001[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen Brown, chair of the Virginia Beach School Board, and I call this administrative and formal workshop session to order a Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 at 3:30 p.m. Madame Clerk, would you please announce the role? Thank you, Madam Chair. Present in the schoolboard chamber are Chair Brown, Vice Chair Williams, Mr. Bowensteel, Mr. Kalen, Mr. Cole Pepper, Mr. Cummings, Miss Felton, Dr. Green, Miss Melnik, and Miss Rogers. Okay. And Miss Dwire is walking in right now. Um, and that brings us to our administrative matters and reports. Um, I just have one right now. We have the signup sheet for the VSBA conference, November 19th through 21st. I'll pass that here to my left and then to my right. Um, if
002you know your availability, um, just go ahead and mark it. And does anyone have anything to report? Um, Miss Nelic, and I don't know if the buttons are not working. Yeah, they're not. Um, so since we have transportation here this evening, I just wanted to pass along an amazing compliment. Um, some of our sweetest compliments are from our harshest critics. And, um, this one constituent of mine, um, friend, he's pretty tough on public education, but last week I spent, I would say about 20 minutes on the phone with him gushing about transportation. Um he lives over in the Glenwood area and as some of us know in district two and others who don't know there's a massive construction project going on um on Elbow Road and it's going to take a couple years to to
003to complete that work. Um before school started he was very concerned about timeliness um to and from Glenwood Elementary School. Um but I am pleased to report that um there is an amazing collaboration between VBCPS and the city um and you guys Mr. Lash transportation have that all under control and you have got a lot of happy families over in that area. So thank you for what you do every day. Thank you to our bus drivers who are getting those kiddos to and from school not only safely but on time. So thank you Miss Rogers. Thanks. I have um two things that I wanted to just I guess talk about. First, I'd like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the following recognitions and celebrations within the community in the month of September. The community will
004celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month beginning on September 15th, which honors the cultures of both Hispanic and Latino Americans and recognizes the significant contributions they have made in the United States. Tomorrow, the community will recognize National Suicide Prevention Day, which falls in this month of suicide prevention. Uh the community will take time to advocate for change and recognize that our actions as a community can make a a significant impact on the lives of those who are struggling. On September 1st, the community uh recognized Labor Day to honor the achievements of the American workforce and labor movement that fought for better working conditions, wages, and hours during the industrial revolution. And on September 7th, the community celebrated grandparents day, which honors the love, guidance, and support grandparents provide. And to the um help children appreciate the valuable
005valuable contributions of older generations to families and communities. The community will further recognize a 911 remembrance day this week as uh a national day of service and remembrance for the thousands of lives lost during the 911 attacks. And finally, the community will be celebrating Rashana on September 22nd, which serves as a time for introspection and renewal. And then the other thing I wanted to I guess bring up is we um at the end of June we pretty much finished up the book review. And because it wasn't brought up um publicly, I did want to kind of give an overview um to the public of what was found um in the secondary library. um in the secondary libraries. Um all secondary school library media specialists follow their guidelines. Um and so far there were 53 books
006that were placed on a list and that is accessible on our website. Um and parents can decide whether or not their children um can read those books or not. Um, as far as the elementary schools, there were only um seven books that were moved from the elementary libraries to the middle school libraries. Um, and there was one book that was removed. Um, I know it took a lot of effort and time from our librarians and their assistance. an enormous amount of effort and time that I want to thank them for and also just remind us as governing body that that also took a lot of um our staff's time and that we have to really think about the policies we're putting forward so that we're not overburdening our staff. Thank you. Mr. Co Pepper, I
007saw you had your hand up. Yeah, I would add that the week of 17 September commemorates the adoption of the United States Constitution. Thank you. Um, and we now welcome Jack Freeman, chief operations officer for our school opening update. Good afternoon, Sher Brown. Thank you, Vice Chair Wings. Members of the board, Dr. Robertson. So, we started this uh process uh back several years ago. Uh, as you know, there is a tremendous amount of work that goes on at our schools over the summertime. And between programming and the work that we do on the facility side of the house and on the maintenance side of the house and the custodial side of the house, we basically touch every bit of our buildings uh over the course of the summer. So, a lot of work that's done
008over the course of the summer and then uh everything is done uh to prepare to get kids into school and it's so good to have kids back in school right now and settling in. So, today you'll hear from Melissa Ingram from facilities. You'll hear from uh Ken Steeling who is an assistant director in maintenance services, Sam Nicks, custodial and distribution. You hear from James Lash from uh transportation and fleet management services. And then uh Tommy Shadic from Office of Security and Emergency Management, uh Rachel Amato from food services and Frank Fentress uh from landscape services. So, just as a reminder, Frank works for the city, but he functions like a director in Virginia Beach City Public Schools and their team does a tremendous amount of support uh that goes beyond uh just mowing our grass
009and he will cover that more uh during his portion of the brief. So, with that uh I will say it's a lot of transitions, a lot of different people coming up. I would ask that you hold your questions till the end and then we'll uh address them at the end of the brief. So with that I will invite Melissa Ingram from facilities. Okay. Thank you Jack and good afternoon everyone. Um thank you again for your time today. Um so our facility services team um is which includes maintenance services and custodial distribution services and they've worked very hard during the summer weeks across all of our divisions over 90 facilities 11 million square feet of space and 1900 acres coordinating with all Virginia Beach City Public Schools departments and professional staff. Our priority in facility services
010is to have every school ready for the first day of school while also supporting summer learning programs at over half of our schools that operate in the summer and conducted needed maintenance repairs, preventative maintenance, large-scale CIP projects, carry out school cleaning protocols, support distribution needs, and special events. Further details on all of these initiatives will be shared by the team in subsequent slides, including the successful consolidation of Bayside sixth, seventh, and eighth grades at Bayside Middle School, which was ready not only for opening day, but also for some early events as you see pictures in front of you, uh, such as a student orientation this summer. So, in regard to the capital improvement program or CIP, our staff and contractors were hard at work in over 30 sites this summer on largecale capital maintenance projects.
011These projects require years in planning and many also need to be conducted over several years or phases, particularly roof replacements and HVAR replacements. Uh, both of those which we've shared numerous capital needs of these individual systems with you. uh included but not limiting limited to our efforts to install HVAC systems in kitchens where there previously were none. Um and we accomplished around three of those um this summer which we were happy to do. In addition, uh needed work took place on chiller and boiler replacements, fire alarm replacements, foundation repairs, and many other infrastructure upgrades listed on this slides that are greatly needed to not only expand the lifespan of our buildings, but also help with operational savings, educational needs, and the safety of our schools. After reaching substantial completion on these large projects, contractors continue
012to be engaged throughout the year, as you may see at some times when you visit our school buildings, in order to ensure that systems perform as designed through warranty periods. As shared in a memo to the board um in mid August, only three of these sites had an impact after the start of the school school year due to kitchen inspections with our city partners. These s sites were impacted by supply chain delays and staff enacted contingent contingency plans for successful meal service for our students. Contingency plans are still in place at Bayside High School for the completion of HVAC equipment installs this month, which will occur outside of school hours. I'll share more on upcoming capital projects during our fall facilities update as we prepare for the budget cycle. And I'd like to also take
013this time to acknowledge and thank our school principles and their staff for navigating through these large projects with us these summer months. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Ken Steeling, assistant director of maintenance services for more on our team's work. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. Good afternoon. I am Ken Steeling, assistant director of administration and maintenance services and I want to thank you for the opportunity to share some of the great work done by the office of maintenance services. MS continued to strengthen its partnership with the technical and career education center by offering summer trade opportunities to provide students with valuable real world experience in their chosen fields. This year, six students participated across the trades and we look forward to a continued partnership in the future. MS in coordination with our division partners
014at custodial and distribution services and the office of security and emergency management supported the Bayside middle school transition to accommodate students from the former Bayside 6 campus. This included constructing new walls and learning areas, renovating the technology classroom, converting chalkboards to whiteboards, and relocating various equipment and assets through the throughout the facility. Maintenance services also successfully completed the relocation of five portable classrooms from Linhaven Middle School to Woodstock Elementary. This work included the construction of new decking, sidewalks, and infrastructure to ensure a safe, suitable learning environment for students and staff. Finally, this summer, we had over 70 opportunities to support schools with repairs on HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and roofing systems. completed two elevator modernizations at Corporate Landon Middle and Ocean Lakes High School and a pending elevator modernization at SAB scheduled for execution over the
015Christmas holiday break. Additionally, MS completed preventive maintenance on electrical switch gears, doors, windows, and intercom systems throughout the division to ensure we meet and exceed the life expectancy of our systems. Once again, thank you Dr. Robinson and members of the school board for your continued support of the office of maintenance services and school division leadership. Your commitment enables us to meet the ever evolving needs of our schools and maintain safe functioning learning environments for our students and staff. We take great pride in the work we do and we look forward to continuing to serve with the same level of dedication and responsiveness. Thank you for the opportunity to share our progress and accomplishments with you today. At this time, I will turn it over to Mr. Sam Nicks, director of custodial and distribution services. Thank
016you. Thank you for the introduction. As stated, I'm Sam Nick, director of custodial distribution services. And our role is to provide a clean, well-maintained learning environment and support schools by delivering instructional materials and equipment. Whether it's from deep cleaning classrooms to moving and relocating critical records and furniture. I'm happy to share the incredible work our team did over the summer. We had quite a number of projects we did this summer. I'm sorry. We have quite a number of projects we did this summer. However, I'd like to highlight two of them, which is screening and recoding 15 gym floors to ensure safe and polished athletic spaces. And our biggest project of the summer was integrating Bayside sixth grade campus into Bayside Middle School, enhancing space and functionality for the upcoming school year. As you can see
017from the pictures, the pride and professionalism our team brings to every task. At VBCPS, our custodians are more than just caretakers. They are the cons concier of our buildings. Their dedication and versatility shines through in the many ways they support our schools. Whether it's helping returning teacher set up for classrooms, engaging with students in the cafeteria, or supporting park re park and recreation programs. As you can see, our team contributions expand beyond traditional cleaning duties. And their work touches every corner of our schools. Our distribution services team, what can I say? They are the engine that powers our division. Every delivery, every lift is a demonstration of their strength and commitment. In short, they are the heartbeat of our operation. This summer, we processed over 6,000 work orders from transferring student records to delivering textbooks
018or supporting special events. They've shown what it means to be dependable and missiondriven. My final slide is proof that I can show you better than I can tell you with the work that we do to provide our our schools the best looking facilities in the state. At this point in time, I'd like to ask you to join me in thanking our custodian distribution services team for their commitment to excellence and helping us start the year off on a high note. At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. JT Lass, the executive director for transportation and fleet management services. Thank you, Mr. Nicks. Uh board, I'd like to take this time to thank you all for giving us the opportunity to to present this afternoon. I'm JT Lash and I'm proud to uh
019represent the Office of Transportation and Fleet Management Services, which we consider the driving force of Virginia Beach City Public Schools. This afternoon, I will provide you Oops. Uh this afternoon, I'll provide you with transportation overview to include school opening data, information on several new programs, and ongoing transportation staff development. First, I'll provide you with a snapshot of transportation data as of school opening. Now, for those of you who've been on the board for a while, you'll remember a few years ago we um had students register for transportation because it it made our job easier making efficient routes. So, I'm happy to say this year we are at about 50,000 students have registered for transportation services. Uh that number is above what we've been in the past. So, that is quite an accomplishment. So to put
020this in perspective, uh consider the city of Portsmouth, which has a population of about 96,000 um residents. So if every VBCPS student who was registered for transportation was to ride the bus in the morning and the afternoon, that would equate to 100,000, which is more than the resident number of residents in Portsouth. That's quite a few. Um this year our total number of school bus routes is at 550 which is pretty consistent with last year's number. Transportation staffing from day one and we all know transportation staffing is pretty much a challenge for everyone. Uh we currently have 530 bus drivers. We need 20. So, we're pleased to announce actually that our total driver staffing rate right now is 96%. While it's not 100%, we are doing much better than other school districts in the area
021according to recent TV news uh reports. So, we're doing good. Um update on our bus driver training. uh recruitment and training is a priority and our ongoing commitment helps us be successful in having such a high bus driver staffing rate. Currently, we have three individuals in various stages of training outside of in-classroom instruction. The latest class began yesterday and I'm happy to report that seven individuals are in attendance. The first initiative I'd like to discuss is a new Zoom bus routing and tracking system. So last year uh from spring until the end of the school year, old donation school helped us pilot the use of the new system which included parent tracking application the parent tracking application and the pilot was considered highly successful by both staff and parents. Key features within Zoom's fully integrated
022platform include GPS, which tracks our bus as it travels, the parent app, which allows parents to um track the bus for arrivals and drop offs. uh as well as the driver app which provides our drivers with turnbyturn instructions or directions and routing and analytics which will provide us or provides us with real-time data uh for more intelligent datadriven decisions that will help ensure continuous improvement. Next, the next initiative is the bus patrol camera system. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Nitsa data indicates that children are significantly safer riding school buses than other vehicles. However, motors failing to stop for school buses loading and unloading children puts them at significant risk. Stop arm cameras can help reduce the number of individuals who illicitly pass stop school buses. The previous vendor had only 150 buses in the
023original camera program. However, I'm proud to report that with our new system, all yellow BBCPs school buses are equipped with cameras for the stop arm um pass. Additionally, internal and external state-of-the-art cameras were installed along with the stop arm cameras. Next, I'll discuss the continuous professional development. The Office of Transportation and Fleet Management Services take safety and continuous professional de um development seriously. Most recently, we held our August inservice meetings for bus employees. As you can see from the slide, a wide range of topics were covered, and this isn't an exhaustive list of all the topics presented. The goal is to provide information and training to ensure safety for not only our students, but our staff. Uh this concludes my presentation. I'd like to introduce Chef Rachel Amato, the director of food services. Thank you.
024Thank you, JT. My name is Chef Rachel Amato and I'm the director of food services. I'm here to provide Oh, I'm here to provide an update on food service operations. This school year, we're operating the traditional national school breakfast and lunch programs. These programs are federally subsidized by the United States Department of Agriculture and are subject to strict nutritional and fiscal rules and regulations. Under these two programs, meal costs are based on eligibility, which is paid, reduced, and free. The cost of the students that are paid is $160 for breakfast and 305 for lunch. The state allocated additional resources to this school year's budget, funding the reduced price portion of the school meals. Households that qualify for reducedpric meals will receive meals at no cost as well. Our school meals are healthy, nutritious, and tasty.
025Research shows that students who participate in school meal programs consume more whole grains, milk, fruits, and vegetables during the day and especially during their meal times and have better diets overall than students who do not participate in our programs. Studies show also that students who eat breakfast at school is associated with better attendance rates and fewer missed school days. We believe that children learn better when they aren't hungry. Our division has applied and received state approval for 38 schools under the community eligibility provision program where all students regardless of household income can receive no cost meals. Our division has over 21,600 students that are benefiting from the C program. On this slide, you can see the 38 schools listed. Our schools qualify for C through data received by the Virginia Department of Social Services. At
026nonC sites, we have an additional 13,600 students that are currently qualified for free and reduced meal benefits. Between those two programs, we have over half our student population receiving no cost meals. Household needing award letters for other benefits should still apply for free and reduced meal programs because these benefits include other benefits than just meals. Uh they can include lowcost internet, dental and daycare assistance, different types of testing fee waivers like AP and IB as well as college application fee waivers. During the last school year, our division served over 8.8 million student meals. The chart on the slide shows the data from the first five school days of meal service compared to those meals served through 2122 school years. To entice students to eat in our cafeterias, we continue to expand our scratch cooking initiative
027menu offerings at all schools. We also continue to upgrade our kitchen equipment to include modernization for scratch cooking to increase efficiency. In collaboration with facility services, we now have 53 school kitchens that have been modernized, including our new scratch lab and three kitchens that were upgraded with brand new HVAC systems. Thank you, Melissa and team. We are expanding our farm-toschool initiative to include 47 active school gardens and our goal is to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to our students. Oh, sorry. Last year, we engaged students in many different capacities. On the left, you can see our food truck doing what it does best, serving students during one lunch or sampling new products. We supported a student from First Colinia High School with his senior project focusing on special dietary needs. And you can see his
028posters up in our high schools. We also love to support curriculum and enjoy speaking with the kindergarteners at Thorough Elementary on our planttoplate program. On the right, you can see that some of our culinary clubs where students grow vegetables in their student gardens, learn in culinary skills in the school kitchens, and where their food comes from. Thank you again. I will hand it over to Tommy Shadic of the Office of Security and Emergency Management. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chef Amato. Good afternoon. My name is Tommy Shack and I have the privilege of serving as the director of the Office of Security Emergency Management. It is my pleasure to provide the school board with an update on the important work our team has completed this summer to wh Let's do that. There we go. It is
029my pleasure to provide the school board with an update on the important work our team has completed this summer to prepare for the 2025 2026 school year. Our mission remains clear to provide a safe and secure environment for our students, staff, and guests. To further that mission, we focused our efforts this summer on three key areas: training, personnel, and infrastructure. This summer, our team conducted security training with both principles and assistant principles. Topics included school threat investigations, the effective use of lockdowns during critical incidents, and best practices in key management and accountability. All OSM coordinators, including myself, are state certified instructors. This allows us to deliver annual certification training to approximately 274 security assistants throughout the school year, including this summer. He didn't make it. We also participated in joint training with the Virginia Beach
030Police Department's SRO program and firearms training unit. Together, we focused on deescalation training, reviewing our currentou best practices in conducting school-based investigations, and annual firearms training and qualifications for our armed school security officers. The success of our SRO program and the armed security officer initiative would not be possible without the Virginia Beach Police Department. I want to extend my sincere gratitude for their unwavering support of our schools personnel. Through the Virginia SSO incentive grant, our office was able to provide 15 additional security assistance at the elementary level. I am proud to report that for the first time in division's history, every elementary school now has allocations for two security assistants. slides which infrastructure leveraging available state grants. Our office in coordination with maintenance services oversaw security upgrades in 14 schools including expanded access control systems
031and new highdeition security cameras. Access control systems are electronic door locks provide a higher level of security than traditional keys. Unlike keys, access cards can be quickly deactivated if lost or stolen, preventing unauthorized entry. Since 2019, the number of these systems across the division has grown by 125%. Thank you, Gil. In addition, our team completed perimeter fencing projects at Kingston and Field Elementary Schools and supported portable classroom security needs at Woodstock Elementary. We also provided training, equipment, and security support for the Harbor Hope Center, our division's newly opened recovery school. And last month, our team assessed the new Epic system at Chemole High School. The system not only improves classroom instruction through audio amplification, but also includes a comprehensive security suite that can integrate with our current security platforms. That concludes my update. On behalf
032of our talent and dedicated team, see it back here behind me. I thank you for your continued support and partnership. Together, we look forward to a safe and successful school year. And at this time, it's my pleasure to turn over to Frank Ventress from Parks and Recreation. Good afternoon. I'm Frank Fentress and I am the park and landscape services administrator for the Virginia Beach Department of Parks and Recreation. And I think if you all know about the intricate relationship between parks and recreation and Virginia Beach City Public Schools is pretty unique around the country. I've never heard of any other locality with quite as robust a relationship between city and schools and especially parks and recreation and schools. Um we provide landscape maintenance services at schools with 63 positions that are funded through the um
033through this board. Um they give money back to the city and it goes into my budget to provide maintenance services for schools. Probably the most highly visible part of that maintenance is the mowing and trimming and weed control that you see pretty much on a day-to-day basis. It's currently on a 16 to 18 day maintenance cycle. So on this day today, one school was mowed yesterday and one school was mowed 17 days ago. To get ready for schools to open, our teams put in a lot of overtime on weekends to try to get them all lined up so they all look as good as they can for that first day. And now they're starting to stretch back out to that 16 to 18 day cycle. Um, it's important to note that the routine maintenance work
034that's done by our teams, which again is the most highly visible, only accounts for about 1,200 work orders out of about 14,000 work orders that are done in a given fiscal year. Um, and the things they do um don't stop in the summertime. Actually, our season is probably more intensive in the summertime. And in the winter time, we've got tons of work to do as well because we have to put engineered wood fiber in about a hundred playgrounds at different elementary schools. We paint curbs and poles and things yellow to make sure that everything is safe. Um we replenish the mulch in the planting beds and do um tree trimming and things like that. So wintertime work is um continues throughout the whole season. In addition to the routine maintenancees provided by our teams, um
035we do a lot of site infrastructure maintenance. So, we're responsible for maintenance of everything outside the school building, parking lot striping, signage that gets replaced or installed, sidewalk repairs, um storm drain replacements. Um some recent projects that we worked on um that come to mind were we at Tallwood High School, they replaced a uh concession announcer building behind the back stop. There had been a leaking pipe under that for years and we could never get to it to do maintenance and repair it. Once they tore the building down, we were able to go in and dig it up and fix the pipe. So now when they put a new building in that, we won't have to worry about what's happening underneath. 70 tons of asphalt to repair the parking lots at the Teched Center um
036and and North Landing Elementary School. And then we also did some significant sidewalk renovation work at Great Neck Middle School due to some settling from some storm drains that were leaking. Um that's just typical of the work they do. And I've already mentioned the playground inspection and repair. 100 playgrounds. We inspect them every quarter by a certified playground safety inspector and make any repairs that are necessary to make sure they're safe for all the students that use them as well as the people that use them in before and after school programs. Our team also provides athletics focused support and with our routine maintenance teams, they do the lining and the uh field prep for game day type activities, but behind the scenes we're repairing irrigation systems. The high schools are almost entirely irrigated, everything behind
037the school. Um, the new artificial turf fields require grooming um to keep them in good shape and um we still have some of the stadium fields that are art they're natural turf and have to have a turf management program on them. Um and then other repairs of of just sports activity um site type um infrastructure. We also do some teaching curriculum support. Um, this is a picture of our team helping to build some of the scratch cooking gardens at at uh schools. And we do this in the winter months, the fall months. Floating wetland islands have been installed at places like Ocean Lakes High School and Larksboro Middle School. We've gotten trees for clean water grants from the state department of forestry for the last several years. And we always include some activity with Virginia
038Beach public schools and going into the classroom. There's a picture there of some people standing under under a tree at Betty F. Williams that was known as um Big Mama. That's that's what they named the tree. Um we also provide green roof maintenance at the schools and Arbor Day celebration. We've done it 45 years. Um we've involved the schools in almost every one of those years and two out of the last three were at schools. One was at Independence Middle three years ago and then two years ago it was at Brookwood Elementary School. And last but not least, we provide emergency response. And I mentioned that we have 63 employees that are paid out of the schools. I have 350 in my organization. Last winter, we had a snow event. It was only about a
0394 inch event, but you probably remember. Um the weather was perfect for us. It got warmer rather than colder after the snow fell, but we were able to get all the city facilities open and focus all those people in addition to the schools people to get schools ready within 48 hours. We had everything cleared and ready to open. And unfortunately, it was over a weekend that we had as well. So, the roads were ready for buses on Monday as well. So, we provide snow response when it's necessary. Um there's a picture there of a tornado that blew through and took down the baseball uh infrastructure at Lancetown High School. Um hurricanes, we go and check the sites for for any work that might need to be done and just provide whatever support we can to
040make sure schools can can stay in session. And with that, I will turn it back over to Jack for any closing comments. Uh I'm not going to make Well, I will. We're incredibly proud of our team. uh and we are focused on continuous improvement. We want to get better every year as we go through a a school opening. So with that, uh open it up for questions and comments. Okay, Mr. Cummings. Yeah, thank you so much, Chair. Um I just wanted to kick off first and foremost and just say thanks to everyone for such a fantastic opening day. I had a f amazing experience at College Park Elementary just greeting our kids, seeing them being dropped off and coming into what I can only describe as probably the shiniest building I've ever seen in my
041life. So, so much love and so much appreciation to all you folks who are doing um amazing work for our kids to not only learn well, but be in an environment that um I think you know that just promotes learning, well-being, and a sense of belonging. Um I feel well Dr. Roberts left but I think my one of the questions that I have and is predominantly I was gonna ask Dr. Robertson around oh you're still here. Oh I didn't see you but I had a question about sorry was just about bus patrol. Um you know I'm very excited about this. I'm very excited. Well, not excited for people to get tickets and for people to be running bus signs, but I'm interested in how this can help promote a culture of safety um with our
042kids being picked up, dropped off, and how we plan to maybe utilize it. uh you know I think from one from a lens of communication to the community um you know like about driving safe campaigns but two also working with law enforcement to identify areas where you know there's potential um high ticketed areas and I think the down one of the downsides I think is of a parent is like you drive around and you see the people run the bus not stopping appropriately and you're like or driving through the the uh school zones in a rather speedy way and you're like me, I honk the horn and I'll do all types of things. But I'm very I'm very curious. I'm very interested as a board member to receive some continued updates on on how this
043is going and from just the quick conversation I had. Um it sounds like it's working extremely well. So I would love to have some reports back just you know what is what how many people are getting tickets? What are some of the concern areas of concern? and then maybe working to see if we can work with either law enforcement or develop some communication strategies to the community. Um, I think this is I'm glad to see that we have a robust system on all of our buses. So, I applaud the division for taking that initiative and so that's my only comment um based from the whole presentation. So, I just wanted to share that with you. So, you ended that with you just wanted to make that comment. So, we heard you loud and clear. Any
044response required? I mean, I want to hear a regular, not regular, maybe a We'll figure out the cadence offline, but some type of reporting back uh to the board about how I mean, I think the community deserves to know. I think parents deserve to know like how many people are actually running bus lights. And I think that's something that we or bus stop bus stoplight, you know, stop lightss. Um, so we could figure out that cadence, I think, working with the chair and with Dr. Robertson. Right, Miss Falton. Thank you. Thank you. And Brown, you probably have Madam Chair, it's Miss Melnik. Oh, right. I didn't realize it was Miss Melnick. Okay, Miss Melnick. Yeah, I was Oh, yeah. That Yeah, my my mic wasn't pushed either. It doesn't matter. I I took a lot
045of notes and I just want to thank everybody before I asked my question. And I wrote down a couple of words. First of all, I loved that our custodians are the concierge of our buildings, right? Who doesn't love a concierge? And that's exactly what you see when you walk into our buildings is just ab just how absolutely beautiful they are. Thank you to food services for your attention to details, especially with diversifying um food choices. Thank you. Um, I always worry about families that live in food deserts and when we can provide students um, fresh fruit and vegetable options, you know, they really do love it. Um, and so I love that. I love two security assistants in each of our elementary schools. Um, I'm a huge fan of the distribution center. I'm there about
046once a week with beach bags. It's just a it's a beautiful facility. Um, transportation again, um, my favorite word, risk management. I'm not risk a risk manager by trade, but just because of my head, I'm always thinking that way in the risk management way. So, I love that that was up there. Um, I live in a neighborhood, Christopher Farms, so we have a school and so I have that keen eye for nicely cut grass and so I appreciate that. and um the roof repair that went on this summer and how seamless and quiet and um and beautiful that was. And so I thank you for that. And so my question is the mural at Bayside sixth grade campus was on what and how did you move it because that's impressive. Who's the best one? If
047that was painted on a wall, I want to hear about it. Talk about you. First and foremost, without all those folks to stand against the wall, we would have never been able to do it. We have a team, our distribution team is 13 strong and moved that whole building on their own. U with of course all the resources that we have and it was a very heavy lift, but our team was up for the task. It was a lot of moving, a lot of shifting, a lot of shaking and a lot of baking. Mhm. So for us, we did everything that we did and ensure that we communicated, communicated, and communicated to get the things ready so we can make it sure the building is ready for our students and staff to return ahead of
048schedule. Yes. What was that mural on? That mural was really difficult. Yeah, I know. I want to know about it. Was it painted on a wall? It was. It was painted maintenance services. I believe y'all took it down for us and we took it over and transported in one of our distribution trucks. Was it like a painting or was it on drywall? It was it was on the it was on the it was on a drywall because I think Melissa knows more about it. It was like a plywood surface that was on and then so it was um and our our team is really great in terms of working with maintenance services um trying to ensure that student artwork um you know when it's put somewhere just like with that mural can be moved in
049the future and preserved more readily than when we have to repaint a building. It always breaks our heart when we have to paint over something that the students took so much time with. So it was really a lot of planning ahead of time as well and and um Mr. Mix's team and distribution did a fantastic job coordinating with everyone to make that happen because for that school that was like their Mona Lisa, right? So, thank you for taking care of that and delivering that to their new to their new home. Yes. Thank you. Okay, Miss Felton. Thank you, Chair Brown. I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you all. And maybe because you are the uh chief operate officer, Mr. Maybe you should stand up there because I do want to ask every person that's
050presented. I want to ask them a question and one of the questions I want to ask is the uh do we have summer inter uh internship with students all of our students part of these department and how are they and and I remember uh Mr. Steeling bringing that up but I was working my way backwards. So, I I'll I'll present it to to Mr. um Fris. Uh it was something I wanted him to hit on and re re um emphasize to the public because when I served on parking Rex as a commissioner, he brought to the table when inclement weather hit who who is served first and why does it seem like the school is always alive? Could you give the public could you give the public the protocol when we have inclement weather and
051how you work that? It's important to the parents. It's important to the community to hear that. Okay. So, I've been uh handling snow events whenever we've had them for about the last 20 years. And we are uh we go for public safety, city public safety facilities and 24-hour care facilities first. Um as a matter of fact, while the snow is falling, we're providing services to those facilities to make sure that they can stay open, that they can serve the public in the roles that they have. Once the snow passes, they're the first ones we complete working on and make them as safe as we can. Then we move on to the city facilities that need to open so they can provide the services to the citizens. Part of that decision is based on the needs
052of the city, but it's also based on usually when we have enough snow that it's a multiple day response. You can't get buses into the neighborhoods anyway and the roads are still not safe to provide bus transportation. So, as soon as we get those city facilities, and I'm not talking as much libraries and recreation centers, I'm talking about social services building, human services building, things like that. Um, then we move on in full force to all the schools and the other facilities that are left to open. And typically for every event we've ever had, we've had the facilities ready before the buses were able to really safely get into the neighborhoods and do what, you know, pick up children. Thank you. So, do you um I appreciate that because parents need to know that because
053my phone would jumping off the hook. You know, why not coming? It's no snow in front of my house. I can get out of my street and we have to explain that to them what is happening and the protocol. But, um I like just like to know that do you work with the talent bank with the city involving our students at summer jobs, internship? Is that still something that you still do or we still working on it? Lack of funings or lack of positions? We still do it and we still appreciate that we can do it. We have uh interns that started with tech thetoed programs for example. We've done through the public works academy for many years. I mean that started around 2001. It didn't start in Virginia Beach City public schools until later,
054but it was with some of the other school systems. We hire them every summer. mechanics, uh, people that are working in, um, grounds maintenance or landscape design. We've had students from teched doing that. And the city also has a summer youth employment program through parks and recreation, and we get many students through that program as well. And we always have a few of those working at our division, but also in the whole department, right, and around the city. Thank you. I just like to say that you were one of the one of the uh, most uh, engaging department that did that for our students. We had to we had to gravel and bait all other departments, but you you were one of the ones that were were you were there and you you gave us
055uh great jobs opportunity for us. I'd like to say thank you for that. Appreciate that. Thank you. Um uh Chair Brown, you can tell me to stop when it's time to stop. I want to uh talk to Miss Amand though just ask her the same thing about students internship because some of our students are talk about uh culinary. Yes. So we would love to uh we engage them in culinary clubs uh sitebased but we would love to engage more of our students in internships over the summer um through CTE and other programs that may be C sorry uh the other programs that we can introduce with them. But absolutely. Thank you for giving us that uh food services uh reduction for parents C and nonC. Uh I had a parent to text me this week.
056said she was paying $93 a week for her four children and that included lunches. So, how are we getting this information to the parents about the uh C and nonC um information that they can uh have access to it as well? Is that just through the school or are they do they have to ask for it? So, no, we actually send notifications weekly um and update them weekly with notifications as well as the beginning of the school year. We also work with our software program called Promero Edge where if you sign up for an account which is a school cafe account uh you then will get notification based on that and can apply through there. Okay. So they can just go through the school online account. Yes. Online. Okay. Yeah. Or to the school as
057well. Anywhere really. So how many students are you uh hiring through your internship? None yet but we would like to in the future. Okay. How will we how so th those plans are on the table of how you're going to reach out to them and how you're going to bring them into uh I'm I'm I'm open to it. Yeah. Yeah. I I think what we're we're hearing from you is there's a desire to try and move in that direction. So if uh if that's the direction that we want to go from the leadership, we can start putting a structure around it. Um there's obviously would be a lot of uh leaders that would be involved in this process uh that would need to be engaged to be able to make sure we had a successful
058program. I'm one of those one that go I ask the students what what do you what do you want to do? What is your thing that you like? And I get a lot of conversation about culinary. I said do you know we have scratch cooking these things that we have? And they said no I'm not aware of that. And I'm always promoting the things that we do have and I just like to see if you know I don't know if it's a cause behind it but if it's there and the students can have access to that. I think all things public education is what I like is what I like doing. Okay. Um and Miss Felton if you wouldn't mind us. Um I just want to make sure we can get because we have Mercer
059here as well today. Great. Um Miss Rogers. Um thanks. First of all, I want to recognize um all the employees in facilities, maintenance, uh distribution, custodial, uh security, transportation, food services, parks, and recrecks. You guys really do make our schools run. We couldn't do it without you. Everybody always focuses on our instructional staff, but honestly, without all of these services to our community, the schools would not be able to run. I did want to um tell you, Mr. Freeman, that I saw amazing new HVAC system at Cook with a brand new brick walls surrounding it. It was gorgeous on the first day of school. They were really sweating whether or not that was going to happen and it did. So, it was incredible and they wanted to make sure I saw it. Um, I also
060wanted to talk about how custodial services when I was teaching a couple years ago, my very favorite day was when I walked into my classroom and all the shiny shiny floors were ready to go. Honestly, it's amazing. And that picture um really does show us exactly how wonderful it is to go into the schools and it's like that. Distribution services as well brought me my brand new furniture when I was teaching. It was amazing. Um, I did have a couple questions. So, the first one is going to be for food services. So, I'm not sure who There we go. And I guess this is kind of like a So, for our community eligible provision schools, I noticed that Renaissance Academy is on there, but our Renaissance Academy students are from all over the division. Is
061that always the case that they're a C school? Yes, that is correct. It is sitebased, not studentbased. So, so because of where it's located. Okay, that was my question because I I wasn't aware that it's because of the location and not because of the student population. So, um, thank you for that. You're welcome. I appreciate that. And then I have something else. Security and wow. Okay. No, no, no. I don't know if you can answer this question or not. It's actually maybe for Dr. Robertson back there. Sorry, Dr. I know you guys got to tag each other in and out. So, I noticed that the Harbor Hope Center um has a they had a security infrastructure and training support. That's not our building. It I guess I'm kind of confused. Yeah. Okay, never mind. I'm
062just trying to figure it out. Sorry. Hi. So we provided uh some radios for the center as well out of out of our office and some training. So it's in Chesapeake obviously. Yes. And I were we putting cameras that's what I guess radio is a fancy word to say radios. I just when you talked about security infrastructure I'm thinking cameras and all of those things and I'm like that's not our building. Fancy way of saying radios. Okay. Nice. I like it. Yes. All right. Is that it? Yeah it. I was just confused about that. Thank you ma'am. All right. Thanks, Vice Chair Williams. Thank you. Um, as a PE teacher, I have a theme every week, and the first week this year of school was take pride in everything you do, students, whether it's during
063warm-ups, the games, keeping our gym clean. And you guys just gave us a living example of what it means to take pride in every single thing that you do. And it's amazing. And thank you. I mean, whether it's a new swing, whether it's a clean gym, um yellow paint on the on the parking lot, that that just showed us how much pride every department takes in um in in in your job, what you have to do and and I really do appreciate that. What a great example for students as well. um bus transportation, the stop arms. If if you guys don't remember it, you know, this was brought up to us from one of our bus drivers years and years ago that took videos of so many people running red lights, especially um throughout Aragona
064and and on that road, hey, good road, right in front of Bayside High School. And we went to our previous superintendent and said, "We got to do something about this." So, I'm so glad because the bus drivers have been wanting them on every bus and and so I'm so glad that that's finally finally taken um taken into effect. I just have one question. It's kind of a silly one. Um but it's amazing because I've heard it before, but refresh my memory. Transportation. How many miles do our buses drive a day? And I mean, we've had it before. We've been given it before and I just can't remember it. Or can you send that to us because it it's unbelievable. Yes, ma'am. I can send it to you. It's hard to come up with the daily
065figure at this time. Okay. But I'll be glad to have the numbers updated. It's mind-blowing how ma'am. Yeah. So, I would like to have that just so that I can have it for when for the community. Okay. Thanks again everybody. Appreciate you. Okay. Colleagues, so my board with the order of speakers and it went down and I know that Dr. Green, I believe you were in queue. Okay. So, we have Mr. Co Pepper and Mr. Ken's also in line. So, we'll do Mr. Co Pepper, then Dr. Green, then Mr. Ken. Okay. Thank you. Uh, I just want to start by saying thank you for this brief, not only for uh for the board, but for the public. uh you know while the student body is at the beach at least proverbally uh it really highlights
066how much work goes on and how much uh detail oriented attention goes on to make all of our facilities ready for the school years and I appreciate that. Um, I'm also my my colleague made the comments at the very beginning of the meeting here today about positive feedback uh for transportation and I'm glad you said that because I got a little negative feedback. So, it's not all bad news obviously and actually mostly I'm going to ask questions but but it's related to some feedback that I got. Um, you can cut me off for time here too and I can just pitch these to you and we can talk about answers later but I just want to give you some of the u some of the the things that I got. Um, so when you're developing
067when you're developing routes, do you have a a maximum uh time for a student to be on a bus that you try to keep in mind? So, as you're as you're about to answer these questions, here's the thought that comes to my mind. We can certainly answer all your questions and we can do them individually here tonight or you can package them up. We have an afteraction review that's scheduled um for about a week or two. We're just waiting to make sure that we get the final participants because we know as we implemented the Zoom uh software, we got some positive feedback and then we also have some things that we identified that all right, let's go take a deeper dive on these. Okay. So, happy to be able to answer in a public setting
068all of the ones that you have, but there's a kind of a package of uh things that we want to be able to look at related to that too. So, okay. Well, I'll tell you what then. Let me let me pitch all these to you. Yep. kind of how I got them and then you address the ones you want to now and I'm happy to take feedback on any of it later or all of it later quite quickly. Okay, sounds good. Ready. So, one of them was related to a maximum uh route time. You know, the individual that gave me that uh complaint came right back and said that you did adjust it and it got better, but it's still pretty long. Uh so, so my my my interest is to know whether from as
069a planning factor you have a maximum that you're trying to stay within. And I'll just add one thing to that which is uh the partic this particular issue was an academy and I know that makes the problem harder because distances are are extreme in some cases. Um I'm saying this gently because I I don't want this to end up being a case where we go well you know we can't do this academy now because we can't deal with transportation or we deny transportation tomms because of this. So I I do think it's an important thing to try to plan around as best we can. Um, another one's related to, and this comes up every year somewhere somehow is, you know, a parent will say this bus stop is unsafe. Um, so I would like to
070know what criteria you try to keep in mind uh for uh bus stops that you pick related to neighborhoods that are going to go to that bus stop and therefore what roads they have to cross or or the maximum distance they're going to have to walk to get to those bus stops. I know I'm making this easy. um related to uh route timing. Um I did ask the superintendent at some point in time about uh a alternate pickup point and I think you guys try went down that path sometime in the past and that's probably not viable, you know, to have an alternate pickup point for somebody who says, you know, I don't want to be the first pickup and have my student on the bus for two hours. But I but I am curious
071whether a parent could bring their kid to a a different stop on the same route that their their student is already um programmed to use. In other words, it's kind of no burden off our bur there's no additional burden to us if the student is at a different bus stop. Uh there's a tracking requirement I think but no no extra burden. Um I'll ask you about that later. You already mentioned Zoom, so you already said that you're looking for feedback on that which is great. Um, did you did you use AI to develop bus routes this year this this year or was it all done the same way you've done it for years past? Is there an AI component JT? Yes, Zoom. Yes, Zoom uses AI. Okay, I'll ask you about that. I'm curious about
072how that implementation has gone. Absolutely. Okay. And the only other thing is do you have any specifics protocol-wise for feedback to parents either in timeline or the matter of detail that you give them uh when they ask questions about routes? Yeah. Um and that's all I have. So anything you want to take now? I'd love to hear it. If you want to give me feedback later, that's okay. So Chair Brown, I'm going to be conscious of time. So I'm just going to say this one thing and then you tell me how much more detail you want me to go into. So related to that piece right there, we're very much focused on that because we've made some improvements over the years for how we get feedback uh from families um as the school year begins.
073The volume is a challenge. Um and um we want to create a system that um you only have to enter into it in one way, potentially a ticket number. um rather than trying to call multiple things, it just takes more time to get a ticket number so that we can prioritize um and transparently see what the priority is to be able to address uh those individual calls. So, when I talk about continuous improvement, that's one of the ones we're going to be talking about, the AR, uh technology has been fantastic. David Den and his team helping us out with where we are right now, but what's the next step we can make uh to make that more smooth? Okay. Uh, I appreciate that. You know, you can you can imagine how parents are. You know,
074the worst thing for them is they throw a throw a feedback into a black hole and they don't hear back. Um, that comes to me. Understood. Uh, the only other thing I want to say is just to say that, you know, 550 bus routes uh to serve all of our schools andmies. That's a in my view a planning nightmare. I don't want to do it. I'm very appreciative of your staff and the hard work that they do to try to get all that done. And I appreciate your efforts to to do an after action and make it better uh both this year and next. Thank you. accepted on the behalf of the entire transportation team. They've been working really hard. Yeah. Dr. Green. Okay. Um Mr. Freeman. I just want to say on behalf of
075District 4, since I am the District 4 school board representative, and as you can imagine, this summer, every cookout I went to, every picnic, church event, out walking, um the question was, will Bayside Middle be ready? And I just want to thank your team um because my comm on behalf of my community as well. They were are very happy because it was a flawless transition. Um so I do want to say thank you. One other thing I wanted to uplift for our viewing public that um they may not realize a very important task that your team has specifically charged to Mr. Nick's office because I used to work with him when we had to coordinate that. He's laughing because he knows what I'm getting ready to talk about. Um, it's the transition of our student
076records. Um, because students in our transition grades from middle school to high school and then again from high school uh from middle school to high school, elementary to middle school. And I cannot stress how important and stressful that task is because that's a student's academic history um that is moved. And Mr. Nicks, I don't know how your wonderful team does it. they have never lost a student record because that does create sleepless nights if a student record is lost because there's information in it that you may not be able to rebuild such if that there was testing for special ed or gifted ed or so thank you Mr. Alan, my question is directed to Tommy. Okay. I'm asking these questions first and foremost for myself, but I'm going to assume that there's a lot of
077people who may be watching this presentation today who are also interested in this information. So, help me develop a categorization process, if you will. First and foremost, there is a listing in my understanding of different categories that are served in the security of the area such as SRO's as an example. Yes, sir. Uh SSAs, school security assistance might be a new category. It might be an existing one for a while. My first question is how many different categories are represented in the security process at any of these schools? because you've got armed Virginia Beach police officers as well representing another category. Is that correct? It is. So there's three distinct categories in the school for VBCPS. We have our security assistants. We have our school security officer ones who are not armed but are retired
078law enforcement and we have our school security officer twos. That's our armed security program. And then the other layer, the fourth layer would be the SRO program. Obviously that's implemented by the Virginia Beach Police Department. So you got four categories as my counting three. Yeah. Three VBCPS employees and then one would be the Regime Beach Police SRO program. Yes, sir. Okay. Now, let's take the school structure itself. Elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Yes, sir. How many of those four categories do you want to have populated in every elementary school? Well, want I mean obviously it' be ideal to have security in all those schools, the same level of middle school and high school. It's about operational needs uh that we have right now with Virginia Beach Police Department. Uh right now we have
079those layers at the high school and middle school layers and we have now like I said in my presentation before. Okay. Don't you have them at in layers at the high school and middle school. What layers are you referring to? It's just so that I can follow you and again so that the audience can as well. Sure. I was on my way. So we have this the layers at middle school and high school. We have the SSO2s, SSO1's and security assistants. Those are all employees and SRO's. We have assigned SRO's at those schools. They're embedded in the high schools and the middle schools. Okay, you lost me. Okay, so we'll start with the high schools first. Thank you. That work? Okay. At a high school, at all our high schools, we have an assigned SRO.
080That's Virginia Beach police officer who's gone through the SRO program. Then we have security assistants. Those are just security personnel without law enforcement background. Then we have SSO2s or school security officer twos. Those are our armed school security officers. And right now the only high school that's missing one of those is First Colonial and we're hiring one for for them right now. Okay. And then we have So that's the three layers of BBCPS employees and the SRO good with high school sir. So okay SRO's have with with the no law enforcement background on an SA. No sir SRO's are law enforcement. I'm being taken off stage. Okay. Yeah, this is important at this particular time in the year in light of what recent events have done. Well, it's wonderful. So, the in the conversation we
081also have too is um so we can talk at a high level in a public setting sharing uh the more information we share related to security, the more vulnerability that exists. I get that. Um so, we're going to try and strike that balance as we go through it. I'm all in favor of that. So um so high level at a high school you've got armed uh you've got a police officer uniform police officer at all assigned to all secondary schools. So middle schools and high schools we have a assignment for an armed uh security officer Virginia Beach City public school employee at those secondary schools as well. Again, the intent behind that was uh when and if a police officer cannot be available on that given day or gets pulled for another priority, we have
082somebody that can at least provide that um uh armed backup. Uh and then at elementary schools, as Tommy shared earlier, we've got two security assistants. At elementary schools, SRO's can roam. They're not assigned there. Um, so the uh Virginia Beach Virginia Beach police officers do support elementary schools, but not directly. They're not assigned at those sites. They um work with the Office of Security and Emergency Management on an as needed basis. Okay, did that answer it? It's getting into the weeds. And so what I not want to do for tonight, but to do so as a followup is to meet and review these details for greater understanding. Again, if there's any concern that a parent has, it's in this area, especially in light of headline news that we're experiencing of recent events. So, we can't
083underdo this area. Yes, sir. If I may respond to that more holistically because often we focus on what's the question and what's the thing that we have on our mind. Security and emergency management is not a single item. It's not the individual people that we have that are SRO's, SSOs. Um, it is the whole picture and this goes back to the blue ribbon panel on school safety and security that was conducted back in 2018 and that has guided our work since then. And there are 11 recommendations that came out of that. And those recommendations included things like he talked about tonight related to um your personnel, your infrastructure and your training. but it also includes mental health components because all of these incidents involve some sort of uh mental health related item. In addition to
084that, we've implemented the Virginia Beach school safety task force. So quarterly we meet with and that is chaired by school division. So it's uh it's me the emergency manager from the city of Virginia Beach and the chief of police chief Nudicate. That's the those are the co-chairs and there's a group of about 45 that meet and we meet quarterly to keep uh again continuous improvement. How do we continue to improve uh related to school safety and security? So I think the broader answer to anybody who's concerned is there are many layers on how we um operate to ensure the highest level of safety in our schools. Um, and not to be underestimated, it's the relationships, it's the communication, it's the see something, say something uh that our, uh, staff in our schools, those relationships they
085build with their students and their parents because that, uh, is an incredibly effective way to continue to keep us safe. Okay. I realize this is a follow-up meeting that's going to be necessary, so I'll be interested in having that with you as well. Happy to do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um and I just I want to um point out the time we have Mercer here and um we have a couple more weighty topics. Um but Miss Dwire and then we're going to move on. Question. So I just have a quick question. Are we fully staff in each of these department offices? Are we fully staffed? I know in transportation we're not. So, as I look at uh human resources, it is a uh a constant effort um to keep them staffed. So,
086the ones that you guys continue to hear about on our regular basis are our lowest uh wage earners. Um so, custodians, uh bus assistants and uh cafeteria assistants, we pay a lot of attention to those and those are incredibly challenging as Mr. Lash mentioned related to bus drivers. So I think we can confidently say that we're not always 100% staff, but we have a process in place where we continue to attempt to fill and we're again from a continuous improvement. Uh Dr. Tropman and her team run incredible career fairs uh or hiring fairs uh that have attracted candidates uh to be able to make things uh better for us. And then Miss Livus has been helpful in being able to advertise and use her expertise to be able to get the word out. Uh so
087it's a constant work in progress. I can tell you that we are um we are not at risk if which I think is the general gist behind the question. Good to know. Um looks like people are working here in Virginia Beach City and want to come work here. Um so percentage-wise, how fully staffed are we? Transportation was 96%. So I I tell you what, I don't want to answer that one off the top of my head, but we can get you the the number. It would be helpful if and not right now to be able to narrow that down because if you look at this team we're talking thousands of employees which turns into different groups. So if we knew what uh areas of target were the areas of concern which I think Dr. Tropman
088they regularly give updates related to the areas of concern. Um okay people are applying and we're hiring. Correct. So, it's a good thing and thank you for everybody's hard work um and job well done. We appreciate you. Thank you. Okay, so there's a lot of kudos shared. Um I think there's a few things that maybe some followup via email uh to the full board. I think I saw um Miss Woodhouse also taking some notes here. Um, Miss Lanetti, can we um swap the order of these presentations um in the agenda and do Mercer first? Yeah, as long as the whole board agrees to that, I think you're fine. Is the board okay with us doing Mercer first because we have the consultants um here. Board's good. Okay. All right. So, we are going to do
089the Mercer update and we welcome Crystal Pate, chief financial officer. chair, real quick. Um, just for a public record, uh, to avoid any conflict of interest, I'll recuse myself from discussion on health plans tonight. While I work for Centa Health Plans, I'm not involved in plan negotiations, rate setting, or have access to our school plans data. But to ensure transparency and te integrity, I'm not participating in these discussions. So, thank you. So, good afternoon, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Weave, school board members, Dr. Robertson. Um, so this evening you're going to receive a financial update from David Kio um from Mercer, the principal there. He provided the um some information to you back on August 27th. This is going to have some updated trend datas, updated fund balance. He's going to try to make some connections
090to what you've already been presented and how things changed and what drives those changes. And so also with um tonight, Linda Mackkins is here as director of consolidated benefits and she'll be available for questions as well. And so I'll turn this over to David. Thank you very much, Crystal. And thank you to the school board for having me back here to share an update on the financials with you. We'll talk about the updated claims experience. So we use the word experience. We're talking about claims data that we get on a quarterly bas basis from the health plan, the Centa Health Plan. Uh and then we'll talk a little bit uh specifically about the impact to 2026. Uh and then we'll touch briefly on 2027. And then we've got some exhibits in the appendix that we
091did not cover in great detail. So I'm happy to cover some of the uh the details around the assumptions and methodologies methodology that goes behind uh our formulation of the of the projections. So the data, the information that was presented to you uh during our meeting a couple of weeks ago used claims experience through the month of March through so through the first quarter of 2025. The data that we're sharing here today goes through June. So second quarter uh update uh three three additional months. So you'll see the bar graph there uh tracks over time the trends on that and we talked a lot about the the fact that uh the trends were volatile but generally speaking uh upward upward trending uh and so the good news is with the updated three months of data
092through June we saw a little bit of a flattening uh not not huge but uh but but it's going in the right direction uh so what we had used what we had projected for these three months was about 2.2% of of trend and it came in about half of that at 1.1%. So you'll see the uh the 2025 year-to- date trend at 6.2% if you'll recall that was 6.3% previously. So not a huge reduction uh but importantly lower than each of the previous two years that were at 15 and 10% uh respectively. So some of the uh the the the trend drivers um you'll see there by by component. Um and this is a comparison of the now updated six-month period year-to- date uh 25 versus 2024. Um and so you'll see those percentage increases.
093we still see uh increases uh generally across across the board with um the important uh reduction in inpatient cost. Uh and a big big driver of the overall plan performance is the presence the prevalence and intensity of high-cost claimants. So, we'll see uh you'll see down there at the uh on the bottom um a reduction in high-cost claimment spend that is about the same as what it was in terms of the the change from period to period. Uh it's about the same as what it was when we looked at the data through March. Uh but again, important that the overall spend is lower. So, so we're seeing an increase in the prevalence of high-cost claimants uh at about a 9% increase. So period to period increased from 33 to 36. Uh but the overall cost
094per high-c cost uh claimment we refer to that is sort of intensity uh is is down materially. And so um we we we I think made the comment as as to how high cost claimments experience goes so goes the performance of the plan. And I think I cited a few facts factoids about the experience last year in and just to again give you some context on that the the highest utilizing 1% of your membership was responsible for about a third of the claims. And so that is just a and that's not unusual. That's when you look at a random employee employer population uh that's what we see and that's what health insurance is is for. Uh but just gives you gives you some context there. So here is some uh some specific uh detail on
095those high-cost claimments. So you'll see uh there was some growth particularly in that uh category of 200 to $400,000 went from uh went up to uh 20 up up seven individuals to to 29 uh individuals. Uh and again this is period to period 6 months uh into 2025. Uh but in total the bar is lower. So that's indicative of the fact that the total spend on this high-c cost claimment category uh is is lower than what it was uh period to date 2024. And you'll see in 2024 that uh top slightly shaded segment of the bar uh that is that represents the the portion of the cost that is absorbed by the stop-loss reinsurer. So, we we talked about that uh there is a threshold of $600,000 per year per per individual. Any claims that
096exceed $600,000 are absorbed by the reinsurer in exchange for the the reinsurance premiums that are paid paid to them. Um and so really when you're comparing performance, it's really just go up to the dark blue green to green u year-to-year comparison. Okay, so this uh this slide is uh admittedly quite busy and um perhaps one takeaway can be the benefits committee and Mercer certainly is looking at every component that is um a a part of the health plan. So I'm not going to cover everything on here. I'll call your attention first if if I can to the 93.9% loss ratio in the top left. loss ratio is uh a metric that is a quick snapshot of overall plan performance and so that is the total plan expenditures divided by the total budget. So under 100
097is good over a 100 is problematic and so you can see that it's uh year-to- date it's about 94% uh year to date. Um so solid position but again we're monitoring the data every which way. Uh the budget is comprised of the rates that we talked about previously. Um I I'll call your attention next to the average enrollment. So just to the right of the 93.9 uh circle exhibit uh you'll see the average enrollment. So we're tracking it. When you see PEPM, that's per employee per month. And that is the typical way to consider budgeting. But I want to also emphasize the fact that we look at it down to the actual year of or tier of coverage. So for example, there's more employee contribution if there are is a greater percentage or number of
098individuals in dependent tiers versus the single tier. So we're looking at at that level of of detail. Um I'll call your attention next to the line graph at the bottom. The so everything we've talked about has been period to period. So six months of 24 to compared to the first six months of 2025. This particular exhibit is actually 12 months to 12 months. And the dark blue is a tracking of 2025 per employee per month costs uh ending in June. The lighter blue bluish gray line is is the previous year. And you'll see uh there's not much distinction. You know, we've talked about the fact that we've got two periods that are relatively high. Uh and this illustrates that. Um they are essentially right on right on top of each other. But this is the
099level that we of detail that we look at so that we can understand uh what the costs are on a on a per employee basis, a per capita basis as well as consider seasonality. and these types of exhibits allow us to do that. So that's a snapshot of where the financials are. We'll uh share some of the exhibits that uh we use the same format previously to let you know that uh we update the projection. So you'll see that this is highlighted. We update with June data and what we do throughout the current year is we update 2025. Admittedly, there's no action to be taken because the employee contributions are established and the employer budget is established and uh and and so the variable be will be the impact to the health fund. Uh but
100to support the finance folks, we do update that 2025 projection. Um so you'll see uh gross cost of 122 million and uh the employee contributions static again that's just the uh the contributions times the enrollment by the tier uh to uh and then we we reduce the employee contributions to get to a net net Virginia Beach City Schools cont uh cost and that's that $112 million. Um and so as we have talked about with the health fund being intentionally intentionally relied upon for 2025 um those the sum of those uh costs were were expected to be um insufficient to cover the total costs and therefore the health fund uh was is and was intended to come into play. And so that's that annual health fund impact um is expected to be a draw down of
101$12.4 million. Some of that has already occurred since we're six months into the year. Uh what we expect to occur for the remainder of the year is 6.2 million. Uh and that leaves an estimated uh balance of $10.7 million in the health fund. So that's 2025 and after this exhibit we'll we'll focus uh more on 2026 and then we'll touch on 2027. Um you can u you can see there for let me uh uh for for 2026 the gross costs are projected to increase about 9.6%. Um that is a 1.9% improvement from the exhibit we shared with you through March. And that'll become abundantly clear on the on the next chart that I show you. But I wanted to just orient everyone to the methodology and the exhibits because these are these are ones that
102you have seen before. Um, and so with that, I'll I'll jump to the next exhibit that will tell you specifically what's the new information, what's what's new news based on the update through the second quarter of 2025. And so you can see there uh the column the third column there will will uh will address uh the improvement. And so like I said it was it was not um hugely uh improved but it is improved u importantly. So a $ 1.9 million improvement in gross costs. uh the employee contributions uh they are a function of the previously uh agreed upon uh contributions that we talked about at the last meeting and that you all had had communicated. Um and so the uh the funding estimate is reduced for Virginia Beach City Schools by uh by just
103about $100,000.1 million. um the health fund balance. So that's the only thing in there that in that column um worsened un you know unfavorable and uh so that's a that might feel a little bit um counterintuitive to the message that the claims experience has improved and uh and the reason for that is a little nuanced and that is the fact that the health fund balance shared with the March data was not the health fund balance as of March. it had actually been incorporated uh it incorporated the health and balance as of May. So we got a little bit a uh ahead. We used we used known data. Um we've subsequently decided it's cleaner probably to show the health fund balance as of the experience um period. So um the the the month of June the
104the three months in total that we updated were better were were better. the actual month of June itself was not uh and so that impact to the health fund um you'll see that that u that slight um negative there uh but the impact for the annual uh the annual impact on the health fund balance uh was the improvement of that one point $1.8 8 million. Um, and so you'll recall in that uh 2026 um middle column there, projected health fund balance at the year end. So it was it was in a negative. Now um arguably not material.2 million on 135 million is is um you know it's pretty close, but I know there were some concerns with the you know from the board uh seeing a negative number there. with this update that has flipped
105to the positive at at $1 million. Uh and then the two-month reserve, recall that um best practice calls for a reserve of 212ths of estimated gross costs to be held in reserve. Uh and that figure changes as experience is updated and the projection is subsequently updated. Uh so that figure improved by.3 uh million dollars. um which is to say it it went down. So the the targeted amount went down. Uh all right. So with that we'll um shift to have a little bit of insight into 2027. But I'll emphasize to you that uh 2027 this is very very preliminary. We're projecting uh two years out uh and we're making an assumption that the cost share percentage will be retained as it is in 2026. Uh but with the removal of reliance on the health fund.
106So it's a very preliminary projection and it's comes with assumptions. uh the benefits committee does a lot of work and there'll be a lot of interaction uh and and a lot of things that will be looked at before that will um you know be be in a position to uh to move towards a recommendation. Um so um as you can see there the um the contributions the employer contribution. So when I say the the share is the same we look at the the split between total gross costs what share is picked up by the employees and what share is picked up by by the the the school board. So maintaining that ratio calls for uh would call for about a 19% increase in employee contributions uh in this preliminary estimate. Uh and again without the
107benefit of a health fund to rely upon there are only two sources of funding for the for the program. So historically the health fund operated uh as as it was uh as as it was intended to do which is to act as a buffer in difficult years and to cover expenses that were either unbudgeted or un just unexpected. Um the situation for 2027 is that because the health fund is expected to be um you know at at at or near zero uh there's only two sources of funding. And so those will be the decisions that the that the committee and and with Mercer support will be working through going forward to think about what the options are. Um what are the impacts to budget? What constraints are there? Um, are there plan design considerations that
108should be reviewed in order to uh to satisfy your your bud budget requirements? So, I'll pause there. I know that's a that's a lot. Um, I'm happy to go back uh to any of the exhibits uh answer any questions that that you may have. I I actually I would like if you could go through the presentation and then we take questions at the end if if you don't mind. Okay, that uh that that was the last of the financial update slides. Uh I have some methodology slides in the appendix here, so I'll advance to those. Uh maybe. Okay. All right. Uh we we'll go ahead and ask the questions then here. Miss Melnik, I just because I have some some questions for now I think as much as I want to talk about 2027. It's
109502 and I want to really these are questions that that were you know that people are asking. So I know I asked this question a few years ago. Why is it that only one health insurance company is presented to employees? How come years in years past we had we had multiple offerings, right? You could choose between a multitude of insurance companies. I'm not complaining about our insurance company. I'm just wondering why there aren't more options. That's my first question. I think the question to ask is what would be different, right? because um for example, there's two major players in our area which is Anthem and Cintara. Um if you changed or you offered both, you know, we're self-insured and we create our plan design, right? So changing to a different carrier, um what would you
110gain? Right? And so you might ask, are there different providers? Um, those two carriers have pretty much like 98% of total providers in the Hampton Roads and neighboring areas that our members seek care from. Um, so if that's the same, then they're not really gaining anything by offering two different options. Okay. The plan design again, it's what we choose to offer as a self a self-funded plan. Okay. What is a POSOS and why is that the only um option like like I know there are HMOs, there are PPOs. What is a POSOS and why is that all our employees are offered? A point of service is actually providing the best of all the options. Basically, it provides an uh an area, you know, a network in our area in the Hampton Roads area, North Carolina,
111all the members. It provides out of area, so they can go to out of area and it off also offers out of network. So, some plans don't offer out of network. some um you know like an HMO is more restricted although David will tell you that the the acronyms now for the plans don't mean much anymore because they have morphed so much um that's right so if you want to speak that yeah sure sure so yes point of service speaks to a plan design and when we talk about the what what what may vary Linda alluded to it what may vary from carrier to carrier is the size the depth and breadth of their of their networks um and so um the vast vast majority you roughly 97 98% are are are in each of
112their uh each of their networks. Um but it's really the the key variable uh is now plan design as opposed to network because those are so robust. So there's two plans in place of the point of service plan and the high deductible plan. Okay. Yeah. Two two options. All right. I these are things I just need to be able to ask. Okay. Okay. I have two quick two two more quick on slide five. You have uh it says impatient costs. the impatient cost declined 22.1%. Is that through um healthier employees not needing impatient care or does that have to do with coding from the hospital where you could you could do two nights two nights in a hospital and it still be coded uh observation and not impatient or neither one of those. Right. uh
113the primary driver of that is the the underlying um disease or accident or illness that drove drove it being less intense. So a u fewer of the highest cost most complex health care situations occurred this year versus last year. So it's the the the utilization data that we review that CNA provides to us shows that um it there's not a there's not a reduction in the cost per inpatient day. And that's that's a function of two things. The the unit cost uh as well as what did they go in for and and it's that's what's really uh you know um causing the the reduction. Okay. And my last question is about administrative fees and there you have a line on here about that too. Um the administrative fees have increased. Um how much on it
114is on slide uh there's reference to it on slide seven fixed costs have gone up in the projection about it's 2.6%. 2.6%. That's right. Yes. Period over period. So do you have do you have like a number a total number for what we pay in fees? it is um $9.8 million year to date. And so that's inclusive of all of the fees, the fixed fees that are incorporated into the plan, the total budget rate. So that would include your your um stop-loss reinsurance, the administrative fees for centa to administer the plan, the cost for the clinical support programs that help to engage folks as they need care and and guidance through the system. Okay. So year to date, it's 9.8 million. And is there a projection? What is the projected increase for that? Um it's
115just easier for me to explain to people. I mean, there's nothing we can do about administrative costs. There's nothing we can do. But I have to be able to say to people, gosh, you know what? You have to understand like almost $10 million goes towards just our fees because we're large, because we're whatever. I just have to be able to because this is rocket science, right? So, like your presentation and those it's it's hard. It's hard to muddle through this. And so I have to find a way in my very best first grade teacher self, how do I explain this so that people understand because honestly I don't understand it 100%. Right. I just wanted to mention that some of those fees are also and some of those fees are internal cost. Okay. Um charges
116to our consultant. Um there are FTEES associated with that. So all of those fees are not fees that are actually paid to CNA or stop-loss carrier. Our wellness some of our well wellness costs are included in that as well. Okay, that's good to know too. I just have to be able to justify that to people when we're talking um you know this type of increase. Yeah, absolutely. And I I'll just say um you know there are actions that that we can and do take to make sure that that you all are getting the most competitive fees for anything that's not provided uh internally and and we certainly do that through um regular conversations with the health plan providers. um you know intermittent RFP processes and and making sure that um the fees are as competitive
117as they can be and importantly that uh they are delivering uh they are at least meeting if not exceeding expectations in terms of doing what you're paying them to do. So the only the only group of people who have this figured out are the the United States military. they have this they have it all figured out. Somehow they're able to to get it all done um to very little cost to their um employees and uh it's socialized medicine at its best and it works. I'm not advocating for that. I'm just saying just why can we not figure this out and why is it so cost prohibitive for so many people? I just don't want our employees to feel like they cannot go to the doctor because it's just going to cost them too much. That's
118the worst thing that can happen is to not take care of yourself. Okay. Thanks, Miss Rogers. Hi, thank you so much for the presentation. I have some specific questions. Um so at slide six it looks like from our 2025 year to date compared to our 2024 would it be safe or fair to say that we are trending towards the same numbers of 2024 or what are those the seven claims of 600,000 plus is that an anomaly? So 2024 uh if you look at the data at this this time last year, we would say 2024 appears to be an anomaly. When you compare it to um 21, 22, and 23 being relatively stable, right? But if we're just comparing 24 to 25, what we have so far, does it look like we're trending towards what we
119did last year? Yeah, 25 is trending a little bit better. It's still okay. It it it it's not hugely favorable relative to this year to date. But I mean, that's what I was getting out of this. My question is, and this is not to single anyone out. Um, but there are several things that you stated that made me think about this. Do we know uh these claims employee versus retiree? And the reason I say that is because obviously as we get older, like we have um employees that are um retiring from Virginia Beach City Public Schools that are not yet eligible for, you know, the 65 uh Medicaid, Medicare, I I don't know which medic. Um so I'm wondering then who who are making these claims? Is it people that are retired more or is
120it our employees that we currently have? And do we have that separated out? We do have access to data that separates it out. Uh the vast majority of the participants in the plan are active employees. Linda, I don't know if you have a have a ratio on that. there. I don't know the exact ratio, but there's approximately um for just looking at the school's enrollment, there's approximately 7,000 and that's not counting counting the um family members and there's only around 600 retirees, right? But I was asking though about the claims themselves and for the high cost claimants, it's you know, it it can be anything, right? And it's not always driven by age. Right. Right. But I was just wondering like with the data that we have with our claims, especially our high cost, do
121we have that data as to whether or not it's employees um current employees or retirees or a mix of both? I'm just wondering. I don't know that information, but we can get that information. Okay, perfect. And the reason I'm asking to is because we talked about um what is uh what is the cost that's picked up by the employees versus the cost that's picked up by the employer. I guess um do we pick up the same amount for our retirees as for our current employees? We do. Yes. Okay. And again Oh, you're talking about the employer contribution. Yes. There's actually a greater employer contribution to retirees because they they are um when Mercer does the projections and the rates, they rate them separately and we need to do that because of the Gazsby valuation that
122needs to be done. Um, so retirees are their their total costs are different than an employees total cost and there is a greater employer contribution for retirees. Okay. So like I'm just trying to get all of this straight in my head because um and then the other thing that you said that kind of ticked off in my brain was that there's only two sources of funding. Has that always been the case? There's only two sources of funding for our health our I call it the bucket of money. I'm not exactly sure what we call it, but there's only two sources of funding. So yes, there are two sources of funding in the sense that it's employee and employer. The employer funding in this case, you all had a health fund balance that had accumulated due
123to surpluses, right? So the the bucket that is the employer bucket had two compartments, if you will. the bud what you were putting in and budgeting and one what you could take out of the health fund and when the health fund uh dissipates and and gets down to zero you're two buckets each with one compartment. Okay. So that was my only other question. Um, and I guess my last question is like are we I mean you're saying that we're we're not seeing any higher costs verse of our like current employees versus retirees that are in that I call it the gap where they're before you know they retire from us before they get to that higher you know the Medicare, Medicaid, whatever you get. I'm not saying that there's not. Okay. Um, but that's why
124the total costs for retirees are higher because there is higher cost for retirees. I thought earlier when you were talking about specifically the high-cost claimants which are those at the 200 to you know 600 at that point. Okay. So that's what I mentioned that I don't know that there's any more retirees in that but we can get that information. Okay. Because I guess my my thought process kind of is is like are we doing the the most or the best that we can to ensure I mean like I said as you get older you're going to have higher claims, you're going to have higher costs. Um is there something we can do for our retirees that would be different than our current employees as far as coverage would go that may or may not be
125as expensive. And I don't know the answers to this, but these are the questions I'm asking because that's where my brain is going. And and earlier when I when you had asked if it was the same, I was kind of thinking plan design. Yes. So the plan design is exactly the same. As a matter of fact, we first offered a point of service plan back in the day when we did have an HMO um to retirees because they lived in, you know, 30 of the 50, you know, states or whatever. So, um, we first offered it to them, but then you find people that need to go to get care at a cancer facility in Philadelphia or in Pennsylvania. So, we ended up offering the point of service plan to all of our population and
126therefore now we offer the same plans to both our employees and our retirees. So, right, but there's not like I guess I'm looking for the the whole plan design if there would be something a way to design that would be, you know, co cost effective and still good service. And I again don't know the answers, but that's where my brain is going. And if you're talking more about like disease management and condition management programs, there are a lot of programs that are available and there is a great outreach to people in, you know, that do have disease states or conditions. you know, some of these high costs claimants, there's they were born with certain conditions that's and and unless these new gene therapies cure them, you know, they're going to be continue to be a
127high cost claimment. Um, so some of those some of these people as high-cost claimments, it wasn't preventable, right? um maybe some, you know, could have been lifestyle, but um we do offer a lot of programs and we continue to try to figure out how to educate our our population on those programs to get involved and make sure that they're receiving the best care and receiving the information that they need. Yeah. And I'm not concerned about you guys about us not offering the best care. I think I'm just thinking of additional well that and being able to help our bottom line because the the higher the claims that we have the worse our bottom line's going to be and we're never going to get out of this hole unless we can figure out how to adjust
128that. So I guess that's where my thoughts are. But I'll yield. Mr. Co Pepper. Uh I'm looking at slide 11. Uh f first question for you here is uh your year's at the top and you say for example 2025 projected you're talking calendar year so that's through December. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Uh so since we obviously budget fiscal well fiscal year uh you've got 100.2 million as the uh projected funding from U BBCPS. Um is that money that no kidding is already in our budget $100.2 $2 million that we're putting into uh this program. Yes, that's what we give Mercer is what our budget is when we develop the budget. That's what it is for 25. For 25 and then Yeah. And it's in the 105.7 was now we're in 26. We're in
129fiscal year 26. So Oh, sorry. So we've already budgeted 105.7 for 26. Yes, sir. That was my next question. And then the next question obviously is where did 125.7 come from for 2027? That's a 19% increase. Uh It is so it is reflective of this preliminary projection for the 2027 plan year which is uh 10.3% increase in gross cost. So the b the top line there 147.5 is the projected gross plan costs for 2027. That's 10.3% higher than uh 2026. Okay. So, so 125.7 then is your projected requirement. Um, exactly. Okay. That if if we if and again this is the first pass illustrative exhibit maintaining the same cost share between the employee and the employer without reliance on a health fund. Okay. Yes. All right. And then uh so then going down the projected
130uh health fund balance uh but I can see you kind of made the math work here a little bit because it like you just said it's a pretty gross projection this far out. So 1 million and 26 uh and then 1 million 27 is our projected fund balance. That's right. And the requirement is 24.6 million. It is best practice to target two months. That's our goal. Yes, that's I'll call it a requirement because that's where we want withdrawal. That's right. That's right. Yes. So, this first pass illustrative example um preserves the cost share. It does not seek to increase the health fund balance. Correct. That's what I'm getting at exactly, which is so what I see here is over the next two years, we have a $43.6 million deficit that we have to that we
131have to overcome to get the program where it should be. So you're adding if you're wondering more. I got 43.6 million. It's 20,000 20 million increase from 26 to 27 and the $23.6 million gap we have between the projected hill fund balance and the the required hill fund balance. Uh so that's a that's a static number as of that point in time. So this but for right now that's what we're planning that's what we're planning around. Um that's that's that's right. Okay. That's right. And that includes two things. It includes the uh the current projected uh increase uh for employee contributions plus a 19% increase 19.6% increase in employee contributions between 26 and 27. That's correct. Thank you. All right, Dr. Green. And then we also have two more slides of this presentation. Okay. M
132mine are very quick. Um, Miss Mackinson, of the 600 employees, and I think this may be important for um, our viewing public as well as our employees, at some point those retirees will come off of us. Um, are there still two categories for retirees in being that if you have 25 years of service, your premium rates are different? And then the other category, COBRA. Is that still the case? Yes. To stay in the group, you go to COBRA if you have it if you don't have the 25 years of service because I know there were different rates for each of those categories. So, just to clarify, retirees that or people that were hired after July 1st of 2014, um they are not eligible for an employer contribution towards retirey healthcare coverage and they have to
133have 15 years of service to be eligible to enroll, but they would not receive an employer contribution. So the number of retirees that are enrolled today that receive an employer contribution will diminish. Um so you do for schools you do have to have 25 years of service and hired before July 1st of 2014 in order to receive the employer contribution towards healthcare. And then COBRA is also eligible because COBRA is 100 102% of your total cost. If you do are eligible for an employer contribution, then you're of course better off going into retiree coverage. However, something to think about is if you're just in a gap, you're 63 and or 63 and a half before you reach u Medicare, um then the COBRA rates, you know, it's something they would have to look at. Is
134the COBRA rate as a as an active employee, you know, better than the retirey cost? Is it better than COBRA? Um because retirey costs are higher than activives. I'm confusing things, but retirey costs are higher than actives. So, if you have to go on retirey coverage and you don't get an employer contribution, right, and you're close to Medicare, you probably want to take the COBRA rates as an active person to bridge that gap before you become Medicare, if that made sense. Yes, it does. Thank you. Okay. And I think we're ready for the other two slides. And sorry to put you on the speedun here before we take our break. No, no, no problem at all. and and we've talked about some of these concepts. Um so I can hit them uh rather quickly. So
135um so you nailed it um Miss Miss Rogers when you said the claims that occur in the plan are what we use to project forward and that's that's uh that's what drives the the budgeting process and the contributions and everything else. So we think about the risk pool. How are your rates set? How are how is the plan um you know running? It's going to be a function of the claims experience. So that's that's what we look at and we look at all those details that I talked about on the the busy slide in terms of all the enrollment. We look at it on a per employee basis. We look at it on a per member basis. So if you see the acronym per member per month that refers to any and all belly buttons
136enrolled on the plan whether it be an employee, a spouse or a dependent child um that we we we look at trends in that. So we look at 24 months of experience. We talked about the significance of the improved experience for this three months. And the reason you might say, well gosh, it it got better. It didn't go up as much as you were projecting. Um perhaps why didn't it have more impact on the overall budgeting? Uh and and one reason for that is a smoothing technique that is uh used and that is to use 24 months of data. We put uh two-thirds waiting on the most recent 12 months, one-third on the prior 12 months, and we use that to project forward. And so that helps to smooth in years where it's um uh
137particularly good or particularly bad. Uh it helps to smooth that by looking at at two years of experience. Um and so we take all the data that we get in the reporting from Cintara. Uh we look at the the trends specific to uh your population and the utilization trends. We look at other happenings in the market uh market trends and use all of that to apply those factors. We use a 2% claims margin uh in there. So we're using a trend factor and it's about 9% on the experience to project forward uh on a combined basis. Um and then we put a 2% margin in there for conservatism. Um, and so, um, I won't read everything on here, but, um, we talk about the the administrative expense. Everything that goes into the administration of the
138plan, uh, is included in there. And, uh, and for reference, I know we talked about that being a a component. The the claims expense being one of the benefits of being a self-funded uh, plan are the fact that you're not paying uh, risk charges and reserve requirements that uh, insurance companies will charge. And so that's just an anecdote to to explain to you that um you know over o well well over 90% of your total costs are the claims. A small portion is something other than claims namely reinsurance and administrative costs. Um and then we uh we factor in the HSA funding uh in there as well. All right. And um and so some of this is a little bit redundant on this next page. We didn't we'd included some some uh extra detail in
139response to some of the questions that we uh that we had. But um let me just scan to see if there's anything in particular. Yeah, I think I think we've covered everything that's that's in here, but um but please if there are any questions whatsoever about the methodology or the approach, happy to happy to address those. If we could um Miss Melnik has uh just one quick question and then we have a hard cut off time here of u 5:30 for break. So we'll get hers and then we're going to um adjourn from recess. So, one of the things that we hear all the time is, "But there's power in numbers and we have so many people. Isn't it a better deal because we have so many employees?" And I would answer that by saying
140yes on the administrative uh fees. So, when we negotiate on your behalf, we you all are from an employer size of an employer standpoint, you are are you very very large entity. And so we can negotiate the lowest fees for the administration of the plan and the cost of the programs that you purchase. Um we absolutely do use that. Um but again that portion of your plan costs is not what's driving the increases. It's it's the claim. So claims or claims or claims are claims. Yes. Uh now that same concept applies to Centa when they're negotiating reimbursements. um you know the larger membership base that they're relying upon to to bring to providers um into the negotiation process you know helps them with their unit cost discussions thank you for that thank you okay so
141we are going to have to um revisit our workshop items during our formal meeting I will work with um Dr. Robertson and Vice Chair Wis on that during our break. Um, and with that, we will recess our administrative and formal workshop. Um, and we will return at 6 p.m. [Music]