Mundelein High School District 120 and Mundelein Elementary School District 75 are looking to approve a formula that would dictate how much each district pays should they decide to share more employees.
The two districts already agreed last year to save money by sharing District 120 Superintendent Kevin Myers starting this July, after District 75 Superintendent Andy Henrikson retires. The two districts recently decided to also share a human resources professional.
To make future decisions easier, a “matrix” with statistical evaluations of several topics cross-referenced with staffing in six sharable departments will be up for approval at District 120’s June 18 school board meeting, according to Business Manager Andy Searle.
“Now it’s just a matter of plugging in numbers,” Searle told the District 120 school board at a recent meeting. “We want to keep that (matrix) the same for a four-year period.”
Reviewing the matrix and formulas every four years allows for stability but takes into account the potential need for revisions due to market changes and turnover on the respective school boards, according to Searle.
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The six departments with sharable employees include the office of the superintendent, business department, human resources, special education, curriculum, and operations and maintenance.
Kevin Holly, District 75 school board president, said he believes his board will vote on the matrix during its June 17 meeting.
The idea arose because District 75’s payroll coordinator also decided to retire, and the two districts agreed to share the position but needed to figure out how. Searle said representatives from both districts jointly built the formula.
“We talked to Lake Forest, which is the only other district that does shared services in Lake County. In fact, I don’t know of any others that do it in the Chicago area,” Searle said.
Lake Forest Elementary School District 67 and Lake Forest High School District 115 first began sharing employees in 2004, according to their websites. The current arrangement involves sharing a superintendent’s office, business office, communications director, human resources, technology services, and buildings/grounds director.
Searle said Lake Forest officials mentioned cost as the most reoccurring and time consuming topic of debate, usually whenever an individual position becomes vacant.
“They recommended that we try to work out something well ahead of time and have it established so we’re not always constantly revisiting the issue of shared services cost, which is obviously a major component,” Searle said.