Committee of the Whole: December 8, 2025

001I call this committee, the whole meeting to order on Monday, December 8th, 2025 at 6 PM. If we could please take a roll call. >> I'll do it. >> Bridget Sandlin here. >> Katherine Potter >> here. >> Jason Janza here. >> Mindy Hartman >> Here. Stacy Salt, >> Julie Jetty >> here, >> Darling here. >> I'm filling in for >> Okay, sorry. >> That's okay. >> Uh, next up we have the acceptance of the agenda. Items for discussion may be added to the agenda at the start of the meeting at the request of superintendent or any board member upon majority approval of those members present. Does any board member have an item to add tonight? Hearing none. Next up, we have community input. Can someone grab a sheet, please? >> I was hired. >> Thank

002you. >> John, were you speaking on behalf of a member or were you just speaking here with as a presenter? Okay. Okay. Thank you. So, we have no community input tonight. Uh, next up, we have the approval of previous meeting minutes. Uh, the approval of the minutes from the November 10th, 2025 meeting. Is there any discussion on that? Were we all good? Moving that to consent. To consent, please. Next up, we have discussion topics. First up, we have the data wrangler proposal. Mr. Martin, >> you good evening. Uh, so basically I brought uh a new company like to the board uh to present information about uh how another way we can save on our energy uh charges that uh we get uh exposed to when we're not using our assets to their their full optimization.

003And uh basically data wranglers they um uh install a device on the uh electric meter and they can uh see all the ways that we are being wasteful with our energy. So some of the other things that we don't see just you know on the outside their system can see it uh from the use of energy and monitor it. And with that, I'd like to introduce Jim uh Keepy from Data Wranglers, and he'll explain the process. >> Great. Oh, I can see it there. Okay, >> let's see. We're on. Okay, great. Thanks for hosting, by the way. We appreciate you having us come in front of the board. I've done this probably 30 times for Wisconsin school boards and it's always really enlightening to hear and this you guys are one of our first Illinois

004school boards we've talked to. So appreciate you having us. Um we started the business back in 2019 and really we're focused on industrial customers. We switched over to school districts when actually one of our industrial customers sat on a school board and said, "Hey, you guys should try this. It's working for our business." And since that time, you can kind of see here, um, we have now over 70 Wisconsin public school districts using our product and service. And actually last year at the Midwest Facilities Masters Conference in the Dells, I had a number of Illinois districts start to ask us uh questions. And at that point, we said, "Okay, we should look at the going into Illinois and talking to school districts in Illinois." And I think Dave, that's kind of how we linked up

005if I'm not mistaken. So let's see, we can go to head to the next slide. So one of the things and really why we started the business was historically utilities bill you for the energy that you consume. And so it kind of makes sense like if you go out to dinner, uh you purchase uh your favorite meal, you pay for the food you consume, right? But now imagine the server comes back to your table and says, "Oh, you sat here at a certain time. Here's another bill for sitting here and it's the same amount as what you just paid for dinner." And then they come back to your table and say, "Oh, here's another bill because you came here last month with a party of 10." And uh so they keep bringing you charges for

006things other than what you consumed. Okay. And so the utilities have kind of started to do this over the last couple of decades where the consumption and that kind of under the curve there used to be 80 or 90% of the bill for electricity. But now what we're seeing is that utilities are putting more and more charges into the highest demand peak. And whether it's the peak in the month or the peak in the year, that one-time peak is becoming a much larger percentage of the bill. And so what we're starting to see both in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and really all throughout the Midwest is that one-time peak can be as much as costing wise as the entire building consumption for the month. So, one-time peak in the month can cost you more than all

007the energy this building is consuming in the monthly period. >> No. So they they will the the utilities meters for commercial and industrial so for schools not yet for residential but for commercial industrial will their meter will measure uh the the consumption every 30 minutes and it's an average. So they'll look at the 30 minute rolling average throughout the month. So basically they're taking um two measurements an hour so about 50 measurements a day effectively right over 24-hour period. And throughout the month then they have taking okay 50 time 30 days in the month. So they got about 1,500 measurements and of those 1500 measurements they say what was your highest measurement in the month and we're going to charge you at that peak for your peak demand charge on the bill. Does that make

008sense Julie? Okay. And and I'll show you an example of that coming up. So if we go to the next slide and um Kerry school districts is a a good example of this and in fact the more Illinois school bills we see um we see this across the board. So you guys are not unique. All school districts and a lot of businesses are subject to the same rate structures um that Carrie is and this is constellation. So Dave has done a great job in terms of negotiating the supply and I'm going to just pull up my slides here. Negotiating the supply portion of the bill which at the top of this page you have a $19,000 bill and at the very top you have the fixed price for energy which is negotiated and that's about

0095.9 cents per kilowatt hour. So that is the energy portion of the bill and that energy portion you can see here is $6,000 but the bill is $19,000. Okay. So you're going wow we we're paying 6,000 for energy but our bill is $19,000 right? So where does that where do the other charges come in? Well there is a capacity charge which you can see is 255 kilowatt peak at $8 per kilowatt. That is the PJM um peak charge and it basically is when the system operator for the whole Chicago region has their highest demand, they will measure your building at that same time and say whatever your building's consuming, we're going to charge you at $8 per kilowatt of that peak. So that is a peak charge. Then the next one that I have highlighted

010is the transmission service that's measured at a peak time in comet and this would I think it's come correct correct Dave you guys are come. Yep. And so that's charged at $4 for every KW and that charge is about $1,600 a month. So the capacity charge was $2,000 on this bill. The transmission service charge was 1,600. That's another peak charge. So that's 3600 so far. And then if we go down to the last highlighted charge, the distribution facility charge, that is your highest peak measured in the month or in the billing period. And that was $490 kilowatts. It's labeled K1 on the bill, but that's charged at $14.57 per peak, per kilowatt of that peak. So that's $7,000. So that one-time distribution peak but $7,000 that's more than the entire energy consumed by the building

011of that $6,000 in the month. And so this was really the genesis of why we started this business because if we can put this information in the hands of Dave for example and his staff where they can see when these buildings are peaking and why, usually there is a really good opportunity to save money on bills. um that it's much harder to, you know, reduce energy usage. Obviously, you got to keep the schools open. You got to have the classrooms running. You got to have the lights on. You got to have the heat on. But there's usually very good ways, and we found this over time for schools and businesses to reduce those peaks in their month and save a lot of money on their bills. Any questions on the bill structure? just because I

012know it's very comp complicated, but I really was trying to highlight the kind of peak charges on this bill. >> It's like down down throttling your internet, right? During peak times. >> Yeah. It's You know what? You're not the first person to say that is the first question. How is this legal? Yeah. Um so what what's amazing is that utilities what's happening just in general is and it's happening in Illinois. happening in all the states around the US is utilities used to charge for the energy they deliver. But like when schools put in solar and when businesses reduce their footprint, um they can't charge as much because they're using less power, right? You're losing less electricity. You're putting solar on your roof, you're going to use less electricity. But the utility says, "Well, we still

013have to get power to your building and we still have to pay for us getting the power to your building and your solar doesn't shine at night, so we have to get you that power at night or when you need it." Um, and so they've been and also there's political pressure to say, "Hey, we're not raising rates as in energy rates, but they can raise them through demand charges and and they're kind of in a different bucket." But ultimately what's happening is for depart what's called departed load. So the utility if they're seeing less use they have to make up the difference somehow and one of the ways they do that is through these demand charges. Um and so >> by the state regulatory board these kind of >> they do they do. Yeah. >>

014Yeah. And they they so they do have to take this through like public utility commission and and get it approved. And usually the demand charges are based on you know if all like for example this school right you're on a distribution line you see the power line coming into the school and they would say okay we're going to take all the peak from all the buildings on this feed but the one time peak that might happen in a year just one time and it's theoretical but we have to build out our lines big enough in order to support that peak. So by making the tariff peakbased they do they are incentivizing schools and businesses to lower their peaks so that their lines can do to not have to have as much infrastructure to carry that

015power. So there's a business reason for it and that is how it gets through the public utility commission is because there's a rationale there's a market behind it. But is it fair to consumers? Well it's not my place to answer it but there are ways to save. So I think as a consumer what we're kind of seeing with schools and industrial businesses in fact we just installed with a big agriculture business in decelb um same thing high demand charges is we're giving those tools then for schools and businesses to kind of game back basically against the the the rate structures that the utilities are providing. If you have your own data and you can understand it uh there's ways to reduce the peak. Now, earlier this week, actually, we were talking to Glenbard School District,

016and I think it's applicable to you guys because you're about to put in a Goodsiz solar array, if I'm not mistaken. And so, we were kind of blown away, but they they had just put in solar at their high school. Um, we looked at their June bill and they had it was $18,000 was their June electric bill. Of that, $2,000 was supply. So $16,000 was from demand peak. So and I think more and more schools and businesses are going to see that. But again having the data to understand when the peaks occur can really enable schools to save significant dollars with the rate structures that come really and Amarind are the that kind of effectively have a monopoly then in in the state of Illinois. So, I don't know if I can say that. I

017know you guys record this. So, um, but let's get into the tactical details. So, in order to do this, we put in a meter right behind Comet's meter. And we want to be able to see every, you know, and have Dave and his staff see everything that's going on inside the building so we can see when those peaks occur. Um, we can also because you're going to have solar, we can also put a direct meter onto the solar so we can see the impact of solar on the bills because a lot of times schools say, "Hey, we put in this solar, it's great. It's producing power. What is it saving us on our bills?" That's a difficult question to answer unless you put in the rate structure. So, what we do in our software is

018once we put in the metering, we have our software that is a basically an energy portal. I think we have an example of it coming up. And we load in the rate structure for that building. So for example, the bill we just looked at for Kerry Middle School, we will load that rate structure into the software. So then we can see, okay, this building peak is going to cost this much money. So Dave can look through the lens of dollars and cents, not just, hey, is my building using power, but what is it costing us? So once we get the metering in, we will start to measure the building electric footprint. So one of the big the biggest power user typically in a school is the HVAC system. Um especially in the summer months where

019you've got cooling, if you got cooling in the summer months, the nice thing is you put in solar, it's usually, you know, producing a lot of power when the building is hot. So that's where solar really shines is it'll help knock out those, you know, hot temperature days. um in terms of electricity usage. It will also sometimes reduce demand peak in the month if the sun is shining at the right time basically. But it's kind of a crapshoot with the weather is you don't know because it could be a cloudy day and yet be a really hot day and the solar will not reduce your uh building footprint as much. In any case, we can map out the footprint and one thing we like to do is to have like um the schools cycle their

020HVAC system and we can actually measure all the different aspects of it and get a sense of what the power draw is and then we start looking at optimizing control of the HVAC system to minimize those peak demands. Even if we're not reducing energy, we want to find all the energy waste as well as Dave mentioned at the outset, but we're also going to reduce those peak occurrences. And I think I have an example a little bit later on in the deck to show on that. We in addition to HVAC, we'll map out uh food service is a big user of power. Actually, you typically it's about 25% of a building if they have full food service running can be um related to that. And then lighting is is lower now with with all the

021LED lights are much more efficient. Also though, if you have shop class, home and other things like that that those can be big contributors as well. So we will measure all of that. Next. >> Excuse me. Um Jim, >> it's me. >> Yeah. >> Um back to that last to that last slide. Um Yes. Can you just explain what does the time on off mean? >> Yeah. So this was an example of we were cycling uh this is a typical like spreadsheet. We're recycling the school's HVAC system and we're looking at the specific units for different areas that of the building and what their power draw is. So the t this the time was actually just the schedule of the when they were turned on and off for this test, but essentially it was mapping

022out how much does each you know air handler draw in terms of its electric power. >> Okay. Okay. >> Thank you. Sure. >> Quick question. Do we have like zones so with HVAC so we could turn something up in one zone down in another? Okay. >> Yeah. Exactly right. And and the more control a building has and I know Dave has you know good controls and I think maybe doing some control upgrades as well. Um which is great because the more control you have the more valuable this information becomes. So >> I have a question also on the new solar. Do we have the capability to shift all of our electric to our stored energy during those peak times instead of having to tap off of KMED during those times? Okay. So, I mean, we

023should be good as long as the sun is up. >> Right. As long as the sun is up. Although, I will say that you get this metering in and you're looking at your building load and you're looking at the solar production, especially after a couple years. We could evaluate, you know, very easily with the actual data. Hey, would it make sense to put in storage to be able to offset these peaks? But you really until you get the building running, you know, you probably want to see it first because energy storage is can be expensive, >> right? >> But there is a lot of activity in especially in like California, Arizona, those types of areas where electricity rates actually here you guys would be like, "Oh, that's no problem." In California, we work with some

024industrial businesses and that rate, you know, which I said is like $15 or $20 a kilowatt is $60 a kilowatt in California. So it's it's incredible. Um, all right. I I digress. So, step three, we start looking at the building profile. And this is actually straight out of one of our reports. So, the bottom graph there would be the electricity profile of the building during the full billing cycle. So, you can see the building, and this is a school building peaking uh throughout the month. You can see as it gets colder, the air conditioning kind of turned off. Um, but you can see in this graph the peak day was September 17th. Put my glasses on here. And the peak time was 100 p.m. on se 1:30 p.m. on September 17th. This is very classic

025for a school. Um, so school's back in session. This was probably a really hot day. Anyone want to tell me why 1:30 is the magic time? in a school defin that's part of it. So the school's fully occupied. It's a hot day, so your air conditioning system really gets going kind of in the middle of the day. And this building has a full food service. Yep, I heard someone say it. I think that's Jason. Um, so before food food food service starts to shut down around 2 p.m. and you can see that, but that that's a very classic time is between about 12 and 1:30 2:00 is usually when most school buildings peak and this might even be their annual peak because it's September 17th. So very hot day, school's just getting going and then

026they got a full food service running. So we will look at this each month and then we really the kind of the [snorts] first step of our meeting each month is to go through the peak day and understand it and as you can imagine like different times of the year there's different drivers of that peak you know it's obviously in summer and fall it's HVAC it's food service if schools in session um in the winter it could be something else so again we will identify all those contributors to the peak and then as we start to if I go on to step four here, the next slide, we'll start to find ways to reduce that peak. And um this is again an example where this district was able to reduce peak significantly. Um and let's

027see, I'm going to look at the time frame. Yeah, this was September. Okay, so September versus September 30th. So in this case um we were able to do some chiller programming as well as um I think we were identified some air handlers that did not need to be running in certain spaces and were at that time because they were unoccupied and uh we're able to reduce the building uh load significantly and save again a significant number of dollars. In the below the graph there is actually a snapshot from our energy portal software and Dave and his staff would have access to that software anytime they want in addition to our monthly meeting. So in that software we have the rate structure loaded and this in this case it's Alliant W uh Allian Energy in Wisconsin.

028Um they're out sort of in the central the western side of the state um in the Madison area as well and down by the border actually. Um so uh their rate structure they have um you know you can see the demand charge reduction. I believe the rate structure is very similar to comet about $15 to $20 per kW of peak. So in terms of reducing peak we can see that in the dollars and cents. We can also see the reducing on peak and off- peak consumption the savings there and that can be significant especially if you find waste overnight and weekends. If that's always waste and you find that, that can be a large savings um in terms of energy. >> Was this school district does this school district have solar height over there? Sorry.

029>> Sorry. It's just >> that's coming from behind you, but I'm in front. It's a whole meta thing. >> Um does this school district have this example school district here? Does this have do they use solar power as well or are they just fully on the grid? >> So, in this case, this district was fully on the grid. Okay. But I'll have an example coming up that has solar and we're going to talk about that. It's really interesting. Um, thank you. >> Sure. Um, so this next snapshot is kind of a little bit of a before and after. So on the right here, you can see the uh graph in orange and then that was when we first installed in a school district on in November of 2022. And then November of 2023 was a

030year later. And so they had a very wide envelope. You can see the energy um you can see at midnight the very far left of that graph you can see all that cycling that was going on and the graph's small but they're jumping from to almost 100 kilowatts overnight and we were able to find that was energy waste and there were air handlers cycling in the building when building was completely empty and it was settings and controls within the HVAC system. So removing that was a huge savings in terms of energy waste because that was 247 energy waste. we were able to tighten up the envelope of the building in this case. they didn't have kids in the building and then um reduce overall the usage during um kind of business or school hours here

031and you can see the reduction in the demand peak and then toward the end of the school day you know 3 4:00 again that school has sectional HVAC control which you asked earlier um so Dave has this as well for the schools and to be very strategic about shutting down different sections as they become unoccupied in the school building um and be able to then see the impact of that not only in the shape of the curve but the the dollars and cents savings related to those actions. So this was a before and after again this was a school without solar. Now if we go to the next page we'll do a school with solar. So this is also again a view from our energy portal and our in our solar reporting. Um so in

032this graph you can see on the upper right obviously the solar is in orange and this was a per almost a perfect day with no clouds. So when you have clouds, you're going to see that solar bouncing up and down. But in this day was basically a clear day. So the orange curve is very smooth. And that this school has a lot of solar. It has about 250 kilowatts of solar. How much solar, Dave, are you guys planning on the middle school? Okay. Okay. So this school's solar almost covers their entire building load in kind of the middle of the day. So we're metering their building load, which is in blue. And so the blue is actually what the building is consuming. And you can see they're they are kind of peaking around the middle

033of the day. 11 12 o'clock is when they're peaking. Um except for this other thing which I'm going to talk about in a minute, the beginning of the day. Um and then the green curve is what the utilities meter actually sees and is billing the client for. Now you can see that that solar is really uh removing a lot of the energy right that the uh utility meter is billing off of in green. However, and the reason we put this in here is I'm sure you guys now that we had the little discussion before this can identify there's an opportunity for this school building that their solar is doing nothing about in this picture. Any thoughts? Exactly. And so this is just an example, but so their demand charges are going to be really high.

034They've knocked out almost all their energy usage during the day, but that demand peak is still there and the solar has zero impact because it's their HVAC startup. And in this case, that was something we worked on with the school after this. Um, but it was staggering their HVAC unit startup. So they didn't have this big spike and get as a result these charges. So again having the energy data you can start and and sometimes it's difficult to get that programming right but if you can see the energy response to it you're going to be able to see okay how can we set it so that the building is tempered properly but also we're reducing that demand spike. And so you want to be doing that in addition to what the solar is going to

035provide to the district. And when you have both those things working together, that's where you can really minimize the electric bills um overall for for a building. And so this is again in the in the solar example, we also have the tariff loaded for the solar. So we can see the exact dollars and cents impact of the solar. And so this is really practical for when schoolboard says, "Hey, how much is the solar saving us?" Dave and his team will say, "We know exactly what it is. Here's the report. Here's the third party telling us exactly what they're measuring against our actual utility bills. And so this is something that we've actually heard from a lot of districts in Illinois is the conundrum of how much is our solar actually saving us. We know that

036it's, you know, producing a lot of power, which is great, but how is it saving us on our bills? Okay, the proposal. So we we definitely wanted to recognize that Dave is was interested in this and one of our early Illinois schools to be really interested to take this to schoolboard. Um we recently had Nutrier install uh metering with as well as let's see John who West Aurora last week installed this as well and both those schools have solar and and and they're kind of same same approach that Dave really thought about this is hey I got solar I want to be able to understand and meter that as well as optimize my building and so you would be the third district officially to we'd be working with in Illinois if you approve tonight. Um,

037and as a result of that, I also gave you guys some discounted pricing um, from our typical um, the installation cost when we mapped this out came in to be about 15,000 or 14 something. We wanted to give you that early adopter discount. So, run it for a straight 10,000 is what we told Dave we had estimated before we started. So, we wanted to hold that line. If we do that um with our monthly fees included, we estimate about a fivemonth return on investment for the metering, then that's inclusive of fees. And we anticipate what we see is about a on average a 15% electric bill savings once the school and Dave's team starts utilizing that data um to reduce those peaks and identify energy waste and remove it. So 15% electric bill savings is

038a very typical number for us. We sometimes see schools go way above it. Sometimes we're a little below it, but in general that's an average number we see. Um, and it does vary kind of depending on the season. So sometimes in the winter months it might be a lower percent savings, but a lot of times in summer when those buildings are lightly occupied or empty, there's usually a lot of opportunity uh to reduce those bills. And then those shoulder months also are usually really big savings opportunities. So, um, our monthly fee is $800. That includes all the software, unlimited license, so Dave can put as many people on it as he wants to go get login, look at the data anytime for the metering in the building. Um, it also includes monthly site visit by

039our client services staff. And as part of that, we have both rate experts on our staff as well as master electricians on our staff. So if Dave has a question about like, hey, I got an electrical question for you. You've got a free master electrician resource you can talk to about it anytime you want. In addition to the rates analysis and identifying those opportunities um that we'll be looking at every month. So there's a service component as well as the software and it is a fixed flat fee. And so the nice thing about it being flat and fixed is the utility rates are as you know utility is never flat or fixed. They are always raising rates seems like every year. And so as we find savings that savings gets more valuable into the future

040because our rate always stays fixed. So if you lock in again three years fixed rate by year three the savings that we're identifying is probably worth more because the utility has raised their rates. um especially on peak is what we're seeing. So the proposal is for um a three-year term and there's estimate there of projected savings um over the three-year lifespan um with the again the fivemon return on investment of installation cost less our monthly fees. Questions on the proposal? >> Is this 800 per building? That's what I was getting. >> It is uh per building. When we did the analysis though, we typic, you know, we we're looking at bill size and so economically it makes the most sense at your biggest bill. And so Dave really targeted to say, "Yeah, our junior high

041is definitely the one to look at first." And so this proposal is for just the junior high or Yeah, just the junior high. You know, if we wanted to look at the next one or what would be maybe a future one to look at would be deer path at least right now because that was showing $8,000 bill. Our typical cuto off for where it start the ROI return on investment less than a year. Usually it's in that $5 to $8,000 range. So that's kind of on the edge. Um but you know if we were to look at something in the future we'd probably you know with Dave's guidance probably look at where are those high demand charges occurring. you know, u maybe you're going to do solar at another building. Maybe we want to get

042some visibility on that as well. So, for tonight, it's just the junior high that we're talking about. I will say that if you guys were to add buildings in the future, we would discount the overall monthly fee because a lot of it's trip charge for our client services team as well. So, obviously, if we're doing multiple buildings, it's still one trip. So, that rate would be much lower if you added more buildings. be the sorry would the installation cost per building be 10 10,000 ballpark >> that's probably yeah fairly accurate I mean we would scope it out but yes that I think that's a fair number to assume >> thank you Mr. Martin. Um, we're projected next year to put solar in here at junior high. Is that correct? The roof and the solar starting

0432728 or 26 27th this summer. And so then in the timeline, where do you see data wrangler coming into play? Would that be for the 2627 school year or 2728? right now my recycling as well as in the summer when it's air conditioned. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Our recommen recommendation to Dave was to uh and a lot of schools look at hey when is the building occupied to do the install because there is a power shutdown because we're putting power right be or CTS right behind the main right. Um so a lot of schools like to use whether it's winter break or some other period when the kids aren't in the building to get that done. It's very short. It's about an hour or two to do the install but power does have

044to come down and come back up. So just to be transparent about that. Um but uh yeah in terms of getting it in we thought hey get the metering in get data uh let's see it let's start optimizing even before the solar comes in because it's still peaks it's still you know getting getting a handle on the building and then we would start the solar reporting obviously when the solar is installed and put in um at that time and then we would connect the CTS into the meter but the meter we would put in would be uh be able to meter both the building and the solar so it' be future future proof for when that solar install occurs. >> I just I'm a little skeptical of the numbers because [snorts] Ally told us when

045they put in the solar that the offset would be about 51% and so the numbers that we're looking at on the screen essentially would be cut in half, right? In terms of our cost. >> Yeah. >> Mr. Martin, could you step to the microphone? So I'm sorry about that. [clears throat] Thank you. >> Yeah. So then the data wranglers, you know, it'll work in conjunction with the solar. So their their information will basically analyze where we're wasting our electricity. >> Okay. And then that would be during the times that um there is no solar or over the winter like right now they wouldn't the solar wouldn't be working at all and then we could be wasting money on a bad air handler turning on and off or like in that one graph it showed it

046spiked at the beginning. They were to be able to give us that information and to better program our building system so that we could like uh have a better schedule of when we turn things on and off still maintain you know like perfect comfortable >> sure like absolutely >> weather in the buildings. >> Right. I just I was looking at those numbers compared to what Ally said and with the yearly demand charges we were I think we were operating under the assumption that those would come down significantly once solar would come in. Yeah. And so we're looking at 130,000 here on this number presented here, but we're planning on that number coming further down. Yeah. From that because of the solar. >> So the data wranglers would work in conjunction with it >> on those

047other charges that we don't have that much control over. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you for clarifying. I apologize for having that conversation off mic there for a little bit. >> No, we're all good. And then uh if if you wanted to go back to that one screen with our build uh Dave Shepard uh I'll just show you where we um are going to save some more on the price per kilowatt as well. So Jim had mentioned that we're paying like 5 5.9 cents per kilowatt. So starting in January that's going down to 4.7 is the new rate that uh I was able to negotiate with Constellation. So yeah, at the very top of that, you can't really see it, but the 059, that's going to go to 047. So we're going to save money

048on the kilowatt charge. And plus, like with this kind of system, it would help us reduce all those other like demand and transmission. >> Yeah, it's it's uh I've been doing what I can, you know, like to get those bills lowered. >> Congrat. >> I need more of a budget for that. you're you're doing a great job. And and so the reduction on the time sending that's all really the top half of the bill where we can impact now and what I'm I think what I'm understanding is the bottom line is data wranglers is here to help us mitigate the bottom half of the bill charges that we can't get to. >> Yeah, those highlighted uh line items. Yeah, those are the ones that uh they're going to help us figure out if something's wrong.

049Because like um if I call in the the mechanical contractor to look at a problem for like a unit, they're only going to see what's happening at that time where it could be doing something weird like overnight or or here there somewhere. So their team would help analyze like all those usages like on the times where I'm not in the building or nobody's in the building to see what's actually happening. In my mind, it m it makes more sense to start this at a school that's not getting solar because we're going to be paying we don't have that cost lowering solar coming in. We're we're absorbing all of those Kameed uh you know power charges. So to me it makes more sense to start at a school that's not getting the savings of solar. >>

050Yeah. the the difference there is that the um just the bill is not going to be as um you won't see as as significant a reduction because like the Kerry Jr. uses so much energy like every every electric bill is around $20,000. >> I understand that now because we're dependent fully on the grid. >> We're not going to be with solar. So to me, we're already going to see a significant 51% savings in our bills with solar. So to me, like why aren't we tackling the schools that don't have solar? >> Yeah. Well, it's uh the same thing like uh it just it makes that big of a difference because this building is so much bigger and such a draw, you know, like uh the the return on investment when we looked at all the

051other buildings, it was like over a year and a half. And I wanted to see it on a building like immediately, you know, like and see what the system could do before I figured out to spend the $10,000 on a school that isn't spending that much on their electricity to see what it actually would do on a school that is using that much before we add it to a different one or a smaller school. >> But I assume this school obviously we have far more food service going on here at the junior high than we do anywhere. We have, right? And I assume many more HVAC systems. >> Oh, yeah. >> In this >> definitely. Yeah. >> Um I see I see your I totally Yeah. No, I totally I totally see your point um

052as to why we might choose another building, but I'm thinking what we're hearing is really this bottom half of the bill doesn't change regardless of solar. Um which brings me back to the question I wanted to ask. Um can you maybe it's just say it in a different way or dumb it down for me. um the peak hour that's falling on the bottom half. Who sets that and when do they measure it against us because I didn't I'm not quite clear on it yet. >> Yeah. So on your bill here on your bill here you've got the the biggest charge is the distribution facility charge. And so distribution just for everyone's reference are the like the lines right outside the building. Whereas transmission is like when you are on the highway and you see the

053big tall lines that's transmission. So that's up above and that's a lower charge but that's transmission. The distribution then is saying comment okay now we got to bring it from the transmission lines by the highway down to your building just for clarification on what distribution is now that distribution charge on and this is I think gone up John I know you had some data on this I think comm's raising this again but I think on this bill it's take a look $1457 is that right? Yep. Okay. Um so this on this bill um the peak measured was 490.8 kilowatts. So basically 500 kilowatts on one of those 30 minute increments that the meter is measuring throughout this billing period. So this would have been let's see if I actually have the date range on this

054one. I don't. Do you remember what month? >> Pretty sure that was June. >> June. So this might have been June of uh of this year. Um, so in in that billing period, the build the highest measured 30 minute peak for the building was 490.8 kilowatts. And then again, they're charging $14.57 per kilowatt. So they're just picking the highest 30-minute bracket they could find, how much energy we used at that time, and then the power company sets this magic rate that nobody has in conjunction with the government. >> Right. Right. >> And that's where we get this massive extra charge from that has nothing to do with what we used. Okay, I've got it now in your words. Thank you. >> Y >> the fact that um interjecting a freight a energy broker into this

055add-on to the distribution rate that they charge? Well, like if we were to go direct with >> it doesn't it doesn't. Great question though. So no. So the brokers pass comeed basically through. So it's all comed. Um we've seen that multiple brokers the rate is basically the same for almost and constellation honestly is a good broker um one of the most used in the state um you know again other brokers might do better or worse again usually it's on that energy piece but what's happening is that energy fixed price energy piece is becoming such a small part of the overall bill that it's like hey like like Dave was saying hey I negotiated this rate well it's $6,000 of a $19,000 bill we have control over from a broker standpoint, right? And so unfortunately, KMED

056and Amaran have the lines and they're going to charge you whatever it is to get the power to your building through on those lines. So, it's kind of like the old before wireless came about, the wired uh phone systems, Ma Bell, right? Um wireless obviously disrupted that. Unfortunately, wireless power is is uh going to take a lot longer to take hold, but it's that same idea. So they're charging for power getting power to you over the lines and that keeps increasing. uh what was said earlier and I don't you know I don't know if Alli's right wrong I don't want to cast any dispersions but I will say that what we've seen and like Glenbard for example they they have very similar rate structure um they reduce their energy price a lot from the solar

057but if if the sun's not shining and your building is still peaking like it it is amazing where like you could have this $19,000 bill I'm not saying that's going to be the case here and like on their bill literally 2,000 of it was energy and 16,000 of it was peak. So that's kind of I think the new normal that like folks in Dave's position are dealing with where they're like, "Hey, we have got this building so energy efficient. We're using like very little of power and yet our bills are still going up and why is that?" And and it is because of the way the utilities are billing for peak. >> So for this elementary school in Wanke um Yes. Was this the bill that you were showing here earlier? Was this before or

058after you guys came in? >> Uh, which >> the slide nine, the Wanke Elementary School or Heritage Elementary School in Wanke? >> Yes. >> Slide N. >> Yes, that one right there. >> Because we we talked about the peak and okay, we see that there's a problem with the peak and this is from March 1st to April 1st of this year. Mhm. >> What did what did you guys do about it? Like what what did the next month look like? Um y >> what where's the actual numbers? Right. We could say that they've got a problem. It's obvious, right? But so then how did data wranglers help solve that problem? >> Yeah, great question. So I don't have it in the slides here obviously and partial of it is I want to be sensitive to

059other school districts, but I can absolutely tell you what we did. So and I think it's kind of obvious. I think even the board said it here. Hey, they got this massive peak at 6:00 a.m. No one's even in the building yet. Um, so really what it turned into was, okay, we found you you guys need to stagger your HVAC startup much more than you are doing. And so we worked with them. They they had limited control, but they did have more control than they thought of the startup of their HVAC system. And it was being managed completely by a third party company. And so we had to go talk to that third-party company and say, "Hey, school district and with the school district in hand, we need to change the startup of this building."

060And they kind of pushed back and we said, we actually showed them and said, "Hey, this spike is causing the district this much dollars. We need you to make these adjustments. The customer needs you to save the money [clears throat] by making these adjustments." They did. And basically, you can see it in the graph. So essentially their actual peak if you ignore that one time spike in this graph they're peaking around 200 kow whereas when if uh you know and there like if you look at about 7 or 8 a.m. on that plot when the sun's not out yet. That is really their true peak. They have the potential to get down to about 200 uh kilowatts. Now I'm talking about their peak was 350 kilowatt. So they were 150 kilowatts higher than they needed

061to be. And the rate structure there served under was I think it was a little over $10 a kilowatt. So they were a little bit fortunate. They wasn't the $ 15 or $20 a kilowatt, but that's still $1,500 a month start for that HVAC startup. So they'll be able to remove that every month $1,500 right there with just that one basically adjustment and you know so over the course of a year that's what $30,000 right um just for adjusting the startup of their HVAC in that case and reducing the peak. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. I guess one other thing Dave uh mentioned to me and we put it in the agreement and he negotiated which was really good on his part. He's really savvy and I would say you're lucky to have

062him too. He's he's really looking at every way he can save. Um and we've done this for many schools, but we give a one-year opt out. So, you're locking in with us for three years, but if we're not saving you our monthly fee by the, you know, by the end of the first year, you guys can opt out. I mean, obviously we've never had a school opt out before, but we put that in for just, you know, protection because we we, you know, we want to succeed for you guys, but we've, you know, we we put that in um industrials. Uh we've had one or two industrials pull on that, but again, that's a unique circumstance on the industrial side where maybe they were unwilling to make any adjustments with schools. We've never had an

063opt- out clause used, but we've definitely put those out there just to give the school coverage in case it doesn't work as well as we hoped. >> And if we opted out, that wouldn't reimburse us any of the 10,000 though. >> It would not. It would not. You you own that that meter. Um, but you definitely would be able to opt out the last two years of the agreement if you know, again, it wasn't performing. So, so speaking of the equipment, what kind of warranty is there on that? >> Yeah, good question. So, the um the electrical installers will typically install their work for at least a year, which is good. The equipment itself, so the metering has 5-year uh warranty on it for parts as well as the IT equipment's 5year. And I think

064we've had, like I said, I think 300 systems out. uh we've not seen any failures in the field and we've had systems out in like really nasty industrial environments. So we feel really confident. We also um meter or or in our back office we look at the data feed and so if the data goes down for some reason we immediately will connect with the school and determine hey uh you know your meter's been out. Let's let's investigate. Usually, it's a long-term like internet outage or a long-term power outage and then it comes back. But we are also always monitoring. So, if the metering were to go down, we can immediately alert and get that back online quickly. Um, whether we come out, which is great, or we can work directly with the school district, um,

065whe like the IT department, um, just a lot of times it might be just rebooting a server or something like that. >> And then any software upgrades or updates are just included, I assume. Yeah, it's all basically the software piece. It's all maintained and and insured. And then we also obviously am working with school districts and businesses. Uh some of them mission critical businesses, cyber security very much on top of that. We have a full process intake form. We have IT experts on our staff so we can speak the same language with your IT folks and meet their requirements for cyber. Um and so yeah, so we've never had a school turn us down for cyber. Um, so we have a very rigorous process when we get the metering installed with that. >> Thank you

066questions. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you again. >> And then yeah, it's all everything that I've seen. It's just yes and and pluses on ways to save on the electrical bill. >> So, thank you again. >> Great. Thank you for coming out. >> So I guess the the question that uh we would have then is looking from uh for direction from the board on how to move forward uh whether we want to pursue this option. Again, this is a data gathering tool that will really help us identify uh possible savings with uh our our energy uh energy consumption. Um, so we'd be looking for direction on on whether the board needs more information or whether we are good to bring forward a proposal next week uh for possible approval. >> Mr. Sheepard, so um

067for me um I didn't have any further questions uh for data wrangler, but um I guess I'm curious about what percent of our budget is going towards the energy consumption. um if this would be replacing anything. I know that we have some kind of monitoring building monitor system. I'm not sure exactly what it's monitoring or if this would be replacing that. Um >> so so I can speak to the the budgetary perspective. I believe um our electricity bills uh this past fiscal year were right about the the $500,000 mark, maybe a little little over. Um our total O and M budget for fund 20 is about uh is about $2.3 million >> um in in total. So $500,000 of that is going directly towards um electricity usage. Uh, and keep in mind that was pre

068uh the rate increase uh which was pretty substantial. I want to say it was about a 20% increase that went into effect for this fiscal year starting in July. So that number was only going to go up. >> It'll go down though hopefully if we have some sunny days and some solar on our route. >> Absolutely. It could go down and this tool could allow us to identify further ways to to save so that we could really reduce uh the energy bill on the electricity side. uh in a very impactful way that could allow us to um allocate resources that would have gone towards those energy bills to another part of our budget. >> Um would this be considered a new purchase service? this would be considered new because it is something that the the

069district does not have >> like uh the the treasures report per se and we're looking or if we're looking is it going to be something that falls under purchase services or does it fall under a different category? >> We would be I'm understanding your question correctly. Um >> I'm thinking about the graph that says what we're spending our money on. Is it >> this would this this one time purchase would would come under a purchase service because we're paying for the installation. Uh and then in the future that uh that $800 monthly charge would uh be found under the purchase services section. >> Okay. As far as does it replace any is it replacing? >> No, it it this would be totally brand new. a new way to monitor the electricity and like find those

070extra ways that we can optimize and just make the most out of the energy that we're drawing into the building. >> Okay. I guess like for me um I'm looking at it, you know, I think out outside the box, but I'm looking at it as as we keep adding new technology, cameras, security, monitors, and and and then we wonder why our energy bills are so high. Um that's just kind of where I am right now about it. But thank [snorts] you for answering my questions. Uh for me, I would like to hear like to be able to see some um information from the people that are currently using it like how is it working for them. I'd like some feedback and the chance the opportunity to ask them if they feel that it's it's been

071worth it for them to bring it in. Um you know, just before we jump head first into it. Yeah, I could definitely get some um reviews and like uh references from the other districts that have been using it and if the average, you know, is about 15% savings and that's what we we put on the graph as far as the return on the investment. So, it should pay itself back within that 5 months. So, for the the installation charge and the monthly fee and being able to opt out after a year, so like it um as far as what we've been spending, you know, like money on like $10,000 for that meter and a monthly service charge seems like it's going to really pay for itself over time. >> I'm not doubting that at all.

072Yeah. I'm just I want I want to hear from other people. Like I want to hear from satisfied customers. >> Understood. or unsatisfied customers, whatever the case may be. Thank you. >> All right. >> So, we can come back next week with an update on this topic uh with uh some of the information that has been requested. Um and how how good how long is your proposal good for? Is there a time limit on how long that uh proposal is good for? Typically, sorry. All right. So, we'll we'll come back to the board next week with uh some information on possible references. Uh and then at that time, we will also have the the proposal that they've currently uh provided for us and the board can decide at that time whether u you'd like to

073take action on that topic. >> All right. Thank you again. >> And next up we have the status of review of bills and treasur report. Mr. Shepard. Uh so like last month uh the treasures report and bills were delayed uh for tonight because of the tight timing in uh between uh board meetings. Uh we are also trying to capture everything that we can as we work towards the the migration of our new financial software which we are going live at the start of the the new year uh with that uh that software. It's getting real in the business office at uh at this point. Um as we work towards that uh the treasurer's report and bills will be provided at next week's uh board meeting. uh and uh there will not be a delay in

074the uh month of January when we present December, but there could be a delay uh in February as we start to to get used to the the new software and the reports that are generated from that. So, uh we will have the treasures report for the board to review next week. >> Thank you, Mr. Shepard. Uh last item for discussion tonight is the district salary study. Mr. DRO. >> Yeah. Give me just one second here as I connect to our display. Now that I know that Wranglers is an option for the name, I would like to change it to the salary wranglers. If that's possible, we can just make that mental note. I would appreciate it. All right. So, um, tonight we are going to talk about engaging in a salary study for two groups

075of employees in carry 26. So this is um kind of a big multiaceted um idea and project. So I broke it down in a variety of ways. Initially I struggled a little bit with it and I originally just broke it down to who, what, when, where, why. So you'll see some of those remnants here still in this presentation. Um but this is going to be the breakdown. There is going to be quite a bit of background information, clarity, um, kind of just some scene setting before we get into the meat and the potatoes of the presentation and kind of the facts of the matter. Oh, let me try to reconnect here. And then we'll get into, like I said, kind of the facts of the matter and get everything squared away from there. And then

076we'll have time to answer any kind of questions or concerns after that. Hang on one second. Sorry, guys. It's because I started out with a joke. It wasn't impressed with my sense of humor. And this is what I get. Generally not a great sound from a laptop. Let me reboot here and So I will try to display the presentation on board book. Um I will uh give you a warning. Do not uh pay any attention to my working brain of all the tabs that are are currently open on the screen. Oh, >> he's got a lot of I have like six of those windows open. >> I do. >> Oh, well then we're buddies. We both have problems. [laughter] >> All right. All right. We'll pick up from here. Okay. So, like I said, there's

077a little bit of background here just to kind of get us into um what we'll be looking at, what we're working with, um kind of the the situation that we face. So just as some background to the situation, so the Society for Human Resources Management recommends doing a full market compensation comparison every 3 to 5 years. The current practice in our district is that we look at the positions that we're able to adjust when those positions come open. Um, one of the issues with that is that can happen sporadically. for example, somebody like a principal, that position may open up every 5 years or so, and then we have time to look at that position, see where we're at in the market, um place a salary, and go from there. And the other piece of

078that is that when we only look at those um situations or those positions sporadically, we don't always have time to make the adjustments that we need because we don't look at them as consistently as we could. Another example would be uh Mr. Martin's position. Um, we all know that Steve Fields was was with us for about 16 years. So, we went for 16 years without looking at the salary for an operations coordinator. It's just an example of where we're at. Um, going back in time, I feel that we should have done a market analysis after COVID. Um, and then also after the economic collapse of 2008 to 2010. Both of those points in time were huge stressors on um I mean just education, our finances, the economy, all of those pieces came into play and

079those would have been wonderful times to gather outside salary compensation data uh that we did not. But that's okay because now is also a great time to do a salary study. A couple of the reasons for that would be that COVID has subsided. So that piece of the economy has calmed down thankfully. Um we also are seeing our talent pool shrink to be honest. So um we'll talk a little bit more about it as time goes on as the slides go on but our talent pool is shrinking and a lot of economists and analysts do feel that we're entering a significant time of economic turmoil. So gathering this data now would be beneficial to help us weather storms that are coming that many people think are coming. So I think it would be a good

080time to to gather this data. Now >> when you um are looking just at this the salary and stuff, aren't you also though looking at uh position descriptions and responsibilities? So you're comparing apples to apples and paying for apples to apples. >> Absolutely. So we're going to talk about this is a very comprehensive process. Um and that is absolutely part of it. That's one of the parts of it. Um but we will talk about all the parts and pieces that this would encompass and why it would be so valuable to do for the district. Okay. So some clarity on the topic. Um just as these students are looking through their goggles and gathering some scientific data. Um I just want to be clear about what a salary study is and what a salary study isn't.

081So the goal of a salary study is not to raise everyone's wages. It's not to go in and say everybody's underpaid and everybody gets a raise. That's not the goal of a salary study. Um the goal of a salary study is to see where we're at in the marketplace, what our total compensation package looks like, and where we need to make adjustments from there. So, this data would help us pinpoint specific drivers of why employees are leaving our district. Um I would say that retention is the goal. We want to retain our employees. One of the biggest expenses, the biggest expense that we make of a as a school district is our staff. Retaining our staff is what's financially responsible. So in my mind, when we go through, we train the employees, we bring them

082in, we teach them the carry way, we get them acclimated to our buildings and they leave us shortly after, that is financially irresponsible. So we want to retain as many people as possible. Um, you know, you can calculate it in a variety of different ways, but depending on the person, when somebody leaves the district, it could easily cost us six figures in loss of knowledge, lack of training, transitioning position side to side, um, the stress on the staff, undue, unfilled position. Um, all of those things have a funible financial amount to them that we could uh avoid by having better compensation data that would allow us to make better compensation choices as a district. This also would help us align to goals three and five of our strategic plan, the exceptional staff piece, as well

083as being financially responsible with, like I said, the largest expenditure that we make is is people, right? So, real quick, Dave, if you can jump back just for that background data piece. Um, one more slide up. Thank you, sir. Um, so as I said before, the retention goal, uh, the goal is retention. So that's where our main focus is. So many districts in our area are facing staffing shortages of various positions. That's not news to any of us, but a little bit of economic data shows that from the period of 2010 to 2020, the drop in bachelor's degree graduates for education is 17%. And the drop for master's degrees, graduates in education is 22%. So, what we're seeing is a rapidly shrinking um candidate pool, which means every person that we retain is invaluable to

084us as a district. So, right now, >> does that drop though on a national level or within our area >> national level? So, that's from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, they just do nationwide statistic. Um >> because I would think in a more um an area upperly mobile area you those percentages might be low or very high. >> I would say just anecdotally from attending job fairs in the last 3 to 10 years our numbers are dropping drastically. Like we we attended we did attend a job fair at Northern Illinois University last year and as I talked to the other human resources departments there we were all shocked. And actually this year what Northern Illinois has decided to do was combine their educational job fair with other job fairs because they did not have

085the attendance that they've had in the past. So yes, you're right that is a national average, but I think we are seeing it in our area as well. So then our current retention rates um year-to-year looking at data are about 75 to 80%. So that's an acceptable number. Um I would love it to be 90%. And right now it's about 75 to 80. So that's acceptable. But what that does equate to um out of a staff of 400 is about 100 people per year exiting our district which comes down to about 20 per building. You can imagine a building you know of brierggate size where they have 50 to 60 staff members. That's a third of their staff rotating on a yearly basis. So that is a significant number to me. um when you look

086at exit interview data. So our exit e exit interview data puts the um oftentimes puts the number one driver of um people leaving the district as salary data. That's about 19% on average of our exit interview data shows that salary is the number one reason why folks leave our district. On a national level were low. Typically that number is between 20 and 50% depending on what study you see. So, our number is on the lower end, but it's still there. It's one and five. Um, if we were to able if we were able to retain more staff, it would definitely help soften, you know, the effects of that shrinking talent pool. >> So, then Dave, if you want to switch. >> Can I ask you a question? Sure, >> did you um and telling us

087like what our turnover rate is? I I jumped ahead, so I I foreshadowed the presentation and I know you're going to break it down into two groups of potential studies. Did you break down our exit and turnover rate into those same two groups? I'm curious. >> I did not. Yeah. >> Yep. Good question though. Thank. Okay. So, I want to talk a little bit um again just as background about employee wellness. So, this is a sherm um slide. This is kind of a society for human resources idea, but we typically look at employee wellness in eight segments. So those segments are your physical wellness, emotional, social, intellectual, environmental, spiritual, occupational, and financial. So another advantage of doing a salary study would give us the information to see if we're meeting the financial wellness for our

088employees. And again, the goal is not to raise everyone's wage and say that this is catastrophic. What this would mean to us is if we got that data, if we had the financial data, we'd be able to make the decisions to drive that piece up. When that piece is met or near to met, then we can work on other programs. So you guys know that we do have the district health coach. She is working on other programs to raise things like physical wellness for employees and emotional wellness for employees. And those programs often cost nothing to the district. So those are lowcost or no cost alternatives to help us increase our employees wellness um that are not focused on the financial sector. So my rationale for for stating that is just to say if we

089could put a little bit of our financial piece into researching and looking into our compensation package, we can offset that by having lowcost or no cost wellness initiatives and programs for our employees that I think would give us a total package that other districts wouldn't be able to match. So I think we have, you know, for example, a pickle ball league going on in the district. We have yoga classes over the summer. Those things cost us hardly anything because we have a staff member on staff that can do that. Neighboring districts are not doing programs like that. So, if this if we were able to dial in our financial information and have better information on hand, we can make a stronger case to employees in the district to come to the district as well as

090stay in the district based on being able to take care of all potentially all eight segments of employee wellness. Okay. So, one more piece of background real quick um just to talk about is the student impact of a financial um salary study, compensation study, etc. So, we know at the end of the day, all of our positions in a school district break down to some kind of student impact from an administrator to a teacher to a bus driver, lunchroom supervisor. Everybody has an impact on a student. So, when any one piece of our educational machine is weak, we're delivering a weaker product to our students. So the idea would be that with better data, we'd be able to recruit and retain a better employee and deliver a better f a better uh education to the

091students of Kerry 26. Okay. So now on to the meat and potatoes. Are there any other questions kind of of the of the groundwork laying and things like that? >> I do. Sorry. Um, regarding have we talked to and I assume when we're talking about employees leaving it's mostly teachers. Would you say that's fair? >> I wouldn't. Um, it's a it's a wide variety. It's actually a pretty good smattering of people to be honest with you. It's almost it's broken down very equivalently across the district I guess is what I'd put. >> Okay. And then it so of those employees that are leaving or just the staff in general, I'm curious if we said, "Hey, if we offered you yoga classes, would you would this be more likely?" It kind of reminds me of the

092office pizza party like, >> "Yeah, >> thanks, but we'd rather see the money." So that's why I'm >> That's a great question. So then what is I'm just going to use the word because I've used this word a long time for that type of that type of activity. What's dangerous about that is is that you ask employees for things that you can't provide. And that honestly in in almost every scenario I've seen where you put money on a survey, money is the number one thing and then people expect a raise because why would you ask me about this if you can't give it to me? So we we have like with the district health coach what she typically does is puts out a variety of things to say what would you be most interested in

093and then we work towards those. So we have things like hydration challenges, movement challenges, we have a book club over the summer, we have the yoga classes over the summer. You know those are things that we do study because we can and are able to offer those to the staff pretty much immediately. The danger in my mind to that is that studies show when you offer the staff something and then can't deliver on it, they're more frustrated than when you started. So if you say what if we were able to launch this big initiative and you can't see that through, that would be more detrimental to morale and to us as a district than I think we'd be prepared for. >> Is is that enough to make them stay though? I I mean like sure

094if if someone offered me more, I'd say absolutely yeah, I'd love to have that. But is that going to make them stay? >> It's a great question. It's something that we would work to find out. You know, I think right now, like I said, statistically when we look at our exit interview data, the biggest driver is salary. So, in my mind, >> unless we address at least part of that and make an effort for that, then we're not going to be able to find out. you know, we we can have conversations and I have certainly talked to employees that are leaving that say, "I love this about my building, but I love that about my building, but I love the commute. I love the community. I love the kids." Like all those things come up,

095but you're right, at the end of the day, everybody makes a economic decision based on their needs and wants. Sometimes salary is the number one driver and sometimes it's not. You know, education does have a large segment of folks that are the second earner in a home. So, sometimes salary is not the number one driver and sometimes it absolutely is. It's just kind of just kind of where they're at. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. It's a great question. Kind of a good topic. Okay. So, as we move into kind of the meat and potatoes, so the what and the purpose. So, this would be a compensation study done by Arthur J. Gallagher. We'll talk a little bit about more about this firm here in just a second. The compensation study would be focused

096on two groups of employees. Our certified staff as well as our ESP staff. So that would be everybody that's not in a union including administrators, lunchroom supervisors, all those kinds of folks. Um, I chose those two groups of folks because, um, the certified staff is the largest group in the district and the other group, the ESP group, has not been looked at as a whole group unit ever, to tell you the truth. So, that's where we're that's why we're steering this study in that direction. It's educational support staff. It'd be anybody except for CESPA and CA. >> So, it's not a pair of professionals, >> correct? Not pair of professionals. Correct. Okay. So, this would be a four-step process. Um, Julie, like you talked about, they do an extensive job description review. They do a

097a very um good job of doing a strategic alignment. They do compensation benchmarking and market analysis. We look at implementation strategies. If we were to make changes, they would walk us through how to make those changes. They would also do sustainability planning to say, "How can you sustain this over time?" Um, and then post-p project support. So just wrapping up and helping us implement and walking us through kind of next steps and giving us their support as time goes on. Um like we talked about the two groups of of employees and then kind of the purpose of it would be to get the objective data to align our district to goal three and goal five recruit and retain excellent staff and then being financially responsible. So the next slide the why I think we kind

098of talked quite a bit about this but just alignment with goals three and five recruitment and retention efforts. We do have a shrinking talent pool. That's just the reality of what we're working with. We it would have a good impact on the students providing a better education for them. I feel like uh having this data from a third-party consultant would be more objective. It wouldn't be provided by any one person or group inside the district. This would be somebody outside the district providing us with this data and kind of steering us in the right direction. Um the third party organization too, we'll talk a little bit more, but they would have access to organizations that we do not. When we look at positions, we do look at a wide variety of district uh districts, but

099since this is a third party organization, they could also look at government units as well as local municipalities. So, not just schools. So, that's important to us because there is quite a bit of crossover. something like a payroll specialist, something like a human resources person, something like a CFO. Those things do cross over from um other local municipalities and government units to school districts and those people do migrate between the two. I mean, IMRF employees, IMRF covers not just schools. IMRF is a large municipal retirement fund that covers hundreds of positions in Illinois. So, that would be data that would be valuable for us to have. Um the other last piece there, so a holistic approach will include a complete review of our processes that would take our internal team years. So something like last

100year my one of my main projects for the HR department was to review all of the job descriptions in the district. So that took a year's worth of time and we collaborated with both unions, clean them up, put them on new templates and got them out to go. That took me a year just for one piece of this project. The other piece that I really like about this company is when they do look at job descriptions, they will make recommendations based on ADA compliance. They will make recommendations based on um similar positions in the market and then they will align them to the strategic goals of the district. So those things are all very valuable to us as a smaller district that you know would give us a a good leg up in in that

101kind of area. Okay, so the next slide, the who um Arthur J. Gallagher is a company that was founded in 1927. So they are predominantly a benefits administrator. They're actually the biggest benefits administrator in all of Chicagoland, but they do have three main um factions or functions as an organization. So they do benefits administration. So they are our current benefits administrator. They also handle risk management and risk assessment. And then they have a consulting piece as well. So the consulting piece is who we would be engaging with. Like I said, they've been in business for since 1927. They've engaged and completed more than 1,500 um salary compensation studies all across the country. They've done many here in Illinois. The most recent school district that's still engaging with one or in one is Geneva, which is

102just a little bit south of us. And I did um speak to them extensively and they are very very happy with their service. Typically when we do talk about getting something like this done, we do bring multiple um organizations forward for this. Arthur J. Gallagher is the only the only organization that I found that specifically works with school districts. I have found other organizations that do salary compensation package studies. However, they look at the outside world more than they look at schools. And I think schools are a different animal than the outside world. So I think um for me this would be the one name and the one place to go would be Gallagher. And again we already work with them. We already have contracts with them. They are our benefits administrator and have been

103uh for about a decade. So this would be an easy ask um for them. Okay. So on to the process there. Um so it is a four-part process. Um and we'll kind of walk briefly through these four parts. So the very first part would be the strategic alignment and sal and study administration. So this consists of preliminary meetings. We look at a current state diagnostic. Um they do a document review and then they do information gathering. So this is the meet and greet. These are the upfront meetings to see what our goals are, what we're looking for, what we want out of this salary study. They gather up all the documents, you know, primarily from the HR department. Um and that would start their work. The next phase is phase two. This is by far

104the bulk of the work. This is the actual compensation benchmarking and market analysis. So that does include the market analysis. This does include salary uh survey data collection. It does include data analytics as well as compensation structure. So they do align everything through those documents. That's the first piece. Once they have all the documents, the org charts, everything set up and squared away, they do start to gather all the salary and compensation data and align it to our district. Um, part three is the implementation strategy and sustainability planning. So, once they have that data complete and they're ready to make a presentation to us and to you as the board, they would come out and discuss what they would recommend for implementation. And then they would also discuss sustainability planning. As we talked about, you

105know, the goal is not to raise everybody's wages. We know that that's not financially possible, but incrementally it may be possible to get where we need to be if we do need to make changes. They would walk us through that so that way we could be successful in kind of tweaking our scales and seeing where we are. Um, and then the last piece would just be post project support. So, like I said, they're there to to work with us the entire time. They do offer, you know, support. It doesn't cost anything extra. They walk us through the implementation support and then they give us ongoing support as time goes on. So with that for the timeline um this would be a six-month process total. The first piece kind of the meet and greet preliminary meetings

106takes a month. The bulk of the work takes three months. implementation would take about a month and then post ongoing but typically about a month after is there timeline for that? Anybody have questions? >> What's the implementation strategy? Is that how we would solve >> how we would make changes? If they propose changes, they would give us a strategy on how they would recommend we implement the changes. >> Okay. I have a question >> of course. So, our first priority are our students in our classrooms. Why would we not include ZESPA? Because to me, that's the group where we could make the biggest impact in this study. They're one of our lower uh hourly rates. They're they're are critical to our classrooms. We have a problem staffing paras every year. I would say my rationale

107for the two groups that I included were that we did just close assessment negotiation. I feel like when we as we close those wages, I think we're closer to market for those wages than we are for the other two groups of employees. Their contracts are also simpler than CA or ESP. So, in my mind, when we look at that, um, Dave and I can do a pretty accurate job of placing SESPA where they are, and I think that we're pretty accurate with that. So, that was my rationale for only doing two groups instead of all three groups in the district. My my personal is that though I I mean in those classrooms those classrooms those paras are everything to those teachers. So I feel like yes we just got through with the cont but if

108we're not going to do this for another five years then in five years we're going to say well we just got done with the sesa contract and we can't include them again. >> Yeah I mean that's certainly something I could reach out. So, just real quick, I can answer any more questions. We can talk through it, of course. Um, but what you'll see up there, the big number is for I had them price out each group separately if we wanted to look at separate groups or obviously it's less money to do both groups together because they're already here. They're already working through our data. So, each group is about $20,000 or for both the total would be just under $30,000. 29225 for both. I could reach out to them and talk to them about including

109another group. I would assume that SESPA would be closer to the total for the certified staff. And what I'm gathering that on is just based on the numbers of employees in that group. Um our our support staff has far less people but actually has more positions in it than certified staff does. certified staff when you break it down by category only has you know six to seven total positions if you count teacher as one if you count then social worker psych you know those other pieces those are other positions but they have one salary scale that governs all of them so that's where I'm thinking you know cesville would be another$10 to $20,000 depending on where they would place us at for them >> I mean I would just be curious to know you know

110yes they're in a contract they're under contract right now. But, you know, maybe there are things that we could offer, like you said, to the other groups that we're not, you know, >> yeah, you don't have to twist my arm. I'd love to do everybody, but I would absolutely >> I think it's good for them to know, too, like what is their market value >> and that's ultimately, you know, what I would like to see. I think in Kerry, just speaking in generalities, there are misconceptions about where our salaries are placed. And I think some are just and some are unjust. But I think that if we are going to shake the reputation of being a stepping stone district, we need to make an investment in this first and then that can guide our investment

111in our staff where it needs to be for a compensation package. So I do say salary interchangeably which I shouldn't. Compensation does include PTO benefits. It would include everything. So it would include a total package for our staff which like I said I think in some areas we're right where we need to be. Some areas were probably over, some areas were probably under. But this would give us the definitive data. I know it's a pinch point sometimes when folks get up here and talk about how underpaid they are, how this or that. This would show us where everybody's at. And I think having that strategy to build forward would be important for us as time goes on. I think I've had ongoing conversations with most people in the district, unions and non-unions. This is not

112a problem that you solve overnight. If it is a problem, but this is not a problem that you solve overnight. It takes time, you know, it's but having the data is the first step in taking the time to solve this for us. So then real quick, I want to run through um just some considerations that next slide there because I think these are common considerations that would come up. So costs um I do understand that $30,000 can seem like a lot to have an outside company come and do anything for us really, but um I think as we've talked about, it's a fraction of our overall budget. And I think when you look at the tangential amount that we lose when somebody walks out the door, it could easily be in the six figures. I

113mean, you look at losing a leadership position in the district and you're changing course and everybody has to react to that and that moves all the way down to the students. It's easily hundreds of thousands of dollars that could walk out and that's that's one position, you know. So, I think $30,000 to try to see twothirds of the positions in the district is well worth it in my opinion. Um, the second one, you know, we may not be able to afford the raises, but like I said, I think I've kind of hopefully drilled this point home. A salary study does not commit us to any raises. This commits us to getting the data to taking that first step to seeing where we're at in the overall marketplace. And this wouldn't just be Mckenry County. It'd

114be all over Illinois. They'd look at tax bases that are similar, like I said, government entities that are similar, and it would put us in that place. Um, and this last question, why can't we do this inhouse? I hear I hear it, Brian. You're awesome. why can't you just do this yourself? And that's true. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. Um, and the answer is honestly that we could. I mean, not tooting my own horn, but Dave and I are qualified to do this kind of thing. Um, the issue would be that Dave and I run our own department. And like I said, reviewing job descriptions with the rest of the ongoing work that the HR department did took a year by itself. That's let alone digging into salary schedules, benefits, um, PTO

115schedules for dozens of employee groups in dozens of districts. Honestly, it's just not it would Dave and I talked about the other day, it take us years to get this done. So, I think for that financial amount of money to have the experts come in and do it, you know, they would lend us teams of consultants to to get this done and it would be objective. So then nobody would be able to say, "Well, Dave put these numbers out here, so they're X." Or, "Brian put these numbers out here, so they're Y, or CEA put these numbers out there, so they're this." I think having an objective third party is is well worth that. So that's that's where my brain is at for that. So then, um, on to the recommendation, which we can discuss,

116or I'm ready to make that recommendation now if we so if it so pleases the board. Um but I would recommend to the board an independent compensation study hosted by Arthur J. Gallagher um to align district the salary piece of comparable districts the general labor market and internal equity with the goal of ensuring we can recruit and retain high-quality staff in a fiscally responsible manner. >> Thank you for your presentation. My first question um is a very simple one, Mr. Shepard. Where does this 20 or $30,000 come from in the budget? So, if the board will recall, when we were going to make the transition to Skyward, that was going to come with a pretty hefty price. I believe it was uh uh the onetime implementation costs uh um were probably about $75,000. Uh as

117we move towards Skyward, um that originally was budgeted for this fiscal year. We were actually able to pay half that amount um in last fiscal year's budget. So that uh freed up um $35,000 within uh the business office budget that had been allocated for for the full implementation of Skyward. >> So the answer is out of the business department budget and the money was found because it didn't get spent for something it was year for. >> Right. Is this this is an O andM? This is not an ED fund. No, this would this would come from the the business office fund which is housed in the the ED fund. >> Okay. Okay. So, it would be coming from essentially the same pool as salaries. >> It would that money was originally earmarked for the Skyward.

118>> Okay. >> Software, but because we paid roughly half of that in the prior year, >> We have that extra that had already been built into the the budget. When we built the budget, we weren't sure if we were going to be able to pay the entire uh we were we weren't sure if we were going to be able to pay anything towards Skyward in the last fiscal year. When it became evident that we were able to do that, uh we jumped because we knew we had the funds at that time uh and we paid half the the invoice at that time. >> Thank you that and thank you for for thinking ahead too. Uh Mr. Daru, is this purely a compensation study? >> Can you >> compensation of benefits? That's it. >> Well, no.

119I mean, those other pieces that we talked about in the process, so looking at job descriptions, looking at position alignment, job analysis, all those pieces would be part of it. >> So, the other things on the eight, >> oh, the eight employee wellness pieces, >> right? On slide six, we're the only thing we're studying here is the financial side essentially. Yeah, correct. >> So they don't look at the other tangential programs that we have in there. >> Right. So the the emotional intelligence component is is not studied any of that those benefits that we we laid out is not studied. >> Yeah. >> So if salary was the number one, do you remember what number two was in terms of turnover? >> Yeah. So number two and that has it did flip-flop at one point.

120Number one has often for I think almost the entirety of the exit interview data has stayed salary. Number two is changing out of the out of the educational sector entirely. So I can't remember what we call that exactly, but it's just getting out of the education field together. >> Okay. And the reason I asked that is if we're going to spend $30,000 to look at salary, >> right? What other support or resources are we using for if you said it was is one in five I believe it was for salary. So we've got 80% other reasons of for other reasons to leave. We're not going to worry about the teachers that are moving on to private sector or whatever. But the other reasons >> um in terms of like classroom support I think was also

121one of them as well. Like are we supporting that with additional resources as well? The other reasons why we're not able to recruit and retain. >> Sure. So it's a good question. So the third highest one was retirements in the district. So that's not necessarily something that we can, you know, support our way out of. I want folks to go off tire happy [laughter] and lead wonderful lives. But I do understand your point of looking at the entire grid um and all eight segments of that employee wellness and seeing what other what other things we can support. You know, when I look at education is lucky in a lot of ways. When you look at that eight segments of employee wellness, something like somebody's spiritual well-being is pretty well taken care of in the um

122education world. I think as Miss Rivera says, she often just goes to Oaknull and walks the halls and those kids refill her tank, right? >> Um so I think finding purpose oftentimes is talked about in employee wellness, whereas in the financial sector, >> that's pretty hard to give somebody purpose. and looking at spreadsheets all day. So, some of those pieces I think are well taken care of ahead of time. No offense, Dave. Um, I think some of those things are well taken care of. Some of the things that we are currently working on. You know, I think um like we talked about the physical piece of it, the intellectual piece of it, those are pieces that we can take care of for no cost or low cost. And I think as the health coach program

123carries on, I think we get better and better at it. We do get better and better >> um feedback on it. But what this is like a sneak preview of something else I'd like to introduce to the district is an employee wellness program just focusing on all eight segments. So I think we talked about like um hosting more retirement meetings. So that's part of the financial piece that doesn't cost us anything because that's hosted by me and TRS or IMRF. >> But having employees have more financial independence and wellness that data >> is also helpful as well. >> Absolutely. >> But I Good point. So, so we're losing teachers for salary for private sector and retirement. So, now we have to recruit those teachers, right? And let's say we go move forward with this and

124Gallagher comes back and says, "You're way underpaid." >> Yep. It's an op. It could. >> So then, well, and we look at we look at the district report card and and we compare ourselves to Mckenry and Lake County and it it's there, right? And so how do we go to a Northern Illinois recruitment fair where it's now public knowledge that Carrie 26 is underpaying their teachers and we say but we have a wellness coach, right? >> That's a very valid point. That's a great point. I think you pointed at it already. When you get on our district report card on our website, it already states we're underpaid. So that information is public and out there already. What we can say is yes, I understand that certain sections of our employee wellness are lacking, but we

125what we can control, we're bolstering and we have that in spades. So, if you're looking for, you know, we do have a large section of our staff that's senior. That is something that I talk to new students about. You're going to get a great mentor. You're going to get engaged in a great curriculum program. You're going to get great leadership. We have senior principles. We don't have rookie principles. We've got guys and gals that are well tested and battleproven. they can guide you through this. Those are things that I can recruit on even if I can't say we start at 55,000. I mean, there are districts out there, like I said, it depends on what your what your drive is and what your aim is. I stood at Illinois State University two years ago across

126from a district that literally had a poster that said, "We start you at $65,000 a year." It didn't mention anything else but a number. So, if you're a kid that's interested in a number, yeah, sure, go to that district. But why is that number so high? Maybe it is because they're a turn and burn district. Maybe they have worse retention than we do. Maybe you don't get the kind of individualized attention our principles can give. I think like I said for me the the gain is the information. If we are there, I would like to settle that once and for all to say yes, but we are working to improve it one and we're working to bolster other things to make it worth being in Kerry too. Thank you. >> Um could we before ne

127at next uh week's meeting could we get a a price for cespa? >> I will see what I can do. Yes, I'll see if I can get that that fast. I can also they sent me so this is my summation of the 38 page packet that they sent us. So I can provide references. I can provide I mean the each phase has pages to it that we could talk about individually or together. You know, I can provide whether whatever information you'd like, but I can see if I can tack on SESPA to get a total district cost. >> Yes. >> Is there have have any of our collective bargaining uh units ever requested any survey or study? >> I mean, I don't think anybody's ever made an official statement. I think we often talk about,

128you know, I had talked to Dr. Coleman about this. I think I've talked to Dr. White about this as well. I think the conversation is always it would be nice to have this done, but I've never had the union presidents or anybody come and say what happens typically is during negotiations, they collect their own data. Um, and then they kind of bring that data to the table in one way or the other. they've sometimes they have that data out in the open and sometimes they use that data to drive their financial package for their negotiations. We don't always see it. Um obviously we do that in the background as well as a district. Like I said, one of my hesitations with that is IEA NEA does this kind of data procurement often. I wouldn't take

129IEA any data because it wouldn't be viewed as objective. So then I don't think a district, like I said, would be in a good financial position to say, "Yes, we're going to take this union's numbers or that union's numbers or this person's numbers." Because I think, like I said, in my mind, the idea of settling this debate once and for all is that we would get it objectively from a third party versus having somebody else give it to us. >> So who's like the state then? Because the state says like on year after year, Yeah. that they're underpaid. >> Yeah, that's a great question. So what the state does is takes information from reporting that I put in, the human resources department puts in year after year that looks at teacher averages that looks at

130the total benefits cost and package that teachers receive as well as PTO numbers. So that's an average of every district in the state is what that is. So that is supplied by districts that's fed into um the the employee information system for ISV and then they summarize that and put it back out on district report cards. So it's it's there. It's just not as detailed as you would want it to be. What kind of like what can I'm confused about what the board can expect with from a a study because the I don't know are we are are they going to be looking at local, state or national info. The information that you described that third parties that they have access to third parties. It sounded to me like that information was is publicly available.

131It is, but to sift through it and gather it would take an incredible amount of time. So, like I said, it would be things like local municipalities. So, like in my town, Lake in the Hills, they have an HR manager that probably lines up closely with what I do. They would look at their salary, their responsibilities, their job descriptions, and their total compensation package to see how that lines up. Obviously, that wouldn't pertain to like the teaching aspect of it, but that would be something they would give us for like the ESP aspect, our payroll specialist, our accounts payable person, admin assistants, like those roles exists in local government that would be fed into IMRF or other places like that. That information is out there, but sometimes it's it's hard to find and it's hard

132to gather and put all together. As far as school districts are concerned, they would take the direction from us. So they're not going to go look at the Wilmats or the North Side districts that are going to trounce us. They're going to look at districts that are comparable to Kerry 26 typically in Mckenry, but not always in Mckenry. They might go mid-state. They might look at districts. It would all be in Illinois, but they might they would still look at districts that are comparable to us to see where we fall in that line. >> And then the data that they would give back to us would be extensive reports to show where each piece of our compensation package lands. um salary, benefits, PTO, all those things. >> I feel like if we're guiding like where

133they're going to pull the data from or what they're going to compare us to, that removes the uh what the >> Yeah. Thank you. And then do you know do you understand what I mean? >> I do, but again, you wouldn't want to compare a Ford to a Ferrari. So, it's not fair to really say we're going to go to all the dealerships in Crystal Lake and you're going to look at a Ferrari and I'm going to look at the Fords. Like you would want to look at a midline economy car, right? Like you would want to try to compare apples to apples versus just letting them say, "Yeah, we're going to go to this school district in Washington or we're going to go to this school district in New York or CPS, god forbid,

134because it's just not apples to apples or even possible to compare to those districts." So they want to get you accurate numbers that you can actually work with that are like our teachers look at for like a like a salary study that they would look at. Those teachers don't go and look at, like I said, like a Northshore district and say, "Well, they make they're starting at $77,000." Because there are districts that start at that amount. That's just not feasible and that's not comparable to where we're at. >> They're going to go to 20,000 state. We got parents to as many places possible. We're not just losing them in county. >> Part of that is true. I do. I do agree. >> So, um yeah, I'm just kind of running down my list of questions.

135Um >> are we going Okay, so we're going to ex we can expect a report as the as the board, right? Like is this going to be like a public thing or it's a just for us or is it going to make is that sustain I'm going to keep going. >> Keep going. >> I'm going to watch you get frustrated with >> I'm not frustrated. >> Um that's my sustainability that sustainability aspect and stuff um as well. Is that all are they going to come back and like recommend that like antiquated positions and stuff be not like that you get rid of people? >> No, I mean that could be part of it, but I wouldn't steer them in that direction at all. I wouldn't say I mean they would obviously look at redundancy, right?

136Like they would look at things like you've got four payroll managers, which we don't. We have one for a district of 400. It's undersized if anything, but that could be part of the scope. But I wouldn't steer them in that direction. And the answer would be yes. They in my mind they would come and give a presentation to the board at open or close session. Like I said, in my mind, I want the data out there to solve the issue that I see once and for all. I think Jason has the right mentality of it of I'm a person that tries to hit things headon and if we're underpaid then I think we need to hit it. We're underpaid, but here's what we can do to make up for that and here's what we're working

137on to solve that problem. I think in my opinion, this is just me speaking, this is it has been an issue in the district for a time that we haven't looked at. And I think to look at it on a holistic level, the entire district from a third party would be the best way to quell anyone that says this is a stepping stone district. It's not a place that I'm going to stay. I'm going to start here and go. Those are things that I hear in exit interviews. I mean, those are those are things that I hear often and that's a real shame. So, I think to to to solve that and to get those answers out there is invaluable to our district. And again, it's not committing us to raises. It's committing us to

138gathering data so that way we can make better decisions going forward. >> So, the data is going to show us what we already know. And I can hear it in the things that you're saying like I'm going to guide them and I'm going to and it's like well then how is that objective? How is that and we're not going to commit to raises? And then we have this data sitting and I'm not yelling at you. I'm just like this is not like new to to to the people who have been hearing it. It's not new to you. But then then what do we do as a board when we have that data and we're sitting there and it's shared with everyone and it's shared with the staff and it's like, yeah, here's the data that

139proves that you're underpaid. What then? and we can't give you raises, but we've got the study to prove it. Like what? We're going to offer you. >> Oh, I would class. >> I agree. I mean, like I said to Jason, I that data is already on our it's it's already on carry.org. So, the data is already out there. It's just not as accurate as it possibly could be. It may come back and surprise you to say that we're more competitive than people think we are. Like I said, I think that's a an idea that's perpetuated in Carrie is that our salaries are so low and it's so bad and this and that. I think this data would come back and be more competitive than than I think the perception is. And then we could work

140on it from there, but if you look at our report card, this is all publicly posted information already. It's just not as accurate or as objective as I would want it to be. Well, then I guess if if it's about getting the data, this is for real probably probably my last question about it. Um, how long is a a salary study data good for this the benchmarking? Because when I looked I've never um done one of these before. I've you know not here on the board or whatever anywhere and and [clears throat] it's saying that that the data is only good for one year. >> Yeah. So Sherm recommends every 3 to 5 years I think in a I mean I'm going to use this phrase in a loving manner. In a slowmoving system like

141ours, education's not the finance world where it turns on the dime and you gain 20% in a year. In a slowmoving organization like ours every 3 to 5 years would be adequate. Like I said, in my opinion, we should have had two in the last 15 years. So, this would be number three. So, that so that would be every five years is probably what I'd recommend. >> I don't disagree that this should have been looked at probably many times uh prior. Um I think it's a the timing is is difficult because we're entering negotiations. I don't know how it's all like playing together if that that's why I asked if they're asking for >> sure. Nobody is. No. No. So, this would I would anticipate that negotiations will be closed by the time we get

142certified staff data, but it would still help us. Like I said, this is a long-term project. This wouldn't be solved in one negotiations term anyway. So, this would give us the data to help forge a long-term path forward >> and which is what I would like to see honestly for the school district as an actual plan um to close that gap that we know exists. So, I appreciate you taking my questions and you've handled it gracefully. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah, I feel like this would be the first step in that plan. >> Can I jump back in? >> Of course. Um I assume most of the communication with um Gallagher is going to fall on your shoulders as our HR department. So my question to you is is why now? Is when is

143when is like the best time for you to interact with them? When is your like when do you have time to dedicate to a new project if it takes a year to add job descriptions? >> Yeah, now winter. I mean my my season is busiest from February to October. So that's my six to eight months of the year when I'm busy. We have a department of two. So I mean that's my busiest time. But in the winter, I typically have time to work on these types of projects. What I've been doing for the past four years is picking a project to work on for the entire year. So this year, it's updating handbooks. Last year was all the job descriptions in the district. So this is something that I would have time for now to

144do. And I would just add that this is something that uh the HR and business offices have discussed um at length for quite a while now. the opportunity came uh with Arthur Gallagher to actually seriously consider doing this and the the the finances were there as the we previously mentioned. I look at this as there's not only the short-term ramifications but also the the long-term planning for the the district, right? Um, we know that uh that the the data that we could gather from this study could really help drive uh the direction moving forward but drive the the communication that the board or future boards has with the the community, right? Uh because we know that there are limited ways that a school district can can raise funds, right? Raise revenue. Um, and if depending

145on what future boards decide to do, you're going to want to have this data at hand uh to spark that conversation. Uh, for example, I'm going to go back to my ever favorite topic of that countywide facility sales tax, right? Which would have to be, uh, approved by a majority of the voters in Mckenry County. Um, if we are acquiring a new source of revenue to help fund our facilities, that is then less money that we have to divert from our education fund, right? And I think our community would be more apt to support something like this if we have data to show, hey, this is our area of deficiencies that we really know we need to work on uh to maintain and uh retain the quality staff that we already have. Um, and here's

146the data that we have to support this. This is why we're asking for you to approve this sales tax. Just an example, but that type of data would be useful in in that regard. So, there's there's a long-term component here that I think the the board should consider as well. >> I'd also just like to point one more thing. I don't want to belver the point, but I think we've had a real world example of the impact that this can have right here in Kerry in the last three years. So, bus drivers, we had many, many vacancies for bus drivers in the past. We made two targeted adjustments to bus drivers over a 2-year period, and we now have zero bus driver vacancies when almost every other district in Mckenry County has bus driver vacancies.

147So, those were two targeted pieces. We looked at data, we retained more drivers, we've recruited more drivers, and we've solved a problem unto ourselves just by having a targeted approach that you all voted for and took part in. So, I think that's a great thing. That's an example that we've fixed something right here in Kerry in the last three years. >> Um, one, yes, it is fantastic what we've done with the bus, but I think that's also an example where we're not necessarily comparing apples to apples. Those aren't th those aren't people who have been educated to be teachers who are having a shrinking pool and who are leaving their jobs. I don't think a lot of people are necessarily career-minded bus drivers. I think we get a lot of people who do it as

148either your secondary income support or because they've retired and they would like to do something else. They don't want to sit at home. So, I don't know that that's not Yes, it's a great celebration. I don't know that it's a fair comparison. Um, and I'm pushing back because I am super stuck as I sit here today. I don't know if you put this in front of me for a vote. I don't know how I'm feeling about it yet. Um on one hand I very much see your point about actually trying to have data to say yes we really do have a problem here or you know what we don't actually have a problem here when you compare salary PTO TRS I I've been in those meetings and I understand that when we pull data we

149don't always see apples to apples and can't figure out is it this dollars this dollars is a combination um we don't know that and that is a question I think would be great to answer I'm stuck as to whether I think spending $30,000 to answer it is a worthwhile thing to do at this point in time and I'm I'm just waiting to either think on it or hear some more information. >> Yeah. No, I I appreciate everybody's time, you know, and my goal as the human resources person, like we talked about, is always to recruit and retain, and I want to put people where they need to be to help support kids as best as possible. That's always my goal in a school district. So, this is something I brought to you guys to to

150listen to and to think about and to chew on. I'm always available for questions. My work is often in the shadows. So, I appreciate being given the spotlight to talk about a topic that's really important to me, which is trying to keep people in carry 26. So, no matter how you vote, I really appreciate your time. And I think in my opinion, just as your guys' HR professional, I think it would be really worthwhile. I know that that I know that a $30,000 price tag in a school district is not nothing. But I think we have all experienced the loss of somebody in this district that has greatly impacted us that you couldn't even put a dollar amount on even if you tried. I mean, a teacher or a favorite lunchroom supervisor or anybody that

151I mean that $30,000 compared to that loss to me is well worth that investment. So, >> I appreciate um I I mean I appreciate the situation you're in because you're the one who has to do these exit polls and you're the one who has to hear time and time again the reasons why. Um, yes, we all sit up here and we all know we've been hearing it for 15 years. Um, I guess for me like this, yes, it's it's desperately needed. It's like ripping off a band-aid and you just need to just get it out and hear it. And it's the tough love moment for the district. Like absolutely 100%. But to me, it's like at the same time there has to be a plan of action when we kind of have in our mind

152what we're going to be told. What are we going to do about it? So like I agree with that. Like what are we going to do about it? Um we have so much money and no more. We have tiff districts that cut us off for 23 years. We have very little retail that is lowering taxes or bringing in tax dollars for the city. We get very little support from the federal government. We don't get the amount of money from our state that are constitutionally mandated to pay and it all falls on taxpayers and to ask for more money from taxpayers is not fair to taxpayers. Um, but I think if we want to hear the answers, we need to be prepared to for a solution at the same time because they're going to say, "Great,

153you know, all this stuff." Great. So, what we're going to put us off for another 15 years till we come up with a solution. That's not an answer. Uh, so I I Brian, I know that you are doing this because you know it needs to get done and I appreciate that. Um, and I agree it does need to get done. So, we need to make some decisions or we need to sit down with our village or sit down with our state or sit down with whoever we need to sit down to and say, "Look, this is the situation we're in. We can't get teachers. None of us can. We're going to come out with this study and what's it going to do? It's going to give every other district the guideline to now say, Carrie's

154doing this. We're going to offer this because now you've done the study for us." still going to lose people. So, that's where I'm at with this. Like, um, you know, there's an old saying, you know, whatever, get off the pot. And I feel like that's that's where we're at right now. And we've only got so much money to go around. Me, now I'm stepping down. All right. Any other questions? >> One more question. So, would this also help us with um recruitment? So, I you mentioned that job fair and you know when you're 22 just out of college, you are not thinking about health care usually any kind of benefits. You are looking at dollars. You're probably still living at home under parents insurance. So will that guide us to like I get sort of

155the reason why they did that where we're hiring at 65. So will this say hey if you bring them in a little higher the retention it you know will it be that data as well? >> Yes and that's something that you know I've even looked at too. I think we oftentimes have discussions in our department. Um, one of the statistics I really like that Sherman puts out there is that if you can get an employee for 5 years, you've basically got your hooks in them, you can keep them. So those first five years are really important for an employee and we see that in carry all the time. Typically once they get past that fiveyear mark, they're ours. And that's a good thing, right? So yes, I mean they would have I would assume multiple

156presentations for us as far as where we could best put our dollars to recruit and retain. So, but yes, they would have recommendations for us, planning for us, implementation strategies for us. Um, and you're right, that is something that all school districts are struggling with. Students, and this is sad, but I work with the new kids quite a bit. They don't care about TRS because TRS, whether it'll be there or not, I don't I don't even know, and they sure as hell don't know. So, that's something that, you know, we really have to drive home and have big conversations with them as they're coming into our district about what we offer. Like I said, mentoring, a great curriculum program, wonderful principles, and there are educated students that know that because they've got teachers in the

157family, and those things add up and matter. And then there are teachers that chase money, dollars. I mean, I see it often, but it's there's a good balance. But yeah, I think we would get a good approach um and some good ideas on how to recruit and retain as well. And without TRS, it is going to get even worse because they're the dollar value is going to be even more because now we're not they're not saving for their retirement. >> So, so we appreciate the the conversation. Um, we thought that this was long overdue and I want to commend uh Mr. Daroo for the the fine presentation. Um, I was thinking throughout that uh I need to do less talking and throw more presentations uh his way uh for future future meetings. Um, so I

158obviously we're not making any uh decisions tonight. We wanted to provide the information to the board for your consideration. It sounds like there's interest in finding out what a proposal would look like to talk about that looks at all of our our work groups. Uh, so CESPA included. Uh, we'd be happy to try to get that uh for you. Uh, and if we have that, we could bring it back for further discussion next week. uh if the board feels that they're able to make a decision at that time, we can uh move forward one way or the other uh or it can be tabled until we uh have all of your your information or all of your questions uh addressed. Uh but again, this is something that we felt has been needed. Uh and uh

159we were pleased to be able to present this to you tonight. >> One more real quick. Sorry, I don't want to belabor the point, but as Dave was talking, it just gave me the idea of if we wanted to, we could always do a staggered roll out as well. So, it would be more costly to us, but they already broke it down by two groups at $20,000 per group. If we wanted to do one group and then a year later do the next group and a year later do the next group. That would be an option as well. Or every two years, you know, if we wanted to try that as well to stagger it and see what results we get, that might be a good implementation plan as well. break up the cost and

160break up the data. >> How board feeling about bringing it forward next week? >> Good. With more information? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Uh, next up we have close session for the setting of a price for sale or lease of property owned by the public body 5CS120-6 and for the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body 5CS120-2 C1. We have a motion to adjourn to close session. >> Second, >> Mindy. Mindy, any discussion? Hearing none, can we take a vote, please? >> Bridget, >> yeah. >> Catherine Patter, >> yes. >> Jason Jan, >> yes. >> Casey, yes. Darling, >> yes. That motion is approved. Open session ends at 8:06 p.m.