4-23-26 Regular School Board Meeting For C.U.S.D. 95

001there's plenty of seats i just said that there's plenty of seats in the front if there's people that are standing want to come sit down for 23rd 2026 regular meeting of the board of education to order miss bsich would you please call the roll dr pincher here mr goldberg here miss maloney here miss tim here mr etienne here mrs dannegar here mrs warren here please rise for the pledge allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag one of the greatest honors we have as a board is the opportunity to pause and celebrate the incredible talent dedication and heart that define our district tonight we are here to shine a light on some of the individuals who make our schools a place of excellence from the students who inspire us and the staff who go above and

002beyond to the retirees who have dedicated their careers to our community's future at this time i would like to begin our recognition program of our students and adults of the month as well as some special recognitions and our retirees miss malik has prepared a celebration video to share mr nardiello please play the video good evening and welcome to the district 95 board awards it is a great pleasure this evening to introduce students staff and volunteers who truly represent the values and the vision that support the district 95 mission to empower every learner to achieve personal excellence tonight we begin with our student of the month awards avarie berman lake zuriak high school lake zuriak high school is proud to recognize avarie for her dedication to honors art post design interior design and adult living classes

003as demonstrated in the way she consistently seeks out new techniques and practices her craft independently she is curious and resilient pushing herself to research and experiment on her own and sharing her insights in class without hesitation in group work and in the studio she models empathy inclusivity and respect and her positive attitude and unwavering support of the classroom community make her a role model as she demonstrates many traits from the portrait of a graduate taylor guthrie middle school north taylor embodies the district's portrait of a graduate and sets the tone for what all learners seek to achieve she holds herself to a high standard in everything she does and her ownership of her growth as a thinker writer and learner always stands out she isn't afraid to ask questions seek feedback and make the most

004of every learning opportunity in a classroom setting her peers also recognize her as someone who they can approach for help with patience and a new perspective taylor exemplifies what it means to achieve personal excellence and no doubt will continue to stand out in high school piper hussein thaler middle school south piper's hard work and dedication to her studies have not gone unnoticed by her teachers who consistently recognize her commitment to doing her best and striving for excellence piper is a strong self-advocate taking ownership of her learning asking thoughtful questions and seeking out growth opportunities she approaches challenges with perseverance and shows remarkable resilience in overcoming obstacles she demonstrates these same qualities on the softball field and the basketball court making her a role model for all her peers piper's character determination and leadership exemplify what

005it means to be a dedicated student and a supportive member of the learning community nicolas consistently demonstrates the portrait of a graduate characteristics committed to challenging himself this year he joins the band program picking up the flute for the first time while also participating in both chorus and orchestra as he had in years prior he has balanced these three programs beautifully all while maintaining academic excellence and his participation in battle of the books which his team recently won nicolas is a picture of perseverance self-advocacy leadership and global citizenry in the isaac fox learning community luca barnac may whitney as preschool student of the month luca consistently demonstrates kindness toward his classmates and teachers he's always ready to share help a friend or offer a warm smile luca's caring nature positive attitude respect for others along

006with his love of learning helps to create a positive and welcoming classroom environment for everyone luca enjoys exploring classroom activities asking thoughtful questions and trying his best during lessons his curiosity and eagerness to learn are clear whether discovering something new during play participating in group activities or practicing new skills he approaches each experience with enthusiasm and is a joy to have in class journey torres sarah adams sarah adams is proud to recognize journey every day journey walks into the reading room with a big smile and a can-do spirit that inspires everyone around her she shows perseverance while reading and writing and advocates for support when needed journey has a wonderful growth mindset and she has excelled in reading this school year her hard work is truly paying off she has grown from a student who

007is learning to read into a student who loves to read and her positivity through it all is inspiring to everyone around her kyla rossi spencer lumas spencer lumas is proud to recognize kyla as a thoughtful kind student who is eager to learn she demonstrates hard work and perseverance at school every day her creativity and artistic talent shine brightly through in her work kyla often helps classmates and her teachers throughout the day doing so with patience and care her classmates know she is someone they can count on if they need help with anything from spelling to zipping coats kyla's gentle demeanor helps build a positive classroom and learning community sebastian palomarschak seth pain sebastian or sebi is a hard-working student who consistently approaches learning with curiosity and determination all around seth pain he is known for

008his kindness and encouragement toward others when a new student joined the class sebi was the very first to welcome them and help them feel like they belong as a house leader sebi is a wonderful role model for younger students he confidently shares his ideas while also valuing encouraging and listening to the perspectives of those around him celebrating others when they have a moment to shine sebi makes a meaningful difference in the seth pain community and through the example he sets each day moving on to our adult recognitions we begin with our volunteer of the month fred hassemeyer volunteer of the month lake zurek high school lake zurek high school is truly grateful for the dedication and passion that fred hassemeyer brings to the athletic community his commitment to supporting student athletes extends far beyond organizing

009events and coordinating fundraisers he is always willing to step in wherever help is needed fred has worked tirelessly to expand the booster club's reach ensuring that resources and support benefit not only athletic programs but others across the school as well while he is quick to credit his team and rightly so fred's leadership as president has been marked by unwavering energy enthusiasm and heart whether it's late nights preparing for events or early mornings setting up he leads by example and never misses a beat his efforts alongside the booster club team have made a meaningful and lasting impact on our students and programs we are fortunate to have such a dedicated volunteer in fred thank you for your leadership your generosity and for being a true champion for our athletes and school community carly nicoletti staff member

010of the month spencer lumas carly nicoletti plays an essential role in supporting teachers and strengthening the spencer lumas school community behind the scenes she works tirelessly to support instruction by aligning curriculum modeling effective strategies analyzing student data and bringing innovative teaching practices into the classrooms she is also a dedicated mentor to new staff providing guidance encouragement and practical support that helps them build confidence and grow into strong educators her impact extends beyond instructional support carly is a trusted colleague who takes the time to listen offers encouragement and provides thoughtful guidance whenever it is needed she consistently approaches her work with patience professionalism and a genuine commitment to helping both teachers and students succeed because of carly's dedication collaboration and passion for learning the staff continues to grow professionally and the students continue to thrive thank

011you carly for the passion leadership and positive impact you bring to spencer lumas each and every day tonight we are pleased to introduce a brand new award called the sustainability advocate of the month guided by the portrait of a graduate recipients of the sustainability advocate of the month award also known as the sammies are committed to sustainability within their sphere of influence their sustainability efforts may be represented by their active work on reducing their environmental impact or focused on advocating for one or more of district 95's current four focus areas of sustainability anyone is eligible for this award including students staff parents guardians volunteers as well as community members and groups sustainability advocate of the month mckenna soroka lake zuriuk high school at lake zuriuk high school and across the district through her role on

012the sustainability committee mckenna soroka has made a lasting impact by advancing environmentally responsible systems building awareness and empowering students and staff to take meaningful actions helping our community understand how small intentional choices contribute to long-term sustainability central to mckenna's work is the integration of sustainability into teaching and learning she embeds environmental concepts into curriculum collaborates with colleagues in professional learning and sponsors the environment club at lake zuriuk high school through this student-led initiative students promote environmental awareness develop k-12 learning experiences engage the broader community and advocate for state environmental education standards through her leadership collaboration and steadfast commitment mckenna sets a powerful standard for sustainability advocacy moving on to our special recognitions we recognize the iesa boys state wrestling match champions linden abrantis sixth place sarah adams cj abrantis first place state champion middle school

013south max schmidt second place middle school south marshall gray first place state champion middle school finally this evening we recognize our 2026 retirees don budrow isaac fox kathy drake middle school north kevin elliot middle school north liel ersted facilities susan fox middle school south karen gorman isaac fox todd gregory lake zuriuk high school michelle griffith seth pain mary grunden spencer lumis liz more sarah adams frida noble isaac fox mike pedraza lake zuriuk high school dean romano administration mary smith may whitney angela stallion administration carol suppice spencer lumis congratulations to all of our district 95 award recipients in a moment we will conduct our presentation of award certificates i have a few directions to provide for this recognition when your name is called please come up to the board members who will be lined up on

014my right near the table once you have been presented with your certificate please stand in between the tables at the front of the room so that we can capture some photos once we finish all award announcements you will be invited to enjoy some cake at this time i ask my board colleagues to join me at the awards table and mrs malloc to introduce the unrecognized very special individuals okay good evening everyone thank you so much for being here we love seeing the packed house so as mrs maloney said we're gonna i'm gonna call your name up if you're one of the people being recognized we'll just have you walk right over to the board member and grab your certificate and then we're gonna have you gather in the middle so those of you who are

015first get to stay here for a little while sorry and then and then we're gonna take some pictures for the district but we will get out of the way and all of you will also have an opportunity to take some pictures and then cake okay all right so our first student could not be here this evening but let's give a round of applause for avarie berman from lakes are at high school from middle school north taylor guthrie from middle school south piper hessenthaler great from isaac fox nicolas comingco from may whitney luca barnett from may wit uh sorry from sarah adams journey taurus from spencer lumas kyla rossi from seth pain sebastian palimarshik okay we're gonna have our good job great uh we're gonna bring up our adult folks now our volunteer of the month

016fred hasmeyer from lake syracuse our staff member of the month from spencer lumas carly nicoletti unfortunately our sustainability our very first sustainability advocate of the month could not make it this evening but let's give a round of applause for mckenna soroka okay and now we're going to do our special recognitions with our wrestlers so from sarah adams linden abrantis from middle school south cj abrantis from middle school south max schmidt and from middle school i'm sorry max couldn't be here this evening uh and from middle school north marshall gray okay um and not all of our retirees could be here this evening so you saw all of their names in the slideshow but i am going to call the um the names of those who we believe are here and you all will let me

017know if you are here and i didn't call your name okay so um the people we believe are here from middle school north kevin elliot from facilities lyle urstad from lake syracuse high school todd gregory from sarah adams liz moore from isaac fox frida noble from administration dean romano and from uh may whitney mary smith are there any other retirees here that i did not call okay so i would like to just share that the retirees standing here plus the ones in the slideshow represent a total 307 years of service to the district okay so i'm going to take a minute organize this into something picture worthy we'll take our picture and then you get your cameras ready and you'll have an opportunity okay keep smiling parents come on up you can take pictures you're

018welcome to come forward and take pictures keep smiling you're doing great keep smiling you're doing great any other pictures all right great job go get some cake okay public comment miss besitch is there anyone signed up for public speaking there are not thank you the next is a consent agenda dr gault thank you mrs maloney this evening i have for the board the approval of the open and closed board of education meeting minutes from the april 9th 2026 meeting edu point synergy annual expenditure isaac fox elementary school cafeteria and gym av replacement the nwea growth and fluency assessments two-year expenditure acceptance of the treasurer's report approval of the bill's payable list and then approval of the personnel report which includes employment of certified staff resignation of certified staff change of non-certified staff employment of non-certified

019staff resignation of non-certified staff in the april 23rd 2026 stipends for extra co-curricular extra and co-curricular assignments thank you dr gault may i have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as prepared and presented by the administration so moved second thank you doug thank you peter are there any questions miss besitch can you please call the roll mr goldberg yes mr etienne yes mrs warren yes dr pincher yes miss maloney yes miss tim yes mrs danager yes the next item on the agenda is superintendent's report dr gault thank you again i have several items for you this evening first i'll start with communication to the board you have received email communication in a few different areas so baseball and softball field concerns were presented to the board through email as well as

020concerns at isaac fox for the upcoming school year and then messages continue related to the student discipline and ai situation at lzhs so just wanted to make sure the board is aware of those concerns that have been sent your way all right we had our facilities and business services board of education committee meeting this evening talked about several items again updates on the construction work in the d wing and so we had some conversation about we're pretty close to being on time maybe a little ahead of schedule to date our furniture is on order and just wanted to make sure that the board knew that we have adjusted some of our work schedules on that construction project due to upcoming testing at the high school and so our partners who've been working in the d

021wing have been very gracious and willing to be flexible with their time commitment there so appreciate that and then the facilities department is has begun their hiring process for the summer and so they still have positions open and are currently in the interview process and then school middle school landscape project the courtyard of one of our middle schools we believe it'll be about 49,000 $49,500 it does need to be rehabbed we talked a great deal about ensuring that whatever we do to that area that one we do want to beautify it but two we want to make sure that it is a space that we can easily maintain we only have so many human resources available to us and so that was a lot of the conversation there and then we did talk about the

022baseball field needs i mentioned that that was a concern in our community that was brought forward we had some conversation we definitely know that we have some issues with our baseball field for sure and then there were some other pieces brought up about the softball field right now we have specialists that we're working with that are coming out with our first group come out they're assessing the area and the needs of that area our goal is to understand one are there additional resources tools etc that we need to maintain the fields and then additionally what can we do in the immediate to make sure that our fields are playable but then what can we also plan for in the long term to make sure that we don't have these same concerns repeat themselves each year

023and we additionally talked about the softball field and that was a little bit different because as the board is aware that is a newer facility we did spend a great deal of time and effort discussing making sure that we had the proper drainage systems system in place and so right now what we're doing is we really want to make sure first do we have some sort of blockage that's preventing the field from draining as well as we would expect and then if that indeed is not the issue then again we'll walk through a similar process with the baseball field and then other summer plans Seth Payne gymnasium we have the teacher classroom moves that are coming up and so we'll have as teachers get ready to move the facilities department handles those moves and then

024we did talk about business and operations as well really specific to the solar project at Isaac Fox and middle school south and I'm not going to share anything about that because it is on your agenda as well and you will have plenty of opportunity to ask questions there I would like to turn this over now to see if either one of the board members have any additional items or information they would like to share with their colleagues at this time thank you Kelly I did want to say as it relates to the athletic fields that were certainly sensitive to the need to try to get those fields operational and inclement weather and to your point in the softball field when that field was built just a few years ago we specifically put a sophisticated drainage

025system in which should be working right we spent quite a bit of money on that so either it's not working properly or there was design error because that so I don't think we understand yet what's going on with softball in terms of the baseball field clearly there's a there's an issue there that's deeper than that from a sense of not having an appropriate drainage system in on the field in the outfield or the infield so I think we need to do some more work to figure out what can be done probably not a whole lot honestly in the short term it's going to be more like a long-term project to take a look at what could be done and when it could be implemented but we're certainly sensitive appreciate the the letters that came into

026the board on that subject and we're definitely spending some calories looking into it so please be assured that we are looking into that I also like to take a shout out to Lyle and his team you know keeping the second floor at the high school moving along looks like that project's in good hands right now you know we're still early on we're 15 percentage complete so we haven't really run into significant issues which is great at this point the majority of the demolitions done so we're kind of in the reconstruction phase now and I appreciate the patience of everyone as we work through the scheduling issues to try to deconflict with any of the student testing that's going on in high school and ongoing construction so thank you yep I wanted to add on to

027that I think it was encouraging to hear that the administration is thinking about students doing AP tests and finals tests and ensuring that they have a good quiet space also just with regular construction mess smells that it's being addressed noted and it's a process but it is being recognized similar as a baseball mom I'm really always impressed when parents advocate for their kids and I'm equally impressed when the district listens and takes action and I think this is a great example of both of those things thank you Doug and Natasha thank you very much and then going on I do have some recognitions celebrations and some other information to share with our board this evening first just want to certainly thank our high school staff for providing up you know some really awesome opportunities for

028our students this one in particular was our AP government participation in the Illinois Senator Darby Hills Youth Advisory Council and so you can see a couple of pictures here this this opportunity really gives our students a chance to see how our government works at each level as well as to have them think more critically about issues that may be present within our community and so greatly appreciate all of the effort there and our student participation I did want to give a quick shout out again we have pitch night coming board members I'm really hoping that many of you will be able to attend April 30th 6 p.m. I look forward to this event each and every year and I'm excited to see what our students have come up with additionally want to recognize our is

029be those who excel award winners so congratulations to all of them and I have their names listed we have Elizabeth Meyer Elizabeth Smith Jen Callis Julie Adelman and Robin Dillon so congratulations to all of those individuals and what usually happens is they get their recognition early on and then the big celebration for is be is at the conclusion of the school year usually in the spring and then a big shout out to Mrs. Beesidge thank you for taking my place and representing our district and celebrating with our award winners I really appreciate that also as you know as part of our mission statement it says empower every learner to achieve personal excellence and that that mission rings true for both adults and students and so just want to acknowledge our CNI team they're always continuing

030to learn and grow and so today several of them had an opportunity to go to some learning around leading to your why determining your destination vision for instruction really about rigor in the classroom and instructional practices that allow for that rigor to shine through for students excited about this work and this partnership moving us forward as you might notice Dr. Fields was able to join the team and so excited that she's been able to partake in some of the learning as she gets ready to take on a position in district 95 coming soon and then lastly I'm hopeful that between Mrs. Beesidge and myself we have all of these dates correct in times and so please note that you do have a workshop on Saturday and so I am excited to have the opportunity to

031work alongside you as you experience your self-evaluation and this is our opportunity to have our retreat together with ISB representative Mrs. Martinez and so she will be leading us Mrs. Maloney and I have had conversations with her and worked with her to develop our agenda for that morning so I look forward to that time with you and that is all I have for you this evening Mrs. Maloney thank you Dr. Gault moving on to the reports to the board Mrs. Kaiser shared the cash flow report in the board packet are there any questions for Mrs. Kaiser okay so I noticed that there was a deviation for impact fees yes and it looks like traditionally what you're putting in this expectation the budget is average of the past three years yeah we spread that across so

032my concern is we have a lot of building going on and then you don't have a lot of building going on and when you use the last three years it's either going to be too low or too high and we we know from our tax assessment calculations what new build is so I'm just sort of wondering is there a better way to to sort of anticipate what impact fees would be coming in as opposed to just using history since that's something that moves pretty significantly every year we can look into that I don't know if I have a better way with it being the scope or the the size of the overall budget trying to dig into that area we feel that it's it's when we're able to take the last three years worth and

033then we spread that across the entire year based on the way that we do that first three months and then we're moving into October for the first move we felt that it was in a good enough place is it close enough yeah but we can take a look at that I'm just thinking since you get the actual new building as well when we get the new building it's not necessarily driven by like if there's a commercial for example that's different for the impact fees because the impact fees are driven by actual bedrooms and that's what drives it and so a lot of their new construction does come from commercial I mean you've seen quite a bit in the industrial park where there's a lot of larger pieces we over the last few years we've had

034a bunch we've got some stuff happening just nearby across the street that's anticipated that will have impact fees because there are bedrooms and so it's it's kind of a mix okay but I didn't realize that it was a bedroom I just was like if you have this number why couldn't you just use the new building it really has to do with the fact that it's the number of bedrooms that are so you would have to dig into the new building to figure out what was commercial okay and again most of our well not all of it but a fair amount of it is commercial which it doesn't doesn't connect the same okay anyone else thank you lisa our next item is the financial dashboard detailed information on this topic is included in the board pack

035packet are there any questions for dr romano thank you dr romano discussion without action next we have our discussion without action item the esp compensation study miss besage has invited members of crow llp from chicago to present their findings thank you miss maloney i'll give a quick introduction before our partners here share their presentation as the board knows every year we gather a committee of esp to look at our compensation plan in the handbook and last year during the 24 25 school year the committee went through and we determined that to put our positions on a five year review cycle so at the end of last year what we identified positions that had not been reviewed and sometimes we identified a cycle where we would review positions over a five-year period we have used a

036consulting company over the last probably 18 years mra out of wisconsin and they have been a great partner for us and supported us in all of our work our consultant was lucky enough to retire and so i am very jealous but happy for him and so we took some time early this fall to look at another partner to help us with this work i am excited that we've been able to partner with crow they are based out of chicago and they have been a tremendous partner with us this year they have come in and really listened to our background our history our staff where we've been where we want to go and they have been able to really work through this process with us during this year with our staff and then come to us

037with their findings much of our goal was to look at our positions and identify our our job ranges so not individual people but our our position ranges aligned with both the job descriptions with the external market and then with the internal market as well and they will go through their methodology and what they have done so far and then our goal is now to take their findings and then take that to our next step which would be once our staff have their performance increases and evaluations we'll look at the ranges and apply the recommendations that they're giving us to our recommendations that would come forth to the board on how to increase the ranges and then move staff forward through that process so i will turn it over to shannon this is shannon madden from

038crow she has brought her whole team and they've been amazing and been with us throughout the whole year so crow is a consulting company out of chicago and they work with both the private and the public sector and shannon specifically is a senior manager specializing in public sector classification and compensation analysis and human resources advising she holds her sherm cp credential so i'm always proud of a fellow sherm member and also her compensation analyst credential from the economic research institute so i will let them go through their presentation and then we'll be happy to answer any questions that the board may have perfect okay can you hear me all right all right this is shannon madden from crow llp thank you very much for having us here tonight and for allowing us the opportunity to

039work with the district i will go through a couple of slides and somebody is advancing them thank you perfect okay so we can just first start with the the agenda you know really my my intention is to use just 10 minutes or so i'd like to briefly talk through the project approach one more and then we'll really try to spend most of the time on number three results and recommendations and then of course any questions and discussion we have after that so on the the next one there with the project scope as as was just briefly shared really the goal of this work was to take a look at your compensation ranges established for the subset of titles that were in the scope of this review and see how those ranges align with the market

040are you ahead of the market behind the market or you know meeting the market within the scope of work we focused on base pay so base salary and wages no supplemental pay or overtime or anything like that and the scope included 22 positions for this year's review of which we selected 12 to serve as benchmarks in the study and i'll talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes here we can actually go on to to one more slide here so our general approach really in the the first phase of course we set up the work try to make sure that we understand your goals and your context we had a number of conversations with with hr and also some focus groups in our first two phases of work the second phase we

041we took a look at your job documentation so essentially job descriptions we reviewed those we completed a survey with your your staff who hold the titles that were in the scope of the review and then compare the results of the survey effectively we ask people to tell us in their own words what their job is and then we compare that to job descriptions to see if there's alignment or if perhaps the job descriptions may need some updates again we held focus groups at that time and we're able to to get some more feedback here in the the summary of employee feedback you know a couple of a couple of trends stood out to us so first what's labeled number one up there is that there are certainly some employees who in their words both in

042the questionnaires and in the focus group conversations we had you know at times they are doing things that may not be reflected in their job descriptions so it's possible that the scope of their role has changed over time and maybe the job description requires an update to capture that or this could be you know a conversation that needs to take place with the individual's supervisor to make sure that they kind of understand the expectations that they're supposed to be fulfilling a second theme or second thing that we heard a few times from from employees is that in particular some of the administrative roles in your in the school buildings have expanded to take on some additional responsibilities that could be you know perhaps aligned with security roles or in some cases technology roles and so

043this is something that probably does not have an easy solution necessarily but we think maybe warrants further review to determine whether those roles should be split or you know how those should be modified to capture appropriate responsibilities a third piece that we heard from a couple of individuals is that there appears to appears to be some inconsistency in how the 10 and 11 month roles are assigned work and how their schedules are managed it's something that may vary by building vary by you know managers principals in the building and so we heard that there's some opportunity to clarify expectations and make sure that everyone is on the same page about really what those those individuals should be doing and specifically what their summer schedules and commitments look like we'll move on to the next slide

044please here i'll start talking through a few pieces that are important to understand the market study that we did so one is that we select benchmark titles that's a subset of the 22 job titles that were in the scope of work really our goal here was to select titles that were representative of that whole group of 22 so coverage across departments across different job levels from entry level to the more senior roles within that scope covered all operational roles and of course included some of the 10 11 month positions as well as the 12 month positions that's one of our inputs to the market study on the next slide we we talked to or we we selected with the district six market data sources so essentially we collect data from these other sources in some

045cases they're specific employers you see the list of of six four of them are specific school districts that we selected with with your team here the fifth source is the frontline education survey so that's k through 12 salaries from districts throughout the state of illinois which provides us a pretty robust data set to use and then the sixth source that we use is a database provided by the economic research institute or eri this is a database with tons of salary information from a variety of industries and locations and types of roles and we were able to use data specifically for the lake zurich area and we filtered down to only look at information that's coming from public education services which is the the industry term that that particular data set uses so really on the

046whole i think the the main point i would emphasize here is that we drew primarily from school district data so looking at comparable roles and what those salary ranges are in other school districts in this area and throughout the state and then the eri data source that that number six provided us a additional data set okay i will move into the results section and we can actually just go right to slide 10 please so in slide 10 this is a bit of stage setting before we actually show you the numbers unless you saw them in your packet already we talked about the benchmark titles already in the middle box i just want to kind of draw your attention to how we look at the market comparison as was said in the opening remarks we are

047not evaluating employee pay we're looking at the ranges established for jobs and in particular we we compare it's a standard practice to compare the midpoint of your pay ranges to the midpoint of market pay ranges right because pay ranges are sometimes narrow sometimes very wide it's most useful to compare the midpoints of those different ranges we collected the market data for the 12 benchmark titles to understand what market ranges look like for those titles and then we do some modeling so that we can understand the overall relationship between the market salaries specifically those midpoints and then what we call internal job value it's often represented by pay grade which was the case here we do some modeling just to understand the relationship essentially as you move up a pay grade how much is the market

048how much more is the market paying for those roles that gives us a formula that we can use to then calculate a a streamlined pay structure so that we produce ranges that are representing market information but also consistency with internal roles and relationships here at the district finally then what you'll you'll see in the upcoming slides but i'll talk about the the way we approach it here is to really determine the width of those ranges we can use a number of different widths the the industry standards are pretty variable here they are sometimes as narrow as 20 percent so pretty narrow ranges sometimes very wide you know 80 or 100 percent wide ranges the district in the the current current state ranges that you have you use 50 percent and since that's within industry norms

049we use that same 50 percent for the recommendation moving forward so next onto the results you will see lots of numbers and i'll provide a bit of context around this if you move on to the next slide please what we're looking at on this slide is the specific job level results for those 12 jobs that were selected as benchmarks and to be very clear this this is not the recommendation this is just strictly what the market is telling us about individual jobs without having contemplated those internal relationships essentially hierarchy and seniority yet one one piece of terminology to to briefly mention is the lead and lag concept so if you see over on the right column those that are marked in sort of a teal lead that is where the district pay range is leading

050it's ahead of market pay ranges for similar roles and in contrast the lag is where the district pay range is behind where the market is paying for similar roles so that's the the lead and lag terminology that you're seeing overall these the 12 roles that you're seeing here eight of them were found to be leading the market so the district salary ranges are higher than market salary ranges for eight out of those 12 jobs it's two-thirds or 66 percent and then lagging the market for four out of 12 so one-third another really key point here is that really the entire reason to do a study is to see if you are directional see if any employer is directionally far ahead of the market far behind the market or meeting the market truthfully we've been doing

051this you know for a long time and with many different entities you are a client is almost never exactly meeting the market on all of its jobs it just does not happen right salaries change in the market something changes here so it's it would be very surprising if we found that you met the market for all of these jobs it's in fact very common and the whole reason you do a study like this is to just help quantify how much you are leading versus lagging so i say that because leading or lagging is not inherently good or bad it's just this is how the numbers compare another point i'd like to make on this particular slide is you'll notice three job roles they have asterisks and they're listed toward the bottom the parent liaison payroll

052specialist and health office aide so for these three roles what we see you might notice two things or i notice two things when i look at the information for those three jobs one is that the percentage of the lead or lag is particularly large right larger variances to the market for those three roles than for the other nine roles that we looked at um so so we consider those you know worthy of further review so there's something else kind of going on there either in the data that was kind of used maybe it's not an exact comparison the role i can use a payroll specialist as an example perhaps the payroll specialist here at lake zurich is not doing all of the exact same things as a payroll specialist in another district there may be

053staffing differences maybe one district has five payroll specialists and another has one or two and so you would expect there to be some differences and so that's just the kind of nuance that we would recommend you look at those three roles to sort of understand more about what's going on there another potential explainer of the differences that we're seeing there is it's possible that there's a bit of a misalignment between the salary ranges that the district has today for those roles and the pay grade associated with those roles and really in terms of what the job description warrants for its pay grade so this could be a case where those one or more of the three roles that i'm referring to maybe the job description is not capturing all of the duties that the people

054are actually performing this this came up in conversations we had surrounding the health office aid as a potential example of this i believe it's the case that your health office aid actually brings more to the role including higher certifications than are strictly required in the job description and so it may be the case that you are compensating based on the extra things that the individual is bringing to the role but the job description as written today may need some updates to reflect that as i said when we first looked at this i chart here with all of the numbers these are the results for each job just looking kind of in a silo one job at a time as we move to the next slide you'll see the what would be sort of an alignment

055of overall pay grades and ranges to kind of wash out individual differences sort of smooth out the nuances in that individual job level information we saw on the last slide so what you're looking at here you know it's of course simpler to look at but these are ranges by pay grade and so you see a range for example for the pay grade one any job that is appropriately graded at grade one could inherit that that pay range that's listed on the slide here these pay ranges i talked about this a bit earlier when i explained about the modeling that we do these pay ranges if adopted would have you exactly meet the market meet the middle of the market as it's kind of defined in this study however your compensation philosophy as you know is

056to slightly exceed the market and so this actually is kind of affirming to us the fact that you are leading the market on two-thirds of your jobs that's part of your philosophy that's that's a policy decision that the district has made so the ranges we're looking at here would have you meet the market but in some cases these are lower than your pay ranges today we don't recommend that you reduce your pay ranges to simply meet the market since that is not your philosophy now if there's a policy change and you say we don't need to lead the market anymore you could consider these ranges so i'll answer questions about that if you have them when we get there okay we can go on to the last slide of substance here these are our recommendations

057that we make you know you of course as the board here have a great deal more institutional knowledge historical information than we do and so of course we provide this information as one input for you and and fully support you and considering other contextual factors that you need to make any decisions so this is one input that we think is useful their first recommendation is is really a synthesis of the pay ranges that we spoke about a minute ago it's to consider kind of have an awareness of what those market align aligned pay ranges are again assuming that you don't want to you don't want to discontinue leading the market then you don't need to adopt those strictly market aligned pay ranges but it is something for you to be aware of also the fact

058that your pay ranges today in some cases are leading you know means you can consider do you need to historically you've increased the ranges each year and you can decide if you would like to increase them substantially minimally right that's a decision that you all can make with the market data that you have here second recommendation so the the middle box on the top here i feel is a particularly important one this is to enhance that alignment of the pay grades to the jobs and job descriptions as we said in a few cases we found that job descriptions may need some updates that makes sense that happens and in some cases it may be that the job descriptions as written you need to determine if the description is correct as written or if it needs

059updates and then what pay grade is most appropriately assigned to that job grade in the cases in particular where we saw those larger market differences that's an extra flag to look at those roles and confirm if those are graded correctly or if they should be increased or decreased in terms of the pay grade assigned to those jobs my understanding is the last time that the district formally looked at the pay grade assignment was around eight years ago and i think this is something that i would encourage you to put on your radar to consider every couple of years just in terms of validating that the pay grades are correct for each of your jobs third we've we've really talked about already updating the job descriptions you know perhaps in particular or as an example of

060this for those administrative jobs that are in some cases taking on some security functions that's something that we recommend be clarified in job descriptions if it is an expectation of the administrative role or you may find that the the workload is such that you may need to separate the responsibilities into multiple positions standardized the 10 and 11 month work practices again we we learned of some just differences and how that's operationalized in different buildings and so we would encourage you to just make sure that policy documentation is very clear and clearly communicated and being managed appropriately and then finally on enhancing compensation governance and review practices it's really just a few pieces of policy we recommend you consider documenting one is is it's written in the report that you received as the pay placement and

061pay progression policy so really formalizing not only that you have pay ranges associated with the job but a policy to formalize how employees are placed within the pay range so for example when you hire a new employee do they always start at the minimum of the range or are there certain criteria that are considered when determining if the employee should be you know paid more paid paid in the middle of the range or the second or third quartile so some formal policy guidance around that we would recommend as well as a policy to support that periodic checking and validating of pay grains pay grades assigned to jobs that is the end of my remarks that I wanted to highlight from our report and the presentation and happy to answer any questions that you have unless

062there are additional comments from human resources I will want to add that this is the exact same presentation that Shannon and her team shared with the ESP committee so they have seen this and they have seen the results and were able to ask questions and I do want to say it this has been a really thorough process and even when you look at the the focus groups we had many staff participants we had both staff in these pay grades that are on the committee not on the committee as well as their supervisors participate and I do also want to say that I was not involved in any of those purposely because I wanted them to be able to speak freely and share information with the group as they as they needed to so I really

063do appreciate all that work and we do have a lot of information from our staff now they all completed another job analysis questionnaire the supervisors evaluated that so we have now all of that data that we can update job descriptions and get those aligned I also want to say that this the conversations that we've had with them help us look to kind of that conversation of where we're putting staff within our pay ranges the board has done an amazing job over the last several years allowing us to be able to increase our starting salaries for support staff to give the increases but as we talked about that some of those large pay range adjustments have condensed our staff kind of towards the lower end of the pay ranges so now I think the next focus

064per the recommendations may be to move people along on the pay ranges and not increase the ranges as much but continue to let staff move through the ranges so you don't have those situations as Shannon talked about where you're hiring new staff and the current staff in the same roles there's not having that larger differential between a newly employed newly employed person and someone who's been in that job so happy to answer any questions I know Shannon and her team will as well I'll just go around Natasha do you want to start please yeah I guess my question will be more for you Julia so this report was really comprehensive I appreciated it what are like the next actionable steps that we're doing as a district like where are you taking this information I know

065you gave some information but what is like the next actionable step you're taking so we will take this data so I have already taken it and started to look at our pay ranges and try to identify where we can make some of those adjustments for us particularly in the positions that are lagging those are positions that I would anticipate bringing forward with some some change to those positions whether it's a pay range change and then also then the people in those roles a comparable move as well so we'll look at that we'll look at recommendations for what we would increase or recommend the ranges increased by and bring all those forward and then separately I guess in conjunction with that recommendation we typically bring the overall increased recommendations for support staff so we'll we'll do

066both so that'll be taking all that data bringing it to cabinet and then formulating a recommendation to the board which will come next month towards the end of next month and then along those lines because I know over the summer especially for ESP staff you can be hiring a lot of you started looking at job descriptions that will be posted if that was part of the one of the conclusions of this report um posting the job descriptions well yes appropriate job descriptions so it aligns yes so as we update them anytime we have an opening we typically post the job description with any vacancy my goal will be over the summer to get all these job descriptions updated and then I typically we have a portal in our intranet where we post job descriptions so

067I would put them out there for staff to be able to access as well great and then one last just over over general question how did the ESP or committee react to this report did they agree with what the findings were were they surprised um I I think well I I'll let Shannon answer because they were all there I think they were actually pleasantly surprised um I think there's sometimes a feeling that we're lagging or we're not you know doing what we need to um but I believe they all walked out of that meeting feeling very positive and um you know they were able to ask questions and what would you say I would agree with that from what we could tell not everyone not everyone spoke there were some questions um I do remember

068one one uh individual commenting that she she felt relieved um but others I don't know so if there was any disappointment it wasn't out loud Peter yes I just want um and I echo what my colleague said um good to do the market review great work there and it's good that the administration had an impartial review so that you know you allow the committee to work um you know somewhat um independently I um so great work there um and good report I have a couple questions the only job description one you mentioned one case where you know they were expanding roles over time is that I mean you know I'm just thinking from the last time that a review was done of course the job description changes more than the eight years but is that

069very unusual I mean in a in an economy we've we've been a changing economy with technological changes and other changes I know what my job description was when I got hired and and with every few years it's not doesn't exactly match what I'm doing so I'm just wondering how unusual was that not unusual it is it is very common that job descriptions stray from or maybe I should say that the work being done strays from what was written in a job description which was effectively a snapshot of when it was written it is so though it is common to have some misalignment it is absolutely a best practice to update your job descriptions periodically to capture then current responsibilities it's important for things like this so that you can understand what pay grade should be

070associated with that job description and then how much to pay individuals so just very important from that standpoint yet to your point it is a common circumstance right it's something we all experience yeah and I mean it makes sense to to revise it from time to time because that's what you evaluate people against yes over time and so you don't want you don't want it to stray too far is does that make sense yep yeah um my um my second question is of course the one of the the largest chair the largest gap so to speak was parent placement with minus like 18.6 percent how many of those do we have in a district I mean we have one there's one one person in our district okay so that's okay so that's that might be

071a little bit easier to address than anything else and and I assume um the other one I think that you're the asterix to there aren't that many I think you had all of those are less than four people okay in those roles okay um so yeah so I wouldn't ask you too many questions about them because that narrows in on individuals pretty quickly but but that that that was very helpful um we appreciate you're doing this this market review we appreciate um getting the information and it it certainly is helpful um like you said you know obviously it's it's your role to say do it more often but uh but but even objectively it makes sense to do it much more often than every eight years thank you so very much thank you peter thank

072you eileen shannon first of all many thanks to you and your colleagues for coming out this evening to join us I'm sure there's other things you'd probably prefer to be doing on a Thursday evening late spring um I think it's really important to do benchmarking I think it's a great idea and kudos to Julie and the team for doing this regularly for us it's important and I think you saw our philosophy which is we definitely if if we can afford it we definitely want to lead the market a bit we want to attract and retain quality people that's really important to us and you know my takeaway from reading your study was we mostly have an internal role alignment issue right that's the central problem here I think that's going to come down to obviously

073new job descriptions how do we update the job descriptions to match the roles people are doing and then deciding where they would fit into the structure so um question I have this is for you julius is your first task now to go back and try to do new job descriptions that we're going to do first um I we have a lot we have the data that we need for the job descriptions so I think that that work is pretty much done rather than I mean we still have to actually put them in the format my my immediate next task is to align our ranges with kind of the recommendations and look to see what changes we can recommend for next year and and when you say you're going to implement the the recommendations in terms

074of salary range is that what you're planning on doing we would recommend salary range adjustments as we would every year based on these recommendations okay because again I think your data was wonderful we could see that in most cases many cases we're actually leading the market which is great that we have that ability we have a few outliers and sound like sounds like it affects a relatively small amount of people and hopefully with some job description changes you can remedy those people that aren't you know where they need to be is there anything else that shannon you and your team would recommend that we should be doing like one question I had was what is the frequency at which you'd recommend doing this every every two to three years is great similar to a point

075that was made earlier many organizations don't do it that frequently every two to three years for a market study is I would say plenty one I think this was referenced in the report very briefly one one thing to consider is whether you can do maybe there are budgetary considerations around this but when you do the study let's say every three years to include all esp roles I in my opinion it would be perhaps more productive to do all esp roles within the same study rather than subdividing them such as you have only because then you are you're looking at snapshots for different jobs from different times and I think it may actually be easier to maintain and you'll get sort of a more holistic look every three years or so if you do all the

076esp jobs so very similar to what you've been doing but I would consider whether you can do all of the roles at once okay good recommendation and one last question do you think that given the the data that you had to work with the raw data the input data that you you had enough data to have a high resolution a high fidelity output you feel that you surveyed enough and you the sources you had the pulled data from or high enough quality that you have a high confidence in the output we do have high confidence in the output yeah one of the guardrails we put around that is if we ever have fewer than three market data points for any given job we would benchmark job we would set that benchmark aside and not use

077we wouldn't want the results to be overly skewed by let's say one particular school district's data point so we always have that guardrail in place it was not an issue okay once again thank you so much for coming out this evening you're welcome thank you doug lisa thank you this was incredibly eye-opening I have to say as you saw with all of our retirees and us losing how many hundreds of years of experience you have a lot of people in these positions that have been doing it for a long time and so they just keep taking on duties that you don't really think about because suzy's always been in the front office at spencer lumis and and that's just what she does and so it's really interesting to hear that when you went through the

078sort of formal job description and then you really hear what's happening that there is differences and and it's recognizing that to be an admin an assistant administrative assistant at the you know the high school in a department versus at a front office of a school it's different even though technically you have the same title but because of where you're performing your role there's different duties involved in doing that so I'm just curious you said you used a lot of school data so we recognize the fact that our descriptions were maybe not complete with what people have taken on over the years but did you see any dichotomy and you know everybody else has this as a year round employee and you you are only have it as a 10 month like did you see any

079differences in that kind of I know you're we're focusing on hourly rates but did you sort of see any differences in the way more of I guess more of an operational kind of question not that I can recall I don't I don't remember any observations and my colleagues are also shaking their heads so nothing in that way we didn't notice this is always a year-round role your question also was making me like did we notice jobs every other district have has that you do not and I don't recall anything like that standing out to us okay that's good to hear I guess but there was some difference I guess in how some schools handle a 10 month employee versus other schools so trying to get that so if and the question I think is valid

080if you need them for more than 10 months is this really should this be an 11 month roller and that's an internal decision it sounds like more than you're seeing well everybody else does it this way and you do it very differently right if may I clarify one one piece the the 10 and 11 month position comment we didn't compare that to other districts we you know anecdotally in our focus groups and and I don't know if it came up in the certain the written surveys but certainly in the focus groups it was commented that different buildings here within this district may manage those expectations differently okay and I think that some of the comments that were made suggest that maybe the employees who hold those positions at some times may feel like they're asked

081to come in at times that they think they should not be required to so it's making it clear what the 10 month time frame is and it may be a perception you know but there's some sort of a disconnect and it may differ by school based on the needs of the school and when they need the support so okay and that that is a conversation we've had over the last several years is trying to put some more clarity around particularly the summer time and the the definition of 11 month and you know what what that means as far as time off and getting some consistency across the building so that to to the comments from staff and some of it it may be job specific I mean I would I would you know nurses you

082envision them being there when the kids are there but there's a whole lot of paperwork you have to deal with when the kids aren't there so like how does that work and that kind of thing one well thank you very much this is this is great thank you thank you lisa dr pinter yeah thanks this is excellent I think it's really great that I love data so again thank you for for all of this work so I have two questions one of them being that you talked about how there are people doing things that are not in their job description and that's obviously problematic but I'm curious if if there are they so when it comes to the job description are they doing the things in the job description and then also all these other

083tasks or is it like they're not doing the things really in the job description and they're doing these different tasks so it's like a completely different job it is a good question and if Susanna would like to comment she's welcome to Susanna Heicher from crow was present for one of those conversations okay hi Susanna Heicher I'm the partner on the engagement I'm happy to be here and there's no place we would rather be than here so appreciate your comment yeah I mean I guess I just want to say something you probably already know which is that you have an incredibly dedicated workforce and that came through in you know we're not surprised but it's it's it's pleasantly surprising and it does make it hard to get down to what the job description really is because

084in every focus group this isn't just one or you know two that every single one everybody is focused universally on just getting the work done and they're working very collaboratively together so that's you know a great new story for you but what it means is everyone's kind of taking on each other's jobs and oh they're you know someone's at the door I'm going to buzz them in and so when we're getting to looking at job descriptions and looking at actual duties it's more of that it's not it's not that they're not fulfilling in general right but in general it's not that they're not fulfilling what's on the job description it's that they're doing that and there's a kid there with a runny nose and this kid's sick and that person the FedEx truck is there

085and you need that ID and like everyone's doing everything to help each other out but it is far beyond what's there I think that's that's one and that was that's not just like a couple times we heard that that was over and over again just doing what needs to be done in the nature of what's what it's like to be in a school in this you know in this day and age that's one I think the other thing was and this is this is common and natural really in any organization and Shannon did mention this a little bit that and it was in actually to answer your question that just as you get more experience and you mentioned this as well that you get more experience you maybe get another degree or another certification and

086now you just have more expertise and now they're offering that more and more very beneficial for you as a as a school district and as administrators probably above and beyond the call of what's in the job description so that's just a decision that you need to make on if the job description should be updated and of course that does you don't want to necessarily update a job description for an individual right you need to think about from a title perspective and that's that's part of the the hard work that goes into some of this analysis okay great and then my second question is related to the 10 and 11 month contract people it makes me think of just being like I'm a professor and like so when it's um you know August that's when all

087of our classes start but yet I'm doing all of the work for that basically in June July and August because for me then it like frees up the rest of the term I feel like I like I don't have to work as hard over the time when like special projects come up and stuff like that so my question with the 10 and 11 month people is it that they're choosing to do like what I was doing as a teacher or is it like your supervisor says despite the fact that you're supposed to have August off you now get to work August I imagine it's both uh yeah it's both yeah okay it's both but it's another one of the stories of pitching in and it was it was kind of interesting we don't want to

088necessarily reveal all of the how every focus group went because we wanted everyone to be open but it was interesting we did have focus groups where um a staff and and their supervisor were in the same session they would sort of say it and then the super supervisor saying well I didn't know that you weren't supposed to you know like they just all want to help him and I think what was obvious is a tremendous amount of work has to get done in the summer regardless of if they're on a 10 or 11 month and it's piling up and they're like am I just going to come in on the day I'm not supposed to come in and get it done or am I going to be overloaded the next time so it's it's a

089workload balance as well okay thank you so much thank you dr pincher alicia okay I was I'm wanting to ask julia and thank you for this wonderful report it's so important to do this and see where we sit within the district and are part of the state here um do we ever use press plus guidance from the illinois association school boards and legislation on these topics or are these just local control hr things that are not related to school policies oh great yeah this would be this is just like okay just an internal hr process all right okay um thank you thank you thank you and I just have a general statement because I think just the evolution of work there's constantly new things that are done and um you know I know the standard

090blurb is other tasks as assigned and so like so literally everything falls into that but um I know my own personal experience is that when a new thing needs to be done there's nobody assigned to a new thing it just needs to get done and so it's who is ever available does it and then that person becomes the person that does that new thing because they get good at it and um and in a way that's not good because then one person knows how to do that new thing but um it's hard to keep the evolution of the job description with precision and I think that that's a big challenge so thank you for taking that on but it just seems to me that whole catch-all other duties as assigned covers that and I don't

091know what your thoughts are on that I think that is um that is true and we all have other duties as assigned and we need that I mean every employer is going to need that in your job descriptions that's that's not a bad thing it is still so I don't think the goal should be that you know every day the job description is perfectly up to date with the things that happened that day or yesterday yet it is important to update them let's say every one to two years to make sure that they're capturing then current responsibilities and not I don't mean when I say then current I don't mean you know temporary one-month projects but things that are have become a regular part of the work maybe because of maybe because they sort of

092took on an additional responsibility or they gained additional experience in something you want to update the job description periodically so that you're capturing those new things at some point the accumulation of new things may be so much that it tips that job into a higher pay grade and so I think that's the risk in in not capturing them it is probably okay that other duties as assigned means more stuff's getting done than written in the job description but if that trend continues for a long time and the scope expands and expands and expands without going back to update the job description the risk is that you are underpaying for the work or you are inconsistently paying across your employees for comparable work so those are those are two risks you you would avoid by just

093making sure that periodically that the job descriptions are updated which by the way is not a small task right right yeah no and I I did want to thank you for the information actually specific to safety and security because we have made great gains in that area over the last several years and we've been audited twice now since I've been here we've addressed and we continue to dress safety and security but we what we didn't do necessarily was go back to that audit the changes that we made and then update the the positions or the job descriptions and so you know those are things that have to happen and they have to be somebody's responsibility in the front office to maintain a safe working school and so I really appreciate the fact that that was

094noticed and uncovered because as we continue to walk through different audits I think that that's something that our our HR department's going to have to continue to work with each group to make sure that we're realigning so thank you very much you're welcome well thank you Shannon and Susanna and the entire crow group and Julia for all your work on this and I um look forward to the job descriptions and I know that that's a big task so thank you thank you again for coming out and you for your time please you are more than welcome to stay okay but you don't have to we may depart take some cake but thank you very much we appreciate it thank you thank you all right moving on um discussion with action let's start by getting a

095motion and a second on the table for the approval of the insurance renewal may have that motion so thank you Doug and thank you Natasha does anyone there's no presentation correct this is just what we the board yeah I know the information in the packet so does anyone have any questions for miss visage I just recognize we made a lot of changes to this last year and so I'm glad to see that it was successful and we're more just keeping on moving forward although that not that this was any less of a lift this is a lot of work to do yes and I do want to say I want to continue to thank um the insurance committee and particularly our teachers on the committee that continue to really work to share information and make

096sure that everyone is aware of what's happening with our insurance plans finding ways to be better consumers finding ways to have different opportunities to use the health to health plan because it does impact everybody so I really do appreciate all of their ongoing work their effort both on the committee and then outside of the committee as well and miss Maloney thank you for being our board representative we've met a lot this year more so than we've met in previous years because we have been committed to really staying on top of it and our brokers who are not with us tonight have also done a really good job advocating on our behalf going back and fighting for every penny we can fight for and I am really proud that we've been able to keep our plan

097intact we offer a really rich benefit that covers a lot for our staff so I'm really happy we're able to do that and keep the the increase while it's not you know zero but we started with an over probably close to an 11 renewal this year so getting it to a 5.5 was much better than I had anticipated from the beginning so I think one thing that did stand out to me and it's a great report and thank you and the whole team for doing it is the reserve decision on reserve doesn't really affect costs that much it's really obviously the year-over-year increase and if we go with the nominal six percent that's we assume in their modeling that's three million dollars more of cost after five years it'll it's very substantial so I really

098appreciate the work that's been done at constrained cost because if we saw a year for example where we had a 10 percent year-over-year increase it's it's really really affects our financial position so I really appreciate everybody's hard work to try to you know keep the costs in line but again even at six percent you know it's again it's a big number and again I think the reserve decision if you just look at the numbers aren't isn't good we should we should have a healthy reserve but the decision to do that doesn't affect the final cost all that much so if I could add just one little comment to that we have inside of this renewal a margin that does help to support the refunding of the account so that is actually inside of the rate

099that's being recommended so that it does have some impact on on costs right but if we put in an additional one or two percent it doesn't change that number a lot it's the one to two percent right that that margin is very small yeah in comparison thank you um go ahead yeah and and I looked at the dates as well it's it's if you look at 24 25 5 percent 25 26 5 percent so um this is this is really remarkable that you've been able my insurance is going up higher so so so it's really remarkable that you've been able to with the committee get there and you know I mean it has already been alluded to that and it's in your memo that you know you'll address the second part of that loan sometime

100in the future so um do you have any more comments on that or should we just wait until you talk about it in the future uh I don't know when would Mr Dr Romano like to bring that sure at this point one of the things we need to take a look at is do we feel that the trend of the margin that we've been adding is adequate to continue to meet our formula that we discussed in great detail last year but at what pace so when we're taking a look at whether or not to bring a recommendation to move the money back into the general fund or leave it remaining inside that account it has to do with our comfort level of being able to reach that formula by what point we are planning on

101bringing a recommendation here because we have to because we did have a deadline on that here for June and right now I would lean towards returning that back to the general fund but we want to bring that recommendation as we've had a chance to take a look at that and how it compares with our detailed analysis on how we set our target because it's the target that impacts the margin on where we are but again if Mr Goldberg you had a good point that's okay I think you answered the question we'll talk about it more in June thank you anyone else have any comments I just want to say that yes the the committee has worked really hard I think the 5.56 increase is a wonderful result I'm not sure that that necessarily was universally

102felt across the team but I know what health care margins are across the board and we are doing really well with 5.56 and a lot of that has to do with the tremendous efforts of our teachers and staff to you know basically understand how to work within the program and use the benefits of the program and but maintain cost effectiveness as well and our teachers have been our staff has been amazing with that so a lot of kudos go to them with that with respect to our reserve that's something that I am you know obviously that's near and dear to me and I think where I keep coming back to is that the number of the reserve like we have our own experience which in the insurance world your own experience is what matters most

103and we have experience with a significantly inadequate reserve so there is where I am I believe very justified and being like holding firm with respect to what our reserve needs to be and so I do think we are doing that we're on our way and where we have a good plan in place but I do think that that's imperative for us to maintain discipline with respect to our reserve all right thank you thank you call the roll um wait do I have the motion um yeah we put the motion we have the motion yes please call the roll okay Mr. Goldberg yes Mrs. Warren yes Miss Maloney yes Dr. Pinter yes Miss Tim yes Mrs. Danniger yes Mr. Edtun yes thank you um Mrs. Becich we're gonna recall that because we did not read the

104full motion um to start so Mrs. Maloney's gonna read she's going to state the motion and then we're gonna revote and revote okay thank you um we're seeking a motion to approve the premium equivalent rate increase of 5.56 for the medical plans additionally to increase the board's benefit contribution to eight hundred dollars per month for the ten slash eleven months support staff increase the family benefit to three hundred dollars per month for the 12 month support staff and increase the certified family benefit to four hundred and three dollars and 84 cents per month please call that roll that do we need a move first and a second first and a second all right well first and second so um thank you Alicia and thank you Dr. Pinter please call the roll okay Mr. Goldberg still

105yes Mrs. Warren yes Miss Maloney yes Dr. Pinter yes Miss Tim yes Mrs. Danniger yes Mr. Etienne yes thank you all right the next item for discussion is the approval of staff macbooks may I first have a motion and a second to approve the purchase of 110 macbook airs 5 m5 s's apple care plus for schools from apple and the annual apple care or support agreement from apple inc the sole source in the amount of 138 dollars 976 138 thousand nine hundred and seventy six dollars so may I have that um so moved second thank you Doug thank you Alicia is there any questions on that one I just had one quick question right so the or for our technology director um what the apple the os support is that for the entire district at

10615k for the os because you have apple care for the laptops so that apple os support is district wide stuff that is yeah it covers the also the one-to-one devices it's one we have to ask it's for everything it's for every gotcha thank you yep any other questions Julia please call the roll Mr. Goldberg yes Miss Tim yes Mrs. Danniger yes Dr. Pinter yes Mrs. Warren yes Miss Maloney yes Mr. Etienne yes okay moving on to the amended energy saving contracts may I get a motion and a second on the table to approve the amended installation contracts for phase two and three of school energy conservation and saving measures under a guaranteed energy savings contract with performance services inc authorizing the installation of solar energy systems at isaac bock elementary school phase two and middle

107school south phase three as presented in the April 26th final scope open book pricing and cash flow projections may I have that motion so move second thank you Natasha thank you Peter any questions all right Julia can you please call the roll Mrs. Danniger yes Mr. Etienne yes Miss Tim yes Mr. Goldberg yes Mrs. Warren yes Miss Maloney yes Dr. Pinter yes all right the last item for discussion in the 20 is the 2026 site improvements may I get a motion and a second on the table to reject all bids for the 2026 site improvement work may have that motion so move second thank you Natasha thank you Alicia are there any questions all right Julia please call the roll to reject all bills bids for the 2026 site improvement work Mrs. Danniger yes Miss

108Tim yes Miss Maloney yes Dr. Pinter yes Mrs. Warren yes Mr. Etienne yes Mr. Goldberg yes all right the next item is closed session we are going into closed session for the following reasons the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity however a meeting to consider increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the local

109government wage and increase transparency act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with the open meetings act 5 ilcs 122 c1 collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees 5 ilcs 122 c2 student disciplinary cases 5 ilcs 122 c9 litigation when an action affecting or on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting 5 ilcs 122 c11 may i have this motion so moved second thank you

110doug thank you natasha julia please call the roll mr goldberg yes mrs dannegar yes ms tim yes mrs warren yes dr pincher yes ms maloney yes mr etienne yes we will not be taking action after closed session this evening ms maloney i assume property is not gonna you didn't i don't did you read property okay it's not on the list it's not thank you