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For the first time in its five year history, the Wildcat Community Center rates will be rising for many after an increase was approved unanimously at the regular Chisago Lakes School Board meeting on Thursday, May 16.

“We have kept our rates the same since the Wildcat Community Center opened,” Community Ed Director Dan McGonigle said. “As you all know from your personal budgets, costs have increased significantly. As we get a better understanding of where those cost increases land for us operationally, we used the estimates to determine the price point that best meets the needs of the operation, while still remaining very affordable for our members.”

Daily rates and student rates across the board will not be rising, but monthly rates for residents will go from $30 per month for a single adult to $35 per month. Family plans that are monthly will also rise $5 from $40 to $45. Non-residents of the district will see a $10 increase, with single adults going from $40 to $50 and families going from $55 to $65. Yearly memberships will rise in accordance with those monthly increases. McGonigle felt that it was important not to pass rising costs on to students who are using the facility.

Community Ed will also be rolling out new quarterly memberships that McGonigle said have been in demand from snowbirds and college students who are home for the summer. The approved rates are $65 for students, $80 for college students, $95 for adults and $125 for families.

There are a few other new features as well with the price structures. There are now discounted group rate proposals for senior citizens, college students and military personnel. It was also introduced that district staff that work at least four hours per day for 160 contracted days will receive discounted memberships. They will pay just $180 per year for an individual or family membership. “This is helping to keep a promise that was made to staff when the community center was in development in 2017,” McGonigle said.

The WCC is also bringing back pool punch cards. Drop in rates will remain the same at $5 per visit, but the cards will be $40 for 10 swims, which saves $1 per open swim. Aquatics Manager Danielle Brooks said it was the best way to add it on to the WCC membership, because if it was  included with the monthly cost, but the pool wasn’t available during certain times, there would be members who couldn’t always make open swim.

The rate increase won’t take effect until July 1, 2024, and McGonigle said that any members that want to join or renew their membership prior to that will still pay the current price.

The school board voted unanimously to approve a yearly contract with Teacher on Call (TOC), a program that provides substitute teachers. Superintendent Brian Dietz said that the district is facing a severe sub shortage. “The issue has mushroomed and has created a variety of difficulties,” Dietz said. “It’s continuous early morning calls to fill vacancies, staff having to cover classes or combining two classes at a time and adding overall stress to instructional staff, as well as administration and support staff.”

TOC provides a network of substitutes in the area through marketing and recruitment and provides a sustainable pool of candidates throughout the year. They handle the day-to-day substitute calling when a teacher is missing.

“We are struggling to find people that can do the work that needs to happen,” Dietz said. “It has been an issue for a few years. So we’ve been looking at what we are doing, and we have to do something different because what we’re doing isn’t working.”

The program costs about $22 more per substitute than CL spends now. A conservative estimate from Dietz is the program could cost $50,000 in total. “Since there are so many variables taken into consideration in doing this, we can only estimate.”

But, he explained that the tangible savings the district will see is the cost of in-house subs, which was over $41,000 last year and trending in that same direction this year. He noted that when an in-house teacher subs the equivalent of one day, that same dollar amount could pay for two external subs.

He also pointed to comp time, which as of February 22 , there are 612 hours of comp time, which equates to 76 total days and roughly $31,000 of expenses.

TOC also works with and will pay $19,000 to the Absence Management System that the district already uses, and the program will work with existing subs in the district to make sure they are included and prioritized.

As far as intangible benefits, Supt. Dietz emphasized the staff stress and time that teacher absences create.  Staff are missing their prep hours and that site leadership and support staff have report that staffing shortages take hours before the day starts and into the start of the day to solve, and takes them away from the work they need to do. 

Ultimately, though, Dietz isn’t exactly sure where the cost will land for the program. He stated, “I feel from a conservative perspective, we're going to be in a good place. I’m not going to say we are saving a ton or we are going to lose a lot. From the numbers we’ve run and looked at overall, I think we’re going to be in a good place and I’m hoping we can be near break even, but more importantly I go back to the intangible places – we need to give relief to our staff.”

TOC will come out during the summer and walk all the current subs through the proces.  But Director of Human Resources Cory Becker said once the system is set up, TOC uses the same process as CL currently does, so the actual procedure the subs use will remain the same.

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