001ready. >> Ready. >> Thank you all for joining us this evening. Since this is a special open session and work session, uh there will be no patient comments this evening. Uh those that would like to address the board may do so at the next regularly scheduled board meeting on May the 21st. I'd like to call this meeting to order with the pledge of allegiance. All please stand with me. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Board, I have a motion to approve the agenda for May 7th, 2026 as presented. >> So moved. >> Vice President Grder. >> Treasurer McGuire. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose
002say nay. The motion passes. Board. I have a motion to approve the grant application as presented. So move. >> Second. >> Director Adams followed by Vice President Grder. This grant application has an approaching deadline of May 15th. This grant application requires board approval and therefore has been included on the agenda tonight. This grant will help bridge the gap for our students who qualify for McKenna Vento. Is there any conversation? Any questions? >> Just thankful we're doing grant applications. >> Yes. >> Uh all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. Board, I have a motion to adjourn open session. >> So moved. >> Vice President Grder. >> Second. Treasurer Magcguire. All those in favor say I. >> Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. We will now begin our work
003session uh regarding long range planning options, a debt service levy transfer and no tax rate uh increase bond discussion. Uh Brent Blevens from Piper Sandler, our bound council is here to present. Good evening. Appreciate the opportunity to be here again. Uh I see some new faces on the board. Congratulations. Uh been here I think twice now and and g gave some presentations to the board [clears throat] as we're going through some some different options in regard to your debt service levy. uh and and some options that you had potentially to move that to your operating as well as no tax increase bond issues. First of all, I want to thank Dr. Delaney for having me. Uh Dr. St. John, thank you for uh uploading my version eight of this presentation. Uh as we've gone through
004the week, uh as [clears throat] you all know, there's lots of levers uh that could be pulled in regards to your debt service levy. We're also looking at current legislation uh that is currently passed the Senate that's now in the House that we'll talk about a little bit that is putting our different options together. So my job as your financial service provider is to make sure the board understands and provide options so that the board understands the options that they have moving forward and number one do the best that they can with their operating budget to take care of their kids, their faculty and staff and those those operating expenses. While doing that still understanding we have to maintain and uh deal with facility needs. Those are those are large expenses. You have uh millions
005of square foot under roof with thou hundreds of acres of playgrounds, asphalt, pavements, roofs, things of that nature that as we know cannot happen out of your operating budget. So, we're trying to balance that act on trying to take make sure that we're utilizing our debt our debt service levy, our overall levy to the best serve our kids and our operating budget and best serve our kids in regards to our facilities. So, with that said, um we're going to kind of go through some options. And the reason we have these options, I've called this our objective is long-range planning options. Uh the first thing I want to talk about and I've shared this with you uh on the the the past few uh times I've been here and you can see this is just a
006quick overall levy. You can see your operating levy since 2002 compared to your debt service levy. You can see your debt service levy has been the same since 0304 uh at 67 cents and change. Your operating levy obviously moves each and every year based upon the Hancock amendment and your assessed valuation. Now, I do not have 2526, but I do want to bring up to the attention because I pulled that up driving up here. Your 2526 operating levy is 3.3056. Your debt service levy continues to be at 67. So, your overall levy now is 3.9769. So, you have the lowest levy that you've had at least since 2002 2003 um pushing close to almost a dollar less than what you had many many years ago. So point being is that the Hancock amendment obviously works.
007Um as you know as your assessed value increases over consumer price index that rolls your operating levy back. And so you can see that your assessed value as it's grown you get uh your your taxpayers your constituents get a tax break through the Hancock amendment by rolling that operating levy back. So you can see now that you are under $4, which is the lowest levy you've had in quite some time. Um, one of the things we're going to talk about, so you've got a debt service levy, like I mentioned, of 67 cents. You do have the ability to go in and do a referendum, a ballot initiative to move levy from your debt service to your operating. It takes a simple majority vote to do that. Why would you do that? That's obviously going to
008put more revenue in your operating. It takes out revenue of your debt service. So, where is that fine line to make sure that we can continue keeping our facilities where we need them, but moving as much money in our operating to take care of our operating expenses as we can? you're in a position that the district has the ability, if the board so choose, to run a referendum to do a levy transfer to the operating and continue to do no tax rate increase bond issues of what I would call significant for a district this size to be able to continue to take care of your facilities moving forward, whether that be new construction or renovations and maintenance. Uh, so as you can see on this, obviously the no tax rate increase baseline for Missouri schools,
009that's what we try to do. Our goal is to maintain that debt service levy at 67 cents or if we move that over there to take that levy out of the debt service whatever we take out of the operating roll that le debt service levy back. Currently we're looking at 12 1.5 cents and I'll show you those scenarios in just a second. Uh our current allocations of the tax uh rate most beneficial for the current and future needs of the district. That's the question we're asking oursel as we're talking about this levy transfer. If we have the ability to move some debt service levy to operating, by all means, that would be a great opportunity for the district to do so. Levy can be shifted within the current tax rate in order to benefit district
010needs. Shifting the debt to operation requires an election. It's a simple majority vote. So, it is not like a bond issue where it takes a 47s vote on even years. It is actually a 50 plus one simple majority. It enhances the operating revenues at the expense of the facility improvements. So again, where's that balance of what you can potentially vote over to your operating and still take care of your facility needs moving forward for several years. So I try I'm going to show you uh this one first and then I'm going to go back. So before I dive into this, this is obviously a terrible slide because it is really really busy, but it is necessary. So before I share this slide, I'm going to try to give an overview of what it is and
011then show you the numbers that follow. So you can see you've got three options. So this is option one and I've done I've I've shown three options or I'm going to show three options based upon some situation that we have. As you all know, Senate Bill 10002 has passed the Senate which requires uh only your county uh the only county in the state to have November elections for general obligation bond issues. I'm sure you're all very well aware of that. Uh even year on November >> well you that's right even year on November. Correct. So in even still a 47s vote by the way. So that is that is one positive. Um but I will tell you that on the way up here and by the way I forgot to do this. This is my
012partner Dr. John Jungman. He is my partner with Piper Sandler. John and I were talking on the way up here and we actually uh as you can imagine as you all know we have lots of things going on in Jeff City uh with public education this year. We do every year but this year seems to be uh fairly significant. Uh we have actually engaged and contracted a lobbyist uh Piper Sandler has to advocate for public education uh in regards to the debt service fund but really he is working uh in the legislature with the legislature u on the behalf of all K12 students across the state. So we took on that expenditure because we felt it was necessary. Uh Dr. Jung and I both I've been in the public sector or the uh public finance
013banking now for nine years. I was retired superintendent of Lee Summit prior to that. Dr. German's a retired superintendent of public education from Springfield School District. So I will tell you uh as we are bankers now, we still uh have a passion for public education and kids across this state. So we felt that was important to allocate some resources to uh put toward trying to advocate for kids across the state in Jeff City as we're challenging times. I visited with our lobbyists on the way up here in regards to Senate Bill uh 10002. As you know, it passed the Senate. It's in the House. It's currently in the rules committee. Uh we are getting close to the end of session. Um as as we know uh and and try not to say too much here,
014but it can't come soon enough soon enough. Uh at at the end of this at the end of next week, next Friday, it ends. It he feels hopefully it takes it's going to take a lot of momentum to get that thing passed. As you know, sometimes bill bills move slowly, but as of now, we do not know. Is that going to pass the house? Is it not going to pass the house? Is that bill going to be uh in place? Because that will decide a lot on your future planning. So, these different options are based upon if it doesn't pass is option one and option two and three if Senate Bill 10002 passes. We want to make sure that you are armed and prepared for whatever takes place uh in the next week and a
015half. The good news is before you make that decision uh you we we should have that information. Legislation uh the legislative session will be over next Friday and then you can make decisions based upon that moving forward. So the first option is the one that I would say if the legislation is not passed and things stay status quo for the for the school district here in St. Charles County. It's a 2027 no tax increase bond issue and that's an April. You'll still be able to do the April no tax increase bond issue for $162 million. That would keep your debt service levy at 67 or it's not going to keep your debt service levy at 67 cents. That includes a 12.5 cent roll back. Okay. So the April 2027 is a no tax rate increase
016levy transfer of 12.5 cents to the operating that's going to generate about 5.5 million in your operating budget that transferred April 2027. Now that will not go into place until the September tax rate hearing of 2027 which is FY2028. Does that make sense? So if that were to pass in April of 27, it would be FY28 the following school year that fiscal year that you'd receive those revenues in your operating. With that said, you could do a two question referendum. So you'd have one question for a no tax rate increased bond issue for 162 million. That would take a 47s vote. You could do a second question, which I do have the ballot language for that. I want to show you because it does have to follow constitutional guidelines and I'll explain that to you
017in a minute. We have it at the end of the presentation for April 2027 no tax return increase levy transfer of 12 cents the operating. So you say well what does that do to us for future issuance? That's one thing that I'm very focused on. I never want to show up to a school district and say we can do 160 million and lock you out of the market for 15 or 20 years where you can't do another bond issue. We want to make sure in a district this size that you have the ability every 5 to seven years that you can go back and do a no tax rate increase bond issue because as you know those facility needs continue to increase. They will continue to be there and they will always be there. And
018so we want to make sure that we put you in a position that roughly every 5 to seven years you can go out do a no tax rate increase referendum and take care of your facil of your of your facilities. So that would be option one. So what that means is if we did if if the board so chose and this were to pass for 162 million in April of 2027, you could come back as early as 2035 and do a no tax rate increase bond issue for 150 million and then 2042 for another no tax rate increase bond issue of 250 million. So again, it keeps you on that about 7-year uh rotation to run no tax rate increase bond issues for relatively significant amounts of 150 and additional 250 in 2042. Now that
019is all subject to your debt service or to your uh assessed value and I'll talk about that on the next slide. So this is the actual dollars. This is actually the numbers that I wanted to explain before I dive into that because this slide gets really busy but I want to make sure to show you these numbers. So, as you can see on this slide, this builds in. You can see in the highlighted blue in FY28, that would be a April 27 ballot initiative. We would drop your levy from 6713 to 5463. You can see the hypothetical at the top light blue of 162 million. We've got those payments built in. We've got the hypothetical in 2035 of 150 built in with payments and then the 250 of 2042. We've got part of those payments
020built in, but I did not want to hurt your eyes and put them all the way down, but those are in there. So, one of the things we want to focus on is you can see at the top right your AV growth. Again, that transfer transfers about 5.5 million in FY28 in your operating. As your levy goes up, that amount goes up each and every year up to the consumer price index, the lower of CPI or your aggregate AV. You can also see that you've grown 6%. Your AV has grown 6% over the last 10 years. You've grown 3.7 over the last 20 and we've assumed 3.5 annual uh growth over the next 20. So, we've got conservative AV growth built in. If your AV growth was to grow more than that, then that number
021would increase or you could do it sooner on your 2035 and 2042 issues. Obviously, if it would be less than that 3.5%, that number might decrease some or maybe push it out a year or two. So these are just, you know, as you're working on your compre comprehensive school improvement plan and your long-range facility plan that fits in that that sees, we want to make sure that you have some preliminary numbers to look at so that your your administration can work and decide on projects moving forward. Yes. >> Can I ask a quick question? Just I know we've got some new board members, but they've also got people watching. Can you >> talk just a little bit about AV? >> Sure. Assess value. >> Absolutely. So yeah, your assessed value is based upon here in
022your school district. You have different levels of assessed value, different property values. You have commercial, you have residential, real, you have agricultural, you have personal property and new construction. So all those get assessed. So your county assessor goes in and assesses those property. Uh their their uh charge from the state tax commission is to be between 90 and 110% of market value. Um, I can tell you that many uh school districts across the state do not see that. And if they do not, then they have to get what they call a memorandum of understanding from the state tax commission to put a plan in place to try to get within that market value. So they only have to reassess every two years. So on odd years there is not a reassessment. And on even years
023there, I'm sorry, on even years there's a non-reassessment. On odd years you see reassessment. So on even years you typically only see AV increases of new construction and personal property because those are reassessed. Those are assessed obviously every year. Then residential real property, agricultural property and uh commercial property are assessed on odd years only. So when we look at increases of property values, we have to remember that's a 2-year increase. And I think some people get that assessment and they might see a four or 5% increase and think, "Oh, oh no, I've got a 5% increase." It's really two and a half annual, if that makes sense, because it's on a two-year reassessment. So that's how the assessed value works. Your levy, your debt service levy, and your operating levy, but your debt service levy
024on the debt service side drives revenue. So you'd basically take your debt service levy, multiply it by your assessed value at $100 per assessed valuation, and that's what the revenue comes into your debt service fund to make your bond payments. So that's how your assessed value is. You do not get state foundation formula dollars like you do in the operating or other additional revenue that goes in your debt service fund. It is strictly driven by local assessment. That does that answer it? Very good. Any other questions on that? And by the way, jump in at any time. Don't Feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions because this is a lot of information quick and I don't want to take up your entire evening. So that is option one. Option one is if
025the Senate bill does not pass the House. Uh and I think that's kind of been the initial conversations that the board's had is an April 2027 uh no tax rate increase bond issue and a levy transfer. It is a you know obviously would would would want a yes vote on a no tax rate increase bond issue and a no tax rate increase levy transfer. So you could do both of these and the levy would not change moving forward. Yes. >> Just one more question just so we can level set. So the reason that we're tying this option one versus two to SB 10002 is because SB 10002 specifically changes when St. Charles County only can go for bond or levy issues. Right. And so that's why that's going to matter if all of a sudden
026our timing is restricted. That's a problem. We did get Prop RT to fail, which is a good thing, but we also have a number of other legislative impacts coming um and big ones even with income tax. And I mean, they're looking at all of the things. So everything is very volatile right now or feels shaky, I guess. Yeah. >> Yeah. And and like I mentioned earlier, that's why this is probably version eight of this. We've had lots of conversations with your administration on on these bills and how it's going to impact you when you can only run even years in November and we're trying to build a long range facility plan. Uh it makes it very challenging. You're absolutely correct. That would be that that makes it very tough on us. So, and and obviously
027very tough on you. So, that is option one. And again, I've got three options. Uh, I've actually slid in two options on the last one because I didn't want to put four. Um, option two, this is if legislation is passed, Senate Bill 10006 passes and the district is unable to do anything but go to a no tax rate increase bond initiative uh, in November. So, this is option two. You could call the election and do a November 2026 no tax rate increase bond issue for 160 million and a November 2026 no tax rate increase levy transfer of the 12 cents. Again, this is going to generate 5.5 million of revenue into your debt service fund. Uh I'm sorry, in your operating fund from your debt service fund. Again, you would pass it November. you wouldn't
028see the revenue all the way until FY28 because it would be after setting your tax rate in September. Now, uh obviously if that doesn't happen, which I'll talk about in a minute was with option three, then you'd have to wait all the way till 2028. So, it' be another two years down the road before we could run another one. Uh the advantages of this uh obviously it gets it it puts you in a position it doesn't impact your no tax rate increase bond issue much. It went from what 162 to 160. So it's not a big difference. Doesn't necessarily change the impact. In fact, it doesn't change the impact to the operating on the 12-cent levy transfer. The reason I would recommend April if the legislation doesn't pass and I know Dr. Delaney and I
029talked about this is just timing. Uh the good news is is you just finished a very comprehensive long-range facility plan. So you do have uh plans in place. you do have facility needs that have been identified, but it does take time, as you all know, to go out and run a referendum to try to get that information out to your public, right? We want to be very transparent. We want to make sure that they understand what projects we're doing. We want to make sure they understand the long range plan that if the the project and another reason I always show multiple issues is, as you know, everyone in your community has a project they want done and sometimes it doesn't meet the needs at that particular time, right? doesn't fall in the the top priorities.
030And if you have a long range plan, which I commend this administration and board for putting that together because it identifies the initial project, initial needs and projects across the district. It also identifies the next phase and people can see immediately if it's not in this issue in 2026 or 2027 or 2028, it's in the needs for the next issue and that project will get done. And I think that just is a very good communication to your community, to your patrons, to your staff of what projects are going to get done across the district and very transparent. And I think it just it sells very very much uh is more successful than it would be just saying we're going to do a project in 2026 or 2027 and here's the projects are getting done. If
031you can sell that as a two-phase project, we've got a nice master plan, we know what's coming next, then obviously your constituents have a lot of transparency and understanding of what's going to happen on your second bond issue. So, this would be option number two. Uh we do feel that um after talking administration, this would be an option that we could get the information out if this legislation passes and you feel like, hey, we need to get this done now um and and get both these ballot initiatives passed and get that on the board. The third option, well, I'm going to talk about the numbers real quick. So, here's the numbers on that. Um obviously, I hit the highlights. You can see it's an FY28 levy transfer of 67 cents to 54 cents at 12
0321.5 cents. You can see 160 million in 2026 at another 150 million in 2036 and another 250 million in 2042. That got moved out a year if you've noticed because we can only run on even leers, right? So November of even years. So that pushed that long range plan out another year. um if your AV grows up maybe u faster than we anticipate that maybe a 34 and a 40 instead of a 36 and a 42 but we are going to have to it's going to be a little bit more challenging if this legislation passes because it's a two-year window to make those determinations on when you'd run your tax no tax rate increase bond issues. Any questions on option two? >> So when does the revenue arrive for option two again? So it would
033be FY28 again because it would be after setting your September tax rate hearing. So your FY27 tax rate would be set at where it's currently at. The levy transfer would happen in November which then you would set your tax rate in September of 2027 which would be the FY28 school year to collect that revenue. >> And does that include both the debt service levy uh revenue as well as the bond revenue? >> It does. It does. That's correct. But we would we have put those scenarios of the 160 million we have those revenues coming in FY28 >> in the projections. >> So So that's the 2728 school year or the >> the 2728 >> both of those are 27 >> the revenue would be yes. Now we would issue the bonds immediately afterwards if that
034or whenever the district needed them. So if you pass a November 2026 referendum for no tax rate increase GEO bond issue, you do have the capacity to go issue those bonds and start projects as soon as you would like. Obviously we have to wait the 30 days for the state um auditor to approve the election and to go through an SAP rating call to fund with that, but you could get those proceeds typically within 60 days after that election to start projects. But the revenue and the operating would not come in until the FY28, which is a 2728 school year. So the pressure really is just if this passes, if SB 10002 passes, we can only do this on even years, which means we're in an even year. So we need to hurry up and
035get this on the ballot. We can't do it in August or April anymore. We'd have to do it in November during >> the general election. That's right. >> Correct. Yeah, that's the challenge. So, option three, which is going to kind of I'm going to explain a little bit of the of the challenge of option three, um, of why we would have to wait till 2028. So, this one is a little bit different. So, you can see I've got a November 2028 no tax increase bond issue for 175 million. Obviously, the increases a little bit given the fact that we've moved it out two years. and then a November or August. So, this is where I've thrown in the two scenarios in one. So, you could do a November 2026 uh debt service levy transfer. Again,
036simple majority or an August 2026, which we'd have to call by May 26. You'd have to call the election by May 26th in order to do an August tax rate levy transfer from the debt service to the operating of 12 1.5 cents. Is that only if SB 10002 fails? >> Correct. >> No, this is if it passes. >> No, that work. It's still even years. >> Yeah, but I thought it said specifically November elections. >> So Oh, go ahead. >> I think there's a question about when SB 10002 would go into effect and that may be one of the factors. That's correct. because I know there's I've heard even >> there were questions on the legislation which is good just to identify that it really is a moving target and so what we're trying to
037do is get information >> whether it's going to be this or that or this or that. So I appreciate you like walking us through on that. >> Yeah, absolutely. And then and you're absolutely right. That's a great point. We are we are shooting a moving target here, right? um because we don't know what is going to happen in the next two weeks. And then depending on the board's direction and decisions, you may have to call an election as early as May 26 if you choose one of these options for an August election. So, you know, best case scenario if it let's say SB 100006 passes is if you could run an August no tax rate levy transfer from the debt service to the operating and then another November election in 2026 for a no tax
038rate increased geo bond issue. The problem is now you're running two elections in just a few months. And I'm not saying that's not an option. I'm just saying that's a challenge. uh you're asking your voters and maybe even through some confusion, have we got an election in August and then another election in November? Uh would that be concerning trying to get that information out and questions of why we're doing two elections in just a few months? So, that's why I don't have that option on here, but by all means, that would be an option for the district. So, what I did do is put a uh November 2026 or an August 2026 no tax rate levy transfer at 12 cents. If you did it in August, the revenue of 5.3 million would come in in
039FY27. So you would get it immediately in this next fiscal year. But then that would push your probably, unless you decided to run another election just a few months later, that would push your no tax rate increase bond issue all the way up to 2028. >> Yes. >> Question. So I cheated a little bit and I looked at your slides before I came. So I saw the ballot language. Um while I understand that it would be um potentially confusing or cumbersome to have two elections and um measures in just a couple of months, would it not be less confusing for the public based on the complex language of the ballot language to concentrate our efforts on this is what this one means in August, right? It's it's passed or it's failed. Now, this is exactly
040what it means instead of one big blurb and for the voters to potentially go, "Wait, I'm supposed to vote yes on this and no on that." >> That's a great point. I mean, I think it's all about strategy and and that that's a great question and that'd be a great uh thought to think think of it that way. Two separate ones. Typically, in the past, what we've done is and and and by the way, I'm going to back up just a second. When we get to the ballot language, I'll talk about that as well. But this is a very, and you're right, convoluted question. You probably looked at it and it's very, you know, like a lot of ballot measure measurements that's constitutional and how you have to write it. It's hard for for people
041just to come in and read that and say, "What am I voting for here?" And and so what we've typically seen across the state is we're talking about moving revenue from bricks and mortar to kid fund. And and that's been a really good story across the state. We feel like we can still take care of our bricks and mortar fund with the money that we have in it, but we can take a portion of that bricks and mortar money and move it to our kid dollars. And to me, that makes more sense to the voters to understand what we're trying to do. We're not asking for a levy increase. We're just trying to take the levy that's here in the bricks and mortar fund and move it to the kid dollar fund. And I think
042folks will understand that because the ballot language is confusing. But by all means, I think that strategy would be something to consider that you focus in on the levy transfer in August and then a no tax rate increase bond issue in November. Typically, we see it on the same ballot to say it's a yes vote, no tax rate increase on both issues, but I could see the confusion of that as well. But I typically speaking, we've just seen a lot of districts put that on the same ballot and he explained this is to build a new projects. No tax increase bond issue. This is to move some levy from bricks and mortar to kid dollars. So it's a yes, yes, no tax increase bond issue. But by all means, I think that could be a
043successful strategy as well to split them out in August, November. >> And then one question for administration. Have we done this before that we've had two measures at the same time? >> Not that I'm aware of. >> Okay. But I don't know that we've done a debt service levy transfer in this fashion that in the past history that >> not since 2002. >> Yeah. Not since 2002. >> I mean it's the same number all the way down. So [laughter] we're sure it's been since 2002. >> Any other questions? >> It's a good point. >> Uh so again this one if you do a 2028 issue and that that's the challenge and and people ask all the time what's what's the danger of waiting? Obviously construction inflation uh you know that's running anywhere from 3 to
0446% annually. Uh that's fluctuated much higher than that obviously during the co years. So the projects you like well it's another 15 million. Well when you're talking about 162 compared to 175 million you're probably not going to get additional projects. You're probably just getting that eight up with construction inflation over those two years if that makes sense. So, it doesn't necessarily add projects. Um, but what it does is put you in a situation if you wanted to run in August and you didn't feel comfortable running in November uh in 2026 and with two elections, then you could have you'd have to wait all the way to 2028. So, that's the challenge. And again, like you mentioned, the challenges of of uh kind of a moving target and the different options you have uh make it
045difficult for the for the district to make decisions. And you'll hopefully have more information at the end of next week to know really what you which choices whether it's option two, three, and we've even talked about option four of doing an August November election. um compared to best case scenario is giving yourself some time uh whether it be an August election for a levy transfer and waiting for an April no tax rate increase bond issue or an April levy transfer no tax increase bond issue with one ballot two questions uh which has kind of been the original plan at least prior to the last couple years of what we would do in 2027 but you'll know a lot more here here in a in another week and a half so the last thing I want
046to talk well this is the numbers uh you can see um we've done the levy transfer at this time obviously in FY207 to 28 you can still see 175 million 150 and 250 on those transfers with the levy no tax rate increase bond issues again I've got kept the same AV growth uh in each one of these scenarios we're comparing apples to apples one thing I do want to share with you a lot of people uh you know I know we got some new board members and the question is how much debt are we in? Uh and and I know we get that question a lot. So one thing I want to share is where your constitutional bonding capacities. You have two types of bonding capacities. You have your constitutional bonding capacity which is uh
04715% of your assessed valuation that you could have outstanding. And the second one is your affordability of your 67 or if we do the levy transfer obviously less than that. Your current constitutional bonding capacity is almost $400 million. So, you're well well well below uh if you were to run a $162 million bond issue in 2026, your capacity is 400 million constitutionally. So, your your your constitutional bonding capacity far outweighs what you could actually afford. So, relatively speaking, compared to your AV, you're in very low debt in your debt service fund. Last thing I want to share is uh sample ballot language. Most of you all know what the geo ballot language looks like. You just uh you list your projects. It also says other capital projects across the district because we never know what
048those big projects are going to come in at. And you don't want to handcuff yourself on additional projects across the district. So, we'll have some flexible language on a no tax rate increase bond issue. Again, 47th vote uh whether it's November of even years or in April of any year depending on this legislation moves forward. This is the language I want to share with you in regards to a levy transfer because is it is a little different and a lot of people uh I get a lot of clients that have done this that say I don't like the way this reads let's change it and unfortunately we cannot um this is special tax counsel your bond counsel that that puts this together and it follows the state statute as required for this particular ballot language.
049So it does read that is it an increase to the operating tax levy ceiling for instance from 34306 per $100 assessed valuation property according to 2027 assessment for general uh operating expense of the district. If the questions approved, their operating tax levy of the district remains uh is estimated to increase by 12 and a half cents per $100 assessed valuation of real and personal property. And the district expects to make a corresponding reduction to its dis debt service tax levy in the same amount resulting here we get to the best part, the last line estimated overall tax of the district to remain unchanged. So you can see the first part of that it gets it sounds like it's a tax increase. You have to read the entire ballot language to realize the increase in the
050operating is going to be a decrease in the debt service. Therefore, remaining the overall levy is to estimated to remain unchanged. So, it is a little bit convoluted question and that's why it obviously takes uh some pretty good community uh informing to get this information out there that we are taking it out of one fund and putting into another fund. We're taking out a one pot for the bricks and mortar, put in the operating fund, and the overall levy is is going to be unchanged. So, that's what that looks like. Obviously, there are districts that have added why they're doing that. You by all means, you can do that. If you can say it's for uh salaries and uh compensation for employees to attract and retain quality staff or whatever you may be utilizing those
051additional revenues for, that can be added to the language if you so choose. Or it can be very general. So, I put two types of language in there, one very general and one expanded if the district so choose to identify what that levy transfer would be for. So, with that said, um you know, best case scenario, we get good news at the end of next week and we don't have to uh make rush decisions uh prior to May 26. I know you've got a board meeting, I believe, the 24th. >> 21st. So, at that board meeting, um, obviously you'll have the information you need if the board opt opt the only reason you'd have to do something to call an election May 26 is if you decide to go with an August levy transfer and
052that would be your May 26 deadline to actually call that election and have it approved by the county clerk's office. >> Anything any other options after that obviously would not have to be called by the 26th. Yes, sir. >> Would you mind going back one slide to the ballot language, please? I know that you already said no, it cannot be changed, but I'm going to ask the question anyway. >> Yes. >> So, if you want to jump back just one. >> Yeah. >> So, there's no way um after overall tax levy of the district to remain unchanged, therefore no tax increase or however you want to phrase it, there's no way of putting anything like that that is very clear that there is no tax increase. >> Yeah. So, that's a really good question and
053I get asked that a lot. And on your no tax rate increase bond issues, the language looks the same. You can never state on a general obligation bond issue that your tax levy will definitely stay the same because constitutionally, Missouri constitution requires you to set your debt service levy wherever you have to to pay your bonds back. Therefore, it says it's to remain unchanged. uh is is estimated to remain unchanged because you cannot legally say we are not ever raising our debt service levy. Now, it's my job as your financial service provider to make sure that I'm conservative on all my approaches to show good numbers and put lots of cushion in there that you do not have to raise your debt service levy moving forward. But at the same time, if we had a
054financial fallout and you were getting negative 5% AV increases and you were not able to make your bond fund payments, you would be required by law, by Missouri law, to set your debt service lever where wherever you have to to pay your bonds back so that you not default on your bonds. That is one of the reasons you get such high credit ratings and great low interest rates with investors. So when we go out and sell your bonds to our thousands of investors on capital markets, you're very very high rated school district. And the reason you are, really all Missouri school districts are, you're even higher because of your local economy. But the reason we get such low interest rates is because those bonds are guaranteed by that advalorum tax that you have to set
055it wherever you need to to make those bond payments back. So those investors are pretty much guaranteed their returns. That's why we get such low interest rates, but that's why we also have to put in any bond language that is estimated to remain unchanged because we can't guarantee that um by Missouri law. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> I don't I don't see a [clears throat] summary. I want to make sure I understand this correctly. Option one is to do the debt transfer and the bond at the same time. Give us enough time. Do it next April. >> That's right. Option two is SB 10002 goes into effect and we will rush to get them out so we don't have to wait two years to take advantage of this. >> Correct. >> And option
056three is SB passes. Let's get the tax levy transferred now and come back later. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're you're exactly right. >> Well done. That was a lot of information fast. >> That's why you're the treasure. So, uh, for those of who are, uh, just maybe new to this conversation, the Senate Bill 10002, uh, is being discussed in Jefferson City and it would only apply to St. Charles County. >> Correct. >> So, only applies to St. Charles County. Uh, two of the more important things it does, it would move schoolboard elections to even number November, and it would allow, uh, candidates to identify by political party. And so there's some partisan reasons why there's some troubles because I don't personally think that school districts do better when there's a bunch
057of donkeys or elephants running the show. Um I think we're better off nonpartisan. The second part about it is a very practical issue that to be able to say to a school district you can only do a levy or a bond issue on even number november creates this big window of time that we are powerless. we would be unable to do anything. We cannot pull any levers to address any kind of loss of funding because of Jefferson City or because of the economy or anything else. Senate Bill 10002 largely ties the hands of local school boards from being able to pull the levers that we can do to actually respond to the needs of the district. And I just want to make sure that was clear for those of you watching on online, those of
058you in here as well as we try to wrestle through the implications of all this because there's no one, not a single company that I'm aware of would make those same decisions upon themselves to say we're going to make sure that we only can make decisions to improve our bottom line or to face any kind of urgent threat every even number November. Like not a single one of our companies that we work in are are interested in doing those kind of things. So what we are dealing with is a level of poor management from a Jefferson city level expecting us to be able to anticipate everything two years in advance. They have an implication on St. Charles County school boards that they do not want to apply to any other county and would not apply
059to their own businesses. So what we are facing right now is uh a very bad situation, poorly planned, and we have to do our best to make the best decision out of it. So for those of you watching online, this is the first time you're hearing of Senate Bill 10002. For everybody else, we're just trying to get the information out there and be able to respond accordingly. So what I'm hearing in uh option one is if Senate Bill 10002 does not pass or if Senate Bill 10002 does not go into effect immediately. Correct. >> Right. And so option two, you have everything happening um two no tax increase bond issues bond issue and no tax increase debt service issue happening in November of 2026. And option three is the possibility of August debt service levy
060and November uh no tax increase bond issue. The value of option two um is you have everything happening the same year. I mean the same election. potentially have that value. The op the value of option three is the revenue from the debt service levy in August of this year would be received more immediately and could be able to be used more immediately for whatever issues exist. >> Correct. >> Um can I ask so thank you for allow me just to maybe set the stage for a lot of this. Um, what is your recommendation if Senate Bill 10002 were to either not pass or let's say it passes and it doesn't go into effect until let's say January 1st, 2028, right? What is your recommendation then? Um, let's say this, if it goes into effect January
0611st, 2028, what is your recommendation about either doing it November 2026 or waiting till April 2027 >> for the GO or the levy transfer >> For both. Okay. Uh, so I think it really boils down to my recommendation would be based a lot on how what's the need in your operating budget? >> Is it an immediate need in your operating budget? Um, if it is, then I would tell you an August levy transfer in a April no tax increase bond issue and just do two initiatives. That's what I would probably recommend. If your budget can withhold a year of unknown, if your fund balances are in a good position and you can wait until FY28, then I would tell you two April an April election with both issues on the ballot. So, it' be a
062no tax increase bond issue in April 27. and the levy transfer to 27. But again, you wouldn't get that revenue until FY28. So, I think it's all relative to how significant we we know we've got some challenging times coming up with the state foundation formula. Um, we've got u some some financial challenges for every district in the state of Missouri on some legislation. We're still not sure what that looks like until um everything's done next next week in the legislative session. So I would say that uh my recommendation would be one of those two would be April both initiatives or an August levy transfer and a November ballot initiative in April >> in 27. Yeah. If it's not >> I think can you say that last name? I think you said the word November. So
063it' be I'm sorry either my first option would be both in April of 27 both questions or an August April an August levy transfer and an April no tax increase bond issue of 27. [clears throat] Yes. Two questions. You done Steve? Stephen. >> Your estimate debt service includes increased valuation but there's discussion of being bringing Prop RT back in some form. Would that limit that debt service because our levy would be kind of decreased? >> Yeah, it's a good question. >> These don't take into account that, do they? >> They do not. So, I do have a Senate Bill 3 stress test that I have ran for the district when this was going on to see what could happen. Um, and I'd be by all means, if that were to to happen, we would want
064to revisit that and look at that. Um, it wouldn't necessarily probably, and I'm trying to remember now what it looked like. I don't think it impacted your first issuance of the 150 to 160 million, but it would impact future issuance. They would be less um because obviously it would freeze residential real property at the 2024 level. Therefore, that AV increase that we have built in on that first page of the of the or well, I guess I've got them in all those pages of these cash flows of 3.5% would probably drop closer to 2% increase annually instead of 3.5 because you'd only get the increase on personal property, commercial, and new construction and agricultural, which you don't have a lot of, and you would get uh obviously the residential reel would be frozen. So when
065we freeze that residential reel and only increase those other amounts 3 and a half% that drops the aggregate down to probably I think it was 2% 2.2 and so again it would not probably impact the the the first bond issue of the 160 million but it would probably increase future bond issues. >> This doesn't assume >> it does not assume >> property goes away either. >> No it does not it does not it is based upon current property values. And then my second question was with discussions on the state funding formula. If we move debt to operating, I know they hold local funding against us. Does that make us look like we're funding ourselves better? >> So it it's it's going to increase the revenues you take in uh for local funding. So it would
066impact a little bit to your um state foundation formula, but not I wouldn't call it significant. I don't think it's going to impact the foundation formula much to to receive 12 and a half cents of additional local dollars. >> It would be unknown what the new formula would do to get a new formula too. >> It would not because you're held steady at the 0405 level of AB, right? But the new formula, most of the conversation is that that will begin to move based on what your local contribution is. >> Yes. Uh couple of preliminary questions. When is the August election date? Do you know? >> I do. >> Got it on my phone. Does anyone have I think it's the fourth. Does that sound right? >> Anyone know? I've got it. Let me look.
067Take a look real quick. >> I've been told by a reliable source that's the fourth. >> Is it the fourth? >> And then I hit it. >> What is the first date of school? >> August 24th. >> 24th. 20. >> So, >> um, as you were going through the options, initially my thought was August, August of 26 makes the most sense. We're in desperate need of money. Unfortunately, the next workshop item is going to address that and then [clears throat] we can take care of that that immediate need hopefully in August and then push the bond issue to to 27. But if the election is on August the 4th and start of school isn't until 2 and 1 half 3 weeks later, we're going to lose a lot of our voting base um that may
068not even be in the state or the country to vote. Plus, it gives us limited time to get the information out there. And I forget which prop it was, but we got accused of being nonr transparent by having an election in August trying to sneak it through. And while I want to be on record saying that that definitely was not the case, those three detractors would be one thing that I would be concerned about putting on an on this August ballot. >> Yeah, it's a good point. >> Other questions from the board. >> So, want to make sure this is also captured, right? >> Sure. All the numbers you've shared do not take into consideration any other legislation that has yet to be passed does not take into consideration the possibility of another Senate Bill
0693 showing up in any kind of manifestation. Um and so uh in the worst case scenario if any of those things happen do your recommendations change? >> Yes. So if if all that so if some of those worst case scenario things happen, how would your recommendations change? >> Well, it really depend on what what those scenarios happen like SB3. Um it's going to change your long-range planning if it were to come back and they put it on the ballot and it were to pass. We're dealing with that with districts across the state. Uh Dr. Jungman and I obviously are running SB3 scenarios on all the states that actually the counties that pass SB3 with zero caps. um and they are either doing less or pushing their bond issues back pretty significantly. And if they can
070do the bond issue, um it's pushed them out. Instead of doing one in the next 4 to 6 years, they're doing it in the next 12 to 15. So, it's significant. I'll just be honest with you. It's it's really devastation. Uh in regards to their their long-range facility plan, I know is in the operation side, too. I'm here to talk about the debt service side, but it is it would definitely uh significantly change your future outcomes. It would probably lower the first one. I said it'd be close, but it' probably lower it some and would definitely push out these other issues much further, which then obviously you would be in a situation to take care uh of any facility needs that we know of that came up, the things I mentioned earlier, the asphalt, the
071playgrounds, the roofs, the HBAC, flooring, uh that would have to come out of your capital project fund. And I think we all know that the capital project fund is actually money transferred out of the kit dollars. So you would be using operating dollars or what I call kit dollars um to take care of facility needs moving forward if SP3 were to pass. So to give you an exact recommendation, I couldn't do that quite yet because I'm not sure what other uh bills we're seeing for property tax that I know they're still discussing in Jeff City probably as we speak. So [clears throat] with the threat of those types of uh future events coming out of Jefferson City, does that just emphasize the urgency behind this or does that change in your mind the timing? Because
072you know like we all know this is the facility master plan report. It's all been shared at a previous meeting. Everybody can look at it and obviously all the prices go up you know every year or two. So if we have to push back this an extra 2, four, 6 years, all the costs go up and again um just for all of us to be aware of it. But with this possible threat, does that change in your mind any of your recommendations on urgency and timing? >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just like I mentioned in I think it was option two where if if if this has passed in specific um 102 SB 100002 if it's pass I mean I think the urgency of like you mentioned either August November or November November depending on
073when you wanted the tax levy revenue to go into whether FY27 or 28 personally again this is a personal opinion um doing it then compared to waiting two more years for projects with little additional money um would make sense to try to from from a financial standpoint. I can't speak from what's best to to get the information out there and to make sure that all of our constituents know we're doing obviously that plan puts that you you in a much better place there because we're still several months from that. So I don't think that's an issue. But it would definitely, in my opinion, if if I was sitting your seat, I would want to move that forward to get those projects done sooner and later because they're just more expensive later. >> Any more questions,
074board? Any other comments from admin? You want to add anything to what he had shared? >> I just want to thank you for the timeliness of it. This has been a plan in the works um really since that facility master plan was delivered. And I just appreciate um knowing the landscape that we are sitting in right now that our board feels as if they have three options at this point or a version of those three options um to really assist in um the work of the school. So I just appreciate your time and and their time just to spend this in a workshop. >> Thank you. Very welcome. >> Anything else board? I just want to ask one last thing because now I'm think I'm confusing myself. Did those numbers are those recommendations and those
075numbers uh including the budget shortfall to the funding formula that we're expecting? >> No, I'll be covering that in the next presentation. So he is only looking at what we have available to help with improved revenue. So that's what the debt service transfer would help with. And [snorts] then the bonding capacity is a separate kind of component to that. But I'll address our shortfalls to the operating budget um in the next presentation. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. >> And again, I'd be happy, you know, obviously after next week and we have more information being happy to communicate with administration to provide any additional information the board would like to see at that time. >> Right. Is there anything you'd like to say? Okay. Great. All right. All right. Well, we thank you for your
076time and uh we look forward to a conversation probably at the May 21st board meeting about this topic. >> Thank you very much. >> Hey, next we will focus our work session around employee insurance. So, Dr. St. John, >> good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to share a lot a few more numbers with you here this evening. Um I would like to begin with um I'm passing a um insurance option evaluation [clears throat] framework. You can tell I started as a teacher. Um there's a lot of information that's going to come at you. So you really have a graphic organizer to help with um organizing your thoughts as we go through these. Lots of levers that can be moved when we talk about insurance. And so I really just wanted you to have something
077to help capture your thoughts. But I actually want to begin with um my many of my committee members are here this evening for the employee insurance committee and if you don't mind would you all stand because I'd like to recognize you. This has been a year's worth of work and labor and I just appreciate so much. You guys stand up too. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Let's give them a round of applause. [applause] These amazing people kept coming back each month to talk about insurance. And I just find that to be amazing because it's defin definitely something that we need um to better understand. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take us through um first um just some of the objectives. So much of the presentation that you see tonight is
078exactly what I shared with them on Tuesday and then we did a feedback loop. So they were able to provide um the committee's information back to the full board and then certainly um once we get to question time if any of the committee members wanted to join in and have that conversation that would be um completely expected as well. Our objectives really were to review over the historical spending of the district and revenue projections. Explain um the board's obligation per board policy. Define the responsibility of the committee. Explain the future fund balance if spending patterns continue. Benchmarking our information against our surrounding school districts. Present four options to the board for review. You will review the collected feedback of our committee and then discuss any next steps that we see on the horizon. I'm going
079to start with a couple familiar slides that you may remember from the beginning of the school year. And it's really to best understand where does the money come from. So setting the table of this revenue expenditure story, I wanted you to really understand when we were talking about Prop RT, it was really against that local largest portion of our money. So that 73%. Today's conversation is going to turn to our state funding. Our state funding is 22% of the pie that we receive and it has late breaking news that I want to bring to you and make sure that you're aware of um in terms of some threats to the school district's funding. Then when we look at where the in where the money goes, that money comes into the district and 82% almost 83%
080goes right back out to pay for our salaries and our benefits. And that's an important component to understand as those are the largest expenditures of our entire budget. Um, our budget fund balance really is the savings account to ensure that we can pay our payroll. And I'm going to take you back in history and show you a time when the district was not actually able to do that. This is a familiar slide. This is the one that I brought to you in um the last board meeting. And I really just wanted to remind you what I have been sharing with you for several months. So for several months I have said to you that we had planned [clears throat] on uh 3% and our gross over um gross pay for salaries to be increased for
081all of our um people groups. I had talked about benefits being able to go up by 8%. And in that same time frame, I expected that our state revenue would increase by 3.2 million due to the increase of the SAT or the state um adequacy target. In the current year, it was supposed to go up and it did not, but we were conservatively budgeted. So, we are not in jeopardy for the year that we are currently in, but we are in jeopardy for the upcoming school year. So what I'm showing in this chart is um I've expanded it to go back to 2019 and 20 to just um provide a little bit more context for the um the volatility that the district has seen in the fund balance. So if you go all the way
082back to 2019 2020 you can see that the fund balance was at 13.44%. and then it creeps down to 10% and then goes back up to 16 then to 2735 and then you get to the green column and we're at 27.18%. Then you can see my projections as these numbers have changed. So in the top box that's highlighted that 64 million it previously was at a number higher with that included the $3.2 million. You see in my notes to the right, due to the decrease in state funding, I have removed my anticipated growth, which was 3.2 million. And then with the new calculated SAT coming in as an expected 6600, I'm dropping it by $5.1 million, which is an $8.3 million swing in our state funding. Then I highlight for you down toward the bottom,
083what does that do to our spending? we would be deficit spending by $9.8 million next year if nothing changes. And I say if nothing changes because I still in this projection have included that 3% increase to our salaries overall and those have been for the most part buttoned up and negotiated. What [snorts] I bring to you tonight is the second largest expenditure which is our insurance. Of the $61 million that you see for our benefits, only half of that is something that we can change. So half of it is for taxation and the other half is the insurance which comes in at about $27 million. Then I want to take you back in history and I might call on Lisa Simpkins or Mark Delaney for a little bit of history when this um piece comes
084into play. You want to train your eye on what you're looking at. On the left side you have the years 1112 at the bottom means the year 2011 2012. In the first section that is um not highlighted in um white background that's for support staff and beneath that you can see the percent change that they had for their salaries that year. And then in the notes it's um some anomalies that happened throughout the years. In the gray section, you see the certified percentage of change and then you also see the notes that occurred during those years. Then you have the administration column and the notes that go with that. And then you have the fund balance running side by side with that. So you start to wonder what patterns were there, what things had changed,
085what caused decisions to make them either hold on salary changes or give salary increases. I've added two more columns to this because I think it's very important in this time in history for us to understand. There was a large sum of money that really propped up the district from the year 2020 through the year 2025 as we were infused with federal dollars due to co you can see each of those amounts throughout the years. Then an anomaly that's really unique to this district is what's called the fit task. fit tax. It's the financial institution tax from both the state and the county. And there were some very large sums paid to the district during some of the years for which the fund balance you would see go up as you might expect. That is a
086tax that is unable to calculate. We are unable to predict it. We are unable to calculate and understand how much the district will receive over time. You can see it has been as high as 8.8 million and as low as $43,000. So that is not in our best interest to budget for that, but rather if it were to come in as a large amount to deal with it in the year that it has been received. It is a non-budgeted account in terms of expected revenue. So, I want to pause right there because I'm really kind of setting the stage for understanding what the history has been for our largest expenditure, which is salaries, and see if you have any questions. >> Can you highlight again which years uh there's a paid freeze? Um, and again,
087which years they did not receive the steps. >> So, I see 2122. So the freezes happened in the 1617 school year. There was no change to salary. It's highlighted in that darker yellow. Uh the next year we did not have an increase in salary, but we did remove three work days from the teacher contract. So they earned the same amount of money for working three less days. As you move up through that chart, the 2122 school year, we did not have a step, but we provided a $1,000 stipend for all employees that year. But that very next year in 2223, we were able to correct that. So, we provided two steps. So, the light yellow is the year that we did not provide a step and then the very next year corrected that step. And
088as you move to the 24 25 school year, we were able to provide two steps correcting that freeze in the 1617 school year. So that's why it is highlighted that darker orange color. Every other year that you see in that gray chart, our staff either received some sort of an increase with a percentage increase. they may have received some sort of um addition to the base and a step or we reduced the amount of work uh for the same salary. So there was some increase on all of the other years. What was the precipitating factor for those decisions? like what what was the number that we hit with our uh savings that once we hit that number there was a response to handle salary in that way >> obviously was not a part of those
089conversations and I don't think that Lisa was either at that time frame but I can speculate based upon what I'm seeing in the fund balance that as it began to get closer to 20% it looked like the the district was making a decision to slow down the salary increases and so it is sort of a lagging factor because you make the decision in the spring or this time of year to affect the next school year. So, not knowing what they were projecting or thinking at that time, but then thinking they may be ending um better or worse than they were is what those decisions would be based upon. I did forget to draw your eye to the red that I've highlighted there. So, when the district um if you go back to 1819 and you
090read up, that is 19.46 46. And that's when um there was a furlow and there were um some things that had changed in the um salary extract salary um raises. And then the next year when you get to 1920, you're at 13.44%. But then you start to get infused by those other dollars. And the next year going into the fall, the district had to go to the bank and take a note out from October to December in order to pay payroll. And that's with the tune of 600 or $6.55 million, meaning they the cash flow was not there. The fund balance had dipped below. Um, so I harp on that quite a bit to say you need at least that 2 and 1 half to 3 months in order to pay your payroll because you
091don't start receiving your big money again until about November of a school year, December. And so often times you'll find this in um poor cash flow districts. And so that's what you're seeing with that red um highlighted area. And then the thing that people like to bring talk about is that something saved them. Well, I wanted to show you what that something saved them was. It was the COVID dollars and the fit tax both of which one is not reliable and one is gone. So, as we approach the 20%, the low 20%. I think it's important for you to understand the two largest expenditures are salaries and benefits and we have to look at them and we have to make a change. As we move into this next conversation about insurance, >> which month of
092the year is the fund balance referring to >> that would be in June of a school year. >> Okay. >> So that's the >> the the last the way the school year ends. >> So as June 30th, >> correct? >> Yeah. Okay. >> Is is that 20% accounting for the update of the last dollars from the state? The 20% that I have in that highlighted area is um the same that I show on the prior which would include the deficits. But yes, thank you for that. >> That is the latest. Uhhuh. >> So >> my projection at this point with that new information that I just shared. >> So >> right there, >> it's 20.86 >> at the bottom of the column to the right of green. So the previous slide you can go back
093there June of 2016 of the 1516 year we at 20.02 fund balance and the following year led to two straight years of salary freezes. >> Correct. What do we have any indication on um like benefit freezes as well? Was that also just part of it? >> I did not pull that information. >> But 20.02 in 1516 led to two straight years of >> correct >> President Blair. I'll just remind you that after those two years of increases at 6.5% and 5% the district went out for a tax levy. um and it failed and I think there was some concern at that time um that when that tax levy failed there needed to be some correction within the revenue sources and the fund balance that need you know needed to be there to cash flow the
094district and that might be why again wasn't in the room for all of those conversations. My position was not in that room at that time but I think that would be I would assume that some of that had to play into the conversation. Thank you. >> So, we find out end of next week >> where they land at the end of session for funding. >> However, wasn't it last year that they I mean, I guess they can do it anytime. They can like decide to fund and be like, "Here you go. You can budget on that." And then they can be like, "Nah." >> Right. And that I mean, that's the year we're living. So if a school district would have budgeted the full 71.45 it in this month right now they the state comes
095to you and says oh my gosh I'm so sorry we don't have enough money. We cannot we're not going to be able to pay that out. So they've been paying it lower than that this whole year and now they're saying it's never coming back. Like it should go like this throughout the whole year. You should start low and it should end high for the state adequacy target completion. And in instead ours is going like this. And then next year it's going to actually go back to the year 2425 funding level at as as I mentioned about 66 to 6,700. Um which when if you look back a notch again and you think about how much money was coming in 64 million and when we recalculate that's exactly where we would be coming in at 64
096million. So we would need to think like expenditures have changed dramatically since that time frame. And so we really have to get control over the expenditures in order to meet this decreased revenue. >> Especially because we've got year after year of inflation that we continue to see. >> Yeah. >> And things we cannot control our utilities, our insurance um for property and casualty or insurance overall going up as it is um just in general um before we do any of the other lever changes. And so it it's just important for you all to have this history and understand um some of the conversations that I know I have in regards to the fund balance and the why. I think this hope I hope this helps um to tell a story as to why there were
097extra dollars infused into the school district for for a period of time. I just want to share too having gone to Jeff City on Monday to testify against SB 10002 um and hearing things and continuing to hear things and then working with our partners at MSBA who are active too. I mean there is you know people are going to get tired of hearing this but it is like the worst kind of soap opera to watch what's happening to public education across the state right now on a dozen or more different trajectories. um it's a real time to get plugged into what's happening at the state level. We already know what's kind of happening at the federal level, too. So, um this just makes this budget year, luckily for Miss Pam, um it's going to be
098it's going to be a roller coaster, right? >> Yes. >> I'm really sorry if I missed the answer to this, but when do we expect to find out what the current fit tax is? It is never a budgeted item. It comes in um in the fall. >> Yeah, that's what I was asking. When we know when it's coming in. >> Oh, it's about $80,000 um for this year. Yeah. State and county. Yeah. >> Sorry, I was looking at the Okay. >> And the the row above it, I don't know cuz it's my projected year. >> Sorry, I thought the the one above was the current one, but that's my mistake. >> 80,000 is what we received. 79,000 this year. >> Good question. So, while we're on this particular topic, over the last few months, there
099was a information released by the state saying, "Here's the formula. Here's what it looks like if we fund the full formula." And you uh the board administration decided we're not going to bank on receiving everything that they're promising. So, we immediately were conservative in terms of what we're going to be expecting. Right. We correct. We we >> half the distance to the to the change. We we budgeted half the distance. >> And that's what I was asking. So basically, if the formula was funded the way that they said it would be, we would have received 6.4 million in additional funds this year. However, we predicted that we would only receive 3.2 because we just want to be careful with taxpayer dollars. We want to make sure we hold on to it. And for everybody who's
100listening, basically, even though we were careful with taxpayer dollars, expecting a $3.2 million increase instead of 6.4, for they're taking that number all the way down to a total of a $8.3 million loss. So it's not a >> it's it's below what we were getting. >> It's it's below the prior year and going back two years to that funding level. And that's you're right. That's the dramatic $5.1 million difference. >> But if I tack that on to what I thought I was going to get, it's the 8.3. That's the swing that that it's taken. >> So it's a 3.2 plus the 5.1. >> Correct. Thank you. Mhm. lots of information. If you think of something else along the way, just stop me. Um, but I just want to kind of step you through now. We'll
101we'll switch fully into what the committee um information has been. And again, this has been something that has been happening. Um, we've met monthly since September. And really just the last school year, $11 million additionally went into the self- insurance fund. And I've talked about that before, but really that is a dramatic spend. And so it required dramatic conversation um over an entire year, school year's worth of time. And so again, that's that's the work that the the committee did. So we reviewed um any information that was coming from the broker and administration. We are ensuring compliance and then finally recommending any cost control um and health improvement options that we can to the school board. Um I've shared that this is a empathetic conversation with a financial decision. So health insurance feels very personal
102and it feels very much like a story instead of a math problem. And so I really try to balance that information by understanding um and seeing it from all perspectives. But at the end of this, this is a board's decision to decide how much they want to allocate to this expenditure. And so that's really um the decisions that I'll be laying out in front of you. We are self-insured and um the question sometimes come uh will come why are you self-insured and what's the advantage of that versus being in with a consortium or other school districts. It does reduce your fixed cost overall and we do have more control over those costs. Um we're not sharing our health um profile with others. This is our health profile um which can be good or bad. Um
103we are large enough district that we can um be self-insured. um wouldn't really be an option for a smaller school district. Um and many of the districts around us are also self-insured. This is our census data um most recent census data and so you can see the number of um active employees and retirees that take advantage of the medical um insurance and then that of dental and then we talk about the number of lives that are insured or number of belly buttons and that's just over 4,000. And then there's a list of the thirdparty providers that we work with in conjunction with this. Here is the board's obligation highlighted for you. Um really that the board will um provide at least full annual single employee premium for the base option of medical, low dental, and
104low vision. And so when I go in um to the next couple of slides, you'll start to see that we really go beyond that. Currently, we um we not only just do base, we do base and high deductible as free for our employees or as a benefit. And then beyond that, we're paying a percentage of family care um which would include children and spouses. The bank account that holds this money is actually pretty simple. It is simply the employer and employee paid premiums, those paid by retirees or COBRA, and any interest that's earned on that money. Those revenues are fairly consistent. What is inconsistent or what spikes is the expenditure for health claims and prescription claims. A claim can come in at any time that's $200,000 and it needs to be paid right then. Um
105our prescription costs um run about a million dollar a month and our care ACT has a monthly cost as well of about $90,000. There are administrative fees. Um there's stop-loss insurance. there's cost in um there's also some rebates um that are offsetting some of those cost. This is a snapshot of three months worth of the um revenues um for the last 3 years. And this is where we will show you the employee premiums have remained fairly consistent um with a 2.9% increase um during four from FY23 to FY25. During that same time, employee contributions were um about a 10% increase. And then, as I mentioned, in the year 25, we infused it with 11 million. And when you add that into what the district had already paid, that's a 67% increase for the district cost
106in order to maintain um a healthy fund balance and be able to pay the bills. During the same time, the expenditures have risen about 21% over that amount of time. You can see in total, our claims for medical range in the neighborhood of about um 19 to 24 million. Our prescription costs range from 8 to 9.9 million, almost $10 million for the year. And then the overall after rebates are considered, the increase was about 12%. There is not a legal requirement to have a reserve balance for your self- insurance fund, but there is definitely a general rule that makes sense. It should be about three months, very similar to your home budget or what I talked to you about with the fund balance for operating. That number for us would be about $7.5 million. Today,
107we set at about $6 million, knowing that we may have to add more money to the account again this year. We've already transferred 1 million extra dollars in there. If we continue on this path, this is not the whole operating budget. This is just the self- insurance fund, but you can see it quickly goes into a negative status. The year of 25, you see that it's bumped up to the 7 million and that was to get it back to that 3-month reserve. And then as the spending continues, um the cost of increased um and then really the district is currently subsidizing the premium because it's not being passed on to the employee at this point. As I mentioned, theirs has stayed very straight line where the district is incurring the additional cost that the accountant
108is seeing. So then we work with our broker, MMA, and they come to us and they said the insurance for exactly what you have today is going to cost you 12.5% more next year. Up until last week, I kept saying we were going to spend 8% on insurance. We were going to spend 8% more from one year to the next because that's what we had in our budget. But remember, in that same budget, I thought we were going to go up $3.2 million in our state revenue, but instead we're going to go backwards. So that's where you see those offsetting costs um in the earlier um show that I had shown you. Working with the committee, we talked about everything. We broke down every expense. We looked at everything that um the cost the cost
109that can be incurred and every lever that we could attack. Then we voted and we decided these were the levers that we were okay with looking at and making change for. And so those levers are everything from plan design including co- insurance, max out of pocket, short-term disability which is currently fully paid by the district, reduce or eliminate dependent coverage, look into a dependent audit. So, um, at current state, we have not audited the, um, those [clears throat] that are insured in this program up to this point, and that's something that we would like to bring coming this fall. We also don't counsel those that might be Medicare eligible for um, really looking at that as an option instead of our full health plan. And then finally, the HSA contribution has varied. Um, we know
110that in our district we currently pay $1,000 and $2,000 for employee versus family and that's fully um on on October one on day one that amount of money goes into the account. And what we have noticed is in other districts there is no dependent um contribution for that and that it's paid over time. So it's not paid to the employees all at one time. Another practice that um we will be moving away from is the prior practice was cascade spending. So it was not a set amount from the district but the money could be used in different ways. And again in our research we found that that was very unusual. It really creates a volatility from the board's perspective of the expenditure instead of having a set amount of this is how much we will
111contribute. Um and that's a per employee type of a um fixed cost and that's what we are recommending for this change >> now. Okay. >> Can you say a little bit more about cascade spending? >> Yes. So previously a variable cost by the district was based upon a premium calculation. So you had a calculation sheet and then the money could could trail down the page and allow you to spend that money in different ways. What you see in most cases is we will pay $800 for the employee for this package. The next one will be $800 and then the employee pays up for if they have a spouse, if they have children, which you may be more familiar with in your own insurance that you have um available to you. So moving into a known
112fixed cost for the district is really what best practice is for such a large expenditure. So our contribution would be locked and nonvariable and any variable costs that continue to happen fall to the employees with the plans, >> right? >> Because the claims go up and down. I mean, that's really what it comes >> well. And this is really on how they design which plan they're going to go for versus here are the plans. Um, so each person's plan can look slightly different, which can also be a varied variable cost to the district. >> Okay. Yeah. So now in the next couple of slides I'm going to go through some benchmark data for you. So I just wanted to share with you um this is a slide that Lisa had presented to you in January
113just in terms of where in 2526 our teacher starting salary was and we were second highest in our um surrounding area and we expect to be um pretty close to the same as we have given the 3% raise um this year for salaries. In the last several weeks, we've received some information um an email um to the board to myself in regards to insurance and yes >> going back I see that starting salary. Do you have an equivalent comparison for like 15ear salary? >> I don't I don't think I understand the question. Say it again. >> If you've talked for how do we compare for >> Sure. No, we I don't have that with me tonight but that would be something we could provide. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> That's a good question.
114A lot of times you'll see um three points actually. You'll see um entry mid and then you'll like masters plus 10 and then you'll see um bottom right corner. >> That's the comparison I wanted to see. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You do that. >> Dr. St. John, could I just add you might be able to obviously pull a salary schedule by salary schedule comparison. Step 15 in one district is step 15 in another district. In any district, you could have variability uh from year to year and was a step provided or not a step not provided that may may still have some you know differences in there that you wouldn't be able to ascertain by just looking at the salary schedule itself if that makes sense. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Good point. As ours
115we just shared very through the time. um other questions that we received by email, I really wanted to address with the committee and provide them the most information um in terms of being able to work back with folks that are having those questions. And so when we look at um the different um area school districts, we were able to pull um Francis How for our pair of professional pay is at 1774, which you can see is higher than our um area districts here with Fort Zumal even having two different figures, one with and without um 60 hours. Then I began to dig into some research wondering um approximately um what other area um employers for a person that's in the 18 to 20 $20 uprange um making how much are they spending on that person's
116insurance? And so what I was able to pull is in health care um that's going to be anywhere from about 7 to $10,000 per employee. school districts are at the higher end of that range where we pay about 8 to 12,000. And then if you were to go to um a warehouse such as Amazon or a large company like that, you would go about 6 to8,000. And then if you were to go to um say Walmart, Target or other retail places, you would in some cases have no insurance coverage and up to about 5,000. And that's um data from our area. Next, I'm going to talk to you about benchmark data in terms of what the board pays in these other school districts. So, the first one is the base plan and then we'll look
117at the high deductible plan. But I'll train your eye to read across the top. So, when you see the top and you see 100% that means that the board is paying 100% of the premium for the employee. That's very standard in our industry and most all school districts. you're going to find that at least one plan will be um for the employee and it will be 100% board paid. Slightly different in Parkway for their base plan. They do ask their employees to pay $100 and then the board pays the remainder of that. As we move through the chart and you look at the next um set, that's for employee spouse and then you'll see employee children and then you'll see employee family. And again, training your eye to read across to the percentage that is
118paid by the board versus what is paid by the employee. So if you drop down to employee spouse, we are currently pay paying 66% and the employees paying 35%. And then you look at the next one and that's u 4555 and then you get to 5141 and what that really means in the 50/50 version is meaning that the board is still paying for the employee and the employee is now paying for their spouse. So that's what 50/50 would look like. And then when you move to the employee children again you can read across and you can see um in our case that the board is paying 66% as compared to 5153 and then in St. Charles that is 73 then it goes to 55 77 76 and 62. So we do have some of our
119surrounding districts that are similar to us when it comes to employee um children. Then when you look at the employee family again chaining your eye to read across in some cases we are the reverse of our neighboring districts. So in our case we pay as a school district 66% the employee pays 35% and you can see at Fort Zoomwalt it's the reverse of that. So the employee is paying the 65% and the district is paying the 35%. That's similar to what you see at Wsville. St. Charles is closer to a 50/50. similar to what you see at Orchard Farm. And then again, Rockwood and Parkway are a little bit closer to what we are. And then Pattonville is closer to a 50/50. So the next slide is the same format. So I'll give you a
120minute just to kind of read through that, but this is for our high deductible plan and what that looks like. Again, um if you remember, the board policy really states just one base plan, but again, we're offering of of employer paid um benefit for both our high deductible and our base plan. And then again, drawing your eye to those percentages and just um this was kind of eye opening to the committee just not realizing that our district was a bit of an outlier in St. Charles County in terms of what the board has been paying for insurance. And so um that's why I wanted to share this information with you as well. As we move into this chart, this is our current year contributions. Um and I just want to kind of train your eye
121on how to read it because you're going to see it in a couple different ways. So in the top box, you see employee contribution. And this is to remind um everyone this is on a 24p cycle. We do have an 18-pay cycle, which would change the numbers just a little. So, I just want to remind everybody this is a 24-pay cycle. You're seeing what the employee would be paying on a monthly base or high deductible and then an annual base or high deductible. And then under district contribution, you see that the the district is paying for base. We're paying $89728 for an employee only and pretty close to that at $821.36 for the employee. That's about $10,000 and $9,000 annually that we are adding on top of their already paid salary. As you move through
122that chart, you'll notice that if we have employee spouse base, we're paying that person, we're we're spending $14,000 more on that employee, which really is a difference of about $4,000 over that employee only, 16,000 for high deductible. And then if you move to the bottom right of the chart, you will notice if a person has chosen employee family, we are paying an additional $21,000 for that employees benefits, which is significantly higher than what our obligation of 9,000 or 10,000 is in that top area. Do you have questions about that before I move on? Because it we'll we'll kind of talk through several charts that look similar to this. Okay. When I took that information and I thought if the district contribution were an additional additional hourly wage, so if that same person we talked about
123a minute ago is making $20 an hour and then they chose one of those different packages for benefits. It shows you that we would be adding for employee only about $5 per hour more for that person. But as we move through the chart, you'll notice that then at the employee family level, we're actually adding 10 to $11 per hour per employee that's making that choice. As I step you through, there's going to be four options today. And I went ahead and calculated it for each one of those, and we might refer back to it later, but I wanted to have it for you in your notes. That makes sense how I've calculated that. Okay. So, I'll present four options that the committee um has reviewed and provided some feedback on. And in the option one
124um you'll see that the district um has a um ch just a slight change increase um just slightly over where we're currently at with the 27 million. In option two, we save the district about $3 million. [snorts] Option three, we are again about even with the current spend. And then option four would actually be an 8% spend, which is similar to what we anticipated we might spend um prior to the news this week. >> Question though, >> so since we're self-insured, these aren't actually what we're paying insurance. This is what we're paying for services and prescriptions. >> So we're not [snorts] >> this is the to in total the >> divided by the number of employees that are insured basically. No, this is in total the district's line item in the budget for uh spending
125it on employee insurance. So, this is what we're we're paying out. >> Yeah, but we're self-insured so we pay that bill. >> No, we paid this money into a whole another account and the bill gets paid out of that account that has the $6 million today. >> But when you said this gets it's like paying this employee more. If that employee doesn't actually use the insurance, they're not actually making more in this comparison. >> I'm not sure I'm following that slide again. >> Which slide? Which slide would you like? >> Go back. >> One slide right there. >> So, what I was what I was depicting for you in the top middle is every person in here that takes employee only insurance. It costs the district $5 more. So, I'm going to pay you $50,000
126a year or I'm going to pay you $20 an hour. I'm going to tack on this additional amount, >> but we are self-insured. So, we have to pay him money that pays for procedures and prescriptions. >> And that's where that money goes from here into this pot and then that pays for stuff. >> Correct. If this employee doesn't just picks that plan and gets no procedures, no prescriptions, they're not actually by this comparison making anymore because none of that money is going to cover them for anything. Correct. >> It's not about them at this point. It's about the the district's saying >> pay it in. >> We pay it >> as a contribution. >> You're just saying it's not in their pocket. >> It's not in their pocket. >> No, no, no. I wasn't trying
127to say it was in their pocket. No. I'm trying to say that it's understanding what this expenditure looks like and breaking it down into this hourly understanding because if you take that annualized number, that monthly number, that's what we were doing. >> It's just the cost. >> I know. I'll move on, but I don't like this comparison because it's not fair. >> I'll just say to Well, you can tell them where you where where you came with that. It wasn't your idea in the first place. No, it was actually a superintendent conversation about how to explain your benefits >> across districts. >> That is realized cost though that the district is paying. >> I understand that. >> Okay. >> But to say that you would go to an employee and go, you're actually getting this
128much work an hour if they're not getting a high prescription or high medical bill. >> But I'll just >> they're not >> Kevin. That's they do that like in in my company, they'll show you your total compensation. You're like, yeah, I'm not bringing that home. It is the total compensation. So that's just it. >> Don't like that. Don't like that comparison. >> Yeah, I was going to say and that also affects um how much is in the retirement as well for Missouri >> family. >> The employee portion. Yes. >> The employee, right? So it [snorts] doesn't matter what we >> Okay. So, using the $12,000 guidance that we had from our benchmark, I wanted to look at our current distribution um for each of the current and then the four options as the $12,000 standard.
129And I created a heat map for you to understand um each of the areas that are over the threshold of that $12,000. That is a standard number in our industry um for paying for employee insurance. And so you can see that in the spouse area and then you can see it um most predominantly in the employee family as that cost per is um nearly double in some cases um or just over double in some cases. And that's true currently for both our base plan and our high deductible plan that we have which is the first column and then you can see it um throughout um options 1 2 3 and four. The next two slides will go over what the employee contribution looks like. Um this will also be on each slide as we talk
130about each of the options. Um this is just in summary for you to be able to see. Um so the current um column is the the middle or the kind of left column there and then you can read across for each of the options and you can see how that changes. The gray area at the top again is the board obligation that must occur in terms of um um covering those costs and then employee spouse, children and family are beyond that. Again, this is at an employee contribution on a 24 pay cycle. The next slide is the high deductible plan that has that same information. And now we'll begin to review each of the options. So, here's a quick overview. The first option is no plan design change except for any IRS changes that are
131part of high deductible. And it's really a cost share increase for our spouses only. When we reviewed our um claimment data, we noticed that about 51% of our costs were from our spouses. And so, it made sense for us to kind of start to align and say if a spouse is on the plan, then the the spouse would pay their full premium and not be subsidized by the district. In the second bundle, you can see um the plan design um has some changes. Again, we're um cost sharing, but we're matching now to our St. Charles district. So, we really align with what Fort Zumal and Winsville look like in terms of a a standard number throughout. Option three is a plan design um change with some cost share just again for spouses only. And then
132option four is no change to the base plan, but there are changes to the high deductible plan. And this was a request from our committee because what we noticed when we um we actually dug in and looked at other districts plans and we noticed that our high deductible plan threshold is actually really low compared to other um districts and then other districts you will see a cost share of a co- insurance where we pay at 100% once you hit the threshold. And so this is just a modeling of what it would look like to make those changes. So we'll get into that. So you have your organizer. We're going to go through each of these options. Um then you'll see the committee's feedback. So I'll go over a line with you and share the um
133this is option one. On the left side you can see the plan design has no changes because there's nothing in red. So as we go through these you will see that there's some changes and that they are in red. And then there's a little snippet at the top that gives you this is a renewal of 12% no plan design change increased um premium amounts for spouses based upon historical high claims. It's a fixed cost for the district and um you can see in the bottom right hand corner that same chart that we just talked about and what the employee contribution would look like as compared to the district contribution. On the next slide you can see the committee's feedback. So this is sort of the charting that you have for option one. So they felt
134like fairness that this um option one was a fair option um when asked if it was a cost control fairness predictable or competitive with other school districts. They chose fair. Option two or excuse me question two is asking who is most impacted by this type of a plan and it's employee spouse. As I mentioned the SP it is stated the spouses would need to evaluate if um Francis how insurance is a best fit for them family and children um do get a break in this one as it's concentrated on the spouses option or excuse me question three um is this a sustainable option for the district for the next three to five years the answer is no because as I showed you its total cost actually mirrors kind of where we are today it's not
135really cost savings it's kind of cost neutral And then where should the district prioritize spouse or children? And children is what comes across on this one stating they should be prioritized over spouses who have options to go to the health insurance marketplace. Are there any tradeoffs that would be willing to be expected that um the employee is willing to accept and it's really just being able to spread those increases across the plan choices. And then um I asked each of the teams to give us the top two pros and the top two cons. And the top two pros for this are the no plan design change. It's manageable increase for the employee children and employee family which is what they prioritized in their um statement above. And then the question seven what are the two
136cons is again that employee spouse area and that the high deductible um plan actually has a bigger increase than the base plan. As we move into option two, you will start to see some red as the plan design changes have occurred. So, we are going from the $1,500 um deductible to and 3,000 to 2,0004,000. Um again, when we talked to the committee and we said, "What levers are you willing for us to move?" These were some of the areas that they were willing for us to move. it can help to decrease the cost overall. And so by moving these red levers, you start to see um an 8% overall change to the district or to the premium cost rather. And then you can see in the bottom chart, you'll notice that the numbers are all
137the same. So this is where it really locks in the school um board saying we will pay $970 for a base plan and we'll pay $888 for a high deductible plan. And that's the number we pay no matter the plan you pick. That's the one that um does bring a $3 million savings as I mentioned. So the first one's a kind of cost neutral. This one moves us into um about $3 million less in overall cost. >> Can you say when you say cost neutral um what is the increase from the district for cost neutral? >> So back to the well bear with me. This is the chart what I'm talking about. So the first one is just above the $27 million spend, takes us to $28 million. The next one drops us down to
13824. So that's a savings of about four. The next one is pretty close to where we're at right now, the 27. And then the fourth option I'll show you actually we will spend 8% more >> regarding increase percent >> the total number that we spend for insurance. >> Right. So option one, what's the increase of the percentage of what we're paying? >> It is. >> And what's the percentage? So we've >> 2.9% per Yeah, it's 816,808 and that's a 2.97% increase. Option two is $2.9 million decrease or a decrease of 10%. Option three is the decrease of 87,000 or a negative.32% change. And then option four is spending 2.1 million for a 7.95% increase. Yes. I'm going to go back to option two comments. Option two comments. When reviewed, it is a costsaving measure. It
139is a cost control measure for the district. When asked who's most impacted, this is mostly impacting the employee family group and it was stated that this increase does not align with the raises that were provided to employees. Question three, it asked if this is sustainable and the response is for the district budget, yes. Unknown state funds can hurt our outlook and for families, no. Inflation is higher than our raises. Question four, do we prioritize spouses over children? Children was the response. Are we willing to accept any of the trade-offs? And it would be increasing deductibles a little instead of increasing premiums, which is the lever that you pull. If you need the premium to go down, you increase the deductible. And the top two pros for this one are that it is a fixed cost
140for the district and keeping the high deductible in and out of the max the same. And then on the cons, it's a huge increase for the employee family and the base plan out of pocket increases. Okay, moving into option three. You'll see again some red on the left side, meaning that we're changing from our current plan. We have increased premium amounts focused again on our spouses. And then we have again fixed um costs for the district contribution for this plan. So in the bottom right hand corner you can see that the employee only and employee spouse are the same cost to the district because we're locking in on just that one number and not paying the additional um for the spouse. But for the children and for the family plans, we are still paying up
141um for a percentage change um for each of those plans. The committee's feedback for this one is again this is a cost control measure. This is the spouses are costing the most money. So the plan is controlling that cost. Question two is talking about that it is the employee spouse group that is the most affected but again stated that they could go to health insurance marketplace in order to seek other lower funding or lower premiums. In question three, there was not an answer provided on this one. Question four, they prioritize children over spouses. Question five, um again accepting premium um over deductible. And then um the top two pros for this are having um still having two plans and the employee base plan does not increase as much. And then the top two cons are
142still the um increased cost to employee child and increased cost for the high deductible plan. >> We have one more to go. >> Real quick, is there a reason that no answer was given by the whole committee for question three? >> I just collected the papers back and when I typed them up, there was no answer provided. What would that suggest to you? That >> it wasn't the whole committee. Each one of each there's subgroups in the >> I had Yeah, I had four people per option reviewing that option. >> So that subgroup just didn't get to either time or didn't have an answer for that, I guess. [snorts] >> So I think we asked like are you talking about is this is it sustainable? Sorry, it was my >> Yeah, we did like >>
143we couldn't come to an agreement, >> right? Yeah, it was just like was are you talking about sustainable for the district, sustainable for the employee because um it didn't seem like it was sustainable for the employee, but if you were talking about the district, it probably wasn't sustainable for them either. So, yeah, we just um didn't come to a consensus on who we thought it would be sustainable for. >> Thanks. Yeah, appreciate that. >> And again, for those watching online, um, a member from the employee insurance committee just said they couldn't come up with a clear answer on that. Just make sure everybody heard. >> Thank you. >> And then option four, and again, option four was requested by the committee again prior to having the information about our state funding formula, but I wanted
144to present this just the same as it is one of the options that um, the employee group did look at. It has no change to the top portion or the base plan. You can see no red in that one. And in the bottom left for the high deductible, you see some changes that were made again in response to the committee seeing in other plan designs that we were really at a lower threshold and that our co- insurance was at 100% and they wanted to see it at um 9010. And so that's what you see here. And then um really just seeing what that does overall. And then that spend for the district is still at that 8% range or plus $2.1 million for the overall cost. And the feedback from option four is um competitive
145with other school districts. Um compares favorably to Fort Zumal and Windsville. Not as much to the base plan um except family high deductible um yes for um except for spouse. their response in the question of who's most impacted um really just called out each of the areas. So it said good of course for employees because they would still be free. Um employee spouse it seems unfair. Employee children it seems very beneficial and employee family most advantageous or beneficial for this particular plan. Question three in regards to sustainability. Um, no movement off of the high deductible um and base due to the co- insurance does not limit the future liability of the district unlike Port Zumal and Winsville. Again, choosing um children over spouses. Um and then this one did mention um working with um those
146that might be Medicare eligible to determine if they should be on the plan or if that's um Medicare is a better option for them. And then with question five um they really um they wanted both um children and they didn't want any trade-off in that particular area. And then question six um still coverage for children still we still do to have have two plans. And then finally the cons are the co- insurance which was the lever that was moved on this particular plan but just noting that that um definitely goes in a different direction and then incredibly expensive for the high deductible plan. And that concludes the option. So I'm going to pause at that point and see if you all have any questions. Um be happy to answer a lot of information. Yes. So
147with the spouse option, is it all spouses? we're just going to assume that we're we're just going to make everybody pay more for all spouses. Or is it going to be considered that the spouse is either unemployed, so they don't have access to insurance um or are they self-employed and they don't have insurance for themselves? Um or do they have access to insurance and that's when maybe you would say they need to ask access insurance through their own company first. Have those numbers been considered? >> Yes, I appreciate that question. So the current plan is if you have access to insurance, you really are not supposed to be in our insurance. That's the current plan. >> Okay. >> However, because we haven't done the dependent verification, that's one piece that will be reverified. Um very
148normal and other I'm sure you're used to that in your own insurance. um if a [clears throat] person was self-insured or if a person was um unemployed and didn't have that, they would have the option to go on the plan and pay that premium is that's what that's showing. So, they would pay their way the district would not be paying for a spouse. The spouse would be paying for their own insurance is the way I'm showing it. Currently, we're subsidizing that. We're paying a portion of that for the spouse beyond what we are required to do for just the employee. Does that help? Amy, is there anything you wanted to add since you app I do very much appreciate you being a part of those meetings or um feedback that you want to provide clarity
149to the board? >> Um, no. Other than I mean the amount of research that went into this, I said this at our last meeting too, is just phenomenal and much appreciated. It's just there aren't great options, right? Because we're just not in a great position with all of this. So, it's tough. >> Okay. I'm going to go on. >> No, no, no. Actually, I'm not okay because I I hate these numbers and I the >> the numbers my and um just taking a moment to have the the empathy of what all this refers to and who it includes and so just needed a moment to pause and pay attention to the people and the emails we received. >> I understand. >> Am I clear that these are the only four options being considered? It was
150narrowed down from 10 options that we were presented with, but then based upon the committee's levers that they asked us to look at and parameters we needed to stay within, these were the four we presented. >> And then none of the options take into account different salary levels for employees. >> It does not. I mean, that doesn't affect the cost of this right now. >> I understand, but it's different. Just putting a number out here is different percentage for every level of employee impact to them. >> Absolutely. >> I know many employers tier employee contributions based on salary income. >> Oh, I'm not familiar with that. So if Yeah, that's something I haven't seen that in the school industry. Maybe it's different in private or Yeah. public industries. I'm just wondering because you brought up
151our teacher salaries and our parent salaries impact for this is very different on those two groups. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Yes. So speaking to more more to what Kevin is saying um I I understand that education is not healthcare and especially the private sector of healthcare. Um, but having made what the payers make when I first became a nurse, I qualified for a reduction in my premium through my employer based on my salary. >> Okay. >> By the time I left that employer 9 years later, I did not because I was making a big like a higher wage. Um, >> so a sliding scale was available >> scale based on salary which I I would like to see something. >> I will be glad to research that. That's something I have not heard of. So
152yeah, be glad to research that. >> Can you say just a little bit more about what that was like? Um, honestly, it having left a job and taken a $20,000 pay cut when I became a nurse, um, it was huge because I went from paying $5 for my prescriptions to 20. So, that was quite the impact. You think that nurses get great insurance at hospitals and we don't. Um, I do now because I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and we have great insurance. Um, but when I started out, I was making 2175 an hour. So, I qualified for a 50% contribution to my premium because I made just shy of what, 45 grand a year. >> Yeah, I will definitely look into that. >> Yeah. Um, and I know that our healthc care
153techs, especially across the private sector, I know they're getting ready to do a salary adjustment for them, but they make less than our pairs. So, I I know they qualify, especially based on who they cover. >> Um, >> so is was that for their for your spouse and family and everything too? So, not just for you. So, and also with spousal coverage, if I wanted to cover my spouse, no matter what premium I no matter what, I guess contribution I qualified for, um, I had to pay an extra $100 for my spouse if I wanted to cover him, no matter what. And I felt like that was fair because he had access to employee coverage that he did not have to pay for at all out of his salary, much like our base plan. Okay.
154>> So, I just I think that that would be an option as far as the sliding scale goes. And I think it would be more cognizant of salaries. >> Happy to look into that. I think that's a a great next step for me. [clears throat] >> Any other great ideas, things that you see in your world? Um way that insurance has done. I mean, I think that's a good perspective to to share a light on. >> So, do employees that uh don't need insurance at all, do they get any benefit back? No, they would just opt out. >> I'm just wondering >> like if I were covered on my spouses. >> Yeah, I'm just wondering if more would move to another plan if you gave them an incentive to do that. >> I don't know.
155>> Um I I don't know what that would look like. Um I know right now it would just be an opt out and so we would just not be paying that amount. Um what I'm familiar with in um surrounding school district is they will pay um bus drivers. I think uh an hourly amount to if they don't take the insurance and that may be kind of where you're talking about and then they get $2 more an hour or whatever the trade is. Um and and that's another thing. Um we also see um at Rockwood School District I think it is that they have a different plan for their bus drivers. So certain um groups of the employees are on a different structure. So they have like a it's a worse plan. no other way of
156saying it but are currently we have the same this is for everybody right now so those are couple options we can look into >> Dr. St. And I think one thing that we would have to consult with MMA too is as the pool decreases, if the pool decreases with healthy individuals, um the then the cost is born greater. There's potential increased cost uh to the plan because if if you had individuals that had high medical cost leave the plan, obviously that would decrease. But if you had individuals that were a part of the plan but were not drawing out a lot of resource out of that plan and they left the plan, well then you're you're shrinking that that pool of funds. >> And I'm sure MMA could give us some advice on that. >>
157If you go to the chart for fund Balance by year, it shows, you know, 28 were negative. Of the four options, there's only one that actually reduces cost basically. >> Correct. The the one is a very nominal. >> So three as a four will have us go to the negative fund balance. >> Well, three was like a 32. >> It's basically the same. >> Yeah, >> the same amount. Um, yes. There is only one that shows you a dramatic difference. Is that what you're asking? Um, and that's option two. >> I'm just looking this chart. Um that chart is what I when I'm talking about this um particular monthly update each month that I bring to you and I'm telling you that that middle number right there that's 6 million is supposed to be 7.5
158million but we're spending the money faster than we've ever put it in. And so the district has to then put more money in and raise that total again. And so we may end up closer to 28 million this year at the end by the time we see these claims. We get high cost claims that that are getting ready to hit the account and that's how we start to manage if we need to cover it. So >> three of the four options are at or higher than that, >> right? >> Because the insurance went up 12 and a half%. >> Yes. >> But we mitigated some of those by changing some of the levers. Of the four options as they are currently presented, one of the options is a reduction in the amount of money the
159district pays towards health insurance. The other three would still be deficit spending. Is that what >> we would still deficit spend that bottom line that's currently $9.8 million? It it has the 8% increase in it. And so if you were to choose one that brings us less, we're spending less, then that bottom line deficit would change. So I will bring to you those finalized budget numbers. As you start making decisions on what we're going to spend on these things, then we will then update that chart. Um, tomorrow at 6 p.m. we'll have the final budget signed. Next Friday, we'll have the final legislator signed. And so then Julie and I will finalize the final final final budget as we know it and we'll bring it to you. This is a large second largest expenditure. So
160when you make the decision by May 21st that informs what I bring to you on June [cough] 4th. >> Correct. >> When are we voting on this? >> May 21st. >> So how much time would your department need? So Sarah brought up something that you said you were going to look into. Um I have a couple of things that I wanted to just point out. How much time does your department need to get you to get that information together to present to us so we can make an informed decision as well as ask various groups of what their opinion is in time to vote on it at the next board meeting? >> Um if it's something that we absolutely needed more time on, you could wait and vote on June 4th. So depending on how
161fast I can get the type of information that we just discussed and then how we could remodel it and present what would be considered the fifth option at that point. I guess uh I can't tell you how long that's going to take. I'll squeeze it into all the time I have available and get it done as fast as possible. But um that would just be information that we would get back out to the committee, get back out to the board just to keep everyone informed along the way. it. In that case, then regardless of what we ask, I would ask the rest of the board's opinion on moving that vote to June 4th regardless because this is a lot of information. You mentioned that a couple of times and I don't think that the time
162that we have from now until the 21st is enough time for some of the proposed changes that we're going to potentially ask for as well as us to absorb and speak to the various groups to make an informed decision. So, I'll open it up to the rest of the board for that. >> What's the impact to waiting to June 4th? >> So, I what I would just ask of you is that um what I bring to you on June the 4th, I would probably just keep the assumption of 8% in there, which is our highest option as it stands and then um we would be working something different in and then you would get an informed update by the second June board meeting, which is when you actually vote on the budget. 12% option one
163is 12%. >> For the district, >> it is not. >> That's what it doesn't 12%. >> No, it's 12% premium increase, but to the budget bottom line, it's 8%. Or option four. Is that what you're saying? >> The when you look at the cost compared, right, the the district was doing 12% option >> for the premium. >> Yeah. >> But that doesn't equate to the total number overall. So yeah, the the number one option is um plus 816,000 um for the budget, which is a plus 2.97% increase. >> So before I ask my questions, um do we want to discuss hunting this to June the 4th? >> I don't know. >> I just want to add uh Dr. St. on uh statutoily you have to have a finalized budget and a board approved finalized budget
164for the 26th 27th school year by >> June 30th. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> And I can go with assumptions in there. That's what I'm saying. So if if I don't know your answer and you haven't made a decision, I'm going to leave in there and I'm going to show deficit spending. >> Does that make sense? >> So no balanced budget. >> You would not have a balanced budget. you'd have deficit spending budget, correct? >> So, I'll update the revenues as I know them >> and then we'll finalize the salaries cuz those haven't all been finally negotiated and then we're finalizing numbers like utilities and um department budgets and all the things and pieces that it takes to get to that. Um, and I would just draw that to your attention when I present that
165budget and just say this is where we were this day and this is what we decided and if it improves it improves, >> but it could also affect your decision on the debt service levy transfer, which is why I wanted you to hear that information in the same night. Um, when I booked him to come here, I did not know that we were going to be negative 5.1 in state funding, which equal then the three the 8.3. He was just explaining how we could get 5.5 more into the revenue. So, >> so yes, we could move this to June the 4th, but it's at the risk of voting on a nonbalanced budget. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Unless you told me to take it from other places, and at this point it would be people.
166>> Okay. So, the common slash earthquake slash um questions I would have and I I I want to kind of e I want to echo what um Mrs. GR said that um this there's a lot of work put into this regardless of what the outcome is. Clearly the research was done to give us a lot of information. So thank you to yourself, Mrs. Poji, and the the insurance team and the rest of the finance team. So thank you. Um with that said, I'm just going to pull the band-aid right off of the comment. There is no way that employees can afford this. The I know that we're taking empathy uh sorry we need to be empathetic but this is a financial decision. The financial and logical thinking behind this is that employees will leave. A
167power making between 17 and $21 is going to take home between $250 $400 each paycheck if they have a family. That that par is going to be employed in multiple places just to make ends meet. So option two for me is a non-starter. I know it saves the district a lot of money, but there's no way we can expect our employees to to f the bill for that. So, these are some ideas and thoughts that I had. You can tell me if the these are just not well thought out. The the rest of the board can kind of chime in if they see fit. Um, but my first question is how many years have we been subsidizing spouses and dependents in the same way that we have? >> 30 plus. >> Okay. Sorry, did sorry
168now that was the audience. So >> yeah, I mean I would just say that we've been subsidizing the entire time. Uh you know as a individual who's been a district employee for 21 years, a spouse who's in another school district, my children have been on the health insurance plan in this district for 21 years because that other school district's insurance costs more. And you know, with uh that rate being less here, um that's why my kids have been on the plan here. Um if a change were to happen, that that would force me to look at my spouse's plan. Is it now cheaper there? And would I move for our kids there? I think a lot of people do that on a yearly basis and you know, depending upon where they are, >> right, that
169makes sense. So for those of our employees that have been here for a considerable amount of time, so 10 plus years, they've gotten used to and have budgeted for this for the incumbent insurance. And with any of these options, we're effectively giving them just a couple of months to look at their entire budget. And not that I'm picking on what you were saying, but just using it as a an anecdote. Those com those individuals don't have the option of going to the bank for the note to cover >> payroll for themselves. So as I look at next school year, teachers contracts have been signed with knowing what the insurance options were going to be, knowing that there may be some fluctuation, but they had a vague idea. If we went with any of these options
170as proposed, if any of those teachers said, "Whoa, this is not what I signed up for." Hiring season is closed for them to look elsewhere. They would be forced to stick around and potentially spend the whole year preparing to leave the district if our insurance didn't improve the next year. Um, our lower paid employees, our support staff, they they're going to leave over the summer. human resources is going to be slammed even more than they typically would be over summer trying to fill those power positions, those custodial positions because they're not going to stick around until the insurance starts in October. They're going to start looking immediately as soon as we vote on one of these plans. So, >> so two questions for that. One, um, where would they go? I showed you the benchmark
171districts and I showed you and I'm asking that just instantly and honestly, >> it's it's irrelevant. There's option there's going to be options out there. Um there could be other perks that they might be looking into. Tuition reimbursement might be one. Daycare um coverage could be another. There's other things out there besides salary and benefits that they may um be looking for. So regardless of where else would they go, they're going to be looking. Their heart's not going to be 100% in this place with the students that they're going to be considering and and thinking about their pocketbook and their family's expenses um at home. So >> my question number two question is then why wait till June 4th? If it is time is of the essence and we currently have five months for this
172information to be very transparently shared. Why wait till June 4th? Make the decision and let people understand what the response is going to be by the district >> because you've present you've presented a lot of information to us for the first time to absorb to ask you questions to consider it and to vote at the next board meeting. Um, this information is officially available for the general mass as of about 4:00 today. So, with the exception of some of the insurance committee members sharing the information, correct me if I'm wrong, this information was only available to our employee base as of 4:00 today. >> Agreed. So two weeks is not enough time to make an informed decision about my employment future and for me to make a decision that's going to affect a couple of
173thousand of couple of thousand staff. But I understand that the risk of voting on a nonbalanced budget. >> Okay. So the these are the points I would make. Um I agree with splitting the HSA contribution over time. I don't like it. Um, the place that I work now does the same thing. They split over month. The first year was hard, but it does make sense. We do have higher turnover in some of our lower paid categories. So, I understand that it does save the district money by splitting it out. So, that will be an adjustment to a lot of our people, especially in that first year. But, I'm okay with that concession. Um for though to my point that I made before about that this has been on a something that people have pl uh
174planned on for 30 years. So people that have been here for 10 plus years saying spousing spouse coverage is going to increase exponentially. I would like to see a phase out plan if that's what the that's what you're saying. If if you're effectively saying we cannot afford to cover spouses anymore because this is how much is in our fund balance or our bank account for um health insurance. I understand I've seen the numbers, but there needs to be a phase out or a a slow increase in the premiums for the for the spouses before effectively cutting it off. If >> can I stop you at that just so I can help to clarify? So we're currently negative spending in this account. >> Mhm. which means that we are negatively impacting the overall operating budget to
175subsidize this account because it doesn't have enough money in it. The decisions that you're asking me to review are only going to go in that same direction. >> I know. >> Which is only going to create a negative flow into the fund balance which pays our salaries and benefits. >> I know. And and I'm not saying that these are things that hey, this is what I'm going to vote on. These are just thoughts that I'm bringing up. So if you want to present the numbers then it makes it allows us to have a more informed decision. But having a phase out allows us to give our employees time to look at other other options instead of making a decision open enrollment which begins what day? >> August >> October. >> It's the open enrollment >>
176in this. >> August. >> Yeah. So very little time to make a decision that's going to affect you for the year. Um, if you truly feel that spousal independent coverage is going to us, I would again I don't like it because there's a lot of reason that people would work in the district. I would consider a grandfathered option for current employees and new employees are told unfortunately we cannot cover it. It's employee only. It sucks but if that's what you're telling us then that would be one option to consider. Um I know that you are doing the dependent and spousal um audit. I don't know how feasible this would be, but signing on a piece of paper I confir I affirm that my spouse doesn't have any other forms of insurance. If there was a
177if it was in the open enrollment to say to the employees, your spouse needs to get something from their employer on letterhead that says this spouse is ineligible for health insurance. then that would allow you to see if there's people on the plan that shouldn't be. If you're unemployed, if you're retired, I don't know what tax form would show you that information. But a a marriage certificate just tells you that that they're married. It doesn't tell you whether they are eligible or ineligible for health insurance where they work. >> Again, this is something that is unique and unusual for this district. It is not unique and unusual across other systems. And so, we're really just bringing it to industry standard. We're using taxpayer dollars to pay for all of this stuff. We should be vetting
178just the same as we vet every student that enrolls in our district that they live in our district and the right people are enrolling them. No different. So, we're not asking anything above and beyond what's a very normal practice when you enroll for insurance. >> Correct. But we've been offering this type of insurance for 30 years. So, if there is a chance that we could keep it in some way to continue offering somewhat affordable spousal independent coverage, then this would be a good step to make sure that only the people that should be on our insurance are. But if we're reading between the lines and saying we cannot sustain spousal independent coverage any longer, then it's a moot point at that point and we may as well just call it what it is. We can't
179afford it and there needs to be a deadline. But 3 months to August or what um to August is not enough time to make that decision. Director Adams, I I think the question I'm I'm understanding to you to ask there is uh the proof of insurability and part of our plan, we will be having a third-party provider that will be requiring that proof of insurability whether it's for children or whether it's for spouse to verify that all individuals should be on the plan or not on the plan. That is uh that is a part of this plan moving forward. >> So So how would that look like? So I I'm an employee and I come in and I say I want to get my spouse on the plan. What would be the steps to >>
180Yeah. So so that company would require certain documentation to be provided. It might be tax documents. It might be a marriage certificate. It might be um uh birth certificates of children so that you have the corresponding ages of those kiddos. Um you know some a child I think ages out at 25 26. Um, so you know, we could have kids on the plan that are 27 and you know, we we've not verified that. So we'll be having a third party company that is that does this kind of work for other companies uh across the area uh that will be doing that verification and and certainly we hope to be able to potentially grab back some uh monies if there are individuals that are on the plan that are not supposed to be on the plan.
181>> Right. And I I totally understand that. But the marriage certificate saying that so I'm going to pick on Sarah. Um that I'm married to Sarah that shows I'm definitely married. But if I'm on Sarah's insurance, I'm suggesting that I as the spouse provide something for my employ. >> They would be requiring tax documents. And if if Sarah showed that she worked for another company, they and was trying to get on our plan, they would be requiring some type of documentation from her employer to state that they don't offer health insurance and that's why she would be eligible for our plan. >> Thank you for explaining that. >> That Sorry, just I I literally just had to do this with the VA. So, I had to not only provide all of my marriage documentation, I
182also had to provide my 1040 from when I filed my taxes. and it shows where he's employed and it they we have the 1095C that shows that he's been provided coverage all year long. >> Perfect. That answers my question. So, I think those are all the points that I wanted to bring up, but I the things that I mentioned that I'm asking to look into. I understand the the consequences of some of those, but I would at least like the option of looking at what that would be. Please. >> Okay. I just want to add Jason. I know in other districts teachers don't even sign up for the health insurance until September October. So they've signed their contract and they don't find out their contributions till >> well after that. So that's not decision making
183in other districts by comparison. >> Say that one time. >> All districts have this situation. So plan years are October, sometimes they're January, but all contracts get signed in the spring. And so it you never know your insurance until you get to the fall. >> Oh, sure. But the point I was trying to make is that again 30 years worth of information that this is the type of insurance even though 2% here 3% here could go up for it would be very unlikely for that person to expect an 8 to 12% increase with the previous president especially if they've been keeping an eye on our school district wanting to work uh wanting to work here. So I'm not I know that the from signing the contract to signing up for the insurance there's a delay.
184You don't know what it's exactly going to be, but what is being proposed is significantly higher than what they may have expected from previous years. >> If we continue down deficit spending, we'll have to cut something else in the district. >> People is the next largest expenditure. I mean, is the largest expenditure. Insurance is the second largest expenditure. So, you can't get to millions of dollars in savings without messing with one of those. Like, you have to change something. and those two big lovers, you're not going to get it from the smaller accounts, supplies, and purchase services. Now, those things probably need to be trimmed as well, considering the new information that we have. But if you're charging me with a balanced budget approach, then then I would have to come back to you and
185say, "Well, you have to change this number in order to get that to be zero." >> That I think is a key point, too. So like when we talk about the salaries and the raises and the insurance like it's the cost of the employee period the total cost of employment that comes out of that operating budget and that is 83% of our total revenue. So as we're talking about millions and millions of dollars also coming out of our budget from the state and from county that pool is going down and then what that's where I think it gets to people I this is where this is just really excruciating right and so fine you know if we if we do this and we we do a budget we operate in a in a deficit okay
186and We try to go after the tax levy which is our only option really to bring more funds in. >> Correct. >> That can then go to teacher salaries and benefits >> but it would only just make up time remember because that money was supposed to be there. So if you did the debt service transfer you would really only be covering the deficit that the state has told us not the additional part that we thought would be growth. >> Right? So I mean this is where it gets I mean it makes your head hurt. Um, and it is just a really depressing picture right now. It's just like need to not cuss, but like crap on top of crap. We're just eating crap sandwiches everywhere you look. And it's just really, really hard. And it
187it's literally we I I correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding again 83% of our budget is staff benefits and salary. >> Yes. >> So we could cut all of our sports programs. We could cut all of our fine arts. We could cut, you know, whatever else we have to cut and we're still like then and if you cut all those, by the way, you're cutting all those teachers and staff, you know, also. So like either way something's got to give. >> Oh no. And sorry I know that you were responding to Kevin but no one is sitting up here and this isn't anything to you. It's more directed towards Dr. St. John. No one is accusing anyone of coming up with four crappy deals for the fun of it. We know that you've
188come up with these as a result of the spending. But there there needs to there has to be some other option where maybe it's not 8%, maybe it's 4% and we get a a $1 million savings instead of $2 million. >> I appreciate that thinking, but but remember if I change any lever, it changes the other one. So, the only way you would get to a 4% change when they've come back and said, "Hey, people group, because of your claim history, we're going to raise you 12 1.5%." >> Mhm. >> The only way you get that back to four is you raise the deductibles and you raise the co insurance and you raise that and everybody doesn't like that, right? The only way you get at that is then you don't cover all the things
189and all the people. So all those same people covered the exact same way that they are to go to a 4% would simply mean we would raise the deductibles. We would raise the co- insurance. Nobody wants that. So then you say, well, what else can we do? That was kind of one of the options. What else can we do? Well, we can not subsidize all the people that we don't have to pay for >> by board policy. So then I give you an option that looks like that. Then I give you an option that really speaks to wanting to stay kind of the same. And that's that one that's like the um $87,000 savings. And then I bring you one that if none of the state story would have happened, that fourth option would have
190been in the range of 8%. And everybody would have stayed the same as they are. It's just that we would have only changed that high deductible plan and it would have spent 8%. So 3 weeks ago that was a normal answer. Today it's not a normal answer because we have new information. No, I I totally get it. And you bring up a good point about the higher deductible. And while no one wants a higher deductible, a a higher deductible, with a lower premium, you know what your take-home pay is going to be, with the higher deductible, there are options at the hospital and the doctor level where you can say, "Hey, this big bill I just got, I need a monthly plan. It's not ideal, but you can forecast and you can budget out for
191that." So that's a lever that I think is more manageable for an employee knowing that okay, let's hope for a good year. I'm going to have a lower premium and I hope to God that my kid doesn't break their ankle again, but if they do then I know that the hospital has payment plans that could assist me or um I could look at things like AFLAC or whatever the that service is called where you get claim you what am I trying to say you're >> short-term disability. >> Is that what it is? It's currently paid for already by the district. >> So insurance >> about like athletic where you get money. >> When I say this is everything that was incurred in there, oh if you if you broke your ankle, we're going to give
192you $500. If you have a walking boot, you're going to have five 50 bucks. That that would be something that could offset a little bit of that cost. >> It's like accident and wellness insurance. It's because it's I I had I had through Sigma when I was with Mercy. So like for every well visit I got $125 for each one of my family members that was on there. Um for an accident it was $500 if we provided all paperwork. Hospital stay was $250 a night. So I mean it's >> it helps a little bit. >> It helped a lot. >> So when oh >> I want to say to you and all the people I know a lot of work put over the years. So thank you. Sorry we're angry. This is very tough decision.
193>> I know it's very tough. >> Yeah. And with no anger at you. >> I know. >> Uh clarify. Are you asking them for the next month to go back and redo these numbers >> or what are you specifically asking St. John to do? >> Thank you, Kevin. [laughter] >> All right. Could we look at an option or point us to the option that is closer to that higher deductible with a low premium? I know I mentioned the phase out. If you if you're saying, Jason, that that just isn't a reality, then I guess forget about it if that's not going to help us. And >> isn't that option number three? >> The phase out? >> No, the higher deductible. >> No, >> I don't I don't have it in front of me. >> Director
194Adams, when when you say phase out, are you saying for any newly employee, any newly hired employee we would go to? uh your plan is different and everyone that's currently employed your plan stays the same. Um I'm sure we could if that's the case I'm sure we could run the numbers but I don't know that it would change the construct of the current numbers. Right. So somebody would have to leave and somebody else would have to come on. You would be making a one for one change every time somebody left. Right. >> Right. And I know that there's no way to predict when someone's going to leave the organization, but if we have someone that is planning on retiring, again, give them a couple of months and they're they're on the spouse plan. If there
195was a phase out plan that, all right, this year you're going to pay 2% more, next year it's going to be 3% 4%. in order for them to get ready for that and look at the marketplace and look at other options. But again, if you're saying that that's just not a feasible option, then >> so again, if it's a 12.5% premium increase and you're saying we're going to pass on 2%, which is what's been going on. I just showed you that 2.9%. The district has to pay the other part. That's what means. So the district, the number goes up. It's not going to be 27 million. It's going to be 28, 29, 30 million. That's what's going to happen because the number has to still be paid. the premium is the premium for this people
196group. >> No, and I understand that the cost is going to go up. I I do. But I'm also thinking of those very highly experienced and long-term people that may I won't say they will, but they may leave. And then we have less experienced people come on board. And yes, we save money, but at what expense is that for the people that know how to do the job, the education? How many men me men me men me men me men me men me men me men me men me men me men mental teachers are going to leave how many people close to retirement are just going to say I'm I'm done and then they are filled with new teachers fresh out of school and what does that look like for our education so yes I
197know that our deficit will go up but it's it's weighing it's weighing what's left in the schools >> can I ask a question >> I have >> with this like the stuff that was presented If you >> insurance committee. >> Yes. If you are on the part of the insurance committee. Yes. >> Yes. I I said you are. I wasn't asking are you. I said you are part of it. >> Yes. So we looked at the bond issues and everything that was happening tonight. So to offset like maybe some of the things that Jason's talking about. How about we don't move $5 million to the capital fund this year and we leave that for our employees and then we take what's going to happen with the bond issue to make up that gap when we
198get that money. that's going to be $5 million to fill some of this instead of moving it to our capital fund. >> I I would just also add I think there it feels like sometimes we're making decisions in isolation and I feel like this is a decision around insurance which is very very important to our employees. But I will also remind you the story that I shared with you during the staffing plan that we have heard from our staff um that they don't have enough time to do their work, that their class sizes need to be lower, that there is support differently for our employees other than just insurance that we haven't been able to provide. When we went through the staffing plan, we had we we've held six maybe seven positions through the district
199hoping that we would be able to fill them later. And but I shared with you that you know we asked for almost 33 additional positions to support our students and our teachers to find time to support kids to do different things. And so none of that the cost of that those 33 positions or what that does to provide work life balance to our teachers, retention to our teachers, attracting teachers isn't part of this particular conversation. And so if we don't make any changes to this plan, if we don't make these, then we're we know that we're not going to add staff. We know that we're not going to find time for our teachers. We know that we're not going to be able [clears throat] to reduce class sizes. Not with the state of the budget
200that Amy St. John has shared with us today. So, I understand we're pulling levers within the health insurance now to to to think about this cost, but I also just from, you know, as I think about staffing plan part two and bringing that to you in June, is it going to be status quo? Clearly, I I'm feeling like we're not going to have the option to add back those six positions at a tune of a million dollars. And there were 33 positions that we talked about that were $2.4 million. And so we're not able to support our staff in that way if we don't make any other changes either. So I I just hope we're thinking about all of those priorities when we're thinking about the decisions in this particular lane. >> But that like
201our teachers are also going to have to get and our parents especially are going to have to get a part-time job, make another $600 a month, >> which is not going to add to their work life balance. So that's [snorts] why I'm just saying, Michael, if we free up some of those funds to ease them into this, maybe they won't have to get a [clears throat] second or some more people jobs. >> So, and I I appreciate it. I I'm thankful. I uh I want to like grab a couple of of facts that I think we're kind of circling around, but just want to maybe share it out loud. Um, one, um, one of the facts is just that, uh, we're struggling with this topic because we care about the people. And if we didn't
202care about people, we just make factual number decisions and all that stuff. And, um, when I see that over the last 3 years or four years, whatever that number was, that uh, staff have increased their giving towards insurance by 2.9%. Um and the district has increased its giving towards employee insurance by 67%. Uh I think that those are numbers that convey value and when I hear that I I hear that admin has carried and shouldered uh a big portion of the increases to premium over the last few years and that doesn't happen accidental that doesn't happen because admin doesn't care about teachers and students teachers student staff etc. I also want to name that um we have a uh we have multiple unions within Francis How who are really good at fighting for the people
203and and that's a good thing. It's it's a good thing to be wanting the absolute best for your your um teachers, your staff, your bus drivers and and and and we celebrate that like that that is a good thing, right? And so we have this moment where there's care towards staff and and teachers and and there's fighting for staff and teachers and and then you have this big old pile of garbage that we are given by the state and the federal and and the hard part is I almost sometimes want us to all like turn our shoulders and turn our bodies point towards Jefferson City and say stop doing this to us. And the reason why we have at least $4 million to to spend when we would have is because 59% of the public
204came out and said stop doing this to our teachers and our staff. >> Correct. >> And so we we can't make these decisions without heart because people matter and if they stop mattering then you know what are we all here for? >> Right. >> At the same time we have numbers that are like real numbers. I don't like them at all. Um there's a chance so the $8 million lost because the state's not funding the formula. there's a chance that they might take money out of the the capital improvement and maybe that 8 million to only six million or six seven million. You know, maybe there's >> could improve a little bit. >> Could it might be, you know, and I cross fingers and whatever that looks like. >> But we also know that there's
205five to $6 million of extra um cuts of defunding that's still potential the next week. So the numbers that we have right now, 7 days from now, we might lose another $6 million. >> Correct. And so we're all here in this room more in common than we are um different. I just want to share that we're we have more in common than we are different when it comes to what it looks like. Um and I don't know the right solution. I I think we still go forward with, you know, if nothing else changes then then May 21st we could be in line for a vote and yet having the cushion to say you found out some information about the tiered idea that Sarah mentioned or there's information we just found out about HSA if you
206do this versus that. >> I think having the buffer to have that conversation the first um meeting in June is nice to have right if there's new information. One of the pieces that that I get confused about um I think at some point the board needs to be able to say here's the amount of money that we are willing to give in light of all the other factors. Um me personally uh one of my values is I want our employee insurance to be a tool for uh recruiting and retaining staff. I think that's a good piece. My another value that I'm wrestling with also is I don't want to make decisions right now that puts us in jeopardy of having to freeze raises or or deny steps because that causes people to leave too. And
207when I see the 20% the low water mark for the district is around September, right? >> Mhm. >> So the the 20% mark that was in June was not below water mark. Low low water mark would have been a few months earlier. uh if you look at any one of our paychecks or or our uh checking accounts, there's a high water mark and we get paid, but that's not how much money we have because all the different costs you spend throughout the month haven't been included yet. So to judge our decision based upon a high water mark of the year isn't accurate because it's like assuming that we have the wealth we have whenever we get paychecks and we haven't spent the 30 days worth of all the different utilities, etc. I am interested in
208a plan that allows us to still say we're better than the people around us. Partly, uh, I get a little competitive and I want to make sure we're better than the people around us. Um, and I want to make sure there's a plan that allows us to have 2.7 months or so ofish of reserves so that we aren't in danger of of really damaging our teachers and staff where they can have a possibility of all their costs going up and no 3% increase or 4% or 5% I want to prevent that from happening. And so, um, that would be my direction is is there a way that that can happen? Is there a way that we hold, um, some leverage over the other districts in terms of what we're able to offer and reduce the
209amount of, um, uh, you know, whatever it is, reduce the amount that we need to reduce that also allows us to break even if certain things fall into place. Um, I don't know how that works, but like those are the values that I'm wrestling with while we're sitting here. >> I have one other question, too. So, in the scenario that we operate out of budget and a deficit, how does that affect our ability to do a bond or tax levy? Does it? >> No. >> Okay. So our valuation and our interest rates and everything else that we were talking about because we're in such good standing, >> we don't think that would be affected. >> I mean, not to my knowledge. Of course, we're in a very different world, right? So my previous history, that's
210never been a factor in terms of what they look at, but we don't know what they're going to look at moving forward. Um, so I know I'm kind of answering I don't know, but prior when you go for those moments, you have already a bond rating as a school district and that's what's being reviewed. Um, so it doesn't come into play, but it it it's based upon your levy cuz that remember how we talked about that because that's a set number that has to go and pay your bills back, >> but it has to pay your bonds, not your people. Remember, a part of that. So if we regardless of what we decide with this plan and we still have to obviously watch, you know, claims claims are what has killed this district in particular
211versus some of our other districts the last couple of years, >> very high claims cost. >> We sat and I know as the committee I mean and again as you talked about tore this thing apart. We looked at these guys provided every other district's plans which we can have probably if you guys want to look at that I'm sure that's available um and [clears throat] picked them apart and you know did all that stuff. We also looked at claims and where those were coming from and what all the categories are. I mean every detail for like I mean every month right that we've put this together and so I feel like there was a lot of education that was done and it doesn't ultimately matter because at the end of the day it's going to
212cost more you know and so it I'm a little I'm conflicted um in a number of ways but I'm also frustrated because I feel like this was a large committee, a committed committee that did a lot of work. um that you guys did a lot of work to put everything together to make sure that we had a very educated decision as a committee to come out with what was presented today, which I know is just an insane amount to expect everybody up here to absorb, but this was the output of what 9 months of the committee pouring through every detail of competitive plans to make sure that we were looking at and I know it's not a matter of go somewhere else, but like will we be competive I don't know, you know, is it
213like, well, Zoom Walt is paying better and they're doing that. I mean, that's in every conversation that we have, right? So, the [clears throat] the fact of the matter is is that that we're losing we're bleeding a lot of money and at some point when again when 83% of your funding is all in this same bucket, it's hard to start to figure out, well, where do you want to take it from? So, >> so to your point, if I >> if I may, um, we saw all of the information from the the comic cards for all of the different options, but we didn't hear a recommendation from the committee. So, is there a recommendation for the committee about what is the best or the more preferred option? >> It's not a voting committee. a tier
214one committee for the board is not a >> recommendation >> voting committee. They provided feedback and I provide that all the feedback to you and then >> so is there an informal recommendation from the committee? They didn't vote on it but for the people in the room if you had to pick one which one would you say is the best option for us to consider or to put more stock in? And it's because of the way the questions are asked. It's like >> and I know that President Blair mentioned that that for people at home. So if it's appropriate, do you want to come up to the microphone so people at home can hear? >> Well, we need to keep it the way it is right here. But I would like to hear asked a
215question. Um, >> so here's my fear about raising the high deductible plan to Metro 4 is the well too many people transfer back to the base plan and that'll that will tilt the the expenditures for the district too. And I I've asked multiple times to get that information of what it would cost the district if we had a majority of people transfer from high deductible to the base plan and I have not been able to get that information. So, um because that is my fear with like plan 4 with upping the high deductible plan. Um I just don't know if that's really going to be cost-saving for the district if we have everybody stopped do well not everybody but you know a lot of people stop doing the high deductive plan. We're going to not
216give them the HSA funds up front and we're going to divvy those out. We're going to cut the retiring teachers three months so they don't even get the full HSA funds and then Yeah. And then so we're going to have those like if you're in your last year, you're not going to take that because you're going to lose you're not going to get the full thousand. You're only going to get Yeah. Right. And so um we're going to have people that switch back and that plan is a higher cost to the district in um in premiums, especially for those people that don't use it. Like those people that do the high deductible plan and then don't do a lot of things, right? get a lot of services or anything that doesn't cost the district as
217much as the people that are on the baseline is that premium is higher and so that's going to be a higher impact to the district. That's what worries me about four especially since I've not been able to get an answer to my question. >> I appreciate the question Francine but it would all be speculation. So what I would do is I would take those 4,000 number and I would you want me to shift 100, shift 400, shift 500? Like I I would shift the numbers and I could recalculate but that's all speculation. So that there's not a number that we're withholding from you. It's a number that doesn't exist. >> Well, I mean, it would give us some idea though, right? Like we know when we went when we started off in the high deductible
218plan, if we go back and look at that and say like, okay, now we're going to do the high deductible, how many people went from the base plan to the high deductible plan. >> So, and so then we can go back like you could you can estimate going backwards that way. But no, I appreciate it. And so I would say um if there are questions that people don't feel like have been answered, but I mean if you want to ask it email and copy of me and board members like Jason, I mean if there's questions that you have that you just didn't think about asking tonight, um I have I've experienced um you know an interest in making sure they provide as much information as possible. So u feel free to uh email Mark Delaney
219um Dr. Amy St. on um CC me um and love to be able to hear those questions as well. Mark, >> director, I I just want to add just, you know, for clarity, I know there's a lot of conversation around Jeff City and and there's a lot of things going on in Jeff City, but I think it's also important that this board and this community realize that we have the lowest tax levy in all of St. Charles County. We have the highest insurance plan in all of St. Charles County. We have some of the highest salaries in St. Charles County. those are all competing kinds of factions, right? Um and so I think those are also parts of the challenges. So yes, what's going on in Jeff City certainly has an impact. Some of the
220decisions made in Jeff City are made because of an economy that is beginning to to slow down and so there's less general revenue to send to districts. All of that is is relative to our decision. Um, and when we talk about what options are out there, like I I know our our CFO would never say, like, yes, just eat the entire cost because it puts us at a a significant negative uh deficit um to spend and and ultimately that's the hardest decision. Although insurance is one driver, the big driver is how much are we willing to deficit spend? If anything, um, even the projection from day one, from from when this board, you know, previous board to to this board, you saw a negative projection that was going to happen. Um, we were going to
221deficit spend next year. It's a lot less. [cough] A million [clears throat] dollars of deficit spending feels very different to me than $9 million of deficit spending. A million dollars of deficit spending in one year still allows you to potentially provide for a pay raise the following year. $9 million changes your your doesn't necessarily say there's no pay raise, but it certainly changes your projections for for future very very quickly. And I think that's the the hard part is there's so many different levers here. And if you move one, it it may impact some, but it may not impact enough. And it's it's hard to to create a a total projection and and what we're focused on right now is one lever of multiple levers and that's our health insurance. Uh and and difficult decisions
222are going to have to be made. So I had a um question for in terms like how to solve right uh so just throwing the numbers that kind of were the numbers that were started with um the idea of let's say it's 12 1.5% increase in premiums and costs and the admin start off the idea that we would pay um 8% and then the teachers and staff they would take care of the other four and a half%. Um, and then all these different plans show up like this plan is a bit better if you have a spouse and this plan is a bit better if you have kids and this plan is a bit better if you like high deductible. This plan might be better for paras versus teachers and all that. Um, at some
223point I it seemed as if the board is more responsible to say what's the amount of deficit spending that we believe is responsible. whatever that number is, we might have different numbers, but the idea of let's say the whole 8% 4 and a half%. I feel like there's some value in having the the teachers and staff and say can you come up with the other four and a half% however you want to like do you want to keep the plan the way it is and you know change the premium or increase the deductible or do you want to do it where it's current shaped the way it is now or do you want to you know move more towards this direction or that direction and so is it possible where a solution exists where the
224board identifies you know what that line is that we believe we have to be drawn thinking of not only present teachers but future teachers and then giving teachers and staff the autonomy and say in fact we want to do more of this or like hodgepodge is that ever possible is that something that exists as a realistic version then other words like we we in other words we draw the line I mean this is how much we can afford again we'll have that conversation but they decide well we we really want to make sure we keep the way we're paying for the whole family just the way it is. And we want to ask all of our team, you know, if you are a team staff to to increase premiums or maybe do more of this.
225Is is it possible to have that kind of autonomy where we draw the line and they create >> I believe that's what has been presented. So Amy, you can chime in. You've been there. So when we have what we have and I tell you the base plan didn't change, everything's the same, but the premium went up that think of your own home or car insurance. Like you get the bill and it goes up. You call State Farm and you say, "Well, then drop me back to liability only because I don't want to have that much insurance." You can't then say, "Can you pay the other part? I'm going to pay this much." So the premium comes out and they say it's going to go up 12 and a half%. >> So your only option at
226that point is you can equally pass it on or you can proportionally pass it on which is what the options are showing you. I moved this lever and it caused this. I moved this lever and it caused that. So exactly how you just described it are how we created the four options that you see. >> I guess Stephen I'd ask when you say they would choose who's they? We have multiple unions, multiple groups, different levels. >> Yes. >> So, who who gets the most say on that? >> Well, that that ultimately would be if it's possible that's ultimately a conversation that others would have. >> Okay. >> Uh and again, I I think part of it is um yeah, I just I I don't know. Um because I just didn't know if there's a way
227to say if the teachers and staff are saying we we want to make sure that holding this plan that is a certain shape for spouses and children is so important then we're willing to hold that and then change other things or or is it the premiums are the most important and therefore >> committee has done for the last >> that's what we did for nine I mean, literally, that's what the committee and the committee made the decisions on which levers to pull and not changing the coverage was like their number one thing, right? If I remember, we're like, don't change what's covered. >> So, we showed the same coverage >> and it has to change the premium. If you don't change the coverage, you have to change the premium. If you want to change, >>
228you want to keep the premium closer to where it's at, then you have to change the plan. >> They have inverse relationships. And so, So, you pick a plan and then we figure out how much deficit spending we want to do. That's kind of where we are. That's what it sounds like. >> Don't worry, Matt. I mean, option two is a non-starter. I can't do it because knowing that our paras would bring home >> between what at most >> 250 3400 bucks. >> Okay. So, less than $1,000 a month. I can't know. >> The families the ones with on the family plan. one the ones on the family plan. But that's what I mean is that I can't knowingly support a decision like that because it would force those families on to benefits like SNAP
229and knowing how they've been treated over the last few years and how that's been used as a pawn lately in our federal budget. I can't do that in good conscience. >> Yeah. Um, I know there's a hand up, but I want to Usually we don't have any interaction with the the crowd, so I just >> want to hold on. >> She's on the committee. >> I'm on the committee. >> Hi. >> Helen's on the committee. >> She is. >> Yes. I Yeah, I just Okay. >> I just want to throw out a question. One of our pillars is recruiting and retaining. If we go up a lot, >> we're losing the retaining part. How are we going to focus on the recruiting because we're going to have the same issue of people saying, "Oh, I'll
230come into the district and still spend all this extra money that I can't afford." >> That's the word I want you to think. >> No, I appreciate that. Um, thank you for sharing that. For those watching online there, u the question was if one of our pillars is to retain and recruit staff, what deci is there a decision that we're talking about that blocks our ability to do that? Um, and that's that's a great question. I I know there's a a pillar that's also like being financially responsible and and so you like so like what does that look like and and I don't know and but you're right to ask that question. I think that question >> I think it's I think it's a fair question we would have to ask our benchmarks how they
231recruit and retain because they're not providing that same level of insurance coverage. >> I'm sure Zumald is hiring a 100 teachers this year. Yeah. >> Um and so we might have to pick different strategies. Um >> but u you know we'd have to look into what they do to recruit and re retain people. >> Gotcha. >> So we are coming up across the three-hour mark. >> Um >> I just one more question. Somebody >> we have one more question from the audience. >> Yeah. Um, have we looked at maybe just making a larger deductible for the spouse? Like there's one deductible for for the employee and the family and there's another deductible for the spouse. So like I have a twin in the marketplace and her deductible is twice mine. So if you made the
232spouse deductible more similar to the marketplace >> deductible, how much money would you not the employee, not the children? >> Would that help spouse? >> Yeah, >> I don't know the answer, but I wrote it down. I'll look into it. >> Yeah, we can look into it. >> Yeah. In in those other like what about this? If you want to send those emails like the truth, >> start over. >> Facts are our friends. Not not start over, but like >> start over. >> But um >> that was option one kind of >> that was >> Dr. St. What is your deadline for receiving said emails for you to consider? >> It depends on when you're going to go for the vote. I guess I mean I have >> it sounds like it's going to be
233the next meeting. >> I mean I I guess we just need to be careful. Amy and the committee have spent nine months. >> Yeah. >> I want to be I want to be cognant of that effort. >> President BL is just asking for questions. >> Yeah. >> But like um >> I would say if all questions can be shared before next Monday. Um I mean in terms of a question that might have something you want her to work on, give them a fighting chance to like get the answers before the 21st. So if you want to share questions about this or that uh any other questions u and only because um you are on the committee as well >> because this will be the last question from the audience um just for the sake of
234time. This is the last uh question from the audience in this format. Questions beyond after this format. I've been on the committee for several years and from my memory other than maybe last year the committee has presented something their their recommendation to the board and and we did come to a conclusion but the the it was presented to the board at the June at early June meeting and And I don't I don't feel like it's always been at the at the May board. Like why the rush? It it feels rushed. It usually goes to the board in June. >> There's just a confliction because the um information I was provided is that it felt rushed last year and that there was needing more planning time. So that's why the planning time started in September and
235that people didn't know what changes were going to occur. So that needed to go to the board sooner than later. Last year the work session was on May 27th and so purposely I put it on May the 7th so that it had more time for all of this discourse so that no one felt blindsided and no one felt um change has to occur. We all know that in all the things that we're talking about. So the longer people have order to have that conversation the better. So that's I mean distinctly why I put it on this date >> which is 20 days earlier earlier than it was last year. It's more that we only met like three times last year was the rush feeling. Not that it went that it went later to the board.
236It was just the we only have like three meetings to talk about it. That was the >> rush. I >> So I hope you don't feel rushed is my point because I feel like we have talked about it and talked about it and talked about it. Ultimately, as I said, we don't have to put it into the budget until the June 4th board meeting. And if I don't know the answer, I will show you deficit spending. The reason >> if all things were possible to have it at the May 21st is that way you have two months to create what the budget is. So the meeting the first Thursday of June is be able to say here's the budget, here's all the information and then the board's able to ask questions, adjust so that by
237the main June meeting you can vote on it before the new calendar hits. Right. Right. So the the reason for May 21st would be that the whole teams knows what the plan is to create the budget on it. Correct. >> Um however there is a cushion and I appreciate us just naming the cushion. So >> um we are um >> two more slides I need to just tell you because you will vote on something on May 21st because we have a renewal. So this is just real quick the dependent audit. We've already talked about it. This will come to you for a vote in um May 21st and that's just for renewal of both the dental and flexible spending and then this is our timeline for that dependent verification overlapping with um open enrollment. So
238it will begin on July the 1st for that dependent coverage and then it will actually go all the way until September 30th. So if for some for reason somebody had chosen that they wanted family coverage but they had not proved that by that point, they would just revert to employee only. So, we wouldn't cover it if we didn't have that verification. That make sense? >> So, this will be overly communicated with our staff. Um, really started last week and it'll just continue to to share that information. >> And that is all. >> I appreciate it. Um, any final comments or >> you want more questions now? >> No, no, no. We got the questions. >> I just would like to thank Dr. St. John for all of the work that you've put in on all
239of this cuz I know that this is not easy and I like to thank the committee for putting all of your work and your time in this because I know it is not easy. >> It's like the the least enjoyable job in Missouri is CFO. >> It's like nobody says I want to be a trash when I grow up. This is this is it. >> Lord um so any other questions? Anything else? Um no I just I want to again say thank you to Dr. Amy St. John. appreciate uh you for for being there for your whole team um for the employee insurance committee. Uh we will uh think hard. Um I do want you all to pay attention that uh sorry you want to say anything else before you wrap up. I have a
240question. Yeah. >> Do you want to ask the question first because I'm going to endure. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Would you mind just recapping so I can quickly write down that your takeaway so I know what you're going to be looking at if that's okay. >> I know that we threw a lot at you so I just want to >> We do. That's nice. >> Okay. Can you hear? >> Can you hear you now? >> Can you hear me now? Good job. >> Uh Jason had asked for a phase out plan looking to see if that's a possibility. Um asked for a grandfathered in option um basis keeping everybody the same but then um current employees having a different option. I don't know if that's a possibility. um lowering the premium, raising the deductible, looking
241for something like a 4% premium change. And then Sarah's sliding scale um option and the $100 for spouse if that's something that we can look at. And then um can we pay people to not take the insurance like we've seen um and we've heard of a couple other instances um from the committee in the back keeping the capital um spend um instead of transferring that 5 million. What does that do to it? And then looking at >> Francine's question was showing the movement from high deductible to base. Does that save the district money? And can we have a larger deductible for the spouse? Is that an option? >> And all questions are due by May 11th. >> I don't think we need a committee. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Uh and so
242the last thing I just want to share is for the next few days um Jefferson City etc. stuff's happening we're going to pay attention to it. U there might be some uh point of action called actions you'll hear from us just to make sure that we uh put ourselves at Francis Hen the best possible scenario to to provide for our students teachers and staff. Um again, so I appreciate the the time, appreciate everybody's input. Uh again, thank you for the team. And um with that, our work session is adjourned.