leveling out increases going forward um but it has been a very tough three to four year period that isn't just we're it's not just us that's had these increases um it's been across the industry and our competitor will say the same thing, I'm sure. So, let him respond. Good. Yeah. And I guess to no way of introducing on increase per year, per contract period. You could you could double our insurance next year. I mean, theoretically, we would have to say, well, we'd go out to bid. We don't have uh Mr. chair, members of

070the board, um just to kind of give you some insight. Um this is a combined number um both workers comp and property casualty, but uh the proposals that and I'm not trying to mix them, so bear with me, but the two um those two combined numbers um if you were to come with us, you would have been saving nearly $50,000 over your expiring premiums. So, I don't know how that happens. Um, I mean, I don't know from one year to the next how that happens so much, how how how much there's such a big swing, but my suspicion is is that because competition entered the mix, that had something to do with it. I can tell you our program as a whole on an aggregated basis took a decrease this year. Uh, what I mean

071by that is the pool as a whole took a decrease in premium. Now, some members may have may have um had an an increase and uh but generally speaking and when I when I say some members may have had, we take a look at historical loss history um when we underwrite uh as well. I guess I do want to talk real quick about the changing carriers um with Marsh McClennon Agency being part of the Marsh organization. And Marsh is the largest brokerage in the world. So, uh, that bigger isn't always better and I want everybody to be aware of that. But what it does do for us is it opens up a whole litany of market potential in terms of trying to find an alternative carrier. And I just want the the board to be

072aware of that. And then of course, um, I would tip my cap to the maintenance gentleman here too, Wayne. he has done a remarkable job and and the relationship that he's had with Kevin Smith over the course of the past several years. We too feel like we uh provide the districts with whom we work more than just an insurance policy. We we we we provide more than just the four corners of the insurance policy. the risk management programs that we offer and that's on-site visits reports that I know u many of the trustees have probably seen seen before um in terms of getting a set a set of eyes a second set of eyes back to the district to help you with those maintenance issues or liability issues uh and and then the um online

073team platform that we offer um it allows the district to provide all of the training it it needs um and uh we can augment that personally with with our resources. Um Marsh McClennon has uh 12 or seven different loss control prevention specialists within our firm. Uh some live in Billings, some live in but some live in, you know, so we have that network of people that that can come and help the district far beyond just the four corners of that insurance policy. I wanted to make sure you were aware of that. But then how so just in regard to increase in policy no cap you can't put a cap on the increase contractually. Yeah, you know, so that's a great question and um you had heard about the hard market cycle. Um yeah, several years

074ago we had we had implemented a rate lock guarantee so that the rate wouldn't go up beyond a certain certain portion and that was really good for a while. Um but it turned out to be a double-edged sword and the board of directors decided that we needed to discontinue that for a while until until the market started to stabilize a little bit more. But I I can tell you that we work extremely diligently with our board of directors and our carriers to make sure that any increase that's passed on is is thoroughly vetted and we're we're doing the the very best we can to make sure that we're trying to ease that burden on our membership. How about this question? How bad does it look if you keep switching insurance from year to year because

075you are trying to make sure that you're covered correctly, but that like I said, we don't jump that much. Our budget doesn't get to just be able to go, hey, we're going to throw a pin and that's the amount of percentage we want in our budget. So, how bad does that look if you do kind of chase that premium to ensure that your budgets are matching what you need to do for your community? That's that's I guess it's kind of an interesting question in the sense that if we change a lot are we going to are we going to pay for it at some point down the road and I can tell you that in um in traditional insurance that can come home to roost. If a carrier sees uh an individual insurer insurer change

076very frequently then at some point they're going to say you know we only get one bite at the apple. We're going to we're not going to we're not going to, you know, it's just one of those deals. We're just not going to we're not going to give them our level best because we know that they're going to change from year to year to year. Now, in our case, um our program, most members stay um with with all due respect to Mr. Com's comment about the growth. We had a considerable amount of district growth last year in terms of numbers of insured over the over the prior year. So we we are also growing and uh we have to get those school districts from somewhere and our numbers grew last year. And one other question since

077we do have two separate action items, can we hear them speak on the workers comp because it seems like they do play together at the same time. Do can we do do you guys do you mind doing that as well just so we could hear kind of what the I mean I can see and I can compare but at least gives you the opportunity to talk about your works comp side of things because we would have to make a motion on one and then we'd have to make a motion on another one and I'd like to hear both of them from you to understand what the whole vision looks like. We don't I don't and we will start with MSGIA this time on that unless there before we move. Yeah. Sorry, Donnie. Go ahead. Finance

078and majority of time working with programs. Um I believe both programs are in the best And so I think great. Thank you for that context, Donnie. We have any other board discussion before we move to the next item? Any public discussion? So, we'll just suspend voting on this item until the next item is heard and then we'll loop back and vote on this item. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chair, members of the board, uh, with your permission, if it's all right, I've got a handout that will just kind of kind of some of the notes I'm going to work from. You can work along then if you So, for the record, uh my name is Kevin Bart. I am the uh assistant director of the workers compensation pool for MSGIA. Um so, uh today, you know,

079we're here to talk about workers compensation. And unlike uh the property liability pool where the coverages can vary, in the workers compensation environment, coverages don't vary. They're statutory. they are established by the Montana legislature and everybody it's a one-sizefits-all. If the accident is commenceable, then the the uh rate and the types of benefits that are due are defined in statute. So, you're not going to see any variance on what we're going to sell and what our competitors are going to sell. Um we're selling the the same benefit structures. Where we are probably somewhat different is in our role. We're we're not in a profitm alignment at the MSGIA. We're here for our members, governed by our members. All of our uh board of directors are superintendent and business managers and trustees of school districts much

080like yourselves. Um with respect to cost, there are some differences in the methodologies of calculation of those benefits and that's where you'll see some of the variance in premiums. Um, and unlike maybe some of the discussion on the property liability and and where decisions need to be made or should be made on bottom line, I don't know that you always want to, you know, if you're a soldier, do you really want to have your gun built by the lowest bidder? Um, I don't know that with workers compensation insurance that that's necessarily the case either. And there are some differences. And the biggest one first and foremost uh is the one that that Matt talked with uh about the asbestous and the question that came up regarding asbestous in Montana. Schools in Montana have to assess

081and reassess their asbestous status on a three-year basis. And so, um, every 3 years, you've got to do that to remain compliant with federal and state statutes, uh, from DEEQ and EPA regulatory agencies. Like Matt touched on, we have one of the seven people in the state of Montana who hold all of the credentiing to provide that service to you to keep you compliant free of charge. and that's included with your workers compensation premium with us. In your case, you're due for that this summer and you're it's scheduled to be July and that schedule be will cancel uh and you'll have to take that action on as your own uh if that status changes. Um in the Laurel School District, I don't know specifically what that would be. Uh our estimate would be that that's

082probably somewhere in the $30,000 range. Somebody else might say 20, somebody else might say five. I don't pick your number, call a contractor, and find out what it's going to be. But I don't believe it's going to be cheap, and I certainly don't believe it's going to be anywhere near any pricing differential that you're facing today. I I think that is probably one of the key components. You can you cannot just go and get a credentiing by taking a 16 hour or eight hour class someplace and be a an a inspector that has the credentials to meet the needs that you are obligated to meet. That's a huge one. Um every year we provide and work with the Laurel School District to provide you uh pre-employment screening for three of your worker categories, custodians, maintenance,

083and kitchen employees. when you're going to hire one, we pay for the pre-employment screening because we think that's a value to make sure you're getting the right person hired for the right job. Um, that's averaged over about little over $1,100 a year over the last three-year window. Um, we provide a $500 a year annual reimbursement for your emergency operations app and I believe you guys use Raptor. Uh, we pay $500 towards that every year. um online safe schools. There's 600 plus courses available in safe schools and you guys are a heavy user of our safe schools platform to be commended for that uh in doing so. So that's of significant value to you as well. Um Secure Education Consultants are an entity out of Michigan that we contract with. We provide access to all of

084our members. uh they are a company that was formed by largely former secret service agents who uh will provide consultative services. We provide uh security specialist um access need when needed. We have quarterly webinars that are available for our members. Um and we think that this adds a significant value on the security subject end of things. Um, we've got the availability and have committed to providing the Laurel School District with uh uh ergonomic um garbage can lifts. And I don't know if you've ever seen them, but you got the big dumpster and the janitor rolls the cart out with the big gray 55gallon tote on it full of Endyear papers. And how do I get it over the dumpster? Well, we've got these lifts that roll it out and you release a hitch and after

085it's hooked on and those are about $2,000 a piece and I think we're looking at four or five of those uh available to any of your buildings coming up. Um we provide our monthly safety alerts written typically by either Annette or Brenda Ko uh former superintendent or assistant uh uh superintendent right down the road. Um, from a rating perspective, unlike the property end of things, workers compensation rates have been going down dramatically in across Montana and in Montana. The base rates since 2011 when the legislature implemented House Bill 334, which was a very significant piece of legisl legislation in the workers compensation reform realm. It reduced benefits somewhat. It ended benefits, medical benefit coverage after a certain given time and under certain parameters and and it and it really brought that uh every year rates

086have gone down for every every main car carrier and there there's a lot of carriers writing business still in Montana despite that. Um we uh we at at MSGIA we differ a little bit in how we navigate the pricing structure. You take in in essence how you price workers compensation is you take the payroll in a given class code and in we insure in two class codes 8868 9101. 9101 is uh your custodial uh sorts of folks and 8868 is primarily your teachers. Um you take that payroll times the rate and then you get your gross payroll and then you multiply that by experience modification factor. We calculate our mod factors over a five-year window whereas NCCI that our competitors use calculates it over a three-year window. And one of the reasons why we do

087that is because budgets, as you know, don't re respond happily to volatility in rate. And so this smooths our rates up and down a little bit better. We believe um right now the the Laurel School District is at a 1.02, which means it's a little higher than the 1.0 we like to see. and we think that we can continue to work uh and manage our safety uh components and safety delivery services to get you where we need to be. Um we've we've got the the like I mentioned earlier, the safety consultant right down the road primarily in Brenda Ko. Um our folks are available for walkthroughs. uh they do they're certified uh playground uh assessors. Uh they'll walk through with an iPad based assessment tool to provide you that extra set of eyes to looking

088from the outside in um within the the district. So, um, the reality is be beyond all that and and it it addresses your question a little bit, I think, towards the what happens if we bounce one back back and forth one year or the other to to a large degree. Insurance is a relational proposition and we've been with the Laurel school districts years and years, eons and eons, I believe, since the inception of our program in 1989. And we'd like the opportunity to continue that relationship because with that, you know, with that continued relationship, insurance isn't a while while you provide coverage for one period of time when in this case one year period, the reality is we that spreads that risk over a longer time when there's that longer term relationship. And I think

089that's sometimes why you see better pricing in that regard. But we really think that just what sets us apart beyond some of the other things I've mentioned is our adjuster experience at at MSGIA. We our least seasoned claims adjuster has 22 years of experience as a claims adjuster. Our most seasoned adjuster has 35 years of experience. Um that matters. I will tell you I've worked for a long time in this 35 years in this industry as well. Um I I was a claim manager and managed a group of much less seasoned adjusters and you can see a difference from a review and a managerial perspective and an outcomes perspective and I think that's something that is of equal importance when you're assessing and evaluating what you're doing and once again whether the low bid is

090the best bid. And so, uh, the other, um, the other thing that Matt touched on a little bit was we are here for we only do schools. We only do school claims in workers compensation. And that that's pretty pretty distinguishable, I think, because we are so laser focused on knowing what's going on in schools in Montana. And being able to to have that consistency of performance, you know, frankly, my wife's a retired educator. My in-laws were both educators. Matt's wife's a educator. John's wife's an educator. We are passionate people about public education and it shows through not just in what we do with with our folks at MSGIA but really how we uh look to help school districts in Montana. And for those reasons, I, you know, I really think that this program um offers

091a great value for what you're getting because of those distinguishing distinguishing characteristics and in particular from a from a purely monetary value perspective. When you look at that uh that uh asbestous related issue, you will see that monetarily it's it's a better deal. The one final thing is in our pricing, we price our um premium credits on the front end of our policy rather than a a rebate or a dividend based after the fact if our company did okay. And I think that's a distinguishing. You're probably going to hear that State Funds done a a good job over the years of of building a war chest of investment that's allowed for them to do that. Um and it's significant. I'm, you know, I'm not going to dance around that, but we we give you the

092money right up front on the front end of towards next year's premium when you've earned that premium credit and our board has declared that. We think that's important to make that visible at the time to value you and to reward that good performance. So once again, a slight distinguishment between the two programs, but uh I I really do think when you look deeply at it, it's much more than just a number on a piece of paper. It's that relationship. It's that history. It's that commitment we have to you and we have to ensuring company uh school districts in Montana uh with deep passion and laser focus. So appreciate your time tonight. Appreciate your ability and your willingness to look at this because I think it's it behooves you as a as a board to do

093so. So thanks for the opportunity. I'm available for any questions moving forward. Any board questions now? Oh yes, just for one second. Any board questions for this? Any audience questions? All right, we'll take that next presentation then. Mr. Chair, uh members of the board, again, Rodie Homeman, I uh I also have the the good fortune of working with the Montana State Fund on workers compensation coverage. uh and they have done a remarkable job over the course of the past several years and they uh they are really uh making uh inroads in the school um sector. Um the uh proposal that you have before you uh is extremely competitive. Um, and uh, again, if we're looking at year-over-year numbers, uh, the last year's number at uh, uh, the competitor was $110,000, and now it's down to

09492. Uh, interestingly enough, that's a pretty significant decrease on a year-over-year basis, and one has to wonder why. Uh, the Montana State Fund program is extremely valuable to school districts. Um, with our program, it's a guaranteed cost program. Again, you'll hear that you did hear that the assessment provision isn't that big of a deal, but if you have two comparable programs, one and and and uh my friendly competitor mentioned, they are statutory coverages, right? That's what they are. It's governed by state law. If you have statutory coverages uh and uh you got one carrier that's guaranteed cost versus the other that has an accessibility provision, a district might think twice about um uh you know putting itself in a position of a potential financial uh liability down the road on the assessment side. What you

095have with the Montana State Fund uh uh is a guaranteed cost program with a double dividend potential, two dividends potentially. Okay. Uh the first dividend is an all policy holder dividend. Um a few years ago, the Montana State Fund had a program their their dividend policy was loss sensitive, meaning that they only provided dividends to those insureds that had good loss ratios. Um but since their leadership has changed a couple of years ago, they have uh transitioned to what's called an all policyholder dividend. So, the nice thing about the all policyholder dividend is if the Laurel School District uh under the old program with the Montana State Fund, the Laurel School District could be doing extremely well and then on uh you know on the the last day of the policy period, they have a

096bad claim and that could you know ruin their opportunity for a dividend under the loss sensitive program. So, I really think from a public entity perspective, the uh the all policyholder dividend is is much more attractive. Um, talk about that for a minute. I was able to deliver nearly $260,000 in dividend checks to the Helena School District over the course of the last three years. Now, obviously, we're comparing apples and oranges. Helen is a larger school district, but that's a significant return in premium uh over over uh three-year period. Uh the same thing in but the same thing in East Helen. I was able to deliver significant dividend checks uh as a result of that. So that's the the first dividend. The second dividend potential is the safe schools dividend program where um if the

097pool of schools that are insured through the Montana state fund perform well then those schools can also be eligible for a dividend. Now that program is kind of in its early stages so no dividends have been paid out on that program. Um, but suffice it to say that as as the state fund gains traction in this arena, that's going to be a second dividend for for the benefit of of schools as well. Now, dividends can't be guaranteed. I can't stand up here tonight and tell you that there are guaranteed you're going to guar guarantee that. That's just not something we can do. But you need to take a look at the track record. So, in 2017, the Montana State Fund declared and paid 40 million in dividends. 2018 40 million in dividends. 2019 30. 2020

09820 million. 2021 20 million followed by another 40 million. 22 30 million. 23 35 million. And uh in 2024 43 million. That's an an enormous amount of money that's going back to the policyh holders. Um that's 22,000 policy holders. So when we talk about um knowing what they do, these the Montana State Fund is extremely good at what they at what they do with the Montana State program. Um you would also um have dedicated loss control and safety management consultants. The Montana State Fund has 12. As I mentioned earlier, we have seven. We're going to bring those resources to bear. The idea behind it, we want to send your people home safely every single night. That's our rule. That's our goal, right? Um, that's what we want to do is to do whatever we can

099to help the school district send their people home safely every single night. Um, there's no long-term notice to depart our program. So, there isn't some uh date that you have to have to tell us that, oh, we're we're departing. Um, the premium savings is is outstanding. Um, again, the I mentioned um last year's premium was $110,000. we're bringing in a a premium of $82,000. So when you couple the cost savings there with the dividend potential, that's an extremely amount a large amount of money for a district of Laurel size of Laurel. Uh so those are all kind of um I think important points that we want to make sure that you're you're aware of as you as you make uh make this decision. uh with respect to the asbess um and I and again thank

100you m superintendent Torx for explaining to me the um or correcting I guess what you had mentioned the other day um we have a relationship with uh industrial hygiene firms that we can bring to bear for the benefit of the district. We when I say we Marsh Mlennon agency uh has negotiated with an industrial hygiene firm that can come in and help with those things. That way, you've got a third-party contractor that has professional expertise, that has professional liability. In the event they screw something up, there's an there's a potential for uh recourse against them. Uh all of that is is important in terms of trying to help the district with that. So, we've been we've been doing that for a couple of years and uh uh I can tell you that the cost savings

101that we're we're generating by virtue of the policy coupled with, you know, the dividend potential um you would far outweigh you would you would be money ahead. Uh you know, $110,000 last year compared to 83,000 82,970 this year. Guaranteed cost program. Be happy to answer any questions the board may have. any questions? I have a ton, but I'll let everybody go for I have an asbestous question for Wayne. What's your uh experience in the cost of that? I mean, we have we haven't been paying that here, but what is your experience in previous with that, would you say, or even what did it cost us to do what we've done with the um schools even just recently? Extensive. They're going to do this is it's a three-year walk through. We're scheduled in July to have

102that done. And to be honest with you, I can't tell you what the cost is. It's expensive. What was it just to have them assessed for the bond? Do you remember that what that expense was about? That was broke down into each individual area. It's hard to tell. Okay, Britney. So with that because you had mentioned 30,000 roughly right is that what you guys are paying? We don't pay anything. That's every three years we have to do that. Okay. Ask Peggy, but I don't see that she's I think she had a step out. Yeah. I just was curious to know like what are we using for the pre-employment physical program? Um we uh have physicals for our maintenance and custodial and then MS pardon and kitchen. That's right. And uh that is paid through our

103current uh workman's comp provider. And so they pay for those physicals to make sure they meet the requirements of our physicians in the crisis management support. What have we done any of that? Um off the top of my head, how do how do we define crisis management support? Maybe I know it. Well, you know, yeah, our contract with um any assistance you might need is partly cris and his staff are available to help. You're not going to want somebody to help somebody media management. These people it doesn't need to be something that significant. It could be compared. So, do you guys provide any of those ancillary services as part of your um cost for physicals, pro background checking, those those things that we're utilizing today? Sir, uh Mr. uh chair, members of the board. So,

104um the Montana State Fund is governed by the Department of Insurance uh as opposed to a self-funded program which is is governed by the Department of Labor. The Department of Insurance is uh highly scrutinizes insurance companies and one of the laws on the books is rebating. And so, if uh re an example of rebating would be for the carrier to pay you something back. Now, the dividends don't count because they're a kind of all policyholder thing. So, it's actually unlawful for the for the uh Montana State Fund to pay that type of stuff. Now, having said that, um with respect to the pre-employment physicals, uh that is a benefit, but frankly, I think the cost savings that are associated with the program, Laurel School District could set itself up with a provider and do those

105same very same things. Um, and it's not like you have a significant revolving door where you're going to do 20, 30, 40, 50 of these things a year. Uh, it's not it. Am I misspeaking? I know. I know they're chuckling, too. I know. I know. We've unfortunately had turnover. We've we've had some certain Well, especially some of this stuff. Okay, that that makes sense. uh just just know that the the actual cost if you negotiate it with a provider in town is not going to break the bank. I understand it's a benefit and I and that's certainly worthy of worthy of consideration. So So I just want to make sure that you're aware the Department of uh insurance regulates and and uh regulates the Montana State Fund and so they're not allowed to do that.

106again, largest workers comp carrier in the state of Montana, 22,000 policy holders, $170ome million dollars in annual premium. Uh, so they know they know what they're doing. So for a district of our size and scale, and I know you obviously can't give me a number that I can hold you to, but what would it what would a dividend return look like for a school of our size? It's been uh it's been over 20% and as high as 26% over the course of the recent history. So that's a you know again weigh that into your mind that's a significant savings and now that is money that comes back to the Laurel School District okay to use it as it wishes. Now we always say and it might might behoove you to use it on safety related

107stuff but that's not an obligation. So, we're actually the Montana State Fund is actually writing the Laurel School District a check as opposed to something on a piece of paper that says we're going to use some renewal credits to offset your premium um what it was the year before. So, that's an important uh distinction as well. It's money that comes directly to the school district. 20 20 plus percent is what it's it's historically been. And your scheduled rating is based on what you believe to be our loss history is as provided by the district. Is that what that is? Schedule what? The scheduled rating of negative 27,000 off your $110,000 premium. Yeah. So So that's a rating is based on our loss history. Is that correct? That is based upon your loss history, but it's

108also based upon the the good things that the Laurel School District is doing. uh Superintendent Torx and u uh Julie had provided me with um some really good data that I was able to utilize to leverage for the benefit of the Laurel School District when I was negotiating with them. So, um our job again is to continue to work to drive that EMOD down. I want to see it as low as it possibly can be so you can control that expense. I use the I use the term uh your experience mod is analogous to the interest rate on your mortgage. You know, the higher the interest rate, the more your pre the more your home pay homeowners or excuse me, your mortgage is. Same thing with your with your workers comp. The lower your experience

109mod, the lower your premium is. and we work very very diligently to try and work with districts to lower that so that um so that on a year in yearout basis um you're going to be able to see the benefits. Now in your packet you did see uh uh the rate structure for the for the three class codes that are on the policy and you can see the downward trend on those over time. So, that's an interesting component as well that I think is important to to kind of take a look at. Uh, and I I can't speak to um why last year it was 110,000 and this year it's down to 92, but to me that's a saw to rate structure. Uh, and I only wonder what could happen next. And you can see

110the rate structure for the class codes that the Montana State Fund has had and that those are built in your packet as well. So that rating can go up or down each year based on that factor there, that 75 I'm assuming. Yeah, the manual rates are the graph. The manual rates are the graphs that are in the in the Okay. And then the rating would affect it going up or down depending on improvement or lack of improvement. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, hence the reason why we want to deploy all the resources we're able to do uh to deploy for the benefit of the district. so as to try and control that mod. Yes, please. Yeah. Yeah, you should because Donnie can so Donnie Glad to do so. Um I I want to make

111the distinction that that it's not $110,000 down to 80 something thousand in the quote differential. Our quote this year is 92,000 roughly and I think it's $83,000 something like that. So it's about 9600 difference. It's not 20,000. So that's that's a that's a significant distinction. But one of the things that can go into why that number went from 110 to 92. For example, you dropped a bad year off of that 5-year window of of claims examination or or experience modification uh calculation data. you drop one bad year off, bring another bad uh another year on. Premium uh payrolls might have changed some uh up or down. Those those vary and that can change the quote number as well. So, there's a lot of moving parts in that equation that it's not just, you know, we

112didn't throw a dart and hit a red balloon this time and last year it was a blue balloon. Uh we don't do that because what we're operating on is the best interest of school districts and trying to make our we're not looking for a profit. Uh we're we're a zero zero profit deal. So that that's a distinguishable uh difference and I I don't know whether uh loss history was requested uh Julie was it requested. Okay. So yeah that that that can weighs into it for sure. So, just wanted to make that distinction. Did you have more, Britney? No, some of the comments were answered on those questions. Question. Donnie. Yes. Go ahead. He's here. Okay. Uh, Mr. Chairman and Trustee McVey, yes, there is a waiting period. period. And the reason there is a waiting

113period is because the dust has to settle on work comp claims. So there's like an 18-month w period. So the dividends that would be paid out are paid out 18 months after the policy period ends. So yes, that that is true. But the reason for that is because in workers compensation claims can be reserved at a certain amount and if something bad happens with that injured employee that reserve can spike or conversely the reserve can um go down. It could be reserved at a really high amount and then lo and behold the injury wasn't as severe as we thought it or the the state fund thought it was so that it could go down. So there's that give and take there. So there is a little bit of a lag period, but suffice it to

114say that if you're a member of the Mont if you're a policy holder of the Montana State Fund, you will and they declare a dividend. Again, you will receive that dividend because it's an all policyholder dividend. There is a little bit of a delay, but you will receive it. I hope that answers your question. uh Mr. U chair uh trustee McVey. Yes. Uh the Montana State Fund looks at drivers separately, bus drivers separately. Um whereas the component lumps them into one category. Um the Montana State Fund segregates bus drivers. Hence the three the three class codes. Perfect. Thank you. Welcome. So I have a question then to follow up on Donny's question. If this is a year-to-year policy and say we were to exit from you during the same review next year, would we still

115be eligible for the dividend earned in that period or would you would we forfeit that? Uh Mr. Chair, that's a fair question and and yes, you would be eligible for that dividend even if we exited even if you left us or left the Montana State Fund. Yes. And frankly, um from our perspective, there's no re there would be no reason to leave because we know it's frankly the best carrier the best carrier option for for uh for for Laurel School District. But in the event the district decided to go there any benefit and I don't know if this is true in insurance but other contracts I work if we exhibit you know if we commit to say three years is there any possibility in insurance this is for both of you if we if we

116commit for say three years is there a difference in premium can you even commit for three years so those are kind of just questions I have like can we can we gain discounting or better premiums because we say we're going to be with you for a three-year period versus just year to year to year. Can that even be done? Yeah, Mr. Chairman. Um, couple issues, right? So, one is the property and casualty program. The other is the work comp program. Um, the Montana State Fund is the uh carrier of last resort. I talked a little bit about earlier how they were regulated by the Department of Insurance. they are regulated um extremely rigorously by the department of insurance because they are the carrier of last resort. So if the other program ceases to exist, you've

117still got an option. The Montana State Fund has to take insureds no matter what as long as their premiums had been paid from previous policy periods. So I can't tell you that there's going to be a there's going to be a a a rate benefit next year. I would say though that in the case of my long-term relationships with some of my schools that I have uh I have facilitated with the Montana State Fund, all of that comes into play. They're going to take they're going to take a very good look at this school district on a renewal basis. And so, hence, I think the the reason you want to you want to try and establish that longer term relationship, you know, and and we're we're more than prepared to do that. It's a year

118program assets that we've never had any concerns by our regulators either. But yeah, that long like I said, longterm stability is what we're after as well. And so that's what we know because you know one of the things with our competitors NCCI established the rates in Montana that have to be used as a base rate for our competitors. We test out our own so we're not allowed to use outside. So you couldn't really get into a threeear window guaranteed and have rates go up your two. So for Donny's benefit, the answer to both is no. We cannot we cannot lock a three-year contract, which is fine. I figured that with insurance is probably that way, but I have to ask. Go ahead, Donnie. Well, I'm going to ask for other questions if it comes back

119to you. Any other board questions or commentary? Any audience commentary? Go ahead, Donnie. Yep. And I'll answer that on the microphone here so you can hear it. Um the answer is yes. We need to be notified. Our membership agreement requires that we be notified by June 15th, um which would be next Sunday. So, we would just need written notification um prior to um June 15th for both programs. You're welcome. Thank you both. We'll probably circle. It's a lot. This is a lot to digest. I appreciate you guys trying to break it down for the board in a understandable ways. Um, it's a complex district with a lot of different uh coverages and things going on. So, this is not like your standard homeowners policy or auto. So, we really appreciate you guys trying to simplify

120that. Um, now you get to, as Britney always used to say, now you get to hear us talk about you in front of you. So, uh, now that we've heard both, do we have any commentary or or coming down on any, uh, particular decision at this time? Danny, well, I just obviously price is going to be a huge factor. So, there's one clear leader in price. Something we should consider is if we go with one on like workman's comp, are we going to go with them on the other? Because there is I know for M MSGIA the multi- line discount. So we should consider that maybe as the first thing. Um and then also weigh the the pros and cons of each. So, um, yeah, MSP LIIP is is the cheaper one. So, I think

121it's about 16k net between the two. Uh, 61.97 is the difference between those on the liability insurance. Um, from what I can gather, they are fairly the same on coverage. slight differences between certain things that both ways too. Both ways. Yeah. One one offers one is a little higher and there's others where the competitor's a little higher. So it it it's so I mean there's it it depends on what we need in that area maybe but it's not a huge significant difference from what is there a tiein with the schoolboard association or no? There is uh if we uh want to use MSGIA, we have to be part of the schoolboard association. Okay. So that is if I'm wrong, Matt, correct me. That is part of it. Um MS schoolboard association can be used independently

122of MSGA, but MSGA cannot be used independently of the schoolboard association. That mean you've approved the schoolboard association uh for us to use their services uh and that would be a requirement. If you hadn't approved that then this conversation Yeah. I think there's also something to be said for establishing just a long-term relationship with an insurance provider as well. And I know we've gone with both of you. So, and it sounds like they've both been f like great. You know, we haven't had no complaints complaints over GIA over my tenure here, right? And I believe Johnny has had good experience and Julie with the other as well. I mean, and 16K is not nothing. Um, and it is not it's taxpayer money. So, like you have to keep that in mind, too. we have to

123be cognizant of. Okay. So even though policies in my mind for the actual liability on certain things um MSGIA does have some of those additional services resources that you have to take in consideration. And I know they're underneath two different um uh parties within Montana, but I mean if we look at the risk management services under the consulting and training where there are several things that we probably do use and could use if we knew we needed them at that time. Um unique enhancements. I'm looking at resources. So there's that's where it's maybe a little different just because of where their lensure is at underneath the state. So they can only do one because of who they fall underneath on that and one because they can offer those investment services are it's a could potentially

124be a significant cost that would potentially alleviate the $16,00. And if we want to just talk money between if we between between them both and if we were to choose the cheaper of both plans 15,840 is what I came up with which would be Marsh on the on flatout premiums. Was it was it strictly a financial decision last you know it's hard because it's a lot I believe Donnie it was. Was it not a couple years ago? believe Julie was it was but I believe the workers comp we've always been with MSGIA since I've been here is that is MSGIA workers comp is separate that's not associated with schoolboard association is that correct I'll answer the microphone here um so the interlocal agreement that allows us to operate um as a self-insured school requires that

125we be sponsored by a statewide agency of some sort and that's that's made up of our membership. That's why the schoolboard association comes in. Um they're our sponsoring statewide agency that allows us to operate under that interlocal agreement statute and it is for both programs. Um yeah they're our sponsoring agency for the company as a whole since we are through the school board. Yeah, there's no issues there. Yep. That is that your only sponsoring agency? Um as far for to meet the interlocal agreement requirement. Correct. That's correct. Y we just uh and really it would come down to there there's only so many there you got um MTSBA SAM as well. You're kind of limited in statewide associations that are directly tied to our um clients. Right. So I would say just to point out

126if we are using that to the tune of about 1100 annually and I I don't know if that's I wish We well we don't know what the cost of that those uh screenings and checks would be, but is that what those screenings and checks would be through a vendor? Um I I don't know. I mean uh we would end up if we want to pay for those, it'd be it's a physical essentially. Yep. So that'd be a consideration. You know, if you go and get a physical, you know, 150, 120. I mean I I I do it through insurance but whatever an office visit would be would be what we would pay if we want to have that done. So it is something that is it is a cost to us. Again if we only

127hire two or three or four you know but we'll hire 10 a year depending on turnover with bus drivers is always a biggie. Uh you know custodians and maintenance we've had some turnover. We'll hire some new ones coming in. My biggest concern just personally is the is the uh asbestous but that's a bill we'll have to pick up. Well, it's additional vendor management too, right? So then those all have to get bid and those all have to be those all have to be managed and renewed every year. So it's also a drain on school resources to go through that function every year as well. On a different note, what I think of I guess is always from the teacher perspective is we've been last three years did the no before USA schools training the raptor

128and got trained on all this. to switch it would just be oh we just learned Raptor now we have to undo this and now we have to do a whole another training on a different web program and that just seems like another thing to make a teacher do like and that's the kind of stuff that kind of bogs you down and makes you grumpy so that's just my perspective love that perspective I mean but at the same time so if I'm understanding the state funds dividend because I'm reading it right now. Dividend amounts are a flat percentage of premiums paid. If the dividend, so the minimum dividend amount is 100 bucks. So, we at least earn something. Um, if the dividend calculates to less than 100, then the dividend is 100. For this year, the

129flat rate used is 26.04%. So, is that off the premium? That is correct. So, we could almost get potentially $21,000. which is meaningful. It's that's why it's like it's just shifting money in one pot when needed or shifting money in another pot when needed or utilizing a resource that year when needed. So that's why it's they're comparative just on basis of the needs of the district at that time which is hard to say we would know I mean saving saving a speestous possibly upwards in you know let's just say let's just say 20 so it's equal 20,000 of asbestous to 20,000 in dividends well we'd have to pay asbestous now but dividends come within 18 months Um, when I look at this, I guess the safe schools and the risk management training are huge and

130I don't think you can really put a value on the figure. I like all those pieces that are provided to our district. Comfortability that comes with using them year after year. You get more comfortable with them. I know that when we first implemented Raptor, everyone was getting text messages for days and figured out now. So, I'll just say I don't think we can make a wrong decision. Both of them have great track records. Both been in the state for decades, you know. Um I'm kind of leaning towards MSGIA for both just for stability purposes. is there's not a hu it's kind of pretty similar but either way the board decides I really don't think we the coverage is going to be poor either way so I'd agree because I think you're so you're saving on

131upfront premium in one however we're gaining some services that are sort of intangible and some tangible with the other so it's hard to ma measure that net benefit of the savings of the premium strict ly um the only advantage I see uh with state fund is the potential for a 20 to 26% dividend which would not be insignificant right so that would actually be an offsetter although not guaranteed so that's I think would be in my mind the edge did you still want to comment thank you again uh I just wanted to point out too that that that dividend is paid back to the district to use as it wishes. The the services that you had mentioned um the raptor uh the no before if you want to if the district wants to continue to

132use no before they have that ability to do that that's not something we're going to stand in the way of I can tell you that uh Port Shield offers those simulated fishing trainings as well. I realize there might be a little bit of a transition, but uh as your IT department had mentioned, he had vetted that a couple of uh a couple of years ago, and he thought he felt like that was a good resource as well. Uh I I do know that money's tight. Uh and I also know that all of the resources that everybody's talking about, you're going to get with our program. uh the safe the safe pupil, the infinite, the Brit on Brit online platform, all of those risk management uh uh programs you're going to get, but you're also going

133to get the benefit of the six or seven loss control consultants that Marsh Mlennon has as well as a dedicated loss control person from the Montana State Fund. They have 12 of them throughout the state. you'll have a dedicated one and they would also bring to bear any other outside resources from from expertise from another region in the event the school district needed it. So, uh we've been doing this a long time. Uh and I understand change is somewhat challenging, but keep in mind that for years and years and years, the Laurel School District was a member of our program. It was only you've been a you were you have been insured the Laurel School District has been insured on the property and casualty side of things far longer with our program than you have

134with with uh the competing program. So that's important to note as well. Thank you. Not an easy decision. That's two great programs. Can we take both? You guys split it. What if we could? I guess we could split the Right. Any other discussion? I'd entertain a motion on uh just to be clear on number C to begin. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Donnie. Have a motion by Donnie to move forward with mispl 26 school year. Second by Britney. We have any further board discussion? Any audience discussion? Seeing none, I do have a motion to re to approve or move forward with the proposal for uh property and casualty insurance coverage with the MSPIP uh Montana State Fund. What? It's a liability. Oh, and that's not safe fund. I apologize. M. Yeah. Sorry. I apologize. Um motion by

135Donnie, seconded by Britney. All in favor? I I Any opposed? Donnie, sorry. You approve your own motion. Thank you. Any opposed? The motion carries. We'll move to number D, which is the renewal of workers comp for the 2526 school year. Do I have a motion? I move to approve MSGIA as our workings comp insurance for the 2526 school year. I have a motion to approve MSGIA as our workers comp by Jenny. Do I have a second? Seconded by Britney. Any board discussion? Audience discussion? So, I do have a motion to renew our workers comp with the MSGIA for the 2526 school year. Motioned by Jenny and seconded by Britney coming to mind. Sure. Can can the district can we start keeping track of truly what resources we are using with MGS MSGIA workers comp? Because

136if we go with this and we're walking away with potentially $21,000 that we could have earned on a dividend, I'd like to know if $21,000 is being What's the cost for those? That is what I'm asking. So, I mean, if that's something that we can kind of track for the next year, are we I mean, because it's nice to have those resources, but if we're not utilizing them and we've just walked away from some money that we actually could have earned, I would really like to know that for next year. that might just to add to that that might include some vendor analysis of what these out would would cost us in the end. So I I just think be but by the deadline we probably don't have that time to make that that information

137available to the board. So we probably need to investigate those over the next year and what those costs would look like. So I agree with Britney 100%. So, circling back, we do have a motion on the table to renew workers comp for the 2526 school year with MSGIA. Motion by Jenny, seconded by Britney. All in favor say I. I. I. Donnie. [Music] The opposed. Motion carries. Thank you both. We appreciate your time tonight and uh we look forward to continuing working with you and and and reworking with you as a new board. Um we we appreciate all the time that you've put in and the services you both have provided to the district now and in the past. So, thank you. On behalf of Marsh McClennon and the Montana School's property liability insurance plan, I

138appreciate your dialogue and uh we look forward to working with you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you all. That's a tricky one. Good one. Is I mean the state has two really great funds. So that's that's the nice thing. We'll let them clear a little before we move to our next action. Okay. Are you on? I'm sorry cuz I did not hear you. Um, we're I Yeah, I just was waiting for them to clear a little so that we could move on. We will move on to our next action item number E, the MQC dues. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve the paying of the invoice for the membership fees of 2500 to MQC. Have a motion to approve the payment of the dues to MQC

139by Britney. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Jenny. Do we have any board discussion? Any audience discussion? Yes. Donnie on the plane, too. struggle so that we can confirm voted. Thank you, Donnie. Is there any other discussion? Public discussion. Do have a motion on the table to approve the MQC dues for the 2526 year. Motioned by Britney and seconded by Jenny. All in favor say I. I. I. Donnie. Any opposed? Motion carries. We'll move now through our information items. So, please stop me if you have a question or would like any commentary. First up, activities, curriculum director. Yes. Hello. Um, first of all, I apologize for not getting a written report in. Um, I am going to be working on end of the year data reports. Our state data should be available. Honestly,

140haven't even looked to to look at it yet for the district, but I will be working on that over the next week and a half. Um, uh, just a couple of things that I would have put in. We have 28 students enrolled in Jumpstart. That's our early literacy intervention summer intervention program that starts school tomorrow. So, 28 kiddos in that um students who are finishing kindergarten through 2 grade. So, pretty excited that we have a large group coming in. So, that's pretty exciting. Um and then in regards to the data, um I just want to put a shout out at first glance um at our district's data to our kindergarten team. they scored um 84 and 85% of their students at benchmark at the end of the year, which is incredible considering that a lot

141of those kiddos have zero school exposure coming into our district. Um we do have some with our kinder boost program now that do get some school exposure. We have a few that get some preschool programming through um local agencies here in the district, but for the majority of our kiddos coming into kindergarten, they've not been in a structured school setting prior. And for that kindergarten team to move 84 to 85% of their students up to benchmark by the end of the school year is no small feat. So that was just at first glance. I'll have all the data numbers and all of the the information for all of the grade levels in a report that I give to you guys before um before I'm out for the summer. But at first glance, just hats off

142to our kindergarten team. They mocked it. They Charlotte, just a question for you on the Kinder Boost side that you mentioned that. Y is there are we do we have any trackable data on th those students achievements benchmark against non-Kinder boost kids? Um, yes, I could pull that together. I'd just be curious to see the if there what so we can kind of show the efficacy of that and maybe plan on justification of an expansion of that program if funding would ever allow. Yep. Absolutely. I know that like some of the data that um that Mrs. Dah and I have looked at over the last couple years is I'm back and here she is. um is in regard to like those kiddos that are in the kinderg Kinder Boost program and how many of them

143need additional support once they move into kindergarten, first and second grade. So now that we've had the program for three years, we have those little groups and cohorts. Not all of the students who have been in Kinder Boost for the last three years have remained in the district, but of the ones that have, we've been trying to keep an eye on them, keep track of them in our educa system so that we can see how many of them have needed additional support. And I think the biggest change for Kinder Boost this last year was the legislative change um with the early literacy intervention. We have started using the P and so we use that. It's the assessment we use three times a year like K8 uses with FastBridge. So we can track their progress a

144lot better than we did previously with just curriculum. Um and this this year's kinder boost teacher just latched on to that and did small group interventions within the classroom to really grow those students um proficiency in in her classroom. Yeah. Yeah. I notic like if we had more than just the two halftime classes to offer that we would have parents that are interested. Um it the program is financially I think self- sustaining. We keep the numbers to the point that we're paying for that cost of that teacher. And all of the assessment tools and curriculum resources that we've had in the Kinder Boost program were purchased out of the literacy grant up until like right now. I just built a requisition for the PY licenses and that'll come out of my general curriculum budget this

145year. But previously up until this point, the program has been pretty self- sustainable and cost effective because we have used the literacy grant funds to get it up and running. But I think now that it is, I think that um it's a really good program and it gets quite a few kiddos some exposure to learning um and to literacy skills that we know are the foundation for so many other things as they enter school. And I would say probably 85 to 90% of kids who get screened for coming into Kinder Boost do qualify for Kinder Boost because a lot of it's just exposure and that those literacy pieces. There's a lot of the kids that are interested do actually attend or qualify. So there's my report. Great. Thank you. know my daughter who's a lefty,

146we could not get her to write and Kinder Boost boy she started writing so awesome after that. So we we anecdotal I know it's one kid but we saw a real boost from Kinder Boost with her so it was great. So any other things for that moving on to food services? Oh did I Oh yes facilities. Sorry I I had said facilities but then didn't. So, facilities, food services, technology, transport. Oh, Kelly, I just wanted to compliment Devin on a strong start and being on schedule. Um, I also appreciated the -ate information and it was awesome to have the graduation live streamed. Way to go. Yes, Donnie. program. Yes, absolutely. Any other discussion on technology, transportation, HR? Yes. Like three years, I think. Two or three. Yeah. I think you're it's the third year. Fourth

147year. I think it's fourth year. But with tracking this with her doing her numbers at a glance, um I really do appreciate that. I would almost now like to see what our turnover rate would be over the last three or four years just I mean because it's nice to see the the turnover rate on that year but what does it look like now I know that we've had some changes of course with different things I mean riffing and all that but it would be nice to just kind of see a a massive um look at kind of the couple years now now that we kind of have been keeping track Um, but I think Yeah, you could probably back the riffs out too to true up those numbers. Yeah, it's always great. Anyone else? Student

148services financial reports. The bond expenses as of May 2025 going quite nicely. I think the schools are looking great. Yes. So we'll move to that updated budget report. Anything else on that? Cash report, revenue report, expenditure report, high school activities, middle school activities. We'll move to principal reports with South. Go ahead, Britney. No, she has not been able to get her statement and I asked her, you know, last couple days and I don't know. So hopefully next next next Yep. Thank you. Principal reports south west. Yeah, Kelly, sorry. I just um Charlotte did such a nice job. I just want to echo that compliment. Those numbers jumped out at me when I was reading the report. So West. Yes. You know, at the end of the year, it's always kind of nice and I have

149a special interest in the buildings and um so also the reading scores for first grade. Excellent. Um the proficiency growth up 17% and reduction in high risk 14%. I mean that is awesome. Um I noticed that second grade held steady and sometimes that's the year that you have. So that's awesome too. Um, I also wanted to just compliment the citizenship award because I know that that is given um the team of teachers consider it and um citizenship is so important. So for first grader Benjamin Quinn and second grader Lola Espinosa, it's wonderful to recognize them. And then just the last thing on West School, I just love your resilience because I saw the staff photo where you were all wearing hard hats and then threw them in the air. So, you know, your building has

150had construction and change and I know they're looking forward to next year. So, yeah. Kelly, anyone else? Yes. Thank you to the West staff for putting up with the district's uh comingings and goings all year. Bethy's done a great job keeping them wrangled. I sat in uh the building meet the uh meeting the other day and uh Bethany does not pull any punches in there with all of those construction guys. So, she keeps them very I think uh there's a lot of yes ma'ams in that room a lot of times. So, thank you Bethany for representing the district well at at this building level there. It's great. Uh, graph Kelly, I would just mention on graph um on the last day of that school in operation um it was kind of coordinated for all the

151students to go outside and say the pledge. Um, and there were some first responders there and that got caught on video by a former secretary and I just thank you Charlotte for assisting that school to finish out the year and um, thank you Sunny for that idea because it was wondered wonderful to hear those kids' voices and it didn't take a long time but they'll remember they did it. So, yes, thank you to Charlotte for stepping in and helping with that uh with that school here in the last few months and with a lot of uh teachers, couple teachers, my daughter's teacher included, being out with long-term subs and balancing all of that out. Um I my family's personally appreciative of you helping bring some stability to the end of the school year there. So,

152it's very very appreciated. And I want to reiterate truly to step in and do two different hats. Two big hats. Yeah. Not even a blanket just smoothly went through. So wonderful. We We might not have said it during, but we were watching and so Johnny, were you gonna say something? I would also like Thank you. Charlotte. You're welcome. I had probably seven or eight teachers come up to talk to me personally about it. And not only that she was there, that the fact that we took the time to say, "All right, you're going to go over there full time." But in particular, the job she did and bringing that stability, but uh they just were impressed by the way she handled things. And that's not that every other principal doesn't, but it it this was

153just a real tough situation and she dropped everything to do that for those kids and it's a big deal. Thank you very much. Middle school Yes, Kelly. Um, I always like reading the reports at the end, Justin. Um, your leadership award to Emerson Harris is just like the citizenship award. And I think it's wonderful that the eighth grade team and you select someone. Um, I also enjoy the photos and the music and band photos. There were a lot of academic projects. The other thing that I really like in your report is the attendance and the behavior. I like to see that data. So, thanks for putting that in there. And I think that um you and I realize Mrs. Roberus isn't here tonight, but you guys make a great team over at middle school. So,

154keep it up. Anyone else? High school had a nice graduation. Wonderful. Well attended as usual. A lot of kids, a lot of scholarship money. Was great. I know that you spoke on your behalf, but please know you're going to be mad and we know a lot of our students really will miss you as well. So, we are hope you for the best for your decision and your family, but please know you were big part of what we needed you for those years. thought his contract had like a lifer clause, but I guess it didn't. So, thank you to all of our staff this year. I know some of you are listening online and uh the ones that are here. Can we just give a round of applause to all of our staff this year? It's

155a lot of work to run a district this size and so you probably don't get appreciation enough from from us. So just very formally thank you and please the principles that are here please pass that back to your staff and Wayne to your staff for keeping this place running and uh livable habitable for all the students. Uh we very much appreciate all of that. So, we'll move on to number D, the committee meetings. Uh, May 5th, 2025, district operations. May 19th, 2025, district operations superintendence report. I have one thing that uh we did hire a new custodian that we didn't recognize. If he's here, I wouldn't mind having stand up. Um, there. Thank you. Uh we uh finding custodians has been an incredibly difficult uh situation. Uh Mr. Anderson has uh you might know him

156from his work at the paper and he's also run his own cleaning business in the past and done a lot of that type of of work in that industry. So now he's going to come and help us out as long as we'll have him there. We appreciate you uh taking the time to do that. So, I didn't get a chance to recognize him during the uh our previous uh consent agenda, but I'd like to take a moment to recognize him for this. Thank you. Welcome. Yeah. Thank you, Ch. Yeah. Thank you for sitting through bearing with us through our insurance discussion. uh resignation report. Yeah, those two in the back uh for losses to the district and yes, very excited for you to be in your own town. It's going to be great. Oh, go

157ahead, Jenny. We are. Yeah. Yeah. On the lump. um that are going to be um they they don't because we don't have we haven't traditionally put them through under the leadership and learning here. You know what I will I'm just I've just got to go through and approve everything that I can. A little more time. Yeah, I'll try to have those to you a week in advance. Uh so I'll shoot for the end of next week which uh should give me a chance to go through everything because I go through them page by page u and then uh as I do it I can even start sharing them as I get through one sharing it out that'll give you 10 daysish to go through and I'd say the elementary remember last year they really went

158through a lot to harmonize a lot of yeah it's probably gonna the high school I think is going to have some changes. High school would probably have a few changes. Yeah. I I anticipate the high school over the next year that's when the uh Dr. Bington will have a chance to really Yeah. Thank you. So, yeah, there'll be some changes, but she's she when we just talked with her the other day that she's really looking through really going through it, but it might take her a year to go through that job vacancies. MTSBA liaison report. Donnie I do not have a written I did attend the reason and as a result of that [Music] meeting as a delegate Thank you, Donnie. Any board commentary there? Just congrats on your point. Uh your appointment. Congratulations. Congratulations,

159Donnie. Sometimes that's how it goes. uh we'll move into discussion. So let's talk about some committee assignments. So my my thought has been you know I want to and Britney's new to committee assignments now. I mean because she's kind of been on all of them on them years ago but new to new now in this board. So, as an official member of committee, um, what's everyone's thoughts on the the committee? Yeah, Britney, I know that everybody and I can't speak for you guys, but if you like where you're at, I'm okay to just slide into your committee chair and and be part of that, Chris. I I truly So, I mean, if everybody just enjoys where they're at because they're just getting rolling or they're, you know, learning or they have a thing that they're

160doing, I'm okay. I'm not like after a specific committee or anything like that. I think we all have a good placehold and we all do well. So, if it's just it's just my suggestion if it works for everybody, I'm okay. That was my idea too to be in the places we enjoy or have the most focus in. So, I can everyone remind me where so you would go to you would like to go to capital planning then if that's okay. Yeah, we got Yeah, we do. High school bond here we come. So Britney's capital planning as am I. So is Jenny. And I like it. But I'm flexible too either. It's so riveting talking about broken doors and sewers backing up. And it was exciting to be on that committee about three years ago, but

161we've we've significantly ramped down. Um we'll ramp back up with a new bond. Um so Jenny's on capital planning as well. Uh where are you at, Kayla? That's right. And that's Renee. Is that a separate? And then Kelly, where are you at? That's right. And Donnie, you're there as well, right? Great. I I think that it's been working well. And if I mean, it doesn't preclude you from ever learning or being a part of, you know, anything. So, you know, feel free to if you would like to attend one, just let us know and we can make Man, I'm so good at dropping those u making sure that happens um for you. So, I agree. I agreed with Britney too that we should just unless we anyone really feels strongly to make a change, I

162think that they've been rolling well. I think people are in the right spots for the right right experience and right things. So, I think it's good. So to update on negotiations, uh we have reached uh tenative agreements with both uh unions both the classified and certified. So those are going out to their membership for discussion and vote I believe, right? Is that the right way to say that Matt Britney? Yeah. Yeah, they're going out for a vote. They thought I guess, but I think the um is it end of this week or end of some reason the 15's sticking in my head, but maybe that's not it'll be it'll we'll have it on the next agenda. And uh I'm going through right now with Wendy and we're trying to format those because they're formatted differently.

163We're going to try to match the formatting in both. Um and there's a little bit of a mess after we get done editing. So, we're still doing that. Wendy's working on one was an ab a or abcd one was a one two three. Yeah it's formatted totally different and then as we add things it gets unforatted. We spent a lot of time working on cleaning up language so that it has a better flow and makes more sense. And so I would say I was mostly with the um certifies, but I did sit in on the last classified as part of the last classified as well. And I'd just like to commend both negotiating teams. They did a great job um both at the district side and for the union. Um very appreciative of the cordiality

164and the cooperation between the two groups was was very very good. So yes, Britney, I'd like to mimic that. It's been very nice the last well and I've been part of that negotiation. So this will be my third year of negotiation. And I truly do believe that um Matt at the last time that the board met with the union two years ago, we kind of started a different way of negotiating and I believe it really came to fruition this this time around. just good communication, um, willingness to share, not holding things that we thought, "Oh my gosh, this is something that we have to hold." Like truly coming saying, "Hey, this is what we have. Let's let's figure out for everybody and find the solution." And it I really do believe it was nice. So,

165I know the union rep is not here currently, but I want to commend the union as well. It was truly enjoyable to be honest with you. It wasn't without rigor, but that's the important part is that we could have, you know, respectful debate and conversation and that that really went a long way for both sides. I think it's great. Any questions on those? Those will be coming before the board during the next board meeting if they if if the membership if the membership of the union ratifies them from their side. Uh the graph brick project at the graph goodbye graph open house. We had uh we had um Chelsea Hine was there and she did some initial signups and got quite a few people signed up interested in donating to get a brick. So now

166Wayne and I uh I've reminded them but we got to bring some hammers and chisels. We have to go out and see. First one first two we try to take off disintegrated. So, we're gonna see. Oh, no. That's not voting. Well, we just need to we just need to see if we can't do it with a little bit better setup. You know, the rubber ballots, some and just try to see if we can't get couple hundred bricks off of the They're all the same bricks, but try to use the uh flower bed is easiest accessible. I can't just start knocking things out of walls. And once they start knocking down walls, my fear is those bricks are just going to explode, crack all over. So, uh, Wayne and I, we just got a lot going

167on right now, but in the next week or so, we'll go over there with a couple chisels and some mallets and just try to see if we can't just couple hundred bricks to safely remove them would be pretty easy if they don't fall apart on us. Get the first couple maybe. That's what we're hoping is we can and we use the right if you start hitting things with a hammer, they just exploded. So, we're going to try to do our best to to pull some off there before they get to the construction mode. So, did we ever decide on like how many? Like, are we going to do a hundred for a hundred bucks or something? You know what? I'll I'll have to call Chelsea and follow up with her. Quite a few people signed

168up just at that deal. Now, that doesn't mean she hasn't collected a dollar or anything like that. So, I'll talk to Chelsea and report back to It seemed like a number of people stopped by that sign up just in that hour I was there. It was um it was neat to see the amount of people that I had no clue what we would have and there's quite a few. Oh, boardsmanship training dates. Yes. And I was supposed to bring those and I didn't. I have got some from Phelp Martin and I will email those out to you and so they're still on my mind. Uh, and I have not gotten any updated ones from the schoolboard association, but I had them send me things in Jul uh July and early August. So, I do have

169some from Phil Martin and I will follow back up with uh with um schoolboard association and try to get them online. Would you like the board to send you any no dates yet? No, I'm just going to send you the days that they're available. I'll take out the ones that don't work for Julie and I so it don't even go to you guys. And then you could just send back saying these these are my good dates and I'll try to match up with the seven of you and Julie and I what are the good dates I would be gone for a week in July. I know Julie's going to be gone. She knows her times. Um so we'll we'll see if we can something. Britney, I was just going to say make sure that we're

170not replying all send it directly to Yeah, just reply directly to Matt dates. See these are my bad dates. my good dates or whatever. I I'll explain it in there something with both because both do things a little different. Yeah. Any like extended or is anyone on like an extended amount amount of time in those in that time frame that six week period I'm going to be a tough one. I'm sorry but I mean I'm just It's good or bad, Britney. Yeah, we we have quite a few baseball games and I He just We'll We'll send you the dates and and things things will work out. Something will work out. So, cell phone use at the high school. It's quarter to 9. So, we'll just reference there. I mean, I don't have any high school

171folks here except for Mr. Still. Could you come up just for a moment? And I know Dr. Bon I thought was going to be here tonight. I didn't don't remember what she Oh, she did tell me that. Yep. Yep. Yep. Um I know that you guys were talking about some augmented cell phone use policy. The board would just want to know the basics. I'll give them that 10 days to look at it through their handbooks, but could you give them a little heads up and if there's any feedback, you can take that back to Dr. B. That's okay. So, I don't I don't The cell phone policy as it is is there's not supposed to be cell phones out unless under teacher discretion. Um, that includes uh earbuds. Earbuds as well. any any kind of

172electronic device. Um, and I think I think we need to tighten up the language inside of that and talk about what our um, you know, for lack of a better word non-negotiables inside of that is um, if cell phones are distraction inside your classroom, there's something happening inside the classroom that needs to be handled. I've expressed I've expressed to Dr. Bington, it's Mr. Stillson that whatever we do has to be something that's schoolwide. It's real difficult to say the Spanish teacher uh she she'll let us go and use the cell phones because she thinks there have some value or kids get bored at the end of the period. So some teachers do allow them to be on there. Well, you got 15 minutes left. Well, the bigger question should be is there other things we

173can do with that time that has more value, right? And then part of that discussion, the last discussion I had with Dr. Bington after she's spoke with you I think is that um you know teachers probably need to collect the cell phones and have encourage follow through um from the lower level all the way up to to to that policy or to to the um handbook. Then incred we need an incredibly consistent yes administrative and staff enforcement. If again if one staff member breaks and says put your cell phone away don't make me take it from you but then that same staff member does take one from another kid in another period system's destroyed. It might seem like such a mild mundane thing to do because Mr. Larash is such an awesome guy and he's

174such a good grades. He's such a nice guy and he just was checking the time which seems to be what they do on their cell phone. Um, so texting mom, but yet that's going to be a that's the so we let him get away with it. And then that hunter girl I got problems with constantly. I'm collecting hers. That that's that that kind of ins uh consistency destroys any type of policy. even if it's chewing gum in class, if you're not consistent and some kids can get away with it, you got all sorts of problems. And that's really been the problem and why the middle school has been so successful with it and why the high school uh hasn't been unsuccessful, but why any kind of change like this will require that to be successful.

175Uh I think overall pretty to the point between those that we went from just a loose cell phone policy to attempting to put some protocols into place, right? But if I'm hearing you and over time we've asked for kind of updates, we're almost to the point where we're like what the middle school is is Yes. Um Yes. Well, and I think it's going to be hard for we've kind of talked about it like the incoming freshman will have no problem with it because they've never had it. Sophomores a little bit. It's the juniors and seniors that are going to have like a just an absolute withdrawal and uprising over this. So, we're going to have two years of it won't even be that. It'll it'll it'll it won't be it won't be that long even.

176Um, in the end, it's what's the expectation? Uh it it's amazing. I can walk down the hall and say hi to 12 kids and 10 of them are staring at their cell phones and they don't even say hi back. And I just think it's a it's a social skill thing that we can help develop as a school. Uh that again just a little thing. These are just little advantages. They're not the sole reason we're doing it, right? But little advantages, right? Just want to add one more thing too. Um, I think this also needs to be approached to the BYOG policy too to get rid of that because you can do everything you can do on your phone on your own computer if you have your own computer and it's very hard to monitor and

177manage from the teacher perspective. So, it'd be awesome if we just since we have one to one Chromebooks we just enforce one Chromebooks and got rid of it fully. Um, I'm also in favor of it for security reasons, right? And that's one of the things when students have brought their own personal devices um I've told them that they can't have them with whether it's a MacBook or iPad or whatever that they need to use their school issued device. I think the key is enforcement, right? Kind of. I think we have the framework. It's consist consistent enforcement. You know, the teachers who don't have a and mo there's a lot of high school teachers that don't have a big problem in their class because of they've been there a long time or whatever it happens to

178be. But if if if they're able to help the newer teachers and the ones who do struggle and it's a consistent across the entire school, it helps out everybody. It helps the young the newer teachers, the younger teachers or the newer teachers. Uh the the veteran staff, they're going to be fine either way because they're already fine. Um but it's going to really help out those younger staff members. Right, Britney? But I do remember a conversation when we started talking about the cell phone use that we told the staff if it needed to be the board's decision to make this so it falls on our shoulders of this decision that we would take that on so that the staff wasn't like it was theirs right I mean it truly is coming from us I mean

179the learning capabilities you know some of the deterioration of the brain which we are finding out but it can be brought back just by simply putting those electronic devices away. Social skills, talking to your neighbor. Yeah, you only have 15 minutes and you're done. Guess what? Just keep it down. You can probably talk to your neighbor. And guess what? You might learn something from that person. So, I'm in full support of it. I know that my son would hate that I just said that knowing it as his junior year, but I am in full support of that. I think the board is all in that same boat, Britney. So, I I think so. I I'll be curious when we get back to when we bring in the um handbooks. This will probably be a big

180part of that discussion and how it looks. So, awesome. Anything else? All right. Thanks, John. So, do we have anything on the docket for the for uh future board meetings, Jenny? I think towards the end of July or even early August, we should talk about open houses for the new additions because the whole community, not just, you know, yeah, not just like open schools community open house, not not school open house, that'll be the principal, meet your third grade teacher, but this would be Yeah, this is open for a walkthrough of the public. Yep. And I think they should probably be different. I'm not Maybe we'll discuss it. Should be different. Yeah. And I've actually been promising people that as they talk to me. I'll say, you know what, we're going to have is something

181that's just open for the community, any community member, uh, to come and and do a walk through and either on their own or a tour. So, that is in the planning. I just don't have dates of occupation yet. Once I have dates of occupation, uh then then then hard those hard dates, then we can set some dates. We can always say something along lines like when it's a wedding, not a save the date, but hey, be aware this is coming. So something of it may it could even be in September after school started. We could do evening doesn't have to be in August. So we could even set dates if they're willing to do it in September when we know school's going on. We can set open house dates along that line. I know we

182can't discuss it today, but uh like a ribbon cutting or some kind of other formal opening. So, um those I think would be tied together and uh yeah, I think we'll know that better. They're getting every week they're going to get closer to having a date certain for us for delivery. So, yeah. Yeah, Britney. So I would like to look into our food service and what menu items we provide to the students. Kind of like do we you know three choices but are we providing three low quality grade choices just to have choices compared to maybe some two higher grade choices that provide better nutritional value. Um and maybe you know something. So kind of like and then pricing. What does that look like? cuz I know that we have a contract and I know

183that we have some um parameters that we have to abide by, but I really would like to see are we giving our kids the best nutritional and can we maybe give them better if we can reduce it something nice to do that before they design the menu for the year potentially. Okay, any others? I just have one which is uh Fourth of July. We're going to be fine this year, but we we need to maybe discuss what we can do um for future Fourth of July potentially to um accommodate that on a school space if there's one available. So, we just need to need to visit. Can we maybe possibly piggyback on that and let the community know that it's not us saying that we're unable to work with the city because I'm hearing that

184on the streets that that's the school district school district's unwilling to that's not true and that's not true. So I would like to say share something out there that that's not on us. we have been doing our possible job. And I think and the fire department chief guy or whoever it was kind of made a post about that too that was like very clear like it's not the district they're trying to work with us. It's just you know we're making s significant capital improvements to that corner of the part of there that and those changes kind of make it difficult to allow hot things on things that are made of plastic. I mean which is what our turf will be, right? So probably not the best place to launch fireworks anymore. So yeah. So I

185got those three agenda items for future. Anything else hearing? None. We're done. I finished tonight.