Business, Operations and Finance Comm. and Regular Board of Ed. Meeting - 7/1/2025 (5:00 p.m.)

001Good evening. This is Good evening again. Sorry about that. This is called to order for the May for the June July 1st, 2025 business operations and finance committee meeting. Call to order at 503. Mrs. show. Could could we get a roll call, please? Yes. Amy Levy here. Tom Henkins cannot be with us this evening. So, Brian Nichols here. All members are present except Tom Henkins. Thank you. Could I get an approval of the agenda? So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. No, the 520 minutes were a hold over from our last meeting, but we're going to run into the same issue. Um, so if we could hold that one over and then it is it okay if I just bring up my point about

002the 63 minutes or First of all, let's let's move May uh May 20th to the next meeting. Okay. Thank you, board member Ley. Thank you. Um, just wanted uh to add to the minutes the three action item. Uh, the motion to approve the line of credit should include language not to exceed 4 million. Um, it's not currently included in the minutes. And unless anyone objects to that addition, um I move approval of the June 3rd minutes as amended. I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. Motion carried. Okay. Next up we have the May financials. Mrs. Lwood, you're on. Thank you and good evening to the committee members. Um the presentation tonight is the month ended for May 31st, 2025. Materials were posted into board docs and made publicly

003available. Um attached in the report are detailed notes and I will highlight on some of those notes. Um to start off with the um summary page of the monthly summary report. Um it does show that there a net change for the month as a as a deficit which is typical for school districts because revenues come in in certain months but expenditures typically run this about the same every um month. Um is there any questions about the monthly summary? Um next is the cash and investment report. Um not a whole lot of activity going on here. Um our cash position this year compared to last year is pretty um pretty well set. Um we do have some investments at PMA and those investments um came due um partially at the end of June and then the

004rest of them will come due in a couple of days and then we'll have the interest um report for those in um June. Is there any questions about the investments? Seeing none, I'll keep moving. Actually, I do have a question. Yes. Um, I didn't have a chance to look back uh that last month. This question on the OPED trust fund 73 at Fid Miss first mid. Is that interest rate the same as it was? Has that changed? No, the interest rates at first mid are staying pretty stable. Yeah, they they might change by like a hundth of a percent, but they haven't been changing very much. Thank you. Yep. And the reason why there's no um percentages on the associated is because those investments are um yeah they change every month. Uh moving on to

005the revenues. Um just wanted to highlight a couple of the bigger revenues that came in um in the month of May. Um, our interest was um pretty substantial for May um at um let me scroll back up here so I'm in the right place here. At 55,000 um there was also um um personal property aid. I know we have it listed as computer aid, but this also includes personal property aid. This 512,000 came in for the month of May and that was substantially higher than previous year. Um there was also um claims um that came in for title one. We've been trying to do the claims a little bit more monthly so that we can get those monies a little sooner. And then this last um item on here in um uh source 780. This

006is um Medicaid revenues. And the Medicaid revenues are actually split between fund 10 and fund 27 depending on what year they pertain to. So, anything that is from um a cost settlement, which is previous year's Medicaid cost settlements, those come into fund 10 so that they don't um disrupt the maintenance of effort in fund 27. And then in fund 27, you'll see that we also have a um 780 revenue. That's this 36,000. Um a little bit came in for the month of May, but the um majority of it was costed out. And those are Medicaid billings that we're doing for special education students. Um, another point, um, for the month of May, we are at about, um, if I go down, back up to fund 10, we're at about, um, 86% of our budget has

007been re or I'm sorry, 64% of our budget has been received. And the reason why only 64% even though we're at the end of May, is because quite a lot happens in the month of June. A lot of revenues um, come in in June or they come in after June. and we mark them as receivables in June. Um, and scrolling down to overall revenues, um, we're at for overall we're at 60% which is typical for um, the month of May if you look comparative to last year at the same time. Is there any questions on revenues? Moving on to expenditures for the month of May. Um pretty typical for the month of May. Um the largest um expenditures for the month of May are salaries and benefits. Um salaries and benefits make up about 81%

008of our $4.5 million in expenditures for the month of May. Um purchase services make up about um let me scroll down here make up about 16 um.68% of the expenditures. uh most of the contracted services, you know, our utilities, transportation, um contracted teacher costs, contracted cleaning costs, those types of things. Um is there any questions about any of the expenditures for the month of May? Um overall, I did want to point out too that also for expenditures as compared to um May as compared to other months um or compared to year end, even though it says we're only 52% of our budget expended, there's a lot of um processes that happen in June. We do um contract completion for our teachers so that those July and August payments all get costed back to June. So

009June looks extremely inflated when we look at expenditures that happen in June compared to what happens in previous months. Um and there's also other um journal entries and things that happen also in the month of June. Um all of our um aid payment adjustments for open enrollment and for voucher payments and all those types of things. All those hit in the month of June also. That's why it looks like we haven't really spent as much of our budget as we should have or would normally. Um, and then if we go all the way down to the end of the report, um, we are right now at like 56%. And the reason why there's a difference between this year and last year compared to May is because we had a large um debt payment that happened

010in um earlier in the year last year. Um $14 million debt payment that happened in 2324. Um any other qu any questions about May expenditures? Seeing none, I'll continue. Um the next report on the list is the fund balance report. Um the fund balance report is basically just a um recording of the revenues and expenses and where the balances are today or I'm sorry at the end of May. Um any questions about fund balance? So I I have a question or a couple questions observation. So it decreased by 2 point let's see almost $2.7 million but according looking versus last year we're actually up 4 almost 4.3 million above last year. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. So how will that how do you think that will look next month? I haven't done year-end

011calculations yet. When I did them a couple of months ago we were looking pretty close to being right on. um equaling revenues, equaling expenditures, which would be put us in a good place. Um we just ran, excuse me, contract completion. Um so over the next week or so, I'll need to look at those numbers again to see where we're at. I also have a lot of journal entries to do for um for health insurance, but the health insurance numbers did look pretty good from what I saw so far. Okay, that's good. Okay, thank you. And then one other question I have, this kind of goes back, I guess, back to the bidding, but in the in the reports, we were getting the accounts payable register. Um, but I haven't seen that for a while. Is

012that still is that still available to It's in the library. Yes, it's in it's in the library. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Okay, very good. Thank you. Yep. Um, let's see here. um the fund balance report and then I think I also had a purchase order report in here. Um just to touch base on this, there was a purchase order that was done for 133,000, but that was a board approved purchase of those new line boards that's on this report. And I think that was all I Yes, that was my last um point I wanted to make on the reports. Did anybody have any other questions regarding the financials? Bo member Levy, anything? No, you actually asked my question. I was going to ask for an estimated projection for fund balance for June since there's so much

013more activity happening that month, but you already covered it. Thank you. Thank you. For President Johnson, do you have anything? No. Okay. Okay. Uh I will entertain a motion to move for financials to the to the full board. So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Approved. Thank you. Thank you. Ask all in favor. Sorry about that. Yeah. All in favor? I I. Now we move forward. Thank you. Okay, next on the agenda is the um end of year food service presentation. So, Mrs. Smith and company, it's all yours. So, this is our year end review and um I'm going to let Sarah introduce her team. Good evening. Um this is our amazing Chartwell's team for the food service program. Uh to my immediate right we have Jeb Warner. He is our district chef. Holly

014Goodwin, who is the jack of all trades. Um she is the most amazing assistant director. Um Tara Miller, she is new to our team. She is uh the dietician. Um and she's also um working on marketing programs for the school district as well as Amy Carrian who is my district manager or the district manager. She oversees Illinois and parts of Wisconsin and Iowa and Indiana. And um yeah, so Amy and I have been together for many, many years. So um I'm just really happy to be able to finish up this first year for me with I think we've had a lot of really positive changes happening in the school district with uh the food service program. And I'm going to let Dawn explain a little bit more as to what. So for in the interest

015of time, I'm going to not read every slide to you because I think you know. Um so I I did want to touch a little bit on the National School Launch Program because um some people just really are not aware of where and how this came to be. So um a little history is in in 1930 during the great depression the USDA purchased excess of foods from farmers and that became our commodity program and so we were feeding families with just commodities at that time. So during World War II there were sort shortages of workers uh fathers were off to war, mothers had to enter the workforce and the children were left without food. And so the the school districts were now feeding their ch the children with these commodities. So in 1946, Harry S.

016Trouven signed the National School Lunch Act. In 1960, Congress passed the Child Nutrition Act, offering free and reduced Priced meals um to students. In 2010, um President Obama signed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. During this time, healthier foods were being offered in calories, fat, trans fats, and sodium were carefully analyzed. Um, Bloit at that point utilize the Neutri Kids um software to ensure compliance with these new regulations. Alcart Foods, school stores, and competitive foods were closely monitored and we were not popular. Um so um the national school lunch program eligibility and price we were at one time um we did have free and reduced price meals and full price meals. Um and in 2014 we moved to C. It became available. Um we have been uh obviously 11 the last 11 years with C meaning

017that all of our children eat for free. Um it has taken a lot of stigma away from our kids. Um I have been here since 1991. So it was very difficult in the beginning because students that were free or reduced they felt bad eating and there were many times that we actually had to help the parents fill out the applications and and it it was just really tough. So, I can tell you in the last 11 years that we've been with C, um it has really improved um the National School Lunch here in in Bo um and I'm actually currently working with the Jainsville School District and the Turner School District to to talk about CP with them and how they can get that implemented in their in their school districts. Um so, the National

018School Lunch has the standards and nutrition DPI is involved obviously. you know, you know, we were just audited. Um, so they watch it very carefully. They make sure that when um we send in a claim that, you know, they check the claim to make sure that it is in fact, you know, how many students that are eligible to to have free and reduced price or I mean C meals. Um, on the grant slide, I I have a couple updates. So, you can see the fresh fruit and vegetable grant. We were one of the first school districts to have the grant. Um we started actually with the Wright building and the Hacket building many years ago. Um and like I said, we were like the first district to just pilot it. Um we just found out

019today that we were approved for the for the fresh fruit and vegetable grant for next year at 99,000. Um and the reason that's down is that Gaston did not apply for the fresh fruit and vegetable grant. Um the supply chain grant, we're going to check on that because that hasn't been submitted yet. That grant actually runs for 20 years. So, and it's just automatic. It's what they do is right now they're using our milk numbers and so that they go by the participation and so you can see that's that's I mean we got quite a bit last year. So, you know, we're hoping for at least that this year. Um the equipment grant there's there is an update um and there's no update I should say right now I have applied for $30,000 and I

020got something I think last week saying that they're still analyzing um analyzing whether or not this grant um is being is going to be dispersed. Um, I will say that we have gotten many uh equipment grants and part of that is lots of school districts just they don't apply for them and so the money's there and so we've gotten extra money. Um, the very first equipment grant that we received was the the Obama stimulus grant and it was over $100,000 and we were the highest in this in the state of Wisconsin to get that grant. Um, so we write them all. Any anything that's out there, we we we just write them. Whether we get them or not, it's still worth a shot because people just don't apply. Um, and so then the next slide

021would be like the federal um food service aid. You can see that um what aid we're getting. Right now, we're not seeing that the um that they're going to do any cuts with this particular aid. I know they're talking about more of the pantries and the fresh fruit and vegetables that are being um given to districts in their pantries. So, we're kind of waiting to hear more about that. Um and then um like I said with DPI with um that happens every five years that we're audited by the DPI. Um, and then I monitor two two sites per month. And so that actually goes to DPI too, so that they can see that we're monitoring and that we're um making sure that whatever we're claiming, what meals we're claiming are, you know, are true and

022um because the meals are actually being tracked by Chartwells um in under ACU claim. Um so on the next one I just wanted to let you know that um the district has always outsourced their food service program. Um it originally was um Creative Food Service. When I was in the school district it was Creative Food Service and then DEA was part of the Compass Group which is now part of Chartwells. Um they were here for many years and then for 25 years we had Airark and then we're on year two with Chartwells. Um so our summer food service program has been um it's been pretty active actually. So we have the Blit Public Library, Melo Community Center, um the Stateline YMCA, the um high school, Cunningham, Todd, Converse. We invited the family services, the new

023building, um which we really really wanted to put a food truck there because the poverty level right there is really, you know, an in it's an intense area. Um they weren't ready to pull it off yet, but we are really kind of working with them because they have a great program there. Um, so you can see that we have a lot of community outreach and I've been at all the all of the sites in the last week and it's amazing to see they're bringing baby cribs down at the Y and bringing kids for food and it is it is nice that we're able to to do this in our community too. Um, so the the next slide it kind of tells you the segregated duties that so you can see that Chartwells has some duties,

024the school district has some duties and then we have a joint there's a joint duty that we both have to work together. Um and there's a lot I mean there's a lot to cover in these in you know with the duties that are are you know that we have to do um the student participation um if you look at the 2425 you can see that breakfast meals have gone down some. We had to change our the way that we did breakfast at frozen and Aldridge. We were doing breakfast in the classroom and delivering to the classroom. They have to come out to the cart and get their food. Well, they changed it so that the kids were getting their food on the way into the building and we only had 15 minutes to serve them

025breakfast. It did decrease um our participation in breakfast at those two sites. Um I think that we'll work on that a little bit more for next year because it is a little bit concerning. And there's also a second chance breakfast that they have to be able to if someone comes in late, they still have to be able to access breakfast. Um, and then you can see the participation that again is is is really the middle schools. Um, the high school stayed pretty level. Um, and our elementaryaries really stayed pretty level. Our it's where we're seeing a decrease is in is in middle school. And then the next slide is basically showing you, you know, where our funding is coming from and where expens our expenses are um where expenditures are going out. Um we didn't

026really do a lot um this year as far as updating or um buying a lot of equipment. We kind of waited because of the McNeel because closing McNeil we were able to utilize some of the equipment that were was there and we'll we'll auction some of the equipment that we're not able to use but we want to keep the newer equipment and and you know get rid of the stuff that's older. Um any questions on this part? Thank you. I have a few. Is it okay if I just run through them? Sure. Thank you so much. Um, quick question on the slide for um, NSLP eligibility and mail price. What is the current poverty level? I know that students who are eligible need to be at 130% or below. Um, so the poverty level right

027now, um, let me see. I do have that in here somewhere. I think I want to say it's 71% is what we are. No, like the dollar amount that's considered the poverty level and I think it just for an average family because I know it fluctuates. Yeah, I don't I'm not sure. I was going to say um next. So, it's been my experience as a parent in the district that you have those household income forms, but they're not required. Um they're encouraged. And so, I'm just wondering what is our return rate for those forms? And the reason I ask is because as I was going through the presentation um the federal government covers households that are you know in a certain category look covers others. So I'm just wondering for nonrespondent households who covers those

028charges for us to provide free meals. So most of those are direct certified. So if they're on any if they're on any sort of program state aid they automatically are certified. they don't need they don't need to have an application. Okay. So, and I think most of them are are coming through direct and then um if they don't fall into that category of direct certification and they they don't respond to the household income is that in any way putting the district at a disadvantage as far as collecting funds for these I was going to say that I think I can answer that. So, because we're C, that means every child is treated the same. Th those income forms do not have anything to do with whether or not a child's meal is reimbursed at the

029um the federal rate. Correct. I think we use that more for title one. The um yeah, the household income forms are strictly used to wave school fees and to help um increase those numbers for title one tracking. Perfect. Thank you so much. And then um with respect to the community eligibility provision um and this is like presentation adjacent but I'll be brief um has your team given any consideration to potentially presenting at like the WASB state education convention? And the reason I ask is because I I sat on the state policy committee and we there was a push to get other districts around the state um to encourage our legislators to move districts towards C and there was a significant push back to that um which surprised me a little bit and it may be

030lack of information or how the program works or whatever the reasons to be against that are are not very clear to Um, has your team had any conversations about potential and I I love that you're working with Turner and I believe you mentioned school district of Jainsville um to present and hopefully provide information about what it takes to be C and the benefits to districts um at at the state level. So, right now we're I'm working on the we're at the county level at this point. So, of course, Jill, um, she's she's part of this and that she's looping us together because they're a little afraid of it. So, and and I think a lot of people just don't understand it. Um, and I think that there's there's stigma on the other side that, well,

031you're a very poor community if you have C. But we, you know, we have, you know, food insecurity. We have to we have to recognize that. like Jainsville, they have a few schools, but you know, not the whole school, but I I wouldn't have an issue with it. I mean, I I think right now at the county level, we've we've met twice and then, you know, we work with UW Extension, too. So, I mean, I would not have an issue with that. Um, I I'm I mean I honestly I'm I'm really proud of it because I did see how hard it was and it was very hard for kids to even come up with 40 cents and to stand in the cafeteria and say I only have 28 cents. What do I do? It was

032really difficult. Um so um I'm I'm glad that we were the first ones to you know jump towards it. Um but yeah, I wouldn't have any problem with that at all. Thank you so much. Board member Levy, I did look on the um W Wisconsin's website for the um information that you asked for. The number is $40,000 for for a family of four. Correct. Thank you. And then for a family for reduced is up to $57,000. Any other questions before I move it over to Chartwells? Looks like you're good to go. Oh, here's your empty slide. Sorry. We have a we have a PowerPoint presentation that uh Michelle is trying to Oh, it works. Fingers crossed. sound. Okay. Sound doesn't seem to want to work. It's a really fun PowerPoint presentation. I'm just putting that

033out there. Um, Just one. Michelle, can you just do the presentation itself without the music or without the sound? Yeah. Well, I'm trying to tell it to start presenting and it's not. So, I guess I'll have to try and click through it for you. We have a few videos. Um, and that's probably where it's getting hung up. Uh we went out we went out on the streets and interviewed some students and I think we got some uh really good feedback. But uh this presentation is it's just a summary of all of the great things that um everybody on our team was able to accomplish this year. Um great pictures of Jeb in there and Holly Tara. Yes, it's that one. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I'll presentation for a second, Tom. Do you mind just

034um possibly starting your conversation? Oh, okay. Sure. Not a problem. Um so one of the uh programs that we did launch this year we had Discovery Kitchen which uh uh Jeb was uh front and center at Aldridge and Fusen presenting the students with um with fresh recipe ideas uh for sampling uh really yummy food. Um what did you have? You had fresh fruit pizza. Pizza? Yeah, the fresh fruit pizza uh the kids really liked. Uh Tara has hit every single elementary school at least twice uh with mood boost. So it's about teaching the students about uh specific foods and how it does affect uh their moods. Uh she had really fun giveaways, but um it was very engaging. The kids were very very curious as to what was going on and they were interested in

035the food. Um she she put out samples of let's see we had fresh raspberries and chocolate chips. Um what there were blueberries and basil. Um I'm trying to think what else but she was able to make it to all of the elementary schools twice. Um, Jeb also Jeb also did uh student choice at the high school which is something that we will be um having multiple times in the next school year. This is a student at um Converse. So, our lunchroom manager, Miriam, was asking the students at the table um what they liked about the food. Uh it was all very positive. Um, Discovery Kitchen, of course. Um, I know. Let's see. We also we also featured um let's see, Global Kitchen, Global Eats, I'm sorry. Um, on the on all of the menus throughout

036the school year, we had fun days for the students where we had great giveaways. Um, let's see. The videos are really great. Oh, yes. Uh that was uh Jana. She's at uh BLA. Um she was very happy with the menu change that we made um with let's see the giant salad bar and changing and rotating out the stations on a weekly basis. Um, mood boost. You may be able to see Tara in there um as she is in action. Yep, there we go. There's uh her station that she has set up and I believe that is at Converse. So, the students go through the line and um then they see her and they get really excited and they go straight towards her, grab grab as many samples as they as they want and um some

037of the plastic bracelets or sunglasses or mostly stickers. Uh the kids get really excited. Uh we also had trading cards. So, there were students that were um actively looking for specific trading cards um for mood boost. Um I feel like that's a Pokemon kind of thing. And okay, that is Let's see. That's Norma. She is at uh our Sono station at the uh the high school. Uh that is a very very popular station. And it's not just nachos, but um it's, you know, of course it's the Chipotle concept, which uh everybody loves the bowl. Um so we're excited with the new menu options that we're going to be featuring for the upcoming school year with uh with all of the new with all of the stations, especially Sono. There is our awesome chef, Jeb. Um

038we did we um we paired up bok choy which is a station um concept and made to melt and um we had the students taste. They voted and they really liked I think they really liked the the made to melt which was the the paninis. They really like paninis. So, we will be incorporating that. And this was at, let's see, what was that? That was the field days for the high school. Um, we had both of the food trucks out and kids came grabbed their lunches and Holly was able to get some great feedback from these street three students in the video. So, and I believe that should be it. I got to say the menu update that Sarah did at BLA was a huge success. Yeah. Very nice. Very nice. Thank you. Yeah, it

039was good. I was very pleased. Very pleased. It's nice to see the students engaged and happy because of course you know you you select things with your eyes and with your nose and with your senses and if the food looks good, you know it's going to taste good and they're trying things that they wouldn't normally have um on a regular basis. So if you're going to try something new, awesome. And that makes me feel that makes me very happy. Oh, here we go. Employee appreciation is something that I'm very proud of. Um, all of our associates of course are recognized. Um, we select a unit and a lead and and an associate of the month and we just show up with stuff. I send out uh we have a text chain for all of our

040leads and seconds in command and I let them know that Holly and I are out and about and to be on the lookout. So if they see if they see us rolling into the parking lot, they know something's up. So it's always a very exciting Friday. It's my favorite Friday of the month, actually. So any questions? I'm sorry that the videos weren't working, but this was a really great year, and I enjoyed so much working with Don and and working with my team. So thank you. Great. Um, Mr. Michelle, do you think we'll be able to upload those to to board docs and that we can view them later? Sure. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Any other questions from anybody? Well, thank thank you both. Thank the team for a for a good year and keep

041up the good work and it's not that far away. Thank you. Okay, next up we have uh 4A, property liability, workers compensation, and other business insurance renewals. Mrs. Lwood, you're back on. Thank you. So, what I'm presenting here tonight is um our update to our insurance for the 2526 school year. Um, we didn't make any changes to the um, deductibles for 2526 because the premiums for the property side and the insuranceances all came in pretty close to where they were last year. Um, we could make a small change if we wanted. Well, not a small change, we could make a change if we wanted to. That would save us $17,952. But that would change our deductible from 50,000 to $100,000, which in my opinion, I wouldn't recommend doing that because we had already increased it

042the previous year, I believe, from 25 to 50. And to go to 100, that would um exclude all those claims between 50 and 100,000. And the district would be responsible for any of those claims. And last year, I believe we had did have a couple of claims that were for water damage. um and smaller smaller things, but they would fall into that category. Um so I wouldn't recommend making that change. Um the largest part of the increase is the workers comp. Um the workers comp is um controlled mostly by our um rating and on the last very last item is the experience modification. Um, when that number goes above one, that's when your modification is more risky and then your insurance costs go up. Did anybody have any questions about the um insurance renewals? For

043me, it's always a sore subject, but anyway, that's a personal thing. But, uh, yeah, that's a that's a 20 that's a 20% increase on workers compensation. That is pretty hefty. Do you Where was it last year? Do you recall what the rating? Yeah. Um the rating, if we look at the very bottom, the 2425 rating is down here on the bottom. It went from 1.05 to 1.38. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Board member Levy, thank you. Um just a few quick questions. Uh and I'm not sure of the cadence for when RFPs are issued. So, so please help me out with that. Um, but was there an RFP? Um, I'm just noticing that we have one option. No. So, Triricore is I'm sorry and I should have explained that. Trior is our broker. So, Triricore, we

044started probably probably about 3 months ago. Um, talking to them about insurance and where we're going for 2526. Trior then sends out our information to a bunch of insurers and they invite us to apply for um the insurance and we fill out lots of applications and this is where TriRiccore goes and gets the best rates for us and puts it all together in one um package. Okay. So our insurer is not TRIRO. They are our broker who is the actual insurer. I apologize that wasn't obvious. Nope, that's okay. um EMC is the u majority um insurer for all of this except for a couple of smaller pieces and I'm I don't know that I had that in front of me. Um I forgot the name of the company, but they're for the smaller ones. I

045think one was the um I think it was the crime was under a separate company, but they all go through TRIRCO for the broker. Okay. Um and then a couple other questions under premium summary. I'm just not familiar. What is inland marine and linebacker and global? Yep. So the inline marine insurance covers items that are transportable equipment. So like if we put the um lawnmowers on a trailer and transport it from one one place to another, it'll cover that. If we're storing it off site on another or at another location, um it'll cover that um lawnmower. Um the linebacker coverage is um part of the coverage for um executive team. So um schoolboard members liability um and the global coverage covers when our staff are out of the country. Okay. Thank you so much. So

046that the inline marine that's not covered under like vehicle insurance. It is not. It's a separate piece. So the vehicle insurance is only when the vehicle is stationary. No, the vehicle Well, vehicle insurance is like your own car insurance for like our vans that district vans that we have. But then if you put a trailer on there and then you put another piece of equipment on that trailer, it covers that piece of equipment that's on the trailer. Okay. So like nontraditional transportation. So like a snow plow would be covered under this whereas like a car or van would be I think they kind of work in tandem to be honest. So, this if we had a claim, we would be having our insurance um broker go through it and tell us which one is covered

047underneath. Okay. And then under the property blankets, um what are the extra expenses under extra expensors? What is considered property in the open? Is that like outside of a garage or is that more nuanced than that? Um, that's a good question. I'm not sure. I'd have to get back to you. Okay. Um, and then, uh, so under property, we have blanket buildings and personal property and then blanket extra expenses. I'm just not sure what the difference is there. And I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you, but I can get back to you on that one. Okay. Yep. Um, and then I think my last question, um, under general liability, is there a reason administrators aren't? So, we have it for teachers and then elementary, kindergarten, junior high students, and then high school students.

048Are administrators covered under linebacker or how does that work? I think these are these are not dollar amounts. These are the numbers of people. No, but I'm looking as categories of folks that are covered. So, under general liability, we have teachers and then we have students, but like all category of personnel that is not considered a teacher. Is there a reason they are not covered under general general liability or is that part of that linebacker or just help me understand that please? No, that's a good question. I'm not exactly sure why they categorize them out that way. Um because I'm assuming all employees are covered, correct? All employees are covered, but sometimes they pull out different categories because they base rates on certain categories. Okay. So, let me just ask you this. For the purposes

049of a vote today, um it may be kind of unclear the nuance of how categories of employees are are kind of tracked, but under this policy, all categories of employees are covered. That is correct. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yes. President Johnson, did you have No. Were you finished? I was, but I do have one more if that's okay. Um, so thank you for explaining that like TriRicor is the broker and they send out the information. Is there a reason that we don't get kind of like those top three bids and then we select or is part of our agreement with Triors that they do the selection for us? How does that work? Well, to be honest, not every um one of these insurance we get multiple bids on. A lot of it's it's whatever um

050we get when we go to the um pool to bid. Like for example, the workers comp, we're in the workers comp pool. So this is the number we get. We don't have a choice for workers comp. Um for the other pieces of insurance, they give us what the best price is. Is there a reason that doesn't come to the board for us to make a decision that the for the parts where we do have choices? I'm I'm just not clear why we aren't seeing those choices. We're just being asked to approve kind of this summary. So, TriCore has always been our broker in this space and then and as from last year when we had this approved that was the same space and then the previous year as well you that's a great question is

051that's the way that we've been doing it here in the school district and that's the my best response at the current time. All right. Um, I would love to hear from colleagues because if we and I get if we're in a pool and this is the best rate. Um, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of wiggle room for that, but components where we have a choice, I would be interested in seeing that and making a decision, but it could just be me. I'd love to hear feedback. For President Johnson, I I'm not against um what Mrs. Levy is suggesting. My only concern and question would be u Mrs. Uh would do right now do we have the employee bandwidth to do that to or do you say to Triricore, hey bring this information to

052us or does somebody in the finance department go and get that information? I I just I right now I don't want to burden you guys more if if this is the best we can get. I'm going to trust your opinion on that and say, "Okay, this is the best we can get." I'm all in favor of doing um RFPs and bids for as much as we can because you of all people know our precarious financial situation right now. Um but I'm I'm looking to you for what you think might be the best direction. So I got to be honest with you, this was my first go around with um working with TRIRCORE because I was working with them last year with um Mr. Chie, but I wasn't as in-depth as I was this year. And

053a lot of the back and forth that TRIRCOR does for us takes time. And then when we come to the end of the year, we're at a a short time um time frame. So in order to bring all those quotes here to the schoolboard meeting and then have somebody hash over what could be probably no decision or maybe a decision between only one or two companies. I'm not sure if that's valuable for your time either. Um, I trust that Trior went through and did the best they could for us. I mean, they had bit higher numbers. He was talking 10% increases for the property pieces of this insurance and they went back to their the EMC company and renegotiated some of these prices down for us so that we didn't see as much of an

054increase overall. Um, so in my opinion, I think that what the process has been for the last I don't know how many years have we used. 10 years. Yeah. I think I think that process has been working well. I these are all good discussions. I think this is something that we need to we need to take a deeper look at, you know, in in the near future, but I think for the moment that we need to these need to this needs to be approved and move forward. Is that not correct? That is correct. Yes. Because our insurance coverage starts today. Today? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, um, I would take accept a motion to move forward renewal of the respective business insurancees for the term commencing July 1st, 2025 to the full board for consideration

055and action. So, move. I'll second. Uh, any additional discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. Motion carried. Move to the full board. Okay, next up is um item 4B, contracted service purchase approval, Mrs. Mort or Dr. Garrison. Y so the the contract for um that you see here is part of the um same rationale that we had um from last time when the um new contracts have to come to the the committee for conversations. This is for our um current maps I'm sorry for our MAP growth and measurement academic growth achievement test that we use. We call it the MAPS test. It's easier to say it that way. Um and so this is a standard contract that we have and is for $34,000. uh for approval. Board member Levy. Thank you.

056Just a quick question. Um it's my understanding that this year there was a software issue that caused some delay in some of the standardized testing. It happened. It was just like delayed for maybe a day or two. And so I'm just wondering is this related to that? And hopefully this will help remedy that. But I just want a clarification. Um sure. No, this is unrelated. This is our MAPS test that we do for our benchmark test for ELA and math. And so last time when I brought the group of all of the contracts for the 2526 school year, I missed this one. So that's why it's here. You are right though, we did have a glitch and uh we worked through it. The the state testing site is called DRC and we worked between the

057district and the state and DRC to figure out what it is. And so we had to do some troubleshooting. I believe some of it had to do with the updating that was made in our laptops. Um, and we were sometimes what you have to do is troubleshoot. Is it a DRC site issue? Is it a state issue? Is it an US issue? And so that's basically what we found out and we had to push out different updates. And then once we got that fixed, then we were more off to the races. But unfortunately, we did have that um technology issue this year. Perfect. Thank you so much. Sure. Uh I have just one question. Yes sir. Is this is this the same price? Is it what is same price? Yeah, it's pretty much a rinse

058and repeat contract. Um yes. Okay. For President Johnson, do you have any questions? Okay. Okay. I would accept a motion to move approval of the attached purchase contract at $34,160 for the 2526 school year to the full board of education. So move. I'll second. Any additional discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. We will move to the full board. Thank you, Mrs. Morte and Dr. Garrison. Okay. Our next meeting our next meeting is Tuesday, August the 5th at 5:00 PM. Uh, could I get a move motion to adjurnn? So move. I'll second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Wejourned at 558. We'll start the regular board meeting about 6:05. Give everyone time to settle down and in. She was going to do Miss show, do you know where Dr.

059Garrison is? Oh, okay. All right. Dr. Garrison. Yeah. [Music] Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming out tonight. We're glad to have everyone here and it is so good to see this boardroom uh so full with such young faces and families. This is really exciting to have you here tonight. It is 6:07. I am calling to order the Tuesday, July 1st regular board meeting. Mrs. Schul, may we please have a roll call? Yes. Joanne Rue here. Megan Miller, Brian Nichols here, Tom Henkins is unable to be here this evening. Amy Levy here, Juan Romero here and Tia Johnson here. Uh, all members are present except Megan Miller and Tom Henkins. Thank you, Mrs. Sch. May I get an approval of the agenda? So moved. Second. Motion by Amy Levy, seconded by Juan Romero. Any discussion

060hearing and seeing none, all in favor? I I I I. Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Tonight, I am excited to invite Jen Papky, assistant principal at Robinson Elementary to introduce their top attendance students. And they have a lot of top attendance students here. So, um, I'm grabbing the handheld mic because I'm going to ask each student in attendance to come up and say their first name. But, let me just quick say an acknowledgement to the families who are here tonight. The the award is excellence in school attendance and the students who are here tonight have had 97% or better attendance for the 25 the 2425 school year. So, can we have a round of applause for them? When this was a summer meeting and it was kind of um pulled together as a a crazy

061Pepki thought, I thought, well, hopefully some of the kids will come out. and they came out because their families value education as much as they do. So, I really appreciate everyone being here. Students, if you would just kind of come line this way and then make a line in front of the board, then we'll say the pledge after we say our names. Octavian, do you want to go first? Say your name. Say your name. Octavian. Brandon. Jordan, don't forget to say your name. Jaline Everett Flynn Jordan AJ say your name George Christian Louise Brashard Apollo Jackson Hudson Alice, Nairoani, Diani, Dariel, Giovanni, Caroline, Miles, the Cavon, Amy, the Alien, And as we say in the morning, please join us as we face the flag and say the pledge of allegiance. Take it away, Robinson Cougars.

062I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. [Applause] I am proud of all of you and this makes a difference not just this year but every year that you continue with excellence like this. Thank you families also for coming out. Have a wonderful night. Thank you. [Applause] Mrs. Pampky and to all of the Robinson's family, thank you so much for being here tonight. It really warms our heart. for the board president's report tonight. I have no report prepared. I just want to say thank you again to all of the Robinson family and Miss Pabkkey for for bringing the students here. It is uh very rewarding to us to

063see the the students here in our space and remind us at our meetings what we're here for. Next up, we've got announcements and events. Board clerk Juan Romero is going to read the announcements and events to inform board members, family, and community members of upcoming events in the school district of boy. Mr. Romero, good evening. These are the announcements for Tuesday, July 1st. Summer engagement activities at the schools continue. A chalk the walk contest is being held at Robinson on July 9th at 3:30 p.m. Popsicles with the principal is happening at both Converse and Gaston on Thursday, July 10th at 4:30 p.m. Other upcoming events can be found on our district website or on our district Facebook page. There are several fun things happening in August as well, so save the following dates. August 9th

064for the first annual car show and August 23rd for the third annual community health fair. More information will be coming soon. As always, please visit our district website at boitschools.net. Our future board meeting dates will include tomorrow, Wednesday, July 2nd. This will be the policy and committee beginning at 4 pm followed by the first meeting of the student success and support committee ad hoc at 5:30 p.m. in the training lab at the Kolac Education Center. Tuesday, July 15th, the teacher the teaching, learning and equity and pupil services committee will meet at 5:00 pm followed by the regular board meeting at 6 pm. There will be no summer school on Tuesday th on Thursday July 3rd or Friday July 4th due to the holiday. We want to wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July.

065This concludes the announcements for tonight. Thank you, Mr. Romero. Next we have recognitions. Tonight, Dr. Garrison is going to do the presentation for recognizing the athletic program mild milestones and state qualifiers. Dr. Garrison, thank you. So, um, at the end of the year, we try to make sure that we bring recognitions to not only our academic spaces, but there are also some, um, acath athletic spaces that are still competing throughout the summer or towards the end of the school year. And we also have just some general milestones that our, um, students have received. I'm in boys soccer. Um, coach um, um, Beckham Denu, um, was named the Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association all state team as a goalie. I'm sorry. Beckham Denu was named um the I said coach Beckham Denu the student was named the

066Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association all state team as a goalie. Um Beckham also set the school record for career shutouts as a goalie with over 22 um shutouts there. Football Tucker Sherrod was named to Wisconsin Football Association's WFCA academic all state team. Um and in in our seven combined sports, boys, soccer, boys, boys soccer, boys and girls cross country, football, girls golf, girls swim, girls tennis, volleyball. Uh we had over 25 athletic athletic and academic allconerence awards. And so congratulations to um those um students for their academic spaces. in our winter sports um um in boys basketball specifically. Amari Herford broke the 10,00 point mark at the beginning of the season. Um we did share that a little bit of that information early in the year. I just want to bring note to it again. January

0679th at Wilmount High School, became all-time leading scorer here at the Bloy Memorial surpassing Andre Neil's previous record of 1,134 points. And so Amari Herford also made first team all state boys swim. Aiden um Grenie um I might be saying his name wrong. Green Lee. So, thank you. Um Green Lee um state qualifier in the 100 fly and broke the school record from 1981. I will say I cannot swim that fast. Um 45year-old record and the 100 meter fly. Um Charlie um I might say the name last name wrong. I apologize. Zimia um state qualifier this this year making him a fourtime state qualifier in the 50 free. Um, girls basketball, we had a new a couple of students who um were over a thousand point scorers. Um, Lania um Dubois scored 1,000 points against

068Wilmont and Josh Tibbitz scored 10,00 her 10,00 point at Westia um Central on February the 7th and is currently top 10 in career points with 154. She also holds school records for three-pointers made in a single game and a single season. Um, congratulations to our girls basketball. Boys wrestling, Owen West state qualifier for the 132 lbs. And in our spring sports, round out here at the end, um, boys tennis, Alex Funk was a boys single boys singles state qualifier. And in track and field, Jaden Coleman, um, shot put state qualifier and Dantavius Olsen the 300 meter hurlers state qualifier. And that concludes um, some of our recognitions for this night. Thank you, Dr. Garrison. It's so good to hear that the sports teams are doing well as also. Mrs. Schul, do we have any public

069comment tonight? I do not. Awesome. Our next report then is the superintendent report. Dr. Garrison. Yes. So, I would like to finally say welcome to July um to all the school district. um June getting to the end of the school year is always a very it's a long process and of course getting to the beginning of the school year starts the next day and so I would like to thank my entire um the entire school district for working with all of us in an entire school year. We look forward to the new school year um as we have already started that planning. Um, I hope that our students and families and staff alike are enjoying some of the sunshine. Um, because we all know in a few months we may we may be back in

070cooler weather. Uh, maybe it's too early to talk about the cold weather. Um, additionally, I want to give a shout out to a smooth start um in our buildings for summer school. Um, we know that we had a little over 800 students um, registered for summer school, which was a huge undertaking um, by our staff. And so a big um huge shout out to our summer school staff who are right now of course in our summer school programming. We would like to thank all of our parents who have entrusted us with this space to continue the learning opportunities for their students. Um we also got some state budget um information today. Um to be real real honest with the entire community, it's still too early to determine what that all actually means. Um in this

071space we will it's been proposed and there's some bipartisan support in the area of special education funding um where we are looking at up to 45% um return um in that space um from the state. Now I say up to 45% this is a bianual budget so I think it's proposed at 43 and then move up to 45. Um so that what does that mean for our school district? that could mean possibly closer to about a million dollars that we can get back in funding. Um um now again this is where it is now. Of course things could of course change over that time. Unfortunately I will I shouldn't say unfortunately right now as it stands there would be no increase in the state budget um to schools as well. And so that's a space

072that we would have to kind of work from. Um naturally we all wanted to see some state funding change as it pertains to what we would get from the state but there are um no proposed increases there. Now there's still time for of course ongoing conversations and naturally in this space we have to you know play the waiting game. Um I hate I shouldn't say I hate I don't like giving this part of the report but it is a space in which we have to um recognize that the state has more work to do and we have more waiting to to kind of work through as well. We are also um just you know from a just a staffing conversation we are of course still hiring. Um the school district of boy does have some

073vacant positions. I wanted to just put it out there sometimes in my report I don't talk about vacancies but we do have vacancies in the school district of buloy and if you're interested in joining our team please go on we can or reach out to our HR department for those possibilities um and this is this a space that every district during this time kind of ventures into last but not least I would like to also thank um the all of the of course um hard work that goes into a school year. I know I kind of grazed over it in the beginning, but you know, working through a school year is a lot of heavy lifting on all of the staff and that includes um the KC staff here. And so I want to give

074a shout out to all the KC staff that helps during the the months of registering students and of course bringing in new staff and of course getting staff ready to go into the buildings, the hiring processes. There's just a lot of things that goes into this. Of course looking at budgets. Um, so I'd like to just give a shout out to the U. KC staff for all the work that we continue to do throughout the summer because naturally we are in the summer break. Okay. Um, sorry. Naturally, we are in this um summer break, but we the KC is still open and so we're still registering students. We're still looking to get more um students involved. And there's going to be a special um treat um next week. Um, my I am going to be

075doing a and this is like a G14 classified space. I'm going to be doing a um Michelle, what do we call it? We had a nice little trendy name as she we're calling it conversations with Dr. Garrison, superintendent over at the Dairy Queen. Correct. So, u I'll be handing out some free cones. Um, if if if I won't say a whole bunch of them, but I'll be definitely paying for a lot of cones that day. Um, and so we're working on just trying to increase the the space that we call engagement during the school year. Um, we are still in in a new school year, one could argue. And I think that engagement also extends to um central office. And so I will be over at the Dairy Queen, I believe, on um the 8th.

076Is that the date we scheduled? Yeah, July 8th. And so it's not out there yet. We haven't produced any information, but July 8th, um, around 11 to 12:00, come say hello and get a free ice cream cone on Dr. Garrison. I think we're going to go up to about 100 or so people. And so that's the thought. Um, we'll see. And hopefully that's be another space for engagement here in the school district. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Garrison. Um, is that the Dairy Queen on Riverside or the one on Cranston? This will be the Dairy Queen on Riverside. Thank you. Well, I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to bring my family and all my cousins and nieces. I'm joking. I did say students families. Dr. Garrison. Dr. Garrison. I do have a

077big family. Next we have the business operations and finance finance report and uh chairperson Henkins is out tonight. So vice president Nichols will be re uh doing this report. Thank you board president Johnson. So the business ops finance committee meeting met earlier this evening at 5:00 and we uh went over the financial Mrs. Lwood gave us the my financials which we moved to the full board. We had a great end of year food service presentation from Mrs. um Smith and Sarah Warren from Chartwells and the Chartwells team. Uh that was just forformational purposes. Um uh Mrs. Mrs. Elwood also went over the property liability workman's compensation other business insurance renewals which we approved and moved to the Ford full board. And uh Dr. Garrison, Mrs. Morech gave us proposal contracted service uh from u oh

078I can't remember the name of it the uh the maps maps testing uh for the for the for the next school year and we approved that. So and we adjourned at 558. Thanks everybody. Thank you Mr. Nichols. Next we have the legislative update and Miss Miller will be doing the legislative update for Mr. Henkins who could not be here tonight. Are you able to hear me? Okay. Is that a no? Yes, we can. Sorry about that. I just because earlier I Yeah, Michelle and I were making sure we could hear you. Okay. Hi. I can hear you all. Great. Great meeting so far. Thanks very much for accommodating um meeting with my um under the weather child. Um just unfortunately I have like a sad legislative update. Uh Dr. Gear already touched on this um

079with the proposed budget. There is a website available um that I did email a link to and I'll make sure that Miss Schul gets a copy of it, but I'm just going to pull this up again real quick. Um there is a preliminary publication available online that was put out uh by the state. It's on the DPI website. Um, and it's got the estimates based on the current budget proposal of our general aid. So, general aid isn't the only thing that is fundable for the district. There there has been some really positive and encouraging um news out there uh particularly about like high needs uh special education funding. Um, and certainly the the proposal is not at the 60% for the regular special education funding that we were hoping for, but like Dr. Garrison said,

080you know, a number that starts with a four is better than a number that starts with a three. Unfortunately, um when that's not coupled with an increase in general aid, that still is a huge cost to all of our students, including our students with special needs. And according to DPI, right now, Bloid School District is looking at a decrease to the tune of 14.02% since they're not increasing any kind of general aid. So this of course goes to a variety of factors. Um and then what that equates to estimated not for sure estimated in dollar amount would be9,550,697. Um so again I will provide a link to that document but I was not super excited to see that today. I have already reached out to um some of our lawmakers and I would encourage um

081anybody who is interested in listening to do the same and encourage them to advocate uh for the importance of an increase to the general aid particularly for our district because clearly that's a very large number. um really just the the magic formula for making things um getting on that road to making things more equitable for our district and for all students um is both an increase in special education reimbursement at at least 60% along with um an increase to uh general aid. So that's all I have for right now. Um there's ongoing discussions. Um we'll see what the week holds. Um does anybody have any questions? Any questions? Nope. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Megan. Next, we've got the board action and discuss discussion items. First up, we have

082Mrs. Almondz, the executive director of human resources. The purpose of this presentation is to share information with the board members, staff, and community regarding our addendum matrix. Addendums are used for additional pay for coaches, student extracurricular activities, and other building based groups. We will also review other compensation in the district that speaks to a broader picture of district expenditures. Good evening, board. So, first of all, it's an honor to be able to present this. Um, it gives us quite an insight into where we're at with our staffing and our different methods of compensation to fill absences and vacancies. And um we'll start off though with one of the other expenses that we have that are outside of our actual uh compensation plan which is our addendum matrix. There's a matrix link within embedded in the

083presentation itself that takes us to our current uh most recent board approved compensation or actually athletics activities and clubs matrix. And the reason why this is included is because you will see some references to athletics and expenses within athletics. Um, but it's a good starting point for the board to begin discussing uh with administration the direction that they're looking to go and look at some potential cost savings within that matrix. Next, we have uh, as I mentioned, the athletics cost by sport. And so in this slide uh you see how all the different um sports are broken down uh by total cost for the year and this is based on uh rosters. We will we'll take the questions as we go through the slides. And so um we can jump back real quick to the

084matrix if possible. And the reason why again Mrs. um Almond mentioned that that's theirs because we will be reviewing the matrix and looking at different um opportunities there. We have not started that whole conversation yet. So it's a space in which when we're thinking about you know budgets and money. We have to start kind of looking at other buckets of money and we have started to look at this bucket but now is the time in which we should start really thinking about what does that look like for not just this year but possible future years. Uh, we're not at the place where we'll make a recommendation, but I did want to make sure I brought that to the board and I can turn back over for questions. Do any board members have questions on the

085addendum matrix? Mrs. Levy, actually, I think I may have put my answer. So, I'll see if I can see this question. Um, right after the matrix when you Oh, my mic's not on. right after the matrix when you were discussing addendums have those or will those be budgeted or is this a new additional cost outside of what we are currently running in the school district? So those are already budgeted for. Thank you. Any other questions? How do you know how with what frequency the board approves the addendum matrix? Is that annual, bianual, whenever as needed when there are changes. I believe the last time that we approved it was 2023, I want to say. Um, and so as long as nothing has changed, then we continue using the same matrix. Okay. And um, another question

086I had with the matrix, you said that it's budgeted for an That's I know it's a henpicky question. Um but you know when we're looking at nickels and dimes, which we are, um if we don't know if there's an opening for say the middle school coach for basketball, we don't know what that budget number will be until that person's hired, right? Not necessarily. In the budget, do you just put the highest dollar in the budget? Um right conf I'm confirming because I worked with um Mr. Chady previously but go ahead. Yep. The budget was based on previous history historical numbers and then a small increase just to cover what we could have for for addendums. Wonderful. Thank you. Any other questions? I Oh, I'll come later. I'm sorry. Like I'm getting ahead of myself. All

087right. So then we get into um actually can we go back to the previous um just the athletic cost by sport? I know we was trying we was trying to capture any questions per slide. Sorry. Are there any slides on the athletic cost by sport? Yes. Um, would it be possible to get that with the number of participants per sport included? Yes, I think that would make it make it a lot more useful. Thank you. Sure thing. And I have some questions. Um, Mrs. Alanderez and Dr. Garrison, I understand Mr. Gratz is out on vacation, so maybe these are questions that um would be more um for him. Oh, I'm sorry. I did not see Mrs. Rue has her hand up. Mrs. Rue. Yes. Um, when looking at them, I see that uh it looks

088like most most activities are 25 grand or less. A lot of them are under 10. And then uh football males is at 43,000 and Night Andales is at 47,000. Can you tell me why those are um in some cases twice as much as some of the other ones? So, when it comes to this space, there's three different three separate seasons for the night and gales. And I do believe Mr. um Gratz is online. I could be wrong about that. Um Mr. Grass, were you online at all? I am. Okay. Um the question was about the night and gills and I was going to attempt to answer it but you know since you're here uh then and football of course and football um the night and gills first there's three separate seasons for the night and

089gills and I think that's why the 47,000 is there um but if you want to touch on that that'll be great for the overall cost um for the program. Yep. So, Night and Gills has fall uh dance and cheer separate, winter, dance and cheer separate, and then dance in the spring. So, re in reality, they have five unique seasons kind of occurring. Um, football, uh, more or less for the safety aspect, has to have at least three coaches on the field for each of the teams that they put out. Um, and more than likely, so that's that adds up to nine coaches with our three teams. Um, and more than likely we would try to add one more just to so that 10 so we're never dropping below um kind of a safe amount just

090because I think we all know the liability around football over the last decade or so. So more or less for a safety piece for for the football end. Mrs. Rue, did you have any other questions? No, thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Gratz, um I heard you say the night and gals have five seasons, but I'm that I'm a little bit confused by that because don't we only have spring, winter, and fall sports? Yeah. So, so cheer uh is one team, dance is one team. So, in the fall, for example, they have two separate teams. Um it just falls under Night and um kind of all together. And then they have the same thing in the spring, a cheer team and a dance team separate from what it was in the fall. They have a

091new set of tryyous and they go through that process again. And then in the spring they have another dance team. Um and so that's where the five unique teams comes in over those uh three seasons. Does that make sense? Um kind of. Okay. I'll see I'll see if anybody else from what I can understand that. Sure. I I think it's been a conversation for a few years from what I understand. Um but I you know looking at it and just trying to answer the question I guess as clearly as I can. Hopefully um it gives a little bit of insight. Okay. Any other questions on this slide? Yeah. Mr. Nichols, am I overlooking hockey? Is it there or not there? Um can assist with this question. Uh but it it comes from a different fund

092because it's a co-op sport. Um so it's split between um all the schools that are involved in the co-op. Thank you, Mr. Gratz. I have another question, Mr. Gratz. Um I see that there's a golf for females, golf for males, and a co-ed golf. Can you explain that? Um, I might I I probably need to jump in. I think it comes from the middle school. So, at the middle school level, I believe we're we're combined. Um, and so, uh, Miss Almonderas, can you potentially elaborate on that piece? Yes. And we actually have uh one of our golf coaches here that can keep us honest. But yes, they are combined at the lower levels and then their individual male female um at the high school level. Thank you. So this athletics cost by sport, this includes

093the middle schools and the high school. Oh, okay. Thank you. Do girls participate in wrestling at Balo Memorial? I I know that I've seen girls at the middle school and I guess this is again probably more direct towards Mr. Grads. I I've seen girls participate in the middle school um wrestling. Do they have the opportunity to participate in the Blit Memorial wrestling team? Yes, they do. Um and in fact actually the WA today would be the first uh girls wrestling is a recognized WA sport now this season. Um so next year you would see girls wrestling as a separate line item here. Uh but yes uh to answer your question it it is offered um as it was co-ed. We started kind of dividing it up um where they could now they have to choose

094to wrestle with boys or with only girls. Thank you. Looking at the, you know, as uh Mrs. Rue pointed out, some of these are twice as much as as others. And and I imagine a lot probably plays into that in terms of equipment, um travel, amount of travel, number of of students participating. But I also broke it up comparing looking at the females versus males and um in most cases we spend a lot more on the males. Um is that outside of volleyball is that are the price tags for the boys teams or the male teams because there are more students participating. So if we're strictly this is from what I'm gathering just looking at addendums only. So generally when we're looking at addendums and this is a conversation Miss Almadereas and myself had recently

095we try to plan ahead based on numbers um and and essentially a lot coaching stipens uh based on the numbers in the programs. Um so for example, our boys soccer numbers are going to be easily 80 plus um and potentially have um another team added. Um and so we looked at potent, you know, looking at how do we shift addendums to that sport. Girls volleyball, same thing. Do we have enough to have essentially two freshman teams? um you know so we try to shift around based on the numbers in the programs and um that way the goal is to not have to cut athletes um and in any way we can try to keep kids participating because we know the value of just extracurriculars in general not just our sports but all the things and

096so if we can keep people around by just shifting an indendum from one sport to another based on need then that's what we do thank you uh Mrs. Levy, thank you. Very briefly, um Mr. Gratz, something you just said just caused me to think about a question. Um when you think about adding multiple sports teams at the same level, for example, multiple freshman sports, does that complicate scheduling? I know that sometimes games are cancelled because they may not have a freshman team or a JB team to compete against our students. Um, so has that been taken into consideration when we think about expanding to multiple same tier teams? Yeah, definitely. So, we we're essentially we're done with scheduling now. And what we start to do is by looking at numbers over the summer and what

097we had in the seventh and eighth grade um groups, we can start to kind of project and then we will reach out and say, "Hey, we're probably going to have an extra um JV uh 2 team, which are our freshmen. Um who else has it?" We just reach out around us. Um and so we are pretty um we the go the schools around us and now us we're getting to the point as well where we can project pretty well what we're going to have um and who we won't have for example and we try to get those things out there so teams can try to fill their schedules as early as possible and obviously we'll have those late cancellations you know injuries uh academics all the things kind of pop up mid-season but we try

098to plan ahead as much as we can and build those schedules out to give kids a good opportunity to participate Any other questions, Mrs. Levy? No, I I don't think that last question was really answered, but I'm not. If we have multiple same tier sports teams, is that going to cause a conflict if the teams we are competing against has one freshman team? Like, how does that work? And I guess my my larger question is do we have the capacity and I understand not want to cutting not wanting to cut student athletes. I totally get that. But if we have two freshman teams in a sport and our competitors have one or don't have like how does that impact whether or not our students are actually playing? We um sorry for not answering uh clearly.

099we go out and seek out teams that we know will have another team. Um, so our boys soccer conference uh does not generally have a freshman uh boys soccer team. Um, I think there's one school in our 18 or two schools if you count ourselves. And so for that schedule, we have to go out and seek out schools that we know likely will. And so we spend a lot of time doing that extra to fill those schedules. So we we already know um if we you know using that uh girls volleyball for example we know the teams that have a second JB2 team and when we commit to that we'll quickly fill that schedule with those kids. So we don't we kind of have there's not really a we try not to put the cart

100before the horse but we kind of have to project and and plan at the same time. Okay. So if I'm understanding you correctly and I don't want to belabor this because we have lots of other things to discuss. Um, thank you for that additional information. If we are going to have multiple same tier sports teams, the scheduling has already been done out of conference if necessary um to make sure that our student athletes are able to compete and that the numbers we are seeing um include what I'm assuming would be additional cost associated with that out of conference scheduling. Is that accurate? Uh likely yes. Likely yes. Thank you. Are there any other questions on the athletics caused by sport? Mrs. Alanderas. Excuse me. So the other section that um we have to budget for

101is the cost of substitutes. And our district currently hires substitutes for nursing, um paraprofessional, security, clerical as well as teachers. And so this slide shows the comparable over the last four years of what that cost has run us. And you'll see just on teachers alone about $100,000 reduction between 2122 to this uh just recent school year uh about 19% drop and you see a drop in the next two and a slight increase in paras and nursing and that's um because we have been utilizing those a lot more. Um overall we have less staff than we did obviously 2122 as we've been reducing staff so that also reduces the number of absences which then reduce the cost of having substitutes. The downside is we don't have as an abundant a substitute pool as we would like

102to have and so that is also reflected in that $100,000 drop in sub and the substitute teachers. Any questions for Mrs. Almond and the substitute cost by category? Well, hearing none, Mrs. Almond, I do have one. So, what we're looking at here, this is just for staff who are considered substitutes or does this also include the dollars for if a teacher has to use his or her prep time to cover? This is strictly substitute. Okay. Thank you. And do you know how many substitutes we currently have? Oh, I'd just be guessing. Um, but I can definitely get that number for you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And would you like all subgroups or just teachers? Substitute teachers. If it's not too difficult to get all subgroups, that would be great. Wonderful. We'll do. Okay. And so

103then we have um to your question uh board president, we have other categories outside of the substitutes where we compensate teachers for additional duties including uh using their prep time to cover other classes. So in this slide, we also reflect the teacher IEP. So sometimes IEPs cannot be conducted during the regular day or they're using their prep time to conduct the IEP. And so this reflects that cost. And then we also have the time carded time if they are uh taking over an additional class or if they're are otherwise supervising. Sometimes if we have a vacancy in a classroom, um we do divvy up so that different teachers are absorbing that if we don't have a long-term sub. And sometimes if we do have a teacher absence long-term, we may need to separate the students

104into different classrooms. And so that's under the teacher other compensation where we try to make sure we're fair with teachers for taking on the additional level of responsibilities. Are there any questions for the other teacher pay expenditures? I do have one question. Mr. Nicholas, I I going go back to the site previous slide. I just had a quick question. Um I noticed that our substitute nursing HA start has started going the other direction uh after after 2122 going up. What can you give the reason for that? Sure. I also have Miss Beavers here uh that can chime in as necessary, but I think that because of uh some of the vacancies, we have had to utilize substitutes to help absorb some of those um uh gaps in the staffing for both uh nurses and HASS.

105Um I do believe historically, I don't know what we've done prior to my coming to the district, but I do believe that it is more common right now. for example, we had to have a long term for one of our nursing vacancies. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, Mrs. Almond's? And I'm, you know, I'm sorry I didn't get this question to you earlier. So just kind of in general and maybe I can talk to you tomorrow u with get specifics but so our employ number of employees per group or whatever is going down. So we are also seeing some of the um payouts going down. Are we trending in the right direction percentage-wise? I would not say that they're equal. I actually started doing a comparable um to ensure again because we do have vacancies

106that we are trying to utilize substitutes and other forms of coverage for and so you're not going to it's not going to be apples to apples because back in 2020 2021 um the same issues with staffing did not exist. So although we have less FTEEs to fill, we still have vacancies on top of regular absences that our teachers may incur. Thank you. And maybe for a future report, how are the number of sick days and personal days trending? Are are employees tending to take more and more of those as the years go on? and the uh staffing becomes a greater challenge and this is again right now teaching is staffing for teaching and education is a national problem. It's not just boys um so I understand and appreciate that. I'm just wondering how we're how

107we might be doing. So if we look at the four-year comparison um and looking at the total number of teachers for example um I averaged out the absence hours per teacher equated to 9.9 hours which was 1.32 days per year. Of course that stat is based solely on those who the positions that are eligible for a substitute and who also had a substitute assigned. So based on that, it would be 1.32 days per year um that our staff is taking as far as teachers go that they're taking off on average. One and basically one and oneird day. Mhm. Oh wow. But again, I caution you um that that's based solely on the positions that are eligible for substitutes that actually got a substitute that tallied on here. And so that is what I'm compiling is

108to get a true picture of what the overall absenteeism is for the district so that I can give you an exact number. Okay. Well, I appreciate that and I like that number and so I will just put a shameless plug out there and thank all the teachers that show up to work every day. Absolutely. Couldn't do it without them. And so last um are there any questions on the IEP blue sheets um slide? No, doesn't. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Almond. Thank you. U just thank you. Final thoughts. One of the things that we wanted to do was again just kind of bring this report. We know there's other reports that we can keep, you know, pulling to make sure the board has a good snapshot around, you know, some of our expenditures. Of course, this

109is not all of them. Of course, naturally, we do think, you know, everybody who, of course, shows up to work every day, but like Mrs. Almonds did mention, there's other times where teachers have to step in for when we can find subs, and that's also a major conversation here in our school district. Um, as it pertains to, just final thoughts as it pertains to some of the addendums. Again, these are conversations that we um are not ready to bring a proposal to the board yet. Um, but we are going to start having conversations in regards to like what does that actually look like possibly moving into the future. Um, we know that in the future we will have, you know, more conversations around the budget and some of our budgetary um, restrictions that we've having

110to work from. um all of these buckets of money is, you know, of course what my team and I look at a lot um sometimes too much, but we have to look at different buckets of opportunity um as we kind of keep navigating the conversation here in the school district. And so I just want to make sure I share that final thought. Thank you, Dr. Garrison. I appreciate that and I appreciate the um effort from all of your cabinet members putting the presentations together. The and the reason why I had requested the look at the addendum and extra pay is because sometimes we board members don't see and don't know every everything and we're never going to be able to be there. But we want to know where those holes in the buckets are so

111we can start helping you to see how we can plug those um holes. Next, we've got the communication RFP for the 2026 referendum. Dr. Garrison. Yes, ma'am. And so, over the course of the past few months here, we we wanted to venture into the RFP space for a communication specialist um moving into the the next um op I shouldn't say operational operational and or capital referendum. Um I know the board did um share that we wanted to you gave me the push to go ahead and start moving in this direction. This will be the earliest that we've you know started in the communication space working with um a communications partner. Um in in the previous years of course um since I've arrived we um have been internal and last year was our first year that

112we had to support an external communications partner and I can say there was a lot of new learning for me. Um not just because we didn't have a communications person at the time but just because they bring a different lens as to the possibilities of our needs in the district and how we need to communicate that. And that's not saying that we did anything necessarily wrong in the previous um opportunities, but having a different partner does allow us to um see some things differently. And so, yes, there was some new learning there. So, we did go out RFP. We did get back um three RFP proposals. All of those are on board docs. Um I'm not going to pull up a presentation for that. Um but that is everything you can see is right on

113board docs from all three of the um different proposals. One of the things that I will highlight in um in each of the proposals is that if you were to scroll all the way down to the like the last few pages of each proposal, you will see two separate thoughts. One, if the district decided to if the board decided to go to operational referendum and its cost and or a continued conversation were operational and capital. And so you that final page there kind of gives us a snapshot of what it would cost if we were to continue with a partner over time into the possibilities of November. So the first number that you see is what they would charge if it was for both you know coming into you know whether it was for one

114or for both is still the work. Let's just say like that. If we were to separate the space, let's just say we decided to do operational referendum in April and then come back and and do a capital referendum in November. That's where you see the additional cost. Um all of the um um proposals have that last slide there just to capture that space. And I did want to make sure that was something that the board kind of understood. And so if I was to give you a snapshot, not to say that we're just focusing on cost or anything, um if I was to give you a snapshot, we do know that um the Donovan group, if I start with them first, if you don't mind. Sure. Um if we start with the Donovan group first,

115um their uh their overall cost was going to be $40,000 with an additional $21,000 if we were to continue with them if we were to separate the questions. Okay, so in a nutshell, um a little over $61,000 $61,000. Sorry. Um, Elations is a group that came to us. Um, naturally when you put out an RFP, you pull it out to one could argue the world and um um Elations is one that jumped in and they are not a communications partner in the state of Wisconsin. They do have a Chicago branch office. Um, and they were in the same ballpark as um um the Donovan Group which was 40,000 for their services between now and of course April or May. And then if they were to continue on um the additional 21 or so thousand to

116bring them to 60,000. And then if we move into Hadley, um Hadley's overall cost was $58,000 for the opportunities from May until from now until one could argue May of next year. Um but they also had a flat rate of $5,350 for the continued months per for 40 hours per month continuation. Um each of the continuation spaces could look differently. And so I know 21,000 is what they mentioned if they were to stay on, you know, after a referendum season in general, after April's decision is made. Um, Mom voters, of course, um, typically May is a space where we are either celebrating the the results of the referendum or we're back in that planning mode. And in those spaces is really just internal district things. we may not need the support of a communications person

117because we did a lot of that work on the front end throughout the year and so they may jump back into conversation probably right around now June into July and so that's the conversational space that I wanted people to know because you know we're playing with months but there's also a lag time in between referendums and that lag time typically is the work between April and May that transpires based off of if a referendum is successful or if a referendum is not successful. And so, um, those are some of the just the general thoughts, um, that we can kind of work from, um, as it pertains to these three contracts. As you all know, um, it's not anything new, but Hadley was our previous um, partner in this space. Um, and so naturally, in going

118back to bid, they are interested in coming back for um, that space. The Donovan Group was a space that participated last year as well. Um so they are also interested and again this new group elations was the three bids that we were able to to receive. Everything was followed as pertains to um people submitting um their information on time. Um of course all of the information is there for the board to review. Thank you. Dr. Garrison, do any board members have any questions and or a motion? Mrs. Levy? um it it's not included in the notes. So I'm just wondering is there an administrative recommendation um for one of the three groups? So naturally, my recommendation would be to go with the partner that we worked with last time at the Hadley um communications. Um

119one of the reasons um when I think about Hadley is they've seen our internal space. Um and when I say they've seen our internal space, they really have seen our internal spaces and some of the things that we had to kind of work from without having a communications partner over the course of the, you know, school year. One could argue since November. Um I know they came into the conversation pretty much in December. Um but that was one could argue a kind of a rush space. Um they had to kind of learn on the fly as it pertains to kind of what we are working from here in the school district and some of our challenges. They were also able to you know see some of the things that we are doing well. Um I

120think that's very also very important. They capitalize on that space. They were a good partner to work with. They are a smaller company which makes things a lot more personable. Um, and so I believe that that was a good good space as well because they really did kind of cater to what we were able to accomplish and or do in the midst of not having a communications person. So they did take on some additional, you know, just things that they wouldn't have done if we had an internal person. Um, but overall I do believe that um, Hadley would be the communications group that I would want to move forward with. Any other questions or comments? Mrs. Levy. Uh, I move to approve the continuation of working with the Hadley group um in planning for the

1212026 referendum. I'll second. So, the motion is to approve continuing working with the Hadley Group for the referendum. by Amy Levy, seconded by Brian Nichols. And did I get that motion correct, Mrs. Levy? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Any discussion? Mr. Romero, just a just a quick question. Um, I'm I'm How I know Hadley, I guess they were under the gun this last time, right? So with your recommendation, you truly feel confident that they would be able to do better. Not saying that they did horrible, but they'll be able to be able to do better with more time now allotted than you're really confident on that. Yes. Um, you know, one of the things that we have to remember is the way we have had to do things is different than the way typically a lot of

122districts would probably go after a referendum space. Um we our district have to worked through a lot of different budgetary constraints and us going later one could argue possibly did save us some money um in the in the space but since we are starting earlier communications groups can do more you know they can start having more conversations with the board around what is it that we want to see in the in the because it is the board's referendum one could argue um what do you want to see in the communication space what things that we want to really tackle in the next communication space they can really lay out, you know, some dos and some don'ts conversations better. Um Hadley did suggest the um having some community sessions over this past time, which we of

123course attempted to kind of fulfill um along with the board um and and asking for that space. But there are some things that they could do on the earlier side of things that we haven't been able to do in the previous years due to when we are, you know, starting our budget. Now, the reality is, of course, we won't have all the final numbers until October, but that doesn't stop us from having some deep conversations and communications around our needs and getting that out in the forefront in the community across um across u the community of boy. Any other questions? Hearing none. All in favor of approving continuing the with the Headley group. I I I I Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Next, we've got the consent agenda. Typically, there is no separate discussion of

124the items unless a board member so requests in which event the item or items will be removed from the general order of business and considered in their normal sequence on the agenda. Are there any board members that would like any items removed from the consent agenda? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda. So move. Second. Second. Motion by Amy Levy, seconded by Brian Nichols. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I I I I. Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Next we have human resources employee recommendations. Are there any open session questions for on exhibit A? Are there any close session questions? Is there a motion for exhibit A? I move approval of exhibit A as presented. Is there a second? I second. We have a motion to accept exhibit

125A as presented by Amy Levy, seconded by Joe and Rue. Mrs. Sch, may we get a roll call, please? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Any discussion, Mr. Romero? Um the uh I'm seeing a pattern of how with these exhibit A's have been coming up. Um just the way that we're handling the staffing, it sounds like it's more of a band-aid for what's going on right now. Um there's no real It's one of those things where everything's been happening this we just been doing this just because it's always been this way. But realistically, if I'm looking at it and because I'm new, I had to look at all these policies and what not. I'm looking at everything. When it comes to this, it's came across the policy 222.1 the rule two. Um, it says that, you know,

126it's not we're not supposed to be doing things as far as for positions that are have been eliminated. Mainly just the ones that are still posted that we're still trying to fill. That's that's a different story. Um, I see that we are doing that in essence with these exhibits and I've seen that they've been having they've been doing it in the past as well. It's just no one's really mentioned anything about that. Um, if we're looking at the policy, I don't want this board in the district to be going against the policy and having issues and anything like that. So, um, also it it looks like we just shift out just shifting around the responsibilities. It does it doesn't stay consistent with things. um you're making temporary appointments that they drag on when there's no

127real clear end of when they're supposed to stop. Um you know, there's often there's it doesn't look like there's a long-term structure or plan to fix it. Um the uh the extra page like at first it seems manageable, but it does add up quickly, you know, when only a few employees, you know, certain ones get that workload added on only. um it should be distributed more evenly. Um it's not fair to keep stacking on more while select few than others are don't don't help out as well. It creates the burnout and it creates resentment eventually. Um and sometimes it drives people out with extra stuff. Uh the the policy does state administrative vacancies must be posted within 12 months. Any temporary assignments or extra compensation must be approved by the board and following hir. For

128that reason, I don't from my my own my own thoughts, I don't follow the compensation vacancy rules. I don't see it being followed. The uh temporary changes like permanent solutions. There's no there's no structure on what's the permanent solution. It's just another bandaid after another bandaid after another band-aid. They should be in my own opinion you know they should be restructured into job into job titles and compensated accordingly on a consistent basis and spread out amongst everybody that's related to those particular job titles. Um that in turn ends up saving some some funds because it's a constant and it's expected and you can be evaluated off of that as well. It's another evaluation metric that you can use to to judge you know the performance or to evaluate the performance. Um you know like in

129this case for example the the things that are happening with the chief of communications role which is gone um the director of instruction you know Mr. Bosow's position it's that one's been eliminated also. So, those are the ones that would fall against against the policy that I don't know if there's I haven't heard an actual um uh plan to get that resolved other than the band-aid and that's that's not that doesn't make me feel comfortable. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Romero. So, the policy that Mr. Mero is referring to is 222.1 rule 2 temporary administration assignments and this does speak to the um vacancies in administrations um and it does say that they will be posted within 12 months. It does also say um under the compensation portion of this policy, superintendent recommendations for additional compensation

130for personnel performing the job duties of a vacant position in addition to their regular job duties or in place of their regular job duties shall be subject to board approval. So with all of the um employee recommendations, they're subject the ones that come to the board, you know, we have to approve it. You know, it's it's you know, it's our our decision to follow up. Um the it does say um current employees may receive their daily average salary plus from 5 to 15% of that daily average salary or a salary adjustment commensurate with the position being temporarily filled again subject to board approval. No recommendation for additional compensation will be made for permanent additional duties assigned as a result of the dissolution of a position or for a vacant position that will not be posted

131and filled due to budgetary restraints. I'm I'm likeminded in that I think that that the chief of communications and marketing position probably does fall under that. um any compensation adjustments approved under this policy end when the temporary position assignment or temporary assignment of duties end. And so I do concur with your statement, Mr. Romero, that um we don't know when this is going to end. I I don't know if there is going to be a restructuring or re-examination of job duties or job descriptions and how the the that information how those duties will be distributed and how people will be compensated for taking on those extra roles. Dr. Garrison, thank you for your um for your thoughts. Um first, I want to make sure that you know we level set the conversation just a little

132bit. when we're thinking about extra pay for for staff and when we take on different roles. Um what you and you mentioned Mr. Bosow's position the where the extra duties and compensation came from was when we for Kelly Goroot's position which was um eliminated back was for Kelly Groover's position not for Dr. Bosow's Mr. Bosow's position. Kelly Groot was the person you weren't on the board at the time um who resigned with us I want to say in January. So those additional compensation um um staff members that you see here was for that position for when you're thinking about the communications um position. The communications position has been vacant since um November. We were still actively looking for that position. It did get approved for elimination for the next year's budget. That's 26 I'm sorry

13325 26 school year, not for this year's budget. So from the communications perspective, we were actively looking for that and but we brought it to the board of course and then it was later approved for um elimination in June. And so that position we again followed the in my opinion followed the process that we have here um here in the district. um you know when people are doing extra duties when these things come up in a district that has had to have you know of course the millions of dollars of reductions these duties do fall on people to do work and I'm asking Mrs. Alman Darius to come to the mic cuz I do have some questions that maybe she can help me with as well. Um but there's a space in which when we're

134thinking about staffing to answer both of you all's um space with the staffing space. Um when we made the eliminations um naturally from a staffing perspective we have to look at you know what those duties will look like in other people's responsibilities. But that's also we just we just approved those eliminations in June of this year. Um and so that's a space I guess if you wanted to share anything in relationship to um some of the job descriptions and changes. I think if excuse me if I may just add the work had to go somewhere um because since those duties had not been permanently redistributed individuals had to take on those responsibilities which is why it is being presented. I think the sequence of events um can be argued in either direction. Um but for

135example, the chief of communication uh we did not know at the time that we would not be backfilling that one. We actually had a candidate um that we were looking to move forward with before that decision was made, but not in time for us to redo job descriptions for the remaining staff to absorb the the work, if that makes sense. Mrs. Levy, thank you. Um, I'm not sure who this question is for, so please direct it to whoever you feel is most appropriate to answer. Do we have legal liability for not paying employees for additional duties that they have already completed? Um, yes and no. So, we all have additional duties as assigned as part of our job descriptions. Our district does have a policy that is very generous. Um it is also very specific

136to administrative positions. Um which not all of them are. And so if we look at policy essentially the board would have to approve the additional compensation for those additional duties um being reallocated to individuals. Thank you. Mi Mrs. Almonders, some of these are um hourly employees, some are s salaried. How does that work if we have hourly employees taking on additional um um responsibilities to cover vacancies, temporary or you know, however it is. Do they get paid time and a half for for overtime and additional pay or is this is this all work that's done within their 40 hours? Um so for the hourly staff it is um more so than the volume it's the level of responsibility because normally an hourly staff member uh would be more entry midlevel uh employee and in the

137case of these hourlys it is the level of responsibility of the duties that they're taking on. Um the overtime has been based on their regular hourly rate if there is any. Okay. Any other questions? Another question I have um is some of these are 5%, some are 15% and the board policy does say between five and 15, but um I'm a little perplexed by why you know can can you shed some light on that? Absolutely. Um so it is based going back to the volume uh how the work is distributed amongst individuals. Sometimes it is um one individual absorbing all the work. Sometimes it is multiple individuals that are taking on some of the different components of the position that those additional duties are covering. um it's uh the relation of the person taking on

138the additional duties to the position that they are absorbing some of those responsibilities for. And so um when we look at each of those positions, we look at what exactly are they absorbing additionally and how different is it from their daily job duties. Do you know is this how other school districts do this? I know that we do this based on our policy, but I could not speak to other school districts. No. Okay. Uh, Miss Miss Miller, thank you so much. Um, these are some really good questions and I think that this whole, um, board president Johnson, to the point you just made, um, the range of five to 15% has been a point of contention and I think confusion in the past. Um, so yeah, that's definitely maybe something worth like taking a look

139at at some point. Um, also appreciate Mr. Romero um, your point. I'm very much in favor of following our own policy. I think if there has been some confusion in the order of operations. It's like I'm still trying to discern clarity and I'm appreciating the conversation. I guess I'm raising my hand just to insert the point that if there was some kind of an error here in like cart before the horse, etc. kind of um stuff. People worked the the jobs that they were asked to work. And I think that it is poor precedent to set to hold employees who are like serving our children accountable um negatively uh for an error that they they didn't make. So I am wholly in favor if if we need to take a a closer look at how

140we do this and and execute this or this is something that like you know can come up at like um in in an evaluation space like I I think there are a lot of really good avenues to you know take this take this on but from what I can tell um there were conversations about like and and this is past president we we have more work than we have people or we have shifting responsibilities and while it is absolutely important I wholly agree to have a short-term and long-term plan and vision for how we sustainably cost effectively and like respectfully to staff burnout and energy like allocate those responsibilities sometimes you got to pinch hit right so I guess for me I think that the right thing to do is to compensate people who were

141told that they would be compensated for the work that they have already completed But I do I do want to say there have been really excellent points raised in this discussion and I'm really grateful that we're having it. Thank you. Brian Nichols. Okay. I have I have a couple of questions. Um well number one is where where will the what budget line will the funding come from since it's not obviously technically budgeted. So where would it come from? Well, I do want to clarify that there is a budget for this because for example, in the 2425 school year, we had a budget for the director of instruction and steam. We did have a budget for um the chief of communication and marketing. All of these positions were budgeted for this school year that just ended

142yesterday. So that money is coming from the same funding source that would have paid those salaries and benefits um at a much obviously at a much reduced rate. So it is this is not in addition to uh this is in lie of the positions that were vacated earlier in the school year than anticipated. So, well, second part of that was, and this is going to be a statement, is this this almost equates to a teacher without benefit before benefits, just FYI. Uh, couple other comments. Um, so I understand the chief of communication. Uh what's what's hard I can't what what I'm having trouble reconciling is four people four four different people worked on chief of communication duties and so did the Hadley group correct Dr. Harrison. Okay. So, you know, having worked with us with

143the referendum, right? But from a communication standpoint and doing some of the things. Yeah, that's what that's that's where I'm leading to. So, we don't really know how much that all that ended up costing the district, do we? From the referendum perspective. Well, or just Yeah. That and this together. Well, we do have the numbers for and I can give you that information. I'm able to look it up. That that would be good to know. Sure. And then secondly, it's it's the policy is 5 to 15. What happened to 10? What happened to seven? What happened to six? What happened to 12? There's five or 15, but there's a range. That's I think that's and hopefully that's what I'm hearing from some of the other board members is, you know, we understand we probably need

144to do this, but there's no rhyme to reason. It's a five or it's a 15. Not specific. It's very subjective, which is why I personally would recommend that the policy be reviewed um and updated to be a little less subjective to those that um are applying the percentage to the additional duties that each individual is taking on. But yeah, um there is a range and five to 15, they fell between the two. You're right. There's no 12, there's no seven or even a 10. or even a 10. So, agreed. Anyway, okay. Thank you, Mr. Romero. Yeah. I mean, I just want to make it clear that it's not that, you know, to to Mrs. Miller's point, yes, people do need to be compensated for extra work. And that's not it's not that I don't want

145to make sure they're compensated. It's the means that we're going about doing this. It seems broken and it seems like we're going against policies. It seems like the spirit of what this policy was in about kind of got a little a little warped so to speak over time in and used differently in to somebody's interpretation however it did at that point. The reason the main reason that I'm bringing this up is because is I see this as an issue and it's an ongoing issue. For example, this time it's it's running us close to $30,000 for this kind of thing happening. I'm looking for to to have some kind of solution brought forth so it becomes more stagnant so when these things do come it won't be to the tune of like a $30,000 bill that

146we have to come up with. It'll be something you know lesser because it's already been worked through as you know the pillow so to speak in the job in job descriptions if if need be. Um but again, you know that we do need a policy like this obviously because yeah, things do happen and things have happened and we're live we're dealing with times right now where we're dealing with issues that you haven't had to deal with before. So that's that's the spirit of why I'm bringing this up and why I think it needs to be really looked at and solutionized. I'd like to see a solution for this so we don't have to keep coming back to to this kind of same same type of solution for the for the next time things happen. Um,

147and again, that's that's, you know, I don't want to have to do a job for free, and I don't expect anybody else to have to do that either. But at the same time, I don't it's not the worker's fault that it's written like this and it's it falls above above somebody else there, above their pay grade. So, that's kind of where I'm looking at that we have to follow that policy a little bit more and that's the spirit that I'm looking at. Thank you, Mr. Romero. Miss Miller, thank you. Um, Mr. Romero, I fully wholeheartedly agree with you. Um, one one thing that has come up a few times um, over the last couple of board meetings we've had is I think just the need to like calibrate. And so I'm just curious if there

148is an upcoming potential for us to, you know, sit down as a board and do some, you know, with our administration, with Dr. Garrison and his team to listen to what their long-term plans are because like I feel like we haven't had the opportunity to do that and I feel like this would be a wonderful place for this conversation to take place. So we could come closer together, listen to, you know, find out what we don't know in terms of like what plans are being laid or have been laid. um and then you know offer our guidance in that visioning space so that we can be better calibrated to avoid exactly this issue because I I definitely agree like coming up with like a oops here's $30,000 you know this is not ideal and I

149don't think anybody thinks this is ideal. So I just wanted to like offer that appreciation for the point that you made and I just would like to again I think just insert that I think it would be a great idea for us to all um schedule that time really listen to Dr. Garrison and his team and have just a more like filledin picture in view of like what plans do currently exist so that we can be better informed um making those plans together as a team. I really thank you for taking my comments. Thank you. Some questions I I have um are there any other requests for extra pay out there that we don't know about yet? And we still don't have and we aren't going to have uh the chief of communications or the

150what was the other one? The director of instruction positions. So until new job descriptions are created with adjusted compensation, are we going to keep seeing additional requests for extra pay? And for me, that's problematic because I know when I signed my teacher contract back four years ago, there was a clause there that said you're going to do anything else we ask you to. And and to me, it seems wholly wholly unfair that we are giving administrators extra pay for doing extra duties. But all of you teachers, guess what? We're gonna ask you to do something and you better do it. Can Can somebody please help me understand that? I think when you when the the statement is made that teachers aren't being compensated for extra things that they are doing, um, that's that's that's not

151that's not true. There's places where blue sheets are turned in and we do pay teachers for when they're taking on extra duties throughout the entire year. I know the report that we did just get through, you know, of course going through gives a whole elixir approach to the thousands of dollars that we um have to pay for when teachers are out and subbing and doing that type of thing. And so there is a of course there's a larger group of people that is assisting us in that space. um but they are being compensated in that space and it and it goes straight through all staff. I think the problem in our in this sometimes in this context is that that there is this five and 15% um conversation that we do need to have. Um

152I have had the conversation with HR in regards to this not just this year but just as in in in conversations in general that the 5 to 15% is it could be one could look at as problematic and I say problematic because of the the range. Why not seven flat across the district if that's the number? Why not five or why not 10 as Mr. um Nichols um just mentioned. So I think that's a that's a bigger conversation. But when administrators are also out and things like this do transpire more work is put on more people and the staff that we have had to kind of reduce over the many years. Um, one could argue in this space we probably did save some money without having to hire all of these positions back. So, there's

153a I hate to say like a necess not a tug of war, Mrs. Johnson or anything. I'm sorry, board. Um, but it's more of a this is a real space that we've had to deal with here in our conversations for many years. And there are people that's not even on this list um that have taken on additional duties um as we kind of kind of navigate through these conversations. And so I just feel like this is a space in which our districts had to work through with 30 million 20 whatever million dollars worth of reductions. And if we look at the 20 plus million dollars worth of reductions and we start thinking about how we're compensating our staff um whether it be teachers and or in this place the policy that gives us the guidelines

154of 5 to 15%. Um, I do believe the people who have put together have stepped in and and helped us, whether it be administrators or whether they be building staff here or whether it be teachers, I think is across the board duly noted that we've had to kind of keep navigating through this, you know, unfortunate um, you know, budgetary constraints. And so, it's not a perfect answer, Mrs. um, Johnson. Um, but I do want to note that we are still paying um, teachers and there's conversations that we have that we're having right now around additional pay, even looking at act 20 possibly for next year um, for our teachers and how we can look at that space. And so I just think that it's a it's a across the board space that we have to

155look at and it's not just pointed at one group over the other. just how we compensate our staff through these very difficult um budgetary constraints that we unfortunately have to keep navigating through. Thank you, Mrs. Rue. Thank you. Um so Dr. Garrison just mentioned Act 20. And I think the trick with classroom teachers or reading coaches in the building is that our our um our duties are just covered by everything that is face to face with children where these are are parsed out more by like activities. So, I will say with Act 20, I know there were teachers and there were coaches that were putting in many, many extra hours, and I don't know, I didn't see those listed anywhere on something, but I do know that there was a lot of extra um work

156done at the building level. So, um Dr. Garrison, is that when you were talking about Act 20, is that something um you're talking about like working to compensate all of our coaches and teachers that put in extra hours to figure out the unfunded bill, as Megan likes to call it. So, we have we did have some of those conversations this year. This was our first go at it. Um and naturally across the state, we've had this conversation around like what does this new thing mean? And so since we were able to kind of see this for the first time, I have had conversations with the BEA in regards to the possibilities of this coming back for additional conversations around what we could do differently um next year um in this space as Mrs. Rue and

157so but those are continued conversations because act 20 is unfunded and there's a lot of people saying it's going to stay. Some people think it's going to go away and then it's like this, you know, tug-of-war. I don't think it's going away, but there's a lot of conversations that people are talking about as it pertains to how this can be funded. And so, if it's funded differently, then it allows us to do things differently in this space. Um, until then, we are that's still up for discussions. And again, I'm not going to speak for the BA, but those are conversations that we have had around bringing this back to the conversation. Mr. Nichols, just a couple other thoughts. Um I too would echo the fact that you know this is this is not certainly not

158the fault of the people that did all the extra work because they they do need to be compensated. I think I think one of the things and reading the policy obviously the policy needs reviewed. I think we all agree with that. And then secondly is, you know, if I think I think we kn we need to do we could do a better job of planning ahead and saying, well, we're going to need to we're going to need to use two people for 3 months or 6 months or four months or whatever the number is to do this and it's 5% or you know whatever the number is. But that's something I think we all we need to talk and have discussions about this and and to make it make it you know equitable for everybody

159that this happens that this happens to. Thank thank goodness we've got great people who do these things and and uh we just I think we just I think we need to manage it on the front end better than get waiting till it's over it's over with and then here we are. My my opinion. Thank you Mr. Romero. Yeah, just uh to kind of mirror a question that Miss Johnson didn't mention, Dr. Garrison. Um are there more coming down the list? Like just for example, I'm looking here on this exhibit A for example. Um when it looks like the principal for Converse went to help at Mel, correct? Like in May and all that. So that principal is bouncing back and forth. I believe if I remember reading there has to be someone has to assume

160a principal position or a principal ship you know even temporarily when the principal is not there. So I would would that fall on the assistant principal to do that? So there are times when the principles are out of the building and the of course the assistant principal does take on those responsibilities of of overseeing the work of the building. But when you start looking at extended time, that's when it becomes we run into this space of of pay. Um because it's not supposed to be that space. Um so the answer to your question, yes. Um the we do want to have an administrator over the building. Um and yes, there's times where principles are out and assistant principles do cover, but then like I said, when you look at the extended time, that's when this

161starts to, you know, come into the conversation. And this year um just just a different year for us. We've had you know you know principles you know had to be out for different parts of the school year and it did put us in these different spaces this year. Um and and and I and I you know I understand that and I get it. So what I'm wondering is that the assistant principal I don't see the assistant principal for Congress here asking for you know compensation to take the principal ship duties when the position isn't gone especially that's a higher position and for the code was saying when an administrator is taking up you know a position higher doing those temporary duties that's where the compensation would pay. So to to kind of mirror Dr. or

162Mrs. Johnson's question, is this going to be another thing that we're going to see coming down the line? And is that covered in within the budget um the the extra budget that Miss Amanderas was mentioning, would that be covered in that or because I'm looking at those finances already be budgeted for and I'm just worried that we're going to go over on time with DPI and using the next fiscal year's budget money for that. I don't want to get caught in that kind of, you know, constraint. So to answer your question, are there additional positions that may come up? You know, these come to, you know, HR, they come to me and then we of course review it and then there's a disc conversation around when it comes to the board. And so yes, there's

163a possibility that that there may be additional people that comes through this pipeline based off of the policy that we have, not based off of, you know, we're trying to, you know, hold off on exhibit A more so than it is here we are with the another conversation and here's another set of possible compensation spaces we have to u cross over into. Um, as it pertains to will it be budgeted for? Yes, the answer to that question is yes. Um, naturally those positions are out of our budget, one could argue, but we still have those fundings there. Um, and sometimes it taps into the $2,000 range or versus a, let's just say, $80,000 job. And so there's a space there where, you know, there may be a duties that people are taking on, but never

164is it the entire job description of someone. I mean, there's there's possibilities there, but the reality is we we try to work with our staff and making sure that what we're asking them to do is reasonable within their time frame in which they're working. I don't know if that answers your question specifically or holistically, but that is an ongoing conversation. Not because we, you know, we just got people sitting in the wayside, but as these things come to us, we we want to address them. I can tell you I can do a better job at as a district administrator um when these things come. Um but I always try to make sure that there's a there's a proper timing for it. Um and that's something that you know maybe that's something that we can kind

165of hone in on when we look at the policy again. You know the timing around when these things are coming versus how they're being presented. Right. So, so then just just to throw it out there, maybe we should have a cut off time for this for this round just to say, "Hey, listen." Cuz everybody knows what they've done extra and what they've asked for and say, "Hey, if you're going to ask for this, this is your cut off time to start putting it all together so we don't have to keep doing this over and over and over again." You know, next thing you know, we're, you know, a couple more schedule lays down the road and we're doing stuff from, you know, compensating back from March and, you know, February, March, and things like that.

166So just a just a thought I guess I would say just maybe come up with a cut off time you know submit your request by so and so that's a great suggestion I think that's something that can be looked at through policy I I will say that these things happen throughout the year though I mean people may resign February 1st as an example and the cut off was let's just say January 1st and but then now we're looking at another set of people who are taking No additional duties. Oh, I'm I'm just referring to this just going forward. That's all I that's this from from the stuff that we've already from this past this past year because I I understand, you know, yeah, people are going to resign, you know, throughout the year, but there's

167people that are still working that haven't resigned yet, you know. So, I'm not necessarily speaking to I'm speaking just to, you know, people that have this past year have already done the extra duties that haven't submitted, you know, for what they've done, if they're going to or not. and if you're going to do it by this date so we can just, you know, start it fresh and move forward, you know, so we're not going to the next few into the year. Thank you, Mrs. Rue. Yes. Um I was just going to say I think this is a this reminds me that um the ad hoc committee the budget ad hoc committee had talked about um uh like restructuring COLA and that we need to look at the roles and all of that. So I think

168that's something that we need to keep reminding oursel too that that's something that needs to be done. And I don't I don't know how that happens, but I do remember Carol Fox and John Wkelman working hard on that. Yes, you are correct. In fact, that was one of their recommendations to the board was uh last month that um we re restructure COLAC and make reductions uh to the tune of a million dollars. If there aren't any other questions or comments, there is a motion by Amy Levy, seconded by Joe and Rue. All in favor? I I I Any oppose? I oppose. Motion carries 521. Next we have executive session. A motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the board of education into close session session pursuant to section 19.85 85 parent one

169parent F of the Wisconsin state statutes for the purpose of reviewing the expulsion orders of the independent hearing officer pursuant to section 120.13 parent 1 parent E4 of the Wisconsin state statutes of the board of education shall upon review approve reverse or modify the orders. Is there a motion? So moved. Second motion by Amy Levy, seconded by Brian Nichols. Any discussion hearing? None. Mrs. Schult, may we get a roll call, please? Yes. Just waiting for the computer to catch up. Juan Romero. Hi, Amy Levy. I Brian Nichols. I Megan Miller. I Joanne Rule. I Tia Johnson. Hi. Motion carried unanimously. The board of education may reconvene to public sess session in order to take any action if necessary on items discussed in close session. However, I don't anticipate there being any and we will probably

170adjourn from close session. Thank you everyone. Have a good Fourth of July and enjoy the weather. Thank you.